"Okay, okay," Peter breathed, still slightly out of breath from his hasty journey here.
"Looks like a few rich guys chilling by their car and admiring the sunset over the nasty water. Not suspicious or anything," he murmured.
Peter stood on the roof of a warehouse overlooking the pier, utilizing his suit's enhanced vision to assess the threat down on the ground. It wasn't true night yet, but it was cloudy and in the middle of those indistinct evening hours where everything seems kind of slow and hazy anyway.
As far as he could tell, there were about four men—no doubt armed to the teeth under their street clothes—standing near a parked black Camaro. Peter guessed they were just the scouts, precursors to the nastier guys who were yet to come. And until sunset provided them with a bit more cover, Peter thought as he flexed his fingers experimentally, it was unlikely any more traffickers would risk showing up to load or move their captives.
Which meant he was going to have to wait it out for a bit.
If he tried to take out these guys right now, the mess it would leave behind or the suspicion their absence would create might obliterate his element of surprise and swing this whole situation further into their favor—seeing as he didn't have backup. Or, worse, the others would show up right in the middle of his fight and overwhelm him before he even got a proper shot at freeing the captives.
Yeah, it would be better to sit tight until he had a better idea of what he was dealing with.
With a sigh of resignation, Peter slid down into a sitting position with his back against the edge of the concrete roof. He was still a bit shaky from the adrenaline rush his discovery had prompted, but now he was grateful for the chance to sit back and breathe a little bit.
The past two years had been rough, both for Peter Parker and for Spiderman.
He had gone to space; died in space; been resurrected into the middle of a universal battle; seen his mentor die in said battle; tried to readjust to a world scrambling to deal with the sudden reappearance of half its population; gone to Europe with a whole group of people who should have been five years younger than him but actually weren't; been hit by a literal train; fought a bloody battle to save the world from an unhinged illusionist and an army of super-cool-but-deadly drones; and then returned to America not entirely sure who he was or what he was supposed to do with his life.
And that wasn't even counting all of the near misses and injuries and potentially fatal situations he'd gone through in between all of that stuff.
Plus, May and Ned and Betty and MJ all knew he was Spiderman now, so…there was that.
"Geez," Peter muttered, pulling his mask off so he could rub the sweat off his temples. He swallowed, willing his galloping heart to calm down again.
He shouldn't have thought about all of that at once.
On the one hand, reflecting back on all the craziness of the past two years made him feel somewhat proud—proud of his planet and his friends and Aunt May for surviving and moving forward in spite of their pain. It made him think that if the world with all its hurting people could begin to heal, then so could he. It gave him some measure of hope, oddly enough.
But on the other, much bigger hand, reflecting on all the craziness of the past two years also never failed to make his heart race and his palms sweat and his chest ache. It made him feel like he was going to either puke or bust into hysterical laughter—maybe both.
The therapist May had insisted they both start seeing after the Europe trip had actually told him that the experience these memories prompted was actually a panic attack. Ironically, she also said that he needed to confront his past because that was the only way he'd ever be able to move past it. He couldn't just keep it bottled up, tucked away from the world and the inevitable tragedies it raked up for his review.
But then again, she didn't know he was Spiderman, and she had told him he could take as long as needed to process his grief and trauma.
Peter massaged the bridge of his nose, where a headache had begun to blossom, and then stood up to pace.
"I've still got May and MJ and Ned," he recited to himself, staring absently across the skyline of his city. "I've got little Morgan and Pepper. I've still got Spiderman. I've still got my powers and my responsibilities and all of the good memories I have with Uncle Ben and...and with Mr. Stark."
He paused.
That was another thing his therapist had told him: remember the good things he still had. When he started to spiral out of control in his own thoughts, all those good things and people would be his anchor. He just had to hold on to them. They were his lifeline—his proverbial web to fall back on when things got to be too much.
Peter blew out a long, slow breath through his mouth and then pulled his mask back on.
That was why he was up here tonight, and it was why he had spent so much time and energy tracking down these people who were so willing to sell others into slavery just to make money. Even if Peter was struggling to maintain control of his own personal chaos, Spiderman still had the potential to inspire hope in people who were going through the same things as him.
No one deserved the kind of things these traffickers were doing. No one deserved to have all the good things in their life taken away, and Peter had the means to do something about it, so he would.
Even if he missed graduation, he thought with a small pang he couldn't quite repress. It was a minuscule price to pay in the grand scheme of things. He felt like he'd already graduated life at this point, and he wasn't even eighteen yet, so that had to count for something.
Peter quickly dismissed his frenetic thoughts—this is how things were going to go whether he liked it or not—because he knew he needed to focus. He looked back at the Camaro—only to find it wasn't there. Warm alarm flooded his chest and belly.
He scanned the pier and saw, with relief quickly chased by confusion, that they were simply driving back the way they had presumably come. Maybe he was about to see some action?
It was then, of course, at one of the worst times possible, that he remembered he hadn't called backup for himself. And he was almost certain, judging on how well-organized this whole operation had seemed from the start, that he was going to need some.
"Karen, call—"
And then he stopped abruptly, remembering that her software hadn't been working correctly since one of his patrols earlier in the week. He wasn't entirely sure why yet, but he guessed it probably had something to do with how much abuse his suit had endured during and since the Europe trip. And he'd been so busy with graduation practice, taking final exams, applying and keeping in touch with colleges, and scrambling to finish up other last-minute preparations for tonight that he hadn't even taken a look at her yet.
He didn't have his cellphone nearby either, so that was also out of the question.
Peter frowned at this new development, a bit perturbed with himself for forgetting something so important. He had just turned to see if might have time to contact the police by another means when his Spidey sense went off, the instinctual alarm bright and sharp in his head.
He ducked just in time to avoid a smattering of bullets from the ground below.
Peter rearranged himself into a crouch and peeked cautiously over the edge of the roof.
There were two guys on the ground with their guns trained in his general direction. They weren't the ones from the Camaro as far as he could tell, but they were definitely a part of the trafficking ring.
Peter grimaced, mind racing to come up with a plan of action that didn't end up with him looking like a piece of Swiss cheese before the real fight even began.
"That's no way to greet someone anyway," he grumbled.
And then he was moving, and a second round of bullets peppered the air.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it...this is some of that *light* angst I mentioned in the tags. I mean, our dear Pete has been through a lot, so naturally that's gonna show up somewhere. Also, I've discovered that I REALLY struggle when it comes to writing Peter's quips and wit and stuff. Like, I have zero sense of humor, I guess. Oh well. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't...please let me know what you thought! And to all the fathers out there...Happy Father's Day! God bless you and your family always. :)
"The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him...the love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear him. His salvation extends to the children's children."
~Psalm 103:13, 17