Chapter Forty-Three: Re-Entry
Peter felt like he had left his dog at home by itself. A dog called New York City. He was sure that he would come back home to find that New York City had chewed up one of his shoes, destroyed his favourite book, eaten his homework, or taken a big smelly dump on his bed.
The flight to Virginia was a whole hour. Now, he was on a bus en route to a ferry that was going to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. It sounds futuristic, but this launch site's been in use by NASA since the late 90s.
The entire time, Peter just knew that something horrible was happening back home. He hated leaving. He got fidgety. Scrolled through his news feed feeling like the next story was going to be 'The entirety of New York City has been eaten by moloids because Spider-Man was being selfish and wanted to go ride a public transport instead of being there for people'.
The bus was packed with other talented journalists, photographers, and photojournalists. And just like in high school, Peter was sitting at a window seat with no one next to him because, well, he was Peter Parker.
It did feel...refreshing to not have his mind racing for once. Not having a super villain to think about. Not having bills lingering in the back of his head. But there was the whole thing with Annabelle... He really couldn't think about that right now. Bawling like a baby in front of complete strangers while representing the Daily Bugle was a big no-no. Professionalism and all that jazz.
Instead, he focused on staring out the window and up at the buildings as they zipped by. Peter was good at staring. It was how he solved most of his problems. Then something caught his attention. It looked like...like a star. In the middle of the day. It was getting brighter and brighter. A shiver ran down his spine, standing all the hairs on his arms on end. Something wasn't right.
Peter's eyes widened. He leapt out of his seat and bolted to the front of the bus. "Stop the bus!" he yelled.
The driver glanced over his shoulder for a split second with the most confused look anyone had ever mustered, before pulling his eyes back to the road because, you know, he was driving. That's kind of important when you're the bus driver. "Woah, hey, what's the matter?"
Peter slammed to a halt at the driver's chair and pressed his foot onto the brake.
The vehicle skidded to halt just as an earth-rumbling tremor rocked the entire street. Everyone in the bus was thrashed against the chair in front of them. It was even difficult for Peter to keep his footing.
His vision became a blur of jolting and shaking. His ears were overcome with screaming and the squealing of tires against the pavement.
By the time his vision cleared, Peter couldn't believe what he saw. Out there on the road metres in front of the bus was several tonnes of concrete, blasted out from the side of a building.
If the bus hadn't stopped, it would've been flattened.
Peter gazed up at the gutted structure and his stomach twisted inside him. There could've been people inside that building. He needed to move. Now.
The bus driver was in the middle of piecing it all together. That everyone almost died, that Peter managed to stop the bus just in time, and that they were still in danger. "Everyone out! Let's go!" he cried, face gone pale.
He pressed a button and the door slid open. Peter was the first one out. He sprinted over to the rubble on the road and tried to see if anyone was trapped beneath it.
Luckily enough, Peter didn't see anyone pinned under the concrete...but, he did see a shards of broken material scattered about.
Peter knelt down and poked one of the pieces. Probably not a good idea. He winced and instantly pulled away. It was like touching a stove.
It all came together once Peter recognised the stuff. Carbon-carbon composite...and remnants of carbon foam. Materials used to construct spacecraft heat shields. Something went wrong. Really, really wrong.
His Spider-Sense came back with a vengeance. An alarm was sounding between his ears, ringing his skull like a bell.
Peter glanced around the street, making sure that everyone was too busy running away to focus on him. He pulled his Spidey mask out of his pocket, slipped it on, and ditched his clothes. As always, he had the costume on underneath. Or that would've been...weird.
Another object came plummeting out of the sky. It was much more controlled than the last one though...almost like it was trying to slow itself down. Peter could tell that it was way too small to be the Hermes spacecraft.
As the thing sputtered over his head, Peter leapt into the air. He sent weblines onto the object by the dozen and splattered them against the nearby buildings to help decelerate it even further.
Ensnared by Peter's webbing, it eventually wobbled, tilted to one side, and slammed into the street. Its weight snapped any weblines that still stubbornly hung on.
Spidey zipped across the distance with one blast of a web shooter and landed a safe distance away to analyse the situation.
The object was a pod about the size of a tiny, two-seater car. Its hull was peppered with dents, scorched black, and some of its heat shielding was torn off. Peter's brow lowered. He recognised the machine.
It was the Orbital Insertion/Atmospheric Re-Entry Vehicle (OI/AREV) designed and manufactured by Tony Stark to fulfil one specific purpose: get Iron Man into space and back again in one piece. Tony never bothered with giving nice sounding names to things that he wasn't going to sell. Didn't really see the point.
Tony's 'Iron Man' Powered Defence Systems, or PDS units, were incredible pieces of technology with a wide array of applications. However, as Peter knew, they weren't magic. If Tony needed to get into space, he was going to need the additional thrust of an external rocket engine that was at least one storey tall; couldn't exactly integrate a thruster like that into a human-sized power suit. This engine in question would be coupled to the OI/AREV, disconnect once the pod was propelled safely into orbit, then land autonomously at the launch pad. That explained why only the pod itself was here. But yes, more urgently, Tony Stark just crashed into the middle of the street.
Peter, after sprinting over to the wrecked vehicle, noticed that its canopy hatch was partially open. It hadn't been properly sealed...meaning that the lethal re-entry heat would've spilled inside. Objects that re-enter Earth's atmosphere would be broiled to temperatures of 2690 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1480 degrees Celsius. Obviously more than enough to deep fry anything that wasn't big, green, and angry.
Careful to not actually touch the pod's exterior, Peter instead webbed the hatch and yanked it clean off. With the canopy removed, Peter growled under his breath. "Holy shit..."
It was Iron Man, his entire suit charred black and battered by impact markings. More specifically, it was the white-coloured PDS Model 10: Extra-Atmospheric/Support suit. Intended to operate in the vacuum and low-gravity environment of orbit, it was fitted with an oxygenator, climate control system, extensive fine-thrusters for orientation in low gees, and integrated tools to allow maintenance work on satellites and spacecraft.
The suit's chest-mounted cold fusion reactor was flickering. No Iron Man suit was capable of surviving re-entry on its own; the necessary heat shields would be too impractical to be mounted on an actual suit. They weren't exactly the best for deflecting bullets or cosmic background radiation. The OI/AREV was critical to making sure its occupant survived...and it was badly damaged.
Suddenly, the motionless Iron Man jolted to life with a sudden gasp. It was a miracle.
Peter rushed to his side, wary of the smoke that trailed from the armour. "Tony!"
With shallow breaths, Tony answered, "T-The Hermes! I couldn't...I couldn't..."
His voice trailed off as he fell into unconsciousness.
"Tony?!"
Peter's eyes latched onto a display on the inside of the OI/AREV. It beheld a very detailed trajectory map of the Hermes' current vector. It was coming down here, on top of a densely populated city centre.
Spidey took a few steps back and looked into the sky. He didn't know how...but he needed to bring that massive multi-tonne vessel down safely. And there was no way he was going to start panicking about it. Nope, not Peter Benjamin Parker...the man that always panicked when his food started getting cold.
He left every other thought lying in the middle of the street. Having memorised the projections of the Hermes' impact site, Spidey double-timed it through the city, throwing himself through the air like a bullet on webs. In an incredibly rare instance of good luck, there was a tall building near where the Hermes would be in-range of Peter's web shooters.
It took less than a minute for Peter to scurry up the side of the sky scraper and flip onto the rooftop. As he panted, he peered around at the skyline. There it was, a trail of smoke.
"Think, Parker. Think," he muttered to himself.
He glanced around...and he completely missed something quite significant in his hurry to climb the building. A rather large crane sitting atop the incomplete building. That was it. He couldn't help that the Hermes from hitting the ground, but he could help where it hit the ground. Now it was just a matter of time, physics, and good aim.
Peter watched as the Hermes approached, trying his best to work the jitters out of his system. He shook his wrists, flexed his fingers, and bounced up and down on his toes. It didn't help. He was nervous to say the least. He made sure to eject his current web cartridges and slap in a pair of fresh ones; he was going to need all the web fluid he could get.
Before long, the Hermes was tearing through the air close enough for him to act. Spidey raised his two web shooters and spammed their triggers like a madman. He fired at least ten web lines a second. Some of them missed, but the clear majority found their mark on the hull of the Hermes. As soon as they made contact, they began to sizzle. The high temperature of the spacecraft meant that the webbing wasn't going to last long, especially coupled with the high amounts of stress they'd be put under by the extremely heavy spacecraft.
With around one hundred web lines fired, Peter moved over to the shaft of the crane, held the handful of webs out near the machine, and braced for the biggest game of tug-of-war ever.
The lines went taut and Peter's arms almost detached from his body. He screamed in exertion, pulling back as hard as he could. The web lines wrapped around the base of the crane, turning it into an improvised pulley. Spidey kept an eye on the Hermes. It was starting to turn...!
However, the more it wrapped around the crane's trussing, the more web lines started to snap from the strain. Peter's biceps started fighting against the fabric of his costume, flexing so hard that they started tearing it. His teeth were gritted, his lips curled. The crane itself was starting to crumple and shrivel. He wasn't sure how long he'd be able to hold on.
There it was. The perfect opening. The Hermes was pointed towards a lake.
Spidey instantly let go, tumbling onto his back. He instantly sat upright, widened eyes adhered to the declining Hermes vehicle. His legs felt like jelly. Not as much as his arms did, though. He watched with bated breath. "C'mon... C'mon."
After what felt like perpetuity, the Hermes soared over the last of the buildings in the area and crossed over the lake. Peter finally breathed. That was the hard part. No time to take it easy, though. Now he needed to make sure the crew was safe. Peter groaned as he pushed to his feet then leapt off the skyscraper.
By the time Spidey managed to hurl himself onto the Hermes, the hull of the vehicle had been cooled off, no doubt thanks to the water it landed in. He located one of the emergency hatches, flattened his palms against it, and heaved. With the groaning of metal, the hatch gave out and Peter tossed it over his shoulder and into the water. He slipped into the pitch black interior of the Hermes.
"Hello? Colonel Jameson!?" Peter called.
Nothing answered. He crept through the accessway and into the crew compartment. Peter's heart stopped. He saw four people, dressed in the orange NASA re-entry suits, strapped in for transits. None of them moved.
In a flash, Spidey approached the closest astronaut. 'Jameson' was stencilled on the breast of his space suit. Peter could see through his helmet's visor that John Jameson was intact and breathing. He moved onto the next body. This suit was fitted with the name 'Schueller'. His head was turned to the side...but Peter could see that his helmet's visor was shattered.
Holding his breath, Spidey slowly reached over to Schueller's head. He turned it to face him.
There was nothing inside the helmet but black. No face, just a lightless void. Peter didn't understand what he was looking at. Much more suddenly than the last two times, his Spider-Sense rung loudly in his skull. The blackness leapt out from Schueller's helmet and consumed Peter's vision. It was nothingness now; an all-consuming darkness that Peter couldn't claw his way out of it.