Reckless
It isn't very far of a run. Half of a city block, a small flight of stairs down, a clear shot without anybody standing in her way. But for some reason the run to the smoking building seems to take centuries, as if gravity isn't just pushing her down but pulling her back. She pumps her knees and feels like she's hitting a wall of molasses, and she feels the burning in her lungs urging her forward, faster, even though she knows if she ran any faster she'd stumble and hit the ground.
It may not be far, but it's long enough—long enough for Gwen to imagine every possible horrifying scenario she'll encounter when she swings that door open. She imagines finding Peter and Johnson's burnt corpses, imagines that she's too late to find them at all, imagines that this could be a giant trap that she is willingly throwing herself into, again.
But it doesn't matter. All the sense and reason and fear. She flies down the stairs and lunges for the door as the plumes of smoke around it grow darker and larger and—
"Shit."
The doorknob is molten hot. She retracts her scalded hand instinctively, hissing in pain and surprise. She shoves her fist into her sleeve and tries for the door again, but it's stuck, the metal engorged with heat. She can't kick this kind of door open, it's too heavy—"shit, shit"—she has no choice but to shove her bare hands and it and shove it open as fast as she can.
She stumbles into the smoke and immediately sucks in an unintentional lungful of it. She splutters, but manages to keep her thoughts on the door, which she shoves enough to wedge open. Once she's sure it's stuck she turns her attention back to the dark, pluming room, which is barely illuminated by the light of day out on the street.
"Peter?"
It comes out as more of a wheeze than a yell, but knowing Peter he'll hear it anyway. She wonders if he's even in here, if he's alright, if Johnson is with him. She runs further into the smoke, every nerve in her body electrocuted, screaming at her to go back. Every step forward seems like a drastic betrayal of basic survival instincts, and the further she gets without seeing Peter, the more she worries that this is, in fact, no more than a trap, a lazy and heartbreaking way of letting her die instead of doing it out on the street where people can see.
Something made of glass smashes and she barely holds in a yelp. She follows the noise of it, rounding the corner, and for the first time she sees the giant, leaping flames mere feet away from her.
"Peter," she tries again.
Her only answer is the crackle of flame and the splitting of wood. She hazards a glance at the ceiling but there's nothing but blackness and more smoke. She keeps walking, wondering if she's even heading in a different path, wondering if she could even find her way back to the outside if she tried.
The hopelessness of the situation is crushing and immediate. She turns her back without any certainty of her direction, of how far she has spun around or where she is standing in relation to the door. She has failed, she is miserably in over her head—how can she save Peter if she can't even keep track of herself? She takes a few blind, staggering steps forward, her lungs burning, thinking that nobody will even know that she has died down here, nobody but Richard Parker, a man pretending to be a ghost.
She doesn't know where she's going, but she trudges further on. She will not die standing motionless, will not let this happen to her easily, not if there's even a shred of hope she can survive.
"Gwen!"
Her eyes snap up. She can't see him through the fog, but she recognizes the gravelly undertone, the firmness in Captain Johnson's voice. She takes a few tentative steps toward the sound until she can see the shape of his body, the contours of his face.
His eyes are wide and red-rimmed, his posture slack. She has never thought of Johnson as a man capable of surrender, but he looks like he has all but given up. It takes only a second to process the rest of the situation—his arms are pinned behind him, chained the same way she and Peter were at their first capture, and from the odd angle of Johnson's shoulder and pained set of his jaw, it's clear that he has been struggling for a long time.
Peter wouldn't leave Johnson here to die like this. Which means Peter either isn't here, or something is stopping him from leaving.
"Get out of here," says Johnson, croaking with the effort.
She shakes her head. "Where's Peter?"
"Get out of here, Gwen, there's no key, there's nothing you can—Gwen!"
She sees his eyes flit to the right of him unconsciously in the middle of his sentence, and that's enough for her to dive in that direction on what little faith she has left. She hears Johnson continue to call her back as she navigates through the smog, but it only motivates her to delve further. If he is here, she he will find him. She couldn't ever leave him behind.
It takes her a few heart-stopping, slow seconds to see him, but once she does he is unmistakably, unquestionably her Peter, and even though he is unconscious and perilously close to letting them all die here without his help, she feels a swell of relief so overwhelming that it takes a beat to suck herself back into the urgency of the moment.
"Peter," she tries. His head is lolled back against the wall, his jaw slack. She grabs his shoulders—she doesn't want to shake him, but she doesn't see any other options. "Peter, get up."
There is a thick stream of blood running down his forehead. She pushes back his hair and sees a nasty wound, but this shouldn't be enough to keep him down, she's seen him endure so much worse. Feeling badly about it, she all but shoves her mouth up to his ear and screams his name again, hoping to jar him back to reality.
"Leave, Gwen," she hears Captain Johnson bark. "I've tried, he's out—"
"No."
"There isn't even a key, he can't help! Leave us!"
It occurs to Gwen that Johnson no longer believes Peter is Spiderman, then, if he can't see the advantage of waking Peter up. She presses on, yanking him forward, his body pitching like a limp rag doll. "Peter," she screams, "you have to—"
She feels the muscles in one of his arms seize and she jumps out of his way, watching as his eyes burst open and he sucks in a breath that leaves him gasping and spluttering in confusion. He looks around wildly, blinking like he has woken up in a carnival ride, and only manages to stop himself when his eyes hook onto hers.
His expression is wild and raw and pained. "What—what are you—"
"You have to get us out of here," says Gwen.
Peter moves his arms forward and releases a terse breath of air, only just realizing that he is chained. He shoves his whole body forward, and Gwen takes for granted his usual strength, thinking he will break the metal with ease, but he struggles and falls backward again, wheezing.
"Come on, Peter," she says, trying not to distract him with her own panic.
He tries again, and yells out in frustration when he rebounds and smacks his head against the wall. Gwen feels her throat tighten, feels another hot, unwelcome rush of terror seeping just under her skin. He keeps trying, his face red and crumpling with the effort, and finally he turns to her and says, "Get out of here, Gwen." His voice is desperate, barely choking out the words. "Leave."
"I won't go without you."
It's so hot it feels like her clothes are embers on her skin. Every inch of her is coated in sweat and grime and every instinct is demanding that she listen to him, that it is useless for her to die here with them, but she can't do it. She can't move. She can't walk out willingly into a world where Peter isn't there, too.
He shakes his head at her, the motion erratic. He struggles with more intent, veins popping in out of his neck and his forehead, some guttural, angry noise erupting from his throat. After a few more seconds without success he turns to her and screams, "Get out of her, please—"
In milliseconds too quickly tied together to distinguish, Gwen hears a deafening smash of glass and feels herself get thrown against the hard ground with a thud. It takes a moment to process the weight of Peter's body on her, absorbing the blow, and she realizes he must have somehow freed himself in the chaos. Before she can collect herself she feels his hands hook under her arms and drag her to her feet.
"Johnson," she yells, pointing.
Peter nods, not letting go of her hand, making sure she follows him through the smoke. They reach Johnson, who is looking at them with a mixture of fury and relief.
"I told you to—"
"Don't move," says Peter, bending down to Johnson's level.
Johnson shakes his head. "What do you think you're going to—"
Peter snaps the chain easily, the noise of it completely absorbed by the roar of the fire. Johnson stares at his freed hands and stares back at Peter. "You—you're—"
"Let's get out of here," Gwen yells, snapping him out of the shock of his revelation.
Peter helps Johnson up to his feet and grabs Gwen's hand again. "Which way is out?" he asks Gwen, but she just shakes her head, coughing through the smoke.
Johnson takes a few deliberate steps forward. "He left this way," he says.
They follow him, blind and trusting. Gwen clutches to Peter's hand harder than she ever has before, and lets him jerk and swivel her when a leaping flame or a falling beam comes too close. Johnson leads and Peter watches, keeping them out of harm's way, and Gwen just walks, wondering if the soles of her boots have melted, if they're ever going to see the sun again or if this dark pit is going to swallow them up forever.
Peter squeezes her hand. She can't even see him through the smoke, can't even remember the last time she took a breath, but she feels the tension in his hand like a charge through her body and keeps moving.
She doesn't know how Johnson finds it, but eventually she sees the door, wedged open just the way she left it. They finally break out into a run, then, and fall out of the building in an ungraceful heap. Gwen feels Peter pulling her but as soon as they hit the staircase her knees collide with the cement and she lands on the palms of her hands, gasping and choking for air.
"Gwen." Peter reaches out for her and finds her shoulder. "Are you—"
"Yes," she gasps, stumbling to her feet. All her limbs feel heavy and drunk, like they don't belong to her anymore. Through the smoke-induced haze, through the still ringing terror in her ears, she manages to remember, "Your father—he's fighting the fake Spiderman, they're—out on the street."
Peter's eyes are bulging. "My father?"
She nods. "Go."
Peter disappears almost instantaneously. The smoke has billowed so far out of the building that she loses sight of him fast, and isn't expecting the hand on her arm, firmly leading her down the sidewalk.
"Do you have your phone?"
She nods up at Johnson, but he doesn't see her. His eyes are fixated down the street, where Gwen knows Peter and his father are two-teaming the imposter Spiderman. She hears a crash, the sound of a trashcan rolling into the street and a fist connecting with flesh, but she shoves her hand into her back pocket, marveling that her phone is still there and seems somewhat in tact, and thrusts it at Johnson.
He takes it from her and starts to dial. "I'm calling back up. You need to get off the street."
Gwen nods. She isn't stubborn enough to pretend that she is of any more use here. "Listen," she says. "The man who captured you, I don't know if you know, but he can change form. He can physically alter himself to be anyone he wants, and even use their abilities. He was the one who broke in to our lab at OsCorp, he's the one who has been posing as Spiderman."
He's listening, she can tell, but he also has a wary eye on the three person battle waging mere feet away and he clearly wants her to leave. "Gwen," he starts.
"Just a second. Here." She hands him one of the hypodermic needles she had stashed away; the other three exploded somewhere in the fire, and her bag is littered with broken glass and chemicals. "This is the antidote. Somebody needs to inject him with this, and Peter doesn't have any."
He takes it from her, holding the needles out on his open palm and looking at her with a bewildered expression.
"I know it sounds nuts. You have to trust me."
It's strange, how fast the dynamic between the two of them shifts. The respect in his eyes isn't begrudging, but it is a little surprised. "Alright," he says. She hears a grainy voice answer her cell phone and he holds it away from his eat for a moment and says, "Now go."
She glances over her shoulder to catch just a glimpse of them. She assumes that between the two of them, Peter and his father will effectively trap the man and inject the antidote, so even when she sees that they are all still struggling with each other, she doesn't feel any particular alarm. It's a battle she isn't fighting, but it is one she assumes that they'll win. And in that last glance, everybody is fine—Peter behind the imposter, slinging a web at his back, and Peter's father's hand is outstretched with one of the needles.
There are sirens in the distance. Gwen turns her head toward the noise and follows them, knowing that she can either meet one of the cop cars and step inside, or get shoved unceremoniously into one when they reach her. She has only walked a few feet away when she hears Peter cry out.
"No!"
She isn't thinking when she turns around, can't even imagine what has happened, but she knows Peter and she has never heard that kind of pain in his voice before. It sounds like a fatal blow, like a trapped animal, like someone who is staring death in the face with no means of escape. Her eyes snap onto him and it takes her too long to understand—he's fine. He's sticking to the side wall of a building and completely unharmed.
She looks down at the sidewalk.
"Oh." The sound escapes her, low and unintentional. Peter's father is sprawled on the ground, his eyes wide open and staring at the sky, his neck bent at an angle so unnatural that even from this distance, Gwen knows without a single doubt in her mind that he is dead.
Before she can process the magnitude of what has happened, she hears another scream—primal and full of malice. She sees Peter lunge forward, a dark blur of hoodie and jeans, and strike the imposter Spiderman with enough force that Gwen can hear his skull hit against the pavement. The man's skin loses shape for a moment and Gwen watches, repulsed, as his bones crunch with the effort to reform: he now looks exactly like Peter's father.
Peter stops short, his fist in the air, his mouth open and his eyes streaming. Gwen is frozen to the spot, terrified that he will lose all the fight in him if he is forced to take him on in this form.
Instead Peter's lip twists into a snarl. "How dare you," he says. Peter's fist is quivering but he strikes with so much force that blood immediately spurts from the other man's mouth. The man strikes back with just as much power but Peter hardly flinches, like his body is made of steel, incapable of absorbing blows.
Gwen is only half-watching, her eyes still stuck on the body on the sidewalk in disbelief. It happened so fast. She had hardly turned her back and it happened so fast. The shock feels like a chasm in her chest, like trying to take a breath underwater.
"He's going to kill him."
Captain Johnson's words break through her paralysis, the sound of his voice dissonant against the rest of the tumult around them. She thinks he means that the imposter is going to kill Peter and her body seizes with fear, but one glance back at the fight and she sees that it's the opposite: Peter is wrathful, Peter is crazed and unfamiliar and out of control—Peter is aiming to kill.
She looks back at Johnson but he's still staring at her, as if he expects her to do something. She can't even shake her head. Her voice is stuck in her throat, she is frozen with a grief that doesn't even belong to her. She remembers losing her own father, remembers her anger the way it was when it was fresh and overwhelming, the way the pulsing rage demanded the energy of every thought and muscle fiber in her body. Even if she speaks, he won't hear her. Even if she stands in his way, he won't see her there.
"Peter! Peter, stop!"
It's Johnson who chases after them, not Gwen. She watches, still petrified. She's remembering the guilty, emotionally spent man who told her two years ago that leaving Peter was his biggest regret; she's remembering the man stayed up with her all night to save Peter's life as a deadly serum coursed through his veins; worst of all, she's remembering one of the first times she ever saw Peter, when they were thirteen on a field trip to OsCorp and his eyes lit up like stars when he told one of his friends that his parents were scientists, and he was going to be just like them.
Predictably, Johnson's warnings fall on deaf ears. In a series of movements too quickly executed for Gwen to follow she watches as Peter slams the imposter against the wall and pins him there in a chokehold. The man starts to gag, legs dangling, suspended off the ground.
Johnson hasn't quite reached them yet, but something makes him falter mid-run. Gwen looks up and cringes as she watches the imposter's body fold back into itself, creasing and grinding and oozing. It starts to shrink, starts to sprout hair, starts to pale and thin out.
"Jesus," Johnson exclaims.
Once it completes its transformation Gwen feels the heat of stupidity rushing into her cheeks—it took her longer than any of them to recognize herself.
Peter's grip loosens. He takes several horrified, gasping breaths, his body quaking violently, like he is trying to fight himself. Johnson lurches forward with the antidote Gwen gave him but he won't be fast enough if Peter lets the imposter go.
"I'm right here, Peter," Gwen reminds him, watching as the fake version of her writhes and purples in the face.
Peter squeezes his eyes shut, cranes his neck away. He won't look at her, he won't look at either of them, his face twisted in anguish as he continues to pin the imposter down. Johnson is mere inches away from sinking the needle in when the imposter flails his—her?—foot out unexpectedly, knocking it to the ground and shattering it.
Peter doesn't see the needle fall but he hears it. "I can't," he says through his teeth. A mix of sweat and tears have formed a wet layer on his face. "I can't."
The only person who has any of the antidote left is Peter's father.
"I'm right here," she says again, willing her voice not to falter. She runs to Peter's father and tries to rummage through his coat pocket without looking at him, but she still sees the blank, wide eyes and she thinks the sight of his corpse might haunt her forever. It takes too long to find it—it is only seconds, but it's too long, too long for her to be kneeling beside a dead body, too long for Peter to be holding a version of her in a chokehold.
"Oh, god," Peter is moaning under his breath. "Oh, god, oh, god."
"Don't let go. It's not me," Gwen manages, and then her hand wraps around it, another one of the needles. She struggles to her feet and runs forward, past Johnson, past Peter, until she's face to face with the imposter.
It's an indescribably bizarre feeling, looking into her own eyes. The Gwen that stares back at her is red in the face, croaking for oxygen, pleading for mercy in its measured stare. She has never seen herself this way, has never observed herself in her weakest moments, but suddenly she is stricken by the familiarity of her own desperation. This Gwen is frail. This Gwen is pathetic. This Gwen is lonely and shattered and broken and reminds her far too much of everything she is afraid she might become.
The needle sinks in with much more force than she intended, but she manages to hold it down as the antidote seeps in under the pale flesh. The imposter screams and Gwen reels back as Peter releases it; by the time it hits the ground, all that's left is an unrecognizable, shapeless mass of flesh slapping against the concrete. For a few seconds it thrashes on the ground and then, painstakingly, she hears the crunch of limbs distorting and rearranging themselves, until all that's left is an ordinary looking man unconscious on the sidewalk at their feet.
For a moment none of them says a word. Gwen takes a few steps back from the unconscious man, and almost tripping in her haste to get away from him. Without turning back to look at his father, Peter sinks to his knees, his chest heaving, his head in his hands, moaning words that Gwen doesn't understand.
Johnson is the first to regain his composure. He takes quick strides over to Gwen and grabs her shoulders.
"You need to get out of here."
She becomes painfully aware of the sirens blaring in her ears, rounding the corner toward them. "What will you tell them?" she asks. Her tongue feels like sandpaper. His eyes flit away from her, toward Peter, and she says firmly, "I'm not going without him."
Johnson nods. "Both of you. I'll take care of it."
Gwen wants to believe him. She wants to grab Peter's arm and drag him away, wants to hole up in her apartment with him and sleep for hours and hours and wake up in a world where they don't have to look in their friends' faces and wonder if they're somebody else, in a world where they don't have to check every alley and street corner for someone lurking to attack.
But she can't. Not until she takes care of this, once and for all.
"You can't go after him anymore," she says, grabbing Johnson's sleeve, refusing to let go. "You have to promise me."
Johnson pulls his arm away gently and looks her in the eye. "I'll take care of it."
They both whip around as the first police car screeches into sight. They've run out of time. Gwen stands there for an indecisive beat, but Johnson has already turned away, expecting that she has started running. She wonders how they'll ever get out of here with Peter so distraught but when she finds him he's on his feet, waiting for her, holding out his arm to her in that familiar way he does whenever he's about to catapult the two of them several stories into the air.
She hesitates. She doesn't have to look to know that his father's body is still lying on the sidewalk, yards away.
"Come on," he says, his features rigid and inexpressive.
"Peter …" She thought she would have to be the one to convince him to leave, but now she feels rooted, bound to the horrible things that have happened here.
His reach is unexpectedly steady. He waits for her, arm still outstretched. "I've got you," he says.
She takes a step closer to him and lets him secure his arm around her waist. She shuts her eyes as she hears the whir of the biocable release, feels the sharp tug of gravity against her chest and the wind blow through her hair. Everything is a blur of traffic and windows and skyline, breathtakingly beautiful as a blood-orange sun sinks into the sky, but all she can see are the cold, unseeing eyes of Peter's father. All she can hear are the last words he said to her before she took off: Get Peter out of there.
She glances up at him, at the hardness of his face and the distance in his eyes, and wonders if she ever can.
Aaaaand scene.
I've got one more chapter left of this puppy and I am determined to chug it out before I make my big city move. Now that I've gotten this far I can go ahead and say I literally thought never in a million years with my course load and the musical and graduation that I would EVER get this story finished, which just goes to show how my already poor social skills have deteriorated in the last five months of writing this in my spare time instead of talking to other humans. (Pfft, friendship. I've got FICTIONAL FRIENDS).
Has anyone else ever experienced that terrible ominous gut-wrenching phenomenon that happens when you think you just saw a large many-legged creature crawl under your dresser? Because that's happening to me right now. IIIII'm gonna go ahead and go ...