Coming around to his girlfriend's door, Peter gave a few gentle but firm knocks.
"Just a minute!" she called out in response. Peter rocked back and forth on his feet a few times as he waited patiently before the door finally opened, his girlfriend emerging soon after. She turned and locked the door behind her before greeting him with a kiss.
"You look lovely today!" he complimented her. She was wearing a casual but still stylish look of nice jeans and a new green shirt that complimented her eyes exceptionally well.
"Thank you," she greeted as they began walking down the hallway towards the elevator. "You clean up nicely yourself, Tiger. Been a good day at the lab so far?"
"Oh, fine, I guess," Peter said as he pressed the button and stepped back, waiting for the elevator doors to open.
"That sounds... exciting," M.J. said, her tone half teasing, half curiously concerned.
"It's just that I've been going over my current project so much in preparation for the presentation and it's already starting to feel a little monotonous," he admitted to her. "At this point, I'm almost thinking of at least trying to brainstorm a basic idea for my next project just so I don't drive myself crazy."
"I suppose that's fair," Mary Jane assured him. "Nothing wrong with mixing things up every once in a while. Variety is the spice of life after all!"
"Too true," Peter concurred. "Then again, I have precisely zero ideas at the moment, but I'm sure something will..."
The sound of Peter's text alert cut him off as he stopped, taking it out and glancing at it, letting out a light sigh.
"What is it?" his girlfriend asked.
"It's Matt," he replied. "Fisk was supposed to get transferred to holding at the Raft this afternoon, but he says he got word just now that they're actually getting ready to move him in the next ten to fifteen minutes."
"That seems sudden?" M.J. pointed out.
"Yeah," Peter agreed. "It could just be that they put out a false timetable to throw off any of his men attempting to break him free, though with my luck, it's probably the big man himself who's behind this. Either way, I told Matt I'd join him as a glorified babysitter during the process just to make sure that everything runs alright."
"Go," M.J. said, though Peter knew her well enough to see just the faintest cracks of disappointment in her otherwise encouraging facade.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It wasn't originally supposed to interfere with anything important today."
"I knew what I was signing up for," M.J. said, leaning in and giving him a kiss on the cheek. "And don't worry, I'll still get you a little something to eat for when you're done."
Approaching the scene, Peter spotted his horned ally standing on the corner of a nearby rooftop. Releasing his web, he landed gracefully a few feet from him.
"Sorry I'm late," he said.
"It's not a big deal; they haven't even brought him out yet," Matt explained.
"Guess a little extra time to take the necessary precautions makes sense, given who we're dealing with," Peter reasoned. "No extra intel on why they switched up the transfer time?"
"Nothing," Matt replied.
"Well, no news is good news... right?" Peter questioned.
"It's impossible to say," Matt clarified before gesturing to the scene below. "They're bringing him out now."
Peter's gaze went to the street below, where Wilson Fisk was being escorted by two policemen at his sides and two in front and behind him as well. Additionally, there were cops positioned all around the scene, including on a couple of lower-level rooftops nearby.
"Can you hear his heartbeat from here?" Peter asked.
"Yeah," Matt confirmed. "It's steady, no different than any of our other encounters with him until the fighting started."
Peter paused, contemplating the information for a moment before speaking up again.
"I'll admit, that actually does make me nervous that his guys are going to try something; then again, it could also just be him thinking all of this is beneath him and he's just going to find a way out of this just like all his other brushes with the law."
"Either way, I don't like it," Matt said. "He's too relaxed."
"Agreed," Peter replied.
Fisk was then loaded up into the back of the police truck, two cops getting in with him before the doors were shut. From there, the transfer was underway.
"Let's move," Matt said. "I'll take this side of the street; you take the other."
"Yes sir," Peter replied, giving a salute before stepping onto the edge of the building and launching himself into the air. Flipping halfway across, he then landed on the police precinct building across the way, immediately breaking into a run as the police escort began. As they turned their first corner and Peter leapt onto another building, he could feel his heart began to pick up speed, and it wasn't just because of the exercise. His thoughts began dwelling on the possibilities of what could happen; frankly, for all he knew, chaos could arrive at any minute, and years of his and Matt's hard work could be potentially undone.
"Easy, Parker," he said quietly to himself as he leapt off the building, firing a web as he kept pace with the transport. "You're overthinking this. Sure, there's probably no way some of Kingpin's guys aren't waiting for him somewhere, but there's several cops guarding him. Plus, Matt can smell them from Queens, and I have my spider sense. Plus plus, it's us; we're not going to let this happen. We got this!"
Landing on another building, Peter broke into a run again, once again maintaining perfect pace with the transport. Frankly, it wasn't that hard for him; given the large caravan of police as well as the need to constantly be on the lookout, they weren't exactly in danger of breaking the speed limit. Even if they were, Peter could still easily keep up with them without breaking too much of a sweat. Still, as it was, they were slow enough where even Matt could keep up via running, albeit with the occasional assistance of a swing from his Billy Club grappling hook.
All throughout, Peter kept his eyes peeled, bracing himself for his spider sense to alert him to danger at any moment. Another block came and went, only for things to remain steady and quiet. The same held true as they passed the next block, as well as the one after that. Next thing Peter knew, fifteen blocks had passed, and not a single sign of any trouble had shown itself yet. Part of him wanted to relax, but deep down, he knew nothing could be counted out until they had made it to their destination.
Sure enough, that feeling proved correct when his spider sense suddenly went off, his sixth sense directing him to a rooftop about one hundred feet further down. He could see it instantly: a sniper was standing up top with a high-powered rifle, likely ready to take out one of the police vehicles via their tires or windows. Firing a web, he yanked himself forward, the gunman turning in his direction as he approached, aiming his weapon at Peter now instead. The bullets then came out in rapid succession but working with his reflexes and his spider sense in tandem, Peter deftly avoided each one, most of them very narrowly since he'd had a split second to react.
"Yeah, I'll be taking this!" Peter said as he came over top of the man, webbing his gun and yanking it away so that it landed harmlessly on the other side of the roof. He then shot a second web that stuck to the man's foot, yanking him down before pinning him with a much thicker batch of webbing so that he couldn't even struggle against his restraints. However, things were hardly over yet, as Peter suddenly heard a loud crash below. He rushed over to the ledge, glancing down to see that a semi-truck had smashed into the two front police vehicles, halting the transport. Several other men then emerged from the truck and the surrounding area, as well as more snipers appearing on various rooftops nearby.
He glanced over to see Matt on a building across the street.
"TAKE OUT THE SNIPERS!" he yelled. "I'LL HELP THE COPS ON THE STREET!"
He didn't even look to see if his ally was heeding his instructions or not as he dived off the roof, with years of working together having built enough trust between the two men for Peter to now focus on his part. He twisted and contorted as he avoided some attempted sniper fire before finally being able to fire a web, swinging down and landing a kick on the nearest attacker, the force slamming him against the trailer of the semi and knocking him out. Normally, such would have been the part where Peter would've performed his usual introductory joke, the first in a long line of such wordplay. In this instance, however, he wasted no time with such formalities, going straight to work on re-securing the scene. There was too much at stake and, more importantly, too many lives endangered for him not to give the matter his full concentration, as if dodging gunfire both on the ground and from above him wasn't enough.
Working as efficiently as he could, Peter focused on quick but powerful moves and web blasts to either knock guys out or pin them somewhere that they could no longer cause any trouble. His spider sense also continued to warn him not only of the danger of gunfire coming at him but also at his allies in blue, enabling him to pull some of them out of the way just in time to avoid their bodies looking like target practice dummies. The chaos soon started to die down; he was noticing less coming down at them from the top, meaning Matt was having success on his side of things as well. Even so, Peter did not relax, but maintained his powerful focus all the way until he delivered the final punch to the face of the last attacker and the sound of bullets no longer filled the air around them.
Once no one's lives seemed under imminent threat, Peter leapt over to the police vehicle that had been struck by the semi-truck, ripping the door open and glancing inside. The man in the driver's seat, who was closest to him, slowly turned and glanced his way; he looked somewhat out of it, but at least he was alive.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I... I'm not sure," the man spoke up. "But check on my partner; he's out cold."
Flipping over the top of the car, Peter opened the other door. Immediately he could see blood on the side of the man's head, and he quickly put his fingers to the man's neck, feeling carefully for a pulse.
"He's alive," he spoke up once he was certain he'd felt something. "I'm getting him out of here."
Unfastening the man's belt, Peter did exactly that, removing and cradling the man in his arms as he got him out, the first emergency vehicle already arriving on the scene. He handed him over to them, with others rushing to check on the other man in the car as well as others who'd been injured in the chaos. Matt then came down, and they were joined by the man Peter recognized as the chief of the precinct.
"Thank you," the man said, his tone full of heavy, somber gratitude. "This could have been a lot worse."
"It's what we're here for," Peter assured him. The man then went off to attend to the other men and women in blue. Peter then turned to Matt.
"Nice work up there," he said.
"Thanks," Matt said.
"You know, now that I think about it, this was all pretty brazen for Fisk," Peter spoke up. "I mean, I know that he didn't hold much back the other day either, but he could have played that off as he was being attacked under false accusations and he was just defending himself. He's going to have a much harder time playing this one off."
"Agreed," Matt replied, "unless it wasn't to get him out."
"What do you mean?" Peter questioned. "You think it could have been competition trying to take him out?"
"Who has more enemies than someone like Fisk?" Matt questioned. Peter said nothing in response, instead slowly raising his hand as if he were a shy kid in high school.
"Okay, except us," Matt added. "I just think we need to look into..." Matt paused his sentence, tilting his head to the left.
"What is it?" Peter questioned.
"I can hear something underground," Matt replied, a quiet but powerful urgency to his voice. "It's still maybe a couple hundred feet away, but it's coming in fast."
"What does it sound like?" Peter asked.
"An engine," Matt said. "I don't know what kind of vehicle could..."
Matt likely finished the rest of the sentence, but if he did, Peter wouldn't have known it, as his spider sense suddenly hit him with a warning so powerful that it seemed to overwhelm all his other senses. He then could feel his eyes widen as it hit its peak.
"EVERYONE BREAK FOR COVER!"
Unfortunately, his warning came too late, as suddenly a powerful explosion erupted from below them, with Peter's attempted leap not coming fast enough as he was sent crashing through the window of a building across the street, tumbling into a store and causing multiple shelves to collapse onto him as he landed. He hardly felt much of it, the sheer force and sound of the explosion having overwhelmed his senses even more than his spider sense. Everything seemed in a daze for some time, though his perception of even that was fuzzy. Slowly, like a computer having rebooted after an update, Peter's brain started to put together the pieces once again.
"Explosion... police... Fisk..."
Finally remembering the urgency of the situation, Peter managed to force what was pinning him down off himself, getting to his feet and making his way out of the shop in a hurry. He scoured the scene; everything was ten times the mess as before, with people and debris strewn everywhere, yet somehow the transport carrying Fisk remained upright. No sooner had he turned his attention to that vehicle then he witnessed as the man in question was suddenly ejected from the interior, tumbling onto the street in a large heap.
That was when he heard it.
"HA HA HA HA HA!"
Peter glanced back in the direction of the familiar sound, bearing witness as the individual responsible for sending the Kingpin onto his backside emerged. There was no mistaking the green and purple outfit, the military grade glider and weapons, and that twisted, grotesque mask.
The Green Goblin.
The figure turned to Peter, a heinous, evil smile coming over his face that somehow sent both shudders down his spine yet also fueled him with great anger.
"Did you miss me?" the Goblin said as he tossed some kind of line that wrapped itself around Fisk almost instantly. "Don't worry, you will have my full attention soon!"
Before Peter could even leap after his old enemy, the Goblin pulled out three of his trademark "pumpkin bombs," tossing them all his way. He flipped and leapt out of the way in time to avoid being caught in a second explosion, but by the time he turned around, the Goblin was well into the air. He almost fired a web to follow him, but thought better of it, realizing that there were others who required his more immediate attention. Fortunately, a few emergency responders were already seeking out those who needed help, but Peter realized there was one person he couldn't see: Matt.
"Spider-Man!"
Heeding the call for help, Peter ran over, finding an officer near a building not too far from where he and his ally had been standing. There, he found Matt, who was lying on the ground, his body completely limp.
"He tried to push me out of the way..."
Peter didn't wait to hear any more, bending down and again feeling for a pulse. Fortunately, he picked one up. Even so, he still needed urgent medical attention, but the EMS responders would likely remove his mask in the process of performing their duties. There was one person he knew he could take him to, someone who had treated them both for various injuries in the past.
Scooping his friend up, Peter fired a web, swinging off and speaking softly towards him.
"Hang in there, Matt."
Hope you're still enjoying it! Please, let me know what you've been liking or not liking; in the case of the latter, all I ask is that you be respectful!
Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." James 1:22