Orange omits what was once bright blue as the sun slides leisurely down towards the western horizon. Finally, things begin to cool a little; Spider-Man is glad enough of that. The web slinging vigilante's uniform is definitely going to need a rinsing when he gets it off. Web swinging in such humidity drains as much sweat from him as it does his stamina. He only hopes that the paycheck he just picked up from Tokuda doesn't get ruined by being drenched too; those shots of Mysterio were tough to get and he'd hate for them to go to waste.
Well, okay, maybe it isn't too much to also hope for this last week of summer to lose its heat. Not even spandex is a breathable enough material nowadays. He's willing to bet that's the reason why crime has started to slow down. Everybody is probably too busy trying to stay cool at the beach. Wind blowing against his body as he free falls is his only saving grace when flying so close to the sun, but there's no water at the bottom, so he always has to cut it short for the sake of not going splat instead of splash.
Part of him wonders if he should be spending his last bit of freedom at the beach like everyone else. Itsuka cleaned the one close by his home to be usable again. But then again, it doesn't make for a good reminder of the girl that blocked him or the fact that he hasn't even opened his letter from U.A yet to even know if he'll be going to school in a week. He'd meant to do the grand reveal with Shinso but … Well, Shinso blocked him too. He can't say he blames Shinso for thinking he was stood up, likewise to Itsuka, but he also can't say he doesn't blame Spider-Man for his new habit of losing friends either.
Well, there's always the possibility that he'll make new ones if he does get into U.A. And opening the letter with his mom will be just as nice, despite the inevitable waterworks. Then there's also Eraserhead who said they were friends, which he's pretty sure that guy's hero-ing life is just as lonesome as his. Maybe the only social life that heroes have is with eachother. It's not like All Might is often seen mingling with civilians at the mall. Spider-Man smiles at that thought, thinking it makes for a good enough reason to stop throwing himself a pity party.
Teenage angst is for the bedroom back at home. Right now, he's Spider-Man. And by golly, web swinging always does the trick of clearing his head when he does it long enough. The view alone is something that just can't be beat. "Who knew the best way to see the calmness of the city was forty feet up?", he asks himself a rhetorical question. But, of course, the universe has to give him an answer. Down below, there's what looks like an explosion. "Because it's not! This city is NEVER calm!", Spider-Man releases his current web line and redirects himself with a new one to look into what is most certainly not going to be a pretty view of the sunset.
And Spidey's right. What the vigilante sees when he swings himself lower is not a pretty sight at all. Flames have consumed a store that sells musical instruments. Ironically, the shop's marketing has an Endeavor cutout propped over it, the fire themed hero burning rapidly along with everything else. Spider-Man's white lensed eyes expand when they see the ad sign break and collapse over the front of the building. The entrance, which most likely doubles as the exit, is now blocked with whoever might still be inside trapped.
"Great..", Spidey mumbles a sarcastic comment to himself about the predicament. Not only is it a hazardous situation to be in, but the heat having been turned up on an already sweltering summer day isn't doing him any favors. He has to act fast not to pass out from heat exhaustion. Which means ripping off an air duct as an alternative way into the burning store.
He kicks off the second screening layer once he crawls inside. Immediately, smoke fumes filter through the newfound opening of space. Spider-Man coughs as he tries fanning some of it away from himself. Breathing isn't his only problem either. Even with his eyes covered, they begin to sting and water. Spidey blinks and focuses, trying to see through the thick blackness; his search for anyone that may need rescuing begins.
Since his vision isn't at its optimum potential, the vigilante opts for a secondary method of looking. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, "This is a music shop isn't it?! If there's anybody still inside, I need you to do what you do best and make some noise!" Spider-Man strains his ears to listen for a response that he can use to navigate better.
And, albeit faintly, he hears someone. It's a voice that sounds weak and full of coughs, but he hears it. "Over here!", a person calls out to him from somewhere deeper within the rising fire.
Spider-Man makes haste to follow the sound of the voice calling for his help. It takes veering over a collapsed shelf of old records and crawling atop the ceiling, but he manages to make it to what looks like the rock & roll section of the store. Once there, it's easier to hear the civilian's coughing fit. Spidey stalks his way down the aisle with his hands out in front of him as though that will help to clear out the smoke blocking his path; what he finds waiting for him at the end of the rock & roll row is a ransacked drum set laying atop what looks like a young girl.
"I'm no expert but I don't think that's how you're supposed to play with those", Spider-Man does his best to lighten the mood while working to clear away the debris pinning the girl down – it's not like he really needs help with that though, the fire's bright glow is getting dangerously brighter – he moves a little faster.
While helping the girl up, he notices that she has jacks dangling from her ears; his inner nerd puts two and two together that her quirk must have been how she heard him and why she'd be musically inclined to shop here. He also realizes that her quirk must make her hearing sensitive, hence why she can hardly stand without wincing so much; her equilibrium must be off due to all the noise from the debris dropping around them. Thinking fast and acting just as quickly, he webs little globs to her ears in order to muffle some of the noise.
She leans into him as he continues to prop her up. He worries that his webbing noise cancellers aren't doing enough to help. Until she mumbles a soft, "Th- Thanks", and starts to regain her balance in order to walk a little.
They aren't able to walk very far though. Some of the wall fixture crumbles away and blocks the other end of the aisle. Fire spreads across and begins burning the newly acquired material to melt. Unless they're able to put those flames out, it's only going to get worse for them. Spider-Man has to free up his arms from holding the girl in order to do anything, so he carefully lets her go.
"Hope this works..", he first tries spraying the flames with a thick coating of webs. He may as well have just been adding kindling to the fire though since it doesn't do very much to put it out. Which leaves him with only one alternative option, which is to search his surroundings for a different means of combating the flames.
By some saving grace, he finds the front desk where emergency supplies are kept. Next to a panic button that's already been hit, there lays a fire extinguisher. He picks it up and returns to the girl's side where he can use it. Spidey struggles with the asphyxiator while trying to figure it out. He's never worked one before. So, he makes up his own way of using it. Spider-Man uses his spider strength to tear the top clean off.
Foam extinguishes the fire in front of him and the girl as it comes bursting out. It's a blessing and a relief that there's just enough in the small tank for them to clear the way. Spider-Man tosses the empty container aside once he's finished using it and starts shifting aside the rubble. Escape from what would have been their fiery coffin is just within reach. He only needs to dig a little further…
Spider-Man's Spider-Sense shouts at him to move. Flames consume the spot where he once was. However, there's something different about these flames. THESE flames are burning blue instead of orange. The vigilante bounds backwards, using his fingertips to briefly touchdown and spring himself into the air again. More blue fire follows. It's almost like the flames are chasing him.
Maybe because they are. Spider-Man stops and sticks to the ceiling so that he can see who the puppeteer of pyrotechnics is. Certainly the guy covered in severe burns all over his body must be one and the same. The same fella has staples keeping that damaged skin from sagging too much, which weirdly goes along with whatever gothic punk aesthetic he has going on that involves piercings. "Whoa, dude, that whole fit just screams daddy issues" Spider-Man looks the arsonist up and down, also noting the edgy Matrix style jacket.
Spidey's new patchwork pal responds with a snarl and some more fire. As to be expected. Afterall, they haven't even properly introduced themselves yet and he's already roasting the guy's looks; Spider-Man dodges a burst of blue flames, considering the close call a repayment of roasting in return.
After taking up a poised posture atop the service station away from the girl that he's supposed to be rescuing and keeping safe, the vigilante makes himself a wide open target. "So! What do you call yourself? Molten Man?", a little goading also goes a long way to lure the villain away from the endangered girl.
What would make for a good human torch responds with another snarl, "Dabi", the reveal of his villain name sounding just as deadly as he looks and acts. Spidey may be on summer break, but he's enough of a bookworm to know dabi means cremation under a certain arrangement of kanji characters.
Ordinarily, that type of name would be nothing to joke about. But he IS Spider-Man and wisecracks IS kinda his thing by this point. "DaBaby?", he just HAS to push his luck.
Which he hopes is hotter than the flames heading towards his way, since cremation doesn't sound like a good way to go. The wooden desk is charred black before evaporating instantaneously afterwards. Spider-Man had moved just enough in time to spare himself the same fate. "Dabi", the villain reiterating the clarification of his name with his display of power lets the vigilante know that the self imposed alias isn't by any means a underminement.
"Meh", Spider-Man shrugs to hide the shaking of his shoulders, "Molten Man is better" He trusts his body's ingrained instinct to leap before another wave of blue barrels at him; he really wishes that the blue wave was water at the beach instead of superheated fire. While regretting his decision to take up vigilantism instead of surfing, he figures he may as well keep trying to make Dabi regret that name. "Heck, DaBaby is better!"
"I don't care much for the opinion of what's about to be a BURNED BUG!", Dabi disregards Spider-Man's critique by – you guessed it – hurling more fireballs.
"That's some hot temper you have! You sure you don't have daddy issues?", Spider-Man starts to get used to the one note attacks and gets into the groove of dodging. Now he feels silly for shaking with fear earlier. It's not even remotely close to chilly in this fiery death pit of hell.
Dabi doesn't dignify that with a response, but Spidey can tell it's got the villain steaming. Just a little more toying with the baddie's nerves and he'll be able to control where the fire is going. Which, at this rate, is everywhere. But more specifically where Spider-Man wants to direct it, is at the ceiling. "Come on! Say 'flame on' just once for me!", the taunts lure Dabi's attacks like moths to flame.
Spider-Man throws himself out of the way so that the heavy assault destroys the roof and not him. An opening is made where debris rains down. Through smoke and soot, the sky is a sight to behold. "You really know how to bring the house down", but Spidey knows that it won't be so easy to escape through that exit without dealing with Dabi first, "Maybe next time you can use a guitar to do it!" The vigilante grabs ahold of a big bass and uses it to bludgeon the villain.
With Dabi down, Spider-Man hurriedly grabs onto the girl he had bothered entering the burning building for in the first place, and he scurries out with her. She's still coughing up all the ash that she inhaled but he takes it as a sign that she's alive at the very least. It's all in a day's work for the Spectacular Spider-Man! He just barely made it out unscathed but–
Neither Spider-Man's Spider-Sense nor his instincts could save him from the jet of blue flame that chases after him out through the hole that he created. He cries out, his back blistering as it burns from the intensity of how hot Dabi's fire is. Not even Kacchan's explosions hurt that badly. He takes it like a champ though, powering through and still doing his best to prioritize the ear jack girl over himself.
Spider-Man tumbles to the street outside of the music store as it collapses behind him. He skins his knees and elbows while protecting the girl from their crash landing, but that's nothing compared to how inflamed his back is. And unable to catch a break even after all of that, he shields her from the blast of the store exploding – or, what was left of it – fire still remains when the dust settles but there's no apparent sign of Dabi within it.
Spider-Man squints as he continues to stare at the arsonist's work. Irony or no irony, he can see that the Endeavor ad is both buried and cremated. If Dabi's goal had been destroying the hero's image in some sense or fashion, then he got away with it; Spider-Man suspects that won't be the last that he sees of the pyromaniac either.
"Ah, man.. What am I supposed to tell my boss?", a disheveled kid who looks about the same age as Izuku himself also stares at the destruction in dismay.
Realizing the poor fellow must be an employee of the place that just got demolished, he thinks to offer up an excuse that he would probably use in the same shoes. "Uh… Tell em that you had a fire sale?", he shrugs when the kid's openmouthed expression is directed at him, "And that it was a blowout?"
The kid shakes his head, then hangs it. Whether that'll be what he tells his boss or not, he has no other options at the moment but to walk away and sulk about it. Spider-Man watches the victim leave, feeling both pity and sympathy.
He flinches when he hears someone clearing their throat from the other direction. He double flinches when he realizes that it's the girl he saved. He's still holding her. "The way you handled that was pretty hardcore", and she's complimenting him. And now that he's actually getting a good look at her, she's actually pretty cute.
Grateful for his mask, and not for the first time, Izuku blushes beneath it. "That's me", he awkwardly laughs while trying to think up something clever to say back, "Always hard!" He hates himself. "Core! Hardcore! Me.. I mean.." He really hates himself.
The girl laughs though, so what he said can't be all that bad. She brushes one of her jacks behind her ear like a loose strand of hair. His eyes are drawn to it and her hair. It's short, not going any farther down her head than to her chin. And it's purple. Even with ash splotching her face, she's beautiful. "Well.. Thanks for saving my life, I guess."
He nods, finding it hard to form any words to respond with. It's a problem that he has when occupying space with pretty girls. Fortunately for him, he's also occupying space with police. Or, rather, he's about to – and that would actually be UNfortunate considering vigilantism is illegal – he snaps back to attention when hearing the incoming sirens.
"I should probably be going", he lets the girl stand for herself and begins backing away. She doesn't fall over now that she has his webbing ear plugs out, so he assumes she'll be fine for him to swing off. Before he does though, he hears her laugh again, and he has to look back to find out why.
The girl is making the same hand sign that he is, a grin on her face. "It's rad how you choose to spin your webs", she holds it up high over her head like she's waving goodbye in her own way, "Rock on!"
Izuku doesn't have the heart to tell her that the real reason for his specific hand gesture when spinning webs is so that he hits the spray nozzle properly, so he responds back with a faulty confidence as Spider-Man. "Yeah. Rock on!", the vigilante swings off into the sunset with the girl watching.
Ordinarily, there would be no better way to end his day despite the mild detour with Dabi. However, there is just one minor inconvenience. Okay, it's a MAJOR inconvenience. Izuku realizes mid swing that he had his check from Tokuda tucked in between the waistline of his suit, which so happened to be the same spot where he got blasted by Dabi's blue flames. The check is singed to a crisp and unable to be cashed. And as if that already wasn't bad enough, he also had his letter from U.A stored in the same spot, the envelope sharing the same fate.
Izuku lands on a rooftop to regain his bearings, holding the blackened unreadable remains of what were originally important documents to him. It's going to be hard explaining either of these to anyone, much less his mother. And if the music store employee's opinion is one to chalk up as a validated opinion, then it's not like whatever excuse he comes up with will be a very good kind.
AUTHOR NOTES
Sorry that this chapter is much shorter than the usual length that I try to write them. It's not necessarily 'filler' but there's some final summer days that I want to fit in before Izuku starts school. Which means the next chapter will likely be rather short and of a similar style too. Nevertheless, I'm glad to finally be bringing some of my favorite MHA characters, Kyoka & Dabi, into the story; and the chapters will still accomplish a lot in that regard going forward.
Now onto reading your responses to the last chapter!
Glad to see that you're still sticking around and enjoying the story, Splashyatom431! I can promise plenty more + exploration of all that you mentioned, aside from maybe the secret identity part any time soon.
I'm glad that you brought up Venom & symbiotes, Briner, because I do have a lot planned there - however, I can't confirm or deny anything about how, what, who, or when just yet for sake of spoiling the surprises.
Thank you, Guest! That genuinely warms my heart to know I'd make a decent Spider-Man writer in that regard!
Hope to see you all again soon for the next chapter!
-Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood short chapter poster!