With Great Power
Drip.
It was dark.
Drip drip.
And cold.
Drip.
He could see shadows, faces covered behind wisps of fog. Monsters hiding in the darkness.
“I am behind everything, Gluppy mal'chik.”
It was dark, cold, and wet. The shivers tore him apart, his nerves screaming in agony, his body trembling fiercely beyond his control. It hurt to breathe — too cold. Hurt to open his eyes — too cold. It hurt to move, too...
Please…
Please...
“No one is coming for you, mal'chik-pauk.”
Please, I don’t...
“You will die here, alone and forgotten.”
Please.
I don't want to die.
Blood flowed around him, his torso soaked in it, saturated in it. Thick blood, smelling heavily of copper, seeping out of him and onto his thighs, down to his knees, never stopping — the flow never stopping.
Even that turned cold, the brief warmth of his own life supply freezing at the contact of the ruins around him.
KkkkrrrrreeeaaaKKK!
The walls squeaked, cried, ached from the pressures building around them. Or was that him making those sounds?
A star broke through the patches of clouds, bright and silver. The blanket of fog stood no chance in its path, the ribbons of mist parting way for the symbol of justice. It stood out to him like the Big Dipper in the sky — ‘follow it’, he thought, and he’d find his way home.
“Stay with me, soldier,” the star said, his tone strong yet soft. “Easy now, I got you, son.”
He felt his body wrapped him up in hope, in warmth, keeping him close until he couldn’t be held anymore.
BeepbeepbeepbeepBEEPBEEPBEEP.
Kreak — KREak — KREEAK.
“Peter, hey, come on — open your eyes!”
“This…this is real face of your enemy.”
“Queens! Catch!”
“Hey, hey, easy now.” The voice strained to be heard over the gushing waters that splashed around him, against him, cold and freezing and cold, cold, cold. “I got you. Easy, easy...”
He took what he swore would be his last breath.
“...BP dropping...transfusion...”
“can’t...risk…push...units...plasma...”
And then awoke to a machine breathing for him.
“...wearing off...already?”
“...ter.”
There was pressure in his stomach. Immense, hot, painful pressure, like a burning rod pushing through his core.
He tried to grunt, groan, moan, yell, shout, scream, do anything, do something —
“definitely...Doctor Wu...stop...”
He couldn’t move, he couldn’t make a sound. He was trapped, restrained, his muscles deadened and useless. He was finally frozen from the bitter, aching cold. Or was this something more?
“...waking up...”
“I’m wrist deep….intestines…get him...under...”
“...Peter...”
Piercing, deafening sounds overtook the commotion of people, screeching alarms that screamed the cries he was unable to release.
“heart rate...critical...losing...”
“...v-fib...paddles...”
“Peter.”
The voice brought a calming clarity in from the chaos. With it came sight, everything white, fulgent, so many lamps shining down on them with an intensity only matched by the sun. The voice belonged to a man who stood out among it all, his presence somehow more visible than anything else.
Yet he was transparent — see-through, clear as glass.
“Focus on me.” He couldn’t touch Peter, his hands too ghostly, too intangible. Yet he drifted closer, as close as they could get to each other. “Focus on the sound of my voice.”
The man was decked head to toe in green hospital scrubs, the lower half of his face covered with a papery mask that hid the lips speaking to him. What little of his hair sticking out from the matching surgical cap was slicked back and silver, a dash of salt mixing in with the peppered black he could barely see.
The aqua colored eyes drilled into him, somehow speaking more than the words that echoed in the air, bouncing off the walls with weightlessness.
“Peter, it’s imperative that you focus on me,” the translucent, floating man said.
Peter could feel a gasp rattling in his chest, the out of body experience coursing terror through him. Frenziedly, he brought his trembling hands in front of his face to see they were just as translucent.
He was dead. He was dead, he had to be dead, this was death and there was a body below him, strapped and tied down, tubes in and out of holes, covered in scarlet red and ‘oh my god, is that me? Is this a dream?’
“This isn’t a dream. But you will remember it just the same,” the man calmly, yet firmly explained. “This is called your astral form, and I’ve pulled you from your physical body until these doctors can get their drugs to work for you again.”
Peter never remembered asking the question aloud, unsure if he even had a tongue in his mouth to speak, but by some form of a miracle or magic, the man heard him.
The sounds never stopped, the screaming of machines and shouting from people only getting louder, angrier, threatening to split his eardrums open.
“Peter, you need to look at me.”
Peter hadn’t realized he was still staring at the body on the table until the man told him to look away. His body, hooked up to machines, dripping with his own blood that gushed out of him, poured from him, a broken vessel running him dry.
He looked to the man, the chill blue irises staring back at him. ‘I’m going to die, aren’t I. Oh god, I’m going to die.’
“You’re not going to die, Peter. You’re dying, but you’re not going to die,” he insisted. “You’re strong. You will survive this.”
Peter could feel his body — whatever this was, a form as translucent as a jellyfish — get hotter, crackling with an approaching burn. He looked back up at the man, eyes fearful.
‘How?’
The man floated them both away from the center of the storm, from the table surrounded by people, machines, objects, and his dying body. The light around them got brighter, painfully so, until even the pellucid man couldn’t be seen in the radiant burst of electricity.
“By focusing on me,” he instructed, his voice fading away into the distance. “And if you believe in it, you might want to consider praying.”
Hissss.
Click click.
BEEP.
He was choking.
“Peter — kid! Hey, you need to calm down — Peter!”
He couldn’t breathe, each inhale forced into his chest against his will. He tried to run, he couldn’t move his own limbs. He tried to open his eyes, he couldn’t see — it was too bright. Too bright, too loud — too loud, too loud!
“Peter — kiddo! You gotta stop fighting — Parker, damn it, stop!”
Please, please make it go away! The words never formed, grunts and gags of what could have been emerging in its place. He could feel his muscles convulse around the invading device, a slither of a tube snaked down his throat, each hissss leading to a puff of unwarranted air that expanded his lungs.
He wanted to scream. He could barely groan.
“He’s combative, someone get the restraints —”
“No!” A female voice cut through the hysteria, shrill and laced with a foreign accent.“I will not tell you again, we are not restraining him!”
“Doctor Cho —”
“I am the ordering physician, I decided if he is to be restrained. Push another four hundred mg’s of enhanced analgesic and if I hear even one more person remotely entertain the idea of restraining —”
Her shouting was loud, sharp. It felt like a drill piercing inside his ear canal. He wondered why she was so angry until he realized she was the reason he couldn’t move — the pressure against him was her frail body joined with other multiple hands, all desperate to keep him still.
Peter realized the hysteria was from him.
He blinked and squinted and closed his eyes tight but nothing ever came into focus. It was too bright. Faces were encased with a halo of white, dangerous to look at, searing into his retinas. He could feel the warmth of his own tears coating his skin, streaming past his temples and into his hairline.
The smells were overwhelming, nauseating, every antiseptic and every cotton fiber of gauze burning in his nostrils and ‘please, make it stop!’
“— beyond ridiculous. I want it in his chart that he has prior history of restraint misuse that will lead to PTSD aggravation. I don’t want one more Babo suggesting we —”
“Done, okay? We can do that. Just...take a breath, Helen. Please.” He recognized that voice. He studied lectures in school containing that voice. Doctor Bruce Banner. “I’ll meet you down in the labs. We’ll figure something out for him.”
Everything dissipated into muffled, muted hum, sounds still present but not as alerting. It never felt like sleep. Even when he was out, when rest would come at times he felt numb from the chest down, it never felt like sleep. In the moments where he didn’t feel pain, where it was just him and his mind, he begged for help.
Peter begged for sleep.
“You’re safe, Underoo’s. No one’s going to hurt you, not under my watch.”
It was the only voice he could stand to hear in the midst of his boisterous surroundings. Even May, as much as he loved her, as bad as he felt for making her cry, was too loud. He begged for her to stay quiet, to please be quiet, even her sniffles nails against a chalkboard to his ears.
Mr. Stark’s voice never got that way. It was calm, low in volume, smooth and rich even when it rumbled and croaked.
“Mr...Mr. Stark?” he mumbled, words thick and slurred.
Two tiny light bulbs emitted a soft glow from the chest plate in front of him, the metal a dull gray and black, stripped of the vibrant red and gold that made Iron Man who he was.
His eyes slid in and out of focus, using what little strength he had left to look at the man holding him.
“Right here. I got you,” Mr. Stark answered, his words drowning out the duress of the sea. “It’s over now, I got you.”
It was always present. Even when he felt most alone, surrounded by strangers in scrubs, stripped of his dignity and strength, the voice that brought a constant cascade of safety was always there.
When he screamed for help until his throat tore raw, the agony unbearable, positive he would die from the pain —
“I’m here, Peter. I’m not leaving.” Mr. Stark locked eyes with him, his intent burning hot. “I’m not leaving.”
When he felt vulnerable, exposed, the long shaft of a needle intimidating as they went to inject medicine into him —
“You can tell me all about that later, Pete. I’ll be here. I’m not leaving.”
Memories drifted away from him like puzzle pieces floating in space. They were there, he knew it, but there was only so much he could focus on. It was as if his mental capacity had been greatly reduced since…
Since…
A spiraling vortex of memories assaulted him, just as a rush of medicine went flowing into his veins.
Peter grabbed the shield faster than Dmitri could react. “Gah-AHH!” With an anguished cry, he swung up, Vibranium metal hitting the man’s head.
Dmitri yanked his face up and over to him. “You are nothing, you hear me? You are pathetic, glupyy mal'chik. An infant pretending to be hero. You messed with wrong man, and you will die because of it.”
“Gluppy mal'chik,” the Russian accent made him flinch, breaking him out of his dazed shock. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Klum. Use your stuff to quiet him.” His voice was deep and snarly. “Now.”
“You’re behind this?” Peter asked, standing up.
“I am behind everything, boy,” the man hissed, his Russian accent thick and heavy on his tongue. “Now come with me.”
It all started in that warehouse, where a pile of ticking time bombs sat ready to explode. It felt like ages ago, like a distant dream from a faraway life.
Only now, instead of the heat from reassembled Chitarui heads, a different fire coursed through his nerves. The heat coiled into his muscles, starting at his neck until it spread all across his body. His skin flushed, his body felt weak and lightheaded and…
And the bright light finally faded away.
“There ya go.” Mr. Stark carded fingers through his hair, massaging away the throbbing that pestered inside his head. “That’s it.”
It was as if someone had finally found the dial to his senses and lowered the ever-increasing number back to its semi-normal eleven. He could breathe easy again, the scorched tundra of red pain in his stomach simmering away to a fizzle. The smells weren’t as strong, even Mr. Stark’s body wash a brief whiff as opposed to the overpowering scent it had once been.
The memories were no longer a concern, the medication coursing through his body like an eclipse to his mind.
“Sweet dreams, Underroo’s.”
Peter let himself depart from his body, drifting away, melting with each sound that passed by.
Click.
BEEP.
Click click.
It felt as if he were swaying, rocking to the motions of an unknown source. It was gentle, soothing. There was a current beneath his feet that swung him side-to-side, slowly, like the pendulum of a clock.
Click.
BEEP.
Click….cli...
The harsh, mechanical sounds of machinery faded into a choppy percussion of water, rolls of waves crashing and swooshing. Birds chirped in the distance, flocks of them, too far away to truly be an annoyance. The smell of sea salt hit his nostrils at full force and the warmth...my god, the warmth.
The cold that ate away at his bones finally fled at the sunshine basking down on him.
Peter opened his eyes, squinting at the setting sun that obstructed his sight. He put his hand over his brows, trying to better see the blob of colors in front of him.
Slowly, the glaring yellow and orange glow began to lighten and dim at the edges, each blink he gave way bringing focus back. The fuzz and blur of his surroundings cleared, revealing an older man standing in front of him, smiling kindly.
“Well,” he greeted, “would you look who it is.”
Peter stared ahead — gawked, his jaw slacked open, his brows furrowed with confusion. His hand, once held to his forehead to block the brightly colored sunset, fell down to his hip.
“Uncle Ben?”
Ben’s grin never wavered, winking as if knowing a secret Peter hadn’t been let in on.
“Hey there, champ.”
A flutter of uneasy butterflies tossed in Peter’s stomach. Uncle Ben looked the same, his tussled peppered gray hair and neatly trimmed beard no different than the last time he’d seen the man, back the night he’d —
Peter looked down at his own hands, flexing his fingers, touching his skin, doing everything short of pinching himself to see if he was dreaming or not. Was he dead too? No, he couldn’t be. He couldn’t have, he didn’t remember ever — and he couldn’t leave Aunt May like that, not yet, not while she —
“You going to sit there all day or you going to help your old man with this sinker?” Ben asked, a smile in his voice.
For a brief moment, Peter found himself unable to tear his eyes away, even as Ben raised the fishing rod in his hand, gesturing the need for assistance.
It wasn’t until a flock of birds flew overhead that Peter finally snapped out of it, his neck looking up, watching as the black birds chirped and soared through the sky. Their singing faded away, far in the distance.
Peter went to move, nearly falling out of his seat as he did. He looked down, noticing that he was sitting, perched on a wooden bench of an old, worn down fishing boat.
Ben’s fishing boat, he realized.
They had taken it out a handful of times, during the summer when the weather was nice. They never caught much fish, but Ben insisted that was never the point. May would always laugh, saying Ben was the only man who went fishing to never actually fish.
Peter never really understood what that meant.
He did a quick glance behind his back, the sight overseeing the Hudson River each way he looked, stretching on for miles. The city was far too distant to make out. On the ground was another fishing rod and a red kit labeled ‘Benjamin Parker’, open and full with baits and hooks.
“Right.” Peter barely managed a nod. “Right, yeah, of course.”
Ben had already gotten the other rod set up by the time Peter had the small, metal anchor settled around the fishing line. They exchanged poles; Peter returning Ben’s while Ben handed Peter his.
“Thanks, sport,” Ben said, grunting as he attached bait to his fishing line. “Pain in my ass, these things are.”
Peter stared at the rod handed to him, turning it over in his hands just enough to see the engraved initials ‘PP’ on the handle.
He smiled, the corner of his lip turning upward. He remembered the day Ben took him shopping to get the dingy little fishing rod, the same year he admitted he had never fished before in his young life. It was subsequently the same year Ben and May also took him in.
He remembered his Uncle saying something along the lines of ‘Some brother of mine. Lived in the city too long and forgot his damn roots — we’re going fishing, boy.’
Fishing became a little hobby of theirs soon after, a time when Ben left the city to relax by the lakeside and get back in touch with nature. It wasn’t the nature part that Peter enjoyed, in fact, he hated the bugs and the cold and the smell of dead rotting fish — it was never his thing.
But he’d never tell Ben. He enjoyed his company way too much to give it up.
So he suffered through the bug bites and sunburn and smell of gross fish, never regretting a moment of it as long as he got to spend time with his Uncle.
When he looked back up, Ben had already thrown his arm back and his line forward, the bait and anchor making a plop as it landed in the lake. Peter watched ripples spread out further and further in the water until eventually a calm returned and only the wind made small waves on the lake.
He threw his own rod back and cast his line out, creating a new set of ripples.
The old fishing boat swayed and bobbed against the water, gentle and smooth.
“It’s quiet here, ya know. It’s nice.” Ben turned to look at him, eyebrow arched high. “Has it been quiet for ya, Pete?”
Peter shrugged, fiddling with the handle of his fishing rod. “I guess.”
The thing with Ben, being a military man for so long, was that he never had to say anything to be heard. His expression could speak a thousand words.
Peter averted his gaze as he caught sight of that look, the one that said ‘Don’t be feeding me bullshit, son. I’ve got a full stomach as it is.’
“No,” he eventually admitted, ducking his head low. “Not really.”
Ben’s frown deepened, leaving dark groves in his already aged skin. He looked back to the waters ahead of them.
“You’ve been up to a lot since I’ve been gone. Taking care of May, taking care of Queens..." Ben tugged at his rod, just slightly. "You haven’t really been taking care of yourself there, bud.”
Peter tapped the fishing rod against the metal edges of the boat, clankclanklclank filling the air between them.
“I’m trying. I am,” Peter stressed, somehow sounding both adamant and resigned at the same time. “It’s just...I’m screwing up so much, Ben. Every time I try to help I...”
A short silence fell between them, and Ben arched a curious eyebrow.
“I ain’t a mind reader, Pete. You’re gunna have to finish that sentence.”
“Every time I try to help, I screw up!” Peter elaborated, abandoning his fishing rod to drag both hands down his face. “I thought I could work hard and...and eventually I’d get the hang of things. But no matter what I do, someone’s got a problem with it.”
A distant sound of chirping came from far away, coming a group of birds that flew off far away from them.
“You really believe that?” Ben asked with a fond patience.
Peter threw his hands up in the air, exasperatedly.
“Of course I do! First I tried catching Mysterio and it just got me in trouble with Mr. Stark. I should have had him before anything got bad, in Times Square before he stole the chameleon helmet. Then I tried helping that lady in the burning building...” Peter exhaled sharply, sounding defeated with a hard shake his head. “There was no lady. I fell for their stupid trap and got kidnapped and —ugh! I can’t believe I let myself get kidnapped. It’s no wonder everyone treats me like such a kid — what Avenger gets themselves kidnapped? I’m such a dud, a friggin failure.”
Ben reeled his line back in, humming in disappointment at the eaten bait and no catch. He bent down to the fishing box, all the while looking at Peter.
“Well I can’t speak for everyone out there sport, but I can speak on what I see...” he said, straightening his back and placing the bait on his hook. “And it seems like you see yourself as a failure more than anyone else.”
Peter stood up and leaned over the boat’s edge, fishing pole long since forgotten. It’s not like they ever caught much fish out here anyway.
Ben threw his line back into the water with little hope of catching even a guppy.
“Try telling that to Mr. Stark. He was so proud of me after we stopped Awesome Android...” Peter grimaced, slumping further over the boat. “I don’t know how I’m going to face him after this.”
“You face him like you do every other day,” Ben simply answered.
“This is different. This is...” Peter let his chin rest on his forearms, sighing. “I screwed up. Big time. I wouldn’t blame him if he took away my suit for good after this.”
Ben shook his head. “I don’t know much about this Mr. Stark now, but I can tell you a bit about yourself. This whole pity-partying thing going on here? We both know you’re better than that. Just because you messed up a little bit doesn’t discount all the other good deeds you’ve been up to. You’re human, Pete. And mistakes are what makes us human. Mistakes are what gives us the ability to grow and learn. You ain’t going to grow up if you don’t make a few mistakes along the way.”
Peter shot up, his back stiffening. “Yeah, well, what about great power? And responsibility? How can I afford to screw up when it’s my responsibility to use these powers for good? How can I make you proud if...”
Peter stopped, the lump in his throat growing painful, stealing his voice away.
He looked back to the waters and blinked away the hot tears threatening to slip out of his eyes, slowly settling back down on the wooden bench of the boat.
Ben grew quiet, his jaw set in a way that Peter came to know as deep thought, the older man remembering a moment in time far long before he had even been born.
Finally, he sniffed, hard, looking over at Peter with a hint of a grin. “I ever tell you about Germany ‘86, the year I almost compromised my entire squad—”
“Because you were afraid of rabbits, yeah yeah, I remember." Peter chuckled, smiling wide enough to show his teeth. "May never let you live that story down.”
He missed those times.
Peter’s hands somehow found their way back to his fishing rod and he fiddled with the loose line, remembering the evenings in the kitchen with both Ben and May, eating dinners and laughing at stories heard too many times and yet never enough — while he’d never trade his life as Spider-Man, there was no denying a soft spot for the Peter Parker that never came to be. The normal Peter Parker, never bitten by that spider, surely never to be where he was right now, wherever this was.
“You know what my commander always told me after that?” Ben asked, interrupting his thoughts and turning to look at him. “Fall down seven times. Get up eight.”
For a moment they locked eyes, Ben’s steely gaze boring into Peter’s, all too familiar, all too sentimental. A pang hit his chest with more force than any injury he’d ever felt combined, every fiber of his being screaming to stay there — to never leave the boat, to never go back to the life he had come to know.
But it was Ben that looked away, turning his eyes back to the vast rivers around them. His shoulders dropped with a heavy, relaxed sigh.
“It’s nice here. Nice and quiet.”
A flock of birds flew by suddenly, soaring over their heads, their movements so fast that wind ruffled straight through Peter’s hair.
Their chirping became loud, persistent, their singing reminding Peter of a warning, a timer that had been set off. He wasn’t sure why, but something told him the birds were a sign.
He dragged his gaze away from the sky and back towards Ben, his heart ready to pour out years of pent up emotion he had suppressed for so long, too long.
“Uncle Ben, I’m so sorry. That night, when we...I—”
Ben waved away the unspoken issue with a flick of his hand and an easy grin. “Just enjoy the peace and quiet while you have it, Pete.”
Peter struggled to close his mouth, to ignore his Uncle and ramble on until time wouldn’t allow him anymore, until his apologies couldn’t be heard by anyone but himself.
This was his chance, after all, his chance to find peace after years of being held down with guilt and regret. Real or not.
Ben’s grin lessened a fraction and he added, “After all, everything in life only last for a little while.”
The birds flew away, taking with them their song of nature. Peter slowly went to look back ahead, the sunset crisp along the waters, a large gilded orb that melted into the lakes horizon. The only sound was the gentle slap of water against the boat.
Peter nodded, his mouth closing, his jaw setting tight. Ben didn’t need an apology from him.
And Peter needed to learn how to live with the emotions that an apology wouldn’t fix.
The sun had set, dimming until his surroundings were cloaked in darkness, the salt waters no longer a sight to behold. Peter sighed, closing his eyes. The darkness beneath his lids was no different than the darkness that enveloped him.
The warmth of the sun and Ben’s presence was gone, and he was alone again.
The boat swayed. It bounced gently on the waves of the river, rocking him to a silent lullaby of discomfort. The underlying presence of pain wasn’t a problem; he had gotten used to the constant droning hum it would deliver. It had become the background noise of his days, rarely loud enough to drown out his thoughts, mostly a distraction.
His fingers grazed against the scratchy wooden plank he sat on, remembering the splinters he’d often get as a child from the same worn down timber. The fishing boat was old and one crack away from falling apart, but Ben always insisted that the trips were never about catching fish to begin with.
‘I come here for the peace and quiet.’
The ringing of his own ears became Peter's anthem, silence that he begged to stay, peace and quiet that he found himself regretfully drifting away from. It wasn’t long before the ambiance of the lakeside fell away completely.
The ringing only got louder, the droning hum more persistent. Exhaustion like he had never felt before swamped him all at once, flowing into him and weighing him down.
It was one sharp beep that cut through it all, slicing through the tether he had held onto for so long.
...EP.
...ick...click.
BEEP.