4

Chapter 4: death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saintsNotes:

1) I'm ngl…this is brutal.

2) I'm not sorry.

3) Enjoy the chapter and leave a kudos and comment!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"You're a few minutes away from the warehouse. Swing through the trees on your left and you'll arrive at a yard and the first warehouse on the right is the one Vulture will be in," Ned said, voice slightly crackly over the phone.

Hitchhiking on the top of a lorry was a very easy thing when one could stick to the roof and not fear falling off because of said stickiness. His mask stopped his hair from stinging his face but the hoodie fabric didn't stop the wind chill, but he didn't have to wait much longer.

He had hopped from vehicle to vehicle in a bid to reach Toomes's warehouse about half an hour before Tony's plane took off, knowing Toomes would be there. Well, it was more like hoping.

He couldn't be certain about anything because he didn't have a tracker for the car Toomes swapped to after he dropped of Liz at prom, the knowledge courtesy of MJ staying at school to spy for them. It was a slightly annoying but predictable setback because of course Toomes would change cars if he was going to his lair with every bit of evidence that he was a criminal.

He knew MJ was currently on her way to Ned's and would be on the call once she arrived and her support would be appreciated considering he was facing one of his most prevalent fears, but he knew he could stop Toomes from destabilising the building if he predicted his moves.

As long as he took down Toomes before he could get his Vulture suit active he would be okay.

"Okay dude, watch out for the turning point and shoot from my mark…three…two…" He readied his web-shooters, crouching on the top of the lorry and tensing. "One…go!"

He shot a web at the sign by the exiting road, swinging into the trees and heading towards Toomes's warehouse. He welcomed the darkness, using it as a camouflage despite his brightly coloured suit. Maybe he needed another suit for stealth missions but he would do with what he had. He had made a couple of upgrades to the lenses in his goggles to stop dust sneaking in and he had somehow manufactured a version of taser-webs, albeit they were temporary because they definitely weren't safe if they were overcharged. Cheap metal wouldn't conduct as much and he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't get electrocuted after a while, but he would take the risk if it helped him defeat Toomes.

"Ned, what's my ETA?" He asked quietly, narrowly avoiding swinging into a thick branch that definitely would have left a bruise on his midsection.

"Two minutes with the speed you're going at. Avoid the fence edging the area, it's electrocuted."

"Will do. Hey Ned?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know how strong the signal is here so if my end of the call cuts off, keep an eye on the tracker in my suit. Have you gotten through to Happy yet?"

"Nope, he hasn't picked up. I don't know how busy he is with moving day but he's gonna have to pick up if that plane gets hijacked."

"How do we know if it's been hijacked?" MJ asked. Relief flashed through him for a couple of seconds but his dread continued to grow, nestling in the area between his chest and stomach and placing more pressure on his lungs.

"The frequency will flicker for a couple of seconds and the satellites will have an unknown object for that period of time. You have the satellites up?" He replied.

"Yep, all of the ones covering New York. I have your back."

"Thanks -oh, good, his car is there."

The area was lit up by garishly bright lights on the fencing, illuminating the dust track left by the car's wheels. The black car hid in the shadows of the first warehouse on the left, dust covering the sides and the wheels.

He swung over the fence, landing in the shadow of the warehouse and crouching, slowly making his way towards the car and looking through the window to see no driver.

"Well, he's definitely in the building," he muttered, looking up to see if there was a window before making his way to the back of the building and finding an entrance. The window was hidden in the shadows and had a latch on the bottom that he could probably break to open. He wanted to keep the element of surprise instead of boldly bursting into the warehouse like last time. Then again, Toomes had expected Peter to know about his plan since he had worked out he was Spider-Man but this time he wasn't aware.

He pressed his hand against the wall, laying all of his weight against it and judging it's sturdiness before placing both his hands on the exterior of the warehouse. He started to climb the wall, forcing himself to keep looking up to avoid thinking about what could go wrong.

Ned and MJ's soft murmuring was barely audible through the call but it comforted him, allowing him to take a few breaths and slow his heartbeat as he reached the window, tugging at the lock before pressing down hard on it and relaxing at the satisfying snap that followed.

Leaving the lock on the window ledge, he peered through as Ned's voice crackled through his earphone.

"The window you're at is one exit, there are the massive doors at the front and three windows on each adjacent side. It's basically the structure of a huge barn," he said as Peter scanned the interior, putting Ned's description in context and finding everything in the right place.

More gaudy lights illuminated the dark warehouse and massive stone columns supported the roof and were aligned with the yellow lines that were probably meant for the massive storage containers that the ships usually brought in from the harbour.

There was a table and chair placed at the front of the warehouse with a set of goggles and a gun with parts that glowed an electric blue that couldn't mean anything good – it was probably Chitauri technology that Toomes had manufactured and planned to sell on the black market or use on the plane.

"Okay, Toomes should come out within the next few minutes, otherwise I'm going to go and look for him," he whispered, crouching in the shadow of the window.

"Judging from the satellite scans a minute ago, there are two people in the building, so it's only you and Toomes."

"So Shocker is at school?" MJ asked, her voice clearer this time. Ned must have linked her into the call or maybe he was on speaker.

"He was last time but that was because he knew Peter's identity," Ned replied. "He must be somewhere else because there's no one else within five hundred metres of that warehouse."

"Yeah." He sighed. "The collateral damage he left at school was crazy."

"I know right! Sound waves are ridiculously powerful when they're concentrated and enhanced by alien tech. How did Toomes get his hands on alien tech anyway?"

"I'm pretty sure he used to manage a clean-up company in 2012 and was replaced by one of Mr Stark's maintenance groups. He lost his job and in 2013 he registered as a self-employed manufacturer," MJ replied dryly, and he could imagine her smug smile at his and Ned's surprised silence, but he weakly grinned behind his mask. MJ was a wealth of knowledge when it came down to anything to do with newspaper articles from post-2012, often unironically muttering them when she wrote an essay and analysed the reporter's writing style.

"How- when-?" Ned stuttered, gobsmacked by her apparent knowledge.

"I read up on him after he was arrested."

"But that would have been like, five years ago!"

"You don't think I'd let you two deal with a master criminal and remain oblivious, do you?"

"No but-"

His heart leaped into his throat when a door slammed open, the brutal noise echoing in the silence of the empty warehouse. Toomes stormed towards the table, snatching the gun from the table as he barked orders into his phone.

"I don't care how long it takes for them to fire it up, I need it ready in five minutes! I gave you orders and if you're this incompetent then there's no chance I'm giving you the money." The person on the other side of the call replied, their voice a dull murmur in Peter's ear. "Damn right." Toomes took a few breaths, his heartbeat slowing as he casually leaned against the table.

He lazily held the gun in his hand as his Spidey-sense vibrated dully in the back of his head, pressing a button for a couple of seconds until a click sounded and he angled his fingers so that they were resting against the trigger, slowly raising his arm up to the side of the room Peter was on.

His Spidey-sense buzzed violently as he listened to Toomes's final words on the phone, screaming for him to move.

"You know how to signal me for when she's ready. I'll call you back. I have a spider related problem to deal with."

He tensed.

Toomes hung up.

He put his phone in his pocket.

He raised the gun.

He aimed.

Boom!

He leaped from the window, shooting a web as the window shattered and glass splinters rained on the stones outside. His heart thundered in his chest as he dodged another blast, the vibrations shaking his web until he dropped onto the concrete floor, poised to shoot a web at Toomes until he saw him smirking.

"I've been waiting for you, Spider-Man," he said lowly, lowering his gun as he used his free hand to push himself off of the table.

"How did you know I was here?" He asked, fingers hovering above his web-shooters as Toomes stopped a few metres away. The harsh lights were angled in such a way that his shadow cast itself over Peter instead of directly onto the floor, hindering his vision slightly from his fight-ready position.

After years of only seeing the criminal in pictures behind bars and mentions of him in online articles and from his employees, facing Toomes put him on edge. He knew he had held back because he had worked out he was Spider-Man and he wasn't aiming to hurt a kid, merely fighting to get him out of the way of his plans. Toomes didn't know who he was, instead seeing a young vigilante with barely a year's worth of experience under his belt. He would underestimate Peter, but not to the extent of before.

"You don't ignore an enemy's movements if they come crawling back for a round three on a ferry. You're nothing but persistent, I'll give you that," he replied cryptically, glancing between his gun and Peter. "Your reflexes are pretty good. Not many people can avoid sound blasts when they think they are hidden in plain sight."

"I'm not 'most people'," he shot back, barely listening to Ned and MJ's murmuring on the continued phone call.

"Well, you're definitely extraordinary. Your abilities have caught many people's eyes and someone snagged you because no one goes from rags to a high-quality suit in the span of a week." Had Toomes…researched him? "Though you must have messed up royally for your investor pull the plug after your mishap on the ferry. Fighting in that-" he gestured to Peter's homemade suit, "-can't give you much protection."

"I do with what I have." He shot webs at Toomes's shoes before shooting another at the gun, yanking it out of his hand and throwing it to the other side of the warehouse as he ignored the disappointed look he received when it clattered to the ground.

"Treat the weapon with a little more respect. It takes time and money to develop."

"I only need them in good condition for the police to see as evidence for extending your criminal sentence. It's over."

"You really think it is?" Goosebumps prickled along his arms at the coldness in Toomes's voice. "I can easily track your family and friends down the second you enter the vicinity of my hideouts, just like what I'm doing now. I know your friends are listening to this conversation over the call."

"What?" He fought to keep his voice from trembling as he listened to Ned mutter something about stopping someone tapping into the call, the shock in his voice evident.

"You can't have backup if they'll be traced." The hard edge in Toomes's voice implied he had been in the same situation before and Peter tensed his muscles imperceptibly to stop himself from reaching to his phone and hanging up on Ned to stop whatever was tracking the phone call, but he recalled MJ's concerned threat from earlier and decided not to.

He needed to have faith in his friends and he had seen Ned secure private lines as easily as he completed chemistry equations.

"I'm not listening to you anymore. You're going to prison," he gritted out as he beat the fear out of his system, half-listening to Ned's steady stream of muttering as he blocked whoever was trying to tap into the call.

"We're safe. Go beat his ass," MJ declared as Ned hummed in agreement.

"I'll go to prison when all my work is done, but thanks for the useless threat. You see, I needed to stall you until the bird was fired up."

His blood froze as the mechanical whirring of metal wings assaulted his ears, bursting through the windowless frame and breaking the wall with its sheer impact before swooping down on him like a predator catching its prey.

He leaped onto a pillar and backflipped over the razor-sharp wings, a fierce gust of wind cutting through the flimsy fabric of his mask as the vulture suit swiftly twisted around the pillar in front of Toomes and shot towards Peter with frightening accuracy.

He dodged, leaping onto the adjacent pillar as the one he had previously been on crumbled, a massive chunk of the pillar missing as the chunks lay like crumbs on the floor. The vulture suit swooped towards Toomes, cutting the webs at his feet and opening with a simple press of a button as the man climbed in and secured himself, his goggles glowing a menacing green in the dimness of the warehouse. The lights wobbled as Toomes -no, Vulture- took off, wings taking little damage as massive chunks of pillar crashed to the floor, deafening him.

His Spidey-sense blared as Vulture flew towards him and he tensed his muscles, backflipping off the pillar and ducking out of the way to avoid being beheaded by the wings. He didn't account for how quickly Vulture swivelled around, taking out more of the building's support as he hurtled at Peter and grabbed the neck of his hoodie with his hands.

The wind howled in his ears as Vulture dragged him across the warehouse, flinging him into a wall. The air rushed out of his lungs as the wall cracked, dust showering down on him as pain exploded in his midsection. He frantically wiped the dust from his goggles, staggering upwards as he wheezed only to see Vulture shooting towards him, a metal pipe in hand.

He barely heard Ned and MJ's concerned shouts over the thumping of his heart as he threw himself to the side, gasping as black and white dots obscured his vision. Vulture had definitely broken one of his ribs.

His jaw dropped at the sight of the metal pole impaling the wall and widening the cracks, barely digesting the sight before the scream of Vulture's wings forced him back to reality and he dodged the incoming debris projectiles. He winced as the blocks of cement smashed into the wall, ears ringing as he orientated himself.

His chest tightened as he realised he wasn't anywhere near an exit unless the wall closest to him collapsed, realisation smacking him when he saw what Vulture was trying to do.

'Not again,' he internally screamed, dodging the next round of incoming projectiles as he looked around to see what pillars weren't damaged.

His heart dropped.

Every pillar was destroyed.

Vulture's laugh was barely audible over the whirring of his wings as he swept through the warehouse, tearing through the top of each concrete pillar like the material was made out of play dough. Debris rained down on Peter as the final round of projectiles streamed towards him.

A strangled yelp involuntarily escaped him as something sharp hit him in the side, knocking him down as Vulture burst through the weakened wall.

Dust covered his goggles as he frantically crawled away from Vulture, his blood roaring in his ears as Vulture waved from the outside of the building, his winged shadow covering Peter.

"So long kid."

So long?

His heart pounded as his bones rattled – except it wasn't his bones, it was the ceiling. His blood wasn't roaring in his ears.

It was the whole infrastructure of the building collapsing.

He choked on dust as he weakly inhaled, crawling towards the hole in the wall as chunks of the warehouse fell, cracking the floor and sending tremors through to the foundation.

"Peter?"

"Peter!"

He winced as his name was bellowed in his ear, coughing as he pushed himself up and leaned against a chunk of concrete. He didn't remember Vulture being so vicious.

"I'm okay," he wheezed.

Oh, how the universe liked to jinx him.

He cried out as a pillar fell towards him, scrambling backwards as it blocked his exit. He aimed a web at the other side of the wall, beyond caring about the surface it would land on as long as it stuck and he could pull himself out of the place that started all of his claustrophobic nightmares.

His Spidey-sense went ballistic, screaming in his head as his web caught on nothing and the ceiling caved in, chunks of metal and concrete raining from the darkness as lights exploded with an ear-piercing shriek, temporarily blinding him.

A cacophony of sound assaulted him as the air left his lungs and a deadweight hit his legs. Pain shot up his right thigh as something collided with his midsection, pinning him down as something large shuddered in his peripheral vision.

One of the final pillars holding the building up crumbled under the weight, falling towards him and smashing with a metal ceiling beam. Sparks exploded over his head as something wet -water?- drenched him.

The ceiling beam fell.

The pillar broke into two.

The final pillar collapsed, colliding with the other pieces.

Something fell.

Darkness swallowed him.

Notes:

…like it? Hate me? Scream at me in the comments 😂

I'm not sorry for the cliffhanger