Chapter 26: Symbol in Distress I

Landing softly on the side of a stable-looking 7 story building, Peter took a few seconds to take deep breaths to try and alleviate the suffocating feeling that lingered in his chest.

That familiar feeling of his fingertips sticking to concrete did help calm his nerves, wall-crawling and web-slinging were always some of his best ways to calm down every now and then.

It made him feel in control, he guessed.

Being Spider-Man gave him a chance to… not worry about Peter Parker's problems sometimes, you know?

It gave him the chance to just swing around and do some good, to deal with things more important than grief or sleep deprivation.

Now, he knew that normally heroes don't separate themselves when they're either in or out of costume but Peter couldn't help it.

That's what the hyphen between the Spider and the Man was for, anyway.

It separated them.

Spider-Man and Peter Parker are two different people, at least that's how it's always been.

That's how it'll probably stay.

Yikes, that didn't sound healthy.

Eh, he'd worry about it later and deal with it.

Probably.

He should probably talk to May about this stuff, too.

That'd come later.

All he had to do was find All Might and be done with the exercise, a part of him hoped his classmates would find the guy first.

Turning his back to the wall, he stuck to it with both his hands and feet before scanning around the area he was in.

From the view he got when swinging, the zone looked about 1-2 city blocks big, mostly composed of buildings in different states of decay and that ranged from 4-13 floors.

He could work with that, just start from the higher places, work your way down and look for the civilian.

Just like he always does.

Or used to do, anyway.

Shooting a web, Peter flipped off the building and swung down the street, using rusty lamp posts to pick up speed as he neared the tallest building close by.

As he swung, a familiar vibration in the back of his skull made him turn to the side only for his vision to be filled with a sea of periwinkle hair and golden sparkles.

You know, he was starting to wonder when someone would show up.

"Hey! I've never seen you swing in person before! Wait, do you think you could teach me?" Hado commented, twirling in the air as she flew at a pace that matched his own.

"I would but I can't let you steal my shtick, you know?" The smile behind his mask was relieved at finally having someone to talk to, swinging got lonely sometimes.

The two teens flew down the street before finally reaching the tallest building, it looked as if the top left of it had simply crumbled and fallen to the street, covering it in chunks of debris.

Man, hopefully All Might wasn't in there.

Or under there, now that he thought about it.

Landing on the wall, Peter began to walk on it upright while Hado flew alongside him. Turning back to the street, he could easily see Togata phasing in and out of buildings quickly before his eyes landed on Amajiki.

He froze.

The boy had transformed his hands and feet into amphibian-looking ones, maybe from a frog, and was climbing up the wall of a building .

His lenses narrowed.

"Hey, Amajiki!" Peter yelled, his classmate nervously looking back at him. "Wall-crawling's my schtick! You start spinning a web and I'll sue!"

Amajiki simply nervously nodded and dipped into the small building he was on.

Can't believe he would steal his schtick!

When you think you know someone.

A snort from beside caught his attention, making his run to meet Hado's eye.

"Was that really necessary?" She giggled, Peter nodding and walking up the building with her following.

"You don't see me shooting lasers, right? That's your thing, and wall-crawling's my thing." Peter shrugged, smiling at the laugh that Hado gave off.

Making light conversation, the two made their way up the building until finally reaching the highest point, the half-destroyed 12th floor.

Just as Peter crawled inside a building, he turned back to see Hado still there.

Why was she still here? Shouldn't they be looking for All Might?

Now that he thought about it, wasn't he the only one that could actually pick him up?

"Uh, you alright?"

Looking down for a second, she met his eyes.

"You're… okay, right? With the stuff All Might said? Sorry to like, bring it up so soon but I just wanted to make sure."

Oh, that's why she was still there.

A soft smile appeared on his lips behind the mask, with Peter taking it and the goggles off for a second.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks for… checking in and all."

A look of pure relief spread across her face, the girl giving a small chuckle.

"Oh, good! Honestly, the plan was for Togata-Kun to be the one to talk to you but he kinda lost you with all the swinging you were doing."

Peter couldn't even help the laugh that escaped him, the boy leaning on the window frame he had just come in from.

A part of him felt a bit stupid since about 80% of the floor was exposed, with the wall the window was on barely holding up.

Wait, why did he even enter through a window?

Probably the force of habit, now that he thought about it.

"So, race you to finding All Might?" He asked, a small smirk on his face as he pulled the mask and goggles over his face, hiding his features.

Her face lit up almost immediately, blue eyes shining with excitement as she nodded up and down.

"You're on!"

Hearing this, Peter gave a thumbs up before he started to head deeper into the building.

"Oh, wait! I forgot I needed to ask you something!" Hado flew through the window and ended up floating right next to him before landing. "You wanna have a sleepover with Togata-Kun and Amajiki-Kun? It'd be fun!"

Wait.

Did she say sleepover?

Like, where you go over to someone's house and sleep there?

Well, it was in the name so it probably was that.

"I've… never been to a sleepover, you sure?"

The gasp that Hado let out took what seemed to be a full minute.

Part of him felt the need to make sure she could still, you know, breathe and all.

"You've never been to a sleepover?!" Peter slowly nodded, the girl let out another gasp that was slightly longer than the last one. "Well, I can't have that! I'll text you about it later, we gotta find All Might!"

With that, the girl hopped off the ground and started to hover just off of it before shooting out of the window.

Peter stood by, watching her fly by as the sparkles around him slowly turned to nothing.

"I… didn't even agree."

...

A face popped out of the cracked concrete wall beside him, Peter didn't even stop crawling on the ceiling.

"Found him yet?" Togata asked, Peter simply shook his head in response.

"No, I've gone through this building twice already and nothing. What about you?"

Fully phasing through the wall and onto the hallway Peter was in, he watched as his classmate shook his head.

"Nah, and neither has Tamaki so I've been starting to look through the rubble."

Yeah, that did make more sense.

He wasn't too knowledgeable about the proper way to do hero stuff, so he's kinda been going with his gut with the small hope his spider-sense would let him know if he was near All Might.

But the idea of most victims being under the rubble rather than in buildings did sound right.

Maybe.

He wasn't too sure one this whole thing, now that he thought about it.

Wait, why didn't Aizawa even tell them how to go about this?

Maybe All Might wasn't the only bad teacher here.

Peter nodded and hopped down to the ground and stretched, sighing as his bones popped.

"Hey, I always wanted to ask." Peter began, rolling his shoulders. "Are you and Amajiki a thing?"

Togata did a double-take while his eyes went wide but Peter could easily spot the lightest blush on his cheeks.

"What? Me and Tamaki? No! We'd never… you know!" He laughed nervously while rubbing the back of his neck.

The brunette stared at him for a moment, neither of the two moving before Togata awkwardly phased through the wall he had come from.

"Alright… then?"

Shrugging off the interaction, Peter started to walk down the hall and out of the building.

Stepping out of the building, Peter could easily see Hado flying all over the place while looking for their teacher while Amajiki used tentacles to move pieces of rubble around.

Well, they seemed to have the right idea.

Turning his head to the safe point he saw both Aizawa and Thirteen simply standing by, with Aizawa holding a clipboard in his hands as he eyed the class.

The thought of asking Aizawa where All Might was passed through his mind before quickly being waved off, their teacher wasn't one to provide help.

Just as he was about to shoot a web, the sound of shifting rubble caught his attention and made his spider-sense ring lightly.

He was right behind him, wasn't he?

"Hey, young Parker!" The voice of All Might came, nearly a whisper; it was probably the quietest Peter had ever heard the man talk.

Either way, Peter couldn't help but flinch at hearing his voice, it brought his mention of suicide earlier to the forefront of his mind before he pushed it away again.

He just needed to get done with the exercise.

Then, he could start to grieve again.

Shaking his head, Peter took in a deep breath before finally feeling the tension in his muscles fade.

Turning around, the teen was met by the odd sight of the symbol of peace buried in rubble with only his feet and head visible, the man simply laying on the ground with his arms behind his head and a grin on his face.

All in all, he didn't seem too bothered by the blanket of debris on him.

"Uh, hey?" He greeted cautiously, slowly walking over to the hero. "You… okay, there?"

All Might chuckled, a far cry from the booming laughter he normally did.

"Why, no! For I, a mere defenseless civilian, have been caught in this terrible disaster and had a building fall on me, rendering me unable to move!"

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