Pain and Power

----__-___-_--_Chapter 9_--_-___-__----

A round bang resonated through the small alley next to the Chinese restaurant that he was in, and the man in front of him stumbled backward, clutching at his chest desperately.

"Ben?" Peter heard his own voice. "Ben, are you okay?"

Ben tripped over his feet, falling backward, and Peter moved forward to catch his Uncle. They sunk to the ground, Ben coming to lay in the artificial yellow and red light being shed by the neon signage of the restaurant next to them.

"Ben?"

Ben tilted his head to look at Peter, the ghost of a smile crossing his face as blood began to trickle from his mouth. "It's — it's okay, bud." The man murmured. "You're gonna be okay, Pete. You and May — you'll — you'll be fine, and I—"

Peter pressed his hands down of the wound in Ben's chest, letting the soft sobs wrack his body as he did so. "No, Ben, no — you're — you'll be okay, Ben, because —"

"Peter..."

"Because we need you, Uncle Ben, I can't — you have to be okay, Ben! You can't —"

"I'm sorry, Peter."

Peter jumped up, away from Ben's body, and found that he wasn't in the alley anymore; instead, he was in a dark warehouse, Adrien Toomes standing in front of him.

"What are you talking about? That thing hasn't even touched me yet!"

"True," Toomes said casually. "But then again, it wasn't really trying to."

He lost sight of the Vulture as the wings knocked down the last of the supports holding it up, and a mountain of concrete collapsed on him.

There was concrete all around him. Dust everywhere. He couldn't breathe, everything was too dark to see, all he could feel the weight of the entire building crushing him. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't —

"You're alright."

He wasn't being suffocated by a collapsed building anymore — now, he could see his hands slowly disintegrating, everything around him orange and dusty. He looked up at the sound of Mister Stark's voice.

Peter could feel his legs falling apart too, and fell into his mentor's arms, clutching the man desperately. "I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, sir, please, please, I don't wanna go —" He could feel his atoms tearing themselves apart, his powers fighting against an unstoppable power to try to stop his death. "I don't wanna go."

They fell to the floor, and Peter could tell that his body had given up on him — that his Spider DNA couldn't save him. He looked up at Mister Stark, trying to ignore the terror in the man's eyes. "I'm sorry."

He felt his face go slack and then felt searing, burning, white-hot pain through the entire right side of his body. There was a gross, metallic taste in his mouth and the smell of burning flesh. The pain was all-consuming.

"And I... Don't... Care..."

"Peter stop."

The pain in his right arm was still there, but a lot fainter. His mom was standing in front of him. "You're not doing anyone any help by dying."

"Mom?"

"Nothing you know about me is what you think, honey." Wait, that didn't sound quite right. "But I love you."

"Stop hogging him, Sabina!" Another voice — a man; his dad — yelled. "I —"

He stared in horror as his parent's faces morphed drastically, first becoming bloodied and misshapen — dead — and then falling away until all that was left was tiny shreds of flesh hanging off hollow skulls. They fell backward, grabbing at him as they did so, trying to pull him down to the rain-soaked ground of the graveyard that they were now in with them.