It's a Little Strange

4. REPERCUSSIONS

For that one moment, Peter was... distracted.

The pudgy man that bumped into Peter earlier, giving up Peter's hiding spot, was nervous. He mumbled an apology that Peter didn't hear because he was so distracted with Michelle.

The pudgy man nodded his head, his fingers tapped along his sides as he made his way out of the store. He kept wandering along, pace fast, sweat on his brow. This was the right thing, he tried to convince himself. The only thing.

It was only a matter of time...

Before he blew up.

Peter saw the force of the explosion blow Michelle's messy curly hair out of her face in slow motion. Then things began to glow brightly to the point where Peter couldn't see anything. He and Michelle were knocked down to the ground. The ringing in his ears knocked off his senses. He couldn't focus his hearing on anything. Muffled noises clouded his judgment until he could focus on screaming.

He lifted his upper body from the ground. Michelle was facing the store in which her family was in. Her mouth was wide- it was her scream.

Suddenly everything focused all at once.

"NO!" She screamed. "MOM! TEDDY!" Michelle picked herself off of Peter and she made a frantic dash towards the store, but the store had received the worst of the impact of the explosion. Half of it was on fire. The entrance was crumbling apart and it fell in front of Michelle. Peter was already up and he pulled her back before the rumble could fall on her.

Peter tried to weigh in on his options. He had to go in there and save the people inside- save Michelle's family. But he couldn't be Spider-Man. There was no way he could explain running off at this point to return a few minutes later as Spider-Man. Besides, he didn't even know if he had enough time to do that and rescue the people inside.

Peter warned Michelle, "I'm going in."

"Are you crazy?!" Michelle yelled and pulled on his sleeve. "You can't go in there! Don't be a stupid hero!"

If only she knew.

Peter ignored her and rushed inside, ducking away from another falling debris. He found a few customers and pointed and pushed them towards the entrance, smoke filling his lungs. The clothes on the racks were burning and his nose began to clot with insufferable air.

He found a few more people and helped direct them towards the entrance and he finally found Michelle's mother and brother. Her mother was frantically trying to lift a shelf off of her son. His leg was underneath the wreckage and he must have hit his head because he had his eyes closed, not moving... almost like a peaceful sleep.

That haunted Peter.

He stood next to Michelle's mother and got a grip of the shelf. Together, the two lifted the shelf off of Teddy and Peter held it while Michelle's mother picked up her from underneath it. Peter dropped the shelf and he began to walk with her out of the store.

Michelle met them in a sprint. She embraced them with a crushing hug. She and her mother were both breathing hard, relieved to be with each other again.

Michelle was for sure crying now. Her mother too. She let go of her death grip on her mother to look down at her little brother in her mother's arms. Seeing how still he was, and how his little leg was broken and swollen, she looked like she was going to throw up. "Is he...?" She was too terrified to even finish her sentence.

"No," her mother sighed. "Just... hurt. Got knocked down really hard, but my baby boy is... hurt."

Peter felt his eyes brim with tears. Seeing little Teddy so... so still like that. A little boy who couldn't have been older than four years old. This wasn't right.