The Unexpected [1]

Chapter 17

I landed outside of an industrial building and went inside. I walked down the hallway trying to find Peter and saw someone standing at the end of the hallway. "Peter?" I slowly walked closer to the person but they didn't move. The light turned on in the hallway and temporarily blinded me. "Ow!" Before I could fully recover, something knocked me down from behind. I hit my head on the floor and I started to see black dots everywhere. I rolled over onto my back and a figure appeared above me. The person crouched down and I realized who it was, the vulture guy. I went to punch him but he grabbed my hand and pushed my head against the floor. The black dots in my vision got bigger and everything went black.

When I woke up, I found myself leaning against a metal table. My hands were handcuffed with a very advanced pair of handcuffs. At the center of the cuffs was a rope tied to it and the other end was tied to one of the table legs. "Ah, good. You're awake." I turned to see the vulture guy enter the room and he pointed to the handcuffs. "You like them? They're power damping handcuffs. Can't have you burning me alive, now can we?" I didn't believe him so I tried to burn the cuffs with my mind but got a shooting pain in my head. I screamed in pain and he turned around to look at me. "You didn't believe me, huh? Had to put yourself through pain. I don't understand your generation." I looked at him confused. "How do you know-" His laugh cut me off. "Oh, I know who you are, Flames. Or should I say, Parker Nite." I clenched my jaw. "Don't worry, I know your buddy Peter is coming. So as soon as he comes, you can go home."

"We're going to stop you. You won't get away with selling those weapons." He laughed. "I'd like to see you try. But I'll still be selling the weapons and stealing tech from Stark and his goofy team." He walked out of the room and left me alone. He came back after a while and started tinkering with the stuff on the table next to me. It was mainly silent from us but I managed to make conversation after I realized I couldn't deal with how quiet it was in the room. From the conversation I found out that he was doing this to provide a good life for his family. Both of us were just doing our own thing when someone came into the room. "Hey! Surprised?" I looked up to see Peter walking towards us. "Oh, hey Pete. I didn't hear you come in. Actually, I don't think either of us heard you." Liz's dad turned towards me and I shook my head. "Hi, Peter." Peter looked over to me and concern washed over his face. "Parker... It's over. I got you. Let her go." Adrian, which I learned was his real name, started to put on his jacket. "You know, I gotta tell you Pete, I really admire your grit. I see why Liz likes you. I do. When you first came to the house, I wasn't sure. I thought, really? But I get it now." Peter shook his head. "How could you do this to her?"

"To her? No, I'm doing this for her. I'm not doing anything to her Pete. It's for her." Peter shot webs at his hands and I flinched. "Peter, you're young. You don't understand how the world works." I moved away from the webs on Liz's dads hands because I didn't like the smell of them. "But I understand that selling weapons to criminals is wrong." I groaned and Liz's dad looked at me irritated. "Don't you have somewhere else you can complain at?" I shrugged. "Not until four tomorrow." He turned back to Peter and ignored me. "How do you think your buddy Stark paid for that tower? Or any of his little toys? Those people Pete, those people up there, the rich and the powerful, get whatever they want. But guys like us, like me, they don't care about us. We build their roads, fight their wars and everything. They don't care about us. We have to pick up after them, eat their table scraps. That's how it is. I know you know what I'm talking about. And she does too." He pointed towards me and I shrugged.

"Why are you telling me this?" Adrian smirked. "Because I want you to understand and I needed a little more time for her to warm up some more." He pulled out a knife and the vulture wings busted through the wall. "Peter!" Adrian cut the webs and untied the rope on the handcuffs. "I'm sorry, Peter." He grabbed my arm. "What are you talking about? It hasn't even touched me yet." Liz's dad pulled me closer to him. "True. Then again, wasn't really trying to." The vulture wings crashed through the remaining beams. "Peter, run!" But it was too late. The building came crashing down on him. "Peter!" I tried to get out of his grasp but he just pulled me out of the building. His wings attached to him and we flew up into the sky. "You said you would let me go when Peter showed up. Why didn't you let me go?" He didn't respond but let go of me and I started to plummet towards the ground before he grabbed me. "Yeah, nevermind. I get it now." He flew after a plane that left the Avengers tower and attached to the underside of the plane.

He did this weird vacuum seal around us with the wings and used something to open a door thingy into the plane. He pulled us both into the plane and he walked into the cockpit. The plane moved slightly and he walked out of the small room. "What did you do? What are you doing?" He walked past me and started looking through the boxes of tech. "If you're going to kill me, can you just do it-" I got cut off by sirens blaring signaling something was loose on the plane. Liz's dad looked at a screen and I looked over his shoulder to see Peter hanging onto the plane. "Oh my god, he's not dead. Wait, how is he not dead?" He got back in the wings and started attacking Peter. While they were fighting, the plane lost an engine and more sirens went off. "My god, why are those so loud?" The plane started falling and I grabbed one of the boxes. "God, please save me!" A hole was made on the top of the plane and I screamed. The vulture guy grabbed one of the boxes and left me in the plane. "Well that's rude." As the plane was falling, I fell out of the hole on the top not so gracefully because I lost my grip on the box. I tried to use my powers but it was no use. It was extremely painful. Fire from the destroyed engine moved towards me and I remembered what Happy told me after the Delmar's explosion.

"When you got hit, your body took in the flames. Your body's temperature increased so much that the doctors need to wear fireproof clothes so they wouldn't get hurt. Your body couldn't handle the temperature and the fire intake so you started to shoot fire out into the room."

I let the fire hit my body and absorbed it so I could get out of the handcuffs. I burned the cuffs and flew in the direction of the plane when it crashed. I released some of the fire that I absorbed into the air and calmed it down so nothing caught on fire. I landed next to the plane wreck and started to search for Peter. "Peter? Peter!" The vulture guy grabbed Peter and I started to shoot fire at the talons. Adrian brushed me off and flew up into the air with Peter. I kept shooting fire at him and Peter got out of his grasp. He picked Peter up and dropped him repeatedly until he flew towards one of the boxes. He picked it up and tried to fly away. "Adrian, stop! Your wings!" The wings on his suit started sparking and Peter shot a web at it to try to stop him. I grabbed the web and we both tried to pull him back to the ground. "It's time to go home, kids."

"I'm trying to save you!" He cut the web and we fell on the sand. Adrian flew away and Peter tried to shoot a web but he was all out. The wings exploded and Peter pulled me down to cover me. The two of us got up and ran to move the wings. Peter burned his hand trying to lift it and I pushed the wing off because it won't burn me. Peter pulled him out and fell down next to where he dropped Liz's dad. I calmed down the fire and Peter tied him up. I heard people coming and I turned to get Peter so we could leave, but he was gone. I flew away and as I was flying, I noticed Peter sitting on the edge of a roller coaster. I flew over and sat down next to him. "Hey, Pete." He turned to look at me and I made my mask disappear. "All of that blood looks good on you. It really brings out your eyes." He started laughing and I playfully rolled my eyes. "I could say the same, Peter but you have more blood on you than me." We both laughed and I gently patted his knee. "Let's go back to my apartment so I can patch you up." He shook his head and winced. "Peter, it's either that or when May sees all of this, you'll have to deal with her freaking out." He sighed.

I teleported us to my room and checked if Carter was awake, thankfully she wasn't. We went into my bathroom and I started wiping away the blood and dirt on his face. "Thank you for this, Parker. All of this. I never realized how lonely this job was until you came around. So, thank you." I removed the washcloth from his face and smiled. "It's no problem, Peter. I'm glad that I did move out here. I made some really great friends. I guess we just needed someone who understands and we both got that." He nodded and I patched him up the best I could so he could go home. I got cleaned up and I laid down on my bed. Peter and I have gone through so much at such a young age without having someone who knows what it's like. Then we got each other and everything that was hard became easier because we could rely on the other. This is the exact opposite of what I thought would happen this year. And it's not even over yet.