A New Hero - Peter Parker (BOOK 1) | Spider-Man: Far From Home

Chapter Twenty-Four - The Art Of Bluffing (Part Two)

Content Warning - Physical harm with a knife from one character to another.

Peter swallowed nervously, a lump rising to his throat. "How do I know this isn't another trick?" He asked, looking for flaws in the design in front of him - looking for a way to tell that what he was seeing was fake as he hoped that was the case.

Beck growled in frustration. "Does this look like another trick, Peter?" He tugged on Clara's shirt, her head falling back on her shoulders to reveal her face in more clarity, her hair falling away from covering her face. Clara's eyes seemed hollow, dark rings circling them and making it appear as though she hadn't slept for days.

Clara's eyes met his through the black mask he wore. He had never seen them as dull as there were; there was nothing behind them, it was as if her soul had left her body, leaving behind an empty vessel. Was this real? Was it really her or just another trick?

Peter's hesitation told Beck that he had no clue what he should be doing. Without any pause for thought on Beck's part, the man pushed the pistol back into the holster, pulling a knife from his waist band.

Before Peter could have a chance to react to even his change in sidearm, Beck let Clara fall fully to the floor, a cloud of dust pluming from under her. Landing on her side, Clara instinctively began to curl into a fetal position. She felt a new wave of exhaustion pass over her - possibly from being dropped into a comparably more comfortable position.

Beck yanked her right arm up towards him, stretching the limb up as he gripped her wrist tightly. She winced at the yanking motion, feeling a jolt at her elbow and shoulder. Then, Beck drew the blade of the knife clean across her forearm. A trail of blood appearing in its wake.

Clara gasped, the pain bringing her sanity back for a moment, long enough to feel the searing against her skin as her vision sharpened. The effect didn't last long though, her eyes rolling to the back of her skull as she lost consciousness yet again, only brought back a second later by the yelling from Beck that ensued.

"Does this look like another trick, Peter?" The cut hadn't been deep enough to cause any real harm, but it was enough to draw a thick line of blood and warrant, at the very least, a row of stitches. Quentin kept his grip on Clara's wrist as she tried meekly to pull it away, her energy lessening by the second.

"Stop!" Peter cried out.

"Give me names, Peter!" Beck yelled at him, dropping the knife to the floor. Crouching beside her, he used his now free hand to grip Clara's forearm, pressing his nails into the cut, blood seeping between his fingers to run down his hand.

Clara screamed. Oh, she screamed. Agony ripped through her and it felt as if her arm was on fire, burning away at her flesh. She sucked in a lungful of air, coughing as a new cloud of dust was pulled in alongside the oxygen.

"Ned!" Peter yelled out, his voice breaking as he did, hating himself for giving the names of his friends, but he had to - he had to save Clara. "And MJ. Just them- just Ned and MJ. Please, stop!"

Peter's chest heaved and his eyes flitted between Beck and the girl he hovered above. The following moment seemed to stretch on for lifetimes, the man dropping the arm he was holding and rising from his crouching position to straighten his back.

Clara pulled herself into a ball, clutching her arm, her entire body shaking with fear. She couldn't even cry as she stared wide-eyed at the dusty floor, the adrenaline already wearing of to give way to even heavier levels of fatigue.

Beck stepped over her and approached Peter - she was powerless to do anything; she couldn't save herself, nor could she save Peter.

The drones trailed Beck, the projectors whirring to life, projecting images around the two of them as they blocked Peter out of the real word. "What are you doing?" He cried out, desperate to get to Clara. "You said you'd let us go!"

"No, Peter, I didn't." A twisted grimace was on his face as he pressed closer. Peter stepped backwards as he did.

Clara could feel a distance rumble moving through the ground, silent tears now slipping down her cheeks, soaking into the ground beneath her. "I told you that if you had told me the names in the first place, you both could have lived."

Peter panicked as non-existent objects flew towards him, his arms passing through them like birds flying through a cloud as he tried to bat them away. Clara felt the rumble in the ground grow, a small pebble in front of her eyes shaking in its place. She slowly lifted her head from the ground, watching Peter waving his hands through the air, the objects appearing as electronic blue shapes from outside of the illusion.

A glinting piece of metal caught her eye, as her head began its journey back to the dirt, too weak to hold itself up anymore. Clara clenched her jaw, fighting against pain as she stretched her bleeding arm towards the discarded knife. A small smile reached her lips as her hand grasped onto the handle, and she pulled it towards her, tucking it under her body.

The smile quickly faded though, an electronic hiss in the air paired with a whisper of metal on metal making Clara realise where the vibrations in the ground were coming from. Her head snapped towards the railway tracks, Peter stumbling backwards on to them. "Peter, no!" The warning was too late, the boy's head jerking forward to look directly at her, just as the train plummeted into him.

She watched as his body was crippled by the force, ripped from the ground and disappearing with train as it passed into an unlit tunnel. Clara's mouth hung open, her bottom lip quivering as if there should be a scream leaving her lungs.

Beck turned back, staring at her tortured expression, his lips moving as he spoke. She couldn't hear his words. Everything was silent and she felt as if her heart was motionless in her chest, her blood freezing in her veins.

Beck lowered himself in front of Clara, a hand reaching for her chin and he twisted her head to face him, giving the girl a sympathetic smile. She stared right through him, blind to the world around her.

Her vision finally began to fade, darkness moving in on her vision, and she welcomed the dying light with opened arms, begging it to take her away. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to have to face any more horror the man had in store for her. Whatever drug was in her system had just needed more time to power through her veins and now it was finally pulling her under for good.

Peter Parker was dead.

Clara Wilson had watched him die and now, she was dying too.

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