Spooktober 28: Rescue

It should be first explained that sometimes, MJ liked to sit on her fire escape and do her homework, or maybe cozy up with a book. This was difficult during the colder months, when autumn was turning towards its middle, leaving a chill in the air and the promise of late October rain.

Nevertheless, MJ had gone to the library earlier this week, and bundled in enough sweaters, she could forget the cold enough to become easily immersed in her Jane Austen novel. She pretended the cigarette smoke she smelt from the open window above her were actually puffs from old-fashioned tobacco piles, and made do with the rest.

As she turned a page of her book, leafy and stained yellow from years of library use, a flash of red swerving past her peripheral caused her attention to snap up. Peter served past her, landing roughly on the wall. He clung with the tips of his gloved fingers and the toe of his boots, breathing harshly.

"MJ," he wheezed, and she blinked a few times in alarm before slamming her book closed and pulling him onto the fire escape. Peter didn't sound right. She's gone swinging with him before, and even then he had never been this out-of-breath when he'd landed— she'd always been the one gasping for air.

"What happened?" She asked quickly. Her mind spun for possibilities, foes that Peter had put away that may have come back, something having happened to Ned, to May, to Peter himself.

Peter coughed harshly, tilting his head back. It hit the brick of the wall with a thud. "Ugh."

"Peter?" She asked again, hurried, her hands coming up to hold his masked face. He was frozen to the touch, nearly hypothermic, just— just ice. She cursed and wrenched her window fully open. "Did someone do this to you?"

Peter didn't respond. He slowly sank to the side, slumping over himself limply.

MJ made a panicked, flustered noise, quickly going to stabilize him. Her heart was pounding, and she was suddenly very, very  distressed that Peter no longer was using a Stark suit.

(And she remembered how worried he'd been about it, too. How, between serving customers, she'd caught him doodling designs on the back of an essay guideline paper, how he'd gone red in the face, scratching the back of his neck with embarrassment as he guiltily rambled that he was just thinking about an upgrade that was his own...

"I just don't want to bother him anymore," Peter had explained. Powdered sugar over his top lip from his donut. "You know? 'Cuz he's like, retired, and... I don't know, I don't want to disappoint him."

She'd remembered saying firmly, her eyes soft, that she's sure Tony wouldn't mind at all, and that he was being stupid to worry so much.)

Now, hauling a freezing cold, sopping wet Peter Parker back into her bedroom, she can only think of like, one, maybe two things to do. After all, it felt like her brain was running in slow motion, a slurry of panic that she forced herself to fight through.

She first tried peeling the suit off. If Peter really was hypothermic, wet clothes were the worst thing for him. She'd watched enough documentaries and read enough books to know that. Peter remained unconscious as she catalogued with rapid succession the lack of (for once) stab wounds or bullets piercing his skin. However, his fingers and hands were pale, his lips were sort of blue, and he was covered head to toe in goosebumps.

She then checked his pulse. That was easily important. It took a few very long seconds of her moving her fingers around his wrist, frowning, shifting to his neck instead, frowning deeper, before the panic really began to set in.

"I have to be doing this wrong," she said shakily, finally pressing the palm of her hand hard against his chest and forcing her own breath to go still. Nothing. She couldn't feel anything.

Her heart did something sickening, a sinking feeling that also twisted, that looped and fell to the pit of her stomach. She leaned over him, taking his face into her hands. "Peter, wake up! Wake up, right now!"

Peter didn't even twitch. His cheeks were so cold. What could have possibly done this?

"Peter!" She said again, her hands falling to his shoulders to shake him. "Peter, come on, just— come on, wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up."

Her voice cracked. A breath shuddered from her lips, desperately thinking of anything— that's when she got it.

She tripped on the way to the suit, still soaked and leaving a dark water stain on her carpet, and began fishing through it for a pocket. She found it, heard the way it crinkled as she pulled out a ziploc bag with Peter's phone in it.

Her hands shook as she ripped open the bag, and ripped is to be taken literally. She always heard about adrenaline giving unreasonable amounts of strength, but it's never happened to her until now. She slid the unlock up and rapidly typed in Peter's passcode (61001, her birthday, because Peter Parker was a sap, and she really couldn't lose him now or ever).

Finding the contacts app was difficult with how quickly her vision was blurring. She knew her breathing was probably affecting that, and maybe this hyperventilating was also causing the tears welling up in her eyes, or maybe both were due to the fact that Peter wasn't breathing and she couldn't get a pulse and she was going to lose him and sh—

MJ hit the emergency contact button and held it up to her ear before stumbling back beside Peter. She wrestled his limp, muscley mass back into her lap, and cradled him while the phone rang for what seemed like ages.

"Pete," Tony answered, sounding chipper.

"You need to come over now," MJ rambled, a sob forcing through her throat just at the sound of Tony's voice. "I'm at my apartment. He's here, he's— He's hurt, or something, I don't know."

"Wait, what?" Tony's voice had done a complete 180, urgent and careful. There's a rustling of movement. "Slow down. Michelle, what happened?"

"I don't—" MJ forced herself to breathe. "He showed up, and he was freezing cold, and then he just— he just passed out. I brought him inside, and I can't— I can't find a pulse, I think he's—"

Her voice broke off, and she covered her mouth with her hand. She muffled another pitiful noise and then forced another deep breath. "You need to get over here, I don't know what to do."

"Does he have any injuries?" Tony asked. "Any blood?"

"No, he's just," MJ searched over him again, pressing the phone between her ear and shoulder. She shook her head. "He's just so cold. He's like ice."

There's silence for a long, suffering moment.

"Michelle," he said carefully, sounding relieved, for whatever reason. "He's okay."

"Tony," she insisted, her voice bordering on desperation. "I'm not stupid. He's not— his heart isn't beating! He needs help now."

"It's a spider thing," Tony continued, his voice placating. Like there was no reason for her to panic, even as she held Peter's unresponsive corpse-like body in her lap. "Like uh, hibernation, but for spiders."

"What?" She choked out.

"Take a deep breath with me, okay?" Tony said over the phone. MJ took the instruction with a surge of gratitude and replicated his exaggerated deep breath without question.

"Here's what you do," he said after a few more moments of breathing. "Get him warm. Did you take the suit off?"

"Yeah," she sniffled. "Yeah, it's off. It was wet, so..."

"Smart kid," Tony said encouragingly. "Okay. Get some blankets, maybe heat up a towel or something, put it on his forehead. He'll wake up naturally. You have to trust me on this."

She processed the words for a moment, and although every fiber of her being was looking down at Peter's blue lips, his unmoving face, and wanting to scream and yell, she swallowed it back. She nodded jerkily. "Yeah. Okay. I can do that."

"Good. Do you still want me to come down there? I can be there in twenty minutes, it won't be a problem."

MJ paused. "...Are you sure he'll be okay?"

"I'm sure, kiddo," Tony affirmed softly. "He's alright, just a weirdo. He's given me a heart attack a few times with this same spider stunt, it always happens around this time of year."

She carefully eased her breath. "Alright. You don't have to come down, then. I've got it."

"You sure?" Tony asked, very much giving the impression of somebody with their hands already on their keys.

"I'm sure."

"You'll call me if you change your mind?" Tony continued. "I'll be there in a flash, it's not too far away."

It was far away, and they both knew that, but they didn't say it.

"I'm okay," she said firmly. "Thank you. Sorry for freaking out."

"It was a perfectly normal reason to freak out," Tony consoled easily. "He's a freaky kid."

"He is," MJ sniffed. "Um... I'll let you get back to your... retirement... stuff."

Tony snorted, sounding incredibly amused. "Bye, Michelle."

"Bye."

Tony didn't hang up first, which MJ found oddly comforting. She ended the call, as confidently as she could be given the situation. Then she looked back down at Peter, and mentally recounted the list of things she had to do in her mind.

Warm him up. Easy enough.

She shifted him off of her lap and stood up, marching over to her bed and pulling off every single blanket, and then bundled Peter in them, one by one. She tucked the fabric in around his elbows, his neck, in between his knees, trying to make sure he'd be as warm as possible.

Then she wandered into her closet, rummaging around through her dresser until she pulled out one of her beanies— her favourite one, knitted with black yarn with two Pom-poms ears at the top. It would serve its purpose well here. She walked over and fitted the hat over Peter's head, snuggly pulling it over his ears.

She seemed satisfied enough then, watching a faint bit of colour return to Peter's face. Only then was when her shoulders finally dipped with relief, the confirmation that Peter really was alive. Of course, she had trusted Tony, because if there was one thing he was serious about it was Peter Parker's safety— this was a known fact— but it was still important to her to have it confirmed. After all, it was Peter's life, and she had thought for a withering moment ago that it had snuffed out in her very hands.

She left the room for five minutes to make tea. Two mugs, one for her and one for Peter. Green tea was her favourite, so that's the one she had on hand. The teabags are steeped in steaming water and then carried back to her room.

She was very lucky that she didn't drop both mugs upon nudging the door open with her shoulder, because when she looked, Peter was now wide-awake.

It was sort of like seeing a ghost, but of course not, because Peter had never died. Seeing him now, rubbing his eyes and yawning as if he'd just only taken a nap, she suddenly seemed awfully silly for ever thinking he had at all.

Then Peter looked back at her, and something must have shown on her face, maybe it was the paleness, or the red-rimmed eyes, or the shock, but his own expression was now full of concern. He tried to wrestle himself out of his blanket cocoon.

"Don't you dare," MJ said, and maybe it was sharper than she had planned it, but it worked. Peter shrunk back with a pout. She pressed her lips in a firm line.

"Em?" He asked quietly. "Sorry for dropping in like this without texting first. I was just really tired, and you were the closest..."

"You scared me," she pressed forward, her voice wavering a little at even the reminder of it. She walked over and sat down beside him on the carpet. She put the mugs down in front and stared him in the eyes. "You just— You really scared me."

Peter blinked a few times, his eyebrows furrowing. He worried his bottom lip under his teeth. "Oh."

"You gotta tell me when you have spider-stuff happening. I thought you died," she admitted stuffily, feeling the tears brim hot in her eyes. She still didn't look away. "Please don't do that again."

Peter softened, frowning as he nodded. "Yeah," he said in agreement. "Of course. I'm sorry."

A tear worked its way down her face, only to be wiped away quick with the swipe of her hand. She sniffled, gesturing down to the mug. "I made you tea, by the way. I thought it would warm you up. I don't know."

"Thank you," Peter murmured, still looking at her with that softness, that quiet guilt.

She sighed heavily. "It's oka—"

Peter swept forward and brought her in his arms. He was still covered in blankets, so it was warm of course, but she'd be lying if she said it was the blankets that made her blush, or feel so safe.

"It won't happen again," Peter promised into her hair. He pulled back slightly and pressed a kiss onto her forehead. "Thank you for rescuing me."

MJ rolled her eyes fondly, but smiled. "Was hardly a rescue. I had to call Tony to tell me what to do."

Peter made a noise of disagreement and kissed her temple, then her eyebrow, then the bridge of her nose. "Nope. All you. My hero."

And well, she wouldn't argue with that.