Wingspan
The Vulture hit the Oscorp cargo drone at six hundred feet and the drone came apart like a piñata.
Peter was four blocks east, on the lip of a building on Sixth Avenue, eating a pretzel he'd bought from the cart at Forty-Second. He had mustard on his glove. The spider-sense went off two seconds before the explosion and he was already moving when the fireball bloomed over midtown and pieces of the drone started raining down on Forty-Fifth Street.
He dropped the pretzel. Swung.
The wingsuit was different. He could see that from two blocks out. The first Vulture fight had been a green-and-brown rig with electromagnetic lifters and a sixty-foot span. This one was smaller. Tighter. The wings had a metallic edge that caught the sunset and the turns were faster and the whole thing moved like a rig that had been rebuilt by someone who knew what went wrong the first time.
Toomes was hauling a cargo container from the wreckage of the drone, one hand on the harness, the other working a control panel on his forearm. He was wearing a helmet now. The face was hidden.
Peter hit him from below.
Web-line to the container, swinging up and around, feet-first into Toomes's chest. The impact should have knocked him sideways. Instead the wings stabilized, compensating, and Toomes barely rocked. He looked at Peter through the helmet visor and his voice came through a speaker in the faceplate.
"Kid. I told you this wasn't over."
A wing came at Peter's head. He ducked. The edge passed close enough to part his hair and the razor tip cut the web-line holding him to the container and he was falling.
He shot a new line. Caught a building. Swung wide. Toomes dropped the container onto a rooftop and came after him.
The fight moved west. Peter used buildings for cover this time. He stayed close to the facades, swinging between buildings, using ledges and water towers and the gap between structures to break Toomes's flight lines. Toomes was faster in the upgraded rig but the wings needed open space to maneuver and the narrow streets of midtown turned that advantage into a problem.
Peter webbed a water tower off its supports. It crashed across Forty-Third Street and Toomes had to pull up and the hesitation gave Peter an opening and he landed on the wingsuit from above. His feet on the harness. His hands on the wing joints. He pulled.
The wings fought back. Electromagnetic actuators, stronger than before, and Toomes rolled and Peter lost his grip and a wing clipped him across the ribs. Hard. The suit tore. His left web-shooter cracked against the wing surface and the mechanism jammed and he was falling again with one shooter and a torn suit and midtown was a long way down.
He shot a line with his right hand. It caught. He swung. Hit the side of a building, caught himself on the brickwork, and the left web-shooter dangled from his wrist, dead.
Toomes came around for another pass. The wings were fully extended, razor edges forward, and Peter was on the side of a building with one web-shooter and cracked ribs and no good options.
A web-line hit Toomes in the face.
Organic. The color was wrong. Thinner than Peter's, more translucent, with a sheen that caught the light. The line stuck to the helmet visor and Toomes clawed at it and his flight path jerked sideways and he plowed through a billboard advertising a Broadway show and came out the other side trailing shredded vinyl.
Peter looked down.
Cindy was on a rooftop four stories below him. Hoodie. Jeans. A scarf tied around the lower half of her face. Her hair was loose and wild and she had her arm extended, organic webbing trailing from her fingertips, and she was grinning behind the scarf. He could see it in her eyes.
"You dropped this!" She tossed his web-shooter. The throw was perfect, arcing up to him, and he caught it one-handed and snapped it back onto his wrist and the mechanism clicked and held.
"What are you doing here?"
"The compass went to ten. I followed the explosions."
Toomes ripped the webbing off his visor. Saw Cindy on the rooftop. Saw two of them. His wings reconfigured, tightening, and he dove.
Peter swung to intercept. Cindy jumped.
She was faster than him. He'd known that from training but seeing it in the open, fifty stories up, was different. She moved through the air like the air was hers, organic web-lines firing from both hands, trajectory changes so quick that Toomes couldn't track her. She drew him west, away from the crowded street, and Toomes chased.
Peter flanked. While Toomes was turned toward Cindy he came in from the east, high, and webbed the left wing at the joint. Cindy saw it and fired a line at the right wing at the same moment, organic silk wrapping around the actuator housing. They pulled in opposite directions. The wings locked. Toomes's flight went from controlled to tumbling and he pitched forward and the rig fought itself and Peter dropped onto him from above and webbed the control panel on his forearm and ripped it free.
The wings went dead. Toomes fell.
Peter caught him. One web-line, anchored to a building, bearing Toomes's weight plus the dead rig. He lowered him to a rooftop on Forty-Fourth and the old man hit the tar paper hard and didn't get up.
Peter landed next to him. Cindy landed a second later. Her scarf had slipped down around her chin and she was breathing hard and her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wide.
Toomes groaned. Rolled onto his back. Looked up at two spider-powered people standing over him.
"There's two of you," he said. "There's two of you and I'm too old for this."
Peter webbed him to the rooftop. Secured the wings. The sirens were already starting.
They made it three rooftops east before Cindy grabbed his face.
Both hands. She turned him toward her and her eyes were huge and bright and she was shaking. Her whole body was vibrating, her hands on his cheeks, her breath coming in fast bursts and she was grinning so wide he could see every tooth.
"Again," she said.
"We almost died."
"AGAIN."
She kissed him. His mask was pushed up to his nose and her scarf was around her chin and she kissed him and she was laughing into his mouth and the adrenaline was coming off her in waves and the compass hit ten and stayed there. She grabbed the front of his suit and pulled him closer and her tongue was in his mouth and her hands were shaking and she pulled back just far enough to breathe.
"That was the best thing that's ever happened to me," she said.
"We fought a man with razor wings."
"THE BEST THING."
She kissed him again. Shorter. Then she stepped back and looked at her hands. The organic webbing was forming at her fingertips without her trying, thick threads that glittered in the fading light.
"I need a costume," she said.
"You need a name."
She looked at him. Then at her hands. She pulled a thread from her fingertip and it came out long, thin, translucent. She stretched it between her hands. Tested the tension. It held. She pulled another. And another. Layering them, crossing them, pressing them together with her thumbs. The threads fused where she pressed, forming a sheet, a fabric, and it was coming from her body and she was making it and her face was focused and intense and the sunset was on her hair and Peter watched her work and his chest ached.
She held up a square of silk. Six inches. Translucent white with a red sheen where the light caught it.
"I'm going to make the whole thing," she said. "From me. My webs. My design." She looked at him. "Mine."
"Yours," he said.
She went back to weaving. Her fingers moved fast, pulling threads, pressing them, forming the next sheet. She was making a costume on a rooftop in midtown and the sirens were still going below them and Peter sat on the edge of the roof and watched her work.
A siren separated from the pack below. Peter looked down.
A black SUV had pulled up at the crash site on Forty-Fourth. Tactical team, four people in dark jackets, moving efficiently through the wreckage. They were collecting wing fragments with scanners and evidence bags. Military-grade equipment.
The blonde woman was directing the operation. Same woman from the first Vulture fight. She'd been in civilian clothes then. Now she was wearing a jacket with a patch on the shoulder that Peter could read from six stories up with spider-enhanced vision. SHIELD.
She looked up. Straight at him. Straight at Cindy on the rooftop behind him, threads of organic webbing trailing from her fingers.
The woman spoke into an earpiece. Peter couldn't hear the words but he could read the shape of her mouth. She was reporting. Two subjects. Partner confirmed. Different power source.
She held his gaze for three seconds. Then she went back to the wing fragments.
Peter looked at Cindy, weaving on the rooftop. Looked at the SHIELD team below. The blonde woman's back was turned.
Cindy held up another sheet of silk. Bigger. She pressed it against her arm, testing the fit.
"Hey," she said. "What do you think about red?"
"I think red's good."
"Red and white. With black. My school colors are red and white."
"Your hero costume is going to match your school colors?"
"It's a COINCIDENCE."
He smiled. She went back to weaving. The sun went down. The city got louder. The SHIELD team finished collecting and the black SUV pulled away and the blonde woman didn't look up again.
Peter sat on the rooftop and watched Cindy Moon weave. The compass was at eight. His ribs hurt. The pretzel was gone.
He was going to need more pretzels.