Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

A Karmic Killer

⚠️dark Peter sort of? He's,,, he's not in a good space⚠️

Spooktober 23: Anger

Peter was dead silent as he stalked forward towards the man on the other side of the warehouse. He had a dark hood on, but Peter had heard from the police radio that this was supposed to be the same person who did it, that he had decided to run and hide in an abandoned warehouse and they had just found his location.

But Peter needed to be the first on the scene. This was his right.

"Woah—Who the hell are you? Some kid in pyjamas? Go away, pipsqueak. This ain't the time to—"

The man's voice made him sick to his stomach. He yanked the gun away and slammed it into ground, letting it shatter from sheer force of his throw. The bullets roll out from the disassembled magazine onto the floor, taking refuge next to the other splintered pieces.

He shoved the man back against the wall, and a loud crack resounded from it as well as the man's cry of pain. Peter yanked his sleeve up. As he has suspected, a star tattoo sat imprinted on his left wrist, and Peter felt his expression darken.

"Please," the man pleaded. His voice was shaking. Just like Ben's must have been. It satisfied a primal urge in his gut to see the man look at him in terror. "Don't hurt me! I'll— I'll give you whatever you want! You want money? I got money, kid—"

"You murdered a man last week, and you want to look me in the eyes and make a request?" Peter grit out lowly. "Are you quoting people now? Did he say the same thing before you shot him in the chest?"

He picked the man up from where his hands were clutched around the hoodie's collar and throws him to the floor. Within seconds he's on top of the man and throwing punches to his face, the anger snapping repeatedly, over and over again with every desperate gasp of air the man takes.

He had heard the same desperate gasps from his uncle, a week ago, in the same darkness. He had heard them shudder wetly in his lungs, and they mixed with the sounds of Peter's sobs as he tried to keep pressure on the wound. Sometimes he could still feel the blood gushing over his hands. Sometimes he could still feel the hoarseness of his throat from screaming until it was raw.

Peter's hands shook violently and he pulled back for just a moment to catch his breath. He hadn't realized how fast it had gotten, he hadn't realized how quickly his heart was pounding against his ribcage.

"I'm sorry," the man croaked. "Please don't kill me."

Peter fought back a laugh, bitter and ugly and tearsoaked, and he shook his head. "You have no idea what that means to me."

Peter could kill him.

It's a realization that should have been frightening. But it wasn't. Not when Ben was no longer there to go home to, and not when May had woken up crying again this morning, and not when Peter has a funeral to go to in the next some odd days, and not when Peter could still see Ben's dying face if he kept his eyes closed long enough.

There was something sick and twisted left where Peter's heart had broken that night. It called out for revenge. He had the strength to do it. It could be easy. He didn't want to, though. He doesn't think he wants to.

Peter sniffled, because the anger he felt sometimes was too empty to bear, and he's starting to realize how tired he is and how swollen his knuckles are.

He's going to let him go. There's nothing else he can do, and he knows that. Killing isn't the answer. He won't stoop that low, and he knows how disgusted he'll feel tomorrow when he remembers it was almost a thought in his head at all. Peter looks over at the man helplessly, hoping to find something that would tell him what to do.

The man's hood had fallen back in the fight, and despite the blood covering his face, Peter thought that he looked so...

(The man had handed him a soda can. Peter had been a few cents short, that was all. Then the man stole cash from the register.

It was wrong, but Peter was tired. Exhausted, even. He looked the other way.

"Help! That guy stole cash, he's getting away! Someone help! Hey kid!"

"Sorry, man. I've got bigger things to worry about." A lie. A big, big, lie. He didn't think it would cost him this much.)

... Familiar.

Oh god.

Peter gasped sharply and stood up, stumbling back from the man. He let him get away. He let him rob the store, the same night that Ben died. The same gun. The same face. The blood was on his hands, it was his fault. His fault. His fault, his fault, his fault.

"No," Peter shook his head. "No, no, no! I— I know you."

("Son, just put down the gun."

He had heard a gunshot, walking back home. That was enough to grab anybody's attention. People were running, the streets were clear, all that Peter saw was someone bleeding on the road.)

His fault, his fault, HIS FAULT—

Peter fell to his knees and dug his fists into the concrete until it crumbled under his hands. The train hits him, a crushing weight slamming on his heart. "I'm so sorry," he choked. "I'm— I—"

He wasn't apologizing for the man. In this moment, Peter kneeled in front of Ben, his legacy, his memory, his words. He kneeled for his own selfishness, he kneeled for his own deadly mistake, he kneeled for May, he kneeled for himself.

Karma was a cruel mistress, her swords are her gifts and she expects you to die by them in divisions of your own creation. This was Peter's sword, and he could feel it ripping at his soul piece by piece now, so he pleads for that too.

The man took the opportunity to pick his sprained body off the ground and scramble out of the warehouse. Peter could hear sirens outside, distantly through his thoughts. The man would be caught the moment he stepped out, handcuffed and arrested immediately for manslaughter.

The man would never know that the figure who visited him would one day be the hero known as Spider-Man. He would never know that he almost didn't walk out of the warehouse that day, for just a split second. He would never know the biggest part of his miraculous escape from death was because of the legacy left by the very man he took a life from.

As for Peter—The anger stage left as quickly as it had come with the realization of his own guilt. He had a responsibility to protect. He knew that now. He should have known before...

The line between revenge and justice is a wall, and for Ben he would learn to scale it, and in learning to do so, he would become New York's favourite vigilante.

But that was a later chapter, because for now, he needed to get home. May was waiting up on him for dinner, and he had tears to dry.

a/n: lmao do you guys ever think about how Peter confronting Ben's killer for the first time was the same moment he could have just as easily been a villain? because I think about that every moment. unhinged peter is something that can be so terrifying