Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

Bridge and Love's Burning

Spooktober 18: Bridge

In physics class, Peter's junior year, Mrs. Warren showed the class a video to demonstrate the importance of physical tension.

"We all know what gravity does, don't we?" She said, looking around the classroom. "It's famous for one thing, hm?"

Yeah, weighing us down, Peter had thought, and he ducked his head down to hide a smile.

The class murmured in agreement, nodding with a vague disinterest.

"Well, I have one question for you all. If gravity keeps everything pulled down, then how do bridges stay up?" She asked.

Peter obviously had an answer in his head, he understood the concepts, it wasn't complicated. Support beams and pillars gave the bridge a compressed structure, and something to sit the weight on, and then things like suspension cables and trusses kept it all together with a glorious mixture of tension and compression. (Basically.)

"Sure, perfect," Mrs. Warren nodded. "And what happens if we add more weight, more stress, to the bridge? Or if it was built incorrectly, if an engineer got an equation wrong? Maybe an environmental factor wasn't added in, maybe, maybe, maybe, what if, what if, what if."

She showed them a video. The Galloping Gertie, a name that had the whole class snickering, cracking jokes back and forth— even though the video had them all stunned into a kind of horrified awe. In grey, silent footage, the steel contraption twisting and moving as if it were alive, before it cut to the bridge crashing into the water below— the remaining parts still weaving in the wind.

"That was crazy," someone spoke up. Mrs. Warren shut the video off.

"So, a bridge is designed, whether intentionally or not, to break," she explained. "Say you're hired to fix it. What do you do? What steps would you take?"

One student raised their hand, quipped: "Make a new chorus to 'London Bridge Is Falling Down'?"

And everyone had laughed, because it was funny.

Peter, at the moment, was not laughing.

Actually, at this moment in time, the idea of the Manhattan Bridge collapsing made him want to throw up— but his mask was on, and he had a job to do, so unfortunately 'getting sick into the East River' wasn't on his itinerary tonight. Maybe next time.

"Is there any way I can undo this?" Peter asked, his gloved hands fluttering around like an anxious bird. He doesn't know what he can touch.

"The bomb squad has been alerted," Karen said solemnly. Several glowing points show up in the middle of the bridge on Peter's HUD. "It seems each of the bombs have been located in a different spot. The possibilities of disarming each on time and evacuating everybody on the bridge safely is 33%."

"33%," Peter muttered. "33%. Can I do 33%?"

"That is a 67% chance of injury or death. I am instructed per my programming to alert Mr. Stark if the chance of death is 0.99% or greater," Karen recited. She sounded nervous. Or maybe Peter was projecting, but he liked to think she sounded nervous. He was nervous. He was very, very nervous.

"Aw, he cares!" Peter laughed breathlessly. He quickly walked back and forth. "Karen, what's the best way to evacuate everybody?"

A thousand thoughts race through his mind. People don't usually listen to him unless there was danger right in front of their noses, and even then, panic was usually their first response, not listening to the scrawny guy in all red and blue.

He briefly let the terror of his situation kick in. Images of people screaming, of fire, flame, smoke, chunks of bridge crashing into the water like from that video.