The center of the city was becoming a different kind of place.
Smoke from various fires was rising above the streets as Maggia soldiers destroyed everything within reach.
Police officers were pushing back but the priority had shifted to civilians, and the soldiers were using that against them.
Yuriko Watanabe, who on an ordinary day was a composed and striking woman, was currently crouched behind a barrier with blood on her face from a head wound and a bullet graze on her shoulder that she had pressed a handkerchief against, knowing it would not hold indefinitely.
Only John, Trish, and she were still functional.
The others were down.
The Maggia were not giving them any room to retreat even if retreating had been an option they were willing to take.
"AHHHH!"
"John!" She was on her feet and at his side before he had finished falling, her face doing everything it could to process what she was seeing.
He had been shot in the chest.
She was applying pressure before she was fully aware that she was doing it. "No, no, no! Look at me, John! Keep breathing! Do not close your eyes! You hear me?!"
The blood kept coming through her hands. "Damn it! John! Keep breathing, do not s-...."
The gun touched the back of her head and she stopped.
"NOOO!" Trish screamed, throwing herself forward and being caught by another soldier, who also had a weapon raised and aimed.
"Die, you damn bitch!"
Bang.
The man holding the gun fell to the ground holding his hand because there was a hole in it.
Bang. Bang.
Two more shots.
The man on the ground and the man holding Trish both went down.
Spider-Man landed on the police van with his gun in his hand, the barrel trailing a thread of smoke, and behind the mask his expression was not one that would have been mistaken for calm by anyone who could see it.
"Cortana," he said.
"Kill all cameras in this sector and delete the recordings. I do not want any eyes on what I am about to do."
He pressed the mechanism on the gun and it collapsed back into its cube, which he stored.
He drew his blades. "Because I am about to become something very dangerous to all of these insects. And this will not be a pleasant sight."
"Understood."
He spun on his axis, avoided a kick, and rather than blocking the second one drove his blade into the man's thigh and twisted it.
The man fell. He drove the blade into his eye.
He felt nothing as he moved through them.
He went numb in the specific way that comes when something that matters has been threatened by something that should not be alive long enough to have done it.
He twisted and held a man's arm and kicked him in the ribs hard enough that the arm came away.
John was important to Yuri. And Yuri was important to him.
He grabbed the last man by the neck, lifted him, and hit him with the kind of force that produced blood on his visor.
He released the man and looked up at the sky that was beginning to shift toward evening, blood running down his blades and his mask.
"S.... Spider-Man?" Trish said carefully, getting up and approaching him.
He grunted in acknowledgment without speaking.
He webbed her wounds with the efficiency of someone doing triage rather than first aid, and lifted her carefully.
"Let us go," he said, carrying her toward Yuri and John. He set Trish down next to Yuri, moved Yuri back from John's side, and looked at her directly.
"Get in the van. Take as many officers with you as can move. Go."
"But what is...."
"I will take John to the hospital." The tone did not leave room for negotiation. Yuri understood this.
He picked John up, patted his cheek. "Hang on, idiot. Everything is going to be alright."
He grabbed John firmly and began moving, swinging toward the nearest hospital.
John spoke from his arms as they moved.
"Hey.... S.... Spidey.... promise me al-...."
"Shut your mouth. I will not promise you anything." He kept moving. "Just shut up and do not close your eyes. Do not go toward the light. You hear me?"
"Hahaha." John laughed through the pain, leaning slightly toward him.
"You know, you are the closest thing to a brother. Please take care of Yuri. As an orphan she took care of me in every way she could.
She lit me up. You somehow understood me. You are both the closest thing I have ever had to family. You.... y-...."
"Shut up, shut up!" He interrupted because he refused to hear the rest of it. "Please. Just shut up."
"You are my hero," John said, smiling as tears came out of his eyes. "I wish I could be like you."
"I am not a hero! How many times have I said that?! I kill people! I kill people! I am the furthest thing from a hero!" He was moving faster now.
"Why would you want to be like me?! Do you think I am immortal?! Shut your mouth and let me concentrate!"
"I do not give a damn what the world thinks of you," John said.
"You are a hero to me. You are my hero. You are Trish's and Yuri's hero. You saved us. I wish I could do the same." He smiled as his strength began to leave him.
"We can all be heroes, John. You already are. You hear me? Now let me focus!"
"Thanks. Hey." A pause.
"Can you at least tell me your real name? I promise I will take your secret to my grave." He managed something that was almost a laugh.
"That is funny to me."
"Do you think this is a joke?!"
"I got my wish. I got to screw the bad guys. I got to save people. I do not regret it, man. Maybe there is something else I wish I had done."
A bloody smile. "I wish I had lost my virginity."
"You are an idiot," Spider-Man said, and felt something in him that was complicated and genuine and completely unwelcome at this particular moment. "Why did you not say something sooner? I could have arranged something."
"N-Nah. It would have been too embarrassing and it is too precious. And I am not giving it to someone I would have to pay.... Just kidding. Come on, man. Tell me."
"Peter Parker," he said, landing in front of the hospital and running inside. "My real name is Peter Parker."
John's eyes opened wide.
"Wow. I never expected that behind the mask was a handsome young man who is slowly becoming a millionaire with innovative inventions that are saving lives right now."
He was fading but his voice carried something warm and genuine in it. "Tell me how you do all of it."
"Because I am Man-Spider," he said, running through the entrance. "Hey! This man needs immediate medical attention! Now!"
"So I have come to know," John said softly, reaching up and patting his head with the hand that still had strength in it.
"That having a brother is not so bad after all."
"John. Please...."
"No." He smiled. "Just.... shh." He hit Spider-Man's chest with his fist, a gentle impact, and he felt it like something far heavier.
John's hand found his and he took it firmly. "You.... you are my hero, Peter Parker."
"....."
"It does not matter what they say about you, Peter. Never change. Do not stop doing what you do. Do not stop, Peter."
His voice softened to something barely above breath. "Just.... don't.... stop."
The force left his hand. It fell to the side of the stretcher.
Spider-Man stood where he was.
He had lost count of the bodies he had seen.
Most of them his own work.
Others the product of the violence of people far more willing to cause it than he was. He had been present for all of them and none of them had felt like this.
Why was this one different? Why did it hurt at this specific level?
"I am sorry to say this, Mr. Spider-Man," the doctor said softly, clearly affected by being in the presence of the famous, or infamous, Spider-Man and also by the information he was delivering.
"The young man is no longer with us. It is remarkable that he lasted as long as he did with his injuries. He had tremendous will. I am sorry I could not do more."
"He is dead," Spider-Man said.
The words tasted like something wrong. His vision was becoming imprecise.
He was crying.
He was actually crying.
"Where is he?! Where-...." Yuri came through the entrance at speed, followed by Trish and a visibly worried George Stacy. "Where is John?! Why are you so quiet?! Answer me!"
"He is dead," Spider-Man said, and almost choked on it.
"What?" Yuri whispered.
"No, no, no! You are lying! Tell me you are lying! This cannot be!" She looked at him with the face of someone desperately seeking a contradiction. "Tell me you are lying!"
"He is dead." As gently and as firmly as he could make it.
"No, no, no! No! No...." She began to sob, pressing her face into his chest. "Please. Tell me you are lying."
"I.... I wish I were lying." He put his arms around her, hesitantly, trying. "I genuinely wish I were."
John had left.
'But the men who sent him here are still alive.'
He clenched his fists. He held himself very still for a moment.
"I am going to destroy every single one of those sons of bitches," he said quietly, stroking Yuri's hand, "and you will enjoy every second of it. Every one of them will wish it were winter."
He released her hand gently and began walking, moving past George and Trish toward the exit without a word.
"Where are you going?" George said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You know I cannot let you...."
"Not today, Captain." He turned and looked at him. "Today.... today they will pay."
"You know I cannot allow this." His hand moved toward his holster.
"Understood," Spider-Man said, and kept walking.
"Spider-Man! Stop...."
He spun a web around George's hands and feet before he finished the sentence.
"Be a good captain and stay here," he said, as everyone in the hospital went tense around them.
"The city is in ruins and your department is not performing optimally, which means New York is at risk of a complete breakdown."
"That is not...."
"Shut the hell up before I force you to." The cold tone landed and produced silence.
"You are losing people. If this continues the casualty count will not decrease. Look at this."
He pointed at the room around them, the cuts and stab wounds and gunshot wounds, the nurses and doctors doing everything possible in a space that was running out of room and running out of time.
"If it were not for the medical robots deployed across the city, civilian deaths would already be in an unmanageable range.
And every second we spend talking, the number of injured or dead goes up. Whether it is a civilian or one of our own."
"But that is not reason enough to...."
"It is reason enough," he said, turning back toward the exit. "If you cannot help, get out of my way. Or I will treat you the way I am going to treat those Maggia bastards. Cortana, I want all the...."
"Wait!" Trish came running after him.
"I will help."
"I will help too."
Other officers followed her out of the group, their expressions carrying something that had not been there before, looking at him with it.
"Count me in too," Dan said.
He had not expected that. He turned and looked at him. Dan's expression was flat and direct and something close to resolved.
"I will help as well," Yuri said quietly, moving toward him, her eyes red and still wet. She reached his hand and intertwined her fingers with his.
"Okay," he said, and gripped her hand firmly. "Let us do this." He looked at all of them. "For John."
"FOR JOHN!"