"She really is just... exquisite, Maya."

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? A way to get back at me?"

"By not allowing us to move forward with this experiment, you are betraying not only this company, but your daughter. Just think of the warm, happy, long life she could live. Great health; never having to worry."

"No, no, Killian. You're lying. You don't care about her future, you don't care about helping or saving her. You want her for your own selfish reasons. Look, she is not your little lab rat, and I will not be your lap dog any longer. You cannot groom and manipulate me and my daughter into this. I mean, it is just barbaric. It completely goes againt everything that A.I.M was supposed to stand for; our rights as human beings for a long and healthy life. You would hardly cast a second thought if Bonnie died, Killian, and you know that. You'd just be mad that you'd have another body to dispose of and another murder to cover up, and I will not let you do that. Over my dead body--"

"Oh, honey. Maya, sweetheart, I think 'human rights' burnt out a long time ago along with Chad Davis and the rest of those unfortunate, desperate... idiots. Get out, get out of my laboratory. Run experiment 1 on test subject: thirteen. Bring her in boys, and let's pray she's not as fucking stubborn as her mother."

-

I shiver. Whether it's from the sudden drop in temperature or the anxiety or the trauma flashbacks plauguing me, I'm unsure.

Three minutes, fifty-eight seconds.

Three minutes, fifty-nine seconds.

Four minutes.

I have been waiting outisde for Peter Parker for far too long, and the urge to abandon our plan and run in to save or help him is the only thought sprialling around in my head. What if I walk in, and he is dead? What if I walk in and he is crumpled on the floor, broken and beaten and bleeding? And I could have prevented it. And I could have saved him. And I could have at least been with him in his last moments. The sight of his body strewn across the floor, the sound of his screaming and sobs echo around in my head and cause a physical sickness to overwhelm my body, I shake the terrifying thoughts from my psyche and remind myself that Peter Parker is strong, and fully capable in standing his own in hand-to-hand combat. I throw up a disgusting concoction of synthetic fruit soda and vodka, before gathering my jumbled up insides and nerves enough to walk over to the doors. I have been through so much worse in my life, and I cannot allow myself to be afraid of much more for any longer. And honestly, the idea of losing Peter Parker is the most frightening and terrifying thing imaginable to me.

"Peter?" I call for him, before finding him located in the dead centre of the intustrial warehouse, Mr. Toomes stood several feet infront him and resting his palms against a scratched wooden table or work bench.

"Bonnie, get out. What are you doing?" his tone is serious and yet desperate, almost as if he is pleading with me.

"No, no, Peter I am not leaving you--"

"Well," Toomes interrupts us, "I had never pictured a Stark partnered up with Spider-Man, but I suppose there are new surprises every day. I thought I recognised you from those old scandals in the paper your father would often be in. Young girl, why don't you run off back to daddy and let the big boys handle it? I mean, don't you think it's rather pathetic, Peter? These people, they don't care about our kind. These rich, bloodsucking, exploitive people take what they want, they drain hardworkers like me and you of our livelihoods and our money and they call it something cute like a 'Christmas Bonus' or in little missys case here, a Dior handbag. I am sorry, Peter."

Toomes chuckles to himself as his weaponised vulture wings tear through the space and the room around us, brutally smashing into the concrete pillars supporting the ceiling of the infrastructure. I feel a seething heat rush through my body, poking piping hot pins and needles into my feet and legs and chest and eventually my whole body. The skin of my fingertips feel charred while my heart thumps in my chest, but... nothing happens.

In the split second I take my eyes away from the slowly nearing roof, Peter and I glance over at each other from other sides of the building, before complete pitch black surrounds us.

And I am sure in that moment that I am dead.

I'm not sure how long my eyes were shut or if I had even lost consciousness at all from the impact of the heavy ceiling crushing down on top of me, but once I saw the dust settle around me through my damp mascara-coated lashes, the shock caused a feeling as if someone was prying my eyelids apart. My whole body aches under the tonnes and tonnes of thick plaster and concrete. Thankfully, I had been on the outskirts of the room when the roof caved in and collapsed down, so my life had been salvaged alongside what I expect to be several broken ribs.

The taste of unconsciousness tickles my tongue and entices me with a flavour that has never seemed so sweet. My head begins to drop back down onto the ash-coated floor as I attempt to contort my body to a position where I can see the whole of the room through blurred vision to locate Peter and the rest of my crumpled body. I breathe a sigh of relief as I find my arms strewn out in front of me, terrified that perhaps adrenaline had been a pain-killer for some torn off limbs.

I attempt to scream out for Peter and rummage my way through the scraps to find him, but the heavy concrete ceiling keeps me constricted to the floor, unable to move. My voice leaves my mouth and reaches the dusty air around me, a pathetic whisper that is hardly audible. I realise my face has become damp with tears.

"Bonnie? Bonnie, please tell me you're alive! I swear... Please just say something, say anything so I know that you're not dead." Peter's breathing speeds up to deafening hyperventilation as he screams and pleads until I swear his throat must be bleeding and torn.

All I can do is cry.

My try to contort my lips into making proper words but the sobs choke me and refrain me from being able to speak. My whole body begins to sting and ache until I am certain that I will pass out on the spot or perhaps just die altogether.

"Help! Someone help! Please, we're stuck down here and I can't move and—" his voice breaks. "Bonnie, please, you just need to say something, I just need to make sure that you're still alive. Please, I love you. I really love you and—"

"I... am... alive." I force out, unsure on whether my raspy croak is enough for him to hear. My voice catches in my throat, leaving me to cough up a small pool of blood onto the concrete beside me.

I think I can hear him sigh from relief. "B— Bonnie? Is that— is that you? Are you alive? Can you move? Are you stuck?"

I try to force myself up from underneath the concrete pillar pinning me to the ground, propping myself up so far on my palms. Every bone in my body threatens to snap as the overwhelming weight on top of me is provoking exhaustion, until my arms give way and a disgusting crunch echoes around me before my wrist is enveloped in so much pain, a shriek parts my lips. I scream until I feel my throat turning raw as I collapse back down onto the concrete, cradling my injury.

The chunks begin to rise in my throat, "Peter," I sob, "I just broke my wrist. I'm stuck... I— I can't get out. I can't move. Just help yourself and go, please. Stop Toomes and— and leave me here. There's no way I'm getting out."

"I'm not leaving you, Bonnie. Come on, just, just push." His voice is uncertain though flooded with a false sense of assurance.

I sob, "I can't. I can't, Peter."

"You can, I swear, I promise. Just, just try, please."

I attempt to slow my breathing as the sobs quickly turn into gasps which turn into hyperventilation. Pushing my teeth down into my bottom lip to stop myself from crying out in pain, I realise how much I wish I had control over my powers and my abilities. Since Washington, there's been no sign of them at all returning. I had ventured back into the woods several evenings, almost daily, after we had arrived back home from the trip, to push myself to see if my powers had any incline of working again. Not even once did a branch set alight or a twig snap. The majority of the nights I would spend crying, disgusted at the realisation that the thing I once hated and loathed— the thing that came from Him and His experiments— I desperately wanted back. I wanted them back because it reminded me of strength. My strength.

"Okay," I sob after a while, "alright. I'll try."

"Alright! Alright. Okay, on the count of three alright, we'll do it together." Peter calls to me, his voice breaking as the raspiness from screaming and sobbing takes its effect.

"One..."

Strength.

Two...

Growth.

Three!"

Aldrich Killian.

I close my eyes and let the burning wound in my chest fester throughout my body until my insides seethe. The weight on my back seems to lessen slightly.

Breathe.

Focus.

I close my eyes and allow the pain to fester throughout my body. The grief, the trauma, the torture, the loss; I feel it all individually and at the same time.

Broken foundations and the trauma of my life is personified into the cracked ceiling, which is slowly elevating from my crumpled frame on the floor, relieving my bones of the stress.

In the same way I pull myself to my feet after finally regaining my strength and power after so long, I pull myself out of the deep, dark pit I had been allowing myself to rot away in.

The oxygen struggles in my throat as I stumble up out of the concrete with a new found sense of power. My body trembles, out of shock but also due to the overwhelming adrenaline and power coursing through my veins.

I trip over to Peter, who is pushing the weight off from on top of him though evidently struggling. I hiss as I climb up onto the pile of rubble and heave off the heaviest slates of concrete, sickening pain striking my broken wrist. After taking a deep breath, I resume.

I slide down the pile of concrete as he lifts himself up under all of the weight, throwing the heavy slates off from on top of him and escaping from the impromptu burial. Once free, he scrambles over to me, limping from his injuries, and pulls me into a tight embrace full of urgency and desperation.

Though my insides ache, I have never been so happy to be in so much pain.

"I thought I lost you." Peter whispers into my ear, breathing deeply.

"Never, Parker."

"We need to... we need to go—"

I pull my head away from resting on his shoulder to take in my surroundings. "Peter, look." I point to the sky, visible due to the broken down walls; Toomes takes off flying for the plan.

"Okay," Peter grasps onto me tightly, "let's go."

-

"Peter! Over there!" I scream as the wind ravages my ears. I clutch onto him so tightly despite the fact he is also using his webs to connect our wrists incase I suddenly slip away from him. I wouldn't be surprised if he has bruises from where my fingertips have been. I try to the best of my ability to focus on the mission at hand— stopping Toomes— and avoid letting the thoughts slip into my mind— Peter and I are dangling from an invisible jet, both without a parachute, and both very likely to die.

"The purple thingy! The matter-phase-shifter! From Washington! He's inside of the plane!"

"We need to stop him."

"Okay," Peter adjusts himself and begins pulling us over towards the purple matter-shifter, "you go in, Bonnie, and make sure he doesn't take anything. I'll wait here incase he escapes so that I can stop him. It's safer if you're inside and in the plane."

I reluctantly nod my head, not wanting to leave him but knowing that me being wrapped around him is most likely making everything all the more difficult.

Peter keeps a tight hold on my wrists as he lowers me down into the inside of the plane. My feet hit the floor, and thankfully due to the deafening jets, the thud is practically inaudible.

Keeping myself tactically hidden away behind the towering storage boxes and vaults full of various prototypes and arc-reactors, I locate Toomes and slowly begin to make my way over to him.

I almost forget to breathe as I watch him rummage through the vaults, before grasping onto one of my father's iron masks. He tosses it to his side, muttering obscenities under his breath; the most disgusting things anyone has ever said about my father, and most likely about a person in general.

Before I can even register it, my hand shoots out and my fingertips begin to burn as a fiery anger settles inside of my chest. Toomes is thrown forward into the wall of the plane and sending a box of arc-reactors tumbling to the floor. He stumbles to his feet, clutching the swelling red patch on his forehead as he mumbles disorderly. As soon as his eyes catch onto mine, he storms towards me and aggressively brushes past me, sending me tumbling to the floor.

I stagger to my feet, ducking away as he throws a punch to my face. The adrenaline in my body and the panic compromises my powers for the time being, meaning that hand-to-hand combat is my best hope. I use my speed and my height difference to the best of my ability and I swerve and miss his punches, though managing to strike him a few times in the jaw.

He pulls out a pocket knife and quickly goes to plunge it into my chest, though my arms stick out and my hands grab onto his wrists, pushing him away from me and attempting to direct the blade away from me as it inches closer and closer to where my heart is. That's when a bout of turbulence hits the plane. The knife sticks into my shoulder as both of us stumble, and a hint of panic sets into his expression before he pulls it out of me.

He turns as he rushes away, "Now I'm gonna kill your little spider-boyfriend, just like you." He chuckles as he races to the purple matter-shifter to get to the outside of the plane.

Adrenaline must have delayed the pain, but as I brush my hand over the dark patch coating the red satin wrapped around my shoulder my fingertips are covered in blood.

He has stabbed me. And I'm not sure how serious the injury is. The pain hits me. After 20 or 30 seconds, an intense burning sensation envelopes me, like someone is holding the end of a thick, red hot metal rod to my shoulder.

Thankfully, the blade met resistance as it hit bone, but there are several vital arteries in the shoulder and if one has been damaged, I may die. The blood trickles down my dress as my breath begins to speed up. The wound begins to throb, as if a hot blade is sticking repeatedly into my melting, gaping flesh. As the blood loss isn't as severe as I had initially expected, I suspect an artery hasn't been hit, but the pain is still overwhelming and I still feel consciousness slightly slipping away.

I pull myself over to the first aid kits stored at the very back of the plane and rummage through to find some gauze and a bandage, quickly wrapping myself up and sealing the wound for the time being to stem the blood loss. I dry swallow some pain killers, doubtful they will help rid the pain, before stumbling out of the plane to help Peter.

As I reach the matter-phase-shifter, the plane hits another bout of turbulence, and is immediately sent plummeting. It drastically begins to descend, but I need to find Peter and to make sure that he is still alive, even if it'll kill me.

I push myself up out of the matter-phases-shifter after stumbling around. When I see how close we are to hitting the ground, I drop back down into the inside of the plane and channel all of the energy and strength within me to lift the plane over so slightly, but the stab wound in my shoulder and the blood loss is compromising my abilities. Despite this, I manage to get the plane to lift slightly and hopefully lessen such a severe impact.

As I brace myself for the hit and for death itself, I focus to the best of my ability on stopping the plane from crashing, orange tendrils erupting from my fingertips, though soon fading away as the throbbing in my shoulder weakens my body completely. I close my eyes as I accept death as an old friend, feeling tears track down my face as I picture Nat and Dad and Mom in my head as a sense of comfort, and finally Peter. I wish I could tell him—

While my eyes are screwed up and my eyelashes are locked together, I feel my body jerk upright, before harsh wind ravages my body completely, the sheer velocity making it feel almost impossible to move. I feel tight arms grasp around me as I am then sent tumbling to the ground. The landing is somewhat painful, but mostly due to the shock of it all after I had prepared myself for a fast death; breaking my neck or something similar.

"Are you okay?"

He is warm. His hands are wrapped protectively around my head and my waist as he cushions my landing on the sand.

"Am I dead?" I gasp, terrified to open my eyes incase I am greeted by Death.

He chuckles half-heartedly, "I hope not."

I clamber up from on top of him, as Peter and I limp over towards Toomes, who is attempting to fly away with a vault. We turn to each other and share a look as we notice the Vulture's wings begin to spark.

"Hey! Hey! Your wing suit! It's going to explode—"

The Vulture chuckles arrogantly, "It's time to go home, kids."

"Your wings—" I begin to explain though he cuts me off.

Peter shots a web, though the sparks from the damaged machinery sizzle through it. I attempt to focus and find some strength inside of me to pull him back down to the ground for the sake of Toomes' own safety.

"You know what your problem is, Stark? You're blinded by the sense that you're a helper, you help people, but in reality, you belong to a system that is unjust and exploitive. What do you know about helping and protection and danger? While you sit in your mansion with your maids and housekeepers reinforcing your sense of self-importance, little girl, hard workers slave away to pay your bills. You are kidding yourself if—"

The wing suit blows. Peter throws himself on top of me to protect me from the explosion. Toomes plummets into the sand. Flames envelop him.

"No!" Peter screams as we watch the Vulture wings go up in flames, Toomes most likely amongst the rubble and broken machinery. Peter sprints over, through a gap in the flames and retrieves Toomes' body. He pulls him out to a space on the beach well away from the flames, their chests rising and falling quickly as they both gasp for air. Thankfully, they have both survived.

After Peter secures the weapons dealer in his webs to the stolen vaults, he takes my hand and swings us away to safety.

The mission is finally over.

-

Once we are far enough away from the crime scene, Peter swings us over to the Cyclone rollercoaster on Coney Island, overlooking Happy Hogan and a band of FBI agents and other important looking people who seem to know exactly what to do.

We sit on the old and rusted foundation in complete silence, though I feel the urge to speak up when I feel Peter's eyes on me.

"Bonnie, are you bleeding? Your shoulder—"

"I feel that way about you too." I blurt out.

His eyes widen. "W—what?"

"Y'know, you said it in the warehouse when we were nearly crushed to death and I just felt like I needed to say it back because... well, I think I do feel that way about you. And I do care about you as a person and I am glad that we are friends now and I'm sorry that I messed everything up earlier tonight when I showed up at your apartment before you left for Homecoming and—"

He kisses me. It's the softest, most delicate kiss, but I can feel the urgency and the meaning behind it.

I giggle as I break apart from him, "And you kissed me? I thought that—"

Peter's eyes focus on a loose thread hanging from the sleeve of his sweatsuit. He fiddles with it as he talks to me. "I like you, Bonnie. I have liked you since we first met, since Berlin, but you seemed so supportive about Liz and I so I just thought that you didn't feel the same way, and when you ignored me for weeks after we... kissed, well I just felt like I wasn't good enough for you or whatever, because you're a Stark and... I just live in Queens in a tiny apartment." He finally brings his eyes up to meet mine, a dejected expression on his face.

"Peter," I lean over to him, gently placing my hands on either side of his face so that he is unable to focus on anything other than myself, "you have been, and always will be, good enough for me. You'll always be too good for me, and I am sorry about everything. And I swear, after this, I won't ignore you. Ever again. It would be impossible to."

"After what?" He whispers, flicking his eyes to my lips and then back up to meet my gaze.

I gently place my lips onto his and I relish in the feeling of finally getting a dose of my chosen drug. Getting that first taste after months of deprivation is almost enough to make me want to surrender myself completely and fall wholly into him. He is gentle and kind but firm and able to hold himself.

It is almost as if he makes me feel again, which is something that I thought I had forgotten I was capable of. He is sweet; the flavour of forbidden fruit
and I have just tasted my new obsession.

I have forgotten how to differentiate between my head and my heart, but in this moment, all my head can focus on is my heart.

As we pull away, his breath fans across my lips, as I savour the feeling of him lingering on my skin. He brushes the messy curls out of my face and smiles at me sweetly. I admire every since freckle and scratch and scar on his complexion and drink in every aspect, storing it into my mind to remember forever.

"Bonnie?"

"Mhm."

"Shall I take you to hospital? Your shoulder is bleeding like a faucet and your wrist looks like you slammed it in a car door."

I chuckle, finally acknowledging the throbbing in my left arm after having been too distracted by my boy. I take my hands way from his face, immediately noticing how cold the air is without having his warm skin against mine, and inspect the stab wound on my shoulder beneath the bandage. "Yeah, then when we get there I should probably call my dad."

He smirks at me bashfully before wrapping his arm securely around my waist and slinging us over to the nearest hospital.