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[indent][b][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cno20onK9dY]SPIDER-MAN: THE DISTANCE[/url][/b][/indent]
[indent][b]Issue 7.2[/b][/indent]
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[indent][b]New York City, NY --- Queens Neighborhood[/b][/indent]
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The sound had faded into the background, pulsing in the night air but much too far for Peter to hear anything but the barest thump of the beat. Instead, he had to think about the bleating wails of the sirens and arcs of blue and red light that seemed to shoot up from behind every house on the block. The road was shaded from the moonlight by rows of trees, black branches stood out like strangling fingers squeezing the starlight. 

He pounded down the road, focusing on every footstep as it came and the shock of each footfall jumping up his thighs. The sky had finally settled in color to black glass, twinkling with whatever gasps of light that weren’t choked in smog or tree cover. Every step was getting a little longer, less like a hobble and more like a leap as he settled forward into the neighborhood. He eyed a sturdy-looking branch and bounced forward off both of his feet, launching a webline forward. It was a clean miss, arcing past the branch and snagging onto the next. [i]No no no--[/i]

Peter swung, kicking his legs to try and readjust as he careened into a backyard sliced apart by spotty mower work. The line gave and he fell, crashing into a plastic playhouse and scattering shards of plastic across the green.

[color=#507de5]“Okay… Maybe no swinging yet…”[/color] He groaned as he kicked aside the green plastic door and tumbled out of the playhouse’s blown out remains. His feet smacked against the grass and he was going again, jogging for the road. He hopped up and pulled himself over a wooden fence, sucking in his belly and keeping it from the sharp tops of every spiked bar of the fence.

The new neighborhood was quieter, with nubby trees shrunk into themselves and little brick houses with scrappy lawns lain out before them. The police lights weren’t as strong here, now just blue and red suggestions from neighborhoods far away, sirens pinging off into nothing. [i]Maybe I’m actually getting away![/i] There was something else though, on the edge of his perception. It didn’t [i]sound[/i] like a cop car, an engine roaring like a beast with no accompanying siren, the sound tearing through neighborhoods and rebounding off of drywall, spiraling around him, drawing closer. Then were was --? [i]Something in our head.[/i]

Peter shuddered and hit his hand against his head, trying to shake the nagging feeling, like a gnat buzzing around his ears. Like for the briefest moment, there was something [i]else[/i] there with him, another skin slinking over him, feeling him, [i]controlling[/i] him. It was gone just as soon as it arrived, awareness washed over and gone again. But there was still the engine bearing down on him, with renewed focus. He bolted for the other side of the street. [i]Whoever[/i] they were, they probably wouldn’t run a rut through some random jobber’s neighborhood. He jumped forward and stumbled across the concrete, nearly tumbling over. He righted himself and set back into a jog, vying for the safety of a random backyard. [i]Any other time, this would be a piece of cake, but now…?[/i]

It was too late for the backyard, the car careened around a corner and seemed to lock onto him, a red convertible with a gurgling engine and two indistinct passengers inside. It wasn’t like any undercover car Peter had ever seen, it was all flash and muscle. Coming to think of it, Flash Thompson drove one just like it. The car surged forward and Peter stumbled backwards. He kicked against the concrete and ran as the car wrought huge, ugly skidmarks into the pavement. Something shifted and his Spider Sense went off like firecrackers in his head.

“Hey, pal, you got mail!” A woman’s voice echoed through the neighborhood as he chanced a glance behind him. Trash bins were sailing through the air right for his head, filled to burst with banana peels and discard k-cups dropping as they rocketed towards him. Peter was moving to dodge them the instant they registered; he shot himself into the air and seemed to hang for a moment as the first bin shot beneath him. He kicked off of it and it exploded against the ground while he launched further, backflipping up and over the second bin. [i]Ha! Nice moves, Spider-M--[/i]

White plastic and reams of paper slammed into his back like an oversized fist as the mailbox hit and Peter hit the ground, bouncing across the road like a rock across a pond in a flurry of envelopes.

[color=#507de5]“Every time…”[/color] Peter pulled someone’s credit score report from his face and turned to the car bearing down on him. He could see the drivers now, a girl with flowing red hair, and a boy with ruby red sunglasses. They were… Kids? Either way, they were about to make him roadkill. Peter flopped onto his back, facing the car gunning for him. [i]Think Parker, think…[/i]

He aimed as best as he could for the wheel bays and unloaded with all the webbing he could muster. His fingers hit his palms over and over again as globs of web shot out to strike the front wheels.