Chapter 09: Where They Take A Night Stroll

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
- Mahatma Gandhi

Ice Sorceress wasn't Spider-Man. She wasn't new to the whole hero thing. She wasn't bit by some radioactive spider. She didn't have rich friends who gave her some high tech suit, but more importantly she wasn't stupid enough to have on her phone while spying on some criminals, specially woth such a loud ringtone .

Just after she left the failure of a party, her former partner followed suit. Both of them attracted to the odd explosion a few blocks away. And now here they were, watching four guys in some kind of weapon exchange, trying to be stealth.

Peter's cover completely blown when his phone rang through the night, causing the weapon sellers to freak out and start pointing guns to their buyer.

Spider-Man, seemingly unaware of her presence, jumped into action, trying to get the attention off the guy.
"Hey come on, if you gonna shoot at somebody shoot at me" he said raising his hands while the criminals stared at him weirdly.

"Fine" The guy holding the gun said, turning to point at him. Before the guy could shoot, Peter shot some webs, grabbing the gun and throwing it away from him.

As he was doing this, he failed to notice a third seller aiming at him from behind. Without a second thought Ember made her presence known, jumping from the tree she was hiding straight onto the attacker's back. In a matter of seconds the girl wrapped her legs around the his neck flipping him over and straight to the ground, where she knocked him out with a hit of his own gun.

For a second no one moved, the men in the scene just stared at the blonde in awe as she stood up from the ground, raising her glowing hands tauntingly "Who's next?"

With those words everyone broke into motion. The guy buying the weapons was quick to get inside his car, clearly not interested on the fight, the one who aimed at Peter following suit. Spider-Man ran to attack the remaining, only to be punched in the face with some kind of alien glove, sending him crashing onto the wall and to the ground.

Instead of going after the fleeing criminals, Ember rushed to Spider-Man's side, "Are you alright?" She said, lightly touching his shoulder, worry clear on her face.

"What was that?" Peter exclaimed, trying to shake off the dizziness, looking intently at the familiar glowing white eyes, his mind trying to process what was happening.

The roar of an engine brought him back to reality, out of instinct he grabbed the blonde by the waist, "Woah, what are you doing?" Ice Sorceress argued, trying to escape from his grip.

"Just trust me" he replied as he shot one of his webs at the backdoor of the van. As soon as the car sped up he lost his grip on the struggling girl, leaving her rolling on the ground with a grunt as he still held to the van. "Sorry!" He shouted at her as the van turned a corner.

" God, I hate him" Ember mumbled, standing from the gravel, already feeling the bruises forming on her side. With no time for pitying herself, she secured her cape, then she created her slide and began chasing after the van.

She snickered as she noticed Spider-Man attempting to grab onto the white van once again, only to have the door break apart.

"Care to give me a ride?" He asked once he saw her right on his tail.

"Sure" She said, a rare smile on her face as she lowered to the ground scooping him up. She held him tightly by the arm, as she continued using her free hand to keep building the slide. As soon as they reached a decent height, Ember suddenly withdraw her grasp on his elbow making him fall painfully to the ground "Oops. Sorry!" She exclaimed mockingly, passing him by and leaving him to fetch for himself, after all he did say he didn't need her help.

Catching up with the van, Ember began firing blasts at the road, turning it into ice and watching proudly as the vehicle started to lose control. 'The Shocker', in the middle of the heist, managed to grab one of the weapons to give his partner time to regain control. The girl, noticing his intentions, moved her hands to create a strong shield of ice, holding it tight to protect her from the blasts. However, as he kept firing blast after blast, the strong alien technology began to break into the shield, burning straight onto the blonde's right hand, only giving her a second to run out of the way before the guy blasted her head off. The pain was excruciating, her hand felt like it was on fire, burning through her skin. She cried out in pain, even if she was desperately trying to hold in her cries, as bloody blisters began to appear in her reddened hand, keeping it close to her chest as her powers seemed to fade out and her appearance returned to normal.

Startled by her sudden cry, Peter began pushing himself harder, his mind running through all the possible scenarios that could cause her to react like that. Finally, he caught up with the van, looking around for any sign of Ice Sorceress but she was nowhere to be found. Before he could lose his chance he jumped off the ceiling onto the roof of the car, only to be stopped by a pair of metallic claws raising him through the night sky.

"Seriously?" Ember groaned, staring at the screaming boy in the air. Her hand still burning as she tried to control her breathing and soothe the pain. Knowing that in her condition there was nothing she could do to help him, Ember used her good hand to dial the number she never thought she'd use.

❅

"And the he just swoop down, like a monster. Then, he took me up for like a thousand feet and then he just dropped me" After his near death experience, Peter sat at a playground rapidly explaining to Tony what had happened, hopping he wouldn't get in trouble. He wasn't even sure of how Stark found him when he was in trouble "How did you find me? You put a tracker on my suit or something"

"I put everything in your suit. Including this heater" Iron Man said, and Peter relaxed as the heat began to spread through his skin. "Also, Frozen called. Said something about a bird and then you deciding to go visit her friend Flounder. Anyway - "

"Flounder is from The Little Mermaid" Peter caught Stark off.

"What?" Asked Tony, confused about the random interruption.

"Flounder is friends with Ariel, not Elsa" Explained Peter in small voice, he was just trying to avoid the situation Tony wanted to discuss.

"Oh, really?" Said Tony, annoyeyance and sarcasm lacing his words. Peter opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by the adult "Does it look like I care about Disney Princesses?!" Tony asked rhetorically, flipping his metallic arms in exasperation.

"Technically, Elsa is a queen, not-" Peter stopped mid sentence, knowing he was just making a fool of himself. No one said anything for a couple of seconds until the boy remembered what happened before the flying thing trapped, his face quickly changing into a worried expression "You said Ice Sorceress called you? Was she alright?"

"She sounded fine to me. Why?" Tony asked confused, if anything happened to the girl he wouldn't want to be responsible. He was pretty sure Cap would come back from his hiding just to kick his ass. Again. Peter left out a sigh of relief, maybe it wasn't her and she was fine "Wait, no, don't change the subject" Tony snapped as he went back to the real problem here "What were you thinking?"

"The guy with the wings is obviously the source of the problem. I gotta take him down-"

"Take him down, huh?" Tony interrupted the boy's explanation, mockingly "Steady cracker. There are people who handle this sort of things" Tony tried to explain, knowing, it was better for the teenager to lay low and not get to ahead of himself. That would only lead to failure or perhaps an even worse fate and that wasn't something he wished upon for the young hero.

❅

Saving people was the beauty of the job. The knowledge that you were doing something for someone other than yourself. Watching the way that person returned to his loved ones unharmed, all thanks to you, it was beautiful. But there's always a downside.

Loss. It also came with the job, but that didn't mean it ever got easier. Steve and Anastasia always taught her that there would be losses. That she couldn't save everyone. They told her how they lost some friends. How they lost Bucky. But no matter how much they warned her, the moment it happened it killed her.Through her hero years she had only lost one person.

Ben Parker.

And the guilt followed her everywhere. When Ember became Ice Sorceress, she swore to protect the people in Queens, but she failed the Parkers. She arrived too late that night. She could only watch as the police and paramedics moved his body, and how his nephew sobbed uncontrollably, still holding his hand tightly, not wanting to ever let go.Ember would have to look at Peter Parker everyday and know she didn't save his uncle, that she failed him. It took Ember a long time to be able to look at Peter again, she went to the funeral but she never approached either Peter or May. Eventually, she felt comfortable around Peter again, enough to grow feelings for him. The death of Ben Parker still hunted her, but it helped her push herself harder. She didn't want to fail again.

Spider-Man wasn't there that night, and she hoped he would never have to leave with the guilt of failing a citizen. At least according to her, Spider-Man remained innocent, guilt free. She didn't know how hard the loss of Ben Parker had hit the boy in the red and blue suit.

The blonde heroine stood hopelessly on the side as the bird like creature dropped the boy from way to high. His parachute failing to save him, only tangling around his body as he fell into the water. Her dark thoughts came into a halt as she saw a familiar suit swooping into the water and coming out with Spider-Man tight on his grasp. It didn't matter that she was very mad with the boy, if anything happened to him and she did nothing all because a stupid injury, she simply wouldn't be able to forgive herself.

Her green eyes stayed on the two figures until they got lost in the trees. The boy was fine. She hadn't failed another person. Ember didn't lose someone that she, much to her dismay, cared about.
Knowing Stark would handle the situation, the blonde started making her way back to the party. All she wanted was to grab Michelle and go home for a well deserved sleep.

Unfortunately, she didn't get that far before a weird purple glow caught her eye. It looked like a part of the weapon the criminals were using. Cautiously she approached the unknown object,
transforming before she got too close. As Ice Sorceress she felt safer, she felt protected. Hesitantly, Ember crouched down and turned the object around, trying too analyze it.

From behind her, Peter was also returning to the party after a little talk with Tony Stark. He wasn't exactly paying attention to everything around him, he was a bit to busy replaying their little talk and wondering what the billionaire meant by all of it.
It wasn't until a familiar back came into sight that he snapped put of it. He watched the girl kneeling in the ground, looking at something he couldn't see. Curiously he approached the girl, and stared at the unknown purple object.

"Woah. What's that?" He exclaimed. At the unexpected sound of a voice, Ember quickly kicked the intruder's feet "Ouch" Peter complained as his back kissed the ground.

"Idiot" Ember said once she realized who he was. Yes, she was worried about him a little while ago, but now that she saw he was fine her annoyance at the boy returned.

Peter was about to retort but the sight of her right hand, his eyes widened in worry. The skin was still a bright red, with some bloody blisters covering some parts, the upper layer from her skin long gone. Stark said she was fine but to him that definitely didn't look fine. Hurriedly, he stood from the ground and carefully grabbing her right arm, trying to get a better look at the injury. "What the hell happened?"

"It's nothing" Ember said, a hint of annoyance on her voice. She wanted to rip her arm away from his grasp, but his tight grip wouldn't budge. The blonde mentally cursed his damned super strength. Spider-Man gave her a look that said he knew that was bullshit. Eventually, the blonde gave in and decided explain it more "It's already healing. It might take longer because it's some kind of alien fire or something" Reluctantly, Peter dropped the subject and let go off her arm. It was silent for a minute, both of them looked intensely at the object, awkwardness filling the air.

"I waited for you at the alley today" Peter broke the silence, turning to look at her a almost like a lost puppy. "You never came"

"So what I'm supposed to just be there at your service or something?" She snapped, glaring at him. Peter avoided her cold stare and opened his mouth to say something else but she kept going "I waited for you for months and you never came. Now, suddenly you decide I'm worthy of your time and I have to be there. I'm not your fucking bitch" By now Ember was basically fuming, her voice raising with each word. "Didn't you say you had it 'handled'? Why would the all mighty Spider-Man want me there anyway"

"I-I wanted to a-apologize" Peter stuttered, nervously. He didn't think she would be this mad, he was hoping they could put their little fight behind and continue the way they were. He had never seen her this mad, certainly not at him. She was always cold, sure, but she never raised her voice or looked so scary. "I n-never meant for you to get h-hurt?"

"You think that's what this is about?" Spat Ember, shocked at the boy's stupidity, angrily stomping towards him, watching as he cowardly stepped back as she got closer "I don't care about me getting hurt! I care about you not thinking about the damage you can cause! I care about you acting like you have it all sorted out! I care about you not knowing when it's time to call for back up!"

They were now chest to chest, the boy's back resting on a light post, as he watched at the blonde open mouthed. "Me? What about you?" He retorted, getting angrier by the accusations and returning the harsh look. Ember frowned in confusion at what he was trying to imply, which only annoyed him more "You always act like your above me! Like I'm just some stupid kid who can't keep up with you! When we first met you turned me down and even when you accepted me you never thought of me as your equal! You never trusted me! You never cared about me!" The blonde's eyes widened with each word he said. She felt like a fish out of water, opening and closing her mouth, unable to form a single word. Was that really what he thought? Was she really that awful? " I should've called? Well you never called either!"

"I'm sorry" The blonde suddenly spoke, shamefully stepping away from the boy and avoiding his eyes.

"I-I what?" Peter asked incredulously. He just got angry and started talking, letting some steem out. He was expecting her to shout at him to hit him, not that.

"You're right, I haven't been a great partner either. I do trust you and I do care" Ember said, guiltily sitting on the grass turning her back on him too ashemed to face him. Dumbfounded Peter sat next to her, unsure of what to do or say. "I believe you're amazing you know? I like how much you care about the little guy, how you aren't afraid of doing anything for anyone. It's just," She sighed, growing a little courage to look at him. He was staring at her, mouth and eyes wide open, he never expected her to really see him as partner. He thought he only saw him as a charity case "I'm not used to having a partner or trust anyone who isn't family, you know?"

"We can figure it out together" Peter said, gently touching her knee to get her to look at him, offering her a smile that she wouldn't even see due to his mask. "I also trust and care about you". She smiled at him brightly a rare sight since Ice Sorceress only smirked, and yet it held something familiar to him, like he had see that smile before he just couldn't place where "And you're also right, about everything. And I'm sorry about it too"

The blonde stood up from the ground and sites the grass off before offering him her hand "Let's start over?"

He grabbed her hand and she helped him stand, both agreeing to a new start. They forgot about their problems and agreed to work together as a team.

❅

[word count: 2986]

A/n: Pember? IceSpider? idk. Any ideas?

Anyway, sorry for another late update but I hope you're enjoying the story so far!

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(gif banner courtesy of wandereality)