CHAPTER FOUR.
THE FIRST RESCUE.

Josephine and Celeste took, yet another, shot, the two of them cringing at the bitter taste as they quickly shook their heads, as if the motion will reduce the temporary burn that slid down their throats.

Celeste drunkenly stumbled as she leaned closer to Josephine, yelling over the blaring music, her voice entirely slurred. "So, when is Peter supp- supposed t...to showup?!"

Josephine widened her eyes at how intoxicated Celeste was. Only five minutes had passed between the time Josephine had briefly left Celeste to use the bathroom, and the girl was already plastered. Josephine thought she was pretty drunk, but she didn't expect Celeste to be even more-so.

"Uh, I'm- I'm not sure...actually." Josephine called out in response, swallowing as she tried to keep her voice steady, furrowing her eyebrows as she turned around, and slightly straining her neck as she tried to find the boy with her eyes, although her vision was quite blurry.

The girl's head was spinning from her current state of intoxication, and she knew if she drank a bit more, she would most definitely throw up.

Josephine was waiting for Peter to arrive, and she was, admittedly, a little disappointed that he wasn't there. All she wanted from him was, at least, to appear at the party. He didn't even need to stay the whole night—an hour was more than enough.

As if on cue, three taps on Josephine's shoulder caught the girl's attention, and as she twisted around, eyes briefly widening from the slight whiplash she felt when she did so, she couldn't prevent the beam that spread across her lips at the sight of the boy she had been ruminating about the whole night.

"Peter!" Josephine happily squealed—the sound very much unlike her, but involuntarily slipping out—as she jumped up and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

At the unexpected action, the air from Peter's lungs was temporarily stolen, the boy huffing out a "woah" as he wrapped one arm around her frame and patted her back gently, slightly furrowing his eyebrows at the strong smell of alcohol that wafted from her mouth.

As Josephine pulled away from him, vision hazy, the girl rested her hands on either side of Peter's shoulders, lazy grin still across her lips. "You made it."

"Yeah, I thought I'd stop by for a bit, I have to go soon...though..." Peter let his voice trail off as he observed Josephine pout sadly at the words. "How much alcohol have you had?"

"Not enough!" Josephine laughed, Peter raising his eyebrows and nodding slowly.

Unbeknownst to the pair, Celeste had left, one of her other friends deciding to take her home due to the immense amount of alcohol she had consumed.

"Uh-huh, clearly, hey, why don't we sit down for a bit, huh? Have some water?" Peter answered, moving to stand beside her as his hand now rested on the small of her back, the boy beginning to gently guide her to one of the couches that wasn't occupied by horny teenagers aggressively straddling one another and passionately making-out.

"No, nope, I don't need any water." Josephine shook her head as she slumped down on the couch.

"Okay, sure, do you want another drink, then? Stay there." Peter simply raised his eyebrows, nodding at how Josephine nodded quickly, and standing up, heading towards the kitchen as he took an empty cup and filled it to the brim with tap water before returning back to Josephine, who was still waiting patiently on the couch, glassy eyes dreamily floating around the room. "Here, drink this."

Josephine eagerly took the cup from Peter's hands, taking a large sip and swallowing it before frowning at the, comparably to alcohol, plain taste. "This is not tequila or vodka."

"Oh, it isn't?" Peter faux-frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. "Hm, that's weird. Well, I guess the only thing you can do now is to keep drinking it."

"No, why?" Josephine cringed, standing up and trying to shove the cup into Peter's chest, the boy immediately grabbing the cup mid-way and trying to push it back towards her, the two soon starting a back-and-forth.

"Because you've just gotta drink it, okay?"

"I don't want to-"

"But you have to, Jo-"

"I don't want to-"

Peter pushed the cup too hard, accidentally spilling the entirety of the water on to Josephine's chest, the girl's jaw dropping as her head lowered to look at her, now wet, attire.

Eyes widening, Peter opened his mouth to profusely apologise, but before he could, Josephine just shook her head and turned around, stumbling a little as she began to make her way to the bathroom. Peter sighed, following after her as he ignored the stares of many of the drunk teenagers around them.

"Jo, I'm sorry, I didn't think that would happen..."

Josephine simply ignored him as the pair entered the bathroom, Peter closing the bathroom door behind them.

Grabbing the first dry towel from the cabinet below the sink, Josephine began to slowly wipe her top dry, Peter sighing as he gestured to her. "That's not gonna work, Josie."

"Yes it will."

"Here, just let me..."

As Peter reached for the towel from her hands, Josephine just yanked them back, stumbling away from him in a step as she just frowned at the boy. "Just go, Peter. You didn't want to come, anyway."

"Jo, you're drunk, let me help y-"

"Whatever, we'll just...talk tomorrow..."

As if on cue, the bathroom door swung open to reveal Marcus, eyebrows raising and eyes flickering between the pair, whose attention was now on him. "Did I...interrupt something?"

Josephine shook her head, moving towards him as she replied. "No..."

Marcus, who wasn't nearly as drunk as the girl, wrapped his arm around Josephine's waist, not missing the slightly narrowed eyes Peter shot him in return.

Peter opened his mouth to say something, however, before he could utter out any words, he suddenly stopped himself, spidey-senses tingling. The faint sounds of a group of men yelling, some for help and some in frustration, in a nearby street caught Peter's attention, his head suddenly turning to the direction of where the sounds were coming from.

"Dude...?" Marcus furrowed his eyebrows at Peter's odd behaviour.

Peter turned to face Marcus again, suddenly feeling the familiar urge to save a stranger from harm.

Although Marcus was outwardly an asshole, everybody knew that he would never take advantage of anyone—he did have a good heart, albeit, deep down.

Despite Peter desperately wanting to stay with Josephine to take care of her, he knew his duty outweighed it, especially because he knew Josephine was fine with Marcus. His Uncle Ben's words repeatedly rang through his mind—his moral obligation, his responsibility, to do good things for other people—and he couldn't simply ignore it.

On his way out of the bathroom, Peter's eyes were on Josephine for a long moment before he shifted his attention to Marcus, patting his shoulder and looking him in the eye directly. "Make sure she gets home safe, okay?"

Marcus could immediately sense the solemn undertone to Peter's words—a tone he didn't recognise—and just nodded. "Yeah. Sure, man."

Peter just nodded in response, then hurrying out of the bathroom and out of Marcus' house.

•

The rest of the night went horribly for Josephine.

Finding out that Celeste was taken home by a friend, so essentially leaving her alone in a house full of drunken strangers, and then being ditched by Marcus while he was too busy drinking with his other friends.

Right after realising these unfortunate facts, Josephine was essentially stuck in the bathroom for the majority of the night, emptying the contents of her stomach, and consequently, almost completely sobering up. Obviously throwing up didn't sober her up immediately, but drinking various bottles of water certainly contributed to her sobriety.

Once she cleaned herself up, luckily not getting any sick on her clothing during the unfortunate coarse of events that led her to her current position, and chewed many pieces of mint gum, Josephine made the firm decision that she needed to leave.

On her way out of Marcus' trashed house, Josephine passed the living room right beside the entrance, catching his attention as she raised her eyebrows hopefully. "Can you give me a ride home, Marcus?"

Marcus just stared at her for a few seconds, about to approach her and help her out, but before he could, one of his friends just scoffed, seeking to purposely shame him for almost helping out his friend.

Marcus' eyes flickered between his friends and Josephine, the boy finally choosing to ignore Josephine's pleading expression as he just laughed off the interaction.

Josephine sent one final, awaiting glance towards Marcus, half-expecting him to spontaneously offer to take her home, but all the boy did in response was dismissively wave at her, too caught up with his other drunk friends to even return her glance.

Josephine furrowed her eyebrows at his odd behaviour, but didn't decide to waste her time any longer.

Turning on her heels, Josephine just tightly crossed her arms over her chest and left, heading towards the sidewalk and trying to ignore the ice-cold, piercing air that stung her arms and legs, her trembling frame trying to use as much heat as it could to sustain her as she hurriedly walked.

Ten blocks.

Just ten blocks...

Josephine was just relieved she was sober enough to walk home, and she was just thankful she could see clearly. Shifting her eyes to the empty road just a few metres away from the sidewalk she was currently speed-walking on, Josephine's eyebrows creased inwards at the lack of cabs, and most importantly, people.

Inhaling and soon exhaling a deep breath, Josephine just shook off the upcoming and harrowing thoughts of walking home alone past midnight, and continued to hurry down the street.

As if her sense of dread couldn't be more prevalent, the sound of heavy, distant footsteps behind Josephine caused her eyes to widen and her heart to stop.

The uneasy feeling soon became unbridled as Josephine didn't even give her 'fight' or 'freeze' responses a chance to kick in before she immediately hurried her movements—as if it was even possible—but that only seemed to quicken the pace of whoever was behind her.

As the footsteps began to near her faster, the only sound Josephine could hear was the booming, rhythmic thumping of her own heartbeat violently pounding through her ears, involuntary tears beginning to slide down her cheeks as she felt the stranger's presence right behind her.

Josephine, realising she was essentially fucked, quickly reached into her shoulder bag for her pepper spray, however, as soon as her hand lowered into her bag, a man grabbed both her wrists tightly and abruptly twisted her around, roughly digging his fingers into her skin, his fingernails leaving deep marks, Josephine letting out a terrified scream.

Trying to break out of his painful death-grip, Josephine began writhing around, screaming for help as she tried pulling her arms from his clutches, the man just gruffly yelling a string of curses at her as he tried to forcibly lean closer to her face.

Josephine, not wanting to even consider what he was trying to do to her, took his closeness as an opportunity, the girl leaning her head back and violently jerking her knee up to his crotch, the man yelling in a mixture of pain and frustration as his grip slightly loosened and he nearly doubled over, Josephine quickly twisting around and trying to escape.

Just when she thought she had an opportunity to run, all hope was squashed, as the man's arms were suddenly snaked around her waist, his fingers digging deeply into her stomach and causing Josephine to rip out a hoarse string of "help!" screams through her throat while thrashing around, causing the man to bellow a sickly amused chortle from behind her, the vibration passing through Josephine from her back that made her feel nauseous.

Numbness itched within Josephine at the reality of what could potentially happen to her at this very moment, and simultaneously, the volume of static ringing began to rise through her eardrums, her heart entirely dropping to her feet.

Refusing to give up the fight, Josephine continued to scream for help and continued wildly thrashing around in the man's terrifyingly firm grip, her eyes squeezing shut, the girl just praying that someone would come to her rescue.

"Didn't your parents ever teach you how to treat a woman?"

As if a divine force heard her prayers, a voice suddenly sounded from a rooftop beside the street, causing Josephine's eyes to snap open in pure shock.

At the sight of the masked vigilante, who seemed to be growing in popularity more recently, a relieved smile painted across Josephine's lips. Spider-Man.

Although his tone was primarily calm, there was an undertone of urgency and concern that only Josephine could catch.

A fleeting thought of the fact that Spider-Man sounded familiar passed through her mind, although she soon snapped out of it when she remembered that Spider-Man was a teenage boy, and most teenage boys sound the same.

The man just huffed an entertained snort, not taking him seriously, tightening his grip on Josephine's torso and causing the girl to release a pained grimace, bruises already beginning to form on both her hips and her wrists.

"I thought I asked you..." Spider-Man's voice was calculating, sarcastic, and cold, the boy jumping off the rooftop of the building and landing right in front of them, beginning to determinedly approach the man and alternating hands as he suddenly shot thick and sticky spiderwebs from the web-shooters on his wrists to violently connect with his face. "...a question!"

This startled the man, and he reflexively released Josephine as he shouted in fury, trying to wipe the webs off his face quickly.

"At least buy her dinner first, freak." Spider-Man scowled in disgust, then nodding at Josephine, holding his arm out, and gesturing for her to approach him. "Over here, come on."

As soon as the hero spoke the last few words, Josephine took the opportunity to sprint towards him, finally inhaling a deep breath that cut through her previous hyperventilating ones once she reached him.

As the man continued to whisk away the webs that were rigidly sticking to his face, Spider-Man continued to shoot webs at him with one hand, the other securely wrapping around Josephine's shoulders as the girl leaned into his side for support.

She took a few seconds to catch her breath, not even allowing herself to process what had just occurred—if she did, she'd probably break down into loud sobs.

Her whole body was still in panic-mode, the girl not being able to feel her limbs as she still felt numb, heart still violently pounding against her ribcage, and the ringing in her ears dying down.

"Sorry, I've gotta, y'know, handle this real quick." Spider-Man briefly glanced at Josephine, consequently catching her attention as he unwrapped his arm from around her shoulder, although awaiting her response as pure concern overtook his features—Josephine couldn't see due to the mask, of course—as the only thing Peter could think of at this moment was protecting her first and foremost.

Josephine wordlessly nodded, Spider-Man sending her an affirmed nod before shifting his attention back to the, still struggling, man, narrowing his eyes in a mixture of perseverance and fury, and scoffing as he shot another web, this time towards his chest. "Now, what you did, sir, was just rude."

As soon as the sticky substance securely attached to the man's chest, Spider-Man pulled the end of the web towards him briefly, cocking his head to the side and not missing a beat to continue his verbal condescension, and Josephine felt the corners of her lips tug upwards at how the vigilante was clearly deriving joy from both physically and verbally assaulting the criminal. "I think you should apologise to this pretty girl."

Not wasting a second to push the web still firmly connecting the criminal's chest to the rest of the webbed string back out, Spider-Man harshly flung the stranger into the rocky wall of the bricks of one of the building's beside them, then pulling on the string harder and efficiently throwing him against another wall, not missing a single strained yell of pain from the criminal.

Josephine bewilderingly widened her eyes as she watched the entire attack play out like a movie scene in front of her, the girl finally allowing a thought to pass through her mind as she came down from the, seemingly permanent, shock she was still experiencing. Deciding to pull out her phone and dial 911, Josephine informed the police of the incident and the location, hanging up the phone once the police officer on the other line promised to arrive soon.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man began to casually approach the stranger, then shooting a few more webs to trap his chest and one of his wrists to the wall as he scoffed out a faux-amused chuckle, drowning out the groans of agony croaking out from the stranger's mouth, his eyes narrowing from inside the mask. "You might be a little tied up right now, my bad. Don't worry, we'll be done soon, I'm sure you'll want to get right on that apology, huh?"

Josephine could tell he was ensuring the man felt as much pain as he could, and she would be lying if she said she wasn't incredibly satisfied watching this creepy, horrid man get his ass kicked.

The man tilted his head down and hurriedly tried to move his other hand to his pocket to retrieve a small knife, however, Spider-Man had already expected the movement, 'tsk'-ing as he shot two more webs; one to pull the knife towards him and discard it to the side, and the other to swiftly trap his hand to the wall he was still forced to firmly remain against, the man frustratedly grimacing as he did so. "See, now you shouldn't have done that."

Spider-Man was now in front of the man, who was preparing a spit-take, however, when he tried to spit at the vigilante, Spider-Man was already five steps ahead, his head moving to the side and avoiding the attempted assault as he shot a web right onto the man's mouth, effectively muting him. "There. That's better."

Spider-Man's tone then very quickly fell serious as he lowly warned. "If you ever do anything like this again, I won't go so easy."

With that, Spider-Man moved back, turning to face Josephine as he approached the, quite baffled, girl. She hadn't seen anything like that in person, and while she was still terrified to her core at the thought of what could've happened to her if Spider-Man hadn't come to her aid, she was simultaneously impressed.

"Stupid question, but are you okay?" Spider-Man cleared his throat, almost trying to make his voice sound lower, as he stood in front of her.

The girl's eyes darted between Spider-Man and the, now struggling-to-escape, man, her eyebrows raising as she honestly didn't have answer.

Spider-Man followed her gaze for a brief moment before turning to focus his attention back on her, waving his hand dismissively. "Oh, don't worry about him, he won't be bothering anyone again."

Josephine swallowed, her eyebrows quirking upwards, as she nodded quickly, speaking the first thing that came to mind. "I- um, called the cops."

"Oh, great, that makes my job way easier." Spider-Man huffed out a small chuckle as he placed his hands on his hips, then slightly leaning towards her and continuing. "We do have to get out of here though, I don't think the cops like me yet."

Spider-Man waved his hand jokingly, hoping to cheer Josephine up and distract her from what had just occurred. "I'll eventually win 'em over."

Josephine smiled in amusement at the playful words.

Peter, inside the mask, raised his eyebrows, pushing back his desire to engulf her into the tightest hug possible, and speaking up after a brief moment, cleared his throat. "So, do you, uh, want me to walk you home?"

Josephine's eyebrows raised, the girl briefly hesitating in momentary surprise before nodding appreciatively. "Um, yeah. Yeah, sure."

Spider-Man dipped his head, gesturing to the sidewalk in front of them. "Lead the way."

Josephine bit back another smile as she rolled her lips inwards and nodded, beginning to walk forward, Spider-Man walking beside her, although remaining a slight distance away, to not blow his cover.

Of course Peter knew where she lived, he practically lived there too, but right now, he had to remind himself of the fact that he was currently his alter-ego.

Most of the way back to Josephine's house, neither herself, nor Spider-Man, spoke that much. If they did, it was when Josephine told him her name, and the occasional small talk conversation topics, accompanied by 'hums' of acknowledgement.

This was not particularly because they were afraid to speak to one another, but because they were both too in their own heads.

Josephine was replaying the whole event in her mind, trying to make sense of it all through the flurrying flashes, whereas Peter's thoughts only consisted of Josephine's emotional, mental, and physical well-being, and he had to forcefully tear his eyes away from her disheartened face every few seconds to avoid suspicion.

As the pair approached Josephine's house, they slowly came to a stop once they reached the front door.

"Well, this is me." Josephine spoke up, gesturing to her house as she plastered on a tight-lipped smile and faced Spider-Man.

Spider-Man surveyed the house, head tilting as he pretended it was the first time he ever saw it. "Nice place."

Josephine huffed a small chuckle at the compliment, nodding as her tone shifted into one of appreciation. "Thanks for the whole saving me thing back there. I owe you one."

Although Josephine couldn't see his face, Spider-Man seemed surprised at the second part of her sentence as he hesitated for a brief moment, Josephine just barely catching it as he nonchalantly shrugged. "It was nothing. Y'know, it's the job. I see a damsel in distress, and I'm obligated to help out."

"Wow, a 'damsel in distress'?" Josephine's eyebrows raised as she crossed her arms over her chest in a playfully defensive gesture. "What generation are we in, Spidey?"

"'Spidey'?"

"Yeah, can I call you that?" Josephine inquired, a small smirk ghosting her lips as her head slightly tilted.

Spider-Man, again, hesitated in momentary surprise, although cleared his throat and nodded quickly once he realised he had to answer her. "Uh, y-yeah. Yeah, no problem."

Josephine softly smiled, moving towards him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a gentle hug, chin resting on his shoulder as she murmured the following words. "Thanks again, Spidey."

Due to the sheer lightness of the hug, Peter could practically feel how fragile she was in this very moment, the boy slowly snaking one arm around her and giving her back a light squeeze, being careful not to hurt her even more than she already was.

His voice came out quiet, trying not to disturb the momentary peace they both felt at this current moment. "Yeah. It's no problem."

Peter unwrapped his arm from around Josephine as she began to pull away, rebutting his desire to not let go, the girl taking out her key and moving to unlock the front door.

Once she did so, she opened it and began to make her way inside, sending Spider-Man another grateful smile before closing the door behind her and locking it.

Sending her a small wave, Peter waited for a moment before leaving her house, ensuring that she was okay before he left.