Chapter Text
Flash knows about Parker’s secret long before anyone else does, if anyone ever does. He doesn’t know, he keeps out of it, none of his business. But he knows Parker isn’t human before he put on that red and black suit and people started calling him Spider-Man. He’s not stupid. He’s not. People have a tendency to think he is, and he likes it that way, but he’s not. He knows the strength in a man’s arm, knows how high a human can jump, knows how fast he is, how good his reflexes are, how heavy he is. What fear does and does not look like.
The moment Parker got cocky and walked onto that basketball court without a trace of fear in his eyes, Flash knew something was up. Everyone else saw a guy messing with him. He saw someone with too good reflexes where they hadn’t been there before, able to jump higher than any random highschooler should be able to. He’s fought Parker, for god’s sake, did the guy really think he didn’t know how strong he was supposed to be?
And then Ben died, and well. He saw the look on Parker’s face. He knew that pain. He didn’t even know what he was going to say when he grabbed his arm and then his feet were dangling off the ground. He wasn’t even surprised. Parker was hurting and now he hurt others because it felt better than feeling the pain. Somehow he wasn’t even surprised that he probably weighed a solid 75 pounds more than Parker and he wasn’t even showing signs of strain holding him up. Just a confirmation that he wasn’t going crazy after all.
“feels good, doesn’t it?”
And Parker dropped him, and walked away. And then a week later a news report came on of a guy in a mask with superhuman strength and powers targeting guys with the same profile as the guy who murdered Parker’s uncle, and Flash couldn’t bring himself to be surprised.
The cops had offered a hefty reward and he thought about it, really did, but it didn’t seem worth tangling himself up in all that. All that…super human business, once you got mixed up in it you never got back out, and anyway fuck the cops. They were just mad someone else was doing their job better than them. So he minded his own business and he didn’t say jack fucking shit, and so far it had all worked out. For a while at least. Until something else entirely fucking dragged him into all that shit.
He was on the freeway, riding to his apartment from college after an evening class. He liked this drive back, very few cars were on the road at this time and he could go just about as fast as he wanted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another motorcyclist swing into the lane behind him, and he adjusted so they wouldn’t be in line with each other. They drove in tandem for a while, and he’d mostly stopped noticing the other motorcycle until he heard the sudden screech of tires. HE wildly looked back over his shoulder just in time to see a red truck slam head on into the motorcyclist behind him. Flash swerved wildly in shock, and his front tire went off the road. There was a heart stopping tumble, he tried to stop. He felt his left side impact as he flew over the handlebars and rolled.
Finally things stopped and he stared up at the darkening sky through his helmet. Oh thank fucking god his fucking helmet. Holy fucking shit he was never going to take shit for that ever fucking again. Anthony could eat a fucking bag of dicks. He moved his hand up, compulsively checking himself, and pain flared all along the left side of his body. He groaned and frantically looked himself over. Oh thank Christ. No bones poking out. No fucking bones. He couldn’t deal with fucking bones- oh shit the other motorcyclist. Holy fuck that was a bad hit. The guy was dead. The guy was fucking dead. He probably needed help right now.
Flash flailed wildly to his feet, the world swaying around him, and ripped his helmet off, gasping in air. He stumbled up the embankment, back towards the wreckage of the other motorcycle. No sign of the red truck, fucking asshole. He’d fucking rip his throat out if he saw him again, leaving a man to fucking die-
Blood
So much
Blood
A still body in the middle of the road-
Flash stumbled to the man’s side. He frantically tried to assess the damage. Should he move him? Should he check for a pulse? Fuck he didn’t know what to fucking do. He started to fumble for his phone, desperately hoping it wasn’t totally shattered.
“hey man. Hey. Hey. It’s ok. I’m gonna call an ambulance. It’s gonna be alright. It’s gonna be-“
The man turned his head to look at Flash, he got a glimpse of a startled face and then blood sprayed absolutely fucking everywhere. Including in his goddamn mouth. He coughed and spat frantically.
“Oh so you were fucking DISTRACTED? Is that it? Fucking- we could’ve BOTH fucking died you goddamn moron you were the one who was like ‘oooohhh Eddie don’t worry about getting hit on your motorcycle I’ll just fucking make sure you doooonn’t’ and now we’ve TRAUMATIZED this poor kid. That was my goddamn artery that was cut, I don’t know HOW much blood we’ve just lost-”
Flash looked up, to his absolute disbelief, the man was now sitting up.
“dude I don’t think you should be-“
He cut off with a strangled gasp. The roadrash on the mans shoulder facing him was just…disappearing, knitting back together before his eyes.
“Dude, your shoulder…”
The man looked at him with a weary expression on his face.
“yeah it fuckin does that- NO you can’t eat him! He tried to help us! You can eat that asshole of a truck driver though if we ever see him again-”
Flash spluttered “eat…? Dude what the fuck… what the fuck man”
The guy glanced briefly his way “sorry not you- NO, absolutely NOT, I KNOW that healing takes a lot of work but you will NOT eat his brains, we’ll stop by a chicken farm on our way home.”
Flash got up and began slowly backing away, a trickle of fear beginning to work its way down his spine. Whoever this guy was, he did not want to deal with whatever he had going on. The man didn’t seem to notice him leaving and then suddenly black ooze covered him. Flash froze, staring at the gargantuan, black humanoid that had replaced the man. The thing looked down at him, impossibly large white eyes stretched across its face like a mask.
“Eddie says I cannot eat you. So goodbye little man.”
Flash watches in shock as the thing bounds down the road, disappearing from sight.
What the actual fuck.