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The thing is, Peter didn’t always hate Halloween. In fact, it used to be one of his favorite holidays. He and Ned would spend all of October discussing their costumes (always made by hand and always epic), watching scary movies, carving pumpkins to put out on their balconies and apartment stoops, and generally just enjoying the creepy atmosphere that takes over the city as the days grow shorter and the leaves change color.
These days though, Peter really hates Halloween, and it’s all because of one big change in his life: Spider-Man. See, patrolling on Halloween always meant a few things would inevitably happen: first, that he would be accused no less than 35 times of being a fake Spider-Man; second, that at least seven people would try to tear his mask off in order to prove he’s a fraud; and three, that he would get vomited on at least once (though whether by a drunk reveler or a child who ate too much candy was a toss-up).
So this year, Peter decided to do himself a favor and stay in. No Spider-Man, no parties– he was going to catch up on homework and go to bed at a reasonable hour. Maybe that meant he was boring, but at least it beat the alternative.
“Have a fun night, sweetheart,” May had joked right before she headed out for her shift - just a quick 4-hour one a fellow nurse had begged her to swap for -everyone at the hospital knew working in the ER on Halloween sucked. “Don’t do anything too crazy now.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “I don’t know– my ochem work can get pretty hairy… we’ll have to see.”
May just ruffled his hair. “Call Tony if you need anything.”
“I’m not twelve, May.”
May giggled, kissing the top of his head. “You’ll always be my little man.”
Right after she’d left, Peter had gone to his bedroom, sitting at his desk in the corner and getting to work. He hadn’t been entirely joking about ochem– it could get pretty hairy at points.
Now here he was, at eight pm on Halloween, busy at his desk. He was just moving onto his assignment on pericyclic reactions when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
The thought comes to him unbidden: Something’s here. Something bad.
Peter quietly stands up, grabs his web-shooters and goes to his door. He flings it open and leaps down the hallway and into the living room, holding himself in a defensive position. He looks around, waiting– but there’s nobody there. He does two full circles, trying to hone in on his spidey sense, but it’s true– the apartment is empty.
Just then he hears a skittering sound - like dozens of rats racing away - coming from over by the front door. Carefully he steps over to it, before gingerly looking out the peephole. He can’t see anyone, but just as he’s pulling back a dark shadow passes across the hallway. Lightning-fast Peter flings the door wide open, prepared to attack whatever is on the other side.
But again just like the apartment– there’s nothing.
He looks up and down the hallway three times, but it’s seemingly empty. Not even a neighbor. It’s quiet too, which isn’t that unusual, but maybe unusual for a holiday known for its raucous parties and screaming children. There’s just the sound of Peter breathing and the pipes in the walls groaning as the the old heating system tries to kick in.
“Weird,” Peter says to himself, rubbing the back of his neck. He wonders as he closes the door if perhaps the fact it’s Halloween is subconsciously creeping him out and messing with his senses.
Yeah, that must be it, he thinks, locking the door and going back to his bedroom. This time he leaves the door open, before going back to his desk.
After a few minutes the sound of loud music from a party a floor down starts booming, and Peter wastes no time putting on his special noise-canceling headphones Mister Stark made for him so he can concentrate.
The world goes silent, and Peter spends the next few hours working at his desk in peace.
It’s almost 10:30 when he hears the scream. He technically shouldn’t have been able to, but all the same he’s just finishing up the last ochem problem when his spidey sense goes absolutely nuts and then, like blood rushing in his ears it’s there– May in the kitchen, screaming.
Peter’s up and running out his bedroom door before he even fully processes the noise, flinging his headphones off.
“May, what’s…”
May is by the front door in tears, breathing hard as she stares down at the floor, eyes wide. Peter looks down, taking a sharp breath as he takes in the sight.
All across the carpet and linoleum, in no discernible pattern, are footprints. But not just any footprints; these ones are huge - at least two feet in length - and in the shape of talons, as though a giant bird of prey or other ghastly monster had been stalking about the apartment.
The image of such a creature should make Peter laugh at its absurdity, but then he registers something else– the acrid smell of old pennies suddenly flooding his nose.
The tracks, he realizes in horror, were made with blood.
“Peter, listen to me–”
“I’m not letting you go up there alone!”
No sooner had Peter registered the blood than May was pulling on his hand, demanding they go outside and call Tony. The man had arrived less than twenty minutes later, wearing a nice Tom Ford suit from a fancy party he’d been attending in lower Manhattan.
Of course, once Tony heard the story he’d insisted on going up to investigate by himself. Peter wasn’t having it.
“Kid,” Tony tried again, “Someone needs to stay with May, and–”
“No. We have no idea if that thing is still in the apartment! You’re not going by yourself, Mister Stark. I won’t let you!”
Tony sighs, before turning to May. “Will you be all right down here for a few minutes? I’ll watch over him, I promise.”
May looks like she wants to argue, her hand tightening around Peter’s bicep. But then she just nods, turning to give Peter a hug. “Be careful, sweetheart. Stick close to Tony.”
When they get to the front door of their apartment, Tony turns to Peter. “I’m entering first. I want you to stay right here in the doorway until I call for you. Do you understand me, Pete?”
Peter nods begrudgingly, knowing he won’t keep that promise if he so much as gets an inkling Tony might be in danger.
Tony activates his suit, the nanites covering him in full. “All right, give me two minutes to scope out the place.”
Peter unlocks the door with his key, opening it. The scent of blood assaults his senses but Peter doesn’t say anything as Tony walks past him and into the apartment.
“What have we got, FRI?” Peter hears Tony ask his AI as he inspects the main room.
“The blood appears to be of human origin, boss,” Peter hears FRIDAY respond, wondering if Tony doesn’t relay the information to Peter because he knows the teen can hear or - more likely - because he doesn’t want Peter to know.
Tony gives Peter one last glance before disappearing down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
Peter stares down at the floor, wondering what the hell it was that tracked him. It couldn’t just be a coincidence that it had come to his home, could it? What if it knew he was Spider-Man? What if May had been home too? What if–
Just then Peter hears Tony gasp, his mentor’s heart rate skyrocketing. Peter doesn’t even hesitate, racing down the hall– mind fleetingly taking in that the tracks he hadn’t noticed earlier when May had screamed lead straight to his bedroom. “Mister Stark!”
He finds the man standing in Peter’s bedroom, just staring at the wall opposite Peter’s desk– the wall with his bedroom door. Tony’s face plate is down, and Peter can see how ashen his face is. “Mister Stark, what’s–”
But then Peter sees it. On the wall - in large, willowy, meandering, jagged script - is a message written in blood.
LOOK AT ME
L O O K A T M E
LOOK
L O O K
LOOK AT ME
And then, at the very bottom, the blood still wet and glistening in the low light of his desk lamp:
I WILL RETURN FOR YOU
“Peter,” Tony croaks, and Peter turns to him, sees the man pointing down at his bedroom carpet. The massive footprints, which had stayed mostly in one spot by the door, had turned and walked over to the side wall, only to disappear– as if the creature had walked through the painted brick.
Peter and May stay at the tower for weeks while Tony investigates, but they never find out what creature visited the Parker household that night. Tony eventually helps find them a new apartment in Queens, and they’re moved in by Thanksgiving. Peter is forbidden from patrolling for a few months, but over time and with no other nightly visits both May and Tony let up on the rule, and Peter goes back to being Spider-Man without issue.
If he has a new habit of looking over his shoulder for no reason every few minutes, well, nobody calls him out on it.
One year later, and the bizarre incident is mostly forgotten– or at least, no longer mentioned much. It’s Halloween once more, and this year Peter decides to patrol, not able to stomach the idea of staying cooped up again.
It’s nearing his curfew and Peter is heading back to the apartment when he hears it– a skittering sound coming from a dark, abandoned back alley. Peter webs down, ready to investigate even as his spidey sense violently flares up.
He lands in the alley and starts looking this way and that, into every dark corner. He gets all the way to the back, but there’s nobody there. Just then a silence overtakes him, as though he’d put on his headphones. The sounds of the city fall away, and Peter suddenly goes cold as he hears from behind the sharp clicks of claws against the pavement.
No, not claws– talons.
Peter gasps, frozen to the spot as the clicks get closer and closer, until they stop just feet behind him. A large shadow is looming over him now, the creature easily seven or eight feet tall.
The monster speaks then, and the sound is wrong– like nails on a chalkboard, or the frightened squeals of a small, cornered animal. It’s guttural in a way Peter has never heard before, but immediately associates with rot, with darkness– with death.
“Look at me.”
Peter is shaking, his Spidey Sense screaming run with everything it has.
“Tony Stark is calling, Peter,” Karen trills in his ear, and Peter wonders what tipped the man off– perhaps Peter’s skyrocketing vitals.
It doesn’t matter, not really. He knows Tony won’t get there in time, whether Peter runs or not.
But no, Peter decides– he won’t try to flee. He can’t keep running. He has to look.
Tony must force the call through, because Peter hears him speak just then.
“Kid? Peter?! Are you–”
Peter pulls off the mask, unable to listen to Tony’s voice any longer– needing to steel himself for whatever is about to happen.
Peter drops his mask to the ground, closing his eyes. He’s absolutely terrified now, dread nearly overtaking him. Watching Ben die, being trapped underneath a building– he’s never been as scared as he in this moment.
“Look at me,” the creature repeats, talons dragging menacingly across the pavement.
He has no choice. Even if he could escape, he refuses to live in fear.
Peter takes one last breath, turns around–
And looks.