Chapter Text
Well, talking to Gwen and Anya was a bust. What exactly did Ock do? Peter had no idea.
Peter buried his head in his hands, hopelessness crashing over him. His head still ached from all but literally having his mind ripped out of his body, put in a computer, and then ripped back out and put back in his body. His life was a wreck; he had been kicked out of Horizon, his friends hated him; his reputation was in the toilet.
No one ever talked about this part of being a hero.
Peter’s head jerked up as a bright light suddenly appeared out of nowhere, lighting up his whole room. He reeled back, raising his wrist to fire a web, but it was too late. The light engulfed the whole room and Peter.
A second later, the light disappeared, and Peter blinked the spots from his eyes as he looked around.
The first thing he noticed was that he wasn’t in his room anymore. Instead, he was in a theater looking room with a huge TV screen, several couches and chairs, and a table with a bunch of food and drinks. The next thing he noticed was that he wasn’t alone. Several people were around him, everyone groaning and trying to get their bearings. Peter immediately recognized them: Aunt May, Harry, Max, Gwen, Anya, Miles, and… Doc Ock? But he was in a coma!
“Where are we?” Max asked.
“I have no idea,” Anya stated.
“I can explain,” an unfamiliar voice said, and everyone whirled around to see who had spoken.
A girl stood there, older than Peter and his friends, maybe twenties? She had long brown hair pulled into a braid over her shoulder, and she was wearing a blue dress over purple leggings. Her blue eyes literally glowed. She had a hair clip in her hair that read Writer.
Peter jumped into a defensive pose. “Who are you?” Peter demanded. Someone kidnapping a bunch of people and somehow transporting them to a mysterious room had super villain written all over it, and Peter was ready to fight her to protect his friends, even if most of them hated him.
“Me?” She smiled. “I’m The Writer.”
“The Writer?” Gwen repeated.
“Yep, and I’m not fond of how one of you has been treated for something that wasn’t his fault.”
Peter’s eyes widened, realizing she was talking about him.
“I’m rather fond of this person, and I thought you all deserved the truth about him and about what happened.”
“Who?” Anya asked.
The Writer smiled wider, a little mischievous. “You’ll find out. By watching a TV show.”
“A TV show?” Harry demanded. “You brought us all here to watch a TV show?”
“Yep,” The Writer said. “I also froze time in your world, so no time will pass while you’re here. And you can’t leave until you watch the whole show, so I’d sit your butts down and get started if I were you.”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Gwen asked.
The Writer smirked. “You don’t, but I’m also the only one who can send you back to your world, so you don’t have much of a choice.”
With that, she disappeared. Literally. In a puff of purple-pink smoke.
Everyone was all quiet for a moment.
“So… do we watch the show?” Miles asked.
“I guess so,” Harry replied.
Everyone sat down on the couches. Peter noticed Gwen, Anya, and Max immediately sat away from him, and he felt like he’d been punched in the gut, but he accepted it. They still hated him, and there wasn’t much he could do to change that. Not yet, anyway. Maybe the show would help them see what happened.
But wait. If the show was about Peter and showing them the truth, did that mean they would find out he was Spiderman?
Peter’s eyes widened. Oh, shoot.
Harry sat next to Peter, and he looked between Peter and Gwen, Anya, and Max curiously. He clearly wanted to ask, but he refrained himself, probably because the show was starting.
In the end, the seating went:
Aunt May, Peter, and Harry on one couch. Miles, Gwen, and Anya sat on another. Max took a chair, and Ock took a chair away from everyone, almost on his own but close enough to still technically be a part of the group. He met Peter’s eyes for a moment and then quickly looked away.
The show started on a picture of New York, a large building from up on the ground.
Peter: Another glorious day as Spiderman… Still getting used to calling myself that.
Spiderman thwipped across the screen.
“The show’s about Spiderman?” Max realized. “Does that mean we’ll finally find out who he is?”
Peter sunk further down in the couch, and Harry looked at him with sympathy.
Spiderman landed on a wall and then pushed off again.
…
Peter looking in awe at the Oscorp building.
“Why is it showing Parker?” Anya asked harshly.
“Unless…” Gwen started, and Peter waited for it, the moment of realization. Gwen was so smart, he didn’t have to wait long. Gwen turned to Peter, her eyes wide. “You’re Spiderman?”
Everyone whipped around to face Peter.
“It actually makes sense,” Anya said. “All the lame excuses, the weird injuries, the fact that you started acting weird at the same time Spiderman did. It all makes sense.”
“Peter, you’re a… superhero?” Aunt May said, looking at Peter with concern. “That’s so dangerous.”
“I know, Aunt May,” Peter said, guilt but also resolution creeping into his voice. Peter hated worrying Aunt May, but he knew he had made the right choice by becoming Spiderman. “But it’s like Uncle Ben always said, with great power comes great responsibility.”
“I don’t think this is what your uncle meant!” Aunt May exclaimed. “Putting yourself in danger-“
“Maybe not,” Peter said. “But when you can do the things that I can and you don’t, and then the bad things happen… they happen because of you.”
Realization dawned in Aunt May’s eyes. “Honey, is this about your uncle?”
Peter looked down, the familiar guilt worming its way through him.
Aunt May placed her hands on Peter’s shoulders, and he looked up at her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Peter looked back at the screen, clearly showing his ‘origin story,’ if you will, as Spiderman. Which meant it would show what happened to Uncle Ben, Peter’s interaction with the robber, how he indirectly caused his uncle’s death. It would show all of it.
“You might not be saying that soon,” Peter said.
Aunt May followed his gaze to the screen in confusion as the show started again.
Peter: Peter Parker. Uh, P as in phosphorous, e as in electron, t as in-
“You’re such a nerd,” Harry laughed, gently shoving Peter’s shoulder.
Harry (chuckles): it’s my dad’s company, Pete. It’s like if we went on a field trip to visit your Aunt May at a knitting factory.
“I personally think that would be very informative,” Aunt May said, a lightly joking tone to her voice.
Peter stopped by the door and kneeled down to look at a red and blue spider on the wall.
Peter: Huh.
Peter takes a picture and immediately alarms start going off.
Peter (panicked): I didn’t do it.
Everyone laughed as Peter blushed.
“How often do you get in trouble on field trips that you say that when the alarms go off?” Gwen asked.
“Oh, he gets in trouble a lot,” Harry chuckled. “There was the time he fell into the fish tank at Sea World-“
Peter buried his head in his hands. “Stop,” he said, embarrassed.
“The time Flash pushed him into a display at a museum and he got tangled in the strings holding the display up-“
“Harry-“
“The time he tried to free all the crabs at the zoo-“
“That was in kindergarten!”
“The time he-“
“We get it, Harry!” Peter exclaimed, blushing as red as a fire truck.
Everyone was laughing, and Max said, “Remind me to never take you on a field trip.”
“Well, I guess that won’t be a problem anymore,” Anya said, her voice hardening as she remembered they were angry at Peter.
Everyone fell quiet.
“Why did you start acting so weird anyway? Was it a Spiderman thing?” Gwen asked.
Everyone turned to Peter curiously.
“I believe I can answer that,” Doc Ock said, and everyone turned to face him in confusion.
The Writer’s voice suddenly sounded through the room. “No spoilers!” The Writer sing-songed.
The show started playing again.
Scientist: I expect you’re all as excited as this young man here to get to use such state of the art technology. But don’t let the fancy equipment fool you because if you’re a true scientist, you can solve any problem with this (points at his head) using the five steps of the scientific method, which are of course observation, hypothesis-
Peter: prediction, experimentation, and conclusion.
Everyone looks at Peter, unamused.
Peter: sorry.
Doctor Smythe: Mr. Parker, one more outburst out of you, and I’ll kick you to the moon.
“He should be encouraging curiosity and excitement, not condemning it!” Max exclaimed.
Peter (voice over): I’d say the only thing that unsettles a scientist is something called chance- when a situation has no specific rhyme or reason.
Miles pretended to shudder. “Ugh, chance.”
All of the scientists in the room nodded.
A spider lands on Peter’s hand, and the air seems to vibrate as Peter throws the spider off his hand.
Peter (rubbing his hand): ouch!
The class laughs, but the world blues around Peter as he looks at the huge red bump on the back of his hand.
“Why is everyone laughing? He’s clearly sick!” Gwen said.
Peter sees the bathroom says out of order. He rams his shoulder against it and then hits it with his palm, and the door falls inward, straight off the hinges.
“Woah,” Harry said. “That’s pretty cool.”
Peter shrugged sheepishly. “Would’ve been cooler if I hadn’t been panicking.”
The bathroom as Peter stumbles in, holding his head. He falls against the sink, sweat dripping down his face.
“That’s the sickest I’ve ever been,” Peter remembered
Aunt May placed a hand on his shoulder. “Peter, you should’ve told me.”
“I didn’t want to worry you,” Peter replied.
“And I appreciate that, but it’s my job to worry about you,” Aunt May said and then pressed a kiss to his forehead.
Peter breathes unsteadily as he turns on the sink and looks at his hands. His hands turn red and Peter looks in the mirror to show the rest of him is turning red, too.
Peter: Hot.
Peter strips off his hoodie and shirt and throws them on the floor.
“That was some fever,” Peter recalls.
His friends look at him with worry, seeing him brush off how clearly sick he had been.
Peter tried to throw the towel to the side, but it sticks to his hand. He realizes his other hand is stuck to the towel dispenser, and he rips it straight off the wall when he tries to pull his hand away.
Peter (panicked): no reason to be alarmed!
“To be fair, I would’ve been freaking out, too,” Harry says.
“Anyone would’ve,” Anya states.
Peter looks at his hands, one stuck to the towel dispenser and the other to the paper towel, and shakes his hands free with a yell. He turns back to the mirror and yells again.
The scene shows Peter’s vision is blurry, and when Peter takes off his classes, his vision clears.
Peter: I can see. I can see without my glasses!
“So that’s why you stopped wearing your glasses all of a sudden!” Harry exclaims. “I just thought you got contacts or something.”
“I was confused, too,” Aunt May says. “But I just thought it was some weird puberty side effect.”
“Aunt May!” Peter squawks in embarrassment.
Peter: Okay, walk it off, Peter, just walk it off.
…
Peter opens his eyes and yells as he realizes he’s walking on the ceiling.
“You didn’t realize you were walking on the ceiling?” Max asked in fascination.
“Nope,” Peter told him. “Floors, walls, ceilings, it all feels the same to me. It happens more often than you’d think.”
“Tell me about it,” Doc Ock said, confusing everyone except Peter. “The first time it happened to me, I freaked out so bad, I fell back to the floor. Head first.”
“Right!” Peter exclaimed. “It’s so disorientating.”
Everyone looked between Peter and Doc Ock, but neither offered an explanation because spoilers .
Harry walks in, and the scene shows Peter clinging to the ceiling above him.
Harry: Pete, you in here? Pete?
Harry shrugs and walks back out. A second later, Peter falls to the ground.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harry asked. He tried to accept his best friend had hid his powers from him to protect him, but what about before he was Spiderman? The fact Peter had kept such a huge secret from him when they used to tell each other everything still stung.
“I was freaking out,” Peter admitted, “And I… didn’t want you to think I was some kind of freak.”
Harry grabbed his hand. “Pete, if you grew eight arms and had eight eyes, I still wouldn’t think you were a freak. You could’ve told me.”
Peter smiled. Harry had no idea how much that meant to him. “Yeah, I know that now. Thanks, Harry.”
“Anytime, Pete.”
Peter (voice over): you’d think I’d share something this big with my friend, Harry. But my head was spinning, and I felt like I needed to understand it myself first.
“Are you talking to the statues?”
“I was freaking out, okay?”
Peter: Panic is not one of the steps. I added that on my own. You’re right. Stick with the basics. Step one: observation.
The scene shows Peter walking outside on the streets of New York.
Peter: I have observed that I seem to have the powers of a spider, presumably given to me by one of the experimental spiders that escaped at Oscorp- wait, what’s happening?
The air seems to vibrate, an eerie sound plays.
“What’s that?” Max asked, looking like he wanted to take notes on the fascinating scientific happenings of the show.
“My spider sense,” Peter answered. “It allows me to sense danger.”
Peter: It’s like my entire body’s covered in goosebumps, and they’re all telling to… jump!
Peter leaped several feet into the air, jumping straight over a car that had been barreling towards him as the car honks.
Aunt May clapped a hand over her heart. “Oh my gosh, you walked right in front of a car. Look up from your phone, Peter!”
“Sorry, Aunt May,” Peter says sheepishly.
Peter: But do I also have a spider’s strength? In class, we learned spiders can lift 173 times their own weight-
Miles took out his phone and opened the calculator.
“Assuming you’re a hundred and twenty pounds, you can lift… 20, 760 pounds!”
Peter shrugged. “Well, I’ve never really tried to lift that much, but yeah, I guess so.”
“We should do some tests to figure out how strong you really are!” Gwen suggested. “Starting small and gradually increasing the weight, it would be amazing to find out how much you can lift.”
“I’ve never really tested all my powers,” Peter admitted. “I know what powers I have but never really ran any experiments.”
Anya scoffed. “And you call yourself a scientist? Who knows what you can really do? Like what surfaces can you stick to? Does your spider sense always activate to a perceived danger or just actual danger? Uh, what other powers do you have?”
“Spider sense, stickiness, super strength, and healing ability,” Peter answered.
“You have a healing ability?” Harry asks.
“Yep. A bruise can heal in an hour, depending on how bad it is.”
“I don’t even want to know how you know that,” Aunt May sighed.
Peter: Spiders can spin webs. Not so much for me. But that seems like something I can create in my lab.
“You can’t make webs?” Gwen asked in surprise.
“Nope,” Peter said. “Not naturally. So I create them in my lab and use my web shooters.”
Peter holds up his wrist and demonstrates this by shooting a web across the room.
“Wow, you synthesized a spider’s web. That’s so cool!” Miles exclaimed.
Peter laughed. “Not as cool as your electrowebs.”
“You’re what?” Max asked.
Peter and Miles look at each other in panic.
“He’s probably going to find out anyway,” Peter pointed out.
Miles nodded and turned to Max. “I’m Kid Arachnid.”
Max blinked. “Any other of my students have spider powers?”
Gwen raised her hand. “I’m Ghost Spider.”
Anya raised her hand, too. “And I’m Spider Girl.”
Max nodded. He doesn’t even look surprised anymore.
The screwdriver slips, and webs explode everywhere, stretching across the camera and covering Peter, including his mouth.
Peter (through the webbing): spiders have an easy time making webs. I’m gonna have to work on that.
Everyone laughed.
“How long did it take you to get the hang of it?” Harry asked curiously.
“A couple of weeks,” Peter answered. “Honestly, when I first started as Spiderman, I still had no idea what I was doing.”
Anya laughed. “We could tell,” she said good-naturedly.
Everyone laughed again, including Peter.
“But seriously, Peter, you did pretty good for only having powers for a few weeks,” Anya said, which is the closest thing Anya ever got to a compliment.
The camera changes clips. A close up of Peter’s webshooter is shown. It looks like a watch.
Peter: Okay, I think I’ve worked out all the kinks.
Peter backs up and shows he’s on a roof holding a metal pipe.
Peter: now if they only told time and played music, I could make a fortune. But can a watch do this?
“You know I always wondered why Peter wore two watches,” Gwen mentioned. “And yet he’s still always late!”
“I just can’t believe none of us noticed Peter’s watches didn’t even tell time,” Anya realized. “We’re supposed to be geniuses.”
“Well, at first glance, the psi reading looks like the time,” Peter pointed out. “Most people didn’t look closer than that because why would they?”
“A clever way to hide the web shooters in plain sight,” Max said.
Peter throws the ball of webs and hits it with the metal pipe like he’s hitting a baseball.
Peter: Ha! Touchdown! Or whatever it is you call it in baseball.
Harry face palmed. “Home run. It’s called a home run, Pete.”
Glass shatters in the distance.
Peter: Yeesh. Sorry!
Everyone chuckled.
The camera changes clips. Peter’s back in his room.
Peter: Wow, I can make virtually anything. Let’s start with something simple.
Peter stretches some webs across the room to make a hammock. He jumps onto it.
“You have cool web shooters, and the first thing you do is make a hammock?” Harry asked.
“Hey, practical and comfy,” Peter said.
A fly appears on screen, and Peter follows it with his eyes. Peter tried shooting webs at the fly but misses.
Peter: Flies are a spider’s main source of nutrition.
“Ew!” Harry exclaimed. “Were you going to eat it?”
Peter blushed. “No! Spiders can sense their food really well. I just wanted to see if I could hit it.”
Peter: Come on!
The fly lands on Peter’s nose.
Peter: Ha! Now, I got you.
Peter shoots the web at his face.
“Oh, that’s not a good idea-“ Miles started. “Too late,” he sighed.
He gets the fly but now has web plastered over his face. He stumbles back and lands on the hammock. He pulls off the webbing and lays back on the hammock.
Peter: I think I’m getting the hang of this.
“Are you, though?” Gwen asked.
The scene changes to Peter standing on the edge of a rooftop.
…
Peter jumps off the building and shoots a web.
“Why would you do that so high up?” Aunt May asked, looking like she was about to have a heart attack. “You couldn’t have just done it a few feet off the ground instead of on a roof?”
Peter shrugged sheepishly. “Go big or go home?”
Aunt May sighed in exasperation and face palmed at her ridiculously reckless nephew.
The webs support him as Peter swings down the street. Some people look up.
“You’re just doing that in front of everyone? You couldn’t have found a more secluded area? Or at least waited until you had a better costume?” Anya asked.
Peter smiled. “I might’ve gotten a little excited.”
“I’ll say,” Anya said.
Peter: Yeah, they work! I’m definitely getting the hang of this.
Peter swings around a corner and hits a wall.
Peter: Ugh. Wall: One, Parker: Zero.
“Ooh,” Miles said, wincing in sympathy. He’d done that himself the first time he tried swinging on his webs.
The scene changes to Peter swinging through the streets of New York.
Peter: Hello, world! My name is Peter Parker, but you might know me as…
Peter lands on a wall.
Peter: Web Face! No, doesn’t sound right.
Peter starts swinging again.
Peter: you might know me as… Bug Boy? Too cutesy.
Peter lands and starts walking down the street.
Peter: Daddy Long-Legs. Not tall enough.
The teenagers in the room started laughing.
“Daddy?” Harry said, almost in hysterics.
Peter was blushing bright red. “I just heard it.”
“Guys, Daddy has been so sexualized,” Miles said. “My kids are going to need to call me bruh or something.”
Peter: I wish there were five steps to coming up with a good name. Right now, I’m focused on the five steps of the scientific method. It’s what I’m using to assess what’s happening to me. I’m up to step three: prediction.
Peter stops in front of a fortune teller.
“Seriously?” Gwen asked. “And you call yourself a scientist?”
Fortune teller: you there, come over and let me tell you your future.
Peter: sorry, lady, but I don’t believe in all that hocus pocus. I’m a scientist.
Peter starts to walk away.
Fortune teller: Oh, really? Because I see fame and fortune in your future.
Peter backs up again.
“That’s how they get you,” Miles said.
Peter: that’s what I was thinking! With the things I can do, I could easily be a household name. I’m charming, quick-witted, and I can do whatever a spider can.
“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, can do whatever a spider can!” Miles sang.
Peter groaned. “Not that vine, Miles.”
“What vine?” Harry asked with a grin. He pointed at Miles. “You are showing me that later.”
Peter: fame and fortune, huh? I knew that spider bite would lead to big things. But if I’m going to be in the limelight, I’m going to need something better than a web mask. I’m going to need a whole costume.
Peter sniffs.
Peter: and something to get the webbing out of my nose.
Peter picks his nose.
“Ew!” Anya and Gwen exclaimed.
Aunt May sighed. “Peter, have some manners.”
“I’ll remember that next time a bunch of people decide to watch a tv show about my life, Aunt May,” Peter said.
“Besides, all men do it,” Harry said.
Miles nodded.
The scene changes to Peter in his room, looking through his closet.
Peter: Aha!
Peter pulls a cardboard box painted to look like Iron Man’s helmet out of the closet and puts it on.
Peter: homemade Iron Man. Too Halloweeny.
“I remember that Halloween!” Harry exclaimed. “I went as Iron Patriot, well, War Machine now.”
“You two are such nerds,” Gwen said.
“And you’re not?” Harry laughed. “Who doesn’t love the Avengers? Peter even went as Black Widow one year.”
“Gwen did, too,” Anya said.
“That’s because she’s awesome!” Gwen exclaimed. “Total badass.”
“Isn’t she?” Peter said, and he and Gwen high fived, the fight between Peter and Gwen and Anya almost forgotten as they watched the show.
The scene shows Peter jumping in front of the mirror, dressed in a cape and with underwear over his pants.
Peter: Too obvious.
“Peter, I never thought I’d have to say this, but please wear your underwear inside of your pants,” Aunt May said.
Peter slides in front of the mirror again in a spider man mask, a blue hoodie, jeans, and kneepads.
Peter: Mm, too much.
“That kind of looks like the costume you’ve been wearing lately. Is that why you changed it?” Anya asked.
“No,” Peter said, his voice suddenly cold, and he glared at Doc Ock, who quickly looked away. The others looked between them curiously.
Peter is shown on screen in red and blue sweatpants, red and blue hoodie, and a red mask.
Peter: This is more like it. Thank goodness I had the resources.
Peter puts on a pair of amber colored goggles.
“What are those for?” Harry asked.
“Well, since the spider bite, my senses have been dialed to eleven,” Peter answered. “My hearing, my sight, everything. The goggles helped me blocked out some of the sight.”
Aunt May (off screen): Peter, have you seen my blue tights?
Gwen laughed. “You wore tights?”
“They were sweatpants,” Peter defended.
Peter: I think they’re called sweats, Aunt May, and no, I haven’t.
“Well, now I know where they went,” Aunt May said.
Peter lands in an alley. There’s posters for a wrestling match behind him.
Peter: so many options, but something tells me I’ll know it when I see it.
“You’re going to go out for that wrestling thing, aren’t you?” Anya sighed.
Peter: I don’t know if you know this, but spiders are incredibly strong and have been known to live in every habitat known to man, except the sea and air of course. Commonly mislabeled as insects, spiders are actually of the arachnida class, which is-
“You’re about to fight someone, and you’re still being a nerd about it,” Harry laughed, ruffling Peter’s hair affectionately.
The scene shows a few scenes of Bone Saw McGee.
“Oh my gosh,” Aunt May said. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“No, Aunt May,” Peter assured her, but his voice became sad as he remembered how this night ended.
Criminal: Out of my way, man!
Peter: woah. Not my problem.
“You just let him go?” Gwen asked, not angry, just curious. “That doesn’t seem like a very Spider-Man thing to do.”
“I wasn’t Spider-Man yet,” Peter said sadly. “I was so focused on myself, and… I’m not proud of it, believe me.”
Harry placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder, wondering why his friend had gone from so happy to so sad as soon as the wrestling event started.
Peter looked at him and tried to smile, but it was fake and Harry knew it.
Harry kept his hand on Peter’s shoulder, a comforting weight, as the scene kept playing.
Bone Saw McGee hits Peter with a chair.
Peter: Ow, a chair? I don’t think that’s-
“Peter, you said you didn’t get hurt! He just hit you with a chair!” Aunt May exclaimed.
“Don’t worry, Aunt May, the bruise healed in an hour.”
“Still!”
Peter kicks Bone Saw.
Peter: I think Bone Saw stars with that one.
“That pun was even worse than usual,” Miles said, pretending to gag.
“Hey, my puns and quips are amazing!” Peter defended.
Harry laughed. “Sure, they are, Pete.”
Pete pouted a bit, but he couldn’t help but laugh, too.
Camera man: give me a good pose, Spiderman. Because you’re gonna remember this day for the rest of your life.
“Well, he was right about that,” Peter muttered.
Everyone looked at Peter in concern.
Peter: This is the first sports trophy I ever got. Granted, it was awarded to the Spider, but that’s because I won it putting my new powers to use as a masked wrestler. The trophy is made up of three different metals and two different dioxides. I know that because I’m really into science, a subject my uncle Ben encouraged me to pursue.
Aunt May’s face fell in realization. “Oh,” she said, sadly.
Peter looked away from her.
Aunt May wrapped her arms around him from the side as everyone else looked at them in worry and confusion.
Peter: He would’ve been proud of this trophy, but he’ll never get to see it. Because you know what else is made up of three different kinds of metal?
A bullet rips through the scene.
Everyone jumped, horrified at the implications.
Peter: That’s what ended my uncle’s life when he surprised a burglar earlier tonight.
“Peter, I-I’m so sorry,” Anya stammered.
Peter scrubbed the tears from his eyes, stubbornly refusing to let them fall. “Not as sorry as I am,” he said.
When everyone looked at him in confusion, Aunt May said, “Peter’s the one who found him. He tried to save him, but it was too late.”
“There’s more than that,” Peter said.
Aunt May looked down at him in worry and bewilderment, but Peter didn’t elaborate. The show kept playing.
Peter puts on his mask.
Peter: now it’s time to find out what I’m made of.
“Peter, no!” Aunt May exclaimed, knowing what Peter was going to do.
“It’s okay, I didn’t,” Peter assured her.
Peter slams the burglar into a bunch of crates.
Burglar: don’t hurt me!
Peter: are you making a request or just quoting someone else from tonight?
Everyone was disturbed to see Peter so angry. Peter was always nice, calm, and innocent in the sense that he always saw the best in everyone… well, until recently… and to see him so angry and ready to hurt, to kill, was frightening.
Peter rips off the webs covering the burglar’s face.
Peter: that face, I remember that face.
Flashback to earlier that night.
Peter: what have I done? What have I done?
“So you see, it was my fault,” Peter said, looking at Aunt May guiltily. He avoided her eyes, unable to meet them. “I let him go, and he…”
Aunt May placed a hand under Peter’s chin and gently lifted his head to meet her eyes.
“Peter, it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known,” she said softly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Peter said. “I still let a criminal get away, said it wasn’t my problem. And he killed Uncle Ben! How can you not be angry?”
“Because it wasn’t your fault,” Aunt May stressed. “And you have saved so many people since then. I could never blame you, Peter.”
The tears Peter had been holding back since the wrestling scene started finally broke free, and he sobbed. Aunt May guided him to bury his head in her chest and held him close as the scene kept playing.
Peter: My Uncle Ben once said with great power comes great responsibility. I don’t think I really understood what he meant that night, but what I do know is I need to become more than a celebrity. I need to become a symbol, a beacon of hope. I need to become a hero.
“Peter, I’m sorry I didn’t understand why you become Spider-Man,” Harry said. He had always thought Spider-Man was a menace who only wanted attention and fame, and when he found out Spider-Man was Peter… well, he wasn’t sure what to think. But his best friend had become Spider-Man so no one would have to feel pain like he did, and Harry had condemned him for it.
Harry deserved for Peter to feel angry or betrayed, but Peter just smiled. “It’s okay, Harry.”
Harry immediately hugged him, and Peter hugged back.
Peter: And I’m sure it’s what Uncle Ben would’ve wanted.
Aunt May hugged her nephew. “He would’ve been so proud of you,” she said.
Peter: although I’ve been called many things- a menace
Harry looked down, remembering how often he had called Spider-Man, his best friend, a menace.
Peter: amazing, spectacular, sensational, you’ll know me best as Spider-Man!
“You finally came up with a good name,” Miles said.
The screen showed a Next Episode sign. It read: Next Episode: Horizon High, Part 1.
“This must be when you got into Horizon High,” Gwen said.
“And destroyed my project,” Anya added.
“Would you let it go, Anya?” Peter laughed. “You rebuilt it in two days.”
“Still!”
The next episode started playing.