Chapter Text
There is a saying about you fight yourself. Humans are so complicated that they can fight with themselves within their inner mind. Whether it is about having internal conflict between rationality and emotions, or more. The hardest fight is to fight yourself, more than others.
Peter Parker, now known as Peter-Three by his beloved brothers, doesn’t know whether that is true or not.
After all, he is the type of person who avoids to reflect himself. He doesn’t like to dive deep down within himself, to understand himself, more than others. Heck, he doesn’t really like to see his own reflection in the mirror.
When he thinks too deeply about himself, he realizes too many rotten things that are better buried and locked down, rather than be revealed.
And maybe, that is exactly one of his fatal flaws.
“Boy, I suggest before you try to play a superhero, pretending to fix the other humans, you should fix yourself first.”
Peter-Three never likes it when his enemy is a woman, not that he is sexist but many of them are really good at playing mental games like this.
“Oh, please don’t act like you know me inside out. Not even my therapist knows me that well, not like I have one in the first place,” Peter-Three shoots his web toward his enemy but her body evaporates like mist when the web hits it. Her specialty is using hallucinogen, which she uses to revenge her personal matters but leaves a chaotic mess wherever she goes.
Peter-Three hears a chuckle and he turns around to see that she is standing in a completely different building. “Really, it isn’t hard to guess. A man-child playing hero, there is no normal man who would do that without a price. And mind you, but I have followed your career for a decade as a fellow New Yorker, whoever is behind that mask must be quite messed up,” she points at him with a devious smile.
“Well, no normal man can stick to the wall like a spider either,” Peter-Three retorts back. He swings toward her and lands a few levels below her, sticking his feet onto the vertical wall. “And if you dislike how I play hero, then maybe you can just turn yourself in so that we can end… all of this.” Peter-Three gestures his hands widely to everything.
She chuckles again, sweetly but also sickening. “Hm… my revenge is done, actually. But no, I don’t want to turn myself in.” Then she stares at him with a smile. “I hope you can excuse me for this once and turn a blind eye to this, how about that?”
It is rare to see a villain, who has a great ability to create chaos, to not pursue destroying the world or something like that. “How about no?” Peter-Three asks back. Tons of people suffered a hallucinogenic effect because of her revenge, so there is no way that he can turn a blind eye to this.
Peter-Three shoots the water tank on the rooftop and uses it as leverage so he can jump faster to the rooftop where the enemy standing.
“Well, at least, I warned you, honey.” That is what Peter-Three hears for the last time before his vision surrounded by pink smoke.
Despite looking harmless and lively, Peter-Three can tell that the hallucinogen is doing something once he accidentally inhales it. The middle brother Spider-Man falls onto the floor of the rooftop, losing his footing and groaning as his head pounds. His vision starts to swirl and colors are mixing.
“What are you… doing to… me…?”
“Hm… I don’t know, most drugs are giving humans forbidden happiness that they can’t obtain… but mine is bringing out the buried nightmare that you want to forget.”
Peter-Three shakes his head because her voice sounds muddled and echoing in his head. Her steps sound far away and his spider-sense warns him that the enemy is running away.
“Bye, Spider-Man. I hope we will never meet again.”
That is what Peter-Three heard before he could no longer sense her presence.
Peter-Three grimaces as he pulls off his mask before he vomits. Vomiting wearing a mask is really gross, so thankfully he manages to evade it. He tries to regulate his breathing as his visions swirl around and he starts to see something else.
“F*cking dammit…” Peter-Three blinks his eyes in helplessness. After hearing her words, Peter-Three expects that he is going to relive the moments of Gwen’s death.
But, he blinks in confusion when he sees something else.
“Big Bug…?”
It is so weird to see something in his vision, but he knows that it isn’t happening in real-time. It feels like he is in a video game using the first-person POV, where he can only see his hands—
Are those… hands? Why—what is this—
Peter-Three sees how someone, no- he attacks Big Bug, who looks surprised and shocked but reacts swiftly. The hands that don’t like human hands keep attacking him, charging at him before finally, someone else enters the room.
“Little Bug… Huh… what is this? Stop it---”
Peter-Three doesn’t remember any of this. Is this a hallucination? A nightmare? But why is this… so vivid and yet so muddled at the same time?
He can see how Peter-Two shoots his webs toward him repeatedly and the last shot that immobilizes that strange hand comes from Peter-One.
Peter-Three sees how Peter-One crumbles to the floor and cries.
And how Peter-Two approaches him with such a glassy look that Peter-Three never seen him like that before. The middle brother is stunned to see the oldest cries… because he never cried. He never—
Peter-Three is stunned to see the reflection in Peter-Two’s eyes.
It takes him a second to process but… whoever—whatever is being reflected there is… not a human.
“What—what is that--- what---” Peter-Three is trembling hard, not realizing how his breathing gets shorter and faster as he can feel the panic rising inside his chest.
After a moment picturing of what is being reflected in Peter-Two’s eyes, finally, Peter-Three can finally figure it out.
It is…
A spider monster… a humanoid… spider-monster.
“No… no… is that me? What is this? When—” Peter-Three trembles as tears start to fall uncontrollably. “This isn’t true… this… didn’t happen—” Peter-Three tries to snap himself out. He can’t just succumb helplessly just because of some hallucinogen attack from his enemy, he should get the hang of himself, he should—
“Stop it, just STOP IT!” Peter-Three sees how Peter-Two crying and hugging him—the monster. Peter-Three can’t handle it anymore, he hits the ground hard with his hands, trying to bring himself pain to snap himself from these cruel images. He hits the ground desperately, repeatedly, bruising his hands, hoping for more pain.
And finally, it works, the weird vision starts to fade out before Peter-Three can see the sky again. He breathes out a relieved sigh before he wipes out a sweat from his forehead… only to realize that his skin feels a bit strange.
He traces his skin with his trembling hand, feeling the weird and hard skin, unlike the soft human skin. He keeps tracing it until he reaches his left eye and notices that…
His left eye’s vision… is weird… This tactile… it doesn’t feel like human either.
“What happened to me—what—” Peter-Three can feel how his heart thumping so fast, his stomach starts to churn weirdly again. He feels nauseous. But, he puts aside those for now and runs toward the edge of the building before he crawls and checks the reflection on the window.
There he can see it… on the left part of his face the weird dark webs on his skin—the exoskeleton skin… and the bug eye…
“What—no… no this can’t happen… I’m not—I’m not a monster, no-- I’M NOT!”
Peter-Three screams his heart out as he can feel how he falls deeper into despair.
0o0o0o0
“Are you alright?”
“You?”
Peter-Two looks at the youngest, who has a panicked and confused look on his face while they look at each other. “Then… it must be…”
“Peter-Three,” they both say at the same time.
Peter-Two thinks for a bit. “I suddenly feel panic… dread emotion from our bond… it is really concerning…” Dread is the closest word he can explain what he feels, but it isn’t the right word. It feels like a mix of fear, anger, horror, and anxiety then multiply everything into 100. It is Peter-Two’s first time to feel this kind of feeling from their bonds ever since it was made.
He needed to cut his interview with his client short because of it. He knew that there was something terribly wrong with one or both of his brothers.
When he quickly comes back to his apartment, he meets the bewildered youngest.
“We need to find Peter-Three quickly, I’m really worried,” Peter-One says as he turns back to the portal before the oldest can say anything.
Peter-Two follows the youngest and jumps through the portal. He lands on Peter-Three’s apartment and then his spider-sense starts to ring weirdly. There is no clear reason, just a general warning that there is something dangerous close by.
“Do you feel it?” Peter-One whispers to Peter-Two with an alarmed face. He crouches down and looks around quietly.
The oldest nods. “Something… is weird.”
Peter-Two can’t explain it, but everything feels unfamiliar but also familiar at the same time. He tries to remember it, whether he has experienced something like this or not.
“Peter! Peter, are you here?” The youngest starts to call out the middle brother. Peter-Two wants to warn the youngest to stop, but then he questions himself why he thinks it is like that.
Then in a split of second, Peter-Two sees something flying toward the youngest, Peter-One dodges it in a nick of time but then he looks confused to see the fallen plastic cup on the floor.
“GO AWAY!”
Peter-Two turns to see the source of the voice.
There he is, the middle brother.
The oldest frowns to see Peter-Three’s appearance. He is covering his head with a blanket that is draped on top of his head.
“Peter, are you okay? Are you sick-“
“No, don’t dare you say pretend to not know anything… how… how could you two not say anything to me…” Peter-Three says with bitterness and anger apparent in his voice. Peter-Two can also feel fear and confusion from their bonds. Though, probably that is how the three of them feel now.
“Hey, hey, I think you need to calm down first…” Peter-Two coaxes the middle brother. Peter-Three is clearly worked up because of something, Peter-Two hasn’t figured out what, but it is bad. The middle brother is tense and breathing too quickly.
“Calm? How can I be calm in this situation…?” Peter-Three spits out with sarcasm. “When both of you don’t even bother to tell me anything… pretending everything is fine… how could you two… do that to me?”
“I don’t understand what are you talking about, Peter!” Peter-One shouts back desperately, he is frowning and looking scared. “Please, can you explain what you mean about that?”
Peter-Three is seething with anger and there is a clear betrayed expression on his face that is covered slightly with a blanket. Finally, he pulls his blanket down and now Peter-Two can see it.
“About this! THIS!”
The oldest has a flashback of Peter-Three turning into a spider monster and attacking him and Peter-One, then he snaps it out and shakes his head. It is so horrid to see how the left part of Peter-Three’s face is turning back into an exoskeleton with a left bug eye.
But, there is also a dark web pattern on his skin… which reminds Peter-Two of something. “That’s…”
“See, you recognized this look, right?” Peter-Three asks, looking betrayed. For a moment, he looks speechless as his right eye becomes glassy.
“Peter… how could this happen…?” Peter-One asks with fear in his eyes. He talks softly and breaks a little bit.
Peter-Three huffs with a resigned look on his face. He shakes his head. “I don’t know, an enemy drugged me with a hallucinogen and I remembered something… right…” He trails off as if he just remembers with a bitter smile that feels ironic. “I remembered how I attacked you two when I was a monster… then I realized how… you two never bothered to tell me anything about it…”
Peter-Two can feel his heartbreak and he trembles a little bit. “You… remembered that?”
He has been hoping that Peter-Three would never remember that. After all, he believes that… what Peter-Three doesn’t know can’t hurt him. But, that is just Peter-Two being a hypocrite again…
“Yes, and I… I just can’t believe-“ Peter-Three pauses as if he is suddenly choked up. “You didn’t tell me at all, you didn’t tell me anything… again, especially for you… Peter.”
There is anger and disappointment in Peter-Three’s right eye directed on Peter-Two. The oldest doesn’t know how to react at all. It is also very rare for the middle brother to call his name that way.
“You really have the habit of harboring secrets… do you?” Peter-Three asks again in sarcasm. He glances at Peter-One with the same bitter expression.
“I-I’m really sorry, Peter… I don’t-“ Peter-One mumbles weakly, his eyes getting teary.
“Stop, just stop… I don’t want to hear any excuse!” Peter-Three snaps back and Peter-One winces. “From all of the people, you two shouldn’t hide something like this from ME! You needed to TELL ME that I TURNED INTO A MONSTER and I’M DANGEROUS!”
Peter-Two can’t explain what he feels right now or what he feels through their bonds.
Heartbreak, it feels like he is having a heartbreak.
“Peter, you aren’t a-“
“DON’T LIE TO ME LIKE THAT!” Peter-Three cuts the oldest’s words before he can finish it. “You dare to say that while I look like THIS!?” the middle brother swipes his hair to the right as if by doing that everyone can see his horrid left face turning into a spider monster more clearly. “I could… I could even attack you both in any minute now… maybe I would go insane and lose my mind completely so… how could you…”
Peter-Two feels immense guilt. Right, this happens because he procrastinated telling Peter-Three what happened about him turning into a monster and there is something going on with him too. But, like always, it is too late and everything is revealed with the ugly truth.
“Peter, I’m really sorry that I hid it from you…” Peter-Two tries to convey his remorse to the middle brother, trying to salvage the situation. They need to figure out how to fix Peter-Three quickly, that is the most important matter and it seems Peter-Three is concerned with the past instead-
“It is too late to apologize about that now.”
It is rare for Peter-Three to sound that cold toward the oldest… it is also rare for him to not accept his apology like usual. Peter-Two is stunned in his place, unable to say anything.
“You two are really… hopeless… just… so utterly hopeless…” Peter-Three shakes his head then his right eye sheds a tear. “What if I attacked you out of nowhere, what if I attacked you when you were vulnerable… I can’t believe it…”
“Peter… we are really sorry…” Peter-One steps closer to the middle brother, but Peter-Three reacts fast and steps back further.
“NO, DON’T COME CLOSER TO ME! Just… DON’T!” He warns with a scream.
Peter-Three is clearly terrified by this whole situation. But, probably what concerns him the most isn’t his own well-being, but his brothers’. Peter-Two figures that out now.
“Peter… we are okay, both of us are okay,” Peter-Two gestures to himself and Peter-One. “So, you don’t need to think about ‘what-if’ scenarios in your head… we are fine, you aren’t dangerous, you-“
“Yeah, you maybe are fine now! But, we don’t know what will happen later! Don’t you get it!?” Peter-Three shouts in frustration. “You didn’t tell me that I’m dangerous… and you keep letting me by your side… it is just like you are keeping a time bomb that can explode anytime close by your side… that is stupid. Incredibly idiotic.”
Peter-Two frowns hard. Peter-Three’s words hurt him in a way that he can’t imagine. He doesn’t like to hear how Peter-Three keeps referring to himself as someone dangerous like that. “Peter, you aren’t dangerous.”
Peter-Three lets out a bitter and weak chuckle. “You are really…” he shakes his head. “This is useless.”
Peter-Two feels like he can feel the sudden change of mood from the middle brother.
“I need you to see my point.”
Peter-Two gasps in shock when he sees how Peter-Three charges at him all of a sudden. He dodges but then Peter-Three sends a kick toward his side. Peter-Two tries to block it with his hand but he loses his balance and gets sent to the wall. The oldest manages to land on the wall on both of his feet before he asses the situation quickly.
What is Peter-Three trying to achieve by attacking him-
“Peter, stop it!” Peter-One shoots a web toward him but Peter-Three evades it and shoots his. Peter-One gets trapped with it because he fails to dodge it.
“You are thinking that even if I turn into a monster, you can defeat or contain me somehow, right!? How naïve you two!” Peter-Three shouts as he charges on the youngest, grabs him then throws him toward another wall.
Peter-Two moves quickly and catches Peter-One before he hits the wall.
“Peter, you better stop, we need to find a way to fix you quickly! This is all need to stop!” Peter-Two warns him. He knows that Peter-Three can be difficult, unbearably so, but this is too much.
“What I need is that the two of you need to leave me!” Peter-Three snaps back. “JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Peter-Two feels like time stops for a second. “What…”
“Just leave me! Why can’t you understand it!?”
“Because you think you are dangerous?” Peter-Two asks back.
Peter-Three grimaces and charges again at the oldest.
But this time, Peter-Two is prepared to fight back. He catches both of Peter-Three’s fists with both of his hands. Peter-Three growls in anger but Peter-Two can also see fear and desperation in his eyes. Peter-Three tosses his hands to the side he is about to send another kick toward the oldest, but then his movement stops abruptly when Peter-One hugs his torso.
“Just stop! Stop it, Peter!” Peter-One shouts but also his voice is close to breaking. He is holding onto Peter-Three’s lower half, refusing to let go no matter how much the middle brother trying to get away.
“If you want to hit me because you are angry, I will let you hit me because I deserve that,” Peter-Two is loosening his grip and smiles tightly at his little brother. “But, if you fight me to prove a point that you are dangerous and you think we should leave you alone, then… I will keep fighting you on.” Peter-Two tightens his grip on Peter-Three’s fists again.
“Yeah, there is no way that I will leave you… just no way…” Peter-One starts to sob pitifully.
Peter-Three’s fists are trembling, and then his tense body starts to loosen. His right eye starts to shed a tear then another and another before he sobs.
“You must be afraid and confused, I know, I know… we got you, okay? We got you…” Peter-Two caresses Peter-Three’s loosening fists tenderly.
“Why can’t you two understand… I don’t want… I don’t want to hurt you… I’m so afraid…” Peter-Three covers his face with his elbow, trying to hide away.
“Hey, Peter… I know it is hard and scary… but we will find a way, we always find a way,” Peter-One gets on his feet then hugs his older brother tightly.
Peter-Three looks at the youngest then cries more as he hugs him back. Then he turns at Peter-Two, the oldest gently caresses Peter-Three’s left side of his face, the middle brother stiffens a little before he relaxes under Peter-Two’s gentle hand.
“You need to believe in us, okay? I’m sorry that I keep letting you down… but… I will learn, I won’t do it again, just… don’t leave us, okay?” Peter-Two asks softly, letting tears fall from his eyes.
Peter-Three’s eyes widen a little bit before his lips tremble as he cries more. “I believe in you two but… I can’t believe in myself… I’m so afraid…”
Peter-Two doesn’t know what to say, it is heartbreaking to hear Peter-Three’s confession. As he expected, Peter-Three’s main problem isn’t about how the brothers hide a secret from him but how he feels like he is a threat to his brothers.
So, Peter-Two joins in the hug and hugs his little brothers tightly. He doesn’t know what to say to comfort the scared and confused little brothers, but… he is there with them. They will go through this together. Like always.
Like always.
0o0o0o0
“So, how did it happen?”
Peter-Three’s human right eye is puffed a little bit, but he is a lot calmer now after crying his heart out. Peter-One is trying to hypnotize himself into thinking Peter-Three’s left bug eye and exoskeleton are normal. He has seen various things with Avengers… from aliens to a talking raccoon, it isn’t that weird.
Just a little bit… disturbing.
“Uhm… I don’t really get it either. There is this enemy that wreaked havoc by releasing many hallucinogens gas whenever she went so, I went after her. She threw one at me, saying that her hallucinogen gas would bring out my buried nightmare…” Peter-Three fidgets with his fingers while looking down. “Then, I remembered everything… of how I attacked you… as some kind of spider monster then I hurt myself to wake up from the hallucination but then… I become like this.”
Peter-One remembers his accident inhaling the poisonous gas bomb filled with concentrated pesticide, his memory about that incident is a bit blurry actually. But, hearing Peter-Three’s story he realizes that their body built differently than normal humans and it makes him scared of the unknown effects of things out there. “Then, is it because of the hallucinogen? Maybe it reacted with the mutated cell and brought out your spider’s genes?”
Peter-Three looks even more terrified and Peter-One shuts his mouth fast.
While Peter-Two is thinking deeply about something. “I think it isn’t because of the hallucinogen,” he mutters. “Actually I… I have seen… something strange going on with you, but not to this extent…” The oldest sounds awkward as if he is just confessing one of his faults, again.
Which is somewhat true.
“Huh? What do you mean, Old Bug-“ Peter-Three is starting to get angry again but Peter-Two raises two of his hands in a surrendering manner.
“Wait, hear me out first,” Peter-Two gestures his hands, asking Peter-Three to calm down. Then, he approaches Peter-Three who is sitting on a chair, his finger taps on Peter-Three’s exoskeleton face gently. “Do you see this mark? I have seen there was a dark web mark spreading on your face before when you were sleeping and seemingly having a nightmare, but then… it retreated back after I comforted you.”
Peter-One moves closer and takes a good look at Peter-Three’s exoskeleton. Now that Peter-Two is pointing at it, he can see it. Everything is black so it is a bit hard to distinguish it, but there is a dark web pattern on the exoskeleton.
“Something like that happened?” Peter-Three is staying still as his brothers observe him. Peter-One realizes that the middle brother can’t see himself, so he finds a small mirror in Peter-Three’s apartment quickly and then shows Peter-Three the left side of his face. He traces his own exoskeleton skin with uncertainty.
“Yeah, I couldn’t figure out what happened to you back then… so I kept quiet, I’m sorry,” Peter-Two apologizes with a regretful expression.
“Then… if it isn’t because of the hallucinogen then… the trigger might be a lot of stress?” Peter-One suggests. “But if it is true then… it should be getting better now that Peter-Three is calmer.”
But, Peter-Three’s condition doesn’t show any hint of changing.
“If the trigger is a lot of stress, then it should have happened a lot more considering our ups and downs mental condition for the past month,” Peter-Two mutters with a troubled face. “There might be another trigger of how this happened.”
Peter-One is considering asking Doctor Strange for some input because the wizard seems to know a lot of strange things just like how he helped to resolve their problems with their links before. The youngest eyes his older brothers carefully, because he knows that they aren’t the biggest fan of the wizard. “How about we ask… Doctor Strange… you know, for his opinion… maybe he can… help?” Peter-One says.
As expected, his older brothers’ faces sour quickly.
But, Peter-Two stays rational, it seems. “If we can’t figure it out on our own, we will ask him.”
So, they will still try to figure it out on their own first… but how?
Peter-One looks at the silent middle brother.
“He knows that this will happen.”
Peter-One blinks in confusion upon hearing Peter-Three’s words. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t really get it either. My memory is a bit fuzzy about that. But, he said that I need to win against my darkness… with my own strength… or my darkness will spread on both of you through the bonds, something like that…” Peter-Three mutters with a solemn face. Then he pulls out something from his pocket. “He gave me this, he said that if I’m ready to fight my darkness, I need to break this and finish the fight.”
Peter-One blinks in confusion as he stares at the white marble on Peter-Three’s palm. Then he stares back at Peter-Three then tilts his head. “What did he mean by that? I don’t get it.”
“I don’t get it either… but… I concluded that if I don’t do anything then something bad will happen to both of you because of me…” Peter-Three holds on to the white marble tightly with a frown on his face.
“But what does he mean by darkness? What darkness…?” Peter-One still can’t get it.
“You two don’t remember what happened with your fight against your spiders?”
Peter-One turns at the oldest. “Huh? A fight against our spiders? Ah… right… hm… I can’t remember it clearly… I just remember that… my spider tried to eat me whole, that’s it.” And also, there is a strange affection he feels for his spider part so he learns to cherish his power more than before. Especially after gaining organic webs like the oldest, his spider power feels even more precious.
And then, there was a moment where Peter-One and Peter-Two tried to help Peter-Three who underwent mutation again… something happened, but Peter-One can’t remember anything about that.
He turns at Peter-Three who is only frowning. The middle brother shakes his head. “I don’t think… I remember anything… I just know that it felt beyond terrible… I don’t even know whether I win or lose,” he sighs heavily.
Then Peter-One turns to the oldest who looks serious.
“Huh? Don’t tell me… you remember?” Peter-One asks the oldest in surprise.
“Not clearly… just in some pieces… it is hazy, like trying to remember a dream…” Peter-Two admits reluctantly. “I think what that wizard meant about you need to fight your darkness is that… you need to face your spider part again. Your fight is unresolved, and because of that, this happening… you need to finish your fight.”
Something in Peter-Two’s expression tells the youngest that Peter-Two didn’t tell them everything. The oldest really has a bad habit of withholding information from them. Peter-One folds his arms with a frown. “I want to hear what you remember about what happened during those times.”
Peter-Two seems surprised that Peter-One manages to pick out that. Peter-Three is also giving the oldest a frown. Peter-Two sighs.
“I only remember bits and pieces…” Peter-Two gives them a warning. “I think… Peter-One and I waited for you to come back… just through our bonds, I don’t really understand but then… you appeared in front of us but… your spider followed you.”
Peter-One blinks, he can’t imagine something like that happening and yet it feels like it was indeed happening.
“Then… what happened?” Peter-Three asks with fear in his voice.
Peter-Two shakes his head. “I don’t remember that part… I think I was just… holding on to you?” the oldest doesn’t sound sure of himself.
“You protected him…” Peter-One starts to remember that part, strangely. It feels as if Peter-Two just throws a rock into a pond and the mud under starts to rise above. “I remember the spider too… no… wasn’t he… Spider-Man?”
He turns at Peter-Three, but it seems the middle brother doesn’t know what he is talking about.
“So… in conclusion, the two of you helped me get away from my spider… which was why my fight was unresolved…” Peter-Three says with a dark expression.
“I’m sorry…” Peter-Two mutters weakly. The middle brother shakes his head.
“No, if you helped me, it means that I couldn’t win by myself. And I mean, look,” he shows the left side of his face. “This is the proof of just how weak I am…”
The oldest frowns hard. “Peter, you know that I dislike hearing you degrading yourself.”
“I know, but not saying it doesn’t make me suddenly believe in myself…” Peter-Three shrugs. He opens his palm and shows the white marble. “I have a feeling that if I go to the fight now… my spider-part will gobble me up… if that happens then… I will become a mindless spider monster again, right?”
There is a weird resigned expression on Peter-Three’s face that Peter-One finds disturbing. It feels as if Peter-Three is going to give up and let himself become a spider monster. “Don’t give up like that, you can’t let him win! You are strong, you need to believe in yourself!”
“Peter-One is right. With everything that has happened to you, you are strong more than you believe yourself are,” Peter-Two reminds him.
Peter-Three suddenly stands up from his chair. “You two don’t understand!” he walks away from the brothers as if he needs a space away from them. He turns at them with a painful expression. “Both of you are amazing, I’m… I’m not, okay?”
“Peter…” Peter-Two sounds exasperated.
“No, no, you hear me out first,” Peter-Three cuts the oldest before he can say anything else. “I also want to believe that I’m amazing… but I’m not, okay? You see… Little Bug is… I know you agree with me, Big Bug, that Little Bug is the best Peter Parker and Spider-Man out of the three of us.”
Peter-One is surprised to hear about that because it is his first time to hear it. It feels flattering but he hates it in this context. “But, I’m not, I…” Peter-One doesn’t know how to prove his point without degrading himself and making worse of the situation. But, he feels that he is still lacking in many ways compared to his older brothers, the fact that the older brothers like to baby him doesn’t add up that they think he is amazing.
“Little Bug, you have a friend… like a best friend. A real best friend!” Peter-Three reminds him. Peter-One has an urge to correct the grammar because Ned forgets about him now, but he can’t bring himself to say that.
“While I don’t… I don’t have anyone that I can call friends… not real friends… I mean, the only person that I could call my friend… tried to kill me because I refused to give my blood to him and he was also the part of reasons why I failed to save Gwen…” Peter-Three says that while trembling, his right eye is glassy. “Even before I became Spider-Man and trapped in this chaotic life… I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t. And you have one… because… because you are so… wonderful and bright and lovely…”
Peter-Three says it in a way that he is the opposite of Peter-One. There is an envy in his eye and Peter-One doesn’t know how to respond to that.
“Well, your life sucks because you are Peter Parker and Spider-Man but… if you aren’t Spider-Man… then… I can imagine that you will become someone… amazing… that everyone loves… you know…” Peter-Three adds more. “I bet that the superheroes you admired also adored you a lot… right? You are just… so loveable…” Peter-Three stops and sobs a little.
Peter-One is silent, he doesn’t know what to say at all. Because it means that Peter-Three is everything that Peter-One isn’t. And that isn’t true at all. It isn’t…
“Peter… you can stop.” Peter-Two reminds him with a sad expression.
“No, no, I’m just getting started… and I haven’t talked about you yet, Big Bug.” Peter-Three turns at the oldest. “Sometimes I hate how composed, calm, and grounded you are, you know. Like, very little things can shake you… you always look sure and confident of what you believe in… I can’t relate to that at all…” Peter-Three shakes his head.
“You have everything figured out… you are stable and you don’t let yourself wallow in despair… despite what happened to me and you are roughly the same more or less, but you are just so… zen, calm… reliable, mature… you don’t let yourself lose control of your feelings… I think the only reason why you become alone isn’t because people hate you but because you don’t let people get closer to you because you don’t want to bring harm to their life… you are just that kind.”
Peter-One’s lips start to tremble because he wants to cry again.
Once again, Peter-Three says everything because he isn’t like any of them. Peter-One never thinks that the middle brother thinks so lowly of himself like that. And it hurts him to know this.
“You two need to agree that I’m the worst version of Peter Parker and Spider-Man between the three of us, or maybe more if there are more Spider-men out there… so… my point is…” Peter-Three pauses as if he is having a difficult time maintaining his composure. “You two won’t be able to understand why I can’t believe in myself… just why… I don’t think I can win…”
“Honestly, I don’t even understand why you two still want to keep me around…” Peter-Three adds weakly as he turns away from them.
“Peter…” Peter-One whimpers.
He doesn’t know what to say, or what kind of words he can say to comfort the middle brother. Because, even with Peter-One is young and somewhat naïve, sometimes he can see… just how affection-starved Peter-Three is.
Peter-One doesn’t know how much other people have hurt the middle brother until he has almost zero self-esteem like this. But, it just feels… so unfair.
“It is true that you can be difficult…”
Peter-One turns at Peter-Two, who has glassy eyes but a soft smile on his face. “Sometimes handling you can be frustrating… you can be weirdly stubborn on some things then… your mood can change quickly from better to worse…” Peter-Two lets out a sad chuckle. “But, you also always give your best on everything… you don’t stop trying and you don’t give up… even though I know that you want to give up even though you can’t say it.”
Peter-Three shakes his head with teary eyes as if he doesn’t want to hear what Peter-Two is saying to him.
“And you need to remember, you were the one who sought us first. You made the portal, you found me then Peter-One. I didn’t even try to do anything to find you two… I…” Peter-Two pauses as he licks his lips nervously. “I was so sure that neither of you needs me in your life… and I deluded myself to think that… I was fine to live alone. That it was fine even if I died in my fight as Spider-Man then… just gone from everyone’s life… but then, you came to find me. You came to find us.”
It is Peter-One’s first time to hear such a dark confession from Peter-Two like this. The oldest always has the image that he is okay and there is nothing wrong with him. But, he is also Peter Parker and Spider-Man with a shitty life, so of course that he isn’t okay at all.
“And if I might add, I always kept secrets from you and hurt you as well… but you always forgive me too… you are so kind, Peter. The kindest little brother that I could ever ask for.”
Peter-One hears a loud choked-up sob from Peter-Three as the middle brother crumbles to the floor then sobbing.
“Peter, I really admire you too!” Peter-One finds his courage back. He can’t say things like Peter-Two, but he wants to relay his feelings to his brother. “You are so smart, I guess, the smartest between the three of us. You are so kind and attentive, I know that you always try to support Peter-Two in a way that I can’t and try to indulge me as the youngest in a different way than Peter-Two babying me. You are the most attentive toward us, you switch gears between being the older brother or the younger brother… something that neither Peter-Two nor I can do.”
Peter-Three looks at him with a tearful eye, the eye that is yearning for something but Peter-One doesn’t know what. So, what Peter One can do is hugging the middle brother. “I don’t know about you being the worst version of Peter Parker and Spider-Man between us, but you are an amazing older brother to me. I don’t want to lose you… I don’t want to…”
“Peter-One is right… I have two little brothers and I don’t want to decrease the number… so, you can’t easily give up on this…” Peter-Two pats Peter-Three and Peter-One’s heads.
Peter-Three doesn’t say anything besides wailing and then hugging them tightly.
“Are you sure…? You won’t get sick of me… or abandon me…?” Peter-Three asks between his sobs.
Peter-One doesn’t know where those words come from. His brain turns to whether someone ever abandoned Peter-Three… but he puts that aside for now. “You are the one who needs to promise to never leave me- us.”
“Peter… even if you turn into a humanoid spider, I won’t give up on you,” Peter-Two says calmly. “What I wish the most is that you two stop hurting. Whether you win or lose, that doesn’t matter. Just don’t give up easily, okay?” Peter-Two caresses Peter-Three’s left side of face again.
“Yeah, to be honest, there are more bizarre-looking aliens in my world so… it is okay,” Peter-One adds again, though maybe he doesn’t sound as confident as the oldest.
Peter-Three looks at the two of them then he nods. “Okay… Okay, I get it… I will try… I just need to try, right?” his voice is trembling and Peter-One can see that the middle brother is scared.
“Yeah, you just need to try, that’s more than enough,” Peter-Two nods in agreement.
“You will be okay. You just need to come back to us,” Peter-One grips Peter-Three’s hands tightly.
Peter-Three nods as his right eye sheds more tears. “Okay, okay… I’m still not that confident but, I get it that I have to try, at least for your sake.” He smiles a little at them and they smile back at him.
“For us,” Peter-Two corrects him. He puts his hands on top of Peter-One’s hands which grip Peter-Three’s hands.
“Yeah, for us.” Peter-One nods with a determined expression.
Peter-Three finally nods along.
“Okay, here we go…”
Peter-Two retreats back his hands and Peter-One follows the suit reluctantly. He sees how Peter-Three opens his palm and the white marble is there. The middle takes the last look at them before he breaks the marble on his palm.
Peter-Three’s body suddenly goes limp, Peter-Two and Peter-One catch him before he falls to the floor at the same time.
“So, now… we wait?” Peter-One asks the oldest timidly.
“Yeah, we wait…” Peter-Two nods solemnly.
To Be Continued