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Peter sat on the edge of the tri-carrier his legs dangling of the ledge. He was still in his hero suit after battling the Goblin. He stared at the setting sun before turning back to the mask he held in his hands. He cleaned one of the lenses with his thumb and sighed heavily.
“What are you doing here, Spider-man?”
Peter whipped around at the familiar voice. There stood Nick Fury, as always with his head held high and a serious expression on his face. The man walked up closer and Peter relaxed, turning back to the sky as he realized there was no danger.
“I’m just… thinking.” Peter started fidgeting with his mask once more.
“Thinking?” Nick sat down next to him.
“Yeah.”
“About what?”
“You know, just something the team said earlier.” Nick didn’t say anything. He just stared at the teenager prompting him to continue. “It’s just… I know they were under the influence of the goblin serum, but it still hurt, you know?”
Fury nodded, noticing how the boy started squeezing the cloth in his hands tighter.
“What did they say?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they were right. I am a failure. I couldn’t save them before they got turned into these monsters, I couldn’t save Norman from turning back into the Goblin and I can’t save aunt May from the burden that is raising me… I couldn’t even save my uncle.” Peter’s shoulders started to shake slightly and his voice began to crack as his eyes started to fill up.
Fury sat there for a second, dumbfounded. He knew that the team had turned evil because of the serum, but that they would say something like that? Especially bringing up uncle Ben sounded like way too much. He didn’t really know what to do. He’d never been in a situation where he had to comfort someone, but against his better judgement he placed a hand on the kid’s back. Peter flinched slightly, surprised at the touch, but didn’t pull away.
“You’re not a failure. You managed to save the whole town, your team and capture Osborn mostly by yourself. That takes skill.”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t save Norman. That’s not a win. What am I going to tell Harry? He just stopped hating me, I can’t let him down like that again!”
“Sometimes you can’t save them all, kid. I know you’re putting yourself under a lot of pressure, but what you did today, even seasoned heroes would have trouble with handling a situation like this and you somehow managed to save the day.” Peter finally looked up from the mask he was still squeezing tightly and looked at Fury with watery eyes. “And if you’re worried about Harry, we’ve already sent a psychologist to inform him of the situation. He will know how to handle it correctly without any misunderstandings.”
Peter let out a wet chuckle, remembering how the last time he tried to explain the situation to Harry he called his best friend’s dad a “liar, liar, pants on fire.”. Glad that wasn’t going to happen again.
Suddenly he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. One rolled down his face and dropped from his chin onto the ground, the next few following it. Fury’s eyes softened and he pulled Peter into a one arm hug.
“You’re a good kid. You’ve done all you could and more. You saved millions of people today. Don’t mind what Jameson or the Goblin say. You’re not a menace, not a burden and you’re not a failure.”
Peter pressed his face into the man’s side, trying to hide his face as he was now full on crying and shaking from the sobs that wrecked his body.
“Then why does it still feel like I failed.”
“Because you have too great expectations of yourself. You set the bar so high up there’s no way to reach it without falling first, but that doesn’t mean you’ll never succeed. You just have to set it lower first and make your way up to the top slowly.”
Peter pulled away from the hug to wipe the tears that marked his cheeks.
“You think so?”
Fury pulled out a tissue from his pocket and handed it the teen who accepted it gratefully. Peter wiped the rest of the tears and blew out his nose, so that the only indicator that he was crying were his reddened eyes.
“I know so. Your uncle would be proud.” Nick watched as a small smile made its way onto the kid’s face and decided it was time to go. He stood up and dusted off his pants before straightening completely. “Now c’mon. I have someone that wants to talk to you.”
Peter looked at him slightly surprised, but stood up nonetheless.
“Who wants to talk to me? And about what?”
“That’s a surprise. Now put your mask back on if you don’t want to out your little secret.”
Peter laughed meekly and pulled the cloth over his face.
“Thanks for, you know, talking to me and stuff.”
“No problem, kid.”
“But don’t tell anyone about it, okay? Especially Nova. He would never let me live this down!”
Fury chuckled as he opened the hatch for them both to get inside.
“Same goes for you. I’m not really known for being the emotional type and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Pinky swear to never speak of this ever again?” Fury stared at the hand with an outstretched pinky before turning away and climbing down into the hatch.
“Sure, whatever you say.”
Peter looked after him for a moment before recovering from his initial shock and running up to the hatch as well.
“Hey! It doesn’t count if you don’t do the actual pinky swear!”
Fury smiled, happy with the choice he made of taking spider-man in.
He will make a great avenger.