Chapter Text
Peter wasn’t doing well. Never, ever, ever.
According to what his uncle told him, it was a family thing: was there a wedding? It would pour down rain. A Parker gambled? He’d soon lose all his money. In short, there was nothing he could do about it; it was genetic.
And yet, in a family of certified misfortunates, Peter was by far the worst. A series of small events had taken the shape of an intricate web he couldn’t escape from, and all because he was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It had been almost a week since the bite, and even though Peter had never had many friends and was used to it, he had never felt this terribly, realistically alone.
He’d wake up in the morning and smash the alarm clock. Brush his teeth and break the door handle on his way out. His aunt hugged him before school, and he was afraid he might break a bone. His senses could detect even a fly in another room; the sound of a pencil against paper scratched at his eardrums. He was so tired, yet when he went to bed, he’d just stare at the ceiling. Thinking about another slimy spider crawling on him. And it had only taken a few days for him to become unrecognizable.
Sometimes he just wanted to tell someone. Other times, he looked in disgust at the dent he’d made in the intercom by pressing it.
_____
“Parker! It’s your turn.”
Peter walked in without much fuss and sat down as properly as possible. If there was a place in the world he never wanted to set foot in, it was this one.
“So, Parker. I’ve decided not to call your parents—”
“Uncle and aunt, sir,” Peter corrected him.
“Your aunt and uncle. I received a report from Mr. Harrington. You left class without permission, is that right?”
“Yes, Principal, but—”
“Do you think,” Morita interrupted, looking at one of the paintings in his office, “do you think that when I served our nation, I disobeyed orders? No, absolutely not. I would’ve peeled potatoes for a month in the mess hall, right in front of my squad.”
To the side of his desk, he had a framed uniform from the Vietnam War. He was visibly proud of it. Peter had already heard this speech at least three times.
“But you and I are men of honor, Peter. Brave, clever, and most of all, full of common sense. I’ll overlook the fact that you left a test unfinished and ignored your teacher’s warnings.”
The principal handed Peter a form to sign. “Given that, you’re getting off with just this. But keep it straight. We don’t make students peel potatoes here at school, but we do fail them mid-semester.”
“Thank you,” he said and got up to leave the office, but the principal called after him.
“Parker, when you leave, could you ask the next student if she’s pregnant by any chance? I’ve got the files all out of order and these are things I should know.”
Peter slammed the door shut and didn’t reply.
---
Once out of that hell, he started walking home.
After the field trip to Oscorp, he couldn’t even take the bus anymore. Last time, just as he was about to get off at his stop, he suddenly felt a bucket of ice water hit his back.
“You okay, buddy?” the driver asked him.
But Peter didn’t have the breath to reply. Every sense was screaming, and a terrible wave of panic shot up his back, uncontrollably.
Even once he got home, he kept scanning his room from right to left, and left to right. He sensed danger, a hidden threat in the shadows. He was gripping his shirt so tightly that he only noticed afterward that he had ripped it.
He was halfway home when he heard a police siren approaching and nearly jumped six feet in the air.
“You’re under arrest! Hands up and drop the weapon!”
So he raised his hands and showed the backpack.
“Ha ha ha. Very funny.”
Uncle Ben opened the car door and let him in. Ever since his promotion, he used the police car even just to do grocery shopping. Peter had never seen him so happy.
“Admit it, I got you a little! Wait till I tell May. You jumped two feet in fear!” Ben turned toward his nephew and said,
“So, criminal, May told me you got a good grade in biology. When are you going to fail something so I can feel smart again?”
Peter laughed, but his mind was elsewhere.
________
Once they got home, he got out of the car.
While opening the door, he immediately pulled his hand back.
“Shit!”
The metal was hot, boiling, scorching. He let go of the door and slammed it shut. The window shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Oh my God, are you hurt?” Ben asked, panicked.
“T-the metal w-was burning and—”
“Burning?” His uncle touched the car. “It’s not even warm.” He studied Peter for a few seconds, searching for an explanation.
“Are you sure you didn’t hurt yourself?”
He shook his head.
“And that’s what matters. As for the window...”
Peter knew it would be a huge problem. They barely made it to the end of the month as it was, and this was an expense they didn’t need. Out of shame, he wished he could curl up like a hedgehog and never come out again.
“We’ll deal with that later,” Ben concluded. “But for the swear word, you’ll have to answer to your aunt.”
_____
He dropped a dollar in the “swear jar.” It had been Ben’s idea to save some money, but the jar was opened more often than not. He added his part, which slid to the bottom with ten other dollars—all from May. She was practically a professional at this point.
He lay down on his bed, and suddenly he could hear the woman three floors above arguing with her husband.
“What am I supposed to do with just a hundred dollars?”
He could hear kids his age playing video games in the building next door.
“Go, go! Shoot the old guy, get into the alley!”
He heard the radio buzzing outside with news.
“The Avengers rushed to the scene...”
He opened his eyes and saw dust on the chandelier. Ink from a pen on the wall. The nails on the door hinges. He could smell dishwasher soap, tomatoes in the fridge, trash from the shop downstairs.
He was exhausted and couldn’t think of a solution, so he waited.
For something.
---
May and Ben had noticed how awful he looked, but he insisted on going to school.
“Alright, but if you’re so tired you get hit by a car, I warned you!”
“This time stay away from cars and windows. Use your bike,” Ben added, laughing from the other room.
Peter went to school. Worried, tired, but he went.
School had become an unbearable illusion; every glance, every smile and word were just a poor imitation of the ones before.
It felt like everyone knew a secret he didn’t.
___
When he walked into class, there were so many things going on that Peter decided to ignore them all.
While walking through the halls, his thoughts were interrupted by Flash.
“Parker, a word,” and he pointed to the empty classroom to his right. He walked in.
“If this is about homework, I can’t do it today. Not in the mood, Flash.”
“Say that again?”
“I said I’m not in the mood.”
“What if I told you that’s exactly why I need you? Just because you don’t wear glasses anymore doesn’t mean you’ve grown a pair. Activate that little chemist brain of yours,” he said and pretended to knock on Peter’s head.
“I-I can’t do them this time.”
Now Flash looked truly annoyed. He punched Peter in the stomach, making him double over.
“Need me to remind you what my dad does for a living and what he can do?”
No, no, no. Peter couldn’t risk dragging Ben into this just because of some dumb demand.
Flash watched his reaction with satisfaction and handed him some notebooks.
“Careful, Penis. I need them for science class.”
The bully left, while Peter stayed on the floor for a little longer, trying to recover.
Driiiiin!
At the sound of the bell he headed for the classroom. Mr. Hastings entered.
“Good morning, everyone. Book page 394, take out your texts and I will check them”
He began to walk around the class, stopping at each desk.
He stopped at the desk of a new girl. Her name was Michelle Watson, but the teacher also noticed that on the test it said Michelle Jones. Despite the reprimand, it seemed she only cared about getting to the end of the chapter of Baudelaire she was reading.
“Jones,” the teacher underlined when he returned the paper to her. He continued: “interesting point about the partisan women. Maybe a little less insulting the fascists and more optimism”
He reached the desk in front of his. “Flash Thompson, where is your essay?”
"Sir, I had finished it, but then Parker…”
“Parker what?”
He turned toward him and looked him in the eyes with ferocity, and said in a low voice, as if it were an order: “Tell him about the mess you made”
Now the teacher was looking at him too. “Are you Parker? Peter Parker?”
“Y... yes, I... I am...”
“Do you want to explain what you did?”
“Here it is I can—” Peter grabbed his paper, but the sheet stayed stuck to his hand. Glued. It had never happened before. He tried to detach the paper but couldn't.
“And what trick is this, Parker? You already had a note, you have to give us some answers”
“Sir, Peter stole my essay to pretend it was his!”
“Did you really do this?”
“I... I…” but the words did not come out. In fact, they never came out.
He, he had done what? Was he simply living? Hadn’t he done the homework for that asshole? And now, was this a crime?
He hadn’t slept for days. He couldn’t touch a pencil without breaking it. He couldn’t do his homework because of the sound of paper against paper. He couldn’t take the bus. He moved his hand back and forth, but the sheet wouldn’t detach and he felt more and more like a failed experiment. A test gone wrong.
“Parker if you don’t tell me what you did you will not be—”
Won’t be able to do another thing? He had had enough.
He grabbed his backpack, got up and ran out of the classroom. He needed to breathe.
He heard someone else leave the class. By the time he reached the end of the corridor, Flash was marching toward him as if they were the only two people in the whole school. As if he wanted to kill him, shouting like a madman.
“Do you even have the slightest idea, Parker, of the shit you’re in? No, you don’t! You think you can do whatever the fuck you want, you think you’re tough because Penis doesn’t have asthma anymore? I’ll make you stop breathing”
He kept getting closer.
Some people in the halls drew nearer and formed a circle around them.
The corridor was too long, the shirt too tight. There was too much, too much and still too much noise. His hearing started doing that thing again— his head was about to explode, he wanted to get out. He kept hearing the whole school talking and all the people nearby, again.
“...it’s five dollars and ninety cents...”
The corridor too long.
“...occupied!...”
The sticky shirt.
“...listen to me, Penis”
The smell of ammonia.
“...the test went well...”
“...yes principal, Parker went that way...”
“...did you see that kid, Parker?...”
“...your nephew Peter Parker...”
“PARKER!”
His senses stopped. For the first time in days, they were silent. Just like the fist that loaded toward Flash, as did the second and third and fourth. Maybe someone was calling him from far away. But he kept going, and only after months did he understand that in reality he couldn’t stop.
___
A Peter honestly didn’t care. His reputation had gone to hell and it no longer mattered to show remorse after he had turned his bully into a modern work of art. He would beat him up another 100 times, in the same way. And he felt disgust at himself for that.
Today the principal did not cast any brotherly glance at Peter. He was sitting in his office with Ben, older and more tired by fifty years.
“I believe these sanctions are enough. As for the boy... it all depends on the parents. There is a risk they will file a complaint”
“Yes of course, obviously. Thank you for everything, principal” his uncle replied bitterly.
They left, but did not speak until they reached the car. The silence was worse than a proper scolding.
Halfway there Peter burst out: “So?"
Ben just sighed. “Are you making fun of me, nephew?”
He pulled the car over and turned it off. In his hand he had a small red and blue package that he hid in his pocket.
“Will you tell me, for God’s sake, what is happening to you?!” Ben said impatiently. “I look at you and I don’t see my nephew. No, I don’t see him at all. And now just because you beat up a bully at school I have to lose a job I worked hard for, because you beat my boss’s son?!”
“Oh, sorry uncle if I beat an asshole!” he answered theatrically. “Scold me all you want, but I would do it again, in exactly the same way! He deserved a lesson”
“And who are you to give it?”
“And you, instead? You get paid to do it!”
“I— how can you even compare—” he rolled his eyes, searching for words. “You think that’s the problem. Not that you look like a ghost, you don’t talk to us, you pretend to be in your room while you are who knows where and with who. That at school you beat a kid bloody, God! Bully or not... you wanted to vent, not do justice”
“Maybe I deserved to vent on him”
“Maybe yes or maybe no. Maybe some people deserve to be beaten bloody sometimes. But you can’t keep doing it” he said. “Once—”
Another policeman story about how decent people ended up corrupted, addicted on the streets. “And here we go again”
“Listen. Once your father and I fought with two bullies. Two dangerous guys, not like Flash. One of them in particular was crazy about your mother, but she was already with your father. He followed her, bothered her... harassed her, in short. Richard had had enough, so he got up the courage and confronted them; at the time he was a coward, not cut out for punches like me. So... a fight started”
“I had just come out of police training and I headed to the ranges to practice with the gun, and I saw them. I saw Richard against a wall, the bully grabbing him by the throat and your mother who could only scream at him to stop. I stopped seeing and acted when one of them pulled out a knife” he paused to think. “I took the gun and shot him in the foot. Then we ran away”
“And then?”
“I never saw him again. And I left him wounded in an alley. Even if you have every good reason... resorting to violence will not reduce the number of bullies. I fired my bullet out of instinct, and you beat that boy out of instinct. If we move like this, nothing will distinguish us from animals”
—————
It was late and Peter couldn’t sleep. Instead he thought about Ben’s words, which had struck him like a shotgun blast to the chest. So Ben had…?
But in the past his uncle had been a different man; now he had changed and become better. And that’s precisely why the thought that he might lose his job because of him sat heavy on his chest; he still remembered all the courses, the training, and the gleam in his eyes when he dreamed of driving a real police car, which had once been only a wish. When they used to watch detective shows together to train Ben and figure out the culprit, he remembered the irritation in his uncle’s eyes when Peter blurted the solution out after a few minutes. All those sacrifices, all that time… he couldn’t tear a part of his soul away from him like that.
When he grabbed his phone and opened social media, he knew the risks he was taking; he wasn’t a stupid kid.
He began to scroll.
There was a cute girl at school he had almost become friends with. They had eaten lunch together and talked about science and space all day. If you asked him, Peter would have said he wasn’t the type to build false hopes; but deep down he knew, deep down, that he saw a possible new friend in every person. Now that girl had posted a video, recounting what had happened today.
“You can’t understand what happened at school… there was a boy who had already started bothering me for some time….”
524 likes.
“I told him to stop..”
748 likes.
“And this guy seemed so nice but he’s an animal…”
928 million likes.
He opened another social app and began to scroll.
He refreshed his chats.
-Need Leeds
“Are you Peter, right?”
“I wanted to tell you Flash is an asshole, don’t listen to him”
-Flash Thompson
“better that you don’t show up or I’ll kill you with my own hands”
-Betty
“Is what happened true?”
He didn’t look at the rest of the messages. They were all the same. Dangerous. Animal. Monster.
The phone hit the wall so hard it shattered immediately. The throw was so instinctive he hurt his hand, and he went to put it under the water. To be safe, he even planned to wet his face so he couldn’t blame the tears.
As he crossed the hallway he saw something under his door. From the kitchen came the smell of the soup May was cooking.
His aunt noticed him staring at the door, sighed and said, “Love, don’t touch them. They’re ads, maybe if we stop taking them they’ll stop coming”
The envelope in question was crumpled and scribbled on. He did what he was best at, ignored his aunt and took the paper. He opened it.
See you at school Penis
“Peter darling…” May’s voice came from behind his shoulders.
You know that feeling when you can’t show how much something has broken you inside, so you swallow it all and speak in a voice that isn’t really yours? “I’m going for a walk.”
“It’s late, don’t—“ May was interrupted by the crash of the door slamming and the handle falling to the floor.
---
One step, two steps, three steps. With every meter his speed increased. He wanted to run away, to escape New York, to escape the whole world. He didn’t want those curses, nor did he want his hearing; he didn’t want the bullies or his fists growing stronger. He didn’t want to be ashamed of his physical strength, nor fear breaking someone just by touching them.
By fighting back, he had only made things worse. By throwing punches, he had earned even stronger ones in return. Tired of being one person’s victim, he had become the victim of a hundred more.
After a few minutes, he slowed down near a shop. Still at the entrance, a bucket of ice-cold water hit him in the back, and shortly after a hooded figure bumped into him as they entered the store.
“Hand it all over, piece of shit,” said a criminal to the cashier—a skinny figure, all skin and bones, with a sunken face and tattoos reaching up to his eyes.
“You got that, asshole?” he repeated several times.
Peter turned to the cashier, a big blond kid with a stupid face, wearing a sports shirt… Flash Thompson.
That name sounded like a personal hell reserved only for Peter.
Maybe he was staring too clearly, because the criminal snapped at him: “What the fuck are you looking at?! You want some too?” he said, waving the gun up and down as if sizing Peter up.
Flash looked terrified.
Finally Peter decided, “No, no, it’s not my problem,” he said, raising his hands, and left the store. Someone outside the shop had already called the police.
He was out, but he still had a strange feeling in his gut. Like a prolonged breath you hold until you feel sick. Not a stomachache, but a warning: something is wrong.
The winter wind hit him and sent a shiver through his body. But it was not a breeze, it was the police cruiser roaring toward the shop. Peter began to head back home.
The hooded robber was running very fast with a bag in his hand, hurrying away after passing Peter and reaching an isolated alley.
Peter was bumped and slid to the ground. He looked up to get his bearings, but he only saw… only shoes passing by him and moving on.
A black hoodie hiding something blue underneath. Boots. A clumsy gait. A man with hair already tending to gray and a large build.
“No, Ben!-” he shouted with all the breath in his throat. “Fuck no! He’s in the alley, he’s— he’s armed!” he screamed, but no one heard his pleas down there.
Some passersby heard him but as soon as they understood he wanted to go into the alley they held him back. They tried to reassure him, to tell him he could not go in and that there was already a police officer there.
"Don't worry! The police are taking care of it" someone said.
“You don’t understand, that’s my uncle!” he cried, but they would not let him go.
Finally he heard his uncle’s ridiculously proud voice: “Give the money back to the lady!” he ordered the thief. “I’ll say it one more time, give everything back and we won’t tell anyone.”
But Ben was too close to the thief, he did not know he was armed. He kept moving step by step, with words halfway between an order and a reassurance. The thief seemed to be starting to give in.
“Come on, we won’t tell anyone. You give me that bag” said Ben.
Until Ben’s walkie talkie spoke from inside his jacket.
“-robbery on 14th Street-”
The thief looked at him puzzled. “A-are you a real cop?!"
“Listen, I have no intention of—”
“Did you take me for a fool?! You’re a cop! No, no no I’m not going to end up in jail!” The thief put his hand in his pocket.
Peter tried to wriggle free with all his strength from those holding him down.
His uncle tried again: “You have to calm down, you won’t end up in prison”
“You know my face, you’re a disgusting cop!” he kept muttering “disgusting cop, disgusting…”
He pulled out the gun.
——
“But now that they’re… but now that they’re gone, where do my parents go?”
“That’s an interesting question"
“But uncle, how do I find them?”
“I wish I had the answers to all your questions, Petey. But honestly, I don’t know where people go when they leave, but I know where they stay”
——
In movies the gunshot isn’t immediate, but in slow motion.
So you grow up thinking you’ll have time, and one day far away you’ll hear your shot and be ready. But movies are movies because reality is different; all those unsaid words, in most cases, stay that way.
Now Ben has been shot, his body is on the ground and Peter doesn’t move. The shot wasn’t aimed at the lung or the leg, but rather the heart.
The paramedics, 3 hours after the shot, said he died instantly.
The lady walking by with her dog, 2 minutes after the shot, obviously had nothing to say because she was busy screaming.
Years after the shooting, Peter still heard the trigger click.
——
“-There’s too much chaos, better if he rests-”
“-We can take him, Mrs. Parker-”
“-He’s in shock-”
He was at home while May was at the police station. Usually he would have insisted on being with her, but now he didn’t care anymore. He was about to sit down, then he saw a vase. He threw it so hard that ceramic pieces flew all over the house and shards peppered the carpet. He kept going with the paintings, the knickknacks.
He reached a package in the living room. It was blue and red, badly wrapped and the paper was crumpled; it looked like a Christmas gift made by a 5-year-old who only knows how to mess with glitter.
Peter studied it as if it were a dangerous animal before taking it. On it was a writing:
-to my beloved son, good luck
It was a videocassette. He turned on the TV and inserted it. A video started.
“This is the crime scene May! Y-you can’t come in!” said a little head with curly brown hair.
“Exactly” added a deep voice nearby “you must listen to Detective Petey!”
The boy grabbed a toy badge and held it up proudly: “Detective Parker, not Petey! That’s for kids.”
The scene changed.
Now the boy and the man were in a car. The camera was held by the little boy. “Uncleee say hi to the camera”
“Hi! The detective team is going to a boring science conference” said the man.
“It’s not a conference, it’s an Expo!”
“Yeah yeah, an exp—p” said the man pretending to sleep.
“Well done, kid”
“Look May! Peter lost a tooth!”
Now the boy wore a kimono while holding a medal for second place.
“Boo! He deserved first place!”
“Quiet May, you can’t yell like that”
“But it’s true Ben, he was the best! The other kids are assho—”
The scene changes.
Back to them playing.
“Why what does Detective Petey always say?” asked Ben while holding a toy gun.
The boy pretended to think about it. Then he took courage and opened his mouth with a few missing teeth.
He looked at the camera, as if speaking directly to Peter: “With great powers come great responsibilities”