Chapter Text
Friday, September 1st, 1989,
6:45 am
DJ turned over, placing a pillow over his head, it didn’t do much to muffle the blaring of his alarm , just five more minutes it’s summer anyway, he didn’t have to wake up early,
Wait
He stumbled out of bed, peering at the calendar on the wall, making sure not to step over Aloo- his cat, ah it was the first day of school,
WAIT IT WAS THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!? It was like all the tiredness just went away, he instantly started scattering to do everything that was supposed to be done over the course of an hour, in a measly 15 minutes, how could he sleep through his alarm!? Especially on a day like today? Eh, no matter now, it was too late to ramble, he quickly got dressed, damn near throwing himself down the stairs- okay maybe he shouldn’t have done that, but he was late! He had to quickly get out the door and-
“Deej? Forgetting something?”
It was Arun, standing next to the staircase holding something- ah, his backpack
“T-thanks Arun!” He grinned sheepishly quickly swiping the backpack from his older brother “Bye!” He dashed out the door, glancing at his watch 6:57 he had exactly 3 minutes to get to school, well this was just great! He would take his bike but it got stolen by a few neighbor kids about two weeks ago, so he had to walk- well, run he was almost there anyway, he just needed to turn the corner of his block and-
CRASH
“Watch where you’re going!”
Great… he crashed into someone, or something?
Was this some kind of sea creature? Wait- no, just a teal haired boy, now that he actually got a proper look at him, he looked kind of hot
WHAT WAS HE THINKING!? This is a random man, a random man who has the same uniform as him- a new kid, despite it being New York, his school was pretty tight knit, PTA groups, generations of family attending, even mom cliques, the works so everyone knew everyone, and new faces weren’t exactly the most common thing you’d see, especially for seniors, was this boy even a senior? He was tall? Yes, taller then him, but he could just be a junior or something,
Wait no; he was a senior
It said it on his ID card (or was it a lanyard? he couldn’t recall)
Sebastian Beaufoy, Senior, 11/14/197x
“Hello? Am I that handsome or can you not control your eyeballs”
Then DJ realized he was staring, again
“My bad dude! I didn’t see you!” He quickly got up, dusting himself off
“Yeah yeah, just watch where you’re going next time Dhananjay”
“Actually it’s- nevermind, just call me DJ” he grabbed his bag and continued walking
Shit, they were walking in the same direction, this was too embarrassing, great job Deej you embarrassed yourself in front of someone who happens to go to the same school as him, just fucking great, wasn’t there a shortcut somewhere around here? Arun said it was dangerous but he was already late, it’s just a walk through an alleyway, yeah this is probably how people get robbed or killed in movies, but this isn’t a movie, he’d be fine, he waited for the Sebastian guy to get ahead of him before ducking into a narrow street
“Hey, uh DJ, I’m assuming we go to the same- hm? Eh, I guess he was a ghost or something”
DJ was almost there, just a 4 minute walk, he wondered why he didn’t do this every day, it was much faster
CHOMP!
An oddly colored spider had bitten him, ah, he had forgotten about the spiders, that’s why he didn’t go into alleys, he obviously didn’t wanna kill the spider, it looked pretty cool, so he had gently set it down on the concrete before continuing down, he didn’t know why’d he made the stupid decision to continue down that block, but he did
__________{~~~~~~~~~}_________
He was 15 minutes late to class.
15 minutes and 11 seconds to be specific
When he had finally made it to his class, a movie had been playing, more specifically a bunch of news clips-good, a distraction, but seriously it was the first day, what ever happened to icebreakers and introductions he ducked down, slithering through the desks, before royally tripping over a wire cord, he didn’t move for a solid 30 seconds, taking the moment to properly curse whatever divine spirit that led him into this situation, he could feel everyone’s eyes on him
“Why Mr. Arora, how lovely of you to join us, late again I suppose?”
Late again…. Despite it being the first fucking day, it was barley 7:00 am and it was like the world had already decided “yes today we will make DJ suffer just because we can”
“It’s the first day sir” he argued, it appeared that he had somehow managed to snag a teacher with a stick up his ass, he had this guy for freshman year, he honestly kind of hoped he forgot about him, but once again, the universe frowned at him
“Showing disrespect? Mr. Arora if you do not want to receive detention on your first day, I suggest you sit down” great, just fucking great, he took a seat in the middle row, next to the window, the projector was just playing some stupid news clips of some new superhero named “Spiderfish” who the hell makes their hero name Spiderfish?! He looks nothing like a fish! What, was Spider-Man just too boring? He sighed, basically glaring daggers into the projector screen, before he heard an oddly familiar voice
“Hey teach! Sorry I’m late! Vespa getting fixed” …it was the teal haired prick he ran into before,
Pause, he has a Vespa?!
Also surely he can’t just waltz in here, call Mr. Smith “teach” and not get as little as a lecture; right?
“It’s alright, just take a seat”
He was right, the universe hates his guts,all he could do is sit there and consider changing his name and riding up to Seattle, but he didn’t own a moterbike unfortunately,
Then he felt something it was odd, like his body was acting on his own, his hand reached behind his head, catching a paper ball aimed at him…Johnny, of course, wait…could he always do that? And had his own thoughts always been this loud? This was weird, like really weird, finally, the long awaited bell rang, he quickly gathered his things, finally realizing the paper ball was still in his hand, he went to throw it away- it was sticking to his hand, had Johnny laced it with superglue or something? That’s odd, he’d throw it out later, he just needed to get to his next class without doing anything clumsy. Once again with the thoughts, they blared in his head as if someone put a megaphone inside his brain!
____________{~~~~~~~~~}_________
Somehow, he made it to the end of the day without incident or running into Johnny or a certain teal haired bastard, the only issue was that his pants that he had just bought became high-waters in the span of 5 hours of wear, also another very minor issue, two actually,
1: the paper ball would not leave his hand
2: he’s shooting a white substance from his hands
he’s starting to think that this isn’t normal. Like, at all, he had ended up heading to the local library to find answers on one of their computers
Okay google isn’t very helpful, only two results came up. The first being that he was an alien creature (which he doesn’t even doubt anymore given the days events) the second one being that he’s Spider-Man…infact, that might not actually be incorrect… the stories added up, they both got bitten by weird spiders, and they both got weird powers. If he had powers like Spider-Man, why not be Spider-Man?
HOLD ON WHAT WAS HE THINKING!? He can’t just go around fighting crime like he has that kind of time! Not to mention, he’s the only family Arun has left, he can’t afford to go around risking his life for a town where nobody bats an eye about corruption and deceit but as soon as Black Friday rolls around, they become animals! Why waste time fighting for a city that wouldn’t fight for you back? But maybe, this wasn’t a bad idea, just for a little while. He’d have to think about it but he wouldn’t really mind being New York’s very own Spider-Man, well Spider-Guy, he wanted to be original
It had a nice ring to it.
Unlike Spiderfish
What kind of idiot would make their name Spiderfish without loosing a bet?