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Peter Parker was involved in many extracurricular activities at Midtown. Academic Decathlon, robotics, band…okay, that was it, but three could be considered as ‘many’ if you just think about it the right way. Actually, Peter didn’t even know why he joined band in the first place. Clearly students who went to a school specialised in science weren’t spectacular at the arts. This was especially evident with the awfully dissonant sounds (he couldn’t even call it music at this point) that were coming from each instrument. You know, it never used to sound this bad. It all started at a very memorable school excursion…
“Class, the excursion we’re going to is to Columbia University!” Mr. Harrington announced to the class, on the day of the excursion, not long before chatter and excitement broke out and everybody started talking to who they were currently sitting next to on the yellow school bus.
As it rumbled to a start, Ned scooted over to Peter, already excited. “I heard they have genetic labs.”
Peter looked at the enthusiastic Ned, eyebrows raised. “Genetic labs? What’s in them?”
“Spiders.” Ned replied. Guess who’s face was dripping with disgust? Safe to say spiders were not Peter’s favourite thing in the world.
“You guys are scared of spiders? Losers.” MJ replied with a smirk from the double seat behind them. The pair turned around to look at her in confusion. She was sitting alone, drawing Peter’s previously disgusted face in her sketchbook.
“I mean, I’m not, but aren’t you just a little scared of them crawling into your mouth at night*?” Ned asked her.
Peter winced, shut his mouth and closed his eyes. “Ugh, don’t talk about that Ned.”
“What about when they go and drink your saliva*?” MJ asked Peter with a chuckle, clearly amused at his face.
Peter swallowed and shook his head, shoving his headphones in as Ned rattled off about different types of spiders to a less than listening MJ for the rest of the ride.
———
If it wasn’t already clear by now, Peter was seriously scared of spiders. Small ones, at least, before he couldn’t see them like you could see big spiders*. This fear was reconfirmed when the class stood in the genetic labs filled with 15 different types of spiders, all small, as their final stop of the day. Thank God, because Peter’s feet and shoulders were hurting from standing and carrying his bag around the whole day and his glasses were getting foggy from the warm environment. He didn’t end up needing anything in his bag today, but was glad he brought his bottle of water given how hot it was in here.
“There’s actually only 14 spiders,” the guide corrected from the sign in front of the tanks, each one filled with branches and leaves and an individual spider with a unique genetic modification, “Since one of them died a couple days ago. You can see here on the signs about each type of spider. Feel free to mingle about.”
“Remember to talk quietly to not interrupt the other school groups!” Mr. Harrington called out to the class. Peter raised an eyebrow at Mr. Harrington disobeying his own rule, and turned to Ned to see he was also seemingly having the same thought. Peter was about to suggest they head to the tank the furthest away when someone else started speaking.
“Hey guide!” An irritating voice from the class called out, only loud enough that the guide and Peter and his friends could hear him. None other than Flash Thompson, of course. Peter had hoped they’d lay off him for once, especially on the one and only school excursion of the year, but apparently not. “You sure the spider didn’t die just now looking at Puny Parker’s face?” Him and his cronies laughed. The guide furrowed her brows and looked towards Peter, who she assumed they were laughing at, and was clearly about to speak up to Mr. Harrington, but Peter just shook his head. He didn’t want Flash to pick on him even more on a school trip. It’s not like he cared enough to bother anyways.
Peter and Ned went over to the different tanks one by one, and despite the fact Ned could not stop talking about how cool all of these spiders were and about each spider and everything he knew about them beforehand, it helped that all of the spiders couldn’t be seen behind the foliage in their tanks. He was daydreaming as Ned kept talking, but interrupted him as a very disturbing thought came to mind. “Do you think the 15th spider is actually dead?”
Ned put his hand on his chin to stroke his non-existent goatee as he thought. “Hmmm…probably. I doubt it’s running around and crawling up people’s legs and-”
“Dude.”
Ned chuckled sheepishly. “Oh, right. Sorry, Peter.” Ned continued rattling on as they walked past each enclosure. Peter was still feeling more than a little spooked at the idea of a tiny spider crawling up his legs that he couldn’t see or feel. Peter felt even more spooked as he felt a stinging sensation at the back of his neck. He winced and clapped a hand to the back of his neck.
“Peter, you okay? What was that?”
Peter brushed his fingers over the two little bumps at the base of his neck that certainly weren’t there an hour ago. “I don’t know. D’you think there’s mosquitos in here or something?”
A tiny insect flew by right in front of their faces, then headed over to MJ where she was sitting down in the corner, finished with the exhibit, and drawing both of their faces again after spotting the mosquito. She looked up at the slight buzzing, clapped something, and returned to drawing.
Ned turned to Peter. “I think that’s a yes.”
———
Peter returned home from school feeling hot and sweaty all over. He clicked the door shut as he entered the living room of his and May’s apartment. He let out a shaky breath.
“Hey, Peter, how’d school go? You had that excursion today, right?” Aunt May asked from the nearby kitchen. Peter winced at the thought of eating burnt pasta right now (not that it was good to eat at any time, just especially not right now) but was relieved that she was not actually cooking and that she was typing something on her phone with a box of take-away food from the local Indian restaurant down the road sitting on the counter in front of her.
“Uhh, yeah. We went to…uhh, to Columbia University. With the genetic labs and stuff,” he replied with a huff as he set his schoolbag down. Why was he so out of breath? It wasn’t like he was running or anything. God, Peter hated running.
“Yep. And how’d that go?” she asked, still pre-occupied with her phone. Probably typing out emails for work even when she was taking her hospital shift later tonight.
“Uhhh…it was…alright. Too many spiders though. One wasn’t in its tank…don’t…believe it actually died.” Peter started to lean on the nearby table, wiping his forehead and clutching his stomach. He felt like sweat was dripping off of his skin in waves. His stomach felt like it had been stabbed a million times with tiny knives. He couldn’t even think properly right now. What on earth was going on?
At the sound of Peter’s groan, May looked up from her phone, realising something was definitely wrong with her nephew. She set her phone down and walked over to him. “Hey, hey, Peter,” she said softly, feeling his temperature. “Is it a fever?” Peter’s skin was boiling. “Let’s get you to bed, yeah?”
Peter closed his eyes and nodded hastily. Yeah. It’s just a fever. He could sleep it off. After he felt like there’d been another stab at his stomach, he cracked open an eye, looking at the floor. “I’m not allergic to mosquitos…” he asked, lifting his eye to May, “Right?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Not that I know of, why?”
Peter just shook his head. “Don’t ‘bout it, May. I’ll just, uh…” Another stab. “I’m going to bed.”
———
Peter had had a fistful sleep. He woke up every 10 minutes, shifted around on his bed to move to an area with less sweat on the sheets, fell asleep, then woke up to a car honk five stories down. How was that noise even reaching his flat? The window was closed.
At around 3am, he’d gotten up to open the window for some fresh air, and to hopefully dry some of the sweat off of the sheets. You know, it was too dark to tell…but his vision felt like it wasn’t as blurry. It was kind of weird, but he couldn’t see properly anyways, so it was probably nothing. What was weirder, was that when he let go of the handle after cranking the window open, he couldn’t. Peter was holding it, his fingers weren’t ever wrapped around the window handle, but he couldn’t let go. It was like he was stuck to it. So, Peter did what anyone would do in his situation, and pulled. Hard. Well, this didn’t work out, considering he’d just pulled the window handle off of the window. Way to go. Peter just shook his head, chose to ignore it, and returned to his fistful sleep.
When his alarm went off, he rubbed his eyes to shake off the sleepiness and reached for his glasses on his bedside table. After putting them on, his vision was…blurry? What? Peter took the glasses off, blinked a few times and his vision was perfectly clear. Crystal. 20/20. Ignoring that very peculiar abnormality which definitely wasn’t a fever, he didn’t feel sweaty anymore. He took a shower anyway, to rinse it all off, but when he looked in the mirror while getting dressed, his stomach felt different. He looked down, and OH MY GOD. He had abs. Proper abs. Wait, if he had abs… Peter looked into his mirror and flexed his arm. Instead of seeing the skinniness he’d been accustomed to seeing on himself his whole life, his arm was muscular. What on earth was going on? Peter couldn’t ignore it anymore. This can’t be a normal fever or an allergic reaction to mosquitos. Come to think of it… his hand touched the back of his neck to feel for the bite. Two dots. That wasn’t a mosquito bite.
Peter immediately reached for his phone to tell Ned.
———
Peter had told Ned everything. From his awful ‘fever,’ to his perfect vision, to his newfound abs. “Dude, I think that genetically mutated spider bit me. That one they said was dead.”
“That was it, right? The bite? Show me,” said Ned, amazed by everything Peter had told him. No way his best friend had superpowers. That’s what it had to be. Super vision, super hearing, super strength, super muscles, super…stickiness?
Peter turned around in his chair, knowing the chemistry teacher didn’t really care about what students were doing in his class, to show Ned the bite.
“Woah,” Ned breathed. “Dude, that is, like, 100% a spider bite. I have a great idea,” Ned said as Peter turned back around. Ned lowered his voice so nobody else in class could hear him. Not like they were listening in on the dorkiest kids in class anyways. “You should become a superhero. You know, like, uhh, Spider Dude or something.”
Peter just chuckled and shook his head at Ned’s ridiculous idea. He wasn’t a superhero. He was just a normal teenager who liked science and went to high school. Like every other normal teenager.
…Yeah, that excursion. Where it all started. Safe to say Ned’s idea wasn’t so ridiculous after all. Peter really did have super powers. And he intended to use them for the better. Help out the little guys, you know? But before making a superhero suit and polishing and name and all that awesome stuff–
A loud screech erupted from a trombone not too far from him. It sounded even worse with Peter’s enhanced sense.
Yeah, Peter was going to quit band.