The Spider and the Web he Weaves of Tragedy and Sin

IV

Three months had past without real incident for both Peter and Spider-Man, which felt so excruciatingly long for both his regular self and his vigilante, extension of self. While he'd made several improvements to his tech, he felt like he could be doing something bigger. He felt as though he could be doing something to get closer to his mission.

"Hey Ned, when do you think the next Star Wars movie is gonna come out?" Peter asked, swinging to the next building.

"I dunno. Probably in a year or two since they released one not to long ago."

"Yeah. You know what I miss?"

"What?"

"Dungeons and Dragons."

"You need to have friends to play that."

"I'm hurt Ned. You're not my friend?"

"I'm talking real friends, not homemade chatbots."

"I can't believe you. The disrespect I receive in my own home!" Peter complained loudly. "Find me something fun, meanie."

"There's reports of a burning building on Troye Avenue, think you'll make it there in time?"

"I always make it there in time." Peter scoffed and leapt into action.

When Spider-Man arrived at the scene, the smoke stacks are high enough to see from where he had been. He scanned the crowd quickly.

"Ned, activate loudspeaker temporarily."

"System 12-15-20-5 activated for twenty seconds."

"Is there anybody left inside?" The Spider-Man asked, his voice going over local intercoms and his personal loudspeaker.

"My son! He's on the top floor still!" A desperate father called out in tears. Peter felt a tinge of something that Spider-Man did not.

"I'll get him out."

Scaling up the building was the easiest part. He was lucky he was such a damn genius, his respirators were definitely some high quality shit. The amount of smoke in the air was something even he didn't really wanna mess with, but he'd do it anyways.

"Guess I'm on my own on this one." The Spider sighed, getting to work trying to find this damn kid. He rushed up, screaming for the little creature to come out of hiding. Out of a crumbling room there was a small body and a much bigger one, ushering him out while heaving.

"Spider boy!" He, his lovely old friend Bucky from the car shop yelled to him. "Get him out! I'll get out myself!"

"I'm Spider-Man, I'll get you both!" He grabbed the younger boy and pulled off his mask, putting it on him. In the heated glow Bucky got a good look at the young vigilante in all his heroic glory. "Activate system 20-14-3-4-18-0-18-13-15-18."

"System activated!" A mask shot up and covered the bottom half of his face. As soon as he heard Ned shout it in his ear, the kid was scooped into his arm, and he was pulling on Bucky.

"Hold on tight, old head!" The Spider-Man shouted over the flames, webbing Bucky's metal arm to his leg and jumping out the window. They hit the ground just in time as the roof collapsed in on itself. Unfortunately Peter felt his cool guy card revoked as he totally looked at the explosion. He let out a breath he'd been holding, watching as the kid's dad came and tore him from his arms gratefully

Peter watched while the father dotted over every hair on the kids head, and kissed him for every bad thought he'd had while he was up there. Peter just couldn't look away, feeling a stab of something in his gut, and a desperate salvation for blood enter his mouth. Bucky pulled his arm off of The Spider-Mans leg, looking at him with a certain air of distrust in his eye. Something Peter Parker, a monster, was acutely aware of. Peter jumped onto the hood of a police car before running off into the night again. It seemed to be a bit of a common trend.

Pete felt great, just perfect. Absolutely dandy. Because he'd totally just revealed his actual identity to two people, and of course one of them was a kid, and the other one was something resembling a friend that could handle themselves in a fight, he still had put his mission at risk. And that couldn't go without punishment.

When the Spider-Man crawled back through the window, and his skin came of to reveal a sad, always sickly looking seventeen year old boy, he curled up on the floor. Under no circumstances could he compromise himself but he just had, because he didn't want a little kid to choke to death. Was what he sacrificed worth it? What if the kid was monster of his same breed, and now he had a short, but still intimate look at how a homemade super suit should look like. He had gotten the mask back but still, he deserved his punishment.

Peter pulled himself up from his dusty floor and went treasure hunting through a little wooden jewelry box. It had been his mothers, and had little mementos from everyone he'd lost. A purple dragonfly hairpin, an empty micron felt tip pen, LEGO Luke Skywalker, a moth eaten handkerchief, a pair of old reading glasses, a pearl necklace, and a bullet stained with undeserving blood.

He had never deserved these people or to have these momentos. His fingers ran over the cool metal of the Stark Industries bullet., thinking of Richard, who knew his secret, and saw him for what he was the moment Peter was born. A monster, and a creature made of despair. Richard Parker, the man he'd thought his father for the longest, tried to keep Peter's own secret from him but it ate away at him, until he took his own life with his father's gun. Peter only found out after stealing his will from the scene of the crime and the bullet that killed him, the Stark Industries bullet that killed him.

One might imagine the shock the little boy had. Nine years old, seeing your dad's body on the floor, cold, a dead man, because of you. But he wasn't his dad, he didn't deserve to mourn, he had his pregnant mom and unborn sister to take care. An obsession grew and flourished under these pretenses, between needing to take care of everyone and finding out who his father was it drove him and down and down, because he was eight and his dad wasn't his dad and he needed to know.

Peter only found out after his mother died in labour. Ten years old and hacking into some of the world's most advanced security systems. Peter had gone through all of his mother's previous employers, old friends, new friends, family friends, and even his uncle Ben's health records, trying to find the mysterious man that could've fathered him, the only one left was Tony Stark.

A simple false update virus was all he needed to get in, and then he had everything he could ever want at his fingertips. If he wanted to he could even find the designs for the arch reactor or the iron man suit, but that's not what he wanted. But he sure as hell found what he needed. He finally knew his father, and he hated it.