Peter Parker and Meredith Stacy (A Spider Man Story)

Part 1: Unprecedented

I dramatically sigh with my dad—otherwise known as the Sheriff—beside me. I get no response. I give another dramatic sigh, louder this time and right up in his face.

"Get over it, Meredith." He says. "You're already here. Just enjoy it."

I had told him that I didn't like festivals, and that I'd much rather stay inside and attempt to do all my homework but procrastinate and read novels instead. But, apparently, I needed to socialize. Yeah right, like I don't do enough socializing when people go around asking me about what it's like to have the most famous cop in the city as a father.

"Yeah, but I could just go home right now. We've already been here for about an hour, and I'm really just wasting my time when I have a lot of homework to do!" I lie. I don't have much homework, but it usually works on him. He ignores me and I walk over to the balcony with a tantrum. It's significantly louder out here. Between all the shouting and laughing, there is an undercurrent of barely controlled chaos. I bend over and catch a few people I recognize from school, but none of my friends. I really don't want to go down there where I'd probably die from claustrophobia in the tight crowd. I spot someone from a distance down below with brown hair and a camera hanging from his neck, around the army green jacket he always wears. Peter is looking through his camera before his hands lower, and he stares at something to my right. What is he staring at? I walk over to the right side of the balcony and try to bend over to see what he's staring at but there is nothing. At least nothing that I can see from here.

"MEREDI—" my father yells out to me and not even halfway do I turn to him before the force of an explosion pushes me back. It is as though a fist of orange flames has decided to punch it's way out of the room next to me, and out of my shock I feel myself issuing with a mass of terrible sensations; the fearful blow of the explosion, the noise of glass and the hoarse howl of people beneath me. The impact of the explosion pushes me with such force, stone shatters one half of the balcony and a scream rips out my throat. I see my father running after me but it's too late, the balcony separates from the building and panic is rising in me each second as I try to cling onto what's left of the ground around me. Shit. Shit. Shit! Someone else who has been here is now just beginning to fall, I try as fast as I can to reach down and grab his arm but all I get is his hand. 

"Hold on!" I yell down to him. I catch a glimpse of his face, and he seems to be the same age as I am, maybe older, but I'll never know cause his hand slips out of my grasp and he starts frantically screaming as I watch him fall. 

"NO!" I don't get to see him crash because I start to lose my grip. Then the weirdest of all things happened; I hear cheering and clapping. What? I make an effort to look below me but I give up almost immediately, as my grip seems to loosen once again. Another scream escapes my throat, when I come to realize that I was going to fall. I squeeze my eyes shut as I continue to scream to my death. Time seems to slow down when you're falling. The rapid wind seems to stop around me and I'm flying. Flying? I open my eyes to see a glimpse of red and blue arms around me. I look down and the crowd is clapping and cheering again.

The expeditious wind suddenly stops but I don't dare to open my eyes just yet. I hear a deep laugh near my ear, "You can let go now."

That's when I realize that my legs are still wrapped around this guy's waist. I try my hardest to unwrap them but fail miserably as my legs collapse and I'm about to fall on my ass, which would have hurt until he reflexively reaches his hands out and grabs me by the waist to catch me, again.

"You okay?" he asks. I realize that he must've saved that boy on the balcony, too. That was why I heard all the cheering, but the boy wasn't brought here. Only I was. The roar of the crowd was distant but not too far away.

So this is the famous Spider-man. Rumors spread that he's a hero, and some say he's a criminal. Either way, he still saved my life. I continue to look at his masked face; at those big, plastic lenses covering his real eyes. They allow him to see out, but no one can see in. The science-nerd part of me notices that the lenses probably also protect his eyes from dust particles and the glare of the sun while he is swinging throughout the city. Impressive. My eyes travel down his lanky but muscular figure, observing the perfectly webbed pattern going down the red of his suit. He notices me studying him—or maybe he thinks I'm just checking him out—and he stares back at me. Before I got to feel the texture of the leathery material, he's already running off when my hands were only an inch away from his webbed jaw, getting ready to jump off into the air. "Wait!"

Surprisingly, he stops to look back at me.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"Just your friendly neighborhood, Spider man!" he rejoiced before jumping into the air and swinging onto what seems to be a web, and he disappears around the corner of a building. 

"Meredith!" Okay, I am officially sick of hearing my name being shouted this many times. My father runs over to me and buries me in his hug. "Are you okay?"

I think I'm in shock...