"Hey Uncle Ben, can you give me a lift to the library?" asked Peter, slinging his backpack over his shoulders and sliding on some fingerless gloves.
He'd watched a few videos to get a basic idea of fighting techniques, although he was planning on relying more on his enhanced skills.
Ben looked at his nephew. "Alright. What time are you going to be back by?"
Hesitating, the brunette wondered how to answer the question. "Ummm...I'm not completely sure, I've got a lot of work. I can text you when I'm ready to go home though."
Peter was a good kid, no doubt. It was one of the reasons that practically everyone trusted him to do the right thing. He felt a little guilty for lying, but covered it up by remembering that it was so that he could help out with the money troubles.
Ben dropped Peter off at the library. Quickly, the teenager ducked behind the library until he'd seen his uncle drive away.
Then, he walked clandestinely towards the address on the flyer, and after a few minutes, found himself in a makeshift wrestling "arena," with crowds of people surrounding the ring. A burly man, who Peter recognized as the Crusher from the poster, lifted his opponent into the air, and threw him across the room. Everyone cheered loudly.
The Crusher let out a victory yell. "WHO'S NEXT? ARE ALL OF YOU SO WEAK AS TO FALL TO THE CRUSHER?"
Peter slipped on his mask, and backflipped into the ring. "Hey big guy, didn't you ever learn not to talk about yourself in third person? It's borderline bad grammar."
The man in question sneered at him. "You think you can defeat me?"
The brunette stepped fully into the light, and swallowing his nerves, he just grinned and said, "Yep."
The Crusher charged him, but the teenager leapt out of the way, causing said man to crash into the metal bar around the ring. The entire crowd screamed with anticipation.
The burly wrestler let out a roar of fury, drawing a fist back, attempting to punch him, but Peter continued dodging, and finally landed a solid whack on the man's jaw. The resulting THWACK echoed throughout the arena. The Crusher slumped on the mat.
There was dead silence. Then, everyone began to cheer.
Peter, who had been so used to being called less than unsavoury names throughout his life, beamed with pride under his mask.
A man wearing a black business suit, the organizer of the whole tournament, pushed his way to the front of the crowd and handed the teenager an envelope. When he peeked inside, he gaped at the three crisp $100 bills. "I've never seen anything like it! Come here again tomorrow, and I'll pay you twice as much!"
Throwing an arm around his shoulders, business-guy lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Don't go spreading the news to everyone though , alright. We don't want the authorities knowing about this, since it's technically not...you know."
Peter was only able to nod as he was escorted by two bouncers back outside. He ogled the cash in his hand. This underground wrestling arena wasn't technically legal...but it wasn't as bad as, say, drug dealing. Still, he had remained anonymous the entire time, so there was no way anyone could possibly know his secret identity. He slowly trudged back to the library, pulling off his mask as he did so, lost in thought.
He immediately felt his heart sink when he saw Uncle Ben's car in the parking lot.
The weird feeling in the back of his head flared, and he whirled around. Ben was standing there with an unreadable expression on his face.
"Hey Uncle Ben," said Peter, swallowing nervously.
Ben opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally deciding on, "Where were you? Are you alright?"
The brunette nodded. "I just--um--went down to the corner store. Yeah."
His uncle just ran his fingers through his hair before motioning to Peter to get in the car.
The teenager felt extremely guilty about lying, especially since he knew that his uncle would not fall for a half-eaten lie like that.
When they reached the house, Ben headed inside while Peter took a moment to slip the envelope inside the mailbox.
This incident happened on Saturday.
The next day was Sunday.
After brushing his teeth, Peter headed downstairs, and noticed his aunt and uncle speaking in hushed tones at the dining table. Simultaneously, they turned around, and gestured for him to sit.
"Is everything okay?" he asked hesitantly.
Ben looked at him. "Peter. You've been acting strange ever since the field trip to Oscorp."
The brunette swallowed nervously. "What do you mean?"
May rubbed her forehead. "You've become more distant. Harry mentioned you fell asleep during class."
Peter froze. He remembered closing his eyes during class...but had he really slept through the entire class?
Shaking his head, the teen said "I'm fine, just tired."
His aunt nodded. "I've got to get to work. Claire can't come in today, something about other commitments."
Claire Temple was one of May's fellow nurses at the hospital. Peter had never met her, because she was always so busy. With what she was busy with was honestly a mystery.
After May headed out the door, Peter took a step towards the stairs to head to his room, but his uncle stopped him by laying a heavy hand on his shoulder.
Peter turned around with a questioning look on his face.
"Pete. Both you and I know that you didn't go to the library, or the corner store yesterday. The librarian hadn't seen you inside the entire day. I haven't told your aunt yet, but I will if you don't explain. If you're involved with the wrong kind of people, please tell us. We can help you."
It took a moment for the teenager to fully process what Ben said.
"Wha--Uncle Ben! I'm not on drugs! I'm not part of some gang or whatever you think, I swear, it's nothing like that!"
His uncle just shook his head. "Then what is it like? Where did the money come from?"
"What money?" he asked, trying to play it off.
Ben held up the envelope. "I want to know what's going on."
Peter's temper flared.
"I'm fine okay? Would you just stop micromanaging my life? I wanted to help out with the bills! It doesn't matter where I got the money. It's not like I did something illegal!"
"Actually, it does matter where you got the--"
"WOULD YOU STOP? I'M JUST TRYING TO HELP!" shouted Peter angrily.
Ben stared at him, with shock. His nephew had just yelled. Sure, it was normal for teenagers to rebel at his age, but Peter had never yelled like that before.
The brunette was breathing heavily.
Ben could feel tears prickle the back of his eyes. Taking in a deep breath, he looked his nephew in the eyes.
"Peter. Your aunt and I will always love you, no matter what. I won't press. When you're ready to talk to us, we're always ready to listen."
The teenager didn't respond.
"With great power must also come great responsibility. It's your job to figure out what do to with it," said Ben gently.
Peter's uncle patted his shoulder before grabbing his briefcase and heading out.
The teenager walked back to his room, grabbed his notebook, and pulled out his laptop, which he'd found at the dump, and restored manually.
He pulled up a tab.
"A spider web, or cobweb is a structure created by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets, generally meant to catch its prey. Webs allow a spider to catch prey without having to expend energy by running it down. Thus it is an efficient method of gathering food. However, constructing the web is in itself an energetically costly process because of the large amount of protein required, in the form of silk. In addition, after a time the silk will lose its stickiness and thus become inefficient at capturing prey. "
A lightbulb burst into light inside Peter's brain.
Web-shooters!
After about three and a half hours, Peter had developed devices that wrapped around his wrists, and allowed him to shoot out webs.
Thankfully, organic webs were not a power he'd gained from the spider bite. He shuddered at the thought.
"Now, to test them out," he said nervously.
The teenager headed out into the backyard, and shot a web at a garden gnome. It stuck to the gnome's face and knocked it over.
"YES!" exclaimed Peter with excitement.
He tried peeling the web off, but realized that it was stuck.
Um.
He hefted it easily and stashed it in his room. No one would know...
Around 6:30, Peter shot May and Ben texts saying that he was going to hang out at the park.
May replied with a "stay safe and have fun sweetie :)"
Ben typed out "Please be careful. Remember what we talked about this morning."
The brunette grabbed his "suit" and web-shooters, and headed back to the arena.
Once he'd gotten there, the man in the business suit shook his hand enthusiastically. "Good to see you again!"
"We got a bunch more wrestlers, although none of them are as strong as Hogan. This'll be easy for you."
Peter grinned under his mask and shot him a thumbs up.
Sure enough, the teenager was able to stop them easily. Even better, his webs worked perfectly as well.
Peter headed outside, and the man handed him $250 in cash.
At that moment, a guy wearing black clothes with a bag slung over his shoulder ran past, vaulting over the guards.
However, he tripped over his feet, and got up.
"HEY! STOP HIM!" yelled one of the bodyguards.
The guy got up, and Peter got a good look at his face. He had graying hair, and a scar that ran from the top of his right eyelid to the midpoint of his jaw. A black tattoo of a snake wrapped around his arm.
The brunette was feeling slightly caught off-guard, and stayed exactly where he was.
The robber sprinted out of the arena, but the crowd was too thick for the burly bodyguards to follow.
One of them turned their accusing glares against Peter.
"Why didn't you stop him? You literally knocked out the champion of this ring with one punch!"
The brunette shrugged. "I missed the part where that's my problem."
He ignored the angry protests of the guards, found an alleyway to change out of his suit, and headed back home.
As Peter neared his house, he noticed a large group of people, some of them screaming and calling for help, around a block over. His curiosity got the better of him, so he headed over.
When he reached the center of the crowd, he felt his heart stop.
The world froze, and Peter's breath caught in his throat.
Lying on the ground, bleeding out from a wound on his chest, was his Uncle Ben.
"UNCLE BEN!" Peter yelled and fell to his knees. Tearing off his hoodie, he pressed it to the hole, trying to staunch the flow.
"Please, Ben. Stay with me. You're going to be okay."
"Peter," whispered Ben softly.
The teenager sobbed.
Ben gently ran a hand through the boy's hair.
"Take care of your aunt. I love you both so, so much. You're destined for great things Pete, I know it."
An ambulance and a police car screeched to a stop. Paramedics and officers leapt out.
Ben smiled weakly. "I love you, Peter."
Peter put one hand on Ben's chest, and entwined his other one with his uncle's hand. "I love you, Uncle Ben."
The man smiled and exhaled once.
His face fell slack.
Peter screamed.