Peter Parker was an average looking young man. He had brown hair of medium length for a guy. He had small indentations on his very normal looking nose from the glasses he wore when he was younger. He was not overly tall. He did not appear muscular at first glance, though a closer inspection would reveal a good bit of wiry muscle covering his frame. The most striking features Peter possessed were his warm brown eyes. They were not physically impressive. It was more the emotion that came from them. His eyes were full of compassion and intelligence. Teacher's used to love to watch his eyes soak up information they laid in front of him. They felt their hearts break when larger tougher students would take advantage of him. That was back in elementary school. Now, in high school Peter's instructors were usually so embittered by the world and the harsh odds they had to over come, they didn't care about the students who were trodden underfoot. Those that did notice Peter simply did not have the time to help him.
Lately those that did take notice had noticed something disturbing; slipping. Peter's grades had declined since he'd entered high school. His science teacher had a friend still teaching middle school, and had heard rumors of the brilliant Peter Parker. The science teacher had seen a glimmer of that Peter Parker at the start of his freshman year, but it quickly vanished. It was replaced with a constantly tired, forgetful, and frequently roughed up Peter Parker. He excused it all as being mourning. The boy had lost his uncle, and father figure, only a few months into the school year. Now midway through Peter sophomore year things weren't doing any better.
Peter looked through the box he had found under the stairs. He had been looking for an old project he had done in seventh grade. It had earned him an A, Peter figured it would get him at least a low B now. It wasn't like he had extra time to do a project anymore. The box he had found was marked "Mistake". It was written in an odd handwriting. It wasn't Aunt May's. it wasn't Uncle Ben's (that would have been painful). Which meant that it was either his father's or his mother's. He had found something that stopped him cold.
It was a small photograph, fairly well done (as a budding photographer himself he had grown quite good at judging pictures). It was a man, a woman, and a baby. He recognized the woman fairly easily. It was his mother. However the man and the baby in the picture were complete strangers. He easily recognized his father, despite not having any real memory of him. Also he had had Aunt May pull out the baby pictures around Gwen and Felicia too often not to recognize himself as a baby.
He stood up and walked into the kitchen where Aunt may was sitting drinking her coffee and reading the Daily Bugle. Peter didn't even remember to look proud at the picture he had taken adorning the front page. "Aunt May," his voice quavered.
May parker looked up at Peter in questioningly. Her nephew didn't often sound this confused. "Who are these people?" he asked as she showed her the picture.
He expected her to scrunch up her face as she always did when she tried to remember someone she hadn't seen in a long time. But instead her eyes went wide in recognition. "Oh, God," she whispered, "I'd almost forgotten."
"Who is that with my mom?" he asked again.
May laid her paper down and looked at Peter with eyes begging to be forgiven. "Peter, people aren't perfect beings. I need you to understand that before I tell you this."
"Tell me what?"
May took a deep breath and began. "Peter about two years before you were born, your mother was stationed away from your father. You know they were both scientists, you mother was working on an experimental rocket fuel, and that man there was the test pilot she was working with. She had been never been away from your father in her married life.
"This story goes the same for the test pilot. They had an affair Peter. Both of them confessed to their spouses, but there was a complication. Your mother was pregnant with the pilot's child. Your father was less forgiving than the pilot's wife, and said that she could not keep the child.
"The pilot and his wife agreed to raise the child as their own. They even gave the boy their name, 'Summers'. Your father forgave your mother, we all did. I didn't want you to think less of her Peter. That's why I never told you."
Peter's mind was reeling. All his life he had no one to talk to. He had always been the loner and the outsider. The truth was the one thing he had wanted more than anything was a brother. Now he was hearing that he had one.
"What happened to them?" he demanded.
"The last I heard they had moved to Alaska with Scott, the boy, and their own son Alex."
"So I have a brother," Peter began summarizing. May nodded as he stated the facts, "His name is Scott, and we don't know where he is?"
"That's the long and short of it." She couldn't bring herself to face Peter. His face held such hurt. She knew he couldn't bear much more. She only prayed that if he did search and find him, that the boy wasn't dead.
Peter went to his room and didn't come out the rest of the night, at least not that Aunt May knew. He left at around midnight to do some rounds of the city. After all, Peter Parker still had the power and responsibility of Spider-Man
!! !!
The next day at school, Peter spent his programming class scouring the Internet. The blonde beside him hissed, "Peter! You're gonna get in trouble. We're supposed to be writing that game code!"
Peter turned to her with a scowl on his face. He switched windows to reveal not just the "Pong" game that they were supposed to be writing, but also the fact that he had written a 3-D version of "Pong". He turned back to his search. Unfortunately the name "Summers" was fairly common.
"Scowl at me again Peter," Felicia purred. "It looks so sexy on you."
Peter didn't even turn to look at her this time. He didn't really like Felicia all that much lately. Ever since he found out that she was really only truly interested in Spider-Man, and not really Peter Parker, she seemed less and less attractive to him. She was always trying to get Peter to act more like Spider-Man. To her, Spider-man was funny, dangerous, and brave. Peter on the other hand was introverted, brainy, and a geek.
Peter had been hacking his way through lightly encrypted files to find information to help him uncover the whereabouts of his "long-lost brother". As the class ended, Felicia left, touching Peter's shoulder as she went, hoping for some reaction. There was none. She left and Peter stayed. He was planning on spending lunch in here. He could always pick up a dog or a pretzel on the way home. That was when he smelled something that he knew he shouldn't; Pizza.
He still didn't tear his eyes from the screen, but he did listen.
"Young lady," the lab monitor said. "You know very well that we don't allow food in here."
"Please," begged the second voice, that of a student, and a girl. "Its not even for me. Its for him, Peter." A smile turned one corner of Peter's mouth. He knew that voice all too well.
"Well..." the lab monitor mused, "Alright, but be clean."
Peter changed screens to look like he was working on an essay, and then turned to look at the girl now sitting next to him. She was dressed more conservatively than Felicia had, and her blonde hair was more yellow than Felicia's. Felicia had platinum hair. This was quite obviously not Felicia. It was, in fact, Gwen Stacy. Gwen had been Peter's best friend for seven years now. They had met in middle school, when Gwen's dad transferred to the local police, and she was the new kid.
Peter had been the geek that normally showed the new kids around, but the difference this time was that Gwen, as beautiful as she was, was kind and sweet person. She was one of the most popular girls in school, but her best friend was the least popular. She would often protect Peter when bullies tried to pick on him, and he would help her when she needed it. The truth was that Peter could get promoted out of high school if he wanted, but, to use his own words, where was the fun in that.
"So," she asked, looking at the self-typing essay screen. "How's the search coming?"
"Okay," Peter said taking a bite of the pizza, while changing back to his normal screen with the other hand. "I started out with twenty "Scott Summers" in the country, then I whittled it down by age range, next I eliminated those who had never been a military dependant, and now I am stuck."
"What's the problem?" Gwen asked as she looked at Peter's screen. It had one window with code scrawling across it. Another part of it contained information that she could actually understand, and then the last simply showed Peter's online name; Zp1d3rW3I3L337.
"Well," he explained. "I have three names that fit the given criteria, and I need to figure it down to one."
"Can't you check the birth certificate?"
"Way noticeable. I only wanna do that if I am checking to make sure."
"Can you find their driver's licenses?"
"Yeah, but how would that help?"
"Pictures genius boy," Gwen explained. "You have that picture of your mom, and his dad?"
"Yeah."
"Well, he will probably look something like them."
"Oh," Peter mumbled embarrassed. As smart as Peter was, it was quite amazing to Gwen how often he missed obvious things.
Peter pulled up three diver's license pictures and he looked at them with Gwen. One was from Boston, another from Chicago, and the last from Bayville. Peter took out the picture of his brother with his mom, and his brother's father. He looked at the pictures, "None of them has red hair." Peter said blankly.
"Good bye Boston," Gwen said as Peter removed that file.
"Look that one has my mom's nose." Peter pointed at the last one.
"You both have her hair," Gwen said with an elbow to Peter's ribs as she spoke of the same one.
"This guy may have both the same color hair," Peter said referring to the one from Chicago, "But other than that there is no resemblance. This guy from Bayville is frightening."
"Yeah, I mean look at those glasses. Yuck!"
"Gotta be prescription though, I don't think they let you were any others when taking that picture."
"Like we would know," Gwen said with a smile. She knew the likely hood of either her or Peter ever getting a driver's license was slim to none. Both of them wanted to live in the city when they graduated. "Alright then," Gwen said, "Check Bayville's birth certificate."
Peter pulled it up and there it was. Mother's name: Mary Parker.
Peter then pulled up everything he could find on this one guy. It turned out he didn't need to hack to find it. Scott Summers, or Cyclops as was his mutant name, was fairly famous. The mutants of Bayville that he lived with were all fairly famous, or rather infamous.
"I have to go. We can take that subway line they just reopened to get there."
"I'll come too if you want."
"Gwen, I . . ." he couldn't think of a good reason to ask her to come, except that he didn't think he could make it alone. He couldn't reason asking her to come.
"I'm coming," she said simply. Once again Peter thanked god for the fact that he knew Gwen Stacy.
Three hours of school, one hour of phone explanations to legal guardians, and two hours of public transit later they stood at the front gates of the intimidating Xavier Institute. Peter pushed the call button and waited for someone to respond.
Peter was bewildered by what he heard next.