"Richard (35)and Mary Parker (33)
died in a plane crash
They will be mourned by their son Peter"
"Benjamin Parker (51) died of internal bleeding
incurred during a street robbery.
He will be missed by his partner May
and his nephew Peter"
(extracts from Daily Bugle obituary pages)
"Cause it's the right thing to do"
Ben Parker
1
He died alone. He died alone bleeding on the sidewalk. I should try and forget about it. No, no, that was me before. I should try and forget about it. What a bunch of crap, that was the old me, I don't have to be a pushover anymore. I'm going to kill him. This guy killed my uncle; I'm going to kill him. I can kill him, I can do anything. Anything, I want. I should try and forget about it.
I've decided to go back to school, I don't know why, maybe it's too soon, but I decide to go in. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe I was just tired of my only human contact being speechless interactions with Aunt May, but I'm Peter Parker and I walked in to class the same invisible kid I was a week ago. I listen to our Physics teacher make a complete hash of explaining a concept I grasped while I was still learning to ride a bike. I really shouldn't have come in to school.
The Bell rings, we leave for break.
"Yo, Parker!"
Great, on top of all this I've got to deal with Flash Thompson. This jerk's tormented me throughout high school. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be this alienated weirdo. People wouldn't avoid me like some leprosy-ridden kitten molester.
"Hey" Flash seemed to be acting differently "Pete, I'm sorry to hear about your uncle, man. He seemed cool"
As Flash, patted me on the shoulder and walked off, I realised that it was one of the first human moments I'd had with one of my classmates in years. With Flash Thompson. I don't know if he had any idea what it meant to me or if he even regretted how he'd treated me in the past but then and there, he treated me like an equal. Huh.
2
Suddenly, I'm thirteen years old, my hormones are raging and so am I. I can't quite remember what about. But I yelled some things at Uncle Ben and he yelled some back. We made up later on and he came up to my room. We talked for hours; eventually we got on to the subject of my dad.
"You're so much like him." Ben chuckled. "You go the makings of a damn good scientist just like him."
"Yeah? I read a lot about his work. But nothing came of it. Why?" I always liked these talks with Ben it made me feel connected to my dad.
"Your father was a good man and he was unbelievably intelligent, like crazy smart. Me and him, you too, we grew up in Queens. Now that ain't no place to grow up I suppose. But he got his scholarship and he didn't remember what he learnt here. You can't trust many people round her. Now that don't change when you go to college. But no-one's gonna pull a knife on you for looking at them funny, they smarter than that. A man comes up to you with a suit and a briefcase, and come to a man like your dad, someone who just wanna help people. He says all this stuff and your dad goes and believes it cause he thinks it'll help him do good and ends up owing his soul to whatever company that can afford it. Peter, there are bad people in this world and most of them are the guys running the show. You gotta be better than that. You gotta be smart and know when to do what. Cause your gonna get a chance to use what you got to help people, and if you responsible, you gonna take that chance. Cause it's the right thing to do. This probably don't make much sense toy you know, but when you older, try and remember what I told you."
3
My uncle dying came at a really inconvenient time, i know that make me sound like a terrible human being, but it's still true. I felt so alone and so depressed for so long, growing up with no friend, being different, smarter than everyone else. I just wished I could talk with people my age like a normal kid. But then something happened, something changed, I changed. It was like I could do anything, like I was on top of the world. Then Ben died.
I can't explain what happened to me. I've been taking blood sample, doing test, it's like my DNA has been completely rewritten. I don't know how to explain it in a way that make much of any kind of sense but a spider bit me and now I have super powers. There is literally no other way I can describe what has happened to me.
I just had to blow off steam, going in to school was a mistake, so I decided to ditch my next lesson and try out my powers, I went a couple of streets down and found a corner where there wasn't any CCTV on me. I took off the plain black shirt I'd been wearing and wrapped it round my head in to an aesthetic-enough balaclava.
First, I do a black flip on to the brick wall behind me, I land on it, sticking it to like we were both strips of Velcro. Then I jump up further on the opposite wall and contort my body as I jump and grab on to the ledge of the building, Ha, this is brilliant. This is really brilliant.
I'm running across the rooftop. I'm running fast, like no-one's ever ran before, I'm like a freaking lightning bolt. I'm leaping from rooftop to rooftop and what's more, more than this, I'm doing it effortlessly. If only they could see me now, all those kids who taunted and mocked me when we did PhysEd. Would I make you feel inadequate, making all your feats redundant, being super human, I could show them all.
But then who knows what'll happen, yeah, there's fame and glory but where would that leave Aunt May. We've got enough on our plate at the moment she doesn't need to worry about this. About accepting this thing that I've become. We've got to look after each other now, it's not like either of us have any other family left.
4.
"Hey, Aunt May." I said as I walked in the door. She turned to me, her eyes were still red.
"Peter?" She could barely talk as her voice croaked "You're back early."
"Yeah, I think I might have jumped the gun on the whole going back to school thing, a bit. Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. You're right, it probably was too early."
We both stood in the living room in awkward silence for a few seconds then I start to go up to my room.
"Peter?" I stop when I hear her voice
"Yeah?"
"Nothing, dear. Don't worry." I smile at her sheepishly wishing there was something I could say. Some way I could lift her up. But I can hardly give her spider powers. So I go up to my room.
5.
It's been a few days now and my mind keeps going back to what Ben told me when I was thirteen. I'm not sure why, maybe because it matters, maybe it's just me being sentimental about the time we spent together. Either way, I've decided to apply his advice. I know what he's talking about now, I think. I've got to do the right thing. I've just got to figure out what that is.
The right thing would be to help my aunt, we need money, I should help her with that. But all my grief and anger keeps me from doing anything productive. I can't put her through going public on the whole spider thing either. Maybe, if I found that guy, maybe. I wanted to kill him, part of me still wants that but I don't think Ben would. But I still need to find him, I...We need that closure. May and I
I've been stitching together this...costume. I don't know why. There would have been easier ways to hide my identity but, well, I might as well bring some colour to the occasion. Ben would have like that. I think, anyway. It looks weird. It's all red and blue with this web pattern all over it. A spider on the chest and the mask is just something else. Eyes without a face.
There were some witnesses to my uncle's death and they got some descriptions but weren't realising them. Lucky, the NYPD files are easy enough for me to hack in to. The descriptions are quite vague but I they've got an address for where they think they are. They're doing a raid tonight. I'm going to get there before them. I just need that. I don't know what I'll do when I get there. I'm afraid I'll kill him but I just need to be there. It's all going down tonight.