S P I D E R - M A N
Breaking Point
Written By: AwesomeMcGeeofCaledonia
Rated T+(+) for strong language and violence
Disclaimer: I did not create, nor do I own, Spider-Man or the characters of the franchise; the franchise is owned by Marvel... which is now (unfortunately) a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. This one-shot was written to entertain.
OFFICIAL COMIC ADAPTATION (DRAWN BY DARKKNIGHT95): shadowsofnight(dot)thecomicseries(dot)com/comics/1/
"With great power, comes an even greater responsibility." - Ben Parker
xXx
Finding the bastard was easy; hell, so was beating him to a pulp. But what I did after that... that was probably the hardest decision of my life. It wasn't simply whether just to do it or not, but rather if he would have approved. Then again... I guess I didn't really think about it much.
xXx
Uncle Ben was dead. He'd been shot, murdered; and I was going to find the monster responsible.
I had only just walked into my aunt and uncle's home that fateful night when I was told of the news. The squad cars and police officers surrounding the house hadn't made such a thing seem too surprising; I was honestly just surprised my aunt was unharmed.
"Oh, Peter!" she exclaimed, tears streaming down her face, an officer's arm draped over her back. "Your Uncle Ben has been... has been..."
She couldn't even finish the sentence. She didn't have to.
I rushed up the wooden banister to the house's second story. My bedroom was just around the corner. I slammed the door, and locked it.
I remember all the things rushing through my head.
God dammit, why me? What have I done to deserve this? What did HE do to deserve this? I hate my life. I hate this shitty thing called a life!
The suit beneath my school attire now seemed more useful than ever. I wasn't going to use it to make money. I wasn't even going to use it to entertain people.
I was going to use it to find the son of a bitch who took my father from me.
My clothes were shed like a snake's skin. The outfit beneath was my true form. The black spider motif, my symbol.
The glasses that had been slipping off the sweaty bridge of my nose were now in a twisted heap on the floor, lenses smashed, broken beyond repair; I never needed them anyway. They were soon replaced by two, big, white, soulless eyes and a blood-red face.
Walking over to my desk, I opened the top drawer and removed some web cartridges for my web-shooters.
He wasn't going to get away, not from me.
Though, had it not been for the squad car pulling out of the drive way, it's quite possible that I would have never found Uncle Ben's killer.
Tailing it was next on my agenda.
xXx
The squad car came to a stop outside of an old warehouse on the waterfront. Two officers quickly exited the vehicle, handguns already drawn.
It wouldn't be long before more of them would show up.
Jumping from my perch atop a water tower adjacent to the warehouse, I shot a web-line towards the warehouse's roof, and used the momentum from the swing to kick through a window on the top floor.
"Aw, fuck! Who's there?" came some screaming in the room.
Pitch black. The killer was there. Scared. Gun in hand, no doubt... the same gun that killed Uncle Ben.
Anger rushed through my body. I didn't need to know where he was at. I would find him.
"I said, who's there?" the man - monster - asked again. "Show yourself, and I might let you go!"
"Fuck you!" I yelled into the darkness.
"Hey!" I could hear him spinning around. "Where are you, man?"
I leapt up to the ceiling, and pressed my palms against it, sticking. The 15-foot jump was nothing.
I crawled along the ceiling, listening intently for anymore movement. I heard him; back of the room. My crawling's speed accelerated.
"Shit... I give up!" he screamed.
I was right above him. I pushed off of the ceiling, getting the drop on him, literally.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he began yelling, folding underneath my fall's pressure. He smashed into the floor, dropping his gun. His breathing became heavy. Was he asthmatic? Almost scared to death? It didn't matter.
I felt around for his face, and sent a punch squarely at his jaw. He went flailing through the air, smacking into a wall.
"Please, please... God, no, please! Leave me alone!" he begged. I could barely see him, but I was sure that he was on his knees about now. "What did I do to you?"
My anger increased a billion fold.
I was close enough to him that I could see him. I grabbed his shirt collar, and pushed him up against the wall, staring into his sniveling face.
"What did you do to me? What the fuck did you to ME?" I berated him. "You killed my uncle. You killed the man that was my father. You killed... you killed me."
I dropped him, falling to the ground a sobbing mess.
"What did I do to you?" I asked him. "That's the question... what did anybody do to you? What did Ben Parker do to you?"
"Wait... that was your uncle?" he asked. "I swear to God if I'd have known that, then-"
"Then what?" I yelled, once again grabbing his shirt collar, and pushing him against the wall. "You would've killed somebody else's uncle? Somebody else's father?"
"No, no, I...!" he started kicking around, attempting to get loose. He wasn't going anywhere. I spun around and thew him into some crates, breaking them apart with the impact. He groaned, and I thought he may have passed out. I wasn't gonna let him get off that easy.
"Don't you dare fucking pass out on me," I commanded, skulking over to his broken shape.
"I've had enough... please... just take me in already! I'm sorry I killed your-"
A two-punch combo to his face stopped him from continuing.
"Myb buckn nose!" he howled in pain, gripping his blood-gushing nose.
"If you think I'm taking you in, you're sadly, sadly mistaken," I told him. I once again lifted him, and this time threw him towards a window. He smashed into it, causing the shattered pieces to fall onto the dock below.
As I made my way over to him, my foot struck something cold and heavy. I stooped down to the floor, and felt around for the object. When I held it in my grip, my hand instinctively moved into the position; the position of holding a gun. I now held the weapon that had ended Uncle Ben's life.
"Bwait!" he removed his hands from his nose. "Don't do it, man! Don't kill me, don't kill me!"
The blood gushed out of his nose, and I wondered if it was ever going to stop.
"I got a little girl back at home!"
I stood back up.
"Kate! Her name's Kate!"
I took one step toward him.
"I need to provide for her, but I can't get no job, man!"
I took another step forward.
"Are you a father? Do you even know what it's like?"
I raised the gun.
"You killed my uncle."
I pushed the freezing barrel to his forehead.
"Fucking... killed... him..."
"Don't do it! I HAVE A FUCKING DAUGHTER FOR CHRISSAKES!"
I put my face behind the gun, looking into his eyes.
"Then it looks like Kate and I are going to have a lot in common."
And then, right there during that moment, I heard a voice.
"Don't do it, Peter." Uncle Ben was telling me. "With great power, comes an even greater responsibility. You failed me. You let him go."
But Uncle Ben was dead.
I pulled the trigger.
And with my action, now his killer was too.
xXx
Author's Note: Very gritty. Very dark. Very adult-oriented. Very not-Spider-Man. "Spider-Man doesn't kill!" you're yelling. And you're correct. As far as I know, the only person Spider-Man has ever killed in the mainstream comics was Gwen Stacy, and that was by complete accident. But after many years of thinking about what Spidey could've done in that warehouse, I've finally decided to write my depiction of it. Now, if you would possibly like to see more of this extremely dark "What If?" Spidey world, I may just consider expanding upon it. Did you like the first-person narrative? Would you prefer it be third-person? Let me know. Those things help me improve as an author. Personally, third-person writings are easier, but I feel like I know these characters so much that I can just as easily make first-person writings (even if they are of alternate versions of a character). So, leave me some reviews, and I'll see about what I may be doing in the future.