AN: This story was written for a challenge from NarutoUzumakiBarrage on the Spider-man challenges forum. The challenge was that Peter had to realize he was part of a game after he died and discovered he could begin again-reset. It's not my usual thing, but I thought it sounded like an interesting challenge and someone should give it a go. that said, I don't play too many videogames. If someone notices something going wrong with my story or has advice, I would love for them to mention it in a review or message.
Here's hoping it works out!
A lot of people talked about Spider-man. They said a lot of stupid stuff, like how he might be evil and how he did an awful lot of property damage.
One thing they never discussed was how he really should have been dead.
Seriously, he'd gone up against ridiculously strong opponents. And while he only ever tried to defeat them and put them in jail, most of them had actively been trying to kill him rather than beat him up. And quite a few of them had been very strong.
The reason why people never talked about this was quite simple-no one ever notices the way the game is programmed while they're inside it.
On the other hand, Spider-man had noticed it very often himself. But he didn't need to wonder about why no one had ever managed to kill him because he already knew. And it wasn't because of his amazing skills either.
The best thing he had going for him wasn't his strength, or his spider senses, or being able to climb up walls. It was the fact that he was the player.
He had the ability to restart.
/…/…/
It happened for the first time when he first went up against the Vulture.
It was pathetic, really. The Vulture was the first real supervillain he ever went up against. He thought he was prepared. He wasn't. He was just a high schooler and the Vulture had been doing this for years.
The Vulture was vicious and quick. The fight was completely one sided-he'd been distracted by trying to take pictures and hadn't known he'd even been spotted yet. The Vulture hit him over the head easily and dumped him, dazed and only half conscious, into a water tower, closing the door behind him.
It ended with him drowning in the water tower, wondering how he'd managed to fall for such a stupid trick like the vulture swooping up behind him. In his last moments, he was cursing his own idiocy. Now he would never be able to save enough lives to make up for his failure in letting Uncle Ben die.
Drowning was painful, water rushing through his nose and filling his lungs. He was almost too distracted to hear the voice. It seemed to come from above. It was a blank voice, like that of a recording or a computer. "Game Over. Game Over. Game Over…"
He thought sourly to himself that if he had to have a hallucination as he died, he wished it could be something a little more comforting than this.
Then there was a flash of white light in his vision, and a moment of darkness, and just when he started wondering if darkness was all there was to the afterlife, he heard a voice again.
It was a deeper voice this time, very matter of fact and a bit more human, but still very programmed.
"Game over. You have lost the game. Play again?"
Peter didn't think too hard about it. He didn't know what was going on exactly, and he was bewildered, but he had never been a quitter. He didn't ask questions. He didn't debate what would happen to him either way. He just said, "Yes."
There was another moment of blackness and then, suddenly, he was dropping into the freezing cold water of the water tower all over again. He was confused, frightened, had no idea what was happening.
But he thought to himself, "This is your chance."
Was he going to let a stupid water container beat him again? Of course not!
This time, he sprang into action immediately. He dove deep under the water until he found the bottom, and then pushed off the bottom to spring to the surface. Indeed, he put so much force into the spring that he ended up with his upper body sticking out of the entrance to the water tank that the Vulture had shoved him through.
Air.
So much air. He gasped it in, nearly choking out of the sheer vigor with which he inhaled. He wasn't going to drown, he wasn't going to die. Not today, and certainly not here. Not at the Vulture's hands either.
When he went against the Vulture later, he felt somehow stronger. Maybe his near death experience had made him so? It didn't matter. What mattered was that soon, the Vulture was left on the ground with a pair of ruined wings, being arrested by the authorities.
And what he felt was triumph, of course, and satisfaction at seeing the man get what he deserved. Not relief. He had no reason to fear the Vulture, after all.
He was alive.
Later that night, he got good money from J. Jonah Jameson for pictures of the Vulture and Spider-man, and that was when he first started bringing in pictures to the Daily Bugle for money. If he had stopped to think then, he might have realized how very like a game it was- getting items on an adventure and exchanging the for money. But he was too tired, and he only half remembered what had happened when he drowned.
He didn't think too hard about it. Not then. He was too happy at his survival.
He went home and had dinner with Aunt May. He surprised her with the money. She said she was proud of him.
He went to bed and forgot about the whole near-death experience thing for five whole days before disaster struck again.
/…/…/
The second time was even lamer than the first.
Spider-man was supposed to be powerful and strong. He had accepted the risks of fighting supervillains and the like, but dying of a simple gunshot to his heart?
It was lame for a superhero, being defeated by a simple gang of thugs like this. He should have sensed the bullet coming towards him, should have been able to dodge on time. He was distracted and ended up getting hit.
He was lying on the ground of the alley where they'd been fighting, now, his blood staining the sidewalk. Vaguely he heard the thugs talking over his body, some triumphant, some worried. He wondered how they would dispose of his body, if they'd take his mask off to see his face or just leave it on, uncurious.
"Game Over. Game Over. Game Over…"
What. He knew that blank, computer like voice. Only, he had thought it was some kind of strange hallucination to go with his near death experience. Was he hallucinating again?
He tried to pull his head up to look around for the source of the voice, but as he looked up he was blinded by a flash of white light. And then, utter darkness.
Ooh, déjà vu.
Peter was kind of annoyed at the fact that he had just thought that. It was fine to be snarky when he was fighting criminals and the like, but he had just died. Didn't his inner voice have any sense of gravity?
Was there such a thing as gravity after death?
Come to think of it, did he still have a body? He felt like he did. He could still move around and he could probably still talk but he couldn't feel anything around him. His inner science student was fascinated.
His fascination was interrupted by the second voice.
"Game over. You have lost the game. Play again?"
This time, already in science mode, Peter hesitated.
If he said yes, maybe things would reset to a few minutes before, like last time. Surely that would be satisfactory. But Peter felt curious.
Maybe curiosity killed the cat, but it also discovered heliocentrism, so Peter felt entirely justified in investigating his situation instead of immediately accepting the offer to "play again".
Now. The whole "Game Over" and "Play again" thing suggested that this…phenomenon was part of a game. Peter was skeptical, but a lot of his life had been like a game of late. Fighting people, facing impossible odds. He supposed it would make sense.
The voice suggested something further to him…a videogame. Peter had never played many of them himself, but he had played enough to know the basics. He would therefore try to deal with the situation like it was a videogame, and hope he didn't end up getting himself killed for real.
"Um," he said aloud. "Options?"
The deep voice spoke again, placidly and mechanically. "If you choose to play again, you will start from save point. You may also go to Stats to see your current stats, restart the game from the beginning, when you first became a superhero, or go back to the save point before your most recent one. Other options include changing gender, costume and abilities, and adding background music, but first you will have to build your stats. Or you can quit."
Peter took a moment to process this.
Okay, more than a moment.
The quit option was out. Peter was pretty sure that would lead to him dying for real, forever, and he had an aunt to go back to. The options that required additional stats sounded interesting but apparently he couldn't access them. Restarting from when he first became a superhero sounded interesting but not really worth it. He had no huge regrets, since he had only become a superhero after Uncle Ben was already dead, which meant he could not go back and change that. All in all, he probably wanted to play again from his current save point, wherever that was, but first, he was still curious.
"Current stats, please."
He half expected to see them appear in front of him, but they didn't. Instead, the voice spoke again.
"Strength is at 80. Agility is at 90. Accuracy is at 60. Health has total of 230 but is currently at 0. Intelligence is at 130. Special skills-wall crawling and spider sense. Wall crawling is at 70. Spider sense is at 40."
"Oh," said Peter.
Well, great. He knew what his stats were now, but he had no idea how to interpret them.
In any case, his lowest one was spider sense, so apparently he had to improve there. It made sense, since not using it enough had led to his being shot in the first place.
He was still confused, but the voice wasn't offering any more information so there was really only one thing left to do without stretching this.
"Restart," he said, in the calmest voice he could manage. "From last save point."
There was a low buzz, and suddenly Peter could see again. He was back in the alley, sticking to the wall, about to attack the thugs, who were just coming out of a jewelry store. He hesitated for only a moment before swinging down, his feet hitting one man in the head.
"Hello," he said brightly. "Just your friendly neighborhood Spider-man swinging through. I was wondering if you guys might be interested in a sparring match."
This time he didn't get shot. He made sure of it, forcing himself to listen to every urge his spider senses gave him. He found himself doing meaningless movements that ended up being useful in the end, practically dancing around blows that had only just started to come down.
He wondered vaguely why he hadn't done it this way the first time.
The thugs were left in a tapestry of webbing for the police to find, and soon Peter was home again. Aunt May was concerned at his being late. For a moment he felt guilty at almost being killed (or had he been killed?) and leaving her for good. He forced himself to let the feeling go. There was nothing he could do about it.
Trying to fall asleep, he couldn't stop thinking about the blackness, the option to play again, the game, the stats. His curiosity was nearly driving him mad. He should have figured out how to ask for more information. Most games had a "How to Play" section. Next time he would definitely ask to see that.
Wait.
Next time?
Peter lay in bed, shocked, as he realized that he had just made the assumption that he was going to die again. Was he an idiot? He wouldn't let himself die again. That would be stupid.
And yet in the end, he still had a feeling in his gut, almost like spider sense. He was going to be killed again. And soon.
AN: So. Hope you enjoyed that. As I said, I've never written a story much like this before, but I'm doing my best. Next chapter: Peter tries to figure out just what is going on, maybe fights a villain or two, and has a talk with Flash. Not necessarily in that order.