Poor Peter Parker

by princessloki

Things have been pretty shit for Spider Man recently. He's lost his family, his friends, even Gwen has died, and he can't help but blame himself. He's tired and done. But all of a sudden a mysterious new girl slips into his life though the open window, and the Avengers break down the door.

Poor Peter Parker. The words seemed to constantly echo in my head these days, like a scratched record player stuck repeating. Being a superhero, you'd think everything would get better. You get the girl, the fame, the badass powers that make little things like books on high shelves or being late to work easier. You'd think it'd be perfect. But you'd think wrong.

Since this stupid shit has happened, everything's just gotten worse. I mean yeah, there are perks, but nothing amounts to the pain. First Uncle Ben, then Gwen's father, Aunt May, and then finally Gwen even passed. The graveyard is full of more of my friends than I'd ever had thought- not to mention all the people in between. Helping people and saving lives is amazing, but being submerged in the death and sadness really takes its toll. I mean, loosing Gwen… I never would have thought… anyways.

I rushed back over from the bathroom to my counter with no one in line. Everyone was down the street- some new mainstream band was having a concert that the entire freaking city seemed to be at. The store was nearly empty- today wouldn't be so hard. Working at a grocery store sucked, but it was the only job I could get. I had to pay the bills somehow.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her. The only girl who had gotten my attention after Gwen died. She stood far off in the cereal isle deciding whether to add Lucky Charms or Fruity Pebbles to her cart. I had never spoken to her, not once, and she had never spoken to me.. I had heard her name was something like Lucy or Tracy, but I couldn't bring myself ask. All I knew was that she was around my age and had just moved to the outskirts of the city with her Dad or something. And boy was she beautiful. Her short thick hair that came to just below her jaw was so black that it looked blue in the light. She was long and thin, though it looked like she could take care of herself, or at least tie with me in a fight (which I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything, was actually a bit more than not bad). Her pale skin seemed so smooth it was almost inhuman, and she had high cheekbones and a thin face with a long pointed nose. He eyes were a swirly mix of blue electricity a lime green. I had never seen anyone like her. She was the type of person that even Gwen would love. I couldn't help but feel attracted to her. And I hated myself for it.

"Ahem," a cough came from behind me. I turned and saw Natasha standing there with all her things ready to be scanned. She was giving me a are you kidding me look. I rolled my eyes.

"I can look, can't I?"

She chuckled. "Sure, as long as you move on." It hurt more than she meant it to.

I looked at her a realized that her red curly hair was much shorter than it used to be. "Hey, what happened? I thought you were going to try to grow it out again!" I scanned her eggs.

"Yeah, it wasn't quite working for me."

Natasha was a beautiful, sexy woman. She had the perfect curves in the perfect places, full lips, big eyes, everything a guy wanted. I rolled my eyes at the perverts staring and swiped her milk.

"So how are things going?" I asked.

"Fine. I'm trying to get Clint into some more classic books."

Clint. The man who seemed to be her husband but wasn't even her boyfriend. "And how's that?" I asked.

"He can't focus on it. He doesn't get it."

I nodded with a smile. "He wouldn't."

"How are things with you, hot shot? Ever get that car fixed?"

I paused and ignored her small talk. "Things are better. Not good, but… better."

She leaned back and nodded, fixing her posture. "Lets keep it that way."

I then added up her total, she paid, and that was that. Then she stepped in front of me.

Her eyes were down at her phone, texting away. I practically stopped breathing and just stood there, gazing at her. It was rare that she ever came into my isle, and when she did I always seemed to be on a break. She slowly noticed and looked up. "Um, dude? The food is like, over flowing."

I looked down and noticed that I forgot the stop the track and all her groceries had pushed themselves to the counter. I cursed and flailed around for the switch to turn it off. Her carton of eggs slipped off the counter onto my side. The girl swore and began to grab for them, but I swiftly grabbed them just before they hit in less than a second. She looked at me strangely.

"Wow," she said. "That was almost cool."

I smiled. "Good to know that you think I'm almost cool."

I swiped all of her things quickly until I got to a magazine. I was on the cover- well, Spider Man was anyway. It was a special issue dedicated just to him. The headline read "The Amazing Spiderman: Hero or Villain?"

"Spider Man, huh?"

"What?" she asked.

"He's on the, uh, the cover of your, uh- magazine thing." I stuttered awkwardly.

"Oh yeah, would you look at that," she obviously had no interest. But I wasn't going to let it go.

"He's cool isn't he? Seems like a fantastic guy. Unless he isn't! Like, unless you're just buying this stupid thing ironically, then pfft, what a douche. Why would you buy this if it weren't for an ironic joke, right? Like, what even, what was I thinking. I don't know-"

"What do you mean buying it ironically? "

I got quiet. "I don't… I dunno. Like hey guys look at me with Spider Man, lol, sooooo cool." I stopped myself. I was normally much smoother with girls, or at least I had been. I'm not gonna lie, girls would fall for me before I even opened my mouth. I just had a way with them once they noticed me. So why was she so different? "so um. Your hair is blue."

"Is it? I haven't noticed." She chuckled a little. "My hair's, like, naturally this way. It was a, um, a weird thing. Just really black or something I dunno. Everyone's always asking me who dies it or what brand I use and I'm always just kinda like Oh yeah it's called Genetics, it's a great really long lasting brand that you can get at like Target or Walgreens for a pretty sweet price."

I laughed. "I know exactly what you're talking about. I love their one dye Brown Homozygous Dominant; it works wonders."

She laughed, unafraid of expressing it this time, and held her phone up in front of her face to text someone. "You're a strange one. You actually have a brain. You build shit too, or do you just know stuff from the book? That seems random. You just seem like the type."

I sub consciously rubbed the machine strapped onto my forearm hidden under my jacket. "I'm not awful with a screw driver." I swiped a box of Lucky Charms. "So what made you choose the Charms over the Pebbles?"

She looked up from her phone and then realized what I said. "Were you… watching me?"

I realized how bad it looked and quickly scanned her last item. "Um, uh no I was just, well you normally look at the Fruity Pebbles- not that I watch you then! I just notice things… like it's a 6th sense, like I have super powers or something. Not that I do! I don't, that's an exaggeration you know? You know I'm not actually crazy, I was just saying…." I rambled on and she swiped her card in the slot, throwing her bags back into the cart.

"Sure, okay Peter Parker. I'll see you around."

I watched her walk off until it hit me. She said my name- my full. But how…

"Wait!" I called, "How did you know my name!?"

She stopped short and paused for a moment, then flipped her head around. "You're wearing a fucking name tag."

I looked down. "Oh. Yeah I am."

She scoffed, and with that she was gone, pushing her cart away into the crowd of shoppers.

I watched her walk away and then dropped my head onto the counter. Why was I such a goddamn spaz? And why did I even like her? Gwen would hate her. Okay that's a lie, Gwen would probably adore her sense of humor, but it still wasn't okay. I groaned.

"You all right there, son?"

I looked up and saw a tall, muscular man in a leather jacket and a polo shirt staring down at me, concerned. His posture was strict an up right, but his expression was soft.

"I'm fine, Mr. Rogers. Sorry sir." I pushed myself up and began to scan his items. It was the same thing every other day: milk, eggs, flowers, poptarts, a magazine, and then one random thing to finish it off.

"It's all right. I understand. Girls are a, um, a tough subject. I've been there."

I tried to contain my laughter. He was a very handsome man. All the girls in the store all ages would take glances occasionally. I noticed. He noticed to, but he pretended not to. He was incredibly awkward with that stuff.

"I don't need advice sir, it's all right," I said, stopping him before he started.

He sighed with relief. "Good. How are you, besides the girl problems."

"Getting better. Slowly."

"Hey," he reassuringly threw a hand on my shoulder and a coach would do to a player, but he did it to hard and I did my best to not fall over and wince in pain. "I'm here for you, sport, all right? You have my numbers for the celly phone if you ever need to ring, you know that. "

I nodded. "I know. And it's your cell phone number." He always spoke about technology as if he didn't understand it.

"Right, cell phone."

And then I saw his random item of the day. A heated eye patch.

"Um, sir? Do you mind my asking why?"

"Hey heat's good. You take it when you can, I haven't always had it growing up."

I nodded knowing he was an ex-solider and he had been though tough times. "Yes, but why an eye patch?"

Mr. Rogers looked at me dead in the eyes and said "I have a friend."

I shook my head and bagged it. "Right, of course. That would be $65.32."

He fumbled for his credit card and pulled it out of his pocket. He then looked around awkwardly and tried to slide in through three times before getting it right. It was always a long process. Then there was a crash.

I flipped around to see the commotion. I heard Mr. Rogers drop his things immediately. People in the store started screaming, adding to the sounds of horror outside.

He grabbed my arm before I could do anything. "Peter, you have to-

"No, sir, listen to me! We need to get everyone out of the building in a somewhat orderly way! I have to go see what's going on, get everyone out now!"

"You listen to me, Peter-"

"I have to do this! Just please help me out here!" I shook out from his grasp and began running towards the exit leading toward the crash. "Get everyone out!"

He sighed and jumped onto the table. "Everyone head out the west doors down away from Broadway! Do not get in your cars, use the underground if you can! Head opposite the attack! I don't care if your house is in that direction or anything- just go and remain calm! You'll all be alright!" He spoke with demanding authority and almost everyone took his orders immediately.

When I knew no one was watching, I pulled my mask out of my pocket and slid it over my face. I slipped out the east door, the only other one, and sealed it shut with webbing so that people would run the other way. It was the best I could do. I tore off my jacket and slid out of my pants as I ran towards the noise, revealing my suit underneath. Thank god I decided on wearing this thing today. Running against the crowd was too hard. I shot my web up to the tip of a building and swung myself up, swinging from corner to corner, building to building. I swung around the last corner to see a gigantic metal robot tearing up the street and knocking buildings over like dominoes. It was unlike anything I had other seen before, with claws, drills, and actual freaking lasers shooting out from its eyes. It looked like something you'd see in an animated movie. But there it was, stabbing a car with its drill hand thing.

"Are you kidding me? Can we just have a normal attack for once? Jesus Christ…"

The robot was burning through a tall building, its claw snapping at people running out from underneath it. I launched myself in that direction.

"You are not the droid we're looking for," I joked to myself, zooming through his legs and barley kicky away his giant claw from a screaming woman as I shot a new web, swinging towards another building. That got its attention.

Its claw followed me as I swung up .I launched myself over it's head. A few people started to cheer my name ("SPIDERMAN! IT'S SPIDERMAN!"), but most of the calls from the crowd weren't good ones. I made sure it was following my every move. Once it did, I did my best to swing circles around it, with its head spinning, following me. Just when I started to get comfortable, it smacked my down with it's drill hand and threw me to the sidewalk, slamming me against the base of a building. I groaned in pain and struggled to stand up. Something was defiantly broken, but I couldn't stop yet.

"I've seen wind up toys stronger that you! Is that all you've got!?" I shot a web into his eye piece thing, causing him to spin and stumble.

He slammed into the building across his target and blew a huge hole in it, throwing people all over the place. He pushed off the building it was burning before and blindly continued to fight. The loudest thing I heard from that building was a familiar voice screaming "OH FUCKING SHIT BALLS!"

My head swiveled over in the direction of the voice, eyes peering to see who it was. Where had I heard the voice before?

I ran over and swung the few people who fell to safety and threw myself into the building. "Is everyone all right? Any sever injuries? Well haul your asses out of here and go further east if you can!"

Almost everyone followed my instruction but one girl, crumpled on the floor, trying to get up with dark blue hair. No.

"TRACEY!" I yelled, running towards her.

"My name is Tessa you twat," she groaned as she through a pair of sunglasses off of her face. "How did you almost know my name anyway…"

I ignored her question. "I'm going to help you just calm down and relax, all right?" I scooped her up the best I could wedding style and ran for the hole in the building. "Hold on tight okay? Don't let go or you will die!"

"What!? What the hell are you… oh SHIT!"

I pressed her tightly to my body and she hugged me for dear life and I let go of her bottom half and jumped from the hole, shooting a web at the building across from me. Tessa screamed. I did my best to ignore it. I ducked the robot's claw and kicked off the building, shooting towards the next one farther. His laser cut my web and we fell a few feet before I shot a really weak web just around the corner. I saw that some cop cars were parked, trying to get people out of there. I shot one last shitty web and then let us drop a few feet onto a cop car, crashing down onto my back and smashing the roof in. A cop started cursing at us, but then he saw who I was. He decided he had bigger problems.

"All right, now stay away from all this shit and stay safe! Please don't die!" I yelled as I started to run away.

"Wait!" she called. "Wait! Waitwaitwait you cunt WAIT!"

I flipped around. "WHAT!?"

She winced as she sat up. "Why?" she shouted.

"Why the hell not!?" And I ran off to kick some metal ass.

The robot had burnt through the webs on his eyes and continued to fight. A man dressed in all blue with a shield was running around his feet. A few people were cheering his name. "CAPTAIN AMERICA!"

"Oh great, this asshole." I said to myself as I ran toward the fight. I was trying to save my webbing.

"HEY!" Captain called as I got there. "HOW DO WE FIGHT THIS THING!?"

"YOU'RE THE RESPONSIBLE ADULT, HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW!?" I yelled, shouting over the screams of the people and the creaks of the robot and his mass destruction.

"I'M NOT GOOD WITH ROBOTS!"

"WELL I DUNNO, WE'LL PROBABLY HAVE TO MESS WITH HIS PROGRAMMING OR SOMETHING!"

"YA MEAN LIKE HIS BRAIN!?"

I nodded. He snapped his fingers. "GOT IT! ALL RIGHT, YOU DISTRACT HIM AND I'LL- OH HELL!"

I looked up to see what he saw. The robot had burnt through the side of his target building, following it with his drill, ripping it apart.

"THE GOVONER'S DAUGHTERS ARE IN THERE FOR A CONCERT!" Captain yelled.

"THEY FUCKING WOULD BE." And then, "HOW DO YOU-"

"I'M AN AVENGER, I KNOW. THEY'LL GET SQUASHED FOR SURE!"

"I'M ON IT!" I ran for the building and ran up the wall as fast as I could. The damaged wasn't high up, so it wasn't a long climb. The wall of the building has somehow become a type of floor or almost balcony that people were running around on, trying to get away from the chaos of people inside. I could see the stage where the governor's daughters had been taken and shielded by security, along with the boy band. By the time I got there, the floor began to slip and people began to tumble towards the edge.

I scrambled up the wall as fast as I could and set the settings on my web shooter to high. Pushing myself onto a balcony where I could actually stand, I shot out three of the strongest type of webs I could, connecting them towards the wall. Even with my super strength, it was extremely hard to keep up. I grasped the three webs with one hand and shot out another strong sticky web, trying to connect the floor to the building. Then with all the strength I could, I pulled the floor up at an angle so that people would roll into the building. Finally, I tugged the huge piece of wall up so that it was somewhat back in place with the rest of the building. I collapsed onto my knees. That portion was finally done. But the fight wasn't over yet.

I looked up at my enemy. "HEY, YOU UGLY PIECE OF SCRAP METAL!"

It spun around quickly.

"THINK FAST!"

I shot my web out in a continuous stream. I heard someone calling my name. My real name. I glared down to see Captain America jumping up and down. And I realized what he was saying. Swing me! I understood what we had to do.

So I stopped attacking the robot and shot my web all the way down to the Captain, pulling him up with all my might. I swung him like a rockstar with a microphone and then let go, flinging him towards the robot's head. Using his shield, he sliced it's head clean off and began to fall in the other direction. But the robot was still alive and moving, it was just headless.

"ARE YOU SHITTING ME OH MY GOD-"

"LANGUAGE!" I could hear Captain call, still swinging on my web.

I flung him up in the air right above the open wound and disconnected the web. He threw his sharp shield down the robot's throat without hesitation. It cut a hole right through the inside of the robot and came out the bottom in between his legs. It collapsed onto its side.

I threw myself off the balcony and caught Captain, lowering us to safety next to the now destroyed robot. My body had never been more soar from anything. I was so fucking done. And then Captain freaking America decided to speak.

"So you really do pack a punch," he said as he stood up.

"Yeah, I've had my practice," I said sharply. "Where the hell have you Avengers been? The city has needed you and you haven't done shit since the second alien attack a year and a half ago. I have to clean up every thing that you people decide is nothing. Well let me tell you, it's hard. My super strength isn't even that super! What just happened there was pure luck. My girlfriend died not to long ago because I never get a god damn break," I felt my voice crack.

"All right, calm down kid." He patted my shoulder

I shook it off.

"No, I won't calm down! And who the hell are you anyway!? How do you know my name!? I swear-"

Then he peeled his mask off and I had to suck in a breath.

"Mr… Mr. Rogers?"

He nodded. "Kid, please just call me Captain, Mister has always sounded square."

I shook my head, speechless. "I-I-I'm so sorry sir! I swear, I had no idea! I didn't, oh god I just yelled at you, sir I'm so sorry!"

"Calm down Peter it's all right!"

"But- but what about the governor's daughters-"

"They'll be fine. Now get home as fast as you can before- damn. The folks from the blat are already here."

And he was right. The photographers had swarmed, taking a billion photos of the destruction, the robot, and mostly, Captain Rogers and I in front of the metallic beast. The boy band and the governor's daughters emerged from the crowd surrounded by security.

"A few photos with the kids Mr. Spider Man? Mr. America?" the paparazzi called.

I made my move to leave, but Rodgers stopped me. "A few photos never hurt anyone, right Spidey?"

I sighed. "Sure why not."

The kids rushed forward to get with us and a million different people were calling our names. One of the guys in the band with curly dark hair turned to me and looked me up and down.

"Hey," he said with a creepy smile and a seductive undertone, "I'm Johnny."

"Oh, uh…" I coughed. "Hi Johnny."

"Wow, you're really fit aren't you?"

"Well, I mean I work out…"

After a few incredibly awkward photos, Captain pulled me aside and said "You'll hear from us soon enough. Now go."

So I did.