"Young Man!" A voice called out to the brunette walking back home.
It was sundown in the city of Musutafu, a city filled with heroes, villains, and everything in between.
And as of now, Peter Parker just wanted to go home.
Saying he'd had an interesting day would be the understatement of the year. A bigger understatement than when he got shot in the can't and described it as 'mildly sore'.
Well, maybe not that much of an understatement but you get what he's saying. Not only did he make his first friend in Japan in 8 months today, but he also saved his weird neighbor from a sludge monster and stopped him from getting himself killed right after.
And he almost got punched for it.
But whatever, he was used to not being appreciated for helping people. It just comes the territory of doing whatever a spider can.
"Young man! Wait up!" That voice called out again. Peter had almost forgotten someone was talking to him, maybe he could just swing home or something? He really didn't have the energy for whatever this was.
Begrudgingly, the boy turned around to be met with a weird sight. At the other end of the street he was walking on, a pale, lanky blonde man was standing proud, his blue sunken eyes looking at him.
Wait, didn't those clothes he was wearing seem familiar? Didn't he see someone else wearing them today? Was this dude-
"All Might?" Peter called back, earning a surprised and panicked expression from the man.
All Might quickly shushed him and closed the distance between them at an incredible speed, at least for someone lacking so much... basically everything that wasn't skin and bones.
"Young Parker! How did you know who I was?!" The blonde whispered shouted at Peter, even though there wasn't anyone around them.
"D-Do you think I'm like, stupid?" Peter gaped at the man, "You got the same eyes and hair, and are wearing the exact same clothes you had during the sludge villain fight. Has no one figured it out?" Peter didn't know to be either insulted or impressed.
"W-Well, no. No one had figured out my identity yet, but that isn't the point as of now! I am here to give you offe-"
"No" The brunette cut the man off
"Excuse me? You didn't even hear what I said!"
"Look, I've watched enough movies to know you're gonna like, offer me an incredible power to become the next symbol of peace or something. And that I'll become your protege against the king of evil or a demon lord. And I don't want anything to do with that." Peter responded as he dragged his hands across his face.
All Might stared at the American flabbergasted, how had he figured it out so fast? And why was he rejecting the power of One for All without even knowing what it was?
"Young Parker, please at least let me explai-"
"Are you gonna tell me something about this stuff that I haven't already figure out?"
"N-no, but I need a successor to be the next symbol of peace! My power is dwindling, and I have chosen you to be the new wielder of One f-" The man was cut off once again by Peter raising his hand.
"Don't. Don't tell me whatever your secret power is, I don't want anything to do with it. Dude, I don't want to be the next symbol of peace! I just wanna be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! Not the next All Might! Look, you're a great hero and all, but I don't want you to drag me into whatever larger than life state secret crusade you got going on. Go find someone else." Peter stated, then started to walk away from the man who still had his mouth agape.
"Young Parker! You can't te-"
"I won't say you're actually a skeleton man on Twitter on anything! Good luck finding a successor and all! Just leave me out of it!" Peter called back as he turned the corner, leaving All Might standing alone, the sun setting behind him as the day came to an end.
10 Months Later...
"What do you mean you're not taking the exam!?" Peter Parker yelled into his phone, already on his way to the U.A high school.
"Didn't I tell you? I'm a recommendations student! I already did my exam, but the school is making me watch the actual practical, so I'll see how good you do!' The voice of Setsuna Tokage laughed on the other line, standing around an observation room where the other recommendations students would watch the practical exam everyone else was taking
"Man, I gotta go through it alone? I thought we were friends, man" Peter said as he stepped off the train he rode to the exam, the gates of U.A already being in sight.
"You'll be fine, bug boy! Tinman is also taking it so you might have him to be your moral support." Tokage responded, stuffing her face with a bag full of pretzels.
"Whatever, I gotta go." He grumbled, getting ready to hang up.
"Good luck, bug boy! I'm rooting for 'ya!"
A small smile unknowingly crept onto the teen's face as he heard those words "Thanks, Tokage-San."
It was nice to have someone believe in you.
Peter hung up on his friend as he joined the crowd of the exam takers. All of them were wearing some sort of middle school uniform, it must've been a requirement or something.
Instead, The American was wearing an updated version of his vigilante costume. A red, short-sleeved hoodie with a white spider symbol over a long-sleeved blue undershirt, grey sweatpants, red sneakers, and fingerless gloves.
Along with his outfit, he brought his brand new MK.6 web-shooters. A brand new model he spent a good 4 months working on, it had a carousel system for his cartridges and didn't clog up as often.
Overall, he was ready. More ready than he'll ever be.
Well, the time he spent teaching himself MMA, capoeira, and break dancing did help his chances in combat a bit. He even learned how to do magic tricks on his off time!
His Spider-Sense buzzed lightly as he stepped through the school gates, allowing him to sidestep some blonde guy with spikey hair who tried to bump into him.
The ash-blond sent a murderous death stare at the American, apparently not having expected for him to dodge.
A silent stare-off followed, neither teen ready to be the first to break eye contact due to some sort of pride they had. Peter ended up winning after the blonde scoffed and stomped off towards the school auditorium.
"Fucking American..." He said under his breath, loud enough for Peter to hear.
"What a dick..." Peter scoffed, rolling his shoulder as he walked, only to be stopped by a friendly hand being placed on his shoulder.
"Parker-San! I've been looking all over for ya, dude!" The rough voice of Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu exclaimed from beside him, making Peter grin.
After he started to talk to Tokage, she introduced the two boys to each other, quickly becoming friends.
Tetsutetsu could be described as many things, a bit stupid, manly, stubborn, hot-headed, but there was one word that perfectly described the teen.
A complete and total bro, something Peter liked having in his life.
"Hey, man! Sorry I didn't call and all, I was on the train. Let me make it up to you, I even got your favorite!" Peter reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a plastic bag full of metal shavings, the sight of them making his friend's mouth water.
"Bro! You shouldn't have! Once I eat these I'll be more ready for the exam than ever! It'll be so manly!" He yelled, snatching the bag from Peter and shoveling the shavings into his face.
What neither of them noticed was the glare Tetsutetsu got from a boy with spiky red hair at the mention of the word 'manly'
The two friends walked and joked to the school auditorium, where they'd be told of the nature of the practical and take the written portion after the practical.
It was going great so far, the silver-haired teen's sheer presence brought up Peter's mood tenfold. Or at least it did until the brunette saw a certain someone walking to the auditorium in the middle of the crowd.
Izuku Midoriya, also known as one of Peter's newfound sources of guilt, as if he didn't have enough of those, falling flat on his face and getting laughed at by people around him. Peter couldn't help but feel bad for him.
He'd try to help but the fact that the green-haired boy hated his guts for the past 10 months kinda kept him from doing that.
Inko had found out about the encounter the 2 boys had with the sludge villain and all might, and had thanked Peter for saving her son's life twice that day, but she also told him some less than stellar information.
Apparently, Midoriya was part of the 20% of the world that was born quirkless, and let his entire life be dictated by his dream of being a hero.
Peter was also born quirkless before the spider bit him, so you'd think he could relate to Midoriya in some sort of way, right? Wrong.
There were 2 major differences between them, one being that Peter didn't even want to be a hero, he wanted to be a support engineer or a scientist, but once he saw he had got a quirk that could be better used to help people after Ben's death, he made it his responsibility to help people.
The other major difference was that New York wasn't as bad to quirkless people as Japan. Sure, he was picked on from time to time back in New York, but nothing more than that. Japan treated quirkless people as an entire subspecies, a fact that made Peter sick.
He was told by Inko that Midoriya was meaning to ask All Might if he could be a hero if he was quirkless. Peter thought everyone could help others, but wanting to help someone doesn't necessarily mean you should be a pro hero, some people were just better suited for it than others.
Midoriya took the action of being prevented from grabbing onto All Might as some sort of attack, as if Peter was saying he couldn't be a hero. And that made Peter feel horrible, the idea of being part of crushing someone's dreams ate him up inside.
But he knew it was for the best in the end, Midoriya could get himself killed if he tried! Just because he couldn't be a pro hero doesn't mean he shouldn't be trying to find a different way to help others.
Before he could berate himself for his actions that day even more than he had in the last couple of months, he and Tetsutetsu found themselves already sitting in one of the many rows full of students in the dark auditorium, the room only being lit by a huge screen.
"Welcome, listeners! Welcome to the U.A high school entrance exam! I will be your announcer, Present Mic! Can I get a 'Yeah'!?!" A voice boomed, a blonde man with long hair and dressed in leather appearing on the screen. His announcement was met with deafening silence, quiet muttering could be heard somewhere in the room.
The man cleared his throat to regain the attention of the crowd, Peter knew how it felt to try and get a reaction, and failing miserably from his days swinging around New York so he could at least sympathize with him.
For the next five minutes, the hero explained the rules and goals of the practical exam. You'd be put into a random fake city filled with different kinds of robots that were worth a separate amount of points, and that you had to destroy them. Weirdly enough, there was a 4th robot displayed with the number '0' on it, maybe he should as ab-
"Excuse, Mic sensei! You only described 3 of the faux villains, but there are 4 displayed in the handouts we were given! Is this some sort of mistake!?" A blue-haired guy had stood up from his seat and started shouting questions.
'Yikes, why can't I find one normal person around here? It's like everyone has a gimmick or something!' Peter groaned to himself and dragged his hands across his face in annoyance at the guy's volume.
"Also, you! The green-haired boy with the freckles! You've been muttering non-stop for the past 5 minutes and frankly, it is incredibly distracting to me and to others! Please cease this behavior at once!" He yelled again, waving his hand around the air in a robot manner.
Everyone's gaze was drawn to the boy in question, and wouldn't you know it, it was Izuku Midoriya once again. It's like the universe hates him or something, it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad to look at.
"S-S-Sorry!" He nervously apologized, probably louder than he meant to since it drew a few laughs from people around him. Peter could make out small tears in his eyes and nervous sweat on his brow.
How much could one guy's life suck? Peter wished he had some way to just, make him feel better. It was just heartbreaking to think about Midoriya at times.
"Jeez, I kinda feel bad for that guy" His friend whispered from beside him.
"Yeah... Me too..." Peter said, mostly to himself than to anyone else.
"Alright! Settle down, listeners! And to answer your question about the 4th robot, I was getting to that, by the way, it is a complete obstacle! You will get no points for destroying it!"
Peter hummed as he thought about it, there must be some sort of different purpose for this robot, right? He would've continued if Present Mic's voice didn't boom from the speakers for what must've been the third time in a row today. God, he hated having better senses sometimes.
"Alright, young heroes! Off to exam we go! C'mon! Now!!!" Present Mic yelled, why would he use speakers when he already had a voice amplifying quirk?
Peter got up and followed his friend out of the auditorium towards the buses that would take them to the fake cities, sadly they were put in different sites so he'd have to go do whatever a spider can by himself, nothing new.
The teen sighed as he sat toward the back of the incredibly clean and high-tech bus, seriously, it didn't even have gum on the back of seats! Before he could outwardly relax and do last-minute checks for his web-shooters and spare cartridges, he spotted a wild fluff of green hair awkwardly take a seat in the front of the vehicle.
'Jesus Christ! Why is he everywhere I go!? Looking at him makes me get super guilty for doing the right thing! Damn it!' Giving an audible groan that wasn't heard over the chatter of other students, he slid back into his seat to not look at the boy anymore.
He really didn't need his incredible guilt complex acting up right now, that could wait till he was out of the exam.
The sound of someone taking a seat right next to him brought him out of his thoughts, which turned into silent pleas for the person next to him not to be who he thought it was.
But knowing his Parker luck's habit of screwing him over, it was probabl-
"H-Hello..." A quiet and shy voice came from beside him, a girl's voice speaking in heavily accented Japanese.
An American accent.
Peter felt all his worries melt away at the thought of finally, finally being able to talk to someone new from America. God, it felt incredible!
He turned his head to see that the person next to him was a short girl with long blonde hair with horns sticking out of her head. She had huge blue eyes and hooves for feet. Peter could see the nervous smile she was giving him.
"Hey, I'm Peter Parker!" He responded in English, giving the girl a grin and offering his hand. Her face visible lit up at the sound of someone else speaking English and she eagerly shook his hand.
"Ohmygosh! Fucking finally! I've been waiting to find someone from America around! Nice to meet ya, Pete! I'm Pony Tsutonori, Where ya from?" She beamed at the boy as she relaxed into her seat.
Peter noticed the slight Texan accent from the girl, while it would've been nice to meet another New Yorker, he'd take what he can get.
"I'm from Queens, New York, I moved here about 18 months ago. And I know what you mean! it's the first time I found someone from America around here, but it's so cool to finally take to someone without accidentally offending them." He laughed, propping his elbows on his knees.
From there, the two Americans talked about back home, heroes, the exam, food, anything that came to mind. And you know what?
It was nice.
He didn't know why but Pony's sheer presence gave him a sense of nostalgia, a sense that reminded him of America when she spoke of sports teams and how she wasn't used to Japan's traditions. It felt like he finally had someone to relate to.
The girl told him a lot about herself, how she lived on her family ranch back in texas before she came to Japan as an exchange student, how her aunt was the pro hero 'Cow Lady' who was staying at I-Island, and all the things she liked to do.
Peter told her basically everything about himself except for the whole vigilante part, he tended to leave that part out when talking to someone new.
"Peter, what's your quirk? I can't really tell at a glance since you look so plain." She asked with a small laugh.
First of all, ouch. Was he that plain? Maybe he had a boring appearance compared to someone with horns and hoofs.
"Oh, It's called 'Spider'. I can basically do whatever a spider can, like stick to walls!" He said, only for Pony's expression to light up even more.
"Holy shit, that's so cool! Can you sh-" Out of nowhere, Pony narrowed her eyes as if she was deep in thought, before they widened as she adopted a look of confusion.
Peter didn't know why, but he didn't like where this was going.
The girl looked at his clothes, her eyes lingering on the spider symbol on his hoodie, then on the wrist devices he was wearing. After a couple of seconds of trying to piece everything together, she gasped and looked at him with a shocked expression.
"Wait, didn't New York have a Spider vigilante who swung around on webs and wore a red and blue suit that disappeared 18 months ago? Spider-Man, right?" She asked, her blue eyes studying him.
Wait, people knew about him outside of New York? He didn't know that! There were so many heroes and vigilantes everywhere he thought no one had heard of him outside of queens and manhattan! Oh, man this was bad!
'Damn it! Alright, Parker, play dumb! Maybe you can throw her off or something' The teen thought, doing his best to not let his inner panic show.
"Who's Spider-Man?"
'Damn It, not that dumb!'
The Texan deadpanned at him, full of disbelief at what he just said to her. Peter hated himself sometimes, this was one of those times.
"I can't believe it! You were one of the most notorious vigilantes America had seen in decades! It took All Might coming in to take you out! What are you doing here!?" She whisper shouted at him, he was grateful she was keeping it on the down-low.
Although there was a chance no one could understand them since they were talking in English, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Y-Yeah, I was Spider-Man for about 8 months until All Might showed up and kinda punched me in the face." He rubbed his cheek at the memory, at the time it felt like he got run over by 3 cars back to back. "He told me that he'd expunge my records if I went to U.A and got a license the 'legal way'. I've been living in Japan waiting for the exam for about 18 months." He chuckled dryly, running a hand through his hair. Good thing he ended up getting that haircut after meeting Tokage.
"Holy shit, that's crazy! You gotta tell me stories about all the stuff you did!" She exclaimed, returning to a normal volume.
Peter looked at Pony in disbelief, the metaphorical gears in his head doing their best to help him process what she just said.
"Y-You don't think I'm a criminal, or something? I thought the only people who would like me would be in New York." He said, eyes wide with his mouth agape.
"I mean, not really! I saw videos of you online swinging around and shit, it was awesome! A lot of people in Texas thought you were really cool and supported you! I bet a lot of other people did, too!"
Did people actually support him outside of New York? They didn't like, hate him? Peter didn't know what to do with that kind of information. Although it was worrying that the possibility never crossed his mind.
"Wow, I-I didn't know that... Thanks for telling me that, Pony." He said with a small smile, a smile Pony returned in kind.
"Sure! What're friends for?" She responded in an upbeat tone.
Peter Parker doesn't like to talk about it a lot, but he didn't have many friends growing up. It may have been cause he was slightly socially awkward before the bite or because he was quirkless, but he had a pretty lonely childhood.
When he became Spider-Man, all of his free time got thrown into his vigilantism. Patrolling, making gear, designing his costumes, researching criminals. But now, things were different.
Now Peter had people to keep him company, and he couldn't swing into being Spider-Man full time, and that made him figure out something.
He was tired, he was tired from being Spider-Man nonstop for 8 straight months.
All the scars, the jokes, the near-death experiences started to finally dawn on him when he made it to Japan, when he finally got the chance to take a break. The time in Japan made him realize that the way he went about being Spider-Man was... lonely.
Lonely and unhealthy.
Taking his much needed 18 months break from being spectacular showed him that it was nice to have people around to hang out with and relax.
It showed him that his whole life shouldn't be Spider-Man.
"Hey, Peter? You ok? You seem a little... sad, was it something I said? If it was I'm sorry!" The girl beside him asked in concern, bringing him out of his thoughts.
"Y-Yeah, I'm fine. I was just... thinking about something, don't worry. Thanks again for what you told me, Pony. I really needed it." He thanked the girl again, making her give him a soft smile and pat his shoulder.
"Anytime."
They sat in peaceful silence for a good 30 seconds, just enjoying each other's company until the bus suddenly came to a stop in front of a huge city with towering buildings and empty streets.
Peter felt a rush of adrenaline at the thought of being able to web-swing again.
"Everyone, please exit the bus in an orderly fashion and wait at the training ground gates for further instructions." A voice came over the speakers, promoting the teens to get off the vehicle and stand in front of the city.
Peter felt his heart beating faster the closer he got to the buildings.
He took a deep breath, and rolled his shoulder to try and relax.
"Alright, Listeners! Welcome to the U.A entrance exam! Ready? Go!!" Present mic shouted from somewhere. Peter barely registered what he said as he shot a web at a nearby building.
With a thwip and a tug, he was flying.
The feeling of the wind on his face, the sudden lack of gravity, the adrenaline of moving so fast and being so high. He twisted and turned and flipped through the air, hoping he'd never come down.
He was home.
