The Invincible Spider-Man
Chapter 55: Reverie
The car zoomed down the road, being pursued by three police cars.
"Go faster, Billy!" shouted the thug in the backseat, as he craned his neck out of the window, an AK-47 in his hand. He started to fire at the police cars.
"I'm going as fast as I can, Fred!" yelled Billy, as he swerved down the next lane, the friction from the steering wheel lightly scorching his hands. Accelerating, he dodged a garbage truck as he continued driving the street.
"Jaime! Get on top of the car!" shouted Fred to the second thug, who was clutching a crucifix in his left hand and praying, along with an assault rifle in his right hand.
"There's no way I'm doing that shit!" protested Jaime. Fred grabbed Jaime by the coat and pushed him out the window. Jaime grabbed the roof and climbed up, starting to unload fire.
"Stop shooting and pull over right now!" said a policeman from his loudspeaker.
"You started attacking us first!" shouted back Fred. "We're just trying to get to my brother's funeral, get off our backs!"
"You stole this car from an elderly woman and then proceeded to rob a bank! And you're shooting at us right now!"
"We're shooting in self-defense, jackass! And we didn't rob no store! You got the wrong car!"
"A bank! You morons robbed a bank! Screw this. Andrew, call for backup," said the policeman as he put the loudspeaker down, and talked to the cop driving the car.
"Sir, I don't think we'll need backup," said the driver, chuckling.
"Why's that?" asked the cop.
"It's already here," he said, looking up towards the sky.
All of a sudden, a web stuck to the thug on the roof of the car, as he was suddenly pulled up and towards a lamppost.
"Jaime! Ah shit, it's him!" said Fred, pulling back into the car and rolling up the window.
"What do we do?!" asked Billy.
"Sorry mate. It's what you're going to do," said Fred, as he kicked open the door on the other side of the car and jumped out, rolling onto the street and getting back onto his feet, running into an alleyway. However, just as he started running, a web stuck to his ankle, causing him to trip and fall onto his face, in a state of unconsciousness.
"What the hell, Fred?!" shouted the driver. All of a sudden, a red and blue figure jumped onto the windshield.
"Sorry, it seems you're too young to ride this ride!" said the figure, as he shot two webs to two buildings on either side of the car, and pressed his legs down on the bonnet, forcing the car to come to a stop.
"Spider-Man!" exclaimed Billy, as he put his hands up to surrender. Spider-Man lifted him out of the car and handed him to the police, who were all around the car.
"There you go, officers. Early Christmas present," he said, as he hopped off of the car, holding the criminal.
"Thank you, Spider-Man," said the cops, as they took the driver. Around them, many New Yorkers started cheering around him. Just then, a reporter walked up to him.
"Spider-Man! Do you want to give any comment on how you've cleaned up the streets of New York these past 8 months? The city hasn't been this safe for a very long time! How did you do it?" asked the reporter.
"Sorry, but I've got a date with a special someone today!" said Spider-Man, as he swung away to a nearby rooftop, where a certain blonde haired girl was waiting for him.
It had started to snow, as Spider-Man landed on the rooftop, taking off his mask to reveal Peter Parker, as he stared at the love of his life: Gwen Stacy.
"You're unusually early," joked Gwen, as she hugged Peter.
"Well, what can I say? You mean the world to me," replied Peter, as they kissed. As they pulled away, Gwen started to walk away.
"So, what's the plan?" asked Peter. "Fast and Furious movie marathon? You know those movies are fun if you ignore the physics of it all," he suggested. Gwen didn't turn around.
"Peter?" she asked.
"Yeah?" replied Peter.
"It's really cold," she said.
"Well, it is the middle of the winter," chuckled Peter. "Gwen, are you okay?" he asked, a little confused.
"It's time to go," she said.
"Wait, what?"
"Peter, it's almost 4 am. You need to come back," she said again, without turning back.
"Gwen, you're scaring me," said Peter, his voice trembling a little, as Gwen's voice started to echo around him, and started sounding less and less like Gwen, and more like someone else's.
"Peter, it's time to go."
"Peter, it's time to go," said Mary Jane, standing near the bench where Peter was sitting, in the cemetery. It was snowing all over, and Mary Jane was wearing two coats. Yet Peter was just wearing a shirt and jeans, staring at the grave of Gwen Stacy.
"Peter, we need to go," said MJ, and that snapped Peter out of his cerebral reverie. He took a sharp breath, his eyes glassy with tears, realizing everything that he had been thinking was a daydream. A simple chain of involuntary electrochemical reactions in his brain, and not reality.
His fists were balled up till they were as white as the snow itself, as he continued staring at the grave. He slowly got back up from the bench, and walked the other way, away from MJ, and towards the exit of the cemetery.
MJ sighed, as she texted Aunt May.
MARY JANE: Not gotten any better. At least this time I didn't need to shake him to get up.
MAY: It's been 8 months. I've told him to see someone about it, but he won't listen.
MARY JANE: I'll meet him back at ESU. Keep you updated then.
Peter walked out of the cemetery and down the snow-riddled streets of the city, feeling like a singular dark cloud in an entire sky. He looked around, and saw everyone in the mood for Christmas. Shops were lit brightly in red and green.
Green.
Peter sharply closed his eyes and looked away, taking a deep breath and walking ahead. He saw groups of children running in the stores, begging their parents to buy the latest LEGO set on the Real Life Adventures of The Fantastic Four, or the latest Iron Man action figure. Somehow, all the other noise drowned out, as he continued walking down the streets.
Coffee shops had the constant voice of Mariah Carey, and huge cardboard cutouts of Santa Claus. He took a right, and found himself near the gates of ESU. Every student was wearing coats, mufflers, mittens and other winter wear. Peter put his hands in his pocket and walked back inside, towards his dorm room.
As soon as he entered his dorm, he shut the door, and walked back towards his desk, ready to finish his homework, or do anything to distract himself from the fact that it had been exactly 8 months since he lost the person who gave him purpose. He sighed as he stared at a framed picture of him and Gwen, taken at their graduation.
He smiled for a brief second, only for the pain to return, as he continued working on homework vigorously.
"Christmas sales will be perfect for Oscorp robotics! Imagine how many robot dogs parents will be willing to buy for their children," said the marketing head of staff, to Alistair Smythe.
"It certainly would work, and give us a much higher profit margin. But I want to focus on something more…radical. Like how just recently our technology helped in bringing John Jameson back from his space journey," said Alistair. "We had more public interest than ever before. Especially since our name was tarnished by "super criminals,"" said Smythe.
"Of course sir. How about Oscorp 3D Printers?" suggested the staff.
"Last I checked, 3D printers have been out for almost 35 years now," said Smythe.
"Yes, but Oscorp printers are much more easy to use. And they would be sold at a much cheaper and reasonable price," said the staff.
"Lower price would lead to more demand, generating more revenue. And with those printers, parents would be able to create their own Christmas gifts, reducing demand from other industries, giving us a competitive edge," said Smythe, impressed.
"Excellent then! I'll make sure to get supply running," said the staff, as he walked away, only to see another person standing in the doorway.
"Glad to see my son is familiar with the basics of economics," chuckled Spencer.
"Dad!" exclaimed Alistair, getting off of his chair and hugging Spencer Smythe, who he hadn't seen in a long time.
"Hey, Alistair. Glad to see you're running the place well," said Spencer.
"Yeah, well I learned from the best," he chuckled, as he gestured Spencer to sit down.
"So how's it going?" asked Alistair.
"Santa Barbara got…boring. So I decided to come back to New York, see how my son was doing!" said Spencer.
"Hey do you want to go get a coffee? There's a Starbucks nearby," suggested Alistair.
"I thought I raised you better," said Spencer, in a serious tone, much to Alistair's confusion. Spencer leaned forward.
"Kirby's Steakhouse, today 8 o clock," said Spencer, laughing. Alistair joined in on the laughter.
"I'll see you there!" he said.
"And the person who scored highest in class is… Luna Lafayette! Followed by Billy Campbell and Nolan Simmons," announced Dr Connors, handing out everyone's test results. Peter took his paper, and found a B+ on it, along with a "See Me After Class" note. He looked up from his paper and saw Curt looking back at him, worriedly.
"Okay class. Today we shall continue our topic on Acetylcholine levels during Maladaptive Daydreaming," said Curt, his voice beginning to trail off from Peter's ears.
After class, Peter walked up to Doctor Connors.
"Peter, look I don't mean to come off as harsh. But it's been 8 months. I know you're still reeling from Gwen's death-"
"I'm not," replied Peter.
"What?"
"I'm not "reeling" from her death. It's been 8 months, I'm fine," continued Peter, his eyes beginning to water again.
Curt looked at him sympathetically, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Peter, I'm not telling you this as your teacher, I'm telling you this as your friend. Just talk to someone about all of this, please trust me. If not me, then anyone else, just talk to someone," he said.
Peter sniffled, as he lightly pulled away, nodding. He turned around and walked out of class. Once he was out of view, he sprinted across campus, dropping his bag on the way and ran back up to his room. He rushed in and locked the door.
Peter held his head in his hands and began to sob uncontrollably. He started to tear at his hair, grunting as he stumbled and fell near his desk. Supporting himself with the desk, he got on his knees.
"Why…WHY?!" he yelled out, unable to control himself. He threw everything off of it and slammed his fist on his desk and continued to cry, wanting to break it in two.
"No…no it's all your fault, it's all your fucking fault!" he said, through gritted teeth and a stream of tears going down his eyes, staring back at his closet. He opened it and dug to the very bottom of the pile, throwing away any other clothes and finding his old, dusty Spider-Man suit.
"It's all… your fault! YOUR FUCKING FAULT!" he screamed, while weeping uncontrollably, prodding the suit with his finger, before throwing his suit back inside and slamming the closet shut.
"I'm sorry…I'm sorry…" he whimpered, crawling up to the picture, which was among the pile of books he had just thrown off of his desk. Luckily, no harm had come to it. He held it and continued to cry, slamming his fist onto the ground till the skin from his knuckles peeled away.
2 hours later, Peter heard a knock on his door.
"Peter? You there?" asked Carlie. Peter was trying to sleep, as he slowly got out of bed and walked up to the door, opening it for Carlie.
"What's the time?" he asked.
"3 pm. We need to head to The Bugle, quick!" said Carlie.
"Right," said Peter, walking to his fallen chair and grabbing his coat. Carlie noticed the mess, but decided not to say anything.
"So, how's the internship going?" he asked Carlie, as they walked down the stairs and back on the campus garden, with the gate situated right across it.
"Good, for the most part. Jameson can be a little…demanding," she said, lightly chuckling.
"You get used to him," mumbled Peter, putting his hands in his pocket. Carlie rubbed her hands together.
"Wanna get a coffee on the way?" she asked, pointing at a coffee shop nearby. "We can talk about…stuff too," she said, angling her eyes towards his bruised knuckles, which he tried to hide.
"I'm fine. Let's just get to the Bugle," he said, walking forward.
As Peter walked ahead, all the Christmas cheer around him started to drown away again.
"You know, it would be better to talk to someone," said a voice in Peter's head.
"No, I told you, there's no point in doing that," thought Peter.
"It's bad enough you talk to yourself so much. It wouldn't hurt to open up to someone else who cares about you. Or even a licensed professional,"
"No thanks. I don't need a shrink telling me what to do. I can figure this out on my own," replied Peter, trying to brush away his inner voice and move forward. Carlie managed to catch up to him.
"So, Christmas! Any plans?" she asked. But Peter stopped dead in his tracks.
Right outside a store across the street, he saw a blonde woman, wearing a green coat and a black shirt. She had a black headband too, and long straight hair.
"Holy shit…GWEN!" yelled Peter, as he rushed across the street, not caring about oncoming traffic. He narrowly missed a taxi, whose driver began to curse at him. Peter didn't care, as he ran up towards Gwen, elated to see her again. "It must have been Doctor Strange, he brought her back!" he thought.
"Gwen, it's you! I can't believe it-" he exclaimed, only for the woman to turn around, and Peter saw that she looked nothing like Gwen.
"Excuse me?" she asked, in a Southern accent.
"I'm…sorry. I a-apologize," stuttered Peter, as he brushed past her and continued walking ahead.
Carlie and Peter, who hadn't spoken a word after the incident, entered the Daily Bugle Newsroom, which was hectic as ever. The duo made their way to Ned Leeds and Eddie Brock, both the reporters who were working on different stories.
"Considering it has been exactly 8 months since the "Night of The Goblin", should I write about the ramifications of said incident?" asked Ned, to Eddie, who had a pencil in his mouth.
"Yeah, it would be a decent memorial. Then again, it would work better if it were 12 months. A whole year would have more "gravitas" than 8 months," commented Eddie.
"Starting to sound like Jameson," chuckled Ned.
"Yeah well, his demeanour is rubbing on me," chuckled Eddie, nervously as he saw Carlie and Peter approach them.
"Hey guys! What're you working on?" she asked the duo, playfully punching Eddie in the arm, who visibly blushed.
"He's working on Spider-Man's disappearance, and theories as to what happened. While I…have no idea yet," laughed Ned.
"You'd be surprised at the theories Jameson's come up with. There's one where Spider-Man was actually a government experiment to see how the public would react to a villain masquerading as a superhero," remarked Eddie.
"Speaking of Jameson, did you get the photos?" asked Ned.
Peter sighed. "No, it completely slipped my mind," said Peter.
"No worries. Just go tell Jameson about it, before he takes it out on us. Oh by the way, Peter, can we talk for like a second?" asked Eddie.
"Sure," said Peter, as Eddie got up. They both walked to the other side of the room.
"So, listen. I know today's like…you know…8 months to the date," said Eddie, as Peter sighed heavily.
"Eddie, I've been telling others too. I don't need to "vent" anything. So please, just don't," said Peter.
"Look, I know it feels better to just keep it bottled up, but just trust me. Look, I've been through something similar too man. And what you're doing, pushing away everyone and staying alone, isn't going to help anyone, especially not you," explained Eddie.
Peter sighed as he closed his eyes for a while, then took a deep breath.
"Fine, but obviously not now," said Peter.
"Yeah okay. Meet me at the coffee shop downtown then," said Eddie, as Peter nodded. As Peter walked towards Jameson's office, Eddie texted Mary Jane.
EDDIE: He listened!
MARY JANE: Wait really? This is a huge ass breakthrough!
EDDIE: It really is. Even if he doesn't open up much, it's an amazing start!
MARY JANE: Yeah. I'll inform May about this too.
EDDIE: Cool
Peter walked into Jameson's office, which seemed to be as much of a mess as Peter's room.
"Mr Jameson, I'm so so sorry, but I forgot to take the photos of the new homeless shelters around town," said Peter.
"It's okay, Peter. I actually wanted to talk to you about something," said Jameson, actually remembering Peter's name for once, and gesturing for Peter to sit down. Peter gingerly took a seat in front of Jameson.
"I know you've been through a lot…which is an understatement, and I do understand that adding an extra workload wouldn't help things," said Jameson. "So, if you want to take a paid break from the Bugle, I'd completely understand," he continued, uncharacteristically sympathetic.
"Oh, no need Mr Jameson. I don't need any break for this. When I lost my uncle, I realized that it helps a lot to…stay busy. And just recently I got rid of a huge workload, but I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing," said Peter.
"That depends on what type it was. Was it the self-destructive type, or the more wholesome type?" asked Jameson.
"Honestly, I'm not sure," sighed Peter.
"See, Peter, I'm not the most qualified to talk about this. But, my wife is. She's a licensed therapist. If you want I can schedule an appointment for you," offered Jameson.
"It's okay Mr Jameson, trust me I'm-"
"One trial, free of charge completely. Then if you think it was helpful, you can continue. If you don't, then it's completely fine," said Jameson, smiling.
It meant a lot to Peter that such an offer was coming from Jonah Jameson, of all people.
"Okay, sounds good," said Peter, as Jonah smiled more.
"Okay, I'll tell Jane to keep…Saturday evening free. Does that work for you?" asked Jameson, as Peter nodded. Jameson scribbled something down on his notepad, then shook Peter's hand, as he got off the chair and walked out the revolving door, only to run into a tall, black haired man.
"Oh sorry, I didn't see you there," chuckled the man, as he walked into Jonah's office. As soon as Jameson saw him, his face lit up like a Christmas tree.
"John!" he cried, as he hugged his son.
"Hey dad, great to see you again!" said John, who had recently returned from a trip to space. "Hey, Cooper! Get us both a coffee," said Jameson, as Carlie rushed across the room to the coffee maker.
Peter smirked as he looked at an elated Jameson, then walked back to the elevator to leave the Daily Bugle.
Alistair sat a table at Kirby's Steakhouse, reminiscing about all the memories he spent here as a kid with his family. He remembered a younger version of him looking at other children running around the place, while he just wrote random chemistry equations on the tablecloth.
Spencer walked into the restaurant, with a cane in his hand.
"There you are!" said Spencer. "Gotta say, I thought I'd lose you in this sea of memories that's flooding back to me," joked Spencer, taking a seat across Alistair. Both of them placed their orders.
"So, what'd you want to talk about?" asked Alistair.
"Well, there's a reason I came all the way back from Santa Barbara to New York," said Spencer.
"What happened?" asked Alistair in response, slightly worried.
"It's the cancer. It's gotten worse," said Spencer, grimly.
"The Lung Cancer? But…the chemotherapy, it got rid of the tumour! Years back!" exclaimed Alistair unbelievably.
"Apparently it didn't take. The cells remained dormant and then re-emerged," said Spencer.
"Chronic Inflammation?" asked Alistair.
"Thanks to all the radioactive chemicals I handled in my youth," replied Spencer, sighing heavily.
"Well, there's got to be a way, right? More chemotherapy-"
"Apoptosis Suppression," sighed Spencer.
"They're resistant to chemotherapy now. Goddammit," said Alistair.
"There is a way, however," said Spencer.
"How?" asked Alistair.
"A long time ago, another scientist and I worked on a bioengineered substance. More of a living organism, really. It would probably still be at Osc-" explained Spencer, as something suddenly caught his breath.
"Dad?"
"Oh dear…" said Spencer, as his hand went stiff and he fell off his chair.
"DAD!" yelled Alistair, jumping off of his chair and running to his side.
"Help! Somebody help!" yelled out Alistair, as bystanders quickly ran to his aid, while others contacted 911.
And we're back! I hope you liked the start to Season 5, which is going to focus more on characters, especially these first 2 episodes. This season is also going to dive into what makes Peter Parker Spider-Man, with a fitting villain for the season! I'll give a hint to who the villain is, ASM 252. That's pretty obvious lol.
I'm actually in the middle of my summer vacations right now, and in about two months I'll be in 11th grade (or junior year, depending on where you're from) and I've selected a handful of subjects: Higher Level Chemistry, Higher Level Biology and Higher Level Psychology, along with Standard Level English, Standard Level Spanish and Standard Level Mathematics. And I've also decided to take AP Statistics, AP Calculus and AP Physics.
For now, I've actually started taking two online courses on Criminalistics and Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. But luckily, I have enough time to balance FanFiction too (at least till July 16th, which is when school reopens). I gotta say, feels like such a jarring change, especially since I'll be shifting boards from GCSE to IBDP. 10th grade graduation happened online lol. We'll see how stuff goes.
Also, I started watching a ton of movies, and my favorites so far are: The Dark Knight (which has always been my fav), Whiplash, Shutter Island, The Shawshank Redemption, Logan, Uncut Gems and Se7en. Also recommend you guys check out Invincible, which is an incredible show! Same thing for The Boys, though I'm a little late for that lmao. Also started to continue watching Smallville, since I had stopped at Season 7 about four years back lol.
CT311998: Oh don't worry, I have PLENTY planned for Season 5 and beyond!
Fate-Be Changed: Yep, I hope I handled her death well.
Geek4Life: I don't have many plans for Scorpion for now, sorry. (Although, I did just get an idea for a storyline.)
Marvel Nerd: I wanna stay true to the comics, so I'm not gonna do organic webbing. Also (NERD RANT INCOMING) the organic webbing doesn't make much scientific sense, especially since spiders store their silk in their reproductive ducts. So if Peter is storing his organic webbing…ahem, "there", that means that he's basically shooting another body fluid stored in his reproductive ducts from his hands. Yeah, moving on…
SpideyXBC: You haven't seen the last of Black Cat yet!
Guest: That is actually a good idea, but I think Peter leaving behind the role of Spider-Man is good enough for shedding his old life. (Although the bald Peter Parker does seem like a good idea! I'm keeping it in mind!)
redbirds12: Thanks! I wanted to make Norman much more threatening than him in Season 2, and i'm glad to know i achieved that! Hope you love Season 5!
midjet156: I think you should focus on your health first, and then on any other secondary things. If you want you can pm me for help :)
Yours Truly,
Shadow Strike.