A/N - I don't own Spider-Man.

Please let me know what you think.

Spider-Man: Criminal.

With Great Power...

When he would look back on this moment for years to come, he would remember asking himself why Jameson was just so cruel when all he had wanted to do was to earn a living.

Okay, granted - if he had gone out into the night as Spider-Man to see if being a hero was in his DNA and he had read that damn fucked up newspaper article, perhaps he would have been more prepared…

No, he would have likely felt as low as he had beforehand. With how large a readership the Daily Bugle had, in all forms of the media from conventional newspapers, radio broadcasts since Jameson was the owner/editor of J3 communications, the radio channel for New York, and it had its own Youtube channel which uploaded videos every day, he would have been hard-pressed not to find anyone to save who had not read the inflammatory articles and made up garbage about him.

Tragically what made the whole thing worse was how nothing Jameson had said had been based on rumours; no, the newspaper editor had purposefully gone out to find the answers out for himself. While Peter didn't like how Jameson had decided that he was a con artist, he had to admire the man's dedication to his work. Peter didn't know too much about the newspaper or media editors, but he knew anyone who had personally gone to see his shows and dedicated some of their time to writing articles like the one he had seen on the Daily Bugle website, then they were dedicated to finding answers, and they didn't rely on others to bring stories to them.

That was what Jameson had done.

He had visited the show, watched him carefully and closely as he had performed his act. Peter's act - the showing off of his powers, his stint as a wrestler - had been going on for a couple of weeks, that was more than enough ample time for Jameson to hear about him. Peter had no doubt Jameson might have dismissed him; it had taken time for New Yorkers to know about him, and many of those were likely rumours before he had moved up to different shows. It was only during that time Jameson would have taken him seriously enough to visit the show. Peter got the impression Jameson had begun investigating him very slowly, piecing together details from what he had heard before he had gone to the show and saw him perform for that one evening.

But realistically, and Peter quickly understood this; he had a feeling he would have come to the same crossroads, and he would have gone

At the same time, Peter would remember how he had surfed the internet, looking for some kind of inspiration, and how he had looked for information about how burglars and robbers targeted houses and stores. The internet was a wealth of information, which had revolutionised the world incredibly quickly. Finding information about burglars was easy, and Peter didn't have any issues when he had learnt burglars were professionals or opportunists.

Professional burglars were thieves that took their time studying the houses they planned to burgle. They would spy on the property, find a way in where nobody would see them, and they would break in only when they were sure the family or storeowners were either out or they hadn't opened up.

Opportunistic burglars were, well they were the opposite. They broke into a house where a door or a window was open. No planning, little checking to see if the family was there or not.

Peter decided to go for the professional route; it was more his style than simply walking up to a front door, trying it to see if it was open, and then walking in. While he was likely more than a match for anyone who could try to stop him, Peter had no desire to get caught.

Peter had been all for slipping out of his bedroom window and going to burgle a house or a store somewhere, but he had decided not to. While the night was still young, he ultimately decided not to go out. His mind was still spinning away, and he didn't realise it until he stood up and moved towards the window ledge…and he realised that his heart and mind just weren't in it.

In the end, Peter decided to simply leave it for just one night. In his current state of mind, a burglary was the last thing he wanted to go on right now.

X

"You look shattered, Peter," Aunt May noted the next morning.

Peter stifled a yawn, cursing himself for staying up too late. "Sorry, Aunt May. I couldn't get to sleep…"

He was telling the truth. He had been rolling around in his bed, trying and struggling and failing ultimately to fall asleep for less than half an hour, his mind was filled with second thoughts about his decision to use his spider powers to turn to crime in a Robin Hood-esque way. In a final cruel twist of fate, Peter's insomnia had left him in the early morning, only he had to get up for school. Peter was now cursing his lack of thought to not sleep on the whole matter, and give himself time to approach it when his mind was fresher.

But it was too late now.

Peter had been so wound up lately, the discovery of his powers and his fears of becoming a freak even though he had never bought into that ignorant crap about racism and mutant hate; as a science major with ambitions to study physics, chemistry, and half a dozen scientific disciplines at college and hopefully university so he could make an excellent future out for himself where he could finally get away from the worst of his bullies from Midtown High, Peter had never bought into the crap spouted by hate freaks like Senator Kelly, or the Friends of Humanity.

They didn't realise there was a lot of logic behind the belief mutants were the next stage of human evolution and they delighted in the fear created in its wake.

Okay, so he had been terrified by the sudden appearances of his powers, but Peter had been overwhelmed with the discovery of their existence; one day he had gone from a puny weakling, who was physically incapable of moving a concrete block without gasping for breath, the next day, he was capable of fighting off a school jock. In his opinion, he had a lot to be frightened of.

It wasn't until he had taken the time to experiment properly with his powers that Peter had begun to see the whole thing logically and through a cold clinical scientific mind, and he had tested his powers to see what his newfound limitations were.

He had tried to earn some money when his brain went bingo after seeing that ad in the newspaper for new and excitingly original acts, and he had put himself first and foremost, and Uncle Ben had paid the price.

Peter knew he would be living with that grief for the rest of his life, but after last night he had realised show biz was not for him. Yeah, he could try to get back on the stage, see what happened, and if he had the chance he could find some way of challenging Jameson, but after the events of last night and what he'd learnt about himself, well Peter could say that ship had sailed without a horn blasting back. He had tried to find other opportunities, other ideas, but the hero life wasn't really for him either although he did want to help people, in some way. He had made up his mind, but the problem was he was uncertain how to do it.

"Do you want to take a day off from school?" The concern in his Aunt's voice made Peter smile in spite of his darker thoughts. He was pleased about that; he was uncertain where his new thoughts were going, but he did not want to think about them right now…

"No, I should be okay. I want to see my last few days at Midtown through," Peter smiled, but it was tinged with sadness.

Uncle Ben had planned a bash for him after graduation, but now he was no longer here…

Peter pushed that out of his mind and he focused on his upcoming day at school. Deep down he didn't really want to go. It felt….wrong that he could just return to school as nothing had happened, but he wanted to go to the school not to learn but to give his mind something to do so he didn't get distracted by the thoughts of Uncle Ben's death.

"Alright, if you're sure, sweetie," May replied although he could see she was worried about the thought of him going to school. She knew he could cope at the school but Peter could tell she worried about him.

X

While he didn't like being friendless beyond having Ned Leeds and Eddie Brock as fellow geeks, Peter was actually glad he had gone to the school. Everyone had heard about what had happened to Uncle Ben, and he had been left strictly alone, but since he had been locked in his own little bubble, ignoring everyone and everything around him, and focusing on his work without speaking beyond saying he was present in class, everyone didn't get close to him.

In the past girls like Sally Avril and Liz Allan avoided Peter and his frankly pitiful attempts to ask them out, and reflexively they went stiff and they were prepared to give him a tongue lashing when they saw him despite knowing it was the lowest thing they could do, but they needn't have worried.

Peter just walked past them both without once looking at them. Hell, he didn't even know they were there. As he walked past, both girls could not help but feel interested in him…

If Peter had known his new broody demeanour would have netted girls in a way better than his previous methods, he might have been interested but today he wasn't. For the entire day, Peter had been thinking about tonight's break-in. He had decided to break into the grocery store. It was close to where he lived, and getting there on foot was easy although getting to the place via Air Arachnid was even easier. Peter had frequented the store many, many times over the years for milk and small bits, so he knew the opening and closing times like the back of his hand.

X

That night Peter was ready. Just before he had gotten dressed, he had taken a good look at his red and blue skintight costume, and he realised the costume was just impractical for tonight.

While Peter no longer really cared about what people thought about Spider-Man, when he had taken one look at his costume, he realised…despite how long it had taken him to make, how expensive some of the materials were, it was impractical as a burglar's clothes.

In the end, he had just slipped on a black hoodie he had in his wardrobe and dark trousers, but he had kept his mask and his gloves; not only were the gloves custom made to allow some of the chemicals used in his webbing to stick to the walls, but he loved the one-way lenses of his mask. Besides, it was very much like a balaclava, so he had decided to keep it.

Peter snuck out of his bedroom window, concentrating on his spider-sense to make sure nobody saw him creep out before he leapt onto the next house, which belonged to his neighbour Mary Jane Watson. He had once fancied the girl as they'd grown up, but as time had passed Mary Jane had shown she had a terrible, terrible personality.

She had looked down her nose at him and sneered at him and called him a loser before she draped herself across Flash's body like a hooker, while the jerk of a jock smirked at him. The sight of Mary Jane doing that killed off whatever attraction he had for her until he now no longer cared what happened to her.

Thanks to his spider speed and agility, controlled by his spider-sense, Peter got to the grocery store in record time. He crouched down on the opposite side of the road before he fired a web line at the wall underneath the apartment window above the grocery store. Peter stood up and looked at it briefly; he had done this before, quite successfully, when he had gone after the killer who'd murdered Uncle Ben, but the crook had taller buildings between him and Peter.

In comparison, this one was much shorter. Peter didn't want to be seen by anyone, and besides, he had practiced this move before, for the show. The only thing that worried him was what he had learnt in his physics lessons; what if he cannoned into the wall so hard he smashed into it if he didn't let go of his line in time? He had experimented with this move before, and there was still a degree of danger he would want to avoid. The trick was timing, that was the key.

Peter decided to risk it. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Peter swung, and he had to stop himself from yelling with delight as he swung to the other side of the road while he did a Tarzan move. As he rapidly approached the wall, Spider-Man let go of the line with practiced timing and he bent his legs and held out his arms, mentally picturing himself clinging to the wall while he slowed down…

Under his mask Spider-Man took a deep breath while he grinned. Not bad, a bit more practice, and I'll be okay in future. Spider-Man crawled downwards and he dropped down into the shadows below. Using his spider strength, Spider-Man ripped open one of the doors and he ran in, ignoring the burglary alarm as he did. Reaching the till Spider-Man placed his hands against the till drawer and pressed them flat before he pulled with all of his spider strength. The till drawer shot out with the wrenching of plastic and steel in the air.

Spider-Man peered into the drawer and grinned under his mask. When people swarmed into the shop hoping to catch the thief, they found an empty store. Not once did they think to look up, nor did they realise he had quietly slipped out.