I started working on this long before the first trailer for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" came out. This is my own idea of what would happen if the mid-credits scene in "Far From Home" didn't happen.
Well, it kinda happens, but some unknown party intervenes!
From there, Peter's journey through the rest of high school, managing his double-life as Spider-Man, and his developing relationship with MJ.
This is just an introduction for the story; I plan to post the whole thing on AO3. And again, I owe a big thanks to XFangHeartX for helping me.
I own nothing from Spider-Man or Marvel.
A group of four thugs chased a woman into an alleyway, where she was cornered.
She turned to them, horrified, "Please no, I've got kids."
"I gotta dog," One of the thugs scoffed.
"You gotta dog? That's a homer, man!" Another one laughed, while the others chuckled.
Just as one of them pulled out a knife from his pocket, a white string stuck to his leg and pulled him up! The other three looked up in shock before a familiar guy in a red and black costume landed in front of the woman.
"I envy you guys, you're just happy being walking clichés. Not a care in the world. Seriously, good for you, but come on guys, leave the lady alone."
"Holy crap!" cursed one of the thugs. "It's that Spider-Guy!"
"Spider-MAN, get it right!"
Two of them rushed him, but he simply front-flipped over their heads, fired two weblines at one of the surrounding buildings, stuck them to their back, and they got pulled up, webbed to the wall.
The last guy held up his hands, "Hey, I don' even like these guys, cuz!"
"Promise to never do something like this again, and I might let you go."
"Yeah, for sure, man!" replied the last one. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I...I just got caught up in all this because I was trying to help my Mom, man."
"If you went to jail because of this, you'd only make things harder for your mom," the arachnid-themed hero replied.
The job done, the red-and-black-suited Spider-Man soon shot out a web and pulled himself onto a rooftop.
Things had been going great for Peter lately, which was a Godsend considering that two months ago, the late Quentin Beck, AKA Mysterio tried to frame him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter was in his costume on a lamppost as a news broadcast on the big screen outside Madison Square Garden said that he killed Mysterio and was responsible for the destruction in London.
He and MJ, who was watching from the street, knew that the video they just saw was fake, but the people didn't. Even in death, Beck was trying to prove that people are sheep who will believe anything.
Still...the sight made Peter feel very angry. So angry, that all he could do was clench his fists and bite his lip.
"This shocking video was released earlier today on the controversial news website, The Daily Bugle-dot-net," The news caster said, before the logo for The Daily Bugle came on the screen, then shifted to the CEO of the website, J. Jonah Jameson.
"There you have it, folks: conclusive proof that Spider-Man was responsible for the brutal murder of Mysterio!" He ranted. "An interdimensional warrior who gave his life to protect our planet, and who will no doubt go down in history as the greatest superhero of all-"
The screen glitched to static, then to the multicolor screen that meant there was "No Signal". The screen glitched to a still of the video, with a caption that said "LIES".
Soon, a face started to form on the screen. But was constantly distorted by other faces combined with it, as well as a 3D outline for it.
"Conclusive proof, Jameson? Total bullocks," A distorted male voice spoke from the screen. It was loud, with a British accent, and clearly meant to disguise whoever was speaking from it. "This video is posted by a, quote "Controversial News Website". So, how can we be sure that it's real, when the Daily Bugle is a sensationalist news site, known for libel, and slander against Spider-Man ever since he first appeared?"
The crowd began murmuring amongst each other, confused and yet somehow, it seemed to make sense.
"Allow me to reveal the real truth," The hacker said, before the image switched to footage of the attack on London.
The combined Elementals could be seen at the Tower Bridge, and Mysterio was struggling to fight it.
A blue line ran vertically across the image, and as it did; the Elementals and Mysterio vanished, revealing them to be an army of drones.
"All holograms," The hacker continued. "And here's what really happened between Spidey and Beck. But this video has been edited to protect Spider-Man's anonymity."
The screen cut to Spider-Man and Quinten Beck inside the bridge, but Beck was wearing a CGI suit with a glass-dome helmet, which had it's own HUD, and a few drones were floating next to him.
More drones flew in and created another holographic illusion, so Spidey closed his eyes. Then, he ran across the green fog, destroying the drones as they tried to shoot at him. He expertly dodged, jumping to the ceiling, and making the drones crash into each other. He ripped the gun turrets from one of them, impaled another drone with them and used it as a shield.
Beck got an angry, psychotic look on his face as he yelled, "No, FIRE, ALL, THE DRONES, NOW!"
Soon, the remaining drones opened fire on Spidey, who was being forced back and his only shield began to break apart. Realizing that it was no use, he threw the drone down before he began to run.
He knocked one of the drones into another as it was firing, so when it got turned around, it accidently shot Beck!
Meanwhile, the remaining drones were still trying to get through with one of them knocking Spidey into the wall, but he managed to hang on before he kicked one down, grabbed the one that was attacking him, and smashed it against a third drone, completely destroying them!
With all the drones destroyed, Spidey panted a bit, "Beck?!"
He saw the man leaning against the wall, clutching his gunshot wound. Spidey walked over to him, taking off his mask. Thankfully, the video had Peter's face electronically scrambled, so no one could tell who he was.
"...You lied to me," said Peter. "I trusted you."
"...I know," Beck said, remorsefully. "That's the most...disappointing part."
Peter just stared at him, panting with a bloody lip.
"You're a good person, Spider," Beck stated, shaking his head a bit. "Such a weakness." He pulled some blue-lensed glasses out from inside his suit. "Stark was right; you do deserve them."
Spidey grabbed the air just before a gunshot rang out, almost hitting his head! The Beck on the ground began to disappear and the real one appeared behind Peter, holding a gun and wearing the same glasses.
"You can't trick me, anymore," said Spidey before he snatched the glasses off of Beck, who finally collapsed.
The video showed unmasked Spidey putting on the glasses, but still didn't show his face.
"E.D.I.T.H. turn off the drones!" he exclaimed.
"Biometric scan complete," A female computer voice was heard. "Welcome back, Spider. Should I execute all cancellation protocols?"
"Do it, just...execute them all," he responded.
The video cut to an outside view of the bridge, where all the drones flew away to a safe distance, and exploded.
"Thank you..." Spidey whispered before he turned to Beck, who was lying on the ground, his breath shallow. "How could you do all of this?"
"You'll see, Spider-Man," said Beck. "People need to believe..." He then gave a weak smile. "And nowadays...they'll believe anything." With that...his breathing stopped, his smile fell...and his body lay still, even though his eyes were open.
The video cut to black, and the distorted faces reappeared.
"So, there YOU have it, folks," the distorted male voice stated. "Proof of use of illusion technology, and Stark Industries plays a big role in this. Let's find out how, shall we?"
A familiar, lovely redheaded woman appeared in a small window on the screen; Pepper Potts!
"Hello?"
"Hello Mrs. Potts Stark," The hacker greeted. "Are you watching the news at the moment?"
"Absolutely," Pepper responded, looking agitated. "I can't believe the nerve of Jameson and The Bugle. For the record, The Daily Bugle is a sworn blacklisted enemy of Stark Industries."
"So you don't agree that Spider-Man killed anyone, then?" asked the hacker.
"Of course, he didn't kill anyone!" Pepper answered. "And for the record; Quentin Beck was not a hero from a parallel world, but a former employee of Stark Industries."
"Is that right?" The hacker asked, in a tone that suggested he already knew.
Pepper nodded, "Beck invented the hologram technology on those drones, and although Tony was impressed by it; he saw that Beck was emotionally and mentally unstable. *sigh* My late husband instead converted Beck's inventions for the B.A.R.F. program, which he was not happy about, so he was fired. All evidence gather by S.H.I.E.L.D. from the attacks in London, Venice, Ixtenco, Prague and Morocco have proven that The Elementals and Mysterio were all fabrications from illusion tech, and the property damage was caused by the drones."
"Thank you for your time, Pepper," The hacker said.
"Of course, anytime," she responded, then her screen disappeared.
"There's the real truth," The hacker stated. "Beck said, "Nowadays, people will believe anything". In his mind, he thought people are sheep who will fall for anything, even if it's false. I don't believe that, but I do know that the biggest sheep in the world right now, is you; J. Jonah Jackass. As long as Spider-Man is dubbed the villain, you'll believe anything."
The distorted faces finally disappeared, going back to Jameson, who was visibly fuming. He then went into some big rant about the hacker's video being fake and tried to show the first video again, only to be told by someone off camera that the video had been deleted!
Peter chuckled to himself; that hacker probably deleted Beck's fake video as he/she revealed the real truth.
But Jameson didn't let up; he even went to say that Beck's video revealed Spider-Man's identity, which made Peter internally panic.
However, for some strange reason; Jameson could not remember what his name was. Still, Jameson went into another rant, only for the news to cut him off.
"Okay, I've heard enough," The news anchor said. "I think it's just been made clear that J. Jonah Jameson is a man with a vendetta. But, in the future, let's all be sure not to believe everything we see."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End Flashback~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The days after that news broadcast, people from all over the city called in to a radio station and told a story of how the Friendly Neighborhood Web-Head helped them in some way.
"When my grandmother got lost in Queens, he helped her find her way home," One guy had said.
"Some bullies harassed my son, Jorge, and broke his wind turbine, but Spider-Man actually showed up, scared off the kids, fixed the turbine with his webs and walked him home," A mother had told the station.
And that helped restore the people's faith in him. However, Peter currently had a different problem than regaining the trust of the public; getting to school on time!
Of course, like clockwork; he got report of a vehicle chase on the police scanner in his suit. He groaned in frustration as he swung after it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Scene Change~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter already missed 8 minutes of class by the time he made it.
"Ah Peter, glad you could join us," the teacher greeted.
"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Iglesias, the subway was running late," he responded.
"Well, you're just in time," said Mr. Iglesias. "Take your seat."
Peter took his seat next to his best friend, Ned Leeds.
"Okay, who remembers the Monroe Doctrine?" Mr. Iglesias asked, a couple students raised their hands.
"Ah, so not many," said Mr. Iglesias.
One usually reclusive student sitting behind Peter and Ned reluctantly raised her hand.
"Oh Michelle, it's rare to see you volunteer," Mr. Iglesias stated.
MJ rolled her eyes, "In 1823, James Monroe declared any intervention by external powers in the politics of the Americas a hostile act."
"Very good," Mr. Iglesias picked up a long ruler and walked over to the portraits of the Presidents. "Now, while Monroe is best remembered for his doctrine, I think he really should be remembered as the first President with enough courage to say," He smacked the ruler against the wall below Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison, "Enough with the powdered wigs."
Everyone laughed at that.
"I mean seriously; aside from RuPaul, who thought this was a good look?" he asked, making the students laugh more. "Our country was founded by a bunch of dudes who woke up every morning asking their wives, *in an exaggerated British accent* "Milady, have you seen my wig? I-I can't seem to find- And my powder, I cannot find my powder! Where is my powder"?"
The students laughed hysterically.
"Anyway, we went 200 hundred years without such a bizarre hairstyle again," Mr. Iglesias skimmed through the Presidents, then smacked Trump's portrait. "Until now."
The students laughed again.
"We went from powdered wigs to one wig dipped in Cheeto dust."
The students kept laughing at his jokes, unable to keep it together.
Yes, I used a moment from the Netflix show "Mr. Iglesias", and some of the characters will appear. But I don't own them either.
Let me know what you guys think about this. If you like it, keep on eye on AO3, where I will post the whole story!
Read and review, please!