Act I (Part 3)

The next day, Peter went to the Bugle to drop off pictures of Spider-Man. "You're early? That's a first." Betty approached him and Peter looked at her strangely.

"What are you talking about I came early at least twice last week?" Peter defended.

"I'm kidding. Although, you do sometimes come late." Betty stated firmly.

Peter acknowledged this, "Ok, true."

"So, how was your day?" She asked. Peter thought this was strange, Betty never asked him these kinds of questions. "Uh, it's going good. And who are you and what have you done with the real Betty Brant," Peter joked as she chuckled.

"Oh, nothing. It's just... you seem very mysterious." He smiled at the thought from his co-worker. "Mysterious, huh. That bad?"

"Yeah, I keep telling my friends about you if you want to hang out, but you always leave or want to be a loner." Betty awkwardly said.

"Loner?" Peter asked, then shook his head.

"I'm sorry, did that-" He interrupted her, "No, no, no. You're fine. I guess loner would describe me."

"Well, are you doing anything today?" She asked.

"No." He replied,

"Well, then you mind coming to the Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop? That's where all my friends hang out." She said happily.

Peter, before attempting to decline, thought about it for a second.

"When is this?" He asked.

"5:30."

"Any reason you're inviting me?" Peter asked, curiously.

"Well, I've been telling my friends about you, and they want to meet you. I told them about you fixing everyone's computer problems and how you were able to fix it compared to a regular IT guy." Betty explained.

Peter sighed and said "Fine. I'll be there." Betty smiled and then walked back to her desk.

"If I see them again, I don't know what I'd do seeing them again..." Peter said under his breath. He looked back at Betty struggling with something.

He quickly approached her desk and asked, "You got a problem?"

She sighed and groaned, "Jameson has me working-" Before she could finish, Jameson came to her and shouted, "Ms. Brant! Why isn't our website working?!"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jameson... I'm not a web designer... it freezes on me... and I just can't get it to work..." Betty complained.

"But we paid for you for that one class..." Jameson pleaded.

"Mr. Jameson, I'm sorry ok... it's just that one class didn't help at all." Betty states.

Jameson was about to say something, until Peter spoke up, "It looks like the script is in a recursive loop."

Jameson and Betty looked at him shocked.

"And how do you know that?" Jameson asked.

"A recursive loop. The line you changed is causing the script to call itself over and over again without a conditional statement to allow the script to exit or stop calling itself." He explained.

Betty and Jameson still stared at him astonished. Peter continued to explain, "None of the pages on the site are rendered because the results of the script are needed, but since the script is recursively calling itself, you'll never get results, and the pages never render."

"Well, just don't stand there and explain fix it!" Jameson barked and gestured to the website. Peter nodded and looked at Betty who mouthed the words, 'Thank you', to him.

Peter chuckled and proceeded to fix the recursive loop that was occurring on the computer.

Jameson shook his head and said, "Alright, looks like you got another job. You're our IT guy, you'll work on this website and keep fixing it. I'll pay you 50."

Peter was surprised at this and then was about to ask about the pay until Jameson waved it off and yelled at Peter and Betty to get back to work.

Betty, still being astonished, asked "How'd you know how to do that?"

Peter chuckled and said "I don't know... I just know."

"I think my friends will like you for your programming knowledge," Betty said, smiling at him.

Peter chuckled again and sighed, "Yeah, I'm sure they will."

The next hours went by, and Peter walked to the pastry shop. He gulped.

Despite being outside of the shop, seeing his old friends again was not something he had in mind. He felt as if he was betraying himself and them if he goes to this shop. By watching them afar, he could protect them by being Spider-Man and forgetting Peter Parker.

He took a huge deep breath and then entered the shop. He saw Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones.

Betty was there as well and she cheered, "You came!"

Peter smiled, "Yeah, I did."

Betty came up to him and introduced Peter as the guy that helped her today with the Bugle's website and as the guy that takes those good photos of Spider-Man.

Before she could say his name, MJ said, "Peter Parker, right?"

Betty was shocked, "Wait, you two met before?"

"Yeah, a couple of weeks ago... maybe a month ago he came by here and got a coffee... I don't know how I remembered your name though..." MJ said, feeling confused on he remembered his name so well.

"I actually come every two weeks, so you saw me two weeks ago," Peter explained.

"Oh, yeah. We did a little small talk." MJ said, casually.

Betty was still shocked, only for a little bit, and then introduced her two friends, Michelle Jones, and Ned Leeds.

Ned waved at him. "How do you take those photos of Spider-Man? I mean these photos are freakishly awesome! I'm checking the website as we speak and just wow..." He asked amazed at them.

Peter slightly smirked and explained, "Let's just say, Spider-Man lets me take pictures of him, so he takes me high, and I take the photos."

"Wait, you know Spider-Man like that... well now I'm jealous," Betty said as she went to her seat.

Ned pointed out, "I'm still amazed on how good these photos are." As he said that, he skimmed through a few more photos.

"Do you think you can introduce us to Spider-Man?" Betty asked, excitedly.

"Well, I don't know him that well. He likes to keep his identity a secret." Peter explained, amusing himself at the irony of that statement.

MJ asked bluntly, "Hey, what school do you go to?"

"Hey, MJ, you can't just ask people that randomly before you know them," Betty stated, feeling that was a bit blunt on her friend's part. MJ ignored Betty on that.

Peter sighed and said, "It's fine, Betty." He decided to take a seat.

"I'm not in school. I'm doing my GED." Peter said and they all stared at him.

"Really, GED?" MJ asked.

"Yeah, is that a problem?" Peter asked, as he really wished he hadn't said that.

"No, it's just from the way, Betty describes you, especially how you helped her with web design, we would've expected you to be in a high school that's like advanced." Ned explained.

Peter chuckled slightly at that and said, "Oh, well. I guess you could say I'm an autodidact."

MJ shook her head, "So, you're basically like a huge nerd only to yourself."

Peter raised his eyebrow at what she said and decided to change topics. The less they know about him, the better.

"Well, enough about me. What about you guys? And are we doing anything after this?" He asked.

MJ was about to speak, though Peter, deep down, already knew the answer to what he just asked, "Well, Betty, Ned, and I go to Midtown and me and Ned just hung out until Betty came along and both of us became friends with her not too long ago. Then she started talking about you and how you've been declining everything she invited you to. And honestly that just made me and Ned laugh at her," she said as she started to laugh at the amount of times Betty tried to invite Peter to something only to get denied, and Ned started to laugh at well.

Betty glared at MJ and started to blush.

MJ said as she tried to stop laughing, "I'm sorry..." she kept giggling and then stopped.

Betty shook her head at her friends laughing her, turned to Peter, and said "Anyway, about what you asked about doing anything after this, yeah, we're gonna to go to a party by Flash Thompson," MJ interjected, "He's a guy in school that's just a jerk."

Peter's eyes widened at the mention of Flash's name. Though, he hoped his "new" friends didn't notice him, like he knew Flash at the mere mention of his name.

Betty nodded and said, "He's inviting everyone in Midtown and other high schools, but i think it'll be a little fun."

"Why a little fun?" Peter asked.

Ned proceeded to explain, "Because last time he invited us to one of his parties, it kinda sucked ass."

Peter smiled at that, "Ok, and you guys are going because?"

"Well, everybody's going, and we all got nothing to do, so why not. Though, it's gonna be lame." MJ said bluntly.

Peter nodded and was about to say something until his spider-sense went off. He didn't want to look around cause Betty, MJ, and Ned would notice him acting paranoid or even suspicious. God, he knew this was a bad idea.

The door opened and everyone jerked their heads to see who it was. A man with a long coat to the point where it almost hit the floor, a hat, and bushy mustache. He also smelled liked vodka.

The smell poured into the room that Ned started to cough a bit and was disgusted by this man's smell.

Peter was scared now, knowing who this guy was, Kraven the Hunter.

Kraven walked up to MJ and ordered "I would like five of your chocolate donuts in a bag."

MJ, not wanting to look disgusted at the smell, told him it'll be ready and started to do it for him. As she was doing, Kraven noticed Ned's laptop and a picture of Spider-Man.

He commented, "Nice photo of the spider."

Ned jerked his head to see the man was talking to him, "Hm, oh yeah, it's a great photo." Ned was feeling awkward around this guy and he couldn't shake the feeling there was something off about this guy.

Peter watched the entire thing intensely, even though he tried not to show it on his face.

MJ gave him his order and Kraven paid for it. He turned and was about to walk out of the door until he noticed Peter was tense, the most tense out of everyone in the room.

"Do I know you, boy?" Kraven asked.

Peter turns to look at him, anxiously, nodded left-to-right, basically telling Kraven 'no'.

Kraven stared a for a bit then walked out.

As he left, Betty commented, "That was so creepy."

"His smell was so horrible." Ned stated, firmly.

MJ said, "Yeah, well that's what I have to deal with on a daily basis working this job." She went out of the counter and said she's done with her shift now and will meet outside after she's done changing.

All three agreed as they headed out and waited for her. Peter, being in his own thoughts, was going crazy or perhaps paranoid would be the right word. Questions pondered his mind, did Kraven know who he was? Was Kraven after everyone Spider-Man loved? God, he wished he didn't come to the shop.

"Peter?" Betty called out to him.

Peter looked at her and asked, "What?"

She asked him if he was ok. He said he was. After a few minutes of waiting, MJ exited the shop.

The group of friends headed towards the train station and waited for it. The train arrived and they all got on. MJ and Betty sat across from Ned and Peter. A few minutes later Betty was on her phone and MJ fell asleep, probably due to working very hard at the shop.

Peter decided to make small conversation with Ned about anything. Ned told him about his hobbies of building LEGOs and how much pieces of building the LEGO Death Star. Peter being impressed, told him about how much he too was a Star Wars fan.

Ned got astonished and gave him a huge high five. Inside Peter's thoughts, he missed this. His best friend "re-introducing" himself and talking about things he already knows so much about, yet sadly his best friend doesn't know him because of the spell.

Ned asked him, "So, tell me about yourself."

Peter sighed and then said, "If you really wanna know... it's a long story, but to keep it short. My life is really complex..."

Ned's eyes squinted feeling that was a very vague answer Peter gave about his life.

"It's not for the faint of heart... but all of my family are gone...and-" He stopped himself before he could on, it was probably best not to talk about it.

Ned made a gesture telling his new friend not to go any further. "I'm sorry to hear about your family, I didn't mean to pry."

"Don't worry about it." Peter said and no one in their friend group talked for a while. Deep into his thoughts, he was weary about Kraven showing up.

After a few minutes of silence, the train stopped at where they needed to go and the friend group got off the train. They walked a few blocks until they reached Flash's house. Loud music was playing, everyone was laughing, and the group entered.

Flash came by and greeted them. "Hey, guys!"

He noticed Peter and asked who he was. Betty explained the whole thing at the Bugle and how they're friends with him.

Flash nodded. "Ah, ok. A newcomer."

Peter was a little anxious and then told his friends he was going to the bathroom. Flash told him where it was and Peter went inside quickly.

He washed his face with cold water and then wiped with the towel. He looked into his mirror self and said, "You're in the shit now, Parker."

Flashes of Doctor Strange appeared in his mind and then his words, "Look, Parker, the problem isn't Mysterio. It's you, trying to live two different lives and the longer you do that the more dangerous it becomes believe me."

He muttered, "I'm starting to think maybe Strange is right..."

After a few minutes, he exited the bathroom and returned to his friend group.

Ned sees Peter approaching them, but he noticed that Peter looked like he was distressed about something.

"You ok?" Ned asked, feeling concerned about his new friend.

"Yeah, you know it's just," he paused as he thought of a new excuse he hadn't used before, "I thought I wasn't feeling too well, so I just went to the bathroom to calm myself down."

Ned then asked, feeling perplexed. "Oh, are you sure you're ok then? If you want, we could all go. Take you to a hospital-"

Peter interrupted him abruptly, "No... no hospitals. I'm very fine. I just needed to clear my head is all."

Ned looked at him strangely and just nodded, "Ok, dude."

Flash walked by telling everyone if they're all excited graduating and how he's getting into MIT. Though, everyone wasn't giving him too much attention despite it being his party.

Kraven returned to the location of the abandoned building. A burner phone rang and he picked it up, he smiled a bit as he knew who it was, Riva.

"I thought you said you'd have him killed! What have you been doing all this time?!" Riva screamed into the phone.

Kraven shook his head, "Patience my friend... you only underestimate the Spider...… there is more to him than meets the eye."

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Riva screamed again.

"I'm talking about how much I've been observing him, seeing photos of him, videos, etc... he may have beaten me once... but I got the tools to defeat him." Kraven stated.

Riva stated as he listened, "Ok."

"His movements are based on instinct, like he is an animal... but like many animals they have a weakness to that overreliance. I shall exploit that weakness and he'll be my greatest hunt." Kraven said proudly.

The call ended and Kraven was looking to prepare for the hunt. He picks up a few items, a shovel and heads outside. After a few minutes of walking, he heads into a graveyard.

"Now to dig his grave..." He said to himself, smiling devilishly.

Peter was just sitting down on a couch, observing the party. It was all so happy. So endearing to hear. He checked his time to see it was 8:00 way past his usual patrol hours. As he was getting lost into his thoughts, someone called out his name.

"Peter?"

He looked up and saw it was her: MJ.

"You ok?"

Peter froze trying to speak to her. He simply nodded and said "Yeah, everything's fine."

MJ sat down next to him, she looked deep into his eyes and said "I don't think you're fine. Is something bothering you?"

Peter looked at her and smiled for a bit and decided to lie, "You are right that you think I'm not fine, it's just I haven't been in a party in a long time."

MJ thought that was weird what he just said. However, to Parker, it was the fact he was with her and Ned again that made him feel like he was punched in the gut. Essentially, he was feeling he wasn't doing the right thing.

Later on, Ned and Betty decided to sit down across from Peter and MJ. Although, the music was loud, they were just talking about life, school, anything on their mind.

Outside of Flash's house, albeit a bit further down the road and from the back, a van parked and out of it came Kraven. He smiled and opened the back door, revealing a cage. A creature was trying to get out, but kept getting shocked.

"Let... me goooo..." It said, being weakened by the shocks.

"It's ok, Vermin. It's ok, I'll let you go, if you can find the Spider for me." Kraven said proudly as he unlocked the cage.

"Sppppp..iiiideeerrrr..." The creature, now called Vermin uttered.

"Yes, the spider... Find him for me..." Kraven ordered. Vermin came out of the cage, leaped out of the van, and started to sniff around. He was headed to Flash's house.

Peter wasn't conversing as much, but that didn't mean he wasn't paying attention to his friends' conversation.

"Say, MJ, do you remember why we were at the Statue of Liberty?" Ned asked. Peter tensed at that, remembering exactly what happened.

MJ replied, "Yeah, I do. I..." She paused trying to remember something, but couldn't. Betty noticed them both making confused faces as well as Peter being scared of something.

Betty was about to speak, then MJ said aloud, "I don't remember why we were there." She started look even more confused than ever ass if trying to remember something, but her head was starting to hurt.

"Yeah, me either. I know we saw the Spider-Man fight and Doctor Strange was there, but I don't remem..." Ned said, feeling unfocused and then started to touch his forehead and appeared to be getting stressed out.

Betty was starting to get worried, "Look guys I think you need to relax, you're at a party. Let's just try to enjoy ourselves." Peter, however, was getting extremely worried. Are they going to remember everything? How would they react if they remember that he said he'll find them and explain everything? Those thoughts overflowed his mind.

MJ calmed down and said, "Yeah, lame party though." Ned stopped touching his forehead and chuckled at that.

Peter nodded, but then his spider-sense alerted him. His eyes widened and he started to look around, trying to locate the danger.

"Peter?" Betty called out to him, seeing he was looking around, for what she didn't know.

"I think a lot of people here need to get out of the party." He declared.

They all looked at him weirdly. "What are you talking abou-" Ned was interrupted by screams of people coming from behind.

Vermin was on all fours, pouncing very fast, and growling. "Sppppppiiiiiiddddeeeerrrrrrrr..." He kept saying as he made his way to crash into Flash's house via the glass door. As he crashed into it, he laid on the ground in a bit of pain, he got up and tried to shrug it off.

The guests were all staring at Vermin and he started to look around then get angry. "RAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRRRRRR!" He let out a mighty roar and started to throw different items around.

Betty, Ned, and MJ were running around trying to escape the house as everyone else did. MJ exclaimed to "Where's Peter?" The other two simply shook their heads.

Unbeknownst to his friends, Peter was on the roof, taking off his clothes to revealing his Spider-Man costume. He jumped down, ran where Vermin crashed, and jumped to the ceiling. Vermin was still growling as people were screaming.

Vermin sniffed and turned to see Spider-Man on the ceiling. He dove onto Vermin, putting him on the ground, but Vermin kicked him off with his long rat-like legs. Peter noticed there was still people inside, he yelled "Out! Everyone get out of here!" They did as they were told running away from the party, some of them as they reached outside started calling their parents. Meanwhile, Flash was outside of his house trying to live-stream with his phone the fight between Spider-Man and Vermin.

Vermin tackled Spider-Man, started to give him scratches on his shoulders, as the hero winced in pain. Spider-Man gave him a right hook causing Vermin to bounce back on the side. They both quickly got back up and ran into each other as if they were mindless animals. Vermin grabbed Spider-Man by the neck and hissed at him.

"Ooooh dude...breath" He quipped as Vermin threw him across the living room, Spider-Man stopped himself from hitting anything and webbed onto the ceiling and just propelled himself to a wall and wall-crawled. Vermin got angry and leaped at him. The webslinger tried dodging his attacks as they were on a wall and Vermin was leaving huge scratches. Spider-Man webbed his face, pulled vermin towards him, and gave him a left hook causing vermin to land on the floor.

Vermin noticed the door was left wide open and there were still people outside running. Spider-Man noticed his new enemy was about to get outside, so he leaped down from the wall and grabbed him the tail.

However, it wasn't long as Vermin slammed him around causing the hero to let go of his tail before exiting. He let out a roar before being grabbed by Spider-Man again by tail, this time he was putting more strength into and swung him around allowing Vermin to be thrown around across the living room. The webslinger then threw in a few kicks to put Vermin down until Vermin grabbed his legs and tossed him outside the house, breaking Flash's front door and this time further to where all Midtowns kids were as he dented a student's car. They were all screaming as Vermin was getting out of the house, growling and snarling.

"Aww man, my car." The student complained, but ran away as Vermin was getting closer to Spider-Man.

Spider-Man got up and tried to shrug the pain off and despite having lots of bloody scratches on him, he was still willing to keep going with this new guy.

Vermin snarled at him, "Sppppppppppppiiiiiiiiiiidddddeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr..."

"I don't suppose you and I can talk." He quipped as Vermin roared and then the webslinger webbed his mouth and quipped again, "There you go! I shut your mouth for you!" Vermin ripped off the web from his mouth and roared again.

Peter then webbed his feet and then tried to cocoon him, however, wherever Vermin got his strength, he was able to break free quickly and then just grab Spider-Man by the neck.

He elbowed Vermin in the stomach, trying to break free, but it was no use.

Peter was having flashes of people before his eyes, May, Tony, and then lastly Osborn which started to make him angrier and give him a huge burst of strength he never had before.

He then webbed Vermin's eyes which allowed peter to be free form his choke-hold. Spider-Man then proceeded to give him a few more punches, however, they weren't stopping. The punches continued and continued.

Everyone was looking at the webslinger in shock. He then saw a flash of Peter-2 in his mind and stopped punching. Vermin was down for the count and he was still breathing, but then he became scared of Spider-Man like an abused child, he got into fetal and was letting out cries.

"Pleeeeezzze no more hithurts..." He pleaded to the hero.

He looked around to see everyone had their phones out and just filming him.

Vermin got up and went into a sewer before Spider-Man could catch up to him someone threw a bottle of water at him and shouted "Murderer!"

He turned to see it was just a student and he glared at them and then saw his friend group staring at him in shock.

MJ was scared and looked frightened of him. Betty and Ned were so astonished their mouths dropped to the floor.

Spider-Man sighed and swung away from the scene. Cops arrived again and were getting everyone's statements.