Lying Heart

At dinner that night Peter head is still spinning. He tries a hundred times to think of anything peculiar in his childhood, anything out of the ordinary. Did his father inject him with something? Was he conscious for it? He must not have known what it was, that much he knows for sure, because even at six he was very alert and curious.

But when you trust someone the way Peter trusted his parents, with all the blind loyalty and love a six-year-old can offer, why would you have any reason to be suspicious of their intentions?

He wonders if his mother knew. If she tried to stop him. He wonders what on earth his father had planned for him—what did he think was going to happen? Had he ever planned to activate it intentionally, or was he going to let his son remain a ticking time bomb for the rest of his life? If he did all this to him, something so permanent and obviously carefully planned, why would he disappear that night, and why wouldn't he have left even the slightest of explanation behind?

He tries to make himself feel better by assuring himself that his father probably thought that the abilities would never be an issue, because they would never be activated. It's easier to think that this was not a fate somebody chose for him.

It doesn't change the fact that it happened anyway.

"What's on your mind, Peter?" Aunt May asks over spaghetti.

Peter shrugs.

"You seem distracted."

"College applications," he says, even though he turned everything in a week ago. She drops the subject—Peter is decidedly in the clear for once—but he can't help himself from asking. "Aunt May," he says carefully, "how much did you know about my father's research?"

She purses her lips. "Oh, Peter. I wish I could tell you."

"Because you can't tell me, or you don't know?"

"Because I don't know," Aunt May says, her eyes honest and weary.

"Anything?" Peter asks, trying not to sound desperate. "I mean, not even the tiniest little thing. He never—he never said anything before he left that night, anything about—" He would talk about the formula but he doesn't want Aunt May to know anything more than she needs to, just in case. "What did he say that night, before they left?"

Aunt May shakes her head. "I spoke to your mother that night, Peter, and she was mostly concerned about you."

"She didn't say anything—out of the ordinary?"

Aunt May looks at him sadly, with an expression that makes her seem much older to him than she has in the past. "Oh, Peter. I've told you everything she said to me a dozen times over the years. Whatever you're looking for … I'm sorry."

"But I just thought that," Peter starts, but he can't think of how to explain to her without unintentionally getting her involved. He takes a breath, trying hard to relax his face out of its scowl. "My father. You didn't talk to him at all?"

"Peter," says Aunt May, surprised by his persistence, "I swear to you, I've told you everything that I know. What has gotten into you?"

"He didn't talk to you? He didn't talk to Uncle Ben?"

She takes too long to respond.

"He talked to Uncle Ben," Peter realizes, his face paling. "How long were they talking?"

Aunt May has shifted from exasperated to concerned. "Peter, it was eleven years ago, your mother was a wreck and I was trying to write down a hundred and one things—I honestly couldn't tell you, it was all happening so fast."

"He talked to Uncle Ben," Peter says again, his stomach sinking, the situation becoming all too clear. Uncle Ben had known, Peter is suddenly certain without a single doubt. It explains all of the impromptu talks about good and evil, all the unwarranted lectures and reassurances about his morality, and more than anything, it explains the voicemail—the last words of Uncle Ben's Peter ever heard, which were ominous and foretelling in their own right.

Uncle Ben had known for years, and probably knew that Peter's abilities had been activated before his premature death.

Suddenly Peter is furious at the world beyond words. Not only has his uncle been taken from him too soon, but now he realizes that the only person on earth who could have helped him, the only one who would have understood and been able to offer him any sort of guidance, is gone.

He tries to keep his breathing even. He doesn't want to scare Aunt May. But the blow of realization is so crushing that it becomes less of an issue of keeping his breathing and more of an issue of breathing at all. He is reeling. He can't believe this.

Everybody who can help him is gone. His father. His uncle. Gwen.

His eyes snap up and he sees his aunt staring at him in alarm. "Peter," she asks quietly. "What's going on?"

He finally takes a breath. He has to calm down. He reminds himself that he is being ridiculous, that he is far from alone—he has Aunt May, who is gentle and far too understanding of him, who always knows just what to say and what not to.

"It's fine," says Peter. "I just … I need to go for a walk."

The walk becomes a subway ride into the city. He isn't sure where he is going. He wanders through the streets, letting himself get swallowed up by post-holiday shoppers and tourists. He avoids the newspapers. Spiderman's disappearance is so old it is no longer front page news. It makes him anxious. Three days seems far too long to wait, especially now that the man seems to think there will be an attack much worse than the ones before.

He wanders over to Gwen's apartment. It takes over an hour to walk there and she isn't even home, but he needs to walk and he can't think of any other destination in the city worth walking toward. He ducks into a coffee shop near her place and sulks over a drink.

"Parker."

Peter flinches. He looks up reflexively and sees it's none other than Richard, who seems to have abandoned his coffee and wallet at another table to approach him. Richard is probably the last person on earth Peter wants to see, but he noisily and ostentatiously pulls up a chair anyway and sits down.

"'Lo," Peter mumbles into his drink, barely bothering to make eye contact.

Richard leans in. His voice is low and threatening. "I heard that voicemail you left on Gwen's phone," he says.

"What?" Peter hasn't left a voicemail on Gwen's phone. And then he remembers—the apology, after the almost-kiss in his bedroom. "Oh," he says. "Wow. You're listening to her voicemails? Man, that's—"

"You need to back off, Parker," says Richard. "I don't know what it was that you were referring to in that message—but you had better not have laid a hand on her."

"I didn't," Peter says defensively, "Jesus, I didn't, were you even listening to what I said when you hacked into your girlfriend's private voicemails? Nothinghappened." He sets his jaw. "And that aside, you don't get to tell me what to do."

"Like hell I can't tell you what to do," says Richard. "She's dating me, Parker. Get it through your head."

"Are you saying maybe you don't trust your girlfriend as well as you thought you did?" Peter challenges him, his tone steady and low.

"No. I'm saying you're crossing the line, Parker, and I'm warning you."

Peter tries unsuccessfully to suppress a snort. "You're warning me?"

"That's right," says Richard, looking undeterred. "I don't care what it takes to get you out of the picture, Parker, but I will do it. I know you think you have a chance," he continues condescendingly, "I'm sure you think you're so slick when you steal her away for a few hours with something stupid like shopping or studying, but listen up—it isn't real."

Peter keeps his expression as neutral as he possibly can, because the truth is Richard has hit the nail on the head and he doesn't want to give himself away.

"For something that isn't real, you seem awfully bothered by it," he says.

Richard's eyes are glinting with fury. His shoulders are tensed as if he is making every effort in the world not to reach out and sock Peter in this incredibly public place. "I am not bothered. I'm not here because I think of you in any way as a threat. I'm here because you're harassing the girl I love, and I can't just sit around and watch and not do something about it."

"The girl you love?" Peter repeats. He shakes his head, convinced that Richard is full of it, but when he looks up he sees nothing but sincerity in the other boy's eyes. Peter looks away, quickly—he doesn't want to think about Richard this way, as someone who is fiercely devoted to Gwen the same way he is, as someone who has real, human emotions and might be able to give Gwen everything she needs. "No. No, man, you've only been dating for what, like a month?"

"I love her," Richard repeats, through grit teeth, "and yes, it's only been a month, but—Gwen is the kind of girl you fall in love with, and if you can't understand that—well then you wouldn't have deserved her anyway."

Peter stares at his empty coffee cup, unconsciously crushing it between his fingers. The trouble is that he understands all too well. The trouble is that Peter probably loved Gwen before he even met her. The trouble is that it doesn't matter who loves her more, or who she would choose, because none of this has any substance—this petty little competition between the two of them isn't worth a thing, because Peter will inevitably lose. If he wants to be able to face himself in a mirror, he has to lose.

He is about to surrender to Richard, to tell him he's right and that he wishes the best for them, he really is. But then the both of them look toward the window, where an ominous shadow has just passed over the street, and several dozen people have started to point at the sky and shriek.

"The robots," says Peter, nearly knocking over the table in his haste to get up. He doesn't know what his intentions could possibly be, but he knows he can't sit in a coffee shop for this, abilities or not.

"Shit, man." Richard's eyes are wide, locked on the window. "Shit. What do we do?"

"I don't know," says Peter, and then he tears off into the street.

It is chaos, absolute chaos, but whatever is attacking is nowhere in sight. Peter has never been more frustrated to be grounded in his whole life. His first instinct is to throw himself up at the nearest building and crawl, but one look at his hands and he knows he is still as powerless as he was the day before.

There has to be something he can do. He stands in the middle of the street, letting passerby crash into him as he stares up at the sky.

His suit is in his backpack, and he knows the robot is out for his blood. Even without his powers, if he can trick it into thinking he's an able-bodied Spiderman, maybe it will bide them enough time for the man to track its location, enough time that it won't kill any more civilians than it already has.

He runs back into the coffee shop. Everyone is gone now, including Richard, and Peter changes into his suit in a stall in mere seconds. By the time he hits the streets again he is one of the few people left outside, and then, finally, he sees it—far above the city is another robot, but this one is much smaller, maybe half the size of the previous models, not to mention sleeker and faster.

Peter runs takes off, intending to run into an open intersection and get its attention, but an arm suddenly yanks him back.

"What are you thinking?"

It's the man from before. Peter shakes him off angrily. "I'm thinking that this thing is going to kill a bunch of people if someone doesn't get out there and distract it."

"For what, ten seconds? And then you're dead. Useless," the man hisses angrily. "You have to think, Peter—"

"Well, what are you proposing, then, if you seem to have all the answers?" Peter yells back, not even considering the overly-familiar use of his first name in the midst of his frustration.

He pulls out a needle full of blue liquid. "This is not the final product, not by far. There is a chance it will immediately restore your abilities, but moreover there is a chance of a lot of other risks as well—"

"Do it," says Peter, offering his arm.

"You need to know that there are incalculable potential consequences to—"

"Do it," Peter demands, "you know we don't have much time."

The man doesn't hesitate this time. He jabs the needle into Peter's arm. For a moment he doesn't feel a thing; then his entire body, every vein, every nerve, every fiber, is suddenly on fire. It feels like nothing he has ever felt before. He sucks in a breath, opens his eyes, aims a biocable toward the nearest building and soars.

Thank you guys so much for wishing me luck last night! It went SPECTACULARLY, I could not have had more fun. A bunch of nine year olds even mistook me for an important person and I signed autographs for the first (and most likely last) time. And the main act was such a blast to watch. Like, everyone got up and danced and I didn't look like the biggest idiot in the room for once with the three dance moves I know (which are: the awkward noncommittal shuffle, pointing my hand up at the sky, and doing that weird little thing where you plug your nose and wave your hand and act like a drowning fish).

I'd like to take this opportunity to shout out to my little sisters, because even though you didn't answer the home phone the two times I called today, I know for a fact you are both reading this, so here goes: PLEASE KEEP THE HOUSE CLEAN FOR MOM'S BIRTHDAY, and if you do I might let you both read a chapter a day early. MIGHT.

And if you don't clean the house, I'm holding this story hostage and everyone else reading it will know that you're to blame. La la la la la.