Aunt May noticed.
Washing the dishes one morning, she saw a small drop of red drip into the sink from Peter's breakfast dish. At first, she thought nothing of it, remembering that her nephew enjoyed the occasional jam with his pancakes. That is, until she realized they had been out the fruity condiment for at least a week now. She continued rinsing the rest of the cutlery and placed all items in the dishwasher, ignoring it.
She walked up the stairs to collect the laundry from Peter's room, pausing when she saw a familiar red stain- this time, on the handrail. It was only a tiny smear, but on the white painted wood, it was very out of place. She raised a brow and wiped it off with her sleeve, wondering if her nephew had been carrying food up to his room and dirtied the furniture with ketchup. *That was something she was sure they had in stock.
"Oh Peter," she sighed as she continued upwards. "We really need to talk about your messy eating habits."
Aunt May shook her head and entered his room, noting the same red smear- this time, on his doorknob. Minutes later, tiny brownish dots on his bedsheets. Needle sized points on his bathroom counter. A drop or two on the windowsill.
"For goodness' sake!" she complained, disgusted by the lack of hygiene. "If you pull this one more time, you're grounded!"
She gathered a few tissues from his bathroom, but before she left to get rid of the unsightly stains, she noticed that one of the drawers near his bathroom sink. Peeking out was the corner of a small hand towel, visibly stained red. She hesitantly opened the drawer, eyes widening as she found the entire hand towel stained with large splotches of maroon.
Apparently, she wasn't the first to try to clean up the mess.
Aunt May dropped the tissues in shock, placing her palms over her face. The laundry had all but been forgotten. Judging by the various shades of red that ranged from crimson to nearly jet black, this rag had been in use for quite some time now, possibly days. In fact, now that she thought about it, Peter had been acting strange for the past week. Sure, he ate and studied and talked to his friends like a normal teenager, but she couldn't help but sense an aura of anxiety that seemed to follow him wherever he went. If she asked, he attributed the tension to an upcoming exam, or worry about a friend who was too sick to come to school. But these excuses seemed so unstable, she wondered if any of them were true in the first place.
Was he hiding a medical problem?
The Green Goblin noticed.
Spider-Man may have been all kinds of a menace to NYC, if J.J.J. had anything to say about it, courtesy of The Daily Bugle, but one thing he wasn't was a litterbug. Despite how many webs he slung onto buildings to help him swing through the cities, the debris never lasted long enough to be a problem. Soon after being abandoned, a rope of web would dissipate into near nothingness, becoming too thin to detect before snapping off and floating like a strand of hair blowing through the wind. This entire process took the span of around 5 minutes, unless the ropes were reinforced. But if you could manage to arrive quickly enough, you could feel the webbing in its peak form before it vanished into the breeze.
And that's just what the Goblin was doing on that cloudy Friday morning.
Spider-Man was too fast to catch this particular day, but it was no matter. The Goblin wasn't ready to pursue until he had studied the wall-crawler more, and he decided that studying his webbing was a good use of his time. Using his hover board, he flew into the air and towards the sides of buildings that still retained ropes of that incredibly strong, yet delicate white fiber.
Although this time, he could have sworn he saw flashes of red.
Time was of the essence. The Goblin swooped down and snatched a few fibers that were still intact, noting the stark color change at their thinning ends. They were painted crimson, and although there wasn't enough to drip, it still adorned enough of the webbing to be significant.
"He must be sustaining an injury," the Goblin mused, letting it intertwine between his fingers.
He flew further into the distance and grabbed more of the blood infused ropes, confirming that he wasn't merely seeing things. It must have been harder to travel through the city with an undoubtedly slipperier grip on these ropes, but that brought up another question- was it really Spider-Man's blood at all? Had he beaten someone brutally and managed to escape? Would the webslinger really stoop to such violence and leave evidence all over the city?
The Daily Bugle would have a field day with this.
————-
Harry noticed.
He was standing by Peter's locker, waiting for him to get out of class so they could meet up for lunch. Upon turning his head, he noticed a drop of red clinging to the dial lock, and one or two on the floor adjacent to his feet. The boy frowned.
"Harry!" a familiar voice called out.
The teen turned to find a blonde girl heading towards him, struggling to hold all her books as usual. "Do you know what's been going on Peter?"
"What do you mean, Gwen?"
"He's gone to the bathroom after class for like the tenth time this week. Don't you think something's wrong with him?"
The ginger shrugged. "Maybe he has a stomach bug?"
Gwen frowned. "Then why is he still at school spreading it?"
Harry had nothing to say to that.
"I'm kinda worried about him," she went on. "I can't tell when it started, but he's been acting really weird lately. He's gone all secretive on us. Do you think it's a mental health thing?"
The boy scratched the back of his neck. "Ah, well. You haven't known him for as long as I have, but sometimes Peter just has these periods of being all inside his own head, and even skips school sometimes. He doesn't tell anyone why."
Gwen tilted her head, confused. "And he won't even tell his best friend why?"
"Well, I tried to ask before, but he's really not into opening up. I didn't wanna pry."
"I think he's going through something right now, and we need to say something about it. Maybe to a teacher or someone. You know what I saw under his desk in history today? Blood!"
Harry's eyes widened, recalling the red tint on the locker. "What?"
"It wasn't much, but it's still something! I think he's hurt and won't tell anyone. Do you think-"
"He's being abused?" the boy cut her off. "That's a pretty big reach. Maybe he just got roughed up. I mean, we deal with Flash every day, so what else is new?"
"Harry," she sighed. "This isn't even the first day he's left blood somewhere. I only noticed three days ago, but who knows how long he's been hiding the damage? Maybe whoever did this to him is threatening him if he ever tells anyone."
"I hope you're wrong, Gwen."
Finally, Peter noticed.
"Oh, that's gross," the brunette groaned as he noticed his English essay now dirtied by small streaks of blood he created while erasing a sentence.
"Something wrong, Mr. Parker?"
Peter glanced up at his teacher and shook his head. "I, um, just need to get a new paper for this assignment."
"This essay is timed, so suggest you don't waste a second," the woman informed him, annoyed.
"Right, yeah."
The boy grimaced as he pulled out a new paper and tried not to get blood on it, wiping his hands on the inside of his jacket first. He grabbed his pencil and scribbled down as much of what he had written down already before continuing to finish his work. As soon as it was complete, he jumped up to hand in the essay before rushing to the bathroom, patting his backpack to ensure that he remembered to bring the fresh box of bandaids he bought from the drugstore.
"Ow," he muttered.
His palms hurt to touch.
Peter finally reached the boy's room and stood in front of the sink, raising his hands to assess the damage. His palms were reddened , skin was scraped off, and blood was oozing from various cuts on both his fingers and the centers. It was as if he had laid his hands on a cheese grater repeatedly, though that was not far from the truth.
Ever since he found his palms becoming sweaty when he swung through the city, his grip had become harder and harder to maintain. At first, he merely wiped his hands off on his costume between sessions, but it wasn't enough. Soon, he was wiping his hands on anything he could with such frequency, the skin was starting to erode right off, exposing raw flesh beneath. Eventually, he needed to carry something around with him to clean remnant blood at all times.
"This isn't working," he told himself, despondent.
And he was correct- no matter how many times he tried to remove the sweat or blood, it always returned as soon as he took to the skies. The only time his symptoms seemed to vanish was when he stayed away from webslinging. He had resorted to climbing on and jumping from buildings instead, but even then, it didn't feel right. The sweat returned, and lately, he could have sworn it made him feel somewhat anxious.
None of this made sense.