New York City. A cool, crisp Fall morning was promised as the first orange rays of sunlight stretched lazily over the skyline. Far below, another event was ushering in a sense of normalcy.
The van's tires squeeled as the driver whipped the wheel and pressed the accelorator as far as it would go. It shot down the road, police cars in hot persuit. Said driver, Herman Shultz, grumbled as he chanced a glance at the rear view mirror and still saw re and blue flashing lights.
"Hey!" he shouts. "What are you two doing back there?"
"Well," says Flint Marko, "For one thing, we're holding on for dear life while you whip this fucking van back and forth like a rollar coaster!"
"Yeah," Phineas Nelson chimes in now. "I'm gonna puke if you keep it up!"
Shultz fixes Nelson with a deadly glare via the rear view mirror.
"Throw up on that money, pal, and they'll be fishing pieces of you out of the Hudsen till NEXT Christmas! Now grab those guns and do what I'm paying you for!"
Marko and Nelson exchanged annoyed looks but did as their told, reaching into the duffle between them and fishing out two military grade assault rifles.
"Ho-ly!" Marko says, examining the weapon. "Where the hell did you get something like this?"
"Lets just say," Herman says with a smile, "Our current empoyer has deep pockets, and even deeper connections."
Marko smiles as he stands and carefully makes his way to the open back, firing at the police cars.
Unfortunately for them, it wasn't just the police chasing them. Far above them, a sillouette flew between the skyscrapers. Unseen, unheard, it slowly fell, following the van and getting closer and closer.
Herman's eyes shot up as something thudded against the roof. "What the hell?"
Flint and Phineas's eyes looked up, too, following the sound of...footsteps?
Finally, a head popped down from the roof.
"Hi, there!"
At first, the two men didn't know what they were looking at. Bright red, two giant white eyes, black...veins? Then, something clicked in Phineas's mind. Something he'd read online.
"Holy shit!" he shouts. "The Spider-Man!"
"Wow!" the muffled voice, definately male, said. "You catch on fast for someone stupid enough to rob a bank! Say, I don't suppose I could convince you guys to pull over and just...let the cops take you, could I?"
Phineas was still staring, mouth hanging open, but Flint was shaken from his shock by mention of the police.
"Fat chance!" he shouts, raising his gun and firing. The masked head dissapeared for a moment, then, far faster than a human should be able to, the figure had grabbed the roof and hung himself from it, grabbed Flint's gun, and thrown it on the roof.
"Nah, ah! You'll shoot your eye out, Ralphie!"
Then he shoots some sort of rope from his hand, onto Phineas's weapon, yanking it away.
"And as for you, Poindexter, you haven't ONCE shown proper ediquite this entire firefight!"
Flint stares a second, then huffs and swings at him.
The figure easily dodges the punch, swinging himself from the door up to the enside roof.
"Your gonna have to try harder than that, tough guy."
Again, Flint punches, and again the spandex clag figure dodges.
"SO close!"
Another punch, another dodge.
"Say, your good at this!"
Another dodge.
"The whole 'missing' thing, that is."
Flint bellows as he goes for one more punch, but instead of dodging, the man catches the thief's fist, then effortlessly throws him back further into the van. He drops from the roof now that he has room.
"And for my next trick!" he calls, pushing Phineas back, too. He raises both hands and more of the rope shoots out. It sticks to the two men, trapping them against the van floor and instantly hardening like cement.
He then jumps out and ahead of the van, shooting more rope so it creates a barrier that the already speeing van drives right into, trapping it.
"There," the man in the suit says. "That aughta hold you till those cops catch up."
"You!" Herman Shultz bellows. "I'll get you for this, you...you freak! You...you...what the hell ARE you?!"
"Don't you know, guy?" the man says, shooting off another rope and pulling himself into the shiny New York morning. "I'm your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!"
Peter swung himself into the air, a scream of joy bubbling from his chest and bursting free as he reached the arc of the swing and let go, sending himself souring into the endless sky. Gravity reclaimed him, and he let himself fall, arms outstretched like a diver as the buildings around him blurred past. At this height, at this speed, New York was like an abstract painting. A dizzying cacophony of colors and lights zooming by so fast he doubted he'd be able to make any sense of it if not for his enhanced senses. And it was beautiful.
He let loose another strand of webbing, letting his spider-sense guide his aim. Sure enough, the thin line quickly pulled tout, and he was moving forward again. Peter smiled underneath his mask. To think he'd once been affraid of heights. He still remembers the first time he did this, five years ago. He'd climbed to the top of an abandoned warehouse, and was standing on the very edge of the roof. Prototype web shooters clamped to his wrists, webline in hand, it had taken him five minutes to work up the courage to jump, but from that moment, he'd been hooked.
(Italics) BEEP BEEP BEEP
Peter reached up and tapped the bluetooth earbud in his left ear.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Pete," Harry Osborne's voice greeted. "Just making sure your awake in time for our first day of college!"
Peter chuckled. Harry Osborne was, by all accounts, Peter's oldest and best friend. Which was kinda sad concidering they'd only met in their sophomore years of high school. Who would've thought that Harry Ozborne, rich, popular basketball star and Peter Parker, king of the geeks, would've hit it off so well after a single, teacher-inforced tutoring session?
"Hey, Har. Course I am! You know I've been looking forward to this day for years."
"FInally," Harry said in what Peter suspected was his honest attempt at a Shakespear actor impression, "You can be among your own kind. Science dweebs!"
Peter laughed. "Yeah, and YOU can be among YOUR own kind. Stuck up buissiness types."
"Yeah, I'll remember that little crack when you come to Ozcorp with your first great invention." He didn't even try to his the smile in his voice.
"You do that," Peter laughed back.
"Say, Pete, you feeling okay? Your breathing pretty hard."
"Uhh, yeah, I'm fine," Peter says, letting himself land on a roof and catch his breath. "Just getting a quick workout in before I head out."
"Working out? You? Who are you, and what have you done with Peter Parker?"
Peter laughed again, injoying how the sun feels through his mask.
"Hey, you know that old saying. Healthy body, healthy mind!"
"Yeah, okay. I gotta go, my new bodyguard has the car waiting. Don't let your new workout routine make you late, Arnold Schwarzenegger."
Empire State University was a large, modern campus in the heart of Manhattan. Students moved to and fro, hurrying, wanting to make a good impression on the first day. Addriane Tombs stood in the floor of his large, underground lab, waiting for his latest batch of freshman to file in. He loved this. Loved molding young minds, teaching them the wonders of science.
"Welcome, everyone," he said as the students filed in, "to Robotics 101! I am Addriane Tombs, and I will be your instructor for this semester. Now, some of you may be wondering what an old crow like me has to teach a bunch of young people about robotics." Nervous laughter filled the room. Addriane smiled. "Understandable. Come, let me show you."
He led the students across the hall. This room had once been the welding lab, so there was a row of smaller rooms on the side wall. Addriane had lined the doors with his various robotics projects. He led them through each one, explaining the design process, whether it had been funded or not and why it had or how he'd improved it depending, where it was being used nowadays etc.
Finally they got to the last room.
"This is my latest project," Addriane says as he gestures to the pair of wings hung on the wall. "A harness and pair of wings that will allow the wearer to fly."
"Who's this one for?" A student asked.
"The military, of course," Addriane asnwered. "Paratroopers to be more exact. Able to achieve a safer landing than parashoots, and they'll be able to fly back out without needing to be picked up. Now then, moving on to the work we'll be doing..."
Peter walked into the classroom, suprised to see he was on time for once. Maybe he was starting a hang of this whole 'secret identity, double life' thing. He scanned the auditorium and decided on the seat closest to the front as he could get. He was in the corner, only beside a dark haired kid in a sweatshirt.
"Hey, there," the kid said, suprising Peter as he sat down. "I'm Amadeus Cho."
Peter smiled awkwardly. "That's quite a mouthful."
The kid shrugged, smirking. "That's probably why everyone but my mom just calls me Cho."
"Nice to meet you, Cho. I'm Peter Parker."
Just then, the teacher walked in. He was a young looking man, Peter guessed early fourties at most. He was tall and slim, with close cropped blonde hair and blue eyes. When he smiled to the class, Peter got the feeling he would be a kind, warm teacher.
"Good morning, class. Welcome to Bio 101. My name is Curtis Conners, and I'll be your professor. Now, let's dive into the sylybus..."
Peter walked home later that day, feeling better about school than he had in a long time. Maybe college really would be all it's cracked up to be!
As he walked up to the door, he started to knock, but thought better of it. May liked to nap this time of day. He pressed his ear to the door to see if he could here her.
"I just don't know what I'm going to do, Anna."
Peter sucked in a breath.
"Oh, come on, May. Surely it's not THAT bad," came the voice of May's friend, Anna Watson.
"It is. I'm THOUSANDS behind on the morgage! Ben's life ensourance was supposed to pay it off, but I-I guess because of the housing market, and the economy, it just wasn't enough."
Peter felt his heart speed up. Anger flooded him. It just didn't seem real. Thousands? Sure, they'd had to pinch a few pennies since Ben died, but...THOUSANDS? Peter decided to make his interence now, lest he risk hearing something that would send him into cardiac arrest.
"Hey, Aunt May, I'm home!"
"Oh! Peter, dear!" May said, covering the letter about the morgage with a magazine. "How was your first day? You must tell me ALL about it!"
Anna excused herself as Peter and May ate and talked about their respective days. Peter tried his best to keep up a brave face as May described enduring a two hour shift at the hospital. He must've done a good job because she never once asked if he was okay. He finally managed to get a glimpse of the letter. Yep, thousands.
That night, Peter sat in front of his computer, head in his hands. He was about to do the one thing he swore he'd never do again It was just too humiliating. And how much WORSE would it be after quitting to start college? He didn't even know how he was going to do it along with college and Spidey stuff. But he HAD to do it. After all, how much had May sacrficed for him? He sighed and began drafting the email.
"Dear J Jonah Jameson..."