A/N: Hey guys, welcome to Black Spider's origin story. This chapter literally consumed my soul for five days, so I hope you like it!
My brain wouldn't even let me play Stardew Valley:'(((
Also, 's lack of format options will be the reason I die.
Since there's no strikethrough, there's bold, and since it won't let me insert paragraph breaks, there's random periods everywhere.
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Doesn't everybody like to say-
"Spider-man's life is defined as a tragedy?"
You see, dear reader, Peter used to be a hero, too.
One of the best, they used to cheer.
But that was a long time ago.
'
One thing that they don't tell you about being a hero-
'
-is that you lose people.
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"I'm sorry, Uncle Ben!"
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Constantly.
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"Eddie?"
"I'm going to kill you, Parker!"
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Over.
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"No, no, no, no, no-please no! Gwen, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! Don't leave me!"
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And Over.
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A gentle kiss on his forehead.
"Peter, I have cancer."
"Aunt May, not you too-!"
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And Over again.
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"I'm sorry, Tiger, but I think it's time we see other people."
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And you just can't stop losing people.
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"It has just been confirmed that Harry Osborn, the heir to Oscorp Industries, was in the tragic building explosion. He was one of many victims of this accident-."
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And it's fine!
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"Kid..?"
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Totally fine!
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"Spider-Man?"
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But then you start losing too many people.
And then you b r ea k.
But that's a spoiler.
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Let's just start with the beginning of the end, shall we?
Though, most people would probably argue that the Green Goblin wasn't the actual trigger.
They would say that it was the people Spider-Man lost along the way.
One by One.
Until he was dangling over a chasm with no support anchor.
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You see, this green goblin decided he was done playing around.
This green goblin decided to make a shit-ton of bombs.
This green goblin decided that he would blow them up unless Spider-Man came to fight him.
And, only Spider-Man.
If another hero tried coming to stop him?
They would get blown up, along with the rest of the city.
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And so, Spider-Man rose to the challenge.
As he always did.
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Everyone in NYC watched their TVs with bated breath, as the fight was broadcasted to the entire city.
Heroes worked frantically, trying to locate and dispose of the bombs without Green Goblin noticing as he and Spider-Man traded blows.
Deadpool intently watched the fight on his TV. A message was sent to Spider-Man from Deadpool when the fight started broadcasting: 'Good luck, webs.'
A young man, not yet betrayed, with still-bright sea-green eyes, carefully studied the fight with his not-dead-yet family beside him.
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Spider-Man punched Green Goblin, knocking him off his feet. He fell, and Spider-Man lifted him, slamming him back against the wall.
"Disarm the bombs!" Spider-Man shouted.
It started raining like the world was trying to warn everyone that something terrible would occur.
Green Goblin laughed. "Why would I do that?"
"Because you've lost!"
"Did you think I would disarm them just because you fought me?" He laughed again. "Fool."
"What?"
"I was distracting you." Green Goblin explained. "They're on a timer. Set to go off automatically. Nothing you or I can do about it now."
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A bomb went off, miles from them.
Car horns rang in the silence.
Civilians screamed as Times Square blew to smithereens.
Emergency sirens blared, converging on the emergency site.
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Something in the back of Peter's mind just- c r ac ke d.
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His vision went red.
He screamed, punching Green Goblin with all of his strength behind it.
(He meant to knock Green Goblin out.)
(But what poor Peter Parker didn't notice was that one of his experimental poisonous stingers had malfunctioned, and as his fist cracked against Green Goblin's, his stinger injected Goblin with a fatal amount of poison.)
(And why would Poor Peter Parker carry any kind of antidote on him? He never planned on bringing these on patrol. It was an accident! They were an experiment he was working on when Green Goblin challenged him.)
And so, poor Peter Parker watched in horror as Green Goblin fell back, violently seizing on the floor.
Within minutes, the Green Goblin was dead.
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(And the entire city watched, horrified.)
(They had just watched their darling hero kill a villain in cold blood.)
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(The Avengers had managed to disarm the other bombs before they went off, not even noticing what Spider-Man had done until it was too late.
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They helped rescue civilians who had been hurt by the explosion in Times Square.
Spider-Man had been spotted too, pulling people out of the rubble.
That was the last time they'd ever see Spider-Man again.
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Countless lives were lost that day.
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And Peter memorized every single one of their names.)
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Peter Parker decided that he was done playing hero.
He hung up his web-shooters and left.
He decided to retire, vanishing to work at a nowhere gas station and be nobody.
And for a time, he was happy.
But Peter Spider-Man never gets to be happy, does he?
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One random, stupid day, Peter finally worked up the courage to go through all the stuff that used to be in his Aunt's house. When she died, he threw it all into storage, not even being able to look at it.
But he decided that he was finally ready to go through it.
What a fucking mistake.
You see, dear reader. Among the clutter was his father's briefcase and all his notes for his research experiments, and Peter, being the dumbass he is, decided to go through it.
And there he found it.
Notes detailing his father's work on the super soldier serum.
How he decided to use a Spider's DNA to develop it.
How he decided to use his own son to test it.
And how it had Shield's insignia all over it.
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Something in the back of my mind s ha t ter e d.
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Peter furiously burst into the meeting room that the agent led him to. "Fury!" He shouted, marching toward the Director of Shield. Without looking away from him, Peter slammed his father's research notes onto the table beside him. "The fuck is this?" He demanded, gesturing to it.
"…Kid?" Peter froze upon hearing Tony Stark's voice.
Fuck.
He turned around and all the Avengers stared at him in varying degrees of shock and confusion.
After all, the last time they had seen the former hero was when he killed Green Goblin.
Peter locked eyes with Tony who just stared at him in concern.
"Kid?" Tony asked again.
When Peter didn't answer, Tony quickly stood and walked over to him. He
carefully looked him over. Upon deeming him fine physically, he cupped Peter's cheek
and lifted it so that he could lock eyes with Peter. Tony intently studied Peter's eyes.
"Are you okay, Peter?" He asked carefully.
Peter just stared at him apathetically.
The unopened text messages and unanswered voicemails from Tony burned a hole in his pocket.
He didn't know what to say.
Once upon a time, he felt comforted when he was wrapped in Tony's arms.
He felt like nothing in the world could hurt him when Tony Stark was hugging him.
But now he felt nothing.
He just felt empty.
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Peter pulled away from Stark's hug.
Turning once more, he faced Fury, who watched his and Stark's interaction with a cold look.
"The fuck is that?" Percy demanded quietly, pointing to his father's research notes, which bore the insignia of Shield for all the world to see.
Unnoticed, Stark stepped toward the scattered notes, flipping through them with a serious look.
"You knew about this?" Peter asked, his volume slowly rising. "About the fact that my father had worked on a super soldier serum for you. About the fact that he decided to experiment on me to perfect it! Did you know that if not for that fucking spider bite, then I'd be fucking dead?"
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The whole room froze.
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"From the minute he injected me with that stuff, I was dead. It was just a matter of when." Peter spat.
Stark exchanged a horrified look with Rodgers.
"So tell me. Did you know?!" Peter shouted, jabbing his finger into Fury's chest.
Fury looked almost bored. "Yes, I did."
"Then why the fuck didn't you tell me?" Peter demanded.
Fury sighed. "You've been on edge, Spider-Man. Losing people left and right. A lot of people watched, waiting for that one little nudge to push you off. I decided that this wouldn't be that nudge."
Peter scoffed. "Well good fucking job, Fury, because you just fucking did." He pushed Fury against the wall with a loud bang and stormed out of the room.
The door slammed shut behind him.
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(What he didn't know was that after Peter left, Stark had read through all the experiment notes.
Every single one of them.
Then he punched Fury in the face.
The other Avengers didn't stop him.)
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Peter barged into his apartment, the door banging against the wall. He stormed inside, his body shaking.
His chest tightened and he screamed, punching the wall.
"Wow, what the wall ever do to you, webs-?" Wade paused, noticing the tears in Peter's eyes. "You okay, baby boy?"
Peter sniffled. "The fuck do you think?"
"Yeah, okay. Fair point." Wade said, twitching in place awkwardly. "Um…do you want a…hug?"
"Please."
Wade wrapped his arms around Peter, holding him up, and Peter felt something in him c ru m bl e.
He tightly clutched onto Wade's shirt, tears streaming down his face. "Why does everyone leave me?"
"I won't leave you," Wade promised, placing his chin on top of Peter's head, holding him tighter.
"...do you promise?"
"Peter, I swear to you that nothing on this Earth will ever separate me from you," Wade vowed, pulling his head back so that he could lock eyes with Peter.
"Thank you," Peter replied quietly.
"Always."
Wade carefully sat down against the wall, tugging Peter to sit with him. Peter curled around Wade, hiding his face in Wade's neck.
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Peter's tears dried and Wade remained as he was, running his hands through Peter's hair.
With each movement of Wade's hand, Peter felt something in his chest warm.
A feeling he hasn't felt in a long, long time.
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Hours later, Peter was the only one still awake.
Wade was fast asleep, drooling on the couch cushions and a blanket thrown on top of him.
Empty takeout boxes were thrown in the trash and the tv had been turned off. It was dark and still. The only thing that could be heard was Wade's snoring.
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Peter's Spider-man outfit and web shooters sat in front of him.
The mask's eyes stared at him accusingly.
The malfunctioning stinger gauntlets lay beside them.
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In the light of a dim lamp, Peter worked like a man scorned, Fury's words echoing in his ears.
He would show Fury who's falling off the fucking edge.
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An hour later, he had fixed the gauntlets, making it so that he could both use the stinger and shoot webs from it. Silently, he adjusted it so that his stingers would intentionally inject that much poison into someone.
He laid out a utility belt, filling it with the antidote to his spider poison, various poisonous darts, and a couple of daggers. On second thought, he threw a couple of protein bars in there as well. Along with a tiny portable med kit.
Throwing out his Spider-Man outfit, he sewed together a new black and red spider-themed one. This time he attached a hood and engineered a pair of combat boots that would still let him wall crawl. He also developed a pair of high-tech night goggles that he would wear over his mask.
Then, he worked on an experimental spider bot that could hack into any computer it was placed on and retrieve any files on said computer automatically.
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When Wade awoke, the Black Spider greeted him in full costume.
"Say hello to Black Spider, the new and upcoming merc for hire," Peter said, offering his hand to Wade.
"Are you sure, webs? This isn't something you can just-."
"I'm sure."
Wade sighed. "Okay, if you insist, webs. Nice to meet you, Black Spider!" He shook Peter's hand.
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(Months later, when Black Spider officially debuts, the civilians eye him wearily but hold their tongues.
They all know who Black Spider is.
Spider-Man goes missing, and then a brand new spider-themed mercenary appears with a similar skill set? Yeah, doesn't take much brain power to figure out that he used to be Spidey.
But none of them say a single word.
They all remember who Spider-Man used to be.
They all remember that broadcast fight years ago, and they don't say a fucking thing.)
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(The Avengers hold their tongues too, remembering a certain red and blue hero who used to swing joyfully across the city.
Who used to chatter cheerfully in the comms during team-up missions.
Who had lost everyone he had known and loved and still fought the good fight.
They all held their silence even more, remembering the reason why he became a mercenary in the first place.)