At the sound of the Mercenary Hero's voice, Peter breathed a sigh of relief. He wished he could've scored more points, hopefully what he had would be enough. But that didn't matter at the moment. The giant robot was no longer a threat and Wanda could get proper medical treatment. He lay her body gently on the ground, allowing himself to catch his breath.
Meanwhile around them, other examinees began to talk and whisper about what just happened. "Did you see what he did?" A boy asked, watching Peter sit down next to Wanda.
"I thought he just had some kind of rope creation quirk, I never imagined he'd have all that strength," added another. "Wonder if he got enough points?"
"Who knows?" Said a girl. "I didn't even notice him until he launched himself into that robot. But that was really cool..."
All the freshmen present discussed the whole situation of the boy, having worked so hard to stop something that so big, nearly passing out from exhaustion.
Two boys in particular, who watched Peter lay on the ground, were having similar thoughts. Everyone is missing the point... thinks the Afro-descendant boy, watching the boy from Deadpool's lecture in amazement.
Didn't they see what he did? The blond thought, recognizing the boy from the entrance to the simulation area. He risked everything...
...Just to save that girl, the dark-skinned one accidentally complements the blond. He must have know how much time he had left...
But even with all these concerns, he didn't hesitate to jump, added the blond.
So... of course, I would/should have done the same, are the thoughts of the dark and light skinned boys respectively. The exam, the judges, surely they saw that...
"Ok, back up everyone, please!" A voice from behind the group of teenagers calls out. "Whoever has no problem, please stay back. This is a medical situation!"
The voice was that of a woman wearing a blue nurse's uniform, she was hurriedly putting blue latex gloves on her hands as she ran to examine the two fallen students.
The woman herself had dark brown hair with a slight wave falling over her shoulders, with slightly brown skin, full lips, a wrinkled nose, and thin eyebrows over dark brown eyes. She had a serious expression as she approached the fallen redheaded girl.
"Whoa, who's the hot nurse?" Asked a boy with hormones on his sleeve.
"That beauty," began the boy with the helmet floating down. "She's the heart of M.A; Claire Temple, the Night Nurse."
Back with the nurse, she went down towards the boy who was still breathing hard. She noticed the purple wrists and the dried blood clinging to his arms. "My God..." Claire said, watching the boy struggle to sit back up. His Quirk is destroying his body, it's like he barely knows his own power, thought the heroine. "You should lay back down," she called out. "Let me come to you!"
"Wait!" Said the boy, who held a hand up and gestured to an unconscious Wanda. "Help her first," he finished.
Claire looked at the girl, then back to Peter, as if evaluating who was in more immediate need of her help. Finally, she nodded at the boy and went over to Wanda.
Peter helped Claire to sit up Wanda. She quickly picks up her stethoscope, listening to various points on the girl's torso, to see if there was something wrong with her breathing. But there was nothing.
"Um, the issue is her leg," Peter quipped.
Claire gave the boy a bit of side eye, "I'm aware of this. I'm also checking to make sure she doesn't have any internal damage that we don't know about." She looked over the splint on Wanda's leg, "I saw you make a Human-Hare Splint. Where'd you learn how to do that?"
Peter scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "My Aunt works in a hospital, and I watched a lot of medical shows growing up..."
"Huh," Claire was suitably impressed. "You did good, but you can take that off now. I've got it covered." The boy looked at her questioningly, then slowly begins to unwrap the splint.
She quickly takes one of the gloves from her hand and placed it on the girl's leg. Claire took a deep breath and activates her own Quirk, with Wanda being covered in a greenish light. Her leg begins to repair slowly, with the muscles regenerating and the skin repairing, until there was no indication that it happened at all.
"What's she doing?" Asked a bystander.
"Apparently, you've never seen the Heroine Nurse in action," said the boy in the helmet. He deactivates his Quirk and removed his helmet, revealing messy black hair and lilac eyes. "Her Quirk is an incredible increase of the affected person's ability to heal. It's the only reason M.A is able to maintain these reckless exams."
Presently, Wanda stirred, slowly opening her eyes to see Peter and Claire squatting down next to her. "W-What happened?" She asked.
"You passed out," replied Claire. "Between the nature of your injury and using your power, I'm amazed you were able to stay conscious at all."
"But you totally saved me from crashing!" Said Peter, smiling broadly at the girl. "Thanks!!"
Wanda blushed slightly as she smiled back, "It's the least I could do, after all you did..."
"Alright, now let me look at you," said the Night Nurse, turning to Peter. The boy turned over his arms, revealing his wrists. Wanda cringed at the sight of the open wounds. "Does this happen every time you use your Quirk?" Asked Claire.
"Only with the webs, but yeah," Peter replied.
Claire looked somewhat troubled, but put her hands on Peter's arms and began to heal him. "You may want to consider not using it in the future," she said. "I can see how it would come in handy. But unless you use it differently, and this type of damage is consistent, it will have long-term effects on your health..."
Peter looked at his arms, the blood disappears and the wounds close up. There's still the small hole where the web is supposed to emerge naturally, and the boy processed what Night Nurse was telling him.
Three days had passed since the practical exam. Peter was at a loss over how he would place in comparison to the other examinees. Sure he managed to score a few points, but would it be enough? He didn't want to let Mr. Stark down after all the work he'd put in. The boy had a lot to think about, but he had to put his mind on something else before he went nuts.
He thought back to Claire's warning about his webs. Sure, he could safely remove his webbing slowly without bleeding. But in a high stakes situation where it could be the difference between life and death, not so much.
Peter decided to do a little research, taking a sample of his web and examining it under his microscope. It didn't tell him much more than Tony had previously determined. It starts as a gel-like liquid that solidifies when coming into contact with oxygen, dissolving after about an hour.
Mr. Stark had provided a box of airtight cartridges so Peter could extract the web while in its fluid state. It was easier to do than to just slowly let it drop out on its own. The process took about 3 minutes to fill a cartridge, and while he still had to drain his arms every couple days, it ensured that the web fluid didn't build up within his body and try to burst out of his wrists.
But now, there was roughly 20 or so cartridges full of the stuff just sitting in the box by his desk. The boy began to think, what if there was a way he could still use the webs, but without hurting himself?
He'd seen footage of Black Widow using a grappling hook that shot out of her gauntlets, so he decided to use that as inspiration. Heh, a spider learning from another spider, Peter chuckled. This in turn sparked a memory of reading his dad's old notes back when he made support gear
While Richard Parker never made something quite as intricate as the infamous 'Widow's Bite', he had developed a dart launcher that attached to the wrists at one point. There were even specs for the original prototype, but Peter didn't exactly have that kind of tech laying around the house.
So, the boy did what any struggling inventor without access to cash would do: he went dumpster diving. Finding outdated phones, keyboards, and even a broken computer monitor, Peter would extract wires, circuit boards, and whatever else he could salvage.
He wound up trading a vintage Iron Man action figure at the local pawn shop in order to obtain a soldering iron. For days on end, Peter would be working in his room, trying over and over to make something close to the specs.
"The results should arrive today or tomorrow, right?" Aunt May asked him a week after the exam. She was cleaning off some shelves, using her quirk to float the objects towards her. And the boy remained sitting on the couch, attempting to fit a web cartridge into his prototype shooter.
"Mmhmm..." He replied, trying not to show any emotion. Peter was having conflicting feelings, both wanting and not wanting to know his results. He installed the cartridge, then strapped the device to his wrist.
"What's that?" Asked May.
"It's a web shooter," Peter replied. "Something to hopefully help me use my quirk better." He looks around, then taking aim at the front door, pressed a button in the middle of his palm.
Unfortunately, after a brief spark, the web doesn't shoot forwards as intended. Following a quick tingle of his Spider Sense, the webbing instead exploded out the top and covers Peter's upper body. Aunt May had to stifle a laugh as she watched her nephew struggle. "Back to the drawing board, it seems," she said.
Peter looked up, a slight smile on his face over the absurdity of the situation. "Also, new rule: no webs in the living room. It's hard enough cleaning actual spider webs," May added.
"Yes ma'am," Peter sighed, pulling the webs off him.
Something else went through the boy's head: Iron Man. His hero had seen potential in him. Even though at first he wanted to remove the quirk from his body, he really believed in the boy. He believed that he would be a worthy successor to inherit his energy. Peter would be devastated if he disappointed him.
Of course, Peter wouldn't change his actions during the Exam. Sure, he would've liked to be more attentive, find the robots earlier and get more points. But there was mo way would he change his last act in order to try to help the girl. He'd done what he thought was right. And if that cost him the chance of attending M.A, then so be it.
Suddenly, he heard his aunt reenter the room, running and screaming. "Peter! Peter! Peter!" She yelled, clutching an envelope in her hand. Her expression was a mix of happiness and foreboding. It was here, the white envelope was sealed with the acronym M.A. Now was the moment of truth...
Outside her nephew's room, May found herself pacing back and forth, just as nervous as the teen on the other side. Peter looked at that envelope as if it would explode at any moment. One of two things would happen next; he'd failed the test and would have search for another heroes course, or he'd passed, and he could begin his climb to become the number one hero in earnest.
Shaking his head as if to get the thoughts out of his head, the boy tore open the envelope, revealing a folded letter and a small metal disk. It fell out of the envelope and landing on his desk, instantly activating a holographic message... with Iron Man on a screen that appeared in front of the boy.
"Is this recording now? God, I hate dealing with HammerTech..." The hero appeared before him wearing his armor with his face shield open.
"M-Mr. Stark!?" The boy asked, confused. "But this is from M.A, right?"
"Kid, I'm just gonna assume you're talking to me like I'm there, so I'm gonna cut you off by telling you this is a recording." He stepped away from the screen and sat in an armchair behind him. "I just wanted you to be the first to know that I recently accepted a job at M.A as a teacher. You know, new horizons and all that..."
Iron Man's working at M.A? Peter asked himself.
"Wait, I gotta do how many different messages?" Tony seemed to be talking to someone off-screen. Finally, he pinches between his eyes and gives a tired sigh, "Ok, ok, let's get to it. So kid, you managed to score 36 points in the practical exam. A respectable number, but unfortunately most of your peers scored even higher..."
Peter's animation begins to drain, a feeling of frustration and disappointed starts to take over. But then, Tony speaks again, "Luckily for you, that's not all we would evaluate! But first, take a look at this. "
The hologram changes to another video, this time with the a familiar girl with a red bow entering a room. She wore a red jacket, and looked a little sad.
"Excuse me..." She says nervously to whoever was there. From the camera's vantage point, it was a person with dark, greying hair and wearing a suit, but his back was to the screen. "There was this boy in the same area as me. Thin, messy brown hair, his name's Peter..."
Peter's eyes widened as he realized she was talking about him. "...Is it possible for me to give him some of my points? I-I heard people saying he didn't get enough to pass..."
"You're not going to M.A, Parker..." Peter hears Flash's words mixing with the girl's.
"At least the points he lost because of me..." she insisted with a flushed cheeks. "He saved me!"
"Along with now having a Quirk..." continued Mr. Stark, appearing on his back in front of the paused video "Your actions influenced the actions of others." He then turns to face Peter "The exam wasn't counted only with points for destroying villains... How could a course for heroes reject people who save others and do what's right? Do you call that keeping the promise? This is a job that requires taking a chance to put that promise into practice. And so, we have RESCUE POINTS!" The hero said excitedly, his screen is replaced by a scoreboard.
His name was in third position. "Peter Parker..." continued Iron Man "60 Rescue Points! Making a total of 96 Points!!" Peter couldn't believe his name was among the top ten selected. "And Wanda Maximoff, 45 Rescue Points! For a total of 73 Points!!" Wanda was placed in fifth position.
"You both passed, so you can rest easy now," said the hero, returning to his normal demeanor. "Nice work, kid. You made it. So come on, you're going to Marvel Academy. This is your hero academia."
Peter couldn't contain his joy. Tears fell down his cheeks. I did it, Uncle Ben, was all the boy could think. There was an almost hesitant knock on his bedroom door.
"Peter...?" Aunt May gently opened the door.
The boy turned to look at her. He had a big smile on his face. "I'm in," he said simply. Tears began to stream down May's face as a smile slowly grew.
"Congratulations Peter!!" She rushed over and gave him a big hug. "I'm so proud of you!!!" Peter hugged her back, relieved that the first hurdle had been cleared. Now, the work began in earnest.
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Barber's Chair
• Introduction to Claire Temple, here in place of Recovery Girl, and fan favorite character from the Marvel Netflix series.
• It seems Pete learned a few things from his Aunt. Helps to have a nurse in the family! Also, I'm a fan of the show Royal Pains, and got the Human Hare Splint from there.
• Got a little more background into Peter's father, he was something of an inventor himself!
• "Web Shooters?? But Peter has organic webs, right?" I'm equating them to tech like the belt Aoyama wears for his Naval Laser in MHA, but with enough of a twist so they'll be more like the comics! Of course, they won't be built overnight, expect more trial and error before he has a working set.
