Chapter 4: New Suit
Five days have passed by since Ben Parker was shot in cold blood in the borough of Queens, New York as a cloudy morning dawns over a cemetery close by to the Parker residence. Peter continues to isolate himself from his friends, especially Gwen. The guilt, the shame, the responsibility that he feels for his uncle's death continues to weight down on him with tremendous force. Regardless of Peter's self-imposed isolation, his friends are here at Uncle Ben's funeral for Peter. Gwen, Mary Jane, Liz, even Betty along with a few teachers from school show up to show their support for Peter. George Stacy is there as well, standing next to Gwen on what feels like a lifeless Saturday morning. Peter shifts his glance down towards the tombstone embedded in the grass.
Benjamin Franklin Parker
December 7th, 1967 – August 13, 2024
Beloved Husband and Uncle
After the funeral comes to a close, Peter and May Parker silently leave the cemetery after May thanks everyone for coming and for their support. Peter, still stands there looking down at the gravestone not talking to any of his friends, even when they come over to console him. One by one Gwen, Liz, Mary Jane, and Betty leave Peter at the cemetery with his own thoughts.
"Uncle Ben, this… this is all my fault. I promise never again will I be so selfish, so arrogant. I won't look the other way, ever again," Peter tells himself in his thoughts, as tears reluctantly slide down his cheeks.
5 days after the funeral takes place, Peter finds himself walking towards Gwen's apartment in the pouring rain outside without an umbrella hanging over his head. Lightning strikes nearby causing Peter to flinch and tense up a little bit as the bolt of lightning strikes a nearby building. Peter quickly checks the time on his phone as he makes his way up the 14 flights of stairs to the apartment where the Stacy's live. 7:08 AM. Hoping Gwen's hasn't left yet for school, Peter knocks on the door to his best friend's apartment.
As Peter knocks on the wooden door, beginning to show wear and tear after years and years of use, the door swings open at the same time almost knocking Peter in the face. Peter just manages to avoid the door, listening to his new spider-sense as he calls it.
"Gwen…" Peter starts but is lost at what to say.
"Peter? What do you want? It's been a while since you've spoken to me. You wouldn't even talk to me at the funeral," Gwen replies coldly.
Shifting and shuffling his feet uncomfortably from side-to-side Gwen notices in an instant, Peter's expression changes into one of sorrow and shame causing Gwen to immediately regret her snide attitude towards Peter.
"I'm so sorry. I was a jerk towards you. I pushed you and everyone I care about away from me when you were only trying to be there for me this past week. I'm so sorry Gwen; you deserve so much better. I miss you," Peter apologizes.
A small smile starts to subtly creep onto Gwen's face, showcasing her cute dimples as she adjusts the black headband in her hair. She takes her hand and brushes Peter's sopping wet hair from the pouring rain to the side.
"Thanks, Peter. I'm just glad you came back to me. But for future reference you should apologize more often. You're quite sensational at it. Come on, Pete. Let's head to school," Gwen smiles.
The bell rings at Midtown High School signaling the end of the school day on Thursday as Peter sits in his English classroom next to Gwen, deep in thought. Gwen shifts her gaze towards Peter, not getting up from her desk yet. She thinks about how Peter has been deep in thought throughout the entirety of the week since Peter's Uncle Ben died. But Gwen didn't think anything of it, she did the same thing when her mother died several years ago.
"I know I want my suit to be red, but it can't be just red, what other color? Still can't believe I went with Spider-Man as the name I'm going by, but no changing it now. It's all over the newspapers around town," Peter thinks.
"Hey Peter…" Gwen tries to get Peter's attention.
"It's funny, never in my wildest dreams would I imagine the police would be after me for just trying to save people, but I guess technically I am breaking the law," Peter thinks, still deep in his thoughts.
"Peter!" Gwen says in a louder voice, snapping Peter back to reality.
Peter whips his head around to turn towards Gwen, her majestic blue eyes swimming towards Peter with pure concern and worry. A sort of half smile showing on Gwen's face, when Peter finally looks in her direction causes a smirk to show up on Peter's face.
"Man, Gwen's blues eyes are so beautiful, like… Wait a minute! Blue! That'll be great for the 2nd color of the suit. Red and blue, maybe some black to make the colors pop a little more. Spandex would be a good material for the suit, since it wouldn't tear from the stress of webslinging," Peter thinks to himself.
"Hi, Gwen. Sorry, I've just been wrapped up in my own thoughts lately," Peter apologizes.
"It's okay, Pete. Want me to walk you home?" Gwen asks.
"Yeah, that'd be great," Peter smiles.
It's the first time Gwen has seen Peter smile all week since his Uncle Ben died, 10 days ago. Gwen comes to the conclusion that something is different, something has changed about Peter, and it wasn't his Uncle Ben dying. She can't put her finger exactly what is different, but Gwen is determined to find out. But for the first time since the death of his uncle the version of who Peter was before everything happened was returning. The kind, caring, and friendly version of Peter was back.
The autumn wind whistles through the trees above them as Gwen and Peter make their way from school back to Peter's house where Gwen drops Peter off. Not wanting to depart from Peter yet, Gwen has a million different questions running through her mind. Finally landing on one, Gwen asks Peter a question.
"Pete, how are you feeling? I know it's been an insane few weeks for you," Gwen asks on Peter's doorstep.
Peter takes a deep sigh and exhales his breath, looking back at Gwen while going over the past few week's events in his head. Monday. Uncle Ben's death. Tuesday. The guilt and shame from his death. Wednesday. Saving a bus full of people during the stolen vehicle chase. Thursday. Waking up to the newspapers calling for the arrest of the Spider-Man vigilante. Saturday. The funeral. The next several days after the funeral were a blur, leading up to today on Thursday.
"I-I don't know, but what I do know is that being with you makes it easier," Peter smiles again.
"Thanks, Pete" Gwen blushes.
As the two friends say their goodbyes, they end things with a quick, brief hug between the two of them. While Gwen and Peter embrace each other a thought pops into the back of Gwen's head.
"Tell Peter how you feel," her conscience says.
"I-I can't. His uncle, basically his dad just died. I want to, but I don't want to put all this on top of him with everything that's happened," Gwen replies to her conscience in her thoughts.
Several minutes later, the door shuts behind Peter as he enters his house and is surprised to see his Aunt May there waiting for him with open arms.
"Aunt May? You're already home?" Peter asks in shock.
"Yes, dear. Martin Li gave me a ride home from F.E.A.S.T. today. How was school today?" May asks.
"Oh, it was alright. Nothing special. Do you know if we have any red and blue spandex, so I can sow something?" Peter asks.
"We do in the basement cellar, but what on earth are you going to sow?" May wonders in bewilderment.
Peter looks down at the carpet floor he's standing on, constantly shuffling his feet while thinking of anything to use as an excuse for why he would need spandex. Landing on an excuse Peter spouts a lie at his aunt.
"Umm… it's for a Halloween costume I'm making."
"Peter… Halloween isn't for another 2 months," May frowns.
"Well, you know I like to get a head start on things. I'll be down in the basement if you need me," Peter shouts as he runs down the stairs of the basement.
Times flies over the next few days as Peter intensely focuses on sowing together his first Spider-Man suit from scratch from the red and blue spandex in the basement cupboards that belong to May. Yawning with exhaustion after the third day of sowing his suit together, Peter glances over at the digital clock in the basement. 12:12 AM.
"Past midnight. Man can't believe I lost track of time like that. Means I've been at this for like almost 10 hours today. But the suit is finally complete" Peter remarks.
Peter sits back in his chair in the basement cellar as he marvels at his new creation, the Spider-Man suit. The suits itself is primarily bright red and dark blue in color. The front of the suit being primarily red with a black spider logo sewn onto the center of the torso, with some navy blue added here and there. The back of the suit was sewn with primarily blue spandex with a big red spider sewn onto the center of the back. The legs of the suit were blue in their entirety until the feet, which were red in color.
Peter takes a few steps back and adds a little utility belt around the waist so he could have somewhere to stash his phone while webslinging across town. Before going to bed for the night Peter adds some black cobwebs around the red portions of the suits to make both colors pop out a bit more, as he puts the finishing touches on the mask.
The mask itself was nothing special, it was red in its entirety, with black cobwebs spread throughout the mask to make the red contrast a little more. Thinking about wanting to keep his identity, especially since Aunt May would ground him for an eternity if she ever found out, Peter grabs a few thin pieces of plastic from one of the drawers in the basement. Buffing out the pieces of plastic with sandpaper among other things, Peter creates a pair of eye lenses for the suit.
"Oh, you are sexy," Peter admires his new suit.
Struggling to stifle his yawns, Peter heads up the stairs of the basement and stumbles into his bed upstairs for the night.
The next afternoon, Peter finds himself flying through the sky in lower Manhattan but not as Peter Parker, as Spider-Man. The wind rippling through his brightly colored suit as the webslinging vigilante fires another webline with his spider sense warning Peter of the ground below. Spider-Man pulls on the webline arching his body high into the air as he starts to talk to himself.
"Man, this suit is amazing. Spandex was such a good idea for the suit materials and the eye lenses work perfectly."
Spider-Man lands on the side of a skyscraper, staring at himself in the glass reflection of the building in the Financial District as his phone rings in his utility belt. Spider-Man flips his back to the skyscraper, while clinging to the building using only his feet. Peter stands up and starts walking up and down the side of the building as he answers his phone call, shocking some pedestrians and occupants of nearby buildings.
"Aunt May? What's up?" Peter asks.
"Peter, where are you? I need you to run an errand, while I'm stuck at F.E.A.S.T."
"Oh…well I'm just in Manhattan right now. Hanging out with some friends." Peter lies.
"I'm glad you're having fun with friends Peter, but I need you to head over to the store and pick up some eggs tonight for dinner. Oh, and make sure they're organic."
"Eggs? Organic? Got it, I'll head there right now."
Peter leaps off the skyscraper he was clinging onto and fires a webline slinging his way towards a supermarket back in Queens after patrolling for the past few hours in Manhattan stopping everything from a grand theft bicycle to armed robbery.
Stepping out of the shower after a long day of school, Gwen quickly puts her contacts in while getting dressed in comfortable clothes and looks at herself in the mirror. Her glasses down on the sink counter, smiles thinking about the man who she was pining for who couldn't give her the time of day.
Gwen didn't blame Peter for that, he just went through something extremely traumatic. Her mind kept wandering about Peter, still feeling as though there was something big about her best friend that she was missing. But it's Peter. She's known Peter for years now, but then again nothing this traumatic has ever happened to Peter before.
Gwen steps forward towards her mirror as her mind shifts from Peter towards herself.
"Maybe I should cut it?" Gwen questions, referring to her long hair going down to her elbows.
"Gwen? You home?" her father shouts as he opens the door to the Stacy apartment, coming home from a long day as Captain of the 19th precinct of the NYPD.
"Yeah, Dad! I'll be right out!" Gwen responds.
(In the kitchen of the Stacy's apartment a few moments later…)
Gwen strides out of her bedroom towards her father in the kitchen, wearing a grey Midtown High shirt with an oversized Knicks sweatshirt pulled on over that shirt with green sweatpants on as well. Her father, Captain George Stacy sits at the kitchen table sipping on a coffee mug despite it being after 5 in the afternoon.
"Hey Dad. How did your day go at work?
George looks up from his coffee mug and shows a dry smile to his daughter.
"It went alright. That Spider guy or Spider-Man as he calls himself showed up 7 more times today in the late afternoon, but this time he was in an actual skintight suit instead of just wearing a mask," George Stacy reveals.
"Well, how do you know that Spider-Man is the same guy as this new vigilante in the fancy skintight suit?" Gwen counters.
"Same height, same build, same voice, moves like him too," George Stacy answers.
"Moves like him?" Gwen asks.
"Yeah. Never seen anyone move as quick or be as agile as him."
"But this Spider-Man he's a hero, right? I've read some about him online," Gwen mumbles.
George takes a long pause before answering, his thoughts going back to the few times he's seen Spider-Man before. Once with only his cloth mask and today with his new skintight suit and fancy gadgets.
"I don't think so. Sure, he takes down criminals. But that only makes him a vigilante with a vengeance," Goerge says rather coldly.
Gwen simply nods her head towards her father not sure what to believe about the masked vigilante, Spider-Man. Between her father and what she's read on twitter, Gwen isn't exactly sure what to believe. The media has been portraying Spider-Man as some type of menace plaguing the city, while her father on the other hand thought of him as stopping crimes and criminals, yes. But only doing so for petty reasons like vengeance.
"What does your partner, Yuri, think?" Gwen asks after a period of silence.
"Yuri? She thinks Spider-Man is a hero, I respect her. But I don't know if I can agree with her, but as with anything time can always change my opinions," George reveals.
Not wanting to say anything more at the moment and wanting to learn more about Spider-Man Gwen heads to her room for the night. Entering her room, Gwen decides to turn on her television and watch the evening news and listen to what they have to say about the new spider themed vigilante.
Note: Hope you all enjoy! Next chapter will be out soon, I hope! As always please leave any helpful critiques or criticism in the form of reviews and I'll see you guys soon with Chapter 5 :)