Chapter 3: The Birth of Spider-Man

Only 8 hours have passed since the death of Ben Parker in Queens, Captain George Stacy has been awake all night over seeing everything from the arrest and booking of Dennis Carradine to doing the paperwork for the case itself, a job usually reserved for detectives of the case. Groggily walking into his apartment, Geroge Stacy is surprised to find that his daughter Gwen is awake and already getting ready for school. George checks the time on his phone, it's 7:03 AM. Tuesday morning.

"Dad? You were gone all night, I thought something might have happened," Gwen says running up to hug her father.

"Gwennie, I'm sorry. I was up late working on a case. Y-Your friend Peter. I-I don't know if he'll even be at school today with everything that's happened," George's voice starts to break.

Gwen's expression changes in a flash from one of happiness to one of immediate concern for her best friend. Gwen's mind races back and forth, thinking of what could possibly have happened to Peter, the man she has a crush on. Eventually Gwen musts up the courage to ask her father a question.

"Wha—What's wrong with Peter?" Gwen asks quietly, her mind brimming with made up and hypothetical scenarios about Peter and why he wouldn't be at school.

George Stacy takes a long, deep breath before answering his daughter. He knows that Gwen will eventually find out today at school, so there would be no use in withholding the truth from her. George looks down at the stained countertops that came with the apartment before turning his eyes on his daughter as he gives his answer.

"Peter, he…well last night there was a homicide in Queens. Peter's uncle was killed last night in a home invasion. Your friend Peter, thankfully he wasn't home when everything happened but…"

Before George Stacy can even finish his thought, Gwen takes off as fast as her legs can carry her. Sprinting down the apartment stairs and outside the apartment complex itself, Gwen moves her feet as fast as she possibly can with only one thought on her mind. Peter Parker.

Not even caring for the fact that she is completely out of breath as she runs towards school, Gwen's only thought is to be there for her best friend. She didn't care if she was a sweaty mess from running. To Gwen, Peter is the last person in the world to deserve having his world torn apart like this, especially after his parents died when he was younger, and how often he and Gwen are mistreated and bullied in school by Flash and his cronies.

Gwen arrives at Midtown High, building up a light sweat running all the way from her apartment to school. All around the school everyone seems to be going on like a normal day, this day is anything but normal. Gwen searches all throughout the school in all of Peter's favorite spots to hang out around. The library. The chem lab. The lockers. However, Peter was nowhere to be found in his usual favorite places.

Gwen utters a loud sigh as she sadly walks into her first class of the day AP Physics, 30 minutes early. Opening the door to the classroom, Gwen is shocked when she spots Peter sitting alone in the classroom, doodling or writing something down in his notebook. Peter's eyes are bloodshot and strained from crying all night. His usual rumpled brown hair is a complete mess, and he's sporting a black eye as well.

"Peter…" Gwen starts, her voice starting to break.

Peter sets his pencil down, picks his head up to look at Gwen as she makes her way over to Peter. Gwen looks down at what Peter was doodling and is a little confused by it at first. Peter's doodle appears to be a schematic for a pressurized device that would go on someone's wrist where the pressurized point is on the palm of the hand to release something out of the nozzle underneath the wrist. Examining the doodle further Gwen sees the chemical formula for the web fluid that the two of them created yesterday afternoon together.

"Peter… I'm so sorry. I-I just want you to know that I'm here for you, always," Gwen cries.

Gwen wraps her arms around Peter in a warm and embracing hug that Peter appreciates. Gwen hears a soft "Thank you" come from Peter, as he appreciates the hug from Gwen. Although Peter has not told anyone about his uncle's death yet, he's not surprised Gwen knows. Gwen's father was the arresting officer at the scene after all.

The school day passes by rather quickly for Gwen, not focusing much at all on her classes, but more so on Peter. For the first time maybe ever, Gwen notices that Peter didn't pay attention in class, take notes, or answer questions. Even in his science classes, his favorite. Instead, Peter was doodling or rather drawing in his notebook.

After the first 5 periods of school and lunch pass, Peter finishes drawing the diagram or model of the pressurized device that Gwen has been curiously looking at the entirety of school so far. Peter flips the page and starts drawing something else that appears to be some sort of Halloween suit. Without warning, Peter sets down his pencil and stares right at Gwen's baby blue eyes. Quickly, Gwen jots down a few words on her notebook and shows the notebook to Peter.

"Are you okay?"

Peter blinks just once, as a silent tear falls from his eyelid down to his bruised cheek, dropping onto his notebook below. Peter writes down a quick response and presents it back to Gwen.

"No"

Gwen rapidly crosses out her first question and writes out another question below, while class is still going on in the background.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Peter takes a long pause, looking at Gwen. Her green jacket falling down to her knees while her eyes glistening in the lights of the classroom, full of compassion, care, and concern for her best friend. After what feels like an eternity, Peter slowly scribbles down his answer onto his own notebook.

"Okay. Is it okay if we wait until after school to talk about it?"

Gwen smiles and immediately writes her answer back to Peter as the both of them soon direct their attention back to class.

"Of course. Meet you outside the main entrance after classes."

School ends for the day at 3:00 PM, as Gwen makes her way towards the steps outside the main entrance to Midtown High, ignoring Liz and MJ who are talking to each other at their lockers. Sitting on the steps is Peter, trying his best to hide an anxious smile on his face. His eyes are still bloodshot, Gwen can tell he's been crying throughout the school day. Gwen sets her backpack down on the stone steps and sits right next to Peter.

"Pete. Please talk to me. I know you're hurting right now, but I still need you in my life. You're my best friend," Gwen pleads.

Peter looks across at Gwen. His brow furrowing causing wrinkles to form on his forehead. Peter's smile disappears completely, replaced by a growing frown on his face.

"Gwen, I… it's all my fault. Ben dying, I'm the one to blame for it all…"

"Peter…my dad caught the guy who did it. He's going to jail for a long, long time. He'll never hurt anyone ever again," Gwen interrupts.

Gwen notices a small tear escaping from Peter's tear duct as Gwen can feel her own eyes start to water. Not out of hurt or fear, but out of sympathy for Peter Parker. Wanting to not tell anyone about his new powers yet, Peter omits some of the truth while telling Gwen what happened the night his uncle was murdered in cold blood.

"No, but it is my fault, Gwen. The last time I spoke to Ben, we got into a fight. I left the house, angry at him. If I never left, I could've stopped the guy who killed him. It's my fault," Peter laments.

"Peter, the guy had a gun. How would you have been able to stop him?" Gwen asks in frustration.

"I… nothing," Peter hesitates, still not telling Gwen the whole truth.

Gwen's face shows a little half smile. Usually when Peter is on her mind, everything is moving at the speed of sound inside her mind. But now with everything that's happened, everything is simple when it comes to Peter. She only wants to be there for Peter, Gwen remembers what is was like when she lost her mom a few years ago to cancer. Peter made sure, he was always available to talk to her and even walked her home everyday from school for several months.

"Peter, you're putting the weight of the world on your shoulders. Weights that aren't even yours to bear. What happened to you is terrible, Peter. It's something no one should ever have to go through, but you are not at fault, okay?" Gwen insists.

"O-Okay" Peter says weakly, as he embraces Gwen in a tight hug.

Gwen closes her eyes and holds Peter as tight as she can in a hug, not ever wanting to let go of him. After what feels like an eternity of calm and peace, the two friends pull apart from their hug and just smile at each other. Gwen can still see the visible emotional pain on Peter's face, but Peter looks better than he did this morning.

"Come on Pete. Before I take you home, I have one more treat for you. I'm taking you out for ice cream," Gwen smiles, taking a hold of Peter's hand and leading him towards the Silver Spoon Café.

Gwen drops Peter off as the sun starts to set in Queens, the autumn sunlight shining a spotlight through the crimson color leaves falling towards the ground. Peter walks up the steps to his house as he takes one last look at Gwen, who stands at the base of the stairs waving goodbye to him. Peter heads inside his house, immediately walking down the steps of his basement as some thoughts begin to swirl around his head.

"Man, that ice cream with Gwen was great. I-I'd be so lost without her. Now to get to work on that thing I designed today to shoot the web fluid out of. Well, I guess the name kind of writes itself. Webshooter," Peter thinks to himself as he walks to the workshop table of the basement, where Uncle Ben often worked at.

Peter glances down at the wooden desk, some of the wood starting to rot from time feasting upon the old wooden desk. Peter opens the desk drawer closest to the bottom, releasing a cloud of dust from the ancient drawer.

"Agh…yuck. How did so much dust get in there in just a few months. Well, at any rate the chemicals inside my chemistry set should be intact. Especially, the ones that are needed to recreate the web fluid that Gwen and I created the other day," Peter coughs.

Over the next 30 minutes, Peter recreates the web fluid that he made with Gwen just yesterday after school, before opening another desk drawer and grabbing a cartridge out of the drawer that could store the web fluid. Carefully and meticulously constructing the web shooter, Peter spends the next few hours making sure every piece of hardware fits and adheres to the design he drew at school today, only taking a break when May called him up to dinner.

...

It's 10:48 PM at night now, Peter puts the finishing touches onto both webshooters he made as he sets them onto a stand with the nozzle of each webshooter pointing at a nearby wall. Yawning, Peter knows his body needs some sleep after not being able to sleep last night because of what happened. But his scientific mind gets the best of him, Peter wants to be sure his webshooters work before going to bed for the night.

Peter turns his gaze towards the nearest webshooter to him and presses down on the trigger of the webshooter, meaning to shoot out a webline onto the wall of the basement cellar. Instead, web fluid spurts out from the cartridge, spraying all over Peter's face as he was standing directly over the web cartridge.

"Aah! Mother Hubbard! Definitely need to vacuum seal the cartridge so that never happens again. Should be a simple fix," Petter mutters to himself as he tears the web fluid from his face, already hardening due to being exposed to the oxygen and nitrogen in the air.

A few minutes later, Peter places the now vacuum sealed web cartridge back into the storage container in the webshooter. Pressing the trigger release once more on the webshooter, Peter marvels at the perfect webline that spurts out of the nozzle and instantly attaches itself against the wall.

Excited beyond belief that his design for the webshooter functions properly, Peter grabs his computer out of his school backpack and boots up the tensile strength testing program he downloaded earlier in the summer in preparation for AP Physics class. Peter's jaw drops to what feels like the floor of the basement when he reads what the tensile strength of his webbing is, well Gwen and Peter's webbing really.

"5.794 tons of tensile strength? That's incredible! That's almost 12,000 pounds! All from a single strand of webbing!" Peter exclaims in bewilderment.

The following day, Peter stands atop one of the taller buildings in Queens as he looks down at the all the cars and people down below. The cold autumn wind whips at Peter's black leather jacket and jeans that he's wearing. Holding his red luchador wrestling mask in his hand, Peter puts the mask over his head, starting to look through the eye slits in the mask down at the city below. Peter adjusts his gaze as it shifts down to where his webshooters are now attached directly underneath his wrists. Doubt still reeling in his mind with what he's about to do, Peter double and triple checks to make sure the webshooters are securely attached and won't fall off.

"Okay. Wow, I'm up super high in the sky. Forgot about my fear of heights. What is it that Uncle Ben used to say?" Peter says out loud.

(Flashback)

"Peter, being scared to do the right thing is normal. It happens to everyone," Ben starts.

"Then, what do I do? How do I stop being scared of what Flash and the other bullies might do to me?" A young Peter asks his uncle.

"You take a leap of faith, Pete. Doesn't matter how scared you are, you just have to trust in yourself that you're doing the right thing. That's all it is. A leap of faith," Ben smiles.

(Present)

"Right. A leap of faith. Thanks Uncle Ben," Peter smiles underneath his mask.

Peter closes his eyes for a brief moment, listening to the wind whistling among the metal pipes atop the buildings and to the sounds of the cars below before leaping off the skyscraper.

The wind whips against Peter's mask, while he's falling completely at the mercy of gravity. A few more moments pass, and Peter opens his eyes. His eyes slowly adjusting to the building lights around him, Peter spots a nearby police helicopter flying just ahead of him.

Quickly holding out his hand with his palm facing upwards, Peter presses his two middle fingers down simultaneously on the trigger of the webshooter. A webline spurts out of the webshooter, attaching itself to the base of the helicopter.

"WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!" Peter screams.

Over the next little while Peter practices webslinging throughout Queens and teaching himself how to stop, speed up, and turn while webslinging. Peter continues to websling throughout the city until he stops smashing into the sides of buildings.

"Wow. This is amazing, what a way to…" Peter's own thoughts are interrupted by the sound of gunfire below him.

Without thinking, Peter leaps off the edge of a short building immediately firing a webline in the direction of the gunfire. A few weblines later, Peter comes into view of a police squad car chasing after a dark blue Toyota Camry that is firing back at the police.

"They're going to kill someone if they keep driving recklessly like this," Peter mutters under his breath.

Peter fires another webline, flipping in the air and landing softly on the roof of the Toyota car. Peter can hear only the sirens of the police car behind him, with the wind still violently whistling through the buildings in downtown Queens. The voices of the police officers that were yelling at the criminals in the Toyota had grown deathly silent at the confusion of seeing Peter intervene with only a mask on to conceal his identity.

"Fellas! No turn signal? Gonna have to write ya up!" Peter jokes.

"Shut up Pete! That wasn't even funny. God, why can't I help myself when it comes to making bad jokes," Peter says in his thoughts.

That tingling feeling starts to form at the base of Peter's skull again with every cell in Peter's body screaming to move and cling against the door of the moving vehicle. Moving with lightning fast reflexes, Peter barely manages to avoid a gunshot as he whips his body around to the rear car door.

"Woah that was close. Sorry! I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to pull over," Peter quips as he fires a webline ripping the gun out of the criminal's hand in the passenger seat.

The criminal driving the vehicle turns hard to the right in a futile attempt to shake Peter off the car. Coming into the clearing Peter catches the sight of a bus slowly crossing the intersection in front of the speeding Toyota.

"3,000 pounds; 40 miles an hour. No biggie," Peter tells himself, referring to the speeding car he is clinging onto.

Peter fires weblines from both of his webshooters, propelling himself off of the car and towards the bus. Still in the air, Peter twists his head back to look at the police car trailing slightly behind the Toyota Camry, lurching closer and closer to colliding with the bus. Peter immediately recognizes who the officer driving the car is. He's seen his face a thousand times before.

"This better work."

Peter lands on the bus, using his wall crawling abilities to cling onto the side of the bus like well, a spider. He quickly turns, leaping off the bus firing two weblines propelling himself directly towards the onrushing car. The impact that Peter's feet make with the front bumper of the Toyota Camry causes such a jolt that both criminals inside the car are instantly knocked unconscious, even with their seatbelts being worn. Peter fires two more weblines, one webline fired onto each side of the street, as Peter pulls onto the weblines as hard as he can. The sound of screeching tires on asphalt can be heard as the speeding vehicle ahead of the police cruiser is violently thrown to a sudden halt mere inches away from the bus, throwing Peter off the car. Peter slowly gets up after falling off the car from exhaustion, until a familiar voice pierces the night sky.

"FREEZE! Hands in the air! Who are you? Why are you wearing a mask?" the officer asks with his gun directed right at Peter.

Peter raises his head up toward the familiar police officer as he continues to stand up in the cold autumn night in Queens. The police officer had eyes full of experience, trauma, horror, but also full of hope as well. Short brown hair flowed off the officer's scalp with some gray and white hairs present throughout showing the age of the police officer.

"Look. Mr.—I mean uh, Captain Stacy I-I was just trying to save people from getting hurt," Peter responds.

"That wasn't the question! Who are you?" Captain Stacy yells back.

Although you couldn't see it through Peter's mask his eyes squint at his best friend's father with a gun pointing directly at him. Peter racks the back of his brain to think of how he would even answer this question. At that moment Peter can only think back to the moment where everything started, at Oscorp when that stupid spider bit him.

"Spi—Spider-Man" Peter awkwardly stutters.

Captain Stacy begins walking towards Spider-Man with his handcuffs out of his back pocket, causing Peter to take a few steps backwards.

"Well Spider-Man, you're under arrest for vigilantism and reckless endangerment of civilian lives tonight," Captain George Stacy yells at Spider-Man.

"Sorry, don't mean to be a spoil sport Captain, but I have no desire to be arrested tonight. I mean tonight's a school night and I have my first quiz in AP Calculus tomorrow," Spider-Man quips.

Before Captain Stacy or his partner can even respond to Spider-Man, Peter fires another webline and is gone from the scene of the crime in less than a moment.

"The least you can do is have an actual suit instead of mask next time!" George Stacy yells into the wind.

Swinging his way back home Peter reminisces about the night's events, trying his best to maintain his focus so Peter doesn't crash into anymore buildings while webslinging.

"I did it, I saved them. I did it Uncle Ben," Peter says, his eyes started to tear up.

"Captain Stacy was right about one thing though. I'm going to need a suit and fast. My leather jacket almost fell off like three times and now the stitching is falling apart because of my webslinging," Peter laments to himself as he nears closer and closer home.

Note: That's all for chapter 3! Next chapter will have Peter designing and making his first suit while a few other fun things happen in that chapter as well. Don't forget to review if you enjoyed or even have some helpful criticism for me. I'm always looking to grow as a writer :)