Chapter Six

"The Arachnid?" I asked of her, quickly trying to come up with an excuse or a deflection. "Lady, I'm a nerderer. Not a murderer."

Nerderer was bad, but it was the thing that came to mind. Hardy was mighty confused, though. "Nerderer? Murderer?"

I nodded and kept moving, forcing the woman to follow after me or be left behind. I wasn't going to stop for her, I had places to be! "What do you mean murderer? You're no killer," she huffed out, irritated.

I squinted my eyes at her and said, "Do you not read the Bugle? Front page, Heroic or Homicidal! Very interesting, though Jameson did write it. Can't really take what he says literally."

"Jameson," the woman sighed. "Of course. Paraphrase for me, please."

I blinked and mumbled out, "Uh, the Arachnid punched a thugs jaw off. That dude bled out, and the other one, I think, might have brain damage from what Jameson wrote. The Arachnid just pounced right up on the guy and he face planted hard."

"The Arachnid, right? Why that name?"

"Probably because the Arachnid was climbing on walls before he attacked. That's what Jameson's son saw," I answered. It was true. I didn't know it at the time, but he saw me. Thanks to him not speaking out, I saved his family.

I wasn't too sure what would have happened if he cried out, but I don't think it would have been nice. Maybe the Jameson family would have been killed, maybe I would have been shot. I bit my tongue and focused. There was no need to think about maybes when they were alive.

I saved three innocent people.

I felt Hardy stop walking beside me and I glanced back at her. She was closed in on herself, her posture screaming fear. I asked, "You okay?"

"If you are who I think you are," she started slowly, "then I fucked up in trying to confront you?"

I snorted in laughter. I reassured her, "If you actually confronted the Arachnid, sure you would have fucked up. I'm not the Arachnid, though, so you didn't. I don't know where you got that idea from."

Hardy frowned. "I don't…" she trailed off. "I think I'm going to drop it. I'm sorry for bothering you."

The woman was closed off. I'm fairly sure that she still believed I was the Arachnid, but she really wasn't going bring it up. It was the intelligent move. Felicia Hardy was intelligent and she was wise. If I were the Arachnid and I killed someone, Hardy only has my character to go on about if I were to kill somebody else. Even though I hadn't shown any indication that I would kill again, there was that possibility.

Self-preservation could be found in everybody. Even those who weren't scared in the first place.

"Not much of a bother," I said. The conversation we were having wasn't a bother. It was a learning experience for both of us. Me, to be careful of my secret identity, and her, because she could have poked a sleeping dragon. If I were anyone else, she might have been in trouble. "I appreciate the apology all the same, though."

I waved at her. "I gotta go home, now. My Aunt and Uncle might get worried if I'm late."

I walked away, without looking back. It wasn't even just that May and Ben might be worried, I was hella hungry as well.

----------​

What did it mean to be a hero? Spider-Man was an icon. He was friendly, he was a symbol of hope. The death of Uncle Ben changed Peter Parker. What would Spider-Man be without responsibility? He wouldn't have been the hero he turned into. I wasn't Peter Parker, not truly.

As I sat beside my unconscious uncle, as I sat beside Peter's unconscious uncle, I could only come to the conclusion that I was not Peter Parker. I had his memories. I could remember his first science fair project. I could remember his first childhood crush. I remembered his relationship with both his Uncle and Aunt, yet they were foreign to me. I could feel every feeling that Peter had felt.

I remembered when he was happy, sad, angry. He would have been angry to see those men beating on his Uncle. It did make me angry. The knocked out bodies surrounding us, four of them in total, only showed that it was true. I had Peter's everything and it affected me in ways that I could never have expected.

Yet, my real memories had come first. When I thought about the past, I remembered my family and friends, not Peter's.

I remembered Thanos.

I wouldn't be able to be the MCU Spider-Man. I wasn't the comics Spider-Man. I was me, in the body of a fourteen-year-old, seven years in the past.

In a completely different universe.

As I sat there, holding Peter's uncle's hand, I cried. For it came to me there and then that I would never be able to reconcile both my sets of memories. I would never be able to become Peter Parker and I would never be able to go back home and be me.

I heard sirens in the distance, rapidly closing in on where I was.

If I couldn't be me and I would never be able to be Peter Parker, I would have to be a different kind of Spider-Man. The mask would become me, as I was.

"Peter! Peter!"

Aunt May I had called after the police. Aunt May who turned the corner and saw me in the alley, holding onto Ben. Surrounded by men much bigger than I. She ran to me and hugged me, before turning her attention onto Ben.

I felt sick.

Everybody wishes they could disappear into another world, away from reality. I enjoyed my reality. I loved my life. I was loving who I was becoming. It was all taken away from me. It was always fun to think about being something you are not. Reality, though, was what I loved the most.

And my reality was gone.

Replaced by a world that was going to burn in seven years.

My tears kept falling. May embraced me in a loving and warm hug.

I breathed in deeply. There was no time for self-pity. I had already come to the realization that I would have to face Thanos. That I was most likely going to die. I refused to not try, as there was always a possibility.

There was always something to do, to take my mind off the terms of my existence. There was an enemy to fight, people to save.

I had a name.

Leland Owlsley. The man who had hired the lowlifes who hurt Ben. Maybe I could find myself within duty. Maybe through the Arachnid, or Spider-Man, or other names I could find who I was in the truest of fashions.

I was not Peter Parker.

I was not me, anymore.

I paused.

As inappropriate as it was, I smiled.

I was going to be a hero but not Spider-Man. The neighbourhood wasn't the focus. The world was. Saving half the universe was the end goal.

I was going to kill Thanos.

The police finally showed up, with an ambulance not too far behind. I hugged May tight, once more before she rose to meet the officers.

----------​

Ben was in the hospital. May was there, waiting for updates on his state. I was at home working on my web shooters. The effort was on the back burner though, my thoughts on Owlsley. He was a bad man, sure, but he had connections and he had money. The fact that he sent goons to deal with some random schmuck from Queens shows that Ben was onto something.

Ben, then, was still a target because he survived. Leland was a danger to Peter's family and I was going to stop him. Yet, was that the only choice?

I set my pencil down and leaned back in my chair. I was weighing the options. Kill Leland, get rid of Fisk. Target the Hand, kill them. Was I ready to kill, when I was so set on saving people and not killing them? I wasn't so sure. I could visit Ben as the Arachnid, tell him to stop looking into Leland, drop it. That still left Ben open to attempts on his life.

I opened a browser on my computer and searched Leland Owlsley. There was barely anything on him. He worked for an accounting firm called Silver & Brent, which was his obvious legal fallback. He also worked for Fisk.

The one thing that brought me back to not killing Leland to save Ben, was to work with him. Force him to work with the Arachnid so I could get funding to produce the things I need. The logical thought-process from that would mean I needed to threaten Ben. Make him drop the issue.

What did Ben know?

I didn't have the information needed to conclusively choose the right option. The right option because there was no good option. Money was certainly an influence, but also Peter's memories made me want to make sure that Ben was safe. It was hard to make a pragmatic decision because I wasn't ever really pragmatic.

I wish I could see May and Ben as people in a movie, going through their everyday life as though they were dictated by a director. It would make everything so much easier.

I breathed in deeply.

I needed the money for the short-term. I needed Leland, somebody who was a realist and pragmatic, to assist with me in my goals. As soon as the Chitauri Invasion happened, I would be jumping that ship and working with Stark. It was the only thing I could think of. As soon as that happened, I would bring Leland down. Along with Fisk and his cronies, as well as the Hand.

The Arachnid would be my way into the criminal underworld of New York. Spider-Man had to be the inspiring vision that he was in the comics and movies.

The issue with Ben was still a problem, that I needed to deal with in time. Currently, I was going to pay a visit to the bad businessman who almost killed Ben.

It was for the Greater Good, after all.

I laughed. Fucking Dumbledore.

----------​

Notes: The story is changing. I was stuck, trying to come up with something that fit the previous tones of the story, but I couldn't come up with something that I really liked. I have to keep moving forward with this story, though, and I have found a direction that I am looking forward to explore. Not!Peter is not Peter Parker. He's not me anymore, either, though my personality and memories are there at the forefront.

I don't want to be kept down by trying to force writing and writing myself into corners. The direction I was heading in before was starting to become forced, and while the middle part of this chapter rehashes realizations already made before, I needed to write it to keep the story moving. I think I was getting impatient with how I was going along with it before. I'm not someone who likes to wrtie a slow build-up. I like getting into the action right away, and with how I was writing the story, the action wouldn't have come fast enough.

Also, there is now a cemented goal within Not!Peter's mind: Kill Thanos. Stop him in anyway possible.

I can't really get all the thoughts I have in my mind out right now, so I will finish these notes with a thank you for reading. I want all the criticism I can get, so please criticize me into the ground. I will be working on getting a few chapters written out before posting any of them, so it'll be another longer while before I post again.

Thank you.