Chapter Two

When the last bell finally rang, I was out of the school in seconds. I texted Ned an excuse about having to grocery shop for my Aunt. I texted my Aunt an excuse about chilling with Ned. They would both freak out if they knew what I was doing. Ned with hero worship and May with lots and lots of mothering.

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Uncle Ben would go on and on about responsibility.

I guess Uncle Ben was always like that.

He won't die this time though. I was going to make sure of that.

Yet I wasn't ready to save him. Or anyone. I knew this to be all sorts of true. As strong as I was, it would not be enough. Not at all. I needed to be able to defeat anyone and everyone. There were so many times in the movies and comics that Peter fucked up. I couldn't fuck up. I had to be better.

Fuck, I was sounding serious. I had to be, considering who I was, but it didn't feel right. What felt right?

I already knew I was going to be Spider-Man. That was obvious. How would I shape my image, though?

I blitzed into an alleyway, my footsteps echoing across the walls. First test: Wall climbing. This was going to be awesome. I placed my hand against the brick wall and willed myself to stick. I felt tension. Ohhh.

Oh, oh, oh.

I placed my right hand higher up on the wall and pulled myself up. It was so easy to pull my weight up the wall. I slipped when I tried to stick with my foot. It didn't grab and I fell. I hit the ground with a thud.

Groaning in annoyance, I picked myself up. Alright, so, my sticky icky powers don't work when I have my shoes on. I slipped them off and tried the wall again. It worked this time.

I was climbing up this stupid brick wall like a fucking spider.

When I made it to the top of the building I started laughing. In an old radio host accent I said, "And in other news, Peter Parker has been spotted climbing walls! Amazing! Astounding!"

I kept laughing. I was ecstatic. "This is real!" I shouted with joy.

It was real.

It was real.

Oh, fuck. It was real.

"And now to Bill with the weather!" I kept up the voice.

"The forecast is cloudy with a chance of fucked. There's going to be a large storm of problems later on in the evening, with four inches of oh shit, I'm screwed. Stay inside and be safe. Unless you're Spider-Man, of course. Back to you John."

Fuck me.

Eh, at least I can still make myself laugh.

I stopped moping, focusing on what I needed to do next. Test two: Strength. Leg strength. How high could I jump? How far could I leap? How fast was I?

I took a deep breath and bent my legs. I looked skyward. I pushed upward and I jumped. The wind whipped at my face as I soared skyward. It was pure speed at first and then when I reached the zenith of the jump, I slowed down considerably. For a moment everything was still. I saw so much. There was a raccoon chilling on a roof a few buildings away. I saw two dudes yelling at each other. A lovers spat? Then I saw a woman getting mugged on the other side of the street.

My head started blaring, and I don't think it was my spider-sense. Sensory overload? I think that was it.

This was all within a second. After that moment I started falling.

Test three, I guess, considering I was feeling my spider-sense. It was weak at first, just a kind of itch in my brain. When I started getting closer to the ground the itch turned into the most annoying ringing.

Then I realized I didn't have a landing strategy.

I did the only thing I could think of at the moment and curled up in a ball and held my head. The impact jarred me. And it hurt.

It hurt, but I couldn't focus on the pain. That woman just got mugged, and I needed to do something. I pushed up from the ground, my whole right side in pain. Alright, I was continuing my test. Leg strength. I took a few steps and leaped from the roof of the building I was currently on to the next. I made it with room to spare.

My pain disappeared as adrenalin flowed through me. My senses were flaring and I felt like my being was made for this. The jumping, the running, the end of the building. Oh, the end of the building. I stopped. I wasn't going to out myself.

I saw the douche who grabbed the woman's bag pushing people away, but I couldn't just jump down there and kick his ass.

I had no mask, no suit. I had nothing except my shirt, my pants, and my backpack. I turned around and let out a short scream.

"FUCK!"

I slammed my fist into and through a vent. Holy fuck.

I was still frustrated, but it was somewhat offset by just how strong my punch was. Test four: Upper body strength. And damn, I was power.

"GOD FUCK!"

When I went to pull out my arm I was a tad bit too quick with it and sliced my forearm. That was going to be a bitch to explain to May and Ben.

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"Thank goodness," I said to myself when I entered my empty apartment. I really didn't want to explain the blood. My shirt was soaked and my hand was stained. I sighed.

I took out my phone from my pocket and called Ned. I put it on speaker phone and brought it to the bathroom with me. It rang twice before Ned picked up and he said, "Howdy."

"So you're going the cowboy route?" I laughed. I grabbed a dark towel and turned on the faucet.

His reply came in the form of the worst southern accent I had ever heard, "Yeah. Ned 'Goat-Wrangler' Leeds, the most dangerous goat-wrangler in New York."

I paused, trying to comprehend what he said. "What?" was my simple response.

Ned's laughter broke me out of my stupor. I didn't laugh along with him though. I shook my head and dipped the towel under the flowing water. I pulled my t-shirt off of my arm as Ned asked, "What's up Peter?"

I turned off the faucet. "Wanted to see if you had any plans this week-" I winced as the towel rubbed against my cut, "-end."

While my wound did sting, it wasn't as painful as it was earlier and it was definitely a whole lot shallower. The gash was now a small cut, and it was still healing. I guess this was test five. My new body was surprising me over and over again.

"Other than homework, nah. What should we do?"

Rapid healing was so cool. Actually seeing it happen within an hour was even cooler. I was still pretty bloody though, so I finally washed my arm and hand with my towel. "I dunno Ned. We'll brainstorm. Maybe we could design 'Goat-Wrangler' as a superhero," I grinned as I said this.

Ned found it funny too. After he finished his childish giggling he said, "And his spectacular sidekick the Sheep-Herder."

I made like an egg and cracked up. Through my laughter, I said, "DC's newest series. 'The Grand Adventures of Goat-Wrangler,' with issue one detailing how he was bit by a radioactive goat."

Ned came back even stronger with what he said next, "His arch-nemesis is Hog-Man the Horrible!"

"The Injustice League? More like the Injustice Pigs."

"Peter! The Justice Farm. The Justice Farm!"

For the next few minutes, we broke down laughing at our stupid jokes. It felt good.

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During the few hours after Ned and I hung up had me at my desk, working on designs for Spider-Man's webbing and suit. I was surprised when I realized that working on the webbing was much easier, but after a quick thought, I knew I shouldn't have been. Peter Parker was basically a genius, even though he was lacking in some areas due to not reading up on them. On my computer I had tabs open on things that related to the webbing I was trying to make; spiders, properties of gum, properties of metal cord and anything else that I thought I needed to help me.

The information on spider silk was probably the most helpful, though. With that information, I already had a basis (an alpha version would you) for my webbing. It wasn't anything close to being a finished result, but I was getting somewhere.

I couldn't wait to swing around the city. That was going to be amazing.

On the other hand, costume design was not amazing. It was a bitch, actually. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go the traditional red-and-blue suit, or something completely different. Red and black? Red and white? The suit we saw in the Spider-Man game trailer was awesome. Red and white and blue, and it was just gorgeous, but was something so bright and friendly the way I wanted to go?

I didn't know.

Was I going to be an inspiration to the people, or was I going to represent fear?

The suit needed to directly represent what I wanted, but I had no idea what I wanted right now.

Maybe I was looking at it the wrong way? What did I need? I know that I wanted to be Spider-Man, yet what did Spider-Man need to represent?

I wasn't too sure. I know I couldn't go the route of my ideal Spider-Man, who was heroic and friendly and nice. If I wanted to save people and make sure the villains stay down, I needed something much more dangerous.

It was a terrible pain in the ass, though.

And I needed to make goggles so I wouldn't overload my senses again like earlier.

I had so much to do.

"Peter! We're home!" I must have been out of it if I didn't hear the door open.

"Hi Uncle Ben! Aunt May!" I called back.

I quickly cleaned up my workspace, throwing my papers into one of the desk drawers. I exited my room and made my way to the dining area. Uncle Ben was at the table with a piece of pizza in his hand. Aunt May was on the couch reading a magazine. It was all very informal and very familiar.

"What kind?" I asked Uncle Ben.

He answered when he finished chewing (good manners and all), "Meat lovers. I had a long day at work and needed something meaty."

I sat down across from him and grabbed my own piece.

"How was school?"

I took a bite of my pizza and thought. School was easy. Seriously way too easy. So I went with that answer when I said, "It's school. Easy. The bullies bully, the nerds nerd and Peter's Parker."

It took a while for Uncle Ben to get what I said, yet Aunt May understood immediately. And immediately she had sent me a disappointed look. When Ben started laughing, she grinned though.

Holy hell, these two loved each other. Seriously, for real, in-love love. Uncle Ben wasn't going to die. I had to make sure of it.

"All Parker's Parker, Petey," Uncle Ben said.

I couldn't help but grin, "But we Parker the best!"

Peter's home life was so good. So clean and innocent. Uncle Ben was strong enough to not let his frustrations and stress with work get in the way of his love for his family. Yet he wasn't the kind of guy to bottle it up. The relationship wasn't perfect by any means, but it was close.

Aunt May spoke up, "But I can out-Parker the both of you."

"I don't think either Peter or I can disagree with that."

May made a self-satisfied noise and went back to reading her magazine.

"Uncle Ben, I gotta question," I told the guy.

Ben waved at me to continue. He was chewing on a bite of pizza, so I asked, "What would you do if you had superpowers?"

After swallowing, Ben replied with a question of his own, "What superpowers?"

"Doesn't matter. You just have superpowers, whichever ones you want."

"Hmm…" Ben took a quick sip of his coffee before he answered, "I don't know, Petey. I think I have a good enough character as to help people, but power is dangerous. None of us have the self-control of Batman."

I stared at him for a few moments. Shuffling in his seat, Ben coughed into his hand. Alright, that was a heavier answer than I expected. I explained this to him, "That's, uh, a whole lot of something, Uncle Ben. Dang."

"Petey, it's power. I've seen some stuff when I was younger, but people like Tony Stark? The Hulk? They aren't beholden to us. They don't have to help, especially in the Hulk's case. Responsibility and self-control are needed, always."

Now that was a whole lot closer to the original speech. It hit me hard as well. "Huh. I guess you're right. Kind of scary, isn't it? One bad day and Tony Stark could build something that just kills everyone," I said, melancholy strong in my tone.

Uncle Ben sighed, "Now don't think like that. Us normal people? We have to believe in people like Tony Stark to do the right thing. Otherwise, we'd live in terror."

Fuck me. I wasn't ready for this. Uncle Ben was so right. So absolutely true. "Thanks for the philosophy lesson, Ben," I said, smiling at him.

He smiled back, then ruined the moment with a too large bite of his piece of pizza. "Okay! No need to see that Uncle Ben. I'm going to eat in my room, I don't want to lose my appetite!" I grabbed two more pieces of pizza and stacked them on the piece I already had.

I heard Ben laughing as I walked back to my room. When I entered it I dropped my pizza onto my desk and wiped my hands on my shirt. I had an idea for my suit.

It needed to be intimidating, yet inspire trust in the people. I wasn't going to be a friendly Spider-Man. I couldn't be. I had to strike fear into my enemies and hope into the eyes of the civilian populace!

I grabbed paper from my desk drawer and a pencil. Time to get to work.

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Notes: The second chapter. I had a struggle writing the first part when it was solely Not!Peter and his own thoughts. The conversation with Ned got a lot more natural at the end there, and I hope it comes across a two good friends joking around, instead of an awkward jumble of words. Then the last part was the easiest. I didn't show too much of May because I needed to introduce Ben. I really hope you all like Ben.

If anyone has any ideas for a spider-suit, then I would love to hear them. I don't actually have any real idea for a suit, though the basis needs to be intimidating, but not too intimidating.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter