Burbank, California. Marvel Studios' temporary offices.
The waiting room was packed with boys.
Blonde boys. Brown-haired boys. Tall boys with square jaws, muscular boys with perfect teeth. Old ones. Every one of them held a script and had the exact same look: I was born for this.
Shiv sat quietly in the corner, a sixteen-year-old in a plain clean grey T-shirt and jeans, watching them.
He had been getting looks since the moment he arrived.
"Is that him?" someone whispered.
"Seriously? Even a Indian kid is auditioning for Spider-Man?"
"My dad says it's a publicity stunt."
"My mom says Marvel's out of its mind."
Shiv kept his eyes on the script in his lap. He had heard worse in his life, in both lives, in fact. He knew the casual cruelties of strangers. He knew the look people gave when they decided who you were before you opened your mouth.
Fair brown skin. Different accent. Different name. Different history.
He was used to it.
[Host, your heart rate is elevated. Analysis: anxiety.]
"I'm fine," he thought back.
[You are not. Let me help. Activating [Veteran Acting Skills (Lv. 5)]... complete.]
Something shifted in his chest.
It was subtle, like a hand adjusting a dial. The nervous tension drained away. His breathing steadied. His posture settled. The world, which had felt too loud a moment ago, snapped into clean, quiet focus.
He looked at the other boys, and for the first time he saw them not as rivals but as performances. He could read how each of them sat, how they held their scripts, how they rehearsed their lines under their breath, and how every single one of them was trying to look like Peter Parker.
None of them was trying to be him.
"Srivastav Bonshale?" an assistant called. "You're up."
He stood, smiled politely, and walked in.
The room was large and plain. Three people sat behind a long table.
In the middle was a tall, pale Englishman in his forties with tired eyes and an unbuttoned collar: David Yates, the director. He had made his name adapting a children's fantasy series called Harry Porter, and he had a reputation for being quiet, precise, and extremely hard to impress.
Beside him sat a woman from Sony's casting department and a square-shouldered man in a Marvel baseball cap who looked as though he had not slept in a week. That was Avi Arad, the Marvel producer. He was chewing the cap of a pen.
"Shiv," Yates said. "Thank you for coming. Please, take your time. Whenever you're ready."
Shiv nodded and stepped to the middle of the room.
The scene was simple. Peter Parker, a quiet high school student, stands in the school corridor. A bully shoves him. His books fall. A girl he has a crush on watches him. He gathers himself and says one line.
That was all.
He closed his eyes.
He thought of the boy in the hostel who had read comics under a blanket because the electricity kept going out. He thought of the nine-year-old who had landed in a foreign country holding his uncle's hand, not understanding a word of the announcements. He thought of every time somebody had looked at him and decided he was less.
He thought of responsibility.
Then he opened his eyes.
And the room changed.
The boy standing in the middle of the floor was not a sixteen-year-old with a script. He was a shy, brilliant kid with a bruised pride, a secret, and a heart that refused to harden.
The imaginary bully pushed him.
Shiv stumbled. Not dramatically. Just a small, human stumble. His shoulders curled in. His hands scrambled for books that weren't there. He kept his head down, but his eyes flicked up for half a second toward the imaginary girl, and in that half-second you could see a whole life: embarrassment, longing, the stubborn refusal to give up.
Then, softly, with a crack in his voice that he did not even plan:
"...Sorry. I'm... I'm good. I just... tripped."
Silence.
Avi had stopped chewing his pen.
The casting woman had put her pencil down.
David Yates had leaned forward in his chair, his tired eyes suddenly very awake.
"One more," Yates said quietly. "Same scene. But this time, you've just been bitten by the spider. Your senses are overwhelmed. You can hear everything. You can't make it stop."
Shiv nodded.
This time, when the bully shoved him, he didn't stumble.
He went still.
His pupils shrank. His head tilted a fraction to the left, as if he were listening to something nobody else could hear. A tiny muscle in his jaw twitched. His fingers curled slowly into his palm, like a man holding back a storm.
He did not say anything.
He did not need to.
When he finally blinked, it was as though he had woken from a dream, and the room let out a breath it didn't know it was holding.
DING!
[Audition performance rated: A. Congratulations, Host. Try not to let it go to your head.]
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Then Avi Arad put his pen down and said, in a hoarse voice, "That's him."
"Avi..." the casting woman began.
"This is how I imagine him to be. That's Peter Parker. I've read these comics since I was eight years old, and that is the first time I've seen him walk into a room. Tag him for next stage."
David Yates had not taken his eyes off Shiv.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"Sixteen, sir."
"Where did you train?"
"I didn't, sir." Shiv smiled, a little sheepishly. "I've just... watched a lot of movies and TV shows."
Yates was silent for a moment. Then, for the first time since his arrival, he smiled.
"Mr. Bonshale," he said. "We will inform you of the results at the earliest. You may leave."
"Next!!!"
So did, the audition continued...