At six o'clock sharp, the alarm went off and shattered Peter Parker's pleasant dream.
He raised a hand and gently turned it off, without smashing it into pieces this time.
"Day twenty-two of conquering morning rage. Nice."
Peter patted his cheeks, got out of bed in high spirits, got dressed, washed up, and headed downstairs.
He found Aunt May clearing the table in the dining room and asked in confusion, "Did Uncle Ben sleep in today?"
"Maybe it isn't Ben who forgot to get up," May said, rolling her eyes at him as she tidied the dishes. She was a little younger than Ben and still not quite forty. "Maybe someone forgot what day it is."
"Oh! I forgot school starts today."
Peter immediately understood why Uncle Ben hadn't gone running with him.
"Is Uncle Ben in the garage?"
"Yep. Can you go call Gwen from next door?"
Peter nodded, ruffling his hair as he stepped outside.
Gwen Stacy was his childhood friend. Since her father, George, was a single parent and also a police captain with a demanding job, Gwen had spent much of her time growing up under the care of the Parkers.
But during the few months since Peter had become Spider-Man, Gwen had gone on a graduation trip to London with her middle school class. She had spent the whole summer having the time of her life over there and had only gotten back yesterday. Peter hadn't gone, partly because he was still training with Uncle Ben and partly because he had Spider-Man duties, and she had definitely been unhappy about that before leaving.
Hopefully London had improved her mood.
"Hey, Peter."
Before he could even knock, Gwen was already leaning out from the second floor.
Her messy blonde hair was all over the place as she asked, "What time is it?"
"Only six. This might be the first time I've ever seen you up this early. Rough night?"
"Awful. I'm still wrecked from the time difference. I barely slept at all." Gwen rubbed at her tangled blonde hair. "Give me a second. I'll be right down."
Peter waited patiently for about five minutes before Gwen came out and opened the door. Her hair had been brushed and pinned back with a black headband, falling naturally to her shoulder blades.
"Turtleneck, long sleeves, and jeans. Huh. Guess London is a lot hotter than New York."
"Uh... whatever. I don't feel hot." Gwen glanced down at what she was wearing, then tossed something at him. "Catch, genius. I brought you a souvenir."
"Whoa. A Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat. Did you get this from a souvenir shop on Baker Street?"
"No. I bought it from some random stall."
Gwen shut the door behind her, smiling as she joked.
Peter glanced through the front room of the Stacy house.
"Where's George? Already gone to work?"
"No. He didn't get to sleep until almost dawn. I doubt he's got time to drive us to school today, so let him rest. I'm eating breakfast at your place."
"Perfect. Aunt May already made breakfast, and Uncle Ben just went out to the garage."
Gwen gave a helpless little smile.
"Looks like Uncle Ben and Aunt May know he should either sleep more or sleep earlier."
Breakfast at the Parker house was simple. A few slices of toasted bread with lettuce and jam, plus some fried eggs.
By the time everything was on the table, Uncle Ben finally came into the dining room after washing his hands.
"All right, kids. I'm driving you to Midtown High today. First day of high school, after all."
He sat down and added with a touch of regret, "I've still got work, so I can't stay for the opening ceremony. I left George a message. If he wakes up early enough, maybe he can make it."
"It's fine. Let him sleep." Gwen bit into her egg with dramatic bitterness. "He can figure out breakfast on his own."
May and Ben exchanged amused looks.
Peter, meanwhile, didn't say much. He finished his breakfast quickly and just sat there. Gwen, still eating, glanced at the clock in the dining room.
"That wasn't even two minutes. Since when do you eat that fast?"
"He's been like this all summer," May said, making the sign of the cross over her chest. "Peter keeps eating faster and faster. I was starting to think he'd suddenly turned into a bottomless pit. Thank God he just eats fast."
"I need to leave enough time to train in hand-to-hand combat with Uncle Ben..."
"Wait." Gwen froze. "You've been training to fight over the summer?"
Peter paused, then nodded and used the excuse he had prepared long ago.
"Yeah. I need to make sure I don't run into another bully like Carl King in high school... and the worst part is, Carl got into Midtown High too."
Carl King was the biggest enemy Peter had run into after getting a second chance. He was already over six feet tall in middle school, a classic school bully built like a football player who liked picking on other students, and not just nerds either.
Honestly, Peter had thought he'd have to wait until Flash Thompson before he ran into that kind of trouble.
Instead, he got Carl in middle school.
Before getting his spider powers, Peter had naturally been bullied by him more than once. Of course, Peter had gotten back at him with a few inventive pranks, and with Carl's brainpower, he had never managed to figure out who was behind them.
In fact, Carl even had something to do with Peter becoming Spider-Man.
At the Oscorp science expo, when the radiation device malfunctioned and the whole place turned chaotic, this idiot had somehow still found time to catch the radioactive spider and drop it right onto Peter's neck.
Peter had originally still been wrestling with whether or not he should become Spider-Man, half-watching for some absurd chance that the spider might end up on him.
Then Carl had made the choice for him.
"You'd better still be careful," Gwen said. "I don't think two months of training means you can beat Carl King in a fight."
Peter just laughed it off.
"Ha. I'll flatten him."
"Remember, learning to fight isn't about picking fights. It's about protecting yourself," Uncle Ben added automatically.
Then he realized Peter was probably the last person he needed to worry about on that front. Smiling, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood up.
"All right, kids. Time to go."
The Parkers' car was an old Toyota, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. The engine took its time turning over, but fortunately Midtown High wasn't far. It should only take a little over ten minutes in the morning.
In the car, Peter and Gwen kept chatting about her trip to London, all the places she had visited, and the kinds of pictures she had taken. Ben didn't turn on the radio. He just drove, listening to the two teenagers talk, and couldn't help smiling to himself.
It looked like another perfectly ordinary day.
"Uncle Ben! Look out!"
Peter Parker's sharp shout made Ben slam on the brakes.
A second later, part of the wall of the building beside them came crashing down. Broken slabs of concrete smashed into the street just ahead of the car, only ten or twelve feet away.
Still shaken from how close it had been, Ben let out a long breath and started to turn the car around, only for another section of collapsing wall to block the road behind them too.
A huge mass of concrete and rebar crushed the engine of the car behind them, and the driver jumped out and ran.
"Out of the car, now!"
Ben reacted instantly, shoving both kids out as he spotted a nearby subway station.
"Get inside the station and take cover!"
Peter looked at the cracking building nearby. The walls were splitting apart fast. He glanced at Ben and Gwen, then abruptly bolted away from them.
"Uncle Ben, Gwen, get somewhere safe first! I'll go check if there's a secure way out around here!"
"Be careful!" Ben shouted after him before grabbing Gwen's hand and pulling her toward the subway entrance.
Gwen stared after Peter, who was somehow still running with his backpack on, and was just about to say something.
Why is he still carrying his backpack at a time like this?
"I knew becoming Spider-Man would eventually mean dealing with something like this, but on the first day of high school? Seriously?"
Sprinting into a nearby alley with his backpack still on, Peter made sure there were no cameras and no pedestrians around. Then he pulled out his web-shooters and mask from the bag, tossed the backpack dozens of feet into the air, leaped onto the wall, and ran upward while putting on the gear.
The backpack reached the top of its arc and began to fall.
Then a strand of web caught it and yanked it right back to him.
Peter stuffed his T-shirt and sweatpants into the bag, pulled out the long gloves attached to the sleeves, slid them on, and pulled them up over his shoulders.
The suit underneath the T-shirt only had short sleeves, so it could zip together with the gloves. He had designed it that way to make changing in summer and fall easier.
He hadn't expected to need it this soon.
One glove first.
Then switch hands and pull on the other while holding the backpack.
Finally, he took out the spider-belt holding spare web fluid and other small tools, clenched it between his teeth, zipped the bag shut, hurled it upward again, buckled on the belt, pulled down the mask, and launched himself forward.
Bathed in the morning sun, the red-and-blue hero soared from the edge of the building. One strand of web stuck his backpack to the outer wall of a nearby tower, and the next instant he was racing in the other direction before diving off into open air.
The whole process was even faster than Peter had expected.
He even had time to glance at the digital watch on his left wrist.
"If I can wrap this up in under half an hour, Uncle Ben still won't be late for work!"
At the subway entrance, Uncle Ben and Gwen were realizing things were getting bad fast. They weren't the only ones who had chosen the station as shelter. A huge crowd was pushing toward the entrance, and people were already bunching up in dangerous numbers.
And the nearby building was in even worse shape now. The cracking sounds were loud and constant.
Then came the screams.
Uncle Ben and Gwen looked up and saw chunks of falling concrete dropping from above.
But the screaming didn't stop.
Because the collapsing debris never hit anyone.
It got caught in a net.
Then a fast-moving patch of shadow swept over the crowd, and people looked up in surprise.
"Is it a bird? Is it a plane?"
"No! Ha! It's Spider-Man!"
Answering his own question, Spider-Man fired countless web-lines between two buildings, weaving a giant web over the street and catching every falling slab of stone and concrete.
Only after finishing that did Peter finally have time to land on the building across from the collapse and study what was happening.
"All right. Let's see what caused this."
His gaze swept across the badly damaged structure.
Then, with a sudden blast, he saw the source at last.
Smoke was pouring out from one specific spot.
A bank.
(End of Chapter)
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