Aunt May's worries were not entirely misplaced. She really did have reason to worry that Peter would struggle to make friends. At what should have been a warm, cheerful dinner, Peter sat there quietly, focused on the muffin on his plate, focused entirely on the muffins on his plate and completely unable to break into the girls' conversation. Though to him, being excluded from whatever girls wanted to talk about seemed perfectly normal.
At least until the subject shifted to school jobs.
"I found out Midtown has a partnership with the Daily Bugle," Mary Jane said excitedly as she described the internship listing she had seen. "They recruit student reporters from our school every year. It's so cool. Maybe I'll even become a famous journalist someday."
"This kid's always onto something new every five minutes," Anna said with a fond smile, immediately undercutting her. "Before this, she wanted to be a star. She even auditioned for TV and ended up with a few tiny background parts. Now she wants to be a reporter."
"The Daily Bugle really is a solid media outlet," George said in agreement while cutting into a muffin. "Jameson is one of the rare independent media people out there. He doesn't lean toward one political side or the other. He reports according to his own moral standards." He hesitated, then added, "His attitude toward masked vigilantes is way too extreme, though. Spider-Man has helped the police more than once, and Jameson never seems interested in hearing any of our thanks."
Especially when it comes to Spider-Man, Peter thought as he ate.
Different versions of Jonah Jameson across different universes had different reasons for hating Spider-Man, and Peter still had not dealt with this universe's Jameson directly enough to know exactly what his issue was. But if it was not just blind malice, maybe there was even a chance he could become friends with Jonah somehow.
A Spider-Man who was friends with J. Jonah Jameson?
Yeah, that would definitely be funny.
"But isn't the rise in super-powered crime tied to all these vigilantes in the first place?" Mary Jane threw out a pretty common opinion. "Two years ago, before Iron Man and Ant-Man showed up, the world felt a lot more normal."
She had just voiced one of the most common arguments among people who opposed masked vigilantes.
Two years earlier, before Tony Stark and Hank Pym had become public superheroes, most people had been living ordinary lives. Sure, the world already had super-powered figures like the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, but the X-Men mostly dealt with mutant extremists who retaliated against humanity, while the Fantastic Four were, at their core, explorers and scientists. Aside from Johnny, none of them went around stepping into regular police business.
As for the others, Thor had still basically been a mythological figure, Captain America had still been frozen in the Arctic, and the Hulk had been little more than an urban legend and an international fugitive. Back then, people with powers were usually treated as dangerous individuals, not as celebrities adored by the public.
"And ever since Iron Man burst onto the scene, things have just gotten more chaotic. New York even got invaded by aliens."
"But the Avengers don't actually have that many people with real superpowers," Peter couldn't help saying. "Iron Man and Ant-Man rely on tech, Captain America is a super-soldier, Hulk's powers came from gamma radiation, and Thor... Thor's species is basically divine..."
"Peter," May cut in. "Remember that there is only one God, the good Lord above."
"...Sorry, May."
As someone who leaned far more toward science than faith, Peter had no interest in arguing with Aunt May over religion, so he just apologized and let that part go. Mary Jane stepped in to answer anyway.
"Okay, but aren't they attracting super-powered criminals? A lot of those people only get powers because they want to go after them, don't they?"
"Not all of them," Peter said seriously. "Spider-Man, for example. Or the vigilante in Hell's Kitchen. Most of the time they're dealing with ordinary criminals..."
"Hell's Kitchen?" May made the sign of the cross on her chest. "Good heavens. What kind of decent person calls himself the Devil?" Then she looked at George. "Tell me I'm right, George."
"That's outside my precinct," George said vaguely.
But inside the NYPD, everybody knew that Hell's Kitchen had more than just the so-called Devil. There was also the man in the skull shirt, a vigilante known for hitting criminals far harder than the others did.
"How do you even know about Hell's Kitchen, Peter?"
"I heard about it at school!" Peter answered quickly, trying to move past the subject. "You know, May, Hell's Kitchen is still in New York."
But Aunt May was not letting him off that easily. She pointed at him with her fork.
"Listen to me. You are absolutely not going anywhere near a place like that."
"I'm fifteen..."
"Peter Benjamin Parker!"
"Okay, okay, got it..."
Peter hurriedly changed the subject.
"Anyway, I also saw a Daily Bugle listing for a website maintenance job on the school internship board. I'm actually pretty good at that kind of thing. I could do it from home."
"Whoa!" Mary Jane's eyes lit up. "Maybe we could work together?"
"Uh, I'm not really sure. A job like that can usually be done from home."
"Peter," May sighed again, "you need to get out more. If you get a job, you should actually go in to work."
"Yes, May," Peter said with a sigh of his own, lowering his head and going back to demolishing muffins while silently praying for the evening to end as soon as possible.
Gwen glanced between the two of them and quietly wondered whether she ought to get some kind of Daily Bugle job too.
Herman lay on a moldy mattress in a room barely bigger than a closet. His father had slept here before him. So had both of his brothers. Maybe in a few years, if Herman was no longer there, his younger brother would end up taking it too.
The smell of mildew and sweat filled his nose as the images from the day replayed in his head. The carefully planned robbery. The sudden failure. The sight of Spider-Man moving through the fight like he was untouchable. And that Shocker launcher, the one that had accidentally sliced through an entire building.
What burned even more was the red-and-blue figure on the front page of the Daily Bugle.
All of New York was talking about him, whether they loved him or hated him.
"Just another freak," Herman muttered to himself as he drifted into sleep.
In the dream, he was wearing a white coat while a clinic full of patients waited eagerly to see him. Then he was in gold-rimmed glasses, walking through Manhattan as a successful lawyer. Then he was in Stark Industries coveralls, personally helping Iron Man calibrate one of the suits.
He dreamed of the day he finally left Harlem behind, the day TV reporters came to interview him.
He had escaped everything that came with growing up where he did. He had made something of himself.
Then thunder cracked.
"That damn Spider-Man!"
The shout shattered the dream.
The cameramen all turned away from him. The host abandoned him too and ran toward the giant screen in Times Square, where every image was Spider-Man and every sound was Jameson screaming about Spider-Man.
Below the screen, crowds wore Spider-Man masks and shouted in support of him.
"Come back! I'm right here!"
Then Herman was back on the day after middle school graduation. The gang boss had shoved a machete into his hands.
"Stay close, rookie. Tonight we're showing that other crew who they messed with."
"I shouldn't be here..." Herman said numbly as he looked at the man. "I should still be in school..."
"And do what?" the boss sneered. "Drown in debt, get turned down by the schools you want, maybe waste time at community college if you're lucky? Wake up. Look at where we live. Look at the life in front of you. This is where people like us end up."
"I don't have to stay here!" Herman suddenly dropped to his knees. "I can give up engineering. I'll study law instead. My grades are good. I can become the gang's lawyer! Once I make it, I can get all of us through every case. Please, boss. Let me stay in school. I'll do anything."
For a moment, it seemed like he had convinced him. The boss was going to help him stay in school, let him handle the gang's books for now, and Herman shouted in joy as the man stepped out of the alley and into the street.
Then he saw the bullet coming.
He saw the man's head explode.
He saw the so-called forces of justice arrive after that. Maybe police. Maybe Avengers. Maybe even that red-and-blue figure. They had wiped out the evil, arrested the criminals, and left Herman alone in the alley.
"No! No, no, no!"
Screaming, Herman was suddenly back in the morning, clutching the Shocker launcher and firing wildly into the night sky. Shockwaves tore through the darkness, but that agile figure kept dodging every single one. He moved too fast for the vibrations to keep up, and he was strong enough to tear down a utility pole and slam it straight into Herman.
"You think fighting me is going to make you somebody, Herman?"
Spider-Man walked toward him almost lazily. Webbing wrapped around him and his greatest weapon, binding them together so tightly he couldn't move.
Spider-Man grew bigger and bigger. The red and blue on his suit began to melt, spread, and flood everything around him. His voice echoed from every direction, layering over itself.
"Even if you fought me, you'd still just be nobody. No one remembers some nobody Spider-Man beat without trying."
Herman began to melt too. His hands fused into the weapon. Spider-Man became nothing but color, engulfing him from every direction.
"Shut up!"
Herman threw a punch. The melted Shocker launcher exploded with force, blasting the color apart.
Sunlight stabbed through the curtainless window and jolted him awake.
Herman stared at his trembling hands, then slowly closed them into fists.
"Just wait, New York," he swore into the morning light. "I'll make every last one of you remember my name."
(End of Chapter)
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