For Peter Parker, severe tendon damage, hairline fractures, torn alveoli, and widespread internal bleeding were not the kind of injuries that meant weeks in the ICU.
For Spider-Man, they were the kind of injuries a few nights of deep sleep could start fixing.
Peter Parker was not about to take time off because of something this minor. Spider-Man would be back out protecting the city tomorrow.
But the next morning, Peter did not go on patrol.
Not because he was upset about failing to catch the Shocker.
It was because Gwen Stacy caught him first.
"Morning, genius."
When the blonde girl appeared at his front door with a backpack slung over one shoulder, Peter instinctively scratched the back of his head, making his sleep-mussed black hair wobble like antennae.
"Uh... morning, Gwen. You're up early."
"Every morning, you're already gone before I even leave, so I wanted to find out how early I had to get up to catch you."
Then she added, "Also, my dad got home really late last night and told me not to wait up for him."
"Things that bad at the precinct? I heard some guy was hopping around Manhattan yesterday."
"I don't know. He doesn't want to tell me anything."
Now that Gwen had caught him, there was obviously no way Peter could slip off in costume and go patrol. So he had no choice but to go with her and take the subway into Midtown Manhattan. The two of them bought tickets, boarded the train, and fell into casual conversation.
"So how's the rock band thing going? Any progress?"
"Yep. We found a few people. MJ, Liz, Betty... oh, sorry, you don't know any of them except MJ." Gwen smiled. "I told you, I can make friends faster than you can."
Peter gave an awkward little laugh. He had never thought of himself as shy, but At school, the rules were always the same. Big football idiots got all the attention... while actual talented people who belonged in a lab could not even get invited to a dance.
If nobody liked studying, then naturally Peter Parker was not going to have an easy time finding people.
"So what are you going to do about practicing? I really don't think George is going to let you bring drumsticks home, let alone a full drum kit."
"Yeah, I don't think so either."
Talking about that made Gwen sigh too, but after muttering "I'll figure it out later," she dropped it and looked at Peter instead.
"So what about you? You get on the subway this early every day. Do you seriously just go to school and sit around until class starts?"
Peter started thinking up some excuse that would make his early mornings sound normal, but then he suddenly got an idea.
"Have you ever tried getting off one stop early? Or one stop late?"
Gwen looked at him like he had just spoken in alien.
"What?"
"I mean getting off one stop early or late and just walking the rest of the way to school. We're still super early right now, so we could do that every morning."
"..."
Gwen's expression said she was reevaluating him as a lifeform.
"This is why you get up so early every day?"
"No, actually it's the other way around. I wake up too early and need something to do, so I kill time like this."
Peter let out a small sigh, then smiled.
"Want to come?"
"I don't have anything better to do, so sure. Lead the way."
That turned out to be the worst decision Peter made all day.
Not because the route itself was a problem, but because the second they came out of the station, the giant screen on the side of a shopping center blared a very familiar voice.
"Yesterday, our beautiful city was once again terrorized by two lunatics! Spider-Man and some madman in a high-tech battle suit tore through the streets in open combat! According to current police information, the so-called Shocker is the very same criminal Spider-Man supposedly stopped during an earlier robbery!"
J. Jonah Jameson's face filled the screen, red with fury.
"Take a good look, New York! This is what masked vigilantes bring us. More masked criminals! I can guarantee this so-called Shocker is a monster Spider-Man helped create! I can say with confidence that he became a super-criminal because he wanted revenge on a man like Spider-Man, someone who acts above the law! Ask yourselves this. If the police or the Avengers had arrested Herman Schultz instead, would he have become this?"
Then Jameson leaned forward until his face nearly swallowed the camera, his spit practically flying through the screen.
"No! Because then he would've known he deserved to be arrested! He would've known he'd been taken down by people with authority, not by some guy in tights swinging around and sticking his nose into everything! He wouldn't have walked away thinking he was just unlucky or that he never should've been caught in the first place!"
If you had said that the first time we met, bug.
If you'd said it to Herman Schultz instead of to the Shocker.
Peter remembered Herman's words from the day before and felt a headache forming. He rubbed his temple, hearing a different meaning in them now.
If Spider-Man had looked at Herman during that first bank robbery and said, "That weapon is incredible," maybe the Shocker never would have existed at all.
Maybe because Peter had failed to say one simple thing, a supervillain had been born.
"I hate to say it, but for once Jameson almost sounds like he has a point."
Gwen stared at him like he had just confessed to murder.
"Seriously? Whenever Jameson talks about Spider-Man, even my dad's expression says it's all complete nonsense."
Peter finally cracked and laughed.
"He really looks like that?"
"He never swears in front of his daughter, but trust me, that's exactly what his face says. So where are we even going?"
Peter pointed vaguely at a nearby apartment building.
"There. The roof."
A few minutes later, they were standing near the edge of the rooftop. Gwen looked down over the city and folded her arms.
"Nice view. Assuming you don't fall off."
"Do you remember Andrew Derby? We went to middle school with him."
"Not at all."
Then Gwen frowned, searching her memory.
"Wait. Wasn't he the younger student who died after some really bad stuff happened to him?"
"Yeah. Here."
Gwen immediately stepped back from the ledge and returned to the safer part of the rooftop. Peter stayed where he was, sitting on the edge and looking out over the New York skyline he came here to stare at every few days.
"So... you knew him?"
"No. Not really. I just saw him a couple of days before it happened. He looked miserable, like something terrible had happened to him. Sometimes when I come up here, I think about whether things might have gone differently if I'd just walked over and talked to him."
Gwen fell silent. She clearly had no idea how to answer at first. After struggling to find the right words, she finally spoke.
"And if you had talked to him, and nothing changed, then what? Would you just start blaming yourself for not saying the right thing? For not somehow fixing everything?"
"But..."
"No, don't." Gwen sat down beside him and cut him off. "Give me a minute. Let me think."
"Uh..."
"Okay. I know what I want to say now. You would be absolutely terrible at working any kind of crisis hotline job, Peter. You'd spend one day trying to save every single person, and by the next day you'd be completely wrecked because you couldn't carry all of it." She gave him a blunt example, but somehow it still fit. "Stuff like that, things like that, they're not your responsibility. You don't have to take responsibility for everything that happens to everyone, especially people you barely even knew."
"Being kind is a good thing, genius. But when kindness goes too far, it turns into a curse. And curses are never a good thing."
When Gwen finished, she stayed sitting beside him. The two of them sat there in silence for a while. Gwen had the feeling Peter probably thought she didn't really understand him, that she couldn't.
And maybe she couldn't.
So she tried one more question.
"So when thoughts like that hit you, you come up here and sit for a bit. Does it help at all?"
"At least I haven't thrown myself off this roof."
Well, that wasn't entirely true. Once or twice he'd tested the drop before catching himself again, chasing that free-fall feeling. But even that didn't scare him the way it used to.
"Maybe you should talk to a priest or something."
"I don't do religion. I do science."
"Then talk to me. Or Uncle Ben. Or Aunt May. Just don't keep everything bottled up in your own head, genius."
Peter Parker answered only with a quiet smile.
"I will."
Gwen wasn't sure he actually meant it, but she knew there was at least one person Peter would listen to. After school, she was going to have a long talk with Uncle Ben.
(End of Chapter)
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