The air conditioner in the comic shop hummed steadily, but it did nothing to dispel the attention gathering around Peter. Those looks were like sticky syrup, with envy mixed into the bitterness. After all, a lucky guy who could bring a beautiful girl like Gwen to shop for cosplay outfits was a rare sight in a place full of nerds and junk food.
Peter, however, wasn't reading comics or chatting with anyone. He was just scrolling through his phone while waiting for Gwen to change, checking the latest crime map in New York that J.A.R.V.I.S. had sent him.
The good news was that New York really had been unusually peaceful lately. Peaceful enough that Spider-Man had no use at all.
The bad news was that someone was probably doing his job for him.
More new videos had appeared showing Spider-Man fighting thugs and low-level crooks again. The style was completely his, and the movements were close enough to be unsettling. If Chameleon weren't already behind bars, Peter would've assumed it was him.
Or maybe it was him. Maybe he had escaped, or maybe someone had let him out. After Herman had walked right back out into the world, Peter really shouldn't have expected anything from NYPD security ever again. Their security was about as reliable as Captain Stacy making breakfast.
Which was to say, not at all.
"Are you sure this looks right on me?"
Peter looked up and saw Gwen stepping out of the dressing room. She was wearing Supergirl's classic comic-book costume. After giving a small turn, she looked at Peter uncertainly and asked the question. Peter naturally answered with an encouraging smile.
"Yeah. It suits you."
"When I first got it, I was worried about the skirt length, but it's actually okay. Even my dad probably wouldn't complain at this length."
"If Captain Stacy worries about it, you could always wear leggings underneath."
Gwen gave him a strange look.
"Are you serious? A superhero costume with full pants underneath?"
"We're just doing a school theme day thing, Gwen. It's not like we're going to Comic-Con. Even if it looks a little off, nobody's going to care. Besides, you already saw people at school dressed like Holmes and Pikachu somehow passing as superheroes."
"Fine. Give me a minute. I'll go change back."
Once Gwen disappeared into the changing room again, Peter went back to his phone. He sent J.A.R.V.I.S. another request to investigate the fake Spider-Man currently running around the city. This time the fake still wasn't just some random cosplayer. There were full web-swinging clips again, along with combat movement well beyond what a normal person should be able to pull off. Even without Chameleon, the not-yet-revealed Mysterio was obviously working behind the scenes.
Peter just still didn't know why Mysterio wasn't showing himself yet.
Was his equipment still unfinished? Could he only create fixed projected scenes with those projectors, instead of adapting illusions on the fly? Could he not fool thermal imaging, which was why he was staying hidden for now?
Peter frowned, unable to read his intentions. The little projection sphere from Mysterio was still in Peter's possession. Tonight, he could take it to Avengers Tower and analyze it properly.
"Do you have somewhere else to be?"
Gwen had finished buying the costume and was now looking at him curiously. Peter blinked and looked up.
"What?"
"I mean... you know. I told you this before, right? Ever since high school started, I can barely ever catch you. You get up crazy early, and we don't go home together anymore, so I've kind of been wondering if you've just been really busy... somewhere."
Peter didn't know how to answer that right away. He looked down at the phone in his hand, which had not given him any new alerts, and shook his head.
"No, really. It's nothing. Club stuff, running late, things like that."
"Really?"
"Really. Nothing going on. Want to head home together?"
Gwen still looked suspicious, but she didn't push it further.
"Sure. Let's go."
Peter let out a quiet sigh of relief and tightened his grip on the phone, hoping nothing would happen on the way that would require Spider-Man to show up.
Not everyone was in that good a mood.
Carl wasn't.
Earlier, when Peter had caught him going through the locker, Carl had, for reasons he couldn't even explain to himself, suddenly felt terrified. It was like he was convinced that any second Peter would turn into that freak in the Spider-Man costume and rush him before snapping his legs like twigs.
The moment Carl thought Peter might really be Spider-Man, fear gripped him.
He thought about all the times he had bullied Peter and other people over the years. With his size and strength, he had never felt bad about pushing people around. Why would he? He had always been bigger than them.
But if the person he had been bullying was strong enough to yank a car into the air and smash people with it...
Every time that thought came back, Carl felt cold.
But at the same time, the idea that weak, scrawny little Peter had him this rattled filled him with even more anger.
He was scared of that little runt?
Furious and frightened at the same time, Carl went home. His mother was there, but no one else. Mrs. King looked at him nervously and asked,
"Are you okay, Carl? You don't look like you're in a very..."
"If you can tell, then stop talking about it! Is dinner ready or not?!"
Carl snapped at her and threw his backpack onto the table before turning on the TV to watch a game.
His eyes drifted to the family photo above the fireplace. His father's hand rested on his shoulder, wearing a green Rolex Submariner. That watch was probably rotting in evidence storage by now, right alongside its owner in prison.
If the old man were here, maybe he'd know what to do. He'd probably hand Carl a gun and tell him, in that whiskey-soaked voice Carl remembered all too well:
"If you're scared of him, then follow him, put one bullet in his head, and you'll never have to be scared of him again."
"I miss you, Dad."
Carl muttered it under his breath while cracking open a beer from the coffee table and taking a long drink. Then he thought about Peter again, clenched his teeth, and crushed the can flat in one hand.
"Oh my God, Carl, your hand is bleeding."
Mrs. King came over with dinner and noticed the cut the aluminum had left in his palm. She quickly fetched rubbing alcohol and bandages, but Carl slapped her hand away, grabbed the bandages himself, and started cleaning it on his own.
"That little bit of food is all there is?! Who's that supposed to feed?!"
"There's more, there's more."
After shooing his mother away, Carl cleaned the wound himself. Once he finished dinner, he went back to his room.
He couldn't stop thinking about the stringy residue he had found in the chemistry lab, or the similar webbing he had seen after the fight with the Shocker. He had planned to compare them the next day, but by then the stuff had already disappeared completely.
Damn Peter Parker.
Lying on his bed, Carl scrolled through his phone, looking up Spider-Man. Some of the footage showed Spider-Man helping people and beating up crooks, and it was obvious those incidents had happened while Peter was still in school. Even so, Carl couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
He pulled out the brightly colored spider from his backpack.
The Oscorp spider.
That was the same spider he had put on Peter's neck. His masterpiece. His revenge for the way Peter had pushed back against him for three years in middle school.
And because of that, he had turned it into a specimen afterward and used it to scare other people.
"If Parker really did become Spider-Man because of this thing, then it doesn't matter anymore... all the insides are gone. It's just an empty shell."
Carl was about to put the spider back down when a bold idea suddenly came to him.
What if he ate it?
It had been preserved in alcohol, not formaldehyde, and months had already passed. Even if he ate it, he probably wouldn't die. At worst, he'd feel sick for a few days.
And if the shell still worked...
Carl hesitated.
He placed the spider on the desk and lay back down on his bed.
When he closed his eyes, the first thing that flashed through his mind was the sight of Spider-Man in the Shocker fight, smashing that enormous billboard down on top of him.
Carl jerked upright in terror, grabbed the spider specimen from the desk, shoved it into his mouth, chewed it to pieces, and swallowed.
He didn't know why he had done it.
But after that, with that little bit of imagined security inside him, Carl finally fell asleep.
(End of Chapter)
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