Morning light cut through the gaps in the curtains. Not much — just thin blades of white that striped the floor and the edge of the bed.
I opened my eyes.
No hangover. No pain. My body felt... light. Wrong kind of light — like someone had swapped out all my parts overnight and put in better ones.
I raised my hand and looked at it. Turned it over. Closed it into a fist.
Pop.
The air cracked between my fingers. I barely squeezed.
I opened my hand and closed it again. Slower this time. I could feel it — the difference. My joints moved smoother. My fingers responded faster. When I flexed my forearm, the muscle under my skin didn't look any bigger, but it felt compressed. Tight. Coiled. Like a spring wound ten extra turns.
I sat up. No stiffness. No soreness. Yesterday I'd been turned into a walking volcano, burned two men to ash, and passed out in the rain, and today I felt like I'd slept twelve hours in a five-star hotel.
[Physical Remodeling Complete] [Current Status: Carbon-Based Biological Limit (Untransformed)] [Neural Reflexes: +40%] [Bone Density: +40%]
I waved the data away.
Mom was still in the chair next to my bed. She'd slid further down in the night — her head resting against the mattress now, hair a mess, one hand still gripping the edge of the blanket I'd put over her. Even asleep she looked exhausted. The kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix.
I sat there watching her breathe for a minute. Remembering. The alley. The gunshot. The heat leaving my body. The cold rain on my face right before everything went dark.
She sat here all night. Didn't sleep in her own bed. Didn't leave this chair.
I reached out to brush the hair off her face.
My fingers touched her cheek and she exploded.
"Who is it?!"
She shot upright — chair legs scraping the floor, hands up, eyes wild. For a second she didn't know where she was. Then her eyes found my face and everything on hers just... collapsed.
"Oh God — Leon, you're awake, you're—"
She grabbed me. Both arms, full strength, crushing my face against her chest. She was shaking — not a little, a lot, her whole body vibrating, and I could feel her tears soaking through my shirt before she even made a sound.
"Those lunatics — those lunatics with guns—" Her voice was cracking, jumping between words. "I thought I was going to lose you both, I thought—"
I let her hold on. She smelled like laundry detergent and the faint leftover sweetness of last night's cookie batter. I put my hand on her back and patted. Slow. Steady.
"It's okay, Mom. Dad's fine. I'm fine. The bad guys are gone."
She cried for a long time. Shaking, gasping, the kind of crying that comes after the danger has passed and your body finally lets go of everything it was holding. I didn't say anything. I just kept my hand on her back and let her get through it.
A few minutes later the sobbing slowed down. She pulled back, wiped her face with her sleeve — messy, rough — and looked me up and down with swollen red eyes. Checking. Making sure I was real. That I was whole.
Then her gaze landed on my left wrist.
The Omnitrix. Sitting there in the morning light, black housing with its green hourglass, faintly humming. It looked different now — not the dull plastic she'd seen for sixteen years. Darker. Metallic. Alive.
Her breathing changed. She grabbed my left hand. Her fingers were cold.
"Take it off."
Not a question.
"I can't. It doesn't come off."
She stood up, picked up a pair of scissors from the floor — the same kitchen shears from last night — and came back to the bed.
"Give me your hand."
I held out my wrist.
She grabbed it, wedged the scissor blade into the gap between the Omnitrix strap and my skin, and pried. Hard.
Screeeech—
Metal on metal. The sound made my teeth ache. The blade didn't leave a scratch. The strap didn't move.
She gritted her teeth and pushed harder. The scissors slipped, nearly cutting my skin. She adjusted her grip and tried again. And again. Her hands were shaking.
"Mom, it's useless."
"Shut up."
She was getting rougher now — jamming the scissor tip against the watch face, trying to find a seam, a weak point, anything. Her movements were getting frantic.
"Nothing is impossible to take off!" Her voice was climbing. "I won't allow you to carry this — this thing. That red monster last night — God, what if you turned into that and couldn't come back? What if—"
I caught her wrist with my other hand. Gentle. But she couldn't pull free.
"Mom. Look at me."
She tried to yank her hand back. Couldn't.
She looked up. The hard shell she'd been forcing herself to hold together all night cracked right down the middle.
"Dad is downstairs drinking coffee."
I held her eyes. Spoke slow.
"He's reading the paper. Complaining about Stark Industries stock dropping again. He's alive, Mom."
Her lips started trembling.
"If I didn't have this watch — if it hadn't turned on last night—" I pointed toward the window with my free hand. "Right now, downstairs would be draped in black. You wouldn't be arguing with me about taking this off. You'd be picking out the cheapest coffin."
She sat down on the edge of the bed like her strings had been cut.
"Stop—" She covered her mouth. Tears again.
"I have to say it." I didn't back down, but I softened my voice. "That mugger had the gun three inches from Dad's face. His finger was on the trigger. If I hadn't gotten between them — if I hadn't done what I did — Dad would be dead. And I almost died too."
I held up my left wrist. The Omnitrix caught the morning light.
"This world is going sideways, Mom. It's not just Queens anymore. Mutants are showing up everywhere. Stark Industries weapons are leaking onto the black market. Every week there's some new freak in a costume blowing up a city block."
I took her hand and pressed it flat against my chest. My heart was beating. Steady. Strong.
"I don't want to be a superhero. I don't want to save the world. I just want to keep this family alive. That's it."
I looked at her.
"Next time someone points a gun at you — or at Dad, or at Peter — what do you want me to do? Hide in a corner and call 911? Pray the cops show up before it's time to pick out caskets?"
She flinched.
"I can't do that, Mom. I won't."
The room was quiet for a long time. Just the sound of the clock ticking and the sparrows on the power line outside.
Then May Parker wiped her face. Straightened her back. Took a breath.
The women in this family bounced back fast. It was almost scary.
"Listen to me, Leon Parker."
Her voice was calm again. Not warm-calm. Cold-calm. The voice she used when Peter broke the kitchen window and tried to blame the wind.
"The world is dangerous. We can't rely on luck."
She grabbed my wrist — the one with the Omnitrix — and squeezed. Her nails dug into my skin.
"You can keep it. But you are going to listen to what I say right now, and you are going to remember it for the rest of your life. This is the supreme constitution of this house. More authority than the President of the United States."
I sat up straight. "I'm listening."
She held up one finger.
"First. Unless you, Ben, Peter, or I are about to die — actually die, not maybe die, not possibly die — you do not use that thing. Someone getting robbed on the street? Call the police. A fight outside a bar? Walk away. You are not a cop. You are not God."
"Agreed."
Second finger. Her eyes went sharp.
"Second. Whatever you turn into — fire monster, rock monster, I don't care — nobody sees your face. Nobody connects it to this family. If your identity ever gets out and someone comes looking—"
"I'll leave," I said. "Immediately. I won't put the family at risk."
"Shut up." She grabbed my ear and twisted. Hard. "I mean if your identity gets out, we move. All of us. Together. Countryside, overseas, the moon, I don't care where. And if anyone tries to touch my family—"
She let go of my ear and looked me dead in the eye.
"I'll fight them myself."
I stared at her for a second. Then something tugged at the corner of my mouth.
This was May Parker. She didn't care about justice. She didn't care about the greater good. She cared about four people in a house in Queens, and God help anything that threatened them.
"Third."
She took a breath. Looked at the Omnitrix.
"Three people know about this. Ben, me, and you. That's it."
"What about Peter?"
"Absolutely not."
The reaction was instant. Visceral.
"That boy is an open book. He couldn't keep a secret if you stapled his mouth shut. If he found out we were hiding this — if he knew what happened last night — his whole world falls apart."
She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter.
"Letting Peter be a happy, clueless nerd is the best protection we can give him."
I went quiet.
Protect Peter.
Peter Parker. Future Spider-Man. Future Avenger. The kid who'd go through more suffering than almost anyone in this universe. And right now, his family's biggest priority was making sure he stayed innocent.
The irony was so thick I wanted to laugh.
I didn't.
"Fine. I promise."
May let out a long breath and leaned back in the chair, like she'd just set down something very heavy.
The room was still for about three seconds.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The door shook. Wood chips practically vibrating.
"Hey! Lazy bums! The sun is hitting your butts!"
A voice — loud, bright, buzzing with energy — punched through the door and blew the heavy atmosphere out of the room like a window being thrown open.
"Open up! Today's the Osborn Industries Science Exhibition! Norman Osborn is hosting it personally! We're gonna be late! Leon! Stop playing dead, I know you're in there!"
May's face froze for half a second. Then she was moving — hands through her hair, palms slapping her cheeks to bring back color, straightening her shirt. By the time she turned around she was Aunt May again. The nagging, fussing, slightly overbearing aunt who had never been covered in anyone's blood.
Click.
The door opened.
Peter Parker stood in the hallway. Massive backpack on his shoulders. Two crumpled tickets in his hand, waving them like flags. His face was pure, undiluted excitement — the face of a science nerd about to meet his hero.
He had no idea what this family had been through last night.
He had even less idea what was waiting for him at that exhibition. A radioactive spider, sitting in a glass case somewhere in Osborn Industries, getting ready to sink its fangs into the hand of some unlucky kid and rewrite his DNA forever.
"Hurry up, Leon! If we're any later we'll have to stand in the back!"
I leaned against the headboard. Rubbed the Omnitrix with my thumb.
"Coming."
I swung my legs out of bed.
"Stop rushing, Peter."
I grabbed my jacket off the chair, and a grin pulled at my mouth that I couldn't quite stop.
"Go and meet your destiny."
Plz throw power stones.