Ignoring Peter's groans of pain, Tobey spoke with cold, unwavering indifference.
"You can choose to play the hero. You can choose to shoulder the so-called responsibility of protecting the world."
"But you need to understand something. While you are out there protecting the masses, someone has to protect our home. You have already chosen to protect the world, which means I have to stay behind and protect our family."
"Peter, I don't oppose you becoming a superhero. But remember this: never encourage anyone else to become one. Because you wouldn't be helping them. You would be destroying them."
With that said, Tobey left Peter alone with his thoughts and headed out for his date.
It was the weekend.
Last week, he had promised to take Gwen out to dinner, and he wasn't going to break his word.
This time, Tobey didn't wait for Gwen to come find him. He took the initiative and drove his Audi R8 straight to her apartment building.
As for how he knew where she lived?
He had his mother, May, to thank for that.
Ever since Tobey had saved Gwen two years ago, she had visited the Parker household constantly. Sometimes she would come over with Peter after school and stay until late in the evening.
May absolutely adored Gwen. Given her protective nature, there was no way May was going to let a teenage girl walk home or take the subway alone at night.
Naturally, the task of chauffeuring Gwen home had fallen to Tobey.
After driving her back a few times, Tobey had memorized her address without even trying.
Since he had woken up early to apply the medicinal wine to Peter's bruised back, he decided to head over early and give Gwen a surprise.
After all, he had already decided to accept Gwen's feelings now that she had officially graduated high school. He couldn't just sit back and let the girl take all the initiative forever, right?
Stopping at a high-end supermarket downstairs, Tobey bought a tasteful gift basket and a beautiful bouquet of flowers before taking the elevator up to her floor.
Unlike the Parkers' modest, single-family suburban home in Queens, the Stacy residence fit the stereotypical mold of the successful American elite. They lived in a massive, single-floor luxury apartment in Manhattan.
Tobey stood in front of the Stacy family's door and knocked three times.
A few seconds later, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed from inside.
The door swung open.
Standing there was a very groggy Gwen. Her blonde hair was an absolute bird's nest, she was wearing a fluffy teddy bear pajama set, and a toothbrush was sticking out of the corner of her mouth.
Without even looking up to see who it was, she mumbled irritably around the toothbrush.
"No thank you. We don't need supermarket coupons, we don't want to enter a raffle, and we definitely don't want to buy cable. Also, I have a very important date today, so please do not bother me, okay?"
Having delivered her practiced New Yorker rejection, Gwen moved to shut the door.
"I'm going to guess that 'very important date' refers to the dinner I owe you. Right?"
Hearing that deep, familiar voice, Gwen's head snapped up.
Her eyes went wide as saucers, blinking rapidly as her sleepy brain tried to process why Tobey Parker was standing in her hallway.
A millisecond later, sheer, unadulterated horror washed over her.
She suddenly realized that she was not currently the perfectly styled, fully made-up goddess she usually was when she went to see him!
She was completely bare-faced and wearing cartoon pajamas!
"Holy f..."
Halfway through her panicked swear, Gwen violently clamped a hand over her mouth. She absolutely could not curse in front of the man she loved!
"Tobey! Wait right there! I'll be right back!"
Mumbling the words at lightning speed, Gwen slammed the door shut directly in his face and sprinted toward her bedroom.
She needed to deploy her full makeup arsenal at maximum speed!
Sitting at the dining table with his morning coffee, Captain George Stacy watched his daughter's frantic sprint in utter bewilderment.
His finely honed police instincts immediately began screaming at him. Something was very, very wrong.
His brilliant, permanently composed daughter had never panicked like this in her entire life!
This was suspicious. Incredibly suspicious!
And for a highly rational teenage girl to suddenly lose her mind like that, there were only two possible explanations. Either a close family member had just died, or... it was a boy!
Suddenly losing his appetite, Captain Stacy stood up with a dark, terrifying scowl on his face. He marched heavily toward the front door and yanked it open.
Sure enough, standing right in his hallway was a towering, handsome young man holding flowers!
Captain Stacy instantly subjected Tobey to a harsh, deeply critical police interrogation glare, scanning the boy from head to toe.
Tall and powerfully built. A confident, ramrod-straight posture. Strikingly handsome features with a calm, composed aura that still managed to project a subtle, razor-sharp edge. He was even wearing a perfectly tailored, immaculately clean casual suit!
Oh, dammit!
How could someone be this flawless? Even with his hyper-critical detective's eye, Captain Stacy couldn't find a single physical flaw to complain about!
In the battle of first impressions, the overprotective father who desperately wanted to find a reason to hate this boy had undeniably lost.
But George Stacy was a stubborn man. He simply refused to believe a man this perfect actually existed!
Based on his decades of experience as a police captain, he knew a fundamental truth about human nature. The more flawless someone appeared on the outside, the darker and more twisted they usually were on the inside!
Narrowing his eyes into a fierce glare, Captain Stacy barked out a rapid-fire interrogation.
"What is your name? What do you do for a living? Where do you live?"
Faced with a police captain treating him exactly like a prime murder suspect, Tobey didn't get angry. Instead, he offered a polite, charming smile and answered flawlessly.
"Reporting, Captain. My name is Tobey Parker. I currently work in urban pest control research. I live at 104 37th Avenue, Flushing, Queens."
Tobey's perfectly respectful response completely short-circuited Captain Stacy's aggressive momentum.
Usually, when he interrogated suspects like this on the streets, they would immediately tell him to eat shit. Why was this kid being so polite...
Wait. Right. He wasn't currently interrogating a criminal suspect in a precinct holding cell.
Then, as his brain finally processed the boy's answers, Captain Stacy's eyes widened slightly.
He actually recognized that name!
The Parker family in Queens! Wasn't that the house Gwen was constantly running off to after school?
Since Gwen had spent the last two years constantly visiting the Parker household, as an overprotective father and a police captain, George Stacy obviously wasn't going to remain ignorant.
He had absolutely used his police clearance to run a quiet, unofficial background check on the entire Parker family.
And the results of that background check were cleaner than 99.99 percent of the households in the United States. In fact, the entire family was flawlessly clean!
First, there were the heads of the household, Ben and May Parker. They had spent their entire lives working hard and doing good deeds for their community. They were the textbook definition of five-star New York citizens.
Next was the nephew, Peter Parker. A brilliant, straight-A student with an honest, kind-hearted personality. The absolute gold standard of a good kid.
Finally, there was the son, Tobey Parker. The young man standing right in front of him.
While his background profile didn't highlight the extreme, selfless altruism of his cousin or his parents, there wasn't a single flaw to be found on his record. In fact, according to the files, the kid was basically the absolute apex of American youth!
Perfect grades, perfect athletic scores, and a quiet, mind-your-own-business personality that kept him entirely out of trouble.
When Captain Stacy had run the background check two years ago, Tobey had just graduated early from MIT, and every major corporation in New York had been fighting a bidding war to hire him.
Stacy hadn't kept track of which top-tier conglomerate the boy eventually chose.
And now Tobey had just said he was working in urban pest control research.
In capitalist America, pest control wasn't exactly considered a highly prestigious, glamorous career path.
But to a righteous, highly responsible police captain like George Stacy, a brilliant young genius choosing to dedicate his life to public health and urban pest control over a greedy Wall Street paycheck was incredibly noble.
In the Captain's eyes, it was one of the greatest professions a man could have!