Caught in a Web (of his own)
Peter hated lying. Well, he didn’t hate it—he was Spider-Man, after all, and lying was practically part of the job description. But lying about his love life? That was a whole new level of chaos.
It started innocently enough. Aunt May, smiling over her freshly (though burnt) batch of cookies, casually asked, “So, Peter, how’s your love life nowadays?”
Peter froze mid-bite. He could feel his heartbeat spike, and his mind raced like it was in a race against time. “Uh-uhm… it’s, uh, good! I mean, it’s… complicated, you know, with school and everything.”
May, being May, didn’t seem suspicious at first, if anything she was excited. “Well, you know I’m always here if you want to talk about it. Are you seeing anyone? That MJ seems like fun.”
Peter’s stomach dropped. Was he about to reveal that he was definitely not dating MJ? Or, worse, that MJ was dating someone else and he wasn’t ready to explain that yet? A lie seemed like one of the safer routes.
“Oh.. yeah! I, uh, I am dating someone. Harry.”
Silence. Peter choked on his spit once the words left his lips. May blinked a few times, processing the words. And just like that, Peter was trapped.
“Harry?” she repeated, her voice a mix of surprise and curiosity. “Peter, you never mentioned Harry before. You sure?”
“Yeah, we’ve been… hanging out for a while now,” Peter quickly added on, desperately trying to play it cool. (even if he was questioning his own words) “I guess it just, uh, slipped my mind.”
May wasn’t convinced at first. She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press further, something about her expression unreadable. Peter was pretty sure she was thinking along the lines of, Well that’s new.
“Alright, well, if you ever want to bring him over for dinner, you know where I am,” she said with a wink, before turning back to the stove. “On second thought, before you do that, let’s ask if Tony’s available in case I burn it. In any case, he seems nice.”
Peter was already sweating bullets.What had he done? The tension in the room was suffocating, and he could already feel the lie spiraling out of control with each sentence.
Later that evening, Peter sat at the dinner table, staring sown his half-eaten plate of Thai food, wondering how to fix his mess. Aunt May, still humming happily to herself, seemed to believe it enough to let it go. But Peter couldn’t. Every glance towards her made him think even harder on it, seeing the curious glint in her eyes. Was she waiting on him? Did she suspect anything?
Aunt May, finally noticing his unease, leaned across the table. “You know, Peter, you can always talk to me about these things. I won’t judge. Just be honest with me, alright?”
Peter froze again. His thoughts scrambled. Be honest? How could he be honest when he didn’t even know what was going on anymore? He kept the vigilante secret for months and now he had this!
“Yeah, Aunt May, of course,” Peter replied, his voice tight, trying his best to sound normal.
But inside, he was crumbling. He could feel his web of lies starting to tighten around him, and no matter how hard he tried to escape, he knew it was only a matter of time before everything came crashing down.