With great power comes... you know the rest
“I missed the part where that’s my problem.”
Peter felt good throwing the manager’s words back at him like that. He felt smug, confident for the first time in years; hell, why should he stop the man who robbed the man who scammed him? Peter got in the elevator and went down, that good feeling quickly fading when he got outside. A crowd gathered outside the building entrance. As Peter glanced over, he almost refused to believe what he saw. It was his Uncle Ben, lying on the ground in a puddle of his own blood. Peter rushed over to him and held his uncle in his arms.
“Peter?” Ben said, looking into the eyes of his nephew. “I’m right here Uncle Ben.” Peter said, cradling his uncle “Peter… That was a great show.” Peter started tearing up, he nodded his head in agreement. “Hold on Uncle Ben, I’m gonna get you help.” His uncle lifted his hand to caress his cheek “Peter, I want you to remember, That with great power…”
Peter shot up in bed, breathing heavily. Although the memories were from decades ago, when he dreamed about them it felt like they just happened yesterday. He looks over to his wife, still sound asleep. After checking the time he gets out of bed, careful to not wake MJ and heads to the bathroom. After splashing some water on his face, he looks in the mirror and examines his face. Prominent eye bags, stubble slowly forming a beard, general exhaustion; if he wasn’t spending most of his nights spinning webs, he might be concerned. After turning the bathroom light off, Peter made his way into the apartment’s kitchen and started toasting a bagel for himself. He grabbed the stack of papers off the kitchen table and started to finish grading his student’s papers. Once the bagels were fully toasted, he took them out and put the spread on them. While correcting one of his students' answers, a bit of the spread dripped off of the bagel and onto the paper, much to Peter’s dismay. He wiped the spread off the best he could and decided to give the student slight extra credit.
“Working early today, I see.”
Peter looked up to see his wife standing in the doorway, just as beautiful as she was when they had first met. His eyes wandered down, observing his wife’s three months pregnant stomach bump. The two were thrilled when they got the news of MJ being pregnant, even if it did mean Peter had to take a teaching job on top of working with Reed Richards at the Baxter Building. But the added stress was worth it in Peter’s eyes, to have a kid with the woman he loved. “I sorta forgot to grade some of these papers last night before passing out so I thought I’d get a head start on them this morn…” His sentence was cut off with a kiss, followed by MJ making her way back to their bedroom. Peter stood there dumbfounded, he would never get used to being married to MJ. She could kiss him a thousand times and each time would still be special. As Peter was lost in thought another drop of bagel spread fell on the paper. “DAMN IT!”
Peter rushed to his class, between the late subway and getting bagel stains out of the student's papers, he was a good ten minutes late. He skidded to a stop right outside his classroom door and composed himself before walking into the class. The chattering within stopped as their teacher walked in, looking tired as usual. “Alright class, I know you guys are pretty disappointed that I showed up today, but…” He took a stack of papers out of his bag. “These test scores show me that I need to show up early as well to help you guys.” He started handing the test scores out, with many of the students wincing at their grades. There were only two students who passed the test he gave, and he would be talking to those two after class; but for now, Peter spent the class period going over the questions everyone got wrong. “I know science isn’t for everyone, but I know if you guys apply yourself you’ll see how simple it can be.” The bell rang as Peter dismissed the class, keeping the two best students behind. “Miles, Kamala, I want to applaud you two for managing to keep your grades up in my class. Especially given your other duties.” He turned to Miles. “Especially with the extra work you’ve taken on Miles, which I HIGHLY appreciate.”
Miles gave Peter a thumbs up. “Hey it’s no big deal, it’s the least I can do after you took me under your wing man.” Peter turned to Kamala. “And I hear you have a bright future ahead of you Kamala. You got an internship with Octavius right?” Kamala nodded. “Yeah but isn’t he, you know, Doctor Octopus?” Peter gave a thoughtful look, combined with a click of his tongue. “Well, he WAS Doc Ock, but after I fixed the busted inhibitor chip that made him go mad, he’s actually become a really helpful guy, and a close friend.” Kamala nodded. “I thought so, it’s just… How can I trust that he won’t go octopus mode again?” Peter put his hand on Kamala’s shoulder. “Because I trust him.”
After the other classes were done for the day, Peter had to pack up his things quickly and head over to the Baxter Building. After the numerous security checks, he was allowed in and made his way to the lab where he and Reed worked. As he walked in, he saw Reed engaged in conversation with Doctor Strange. Peter assumed it was Doom related and proceeded to walk towards the two. “Hey Steven, haven’t seen you around the lab much. Doom back at it again?”
Strange, without looking his way answered. “Yes and No. While it isn’t directly Doom doing anything, it heavily involves him.” Strange then looked at Peter. “It’s Wanda. It seems she and Doom are together.”
Peter blinked a couple of times. “Wanda, like, ‘Scarlet Witch’ Wanda?” Both Strange and Reed nodded. “Is there, uh, anything I can help with?” Strange raised an eyebrow at him, “Unless you’ve been hiding any magical abilities from us, no.” He gave a nod to Reed and disappeared into his portal. Reed sighed and slumped into his work chair, squeezing his temple. “It always had to be something with Victor…” He looked up at Peter and mustered up a smile, typing something on his computer. “Sorry you had to see that Peter. Strange just wanted to know if I had gotten any threats from Doom, which oddly enough I haven’t. Him and Wanda teaming up is also very unusual, not to mention concerning if it gets out of hand, but.” Reed says, stopping his typing and looking back at Peter. “Without magic I’m afraid we’re powerless in this situation, I mean if it was just Doom I could handle it but Wanda has to get involved…”
Peter could sense how powerless Reed felt in this situation. His rival teaming up with one of the biggest threats to the world on a bad day was never a good sign, but the least Peter could do was help get Reed’s mind off of things. “So what are we working on today?” Peter could see the gears in Reed’s mind churning as he got up and showed Peter over to a few unfinished gadgets. “I was in the middle of fixing these when Strange showed up, so we’ll be spending the next few days fixing these.” Peter got to work right away, following the blueprints Reed provided him.
Peter already knew that Reed was calculating how to deal with the Doom problem, so he cleared his throat. “So, uh, how’s Sue and the kids?” Reed looked up from the gadget he was working on. “They’re good, Franklin is taking after his uncle Johnny more than I would like and Valeria is… well… taking after me more than Sue would like.” Reed says with a laugh. “Soon she’ll be working here with us. How is MJ doing?” Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s doing good, we’re both just anxious about the baby.” Reed nodded. “That’s natural for a first time parent. If I may give you some advice Peter, father to future father, it’s to expect the unexpected from a child.”
When it was time for him to leave, Peter told Reed he was leaving and to give his best to Johnny and Ben, which Reed promised he would. On the way to the apartment Peter grabbed a pizza for him and Mary-Jane; however on his way out of the shop, he saw a flying orange blurr pass by. Peter grumbled to himself and went into the nearby alleyway to change into his costume. After securing his pizza and clothes he started chasing after the blurr. “Hey, where ya goin’ Greenie?” Peter called out, knowing how much The Hobgoblin hated being compared to the Green Goblin. “I. AM. NOT. THE. GREEN. GOBLIN!” A voice yelled out before slamming right into him. “You’re right.” Peter said, hiding the incredible pain he was in. “At least The Green Goblin pays for dinner before he rams me like that.” Peter regained his composure and started swinging after the Hobgoblin again, this time joined by someone else.
“Hey Spidey, thought you could use some help.” Miles was swinging next to him in his black and red suit. “Thanks other Spidey, I appreciate the back up, let’s get this imposter goblin.” The two began swinging after him in a zig-zag pattern, hoping he would turn around and get caught in the webbing, which, much to the Spider-Men’s disappointment, did not work. “I must be getting better if TWO Spider-Men can’t even take me down!” Peter rolled his eyes under his mask and the two Spider-Men devised a plan to catch Hobgoblin. Peter swung around in front to distract him while Miles snuck up behind him and readied his venom punch to shock him into falling off his glider. The plan was a success and Peter caught the Hobgoblin, wrapped him up and let Miles take him in to get the credit. The kid’s done wonders to help the reputation of Spider-Men in New York; of course, it also didn’t hurt that once Peter told Jameson his secret, his boss became a huge supporter of Spider-Man overnight.
After turning the Goblin in, Miles met Peter on a nearby rooftop and sat next to him. “Letting me get all the credit for a goblin capture? That’s generous of you?” Peter shrugged. “Hey what can I say, gotta let the people know that the New Spidey can handle a goblin attack as well as the old one.” Miles nodded. “Yeah, thanks man. So about the test yesterday…” Peter looked at Miles confused. “What about it, you were one of the few who actually passed it.” Miles looked down. “Yeah well, some of the others don’t feel that way.” Peter turned to directly face Miles. “What do you mean?” “I mean well, like, they think you’re just giving me and Kamala points because we’re your favorites.” Miles said, still not looking at Peter.
“Well that’s just not true Miles. You two work harder than anyone else I know.” He put a hand on Miles’ shoulder. “I mean it Miles, in both class and in being super heroes. I believe you have the potential to become the ultimate Spider-Man.”
He takes his hand off Miles and lets out a yawn. “Now, speaking of you and Ms. Marvel, how are things going with you two?” Miles gave Peter a smile. “Things are good, although our date nights tend to just be us fighting crime and getting hot dogs later.” Peter nodded. “That sounds about right, that’s how it went when i dated the original Ms. Marvel.” Miles shot up. “No way, you dated Carol?!” Peter got up and stretched his arms. “Once upon a time kid, but that’s a story for another night.” He said, pulling his mask back over his face, hopping off the roof, and swinging back to the now lukewarm pizza he got to bring home to his lovely wife. After changing back into his civilian clothes, he started walking on the sidewalk towards him and Mary-Jane’s apartment to eat and get some sleep. Hopefully in that order. As he was deep in thought, something caught his eye in the mass of people in front of him. It was a familiar girl. A familiar girl who shouldn’t have been there. A familiar girl who died. The girl suddenly disappeared into the crowd as quickly as she appeared and Peter was dumbfounded.
“...Gwen?”