[Are you enjoying the story? If so, and you'd like to give me a little extra motivation to keep writing or get access to upcoming chapters before everyone else, stop by my Patreon.
LINK: patreon.com/Rudeus690
***
"So, how do I look?" Peter asked, opening his arms and slowly spinning in place.
May didn't respond right away. She simply stood near the kitchen table, holding a mug of coffee between her hands while she looked her nephew up and down with an expression that mixed surprise, confusion, and a slight hint of disbelief. "Who are you and what have you done with my nephew?"
Peter stopped spinning halfway through the motion, his arms still slightly open. "Is that good or bad?"
May tilted her head a little, observing every detail. And there was quite a lot to observe. The reason for her exasperation? Her beloved nephew had apparently decided to completely reinvent his appearance overnight.
Even his hair was different.
Peter normally let his brown strands fall however they wanted across his forehead, styled mostly by the rush to get out the door so he wouldn't miss the bus. Now, however, they were parted to the side, with most of it falling to the left and a smaller portion to the right. The fringe that used to hang loosely over his forehead had been lightly pushed back, forming a small quiff that revealed his features more clearly.
But what really caught May's attention were his clothes. He was wearing a fitted black pullover, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing two simple metal bracelets she had never seen before. On the lower half, well-pressed gray dress pants and polished black shoes completed the look.
May knew those clothes.
And that was exactly why her brow furrowed a little more, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses.
Those were the clothes of Richard Parker, Peter's father.
"Well?" Peter insisted, breaking the silence that was growing longer. "I'm waiting for the review from the specialized critic. Positive or negative."
May set the mug on the table and crossed her arms, taking a few seconds before speaking. "Peter, those are your father's clothes."
"True."
"Which have been stored in the attic for years."
"Also true."
"And you decided to simply…" She gestured vaguely toward him. "…adopt them?"
Peter looked down, absentmindedly smoothing the pullover with his hands, his fingers tracing the dark fabric. "Well… they were there." He raised his gaze again, meeting her eyes. "It would be a waste to leave them just sitting there, don't you think? Good clothes, well taken care of, the right size. It almost feels like they were meant for me."
May studied his face with renewed attention. There was something different about him, and it wasn't just the appearance. It was the way he spoke and carried himself. More controlled, calm, and confident. Less of the nervous chatter that usually filled every quiet moment. Less anxious. Less… Peter.
She walked up to him and began to circle around him slowly like a shark, her eyes scanning every angle. Peter let her, turning his head to follow her with a hopeful smile. "You look very…" May began, searching for the right word as she completed the circle and stopped in front of him.
Peter raised an eyebrow.
"…sophisticated."
He blinked. "For someone going to school?"
"Exactly."
Peter let out a small laugh. "I didn't know there was an unofficial dress code that required my cargo pants."
"Peter."
"I'm kidding."
May sighed, but a small smile appeared on her lips. "I just… don't want you to become the target of jokes," she said softly. "Teenagers can be cruel when someone looks different."
Peter tilted his head. "May… it hurts my heart that you never noticed."
"What?"
"I've always been the different guy."
"Peter."
"This time I'm not joking."
"That's not true. You—"
"I've always been the nerd who ended up inside the locker," Peter interrupted, without bitterness, just stating a fact.
May narrowed her eyes. "Does that still happen?"
"Nah, I kind of even became friends with them. But that doesn't change the fact that I've always been the different one. These clothes aren't going to change that."
May let out a sigh. "Haa… are you trying to impress someone?"
"No." The answer came quickly, maybe too quickly. Peter seemed to realize that and looked away. "I mean, not specifically. I'm just trying to… grow up a little."
May raised an eyebrow, skepticism written across every line of her face. "Grow up?"
"You know." He shrugged. "Be a little more… organized and serious."
"Since when do you wake up in the morning wanting to be serious?" May asked, a teasing smile on her lips.
"…since today?"
May laughed, shaking her head. "I don't know if I should be worried… or proud."
"How about the second option?" Peter suggested. "The first one sounds like a lot of work. And you're already working a lot on that book."
May kept looking at him in silence, her eyes scanning his face as if searching for something. Then her expression softened. She stepped forward, reached out, and began straightening the collar of his pullover . And for a moment, the simple gesture carried her back many years — to another morning, another start of the day, when a much smaller and far more nervous Peter had stood in front of her, wearing a backpack far too big for his shoulders, while she did exactly the same thing: fixing his collar, smoothing the fabric of his shirt, trying to make sure everything was perfect before letting him face the world outside.
She smiled at the memory. Her hands then moved upward, lightly running through his hair, fixing a strand that had fallen out of place. "There," May murmured, taking a step back. "Now it's perfect."
"So, do I look good?" Peter asked, still not having received an answer yet.
"Yes. Almost unrecognizable."
"Phew! I lost a few good hours of my life on this," he said with relief, turning and walking toward the door, where his backpack was already waiting for him, leaning against the wall. Peter slung it over his shoulder before turning back to May. "I'm heading out. I don't want to be late."
"Alright, take care, okay?" May said, stepping closer and hugging her nephew.
Peter returned the hug and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Always."
**
---
To-Do List:
1- Inform Professor Warren that you are leaving the internship at ESU.
2- Work.
3- Convince J.J.J. to pay in advance — and a lot more — for the photos.
4- Go to the dojo.
5- More work.
6- Try to find out who the new guy trying to be the crime boss is.
---
'Hmm, I think I didn't forget anything.' Peter ran his eyes over the list once more, mentally confirming each item while his other hand, in a completely automatic motion, fired another web, propelling him between the buildings of New York, trusting one hundred percent in his instincts not to smash into a wall or something like that.
That day promised to be... complicated.
The first item on the list, for example, already started with a guaranteed headache. Peter could practically hear Warren's speech in his head. "But Parker, your future is in science!" "But Parker, this is a unique opportunity!" "But Parker, you are wasting your potential!"
He let out a small sigh.
"Yes, yes, I know," Peter murmured to himself, rehearsing what he would say to Warren as he spun in the air and briefly landed on the side of a building, running a few steps along the wall before launching himself back into the air. "But unfortunately I have more important things to do, professor. My aunt is having some problems at home. I'll leave worrying about my future for my senior year." He went back to swinging between the buildings, passing over a busy avenue.
THWIP. THWIP. THWIP.
As for the second item on the list, it meant two things: Spider-Man and taking pictures.
Which led directly to the third item: convincing the rational and calm J. Jonah Jameson to pay him more for the photos — and preferably today. He already had a concrete plan in mind to convince the man, something he had been mulling over for several days. The realization that May was writing a new cookbook to pay the household bills had only served as the final push to put it into practice.
As for the fourth item on the list, there wasn't much to elaborate. Go to the dojo. Train. Learn. Improve. Out of all the items, it was the one Peter was most excited about. He had barely started learning how to fight, and he could already feel how much of a difference it made.
And the sixth...
Peter pressed his lips under the mask as he executed a sharp turn, using the tip of a lamppost to change direction abruptly.
That item was part of a hypothesis he had developed after facing those criminals the night before. They didn't seem… normal. It clearly wasn't just another group of improvised robbers trying their luck. There was organization there. Coordination.
And added to the fact that that mugger hadn't shown any reaction when Peter listed the names of the usual old candidates when the subject was trying to control the streets of NY… well, that had lit every warning light in his head.
There must be someone new entering the game.
'Which is just fantastic—'
BEEEEEP!
A loud, deep horn, followed by the sound of screeching tires, cut through Peter's train of thought, making him glance down quickly, just in time to see ahead of him a little girl — who couldn't have been more than five years old, blonde hair in two pigtails, yellow dress — running into the middle of the street after a ball that had bounced on the sidewalk and rolled out onto the asphalt.
Her mother was right behind her, desperation written all over her face, her mouth open in a scream that Peter couldn't hear because of the horn. Her arms were outstretched, trying to reach her daughter, but the distance was too great.
And heading straight toward the two of them... a truck with no room to stop.
Peter let out a short sigh inside the mask. 'Looks like your guardian angels are working overtime today.'
THWIP! THWIP!
Peter moved before the thought could fully form. Two webs shot from the shooters, flying straight and precisely toward the ledges of the buildings on opposite sides of the street. He pulled himself with all the strength he had, feeling the muscles in his shoulders and back tighten in an explosive yank that launched his body at high speed toward the two of them.
Time slowed down.
But it wasn't really the world that was slowing down — it was his perception expanding, making room to process every detail, every fraction of a second, every tiny movement as if everything were happening in slow motion.
He saw the mother's expression, pure terror turning her features into a mask of suffering. He saw the little girl, still unaware of the danger, focused only on the ball bouncing a few meters ahead. And he saw the truck driver's reflection in the rearview mirror, eyes wide, mouth open, pressing the horn desperately.
Peter calculated his trajectory, seeing the point of interception, angle of impact, and the exact moment to decelerate so he wouldn't turn the rescue into two deaths. His brain processed everything in milliseconds, numbers dancing in the back of his mind while his body carried out what his thoughts decided.
'Now!' As soon as he passed the truck on the left side, rushing past the driver-side window in a red-and-blue blur, Peter fired another web with his right hand. The strand latched onto a building on the other side of the street, creating an anchor point that made him slow down and abruptly swing to the right in a motion that challenged both physics and the joints in his shoulder, leaving him facing the little girl and her mother.
He extended his left arm in a quick motion, first grabbing the girl by the waist and lifting her straight into her mother's arms from the ground. As soon as the child touched the woman's arms, Peter also grabbed her by the side and pulled the two of them together against himself, carrying them away.
In the next second, the truck roared past exactly where the two of them had been an instant before.
Peter landed on the sidewalk a few meters ahead, his feet meeting the concrete with a controlled impact. Even so, the speed made him slide a few inches, passing a group of pedestrians who — wisely — stepped aside when they saw him coming toward them.
When he finally stopped, he quickly checked on the two in his arms.
The mother was clutching her daughter with all her strength. She was crying hard, the kind of cry that comes from deep in the chest, with violent sobs that shook her entire body. Her legs were so weak that Peter realized, by the way she leaned on him, that she wouldn't be able to stay standing if he let her go.
The little girl started crying too, but her cry was different. It was that confused cry of a small child who doesn't really understand what's happening.
"Are you two okay?" Peter asked softly, his eyes already scanning the surroundings for a bench where he could leave them until they calmed down. People were beginning to gather around. Phones and cameras pointed in his direction along with whispers and looks that mixed gratitude, fear, admiration, and suspicion.
As much as he wanted to stay — as much as everything in him told him to wait until he was sure they were okay, or at least until the mother regained the strength in her legs and he could make the little girl smile with a silly joke— Peter knew he couldn't.
Sooner or later someone would shout something about him being a murderer, try to stop him from leaving, or the police would show up with their guns already drawn.
Yes, that was the city's attitude toward him now.
Peter slowly crouched, carefully placing the two of them on a nearby bench. The mother finally loosened her hold on her daughter enough to look at him, her eyes red and swollen, her mouth opening and closing as if trying to form words that wouldn't come out.
"Tha—" she started, but her voice failed before she could finish.
Peter shook his head. "You don't need to thank me. Just take care of each other." He said, standing up and preparing to leave. "And hold her hand tight when you're in the street, okay?"
Firing a web at the nearest building, Peter pulled himself away, swinging once more in the direction of the school.
***
Arriving at school with time to spare — a feat only possible because he hadn't run into any other incidents after the near run-over — Peter hurried to the bathroom. He urgently needed to rearrange his hair before facing the crowded hallways because, unfortunately, Spider-Man's mask flattened his hair just as much as a helmet, and the result was always that "I just woke up and didn't comb it" look that suited the old Peter far more than the new style he was trying to pull off.
Peter stopped in front of the mirror, wet his hands, and began working through his brown hair. The bangs fell back into place, the quiff slightly raised, and the sides smoothed down— he spent a good two minutes on it, something the Peter from two weeks ago would have considered an absurd waste of time.
He took a step back, evaluated the result in the mirror, and approved it with a subtle nod. His hair was exactly the way he wanted it, and his father's clothes were still impeccable, even if a little wrinkled.
Peter adjusted the backpack on his shoulders and left the bathroom, nudging the door open with his foot as he returned to the school's main hallway. The place was already full of students moving back and forth, lockers slamming and voices overlapping in a constant buzz of conversation.
The constant noise of a school waking up for another day.
Peter began walking down the hallway, moving through the flow of students with his hands relaxed in his pants pockets.
That was when he noticed the looks.
There weren't many.
But they were there.
Some people discreetly turned their heads when he passed. A boy leaning against the lockers frowned for a second, as if trying to remember where he knew that guy from. Two girls talking near the stairs lowered their voices when he walked by them.
Peter kept his face neutral… but inside, a small smile was beginning to form. 'Ok… maybe this new look is doing some wonders.' The thought came with a twinge of satisfaction. It was more or less the kind of impact he had hoped to cause last year, on the first day of school, after the transformation he went through when he received his powers, when he tried to ask Sally Avril out and was brutally crushed by a "You? I'd rather die," delivered in a tone so loud that everyone around laughed.
'Well… those weren't exactly the words she used. But the intention was definitely there.' Shoving the embarrassing memory aside, Peter kept walking until he finally reached his locker. 'Uh… what classes do I have today again?' He frowned slightly as he turned the last number of the lock's combination, trying to mentally organize the day's schedule when a familiar sensation ran down his spine.
!!!
His spider-sense went off.
***
Disclaimer: This story and its characters belong to Sony Pictures and Marvel Comics (Disney). This is merely a fanfiction written by a fan, with no intention of infringement.