As Peter was running, his Spider-Sense suddenly went off. But with his thoughts in disarray, he did not have time to dodge. A red-and-gold mecha rushed toward him, grabbed him around the waist, carried him at high speed for some distance, then abruptly hurled Peter to the ground.
Peter was thrown so hard he could barely tell which way was up. The beautiful red-and-gold mecha hovered in midair. Spider-Man was badly shaken. He pulled off his mask, and a man's voice came from the armor. "That guy was right after all. You really are just some high school brat..."
Peter slammed a fist into the ground in anger. "I'm not a brat! I'm Spider-Man!"
Stark let out a disdainful snort. "Spider-Man? Sure. You've got quite a reputation among the gamblers in Hell's Kitchen. The only good thing you've ever done was help those people win a lot of money."
Peter's fury nearly burst through the sky. This strange robot had attacked him right away, thrown him to the ground, and then mocked him. Peter lunged at him furiously, but Iron Man's mecha traced a graceful arc through the air and avoided the attack.
Spider-Man did not know any fighting techniques yet, much less had he ever fought a robot. He did not understand tactical trajectory calculations, so naturally, he was no match for the Mark V equipped with Jarvis.
Spider-Man roared, "You damn robot, I'll show you what I can do!!"
Iron Man's mecha landed. "Oh, really? Show me how you beat up that bunch of third-rate underground fighters?"
Stark's tongue was as sharp as ever. Spider-Man's face turned red, then pale from the mockery. At last, Stark seemed to lose interest in talking to this little brat and said coldly:
"Still wet behind the ears? Then get your ass back home. New York isn't your playground for jumping around in. Don't think being a little different lets you swing through this city's skies however you please. Someone's already got their eye on you."
Stark had no favorable impression of Spider-Man as he was now, especially after learning that he possessed abilities beyond ordinary people yet only used them to fight in underground arenas. To Stark, that was an incredibly stupid thing to do.
Stark had his own pride. Though he was arrogant, stubborn, and sensitive, after surviving the life-and-death crisis of his kidnapping, the true Iron Man had awakened. That was why he looked down on Peter, who still only knew how to fool around.
Peter stood up and angrily threw his mask to the ground. "You say I'm running wild around New York, but aren't you doing the same thing?!"
Some of his reason returned, and he said to Stark, "Yeah, you're wearing that armor. I can tell it definitely wasn't cheap. You've got all the money in the world to play around with this."
"But what about me? My uncle and aunt are in poor health. They can't even afford medical examinations. I need money badly, so why can't I fight in the ring? It's not like I've used these powers to hurt anyone!"
Stark crossed his arms. "Have you ever considered that possessing these abilities and refusing to save others is itself a way of hurting them?"
Peter wore an incredulous expression. He shook his head from side to side, seemingly unable to believe the person before him could say something so absurd. "These are powers I gained. I can use them however I want. They're my powers, so why can't I use them to do more for myself? Why do I have to help other people?"
Peter had not yet experienced Ben Parker's death. He still did not understand what "with great power comes great responsibility" meant. So he felt entirely justified in thinking that since he had gained these powers himself, he should naturally use them to secure more benefits for himself.
It could only be said that his thinking was not exactly wrong. Everyone lived for themselves. But once Spider-Man set foot on the path of a superhero, the kindness and resilience in Peter's bones would gradually be awakened as he grew older. He was destined to become a superhero.
As for Stark, though he was conceited and Prideful, he had always possessed a sense of responsibility for all humanity. He believed that, as a super genius, protecting ordinary people and the Earth was his inborn duty.
Stark could also tell that Peter's agitation was abnormal. He had probably just suffered some kind of shock, so Stark said, "I know you have a lot of things you can't figure out right now. I used to be the same. But there are some things you can only understand after experiencing them yourself. No lecture I give you can compare to that. I can only tell you this: if you keep thinking this way, one day, you'll regret it."
With that, Stark's mecha flew away, leaving Peter sitting there alone, dejected and lost.
He truly did not understand why everyone opposed him, as if he had been born rotten. Peter did not understand why gaining superpowers seemed to have made him more miserable than before.
He had earned money, but he did not dare give it directly to Uncle Ben. He wandered around at night, slept poorly, and his grades had slipped. In the excitement of just gaining his powers, he had also neglected Gwen's feelings. Now Gwen was giving him the cold shoulder too. He wanted to beat up his nemesis Thompson, but he did not dare start a fight at school, so he could only swallow his anger.
These damn superpowers had not actually brought him any huge benefits. They had not turned his life around overnight or given him the comfortable life he wanted. He did not understand where things had gone wrong.
With the cold New York night wind blowing around him, Spider-Man sat atop a building in Hell's Kitchen, lost in thought.
Then his extraordinary hearing caught a murmur of conversation coming from the alley behind the building.
It was the back entrance of a nightclub. Two tall, muscular bodyguards had been standing there. From where Peter was, he could see them, but they could not see him.
Peter saw a bald man in a jacket apparently speaking to his subordinates. Peter's sight and hearing far surpassed those of ordinary people. He saw a circular target-like mark on the bald man's forehead, then heard him say:
"...As long as we floor it before he can react. You know Andre has a good car. He modified it, and it accelerates much faster than normal cars."
"As long as we stay still at first and don't let him hear us, then hit him the instant he comes around the corner, he'll be dead for sure."
One of his subordinates said, "I know an intersection at the end of Mary Street that would be perfect. There are some construction materials piled up there, and the smell of gasoline can be covered up too..."
The bald man gave a sinister smile. "We need to take him out before that woman does. Then Kingpin will know who his most capable subordinate really is..."
Peter listened to their conversation halfheartedly from above. He learned that they seemed to be planning to run someone over with a car. But after being lectured by one person after another, Peter rebelliously thought, What does this have to do with me? It's just a gang conflict. One gang member wants to kill another gang member, so why should I care?
After all, there were no good people in this damn Hell's Kitchen.
Thinking that, Peter slowly headed back. It was already very late. He had told Uncle Ben he would not be coming home tonight, so he returned to Daredevil's little apartment. Daredevil was still sleeping deeply.
Peter thought that perhaps he had not been entirely right just now. There was still one good person in Hell's Kitchen: the friend in front of him. And he was perhaps a little too good.
Peter looked at the wound on Daredevil's calf, which was still bleeding slightly. Meanwhile, the bruises Peter had gotten from being thrown by Iron Man had already healed completely. Peter suddenly felt absurdly struck by the contrast. Daredevil really was just an ordinary person. He did not have Self-Healing abilities like Peter did.
That was why Daredevil had ended up in such a miserable state by meddling in other people's business. Peter wanted to learn Daredevil's martial arts, but he did not want to learn anything about the way Daredevil lived.
When Peter had overheard those gangsters earlier, if he had angrily rushed down to uphold justice and tell them not to commit murder, then he could forget about getting any rest that night. There had to be at least a dozen bodyguards in the nightclub. He would have to knock them all down one by one. That bald man might even be particularly hard to take down. With so many people, if he got hit even once by accident, it would hurt for quite a while.
And in the end, he would probably only stop a gang shootout. But how did that count as doing a good deed? There were no innocent people in Hell's Kitchen. The only people caught up in a shootout would be other gangsters. Peter thought, Why should I spend an entire night and risk getting hurt just to meddle in something like this?
With those thoughts, Peter slowly drifted into Dream. In it, he made a fortune with his powers and bought a house on the busiest street in Queens. Uncle Ben and Aunt May moved into the large new house. They even hired a private Doctor. Uncle Ben's illness was cured, and Aunt May looked more than ten years younger. Their family lived a wealthy, happy life.
The first half of the Dream was beautiful. But perhaps Peter heard Daredevil's pained groans during the night, because the second half took a sharp turn for the worse.
When Peter went out, criminals broke into his beautiful house. They killed his uncle and aunt and looted everything they owned. Their neighbors all saw the criminals, but not one of them called the police. Even after the police arrived, they could not catch the killers right away. Peter became a wandering ghost, roaming the city every day in search of the people who had destroyed his happy life, but he could find no clues.
At last, in his Dream, Daredevil appeared. Peter confronted Daredevil, asking why he had taken down so many criminals yet let those few killers slip through. Daredevil said to him coldly:
"The only person who can bear full responsibility for this is probably you."
Peter woke with a start, drenched in cold sweat. Dawn had just broken over New York. Cold air slipped through the cracks in the window and into his lungs, making him so cold he felt like crying.
Daredevil woke up as well. Peter poured him some water, and Daredevil said, "Thank you, but I may have to trouble you again later. Please go to the clinic at the end of Mary Street and bring back some medicine for me."
Before you continue