The Moment Belonging to Peter Parker

Chapter 2: The Moment That Belongs to Peter Parker

Peter Parker felt himself return to the early years of this life, the day he said goodbye to his parents. That day, they had brought him to Uncle Ben's house. After speaking with his uncle and aunt, they didn't tell him why they had to leave—only said, "Listen to your uncle and aunt."

He remembered telling his parents that he had found some things, that he knew they were in danger, and that he wanted to help.

"I know you're smart, sometimes not like a twelve-year-old. But this isn't something a kid like you can help us with. Listen to Uncle Ben and Aunt May, understand?"

Peter couldn't quite recall how he had answered back then. He tried to remember, but the alarm clock's ringing cut through his thoughts, pulling him back to reality.

Still groggy with sleep, he raised his hand and hesitated for a second. Then Uncle Ben's voice came from outside the door.

"Day five of holding back the morning grumpiness, Peter."

"Day six, Uncle Ben."

He gently pressed the alarm clock and sat up with a jolt. Uncle Ben had already opened the door. Benjamin Parker was a man in his forties, slightly stout but still looking fit—nothing like the old Uncle Ben from other universes.

"You came back too late yesterday. Your aunt doesn't want you picking up bad habits right before high school, hanging around like some little thug."

"Did you tell her I got held up?"

"Forgot the time at the library again? You'll need a better excuse next time."

Uncle Ben smiled and closed the door, adding, "Hurry up—we still have our morning run."

No matter how Spider-Man was outside, Peter Parker was just a fifteen-year-old high schooler... almost a high schooler.

"Did you know American high school lasts four years? From fifteen to eighteen."

Used to talking to himself, Peter muttered while getting dressed, then quickly walked into the bathroom to wash up. Toothbrush in his mouth, he continued, slurring:

"But you definitely don't know that Uncle Ben served in the military, joined the Marine Corps, and went on overseas missions. Pretty impressive, right? I mean, wow."

After a quick wash, Peter started his morning workout. He jogged five kilometers with Uncle Ben, then came back to eat Aunt May's breakfast. The running wasn't for building endurance—it was to better disguise himself as a normal person. Otherwise, Peter could easily break world records.

Beyond helping him pass as ordinary, Uncle Ben—a veteran—had taught Peter quite a bit: battlefield reconnaissance, combat training, planning escape routes, avoiding cameras and sightlines. Without this training, Peter probably couldn't have grown into what he considered a passable Spider-Man in just five months.

"So, what happened yesterday?"

"You know, swinging around the New York ruins, finding some criminals, tying them up for the police."

Uncle Ben's face was already flushed from the intense exercise, while Peter looked completely at ease, barely even breathing hard.

"But these smugglers are getting rarer now, Uncle Ben. I mean, it's been over three months since the Battle of New York. September's almost here. Maybe I won't need to check those places much longer."

Uncle Ben sighed—whether lamenting that Damage Control had taken over three months to clear the rubble, or relieved it was finally ending, Peter couldn't tell.

He thought back to everything that had happened. Five months ago, his nephew had gone to a science fair and come back acting mysterious, always doing something but hiding it from him and May, worrying them for a long time.

Until one day, Peter sat him down nervously and told him the truth: at the science fair, he'd been bitten by a radioactive mutated spider and gained spider-like powers—wall-crawling, jumping, danger sense, and superhuman physical ability—but no web-shooting.

"I... I want to do something. Maybe I can be a hero, or make some money with this. What should I do, Uncle Ben?"

Ben had wanted to tell Peter, "With great power comes great responsibility," but he didn't. Because Peter was, after all, just a fifteen-year-old kid. And he knew that so-called superheroes weren't as glamorous as the news made them out to be. Just looking at the freaks they had to fight showed how dangerous it was.

For Ben, who had no children of his own, Peter was his child. He didn't want to push him into danger.

He simply said:

"As long as you don't use this power to hurt others, Peter, whatever choice you make, Uncle Ben will support you. I believe May feels the same."

Some time later, a fire broke out near their home. When Uncle Ben led the neighbors to fight it, he saw a sight he would never forget: Peter, carrying a small child, leaping from the second floor to save them.

"I... I was so scared, Uncle Ben."

He remembered later, in the car, Peter telling him almost trembling:

"There was fire everywhere. A beam fell and hit my arm—it still hurts. I... I didn't want to go in, Uncle Ben. But I heard that little girl crying. She wanted someone to save her."

"I could save her. I wasn't helpless. I was terrified I wouldn't make it out... but if I could have saved her and didn't, and she never came out? I think I'm more afraid of that. Afraid of dreaming at night about the people I could have saved, asking me why I didn't reach out."

Peter didn't become Spider-Man because he wanted to help others. He became Spider-Man because he was afraid of failing to help those he had the power to save. When he became a superhero, what drove him wasn't power or a savior's superiority complex.

It was the fear of facing the disappointment of everyone who begged for help, when he hadn't reached out.

In that moment, Benjamin Parker understood that his nephew could become the greatest hero this world had ever seen.

He began to worry whether Peter could hold up under the strain, but he chose to support Peter's decision. So he pulled out the skills from his Marine Corps days and started training his nephew, all the way to now.

Peter had shown his talent. He was smart, just like his late parents. He'd even found clues in his father Richard's scattered notes, synthesized web fluid, and built his own web-shooters.

They both loved spiders—that part really took after his father...

"Maybe once the rubble is cleared, the smugglers will just run off on their own. Then I'll only need to help catch a thief or save a cat on the way to and from school..."

Peter ran backward, looking at his uncle who seemed lost in thought, and asked, "Uncle Ben?"

"Oh, that sounds good. Then your aunt won't have to worry about you hanging out with some thugs."

"She knows I wouldn't."

Peter and Ben laughed together. Then Peter turned and ran shoulder to shoulder with his uncle.

"Once Grand Central is cleared out, how about we get some Turkish kebabs?"

Somewhere in a New York basement.

A black man in his twenties with dreadlocks carried a bag into an unfinished building—his hideout. Inside were a simple mattress, a desk lamp, and seven or eight companions.

"This is today's haul."

He distributed the money from the bag among his men. One lackey asked, "Herman, why is the money getting less and less every day?"

"There's less and less stuff to dig out of the ruins, and fewer buyers too. That bunch calling themselves A.I.M. pulled out last week, even the Hell's Kitchen folks aren't buying much anymore. I've got to find other people willing to risk a beating from Iron Man to take those alien goods off our hands. Not to mention that web-headed freak in the skintight suit has been making trouble for us lately."

The black man named Herman had just finished speaking when another subordinate complained, "You shouldn't have stashed that stock. Now there's nowhere to sell it."

Hearing this, Herman smiled instead.

"Guys, New York's goods are valuable, but they're not endless. We've got to think about the future. I used to be the best locksmith in New York, built the finest safe-crackers around."

"But today, thanks to help from our alien friends, I've used the stock I kept to make something even better."

As he spoke, he pulled something resembling a gun from his satchel. It wasn't complicated—it had a blue energy slot connected to a Chitauri battery, plus a dial and a trigger.

"What's that?"

"A lockpick, a shockwave generator. This dial here adjusts the output power. On setting one, we can knock a man flat."

He aimed at a concrete pillar nearby and fired. The invisible shockwave rattled the pillar, making it shake.

"But if I crank it up to setting two..."

A piercing sound rang out, and the concrete pillar shattered directly.

The lackeys got excited.

"What about max power?!"

"I haven't tried it, but if my calculations are right, blowing up a building shouldn't be a problem. So I set a safety lock—it only goes up to setting three."

The lackeys let out a chorus of "cool" exclamations. The key point was that Herman hadn't just made one of these—he handed one out to every man.

There were plenty of concrete pillars in the unfinished building, so they could freely test the power of these new toys.

And this was the "lockpick" Herman had created, capable of opening any safe or vault door.

"Herman!" One lackey, having tried out the new weapon, couldn't help but laugh. "What's this thing called? Got a name?"

"Of course. It's called Scarecrow. Herman Schultz's Scarecrow."

Herman picked up a Scarecrow and said with full confidence:

"Neither that spider freak nor any Avengers can stop us now. Soon, all of New York—no, the whole country—will know. The best engineer isn't some bookworm from a university, nor some bespectacled white dog. I'll prove one thing to those idiots who only care about degrees and skin color."

"I, Herman Schultz, have created something they can never replicate—"

"Scarecrow."

PS: Herman Schultz, aka Shocker, first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man issue #46 (March 1967). He is a gifted engineer and safe-cracker who never completed compulsory education. In the comics, he invented a pair of gloves capable of firing shockwaves to escape prison (a real talent), and used them as weapons, becoming Shocker.

For the sake of this story's plot, he has been adapted as a black man to facilitate narrative development.