The Reason for Waking Up Early

Extensive tendon tears, bone fractures, ruptured alveoli, and capillary necrosis—injuries that would land a normal person in intensive care were, for Spider-Man, merely a matter of a few nights' deep sleep. Peter Parker wouldn't rest because of such minor injuries; Spider-Man would continue protecting the city tomorrow.

But Peter didn't patrol the next morning. It wasn't because he was upset about failing to catch Scarecrow; Gwen Stacy had caught him red-handed.

"Good morning, smarty-pants."

As the blonde girl appeared at his doorstep with her backpack, Peter instinctively scratched the back of his head, his perpetually messy black hair sticking up like an antenna.

"Uh, good morning, Gwen. Up early?"

"I'm usually already out by the time you wake up, so I wanted to see how early I'd have to get up to catch you."

Gwen added, "Of course, my dad was busy late last night and told me not to wait up for him."

"Is the police work that troublesome? I heard some guy was jumping around Manhattan yesterday."

"I don't know, he doesn't seem to want to tell me anything."

Caught by Gwen, Peter naturally couldn't put on his suit to patrol. He ended up taking the subway to Midtown Manhattan with Gwen. As they bought tickets and boarded the train, the two chatted idly.

"How's the rock band thing going? Any leads?"

"Yeah, we found a few classmates, MJ, Liz, Betty... Oh, sorry, you probably don't know anyone except MJ." Gwen chuckled, "I have more friends than you do, like I told you."

Peter gave a dry laugh. He never considered himself introverted, but that was just how American student social dynamics worked—jocks were popular, while brilliant minds in research labs couldn't even get a prom invitation.

Nobody liked studying, so Peter Parker naturally couldn't make friends.

"What are you going to do about the training? I don't think Uncle George would let you bring drumsticks home, let alone a drum set."

"I suppose not."

Bringing up this topic, Gwen couldn't help but sigh, but then she brushed it off with a "We'll see" and changed the subject. "You take the subway this early every day? You don't go straight to school and then zone out until class starts, do you?"

Peter began to think of a plausible excuse to justify his early rising, but then an idea struck him.

"Have you ever tried getting off one stop early or one stop late?!"

As expected, Gwen wore a puzzled expression.

"What?"

"I mean, get off one stop early or one stop late, and then walk to school. It's still early, so we can do that every day."

"..." Gwen looked at him as if he were an alien. "Is that why you get up so early every morning?"

"No, it's actually the other way around. I wake up too early with nothing to do, so I kill time this way."

Peter sighed and gave a helpless smile. "Want to come along?"

"I don't have anything else to do, so lead the way."

—This was Peter's most regrettable decision of the day.

It wasn't because there was anything wrong with the route, but as soon as they exited the subway station, a familiar roar blared from the giant screen on the side of a shopping mall.

"Just yesterday, our beautiful city was subjected to the terrible destruction of two madmen. Spider-Man and some lunatic in high-tech armor were locked in constant combat. According to the information we've obtained from the police so far, this supervillain who calls himself Scarecrow is precisely one of the criminals Spider-Man previously apprehended after his so-called 'crime-fighting'."

J. Jonah Jameson's face was flushed red, almost bulging out of the screen.

"Take a good look, citizens of New York, at what these vigilantes who overstep their bounds have brought us! More masked criminals! I can guarantee that this so-called Scarecrow is a terrible entity created by Spider-Man himself! I can assert that he turned into a supervillain precisely to take revenge on someone like Spider-Man, who operates above the law! Think about it, if the police or the Avengers had arrested this Herman, would he have become a criminal?"

Then Jameson simply stood up, grabbed the live camera feed, and shoved his face towards the lens, roaring. Only his spittle-flying face remained on screen.

"No! Because he would have known he deserved it! He would have known he was arrested by someone qualified! Not some lunatic in a spandex suit swinging around, meddling in everyone's business! He wouldn't have thought it was bad luck or that he shouldn't have been caught!"

[If only you had said this when we first met, bug.]

[If only you had said this to Herman Schultz instead of Scarecrow.]

Peter recalled what Schultz had told him yesterday and felt a headache coming on. He rubbed his temples, seemingly understanding another meaning.

If Spider-Man had said, "Bro, that weapon is so cool" to Herman during that first bank robbery, perhaps Scarecrow wouldn't have been born. Maybe because he didn't say that one sentence, a supervillain appeared.

"This is the first time I've thought Jameson made some sense."

Gwen was shocked by Peter's statement.

"Seriously? Whenever Jameson talks about Spider-Man, even my dad curses and says, 'That's all bullshit'."

"Hahaha." Peter finally couldn't help but laugh, shaking his head. "Does he really say that?"

"He never curses in front of his daughter, but I can tell from his expression that's what he's thinking. So, where are we actually going?"

Peter casually pointed to an apartment building. "There, the rooftop."

A few minutes later, the two reached the edge of the rooftop. Gwen stood at the edge, looking down. "The view is really nice, as long as you don't fall."

"Do you remember Andrew Derby? From our middle school."

"Never met him." Gwen then tried hard to recall, digging the name out of her memory. "There was a freshman who committed suicide in our second year of middle school, was it him?"

"It was him, right from here."

Gwen, who had been casually strolling along the rooftop edge, immediately stepped back to the safety of the roof. Only Peter remained sitting on the edge, gazing at the New York streetscape he visited for a minute or two almost every day.

"So... you knew him?"

"No. It's just that, two days before he died, I saw him. He looked very depressed, like he'd gone through something terrible. Sometimes when I pass by here, I wonder, if I had gone over and talked to him then, would things have turned out differently?"

Gwen was speechless for a long time, not knowing how to respond. After struggling to organize her thoughts, she finally spoke.

"And if you tried to talk him out of it, and he still chose to end his life, would you start blaming yourself for not talking to him properly, for not saying the right things? Mr. Saint Peter?"

"But..."

"No, don't tell me that," Gwen sat down next to Peter, cutting him off. "Wait, give me a few minutes. Let me think."

"Uh..."

"Okay, I know what to say. You are absolutely not cut out for suicide hotline work, Peter. If you went to work with your saintly ideals, you'd be planning to jump off the building yourself on the second day because you couldn't save everyone the day before." Gwen gave an example that sounded rude but was fitting. "These things, this kind of thing, it's not your responsibility at all. You don't need to be responsible for other people, especially strangers."

"Kindness is a good thing, smart kid, but excessive kindness becomes a curse. And a curse is never a good thing."

After Gwen finished speaking, she sat beside Peter. They sat side-by-side in silence for a while. Gwen felt that Peter might think she didn't understand him, that she couldn't empathize.

Perhaps this was indeed something she couldn't truly empathize with.

She had to ask again.

"So sometimes when you think about these things, you come here to sit. Do you feel any better?"

"At least I've never jumped from here."

Well, there was that one or two times, but he'd just swung away. He'd sought the feeling of freefall a few times, but felt less and less fear.

"Maybe you should find a priest for a good confession?"

"I don't believe in religion, I believe in science."

"Then you can talk to me, or Uncle Ben, or Aunt May. Don't keep everything to yourself, smart kid."

Peter Parker's only response to this was a faint smile.

"I will."

Gwen wasn't sure if Peter had really listened, but she knew there was someone whose words Peter would definitely heed. She needed to have a good chat with Uncle Ben after school today.

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