The Past

When Peter pushed open the front door, exhaustion washed over him like a tide. The string of bank robberies over the past few days had left him stretched thin, while his part-time job application at the Daily Bugle had still vanished without a trace—not because someone else had beaten him to it, but because they had simply rejected him. The listing for a website maintenance intern was still hanging in the school's internship section.

But what weighed on him even more was the atmosphere at home.

"Where has he been going lately? Coming home this late every day..." Aunt May's voice drifted from the kitchen, carrying undisguised concern.

"Don't worry, May. I'll talk to him." Uncle Ben's voice was gentle yet firm. "He's a good kid. He won't get into trouble."

Peter stood at the door and sighed silently before walking in. Aunt May seemed like she wanted to say something, but Uncle Ben had already hurried over, gently patted his shoulder, and led him outside. "Peter and I will talk, May. It'll be fine. Come on, kid."

The garage lights were dim, and the air smelled of motor oil and old leather. Uncle Ben rummaged around for a while, then pulled two pairs of boxing gloves from a pile of clutter. He tossed one pair onto the hood and slipped the other onto his own hands with practiced ease.

"Gwen told me some things about you, Peter." Uncle Ben adjusted the straps on his gloves, his tone calm. "But I think that wasn't all of it. There's something about spiders too, right?"

"I just..." Peter opened his mouth.

"Don't just talk." Uncle Ben cut him off, nodding toward the other pair of gloves. "Put them on. Let's spar."

Peter silently put on the gloves and assumed the fighting stance Uncle Ben had taught him.

"Now, listen carefully." Uncle Ben raised his hands into a defensive posture. "You attack, I defend. After every missed punch, think carefully about why it missed. Once you've thought it through, throw the next one—come on!"

Peter threw a straight punch, which Uncle Ben easily avoided with a sidestep. Just as he adjusted his stance and threw a second punch as Uncle Ben had instructed, he received a solid flick on the forehead.

"Ow!"

"See that, Peter? There's no point dwelling on the past. Whether the last punch landed or not, it shouldn't affect your next one. Standing here, the only thing you should be thinking about is what comes next."

"I know, Uncle Ben. I just can't forget."

"Then think about something else, Peter."

As he spoke, Uncle Ben had already taken off his gloves. He then retrieved his old laptop from the car. "After hearing what Gwen said, I knew you should see this, so I brought the computer down. Maybe I should have shown you this a long time ago."

Peter covered his forehead and walked over to Uncle Ben's side. Uncle Ben opened the laptop, and the screen lit up with a news report about a fire.

"Remember this fire?"

"Of course. It was the first time I used my abilities to rescue people from a fire..."

"Then have you seen this?"

Uncle Ben opened a bookmarked page, which led to a video. Onscreen, a mother with red-rimmed eyes spoke through tears.

"I don't know who you are, or whether you'll ever see this... but I have to say thank you. When the firefighters stopped me, you rushed in and saved my daughter..."

The video was a mother expressing her gratitude, and by the end, she was so overwhelmed that her words became incoherent. It was the first time Peter had seen a video like this.

Then came a second one. From there, Spider-Man began to appear.

Spider-Man had helped Damage Control fight rioters, helped firefighters extinguish a blaze in a high-rise building, blocked bullets to save an officer on duty...

He had helped an old man retrieve a pigeon that had flown away, cleaned graffiti off a shop owner's wall, and even simply helped someone find a lost cat.

Big and small, Peter himself could no longer remember all the things Spider-Man had done, but someone remembered. They did not know how to contact Spider-Man, so they could only express their thanks in the simplest way—someone had created a website to collect these clips.

"I... I've never seen these." Peter's voice trembled slightly.

"But you should, kid." Uncle Ben placed a hand on his shoulder. "Don't always stare at what you failed to do. Look at what you have done. No matter how your enemies slander you, no matter how J. Jonah Jameson smears you, the people you helped will always know the truth."

He paused, his gaze resolute.

"Spider-Man gave people hope, Peter. What are you upset about? That you haven't done enough? Look at these—you've already made so many lives better. My nephew has long been a hero who brings smiles to the world."

"What you did matters far more than what you didn't."

Peter's throat tightened. He had always thought his actions were merely small favors. He had never imagined they could truly change anything.

"These people... their lives got better because of me?" he murmured, as though asking Uncle Ben and himself at the same time. "Can I really do all this?"

Uncle Ben smiled and nodded.

"You did all of this. Look at these videos—your help for them will always be here. Your past isn't just the things you failed to do. Compared to what you have already done, those things are only such an insignificant part of it."

"I'm so proud of everything my nephew has done. You should be proud of these things too, Peter."

"I... thank you, Uncle Ben. I don't know what to say."

Peter watched those videos for what seemed like a long time. At last, he smiled through a choked sob. "So Spider-Man brings everyone hope. If the friendly neighborhood guy isn't happy, then who's going to make everyone happy? Right. I'll carry a smile and hope with me every day."

"Ben! Peter?!" Aunt May's voice came from inside the house.

"All right, go apologize to your Aunt May." After saying that, Uncle Ben lowered his voice. "If you keep coming home this late, you won't be able to fool her anymore."

"I won't. Never again."

Back in his room, Peter took an old briefcase from the depths of his closet and pulled out a worn notebook—it was Richard Parker's keepsake, recording some of his ideas from work. Spider-Man's synthetic Web Fluid formula had originated from it.

But the old Web Fluid could no longer handle Scarecrow's threat. Peter turned on his computer, compared the notes, and began trying to improve the formula. Before this, he had never thought he could improve upon his father's invention. But now, looking at those equations and the hand-drawn diagrams of web structures that were so familiar to him, Peter wrote down every chemical reagent he could find at school, then began constructing a new web model on his computer based on an altered Web Fluid structure.

"Looks like people really do have to push themselves," he muttered. He had never imagined that he would be capable of doing something like this in the Marvel world.

Bottle after bottle of chemical reagent was pulled from the closet and packed into his backpack. Midtown High School had everything else he needed. As the representative high school partnered with Osborn Industries, it had every kind of equipment and instrument available.

No teacher would probably mind if he "borrowed" some chemical materials. In theory, the new web's strength could increase by around twenty percent, which would be enough to deal with Scarecrow.

No... there was still one very important point.

Scarecrow was extremely cautious now. He acted with others, and even during bank robberies, he chose to leave quickly, giving no one any opportunity. If Peter could not find Scarecrow, then even if he came up with a way to defeat him, it would be useless.

But fortunately, he had two good friends: one who was supposedly the seventh greatest genius in the world, and another who was supposedly Osborn's heir. They had joined a Detective Agency together, whose president was a superhero whose profession was detective... though he did not have superpowers yet.

The darkness grew deeper. Peter checked the time; he could probably still sleep for an hour or two. He planned to put the notebook back into the briefcase, then go to bed.

His hand touched something inside the bag. It was Richard Parker's old Canon camera. He turned it on for no particular reason and discovered that it still worked.

Hadn't the Daily Bugle put out a notice offering to buy Spider-Man photos?

Peter placed the camera on the desk, lay down on his bed, and closed his eyes.

"All right, Herman. This time, I'm the one coming to find you."