Peter and Sandman

Peter was not in a very good mood right now. Not long ago, he had gotten into an argument with Mary Jane because a newspaper had published an article slandering her. The girl had been devastated after seeing it, but Peter had brushed it off while trying to comfort her.

"It doesn't matter. Spider-Man gets slandered all the time too, and I'm still your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."

Mary Jane had then angrily accused Peter of not understanding her at all before leaving without looking back.

Still, he had recently saved a beautiful woman. Peter crouched on a rooftop, smiling brightly as he watched the blonde girl delivering a speech below. Beautiful, poised... Peter felt an inexplicable interest in her. After being Spider-Man for so long, this was the first time someone had given a speech in a park to thank him.

It moved Peter deeply, and also made him prone to doing some irrational things.

"Woohoo!!"

"Hey! Are you okay?!"

"Spider-Man! Spider-Man!"

Peter swung through the crowd on his webbing, his stylish entrance drawing cheers from countless fans. Many children wore Spider-Man costumes and cheered him on, looking like crazed little fanboys.

"Kiss him! Kiss him! Kiss him!"

Peter, clad in his suit, hung upside down over the stage. Gwen was too shy to look at her savior, constantly shifting her gaze elsewhere.

Peter was a little intoxicated by all the cheers. The unpleasantness with Mary Jane had been thrown completely out of his mind. Right now, he only wanted to enjoy this excitement to the fullest.

"Come on, give me a kiss!" Peter said. He was so happy that he said something he normally never would have.

"Huh? Here?" Gwen said in surprise, immediately becoming shy.

"That's right. Can't you hear them cheering? They'll love it!"

After hearing that, Gwen no longer felt burdened. She gently pulled Peter's mask down to his nose, then passionately kissed him.

The two of them, along with all the fans present, enjoyed the atmosphere. Everyone except one person.

Mary Jane looked at the man onstage, unable to believe that he was Peter, the man who had sworn eternal love to her not long ago. The great hero admired by everyone, the big boy who had promised to take care of her.

"To hell with all those sweet words!" Mary Jane was utterly disappointed in Peter. Losing her job had already been enough to shatter her confidence, and now...

Mary Jane laughed at herself and silently walked away alone.

Suddenly, a gust of yellow sand swept through the air. Everyone present was surprised, but no one paid it much mind, simply assuming it was some strange natural disaster.

A guard on an armored truck casually tossed a bag of money into the vehicle, preparing to repeat his dull and tedious work. In recent years, due to Li Nian and Peter's appearance, New York's crime rate had plummeted. Now, there were not even any robbers targeting armored trucks, leaving the guards' lives with far fewer exciting experiences.

"I know a place with great hot dogs, just three blocks away." The guard sitting in the back, his belly protruding, lazily reclined against his seat and yawned.

"You fat pig, keep eating like that and your wife will run off!" the driver joked, making everyone in the vehicle laugh.

Thud!

"What was that? Did you forget to fill up the gas?"

The driver glanced into the rearview mirror and saw a shadow appear on the ground. Startled, he immediately shouted, "Hey, guys! Something's on the roof!"

The moment he finished speaking, surging yellow sand tore open the roof. The two guards in the backseat had just raised their guns when the sand slowly gathered into a human shape. With a casual wave of its hand, it swept up a mass of yellow sand and flung one of the guards out of the vehicle.

"Ah!"

The other guard nervously tried to fire, only to be buried inside the vehicle by falling yellow sand. The driver could do nothing but scream in terror. Then the glass separating the compartments shattered, and a huge amount of yellow sand crushed into the cab, burying him as well.

A great mass of sand pressed down the accelerator, causing the vehicle to speed up continuously as it swerved wildly through the streets, crashing into many people and cars.

Flint carefully checked the money in the bag. This was his only hope.

Flint Marko, a robber who had just escaped from prison. Because of that, his wife had divorced him, taken away their seriously ill daughter, and forbidden him from seeing her.

Flint had only escaped back home a few nights ago, only to discover that his daughter had a terminal illness.

Flint gently crouched beside his daughter's bed, looking at the oxygen tube in her nose and the letters expressing how much she missed her father. Flint fell into deep thought.

"You shouldn't be here."

"I came to see my daughter."

"You're a fugitive! You have no right to see her! You'll affect her!"

Flint put down the dark bread in his hand, unable to say anything, because he knew his wife was right. He had robbed, killed, and then escaped from prison...

"Penny... I've missed you so much." Flint spotted the little head hiding behind the door. He gently crouched down and took his daughter's frail little hand.

Perhaps because of her severe illness, Penny's hand was pale and thin, like a chopstick that would snap with a single bend.

Before the two could even say goodbye, a large number of police officers had already arrived. Flint could only take one last lingering look at his daughter before escaping through the window.

As for what happened afterward...

Flint snapped out of his memories because a perverted giant spider in a skintight suit had climbed onto the truck.

"Leave. I don't want to hurt you." Flint stood up expressionlessly and warned him while staring at that mask. Spider-Man had not yet become active when Flint went to prison, so he had no idea what kind of psychopath this guy was.

"You might not know this, but I'm the sheriff around here!" Peter said in a flippant tone. His long string of successes had unconsciously changed his mindset a little.

Seeing that persuasion would not work, Flint gave Peter a helpless look before suddenly throwing a punch at his face. But Peter, with his spider-sense, easily dodged it.

Peter countered with a punch to Flint's abdomen. He had thought it would be enough to take an ordinary person out of the fight, but instead, his fist passed straight through Flint's body, scattering grains of sand everywhere.

"What the hell?!" Peter stared blankly, raising his head in confusion. Flint glared at him viciously. Then his fist suddenly grew larger, becoming wrapped in sand, before he sent Peter flying with one punch.

"Whoa!"

Peter planted his feet on the truck door and used his webbing to latch onto the armored truck. He had done this sort of thing many times before. It was effortless.

Seeing that he could not shake off this disgusting crawler, Flint began fighting Peter atop the vehicle.

Massive hammers made of sand slammed down at Peter one after another, leaving him miserable. There was nowhere suitable to dodge Flint's attacks, so he could only endure the blows passively.

Bang!

Peter was smashed into the vehicle by a hammer, while Flint had already turned into flying sand and fled with the bag of money.

"Help us!" the guards buried beneath the sand cried out. Peter looked ahead and saw a transport truck about to collide with them. He immediately pulled the two men out of the yellow sand and shot webbing at them to protect them.

Bang!

The enormous impact instantly overturned the armored truck.

Peter hurriedly crawled out from beneath the vehicle and looked around, but he could not find any trace of Sandman.

"Where do these guys keep coming from?" Peter complained helplessly as he poured the sand out of his boots.