Aunt May's Cookies and the "Spider-Man Neighbor"

On Wednesday afternoon, Lin Mo was replacing the ink cartridge in an old printer at the repair shop when Carlos suddenly jerked his chin toward the entrance. "Someone's looking for you."

A Chinese American auntie in a floral dress stood at the door, her hair neatly combed. She held a laptop in her arms and wore a slightly awkward smile. Lin Mo froze for two seconds before recognizing her—she was one of old Martha's card-playing friends. They had met in the hallway before, and Martha had called her "May."

"Master Lin?" Aunt May's voice was gentle, touched with a Southern accent. "Martha said you can fix computers. Could you take a look at mine..." She handed him the laptop. The screen was filled with dense pop-up windows, all advertisements for the New York Fortune-Telling Network, along with several flickering pictures of scantily clad women.

Lin Mo took the computer. The instant his fingertips touched the casing, he knew it had a virus—he had seen this kind of pop-up virus countless times in Huaqiangbei, usually brought in by clicking unknown links. "It's fine. I just need to clean it up." He placed the laptop on the workbench and flew across the keyboard, quietly activating his Basic Phasing Ability at the same time. His fingertips brushed past the internal ports, avoiding a loose USB cable so it would not fail on him.

Aunt May stood beside him, rubbing her hands against her apron, a little embarrassed. "Is it troublesome? Peter always says I click on random links, but that fortune-telling site said I'd meet a benefactor this year..."

"Peter?" Lin Mo's fingers paused, and his heart felt as though a feather had brushed across it. That name was far too sensitive, especially coming from someone who lived in this building. He looked up with a smile, trying to keep his tone casual. "Kids all understand computers. My younger sister always says I'm old-fashioned too."

As they talked, his antivirus had already detected twenty-seven malicious plugins. Halfway through the cleanup, the browser suddenly redirected itself to the homepage of the New York Fortune-Telling Network. Large red words filled the screen: "Today's Fortune: Meet a benefactor, receive sweets, avoid climbing high places."

Aunt May's eyes lit up. "See? See? It really came true! I met you, my benefactor!"

Lin Mo said nothing. He silently changed the browser homepage to Google and installed an ad-blocking plugin while he was at it. "All done. Don't click those pop-ups again. If anything happens, have Peter take a look." He handed the laptop back to her. Its screen was as clean as if it had just been bought.

"Thank you so much!" Aunt May took out a plate of snacks wrapped in plastic wrap from the cloth bag she carried. "Try these. I baked the cookies myself. Peter loves them."

Lin Mo could not refuse, so he accepted them. The cookies were still warm. The buttery aroma mingled with the sweetness of chocolate chips, and as it drifted into his nose, he suddenly remembered the cookies his mother had baked before he crossed over—just like these, a little burnt around the edges, yet more fragrant than any fancy dessert.

"Oh, right. You live in Martha's basement?" Aunt May suddenly asked. "My place is on the third floor. If my computer breaks again, could you..."

"Come find me anytime," Lin Mo quickly said. "You won't have to come all the way down here. I pass your door on my way home from work."

Aunt May smiled until her eyes curved into crescents. "That would be wonderful! Come upstairs and have some tea? Peter gets out of school early today. Let him learn from you, so he'll stop playing on his phone all the time."

Lin Mo's heartbeat skipped. Go to Aunt May's home? Possibly meet Peter Parker? Even his palm began to sweat around the cookies, but he did not dare agree. "Not today, Auntie. I still have work. Carlos is ruthless about docking pay."

Carlos snorted from the side without saying anything, silently confirming the excuse.

Aunt May did not press him. She left with the laptop in her arms and a bright smile on her face. Lin Mo watched her disappear around the corner of the stairwell before unwrapping the plastic and picking up a cookie. The instant he bit into it, the chocolate melted in his mouth, perfectly sweet—one hundred times better than anything from a supermarket.

"Look at you, acting like such a coward." Carlos tossed him a bottle of cola. "It's just tea at a widow's place."

"She isn't a widow..." Lin Mo reflexively retorted, then froze as soon as the words left his mouth. He had forgotten. In this timeline, Ben Parker might already have died. Aunt May really was living alone, raising her nephew Peter.

Carlos shrugged and did not ask further. But Lin Mo had no mood to work anymore. All he could think about was Aunt May saying, "Peter loves climbing all over the place." He recalled the look in her eyes when she had mentioned Peter outside the shop earlier—both proud and helpless, as if she were talking about a mischievous little monkey who was always causing trouble.

"It can't be that much of a coincidence..." Lin Mo muttered. This building was Spider-Man's home. Aunt May was Spider-Man's aunt. Peter Parker was Spider-Man himself—put those pieces together, and the answer was practically obvious.

After work that evening, Lin Mo deliberately detoured to the third floor. Aunt May's door was slightly ajar. Inside, a microwave dinged, followed by a boy shouting, "Aunt May! Where are my cookies?"

Lin Mo's heart jumped violently. He stood at the door, fingers hovering over the handle, hesitating for three minutes—go in? He might directly meet Spider-Man himself, the version before he was bitten. Or not go in? But he could not suppress his curiosity.

In the end, he turned and went downstairs. It was not time yet, he reminded himself. Peter Parker was probably just an ordinary high school student right now, without spider-sense or superpowers. Making contact rashly would only disrupt the timeline.

Back in the basement, Lin Mo placed the remaining cookies on his desk, reluctant to eat them. He touched the wristband on his wrist. Its countdown read: 358 days, 6 hours. There was less than a year until his first check-in, and roughly half a year until Peter Parker was bitten by the spider.

Over the next few days, Lin Mo often ran into Aunt May in the hallway. Sometimes she carried a basket of groceries to the supermarket; sometimes she brought Peter's dirty clothes to the laundry room. Every time she saw Lin Mo, she gave him something—an apple one day, a slice of cake the next, and then, unbelievably, a small jar of doubanjiang. She said, "Peter's classmate's mother sent it over. A Sichuan specialty."

Lin Mo knew she meant well, but he did not dare accept too much. Every time, he returned the favor with something small—fixing her loose doorknob, replacing the battery in her elderly phone, even using his Basic Phasing Ability to retrieve a ring stuck in the drain, saving her the cost of hiring a plumber.

On Friday evening, Lin Mo had just pulled the repair shop's rolling shutter halfway down when Aunt May stopped him. "Lin, come upstairs and look at my fridge? The light won't turn on. Peter says it might be a wiring problem."

"The fridge?" Lin Mo hesitated. Fixing a refrigerator meant entering her kitchen. The chance of seeing Peter was practically one hundred percent.

"It'll be quick, just one look." Aunt May grabbed his arm and pulled him upstairs, surprisingly strong.

The moment the third-floor door opened, Lin Mo smelled toast. The living room was very tidy, with a crocheted blanket over the sofa and two photos on the wall—one of Aunt May with a bespectacled middle-aged man, probably Ben Parker, and another of a boy alone.

The boy looked about fifteen or sixteen. He wore a blue-and-white school uniform and black-rimmed glasses, grinning foolishly beside a science fair display while holding up a spider-shaped specimen.

Lin Mo's breathing stopped instantly. It was him. Peter Parker. The boy in the photograph still had baby fat, his eyes as clear as lakewater. He looked nothing like the future Spider-Man who would swing between New York's skyscrapers.

"That's Peter. He won an award at last year's science fair." Aunt May followed his gaze, pride evident in her voice. "He loves tinkering with bottles and gadgets, and... climbing all over the place."

Lin Mo's gaze swept over the fridge, then suddenly froze. The refrigerator door was covered in photos from Peter's life, most taken by Aunt May: Peter swinging a bat on a baseball field, Peter reading in the library, and one shot from below—Peter sprawled on the third-floor windowsill with half his body hanging outside, holding a camera and beaming brilliantly.

Climbing windowsills? Lin Mo's heart began pounding. This could no longer be explained away as merely "climbing all over the place." It was practically the embryonic form of Spider-Man. He remembered Spider-Man: Homecoming from before he crossed over. Peter really did love scrambling around the rooftops of Queens, calling it "patrolling."

"Where's Peter?" Lin Mo's voice tightened slightly as he pretended to stare at the refrigerator light.

"He's in his room doing homework." Aunt May opened the fridge door. Sure enough, the light did not turn on. "Look at this..."

Lin Mo crouched down and pretended to inspect the wiring, but his eyes kept drifting toward Peter's bedroom door. It was slightly open, and he could see tall stacks of books inside. Most had titles like Introduction to Quantum Physics and Biological Gene Mapping, hardcore reading that did not fit a boy his age at all.

He took a deep breath and focused on listening for movement inside the room—there was the scratch of a pen across paper, and then... faint climbing sounds? Like someone gripping a bedframe and doing pull-ups.

"It's a loose connection." Lin Mo tapped the underside of the refrigerator, activated his Basic Phasing Ability, and passed his fingertip through the casing to lightly nudge a loose wire. With a snap, the refrigerator light came on, its warm yellow glow illuminating Aunt May's delighted face.

"You're amazing! Lin, you're practically a miracle worker!" Aunt May insisted on keeping him for dinner. "Peter bought pizza. We were just waiting for you."

Lin Mo was about to refuse when Peter's bedroom door suddenly opened. A tall, thin boy stood in the doorway, his glasses sliding down his nose. His T-shirt bore the words "Empire State University." He was exactly the boy from the photographs.

"Aunt May, I..." Peter's words caught when he saw Lin Mo. His eyes widened like bells, and his hand instinctively hid behind his back. Out of the corner of his eye, Lin Mo caught sight of a spider-shaped metal toy clenched in Peter's hand, while one of his legs kept twitching.

"This is Master Lin. He fixed our refrigerator and computer." Aunt May took Peter by the arm. "Hurry up and thank him."

"Th-thank you." Peter's face instantly turned red, and he even stuttered. Yet his eyes swept over Lin Mo's repair shop uniform like scanners before settling on the half-exposed screwdriver in his pocket.

Lin Mo smiled and stood. "No need to thank me. We're neighbors." He deliberately emphasized the word "neighbors" as he looked Peter in the eyes. "I heard you're good at science? My younger sister likes this stuff too. She always says I'm technologically illiterate."

Peter's eyes lit up, as though he had found common ground. "Science is really interesting! Like a spider's silk glands—their tensile strength is even greater than steel wire. If it could be synthesized artificially..." He suddenly realized he had said too much and quickly closed his mouth, his face turning even redder.

The stone in Lin Mo's heart finally fell. No doubt about it. Only Peter Parker could be so obsessed with spiders. Only he would study biological genetics at this age, and only he would hide spider-related things behind his back.

At dinner, Peter was just as Aunt May had said. He did not talk much, but his eyes were always darting around, occasionally glancing out the window. Halfway through the meal, police sirens suddenly sounded outside. The pizza in Peter's hand nearly fell, and he shot to his feet. "I... I'll go see if I finished my homework."

"That child." Aunt May shook her head helplessly. "He gets nervous every time he hears sirens. He keeps saying he wants to 'keep the neighborhood safe,' just like his uncle."

Lin Mo watched Peter rush into his room, unable to stop the smile from rising on his lips. Keep the neighborhood safe? He was probably trying to sneak out and be a "volunteer patrolman." Lin Mo lowered his head and took a bite of pizza, suddenly feeling that this rundown apartment building was more interesting than Stark Tower.

When he was leaving after dinner, Peter suddenly rushed out of his room and stuffed an envelope into Lin Mo's hand. "This is... the money for fixing the fridge."

There were five dollars in the envelope, the bill crumpled as though it had been dug out of a piggy bank. Lin Mo pushed the money back and smiled. "Really, no need. Just teach me some science next time. We'll call it an exchange."

Peter paused, then suddenly took out a small notebook and quickly scribbled down a string of characters before handing it to him. "This is my email. You can ask me any science questions! I know biology and physics, and I'm pretty decent at chemistry too..."

"Okay." Lin Mo took the note. The handwriting was wild and messy, with a simple sketch of a spider at the end.

As he went downstairs, Lin Mo touched the wristband on his wrist. The countdown seemed to have jumped faster: 357 days, 23 hours. He looked up at the third-floor window. Peter's silhouette was sprawled on the windowsill, binoculars in hand, their lenses reflecting distant police lights.

Back in the basement, Lin Mo copied Peter's email address into his notebook and drew a tiny spider beside it. He picked up one of Aunt May's cookies, and as he bit into it, he suddenly felt that even the basement's musty smell was not so unpleasant anymore.

Over the next few days, Lin Mo kept "running into" Peter. Sometimes it was in the hallway, where Peter rushed past with a backpack, saying he was going to a science fair. Sometimes it was outside the repair shop, where Peter pretended to be passing by while glancing at the electronic components on the workbench. The most interesting time was when Lin Mo hung his bedding out on the rooftop terrace because the basement was too damp, only to see Peter clinging to the drainpipe of the building opposite with a camera in hand. When Peter spotted him, he nearly fell.

"Practicing rock climbing?" Lin Mo called with a smile.

Peter reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, scrambling back onto the roof with all four limbs. His face was crimson. "Ex-exercising!" After saying that, he grabbed his backpack and ran. Something fell out of it—Lin Mo caught it with his Basic Phasing Ability and discovered it was a homemade model of a web-shooter, complete with adhesive.

Lin Mo placed the model outside Peter's door with a note: "Good materials, but the trigger is too loose. Recommend replacing the spring."

The next day, a plate of snacks appeared outside his door, along with a note in Peter's handwriting: "Thanks! I'll teach you how to make a simple circuit next time."

Looking at the cookies, Lin Mo suddenly felt that life in the Marvel world did not seem so difficult after all. He did not need to go to Stark Tower to meet superheroes, nor did he need to wait a year for his check-in to feel warmth—it was right here in this dilapidated apartment building, in the scent of Aunt May's cookies, in Peter's blushing voice as he talked about science.

On Friday night, Lin Mo was fixing old Martha's television—her soap opera had frozen again—when he suddenly heard a loud bang outside, followed by Peter's scream.

He rushed out and saw Peter had fallen from the second-floor balcony. He lay on the ground rubbing his arm, while a broken camera rolled nearby. "Are you okay?" Lin Mo hurried over to help him up.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Peter scrambled to his feet. The skin on his elbow was scraped open, blood seeping from it. "I was just taking... taking pictures of the night view. My foot slipped."

Lin Mo looked at the wound on Peter's arm and suddenly remembered the wristband's health-scanning function. He pretended to brush dust from Peter's clothes, his fingertips passing over the injury. Pale blue words flashed through his mind: [Minor abrasion. No fracture. Healing speed slightly faster than normal humans (possibly due to unusual physique).]

"Go back and disinfect it," Lin Mo said, helping him up. "Aunt May will worry."

Peter nodded and limped toward the stairwell. At the entrance, he suddenly stopped and looked back at Lin Mo. His eyes held a complicated emotion, as if he were trying to confirm something.

Lin Mo stood where he was and watched Peter disappear through the door. He looked down at his palm, which still held the warmth of Peter's wound. He knew that before long, this boy who loved climbing everywhere would be bitten by a radioactive spider, then swing his first web through the night skies of Queens.

And he, Lin Mo, a repair apprentice from another world, would witness that transformation.

The wristband on his arm gently warmed, as though responding to his heartbeat. Lin Mo smiled and turned back toward the basement. One last cookie remained. He decided to save it for the next time Peter came to fix something—an early celebration for him becoming New York's best neighbor, its best hero.

Moonlight streamed through the small window outside, casting a spider-shaped patch of light on the floor like some mysterious omen. Lin Mo picked up his notebook and drew another tiny lightning bolt beside Peter's email address—his own mark.

In this Marvel universe full of danger, having a neighbor who understood science did not seem so bad.