Peter froze for half a second, then gave up thinking. He supported her with one hand, slid the other up her back, and kissed her back. Felicia gave a muffled moan, her tongue prying his lips apart as her sweet, vanilla-scented breath flooded in.
"Holy shit." Flash's sharp intake of breath echoed through the bus.
When they finally broke the kiss, both were panting. A glistening thread stretched between their lips, then snapped. Felicia's green eyes stared straight into his, her cheeks burning red.
"Fuck."
Peter nodded. "Fuck."
"You're a good kisser."
"Thanks for the compliment."
"Want to try again?"
"So badly."
This time, Peter made the first move. One hand wrapped around her waist, the other slipping into her long silver hair. Everyone on the bus was probably watching, but he didn't care. Vanilla. He liked vanilla.
The bus drove straight to the hospital's emergency entrance. Mr. Duncan was rushed into the emergency room. Once the glass fragments were removed, it turned out his spine hadn't been injured. He received more than a dozen stitches, and his life was saved.
Afterward, everyone was taken back to school. Parents crowded the gates.
The moment the bus stopped, the crowd surged forward.
Peter was the last to get off. He spotted Aunt May and Uncle Ben immediately.
"Peter!" Aunt May rushed over and hugged him tightly, her voice trembling. "How are you? Are you hurt? What happened?"
"Aunt May, I'm fine. Really, not even a scratch." Peter patted her back reassuringly.
"You're really all right?" Uncle Ben stared into his eyes.
Peter nodded. "The whole class is safe. Only Mr. Duncan got hurt protecting Liz, and he's already been taken to the hospital. Looks like fall field trips and I just aren't compatible."
"Peter! How can you joke at a time like this?" Aunt May cried.
Uncle Ben actually smiled. "Let him, May. You know some people process their feelings this way."
Aunt May sighed and said no more about it. "Let's go home."
Peter looked up at the sky. A ball of fire was flying toward them.
"Wait a second, Aunt May. I need to talk to someone."
"Who?"
Before she finished speaking, a burning figure descended from the sky and landed in front of Peter. The flames faded, revealing Johnny's grinning face. "Hey, glad to see you're safe."
"Thanks. How are things at the expo? Many casualties?"
"Not many. Maybe one or two people got hurt by self-destructing drones. Ben blocked the worst explosion with his body. After Sue and Reed arrived, they shut down about half the drones, so they didn't all explode."
Peter let out a relieved breath. "That's good."
Johnny looked behind him. "These are...?"
Peter stepped aside, revealing the dumbstruck Uncle Ben and Aunt May behind him. "Johnny, this is my Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Uncle Ben, Aunt May, this is Johnny Storm. The Human Torch from the Fantastic Four. My friend."
Johnny waved. "Hey, Uncle Ben, Aunt May! Peter talks about you all the time! Come visit the Baxter Building sometime. You're always welcome!"
It took Uncle Ben a second to recover. "Uh... sure. Thank you."
Aunt May couldn't speak.
Johnny turned back to Peter. "I just came to check that you were safe. I've got to head back and help clear the rubble. Do you want to-"
"I'll help too," Peter blurted out.
Aunt May's voice was soft. "No, Peter. That's enough for today. Leave it to the police and rescue teams."
Peter opened his mouth to argue, but swallowed his words when he met Uncle Ben's gaze. "...Right. Sorry."
Johnny smiled. "See you Monday, then, Peter. Take care." With that, he ignited and shot upward, disappearing into the night sky in a streak of flame.
Peter sighed and turned to leave. Just then, Aunt Anna came over with Mary Jane.
"Anna." Aunt May managed a smile. "I'm so glad Mary Jane is all right."
"Yes, she's fine. And thank you for bringing me along to pick her up, May. Who knows how long it would've taken me to get here by bus," Anna said excitedly. "But Peter is the one we should really thank. He saved Mary Jane!"
Aunt May and Uncle Ben both looked at Peter.
"He saved all of us," Mary Jane said softly. "He saved everyone on the bus."
Peter shrugged. "With great power comes great responsibility."
Uncle Ben froze. "Peter, that's not how I meant you to use those words."
"No, that's exactly what you meant, and you know it." Peter looked into Uncle Ben's eyes. "I just scaled up the model."
"But how did you do it?" Aunt May asked.
"He used some kind of gun!" Flash shouted from nearby.
Peter shot him a vicious glare. That blond idiot.
"A gun?!" Uncle Ben's voice rose.
"It wasn't a gun." Peter glared at Flash again and pulled the EMP device from his backpack. "This is something I made at work. It fires an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to fry a drone's control systems."
"Peter, why would you build something like that?" Uncle Ben pressed.
"Simple. The last time Stark appeared in public, a lunatic with electric whips attacked him. The time before that, it was a rogue suit of armor. And Hammer Industries is the company that made the Rhino suit. I figured something would probably go wrong at the expo." Peter held up the EMP gun. "So I prepared this in advance."
Everyone stared at him as though he were a monster with three heads and six arms.
"How could you possibly have known there would be danger?" Liz asked incredulously.
"I work for Reed Richards, okay?" Peter scoffed. "Did you really think I was just a bookworm?"
"I, for one, admire that foresight."
The voice sent a chill down Peter's back.
Norman Osborn stepped out of the crowd, a polished smile on his face. "Peter, you've impressed me yet again. May I take a look?"
He pointed at the EMP gun. Peter hesitated, but handed it over.
Norman examined the device in his hands and raised an eyebrow. "I have a team of the world's finest scientists working for me, but I'm not certain any of them could build something this... efficient. Quite outstanding, Peter."
"Th... thanks." Peter's throat tightened.
"Excuse me, who are you?" Uncle Ben stepped between Peter and Norman. He had probably noticed his nephew's back suddenly tense.
"Oh, forgive my manners. I'm Norman Osborn, Harry's father." He tipped his chin toward Harry, who stood in the distance with his head lowered. "I don't usually get too involved in my son's school life, but... it seems I'm fortunate I came. Are you Mr. Ben Parker?"
Uncle Ben nodded.
"You've done a remarkable job raising your nephew, Mr. Parker. I was going to offer him an internship at my company, but I gather he isn't particularly interested. Am I right?"
Peter managed a nod. "Sorry."
"Don't say that. How could I blame you? I was the one who failed to recognize your talent sooner. Including this incident, I now owe you two favors, both for protecting my son." Norman offered him a business card, his gentle smile flawless. "I don't like owing favors. Call if you need anything."
Then he turned away and walked over to Harry.
"Harry, it's time to go home for dinner."
"Yes, Father." Harry actually bowed slightly, then followed Norman into a black stretch limousine.
Uncle Ben cleared his throat. "That was... quite an unusual experience."
Peter slipped the business card into his pocket, his fingertips a little cold. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Felicia, who was talking to a silver-haired woman off to one side. The woman wore a diamond necklace and an elegant evening gown, and carried herself exactly like Felicia.
Felicia looked back at him, smiled faintly, and waved goodbye before disappearing into the crowd with the woman, probably her mother.
By the time they got home, hardly anyone had spoken during the ride. Uncle Ben had driven faster than usual, probably wanting to put today behind them as quickly as possible.
The car pulled into the driveway. Before getting out, Mary Jane glanced at Peter. Her expression was complicated, and Peter couldn't read it. But she said nothing, turning and heading back to her own home.
Peter stood before the porch and exhaled. Today had been long. Very long. But it was over, and he had survived. Probably no one at school would call him a scrawny freak anymore. That had its good and bad sides. He would stand out more. He couldn't slip away at will or make strange movements. He would have to stay on his guard all the time.
He hoped he could do a good job of being both Spider-Man and Peter Parker.
Saturday.
After relentlessly pleading with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and invoking the title of disaster relief "volunteer," Peter finally received permission to go out.
He went to the ruins of the expo as Spider-Man.
As he swung in on a web and landed at the site, several firefighters looked up. A burly man trying to move a chunk of concrete nodded to him. "Need a hand, kid?"
"Let me try." Peter bent down, gripped the edges of the concrete with both hands, and put his back into it, lifting the slab-which weighed at least several hundred pounds-over his head. "Shouldn't be a problem."
The firefighter whistled.
Peter spent the rest of the morning working at the site. He directly lifted whatever heavy objects he could move, and wrapped anything too hot or dangerous in webbing to insulate it. His webs were nonconductive and heat-resistant, perfect for wrapping exposed high-voltage cables and reactor wreckage that was still radiating heat.
The Fantastic Four arrived midway through the morning.
Johnny landed from the sky. Sue and Reed came in Sue's Land Rover. Ben walked on his own two legs and was considerably slower.
They immediately joined the cleanup. Sue supported collapsed steel frames with force fields, Reed stretched his body into ropes to bind scattered debris, Johnny melted metal structures that had fused together, and Ben simply used himself as a bulldozer.
Peter worked naturally with them. There was no need to talk; a glance told them where help was needed. He climbed onto the remains of the ceiling and strung webs to secure loose components, while Reed stretched himself into a bridge below to catch falling rubble.
The cleanup continued until two in the afternoon. Peter's stomach rumbled like thunder, making the workers laugh.
Johnny flew to a nearby Chinese restaurant and brought back more than a dozen takeout meals. Everyone sat in an open space beside the rubble to eat. Firefighters, police officers, superheroes-none of them treated the others as outsiders. Eating chow mein beside a man made of rock was something Peter would never have dared imagine before.
"Say, why do you call yourself Spider-Man?" John, the cleanup crew's supervisor, asked as he ate.
Peter thought about it. "I was bitten by a genetically modified spider and got spider-like abilities. Climbing walls, spinning webs, that sort of thing. The name followed naturally."
"Can you talk to spiders, then?"
"No."
"What about you?" someone asked Ben. "What's your name?"
"Ben."
"No, I mean your superhero name."
The Thing shrugged. "The Thing, I guess. Johnny calls me that sometimes."
Everyone chatted for quite a while. Peter could feel that this disaster relief effort had considerably improved Spider-Man's public image.
But he also had another intention hidden away.
Whenever he found something useful-a piece of drone wreckage, an undamaged Arc Reactor, a propulsion leg of unknown make-he waited until no one was looking, bundled it in reinforced webbing, and quietly slid it into the sewers to hide it. His webbing took twenty-four hours to degrade, giving him enough time to return in the middle of the night and collect it.
That evening, lights came on in homes everywhere. Peter waited until deep into the quiet night before returning to the expo ruins.
The site was deserted. He was about to head down into the sewers to retrieve his haul when he caught sight of a woman with long silver hair standing on the opposite rooftop.
He recognized her.
Peter swung over and landed a few steps behind her, deliberately making some noise.
Black Cat spun around, only relaxing when she saw him. "Spider."
"Good evening, Black Cat." Peter leaned against a ventilation pipe and folded his arms. "What are you doing here?"
"I was here last night." Felicia's voice was softer than usual, carrying a trace of vulnerability he had never seen in her. "A friend and I... almost died here."
"I'm sorry."
"Where were you last night?" Black Cat suddenly demanded, her voice sharpening. "Aren't you a hero? Aren't you always saying you're a hero? I'm just some insignificant thief. You're the great hero, right?!"
Peter didn't argue. She was angry. He understood. This kind of anger wasn't something to argue with.
"I was helping on the other side of the city," he said. "By the time I heard and rushed over, it was already too late. I really regret not getting here sooner."
"So you came to help clear the rubble today because you felt guilty?" Black Cat's tone was still aggressive.
"Not entirely," Peter said frankly. "I can live with guilt. I came because I knew it was the right thing to do. Someone needed help, so I helped. I don't have some profound reason for doing these things. I just think I should."
Black Cat fell silent.
Peter didn't rush her. He knew she had more to say.
A long time passed before she spoke again. "Someone was with me then."
Peter's heart skipped a beat.
Black Cat's voice softened, as though she were talking to herself. "I never thought much of him before. He was interesting, but that was all. But that day... he saved me. He saved all of us."
Peter coughed. "That's... good."
"He's a real hero. Not you."
Peter was left speechless for a moment. But beneath his mask, he grinned.
"Really?" he asked, following her lead. "What's he like?"
"He's very kind. He always acts like he doesn't care about anything, but I can see right through him." Black Cat smiled.
See through me, my ass, Peter thought. You don't even know I'm standing right beside you.