Chapter Text
Midtown School of Science and Technology - March 22, 2016
The final bell rang, the sound of blessed release, and everyone scrambled out of their seats.
Mr. Palmer, the ninth-grade AP Biology teacher, droned out end-of-class announcements sitting at his desk. “We have a quiz tomorrow, and Friday is our class field trip to Oscorp. I'm still missing three permission slips. You know who you are. Please deliver those to me by tomorrow.” By the end of the teacher's spiel, two-thirds of the class had long since gone, and the other third followed not far behind them.
But not Peter Parker.
With grudging reluctance, Peter rose from his seat, slinging his battered backpack onto his shoulder. He readjusted his glasses and shuffled over to Mr. Palmer’s desk, like a dead man to the gallows. Standing there for a moment, he wiped his sweaty palms against his jeans. Mr. Palmer kept his eyes on his computer, engrossed with whatever was on the screen. Peter shifted on his feet, waiting a few moments before clearing his throat to gain his teacher's attention.
“What do you want?” grunted the man, not looking up from his computer.
Peter took a deep breath. “Yeah, so I wanted to ask about the genetics project you mentioned during class. You said we needed to use our family's DNA to see how diseases are passed through generations and discuss how the technology we use is still imprecise. Then write about where our families are from, and how it differs from family member to family member, and um the whole project, basically?” Peter huffed out a little laugh, but still, his teacher didn't look up. “It sounds cool and kinda easy considering the super big final and other stuff due, but, um… well, I have no clue how well I can do on it." Peter ended his spiel on a hard-to-hear mumble.
“You live with your Aunt and Uncle, right?” Mr. Palmer's tone stayed flat and bored. Peter cringed. He hated reminding people that his parents were dead. Flash did it enough for him.
“Yeah, and I’m only actually related to my uncle. I don’t have any other family, not even May's adopted family because they're dead, so… yeah.” Peter internally groaned; oh God, let this conversation end. Why was he such a mess all the time?
“Um… well, thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mr. Parker. Can you think of an alternative solution to uh… compensate for the lack of data available?” Mr. Palmer's eyes stayed glued to his computer screen.
Peter's nervousness swung right to annoyance, and he rolled his eyes to the ceiling, hoping for the patience to deal with this moron. “You want me to invent a solution for my whole family being dead?”
Stifling a choked cough, Mr. Palmer stammered out, “No, I meant…" At last, the man turned towards Peter. "Look, Mr. Parker, uh... You can do as much of the project as possible with your and your uncle's DNA. Put in the effort, and I won’t dock points for length or cross-examination. Your grade is the highest in the class. Make an A on the final, and I’ll turn the project grade into a classwork grade, and we’ll call it even.” The teacher viewed him with a pitying indifference, making Peter's ears burn. Peter nodded in agreement and left, desperate for the conversation to end as much as his teacher.
Peter never wanted special treatment. He wanted to be normal. Now, he'd show off a modified project and call attention to different, wimpy, nerdy, Penis Parker. On days like today, the idea of crawling under a rock and never coming out sounded ridiculously appealing.
The other students rushed to leave, clearing out the hallways. Peter trekked to his locker and picked up the books he needed for homework.
“Hey, dude!” called Ned from behind him. Peter, startled, dropped his math textbook on his foot.
Crouching to grab it, he glared at Ned. “Geeze, give me a warning, would ya.” Peter placed the offending textbook in his locker. He wouldn't need it. He completed the math homework before the teacher even finished the lesson.
“Sorry, man. Still on for a sleepover tonight though?" Ned always invited Peter over so they could build new Lego sets together.
Peter smiled at his friend's excitement. “Yeah, we are. But it's not a sleepover, we’re fourteen, not four. It's not cool. We're just, ya know, hanging out.” Peter closed his locker, shrugging his bag over his shoulder. He winced at the weight. Even with half his homework finished, he still needed three textbooks. He would suffer from back problems by the age of twenty at this rate.
“You're fourteen, I'm fifteen, and dude, who cares about cool when Legos exist?" Ned grabbed his phone and showed Peter an unopened box of Legos sitting on Ned's bed.
Peter grinned, excitement bubbling through him. “Yeah, you're right! Come on, let's ditch this place.”
The Parker’s Apartment – March 23, 2016
Peter sprawled on the couch, watching mindless TV. His finished homework sat in his bag. His phone - old and cracked and rescued from a dumpster - sat idle on his lap. Since he arrived home an hour ago, he texted Ned, checked his Twitter account, texted Ned again, and read six pirated bioengineering articles. He groaned; he didn't want to get up, but he didn't want to stay seated either.
He perked up when the lock clicked, and the front door swung open.
“Hey, Uncle Ben. How was work?” he called.
“Work was fine, bud. You made it here all right?" Peter rolled his eyes at the question. His aunt and uncle worked out shifts where Peter stayed by himself for a few hours every evening. Otherwise, one or the other always watched him. It stifled, especially after convincing them he could travel to and from school himself. Normally, May took the day shifts, and his uncle took the night ones, so Peter only saw his uncle briefly when he arrived home from school and on the weekends. Today, with May's emergency shift, they needed to switch
"Yeah, I'm fine. No, I'm not injured. No, I didn't get robbed. Yes, I walked straight home. Geeze, when will you guys treat me like an adult?"
His uncle removed his coat and plodded over to the couch. He settled down with a groan, kicking off his shoes.
"Talk to me about adulting, when you don't call spending the night at a friend's house a sleepover." Peter glared. "I kid, I kid. Did you have a nice time at Ned’s last night?”
Peter let the comment go and gushed about his and Ned's evening.
“It was awesome. Ms. Tamar made pork and Lomi-Lomi Salmon. Kayla stayed at her friend's house, so we played video games on the big TV. And we built Ned's new Lego set from the Force Awakens collection. It was the scene where Han and Kylo talked on the bridge. It had a cool mechanism where you could crank the bridge out, and you attach Chewie to a rope swing and have him shoot a crossbow piece at Kylo.”
Ben hummed, raising an eyebrow. “Sounds cool. And the English project you and Ned were supposed to work on?”
Peter flushed. “Yeah, we finished it. I know Midtown is a school for super-smart genius kids, but I could do this in my sleep. I wish the teachers would give us a real challenge.” Peter hadn't learned new material in school for years. Unless you count learning how to get punched in a way so your guardians don't notice. Skipping grades wasn't an option. At least, not if May held a say about it. Already younger than everyone in his grade, she insisted that his "social development" would be stunted if he skipped. It annoyed him on the best of days and shredded his last nerve on his worst days, but at least he liked his clubs, and he didn't want to leave Ned behind.
“Well, what do you expect when you read through old college textbooks and work out the answers for fun? Speaking of work, is your homework for today done?" Ben asked.
Peter rolled his eyes. May and Ben always made sure he completed his homework by the time they arrived home. They hardly needed to. Peter never brought work that took him longer than an hour.
"Yeah, it's done," he grumbled.
Ben ruffled his hair, "Good job, bud. But drop the attitude."
"Yes, sir." Uncle Ben usually played the "fun parent" but had no patience for bad attitudes. Peter loved May and Ben and tried not to complain often. They took him in when they didn't have to, when others would have let him go into the system. The least he could do was be grateful.
Ben sighed, rubbing a rough, callused hand over his short-cropped hair. "Sorry, class is boring for you, Peter. You inherited Richard's smarts for sure, but your extracurriculars should keep you busy. Don’t you have an Academic Decathlon competition soon?”
Peter sighed dramatically, draping himself over his uncle. “Nah, I didn’t get chosen for the main team or as an alternate. But, since six people graduate this year, there will be free spots next semester. I know Liz plans on submitting for the captain's spot. I just hope I beat out Flash for a spot on the main team.”
Both paused when a deep grumble emitted from Ben's stomach. The man chuckled. "Looks like dinner should be our priority this evening. What are ya in the mood for, bud?"
Peter's face lit up with a broad, stretching grin. "May said this morning she would be home late, and to order a pizza for dinner.”
“Sounds good to me, bud. Let me change out of my uniform, and I’ll put in the order, okay?” His uncle left before Peter dropped the smile off his face. He didn’t want to mention the whole genetics project, but waiting would just make the whole conversation worse. Later, though, he promised himself. After pizza.
Once the box lay empty between them, Peter found himself with no more excuses and explained the project to his uncle.
Ben stayed quiet until Peter finished. Then he thought it over for a minute. “Peter, you can still do the project, don't worry. Here's what we'll do: we'll buy the expensive kit and do a full workup. Even using only my DNA and yours, you'll do an impressive project.” A weight lifted off Peter's shoulders. His uncle made the problems Peter multiplied in his head appear manageable.
“Really?”
“Sure. Do you want to head out to Walmart and buy the kits we need? I’ll drop off the samples at the post office tomorrow on my way to the precinct.” Peter rushed over and hugged his uncle.
“ThanksuncleBen,ohmygosh!Youarethebest.”
Ben returned the hug with an amused chuckle. “Not a problem, Peter.”
An hour later, they were back at the apartment, fancy genetic testing kits in hand. After reading through the instructions, they did the samples and labeled the containers. Peter worked on opening their accounts. His cobbled-together laptop chugged loading the site, and its ridiculous number of pages. The instructions said it would take two to three weeks for the results to come through once the samples arrived at the lab in Utah.
“There we go,” said Ben, once finished and packed. “Now let's put it out of our minds until the results come back, and you do a kick-butt project putting the rest of your class to shame. Okay, bud?” Ben ruffled Peter's hair.
Peter smiled, “Yeah, okay.”
"Do you want me to make something for dessert?" Ben asked. "I haven't baked since last month. Brownies sound acceptable?" Peter thought about the warm, gooey brownies his uncle made to perfection and nodded. Peter sat at the table as his uncle pulled out the ingredients.
"What's this I hear about a field trip on Friday?" asked Ben, as he warmed the butter.
Peter leaned back in the chair. "Eh, we're going to Oscorp, which is cool, I guess. I mean, the bioengineering division there is supposed to be the best in the country. Which is great. Visiting Stark Industries like the seniors would be ten times better, though." Since he understood the word science, Peter adored Tony Stark. He watched the news coverage of the man's disappearance and stayed glued to the TV the moment the man returned from Afghanistan. He based his first three science fair projects on Stark's work in clean energy.
Peter continued, "Michelle - you know Michelle, she's on the Decathlon team - agrees with me, but she wants to go because the CEO, Virginia Potts-Stark, is her role model. I’m not too disappointed, because I visited the exhibits at the expo a few years ago. Hopefully, they won’t switch any field trip locations and I can go in a couple of years.”
Ben mixed the batter. “Maybe we'll buy a set of tickets for the expo next year.”
Peter shook his head. “No, no, no, Ben. Those tickets are super expensive, and we won them last time. You don’t have to.” They weren’t poor, but both May and Ben worked hard. Raising a teen in Queens did not come cheap, even though a scholarship paid for most of Peter’s schooling.
Ben placed down the whisk and bowl. He walked over to Peter and squeezed his shoulder. “You should have fun and exciting experiences. I’ll talk to May, okay? Leave the money to us – worry about being a kid and doing kid stuff. You’ll worry about being an adult soon enough as it is." Peter nodded; if his uncle said he and May would take care of it, they would. The kitchen quieted for a few moments. Ben finished the brownies and placed them in the oven. Peter asked to put on a movie while they waited for the brownies to bake.
"I hope you have fun on your field trip, even if it's not Stark Industries," said Ben, once they moved to the living room.
“It’s not supposed to be fun; it’s supposed to be educational and enriching,” mocked Peter, in Mr. Palmer's monotone voice.
"Well, does Mr. Educational and Enriching want to watch National Treasure or Fast and Furious?" Peter grabbed a blanket from the basket sitting next to the couch. He curled next to his uncle, head resting on the man's shoulder, covering himself with the blanket.
"National Treasure, please," Peter asked. They loaded the movie and dimmed the lights. With the day's drama over, Ben's fingers playing with Peter's curls, and the familiar images on the screen, the grip of sleep overcame him. The third time he yawned, Ben's fingers paused in his hair. The TV's volume drops low.
“It’s getting late, bud. Do you want to go to bed?" asked Ben.
Peter shook his head," No, no. I want to watch the movie. And I want a brownie."
"You can eat one tomorrow."
Peter, determined to stay awake for a warm gooey one straight from the oven, rubbed his eyes and straightened up. "I'm good," he stated, even though his eyelids fluttered shut every few seconds.
"Okay," said Ben, increasing the volume and continuing to stroke his fingers through Peter's hair. Peter soon lost entire sections of the movie, his eyes staying closed for longer and longer. Finally, they closed all the way. Only briefly waking when Ben picked him up and carried him into his room.
A soft kiss pressed against his forehead. He would have snarled his nose and protested if not seconds away from falling asleep. He had teenager cred to maintain. Drifting between awake and asleep, though, the gesture came across as more soothing than embarrassing. His covers settled on top of him, and Peter snuggled deeper.
"Goodnight, bud," whispered Ben. The door clicked shut, and within moments, Peter fell sound asleep.
Oscorp Laboratories - March 25, 2016
The class followed the tour guide through the chrome and glass-filled facility. Peter took back everything he said about being disappointed with the field trip. Everywhere Peter turned, people in lab coats scurried from one place to another. Machines and scientists and cutting-edge biotech filled huge laboratories; Peter officially had died and gone to heaven. The perfection could have only been topped if he managed to wrangle a little one-on-one time with a scientist, Google, and several cups of coffee.
Lost in science-induced coma dreams, he didn't pay too much attention to the tour guide when she announced a five-minute bathroom break before leaving for lunch. By the time the class was ready to leave, he hadn’t gone to the restroom.
“Hey man,” called Ned, “don’t get left behind.”
Peter waved him off. “I won’t, I’m gonna head to the restroom. If Mr. Palmer or the tour guide asks, I’m right behind you guys.” He ducked inside the facilities and, once finished, entered the hallway to find it empty. His class was nowhere in sight. The hallways echoed, entirely deserted. Where in the world did everybody go?
"Shit, shit, shit," he muttered, rushing over to the elevator. Trying to remember the half-forgotten words of the peppy tour guide, he was pretty sure she was taking them back to the cafeteria for lunch. Once inside the metal box, Peter groaned; the panel with the buttons wasn't labeled, not even one for the lobby. What kinda shitty design aesthetic was that?
Peter racked his brain; okay, they traveled down several floors earlier, so if he headed in the upward direction, he would run across his class eventually, right? He pushed a button for a higher floor, hoping to find an employee he could ask for directions.
Once the elevator ascended and opened its doors, he wandered into another hallway. Peter sighed. Well, this wasn't it. He turned back to the elevator when the lights in the hallway flickered, and the whole area was plunged into darkness; only the dim glow of red emergency lights lit the space.
"Oh, this is so fucking creepy," Peter muttered. Jamming the button on the elevator panel multiple times, he waited fruitlessly for the metal box to open again. But it seemed like whatever knocked out the power took the elevator with it. "Well, at least I wasn't trapped in there when the power went out." No alarm had gone off yet, but Peter didn't want to wait around in the dark. There had to be stairs somewhere around here.
Looking away from the elevator once more, he ventured further into a maze of darkened halls lit only by the faint hum of emergency lights. Eyes peeled for a stairs sign that just felt farther and farther away as he turned down each darkened hallway filled with more empty doors.
"Fuck, why did I have to get separated?" Peter mumbled. "I'm going to be in so much trouble. I'm going to end up as a withered corpse, curled up on some unused floor of Oscorp. Fuck, this wouldn't be happening it we were at Stark Industries. I bet the seniors aren't dealing with building blackouts." Turning down another near pitch black hallway, he groaned. "FuuuUUuuck, I'm gonna get jumped. I'm going to be the stupid white protagonist of an indie horror game in three years, who dies to some shitty creepypasta."
But about halfway down the hallway, it seemed like the whole building groaned before the lights flickered back on. "Yes!" cheered Peter. Before his shoulders slumped again, he was still totally lost. "Fuck."
Now, the once dark and abyssal hallways lit by emergency lights were transformed. The light revealed boring beige-painted walls and closed doors stretching as far as the eye could see. Peter searched around for a directory, signage, anything. But it was just endless doors. Making his way back to the elevator was impossible.
"Fuck," he muttered. "How does anyone find anything here?" At this rate, he still might end up a withered corpse in an unused corner of the building, but at least he wouldn't die in the dark.
He hadn’t run into anyone on this floor. Granted, if he'd run into someone in the dark, he might have passed out in fright. Peter tried the door handles one by one; maybe if he found an employee, he could ask where the elevator and cafeteria were. To no avail, though, key-coded access panels kept the doors locked. Eventually, he passed one where the lock had not latched all the way. Finally. He didn't want to miss the rest of the tour.
His stomach growled. Peter dreamed of corporate cafeterias; even half-cold pizza or a turkey sandwich sounded good right about now.
When he opened the door, though, thoughts of lunch quickly jumped ship.
The darkened room, lit only by red-tinted heat lamps, contained glass cages reaching from floor to ceiling. Inside sat snakes and spiders and other insects Peter didn’t even begin to guess the names of, but wouldn't be surprised if the average syllable count exceeded twelve. Wandering closer in, he approached a massive spider housed inside a cage. The bright purple and green monstrosity had to be twice the size of his hand. Leaning in to gaze at the eight-legged creature, the spider crawled to the cage's wall and slammed against the glass. Peter jumped back.
“You’re a feisty one, aren’t ya,” he whispered, obscenely loud in comparison to the room's oppressive silence. The hair on Peter's arm stood on end. Yeah, okay, this was creepy; he shouldn't be here. As he turned back to the door, a cage on a table caught his attention.
He took a set of stairs into the dimly lit space containing a work table. Test tubes and beakers littered the metal surface, and a cramped, plastic cage held a spider the size of a tennis ball. It scurried back and forth between the walls. In the room's silence, Peter swore the spider's legs hitting the container beneath echoed like a pounding drum.
Without warning, the spider barreled into the plastic cage's side, tipping it over. The lid popped off, and the spider scrambled free.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Peter exclaimed, and he rushed over to the table, trying to grab the spider to return it to its cage. No doubt whoever was in charge would be pissed if it escaped. He reached for the spider as it tried to scurry off the table. “Come here, little guy, time to go back to your cage,” Peter whispered, trying not to knock over the equipment on the table. He trapped the arachnid between a few beakers and triumphantly scooped it onto his hand. He’d never been afraid of spiders, but he hadn't touched one before. It rested on his hand, still and docile.
Cool.
And then, it bit him.
“Ouch! Oh, shit, that hurts.” Thankfully, he didn’t drop or crush the spider. Peter grabbed the cage and dropped the ungrateful creature back in, securing the lid's top. It rocketed back and forth, unhappily enclosed in its tiny plastic prison. Peter, a tad vindictive, shook the container as punishment before placing it back in its spot and fixing the few beakers he knocked over. Hopefully, no one would notice the different placement. Peter didn't want to get sued or sent to jail for screwing up a super important experiment. Peter dashed up the stairs and left the room, making sure to latch the door behind him.
He studied his hand, where two little drops of blood welled where the spider had bitten him. Rubbing away the sting, he searched the nondescript hallway and found it as empty as before. With no other choice, Peter continued to wander. It couldn't have been more than five minutes before he finally heard another human voice.
"Hey!" Peter turned to his left; a doctor in a white lab coat jogged towards him. The man, in his late 40s and dressed in black except for his lab coat, scowled at him. As he came closer, a pair of squinty eyes hidden behind a large pair of round glasses became visible.
“What the hell are you doing here? No unauthorized personnel are allowed to be on these floors," demanded the man when he reached Peter.
“I’m sorry, I ended up separated from my tour group from Midtown, and I tried to find them, but ended up here. And then the power went out, and I got stuck, and then I tried to find the stairs, because what if I needed to evacuate and the elevator wasn't coming? And then I was lost in the halls when the power came back on, and there was no signage anywhere, and I tried looking for anyone to take me back-” Peter heaved a deep breath and smiled weakly at the man. "Sorry?"
The man gave Peter a once-over, and the piercing gaze unsettled him enough to want to back away and use a stick to fend off the man. Peter wasn’t supposed to be here. What if he got into a ton of trouble? Was he gonna get sued?
The frown disappeared to a smile, the gesture's display softening his appearance.
“Well, I can't quite blame you with the whole power outage. Everyone is kinda scrambling right now. I’m gonna take you to security, and we’ll find your tour group, okay?”
The bubble of anxiety in Peter's stomach disappeared. “Thank you so much. I’ve wandered around these hallways forever. Normally, I'm good with directions, but the power outage screwed me up. How do you guys ever know where you’re going?” Peter followed the man through the hallways.
“Well, these doors lead to storage rooms, and people don’t have a reason to wander here. The actual labs and offices are on different floors and are labeled much better.” The man turned his head to Peter, “You didn’t go into any of the rooms, did you?”
Peter froze. Should he tell the man about the weird cage room and the spider biting his hand?
No. He would land in so much trouble if anyone found he had entered an out-of-bounds room.
“No, the doors were locked. Not that I tried to break in. I just wanted to find someone to give me directions.” The man relaxed, and Peter figured he had given the right response. Good. If he landed in trouble, May and Ben would have had his head.
“That’s alright. Here we are." They rounded a corner, and the elevator stood at the end of the hall. Soon enough, they entered the building's lobby, and the man brought Peter over to the security office. Several guards were rushing in and out. Three people sat at the computer monitors, pinched expressions on their faces as they typed away at their keyboards. In the middle stood a thin woman with a severe frown, speaking rapidly into a walkie-talkie in another language.
“Hey, Lisbon, is the tour group from Midtown missing anyone? I found a kid wandering through the storage rooms.”
The woman whipped her head around and glared at the man. "Am busy. Is he trouble?" she asked in a heavy Russian accent. Peter shook his head frantically; the last place he wanted to be was on this woman's bad side.
The man who found him was calm in the face of the woman's brusque question. "Nah, the poor kid got turned around during the power outage."
Lisbon scoffed, "Yes, tour guide called, said they were missing kid." She looked down at a notepad. "In conference room 10, floor 24. You take?"
The man nodded. "Sure, I have nothing better to do until the systems are reset. How long..."
Lisbon glared at him, eyes beady and menacing. Peter shuffled behind the man a little more. "Busy finding the засранец who blew the power. Will worry about systems when no more threat."
"Of course," shrugged the man. "Take your time. Come on, kid." Peter and the man left the office and crossed through the lobby's shiny floors, back to the elevators.
“Thank you for accompanying me back to my group, sir.”
“Not a problem, kid. Luckily, I found you. Not many people work on that floor.” A shiver crawled down Peter's spine. The man's tone sounded perfectly pleasant, but the ominous words landed on the wrong side of creepy. However, the helpful man had done nothing to him so far; he offered his hand.
“I’m Peter, by the way."
The man reached back and shook it. “Dr. Jakob Callari, nice to meet you, Peter.” Peter's hand, the one the spider bit, pulsed, emitting an uncomfortable heat. He didn’t want to pay too much attention to it with Dr. Callari so close. He shoved it into his pocket.
Eventually, they reached floor twenty-four, his tour group visible through the conference room's window. He turned to Dr. Callari, thanked him one more time, and tried to enter the room as inconspicuously as possible.
Unfortunately, his threadbare shoelaces had come undone, and he tripped over them when he slinked into the room.
“Well, Mr. Parker, how nice of you to join us,” droned Mr. Palmer.
“Heh, sorry. I ended up lost.” Peter's cheeks burned as the whole class laughed. He wanted the floor to swallow him whole, pronto.
“Take a seat, Mr. Parker.”
Peter rose, and the world tilted around him. He stumbled over to the seat Ned had saved for him.
“Dude, where did you go?” whispered Ned when Peter collapsed into the chair. Even sitting, the world spun in his vision.
“Nowhere, I’ll tell you later.” The field trip needed to end, like, yesterday.
They stayed in the conference room as several scientists talked about the work they did at Oscorp. An hour later, when the final person finished, they prepared to leave. Peter's head pounded, and his stomach turned. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and he deeply regretted missing lunch. The hour's drive back to the school and another thirty minutes to travel home stretched out in front of him like an eternity.
Later, on the bus, Ned asked a whole bunch of questions about his disappearance. He wanted to know if Peter had seen anything cool. What happened when the power went out?
“Nah, dude, I got turned around on a storage level in the dark. I didn’t see anything.” Peter didn’t know why he kept the spider room a secret from Ned. But he didn’t want to tell anyone. His hand, hidden in his pocket, still uncomfortably warm, throbbed from the bite. Every creak and groan as the bus traversed through the city streets grated on his brain. Peter wanted nothing more than to go home, eat, and pass out.
The Parker’s Apartment – March 25, 2016
Peter stumbled through the front door of his apartment. Surprised he arrived home at all, in one piece, or without ending up robbed. He felt hot and cold at the same time, his stomach growled, but the chances of keeping anything down lessened by the minute. His head throbbed. All he wanted to do was sleep.
“Hey, Peter honey, how was the field trip?” called May from the kitchen.
“It was fine, Aunt May. I’m not feeling well, though. I think I caught a bug.” Peter’s mind flashed to the spider biting his hand. The bite still throbbed, and the heaviness had spread to his arm. He hoped the spider wasn't venomous, but at this point, he was too exhausted to care.
“From that germ-infested school bus, no doubt,” commented May, as she came into the living room.
Peter pouted, but even the minor movement sent shrieking spikes of pain through his brain. "Aunt May, I take the train to school every day; they don't clean those seats either."
She placed her hand against Peter’s forehead. “You do feel warm. Why don’t you change out of these clothes, take a cool, not cold, shower, and I’ll bring you Ibuprofen and a mug of broth? Okay, sweetie?” Peter nodded, glad May knew exactly what to do.
The shower washed away only a fraction of the sticky awfulness infecting his body. He trudged back to his room, shivering in a tank top and shorts. He was cold, miserable, aching, and done with existing. Peter wanted to sleep until the sun burned out, or at least until he didn't have a jackhammer pounding at his skull. He crawled under his covers, the weight of texture of his blankets emphasized in his exceedingly foggy mind. His aunt brought in a mug and a piece of toast - the only things she could make without burning them to bits.
“What did you have for lunch?” she asked.
The toast and the broth slithered down Peter's throat like serrated knives. “Not much,” he croaked. He didn’t want to explain what happened with murky clouds fogging his head.
May sighed, caressing a gentle hand over his face. “Well, this should help you feel better.” Peter finished his food, took the Ibuprofen, and closed his eyes, convinced that if he could go to sleep, he would feel better...
.
.
.
Darkness
Murmurs
“…I feel like we should wake him and get food in him.”
“Let him sleep longer; he was up early and walking around all day for the field trip.”
Floating.
Darkness.
.
.
.
Darkness
Floating.
A hand rocked his shoulder. A calm voice in his ear:
“Hey, Peter buddy, do you feel like getting up and eating?”
Hot.
Fuzzy.
Pain.
“Mrph…”
“How about water?”
Glass against his lips.
Cold in his throat.
Throat.
Air.
Breathe.
He couldn’t breathe.
“Hey buddy, slowly, slowly – don’t choke yourself.”
Small nod.
Tired… so tired.
Floating.
Darkness.
.
.
.
Darkness.
Heat.
Hot.
Burning.
BURNING.
BURNING!
BURNING!
B
U
R
N
I
N
G
…is this what dying feels like?
.
.
.
Darkness.
no…
Light.
LIGHT.
TOO MUCH LIGHT.
p
a
i
n
.
.
.
“peter…”
.
.
.
“Peter.”
.
.
.
“PETER!”
.
.
.
*THUMP thump*
*THUMP thump*
*THUMP thump*
.
.
.
Darkness.
Pain.
when
will
the
pain
S T O P
.
.
.
Darkness.
Hot.
Pain.
he was used to it now
hadn’t the pain always been there?
.
.
.
Darkness.
noise
Noise.
NOISE.
NOISE!
where is it coming from?
“… Good Morning America…”
“Don’t forget to drop off the kids…”
Thump thump
*Screech! Crash! *
“~Bum, bum, bum, another one bites the dust~”
“Hey, I’ma walkin’ ‘ere!”
“I am your father.”
THUMP thump
“FIND OUT WHO WAS IN HERE, OR I’LL HAVE YOUR HEADS!”
“~I’M FLYING HIGH I’M DEFYING GRAVITY~”
¡NO TE AMO, NUNCA LO HE HECHO!
*WEEWOOWEEWOOWEEWOO*
THUMP thump
THUMP thump
THMUP thump
…
Q
U
I
E
T
.
.
.
Darkness.
“It’s not good that he can’t remember.”
Floating.
“Peter, love, don’t touch that.”
Pain.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Heat.
“Have a good first day at school.”
Noise.
“I’m Ned. Do you want to be friends?”
Darkness.
“ Good work, kid.”
Floating.
“ARE THOSE ALIENS!”
Pain.
“I’m going to Ned’s house."
Heat.
“You live with your Aunt and Uncle, right?”
Noise.
“Dr. Jakob Callari, nice to meet you, Peter.”
“Peter.”
“PETER!”
“PETER!”