Chapter Text
"With great power, comes great responsibility."
Those were the last words spoken to me by the greatest man I have ever known, God rest his soul. He meant the world to me, he was the only father figure I've ever had my whole life, he was my Uncle Ben...
Believe it or not, those were the very words that shaped me into the very person I am now. The man my Uncle Ben always wanted me to be. My name is Jackson Darby, my friends and family call me Jack, but the city of New York calls me-
"Spider-man!!" An armed ski-masked thug shouted out from the dim alleyway.
Ahh crap, I thought I wouldn't be seen on this perch. Whatever, nothing some good old web shooters and some spider-punches can't fix. With complete stealth now not being an option (and because I'm kind of in a hurry) I gracefully leap down the rooftop perch and land in front of the masked thugs. "Hey fellas! Sorry your friend here had to spoil the surprise so early, but I'm going to have to stop this drug deal. You see, I'm in a real hurry, so if you all could just put down your guns and wait for the police that wo-".
"SHOOT THE DAMN SPIDER ALREADY!!" The thug Infront of me yells out. Welp, so much for talking it out.
With that, two of the masked thugs Infront of me draw out their pistols and begin to take aim. Before they could fire however, I shoot out a webline from both my webshooters at each of the thugs' weapons and pull it away from them, catching both thugs completely by surprise. Catching both pistols in each hand, I crush them both using only my pure spider strength, rendering the weapons broken and useless.
"Come on guys" I say in an almost disappointed tone, "You know that's not how I play. If anything, you should have brought bats and metal pipes, at least then you'd all get knocked out with dignity" I state in a very condescending tone.
"We can do that bug! Except it ain't you who's gonna do the knocking!" The thug closest to me says in a gruff, threatening voice. All six of the thugs began to find and pick up whatever blunt object they could use as a weapon against me. They never learn do they. With a quick check in my memory, I remember that my Aunt May wanted me back at home specifically by 5:30 p.m. today. Apparently, there's something very important me and her are going to have to talk about regarding my mom back in Jasper. And I came here to stop this drug deal at 5:25...
Yeah, this could work. I've got time.
"Alright Timmy, I'll beat you up and your friends one last time. But after this, it's straight to bed, in a nice and cozy jail cell." I mocked to all the angry thugs. Poor suckers don't stand a chance.
"AAAHHHHH" One brave and daring criminal comes charging towards me with a metal pipe in hand, ready to strike my head. With one swift dodge to the left the charging criminal misses and I use this opportunity to web-strike him, knocking him out of the fight.
Two other melee thugs come charging towards me on both sides. With precise timing though, I jump up into the air just high enough that I could perform an air kick to their heads by doing the splits, stunning them and knocking them both away from me. With one thug on the ground, and the other next to a wall, I decide to quickly web up both thugs.
"AAHH, THE HELL IS THIS STUFF!!" The thug next to the wall shouts. One down, one more to go. I turn quickly to web up the thug on the floor.
"UGH, IS THIS STUFF COMING OUT OF YOU!!" The now webbed up floor thug screams.
"Well, I had a nightmare about that once." I said in a casual tone, then I began to shiver slightly at the memory. Yeah... that was definitely one of the worst nightmares I've had of all time.
"Alright, y'know what! Screw this! I'm out of here" One of the thug's shouts as he made a B line away from the fight. Honestly, I don't blame him, I did just single handedly beat three out of their six guys in less than a minute. The other two remaining thugs must have shared the same testament as the first thug who ran, because they also began to run as fast as they could. Those poor, poor criminals. They must be very scared to get caught, they'll fit right in jail!
One by one, I began to web yank each thug right into my approaching fist until all that remained was the usual day-to-day sounds of New York City. There still breathing of course, one promise I made to myself aside from the fact that I would never look the other way on any crime was that I also wouldn't kill people just because I had the power to. Whatever crimes they committed would have to be judged by the professionals, not me. With a small sigh and a quick dusting of my hands, I aim one of my webshooters towards a building and zip there as I hear the distance sounds of police cars approaching the scene. I usually call the police for pickups after I've delt with criminals, but I knew that I was already pushing the time limit that I had today when I decided to stop this dealing. Speaking of time...
I quickly pull out my phone to see that the time was now 5:27. "Shit." I whisper to myself. Maybe if I swing there fast enough, I could make it on time. That would probably be a 1/100th chance since my luck with being on time dropped down basically to 0 since I decided to become Spider-man. But I still had to try.
With one quick motion, I jump off the building I was just on, and I began to swing there as fast as I humanly... spiderly? could.
Aunt May's House
The time was now 5:30 p.m. and Jack still hasn't arrived yet. Typical
Ever since her boy turned 14 years old, and since the passing of Ben Parker, God rest his soul, Jack began to arrive late on many occasions, consistently. Even now, when he is 16 years old, he still manages to arrive late. It not only worries the poor woman, but it also makes her wonder if Jack is sticking with the wrong crowd.
"Now where could that boy be? I told him to come on 5:30 didn't I." she whispered to herself. Aunt May was 40 years of age, only two years older than her sister June Darby. June... the poor woman. It had been a couple of years since she last interacted with her in person. They occasionally talk on the phone, but other than that it has been silent. However, May Parker knew well enough why her sister was in Nevada instead of New York. June spent 19 years of her life growing up in New York, however, that all changed once she was offered some special scholarship in some university located in Nevada. This was one of the best scholarship opportunities she had been given, so with a few calls and some heartfelt goodbyes, June traveled to Nevada to start her academic journey.
That was when her sister had met her future ex-husband, Garret Darbey. That slimy no-good excuse of a human being.
June had met him during her junior year of college while she was studying to become a registered nurse. At first, they began to hit it off as friends. Then love began brewing between the two nursing students. One thing led to another and then that was when they started officially dating. After 3 years of dating, they decided to officially get married in Jasper, Nevada. Then, not even a year after their marriage, June became pregnant with a healthy baby boy. Seven years, that was how long their marriage lasted. At the time, everything seemed perfect for the Darby family. That was until that slimebag Garret decided that it would be a great idea to get flat-out drunk at a bar and bring a girl over to his house to show her "a good time". They even did so on the same bed that he sleeps on WITH HIS WIFE!
June Darby had witnessed it when she came home with her son, Jack late at night. Before she found about her ex-husband's deed, she was trying to spend time with Jack by bringing him shopping and whatnot. The moment that she opened the door to her bedroom and found what her ex-husband was doing, was the moment when the marriage came to an end. They had divorced and that was the end of that. Though May would have been lying if she said that it was easy on her sister. Both June and Garret had been working in the same hospital before they divorced, which granted them a great source of income. However, the moment Garret left was when money became an issue for the poor woman and her son. To prevent Jack's life from getting any harder in Nevada, she decided that it would be best to send the 7-year-old boy to New York, where he could live with his Aunt May and her husband Ben Parker, or Uncle Ben as Jack liked to call him until she could get her life back together.
June and her son were by no means distant from each other. Though they both miss each other greatly, Jack knew that this was for the best. No matter how unfair it was.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Several knocks at the door snap May out of her little journey down memory lane. Looking at the time, it was now 5:35. Late by five minutes. Huh, somehow that was the least late Jack had ever been.
After a few seconds May had opened the door to see Jack quickly straightening his posture and wiping away the sweat that was trickling down his forehead. "Was he running?" The woman thought to herself. "Hello Jack." Aunt May said in a sweet and soft tone. "Come in, you must be tired from all that running you've had to do." Aunt May said as she began to make way for Jack to enter.
"What? I wasn't running. Who was running? Couldn't have been me, not this guy." Jack explained rather pathetically as he walked inside his humble abode.
"I'm sure you weren't just running honey, perhaps "running as if your life depends on it" would be the right way of describing how you got here." She said as she chuckled just loud enough for Jack to hear.
"Har Har" Jack said in a flat, unimpressed tone. "So, you wanted to talk to me about something important? Something about mom... right?" Jack reminded her as he sat down on the living room couch.
"Oh right, yes, you just reminded me" Aunt May said as she quickly began to sit down next to Jack on the couch he was on. She stared eye-to-eye with Jack, trying to find the words to tell him what was to come. "Is... something wrong Aunt May?" Jack said in a rather whispered voice, concern coating the entirety of his tone. "Jack... Your mother wishes for you to stay with her, in Nevada." Aunt May explained slowly as to not shock her nephew too quickly.
"What!? For how long?" Jack said in a rather shocked expression. Jack had never hated visiting his mom every now and again, but for him to just live there outright. New York was his home, had been for the past nine years. And now, ever since the arrival of a few certain superpowered villains, he couldn't just abandon this city.
"She never specified dear, but you know as well as I do that she misses you more than you could ever imagine. If not for her financial situation, she would have made you stay in Nevada." Aunt May explained to Jack, she wasn't wrong, and Jack knew that. But still, for him to just leave everything behind and go to a different state for God knows how long.
"Aunt May, I love mom, more than you could imagine... but she can't just expect me to just drop everything I have here and come live with her. I have friends here, a life, and a responsibility." Jack emphasized the word responsibility, kind of nudging towards the fact that he was a masked vigilante with superpowers that worked towards fighting crime. "I know Jack, me and your mother want nothing more than for you to succeed in life and become the man that your Uncle Ben always wanted you to be." Aunt May said softly as she put her right hand on her nephew's left shoulder. "But other than you and me, she has no one else to be with her. No one else to truly love her the way we love her..." Aunt May said, saddened by the reality of how alone her sister must feel.
Jack stared at his beloved aunt as she said those words. "Shes right." a tiny voice in his head said to him. Jack didn't want to admit it, but his father's sudden betrayal had left his mother depressed and with a broken heart. All the while his "dad" had left with all his fortunes and that whore he found at the bar. Whether Jack liked it or not, taking care of his mother was also one of his many and most important responsibilities. He knew it would be hard, after all he hadn't lived in Jasper for a long while, it would take some time to fully adjust. But when has life ever been easy for Jack Darby.
Though the thing that frightened him most was that he would have to abandon being Spider-man for a while. Most of his rouges are in the Raft, a tight, maximum-security prison for superpowered evildoers. However, it is a possibility that at least one of them would escape from there, after all it's not like it hadn't been done before. But then again, they are still in prison, and he could use a break from all the web slinging he had to do for the past two years. Maybe, just maybe, this was exactly what he needed. Some time away with his mom, away from all the craziness New York has to offer. God knows J. Jonah Jameson needs some time away from any Spider-man related "menace attacks" as the old editor-in-chief describes it.
Besides, it's not like he'll leave forever. Maybe a couple of months, two years at most if he feels like coming back to New York when he becomes 18 years old. Hopefully, he won't be burnt-out of being Spider-man by the time he comes back to New York. Depends on the amount of crime brewing in Jasper. "Alright..." Jack sighed. "You should probably make the call to my mom right now, tell her that I'll be coming later this week while I begin packing and notifying my school." Jack explained as he began to get up from his once seated position and walked upstairs, towards his bedroom.
His aunt simply nodded while sporting a small but supportive smile. But before she made the call, she turned to her nephew. "Jack?" She called out from the couch, causing Jack to stop mid-flight of stairs. Jack stared at her, waiting for her to continue talking. "I am so proud of you Jack, and I know that your Uncle Ben would be too." She said with a soft, comforting voice as she stared at her nephew with watery eyes.
"I hope he is, wherever he is now. Because if it were not for him, I don't think I would be the same person I am today." and with that, Jack concluded the small heart-to-heart and began making his way up towards his room. Readying himself for his travel back to Nevada, back to his mom.