NOVEL WEB Arc One. Chapter One. A Life Lived
Of all the things you could say about Peter Parker that his life had been free from tragedy was not one of them.
His parents died when he was a baby in an automobile accident, leaving his aunt and uncle to raise him.
He had no complaints, though. They made sure he knew they loved him. He never wanted for anything, needed nothing and, for a time, was happy, as every child should be.
They say the worst day of your life is when someone dies. For Peter, that was the day his Uncle Ben died.
He had been waiting to pick him up from soccer practice. Peter had two things he loved. Sports and robots. Robots were a little out of Ben and May’s means, but sports were easy. Peter joined a minor league team and had proven to be an excellent player.
It was the final, and Peter’s team was the favourite to win. Uncle Ben had been ill, but knowing it was important he had taken Peter anyway, staying in the car to keep warm. While Peter was celebrating his victory with the team, a carjacker tapped a gun on the window.
Ben had argued with the man, and as he saw the crowd leave the field, he panicked. As an excited Peter rushed towards him, Ben grabbed the gun, fearing what a desperate man might do. As the pair wrestled, Peter heard the bang and his uncle collapsed.
Hearing the gunshot, a retired police officer gave chase. Catching, grappling and forcing the carjacker to the ground. One of his friends, a retired EMT, put pressure on the wound and tried his best but the injury was too serious. Even though his coach held him, Peter struggled and wriggled free, rushing to his uncle’s side.
“Be good for her son, I love you,” and with his final breath, his uncle passed as Peter sobbed.
The funeral had been surreal to the 8-year-old. Unsure of what to do or how to act, he held onto Aunt May’s hand the entire time. She cried and while there were well-wishers there, no one stayed to help after the wake was over. She had cried alone, and Peter did not know at the time what to do to make her feel better.
To add to the misery, the carjacker got the lowest sentence. His lawyer had been competent for a public defender. With enough reasonable doubt, he managed to argue the conviction down from manslaughter. Pleading guilty to accidental death, he would only serve three years, even less if he behaved.
“Hey kid,” he shouted to the boy, standing stupefied, failing to understand why his aunt was crying. “No harm, no foul huh?” his lawyer shushed him and pulled him away as he complained.
It's a pain you can't explain, a hollow empty kind of hurt, like losing a piece of yourself when nothing's missing. Peter would look around and expect his uncle to be there. The sudden pain would take his breath away and he would stare into space. Forcing himself not to cry as he fought against the memory of that day.
His Aunt May was the only person he had left in the world after that. Her parents had died, and so had his own grandparents. He had never met them and never saw anything more than a few pictures. So with only each other, they did the best they could.
The life insurance payout was minimal at best, forcing the young boy and his aunt to move back into Queens. A small apartment at the limit of their budget. Aunt May made sure that Peter never went without, even if she had to work two jobs and spent most of the time exhausted. She made sure that there was always food on the table. That he always had clean clothes, and that each day Peter knew that she loved him. It was the best she could do.
Life became more of a routine than an event. Aunt May took a job at a laundromat and a local convenience store. Her meagre wage supported Peter as he changed schools and tried his best to shoulder the pain.
Peter wasn’t stupid though and he could see that the work was killing her. Late nights and harsh cleaning fluids at the laundromat meant her health suffered. He knew she would never say anything. He knew she would rather suffer than have him see one second of her pain. He promised himself that one day he would make sure she never had to work for one second longer than she had to.
Changing schools should have been a good thing. New friends and new memories to help him cope with the grief of losing his uncle. Even at a new school he never found peace. With no enthusiasm for sports, he was once more isolated and it rippled into Midtown High. The local superstar, Eugene "Flash" Thompson decided to make Peter's life hell. A simple comment on budget allocation starting four years of hell for Peter.
It started off small. Peter would find his locker vandalised. Open his book bag and it would be empty. He would find it later, hidden somewhere he either couldn't get to or reach.
By the time the boys hit puberty, Flash, once similar in build to Peter, buffed up. Helped by sports and a whisper of various chemicals, it turned worse. The once harmless and childish pranks became much more sinister.
Peter would find his locker filled with garbage. His books were ripped or covered in something worse than water. On more than one occasion it even turned violent. When Flash knew there were no teachers around Peter 'fell' and managed to burst his own lip, or worse.
The school was no help. When Aunt May made a scene they did nothing. Flash was too well known, and too important to the school. He was a prominent football player. The sponsorship deals and publicity he brought in made him more important than Peter.
Moreover, his father was rich, and the donations he gave to the school each year boosted the school's budget. All Flash received was a minor telling-off, while glaring daggers at Peter. In the end, it only made it worse. From then on, Peter said nothing. He swallowed the humiliation and the anger at both Flash and the school.
He only had two things in his life that made High School bearable. The first was a girl. Gwen Stacy. They shared a love of science and math. As her father was Police Chief, she didn't care who Flash was or who he was friends with. This meant that as soon as she decided Peter and her were friends, they were friends.
Gwen was as brilliant as Peter, even if their talents lay in different fields. He could look at something, listen to its motions, its noise, and figure out what was wrong with it. This had been after years of taking things apart and putting them back together again. Not that he was always successful.
Gwen's lay in the chemical, She could look at a formula on paper and know what it was. Math came easy to them both and they bonded over shared science and math clubs.
Gwen was the one person that Peter knew he liked more than a friend. They shared looks, small intimate hugs, and the little things he felt made it special. But he also saw the way Flash looked at her, the way everyone looked at her, and then the looks they gave him right after. He was afraid, not of the rejection if she did say no, but of what the school would do. Flash didn’t need a reason but this was giving everyone else one.
As part of their group, Felicia Hardy also kept a presence in Peter's life. She always seemed more interested in Gwen. As they spent more and more time together, he found comfort in a familiar face if he ignored her attitude.
She was another person who didn't care who Flash's father was, or how important he was to the football team. Being the captain of the Judo club meant Flash and the others stayed away from her, and in turn from Peter.
While not quite a friend Peter had one last person in his life. Harry Osborn. The son of the second richest man in America, he, unfortunately, failed to follow in his father’s footsteps.
His intelligence was lacking, as was his motivation. And it came down to Peter, the smartest boy in school, to help him.
When Harry was younger, his mother died of a rare and incurable genetic disease. One of her wishes was that Harry gained his education at a public school so that he was more grounded.
Harry was happy to accept Peter's help. His father was always dismissive of him, and Peter gave him a chance to gain friends who had no hidden agenda.
Of course, his father, Norman Osborn, objected. But when Harry's grades came back as below average it fell to Peter to raise them. As Harry made sure Norman paid for Peter's tutorage, the small sum let Peter help with the bills, he accepted.
Norman never accepted the boy. His background was offensive to the billionaire. In a rare act of defiance on Harry's part, he ignored him and kept his friend.
With a small group of friends, Peter kept himself to himself. Even when an old childhood friend resurfaced, MJ Watson, Peter kept his distance. Trying to reach out, a painful warning from Flash made him realise his childhood friend had her own life now.
They shared classes, and shared friends but never reconnected in a meaningful way. Peter was polite but distant. With most of his classmates, Peter was polite but distant.
Each one of them had a connection to Flash. Each one of them looked at him with either disgust or pity. As he suffered the rumours and stories he knew that none of them cared. Nobody cared.
The years spent in Midtown grew, and Peter, once a cute 8-year-old, found himself in the prime of life. Eighteen and graduating, his last year at Midtown High.
He would graduate Valedictorian. Moving on to New York University's mechanical and electrical engineering department. A scholarship and a full-ride grant would cover all his costs.
Everything was on track. He had his education planned. He had an internship with Hammer Technologies planned and accepted.
With Harry being the son of Norman Osborn he had even offered to get him an internship there, but Peter had refused.
Not out of foolish pride but he was afraid that Flash would be there. Gwen had already warned him he had been in the building a few times, speaking to her as if they were friends. Peter knew that if Flash found him, he would either lose his place or the bullying would continue.
This was Peter's way of escaping from the hell Flash had made the past four years. Even if Hammer didn’t have the most dazzling reputation, it was still one of the big three.
Stark Enterprises would have been his first pick, but no one got an internship with Stark. With Oscorp being the territory of Flash, that left him with Hammer.
He had jumped with joy when he received his acceptance letter.
Hammer was more of a showman in Peter’s eyes. But he still got military contracts, still got plenty of press, and it was still a huge deal on Peter’s C.V.
He had celebrated his 18th birthday. Christmas and New Year had passed and he only had six months left of school to worry about.
Exams and the end of year Prom, which once he worked up the courage, he would ask Gwen if she wanted to go with him.
He was building up to it. Last week, when she said happy birthday, she gave him a quick peck on the lips. As he stood stunned, she scampered off and hid next to Felicia.
They both blushed red as an angry Felicia glared at him. Then whispered in hushed tones to Gwen, who shook her head while grinning.
He had proof she liked him, and he was going to do it. He had even started to look at corsages, which Aunt May began to tease him about.
Even with Flash making sure his days at school were miserable he could come home to a safe and welcoming home. Life was good, it could be better, Peter knew it could be but he was still happy. He could only hope that Uncle Ben would be proud of him.
