Okay, let's do this one last time. My name is Peter Parker, I once had another, but that was a long time ago. I was bitten by a genetically engineered spider, and for the past 10 years, I've been the one and only Spider-Man... At least, in my universe.
I know what you're thinking: "Dude, he just said he was someone else." Yeah, I know. Sometimes my head feels like a school locker, full of memories that aren't mine and notes I left for myself. Long story short: I grew up twice. The first time, with a school uniform and emotional bills; the second time, with a red and blue uniform and real bills. And if there's one thing I've learned both times, it's that life loves to throw webs at fans.
Over the course of these ten years, I fell in love, saved the city, fell in love again, saved the city again, defeated several villains, fell in love once more… Yes, I was, I am , a romantic.
The heart has its own spider-sense: it makes you jump without looking where you're going to land and still land smiling.
Some of my stories were epic, others were pure chaos. And between one fall and another, I discovered that New York has a way of teaching you math: adding scars, subtracting regrets, multiplying second chances.
There was the day I made fun of Jameson dozens of times (with all due respect, Mr. Editor-in-Chief-Expert-in-Hating-Me), there was the week I destroyed Tony Stark's pride more than once (nothing personal, Tony, it's just that sometimes iron bends).
I saved the X-Men, twice... three times... I lost count, and I saved the mutants again (those guys are always in trouble, I love you guys, seriously). I got a fancy job, the kind with a badge that opens lab doors that go "pssshh" and coffee makers that look like spaceships.
I created my own superhero team, led another superhero team, saved the city between meetings, created yet another team (I'm good at this... and apparently terrible at saying "no").
I healed a beautiful little witch's trauma (I love you, love), and yes, my heart raced just as much as when I fell off the Chrysler Building that time. I helped my sweet little daughter (that day was crazy, don't judge me, the timeline didn't understand either), and along the way, I even taught a killer robot to appreciate 80s music. (He hated it, but he survived. So did I.)
I've negotiated with a symbiote using nothing but honesty and hot chocolate, and I've defeated a mad scientist with… a stack of lab evidence and a difficult conversation. Not everyone needs to be punched, some just need to hear they're not alone.
I've had nights when my spider-sense wouldn't stop screaming, and days when it went silent just to play a trick on me. I've performed acrobatics between skyscrapers like someone dancing with a city that never sleeps, and I've been brought down by a simple overdue electricity bill.
I changed a light bulb for Aunt May at 3 a.m. after fighting a two-ton rhino at 2:30. On a random Tuesday, I returned from space at 5 p.m., gave an interview to Bugle at 6 p.m., and ate cold pizza at 7 p.m., heroes have metabolisms too, okay?
Among the things without context (and that's exactly what's funny), there are: I won a bet against a speedster because I used science instead of speed, I got yelled at by a wizard because I used Wi-Fi in the Sanctuary, I lost my phone in the Negative Zone, I got my phone back, I was sued by a possessed toaster (case dismissed), I got a hug from someone I saved and discovered that hugs save you back. Oh, and I won a fight with a differential equation. (Long story. Chalk is an underrated weapon.)
I made mistakes too. I made big mistakes. I made huge mistakes, I made rude mistakes, I made… human mistakes. Because being Spider-Man has always been about walking a tightrope between what's possible and what's right. Some mornings I wake up with the weight of every web I've spun and every one I haven't. Some nights I remember that "chance" and "change" are spelled almost the same, and that one only exists when we have the courage to embrace the other.
And then comes the motivational moment, the one you think is just talk, but in practice it's the air I breathe: I always get up.
When gravity is emotional, when the villain is a mirror, when pain has no face and the fall has no bottom… I rise. I rise because every time I touch the ground, I remember why I started climbing. Because someone needs to pull the first line of hope. Because someone needs to say "I stay" when everything in the world screams "run."
I get up because, and this isn't poetry, it's statistics, every person I help is one less fall for someone.
There's more: I've been the guy with the plan and the guy without a plan. I've been the one who saves everyone and the one who needs saving. I've heard "you can't do it" from people who love me trying to protect me, and "you can't do it" from people who hate me trying to stop me.
I've had to choose between two paths and discovered that responsibility sometimes means opening a third one with your own hands. I've used humor as a mask, and when it fell, I discovered that the face underneath was... myself, afraid, yes, but whole.
Did I say I created teams? I did. And you know why? Because the web is stronger when it intersects with others. I've worked with a girl who swings hammers and a guy who talks to insects better than me (I know, ironic, spiders aren't even insects, so that must be why). I've patrolled with a spy who rarely smiles and always gets it right. I've discussed philosophy atop an antenna with a guy in a cape who knows all the exits.
I learned that leadership isn't about being in charge, it's about making sure everyone gets home. It didn't always work out. Sometimes, home changes address. Sometimes, home ends up being someone's shoulder to cry on.
And between saving New York for the thousandth time and buying skim milk on the way home, I had these small, headline-grabbing victories: convincing a kid to apologize, fixing a bike, finding a lost cat on the roof, teaching a science class not to be afraid of making mistakes, remembering to breathe. The uniform is a reminder that the city needs me, the worn sweatshirt is a reminder that I need myself.
"With great power..." you know the rest. It's not a catchphrase, it's a pivot. It's the invisible line that runs through every choice. Duty isn't a shout in your ear, it's a hand on your back guiding you when the noise fades. Responsibility isn't a chain, it's a compass, pointing north when the moral goes crazy.
And I won't lie: at first, I didn't quite understand this. I thought power was a free pass, a higher leap, a quick answer. I thought the world was a chalkboard and all I had to do was draw the right solution. I had a different perspective. At the beginning, I didn't understand what duty truly asked of me, nor what I could ask of myself.
…And that's where it ends. For now. Because the Multiverse is in crisis (New, i know) and other spiders need me, Spider-Verse is dramatic…
However, this is a bit too advanced for you, isn't it? Sometimes I rush into things, so let's start from the beginning.
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In the beginning, there was no body. No axis, no weight, no skin. Only patches of shine that burned like blades dipped in cold water, and smells that belonged nowhere: ozone, old book dust, the persistent sweetness of bar soap, and, beneath, a metallic trace that reminded one of blood.
Sounds came in waves, a low, repetitive hum, like the heart of a machine, and above it, broken whispers, snapshots of voices that didn't quite mesh into sentences. It was like floating in a corridor between dreams: not remembering who he was, not knowing what he saw, without the slightest notion of front, back, yesterday, or now.
Then something pulled him.
It wasn't a hand, nor a wind. It was the physical certainty that there was a direction and that he had to follow it. The light tore like taut fabric.
Everything went black.
He gasped for air, breathing fast enough that his throat felt raw, and the first impulse wasn't rational, it was instinct, pure and utter.
He leaped from the bed like a snapped rubber band, fingers hooked, shoulders twisted in an arc, gravity came, he dodged, and the next thing he knew he was pinned to the ceiling, upside down, hands and feet glued to the rough plaster, heart pounding inside his chest like a hammer.
The pain came later: a throbbing pressure in the back of his neck, two needles stuck behind his eyes.
And the confusion, two currents of memories running in opposite directions within the same head, like rivers that refuse to meet.
In one instance, he was a weightless boy, a zigzag of unconnected moments. A cheap room, yellowed comic book pages, forum debates that began with laughter and ended in nothing.
An impulsive young man, emotions always in the red, a superhero fan to the point of memorizing lines… and yet, when he tried to follow this path to its end, the images froze like a tangled ribbon: blurred names, cut destinations, a great silence where there should have been an after.
In the other, everything was crystal clear. A life with a beginning, a middle, continuities, flaws, and affections. It wasn't a movie: it was vivid.
A nerdy teenager, actually brilliant, with a silly sense of humor that came easily as a reflex. Parents killed in a "plane crash" as reports stated.
Raised by his aunt and uncle, Ben and May Parker, in a house where filtered coffee and advice occupied the same space.
Midtown High School, Oscorp field trip four months ago: cold lab, white light, display cases with codes and signs, an exhibition of spiders manipulated to the limit of possibility. One escaped. A bite stinging like a lit match. Fever the next night, bones buzzing, and then… waking up with a body that obeyed new laws.
Elastic muscles, lightning-fast reflexes, senses trained for the city. And ideas, a strange flash of understanding that didn't come from books: polymers, solubility, nozzle pressure, calibrated viscosity. Web shooters assembled from household scraps and clandestine hours in the school lab. A hastily sewn suit, crooked red and blue, with patches on the knee, and the foolish courage of thinking that being a hero could fit into a late afternoon.
The night of the discussion came.
Uncle Ben's firm voice filling the hallway, countered by the irritation of a hungry, hurried teenager.
The sermon on responsibility that felt repetitive and heavy… and the shove of hurt words, the slamming of doors, the cold street washing over the skin. The fight with the clerk over the missing change. The thief who crossed the store as if he were the wind. "It's not my problem."
And a few blocks later, the blur of people standing still, the blue and red glow of lights that would arrive late, Ben Parker on the asphalt, his eyes trying to hold on longer than they had. "Peter…", a word, not a speech, and the world gave way underfoot.
That broke him, and it was from that break that he drew a rule: to live up to what that hand squeezing his demanded. To be, in the sum of the days, responsible.
His consciousness, a consciousness, returned to the ceiling he was clinging to. His fingers relaxed. He exhaled, removed his left hand, then his right, and let his body slide. He fell with calculated lightness, knees giving way, his weight landing on the wooden floor without a sound.
The room was a map of the life that named it.
The wall next to the window had a poorly painted five-year-old coat of paint, a strip of lighter blue that tried to hide stains and failed gracefully.
Two posters dominated the space: on the left, the Avengers, with Iron Man in the foreground, his iconic pose, the reactor in his chest lit up like a sun. The helmet design was identical to that of Tony Stark, who was interviewed on TV with meticulous irony, the face underneath, when he appeared in magazines, was that of Robert Downey Jr., bluntly.
On the right, the Fantastic Four: Reed and Susan as in a photo from the 2005 film, confident posture, clean lines, Johnny with a smile of someone who barely knows the ground and the appearance of the actor Lucas Till, Ben Grimm, a mass of living rock, with robust proportions, closer to the 2025 version that he recognized instantly.
Susan… the calm beauty, her hair falling to her shoulders like a memory of Jessica Alba. A world where movie faces and comic book pages held hands without asking permission.
On the shelf above his desk, miniature disassembled kits shared space with spare parts: a warped lens from a pair of safety glasses, a multimeter he'd repaired by soldering a stripped wire, three spools of enameled wire, a small opaque bottle with silver marker notations ("W-FLUID V4.3"), and a hardcover notebook filled with diagrams, arrows, pressures, formulas jotted in the margins with bad jokes.
Off to the side, two web-shooters rested like discreet metal boxes, their leather straps frayed and bearing signs of use that couldn't be faked.
The air carried the smell of home: fresh coffee from the kitchen, cheap laundry detergent in the hallway, the faint scent of laundry detergent from the blanket still crumpled on the bed, and a lingering trace of machine oil from nights spent tinkering with a toy engine for a physics project.
Through the window, Queens woke to noises: a truck shifting into gear, a dog barking, a radio playing old music from some stubborn neighbor.
He went to the dresser.
At the top, between a coin purse and a cup stuffed with pens, sat a simple framed photo: Ben Parker smiling for the camera in the backyard, in a plaid shirt, the sun catching his hair, making the whites whiter. His face was the same face from his memories: the same welcoming gaze, the same wrinkles concealing laughter. The memory and the object matched perfectly, there was no misalignment.
He looked like the actor John Wesley Shipp, whom he knew from his other life.
The rest of the world vibrated, outside, with configurations and absences. It was 2014. Captain America, according to the timelines of schoolbooks and yellowed magazine covers, still slept on ice, a myth in suspension, not a man on television.
The Avengers existed, but they were different: Tony Stark at the forefront like a star orbiting its own orbit, beside him, Black Widow and Hawkeye, experienced agents with looks that said "don't underestimate", Thor, a prince from ancient stories someone had inserted into the news, Ant-Man and the Wasp; who were Hank Pym with Glen Powell's face, and Janet Van Dyne with Lauren Cohan's appearance, the elegance of someone who designs fashion and defeats monsters in the same day.
Finally, the final member of this Avengers lineup was Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, still Miss Marvel, not Captain Marvel, wearing the classic comic book costume, black with a signature yellow lightning bolt across the chest. She looked identical to Elizabeth Lail, completely different from her MCU counterpart.
Hulk was not a member of the Avengers and remained a ghost pursued by military personnel who refused to understand limits.
The Fantastic Four were a public family that the world respected for how much they had saved.
Mutants existed as fact and controversy, headlines and panic, and an Institute for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester graced the society pages as both a school and a legend. In the shadows of Hell's Kitchen, someone called Daredevil broke bones at night.
He breathed. He felt the thin, almost electric line of spider-sense run through the base of his skull, not as an alarm, but as a metronome of presence, reminding him that It was there, active, part of the package.
That was a complete Marvel universe, and a dangerous one, although every Marvel universe was dangerous.
Peter dropped into the swivel chair, his knees pushing against the desk, and flipped through the hardcover notebook. The pages bore months of trial and error.
On the edge of a sheet of paper, he had drawn a mask and written, in small letters, "It's better than nothing." A knot tightened somewhere in his chest. He closed the notebook carefully, like someone closing a book of condolences.
The two currents inside his head were still there, but they no longer fought. The one that was his, his in the sense of "it's me" was leading.
And with it came a thought, clear and direct as a road seen from above: he had, for some reason not worth unraveling now, known too much about what might exist outside that window.
Not just heroes, destinies. Not just villains, downfalls. Possible plot lines in which beloved names were swallowed up by bad decisions, great attempts turned into huge failures, loves ended in long pain. This wasn't a sticker album to show off, it was weight.
He looked up again at the photo of Uncle Ben. The old guilt was there, but it wasn't just guilt, it was maturity that had been painful to be born.
"Pardon me."
He said it out loud, and it came out hoarse, low.
"I… I can't."
The words hung in the air like sunlit dust. He didn't elaborate, he didn't need to. What he had to say was simple, almost ugly in its sincerity: admiring Spider-Man was one thing; being Spider-Man was another.
He knew the size of the burden, the kind of pain that came with it, the nights ripped away, the birthdays missed, the looks that change when someone discovers your face. Life exacts high interest from those who wear a mask.
There was, deep in his chest, a part that still vibrated when he heard the word "hero", the same urge that had made him throw himself between buildings, trusting in a thread of web and basic physics.
But there was also the memory of a life he had somehow already lost. The instinct to preserve it now, to not waste it in endless fights against monsters that are born faster than they can be stopped, was overwhelming.
There were enough worlds with versions of him sacrificing themselves every day. There was no need to add another one.
His hands, of their own accord, pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk. Inside was a shoebox with a lid patched with masking tape. He opened it. The homemade suit lay there, folded with painful care: the cheap red mesh, the blue scraps reinforcing the elbows, the black lines of the webbing patiently drawn.
The fabric held the scent of sweat and rain, of roof dust and East River mist. Beside it, a pair of cut-out acetate lenses, held in plastic rings he'd spent hours adjusting. He ran his finger along the edge of the mask, felt the roughness of the thread.
That costume was quite similar to Tom Holland's Peter Parker's homemade outfit; in fact, his appearance in this world was identical to Tom Holland's. Which wasn't terrible, honestly.
He put it back.
He picked up the launchers. They weighed almost nothing in his hands, the mass distribution well thought out, the spring reacting with a clean click when the trigger was pulled. They were, perhaps, the most intelligent invention he had ever made. And they were a straight line pointing to a life he, at that moment, was rejecting. He wrapped them both in a handkerchief and placed them at the bottom of the box.
It's closed.
Saved.
He turned his chair toward the clean desk and picked up a pen. On a new page of his notebook, he wrote at the top in large letters: "PETER PLAN (WITHOUT MASK)." Underneath, items sprang up as if already prepared:
1. Scholarships, list universities with physics/engineering programs that accept practical projects in the selection process.
2. Internship — Oscorp (?), Horizon Labs (?), Stark Philanthropic Internship (does it exist?), research gateways.
3. Projects — Bioadhesive ("web" version for civil use): safe, biodegradable formulations, medical/industrial use.
4. Patents — registering ideas before someone else registers them for me.
5. Aunt May — expense spreadsheet, reduce electricity bill, check energy discount for low income.
6. Parker Industries — (dream) — start with a real garage lab: quarterly goals, prototype, seek seed investment.
He bit the cap of his pen, thinking about what this blending of worlds meant in concrete terms. Tony Stark existed, brilliant, vast, and occupied with the entire planet.
The Pyms existed, with a kind of rule-bending science inaccessible to mainstream curricula.
Reed Richards was the kind of mind that wrote articles that few could read to the end without a headache.
And there were also smaller laboratories, names he remembered in the corners of his mind like someone remembering the smell of an old street: Horizon, Alchemax, state universities with brilliant professors. Paths that didn't require masks, but demanded the same thing Uncle Ben preached: responsibility. The same contents, different packaging.
A gentle shiver ran through his skin, his spider-sense whispering again, and he stopped, automatic testing: someone in the hallway? The vibration wasn't danger. It was… insistence.
A knock on the carpentry of fate, a reminder that the outside world didn't consult plans before they happened. He took a deep breath and let it pass.
He stood and paced the room as if he were seeing it for the first time. The faded rug near the bed told the story of feet that always trod in the same place. The window had two small horizontal scratches on the left, marks from suction cups when he'd tried to climb in just "to see if it would work."
The mirror in the closet held a Post-it note: "Buy milk (seriously)." His stomach lurched for half a second, and he ripped off the paper, crumpling it carefully and throwing it in the trash. On the shelf, among chemistry textbooks and bound editions of old magazines, a Midtown class photo showed a row of teenagers trying to be older in their poses.
He was in the middle, thin, with a poorly ironed plaid shirt and a crooked smile. In the corner, almost out of focus, he could see the posters in the school hallway advertising a science fair.
He leaned his forehead against the window. Below, an old man pushed a wheelbarrow carrying bags of earth, a young woman walked briskly, talking on the phone, a boy rode by on a bicycle, balancing a bag of bread. The city was the same, across the world: people walking every day.
He went back to the dresser, picked up Uncle Ben's frame with both hands, and spoke again, this time more firmly, as if he needed to convince himself:
"I'm going to take care of May. I'm going to study. I'm going to build something worthwhile. I'm going to be… me. In my own way."
There was no great heroism in those sentences. There was work, which is the slow form of heroism. And yet, that stubborn beat inside him didn't stop. It wasn't guilt, nor fear. It was... a call. The city calls some by name, even if it doesn't say it out loud.
"Not every universe needs Spider-Man."
He concluded, almost in a whisper.
"And if needs it… there are others."
He carefully put the photo away, leaning the frame so it was tilted slightly, as if Ben were looking at the desk instead of the bed.
He went to his closet, took out a clean shirt, and put it on over his T-shirt. He grabbed his cell phone from the pocket of his coat, which was thrown on the chair, the screen cracked in two corners, a thin sticker holding the film in place, and opened the notes app. He added reminders:
"Research scholarships (Stark, Horizon, Empire State)", "Call Mrs. Fitzgerald about tutoring (pay with library hours)", "Review bioadhesive formula, reduce pH, test with gelatin".
Deep down, like someone trying not to think about a catchy song, he mentally listed the anomalies of the world that surrounded him: a Tony so similar to the one on screen that it was impossible not to call him Tony Stark, a Captain hidden in the past, Carol Danvers still sporting the yellow lightning bolt, the Pyms, not so old, the Fantastic Four as magazine celebrities with real science, mutants in the newspapers dividing opinions at the bar table.
And, on the edges, names he knew might one day emerge from the shadows: minds like that of a certain CEO who thinks he's superior to everyone else, scientists meddling where they shouldn't, people with powers that only grow when fueled by fear. He knew too much about the lines of events. Knowing too much is a burden.
As the clock on the wall ticked off another minute, he felt something quiet inside. The plan existed, it had lines and columns. He could follow it.
From the hallway came May's voice, half-singing, with the last of her sleep in her r's:
"Peter? Are you awake? Coffee's ready. Don't let the toast get cold, will you?"
He closed his eyes for a moment. The memory of Ben's "Peter…" hurt and welcomed at the same time.
"I'm coming."
He said. And He was.
He opened the door, left the room, and the house embraced him with the smell of melted butter and newspaper. He passed the table, kissed his aunt on the top of her head, and smiled as if promising a bright future.
Behind him, the room fell silent, dust swirling in the sunlight. Inside the shoebox at the bottom of the drawer, the mask lay sleeping in its red folds. Above, on the desk, a notebook titled "PETER PLAN (WITHOUT MASK)" awaited the first draft of a prototype.
In the window, the city blinked once, as if calling someone by their first name and waiting on the corner.
He didn't know yet that on that very day all of this would be tested, the plan, the promise, the refusal, and the courage. For now, he was a boy with a newborn resolve and a warm kitchen waiting. And that was enough.