A Life in Marvel
Chapter 7 - Part 1
The walk to Peter's apartment felt longer than usual. The setting sun painted the Queens sky in shades of orange and purple, but Ned barely noticed. His mind was a mess of frustration and worry, Flash's smug grin and Peter's hollowed-out face playing on a loop in his head. He'd seen Peter retreat into himself before, especially after Uncle Ben died, but this was different. This wasn't grief; it was… erasure. Peter was actively making himself smaller, fading out of his own life, and it terrified him. He quickened his pace, the comforting weight of his laptop bag slapping against his side, a small, solid reality in a world that felt increasingly unstable.
He reached the familiar brick building and took the stairs two at a time, his breath coming in short bursts. He didn't bother knocking; he never did. He just turned the knob and pushed the door open, stepping into the quiet warmth of the Parker apartment.
"Peter? You home?" he called out, his voice echoing slightly in the small space. The apartment was neat, almost painfully so. May's touch was everywhere—colorful throw pillows, a half-finished crossword on the coffee table, the faint, clean scent of lemon cleaning spray. But there was an undercurrent of wrongness, a stillness that felt less like peace and more like a held breath.
A faint noise came from Peter's bedroom—a soft, metallic *clink*, followed by a muffled curse.
Ned followed the sound, stopping in the doorway of Peter's room. And what he saw made his brain screech to a halt.
Peter wasn't sitting at his desk, moping over a Stark Internship brochure. He was in the middle of his room, his back to the door, and he was… sticking to the wall. Not climbing, just standing there, several feet off the ground, his sneakers pressed flat against the plaster as casually as if he were standing on the floor. He had a small metal box in his hands, the source of the *clinking* sound, and was trying, and failing, to open it one-handed while defying the laws of gravity.
"Whoa," Ned breathed, the word escaping him before he could stop it.
Peter flinched, his concentration broken. He lost his grip on the wall and dropped, landing in a silent, perfect crouch on the floor. The box clattered to the rug. He spun around, his eyes wide with a panic that was almost comical.
"Ned! Hey! What are you… I wasn't… I was just…" He trailed off, his gaze darting between Ned's stunned face and the wall he'd just been clinging to like a human spider. The secret was out. There was no putting this genie back in the bottle.
Ned just stared, his mind struggling to process the image. He pointed a shaky finger at the wall, then back at Peter. "You… you were on the wall."
Peter sighed, the fight draining out of him in a rush. He ran a hand through his messy hair, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "Yeah. I was."
A slow, brilliant grin spread across Ned's face, the worry and frustration of the last few weeks instantly evaporating, replaced by a pure, unadulterated joy. "Dude, you have powers."
The words hung in the air between them, a declaration so impossible and yet so undeniably true that it felt like a shift in the room's gravity. Peter looked at Ned, his best friend in the world, and saw no fear, no judgment—only a pure, unadulterated, kid-on-Christmas-morning level of excitement. It was the first time in weeks that the knot of anxiety in his chest loosened.
"Yeah, man," Peter confirmed, a hesitant, relieved smile finally breaking through. "I have powers."
Ned's brain rebooted, the excitement crashing back in full force. "Okay, okay, okay. Show me something else. The wall thing was cool, but I need more. What else you got?"
Peter laughed, a real, genuine laugh that felt foreign and amazing. "Alright, alright." He looked around his small room, his eyes landing on his worn-out science textbook on the desk. "Catch."
He didn't throw it. He just held it out and let it go. Ned's hands flew up, expecting it to fall, but the book just hovered in mid-air, wobbling slightly. Peter's eyes were narrowed in concentration, his hand held out toward it like a conductor.
"Oh my god," Ned whispered, inching closer. "Telekinesis?"
"Kinda," Peter grunted, sweat beading on his forehead. "It's more like… a really strong static cling. I can feel the electric field around it. It's… a lot to hold." He gave his fingers a little flick, and the book zipped across the room, smacking softly into Ned's waiting hands.
Ned hugged the book to his chest, his eyes wide. "This is insane. You're like a real-life Jedi."
"I wish," Peter said, rubbing his temples. "Jedi don't get migraines from trying to hold up a calculus book."
"What about strength?" Ned asked, setting the book down and flexing his own skinny arms. "Are you, like, bench-pressing cars strong?"
Peter shrugged, a nonchalant gesture that was completely at odds with the answer he was about to give. "I haven't tried a car. But…" He looked over at his metal-framed bed. He crouched down, gripped the foot of the bed frame, and straightened his legs. The entire bed—mattress, box spring, and all—lifted off the floor with a groan of stressed metal. He held it there for a second, his muscles barely twitching, before setting it down gently.
Ned just stared, his mouth hanging open. "Peter. Your bed is made of iron."
"It's aluminum," Peter corrected, as if that made any difference. "And it's not that heavy." He was lying, and they both knew it. The faint tremor in his hands told the real story.
"We need to test this," Ned declared, his mind already racing. "Scientific method. We need a control group. And more weights. Do you have a scale? We can weigh you, then have you lift stuff, then weigh you again to see if you lose mass! That's not how it works, right? E=mc²? If you use energy, you should lose a tiny bit of mass! We could measure it!"
Peter flopped back onto his newly-lifted bed, grinning at his friend's chaotic genius. "Maybe we can skip the particle physics for now, man."
"Fine, fine," Ned conceded, plopping down into the desk chair again. "But the web-shooters. You have to show me the web-shooters."
Peter sat up, his face lighting up. This was his pride and joy. He unstrapped the complex-looking device from his wrist and handed it over. Ned took it with the reverence of a historian handling an ancient artifact, turning it over in his hands.
"Whoa," he breathed, tracing the wiring with a fingertip. "The design is… so much cleaner than the beta versions I saw you sketching. Is this a carbon-fiber composite? The trigger mechanism is genius."
"I'm still tweaking the fluid cartridge," Peter explained, leaning forward. "The pressure is a nightmare. Too much and it's a projectile; too little and it's just silly string." He held up a small, sealed vial of a milky white fluid. "This is the latest batch. I call it… Web Fluid 3.7."
"Can we test it?" Ned asked, his eyes gleaming. "Please? Just a little?"
Peter hesitated for only a second. "Okay. But not inside. Aunt May would kill me." He grabbed a soda can from his recycling bin and tossed it to Ned. "Go stand in the hallway."
Ned scrambled out, positioning himself at the far end of the short hallway. Peter aimed the shooter, his movements fluid and practiced. Thwip! A strand of white silk shot out, striking the can dead-center and pinning it to the wall with a solid thunk.
Ned ran back into the room, buzzing with excitement. "It worked! It totally worked! The tensile strength must be incredible! We need to chart its properties. We need a chart, Peter!"
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Peter felt normal. He wasn't a failed intern or a reckless vigilante. He was just a kid from Queens, showing off his latest crazy invention to his best friend in his bedroom. The weight of the world, of Tony Stark's disappointment and Captain America's betrayal, felt a million miles away.
"Okay, okay, calm down," Peter said, taking the device back and strapping it on. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
Ned finally collapsed back into the chair, the initial manic energy settling into a warm, awe-filled glow. "This is… this is everything, man. But… it also kind of explains a lot."
The mood shifted, the joy giving way to the reason Ned had come here in the first place.
"Like why you quit the team?" Ned asked gently. "And why you look like you haven't slept in a month."
Peter's shoulders slumped, the smile fading from his face. He picked at a loose thread on his blanket. "Yeah. It's… a lot to balance. School, Aunt May, and… this. I went to Germany thinking I could help, but I was just a distraction. A liability. I almost got Mr. Rhodes killed. Mr. Stark took the suit, and honestly… he was right to."
"But that doesn't mean you have to disappear from your own life, Peter," Ned said, leaning forward, his voice earnest. "The team is falling apart without you. Flash is being… well, Flash. Liz is trying, but she's stressed. And MJ is just… quiet. Which is never a good sign. We miss you, dude. Not just your brain. We miss you."
Peter looked up, a flicker of hope warring with the deep-seated guilt in his eyes. "I don't know if I can just go back, Ned. What do I even say? 'Sorry I bailed, guys, I was busy getting my butt kicked by Captain America and then grounded by Iron Man'?"
"So don't say that," Ned said simply. "Just say you had a family thing. Or an internship thing. It's not even a lie. But we need you. Even if you don't compete. Come to the practices. Help us drill. Be our… our strategist. Our secret weapon."
A small smile touched Peter's lips. "The Guy in the Chair."
"Exactly!" Ned said, snapping his fingers. "You can see things from the outside. You can tell us who to put up for what category. You're our Tony Stark in the earpiece."
Peter thought about it. He thought about the suffocating silence of his room, the weight of his secrets, and the bright, noisy chaos of the Decathlon team. Ned was right. He didn't have to give up one part of his life for the other. He could find a balance. Maybe.
"Okay," Peter said, his voice firm with newfound resolve. "Yeah, man. I'll come. I'll be the Guy in the Chair."
Ned broke into a wide, triumphant grin. "Yes! This is the best decision you've made since… well, since you decided not to tell your aunt about the spider bite."
Peter laughed, the sound light and easy. It felt like a promise. A promise that even in a world of gods and monsters, he could still be Peter Parker. And he could still have his best friend by his side.
That night, Peter paced his room, the phone feeling like a brick in his hand. Ned sat on the bed, watching him with impatient encouragement.
"Just call her, dude. What's the worst that can happen? She says no? You're already used to that."
Peter shot him a look but dialed Liz's number before he could lose his nerve. It rang twice before she picked up.
"Hello?" Her voice was breathless, strained, like she was in the middle of a sprint.
"Liz? Hey, it's Peter. And Ned's here too."
"Oh! Peter! Hey!" she said, her voice a little too high, a little too rushed. "What's up?"
Peter took a deep breath, launching into the speech he and Ned had rehearsed. "Listen, I know I bailed on the team, and I'm really sorry about that. It was a… a family thing, with the internship, and it all got really complicated. But I was wondering… if it's not too late… if I could, you know, come back? Not to compete, just to help. Ned said you guys were struggling, and I—"
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