Extensive tendon ruptures, fractured bone matrices, alveolar hemorrhaging, and widespread capillary necrosis. For a normal human, that diagnostic chart meant a month in the ICU and a lifetime of physical therapy. For Peter Parker, it meant he needed a few solid nights of deep sleep. He wasn't going to let a "minor injury" keep him off the streets. Spider-Man had a city to protect.
Except, Peter didn't go on patrol the next morning.
Not because of the lingering aches from his fight with the Shocker, but because he got caught. By Gwen Stacy.
"Morning, genius."
Peter jumped, his hand instinctively shooting to the back of his neck. His messy brown hair stuck up like a bad radio antenna. Gwen stood in his doorway, her backpack already slung over one shoulder, looking infuriatingly awake.
"Uh, morning, Gwen. You're up early."
"Every time I get up, you're already gone. I wanted to see exactly how early I had to set my alarm to catch you." Gwen leaned against the doorframe. "Also, my dad was working a case until three in the morning. He told me to just go to bed and stop waiting up."
"Trouble at the precinct?" Peter asked, forcing his voice to stay casual. "I heard some guy was blowing up Manhattan yesterday."
"I don't know. He won't tell me anything about it."
Since he'd been intercepted, Peter couldn't exactly throw on his suit and swing across Queens. He had to take the subway to Midtown High with Gwen. They swiped their MetroCards and squeezed into a moderately crowded car.
"So, how's the rock band coming together?" Peter asked, grabbing an overhead bar as the train lurched forward. "Any recruits?"
"Yeah, actually. I talked to a few girls in my homeroom. MJ, Liz, Betty..." Gwen smiled at him. "Oh, right, you don't know any of them except MJ. See? I told you I make friends faster than you do."
Peter chuckled dryly. He didn't consider himself a loner by choice, but the social hierarchy at an American high school was brutally rigid. The guys who could throw a football eighty yards were treated like royalty. The guys who spent their weekends analyzing the tensile strength of polymer compounds couldn't even get a nod in the hallway. Reading wasn't a team sport. Therefore, Peter Parker didn't have a deep bench of friends.
"How are you going to practice, anyway?" Peter asked. "Captain Stacy isn't going to let you bring drumsticks into the apartment, let alone a full kit."
"Yeah, I know." Gwen sighed, staring at her reflection in the dark train window. "We'll figure something out." She shook her head, dropping the subject. "So, you take the train this early every day? What do you do? Just sit in the cafeteria and stare at the wall until first period?"
Peter scrambled to invent a plausible excuse. His brain seized on a half-baked idea.
"Have you ever tried getting off a stop early? Or a stop late?"
Gwen blinked, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What?"
"You know, get off the train one station away and just walk the rest of the route to school. It's early enough. The weather's nice. It kills time."
Gwen looked at him like he had just grown a second head. "Is that seriously why you get up before the sun? To take long walks?"
"No, it's the other way around," Peter lied smoothly, offering a helpless shrug. "I wake up way too early, I can't fall back asleep, and I have absolutely nothing to do. So... I walk. Want to tag along?"
"I don't have anything better to do. Lead the way."
It was a decision Peter regretted the absolute second they walked out of the subway station.
It wasn't the route. It was the massive, three-story Jumbotron plastered to the side of the shopping center across the street. The volume was cranked up, echoing down the avenue.
"Just yesterday, our beautiful city was torn apart by two masked lunatics! Spider-Man engaged in a reckless, destructive brawl with a psychopath in high-tech yellow armor! According to my sources at the NYPD, this so-called 'The Shocker' is the exact same man Spider-Man violently assaulted just weeks ago!"
J. Jonah Jameson's face filled the screen. His cheeks were a deep, apoplectic purple. The veins in his neck strained against his collar.
"Look closely, New York! What has this masked vigilante actually brought us? More masked criminals! I guarantee you, the Shocker is a monster created by Spider-Man! This man built super-weapons specifically to take revenge on a vigilante who operates entirely outside the law! Think about it! If the police or the Avengers had arrested this Herman Schultz, would he have escalated into a supervillain?"
Jameson shoved his chair back. He leaned directly into the camera lens, spittle flying from his lips.
"No! Because if the police arrest you, you know you deserve it! You know you were stopped by someone with actual authority! Not some unstable teenager in a spandex onesie playing dress-up! If the cops put him away, he wouldn't feel like he was robbed of his dignity!"
Peter froze on the sidewalk.
If only you had said that to Herman Schultz instead of to the Shocker.
Herman's exhausted, bitter voice echoed in Peter's skull. He rubbed his temples, a sharp headache pulsing behind his eyes. Jameson was twisting the facts, but the underlying logic hit like a gut punch. If Peter had just talked to Herman during that first alleyway encounter—if he had treated him like a human being instead of a punching bag—would the Shocker even exist?
"You know," Peter muttered, his voice hollow. "This is the first time I think Jameson actually makes a valid point."
Gwen stopped walking. She stared at Peter, completely floored.
"Are you serious? Every time Jameson starts ranting about Spider-Man on the news, my dad mutes the TV and mutters 'that's bullshit' into his coffee."
Peter let out a startled, breathless laugh. He looked at her, shaking his head. "Does he really?"
"Well, he doesn't swear out loud when I'm in the room," Gwen clarified, adjusting her backpack strap. "But I can read his face. He thinks Jameson is an idiot. Anyway, where are we walking?"
Peter pointed down the block toward a six-story brick apartment building. "There. Up to the roof."
A few minutes later, Peter pushed open the heavy fire door. The morning wind whipped across the tar-paper roof. Gwen walked cautiously to the parapet, resting her hands on the low brick wall and looking out over the waking city.
"It's a great view," she noted. "Assuming you don't fall off."
Peter walked up beside her. He didn't look at the skyline. He looked straight down at the alleyway below.
"Do you remember Andrew Derby?"
Gwen frowned, searching her memory. "I never really knew him. Wait. When we were in eighth grade, a freshman jumped off a building. Was that him?"
"Yeah. Right here."
Gwen immediately stepped back from the ledge. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, suddenly uncomfortable. Peter didn't move. He sat down directly on the concrete edge, his legs dangling over the terrifying drop. He came to this roof almost every single morning on his patrol route. Just to sit for a minute. Just to look down.
"So... were you guys close?" Gwen asked quietly.
"No," Peter said, his voice flat. "But I saw him two days before it happened. He looked completely dead inside. Like something terrible had just broken him. Sometimes I come up here and wonder... if I had just walked over and said something to him that day in the hallway, would he still be alive?"
Gwen stared at Peter's back. For a long, heavy minute, the only sound was the distant drone of traffic. She pressed her lips together, organizing her thoughts. Then, she stepped forward.
"If you talked to him, and he still chose to jump, would you blame yourself for saying the wrong thing? Would you tell yourself you didn't try hard enough, Saint Peter?"
"But—"
"No, don't 'but' me." Gwen sat down next to him on the ledge, cutting him off entirely. "Give me a second. I need to phrase this right."
"Uh..."
"Okay, I've got it." Gwen turned her head, looking him dead in the eye. "You are completely unqualified to work a suicide hotline, Peter. If you went into that job with this savior complex, you'd throw yourself off a bridge by Tuesday because you couldn't save every single caller on Monday." She kept her tone sharp, refusing to soften the blow. "This isn't your responsibility. You don't have to carry the weight of every single person around you. Especially people you don't even know."
Peter stared at his battered sneakers swinging over the abyss.
"Empathy is a good thing, genius," Gwen said softly, her anger fading into genuine concern. "But too much of it is a curse. And curses ruin people."
She sat back, pulling her knees to her chest. They sat in silence. Gwen watched Peter's profile. His jaw was clenched tight. She worried she had pushed too hard, that her bluntness had alienated him. It was an impossible burden to understand.
"So," Gwen tried again, her voice gentler. "You come up here. You sit on the edge. You think about it. Does it actually help?"
"Well. I haven't jumped yet."
I've thrown myself off a dozen times, Peter thought. I just always swing back up. The free-fall used to terrify me. Now I barely feel it.
"Maybe you should go to a priest," Gwen suggested. "Try confession."
"I don't believe in religion. I believe in physics."
"Then talk to me. Or Uncle Ben. Or Aunt May." Gwen bumped her shoulder against his. "Just don't lock it all in your own head, smart guy."
Peter finally looked away from the alley. He offered a small, tired smile.
"I will."
Gwen couldn't tell if he actually meant it. The walls around Peter Parker were incredibly thick. But she knew someone who could break through them. As she stood up and brushed off her jeans, Gwen made a quiet decision.
After school today, she was going to have a very long talk with Uncle Ben.