Chapter 3: Absolute Penalty.
(Peter's POV)
The red dot led me down 41st Street.
I ran through the crosswalks, past honking traffic, vaulting over hydrants and trash bins. Two cop cars screamed by on my left, sirens cutting through the air. I beat them through the next light.
My lungs burned with bottomless energy— it was actually a struggle not to increase my speed.
By the time I reached 7th Avenue, the crowd thickened. Midtown Mercy loomed a few more blocks ahead, I could see smoke curling above the roofs.
With no time to go around, I cut into an alley, and without stopping, ran straight up the side of a brick building.
My fingertips buzzed with invisible static. Feet stuck on the flat surface like glue.
It didn't feel like climbing a wall. It felt like sliding upwards.
Once on the roof, I took off sprinting, leaping 50+ feet gaps between buildings until the hospital entrance came into view—packed with staff, patients on gurneys, nurses shouting over one another.
Fire blazed through the east wing.
"This is it..." I thought, heart pumping as I dropped behind a generator shed, pulled my hood low, and slipped in through a shattered side door.
Inside was chaos. Lights flickered. Water sprayed from a broken sprinkler overhead. Smoke thickened with each step.
I didn't have a layout. Luckily, the System provided me a direction to my target. I followed the red dot and instinct, at one time narrowly avoiding collapsing stairs through a strange gut feeling.
That's when I saw him in the hallway.
A security guard slumped against the wall, coughing. His vest was torn—three long slashes across his ribs.
I dropped beside him. "Hey—stay with me."
He looked up, barely focused. "Green… thing. Big. Strong. Came through fast. I tried. There's… two babies. Newborn wing. Couldn't reach them."
My stomach dropped.
"I've got them," I said.
He tried to grab my arm. "You don't… get it. He's still in there."
I stood, face hardening. "Then I'll be quick."
The newborn wing was down the hall, already filling with smoke. I pressed a hand to the wall to steady myself as the heat closed in.
"Guide me," I muttered.
The System stayed silent. Then finally the red dot started pulsing and moving upwards...away from the newborn wing:
{TARGET IDENTIFIED: DR. CURT CONNORS}
{PRIMARY THREAT: LIZARD}
{MISSION OBJECTIVE: NEUTRALIZE}
"No, I meant help me find the babies." I corrected, kicking down the stuck door and enduring the gouts of flames that poured out. A normal person's skin would have roasted. I only felt warm.
{NEGATIVE. THAT IS NOT PART OF THE MISSION}
I gritted my teeth and pushed in, unprepared for the System's blunt refusal. "Then stay out of the way."
{BE WARNED, MISSION FAILURE WILL RESULT IN AN ABSOLUTE PEN-}
I swiped away the screen, closed my eyes, slowed my breath, and listened.
There—two tiny, panicked wails, muffled by distance and smoke. Right turn, interior second room down.
I pulled the door clean off its hinges. Flames lined the ceiling. The incubators were untouched—some miracle. Two crying newborns, faces red and scrunched.
"It's alright now, Uncle Pete's got you."
Peeling off my hoodie, I tore it into wraps, and swaddled both of them.
I turned for the exit—
And the wall exploded.
The Lizard came through like a freight train.
Seven feet tall. Eyes burning yellow. Claws gripping a pack of what I suspect had brought him here. He didn't charge right away. Just growled at me, the babies and then lunged forward with a roar.
I didn't hesitate. Maybe it was the urgency of the situation but I felt a pressure on my wrists.
My right hand rose, fingers bent I and fired off a sticky white fluid like webbing straight into his face—and as he struggled to rip it off, I sprinted for the exit.
{UNLOCKED THE TRAIT:- WEB CREATION}
{WARNING! WARNING YOU ARE MOVING AWAY FROM TARGE-}
Another swipe. And of course I was retreating.
The mission was wrong.
I'd come here for him, yes. But saving someone took presedence over a showdown against a 7 foot reptile.
I found the guard again, slung him over my shoulder, and made for the nearest exit with only a, "Hold on."
"Wait no no no! wha-Aaaahhh!"
Maybe the guard was the one screaming or maybe it was me. Or all of us combined as I jumped—three stories through a broken window.
There was a brief moment of suspension then descent and more screaming. Luckily, I panicked and rapid fired out webbing between two trees to cushion the fall. The crudely created web wrapped instinctively around us before we could hit the ground.
The moment we landed, EMTs rushed in.
I placed the babies into the arms of a nurse, a web mask covering my face to hide my identity. The guard groaned but was breathing.
I didn't say a word.
Didn't wait for thanks.
Just turned, fired a webline to the nearest light pole and bailed. The Lizard was already gone, judging by the {MISSION FAILED!} notification I did my best to ignore.
Webswinging took some practice.
I missed my first anchor and crashed into a sign.
Second one worked.
By the third, I was moving clean—wind in my face, high above the sirens, hands burning from tension, but smiling anyway.
Not because it was easy.
Because it felt right.
I got home late.
Gwen and May were asleep on the couch again. Same way they always were when I got in too late from the Lab.
I lay down on the floor.
Exhausted but not hurting and promptly blacked out.
-0-
Morning light filtered in through the blinds.
I blinked and sat up with a yawn. It hadn't even been an hour since getting back.
The System's screen was waiting for me.
But it was different this time.
{MISSION PARAMETERS: ABANDONED}
{CALCULATING PENALTY SEVERITY: ABSOLUTE!}
{MISSION INTERFACE: TERMINATED!}
{REWARD PROTOCOL: TERMINATED!}
{TOTEM PROGRESS TRACKER: TERMINATED!}
That wasn't all.
{SYSTEM FUNCTIONS LIMITED TO TRAIT TRACKING ONLY}
{PERSONALITY EVALUATION COMPLETE}
{HOST DEMONSTRATES NONCOMPLIANT, EMOTIONALLY DRIVEN BEHAVIOR}
{PERSONALITY TYPE COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE TO SYSTEM'S PRIMARY DIRECTIVE}
{ALL FURTHER GUIDANCE DISABLED}
{YOU PREFER YOUR OWN COMPASS, PETER B. PARKER. AS SUCH, FROM HERE ON OUT YOU WILL NO LONGER HAVE ACCESS TO THE ABSOLUTE SPIDER SYSTEM. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.}
{SYSTEM'S SENTIENCE DESTROYED}
Well, damn.
I exhaled.
Not angry.
Not sad.
Just… clear.
"Yeah," I said. "I guess I do."
The screen closed. And the system's vibrational presence disaappeared, leaving behind a single tab with a list of my powers.
The kind thing to say would be that the System had basically adapted to better fit me by realizing it COULDN'T.
In reality, It was really gone. And you know what? Good riddance. Any guide that would let babies burn just to complete a dumb mission was not worth my time.
I could figure out these powers on my own.
A little pissed off about the Classic Spiderman suit though. Then again, I could just make my own. How hard could it be?
And that's when I noticed Gwen standing in the doorway.
We looked at each other a long time. She hadn't said anything yet. Uh oh...I knew that look. She was furious.
"Where were you last night?" she asked, very calmly.
I swallowed. "Went for a run Babe."
Her eyes narrowed.
"You come home with your clothes torn and burnt, covered in soot and smelling like a chimney, and that's your story? A run?"
I stood up, careful. "Gwen baby—"
"No," she cut in. "Don't you baby me Peter. I've let a lot slide lately. You've been distant. Hiding something. I gave you space because I thought maybe it was work, or stress, or... I don't know. But now you're coming home hurt."
She stepped closer.
"And lying about it."
I didn't say anything for a long time.
Because she was right.
I didn't know how to tell her the truth without sounding insane.
Or worse—dangerous.
Finally, I said, "Something happened when I was out running. Didn't lie about that."
Gwen crossed her arms, signalling that she was fast reaching the end of her patience. "What kind of something?"
"There was a fire at Midtown Mercy Hospital." I said, scratching my head. "Turns out a guard was still stuck inside. And the Medical staff were busy with the patients so I ah...sorta ran in to save him?"
My wife's blue eyes widened in surprise.
"You saved him? Pete that's...that's amazing!"
She fell into my arms and hugged me.
"Wait, you...you believe me?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Yeah. Of course. You wouldn't lie about something so serious. I'm just happy you made it out okay."
Huh.
"Plus," She smiled at me. "My husband is a hero. So fucking cool."
"Langua-" I was sushed with a heartmelting kiss. Didn't mind it. Not at all.
The moment ended too soon as her voice dropped.
"I'm still not happy with you getting hurt. If something happened to you, what happens to May then? Next time, leave it to the professionals"
That one landed.
Hard.
I looked at the floor. "I'm sorry. You're right. No more heroing."
"You promise?" She asked with a serious expression.
I couldn't answer right away. Not when I had these powers. But I knew Gwen. She wasn't the type to let go of something like this.
May peeked around the hallway corner, clutching a stuffed animal. "Mommy? Daddy? You came back!"
Gwen's voice softened instantly. "Go back to bed, sweetie. It's still early."
"Can Daddy come?" May innocently said.
"Of course Kiddo, wanna hear a bedtime story?" I jumped at the chance to end the conversation.
Gwen sighed and gave a nod. She was outnumbered 2 to 1.
Later, after both had gone back to sleep, I sat alone on the balcony, watching the fading city lights in the wake of dawn.
Even after last night, my body didn't seem tired. I'd tried lying down, but my brain refused to shut off.
I had the day off and with nothing to do I decided to work on better understanding my powers. Without the system acting as a clutch, it was up to me to figure this out.
There's a junkyard about a mile from our apartment building. It's fenced off, condemned, supposedly in escrow. Mostly it's just rusted-out cars, old shipping containers, and silence.
That day I spent with my family but at night, once they were dead asleep, I snuck out.
Getting in was a matter of leaping over the fence. And with the security guard snoring at his station, I had the junkyard to myself for a few hours.
At first, without the System's guidance, my control was clumsy.
I climbed too fast, jumped too far, tore through metal like it was cardboard. I cracked my hand on a support beam trying to catch myself and watched it heal before the swelling even finished forming.
Every mistake taught me something.
My scientific knowledge came in handy here. Mid-movement—adjustments while swinging, leveraging angles for force control and effective striking points to deliver maximum damage.
A lot of it was intuition and instinct that came with being a spider Totem.
Like webbing trajectory and patterns. Basically by flexing my wrists and holding a few seconds before releasing, the webs would be thicker and reach longer distances. Shorter flexes for thinner and shorter webs.
I wondered what else I could do. The web glands on my wrist seemed to refill after use, though my hands felt sore after an hour of shooting out webs.
So I called it a night and left.
-0-
I called in sick. Again.
Third time in a week.
My supervisor didn't ask questions. Just told me to "feel better" with that corporate tone that means don't come back until you figure your life out.
Harry texted not long after:
"You okay, man? Dad's asking questions."
I didn't answer. Not yet. I was determined to keep it all a secret while still going to the Junkyard every night.
And then, the Lizard re-emerged.