Peter landed softly on the fire escape outside his bedroom window, the metal groaning under his weight like an old friend complaining about the hour. Dawn had fully broken over Queens—thin, pale light spilling between rooftops, turning wet asphalt into mirrors of rose and gold. The city smelled of rain-soaked concrete, diesel exhaust, and the first coffee brewing in a hundred kitchens.
He slipped through the cracked window, careful not to let the frame squeak. The apartment was quiet. May's shift had ended at six; she'd be asleep until noon if the hospital didn't call her back in early. Peter peeled off the mask first, letting cool air hit his face. His hair was plastered to his forehead, eyes gritty from lack of sleep and too much staring at glowing blue text.
The suit came next—peeled off in damp layers and dropped into the laundry hamper with a soft thud. Underneath he wore the same faded Midtown Science T-shirt and boxers he'd slept in two nights ago. Bruises bloomed across his ribs in shades of violet and green, already fading faster than they should. The System's regeneration stat wasn't lying.
He stood in the middle of his tiny room for a long moment, barefoot on the worn floorboards, listening to the building breathe. Pipes clanked somewhere below. A neighbor's alarm clock buzzed through the wall, then cut off abruptly. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
The interface had gone quiet again after the quinjet ride home. No new quests. No cryptic logs. Just the baseline status panel hovering at half-opacity in his peripheral vision, like a screen saver he couldn't close.
**Strength: 12.1x Baseline Human**
**Agility: 18.3x Baseline Human**
**Regeneration: Enhanced (Current Recovery Rate: +14% overnight)**
Small changes. Incremental. Almost reassuring in how ordinary they looked.
Peter sank onto the edge of his bed. The mattress dipped under him. He stared at the poster of the periodic table taped crookedly above his desk, at the half-finished model of the solar system dangling from the ceiling by fishing line, at the stack of college applications on the nightstand—MIT, Empire State, Columbia—all with deadlines creeping closer.
He should be panicking about those. About grades. About money. About whether he could keep swinging through the city and still make it to chem lab on time.
Instead he was thinking about trans-dimensional spiders and moral alignment and the way Tony Stark had looked at him—not like a kid in a costume, but like someone carrying something dangerous and fragile at the same time.
Peter rubbed his face with both hands. Exhaustion pressed against the backs of his eyes like thumbs.
He lay back, not bothering to pull the covers over himself. The ceiling stared back—cracked plaster, water stain in the corner shaped vaguely like Australia. He'd mapped constellations into it when he was twelve. Orion's Belt was still visible if you squinted.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. He reached for it without sitting up.
MJ:
*You ghosted me last night. Everything okay?*
Peter stared at the message. Thumb hovered.
He typed:
*Yeah. Long night. Patrol stuff. I'm home now. Promise I'll call later?*
He hit send before he could second-guess the vagueness.
MJ:
*Okay. But if you're lying I'll know. I always know.*
A second later:
*Get some sleep, loser.*
Peter let out a breath that was almost a laugh. He set the phone face-down and closed his eyes.
Sleep didn't come immediately. His mind kept replaying fragments: the sterile lab flash during the scan, Steve's steady hand on his shoulder, the weight of the dampener band still invisible around his wrist. The System's final message before it went dormant.
**"Subject selected for baseline resilience and moral alignment."**
Moral alignment.
What did that even mean? That he tried to do the right thing? That he felt guilty when he didn't? That he kept going back out even when every rational part of him screamed to stop?
He thought about Uncle Ben. About the gunman on the street corner. About the promise he'd made in a hospital hallway that still tasted like antiseptic and grief.
Maybe that was the selection criteria. Not power. Not intelligence. Just… stubborn decency wrapped around a spine of guilt.
The thought should have comforted him. Instead it made his chest ache.
Somewhere in the apartment, the refrigerator kicked on with a low hum. May's soft footsteps padded down the hallway—probably headed for water or aspirin. She paused outside his door.
Peter held his breath.
She didn't knock. Just stood there for a few seconds, then continued to the kitchen. A glass filled under the tap. A cabinet opened and closed.
The footsteps retreated.
Peter exhaled slowly.
He rolled onto his side, facing the window. Sunlight crept across the floor in slow inches. Dust motes drifted in the beam like tiny planets.
Eventually—grudgingly—sleep found him.
He dreamed in fragments.
A spider the size of a dinner plate skittering across white tile. No fear, just clinical observation. A voice—not human—murmuring in frequencies too low to hear clearly. Blue light pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. A city made of glass and shadow, buildings folding into impossible geometries. And through it all, the quiet certainty that he was being measured. Not judged. Measured.
He woke to the smell of pancakes.
Sunlight now slanted hard across the room. Afternoon. He'd slept through the morning.
Peter sat up slowly. Muscles ached less. The bruise on his ribs had faded to pale yellow. Regeneration doing its job.
He pulled on jeans and a clean hoodie, ran fingers through his hair, and padded barefoot into the living room.
May stood at the stove in her favorite robe—the blue one with tiny stars—flipping pancakes with practiced ease. She glanced over her shoulder.
"Morning, sleeping beauty. Or should I say afternoon?"
Peter rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry. Late night."
She slid a plate onto the table. Three pancakes, golden, stacked neatly. Butter melting into syrup pools. A side of sliced strawberries because she knew he liked them.
"Sit," she said. Not a request.
He sat.
May poured coffee into two mugs, added milk to hers, left his black. She joined him at the small table, cradling her mug.
They ate in comfortable quiet for a minute. The radio played softly—some old jazz station May liked on weekends.
Finally she spoke. "You came in quiet this morning. No crashing. No broken window latch. Progress."
Peter managed a small smile around a mouthful of pancake. "Trying to be stealthier."
She studied him over the rim of her mug. "You look tired, Peter. Not just physically."
He swallowed. "It's… been a week."
May set the mug down. "You know you can talk to me. About anything. Even the stuff you think I won't understand."
Peter looked at his plate. The strawberries were bright against the syrup. "I know."
"But you won't," she finished gently.
He met her eyes. "Not yet. Soon. I promise."
She reached across the table, squeezed his hand once. Her fingers were warm, callused from years of IV lines and chart-holding.
"Okay," she said. "Soon."
She didn't push. She never did.
After breakfast—second helpings for both of them—Peter cleared the table while May showered. He washed dishes by hand, letting hot water run over his knuckles, staring out the window at the street below. Kids played stickball in the alley. An old man walked two small dogs. A delivery truck idled at the curb.
Normal.
He dried his hands, checked his phone. Ned had texted a blurry photo of what looked like a new Lego set half-built on his desk.
Ned:
*Dude. Check this out. It's the Milano from Guardians. Took me four hours already and I'm not even to the cockpit.*
Peter smiled. Typed back:
*Looks sick. Send progress pics?*
Ned:
*Only if you admit my engineering skills are god-tier.*
Peter:
*Your engineering skills are god-tier.*
Ned:
*Damn right.*
Peter set the phone down. The interface flickered—briefly.
**[Social Baseline: Stable]**
**[Regeneration Complete: Minor Injuries Resolved]**
**[No New Anomalies Detected]**
He almost laughed. Even the System was giving him a breather.
May emerged from the bathroom in jeans and a sweater, hair towel-dried. "I'm running to the store. Need anything?"
"More strawberries?" he tried.
She rolled her eyes fondly. "You ate half a flat this morning. I'll see what I can do."
She kissed the top of his head—something she still did even though he was taller now—and left with her purse and keys.
The apartment fell quiet again.
Peter stood in the middle of the living room, hands in his pockets.
Then he moved.
He pulled the suit from the hamper, still slightly damp but wearable. Slipped into it in the bathroom, mask last. The dampener band on his wrist stayed invisible, a faint pressure reminding him he wasn't entirely alone anymore.
He opened the window.
Before he swung out, he paused—looked back at the room. At the messy desk, the half-read textbooks, the photo of him, May, and Ben taped to the wall.
He exhaled.
Then he shot a web-line to the building across the street and launched into the afternoon sky.
Not for patrol. Not yet.
Just to swing.
To feel the wind. The pull of gravity. The snap of web-fluid leaving the shooters.
To remind himself that—whatever the System wanted, whatever watched from the dark between stars—he was still Peter Parker.
Still Spider-Man.
Still theirs.
The city blurred beneath him in red and gold.
And for the first time in days, the weight on his shoulders felt bearable.
To be continued...