The next morning, I left before MJ woke up.
I couldn't explain it. Not to her. Not to anyone.
There was a hum under my skin, like static electricity that wouldn't discharge. My fingertips twitched when I wasn't thinking. I could hear things I shouldn't—subway cars five blocks away, flies buzzing behind sealed walls. Everything felt louder. Clearer. But somehow… hollow.
And beneath it all, that voice.
Not always words.
Sometimes just feelings.
A cold suggestion in the base of my skull.
A pull toward anger when I was tired. Toward silence when I should speak. Toward violence when I only meant to stop someone.
Something was inside me. Not like a possession. More like… a seed.
And it was growing.
I went to Queens.
To the only place that still felt real.
Aunt May's house.
The creaky porch. The faded wind chime. The potted plants she always forgot to water but never threw away.
She opened the door before I knocked. I must've looked like hell.
"Peter," she breathed. "Come in."
She didn't ask questions right away.
She never did.
Just made me tea. The kind she always brewed when Uncle Ben was still around. Mint and honey. Steam curled around my fingers as I held the mug.
"You look tired," she said softly.
"I am."
She sat down across from me, brushing invisible crumbs off the table. Her hands were smaller than I remembered. Or maybe I was just seeing them clearly for the first time in years.
"I know I'm not your mother," she said. "But I've known that look since you were five."
"What look?"
"The one you wear when you're carrying something too heavy and pretending it's not crushing you."
I smiled. It didn't reach my eyes.
"I'm scared, May."
She reached out, gently covered my hand with hers.
"I know, sweetheart."
For a second—I almost told her everything. The spider. The suit. Norman. The black tendrils under my skin that pulsed like veins when I wasn't looking.
But I didn't.
Not yet.
Instead I asked, "Do you think people can change?"
Her answer came instantly. "Yes. But not always for the better."
"What if they don't want to change?"
"Then sometimes… life makes the choice for them."
I left not long after.
She hugged me like she knew I wouldn't come back for a while.
Maybe she did.
Maybe she always knew.
Back in the city, Oscorp was quiet.
Too quiet.
MJ had traced Norman's last known location to a blacksite beneath the East River—a sealed tramway system never finished, hidden from public records. Half-built tunnels, generators, labs that were never supposed to see daylight.
And he was there.
Preparing something.
We found the blueprints.
A dispersal chamber. Not for a weapon. For the symbiote.
He wasn't trying to control it anymore.
He was trying to release it.
City-wide.
"Peter, this isn't a lab experiment," MJ said, scanning the schematic. "This is a mass infection. He's going to bond that thing to everyone."
"Why?" I asked. "Why spread it?"
"Because he thinks it's an evolution. And maybe… maybe it is."
She didn't mean it, but the words landed hard.
I clenched my jaw. My reflection caught in the dark monitor screen—eyes sharper, darker. My posture more rigid. I could feel the tension rising in my chest, and just beneath it… power.
Not the kind that helped people.
The kind that commanded them.
That night, I climbed.
Skyscraper after skyscraper. Let the wind sting my face. Let the cold remind me I was still human.
Somewhere below, Norman was preparing for a reckoning.
But so was I.
I perched on the edge of a building, staring down at the traffic.
And I felt it again.
That whisper.
You're not ready. But I can make you ready.
My fingers dug into the concrete ledge. Cracks spidered out under my grip.
"You're not real," I muttered.
But the voice laughed.
I'm more real than the lie you wear. The one that bleeds every time you think kindness is enough.
I went back to MJ's apartment just before sunrise.
She was awake. She hadn't slept.
A single lamp lit the room.
She looked up at me like she'd been waiting for hours.
"I have to stop him," I said. "Tomorrow. Tonight. I don't know when. But soon."
She nodded.
"And you're not doing it alone."
"I might have to."
"No," she said firmly, standing. "We're in this together."
Something in her eyes told me she wasn't going to let me push her away again.
And something in mine… I think it scared her.
"Peter," she said slowly, "your eyes—are they…?"
I turned away.
"Don't."
"Peter—what's happening to you?"
I didn't answer.
Because I didn't know if I could say it out loud.
If I admitted it, it became real.
We stood there for a long time.
I didn't speak.
But she stepped closer, slowly, as if approaching something fragile and dangerous all at once.
She touched my cheek.
Her voice broke. "Please come back."
I closed my eyes.
"I haven't left yet."
But even as I said it, I could feel the shadows curling under my skin.
Waiting.
Watching.
And in the back of my mind, a single thought twisted like a blade:
Maybe Norman didn't fall.
Maybe he just gave in first.
Maybe Norman didn't fall.
Maybe he just gave in first.
I kept thinking about that as I swung across the city, the cold air biting at my skin through torn fabric, the suit feeling tighter now—not because it didn't fit, but because something else was filling the spaces inside it.
Every time I moved, it felt… easier.
Stronger.
Sharper.
And wrong.
Morning.
A mugging in Hell's Kitchen. I stopped it before anyone got stabbed. Webbed the guy to a lamppost and left before the cops showed up.
They called me a menace anyway.
Two hours later, a warehouse fire in Midtown. Smoke thick like tar. I pulled a family out before the roof collapsed—but the kid in the back room didn't make it.
The mother screamed like the world ended.
I could still hear it when I was five rooftops away.
Afternoon.
I checked in on MJ.
She didn't say much.
She didn't have to.
Her laptop was a war zone—Oscorp financial reports, encrypted emails, whistleblower threats, contacts from anonymous burner phones. She was building something dangerous. A story that could tear everything wide open.
She looked up at me, eyes red from lack of sleep, but voice steady.
"I'm going to publish it."
"MJ…"
"Not in the Bugle," she said. "Not under Jameson's name. I'll do it myself if I have to."
"Why?" I asked. "Why keep pushing? You don't owe anyone this."
She didn't answer right away. Then—quietly:
"Because I don't want to just be the girl next to the hero. I want to be something. I want to shine a light on the rot."
She met my eyes.
"I want to matter."
I wanted to tell her she already did. That she was the only thing still keeping me tethered to the side of myself that felt human.
But all I said was, "Be careful."
And when I turned to leave, I heard her whisper behind me:
"You should tell me what's happening to you."
But I didn't.
Not yet.
Evening.
I visited Aunt May again.
She smiled when she saw me, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"I worry about you, Peter."
"I know."
"I dream about Ben some nights. He always looks disappointed."
I swallowed hard.
"Me too."
She touched my hand.
"Don't let this world make you forget who you are."
The worst part was—I didn't think I had.
I still was me.
Wasn't I?
Night.
Back on the streets.
The crimes kept coming. Small ones. Big ones. All blending together like smog in my lungs.
And all I could think about was Uncle Ben. How I hadn't been fast enough that night. How Harry looked at me the last time we spoke. How I was supposed to save people.
But I kept losing the ones closest to me.
The weight of the city was too heavy for one week's worth of a hero.
My hands shook as I clung to a gargoyle above 42nd.
What kind of Spider-Man couldn't even protect his own?
Later, I found a quiet rooftop and just… sat there. Staring at my gloves.
The black was spreading.
Not just in the suit—but under it.
Veins darker. Fingers twitching. A low pulse in my ears, beating like a second heart.
Let me in, the voice whispered. Let me help.
I slammed my fist into the stone beside me. It cracked.
No.
Not yet.
I didn't notice MJ until she was standing behind me.
"Peter."
I didn't turn.
"You followed me?"
"No. I knew you'd be here."
Of course she did.
She sat beside me, her legs swinging over the edge.
"Do you remember freshman year?" she asked. "You were still that shy kid with the camera. I was trying to be cool—horribly failing. You dropped your books in the hall and turned bright red."
I laughed once, quietly. "Yeah."
"You picked them up and said, 'I'm fine. This happens often.' Then tripped over your own foot."
We sat in silence for a while, watching the traffic lights blink below.
Then she added, "I liked you even then."
My throat tightened.
"I don't know what I'm becoming," I whispered. "I think something's inside me. Something that isn't mine."
She didn't flinch.
"You think it makes you less human?"
I nodded.
She reached out, took my hand.
"It makes you scared. And angry. And tired. That's human."
"I almost let it in," I said. "I want to. It's easy. I don't feel pain when it takes over. I don't feel guilt. Or fear. Just power."
"But you're fighting it," she said. "Even now. That's the part that matters."
I looked at her.
Really looked.
And I realized something.
I was in love with her.
Not just because she believed in me.
But because she saw the broken parts and stayed anyway.
I didn't say it out loud.
Not yet.
But I think she knew.
We watched the sunrise together.
For a moment, I believed things could still turn out right.
Then the alert came through.
Oscorp servers. A final broadcast from a hidden lab.
MJ pulled it up.
Norman Osborn appeared on the screen, eyes completely black now. Skin rippling with something alive beneath.
"My name is Norman Osborn," he said, voice inhuman and glitched, "and I have seen the truth."
He smiled. It wasn't a smile at all.
"New York will be remade. All of you—stronger. Unified. One mind. One purpose. One evolution."
The screen cut to black.
Below it, a timer began to tick.
Twelve hours.
That's all we had.