"Stephen Strange gulped, meeting Schiller's gray eyes. He didn't dare refuse; anyone with half a brain could tell Schiller wasn't ordinary.
Strange was shoved into the car, but he still said, "I'll tell you this first: I'm a doctor, not God. If your friend is already dead, no amount of threats will make me resurrect him."
Schiller drove without a change in expression. "We're both doctors. I know that better than you. I came to you because I'm certain you can save him."
Strange exhaled, then frowned, refusing to back down. "You're just a psychiatrist. When it comes to neurosurgery, don't be so quick to make pronouncements."
He didn't finish before a ballpoint pen tapped against his forehead. Both of Schiller's hands were on the wheel; the pen simply hovered there in midair. Strange mimed zipping his lips and said nothing more.
Meanwhile, wracked by guilt and self-reproach, the kid in the hoodie stood guard at the OR doors. Peter didn't even want a fly getting past him.
Which was exactly when Matt's ex, Elektra, slipped up to the operating room.
She wasn't here to kill Matt—quite the opposite. She'd learned of the plan earlier than Peter had and had been trying to warn Matt, but he'd moved too fast; she'd only arrived after the hit.
Her feelings for Matt were complicated—classmates, lovers, then a breakup over irreconcilable differences. She'd taken Kingpin's contract, but had held back at every turn; she'd never meant to kill him. Yet while she hesitated, someone else's ambush had nearly finished him. How could she not be frantic?
Elektra had means and experience. She could tell Matt's injuries were catastrophic—beyond saving without help from the occult. If he were to live, she'd have to act. Perhaps only the Beast's power could pull him back.
Cloaking herself in a ninja's concealment, she drifted toward the OR. The high-schooler out front barely registered to her. She'd watched him for days: a kid with no training, no real technique. She meant to slip past him.
Unfortunately for her, Peter's spider-sense was screaming. He was strung tight as wire; his precognition was sharper than ever. The instant she neared, he snapped his head toward the empty corner and threw a punch straight into "nothing."
Elektra knew his strength wasn't normal and didn't dare meet it head-on. But Peter's form was riddled with openings—no training, upper body pitching forward, feet not set, center of gravity floating. Elektra snared his wrist, gave a sharp tug, and dumped him forward off balance.
A quick hook with her foot, and he hit the floor. But stress can sharpen instinct; Peter bounced the instant he landed and clamped both arms around Elektra's waist from behind.
She was desperate, too. Tempers flared. But she was a Hand-trained assassin. Even as he grabbed her, her other hand slashed back with the short blade.
The wind-edged knife carved from Peter's shoulder down to the last rib, nearly taking off half his back.
A wave of blinding pain swallowed him whole. It tore a raw scream from somewhere in his spine and blew the limiter off his strength. Peter heaved—Elektra flew, slammed into the far wall, and slid down, stunned and bleeding, unable to rise for several seconds.
Peter collapsed, shaking. The cut hadn't just opened flesh; the blade's ki-edge had nicked his lung. Every breath dragged blood up his throat.
It was the worst pain he'd ever known. His back felt flayed; the air itself burned. Tears sprang unbidden as he choked on a ragged groan.
He realized, viscerally, that heroes bleed.
And when heroes are hurt, it hurts like hell. Special powers don't make you immune to pain.
His healing kicked in, staunching the worst of it in a few breaths. Through the frosted glass, he could make out the silhouette on the table: Daredevil, turned slightly to one side, eyes open—conscious, but unable to move.
Matt had no self-healing. He was dying.
A blind man with only skill to his name, now with a shattered spine. He had to be in agony—worse than Peter—yet not a sound came out.
Terror and despair surged, followed by a hot flood of shame. An ordinary man with no powers had fought the underground rings and saved him—and when Peter overheard murder being plotted, he'd walked away, thinking it wasn't his business. Now a real hero was paying the price, maybe with his life.
Matt was the hero. Peter wasn't.
The thought detonated inside him. His spider-sense thrummed, his powers spiking to the limit. The world seemed to snap into a different focus.
Elektra vanished—techniques engaged. Peter's eyes, bright with red-rimmed fury, locked onto her position anyway.
The clumsy boy from seconds earlier simply wasn't there. A gust—then a brutal impact buried Elektra in plaster. She spat blood and, using the last of her strength, slipped away into invisibility.
When Schiller returned to the hospital, he found Peter sitting beneath a spider-web of cracked drywall, eyes blazing and hollow.
Strange disappeared into the OR. Night had fallen completely. Schiller stood facing Spider-Man.
"Peter. I didn't expect our first meeting to be like this," Schiller said.
Peter blinked, slow to process. He didn't understand.
Schiller crouched to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for that physical. As you can see, I no longer work at that hospital."
Peter's mind cleared by degrees. "It's you. You're that doctor."
"The one who chatted with you online," Schiller nodded. "Yes."
Peter looked down. "I must've really disappointed you. I'm nowhere near the kid I pretended to be in our chats. I've made a mess of everything. I nearly got my friend killed."
"I think you've understood a few things," Schiller said evenly.
"Yes… Yes." Peter's voice was hoarse. "The biggest lesson is that getting hurt really, really hurts."
"And yet he still chooses to do it," Peter whispered. "He's a hero. I'm not. Maybe I never will be."
Schiller's tone stayed calm—no judgment, only still water. "Perhaps you've realized this: if those with power never step in to save others, then no one will ever come to save you."
"You think your life is bad—but even this 'bad' life stands on the backs of people willing to pay a price for you."
"Even the life of a vagrant in that alley is only possible because someone like Daredevil cleared the thugs off that block."
"Peter," Schiller said quietly, "this line shouldn't have to come from me. But right now I'm the only one who can say it for him."
"With great power comes great responsibility."
Spider-Man closed his eyes.
Just before dawn—the darkest hour—Strange pulled off his gloves and stepped out of the OR. "Congratulations. The surgery went well. There's about an eighty percent chance his nerves will fully recover."
Peter let out a roar, a sound dragged from the bottom of his lungs. He vaulted through a window, scuttled up the façade, and launched into the skyline, racing over New York's rooftops.
The gold-and-red armor swung into view, circling as if to guide him. Peter followed the arc of the suit all the way to the top of the broadcast tower.
They stood on the highest steel of the city.
Peter tried to scream, but no sound came. The storm in his chest had nowhere to go; it was driving him mad.
The helmet lifted. Peter stared. "You're—Stark. Iron Man is Tony Stark!"
"That shouldn't surprise you, kid. Who besides Stark could build a suit like this?" Stark said.
"But the news said you were kidnapped—dragged off to Afghanistan."
"I was," Stark said. "Want to know how I walked out?"
Peter looked at him.
"I built a power core and stuck it here." Stark tapped his chest. "There's still a reactor in there now."
"In a cave in Afghanistan, I cut open my own chest and jammed a piece of metal inside. There was enough blood to soak my pants."
Peter winced just imagining it. "That must've hurt like hell."
"Oh, it did." Stark tried to keep it light, but Peter heard the tremor under the words; the memory wasn't one he liked to touch.
"You take a not-so-sharp bone saw to your sternum and stitch wires through your own meat."
A chill ran down Peter's back.
He'd never imagined the tabloid playboy, the billionaire whose life seemed effortless, had bled like that—had endured pain most people would never survive.
"I like to call myself a genius," Stark said, "but I'm very clear-eyed. One bullet and I bleed. Shrapnel in my heart, I die. Lose a leg, I don't walk."
"And I still do a lot of things with those risks baked in. Am I thrill-seeking?" He shook his head.
"I'm the richest man on the planet and have power most people will never touch. I have absolutely no need to climb into an insanely expensive suit and risk my life for people who couldn't afford a single bolt on it. But I do."
Spider-Man was quiet a long moment. Then, softly: "…Great power, great responsibility. Right?"
Stark didn't answer. He simply tapped his chest again.
Peter understood. His own answer was already there, beating behind his ribs.
They watched the first blade of gold split the clouds and pour over the city, gilding steel and glass.
From this day on, Peter Parker—Spider-Man—understood:
Heroes are human. They ache. They bleed. They get lost and lonely. The only thing that separates them from the crowd below is a responsibility others won't shoulder and a resolve that doesn't break.
No one is born able to endure that kind of pain. In the dark, they harden their hurt into armor. When the light returns, they lift that battered frame—and use it to save the world.
Spider-Man stood up on the tower's lattice. He wasn't in a suit. He wasn't taller or stronger than yesterday. But his spirit straightened; the torrent in his chest turned to strength, spilling from the wound across every limb.
He faced the first light.
Dawn had come.
It was time to save the world."