01x01 Peter Parker: Origins

It was a typical afternoon in Queens. The day was pleasant but for a sunny 4 PM afternoon, the playground in Ingram Street was awfully quiet. Quiet, except, for a slight sobbing noise;

"W-why are you being so mean?" Asked the boy, eyes tear-filled. His voice was squeaky. The lump in his throat was hard to swallow. "Y-you're making him c-cry, Flash!"

This boy; Peter Parker, 4 years old, lived only a few blocks away from there. His messy hair and sharp eyes were the same colour of brown, and together with his pale skin he looked like an average boy. He was wearing a red t-shirt paired with black shorts and his rather famous red sneakers, and his black-framed prescription glasses further highlighted his watery eyes. The boy stood protectively in front of "him", another boy who was crying with his hand on his arm, probably hurt. Even though the attempt was to protect the crying kid, he trembled with fear, grabbing tightly the hem of his shirt while staring at the other boy in front of him.

"If y-you continue hurting him…" He says raising his closed fists and spreading his feet, as if expecting a fight. "I...I'm going to stop you!"

That boy in front of him; Eugene 'Flash' Thompson, stopped for a moment, followed suit by the two "henchmen" behind him. Peter was facing this 'mob' in an almost useless act of bravery.

Flash was also 4 years old and lived a little further away, but close enough for him to come to this playground. He had spiky blond hair, gray eyes and fair skin. He wore a combination of a dark blue T-shirt, black shorts and yellow sneakers.

He quickly composed himself, smiling sarcastically as if he found the boy's action in front of him funny.

"Hehe...You want to pretend to be a hero?" He asks with a mischievous smile. Both his goons activated their abilities; one grew wings and lifted off the ground, while the other increased the size of his fingers. Flash on the other hand, smacked his closed right fist on the left palm, and with the contact, activated his own quirk; realising a black slime, which quickly rises up his arm and wrapped around his entire right arm, making them bigger and with claws at the fingertips "You don't have a chance without a quirk, 'Wall-Crawler'!"

It was the mean nickname he had given to Peter, which was threatening enough for him to take a step back; while the bully and his cronies pounced on him and gave him a beating.

Shortly after, the boy was lying on the ground, about to pass out, full of scratches and other injuries…

"Here is the sad truth; all men are not created equal. When I was four years old, I learned that some kids had more power than others…"

"...But that won't hold me back!"

The sky is as clear as it was on that fateful day at the playground ten years ago; the only difference being that it's a morning. A boy runs along the sidewalks of Seventh Avenue, anxious to reach his destination, a fight between heroes and a villain near a metro bridge. He wore the black uniform of his school, along with his famous red shoes. The boy? Peter Parker; now fourteen, but he hadn't changed that much. He had the same messy brown hair. Although he was much taller and a little slimmer now. An animated smile dominated his face and his yellow backpack stood out like a sore thumb, though he didn't seem to mind it.

"...If anything, it pushes me to do better!"

The boy then arrives at his destination; a subway walkway that wasn't working at that time. Reason? A villain causing chaos and destruction. He seemed to have a quirk to increase his size; as at the moment, he was at least six meters high, and howled like an agitated beast.

"Wow! That's one huge supervillain!" The boy says, excitement filled in his voice

"The first incident was in Qingqing City, China; an extraordinary child was born, who radiated light. After that, reports of people with superpowers popped up across the globe, no one knew what was causing these quirks. And before long, the supernatural became the new normal, dreams became reality. The world became a superhuman society, with about 80% of the population possessing some uncanny ability. Our streets looked like scenes from comic-books, when the city swirled with chaos and confusion, a new profession dominated our collective consciousness."

The villain, screaming and howling, quickly turns around, knocking off an electric pole, causing it to break and start to plummet down the street below...

"...it was an age of heroes!"

Running towards the falling pole, a man over two meters tall, with gigantic muscles and completely covered in orange stones, like an extra skin, and wearing the recognizable blue shorts with a "4" on his waist. He stops right under the falling pole; and raising his arms, he stops the gigantic piece of metal and electrical wires before it comes in contact with the ground, using his enormous strength to support its weight.

"Oh, nice! Way to go, The Thing!" speaks a surprised pedestrian, congratulating the hero.

"A quirk that gives super strength and resistance! I want it too." speaks another.

Then, the police and pedestrians are surprised with an arm being stretched for several meters in front of them, creating a kind of chain of separation from the action and they perceive another member of the well-known group of heroes, "The Fantastic Four". He was a man with dark brown hair and beard, and had a recognizable streak of white hair on the side of his head. He wore a blue uniform with black boots, gloves and belt and had the symbol "4" on the chest of the uniform;

"Everyone, please stay back. This area is far too dangerous!" Says the same guy with his back to the people, focusing on the action in front of him, prepared for anything.

"Wow! It's the leader of the Fantastic Four, Mr. Fantastic!" Says another pedestrian recognizing the hero.

"This guy must be pretty desperate to go full monster in the middle of the city…" Comments a man near Peter, as if it were just another Friday morning event. "Do you know what happened?" The man asked another guy near him.

"Just some amateur villain. Stole someone's bag and then got himself cornered." The man responds indifferently, while Peter behind them tried to see the action better, the boy then gives up and goes to plan B, starting to sneak through the crowd to get to the front

At this point, two other heroes entered the scene; a larger one, with the appearance of a biped tree, was very tall, his entire body seemed to be composed of wood. Extending his legs, he jumped and reached the catwalk. He seemed to be accompanied with another creature on his back, this time much smaller, it looked like an animal; probably a raccoon, but he wore a dark blue vest and carried a kind of cannon almost his size. The inseparable duo, Rocket and Groot.

The boy, Peter, then manages to reach the limit imposed by Mr. Fantastic's outstretched arm, and looks up to see the two heroes of the Guardians of the Galaxy enter the action.

"Oh, this is gonna be good!" Says the excited brunette adjusting his glasses "It's Groot and Rocket, from the Guardians of the Galaxy, they returned to Earth a few months ago and are proving to be very effective here too!" The boy says excited more to himself than to others, even speaking aloud, but even so he was heard.

"He, just looking at that dopey grin and I know what you're-" The man next to Peter says having fun with the boy's animation, pointing and talking to him "-a fanboy!"

"Ah... sort of." Answer the boy a little embarrassed.

"Come on Groot! Let's show this big guy who he is messing with!!!" The raccoon says to his companion while firing his gun at the giant and holding on to his friend. The giant protected himself from the shots, but when he realized that he could take them for now, he tried to crush Groot, but the hero was quicker, increasing the size of his legs to jump better and positioned himself in a higher position, on top of one of the subway beams.

"I am Groot!" The hero says quickly looking back facing his partner while putting himself in a fighting position.

"Seriously that you want to discuss this right now!?" The raccoon asks impatiently as he changes the magazine.

"I am Groot!" He said like he's getting impatient too.

"All right, all right! We are going to make his admission! Happy now!?" Rocket says trying to end the discussion as soon as possible, getting a smile from his companion who dodged an attack by the villain.

"Oi! Racoon, can't you accelerate things a little bit?" The Thing asked as he slowly lowered the pole, not wanting to wreak havoc.

"DON'T CALL ME A RACOON!!!" Rocket screams nervously, but quickly turns to his partner. "Alright bud, time to show that new move we've been practising."

"I AM GROOT!!!" The humanoid tree then makes his arms grow quickly, causing him to split into branches and more branches, as if preparing to trap the huge villain at once.

"There it is! Their new special move…" Peter says animated, pointing to the duo.

"That's right tree man, show him what you got!" The man next to the boy also seemed to enter the boy's wave of animation.

And it is at the moment that the branches of Groot's arm begin to increase and move towards the villain, who instinctively protects himself with his arms. Then another voice is heard approaching.

"Coming through!!!" A man with a similar size to the villain appears in the middle of the scene, kicking the villain by skidding, breaking Groot's planned attack and sending the villain back, causing him to fall to the ground passed out by the impact, everyone was amazed by the hero's meddling.

Several people then started taking pictures of the new hero; he looked familiar, wearing black and red leather, with a silver helmet with a respirator, small antennae and red eyes, he then turns to the pedestrians waving while removing his helmet, showing himself to be a different man than everyone else thought, it was not Hank Pym.

"Sup guys! I am Scott, Scott Lang, the new Ant-Man." He says opening the front of the helmet, showing his face much more youthful than that of old Pym. While decreasing in size to a normal human height.

"Wait a minute! This a**hole is taking all the credit?" Rocket sulks and looks irritated.

"I am Groot." His friend consoles him, returning his arms to normal size and coming down from the catwalk.

"With the rise of superpowers, came an explosive increase in criminal activity. While governments were stuck trying to figure out how to reform laws with quirks in mind, courageous people started performing heroic acts to keep our cities safe. Protecting us against villains who abuse their powers for evil. With overwhelming public support, heroes found an official place as the peacekeeper of society, overseen by the government. Those who perform the best were paid the most and got all the fame and glory, their careers depended on their ability to stay in the spotlight."

"Hmmmm, 'Body Size Change'. He really seems to have the necessary charisma and attitude to be a favorite of the public, and his individuality is really striking, but it will be a little difficult to get rid of the problems with the size because of the damage it can cause, Hank Pym had a lot of difficulty with this in the first months of acting, but even so…" Peter starts babbling to himself about the new hero, looking at the crater caused by the villain's fall, while making notes in his notebook about it.

"What is that fan boy?" The same man from before asks him "Are you taking notes over there, you want to be a hero too, hmm?"

"Yes! More than anything!" The boy turns to the man smiling, happy for his dream and determined to run after him

A little far from all this morning mess, in a dark room, a petulant spider scales the walls, after having fled the last experiment by pretending to be dead and being discarded by the intern, she managed to get out of the trash and now wandered the corridors of that huge place; until it feels a presence approaching, frightened, the same scale the first thing it saw, hiding in a dark space of what it had climbed, which in this case was the pocket of a coat. That presence then enters the room;

"Yes, yes, send it to him yes...no...I need to sign this right? Okay, look, I'm going to run now and after lunch we talk, can it be?...oh, no?...really?...LO ... TH ... SI ... IS ... AILIN ... and oops, I hung up …" The presence itself was a man who seemed to speak to himself, he then takes the coat in which the little spider is hidden, puts it on and leaves the room.

"So, as third year students it is time to start thinking seriously about your futures and what you want to do with your lifes." The science teacher, Curt Connors said to his 'Stuyvesant Middle School' pre-teen class. "I could pass out some aptitude tests but...why bother? I know you all want to go to the hero track!"

He ends up throwing such career tests in the air, while all the students, now riled up, showed their respective Quirks; some releasing fire, changing the size of their necks, others turning to stone and others ... removing the eyes from their skull? Even a shy boy sitting almost at the back of the room raises his hand in shame, also wanting to enter the heroes's course, but different from the others, having no individuality to show;

"Yes, you all have some impressive quirks, but no power usage in school grounds, get a hold of yourselves!" The teacher says trying to calm the room.

"Hey teach, don't let me in with this bunch of losers, I am the real deal. These guys will be lucky to end up as sidekicks to some busted 'D' lister, hehe!" Declared Eugene, or Flash, the boy continued with his superiority personality, and for some reason, he really was the best in the class. He had grown a lot in those years, the biggest difference was that his spiky hair was now black, no longer blond, and it was something that no one could explain; if he had painted it or was it a side effect of his quirk, either way he didn't care to explain why.

"YOU THINK YOU ARE BETTER THAN US FLASH!!!?" The class reacts complaining to the boy, even though they were already used to his way.

"Let's go, I take you all on!!!" He responds to his colleagues as if making fun of their faces

"Hmm, you've got impressive test results." says the teacher checking a paper on his desk

"Maybe you will get into M.A. High."

"He's gonna try for the international school!?" Questioned one of his colleagues.

"That school has a 0.2% acceptance rate." Comment another one.

"It's impossible to get into." Another commented as a certain nearsighted brunette started to cringe, as if he knew what was going to happen.

"That's exactly why it's the only place worth it for me!" Flash says jumping from his chair and standing at the table."I aced off the mock test! I'm the only one in this school who stands a chance of getting in! I will end up more popular than Iron-Man himself and be the richest hero of all time! People all across the world will know who I am, and it all starts with M.A High!!!"

"Oh yeah, Parker, don't you wanna go to M.A too?" The teacher asks calmly while the boy shrinks even more in shame and Flash stops, astonished by the news. All students turn their attention to the boy. For mere seconds, everyone stared at the poor boy without even blinking, until they all burst out laughing, laughing at the poor boy, who was extremely embarrassed and just wanted to hide somewhere. The only one who didn't laugh was Flash, who just remained motionless and with a sour face…

"Parker, you're kidding right? There's no way you are getting into the hero course without a quirk." Slyly comments, a fellow colleague.

"Well…actually they got rid of that rule." he says getting up from his seat to try to argue while shyly adjusting his glasses."I can be the first one…"

"Grrrrrrrr" When the boy least expected, Flash came towards him, with his arm completely covered with the black goo, he hit Peter's desk, breaking it and causing the boy to fall backwards near the wall at the back of the classroom "Listen up Wall-Crawler! You are even worse than the rest of this damn rejects, you quirkless wannabe! You really think they would let someone like you in if they can have me!?"

"Ah, no wait, you got it all wrong!" The boy says scared raising his arms and sneaking closer to the back wall "Really, I am not trying to compete against you, you got to believe me!...It's just that...I wanted to be a hero since I was little, I may not have a quirk, but I can still try my hardest, can't I?"

"You'll never be able to hang with the best of the best, you'll die in the exam!!!" Flash threatens him, spreading his arms and making the goo spread and creating spikes on his shoulders. "Defenseless Peter! This school is already crappy, you really want to embarrass it more by failing so hard!?"

A little away from school, another villain tormented the early afternoon, and this time, much more dangerous than the jumbled giant in the morning; Carnage. The psycho red monster ran through the streets after robbing a department store. With money stuck to his back, he moved insanely fast, using his speed and shape changing ability to jump and run much faster. But what he didn't expect was a man who calmly took his walk after lunch, and had just seen the villain passing by, decided to act; checking that no one was watching him.

"Friday, can you activate the armor? I feel like I'm going to be late for the meeting." The man asks the artificial intelligence in his glasses and it does what he asked; quickly, tiny robots start to move and cover his body forming a kind of red and gold ultra technological armor. He starts to float due to the repulsors in the boots and the palms of the hands. Quickly putting himself in flight position, he fires in the direction of the path the villain had taken, drawing the attention of some people close to him.

The little spider that hid there, is quickly taken by surprise by the change of terrain, and starts looking for a new place to hide in the new environment, deciding to sneak between the joints of the armor, amid the circuits. Besides having to grip better after shooting at high speed.

The final bell rang, all kids then started to pack up and leave; some agreeing to have lunch together, or going out and others simply wanting to go home to sleep. One boy in particular was the last to leave, as he finished putting his notebooks in his backpack, watching the news of the day about the event that morning.

"Man, that fighting from this morning is all over the news…" He says by sliding his phone screen and seeing all the headlines from different news sites. "Better write some notes down before I forget anything."

But before the boy could put his 'Notebook #13' in his backpack, it was taken out of his hands by Flash;

"I don't know what you think you're doing 'Wall-Crawler'-" He says with an air of disgust. "-but we aren't done yet."

"What you got? His diary?" One of Flash's 'henchmen' asks after the boy and he raises his notebook to show him the cover.

"Ah? Don't tell me you are taking notes on how to be a hero." The second henchman says kinda disappointed when reading the cover of the notebook; 'Analysis of Heroes for the Future; No. 13'.

"That's so pathetic!." The first henchman mocks and starts laughing.

"He is delusional!" Comments the other.

"Hehehe...real funny guys." says Peter, trying to escape from that situation. "Just give it back…"

And when he says that, Flash activates his power, making the black goo cover the hand that held the notebook, increasing it in size and crumpling the little booklet.

"AH!" Peter is startled by the boy's action "That's so mean…" and in the face of that commentary, Flash throws the diary out the window, in the exact location where he knew, a water source was supposed to be.

"Hm…most first-string heroes show potential early on." He speaks in a monotonous way as if he didn't care about what he had just done. "People look at them and just know they are destined for greatness. When I am the only student in this garbage Junior High to get into M.A, people will start talking about me like that. They'll realize I'm legit, the next big thing. And this ain't ego talking, I just know I'm good…"

"Definitely no ego here…" Mocks one of the henchmen, in low voice though.

"Here's a little word of advice nerd." Flash puts his hand on Peter's shoulder and activates his ability, making claws grow from his fingers by the goo and squeezing him lightly. The boy felt the claws present pierce his uniform; like fake affection sugar-coating the true rashness. "Don't even think of applying, or else…" The boy then stands still, not knowing how to respond, frozen from fear of what might happen to him.

With that as an answer, Flash lets go of the boy and leaves the room next to his henchmen, while the boy Parker remains static, paralyzed...

"That's just sad, I thought he would have at least some fight in him…" Comments one of the henchmen.

"He finally gets it, he will never be a hero. Better to find it now instead of later I guess…" Comments the second one.

"You know, if you really want to be a hero that badly, that actually might be another way…" Says Flash stopping at the door before leaving. "...just pray that you will be born with a quirk in your next life! And take a swan dive of the roof of the building! Hehehe." He says spitefully and leaves the room being followed by his 'disciples'.

Peter still measured the weight of those words and what they meant to him, and he hardly noticed the professor coming up to him and putting a hand on his shoulder, this time showing some degree of affection.

"I know it's hard…" Professor Connors says staring at the floor as if he doesn't know exactly what to say. "...but, if the hero course doesn't work out…I would be more than happy to write some recommendation letters for you, to some colleges I know." He says smiling to the boy.

"Thank you, Mr. Connors…" The boy thanks weakly and starts to walk away to grab his backpack and leave.

Walking towards the tunnel that was a shortcut to his uncle's house, Peter still brooded on the words spoken by the dark haired boy Eugene. "...that idiot, you can't go around telling people to kill themselves ... and if I really jumped, what would you do then, huh?" The boy then stops by the water fountain and observes his notebook that had been thrown from the window, floating on the surface, and trying to be eaten by the carp that lived there; "...my dreams have turned into fish food…" "That's enough, give it back!" The brunette says to the fish while he takes his notebook out of the water, at least he managed to threaten them, internally wishing to have that kind of attitude in other situations… "Stupid...jerk…" The boy says seeing his vision start to blur, with tears forming and filling his eyes with water and his heart with sadness...

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"Aunt May, Aunt May!!! Come on, it's computer time!!!" Little Peter at the age of four jumped after his aunt who did the dishes from lunch

"Ben, dear, can you put that video for him?" she says turning to her husband who worked on his laptop in the living room.

"Sure!" The saying whose Ben says getting up and going towards the boy, grabbing his arms and leading him to his room, which was full of posters and action figures of a single armored hero and placing him sitting in front of the computer while typing the one internet video. "Jeez, I think you got it ten thousand views to this one yourself Peter. But I understand, I would like it too if I was your age…"

"The video I loved was an old one. A disaster footage from a long time ago, but more importantly it was the day the debut of the greatest hero the world has ever known..."

In the recording, you could see a building in ruins, some part still standing, but slowly collapsing, fires and huge amounts of smoke could be observed, the recording was a little bad quality, probably had been recorded from a cell phone.

"Who is he?" The man recording asks. "The guy already saved a hundred people at least, and it hasn't been ten minutes...th-this is crazy! I can't believe it!"

The camera then turns to a specific point, and zooms in, where it is possible to see movement from the rubble. A machine, a red and gold robot, came out from behind a fallen bus, with light blue lights contrasting with the darkness and the fire, it floated through jets in its boots and carried three, four people unconscious in each arm. He lands in front of the camera guy and gently leaves people unconscious on the floor, where doctors who catch them quickly enter the scene

"The hospital is a long way from here, take these people to the Stark industries, there are the best doctors and nurses to attend to them." The robot says as he opens the helmet visor, revealing the person behind the armor; a man, who looked like early middle age, with dark brown hair and a goatee of the same color.

"Who are you!?" Asks the man, recording the video. The hero turns to the camera and smiles, as if talking to a reporter on a red carpet.

"Tony Stark; genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." he said winking at the camera and turning around to return to action.

"But what about your hero name!?" The man insists.

"I am… Iron-Man!" He says closing the visor and flying towards the rubble again to provide more help.

"HE IS THE COOLEST IN THE UNIVERSE!!!" says happy Peter as he raises his Iron-Man's action figure. "AND WHEN I GET MY QUIRK I AM GONNA BE A HERO JUST LIKE HIM! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"Sorry kid, that's not gonna happen." said the doctor lazily to little Peter. The boy drops his action figure...

"Oh dear, so you really think that is something wrong then?" The boy's aunt, May, asks the doctor while keeping one hand on the boy's back and his other hand intertwined with the husband's Ben. "Most of the other kindergarteners in his class have begun to show signs already…"

"My record says that both of you are fourth generation quirk users." The doctor says referring to the boy's uncles. "What quirks do you and the boy's parents have?"

"Well, nothing special, me and my sister can float small objects towards us and…"

"His father had microscopic vision and I am quirkless…" The boy's uncle admits and immediately rubs his hand over his face. "This is all my fault…"

"Honey…"

"Well, in that case, Peter should already have shown signs of one of the parent's quirks, or a combination of both…" The doctor says. "But after analysing his x-ray, I don't think it will happen... You see, when superpowers started to show up, lots of research was conducted and lots of doctors perceived the correlation between the bones in someone's foot and their possibility to develop a quirk. People with powers have just one joint in their pinkies, their bodies evolved to a more direct version of the human body. You can see here that Peter has two joints in his pinkies, as well as more or less 20% of the world population nowadays" The doctor says pointing to the x-ray of the boy's feet. "Based on existing research, it's safe to say that your nephew most probably won't develop a quirk."

Back at home, little Peter was still in his room, re-watching the Iron Man video; his uncle and aunt were standing at the door, sad to have given hope to the boy to become a hero and then having his dreams crushed...

"You guys saw that, Aunt May? Uncle Ben?" The same boy questions weakly without looking away from the computer screen. "He is always smiling behind the mask, it doesn't matter how bad the situation…even if it looks impossible, he never gives up…" He then turns to his uncles in the chair, his eyes and face, soaked with tears, his nose running and his glasses fogged. Even so, he had a weak smile, trembling, and pointing to the video. "You think… that I can be a hero too?"

"Oh, Peter…" His aunt approaches the nephew with tears in her eyes and her throat tightened, she hugs the boy, and starts to cry too; his uncle soon joins suits, hugging both of them and stroking the boy's brown strands lovingly. "I wish things were different…"

"I'm sorry Peter…" His uncle says weakly, believing that the whole situation was his fault.

"Aunt May, Uncle Ben… that wasn't what I needed you guys to say...you didn't see, my world was falling apart...there was only one thing I wanted to hear..."

"I made a decision that day… It doesn't matter what others would say, I have to believe in myself, and I will keep smiling, just like him!"

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The boy thinks determinedly as he starts to walk into the tunnel, a shortcut to his uncles' house, with his notebook in hand. He puts it close to his chest and starts walking, forcing a heartfelt smile just like that of Iron Man.

However, suddenly, he heard a movement coming from the tunnel culvert, turning back to see what it was, the boy hung in horror. Leaving the sewer through the manhole, a red and black goo begins to take on a humanoid shape; two huge white eyes and a mouth with several pointed teeth and a huge and horrendous tongue, arms with sharp claws protruding from the amorphous form, while he rose from the manhole;

"Well well well, if isn't the perfect host for me to hide from the heroes…" The villain Carnage says staring at the paralyzed boy in front of him while licking what had to be his lips.

And in a terrifyingly swift motion, he jumps towards the boy, trying to get a hold of his body. He sticks to the boy's chest and starts to climb towards his airways. A panicking Peter starts struggling and trying to remove that demonic sludge, but in vain. It reaches his nose and mouth;

"Give up boy, it will only hurt for a few moments. Struggling won't do you any good…"

Peter loses the ability to breathe, the air no longer enters his lungs and his eyes start to fill with tears. His chest starts to burn and his heart starts to beat more slowly as his brain starts to shut down…

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"Will I die?..."

...until his eyes detected a tiny bit of movement across the tunnel.

"So it's here that you came to hide, isn't that right Carnage?" The armored hero says to the villain, who gets startled by his appearance. "Now come on, leave the boy alone!" The hero says trying to sound a little more intimidating.

"Never!"

"Fine. Just don't come crying saying that I didn't warn you…" With this, from the hero's extended forearm comes out a small device glowing blue and with an antenna on the end; the mechanism charges energy for a few seconds until it releases a concentrated sound wave towards the villain and Peter. Carnage tries to extend one of its arms to try to attack the hero, but it is useless.

"NOOOOOO…" With such concentration and its weakness to sounds, Carnage is almost disintegrated by the force exerted and is released from the boy. Peter then manages to breathe again, but his brain is almost shutting down. He notices the red silhouette of his savior just before he completely loses consciousness...

"Hey, kid, kid! Come on now, you don't have to give me trouble. I'll give you $100 if you wake up right now…" Peter opens his eyes and is faced with a very peculiar face when opening his eyes; or rather, a red and gold metallic mask.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" The boy screams and crawls away from his hero.

"Hey, look at that, didn't it work? Kids nowadays are very materialistic." He says in a mocking tone. "But that's fine. The important thing is that you woke up. For a moment it looked like I had lost you. Oh and don't worry, I didn't find any remnants of Carnage in you."

"..." Peter didn't know what to say, in front of him was his favourite superhero, the number one...

"Everything is fine now, I was able to capture Carnage in this vacuum containment chamber." The hero says showing the boy the glass container with metallic foundations and with a recognizable red ooze that was struggling inside

"Oh my God! I need an autograph, I must have a paper somewhere and...ouch!" The boy feels a twinge in the back of his neck and reflexively strikes his hand on the spot feeling something being pressed and falling on his back, a mosquito maybe. "...ah, in that notebook!" He says pointing to his notebook that had dropped when he was attacked, quickly picking it up and turning on the already opened page, he is faced with a red signature 'T. Stark'. "AH! You already signed!"

"If you keep this up for a long time you can make some money." The hero says as he attaches the container to the side of the armor. "I saw a guy selling it on the internet for 500 bucks"

"Thank you! Thank you so much! This will be kept with great care, it will become a family heirloom for generations, the centerpiece of the coffee table in the living room!!!" He blurts out, with a lot of agitation in his voice.

"Chill out boy! Now I have to take this bad boy to the headquarters so we can lock him away for good." The hero says turning his back to Peter. "See ya kid! And don't get into trouble."

"Wait, you're already living?" The boy asks with a bit of disappointment in his voice.

"Of course, fighting against time is one of the other things that we, pro heroes, do" says the same, preparing his thrusters and checking the armor data. "Besides kissing babes and fighting bad guys. You know how it is right? Fridays…"

But Peter couldn't let him go, there were still so many unanswered questions that he wanted to ask, and because of that, in an almost suicidal action, he jumps in the direction of the hero.

"Nice meeting you kid…" Tony says and shoots towards the skies at high speed, but he quickly notices a decrease in speed due to the weight gain, but the container with the Carnage did not weigh so much... "Friday, by chance there was a decrease in efficiency of the armor?"

"No sir" answers the artificial intelligence.

"So why are we so slow?"

"Because of the passenger; Peter Parker, 14 years old, Quirk; S…"

"Wait, what do you mean by passenger!?" He complains and looks at his left leg, on which the boy Parker was, grabbing his armor and screaming at the top of his lungs. "Boy are you insane !? I love my fans, but this is insane! Let go kid!"

"AH!!! I'M FLYING!!! IF I LET IT GO NOW I WILL FALL AND DIE!!!" He screams, barely audible with all the air rushing at his face. "I HAVE QUESTIONS!!! YOU ARE MY IDOL!!! PLEASE!!!"

"Ah, okay, okay, you got a point there, we better land!" The hero says, noticicing the height and starts to look for an empty building to land. He then realizes that his breathing has become a little uneven, and the energy levels of the armor were dropping. "Shit…"

As they both flew through the city, a small spider huddled on the ground, about to kick the bucket. At least she had managed to bite the boy...

"I saw my life passing through my eyes…" He says feeling his mouth dry and his stomach crumbled.

"All right boy, you had your fun; got the ride, the autograph, but now I have to go" The hero says heading towards the edge of the building in order to take flight. "See ya later kid, now for good!"

"Wait, not yet! Give me a second…"

"My seconds are really expensive, and unfortunately I don't have any."

"But I need to know!"

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"Sorry kid, it's not gonna happen...

I am so sorry Peter...

Oh Peter...I wish things were different...

Defenseless Peter! This school is already crappy, you really want to embarrass it more by failing so hard!?"

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"Sometimes I think that I am really a failure...like that there is no hope for me, but even so, I won't give up, never!" He says mostly to himself, remembering everything he believed, and taking the courage, he asks "Is it possible for me to become a hero, even if I don't have a quirk? I'm a normal kid with no powers, can I hope to be someone like you!?"

"Meeting Iron-Man was a dream coming true, a real miracle. In front of me was the hero that I idolized for most part of my life, I didn't realize at the time that the words he would say next, would change my life forever..."

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"But…" Iron Man then says "You DO have a quirk…"

"WHAT!?!?!?"