New York
August 27, 08:57 EDT
Peter swung through the city with none of his usual flair, just point, shoot, and swing, as his mind was too preoccupied with the 800-pound elephant[1] in the room to do anything else.
Telling his family.
The idea of telling them everything still didn't sit right with him, no matter how right Batman seemed to be. It felt like it broke an unwritten law of being a vigilante.
That's not to say he had never considered telling his family about his time spent swinging around the city as a spider-motif costumed vigilante, because he had. More than once. Late at night, lying awake and staring at the ceiling, he'd run through the conversation in his head; how'd he explain it, what he'd leave out, what he'd say to make it sound less than what it actually was.
He knew they would find out eventually. In some way, in some manner, the truth would come out; after all, secrets don't stay buried forever. He'd just always hoped that day was a long, long way off. Preferably, when he no longer lived under their roof, and they couldn't ground him and confiscate his web-shooters.
Of course, he knew it would be better if it came from him rather than if they found out on their own by happenstance; that much was obvious. If one of them saw him on the news at the wrong angle, or if a criminal decided to get clever, or even if he slipped up just once, the truth wouldn't come with context or care. It would come as a shock. As fear. As betrayal.
That being said, in his past life, he had been of the mindset that Peter should have told Aunt May that he was Spider-Man more than once. He had complained to himself on multiple occasions that writers and editors at Marvel never seemed to let Peter actually grow up.
From the outside, it had seemed so simple and obvious: rip the bandage off, tell Aunt May, deal with the fallout. Let her be angry, let her cry, let her worry. It would've been healthier than lying to her face every day. Healthier than juggling excuses and half-truths, and causing unnecessary strain and drama to what otherwise should be a healthy, loving relationship.
Now that he was on the chopping block, living it, he understood why it never happened.
Once his family knew, there would be no going back. No more pretending that coming home late was due to homework or hanging out with friends. No more brushing off suddenly disappearing as the whims of a teenager. Every siren would become a question mark. Every delay and disappearance, a spike of fear. They wouldn't just be worrying about Peter Parker anymore; they'd be worrying about Spider-Man, and the line between the two would disappear forever.
As much as he knew that telling them was the right thing, it sure as hell didn't make it any easier.
The familiar feeling of air rushing past his mask helped steady his mind, the city blurring beneath him as muscle memory took over. Swing by swing, the tight knot in his chest loosened, and his jumbled mind slowed to a calm.
He let go of a web, arced over a building, and landed gracefully on the edge.
For a moment, crouched and still, he looked out at the city, taking it all in.
If he chose not to tell his parents, he may keep his secret from them for a while longer, but then the city would suffer the consequences. Batman would be breathing down his neck every time he put on the suit, every time he swung out into the city to do some good.
Sure, he could evade Batman and continue his vigilantism in the short term, but how long would it be before he chose to move every satellite he owned above New York to watch for his movements? Or worse, how long would it be before Batman decided to call in reinforcements from the real heavy hitters? Confident as he was in his abilities, he did not doubt that Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, or Aquaman could subdue him without so much as breaking a sweat.
The thought of being stuck between a rock and a hard place didn't sit well with him.
Peter let out a long sigh, taking out the bat-shaped device that Batman had given him. He knew that, though the purpose of the device was to contact Batman to let him know he had told his parents, there was no doubt it also served as a tracking device. That way, even if Peter decided not to press the button, Batman would know where Peter lived and find out his identity.
'Nice try, Batman.'
He turned it over in his hands before throwing it in a corner and webbing it to keep it safe from a curious bird.
Peter began turning over the problem in his head again when it happened.
The tingling sensation at the base of his skull came first, followed by the unmistakable crack of gunfire and the sound of glass shattering echoing from a few streets over.
Without hesitation, he vaulted over the ledge, the city rushing up to meet him as he shot a line and swung toward the sound. Whatever thoughts had been clogging his mind were shoved aside, replaced by the drive that always came when someone was in danger.
He landed near a bodega, its front window shattered.
Two men were in the middle of a botched robbery, one with a gun shaking in his hands, the other dragging a crying cashier toward the door as a human shield. A fourth person, a kid who looked no older than thirteen, lay curled behind a toppled display rack, hands over his head.
"Hey!" Peter shouted. "Bad news, guys. Store's closed. Health code violation. Something about armed robbery being bad for business."
As the gunman spun to face him, Peter saw his eyes widen in recognition, and his finger began to tighten on the trigger. Before it could go off, he webbed the man's hand, gun and all, and yanked it away. Simultaneously, he webbed the other robber's upper face, causing him to let go of the cashier in favor of trying to claw the webbing off his face.
With one quick movement, Peter was on them. One leg sweep and uppercut later, both men were down on the ground and webbed up so they wouldn't escape.
Silence followed, broken only by the cashier's sobs and the distant wail of sirens approaching.
Peter turned, crouching in front of the kid behind the rack. "Hey. You okay?"
The boy nodded shakily, eyes wide behind his hands. "Y-yeah."
"Good." Peter offered a small thumbs-up. "You did well, kid. Way better than me the first time someone waved a gun around me."
"Really?" the kid asked, his expression lightening up a bit.
"Oh yeah. You should've seen me. I was shaking in my boots, I was so scared."
"You were?" the kid asked in disbelief.
"It's the truth. I was a total mess." Peter said, helping the kid stand up. "I didn't even have a cool suit back then, just a paper bag. By the end of it, you could even see the tears on the bag."
That earned a small, shaky laugh from the boy.
"But you still helped."
"Yeah, I did." Peter replied.
The boy looked past Peter, eyes flicking to the webbed-up robbers, then back to Peter. "I thought ... I thought nobody was coming."
"I came." he said. "And so did they." He pointed toward the approaching sirens. "You're not alone. You never were."
The kid nodded again. "Thank you, Spider-Man."
"Any time, kid. Any time." Peter ruffled the boy's hair.
Peter turned as the first patrol cars skidded to a stop outside. Two officers poured in, guns raised, then lowered when they took in the scene. One of them caught Peter's eye and gave a grateful nod, one that Peter returned.
As Peter walked out of the store, the cashier's voice followed him, thick with emotion.
"Thank you! Thank you, Spider-Man!"
Peter stopped for a moment, then lifted a hand in a small wave before shooting a web and swinging back out into the city.
He didn't swing far before landing on a rooftop, crouching low on the edge, a habit he had noticed he was prone to do.
The city stretched out around him, millions of people, millions of lives intersecting in ways he'd never see. That robbery wouldn't make headlines. It wasn't flashy or catastrophic. It was small.
But it mattered.
If he hadn't been there, that kid might've carried that fear for the rest of his life. That cashier might've been hurt or worse.
Peter clenched his fists and bowed his head.
This was why he did it.
Maybe in the beginning, before all of it, it had been selfish. He wanted to be Spider-Man in a world that didn't have Spider-Man. He wanted the powers, the validation, the feeling of being Spider-Man. To swing between buildings, crack jokes, and live out a dream he'd carried with him from another life.
But that quickly stopped being the point.
The mask wasn't about him anymore.
It was about moments like that, about a shaking kid behind a toppled rack, about a cashier who would go home tonight rather than the hospital, about the feeling of safety they could have when something went wrong. About being there when someone needed help and had no one else to call.
He put on the mask because when people needed help, he could answer. He could be the difference between being alone and being safe when the worst moment of someone's life came crashing down on them.
"Responsibility."
The word echoed in his mind.
It wasn't just a slogan or a catchy line anymore. It was days like this. It was sirens in the distance and choices that didn't come with clean answers. It was knowing that every decision he made, every secret he kept, rippled outward in ways he couldn't always see.
Batman was right about one thing. Being Spider-Man had a cost.
Peter had always known that. He'd just been hoping that he could keep pushing the bill off a little longer.
But looking at it now, the choice was clearer than it had ever been.
He could protect his secret, or he could protect people.
He exhaled slowly.
"I put on the mask to help people." he mumbled to himself. "That's the deal."
And if the price of keeping that promise, really keeping it, was telling his family the truth, letting them be scared, letting them be angry, letting them worry ... then he'd pay it.
It wouldn't be easy. It would probably be the hardest conversation of his life.
But he'd face it.
Because Spider-Man didn't run from hard choices.
And neither would Peter Parker.
~
In the living room of the Parker household, an admittedly anxious Peter stood in front of his family, eyes closed as he finished telling them the truth.
The silence that followed was deafening.
He could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, each second stretching longer than the last. He waited for shouting. For disbelief. For something.
His father was the first to speak. "You're ... Spider-Man?"
Peter swallowed the lump in his throat and looked up at his family. "Yes."
" ... I thought you were designing his stuff."
" ... what?" Peter asked, unsure if he had heard him correctly.
Richard gestured at him. "Yeah, I thought you designed the stuff and sold it to him like some kind of … vigilante weapons dealer or something. I didn't think you were Spider-Man, though."
Peter let out a chuckle that was a mixture of disbelief and confusion. "What?"
"Why don't you sit down, Peter?" said Mary.
"O-okay." Peter said, sitting down on the chair. "W-why aren't you guys ... yelling or asking me questions ... or something?"
"Do you want us to yell?" Mary asked.
"Honestly, I think I'd prefer it if you did because I am so lost right now."
Mary moved over and sat next to Peter, grabbing his hand. "Peter, we've known you were Spider-Man for a while now."
"I didn't." Richard added receiving a side-eye from Mary.
"Teresa and I did."
Peter blinked, staring at them. "Wait ... what? You both knew?"
Teresa smirked. "Duh."
"Teresa." Mary said, giving her a look before turning back to Peter. "You weren't exactly ... subtle about it, Peter."
"I think I was." Peter disagreed.
"If you were, do you think we would know that you were Spider-Man?" Teresa asked, giving him a look that shouted 'duh' and one he could do little to rebut.
"Peter, you disappear at the drop of a hat and come back smelling like gunpowder, smoke, or sewage. A more pertinent example would be when you went to the bathroom during the Thanksgiving Day Parade, Spider-Man showed up to save the day, and you so happened to reappear when he left." Mary said.
Peter stared at her, mouth opening and closing a few times before any sound came out. "That could've all been circumstantial."
"Sure, but the last time you did laundry, you turned all the sheets in the house red and blue."
Peter froze and then smiled. "You didn't believe me when I said I was washing the American flag?"
"No, because we don't own an American flag, you're not supposed to wash an American flag, and why would you ever be washing an American flag?" said Mary.
"Patriotism?"
"Aside from all that, did you think we wouldn't recognize those web-shooters of yours?" Richard added. "Your mother and I had nightmares for weeks after that incident when you were younger, and we spent even longer trying to stop you from making more web-shooters after destroying them."
"So that's why you thought I made the equipment." Peter realized.
Richard nodded. "Yes, I thought you had somehow met Spider-Man and offered him your services and made the web-shooters for him. Which was still terrifying, by the way. Just a different level of terrifying."
Hearing him use that word to describe his feelings, Peter felt a pang of guilt, and whatever iota of humor he was feeling about the situation disappeared. "Terrifying." he repeated.
Richard noticed immediately. "Peter-"
"I'm sorry." Peter said quietly, looking at the floor. "I never wanted you to be scared because of me."
Mary leaned closer, her voice soft. "Sweetheart, we're your parents. Being scared that something could happen to you two is a given, whether you were a vigilante or not."
"Your mom's right." Richard added.
"It's not the same." Peter said. "It's one thing to be scared of the world and random chance; it's another entirely when I throw myself into danger."
Mary's expression softened even further, but she didn't refute his words right away. "You're right." she said at last. "It isn't the same."
Peter looked up.
"When danger is random, you can tell yourself there was nothing you could've done." Mary continued. "When it's a choice ... when it's your choice ..." She trailed off, then sighed. "That's harder."
Richard nodded. "Because then every time you walk out that door, we know you're stepping toward it on purpose."
Peter nodded, his shoulders slumped.
"And yet." Mary said gently. "We can tell you don't do it carelessly. You don't do it because you want to be hurt."
"No." Peter said immediately. "I don't. I do it because if I don't, someone else gets hurt instead." Peter looked at Mary and then at Richard. "Because with great power comes great responsibility."
Everyone froze for a moment. Then Mary's head slowly turned to look at Richard, who was suddenly sweating bullets.
" ... Richard." Mary said slowly, her eyes never leaving his face.
Richard swallowed hard. "Okay, before you say anything, in my defense, there was no way for me to know our son would develop superpowers and choose to fight crime. There is literally no statistical model in the universe where that outcome is predictable. His great power was his intelligence, not his ... what superpowers do you have, Peter?"
"Richard!" Mary said.
"Mom, it's okay." Peter intervened, amused. "In Dad's defense, I probably would've turned out this way whether he had told me that or not."
"You mean you would've been a vigilante?" Teresa asked.
"Yeah." Peter nodded and looked at his family. "Ever since I was young, ever since I realized the kind of world I live in, I wanted to do what I'm doing. I didn't think I would get superpowers, but I still wanted to help people. Just like the Justice League."
"You wanted to help even before the powers." Mary said.
"Yes." Peter said without hesitation. "The powers just made it possible to do more."
"Speaking of." Richard said. "Peter ... how did this happen? How did you get these ... powers?"
"Did you wake up and suddenly realize you had them? Do you think it runs in the family?" Teresa asked, her eyes shining. "Do you think I'll get superpowers?"
Peter shook his head with a small smile. "Depends on how you feel about spiders."
"Spiders?" they all said simultaneously.
"I don't call myself Spider-Man for no reason." Peter added.
"I thought that was because you had a weird affinity for spiders when you were younger." Mary said.
"So you got ... what, bit, by a spider?" Teresa asked, confused.
"Yeah. It was when we went to dinner for my birthday last year." Peter continued. "There was a spider in the restroom, and it bit me. The next day, I woke up, and I was changed."
Richard blinked, leaning forward in his chair. "A spider did this?"
"Yep."
"Was it a special spider? Did it look different?" Richard continued asking.
"No. Just a normal house spider."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure." Peter nodded. "I learned a lot about spiders thanks to my 'weird affinity' for them when I was younger."
"So it just bit you? That's it?"
"Yeah."
"Huh." said Richard, leaning back into his chair and sinking into thought.
"He's gone." Teresa said.
Mary watched him for a moment, then looked back at Peter. "Why didn't you come to us when it first happened?"
Peter looked at Mary and then up at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze, which could see right through him.
"At first, it was just so ... exciting. I'd been handed a gift I didn't even know I wanted, and I was having fun. Everything I'd planned for someday suddenly felt possible right now, and I didn't stop to think about what that meant. I just jumped in."
He let out a breath.
"And once I did, it kept building. One thing led to another, then another. By the time the Killer Frost thing happened, I realized I should've said something, but it felt like I was already too far in to tell the truth without it blowing everything apart."
Mary was quiet for a long moment after that.
"And yet." she said gently. "You're telling us now."
Peter nodded. "Yeah."
Richard finally stirred from his thoughts. "So what changed?"
"Batman." said Peter.
The name landed heavily in the room.
Teresa blinked. "Batman Batman?"
"Yes." Peter said. "The Dark Knight. Protector of Gotham. Justice League Founder."
"You met Batman?" Teresa asked.
"Not by choice, but yes, I did."
Mary spoke before Teresa could say anything else. "What about him?"
Peter took a breath.
"There was an incident earlier. I was about to stop Kite-Man from robbing an armored truck-"
"Classic Kite-Man." Teresa interjected with a smile.
"-when a clay creature appeared. Long story short, I subdued him, but it turned out he was being chased by a group of younger heroes, proteges of the Justice League. After chatting with them, Batman showed up, and he wanted to talk to me."
"What about?" Richard asked.
"Me." Peter said. "After realizing I was a teenager, he told me to quit. Said I was too young, that I was putting myself in danger I couldn't fully understand yet. That I wasn't trained for what I was doing."
"That sounds reasonable." Richard said.
"Sure, in retrospect." Peter agreed. "But at the time, I thought it was unreasonable, and I didn't back down. I told him why I do this. About the people I've helped. About the ones who would've been hurt if I hadn't been there."
Peter swallowed and continued.
"He listened. I could tell he didn't like what I was saying, but he listened. Then he told me that doing this alone was the worst possible choice I could make. That if I was going to keep going, I needed rules, training, and people that could have my back."
Mary had a look of realization on her face. "He wants you to join that group of young heroes."
"He does." Peter nodded. "And one of the conditions to join the Team is telling you that I'm Spider-Man. If I don't tell you, he said he'll do whatever he can to stop me."
"Stop you from what?" asked Richard.
"From being Spider-Man."
Mary and Richard exchanged a glance.
"He would stop you from helping people?" Teresa asked, incredulously. "He knows you're the good guy, right?"
"Is the only reason you're telling us now because you want to continue being Spider-Man and join that team?" Mary asked.
Peter flinched, just a little.
"No." he said quietly. Then he shook his head and met Mary's eyes. "No. That's not the only reason."
Mary didn't say anything, just kept looking at Peter.
"I won't lie and say it's not part of it because it is." Peter admitted. "I do want to keep being Spider-Man and helping people. In fact, stopping a robbery on my way here just reinforced it. It made me realize that being Spider-Man is too important to just give up."
Peter took a deep breath.
"Even if Batman hadn't been involved, even if there was no team, I would've found a way to tell you. Maybe later. Maybe not as clearly. But I knew I couldn't keep lying to you forever."
Mary's hand tightened slightly around his.
"I kept telling myself I was protecting you." Peter said. "That if you didn't know, you wouldn't worry. But that was me avoiding the hard part. You deserve to know what's happening to your son. You deserve the truth."
Richard leaned forward. "So this isn't just about permission."
"No. It's about honesty. And responsibility. Batman helped me see that being responsible isn't just swinging around saving people, it starts at home, with the people you love."
Mary reached up and brushed his hair back the way she had when he was younger. "Peter, we don't need to know every detail. We don't need to be part of the fights. But we do need to know you. And when you're hurting. And when you're scared."
"I am scared." Peter admitted. "Sometimes. More than I let on."
Mary's expression softened as she squeezed his hand. "That's okay. You don't have to carry it all alone."
Peter let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Thanks. I love you guys."
"We love you too." Mary said, pulling him into a hug.
Peter hugged her back, the tight knot in his chest finally loosening. When she pulled away, Richard stood and sat beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders in a brief, solid squeeze.
Teresa watched the whole thing, then rolled her eyes with a small smile. "So ... what happens now?"
Peter exhaled. "Now I let Batman know I've told you. And he'll probably want to come by to confirm it."
The room went completely still.
"He's ... coming here?" Mary asked.
Peter shrugged. "Probably."
"And you're only telling us now?" Mary snapped, startling him.
"Wha-"
"Richard, rake the leaves!" Mary said, already on her feet. "Teresa, vacuum the place! I'll make something for him to eat!"
Peter blinked as his family scattered into motion, then laughed softly under his breath.
~~
AN
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays!
Heads up, probably won't be a chapter for about two weeks, what with the holidays and all.
That said next chapter we'll jump right into his first tour of the Cave. He might be meeting other leaguers, he might be meeting a fellow student, and he'll see that his path is already more connected with the Team's than he realized.
[1] kudos to anyone who gets the new girl reference