Beyond Responsibility

Chapter 1: Origin

A/N Well, here it is. The first chapter of my first fic. (Side note, the original title was going to be "Foreign Exchange," but that wasn't eye catching enough.) This was a good way to overcome writer's block with the monotony of my main writing projects, and I just blew through this. It was originally just supposed to be a bullet point summary of the main points. Afterall, how many times have we all seen the spider man origin story done? We all know how it goes. But my writing style always seems to pull me back towards real-time dialogue, I'm not really one for writing summarily. So now we're at over 9,000 words, that's more than 20 pages. In the end, I think it was worth it. Really sets the tone and the immersion by contrasting the new elements with something familiar, while also peppering in important details organically. (One last note, some sites likes to auto-delete the squiggles from the spider-sense symbol, which looks like this: ≈*≈, so if you ever see a lone asterisk, just assume that it's supposed to be the spider-sense symbol.)

I hope you all enjoy what I have to offer. Excellsior!

Chapter 1: Origin

"With great power, there must also come, great responsibility." - Uncle Ben

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Peter sighed in aggravation as he felt the sixth spitball of the day impact the back of his head. Long since resigned to keep his head down and focus on his work, it was all 15-year-old Freshman Peter Parker could do to avoid letting his tormentors have the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him.

"Score! That's at least 5 in a row, that's got to be worth bonus points."

"Pa-leeze, Puny Parker's too easy a target to be worth any more than 1 point a pop. Dude doesn't even have a quirk, that is if you don't count his ability to transform into the perfect doormat." Eugene "Flash" Thompson joked as he and his cronies made it perfectly clear exactly who was at the top of Midtown High's pecking order.

In spite of himself. Peter couldn't help but notice just how perfect of a name "Eugene" was for someone like Flash. Having grown up as neighbors, Peter knew better than most just how naturally gifted his personal persecutor was. With the body and charm of an Olympian, and a super speed quirk that immediately made him the star of Midtown High's varsity football team, it was easier to list the ways Eugene hadn't won the genetic lottery. The two items on that list were halitosis and athlete's foot for anyone curious. He knew from personal experience.

By all accounts, Flash shouldn't have been enrolled in some backwater public school like Midtown when Peter knew he received multiple invitations to distinguished schools like Sky High: Hero Academy. He'd cruise through no problem, probably leave with a scholarship for the Ivy League Xavier Institute in tow. But somehow, lording over an inner-city school as a big fish in a small pond seemed to fit Flash soo much better than any big-name hero school ever could. Not that there was anything heroic about Flash in Peter's estimation.

But I'm not about to be just some background character in Flash's life story. Just watch, I'm gonna show him up: me, Peter Parker. Yeah, that quirkless wallflower barely worth a footnote, this is the start of his story. And the last time Flash makes an appearance in it.

With that comforting fantasy in mind, Peter endured their jeers with a knowing he had something Flash didn't. Afterall, Peter may be the school laughing stock but there was still one way his life was about to change for the better.

Aaand... finished! Press Enter, then submit. And there we go, easy as pie. Peter may not have had a quirk, but what he did have was an incredible aptitude for science, and he had just utilized it to ace his application for U.A. High School's foreign exchange program, support course to be specific. Peter had long outgrown any delusions of being a hero. Heck he could barely survive a normal high school, but if he could just get into the support course, then things would be different. If he could just get to Japan, he had a chance.