ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

Chapter 6

His footsteps echoed in the hallway, loudly ringing in his ears despite the voices of the other students around him. It was as though everything else simply faded away, trapped in his own whirlwind of thoughts. He was essentially walking on autopilot.

Why exactly... was it that I put on the mask...?

He tried to recall that fateful day, the day he'd been bitten by the spider who gave him his abilities. It had happened so randomly, so out of nowhere. What purpose had it served to bite him exactly? Why did fate choose to give him the abilities he'd received? Why did he have to bear the consequences of what fate forced on him?

With every second that ticked by, he sank deeper and deeper into the quicksand of negativity in his mind. A kid hero? It was laughable.

What did a stupid kid like me... know about saving people?

He was soon pulled out of the depths of his mind by a slap on his shoulder. Startled, he snapped his head over to see who had dealt the blow to his unsuspecting shoulder. He was met with the friendly smile of none other than Vision's most beautiful redhead, Mary Jane.

"Wow, you really zoned out there, M/N," she said with a soft laugh before she conveyed a smile laced with concern. "Are you okay?"

M/N shook his head. "I'm fine. I was just... thinking about random stuff. I tend to retreat into my own head sometimes."

Mary Jane laughed once again at his words. "Hey, totally understandable. We're students, after all," she replied. "I think I'd be more worried if you weren't taking things seriously."

"Yeah..." M/n said, trailing off as he thought of what to say next.

But it seemed he didn't have to because an arm came to wrap around his shoulders suddenly before hearing the high-energy voice of his friend, Betty. "Hey, you two!" she said with a grin at both M/N and Mary Jane. "What's going on over here?"

M/N raised an eyebrow at that. "Nothing."

Betty smirked and continued looking between them, M/N's confusion only growing while Mary Jane shook her head with a smile. "Good morning, Betty," she said.

"Morning!" Betty replied, her energy not waning in the slightest. "So, I was just thinking on the way here that we should hang out! My boyfriend and I were thinking of hitting up the arcade after school. Wanna come with?"

"Wait, then aren't you two technically going to be on a date?" M/N asked.

"Yup!" Betty chirped.

This further confused M/N until she began talking again. "That's why I'm inviting you and MJ! It can be a little double date!" she exclaimed, sending Mary Jane a little wink.

Immediately, M/N raised an eyebrow and Mary Jane vigorously shook her head with a flustered chuckle. "No, no, no!" Mary Jane replied. "We're just friends, and besides, it would be kinda awkward to tag along on your date."

M/N nodded in agreement, his tone and expression holding none of the fluster Mary Jane had had, but certainly all of the disbelief. "Exactly, Betty. You two just enjoy your date, we'll probably just be in your way, anyway."

"Ah, come on," Betty whined, visibly deflating as her idea had been rejected by both of them. "Alright, fine. I tried."

"Maybe next time," M/N said, shrugging his shoulders.

Just as he said that the first bell rang, signaling one minute before the late bell rang. M/N said his goodbyes to them and went off to his class. Once he was gone, Betty turned to Mary Jane with an apologetic smile.

"Seems he didn't like that idea very much," she said. "Sorry, MJ, I really tried."

"It's fine," the red-haired girl replied to her friend with a soft smile, walking with her to class. "It really would've been too awkward anyway. I mean, the few times we've hung out together, we were with our other friends too. It's never been us two alone, so I'll probably just be a coward."

Betty's eyes widened in surprise before she grinned. "Oh, cheer up, MJ!" she said, patting the red-haired girl's back gently. "You'll get more opportunities to tell him."

Mary Jane smiled back at her friend's words. "I hope so."

--

"You look down," May said as she handed M/N a cup of hot tea, sweetened with honey.

M/N accepted it gratefully and smiled sheepishly. "That obvious, huh?"

May laughed under her breath, sitting down across from him on the sofa, her own cup of tea in her hands. "Well, I've known you long enough, M/N. Your face also tends to give you away immediately."

At her words, M/N brought his hand up to his chin, wondering if that was true. But May didn't let him linger on that thought for very long. "So, you want to talk about it?" she asked, taking a drink from her mug.

M/N's gaze lingered on her for a moment, contemplating the idea. "I..." he began, at a loss for how to form his swirling thoughts into words.

May set down her mug on the coffee table and sat forward a little. "Are you having those doubts about yourself again?"

There was some truth to what she'd said. He was having doubts, but they were far more complex than they had been before. "Well... Honestly, Aunt May..." he said, also setting down his mug. "It's not just self-doubts... I'm having... regrets. Questioning why... it had to be me."

He took his time to say what he wanted to convey, playing the mental game of roping in his jumbled thoughts and emotions and sorting them out enough to articulate them. "A hero is... A hero is defined as someone who is admired and places themselves in danger for the greater good of others, right? But, I wonder sometimes... when it comes to life or death, am I making the right calls?"

May listened intently to him and it clicked almost instantly what he was referring to. "Because after everything is said and done... I feel this immense regret. Like... I could've changed the outcome if I had... done something different."

"The hardest thing about this job is... you can't always save everybody."

"Am I... truly worthy of being praised as a hero?" M/N mumbled. "Am I... really acting for the greater good? Was it selfish of me to want to save my parents... instead of all of those strangers?"

"M/N," May said, her tone full of warmth and understanding. "You can't keep beating yourself up over what happened? It was out of your control--"

"I was a kid, Aunt May," M/N interrupted. "How could a kid--?"

"Exactly," she said firmly. "M/N, you were a young boy. A young boy thrown into the harsh reality of the world and made to fight villains the grown-ups should've handled. That's why you cannot keep blaming yourself for what happened then. You did what you could to save them."

"Aunt May..." he mumbled, on the verge of breaking down before feeling her arms around him in a hug.

"It's okay," she said, patting his back as he finally broke and cried. "Let yourself be a kid."