Saving Spider-Man // A Fanfiction

Chapter One: Peter Parker 2.0

Spider-Man had done it again. It had been three weeks since Liz had left for Oregon, and Peter couldn't have felt worse about himself. He couldn't tell Liz that he had left homecoming to, you know, save the world and stuff. He couldn't tell her that he wasn't just your average run-of-the-mill jerk. And, worst of all, he couldn't tell her everything was going to be alright: Peter knew for a fact that everything would NOT be alright.

   Her life would suck, sure, but his would suck much, much more. You see, after homecoming had come and gone, Peter's aunt, May, had kinda sorta definitely found out that he was Spider-Man. Since that fateful day, she had grounded Peter, sent some nice verbally abusive voice messages to Tony Stark's cell phone, and grounded her nephew some more.

   She had also taken away his most prized possession: His Spider-Man suit. Since she had so unforgivably done so, Peter had become lethargic, depressed, and his grades had plummeted to embarrassing levels. All his grades were bad, but his new worst class was, you guessed it, chemistry.

   With his new lack of enthusiasm for everything (including life), he had forgotten the things (and people) he loved most. He never answered any questions in class and when he was called upon to do so, he answered in vague terms that always seemed to be the exact opposite of what the teacher was actually asking.

   He had also become a zombie, a shell of his former self, so that the only people who stuck by him through his gradual descent into his loss of personal identity, were MJ and Ned. Ned knew exactly what had happened and had begun keeping a running conversation up between himself and the always-silent Peter. MJ, on the other hand, had no idea what had changed Peter into a completely different person. And though that was the case, she stuck by him.

   On one particularly gloomy day, MJ and Ned were sitting with Peter in the cafeteria. MJ was reading a large textbook and Ned was keeping up the normal, one-sided conversation.

   "So Peter, I got a new Lego set! Do you want to start building it after school?" A short pause, then, "Ok, that's great! Maybe we can blast 21 Pilots while we're building. They're your favorite right?"

   MJ rolled her eyes. "The Loser's not listening." She stood up sharply and closed the heavy textbook. Then she raised it above her head and hit Peter as hard as she could with it.

   "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Peter bellowed at his friend with an anger which had been so uncharacteristic of his former self but which was now expected to flare up from time to time in Peter Parker 2.0.

   "No. What's wrong with you?" MJ demanded. "Your best friend is here making himself look and feel insane. And all for what? For you to be unresponsive and apathetic? He's sticking his neck out for you! Don't leave him hanging." Ned looked hurt at the painfully accurate description of his plight.

   Peter's temper flared. "Fine! Ned, what do you want?"

   "N-nothing. I'm fine."

   Then MJ's temper flared. "No, you're clearly not! Wake up, Parker! This is the real world! There are real people depending on you to function properly! Grow up and go back to how you were--" and here her voice broke, "before. Before whatever this is." She turned away from him. She didn't want him, even a different, messed up version of him, to see her crying.

   She walked away without looking back. Peter scoffed and roughly got up, leaving his backpack behind as he hurried out of the room.

   "Hey Peter, you left your..." Ned shook his head. It was pointless. He had seemingly lost his best friend in three weeks and there was nothing he could do about it. Unless... Ned pulled Peter's phone out of his backpack and signed in. He took a deep breath before clicking on a contact and dialing the number. He was calling Happy.