While running, Peter’s Spider-Sense suddenly went off, but in his cluttered state of mind, he didn’t manage to dodge in time.
A gold-and-red armored suit rushed at him, grabbed him by the waist, carried him forward at high speed for a distance, and then tossed Peter to the ground.
Peter was thrown head over heels.
The gorgeous gold-and-red suit hovered in mid-air.
Badly shaken, Spider-Man pulled off his mask.
A voice came from the suit opposite him: “That guy was actually right.
You really are just a high school kid…”
Peter punched the ground in anger and said, “I’m not a kid, I’m Spider-Man!”
Opposite him, Stark let out a disdainful snort.
“Spider-Man?
Sure.
You certainly have a great reputation among the gamblers of Hell’s Kitchen.
The only good deed you’ve done is helping those people win a lot of money.”
Peter’s anger almost hit the roof.
This strange robot had attacked him out of nowhere, thrown him to the ground, and mocked him.
In a rage, Peter lunged forward.
Iron Man’s suit traced a graceful arc in the air, easily dodging the attack.
The young Spider-Man didn’t know any combat skills yet, let alone how to fight a machine, and he understood nothing of tactical path calculations.
Naturally, he was completely helpless against the Mark V equipped with Jarvis.
Spider-Man roared, “You damned robot, I’ll show you what I’m made of!!”
Iron Man’s suit landed.
He said, “Oh, really?
Show me how you beat up those third-rate underground boxers?”
Stark’s tongue was still as sharp as ever.
Peter’s face flushed red and white under the mockery.
In the end, Stark seemed to lose interest in chatting with this kid.
He said quite coldly:
“If you haven’t been weaned yet, go run back home.
New York isn’t a playground for you to leap around in.
Don’t think that just because you’re a little different from others, you can run wild in this city’s skyline.
Someone has already set their sights on you.”
Stark had absolutely no goodwill toward the current young Spider-Man, especially after learning that he had extraordinary abilities but only used them to fight in underground rings.
In his eyes, this was incredibly foolish behavior.
Stark had his own pride.
Although he was somewhat arrogant, stubborn, and sensitive, the true Iron Man had already awakened after surviving the kidnapping crisis.
Consequently, he looked down on Peter, who was still just messing around.
Peter stood up and angrily threw his mask to the ground.
“You say I’m running wild in New York, but aren’t you doing the exact same thing?!”
A bit of his rationality returned, and he snapped at Stark, “Yeah, you’re wearing this suit.
I can tell it’s definitely not cheap.
You have plenty of money to play around with this.
“But what about me?
My uncle and aunt are in poor health.
They can’t even afford the medical fees for a checkup.
I need money badly, so why can’t I fight in the ring?
I didn’t use my powers to hurt anyone!”
Stark folded his arms and said, “Have you ever thought that possessing this power and not using it to save others is a form of harm in itself?”
Peter wore an expression of sheer disbelief. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
He shook his head side to side, unable to believe the person opposite him could say something so preposterous.
He said, “These are my powers, and I can use them however I want.
Why can’t I do a little more for myself instead of being forced to help others?”
The current Peter had not experienced the death of Ben Parker.
He did not yet understand the meaning of “with great power comes great responsibility.” Therefore, he felt perfectly justified in thinking that since he had this ability, he should use it to secure more benefits for himself.
One could only say his thoughts weren’t entirely wrong.
Everyone lived for themselves.
However, Spider-Man was ultimately destined to walk the path of a superhero.
The kindness and resilience in Peter’s bones would gradually be unlocked as he grew older; he was destined to become a superhero.
As for Stark, though arrogant and proud, he had always held a sense of duty toward the world.
He felt that as a super-genius, protecting ordinary people and Earth was his birthright.
Stark could also see that Peter’s agitation was unusual, suspecting he had just been through some sort of shock.
Thus, he said, “I know you have a lot of things you can’t wrap your head around right now.
I used to be the same.
But some things you have to experience firsthand before you can truly understand them.
No grand lecture of mine can compare to that.
I can only tell you that if you keep holding on to this mindset, you will regret it one day.”
With that, Stark’s suit flew off, leaving Peter sitting there alone, dejected and lost.
He really didn’t understand why everyone was against him, as if he were born bad.
Peter couldn’t understand how having superpowers seemed to make him more miserable than before.
He had made money, but didn’t dare give it directly to Uncle Ben.
Because he roamed around at night, he couldn’t sleep well, and his grades had slipped.
In the excitement of just getting his powers, he had also neglected Gwen’s feelings, and now Gwen was giving him the cold shoulder.
He wanted to beat up his rival Thompson, but didn’t dare fight at school, so he could only swallow his anger.
This damned superpower hadn’t actually brought him any massive benefits.
It hadn’t turned his life around overnight or given him the comfortable life he wanted.
He didn’t understand where things had gone wrong.
Feeling the chilly New York night wind, Spider-Man sat on the roof of a Hell’s Kitchen building, lost in thought.
Just then, his extraordinary hearing picked up whispers coming from the alleyway behind the building.
It was the back door of a nightclub.
Two beefy bouncers stood there.
From Peter’s angle, he could see them, but they couldn’t see him.
Peter saw a bald man in a jacket who seemed to be talking to his subordinates.
Peter’s vision and hearing far surpassed ordinary limits.
He noticed a target-like circular mark on the bald man’s forehead, and heard him speak:
“…As long as we floor the gas before he realizes what’s happening.
You know, Andrei has a good car.
He modified it; its acceleration is much faster than standard cars.
“As long as we stay completely still at first so he doesn’t hear us, and then plow into him the second he turns the corner, he’s a dead man.”
His subordinate said, “I know an intersection at the end of Mary Street that’s perfect.
There are some construction scraps piled up there, which can mask the smell of car fuel…”
The bald man flashed an evil grin and said, “We have to take him out before that woman does.
That way, Boss Kingpin will see who his most capable subordinate really is…”
Up on the roof, Peter listened to their conversation half-heartedly.
He gathered from their talk that they planned to run someone over with a car.
Having just been lectured repeatedly, however, Peter thought rebelliously: *What does this have to do with me?
It’s just a gang fight anyway.
One mobster wants to kill another, why should I care?*
*It’s not like there are any good people in this damned Hell’s Kitchen anyway.*
Thinking this way, Peter slowly made his way back. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
It was very late, and he had already told Uncle Ben he wouldn’t be coming home tonight.
So, he returned to Daredevil’s small room.
Daredevil was still fast asleep.
Peter thought that maybe what he had just assumed wasn’t entirely correct.
There was at least one good person in Hell’s Kitchen—the friend lying right in front of him.
In fact, he was a little too good.
Peter looked at the wound on Matt’s calf, which was still oozing blood.
Meanwhile, the bruise Peter had gotten from being thrown by Iron Man was already completely healed.
Peter suddenly felt a sense of absurdity.
Daredevil was genuinely just an ordinary human; he had none of the self-healing abilities Peter possessed.
That was why poking his nose into other people’s business had ended up ruining him like this.
Peter wanted to learn Daredevil’s martial arts, but he didn’t want to adopt his way of life at all.
If he had jumped down in a fury to uphold justice upon hearing those mobsters’ conversation, telling them not to commit murder, he wouldn’t have had any peace tonight.
There had to be at least a dozen bouncers in that nightclub.
He would have to knock them all down.
That bald man might even be exceptionally tough.
With so many people, if he accidentally took a hit, it would hurt for quite some time.
And the result would likely just be stopping a gang war.
But how was that a good deed?
There were no innocent people in Hell’s Kitchen.
The only ones caught up in a gang war would be other mobsters.
Peter thought: *Why should I spend my night risking injury to stick my nose into that kind of mess?*
With these thoughts, Peter slowly drifted to sleep.
In his dream, he used his abilities to make a fortune.
He bought a house on the most prosperous street in Queens.
Uncle Ben and Aunt May moved into a brand-new mansion.
They even hired a private doctor, and Uncle Ben’s illness was cured.
Aunt May looked a dozen years younger, and their family lived a highly affluent and happy life.
The first half of the dream was exceptionally beautiful.
But perhaps because Peter heard Daredevil’s painful groans during the night, the second half of the dream took a sudden downward turn.
While Peter was out, a thug broke into their beautiful mansion.
The thugs killed his uncle and aunt and ransacked the place.
Their neighbors saw the thugs, but not a single person called the police.
Even after the police arrived, they couldn’t catch the killers immediately.
Peter became a wandering ghost, roaming the city every day, trying to find the culprits who had shattered his happy life, but there were no leads.
Finally, Daredevil appeared in his dream.
Peter went to confront Daredevil, demanding to know why, after fighting so many criminals, he had missed those specific thugs.
But Daredevil looked at him coldly and said:
“The only one who can bear full responsibility for this is you.”
Peter woke up in a cold sweat.
Dawn was just breaking over New York.
Cold air seeped through the cracks in the window and made its way into his lungs, bringing a sudden sting that made him want to cry.
Daredevil woke up as well.
Peter poured him some water.
Daredevil said, “Thanks.
But I might have to trouble you again in a bit to head to the clinic at the end of Mary Street to pick up some medicine for me.”