After the motorcycle accident, Ben proved that his threat hadn’t been an empty one.
He confiscated Leon’s keys and banned him from helping at the pizzeria for the time being.
The night before, Ben had already thrown a wad of cash at him.
But apparently, after sleeping on it, he’d decided that sending Leon out with nothing but cash was somehow another safety risk.
So before leaving that morning, Ben shoved a bank card into Leon’s hand as well.
“Go do something normal for once.” Leon stared at the card.
Ben waved over his shoulder and headed out the door.
Leon scratched his head.
“Something normal…” That was surprisingly difficult.
He put the cash and card away and tried to decide where to spend the day.
Leon had never developed much of a social circle.
During his first few years in this world, he’d been focused almost entirely on school and adjusting to his second life.
Parties, school events, and the usual teenage social scene had never interested him much.
That hadn’t helped his reputation.
Students who were constantly being compared to Leon by their parents had eventually started inventing increasingly ridiculous rumors about him.
Apparently, depending on who you asked, Leon was antisocial, emotionally unstable, secretly taking psychiatric medication, incapable of human interaction, or suffering from half a dozen different disorders.
Leon had found the whole thing more amusing than insulting.
He’d spent most of his previous life in an orphanage while dealing with chronic illness.
Being alone had never particularly bothered him.
And throwing himself into wild high-school parties just to prove he could socialize sounded far more exhausting than simply letting people gossip.
“Whatever.” Leon headed toward his room.
“I’ll walk around the city for a while.” Then he remembered Ben’s wardrobe.
“And buy the old man some clothes.
The weather’s changing and he’s still wearing the same stuff from last season.” Decision made.
Leon changed into a simple black-and-white outfit.
Nothing flashy.
He didn’t particularly need flashy clothes.
At around six-foot-one with a lean, athletic build and naturally handsome features, even simple clothes looked good on him.
Ben had forbidden him from riding the motorcycle.
The car, however, was apparently acceptable.
Compared with a motorcycle—where the only thing separating Leon from the pavement was optimism and protective gear—a car offered considerably more protection.
Not that Ben had been relaxed about that either.
Before leaving, he’d reminded Leon several times to drive slowly.
Cars could be repaired.
Leon couldn’t.
Leon had finally placed a hand over his chest and sworn that he would drive like the most responsible person in New York.
Only then had Ben stopped lecturing him.
Leon opened the garage.
A black SUV sat nearest the door.
It was one of his favorites.
Ben had always been borderline obsessive about vehicle safety, so most of the cars they’d bought were sturdy models with excellent safety reputations.
Apparently, after nearly losing Leon once, the old man wasn’t interested in taking chances.
Leon climbed in and started the engine.
The SUV rolled out of the garage.
And, despite his solemn promise to Ben, picked up speed almost immediately once it reached the open road.
It didn’t take long to reach Fifth Avenue.
The area was packed with famous stores and luxury brands, giving Leon more than enough places to search for something Ben might actually wear.
That last part was the challenge.
Ben was getting older, and his taste in clothing could best be described as stubbornly traditional.
Anything too colorful?
Rejected.
Anything covered in designer logos?
Rejected.
Anything Leon described as “fashionable”?
Usually rejected on principle.
So Leon moved from store to store, studying displays and looking for simple, well-made clothes that wouldn’t make Ben complain about people wasting money on useless decoration.
He shopped at an easy pace.
Whenever he got tired, he stopped at a coffee shop, ordered something to eat, and rested for a while before continuing.
By the time he finally decided he’d bought enough, the sun had moved low toward the western horizon.
Leon gathered his shopping bags and started back toward his SUV.
He’d deliberately parked some distance away from Fifth Avenue.
The crowds and traffic were bad enough during the day.
Getting trapped there during the evening rush sounded miserable.
Walking an extra ten or fifteen minutes was preferable to spending an hour staring at somebody else’s brake lights.
Eventually, Leon reached the street where he’d parked.
Then he stopped.
Three men were standing around his SUV.
One, a Black man in a hoodie, was crouched beside the driver’s door with tools in his hands, working on the lock.
A second Black man and a white man stood nearby, keeping watch.
Leon stared at them for a moment.
Seriously?
The white man glanced nervously down the street.
“Damn it, you’ve been screwing with that thing for ten minutes.
How the hell haven’t you opened it yet?” The man in the hoodie shot him an irritated look.
“Fuck you.
Shut your mouth.” He went back to working on the lock.
“I told you this thing would be a pain in the ass.
You’re the one who wouldn’t stop talking about how much it’s worth.” While they argued, Leon calmly approached.
By the time they noticed him, he was only a short distance away.
“Gentlemen.” All three turned.
Leon glanced at the tools against his door.
“That’s my car.” His expression cooled.
“How about you stop what you’re doing and leave?” The white lookout had already been irritated by his partner’s insults.
Seeing Leon standing there alone apparently gave him the confidence he needed to redirect that anger.
He pulled out a knife.
“Bad day to come back early, kid.” Leon looked at the blade.
The man waved it threateningly as he approached.
“We’re taking the car.” He pointed the knife at Leon’s shopping bags.
“And you’re gonna hand over whatever cash you’ve got too.” His smile hardened.
“Unless you want me putting a few extra holes in you.” The larger Black man who’d been standing quietly beside the SUV cracked his knuckles and stepped forward as well.
Leon watched them approach.
Then smiled faintly.
His left hand was hidden behind the shopping bags.
It had already moved toward the handgun tucked behind his waist.
A little closer.
That was all he needed.
If they kept advancing, Leon had no intention of politely negotiating.
He’d spent four years living in New York and wasn’t completely ignorant of the dangers that came with it.
Ben, unsurprisingly, had taken Leon’s safety extremely seriously.
He’d taught him the basics of protecting himself and had made sure Leon knew how to handle a firearm.
Ben had even paid professional instructors to teach him hand-to-hand combat.
With Leon’s enhanced ability to learn, he’d absorbed the training with frightening speed.
Years of practice had refined it further.
In pure technique, he could already hold his own against professional fighters.
And at this distance?
The gun made the difference almost irrelevant.
The two men had chosen the wrong person to threaten.
They simply didn’t know it yet.
The man with the knife stepped closer.
Leon measured the distance.
His fingers closed around the grip of the handgun.
Another step.
Leon was about to draw— Thwip!
A strand of white webbing shot down from above.
Before either man could react, it wrapped around them and violently yanked them off their feet.
“WHAT THE—?!” The knife clattered onto the pavement.
Both men were hauled upward and left dangling helplessly several feet above the ground.
The man working on Leon’s car caught the movement from the corner of his eye.
His reaction was immediate.
Forget the car.
Forget his friends.
Run.
He dropped his tools and sprinted.
He made it two steps.
Thwip!
Another web shot out.
It wrapped around his torso.
“Aw, hell—!” He was ripped backward before he could finish.
Within seconds, all three thieves were wrapped in webbing and hanging uselessly in the air.
“Stealing cars is a pretty terrible hobby.” A young voice drifted down from above.
“You guys should really think about getting a new one while you’re explaining this to the cops.” Leon looked up.
A figure in a red-and-blue suit crouched against the side of a nearby building in a position that casually ignored several basic principles of physics.
Leon recognized him immediately.
“Spider-Man?” His left hand slowly relaxed around the handgun.
Spider-Man tilted his head, then gave him an enthusiastic nod.
“The one and only.
Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” He jumped down.
“You okay?
Nobody hurt you, right?” Spider-Man glanced over Leon.
“Need me to get you to a hospital?” Leon shook his head.
“I’m fine.” He looked at the three criminals dangling overhead.
“You showed up at a pretty convenient time.” A slight smile crossed his face.
“Thanks.” Police sirens sounded somewhere in the distance.
They were getting closer.
Leon assumed Spider-Man had already arranged for the police to collect his newly packaged criminals.
Spider-Man gave him a casual wave.
“No problem.” Leon unlocked the SUV and put his shopping bags inside.
“Drive safe.” Spider-Man pointed at him.
“Preferably without running into any more armed robbers today.” Leon paused.
“That’s the plan.” He climbed into the driver’s seat.
As the SUV pulled away, Leon lowered the window and raised one hand in farewell.
Spider-Man waved back.
Then he watched the vehicle’s taillights disappear down the street.
A few moments later, he climbed to the roof of the building and pulled off his mask.
Peter Parker took a long breath.
“Okay…” He looked in the direction Leon had gone.
“If I saw that right, Leon was about two seconds away from handling those guys himself.” Peter had recognized him immediately.
Leon Carter.
They had attended the same high school.
Both had been among the school’s strongest students academically, although Leon had almost always occupied the number-one spot.
Back then, they hadn’t been friends.
They hadn’t really been enemies either.
They’d simply existed in overlapping academic circles without much reason to interact.
That had started changing after they entered the same university.
Shared laboratory courses had put them in the same rooms more often, and their mutual interest in science had gradually turned them from strangers into casual acquaintances.
They weren’t close.
But they knew each other well enough to exchange greetings and occasionally talk about coursework or experiments.
Peter glanced back toward the webbed thieves.
What bothered him wasn’t that Leon had been carrying a gun.
It was how calm he’d been.
There hadn’t been a hint of panic in his posture.
No hesitation.
No fear.
Peter had enhanced abilities now.
He was Spider-Man.
Danger had become an unfortunate part of his daily routine.
But before gaining his powers?
If three criminals had cornered him and one pulled a knife, Peter was fairly certain he wouldn’t have looked nearly that relaxed.
Leon, meanwhile, had stood there like he was waiting for a bus.
Peter remembered some of the rumors people used to spread about him in high school.
Antisocial.
Cold.
Weird.
Possibly unstable.
Peter had always thought most of them were nonsense.
From the little he’d seen personally, Leon seemed pretty easygoing.
Then Peter remembered the exact expression on Leon’s face as his hand disappeared behind the shopping bags.
The complete lack of hesitation.
The way he’d calmly waited for the two men to come closer before reaching for his weapon.
Peter’s mouth tightened.
“Yeah.” He stared down at the street.
“Easygoing.” A brief pause.
“Probably.” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS SYSTEMATIC_MANIAC Enjoying the novel?
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