The morning after the tragic death of twenty-six-year-old Peter Parker, the superhero known as Spider-Man, a suffocating silence fell over the city.
Times Square, a place usually defined by its chaotic, restless energy, was entirely still.
A massive crowd of New Yorkers had gathered in the plaza, yet not a single unnecessary sound echoed through the concrete canyon.
Nearly everyone in the sprawling crowd, regardless of age or gender, shared a single, unifying trait: they were all wearing something related to Spider-Man.
Some wore full replica suits.
Others wore simple cloth masks, web-patterned gloves, or red-tinted goggles.
Today, they were all united by the exact same crushing grief, gathered to hold a final memorial for their beloved, friendly neighborhood vigilante.
Even though the vast majority of the crowd had only just learned the name Peter Parker the night before, it didn’t stop them from feeling a profound, undeniable bond with the man.
For ten years, from the time he was a sixteen-year-old kid to a twenty-six-year-old man, he had protected New York without missing a single day.
Standing on a temporary stage erected in the center of Times Square was a red-haired woman, her face etched with profound sorrow.
It was Mary Jane, Peter Parker’s widow.
“He never asked for these powers, but he chose to use them to become Spider-Man,” her soft, grief-stricken voice echoed over the loudspeakers, washing over the silent crowd.
“My favorite thing about Peter is that he made us all feel powerful.
He taught me that we all have power, and that we can all be Spider-Man in our own way.”
She looked out over the sea of masked faces, her voice breaking just a fraction.
“We are all Spider-Man.
And we are all counting on you.”
Deep in the crowd, a teenager wearing an ill-fitting, cheap store-bought Spider-Man costume and a heavy backpack looked up at the stage.
This was Miles, and he was quietly whispering to himself.
“They are counting on me…”
He had gotten his powers less than twenty-four hours ago.
His heart was hammering with a sudden, overwhelming surge of responsibility.
But before the feeling could fully take root, a gruff, middle-aged voice interrupted him from the side.
“She probably didn’t mean you specifically.
It was more of a metaphor.”
“Oh.
Right.
Thanks for the reality check,” Miles sighed, instantly deflating.
But he wasn’t angry.
The guy was right, wasn’t he?
How could he possibly be Spider-Man?
Wait a second.
Miles blinked, squinting at the man standing next to him.
Why does this guy look so familiar?
Suddenly, a wave of shock hit him.
From the corner of his eye, he realized that the well-meaning stranger looked terrifyingly similar to the face of the dead Peter Parker that had been plastered all over the news.
Aside from the different hair color, a few extra wrinkles, and a significantly thicker waistline, the two were basically identical.
“You…
you…
you!” Miles stammered, turning fully to face the older man, too terrified to even form a complete sentence.
It was, of course, the middle-aged Peter Parker.
Following the subtle hum of his Spider-Sense, he had easily tracked down this new, hidden Spider-kid in the massive crowd.
Seeing the absolute shock on Miles’s face, the older Peter casually pulled his mask back down over his face.
In a crowd where thousands of people were wearing Spider-Man masks, an actual Spider-Man slipping his mask on didn’t draw a single second glance.
“Hey, relax, kid,” the older Peter said smoothly.
“Just follow me.
We will clear up all those questions bouncing around in your head.”
He turned and started weaving his way through the dense crowd, gesturing for Miles to follow.
Miles hesitated for a split second.
He had no idea who this older, washed-up version of Spider-Man was.
But a strange, instinctive buzzing in the back of his skull—a feeling he was just starting to understand—told him this man wasn’t a threat.
And when he remembered the promise he had made to the real Spider-Man last night—the promise to destroy the particle collider—he finally took a deep breath and took that brave first step.
The two figures, one tall and broad, the other short and slight, quickly vanished into the mourning crowd.
***
When Miles finally followed the older Peter out of the crowd and up the fire escape of an isolated residential rooftop, he was stunned to find a whole group of people already waiting for them.
But what really shocked him was that he actually recognized one of them.
“Wanda?” Miles asked, his eyes wide as he looked at the blonde girl with shoulder-length hair.
“What are you doing here?”
The girl he knew as Wanda was actually Gwen Stacy, the Ghost-Spider.
She had been the first interdimensional traveler to arrive in this universe, dropping in about a week ago.
Highly cautious by nature, Gwen hadn’t rushed into action.
Instead, she had fabricated a cover story as a transfer student and infiltrated a local high school to gather intel, which was exactly how she had bumped into Miles just yesterday.
When Gwen had shown up at the memorial service, Peter had immediately spotted her and brought her back to this secluded rooftop to regroup with the others. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Looks like you guys have a little misunderstanding to clear up, right, Gwen?” Peter said with a small smile.
He waved a hand at the stunned teenager.
“Come on over, Miles.
We have all been waiting for you.”
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have used a fake name yesterday,” Gwen sighed, rubbing her forehead in exasperation.
She offered Miles an awkward, apologetic smile.
“Listen, I am really sorry about that.
It’s a long story.
It started about a week ago…”
After a brief, mind-bending explanation from Gwen, Miles felt like his brain was about to short-circuit.
This world was completely insane.
“Wait, so you are telling me…” Miles stammered, looking at the colorful lineup of heroes standing before him.
“You are all Spider-Man?”
He desperately wanted to slap himself to see if he was just having a fever dream.
“To be perfectly accurate,” Peter chimed in, pointing a finger directly at Miles’s right hand.
“You are Spider-Man right now, too.”
Faintly visible on the back of his hand were two distinct, circular puncture marks.
Anyone who had ever worn the mask knew exactly what that was.
It was a spider bite.
The universal, inescapable mark of being chosen by destiny.
“Alright, kid, step up,” the Noir detective said, stepping out of the shadows and tipping the brim of his fedora.
“Tell us exactly what happened last night.”
Being stared down by a group of seasoned superheroes brought a wave of intense anxiety and hesitation rushing into Miles’s eyes.
But that familiar, persistent buzzing in his skull flared up once again, steadying his nerves.
It felt exactly like it had when he met the real Spider-Man.
The bizarre group of individuals standing in front of him were worthy of his absolute trust.
“Last night…
Spider-Man saved me from Thomas,” Miles began, his voice wavering slightly with unshed tears.
And as he spoke, the full, tragic truth of the city’s fallen hero was finally laid bare for everyone to hear.