avengers-dark-messenger

[avengers-dark-messenger]

New to the story? Click here to read the previous Daredevil chapter 

                                                      Chapter 1.6                                                 “First Contact”

Concussions compound. Getting knocked out a first time means it’s that much easier to get knocked out the next time. And the next time still. Not all concussions are the same, either. Boxers, elites that can dance in the ring, are all just a knockout away -- getting tapped in just the right spot, landing in just the wrong way -- from a glass jaw and a lost career.

When you wake up, you’re not sure what the dream is. Was it the world you were just in? That life will fade from your mind, but while you were in it, and the first moments you’re out of it, it was as real as anything. And this new world you’ve been born into... it hurts. It’s complicated. Full of hate. Maybe you just want the dream to be real, but you think, maybe this is the dream. Some nightmare.

I wake up with cold asphalt on my cheek. There are people shouting in the distance -- everything’s fuzzy, can’t make it out. Hysteria, chaos it sounds like... sounds like for blocks around me, in every direction. Need to know where I am. Asphalt... I sit up, feeling my suit shift against my skin.

Ah, that’s right. I’m Daredevil, Man Without Fe-- The fall.

The girl!

I bolt to my feet -- oh. I -- god -- I try to bolt to my feet. I stand with great haste. At least one rib on my left side is fractured. I taste blood. Smell blood. Fresh and old. How long was I out? Each breath wheezes into my lungs, big full gulps of air, but I can’t get enough. Could be blood pooling in my lungs. Could be panic. Could be both.

“Catherine!” I shout her name as loud as I can, the echo ringing back with at least some detail, fuzzy still. 

I hear rodents scratching at rusted pipes beneath the streets. I hear distant sirens. I hear a father scolding his son for not securing the trunk of a vehicle properly. But the sound I need to hear, that I’m sifting through all this noise for, is the voice of a little girl. The movement of small lungs. The familiar heartbeat I had just felt in my hands. Nothing. Just, not there.

“Catherine! Catherine!” I’m using my voice like a god damned spotlight. What happened? Blood in my nose; can’t smell anything. I feel rubble beneath my feet and start to feel around. Brick. Concrete. The building, or part of it, must have collapsed. Why?

Then, faint, even to my ears, I hear a whisper.

“H... here.. I...”

Twisted through dust and stone. She’s buried, injured but alive. I sprint the few yards, tearing at stone illuminated by my desperate gasps until I feel the warmth of her breath through the rock. She barely moves; I push away brick and mortar with every Irish cell in my body, finally getting my arms under her and lifting her free. She’s limp against my chest, but her heart is beating, she’s breathing.

I have to get her to a hospital. I have to get a shower. Mostly -- mostly, but definitely lastly -- I have to call the Avengers.

[avengers-dark-messenger]

                                                      Chapter 1.5                                                  “First Contact”

                                                     One Week Ago

“My name is Matt Hawk and I...” No, that’s stupid. Look at this place. You’re gonna’ get a butler or whatever, just keep it courteous and professional.

“Greetings. Matt Hawk.” That’s more stupid, Matt. Just say hello and stop stalling. Knock on the big... intimidating... door. And just, you know, get ready to tap-dance a little. Dosey-doe, Pop would say. This box is getting heavy. Just sack up.

I reach my hand out, barely rattling the overly ornate, too-damned-heavy-ass doorknob, and get a sure fright as the damned thing opens on its own! I mean, not like at a grocery store, just a fella opened it is all, but he wasn’t exactly welcoming. Spooked me good. Little Asian guy with fierce eyes and one hand behind his back.

“Oh! Um, oh hey, hi. My name is, uh --”

“Matt Hawk, yes I know.”

“My -- yeah that’s, um, how --?” This is getting creepier. What’s this dude’s deal? 

“I heard you practicing at the door. You’ve been standing here for some time.”

“You’ve... wait, have you just been waiting for me to knock?”

 “Not... exactly.”  Okay, yeah, creepy. He looks a little uncomfortable, just standing there in what looks like a silk sorta’ robe thing, feet squared up like he’s ready for a fight. I make a mental note not to joke around with this guy too much. “My name is Wang. If you please, Mr. Hawk, Dr. Strange received your message earlier, apologizes for his lack of response, and assures me he will be here to greet you personally at any moment. Follow me.”

I’ve been talking to this Strange fellow for a few weeks now. Er, writing, I should say; I’ve got his personal number, but we’ve only sent messages back and forth, never spoken. He seems especially interested in old, creepy haunted stuff, and from what my mom tells me I’ve got a doozy of a haul for him. Strange is the perfect name for it all too -- I’m guessin’ he’s just one’a them goths that got himself a little bit of money.

Strange down to his damned house, too, Jesus Christ! This whole place is made of creaks and groans. I couldn’t even guess how much the paintings and basins and suits of freakin’ armor that are just lined up around here are worth, or how old any of it is. It’s like a multistory museum slash library, the whole cavernous mansion split right down the middle by a wide staircase with gorgeous, thick carpet as deep red as fresh blood, and at the top? Even more priceless junk! He’s a collector, boarding on hoarder, and that’s pretty damned good news. And this whole place feels like money - rich doctor turned famous Avenger? He’s got money to burn. That’s better news.

We go up that damned mountain of a staircase, doubling back at the top, past door after door until, I swear to God, BANG! There’s an explosion just a few doors down the hall. Like I was back in goddamned Iraq, right here in the middle of New York City! I duck and cover but, a beat later, I look up and there’s Wang, who hasn’t seemed to have even flinched, looking annoyed.

“I apologize, Mr. Hawk. I can only assume Dr. Strange is ready to see you now.”

As if on cue, a door swings open and out rolls thick, black smoke that smelled like rotten eggs, and a man dressed, I swear to God, like Liberace, cape and all only without the glitter, hurried through the cloud.

We don’t -- now, I’m from Arkansas, and that don’t mean we ain’t got heroes of any description, or we ain’t familiar with the big ones or any of that. I know of Captain America and Thor and them. And I Googled this fella, too, so I knew he was an Avenger, blah blah, but the Wikipedia picture was... well, he was a doctor! Not a damned -- I mean, a cape? 

“Matthew R. Hawk. You are right on time, and I am frightfully late, you have my apologies.” He gestures I should follow him with one of his gloved hands. “I was told of your text messages, too, another apology. I was unable to reply through... traditional means, but I’m glad I was at least able to get a brief message to Wang before you arrived.”

By the time we’re done walking, we’ve arrived at some sort of parlor with a few ornate chairs and a small, inlaid bar that sported a dozen or so spirits. He waves at a chair and side-table I can occupy and sidles himself up to the bar. He doesn’t remove his cape or gloves. Must be uncomfortable... It was odd hearing him say the words ‘text messages’ out loud, for sure. I feel like he must fet his texts by raven or something.

“You seem at a loss for words, Mr. Hawk. May I call you Matthew?”

“Uh, Matt is fine. Ain’t gotta’ be all formal.”

“Matt. Would you like a drink, Matt? My bar is better stocked than you might think.”

“Whiskey is fine, whatever you got. Cube of ice.”

As beautiful as the wealthy Avenger’s antique furniture might be, I did come with a purpose. While he busies himself making drinks, I grab an ottoman and set down the wooden box I’ve been lugging around since the hotel this morning, laying out the contents neatly beside their container. Two pistols, a black bandana, a vest, and two jingly silver spurs.

“Doctor, it’s mighty wide of you to invite me into your beautiful home like this. I must admit, I’m kinda nervous to be meeting a big-time hero like yourself. I just have to say that I’ve heard, you know... very good things about you. It’s an honor to meet you. And Mr. Wang, him too, I read about him some online.”

“Very good things? What sort of very good things?” He was musing, idly. I’m not sure what he was making himself but it involved a shaker and enough vodka that I could smell it from across the room. I’m gathering more and more that he hasn’t been having the best day.

“Oh, yeah, well, I know you’ve worked with the Avengers, which means you probably saved the world before. Or helped, at least. And I know you collect haunted stuff and the like. And I think this stuff here that might speak to both those aspects of your life.”

“Those items there, the guns? The mask?” He shakes his drink in the general direction of the ottoman.

“Yessir. Well, yeah, the bandana was used as a mask. And there’s the suede vest there, and a couple spurs. I think those are pure silver. Least, that’s what I was told by my mother.”

Strange sets his shaker down heavily after pouring his glass. Seems to me he’s fighting the urge to grab it with both hands and pour the booze down his damned throat. Been there, buddy, hang on in... Instead, he sets it aside, grabs a lowball, and pour my drink, and his face turns more puzzled.

“And the hat?” 

“Hat? I don’t -- I don’t have a hat to go with this, no sir...”

“Oh dear... That’s... quite a shame.” 

Strange walks over, handing me my drink, and sits in a chair opposite mine. That cape he wears, the way it moves... There’s something... I take a gulp and swallow hard.

“You didn’t say nothin’ about a hat, I’m sorry mister, I--”

“I’m sure it can be found.”

“F-found? Oh, yeah, I mean, I could maybe look around Mama’s attic or some--”

“Matthew, I’m afraid I have to tell you that you haven’t brought me what you think you have, in that wooden box of yours.”

“Well, now, listen, if we’re negotiating price already, I should say th--”

“Price?”

Jesus, this rich asshole is gonna lowball me. I’m sitting in a chair probably worth more than my truck and this fella is about to tell me my Grampa’s most cherished possessions are a pile of junk? An Avenger, lowballing.

“Well yessir. These here are antiques, I mean they’re priceless really. And these guns still work, even, they ain’t just for show.”

“If you’re fool enough to sell these, I have to wonder what you need the money for. Drugs? I can help you with any such... medical issues.”

“Are you offering me drugs, mister?”

Strange laughed. His whole face broke up; Mr. Stern-Puss melted away and he actually smiled, softly. He’s still working through his drink in a hurry, but I guess I must’ve tickled him well enough.

“No, not... well, not exactly. I think what I’m about to offer you is a choice.”

“I’m sorry?” 

“Your life now -- your family, your home, your routine, who you are -- is on one side, Matthew. You wake up each morning, you drive to work, you sweat over a mop and broom, you go home. True?”

“I mean, that’s kinda’ right, I guess.” It’s exactly right.

“But something feels off, doesn’t it? Like an itch you can’t quite scratch. Have you ever watched the news and felt that burning need to do something?”

“Do... anything. Anything at all. Yeah. Help. Somehow. Of course.”

“Mm. And that’s the choice. Matthew, these items you’ve brought me radiate magic so intensely I can almost feel the air vibrating.”

“Magic?”

“Very old magic. Potent spells -- curses, perhaps -- whose origin and purpose I’ve only been able to theorize about.”

“... Magic?”

“I think it’s time, Mr. Hawk, that you learned about your heritage. And at the end of this, as I’m sure you’ll have questions, it will sit there, waiting for you. The inescapable choice.”

[avengers-dark-messenger]

                                                        Chapter 1.4                                                      “First Contact”

Coma?

I keep saying it over and over in my head, Coma coma coma. The word doesn’t even mean anything to me any more. I mean, he’s Tony F. “By-The-Way-The-F-Stands-For-Freaking” F. Stark. He’s the invincible Iron Man. And in literally a second, just... Coma.

To be fair, flying right up to a big scary looking thing that might shoot lasers at you is just about the dumbest thing you could do. I mean only a real moron would do something so gosh-dang idiotic. And if you saw one guy do it and fail, someone way stronger and smarter than you, and then you decided to do pretty much the same thing? Boy, you’d be just a real -- yes I’m swinging toward the big floaty ball.

What other option is there? Oh, maybe May will have some cool ideas on how to deal with this thing, I could call her up. She’ll answer her phone just as soon as Price Is Right is over. Or maybe I’ll sit in the cafeteria and watch it on TV with the rest of school, just a bunch of Herbs getting fed bits of information like baby birds; yeah but no. So really, if you hastily rationalize it, this is the smart thing to do.

Which is... okay, what exactly am I doing? Am I really just going to swing up to this thing and punch it? I know in my bones I’m going in the right direction -- the good guys run toward the fire -- I just, what can I do that a man literally armored in his own absurd resources couldn’t? I’ve got my Uncle’s old soldering glasses over a ski mask. There’s $2.75 in the zippered pocket of my spray-painted jacket. And I’ve -- Oh!

I’ll bet my bus fare that for all the whiz-bang gizmos in that suit of his, ol’ Mr. Stark doesn’t have a sensor that replicates my uncanny spidey-sense. If nothing else, I can go to ground zero and just be, like, a canary in the coal mine. I feel a tingle, I leap into action! Maybe I could get some folks to safety if that thing decides to shoot down.

Spidey-sensor! Got it. Dang, I hate it when I miss a pun while I’m inner-monologuing.

Okay. Swing into the heart of danger with only part of an objectively bad plan with nebulous overarching goals to confront an unknown threat. What could go wrong?

Coma coma coma.

[avengers-dark-messenger]

                                               Chapter 1.3                                              “First Contact”

My name is Matt Murdock, and I’m the son of Battlin’ Jack Murdock. My father was a boxer known more for taking a punch than laying men out. But, round after round, fight after fight, he stood up. If you managed to knock him to the mat, he always got back to his feet. Always. He wanted me to be so much more than he was, a life apart from pain and violence... But, despite everyone’s best efforts, I am my father’s son. And, right now, I’m boxing.

I don’t see him. I don’t see anything. But I feel the air move as he moves. I hear his breathing echo off the thick oak bar to my right and it tells me – a single breath – that his associate to my right has regained consciousness and is trying to get back on his feet. I have to end this before he gets up; can’t get flanked. Lucky enough, the way these smoker’s lungs rattle gives me a stereo view of the torso in front of me. I fade as he throws a stiff left, ducking and coming back up with a hard jab to his liver. His gasp as he leans forward is a spotlight for me, telling me exactly where my knee should go.

A stool rattles – Right Side Guy is up and readying a makeshift weapon. I smell the whiskey on his breath. I hear the crunch of my baton crushing his front teeth. I feel him crumple to the floor through the soles of my feet. I retrieve my baton from the thug’s face and turn my attention back to the man he was supposed to protect.

“You’re being very uncooperative, Mr. Maranzano.” His heart is a jackhammer. Rubber soles and fingernails burying deep into the filthy bar carpet as he backbeddles on hands and knees away from me, stammering.

“W-whatever it is th-th-that you want, wh-whatever you think I done, I-I –”

“The girl! Where’s the girl?!” I’m standing over him now, baton in hand. I hear drops of blood still falling from it, tapping against the floor like a metronome.  

“I don’t know what y-you’re t-talkin’ about, man!”

It doesn’t take the fact that I can hear his pulse quickening to tell me he’s lying, but the certainty of confirmation really helps ease my conscience when I fracture his right fibula with my baton. I wait until he stops screaming and threatening me before I get closer, on one knee, and and whisper my request once more.

I get my answer.

Midtown has changed over the years, but it’s still possible for a man in a red jumpsuit to skirt through alleys and fire escapes in broad daylight without causing too much commotion. If you know it well enough, at least. And you can see through walls.

Maranzano gave me a familiar name: Jonathan Fortunato. I’ve had more than one occasion to study his rap sheet. Age 43, he’s been actively involved in Maggia activity since he was at least 19. Quite a career. One would expect, with the earnings he’s banked and the years he’s served, he’d be quite respected among the Maggia families. Outside evidence seems to suggest a different story. Jonathan has expressed to multiple CI’s his frustration with his position. Feels like he’s been passed over, that he should be capo. Kids. Mortgage. Three cars. Drug habit. He’s acting reckless. Trying to push the families into a war.

And he’s not the only one who thinks bloodshed would be good for business. A dam is waiting to burst. I’ve been watching. Listening. Waiting for a tipping point; anyone can feel the pot boiling.

Then comes Jonathan. There will be war; this peace will break like a fever. Innocent people will die. But not the little girl Fortunato has kidnapped. Not this day. I can save her. And maybe I can push this war to another day. Give myself more time to prepare. 

Never enough.

Ace Service is a small, two-story garage that has rotated through the same fifteen vehicles for the past six months. Though they’ll do the occasional legitimate oil or tire change, the crew seems to spend half the day casually assembling vehicles, then tearing them down again and carefully cataloguing the parts for reassembly. It’s almost depressing how successful such lazy money laundering has been.

Today, though, things are different. One heartbeat in what sounds like a hallway, has to be.. fifteen feet to my left. I hear the rattle of a shotgun in his hands. There’s your time limit, Matt. Gotta be quick. 

Three heartbeats in the room beneath me. One much fainter than the others. A child’s heart has a higher pitch than a man’s, shining like a bell, and this one is racing in fear. I kneel and press my ears against the roof of the building; I can hear the feet of two large men creaking against the floor. They’re... standing at the window? Both of them? 

Damn it, they must have heard me. Moving like an old man, steps getting heavier every day. But I can’t pass up this chance; surprise is gone, have to go with pure speed, tying one end of my club to a drain and swinging in like a spider, catching them both on the chin with my feet. Takes the starch out of one of them — a piece of the glass from the window seems to have caught him in a particularly sensitive part of his face. There are silver linings to sightlessness; I only hear his description.

The other one is standing again by the time I get my footing. He’s fast, and my club is hanging useless in the window. I raise my forearms and duck my chin into them. As soon as he takes a swing, I’ll end this with a jab and get this girl home to her mobster parents.

Only he doesn’t swing. He’s got his hands up. He’s telling me, “No.” Using words like, “Please.” Trying to bargain with the Devil. Then he says, “Look.” The window, he says. He points with one hand, the other held up in defense. I hear bird calls. Cars. A couple arguing in the streets. Nothing. Weak distraction. I feint left, he flinches, and I come up with a convincing uppercut. He’ll only be asleep for a few moments. I hear the handle on the door to the hallway rattle; gotta move.

I grab the girl like a football in my arms; she fights me. Terrified. We hop out the shattered window, me grabbing my club with my free hand and kicking against the the brick wall until we get to the fire escape.

My lungs are on fire. Fighting these men, running across town... I have to rest. I tell the girl she’s safe, that I won’t hurt her, but she’s still terrified. Screaming at me.

“Look! Don’t you see?”

I don’t. But I hear her clothes rustle as she points into the sky. In the same direction as the man before, the one just gaining consciousness in the room next to us.

“Don’t you see the monster?”

I don’t -- what could -- but then I hear something; like lightning, but so much louder. The sound crackled and rolled over everything, my every sense, like a blinding shadow. A pressure wave hit me like a bomb had gone off. But, how loud it was, echoing against the glass and concrete and brick, how it hit me like a sledgehammer, how it buzzed and crackled, what the hell was it?

I remember my head being on the ground. The smell of vomit. I remember wondering if I was dying. If someone had finally... And I remember, more than anything, reaching for the girl. Trying to get to her. To save her. 

I remember failing.

[avengers-dark-messenger]

                                                  Chapter 1.2                                                “First Contact”

“My name is Tony Stark and I am Iron Man.” I'm almost tired of saying it. I almost wish – almost, for a second – I was capable of keeping a thought in my slightly undersized head. That I could keep a single secret or pithy remark to myself. If I could just keep to myself, I could be the world's shiniest street vigilante.

Well, second shiniest, behind a fully worked-up and sweaty Luke Cage. I've asked him on more than one occasion to try experimenting with using his head as a retroreflector for in-battle telemetry, but he thinks I'm just making bald jokes. I would never, for the record, make fun of Q-Ball's hairless melon and frankly only a baldy like him would even think that way.

I mean the marketing opportunities alone! (We're back on the burden of being billionaire and known superhero Tony Stark, here.) I should hyperlink everyday conversations... Note to self: make a note to Friday to make a note to me to invent something like that.

If I were a secret vigilante, I could invent a terrible, tragic backstory for the media -- something campy and dramatic, like my parents dying before my young, innocent eyes. Or just let the world speculate: Is He Man or Machine? They could make me a licensed Transformer.

There would be extraordinary savings, too. Significant. The money I spend defending my home is outrageous. Botswana spends less on defense. That's not a joke – I have it on great authority from Miss Potts that the numbers are, if anything, conservative.

And then there's the benefit to my free time. Now, far be it for me to bemoan the lifestyle of a decorated world-renowned certifiable extra-super-hero, but sometimes I do miss the humdrum old-fashioned days of living as a billionaire drug-addict playboy. I could be, right now, with a beautiful nude woman, hovering above Central Park in a levitating nuclear-heated jacuzzi of my own design and manufacture, and instead I'm on a nondescript soundstage in the NBC building recording local PSA's.

“Alright Mr. Stark, resetting. Next up: Tallahassee,” shouts some pretentious director in a frankly ludicrously tall chair.

“Happy, I think we should seriously consider initiating Operation Red Diamond.” To the world it may look like I'm muttering to myself like an insane madman, but in reality I'm communicating with my best-friend-bodyguard using a bone conduction earpiece I designed myself in a fit of depressed mania. Like a completely sane madman.

“Tony Stark has never met a problem he couldn't solve with an ICBM,” comes Happy’s inevitable rejoinder. He thinks he's clever with his snark, but I hear the faint sounds of an artist named Jewel in the background. The clarion tones are so crisp, so clear, with so little loss in the mids and lows, it could only mean one thing.

“Happy, do you remember me? Because I remember you. And since you're hanging out back at the jet instead of enduring this publicity dog-and-pony show, I'd sugg–”

“Uh, hey, Tony–”

“Happy I've told you never to interrupt me while I'm cranky.” But then I notice it. No one is staring at the amazing, shining Man of Iron beneath the dazzling studio lights. They've all turned away, staring at flat-screens on the wall, all of them showing the same thing. I hear Happy say something about “a situation” but I've already ignited my thrusters and noted the donation I'm going to have to make to NBC for repairing their wall.

I fly to five-thousand feet and see it in the distance, what the camera feed was showing.

“Friday, zoom.”

“Yes boss.”

Even with a better look, there's just nothing remarkable about this thing. It looks to be perfectly spherical, no obvious means of propulsion, the deepest, purest black I've ever seen, and it’s just hanging in the sky. I speed toward it, and it doesn't move at all. No shifting in the wind, no wobble from oscillations in thruster output. It must be the size of a city block and it's as still as my soldering hand.

When I get within a mile I start scanning all known hailing frequencies. This thing doesn't want to talk and doesn't want to listen. Or it communicates in a way I’ve never even heard of. So to speak. There doesn't seem to be anything to latch onto to try to hack, either. It's just a giant, floating black ball. So, okay, screw it, Plan F. Let's go old fashioned.

“Friday, voice mode: crowd control.”

“Volume at maximum, sir.”

“Hey, terrifying ominous sphere? Here on Earth we introduce ourselves when we come to a new area – I'll start. My name is Tony Stark, and I am Iron Man. Ask anybody. Now, you are...?”

Silence. Complete silence. My sensors are picking up birds a thousand feet away but this thing is as cold and quiet as death itself.

“Friday, hail Nick Fury.”

“Calling. First attempt.”

It doesn't finish ringing once.

“I don't know what the hell that thing is, either, Stark, and why, exactly, are you out there alone?” You know, behind that tough exterior of his, believe it or not, is an even tougher exterior that has been painstakingly hidden away through years of practice and speeches from HR reps.

“I'm doing well, thanks, and yourself?”

“Best we can tell this thing entered the atmosphere with hardly a whisper. Either no one noticed, or it appeared out of nowhere. No energy spikes, nothing. The Russians are saying it's the Chinese, the Chinese aren't saying anything, and the goddamned Canadians are – “

“Well, I can tell you it's not Chinese, that's for sure. God knows what the canucks are up to though.”  Might as well fly around and see if I can find an entrance of some kind. Or any kind of crease or line at all that might indicate this isn't just a single cast piece of whatever the hell this is. I'm running the tips of my metal fingers along the outside, puttering along below Mach 1, looking for anything -- anything -- and not even getting a spark. 

If I were to engineer a giant spherical monolith, where would I put the door handle?

“This looks to be maybe a metallic alloy, or... almost like a polished obsidian... But, Fury, this thing's impenetrable. I can't find anything to grab onto, physical or digital, to even start piecing together what it—”

“Which is why I'm telling you to stand down and wait for backup.”

“Aw, just one more minute, Ma! If I can maybe – oh, wait, action.”

A blade of light had opened, bright and golden, like an eye might, a straight line growing and becoming round as it did. When my displays adjusted to the brightness, I cold see a long cylindrical tunnel, lighter in color than the exterior, leading deep inside.

“Fury, I think I found an entrance. Or at least something that might do in a pinch.”

“We have specialists on the way to assist, Tony, just man the perimeter until our team arrives.”

“Specialists? More special than me?”

Then everything went brilliant white. And the heat, how instant it was, how it pierced through my armor like it wasn't there at all; I never saw it coming.

[avengers-dark-messenger]

                                                Chapter 1.1                                              “First Contact”

My name is Peter Parker and I am Spider-Man. I just want to say it out loud. I wanna scream it from the roof of the school. I wanna say it to her... But I can't even say it to myself. Not even alone, not even to the closest people in my life. I'm scared that if I say it once I won't be able to stop.

What if, as Aunt May was bringing me wheat cakes, I just blurted it out. She'd freak! Broken dishes, tears; she'd be terrified. Scared every night. And Gwen, oh boy I bet she'd be excited. I bet she'd kiss me right there and then. The Amazingly Spectacular Spider-Man! I could swing her around the whole city. But if she ever told a soul... if anyone ever found out, if we broke up and she – she would never, not on purpose, but if...

“Parker. Earth to Parker.”

Crap. Spotlight. What was he talking about? Mr. Anslinger is a nice man I guess but some folks just shouldn't be teachers. I couldn't focus in his class if my life depended on it.

“Um... sorry?” Brilliant. Just like that, top of my head, can you believe it?

“Single-point reactors, Parker, we've been discussing them all week. There's only one instance of one such reactor melting down, name the disaster and where it happened.”

Oh yeah I forgot I'm a nerdy dorky dweeby nerd-pants and of course I know the answer. Crisis averted, thank God I don't have things like friends and fun holding back my academic progress.

“Inchion. South Korea. Um, it went supercritical because of the, uh, all the safety measures broke down, like how the backup generators failed all at once because the code was written to measure energy in jou–“

“The Inchion Disaster. Correct. More than a million people died in seconds and it all could have been prevented in any number of ways. Everything had to go wrong, and when it did, what happened?”

“An energy burst. Like a big, giant, Hiroshima-sized microwave. They saw some of the Cherenkov radiation all the way from Seoul. They said it was beautiful, 'bluer than the bluest sky.' I read an article online that said they found the shadows of the bodies of the scientists in the room, there with the reactor beam, burned into the walls. You could even see their coats. It's...”

I hear Heather Watkins gasp behind me and realize maybe I got a little too morbid for 10 a.m. Physics.

“... Um, still there. You can even go see it...” Learn to stop talking, Peter. Learn to just stop. Talking.

“Let's be satisfied with what's in the textbook today, Parker.”

This is why you study so much, Pete. Your greatest gift is your uncanny ability to say exactly the wrong thing at the perfect time. Spider Sense, proportional spider strength, leaping tall buildings in only like two or three bounds, it all pales in comparison to my big fat mouth.

Anslinger moves on to another victim and I wait for my spider-sense to calm down.

“Flash, don't be such a dick!” Jenna Horne is jumping up, trying to get a water bottle Flash just grabbed off her desk. He's aiming to toss it to Charlie and the way my spidey-sense is buzzing I feel like he has a grenade in his hands. What the hell is going on? It's not from a particular – all I can do is look around, when I notice Heather at the window, staring up. So she hadn't gasped at me? I walk closer to see –

Oh crud.