Peter sat on his bed with his elbows resting on his knees. The last of the daylight was fading away outside his window and he was already tired from the events that had taken up his day. Today was the day of his Uncle Ben's funeral, the day he felt that never would've happened if he hadn't made a mistake. He wished with all his might that he could just sit here in his room with his aunt and uncle muttering angrily downstairs about how irresponsible he'd been acting lately and that they still needed to decide his punishment. He had taken the jacket of the suit he'd worn to the funeral off and it remained in a pile of clothes on the floor, having missed his laundry basket upon his numerous throws. He pushed himself up off his bed and walked over to his drawers, sliding the top one open. The older wooden draw creaked under its own weight as it hung open, small flakes of wood dust falling down to the carpet below due to the scraping metal railings on the drawer itself.

"Peter?" May asked, knocking on the door of his room.

"Yeah?" Peter asked, going through his drawer until he came across a Batman comic book. He slid it out of the drawer just as Aunt May opened the door and walked inside, looking around for a mess as she often did when entering his room.

"I just checked my emails-" she began, sitting down in Peter's computer chair as he sat down on his bed "And I'd gotten one from school, in regards to the fight you had a few days ago"

"And?" Peter asked, looking up at his aunt.

"You've been suspended" she answered, lowering her eyes slightly.

"What!?" Peter demanded, sitting up straight on the edge of his bed "For how long!?"

"Six months" May sighed, placing her hand on her forehead.

"That's can't be right" Peter growled "I didn't even start that fight!"

"Peter, I don't think you understand how serious this is" May cut in "This isn't anything like the scuffles you were usually in a few years ago, whether you started it or not you shattered that boy's hand and hospitalized him, you could be facing charges of assault"

"It was self defence!" Peter snapped.

"Peter, there's no point in shouting at me about this" May said calmly "I agree with you, but I don't approve of how you handled it"

"What d'you mean by that?" Peter asked in confusion.

"I know that you didn't start that fight, the teachers managed to figure that out from the students and Harry too, but you went too far with how you handled it... you might've ruined that poor boy's school career"

"That's not my pr-" Peter began before cutting himself off before the last word left his mouth. He put a hand to his face and rubbed his temples, sighing through his nose.

"You're right... I might've ruined Flash's football career" Peter nodded solemnly "Do you think I should apologize to him?" May looked up at the clock on Peter's wall for a long second before answering in a slow tone.

"No, I don't think you should" she said.

"What?" Peter blinked, thoroughly confused at his aunt's statement.

"Do you feel like you were in the wrong?" May asked.

"N-No" Peter answered after a moment's hesitation.

"And do you feel like an apology is going to make things better between you and Flash?" she continued.

"No, not really" Peter said with a shake of his head.

"So if you don't feel sorry and it's not going to help then what good is apologizing?" May asked with a raised eyebrow. Peter stared blankly at her for a long moment before opening his mouth and speaking.

"As much as I agree with you that is a terrible moral standard to have" Peter said in a confused tone.

"Peter, I think you're too old for me to sugar coat the world for you now" May responded "You need to start learning that the world doesn't play fair and there are many things you can't solve with a handshake, this is one of them"

"Right... if these are the kind of lessons I'm going to learn at fifteen then I think I'm just gonna hide under my covers until I'm forty three now" Peter said jokingly.

"Life's going to be more difficult for us now Peter... and you're gonna have to be the man of the house now-" May said, standing up and walking back towards the door "You're gonna need to take on a few responsibilities" Peter smiled at his aunt with a brief nod before speaking.

"I know that, and, don't worry, I will Aunt May" Peter smirked.

"Good... in that case you can start by doing your laundry right now" May nodded, knocking her hand gently on the door frame.

"What"? Peter asked in a laughing tone "I've gotta get to bed, it's a school..." May smirked at him as he trailed off, hanging his head and nodding. He pushed himself off his bed and gathered up the piles of clothes he had littered around the room.

"Right, responsibility" Peter said, practically buried in his clothing. May moved out of the way as Peter stumbled past her and down towards the stairs.

"Be careful" May warned as she walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

"I will" Peter said, checking behind him to see that his aunt had fully shut the door before vaulting over the staircase and dropping down to the floor, bending a knee as he landed to soften the drop, though unneeded. He pushed up and strode into the kitchen, throwing the clothing in front of the washing machine before grabbing the TV remote of the table and flicking on the small TV they had on the kitchen side. The automatic channel was the news network and it was playing a report by a relatively new anchor to the channel.

"And reports are still coming in from what appears to be an underground crime wave in the city of New York and the NYPD are encouraging anyone they can to come forward with anything they may know about any suspicious activity in the city" he anchor said Though while they encourage the reporting of crimes they are also warning citizens to not attempt to intervene in any of these events, saying that the crime wave needs to be dealt with by those trained to handle this responsibility" Peter listeend to the report as he began to pile clothes into the washing machine, muttering to himself.

"Handle the responsibility?" he asked himself "These guys can barely handle a street protest, I could do a better job of protecting this city than the NYPD" Peter's hand fell off the dial on the washing machine as a thought struck him. When it came to protecting the city, he felt like he genuinely could. He wasn't like one of those regular nut balls who thought they could fight crime by running round with a stick and an eye mask. They often failed to realize just how dangerous fighting crime was and were focused only on the comic tales of super villains and devious plots, forgetting about the drug dealers, murderers and rapists that swarmed the streets of the big cities.

"What am I saying?" Peter asked himself "Am I really talking about dressing up in costume and beating up criminals?" The question seemed ridiculous to Peter for the first three seconds but the more he thought about it the more he liked the idea. He knew he could do it, he'd stopped a mugging and a murder previously and it hadn't been that difficult. He had somewhat of a costume put together already and he was more than well equipped with the ability to take on a few criminals with his super powers.

"This is extremely stupid" Peter grinned, drumming his fingers on the top of the machine "But fuck it, I'm really interested in this now" He finished up with the washing machine's set up before sprinting back up the stairs and getting on his computer, grabbing a sketch book to begin throwing some ideas together. Next Chapter: The Human Spider? Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 40 Minutes