The nurse gave me an ice pack and a look that said 'What did you expect?'
I didn't answer.
Partly because it hurt to even talk, mostly because I didn't have an answer.
They let me sit in the infirmary for a while—probably to cool off before the principal tore into me.
Fair.
I mean… I tackled a guy during lunch.
But it wasn't like I wanted to fight.
I just… couldn't sit and watch it happen again.
And he hit me first anyways.
Warren Wade had hurt Peter for years.
And now I defended him.
Funny how doing the right thing tastes like pain.
Eventually, the secretary fetched me.
"Principal Monroe will see you now."
Great.
Her office was stale and silent.
The kind of room where fluorescent lights felt like interrogation lamps.
Flash was already there, arms crossed, with his "I don't give a shit" or "After this you're dead" face on.
I didn't sit next to him.
Principal Monroe gave me the usual speech.
"Violence is unacceptable."
"You're both in trouble."
"You're lucky I'm not calling the school board."
But her eyes lingered longer on me.
She was confused.
Warren Wade didn't protect people.
He didn't step in.
I wasn't sure what to say.
So I didn't say much.
Just nodded.
They didn't suspend me, surprisingly. Just a warning, probably because I didn't throw the first punch.
But she did suspend Flash, now he's gonna kill me for real when he comes back.
Great.
---
After the bruises, the nurse, and the awkward visit to the principal's office, I was finally home.
Warren's house is... depressing. Big, neat, cold. Like a showroom with no warmth behind the walls. His parents aren't around much—too busy climbing some corporate ladder while their son practiced being a high school cliché.
No parents barging in. No siblings. Just me, a quiet bedroom, and the internet... Great.
With a bag of frozen peas pressed to my left eye, I sat down on the worn-out chair in Warren's desk, and used Warren's old but reliable computer and leaned on the only superpower I had:
Google.
"Captain America status."
Still MIA, presumed dead in World War II.
"Iron Man Tony Stark"
CEO of Stark Industries.
"Hulk Bruce Banner."
Gamma radiation scientist.
"Thor Norse mythology real?"
Just… wiki articles. Nothing about a hammer lading in New Mexico.
I scrolled. And scrolled.
And cursed. Loudly.
Captain America? Still a popsicle, hopefully alive.
Tony Stark? Still a billionaire jackass making weapons.
Bruce Banner? Total nerd.
Thor? If he existed, he's playing Skyrim in Asgard or something.
What. The. Hell.
This wasn't the MCU.
This wasn't even the Raimi universe.
This was some weird early prelude where all the pieces were there, but nothing had happened yet.
A slow burn Marvel world.
Great.
I leaned back in Warren's creaky desk chair and stared at the ceiling, feeling that awful pit of realization in my chest:
I didn't know anything about this version of reality.
No cheat codes.
No plot armor.
Just fragments of stories and memes I half-remembered from Reddit.
Peter wasn't bitten yet.
The Avengers weren't formed.
Everything I knew might not even happen here.
Which meant one thing:
I had no idea what came next.
Great. Just Great.
But then again...
This is better than the alternatives.
I didn't know much about Marvel—barely scratched the surface. Just the movies, really, and the occasional YouTube video playing in the background while I shoveled cereal into my mouth. Some big crossover event here, a timeline reset there, maybe Wolverine getting emotionally wrecked on his birthday or Deadpool casually murdering the entirety of Marvel for fun.
Still, it could've been worse.
Way worse.
I could've landed in Ruins—where heroes die pathetic deaths and everything's a grim, radioactive nightmare. Or Marvel Zombies, where everyone's hungry, extremely hungry.
So yeah.
To whatever higher being out there that dropped me here—
Thank you.
But also, seriously?
Fuck you.
At least I'm alive. And I have internet access.
I figured if I'm stuck here, I need a thorough lay of the land. So I opened another tab and typed:
"mutant sightings."
Big mistake.
It was a full-blown rabbit hole of brain rot.
Most of it looked like garbage—conspiracy-theory-tier nonsense with grainy footage, heavily pixelated images with red circles.
But buried under the garbage... there was something. Something real.
And then I saw it.
A Reddit thread titled:
"Anyone Else Heard of Xavier's School?"
Click.
My attention caught by a few replies:
< Ass_Licker69_69 >
"My roommate said some bald guy in a wheelchair showed up at her cousin's house. Talked about DNA, evolution, potential. She's gone now. Boarding school, apparently.
No website. No address. Just a 'school' in a mansion in Westchester that no one can find unless they're invited."
Oh.
Oh no.
So mutants are real.
Maybe still lurking under the surface, only rumored among a schizo subreddit and other conspiracy sites. But real.
Which is terrifying.
Because I don't know much about the X-Men. I know there's a bald guy who plays mind games, a religious blue guy who teleports, a metal guy with a Russian accent, and Wolverine is a walking trauma factory with knives for hands. That's about it.
And now I have to worry if any of them are gonna show up and throw a sentinel through my window one day.
Marvel, baby.
The timeline is still in its very early stages—somewhere before everything spirals into aliens, magic, and universe-erasing purple morons.
And I'm sitting here in the body of a bully, a washed-up quarterback, who barely knows how to keep his hands up in a fight.
This world doesn't need another jock.
It needs people willing to stand in the gap—
Before villains.
Before gods.
Before everything.
I'm not ready.
I don't have powers.
I barely have a plan.
I'm so unbelievably, cosmically, irreversibly…
Fucked.
---
Peter Parker POV:
The Hell Was That?
I've been shoved into lockers, tripped in hallways, had my lunch stolen more times than I can count.
I've memorized the rhythm of Flash Thompson's laughter, the sound of jocks calling me "Puny Parker" and the exact number of steps from my locker to the nearest place I can disappear.
But today?
Today felt… off.
It started with Warren Wade.
He's usually one of the loud ones. Not the loudest one—that's Flash, obviously—but Wade's is not far behind. He's the guy who laughs a little too hard at your pain, the one who adds the extra comment when everyone else is already walking away.
So when he walked up to me in the cafeteria, I braced for it. I was halfway standing already, expecting to get milk dumped on my head or my tray flipped.
Instead, he apologized.
And I don't mean one of those sarcastic "oh no, did I dropped your books again? My bad" fake-out apologies.
He sat down. Awkward. Nervous. Like I was the scary one.
And then he said "I'm sorry."
I didn't know what to do with that.
He looked… real. Not smug. Not condescending. Just awkward. Guilty, even.
And then Flash had to ruin it, of course. Smacked me on the head like an old TV that wasn't working.
But Wade did something else that shocked me more than the apology:
He stood up for me.
And I mean stood up—like, physically put himself between me and Flash. He even tackled him. Got a black eye and a trip to the nurse's office for it.
What the hell was that?
Wade has never stood between me and anything but the vending machine.
I don't have many friends to talk to about this—honestly, I barely talk to anyone unless it's for a group project or a lab partner thing.
But still.
That wasn't nothing.
And the way he said my name… the way he looked at me—like he already knew more about me than he should?
It's weird.
Something's different.
"He's… not gay, right? It would be awfully awkward to tell him I'm not interested after what he did…"
I muttered that in my head as I walked home, my backpack slung over one shoulder, sneakers scuffing the sidewalk. The whole Wade thing kept looping in my brain like a GIF.
Why the sudden change? Why me?
I kept trying to find the trick, the hidden camera, but there's nothing. Just that weird, almost sincere look on his face. The kind of look people give you when they're about to say something they really feel sorry about.
It made my stomach twist.
By the time I made it to my little two-story home with the peeling paint and the creaky porch, I had gone from confused to suspicious to mildly terrified. I pushed open the door and tossed my backpack by the shoe rack, still not sure what unknown dimension I'd entered today.
"Peter?" Aunt May called from the kitchen. I could smell the meatballs before I saw her. "How was school?"
"Uhh… weird."
Uncle Ben peeked around from the living room table, newspaper in hand. "Weird how? Fire drill? Pop quiz?"
"No… Warren Wade stood up for me."
May blinked. Ben lowered the paper.
"Who?" they asked in unison.
"Exactly" I muttered, dragging myself toward the stairs. "It's not important."
It is important, actually. But how do you explain to your aunt and uncle that your high school bully suddenly decided to grow a conscience? Or that he looked like he'd been waiting for a reason to help?
Or that you're now wondering if he got possessed?
I flopped onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. Everything in me wanted to brush it off. Let it go. But a part of me—just a tiny, stupid part—wanted to believe that people could change. That maybe Warren saw something in me I didn't.
Still.
I hope he's not into me.
"Maybe he's into some shady stuff? Feared for his life and tried to cleanse his conscience?... Maybe he's just trying to make things right? Nah..."
I groaned, sat up and looked around my room.
Why does this bother me so much?
It's not like the bullying is going to stop just because Wade suddenly had a redemption arc. One lunchroom apology doesn't erase months of shoulder checks, tripped feet, and loud laughter behind my back.
It's not that deep.
It's not.
Ugh!
I flopped down on my bed again and stared at the ceiling again like it had the answers written in invisible ink. But no answer came. Just the dull whir of the ceiling fan and the mostly quiet hum of a Queens night outside.
Maybe I wanted it to be that deep. Maybe some pathetic part of me wanted to believe that people like Warren couldn't change. That high school was this constant battlefield where people like me always ended up on the floor while the world laughed.
God. I need to stop thinking about this.
I reached for my phone and searched for anything mildly interesting to get my mind around. Maybe some conspiracy theory about Captain America being a lizard.
Time to get my brain chewed out by strangers on the internet. As tradition.
_______________________________________
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