Chapter Text
Before now, Peter had certainly been aware of the world's general unfairness. There was no logic or rationality to it – good things happened to bad people, bad things happened to good people, and it was the duty of each person to do the best they could to bring a little goodness to the world. To make it better and brighter for everyone.
Apparently insurance companies neglected to get memos about that sort of thing.
And really – really, no matter how hard he tried to spin it (and he'd tried damn hard, rest assured), it was all his fault, wasn't it?
Peter had been the one who'd walked away from the idiot, asshole psycho. He might not have held the knife that had found its way into Uncle Ben, but he could have stopped it. He'd had the chance. And he hadn't.
And now a good, kind man, the type of person who only wanted to do his best for people, was on life support. Barely responsive. Now Peter had to sit on the stairs, knuckles white as he gripped his knees, torn between cowering away in shame and going to comfort Aunt May, the woman quietly sobbing at the kitchen table over the hospital fees that were forcing her to choose between the husband who might never wake up, and the house they'd made a home.
Because bad things happened to good people. Because of Peter.
Because it was all his fault.
Own up to your mistakes, Uncle Ben had always told him. Accept them as your own, and do your best to fix them. If you've got someone into trouble, someone who doesn't deserve it, help get them back out of it.
Peter uncurled his aching fingers, gently pushed himself to his feet, and crept upstairs. Eighty-thousand dollars and rising every week – Peter Parker, high-school nerd and bully-target, couldn't hope to pay that off. Not in years, let alone the month they had left.
But a guy with newly-developed superpowers? Yeah. It made his stomach roil with even more guilt, but shoving it down to nothing took only the brief memory of Uncle Ben's face, pale and gaunt, tubes snaking up his nose, monitors dully bleeping his heart-rate, the lack of response-
Yeah. This... this definitely wasn't what Uncle Ben meant , Peter reluctantly admitted, tugging the clumsily-altered balaclava from under his mattress, turning it over in his hands. But it's not like there's a lot of options, and – and I'll make sure nobody gets hurt. Nobody. This was my fault.
He stilled; from downstairs, the sound of a chair scraping as Aunt May rose, doubtless hiding the bills away again, tucked in the drawer where she thought Peter didn't know about them. He breathed deeply, the tinge of dread in his gut turning to solid determination.
“My fault,” Peter muttered, confirming it as he'd done every day since. “My responsibility.”
With his superpowers and intellect combined, what could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out, there were a lot of things that could go wrong.
The first sticking point had been whether to bust up some major drug or arms deal, where a large sum of money would be, and 'borrow' some of it, or to bust up something more official (i.e., a bank), also where a large sum of money would be, and 'borrow' some of it.
The trouble with smashing his way into an illegal trade was that a) they didn't tend to advertise their whereabouts, and b) the people involved tended to be heavily armed, and would probably also try to hunt down the nice spider-themed guy who'd just ripped them off. Plus, the trouble with hauling at least $80,000 in cash away with him.
The problem with the bank however, was that a) it was massively illegal and he'd have the full force of the law after him, b) people who weren't drugs/arms dealers might get hurt, and again, the trouble with hauling $80,000 in cash away, not to mention making sure it wasn't marked or tagged first.
On the bright side, banks were much easier to find than drug deals, and insurance companies were less likely to stiff them than they would Aunt May, so there was no real loser.
Well, except the insurance company, and Peter wasn't particularly well-inclined towards them, if 'not well-inclined' could be summed up as 'fuck 'em all'.
The issue was considered and worried over from all angles (while he was working on his costume, naturally – full body to prevent fingerprints, a bit of discreet padding here and there to throw off his body shape, a tight hair net under the costume which was technically to prevent any strands of loose hair (and thus DNA) escaping, but was actually because his hair made stupid-looking, lumpy indentations under the balaclava...
Just because Peter was about to piss off a bunch of people to the point of being shot at, didn't mean he had to look like crap while he did it, okay?
Two days later, it was ready.
It looked...
Okay, it looked like a teenager had thrown together a balaclava/hoodie/sweatpants/gloves/boots combo and was going to go rob someone, BUT . The most important thing, Peter firmly told himself as he gazed down upon the clothes carefully arranged across his bed – the most important thing, was that they matched. Mostly. The eye-lenses he'd managed to attach to the balaclava were a nice touch, right? Almost professional! He'd attempted to sew a spider design onto the hoodie and yeah, okay, kind of a disaster, but that had all been unpicked, so lesson learned.
… Definitely a drug deal, Peter decided. There was no way he could get anywhere near a bank looking like this, not without a swarm of police cars on his tail before he even got there.
Now all he had to do was wait until nighttime, head into the city, and hunt down the biggest crime he could find.
The second thing that went wrong was that even with super senses, it was harder than Peter would have thought to actually find any criminals. The gloves and boots combo was great for not leaving easily identifiable prints, but turned out to be not so good for his wall-crawling, which meant he had to walk. Plus it was hot.
Really hot.
Every now and then, Peter had to make sure he was out of sight of any cameras or people and yank the lower half of his balaclava up to let some damn air in. At least super-senses did come in handy for avoiding people, or Peter was pretty sure he'd have had the cops called on him before he'd even committed any crimes.
After nearly the twentieth time he ducked into an alley to avoid late-night revellers, Peter ended up stopping a mugging, and promptly shook the mugger down for cash after the victim had fled, netting nearly thirty dollars and a Star Wars keyring. It was a start.
“I hope you appreciate the irony of this,” Peter told him conversationally, as he tossed the knife into a dumpster. Wait. Should he have kept that for the Inevitable Drug Deal Bust-Up? Damn.
Ignoring the cry of “ Fuck you! ” that followed this, Peter pocketed his loot, gently kicked the mugger in the knee (“ Arghjesusfuck! ”), and skulked off to continue his criminal quest. And try not to overheat.
The next night of his (ig)noble search, Peter brought a bottle of water along. He ended up hitting a car thief over the head with it, too, which was probably only slightly classier than using a sock full of pennies, but the important part was that he was well-hydrated.
And twenty dollars richer from Mr. Attempted Car Thief, but whatever.