Death was... disorienting.
Not the dying itself—that part was a blur. One second, I was stepping off the sidewalk, music blasting in my ears, thoughts drifting somewhere between dinner plans and enjoying the guitar solo, and then—
A horn.
A blinding light.
A thud.
Weightlessness, like being kicked on my whole body at the same time. Then another thud—harder. Sharper. Probably pavement.
Then came the cold.
The awful, creeping cold.
And silence.
Then... this.
Waking up in someone else's skin isn't just strange. It's wrong.
I didn't wake up in a hospital bed. No blinding white room nor darker than dark place. No R.O.B. explaining I was getting a second shot.
I just woke up face-down in a crusty pillow that reeked of sweat and off-brand deodorant. In a room I didn't recognize. In a body I didn't recognize.
I felt... sick.
Physically, mentally, spiritually.
It pained me to meet my own reflection in the mirror.
I am shorter now. Younger, but broader. Stronger-looking, sure—but not in some chiseled action-hero kind of way. More like someone who had good genes and played sports, but still ate whatever thrash food he could get his hands on. A slightly crooked nose, a few acne scars, and hair that looked like it lost a fight with a leaf blower.
Not ugly. Not handsome. Just... real.
That was when the memories started leaking in.
Not mine.
Like watching a home video filmed by someone else—familiar angles, unfamiliar hands. Names. Routines. Muscle memory. The kind of stuff you don't realize your body remembers until it moves without you thinking.
My memories were a mix of the old me—twenty-three, college dropout—and the new me.
I was Warren Wade.
Sophomore. Midtown High. Loud. Popular and confident enough to get away with being a dick.
And worst of all—
One of Peter Parker's bullies.
Yeah.
That Peter Parker.
Which meant this wasn't just a new body.
It was a new universe.
Marvel.
Fucking Marvel.
Where gods walk among us and alien invasions are a frequent event. Where New York has more superheroes per square mile than Starbucks.
And I was nobody.
No powers. No tragic origin. Just a background character in someone else's story. A throwaway name that existed to push the main hero a little closer to greatness.
I don't want that.
I don't want to be part of anyone's origin story. Especially not as the jackass who shoved Peter Parker into lockers between bio and gym.
The panic came in waves. I searched for the headlines—
Iron Man in the sky.
The Hulk tearing up Harlem.
Chitauri invading.
But nothing happened.
The city was quiet.
Too quiet.
So I played it low, I went to school to not raise suspicion and told people I was sick—emotionally, mentally, whatever. They bought it. Maybe they were too self-absorbed to care. Maybe the real Warren had burned enough bridges that no one questioned it.
But I knew what this was.
I'd been dropped into a ticking time bomb.
Wearing someone else's name.
Carrying someone else's past.
And that past? It sucked.
Flash Thompson and his crew treated me like one of their own. Loud, crass, shallow. They laughed too easily at weak jokes and always seemed to perk up when Peter passed by.
It was like bullying Peter was part of the morning routine.
Brush teeth. Eat cereal. Shove Parker into a locker.
But now, every time I looked at Peter, I saw the countdown.
That kid wouldn't stay small forever.
One bite. That's all it took.
And he'd become something bigger than all of us.
And I? I'd be a footnote, if I'm lucky enough.
Unless I changed that.
I might've landed in Warren Wade's body, but I wasn't going to carry his stupidity.
I couldn't rewrite the past—but I could stop it from repeating.
Because if Peter Parker was going to be Spider-Man—
Then maybe I could be the first person who didn't let him down.
---
So I've been observing him for a while now.
Peter Parker.
The dude was a nerd. Like… a HUGE nerd.
And I don't mean that in a bad way. But I got why guys like Flash zeroed in on him. He had all the traits bullies love to sniff out—Always hunched over his phone or school texts, headphones in but never playing music loud enough to drown out the world — just enough to make it feel a little further away. Thick-rimmed glasses slipped down his nose more often than not, and his backpack looked like it had been through one too many school years, bulging with textbooks, notebooks, and a tangle of charging cables and pens.
His hoodies were always a size too big, probably hand-me-downs or thrifted, paired with jeans that bunched awkwardly at the ankles above scuffed sneakers. He had a rotation of graphic t-shirts featuring old sci-fi shows no one else seemed to have watched.
He had the social presence of a fruit fly.
He wasn't Andrew Garfield cool, or Tobey Maguire endearing, or even Tom Holland awkwardly charming.
He was just… Peter Parker.
Unpolished. Isolated. Invisible.
I sat a table away from him in the cafeteria, wedged between Flash and a bunch of other hormone-jacked jocks. They talked loudly, laughed louder, and I just nodded along, half-listening—my eyes kept drifting back to Peter.
He didn't have anyone here.
No Ned Leeds cracking jokes. No MJ giving sarcastic commentary. No Gwen Stacy with her killer intellect.
Not even a Harry Osborn.
Fuck.
This Peter?
This guy had no one.
"God, this is going to be so fucking awkward… but here I go" I muttered under my breath.
I pushed back my chair, ignoring the confused looks from Flash and the rest of the jock squad. Laughter died mid-joke. Conversations hiccuped. All eyes followed me as I walked across the short distance to Peter's table—though it felt like miles.
Peter noticed me too. His eyes went wide behind his glasses, and the second I pulled the chair out in front of him, he started to stand, fast—probably bracing himself for whatever humiliation he thought was coming. Maybe a tray-flip. Maybe a dumb insult. The usual.
I could feel Flash watching, probably grinning already.
But I didn't let Peter get far. I placed a hand on his shoulder—not rough, but firm enough to keep him in his seat.
He froze.
I sat down.
"…Yo" I managed to choke out, voice low and awkward, like I was speaking a foreign language I barely remembered.
Peter stared at me like I'd just grown a second head.
And honestly? I didn't blame him.
"Look… hm…"
My fingers fidgeted around the tray, tapping, sliding, rearranging my spoon like it was going to give me a clue on what to say.
Words. Where the hell were they?
I'm not the one who bullied him, I told myself. This body did.
Different soul. Different mind.
But my throat still felt like it was trying to swallow gravel.
Peter was sitting stiff as a statue, eyes darting between me and the jocks behind me like he was waiting for the punchline—or the punch.
I took a deep breath. Let it out slow.
Then muttered, barely above a whisper
"I'm sorry."
The words landed with all the grace of a dropped dumbbell.
Peter blinked. "What?"
Fair reaction
But this guy is Spider-Man for fuck sake, an apology is the least he deserves.
"I said I'm sorry."
I looked him in the eye—barely. My fingers gripped the edge of the table like it might keep me steady.
"Sorry for… fuck, everything, okay?"
It all came out in a rush, like a broken faucet I couldn't shut off.
"And you don't have to forgive me, not if you don't want to. I get it. I probably wouldn't either. I just…"
I swallowed. It felt like barbed wire going down.
"I don't even know where I'm going with this. I just—feel horrible for everything you've been through, Peter."
There it was. Out in the open.
I sat there, heart hammering in my chest, waiting for him to yell in my face, or call me out, or something.
'Why does this affect me so much? I wasn't the one bullying him.'
Instead, Peter just stared.
I was so focused on his reaction that I didn't even notice Flash calling my name from across the cafeteria.
Didn't notice the silence falling over their table.
All I could see was the confused, suspicious, and—just barely—hurt look in Peter's eyes.
Peter just… stared.
Not angry. Not forgiving. Just—disbelief. Like he didn't know what to make of me.
I don't blame him, of course he didn't. People don't just do 180s without a reason.
Then—whap—a slap to the back of Peter's head snapped him out of it.
Flash.
Of course.
That smug, punchable smirk stretched across his face like he'd just stepped into a comedy sketch he'd been rehearsing all week. "Aww, what's this? Did I miss the apology tour?"
The others behind him chuckled, but their eyes flicked to me—confused, disapproving. Like I'd broken some unspoken bully code.
And maybe I had.
I stood up without thinking. My body moved before my brain caught up.
Flash's hand was still mid-air when I grabbed his wrist—tight.
His smirk faltered.
Then I shoved him.
Not hard enough to make him fall, but enough to make him stumble back a step, surprised.
"Back off, Flash."
He turned with that same dumb laugh, like everything was still a joke to him. "What, you got a soft spot for Parker now? You wanna be his bodyguard or something, Wade? Gonna kiss him?"
I stepped between them, squaring my shoulders. "Back. Off."
My voice is lower now. Firm. The kind of tone that get people to shut up or square up.
'Please don't make this into a fight. Please don't make this into a fight.'
I begged it like a mantra in my head.
I might've looked the part—broad shoulders, squared stance, jaw clenched like I knew what I was doing. But the truth was; I'd never really been in a fight.
Well… not one that ended well for me.
A couple of middle school scuffles where I ended up with a bloody nose and a bruised ego. That was about it.
Now I was standing between a bully and a future superhero.
And Flash was eyeing me like he couldn't decide whether to laugh again or swing.
I risked a quick glance back at Peter.
He was staring at me like I was a math problem that changed formulas halfway through or something—confused, cautious, but curious.
I turned back to Flash and the others—and that's when I realized.
Everyone in the cafeteria was watching.
Spoons frozen mid-bite. Conversations dead. Phones probably recording.
Fuuuuck.
Okay, but someone was going to call a teacher, right?
Right?
The first thing I saw when I looked back at Flash
Was his fist.
Flying straight at me.
I didn't dodge.
I couldn't.
I froze.
Everything in my body locked up like a bad engine in the cold.
Crack.
His knuckles connected cleanly with my face, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor.
Staring up at the blurry ceiling tiles.
Ears ringing.
Left eye in the process of swelling.
And there it was—
My ego, stained by the mashed potatoes, and the cheap nuggets that fell over me.
Great.
How the hell did this body—this person—spend years making Peter Parker's life miserable, while being this fucking weak?
What right did Warren Wade ever had to make someone like Peter feel so small?
Fuck him.
I wasn't going to let it end like this.
Not for me.
Not for Warren.
For Peter.
For the kid who'd one day carry the weight of everything.
I forced myself to move.
My body screamed at me to stay down, but I grabbed at anything I could—
The tray beside me, the edge of a table, hell, even Flash—
Just to get my legs under me again.
He let me. Maybe out of shock. Maybe out of pity.
It didn't matter.
I stood.
Shaky, half blind, hunched like a knocked-over coat rack. But I stood.
Then I raised my fists.
It wasn't a good stance.
It was barely a stance.
A sloppy mix of what I remembered from old MMA videos and video games.
A bluff.
A bad one.
But I was still there.
Still trying.
"Fuck… you."
It came out broken.
Like my pride.
The pain flared in my mouth, sharp and hot, and I winced.
Flash looked at me—
With confusion? Disgust?
Hell if I knew.
Hell if I cared.
Where the hell was a teacher?
How long had it been—ten seconds? Thirty?
Did I really have to fight him?
I don't want to.
I'm scared.
But I had to.
I wasted my last life being passive.
Letting shit happen.
Not again.
This time, I'd move.
Even if I had no idea how.
Right—Warren was a quarterback. That had to mean something, didn't it?
I threw myself at Flash.
Not a punch.
Not a kick.
A full-on tackle.
Sloppy, clumsy, desperate.
But it worked.
He didn't expect it.
Didn't brace.
We crashed to the floor hard.
The wind knocked out of me.
I gritted my teeth and held on. Arms wrapped around him like a lifeline, legs locking wherever they could.
Just hold. Just stall.
"GET OFF ME!"
His fist slammed into my ribs.
Fuck.
He punches like a truck.
My vision sparked, but I clung on tighter.
Because I wasn't letting go.
Not until someone stopped us.
Or until I passed out.
Whichever came first.
I don't even know how long it lasted.
An hour? A minute?
Time stretched and crumpled in on itself like cheap tinfoil.
When the teacher finally showed up—
I think it was Mr. Levin, the math guy—
I've never been so goddamn happy to see a man holding a clipboard in my life.
Flash was still trying to swing, breathless and red in the face.
Me?
I was just curled around him like a human seatbelt, too sore to move.
Every inch of me throbbed.
He didn't hold back.
I've got bruises on my bruises.
Mr. Levin was yelling. Someone else was recording.
Great. Just great.
I got peeled off the floor and sent to the infirmary first—
I guess because I looked worse.
Then came the trip to the principal's office.
Fun day.
But as I limped past the cafeteria doors, I caught a glimpse of Peter.
He was still sitting at that table, tray untouched.
Watching me.
Eyes wide, face unreadable.
Lost?
Grateful?
I don't know.
God, I hope so.
Because I feel like I got hit by a truck wearing brass knuckles.
And I just want to believe it meant something.
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Word count: 2.473