Marvel – I am Spiderman

The suit didn't fit. It fit Harry, who was narrower in the shoulders and longer in the arms and had been measured for it by an Italian man in SoHo who called him "Mr. Osborn" without smiling. Peter was wider across the back and shorter in the sleeve and May had taken it in at the waist with pins and the sewing machine that hadn't come out of the hall closet since Ben's brother's funeral.

"You look fine," Harry said.

"I look like I borrowed somebody's suit."

"You did borrow somebody's suit." Harry straightened his own tie in the elevator mirror. Grey silk, knotted right. Peter's was blue, clip-on, Ben's, from a Goodwill on Northern Boulevard. May had ironed it that morning. The knot was wrong and Ben had squeezed his shoulder at the front door and said "Give 'em hell, kid" and May had taken a picture with a disposable camera she'd bought at the drugstore.

The elevator opened on forty-six and the sound hit first.

A string quartet. The hum of a hundred conversations running on money and wine. Oscorp Tower's gala floor had floor-to-ceiling windows facing the East River and Brooklyn lit up beyond. The ceiling was three stories high. The catering staff wore black and the chandeliers were the kind of ugly that costs more than a house in Queens.

Harry walked into it like he'd been born in it.

Peter followed in the borrowed suit.

A woman in red handed him a champagne flute. He took it. Didn't drink it. Started counting exits because that's what he did now. Two main doors, service entrance behind the bar, elevator bank, stairwell marked EMERGENCY ONLY. Windows didn't open. He checked.

"Peter Parker."

Norman Osborn was taller than he expected. Red hair going grey at the temples, cut close. Jaw like an architect drew it. Blue eyes that started friendly and went clinical between one blink and the next. His suit was charcoal and it had never been borrowed from anyone.

"Harry tells me you're the smartest kid at Midtown." His hand was out. Peter took it. The grip was dry, firm, held a beat too long, and the spider-sense hummed at the base of his skull. Low, steady. Not danger. Awareness. Like standing next to equipment that was on.

Green mask. Pumpkin bombs. A glider over the city at night. Willem Dafoe's face in a mirror, talking to himself.

This man becomes the Green Goblin.

"I'm interested in biotech," Peter said.

Norman's eyes changed. The warmth stayed on his mouth. The rest of his face went somewhere Peter didn't want to follow.

"Biotech." He released the handshake. "Molecular engineering or systems biology?"

"Both. I'm working on a polymer synthesis project with-"

"With Gwen Stacy. Harry mentioned." Norman smiled. His mouth did. "Oscorp runs an internship program for students with aptitude. Not the standard program. This would be direct mentorship. My lab. My researchers."

He produced a card from his inside pocket. Cream-colored. Embossed. His name in dark lettering and a phone number handwritten on the back in blue ink.

"Think about it." He slid the card into Peter's breast pocket and patted it once. "Your parents were scientists. Richard and Mary Parker."

Peter's jaw tightened. "How do you know that?"

"I do research, Peter. Good scientists run in families. I'd hate to see yours go to waste at a school that can barely afford Bunsen burners."

He squeezed Peter's shoulder. Same spot Ben had squeezed two hours earlier. Ben's hand had been warm.

Then Norman was gone, absorbed into a circle of men in suits who laughed when he said something. Peter watched him cross the room. The hum followed him for thirty feet before it faded.

He put the champagne down untouched.

The soda bar was in the corner, near the scholarship students. Oscorp Scholars Program. A dozen kids in clothes that ranged from rented to repaired, drinking Sprites and Cokes and trying to look like they belonged. Peter knew the look because he was wearing it.

Liz Allan was drinking a Sprite and wearing an emerald dress and her hair was up and she looked nothing like the girl between fourth and fifth period who'd brushed his arm in the hallway and walked away fast.

"You clean up okay, Parker."

"You too."

Which didn't cover it. The dress had a neckline that his eyes wanted to follow and he made himself look at her face instead and her face was smiling at him in a way that said she'd noticed where his eyes had been.

"Flash and I are done," she said. "For real."

"You said that after Derek Whitman's party."

"I know." She put the Sprite down. "He punched his locker. Not a person. A locker. But I'm not going to be the girl whose boyfriend does that."

"Good."

She waited. He didn't say more.

"You're supposed to say something after 'good,'" she said.

"I know."

"On purpose or do you genuinely not have a follow-up?"

"Working on it."

Her mouth went from the half-smile to the full one. She reached out and touched his lapel. Her fingers fixed the fold where May's tailoring had pulled the fabric slightly wrong. Her hand stayed. Palm flat against his chest over the sternum. Her fingers were cool against the suit and underneath the suit his heart was doing whatever hearts do when a girl in an emerald dress puts her hand on your chest at a party where you don't belong.

"You're warm," she said.

"Warm room."

"That's not what I meant." Her hand stayed. Her fingertips were warm through the fabric. Then she pulled it back and picked up her Sprite. "My family's complicated."

"Whose isn't?"

"Mine specifically." She took a sip. "My stepbrother, Mark. He's-" She stopped herself. Looked at her Sprite. "Not a gala conversation."

Mark Raxton. The name didn't fire any foreknowledge. Nobody he recognized from the movies. Just a name and the way Liz's mouth tightened when she said it.

She looked past him across the room. "Do you know anyone else here?"

He caught blonde hair and a silver headband across the floor. Blue dress. Gwen was talking to a woman in a lab coat.

"A few people."

Liz followed his eyes. Saw Gwen. Her lips pressed together, fast, then smoothed. "Have fun, Parker." She picked up her Sprite and walked toward the other scholarship kids by the windows.

The emerald dress caught the light when she turned. He looked away before he watched too long.

Harry was ten feet away eating a crab puff and he'd seen the whole thing. His eyes went from Peter to Liz to Peter.

"Good crab puffs?" Peter said.

"She's pretty, right?" Harry said.

"She's a person I go to school with."

"She was touching your chest."

"Lapel. She was fixing my lapel."

"With her whole hand. For like five seconds." Harry ate the rest of the crab puff. His voice was casual. His jaw wasn't. "I've had a crush on Liz since freshman year. Just so you know."

"Harry."

"I'm not saying don't. I'm saying I had dibs." He smiled. The smile had effort in it. "Go eat something before my dad comes back."

Peter went. He made it halfway to the food table before a hand caught his elbow.

"Didn't expect you here."

Gwen. Blue dress, silver headband that matched it, hair down. She was holding a cup of what looked like ginger ale and she was holding his elbow and she looked relieved to see a face she recognized.

"My dad knows someone on the board," she said. "I've been talking to a woman about carbon nanotubes for twenty minutes and I think I insulted her by asking about thermal conductivity during her tensile strength presentation."

"How is that insulting?"

"Apparently it's like asking a painter about sculpture." She took a sip of her drink. "How do you know the Osborns?"

"Harry. School."

"Right." She nodded. She was standing close. The dress was simpler than Liz's. She wasn't performing in it. Same headband. Same Gwen.

"You look tense," she said.

"I just met Norman Osborn."

"Ah." She sipped. "My dad says he's brilliant and terrifying. Those are his two favorite words for people he doesn't trust."

"Your dad's a smart man."

"You keep saying that." She looked at him. "Do you want to talk about polymer cross-links? Because I have thoughts and this is better than pretending I understand nanotubes."

He laughed. Louder than the gala wanted. A man in a tuxedo turned to look at them and Gwen didn't look embarrassed and that was the difference. MJ would have played the laugh. Felicia would have owned the room looking. Gwen just stood next to him and didn't notice the man in the tuxedo because she was thinking about polymers.

They talked for ten minutes by the window. She had a theory about hydrogen bonding that was wrong in a way that led somewhere interesting and they argued about it and he conceded a point she was right about and she conceded one she wasn't ready to concede and by the end of it he'd forgotten the cream-colored card in his pocket and the hum at the base of his skull.

She went to find the nanotube researcher to apologize. Peter turned toward the food and that was when he saw the kid heating the champagne.

Across the room, Norman was talking to a tall man with greying temples and posture that looked like it had been installed. The man held a glass of wine and Norman's smile was tight at the edges. The woman beside him was blonde, composed, holding champagne like she'd rather be somewhere else. A kid their age stood behind them, bored, doing something with his fingertip that made the champagne in his glass bubble too fast.

Peter watched him heat it. Small, precise. The bubbles raced up the glass.

The kid caught Peter looking. Looked at his own hand. Looked back up.

Save me, he mouthed.

Peter grinned. The kid grinned back. Blond, easy, suit jacket already unbuttoned. He had the build of a surfer who didn't care about results.

Reed Richards. Sue Storm. Johnny Storm. Fantastic Four, minus the rock.

The names came from the movies. The kid didn't look like a superhero.

Peter walked over.

"How are you doing that with the champagne?"

"Doing what?" Johnny said, and heated it another degree without looking.

"That."

"I run hot." He sipped. Made a face. "This is terrible. You'd think billionaires would spring for decent champagne."

"It's free, which makes it great."

"Fair." He stuck out his hand. "Johnny."

"Peter."

Norman's laugh crossed the room. Peter looked over. Norman was standing with Reed Richards and his hand was on Reed's shoulder and from across the floor the grip looked friendly. It wasn't. The spider-sense pulsed once and settled.

"That guy gives me the creeps," Johnny said, following Peter's line of sight.

"He's my friend's dad."

"Tough break." Johnny heated the champagne again. "You go to school here?"

"Midtown. Queens."

"I'm homeschooled. And by homeschooled I mean my brother-in-law builds robots that try to teach me calculus and I set them on fire." He said this like a normal sentence. "You want to get out of here? There's a roof."

"I should probably stay."

"Your loss." He drained the glass, put it on a passing tray. Stopped. "I'm usually at the Baxter Building on Forty-second. If you're ever bored and want to see a guy light a robot on fire."

"I might take you up on that."

"Bring better champagne." He disappeared into the elevator.

Peter stood in the middle of Oscorp Tower. Cream card in his breast pocket. Champagne he hadn't drunk. A room full of people who had more money in their watches than his family had in the bank.

He found a window. Brooklyn was lit up across the river. A tugboat was pushing something through the water, slow and heavy and patient.

He went home at ten. Ben was asleep on the couch with the TV on, volume low, a Mets game that was already over. May had left a plate of pasta in the microwave with a note that said How was the party? in her handwriting.

He ate the pasta standing at the counter. It was good. He put the plate in the sink and washed it because if he left it May would do it in the morning and she'd been up since five.

He went upstairs and took off the borrowed suit and hung it on the hanger and put Ben's blue tie on the dresser. Norman's card went next to Ezekiel's. Two cards from two men who wanted Peter Parker for their own reasons. One of them had been upfront about it.

He turned off the light. The gala noise was still in his ears. Music and glasses and Norman Osborn's voice saying Good scientists run in families, Peter.

Ben's snoring came up through the floor. Faint, familiar, the sound of a house where people came home at the end of the day.

He closed his eyes.