I'll be honest with you before I get started. If you're looking for a happy, joyful little story loaded with sugarplums and gumdrops, you should probably just turn around and leave right now.
Still here? Ok, I'll start with the basics. My name is Peter Parker. True, it's something of an unremarkable name for a pony, and everypony outside Manehattan seems to have these prestigious, meaningful ones, but you know what? I can't imagine a world where I'd possibly be named anything else, and I ain't arguing. I grew up here in Manehattan, raised by my Aunt May and Uncle Ben, whom I was left with after my parents died. The three of us never had much, but we got by, and it was always a loving roof we lived under.
They always pushed me to do well in my studies, and never one to want to let them down, always did my best. Don't get me wrong though, unlike most ponies, I honestly enjoyed learning in school, and it was science I excelled at. And I say science as a generalization, because I got really immersed in just about every scientific subject that there is. Chemistry, microbiology, physics, you name it, I studied it. It was actually my first A with a science project (a complete scale model of a calcium chlorate molecule, if you don't mind me pointing out), that I wound up with my cutie mark; the ever classic nerd's microscope!
Yeah, that’s just about the all the perks of being a young genius, but then there’s my life at Midtown High. Here, let me paint you picture of a typical day in the life of young Peter Parker and tell you about the day before the big class field trip.
It started off decent enough, actually. Aunt may came and woke me up, I fumbled around for my glasses on the nightstand, and in forgetting how well tucked in the blankets are, tripped and fell as I got out of bed. Another great start to another great day!
After I washed up, I went downstairs for breakfast. Monday morning is blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and it made Mondays much more bearable for everypony.
“Well, Pete, excited for the big trip tomorrow?” Uncle Ben asked, his usual calm smile on his face.
“Of course he is, Ben, look who you’re asking!” Aunt May grinned and gave him a playful swat on the shoulder.
“Bet he’s looking more forward to seeing that pretty unicorn running the whole thing than he is to learn!” He had a tendency to tease me over the fact that I was a fan of Twilight Sparkle, even if I only ever mentioned it was just because she was an incredible scientist and sorceress (even though I wasn’t very big on magic). Sure, she was my age and all, but I never bothered putting much thought in that direction. Like somepony that well known would give a nerd like me the time of day.
After breakfast, I was headed off to school. Eddie wasn’t at the corner we usually met up at on the way to school.
“Aw nertz.”
Eddie Brock was the long running best friend and brother-from-another-mother. His parents and mine pretty much raised us side by side for sometime, our fathers both brilliant scientists who worked for the same company. When it came to our schoolwork, he was almost as good as me. Eddie usually kept up with me on the report card, but anytime he ever hit a snag, I’d always lend a hand. But, he’s always had me beat at sports. Dude’s always been built like an athlete, and he’s mostly been around to give me a hand whenever the usual meatheads like Flash Thompson came around looking for a nerd to stomp on. I say mostly, because he tends to have to miss school for regular doctor appointments. I assumed today was one of them. What struck me as strange, though, was that he didn’t seem to want to talk about what they were for. I asked once, sure, but he went and changed the subject faster than I could blink and didn’t even seem to realize I’d even asked. I didn’t bother a second time, knowing he’d say what those appointments were all about when he was ready.
Anyway, it was looking like I was on my own, today. This oughta be fun.
I made it to first period, geometry, with no problems, surprisingly enough. Actually, nopony ever bothered with me until later at lunch, when a hoof was stuck out and I fell face first into my scoop of chocolate pudding.
“Just couldn’t wait till you sat down to eat, could ya, Parker?” I don’t know what possessed me to say what I said next. Must have been when I finally got sick of the guy.
“Very good, Flash. Did it take you all weekend to come up with that? Hope your head didn’t hurt too badly, all that thinking you probably had to do.” Oh crap, what did I just say? I guess with all the years of that treatment, I was pretty fed up by this point, but I’ll admit, it was still a pretty dumb thing to say to somepony who could bench press my weight with one hoof.
“Getting pretty bold, there, Parker.” Oh well, might as well go for broke, given how deep in it I am now.
“I’m surprised you even know the meaning of the word, or any, for that matter.” He looked a bit displeased. I shut my eyes and waited for the inevitable hoof to the chocolate coated face.
“There a problem here, Flash?” I looked up and saw Eddie. Looked to me like the appointment got cut short. Couldn’t help but wonder who it was he was standing there with.
“It’s none of your business, Brock.” Is that a bead of nervous sweat, I see?
“Oh, I see some pea-brained moron about to lay in to my best friend, it becomes my business. Now, does this have to get ugly (well, uglier, with you already here)? Or are you going to do the smart thing for once in your life and just walk away? I mean, if I’m not mistaken, I believe you have a chemistry test to fail in about 15 minutes.” Without a word, Flash stomped his way out of the lunchroom.
“Thanks, Eddie…”
“What’re brothers for, right?”
“Well, not bad, teach, not bad at all.”
He turned to his friend with a cheesy grin on his face and motioned him forward.
“Who’s your friend, Eddie?” I asked, almost sure I’d seen him before.
“Pete, this is Harry. Harry, this is Pete.”
“… Harry? Wait, you mean like, Harry Osborn, Harry?” Of course. He’d been in plenty of photographs in the papers with his father, Norman Osborn, one of the wealthiest and highest paid minds in the scientific community. He was no Twilight Sparkle, but he was a pretty big deal.
“Not many other Harrys that Eddie’s been tutoring, last time I checked.”
“Well, Eddie never mentioned anything about tutoring you.” Eddie made money as by-the-hour tutor. I could only imagine what he’d be making with this.
“I figured it’d be a nifty little surprise. And judging by the look on your face, I’d say it was a good call.”
Yeah, he got me. Somehow he’d managed to hide the fact he was tutoring the son of somepony like Norman Osborn.
They explained away that Harry was in fact being transferred here into Midtown High. His father was there to spend some time overseeing the Manehattan branch of his company, and apparently was trying to appeal to get in a spot for some supposed new discovery of his at tomorrow’s big event.
Ok, so it wasn’t as typical a day as I made it out to be before, what with who I met that day, but the rest of it was about as normal as things got. Another status quo day for Peter Parker.
I can tell you’ve probably gotten pretty bored by now, so I'll get to why you're really here: to learn how I got my second cutie mark, and everything that came after. Yes, I say second cutie mark, because, well, I guess fate is just kind of funny like that. Let me start with the day that the life of Peter Parker went from a nice and simple flowing ride, to an erratic terror train conducted by a cock-eyed psychopony (metaphorically speaking).
You know that funny feeling you get when you wake up and just know that something is going to happen today that's just going to change everything you know and love?
No?
Me neither.
Sure would've been a nice warning if I'd had that feeling when I woke up that particular morning. This was the day my high school class was heading into a huge science and magic expo being held at the Equestrian history museum, and was actually being overseen and run by none other than Princess Celestia's star student, Twilight Sparkle! Needless to say, I was pretty eager to get there.
"Hey, Pete, why so glum?" Eddie sure does call ‘em like he sees ‘em.
"Huh? Oh, sorry, Eddie, I was miles away…"
"We're just about to climb the steps into our favorite annual tourist spot (free of charge for once), to look in on a huge array of new discoveries that'll probably change all of Equestria as we know it, not to mention possibly speak to, or at least see our idol, and you look like you just got an A-." He really has a way with words.
"I don't know Eddie, I guess the thought of that last part makes me kinda nervous… I mean, she's an absolute brainiac and-"
"You're not?"
"… I don't want to ask anything to make me sound stupid at her big Q&A after the all exhibits are revealed…" Can you blame me? I mean, I had a lot to ask. Unfortunately, I didn't actually remain conscious for anything other than the first exhibit we were led to.
Our tour guide (a pink pony who, if you ask me, seemed to enjoy being a volunteer tour guide a little too much to be considered what I'd call sane) brought us towards a tremendous cylindrical tank with a tree that seemed to have more spider webs in its branches than actual leaves, along with a rather pretty yellow pony with pink hair who seemed to be talking directly up towards the huge bulk of strands.
"First off, this is where my bestest friend Fluttershy looks after all the spiders that my other bestest friend Twilight has been casting all kinds of spells on to see if… um… wow, I guess I forgot what she was casting magic on them for! But I'm sure whatever it's for, it's really important and she could probably explain it a LOT better than I could!" I was getting the feeling she was only here to help out as a favor to her friend, who was apparently Twilight. Maybe I wouldn't look that stupid after all!
"Maybe you won't look that stupid after all, little brother!"
"Don't you think that's a little messed up, Eddie?"
"Oh, like you weren't thinking it."
"No!" Yeah, I'm a little ashamed to say.
"Anyone wanna come take a closer look at this little spider colony we have here?" the guide asked. I pretty much shot forward ahead of anybody. Or rather, I was the only one who wanted to actually get a good look at everything in the tank. If Eddie didn't have a thing about spiders, he probably would've been right there next to me.
I was only vaguely aware of the pony in the glass, Fluttershy, heading to the opposite side of the tank to talk to Pinkie, our tour guide. She sounded like she was worried about something, but I only barely acknowledged that there was anything wrong. I was pretty amazed at what I was seeing. All these different species of spiders going about their business in the treetop webbing was something of a show. Some working together to add to their home and singlehandedly carrying tremendous bundles of rotted wood into a refuse pile to the side of the tank, some seemed to actually be set up on smaller branches to determine what would break away and fall, apparently knowing beforehand just when it would break and leaping to safety with blinding speed!
I didn't even realize the tour group was leaving without me until Eddie called out to me. "Just a sec," I called back, and that was about all the time the loose spider needed. I couldn't tell ya why it felt the need to do what it did. Maybe it didn't like the cut of my jib. Maybe it didn't like that I was eyeing the pretty caretaker to his family's nest. Whatever the reason, it crept up just above my front right hoof without me realizing, and,
"It bit me! Augh! That spider bit me!" I managed to shake it off of me, and it crawled somewhere out of sight. I know a tiny set of fangs are going to hurt when they sink into you, but that bite really. Freaking. Hurt.
"Peter! Are you alright?"
"Little Parker's spazzin' out!"
"Oh no, did anyone see where the spider went?" Almost immediately, my head felt like it was burning. I mean, there are migraines, we've all had them, but then there's that skull-splitting pain that knocked me out cold in about 10 seconds flat. Last I could remember before I blacked out was everyone clamoring over me, screaming for help, and with the things I saw when I went under, I'm surprised I wasn't just flat out screaming.
“Peter? How do you feel?”
“Uncle Ben? Where am I? Why can’t I move? Why can’t I see anything?”
“Just stretch out your limbs, Peter, you’ll break free just fine.”
I was terrified at first, not having any idea what was going on, but hearing Uncle Ben’s voice was a comfort, and he always did seem to give the best advice. I did as he said, difficult as it was. I was wrapped up pretty tight in what I already knew to be a cocoon of spider webbing. I knew it, but I didn’t want to believe it, and when I got loose, any doubt I might’ve had pretty much died. I looked all around me and quickly realized I was back home, only… I could only barely recognize it under all the webs. They were just… everywhere, the whole house made into some kind of nightmarish nest.
“Uncle Ben?” I turned my head to where I had heard his voice come from, and unfortunately, what was left of him wasn’t hard to find. He was a hollowed out husk of a pony, stuck to the living room ceiling. His eyes were sunken far into their sockets, the shell of his hide withered and decrepit to the point where, at the slightest touch, it would have given in and crumbled away. I could barely stand to look at him out of a painful combination of absolute horror, disgust, and sorrow. What was done to his face, well… at the moment I could remember reading somewhere that when spiders feed, they start at the head, and apparently that was what the wound looked like on a pony of middle age.
I had to find Aunt May, get us out. As heart-wrenching as it was, I could do nothing for my uncle at that point, but maybe Aunt May was only cocooned somewhere, left unconscious as a snack for later. Just that thought alone made me snap out of my stupor at Uncle Ben’s state, but before I could get started on searching, there was a loud banging on the door. Somepony outside was trying to get in?
“Is anypony in there? This is the police! We’re here to help! Can you let us in?” The cavalry arrives, but way too late for my tastes.
“I-I-I can’t! The doors and windows are all w-webbed shut! I can’t get out!”
“Don’t worry, son! We’re doing our best to break down the door, just hold on!”
“Please, hurry! I need to find my aunt! Just please get in here and help me find her in all this mess!”
I didn’t have to look long though. I turned to see a bundle of webbing dangling from the ceiling right in front of me. I chose not to ask questions on how convenient it was, and opted to just rip away the threads as quick as I could. I reached forward and tore at the cocoon with my claws and… wait, claws? Yes, my hooves were gone, replaced by the pointed claws at the end of a spider’s legs. It was at that moment that the police burst in, the first screaming, “What in the name of Celestia?!”
“No, please! I-I didn’t mean to! I don’t even remember what happened!”
“Stop that thing before it kills whoever’s in there,” another had shouted. I didn’t know what else to do other than leave Aunt May to them. They could probably do more for her than I apparently had at that point. I scurried over to the stairs and shot straight up to my room before the cops could do anything. I shut the door and locked it, turning to the mirror on my closet door to get a good look at myself. Huge mistake. The only vaguely recognizable part of me I could see was that I still had a pony’s head. I say vaguely, because… hey, I’ll be honest, you’d have trouble picking your own face out of a line-up if it suddenly had four extra eyes and a prominent set of fangs protruding from the mouth. It’d probably be made all the more difficult if your head was sitting atop the body of a tremendous, red and blue spider.
The police were going to be plowing down the door to my room any second, so the only thing I could think to do was ram my way through the wall and head outside. Of course, the instant I did just that, I was met with a shouting from above.
“There it is, everypony! Come on!” I looked up to see a division of pegasus from Princess Celestia’s royal guard bearing down on me.
“Wait! Please, I didn’t mean to hurt anypony! Just please, stop!” My words fell on deaf ears, and they pulled in low, swords drawn, ready to kill the monster. I scuttled down the side of the house and out into the neighborhood, everypony screaming at the sight of me and heading for the hills. Every part of me said to just get as far away from civilization as I could, as fast as I could, and I really booked. I seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere when I turned around. No one seemed to be following, and I kept walking backward, scanning for anypony around, when I back into something with a loud tink! I looked to see what I bumped into and quickly realized it was a glass wall.
“What the…” I tried to find a way around, but soon figured out there was no way around. I had gone in an entire circle trying to find a way past the wall, and it hit me: I was trapped in a jar. It was when I looked up that the owner of my new prison closed the lid on it. When I saw just who it was, I couldn’t believe my many eyes.
“Peter? Whatcha got there?”
“It’s a spider Uncle Ben! I just found it and caught it!”
“Oh Peter, you know how your Aunt May hates those things. Why don’t you just let it go?”
“Aw, do I have to?”
“Sorry, little pony, but you have to. It’s only gonna cause one problem after another for us if you keep it. You know that.”
“I guess you’re right…”
“No, please! DON’T!”
That younger me, who had barely had his cutie mark for more than a week, gave the jar I was in a good, hearty toss, much to my dismay.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” And the jar shattered.