corruptedspider:
“I’m getting pissed off because you’re pissing me off!” It wasn’t truly a reason, but Parker disliked talking about his past. He disliked it because there was holes in his memory. He disliked it because he wasn’t entirely sure what was real or otherwise.
Not that he cared either - there was a reason he wasn’t like the rest. He wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t like the rest of the Spider People, or Peter Parker’s. Maybe he had been at one time - he wasn’t sure and he didn’t want to know either.
He wanted to be his own person and that meant not being compared to anyone else. That meant forging a path for himself, but a path without his past. Without his history and a slate that he could mold for his own purposes.
“Whatever you know about me. About who I am? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I don’t need help! I don’t need any help! I’m better this way! I enjoy it this way!” he said, starting to tremble with pure rage. “You go on about comparing me to other Spider-Men. Other one’s who stayed on their path; haunted by ghosts of their pasts.”
“Ghosts,” he said, “that I don’t share with them.”
Of course, it wasn’t the truth, he did share them - Parker just didn’t remember. He doubted he ever would remember and he chose ( or so he thought ) to forget.
“So, if I were you? I’d back off!”
“Funny thing, that...I used to think the same thing about these old togs.”
He indicates the flag on his chest. “Just a Young Turk when I started out, I was. Not much older’n you are now. All full of spit and fury and nothing but contempt for these old fogeys telling me the way the world worked, sneering at me for being common and looking down the ends of their noses at me for daring to pick up a mantle that weren’t mine in the first place. The flag was just a bit of cloth to me, wasn’t it? Sod me for trying to do a bit of good, and sod them all for thinking I weren’t up to it, you know what I mean?”
He casts his mind back about a decade or so. Unlike the man standing before him, his memory is cruelly untouched. Wounds heal, but no amount of suturing and stitching can mend the damage that’s been done by guilt. The weight has to carry hasn’t lessened since he first fell backwards into a lineage that wasn’t his; if anything, it’s only increased. He’s duty-bound to protect people by something that runs deeper than mere tradition, but Spider-Man is as much a symbol as Union Jack or Captain America.
People need symbols to give them hope. Truthfully, he doesn’t know if the lad can be saved, but he’d be doing a disservice if he didn’t try. To himself, to the people they’ve both bled to protect, and most importantly to the Web-Head himself.
“No powers, no gadgets, and no blue blood in my veins. Union Jack is a rich man’s legacy, see. The first two, back in the old World Wars, they were these proper peer of the realm types, but me? Common as muck. No titles, no estates...but here I am with the old flag on my chest all the same. It ain’t about where you’re from, mate. It ain’t even about where you’re headed. You can go where you want to go, do what you want to do- what’s important is where you’re at. You can still make a change, and bollocks to ghosts. Bollocks to tradition, and all. All I’ve got in common with my predecessors is a flag and a will to do good, but I’ll wager that there’s enough of Spider-Man left in you somewhere that you can...”
His voice trails off for a moment, then picks up.
“...well, you can do whatever you want, at the end of the day. It’s just bloody depressing to think that you could be something great- you were something great- and now you’ve gotten it into your head that you’re never gonna amount to anything more’n a villain, so fuck it. Why not be a bad guy, right?”
