Spider-Man could not be seen as weak. He was a hero, so he had to so act like one.
But Peter Parker? Well, it was like he said; if he couldn’t then, he shouldn’t now. He wasn’t strong before the bite, so he had to pretend not to be strong after.
The problem came when Flash stepped up from shoving him in the corridors to throwing punches.
It wasn’t the worst thing. He had been hit plenty of times so knew how to take a punch. The issue was that he healed so fast that Flash never gave him a rest period.
It was every day.
And then Peter walked down the corridor and saw some little freshman pinned up against a locker by some of Flash’s friends and he stepped in.
And then it was more than once a day.
He couldn’t help but slow down. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t move very well. His healing stopped working like it used to. Aunt May noticed, though she pretended he was telling the truth when he said it was from patrol.
He gets stabbed on a Tuesday during a bank robbery gone wrong. No big deal, he’s been stabbed before.
But then Flash punches him right where it was stitched up. And that wouldn’t have been a problem if it wasn’t for the whole “slow healing” thing that was happening.
Because the stitches opened.
Blood came pouring out.
And Peter collapsed to the floor in the middle of his lunch period.
