beginner's luck

More and more often these days, being Peter Parker feels like a chore. He doesn’t want to be flat-footed on the ground, sandwiched between the bustling afternoon crowd. It doesn’t feel safe, like it used to. It just feels exhausting. And again, he thinks, Peter Parker is a cage. And oh, he thinks. Oh.

They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them, or they’ll send the Talon for your head.

Because this…this is his future. The realization hits him hard in the gut all at once, and he squeezes the bouquet of flowers tightly in his hands. Death. At home, he’s just…dorky Wally West. Science whiz. No one bats an eye to his name at home. Dodgeballs know his face by heart. All the miserable terrible high school experiences—happens to Wally West.

And five years from now he’s expected to be revered as a hero and die.