Chapter 15: Sparks Fly
Liz Allan had been pacing for so long the carpet was starting to look worn in a straight line between her bed and the door.
“…and everyone just acted like it was totally normal,” she continued, words spilling out faster the more she talked. “Like of course Mary Jane Watson gets the lead. Because why wouldn’t she? She’s Mary Jane. She walks in, flips her hair, smiles at the director, and suddenly the rest of us are just… background noise.”
Across the room, Mark sat slouched in her desk chair.
Or rather, he existed there.
Elbows on his knees. Hands hanging loose. Staring at the floor like it had personally offended him.
Liz turned on her heel and pointed at him.
“And don’t even get me started on the way she acted afterward. All humble about it. ‘Oh Liz, you were so good.’” She pitched her voice higher, syrupy sweet. “‘I’m sure you’ll be amazing in the role you got.’”
The words came out before Liz could stop them.
“Which, by the way, is a supporting role.”
Mark didn’t react.
Not a nod. Not a grunt. Nothing.
Liz slowed, irritation starting to creep under her skin. She kept talking anyway, because stopping now would mean admitting she’d been ranting for five straight minutes.
“But it’s fine,” she went on, crossing her arms. “Actually, you know what? It’s perfect. Because the Fall Formal is coming up, and I’m telling you right now, I am going to absolutely destroy her. New dress. New hair. Maybe something actually dramatic for once. Everyone’s going to walk in, see MJ, and then—”
Still nothing.
Liz stopped pacing.
The silence stretched.
Mark hadn’t moved.
He was staring at the floor like it held the answers to the universe. Or maybe like he was trying to burn a hole through it with his eyes.
Her irritation snapped.
“Are you even listening to me?!”
Mark’s head jerked up.
For a split second, Liz thought she saw something sharp in his eyes. Something tired. Something angry.
Then it hit full force.
“I’ve got real problems, Liz.”
The words came out rough, like they’d been dragged across broken glass.
Liz blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He pushed himself upright in the chair, hands dragging through his hair. “I’ve got my own fires to put out. I don’t have time to deal with your jealous insecurity.”
Jealous.
The word landed like a slap.
Liz scoffed, the sound automatic. “Oh, please. I am not—”
“I bet MJ doesn’t dump her crap on her brother.”
That one stung.
Liz’s chin lifted. “She’s an only child.”
It sounded dumb, even before she said it. She knew it. But what was she supposed to do? Throw something back? He was her brother. Even when he was an absolute shit, she still loved him.
Mark stared at her for a second.
Then he let out a humorless laugh under his breath. “…yeah.” He stood, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair. “Must be nice.”
Liz watched him head for the door, irritation bubbling right back up. “Oh, what, so now you’re jealous of Mary Jane Watson too?”
Mark paused with his hand on the knob.
For a second, Liz thought he might say something sarcastic. Something normal. Something that sounded like the brother she was used to.
Instead he shrugged. “Guess I am.”
Then he walked out, letting the door slam behind him.
The sound echoed through the hallway.
Liz stood there for a moment, arms still crossed, anger still simmering under her skin.
God, he was being ridiculous.
She was the one with the problem here. She was the one who had to watch MJ glide through life like everything just worked out for her.
Mark didn’t get it.
He didn’t even try to get it.
Liz exhaled sharply and flopped down onto the edge of her bed, staring at the closed door.
“Unbelievable.”
Still.
Something about the way he’d said it stuck in her head.
Must be nice.
Liz frowned.
Because for a moment there, Mark hadn’t sounded annoyed.
He’d sounded… tired.
…
The first thing Max Dillon noticed when he woke up was the noise.
Beeping.
Steady. Mechanical. Everywhere.
It drilled into his skull like a metronome set to panic.
Max tried to move his head and immediately regretted it. Light stabbed into his eyes. White ceiling panels. Fluorescent glare. The kind of sterile brightness that made everything feel unreal.
A hospital.
Of course it was a hospital.
He tried to swallow and felt something tug at his throat. Tubes. Wires. Adhesive pads stuck to his chest.
His arms felt heavy.
His skin felt—
Wrong.
“Vitals are stabilizing.”
A voice cut through the noise. Calm. Clinical. Detached.
Max turned his head a little more this time, squinting through the glare.
People.
Too many people.
Doctors. Nurses. Lab coats. Surgical masks hanging loose around necks. Clipboards. Tablets.
They circled the bed like he was an exhibit.
Someone adjusted a monitor.
Someone else lifted his arm.
A penlight flashed across his eyes.
Max tried to speak.
“Wha—”
His voice came out rough. Barely more than air.
Nobody stopped.
“Neurological response appears intact.”
Another voice joined the first. Female. Brisk. “Energy readings are still fluctuating.”
Energy readings?
Max blinked hard, trying to force the fog out of his brain.
The memory hit him in fragments.
The grid.
The surge.
Climbing the capacitor array.
The warning alarms screaming.
And then—
Light.
Too much light.
Max’s breathing quickened.
A man stepped closer to the bed. Mid-forties. Brown hair going gray at the temples. Thoughtful eyes behind wire-rim glasses.
Dr. Curt Connors.
Max recognized him from Oscorp briefings. The grid project. Bio-electric storage systems.
Connors studied the tablet in his hand, then glanced down at Max. “Mr. Dillon.”
The tone was professional. Polite. Like he was greeting a patient at a routine checkup instead of… whatever this was.
“You experienced a severe electrical trauma during the capacitor cascade at the Oscorp facility.”
Max stared at him.
Trauma.
That was one way to say it.
Connors continued, voice steady. “Your body appears to be… retaining significant bio-electrical energy. We’re still determining the mechanism behind it.”
A nurse stepped in beside him. “Voltage spikes are increasing again.”
Connors nodded absently, already typing notes.
Max tried to lift his hand.
It felt heavy. Sluggish.
But it moved.
Barely.
The motion caught the edge of his vision.
Max turned his head and looked down at his arm.
For a moment, his brain refused to understand what it was seeing.
His skin looked…
Blue.
Not in a metaphorical way. Or even a damaged way. Not… a normal damaged way, at any rate. It wasn’t bruised, frozen, fried, or pale. It was just… blue.
Actually blue.
Faint lines of light pulsed beneath it, like glowing veins.
Electric.
Max’s stomach twisted. “What… what happened to me?” The words scraped their way out of his throat.
Connors looked up briefly. “You were exposed to an extreme energy discharge.” His attention drifted right back to the tablet. “As I said, we’re still studying the effects.”
Studying.
Max stared at his arm.
The light pulsed again under his skin. “What do you mean studying?”
Nobody answered.
Two doctors leaned over a monitor, whispering. “Capacitor retention levels are off the charts.”
“Is the human body even capable of holding that kind of charge?”
Max felt the room getting smaller. “What do you mean holding—”
A nurse moved his arm aside like it was a piece of equipment. “Careful, we need another blood sample.”
The needle slid into his skin.
Max barely felt it.
He was too busy staring at the glow.
Blue light flickered faintly across his fingertips.
He looked like a damn glowstick.
A broken one.
His voice came out louder this time.
“Hey.”
Nothing.
The doctors were talking over each other now.
“Cellular conductivity is unprecedented.”
“If this stabilizes, the implications for energy storage—”
Max’s chest tightened.
Implications.
Energy storage.
They weren’t even talking about him.
“HEY!”
The word tore out of him.
For half a second the room quieted.
Every head turned toward the bed.
Max pushed himself up an inch against the pillows. “Look at me!” His voice cracked. “Look at what happened to me!”
For a moment, they did.
Dozens of eyes.
Doctors. Nurses. Researchers.
They looked at him.
Then they looked back at the monitors.
Connors raised a hand slightly, calming the room. “Mr. Dillon, you need to stay calm.”
Calm.
Max stared at him.
“You’re glowing.” Connors said it like he was commenting on the weather. “Your physiology is undergoing dramatic changes. Stabilizing that process will take time.”
Time.
Max looked down at his hands again.
Blue light crawled beneath his skin like living electricity.
He felt it buzzing under the surface. Constant. Restless.
Dangerous.
“You don’t understand,” Max whispered.
Connors didn’t look up from the tablet.
“We’ll fix you, I promise. We just need to figure out what’s wrong with you, first.”
What’s… wrong?
What’s wrong?!
His skin’s blue! His veins are crackling with electricity! And not one person can bother actually talking to him! He has a pretty damn good idea what’s wrong with him!
Max looked around the room.
All these people.
All these eyes.
All these voices.
Talking about him.
Studying him.
Measuring him.
And somehow…
Still not seeing him.
Not really.
Just readings.
Just data.
Just another Oscorp problem to solve.
Max slowly sank back into the bed.
The monitors kept beeping.
The doctors kept talking.
And the electricity under his skin kept building.
…
The hospital had finally gone quiet.
Curt Connors preferred it that way.
The daytime chaos—the rotating staff, the whispered consultations, the constant interruptions—made it impossible to actually think. Hospitals treated medicine like triage. Solve the immediate problem. Stabilize the patient. Move on.
Research required silence.
Connors sat alone in the dim glow of a computer monitor, the rest of the office dark around him. Max Dillon’s file filled the screen, page after page of charts, readings, scans.
And none of it made sense.
He scrolled slowly through the latest diagnostics.
Heart rate: elevated, but stable.
Brain activity: normal.
Cellular damage: surprisingly minimal for someone who had been hit with enough electricity to kill ten men.
Connors leaned back in his chair slightly, fingers steepled under his chin.
The initial assumption had been simple enough. Severe electrical trauma. Nervous system disruption. Massive burns hidden under the skin.
But that wasn’t what the scans showed.
If anything, Dillon’s body looked… functional.
Better than functional.
Connors tapped the keyboard and brought up the conductivity chart.
The line spiked off the scale.
Human tissue wasn’t supposed to conduct electricity efficiently. Muscle and nerves could transmit signals, yes, but they didn’t store them.
Dillon’s cells were doing exactly that.
Holding charge.
Retaining it.
Connors zoomed in on the cellular imaging. The structures looked almost unchanged—no strange mutations, no foreign material, nothing that resembled the exotic compounds Oscorp’s more experimental departments liked to play with.
Just human cells.
Human cells behaving in ways biology had never documented.
His gaze drifted to another reading.
Energy retention.
The number had dropped slightly since the initial surge, but not by much.
Which meant the electricity that had hit Dillon during the capacitor cascade hadn’t simply passed through his body.
It had stayed.
Connors frowned faintly.
That should have been impossible.
Electricity moved through conductive pathways until it dissipated. Heat, light, ground potential—there were dozens of ways for excess energy to escape a biological system.
Except here, it hadn’t.
The system had contained it.
Connors leaned forward again, replaying the incident report on a second screen. Security footage from the Oscorp facility—grainy, partially corrupted by the surge itself.
Max Dillon climbing the capacitor array.
Trying to fix a problem the engineers on the ground had ignored.
Then the flash.
The moment the grid discharged.
Connors paused the video there.
Most men would have died instantly.
Instead, Dillon had absorbed enough energy to power a small city.
And he was still alive.
Connors exhaled slowly.
“That’s… not possible.”
The words sounded small in the empty office.
But the data didn’t care about possibility.
He minimized the video and opened a new report window.
Patient Status: Stable.
Technically true.
Connors’ fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment before continuing.
Observed Phenomenon: Abnormal bio-electrical conductivity and energy retention within cellular structure. Mechanism currently unknown.
He hesitated again.
There were implications here. Enormous ones.
If a human body could safely store and regulate electrical energy—
The applications alone would reshape half of modern engineering.
But that wasn’t what bothered him.
Connors stared at the energy graph again.
The numbers were fluctuating.
Not dropping.
Fluctuating.
Like something inside Dillon’s body was… regulating it.
Managing it.
Connors finished typing.
Conclusion: Subject exhibits unprecedented physiological adaptation to extreme electrical exposure. Further observation required.
He saved the file and attached it to the hospital’s internal research database.
A quiet click confirmed the upload.
For a moment, Connors just sat there, staring at the screen.
Across the hall, somewhere beyond the office walls, the machines monitoring Max Dillon continued their steady rhythm.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Connors closed the file and shut down the monitor.
The room fell into darkness.
The system worked.
The hospital had stabilized the patient.
The reports had been filed.
Everything was under control.
Except for one small problem.
Max Dillon wasn’t recovering.
He was changing.
…
Gwen Stacy had changed outfits three times.
Technically four, if the sweater incident counted.
She stood in front of MJ’s bedroom mirror now, staring at herself like the reflection had personally betrayed her. “This is wrong.”
Mary Jane Watson didn’t even look up from where she sat cross-legged on the bed, calmly painting her nails. “What part?”
Gwen gestured helplessly at… everything. “The dress. The hair. My face. The way my shoulders do that weird thing where they exist.”
MJ blew gently across her nails, inspecting them like a professional critic. “Your shoulders are committing the crime of being shoulders? How tragic. I know! This is a job for Ghost Spider!”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
Gwen turned back toward the mirror anyway, tugging lightly at the edge of the dress. It wasn’t even a bad dress. Soft blue, simple, fitted just enough to look nice without screaming trying too hard.
Which meant it probably screamed trying too hard.
God, why did clothes have politics?
Behind her, MJ finally slid off the bed and wandered over, peering at Gwen’s reflection. “You look great.”
“You’re biased.”
“Gasp! I’ll have you know, I’m an honest woman.”
“You’re an effortlessly cool woman.” Gwen shot back. “You could show up to the dance wearing a garbage bag and people would still think you look great.”
MJ considered that. “…it’d have to be a nice garbage bag.”
Gwen groaned and buried her face in her hands.
This was a disaster.
Not a real disaster, obviously. Nobody was dangling off a bridge. No ninjas were trying to stab anyone. No crime bosses were declaring war on the city.
Just a dance.
A normal high school dance.
Which somehow made it worse.
MJ leaned casually against the dresser, arms folded, watching her spiral with open amusement. “You’ve been doing this for twenty minutes.”
“Doing what?”
“This.” MJ gestured vaguely at Gwen’s entire existence.
“Preparing?”
“Panicking.”
“I am not panicking.”
“You tried on four dresses.”
“Three dresses.”
“And a sweater.”
“That sweater was a mistake.”
MJ tilted her head, studying her like she was solving a puzzle. Then she smiled slowly. “Oh.”
Gwen froze. “What oh?”
“You’re not nervous about the dance.”
“I know I’m not nervous about the dance. Because I’m being prepared. So if we could just get back to—“
“You’re nervous about him.”
The words landed with horrifying accuracy.
Gwen’s brain immediately abandoned ship. “I am not nervous about Harry!”
MJ raised one eyebrow. “That was a very fast denial.”
“Because it’s a very incorrect accusation.”
“You just said his name like it’s radioactive.”
“I said it like a normal human person says a name.”
“You said it like it might explode.”
Gwen turned back toward the mirror, grabbing a hairbrush off the dresser purely so she had something to do with her hands.
“Harry and I are dating.”
“Yes.”
“So there’s nothing to be nervous about.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’ve literally fought crime together.”
“Multiple times.”
“We’ve jumped off buildings.”
“That one was mostly you.”
“We’ve been shot at.”
MJ’s grin widened. “And somehow this is the thing that’s terrifying you.”
Gwen dragged the brush through her hair a little harder than necessary.
This was ridiculous.
It was just Harry.
Harry who had nearly died saving Uncle Ben. And innocent kids. And a whole train full of people. And her, one time.
Harry who had somehow turned being grounded from superhero work into building them better tech.
Harry who had looked at her on the rooftop after Fisk went down like she was the most important person in the world.
Harry who—
God.
She dropped the brush onto the dresser with a quiet clack.
“I just…” The words tangled for a second before finally coming out. “I just want this to go right.”
MJ’s expression softened slightly.
Gwen stared at her reflection again.
Because the truth was, things didn’t usually go right.
Not in their lives.
Something always happened.
A villain.
A fight.
A secret.
A responsibility.
Being Spider-people meant normal moments were rare.
And tonight was supposed to be normal.
Just a dance.
Just music and lights and awkward teenage nonsense.
Just her and Harry getting to be fourteen for a few hours.
Gwen exhaled quietly.
“I just want one thing to go right.”
The room stayed quiet for a moment. Then MJ stepped forward and gently turned Gwen toward the door. “Good news.”
Gwen blinked.
“What?”
“You look amazing.”
MJ grabbed her purse from the bed and flashed a confident grin. “And if Harry Osborn somehow fails to notice that, Peter and I will personally revoke his eyesight privileges.”
Gwen snorted despite herself. “Is that a thing you can do?”
MJ opened the bedroom door. “We’ll figure it out.” Then she nudged Gwen into the hallway. “Come on, Tiger. Let’s go break some hearts.”
…
Peter Parker had re-tied his tie six times.
It looked worse every time.
He stared at himself in the Osborn penthouse bathroom mirror, fingers fumbling with the knot again like if he just tried hard enough the laws of fashion would eventually surrender. “This is wrong.”
Behind him, Harry Osborn lounged against the doorframe with the relaxed posture of someone who had absolutely zero problems in life. “Your tie is fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
“It’s objectively fine.”
Peter tugged the knot tighter.
Now it was crooked.
“This is a disaster.”
Harry watched him for a moment, then pushed himself off the wall and walked over.
Peter didn’t even look away from the mirror. “I don’t think you understand the magnitude of the situation.”
“Oh, I do.”
“No, you really don’t.”
Harry reached out, casually grabbed the tie, and adjusted it in one smooth motion.
Peter blinked.
The knot sat perfectly centered. “…how did you do that?”
Harry shrugged. “Oh, you know. Comes with the trauma of being a CEO’s kid.”
Peter stared at the mirror.
It actually looked… good.
Which somehow made everything worse. Because now the tie wasn’t the problem. Which meant he was the problem.
“This is still a disaster.”
Harry leaned back against the counter. “Explain.”
Peter gestured helplessly at his own reflection. “It’s the dance.”
“Yes.”
“With MJ.”
“Yes.”
“And everyone’s going to be there.”
Harry nodded slowly. “That is how dances generally work, yes. So… I’m sorry, what’s the problem?”
Peter spun toward him. “What if I step on her foot?”
“You probably will.”
“What if I say something stupid?”
“You definitely will.”
“What if I trip?”
Harry considered that. “Yeah, that is inevitable.”
Peter stared at him in horror. “You are not helping.”
Harry folded his arms. “Peter.”
“Yes?”
“MJ already likes you.”
Peter blinked.
“The bar is clearly very low.”
Peter groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “Wow.”
“I’m serious.”
“That’s the pep talk you’re going with?”
Harry shrugged. “I’m a realist.”
Peter leaned against the counter, staring at the floor.
The thing was… Harry wasn’t wrong.
MJ did like him.
She’d known his secret for weeks now. Had watched him swing across rooftops. Had seen him show up bruised and exhausted after patrols.
And she was still here.
Still MJ.
Still smiling at him like he was something worth smiling at.
Which somehow made this even scarier.
“I just don’t want to screw it up,” Peter muttered.
Harry’s voice softened a little. “Then don’t try to.”
Peter looked up.
Harry straightened slightly, expression thoughtful. “Don’t try to be impressive. Don’t try to be cool. Don’t try to turn it into some big moment.”
Peter frowned. “…what am I supposed to do then?”
Harry gestured vaguely. “Just… I can’t believe I’m going to say this: be yourself. You don’t want to ruin what you already have.”
The words landed a lot heavier than the casual tone suggested.
Because that was the thing about Harry.
Sometimes he said stuff like it was a joke.
And sometimes it sounded like someone who’d spent a lot of time thinking about things people their age weren’t supposed to think about.
Peter nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
Then he noticed something.
Harry was still wearing normal clothes.
Jeans.
T-shirt.
No suit.
No tie.
Peter blinked.
“Wait.”
Harry looked at him. “What?”
“Where’s your tux?”
Harry glanced down at himself like he’d forgotten something minor. “Oh.”
Then the black rippled across his chest.
Peter froze.
The symbiote flowed like liquid shadow, spreading over Harry’s body in seconds. The texture shifted, tightening, smoothing, reshaping.
Fabric formed where there hadn’t been any before.
A crisp black jacket.
Perfectly tailored pants.
A white dress shirt.
Even a bow tie.
The transformation finished with a subtle ripple as the material settled into place like it had always been there.
Harry adjusted his cuffs.
Peter stared. “…that’s cheating.”
Harry grinned. “Extremely.”
Peter pointed at him accusingly. “You literally just spawned a tuxedo.”
“I did.”
“I spent an hour picking this one.”
“Skill issue.”
Peter shook his head, laughing despite himself. “Unbelievable.”
Harry grabbed his phone from the counter and checked the time. “We should go. If we’re late, MJ will absolutely blame you.”
Peter nodded, straightening his jacket. “Yeah.”
They headed toward the door.
Right before they stepped out, Peter hesitated. “Hey, Harry?”
“Yeah?”
Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks.”
Harry waved a hand like it was nothing. “Don’t mention it.” Then he smirked slightly. “Just remember the most important rule of dancing.”
Peter groaned. “There’s a rule now?”
“Yeah.”
Harry opened the door. “Don’t fall off the ceiling.”
Peter paused.
“…that happened once.”
Harry grinned.
“Once is enough.”
…
If you had told me a year ago that I’d be standing in a high school gymnasium slow dancing with Gwen Stacy while a symbiote quietly pretended to be my tuxedo, I probably would’ve asked what you were smoking.
And then asked if you had more.
The gym looked… weirdly nice.
Someone had gone all in on the Fall Formal theme. Soft lights strung across the rafters. Paper lanterns hanging overhead. Music playing through speakers that were probably borrowed from the band room.
It was still a gym.
You could only hide the basketball hoops so much.
But people were laughing. Talking. Dancing.
Being normal.
For a few minutes, I almost managed to forget that half the room contained people who had unknowingly been saved from supervillains in the last few months.
New York had a funny way of doing that.
Gwen stepped on my foot.
“Sorry!”
I laughed automatically. “You’re good.”
We were technically dancing.
Technically.
In practice it looked more like two people slowly orbiting each other while trying not to collide with nearby couples.
Gwen bit her lip, clearly concentrating like this was a physics exam. “You’d think being bitten by a radioactive spider would make me better at coordination.”
“You are coordinated,” I said. “Just… usually while upside down and punching criminals.”
“That’s a very specific skill set.”
“Extremely marketable in this economy.”
She snorted.
God, that laugh.
There was something about it that made the whole world feel lighter for a second.
The music shifted to something slower, the kind of song that made half the room awkwardly shuffle closer together.
Gwen looked at me.
Then down at our feet.
Then back at me.
“…are we supposed to do something different now?”
I shrugged.
“I think we just… sway.”
“That sounds fake.”
“It might be fake.”
She hesitated a second longer before stepping a little closer.
My brain very helpfully stopped functioning.
Her hand slid into mine.
Okay.
Okay.
We were fine.
Totally fine.
Her other hand rested lightly on my shoulder while I settled my free hand carefully at her waist.
We started swaying.
Very slowly.
Like two people who had absolutely no idea what they were doing but were hoping confidence might carry them through.
Gwen’s nose scrunched slightly.
“I feel like everyone can tell we’re winging this.”
“Everyone here is winging this,” I said.
She glanced around.
Which… yeah.
Half the dance floor looked like someone had released a group of confused baby giraffes into formal wear.
Peter and MJ were a few couples away.
MJ looked completely relaxed.
Peter looked like he was trying to remember instructions from a tutorial video.
I’d never seen someone think that hard about moving their feet.
Gwen followed my gaze and smiled. “They’re cute.”
“They really are.”
Peter stepped on MJ’s foot.
MJ burst out laughing.
Gwen leaned her forehead briefly against my shoulder, laughing quietly too.
And something about that moment—her laugh, the warmth of her hand in mine, the stupid music echoing through the gym—settled somewhere deep in my chest.
Because this…
This was the stuff you never saw in superhero movies.
Nobody made speeches about school dances.
Nobody dramatically protected awkward teenage moments from evil.
But standing here, swaying slightly off-beat with Gwen Stacy while the rest of the world pretended to be normal for a few hours…
I got it.
This was the point.
All the rooftops.
All the fights.
All the bruises.
All the secrets.
It wasn’t about winning.
It was about protecting the chance for moments like this to exist at all.
Gwen stepped on my foot again.
“Sorry!”
I laughed. “You’re starting to do that on purpose.”
“I absolutely am not.”
“You’re two for two.”
“That is statistically insignificant.”
“Tell that to my toes.”
She grinned up at me.
God help me.
That smile could start wars.
Or end them.
For a moment neither of us said anything. Just swayed gently while the music carried the room along.
Then Gwen spoke softly. “I’m really glad you came tonight.”
I tilted my head slightly. “Me too… although to be fair, I didn’t have much choice. You know where I live.” I teased.
She bumped my shoulder with hers. “Mmhmm. No hiding from me now.”
Yeah…
Is it weird that makes me happier?
I honestly couldn’t tell you much time had passed. It could’ve been five minutes, it could have been five hours. All I knew was that if I had to pick one memory to live in forever, this would be the one.
That hurts our feelings, Harry.
‘Hey, you’re here too, aren’t you?’
Hmmph… we do like being a tux.
‘It’s a good look for us.’
Almost as nice as the other suit… no. Let’s not think about that, right now. Let’s stay here. In this moment. For as long as we can.
The music kept playing.
The lights glowed softly across the gym.
Teenagers laughed, stumbled through dance steps, and tried very hard to look cooler than they actually were.
For a little while, the city wasn’t on fire.
No one was screaming.
No villains were crawling out of the woodwork.
Just music.
Just friends.
Just Gwen Stacy smiling up at me like this moment mattered.
And it did.
It really, really did.
…
The machines wouldn’t stop beeping.
High, steady, mechanical chirps that drilled straight through Max Dillon’s skull.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The hospital room smelled like antiseptic and plastic and something else—burnt, faint but unmistakable. Like a wire that had shorted somewhere inside the walls.
Or inside him.
Max lay staring at the ceiling tiles.
White.
Too white.
The fluorescent lights buzzed softly overhead, every vibration crawling across his nerves like static.
Everything felt wrong.
His skin prickled constantly, like the air itself was rubbing against him the wrong way. The blanket over him felt too heavy, suffocating. The wires attached to his chest tugged every time he shifted, adhesive patches pulling at skin that felt strangely… numb.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
One of the monitors flickered.
The sound changed pitch slightly.
Max flinched.
“Please,” he whispered to no one. His voice sounded thin in the quiet room. “Just… stop.”
Another flicker.
The lights dimmed for half a second.
Then brightened again.
The monitor beside him spat a sharp crack of static.
Max’s heart jumped straight into his throat.
The machines didn’t like him.
He could feel it.
Or maybe they were reacting to him.
That thought crawled through his chest like ice.
The nurse had said he was lucky.
“Electrical burns,” she’d told someone outside the room earlier. “But he’s stable.”
Stable.
Max flexed his fingers slowly under the blanket.
A faint blue glow pulsed beneath the skin of his palm.
He froze.
No.
No, no, no.
He squeezed his eyes shut hard enough to see stars behind his eyelids.
When he opened them again the glow was still there.
Soft.
Pulsing.
Like his veins had turned into little neon tubes.
Something crackled quietly from the monitor beside him.
The screen flashed.
Then the beeping sped up.
Beepbeepbeep—
Max’s breathing hitched.
“I didn’t do anything,” he muttered.
The machines didn’t believe him.
The monitor sparked.
A thin arc of electricity snapped between the cable and the metal rail of the bed.
Max jerked back instinctively.
The arc jumped again.
This time it landed on his wrist.
Instead of pain—
Relief.
Warm.
Smooth.
Like cool water sliding down his throat after a long walk in the sun.
The energy flowed into him.
His chest expanded with a sharp inhale.
Oh.
Oh God.
Another arc snapped from the machine.
Max watched it travel like a glowing thread.
It sank into his skin.
The monitor screamed.
Flatline.
Every machine in the room began shrieking at once.
Red lights flashed.
Max stared at his hands.
They were glowing now.
Not bright.
But enough.
Blue light pulsed beneath his skin with every heartbeat.
“No,” he whispered.
His voice shook.
“No no no no—”
Footsteps pounded somewhere in the hallway.
Someone shouted.
“Room 214!”
Max’s head snapped toward the door.
They were coming.
Doctors.
Nurses.
People with questions.
People who would see this.
The thought of being looked at like that made his stomach twist violently.
He grabbed the wires stuck to his chest.
Ripped.
The adhesive patches tore away painfully, but the sting barely registered.
He pulled the IV from his arm.
Blood dotted the sheet.
Another alarm started screaming.
Too loud.
Everything was too loud.
Max stumbled out of the hospital bed.
His legs felt weak but the moment his bare feet touched the tile floor a strange surge of strength rippled up his body.
The overhead lights flickered violently.
Pop.
One of them shattered.
Glass rained down.
Max flinched and covered his head.
“I didn’t mean—”
The door handle rattled.
Someone tried to open it.
Max backed toward the window instinctively.
The lights in the hallway outside the room exploded one after another with sharp electrical cracks.
Shouts echoed through the corridor.
“What the hell—”
“Power surge!”
Max stared at his glowing hands again.
His reflection stared back at him in the dark window glass.
Blue.
Wrong.
His veins looked like glowing wires under his skin.
His eyes caught the light strangely.
Like something inside him was shining through.
Max’s stomach lurched.
“I don’t want this.”
The door burst open.
Two nurses froze in the doorway.
Their eyes dropped immediately to the faint glow around his hands.
Max saw the exact moment fear replaced confusion.
He backed away another step.
“I’m not—”
The lights in the room exploded.
Every bulb popped at once.
Darkness swallowed the hospital room.
Only the soft electric glow from Max’s skin remained.
The nurses gasped.
Max panicked.
And ran.
He bolted past them before either could move, bare feet slapping against the cold hallway tile.
Someone shouted behind him.
“Stop!”
He didn’t stop.
The corridor lights flickered wildly as he passed, bursting one by one like flashbulbs.
Patients shouted from their rooms.
Nurses ducked away as sparks crawled along the ceiling fixtures.
Max reached the stairwell and shoved the door open.
The metal handle sparked violently under his hand.
He barely noticed.
Down the stairs.
Out the emergency exit.
Cold night air hit him like a slap.
Max staggered onto the sidewalk behind the hospital.
Cars rushed past on the distant street.
Sirens wailed somewhere far away.
The city kept moving.
Nobody here knew.
Nobody here was looking at him.
He stumbled into the nearest alley.
Garbage bins.
Brick walls.
The sour smell of rot and rainwater.
Max collapsed against the wall, breathing hard.
His hands were still glowing.
Faint arcs of electricity crawled lazily across his fingertips.
He stared at them.
The glow reflected faintly in a puddle at his feet.
Max leaned forward slowly.
His reflection wavered in the water.
Blue veins.
Eyes that caught the light wrong.
Like a human-shaped lightbulb trying to pretend it wasn’t.
He recoiled.
“That’s not me.”
The puddle didn’t argue.
Max slid down the brick wall until he was sitting on the cold pavement.
His head fell into his hands.
Electricity crackled softly between his fingers.
He just wanted quiet.
No machines.
No alarms.
No people staring at him like he was something broken.
Just…
Normal.
Somewhere far above the alley, a transformer on a power line hummed softly.
Max’s head lifted slowly.
The sound tugged at something deep inside his chest.
Like hearing your name called across a crowded room.
Energy.
Warm.
Bright.
Calling to him.
Max swallowed.
Maybe…
Maybe if he could control it.
Maybe if he could use it.
If this thing inside him could actually help someone—
Then maybe it wouldn’t feel so wrong.
Maybe it wouldn’t feel like he’d stopped being human.
Max pushed himself slowly to his feet.
The city lights glowed faintly down the alley mouth.
His hands still sparked gently in the darkness.
And somewhere deep inside his chest, the electricity hummed back.
…
The punch tasted suspiciously like someone had dumped half a bag of sugar into orange soda.
I took another sip anyway.
Across the gym the DJ had switched to something louder, the dance floor packed with teenagers pretending they knew what they were doing. Gwen leaned against the refreshment table beside me, holding her cup with both hands like she wasn’t entirely sure she trusted it.
She sniffed the punch. “…do you think this is spiked?”
I glanced at the bowl. “I think if it was spiked, half the freshmen would already be unconscious.”
“That’s reassuring.”
She took a cautious sip anyway.
Honestly? This might’ve been the most normal moment I’d had in months. Music, bad punch, Gwen standing close enough that our shoulders kept brushing whenever someone bumped the table.
Then my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Not a text buzz.
A system alert buzz.
My stomach tightened instantly.
I slipped the phone out and glanced down.
The screen lit up with a notification from a very illegal little piece of software I’d stitched together from public infrastructure feeds, traffic cams, police scanners, and a few Oscorp satellites that definitely weren’t supposed to talk to my phone.
ENHANCED ACTIVITY FLAG
Location: Midtown General
Energy anomaly detected
Violence probability: escalating
Well.
That was new.
I tapped the alert and a quick data feed opened—power fluctuations, blown transformers nearby, hospital security dispatch chatter bleeding through the scanner feed.
Something was happening.
Something weird.
We should go.
I rubbed my forehead.
‘We should not go.’
Oh, come on. Why not?
‘Well, for one, I’m grounded from vigilante shit.’
The symbiote shifted faintly under the surface of my skin, unimpressed.
We don’t care about normal laws. Why should we care about curfew?
‘Because my dad threatened to expose Peter and Gwen as being the Spider vigilantes if I go out again.’.
Oh.
Right.
Have we changed our stance on eating him?
‘No.’
Across from me Gwen noticed the look on my face immediately. “Harry?”
Right.
Normal conversation.
I gestured subtly toward the others. “Hey, can you guys come here a second?”
Peter and MJ wandered over from the edge of the dance floor, Peter looking mildly winded like dancing was an Olympic sport.
“What’s up?” he asked.
I turned the phone so they could see the screen.
“Possible enhanced activity,” I said quietly. “Hospital power grid’s going crazy. Something weird is happening.”
Peter’s posture changed instantly.
Spider-mode.
MJ leaned closer to read the screen. “…that doesn’t look good.”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”
Peter glanced toward the exit.
Then toward MJ.
The look said everything.
MJ saw it too.
Of course she did.
She rolled her eyes dramatically, waving a hand toward the door. “Go be a hero.”
Peter blinked. “You’re sure?”
“Tiger, you literally vibrate when you’re pretending not to help people. Just go.”
He hesitated another half second before leaning down and kissing her quickly. Then he was already moving.
One second he was there.
The next he’d slipped through the gym doors and vanished into the hallway.
Gwen watched him go. Her fingers tightened slightly around her punch cup. I could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes.
Responsibility.
People in danger.
The spider instincts pulling at her just like they pulled at Peter.
And underneath that—
Something else.
Tonight.
Us.
A normal night.
For once.
She looked at me.
The conflict sat right there on her face.
I kept my voice gentle. “You don’t have to go.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “But what if—”
“Peter’s already on it,” I said. “And if it’s really bad, the Avengers exist.” Who knows? Maybe they’ll actually help the little people out for a change.
That earned a small snort from her.
She stared down at the punch for a moment.
Then finally let out a slow breath.
“…okay.”
She stayed.
Not because she couldn’t help.
Because she chose not to.
And honestly?
I couldn’t blame her.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket.
Across the room the music swelled again, laughter bouncing off the gym walls as the dance kept going like nothing outside existed.
Gwen nudged my shoulder lightly. “So,” she said, lifting her cup again, “if this punch is spiked, do you think we’ll at least get a funny story out of it?”
I smiled faintly. “One to remember.”
It was nice to be normal.
…
The alley behind the pawn shop smelled like piss and cheap cigarettes.
Mark Allan barely noticed.
The man on the ground did.
“Please—Mark—”
Mark’s fist slammed into the guy’s ribs again.
There was a wet cracking sound.
The loan shark wheezed.
Mark grabbed the front of his jacket and yanked him halfway upright, slamming him back against the brick wall. The impact knocked a loose cloud of dust down from the mortar.
“You remember me now?” Mark’s voice came out rougher than he expected.
The man’s eyes were wide. Blood ran from his nose, dripping down over his lips. “Y-you got the money—”
Mark laughed.
A sharp, broken sound.
“Money.”
His grip tightened.
“You sold me.”
“I didn’t—!”
Mark’s fist crashed into the wall next to the man’s head.
The brick dented.
Literally dented.
They both stared at it for half a second.
Mark’s hand… wasn’t skin anymore.
It shimmered in the dim alley light.
Gold.
Molten gold, like metal heated until it almost glowed.
The loan shark whimpered.
Mark shoved him harder against the wall. “You had to win!” Another punch.
The man cried out.
“You had to push it!” His hand slammed into the guy’s stomach. The impact folded him over with a choking gasp. “You couldn’t just let it go!”
The words kept coming before Mark could stop them.
Before he could even think about them.
Every accusation spilled out hotter than the metal crawling through his veins. “You couldn’t just leave it alone!”
Another hit.
The loan shark collapsed to the pavement.
Mark followed him down, grabbing his collar again and dragging him up just enough to look him in the face. “You see what you did to me?!”
The guy shook his head frantically. “I didn’t—those weren’t my guys—!”
Mark’s hand tightened.
His skin glowed brighter. “You ruined everything!” The words scraped out of his throat like broken glass. “It was never enough for you!”
The man tried to crawl away.
Mark yanked him back.
“You had to prove something!” His voice cracked. “Your own family doesn’t even recognize you anymore!”
The loan shark froze.
Blinking up at him in confusion.
Mark realized the words had slipped out wrong.
That… wasn’t the guy’s problem.
That was his.
His sister’s face flashed through his mind.
The way she’d looked at him earlier.
Hurt.
Like he wasn’t Mark anymore.
Like he was something else.
His grip tightened again.
Rage came roaring back to drown that thought before it could settle.
“This is your fault!”
He hauled his glowing fist back.
And that was when the sky exploded.
A bolt of lightning slammed straight down into the alley.
It hit Mark like a freight train made of electricity.
The world went white.
The impact hurled him sideways, crashing into a stack of trash cans that went clattering across the pavement.
The loan shark screamed.
Mark rolled onto his back, vision swimming.
His body smoked faintly.
For a second he thought he was dead.
Then the pain hit.
Not burning.
Not exactly.
More like something inside him had been struck like a tuning fork.
Energy vibrated through his molten skin.
He pushed himself up slowly.
Across the alley, a figure stood at the mouth of it.
The streetlights flickered violently around him.
Blue electricity crawled across the man’s arms.
His eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
Mark wiped blood from his lip.
His molten skin flared brighter. “…the hell are you supposed to be?”
The man didn’t answer.
Lightning crackled softly between his fingers.
…
The man had been beating him.
Max had seen it clearly from the mouth of the alley.
One guy on the ground. Blood on the pavement. The other man towering over him, glowing like something pulled straight out of a nightmare.
Gold.
Not paint. Not metal armor.
His skin.
Molten.
The light from it crawled across the alley walls like fire.
Max stood there, breathing hard, electricity prickling under his skin, and for a moment everything in his head went very quiet.
A bad guy.
A victim.
This was simple.
This was what heroes did.
Spider-Man would step in.
Spider-Man would stop it.
Max swallowed, his hands trembling as faint lightning flickered between his fingers. “I can do this.” The words came out soft, like if he said them too loud they might fall apart. “I can help.”
The glowing man hauled his victim up again.
Max didn’t wait anymore.
He stepped forward.
Electricity surged through him like a reflex.
A bolt of lightning ripped down the alley and slammed into the molten man.
The impact cracked like a cannon.
The glowing man flew sideways into a stack of trash cans, metal crashing loudly across the pavement.
Max’s heart pounded.
He looked at his hands.
Still sparking.
Still glowing faint blue.
He’d done that.
The man on the ground scrambled away, half crawling, half stumbling as he fled down the alley without looking back.
Max didn’t even notice.
He’d done it.
He’d stopped him.
For one shining second, something warm spread through his chest.
Maybe this—
Maybe this didn’t have to be a curse.
Then the molten man stood up.
Slowly.
The gold glow brightened across his skin like a furnace roaring back to life.
His eyes locked onto Max.
And there was nothing heroic about the look in them. “What the hell was that?!”
Max raised his hands instinctively. “I was helping—”
The molten man charged.
Fast.
Too fast.
Max barely had time to react before a blazing fist slammed into his chest.
The impact hurled him backward into the alley wall hard enough to crack brick.
Air blasted from his lungs.
Pain flared across his ribs.
Electricity exploded out of him in a wild surge.
Streetlights at the alley entrance shattered instantly.
The molten man staggered as lightning arced across his glowing body.
Max scrambled to his feet. “I’m not the bad guy!”
“Yeah?” the man snarled, molten light dripping off his fists. “Could’ve fooled me!”
He lunged again.
Max fired another bolt.
It struck the man square in the shoulder, sending sparks and molten fragments spraying across the alley.
Instead of stopping him—
It made him angrier.
They collided in the narrow alley like two car crashes happening at once.
Gold fists.
Blue lightning.
Trash cans melted.
Brick shattered.
Electricity screamed across the metal fire escapes overhead.
Max barely understood what he was doing anymore.
Every time the man got close, instinct fired another blast.
Every blast made the molten glow burn hotter.
The fight spilled out of the alley into the street.
A passing taxi screeched to a halt as lightning slammed into the asphalt.
People screamed.
Car alarms exploded to life up and down the block.
Max stumbled backward as the molten man ripped a parking meter from the sidewalk and hurled it like a spear.
Lightning vaporized it midair.
Glass shattered from nearby storefronts.
“What’s wrong with you?!” Max shouted.
The molten man laughed bitterly. “What’s wrong with me?!” He slammed both glowing fists into the pavement. The asphalt cracked like a dropped plate. “You started this!”
Max fired again.
The bolt tore through a traffic light, sending sparks raining down over the intersection.
The molten man charged straight through them.
Pedestrians scattered.
Phones came out.
People screamed and ran as the two glowing figures tore down the street, smashing through parked cars and exploding streetlights like they were made of paper.
Max didn’t know where they were anymore.
Didn’t know where the fight was going.
Only that he couldn’t stop.
Every time he tried to slow down—
The molten man attacked again.
Every attack made Max panic.
Every panic triggered another lightning blast.
The city blocks blurred past.
Then suddenly the street opened up into blinding light.
Towering screens.
Neon.
Crowds.
Times Square.
Max skidded to a stop in the middle of the intersection, chest heaving as electricity crawled wildly across his skin.
The molten man stalked forward through the smoke and broken pavement.
Sirens were already screaming in the distance.
Cameras pointed everywhere.
Max’s hands shook.
This hadn’t gone the way it was supposed to.
He’d tried to help.
He’d tried to stop the bad guy.
But standing there in the middle of Times Square with lightning tearing through the power grid around him…
It didn’t feel like being a hero.
It felt like the start of something much worse.
…
The police sirens were already echoing off the skyscrapers when Peter swung into Times Square.
That was never a good sign.
His webline snapped loose from a billboard and he arced over the glowing canyon of screens and lights, the massive digital ads washing the city in neon blue and red.
Below him—
Chaos.
Cars abandoned in the street.
People running in every direction.
And in the center of the intersection—
Two glowing figures tearing the pavement apart.
Peter landed on the side of a traffic light, crouched upside down against the pole as he took in the scene. “…oh come on.”
One of them he recognized immediately.
Mark Allan.
Liz’s brother. The one he and Gwen had rescued from the Russians… and the same guy who MJ caught drifting into Tombstone’s orbit. Which was already a pretty big red flag.
This was not helping his case.
Mark’s fists slammed into the asphalt again, cracking the street like it was made of cheap tile.
Okay.
So subtlety’s just out the window now.
Cool.
Cool cool cool.
The other guy—
Peter blinked.
Electric blue skin.
Veins glowing like live wires under glass.
Lightning crawling across his arms and snapping into nearby streetlights.
Every power pole in the block flickered when he moved.
Peter had absolutely no idea who that was.
Which was saying something, considering New York had recently tried to kill him with a guy dressed like a living wax museum. He was pretty sure he knew who all the rogues were at this point. Are these guys just getting made every day?
The electric guy fired another bolt.
Mark barely dodged, the lightning shredding a parked car behind him in a shower of sparks and twisted metal.
Right.
Time to step in.
Peter launched himself from the traffic pole, flipping through the air before landing squarely between them.
Both glowing figures froze for a split second at the sudden arrival.
Peter held his hands up immediately.
Not a fighting stance.
A talking stance.
Okay.
Step one: stop them from murdering each other.
Step two: figure out what the hell was happening.
Step three: ideally not die.
He glanced toward Mark first.
“Mark,” he said carefully. “Hey. Buddy. Remember me?”
Mark’s glowing face twisted in anger.
“Spider-Man.”
Okay.
Not a friendly recognition, but still recognition.
Progress.
Peter nodded slowly. “Yeah. That’s me. Friendly neighborhood—”
Lightning cracked across the street behind him.
Peter glanced over his shoulder.
The electric guy stood twenty feet away, chest heaving, sparks crawling wildly across his glowing skin. The giant screens of Times Square flickered erratically behind him like the city itself was glitching.
Peter tilted his head slightly. “…okay.”
Two enhanced people.
One street.
Both very emotional.
He raised both hands again, palms open.
“Alright,” Peter said slowly, shifting his gaze between them. “Let’s just—everybody breathe for a second.”
Mark’s molten fists clenched.
The electric guy’s hands crackled harder.
Nobody looked particularly interested in breathing.
Peter tried a different approach.
He pointed vaguely between them. “So… who started it?”
Mark jabbed a glowing finger toward the electric man. “Him!”
Lightning snapped violently in response.
“I was stopping you!”
Peter winced.
Right.
Mutual blame.
Classic.
He took one careful step forward, trying to keep his voice calm. “Okay, okay, that’s fine, we can figure that out—”
The electricity around the blue-skinned man surged suddenly.
Streetlights burst.
The massive screens above them flickered.
Peter lifted both hands quickly.
“Hey—whoa—okay—Electro—let’s calm down—”
The name had barely left his mouth when the entire street went still.
The electric man froze.
Not tense.
Not ready to attack.
Frozen.
Like someone had pulled the plug on him.
His glowing eyes locked onto Peter.
And the look on his face wasn’t anger.
It was betrayal.
Peter blinked behind the mask.
Because he had absolutely no idea why.
…
Electro.
The word hung in the air.
Max stared at Spider-Man.
The world had gone quiet in that strange way it did when too much electricity was running through the air. Every screen in Times Square flickered. Streetlights hummed like they were about to burst.
Spider-Man’s hands were still up, palms open, like he was trying to calm a nervous dog. “Hey—let’s all just take a deep breath. We don’t want to do anything we regret—”
Electro.
Not Max.
Not the guy who’d been hanging from the Oscorp grid with a wrench in his hand and a supervisor yelling at him through a headset. Not the guy who filed safety reports no one read. Not the guy Spider-Man had pulled out of the street less than a week ago when that taxi jumped the curb.
Not the guy who’d said thank you.
Just—
Electro.
Max’s chest tightened.
Spider-Man tilted his head slightly, confused by the silence.
Max felt something crack inside him. “You don’t even know who I am!”
The shout ripped out of him before he even realized he was speaking.
Lightning exploded across his body.
The surge blasted outward in every direction like a bomb made of electricity.
Half the lights in Times Square died instantly.
The others flared brighter.
Spider-Man launched himself backward just as a bolt scorched the pavement where he’d been standing. “Okay!” Spider-Man shouted. “That’s—wow—that’s a lot of electricity!”
Max didn’t hear him.
Every screen around the square flickered violently.
Advertisements glitched.
News tickers scrambled.
And then—
They all showed the same thing.
Him.
Max turned slowly as a towering digital billboard above the street snapped into focus.
His face stared back at him.
Electric blue skin.
Veins glowing like live wires under glass.
Eyes burning with unstable light.
He barely recognized himself.
Another screen flickered.
Then another.
Then another.
Every camera in Times Square was pointed at the chaos.
Live feeds.
Security systems.
News drones circling overhead.
His face appeared everywhere.
Thirty feet tall.
Fifty.
A hundred.
Electric blue eyes staring down from every screen in the square.
The crowd saw it too.
People were backing away now, phones raised, filming.
“What is that thing?!”
“It’s glowing!”
“Is that a person?!”
The word thing stuck harder than anything else.
Max turned slowly in a circle, electricity crackling louder around him.
Thousands of people staring.
Not at Max Dillon.
At something else.
Something glowing.
Something dangerous.
Something they could point their cameras at.
For most of his life, people looked through him.
At Oscorp.
On the street.
In elevators.
Just another guy nobody noticed.
Now they were all looking.
Every eye in the square.
Every camera.
Every screen.
Max raised his hands slowly.
Lightning crawled across his fingers like living veins.
The giant screens above mirrored the motion instantly.
Electric blue hands rising across the skyline.
People screamed.
More phones came out.
Spider-Man took a cautious step forward. “Hey, listen—”
Max barely heard him.
Because for the first time in his life—
Everyone was looking at him.
Not past him.
Not through him.
At him.
They didn’t see Max Dillon.
They saw something else.
Something powerful.
Something dangerous.
Something glowing.
Something important.
And standing there in the center of Times Square, with the entire city staring at the electric monster reflected across every screen—
It felt better than being invisible.
…
The lights died all at once.
Times Square went from blinding neon daylight to something closer to midnight in the span of a heartbeat. Billboards flickered out. Towering screens went black. The endless roar of electricity that normally lived in the bones of the city just… vanished.
For a second, nobody moved.
Then the screaming started.
People surged through the streets in every direction, the sudden darkness turning panic into a living thing. Car alarms began blaring. Somewhere nearby, a transformer popped with a sharp crack that echoed between the buildings.
Peter stood in the middle of it, chest heaving.
Electro was gone.
One moment the guy had been standing there glowing like a human lightning rod, the next there’d been a blinding flash—and then darkness. No glowing blue silhouette. No crackling arcs crawling over the pavement.
Just empty air and a city-wide blackout.
Peter lowered his hands slowly.
“Well,” he muttered under his breath, the words sounding smaller without the lights. “That’s probably not good.”
His mask lenses adjusted to the darkness automatically, the city sharpening back into view in muted shapes and shadows. People running. Cars stopped at odd angles in the street. Steam rising from a ruptured pipe somewhere down the block.
The damage was everywhere.
A streetlight had collapsed sideways into a storefront window.
The massive digital billboard that had been broadcasting Electro’s face was now nothing but a dead slab of metal looming overhead.
Half the security cameras in the square hung crooked, their lenses fried.
And the villains—
Gone.
Peter turned slowly in place, scanning rooftops, alleyways, every possible escape route.
Nothing.
His stomach sank.
Great.
Just… great.
Mark had vanished during the chaos. One second he’d been there, the next he’d slipped into the crowd when everyone started running.
And Electro—
Electro had taken out half the power grid on his way out.
Peter rubbed the back of his neck through the suit. “Okay. Not ideal.”
Around him, emergency lights began flickering on in nearby buildings—dim red glows spilling through windows as backup generators kicked in. Sirens started up in the distance, first one, then several more.
The city was waking up to the problem.
Which meant a whole lot of people were about to start asking questions.
Questions like why Times Square had exploded into an electrical storm.
Questions like why three different supervillains had apparently been running around in the middle of Manhattan.
Questions like where Spider-Man had been during all of it.
Peter exhaled slowly.
The answer to that last one was technically right here.
Which somehow made it worse.
His shoulders sagged a little as the adrenaline drained out of him.
This had started as a bad situation.
Now it was something else.
Electro wasn’t just some guy with weird powers anymore.
The entire city had seen him.
His face had been on every screen in Times Square.
Peter looked up at the dead billboards towering over the street, remembering the moment those giant displays had all turned toward the glowing blue figure standing in the middle of the square.
Every camera.
Every phone.
Every livestream.
That wasn’t staying quiet.
By morning, the whole city would know.
Another siren screamed closer now, police cars racing through the blackout toward the square.
Peter rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the heavy feeling settling in his chest.
This just got bigger.
Way bigger.
Before tonight, the worst thing he’d been dealing with was guys like Shocker—dangerous, sure, but still basically criminals with upgraded toys.
Electro wasn’t that.
Electro had shut down half the power grid with a temper tantrum.
Peter crouched slightly, muscles coiling out of habit as he prepared to swing away.
Somewhere out there, a guy made of living electricity was walking around New York.
And he was angry.
Peter fired a webline into the darkness above and launched himself into the night, the quiet city stretching out ahead of him.
Yeah.
This was definitely going to be a problem.
…
The music was still playing.
Which was weird.
Gwen stood near the edge of the gym floor, arms folded loosely as colored lights swept across the room in slow rotations. The DJ hadn’t stopped the playlist. The speakers kept pumping out some upbeat pop song about summer love while teenagers danced beneath the decorations like nothing had happened.
Except everything felt… wrong now.
It was subtle at first. The kind of shift you only noticed if you were paying attention.
Clusters of students standing a little closer together than before. Phones out. Whispered conversations cutting through the music. Someone across the room refreshing a news feed over and over again.
Every few seconds, someone’s screen lit up with the same headline.
Massive blackout hits Manhattan.
Another.
Explosion reported near Times Square.
Gwen stared at one of the glowing phone screens as a girl hurried past her, the words burning briefly into her vision before disappearing into the crowd.
Her stomach twisted.
She hadn’t seen the fight.
But she didn’t need to.
The moment the news alerts started hitting phones, she knew.
Peter…
Her eyes drifted across the gym automatically.
MJ stood near the snack table with a group of theater kids, pretending to listen to something one of them was saying while she refreshed her own phone like it might give her a different answer the tenth time.
Peter wasn’t there.
Of course he wasn’t.
Gwen’s gaze shifted again, toward the quiet corner where Harry had set up with his laptop earlier in the evening.
He was still there.
The glow of the screen painted his face in soft blue light while multiple windows flickered across the display—security feeds, news streams, something that looked like a traffic camera grid. His fingers moved quickly over the keyboard, expression focused in that way he got when he was juggling five things at once in his head.
Harry Osborn at a school dance.
Monitoring the city.
That probably said a lot about their lives.
Gwen wandered over slowly, weaving past a group of students attempting an enthusiastic but deeply uncoordinated dance circle.
“Tell me it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
Harry didn’t look up immediately. His eyes flicked across another feed before he finally leaned back slightly in his chair.
“Depends,” he said. “How bad does it sound?”
“City-wide blackout bad.”
“Ah.” He exhaled through his nose. “Then unfortunately, it’s about that bad.”
Gwen pulled out the chair beside him and sat down, leaning closer to the laptop.
The screen showed a chaotic aerial view of Times Square.
Emergency lights. Smoke drifting between buildings. Police cars converging from multiple directions.
The giant billboards were all dark.
Her chest tightened.
“Was it Mark?”
She never thought she would regret saving someone before… no, she still doesn’t. But is it wrong that she wants to grab Mark Allan, and shake some sense into him? With her fists?
Harry nodded once. “He was there. But… well, it looks like he wasn’t the only one.”
Another video window opened automatically—someone’s shaky phone recording from street level. The footage showed a bright blue figure crackling with electricity before the screen dissolved into static.
Gwen swallowed. “That’s… bad.”
“Very.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
The music from the dance pulsed behind them, absurdly cheerful against the quiet tension of the footage on Harry’s screen.
Gwen watched another clip replay—lightning arcing through the air, people screaming, cameras shaking as the power died.
Peter was out there somewhere in that chaos.
Fighting.
Doing what Spider-Man did.
And she—
Her gaze dropped to the dance floor.
She had stayed.
The thought settled into her chest like a small, uncomfortable weight.
Peter had heard about the situation and left immediately. That was the deal they’d all made with themselves the moment they put on masks. If something happened in the city, you responded.
But Gwen hadn’t gone.
She’d stayed at the dance.
Because all she’d wanted was one normal night… she was selfish. Her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the chair.
Harry glanced sideways at her, noticing the shift instantly. “Don’t do that.”
Gwen blinked, releasing her grip, hoping she didn’t break part of the chair, like she did so many things. “Sorry.”
“Not that. I meant… don’t spiral on me, okay?”
“I’m not spiraling!”
“Gwen.”
He knew her too well.
She frowned at the laptop screen. “I should’ve gone.”
Harry finally turned the chair toward her fully. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No,” he repeated, more firmly this time.
Gwen opened her mouth to argue, but he beat her to it.
“Gwen Stacy,” Harry said, folding his arms across his chest, “you are the kindest person I have ever met.”
She stared at him. “That’s… a weird opening argument.”
“Stay with me.”
His expression softened slightly.
“You help everyone. All the time. You’re the one who checks on people nobody else notices. You’re the one who stays late tutoring half the science club even when you have your own homework.”
Gwen shifted awkwardly in the chair. “That’s just being a decent human being.”
“Exactly,” Harry said. “Which means if anyone on this planet deserves to enjoy themselves for one night without running off to punch supervillains, it’s you.”
She looked back at the footage on the screen.
The emergency response in Times Square had grown larger. Fire trucks now. More police. The chaos slowly settling into controlled activity.
Peter would be somewhere nearby.
Watching.
Helping where he could.
Being Spider-Man.
Gwen exhaled slowly. “I still feel weird about it.”
“Feeling weird is fine,” Harry said. “Letting it ruin your night is not.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re very invested in me enjoying this dance.”
Harry shrugged lightly. “Someone should.”
The music swelled again behind them as the DJ transitioned into another song, the crowd on the dance floor cheering when the opening beat hit.
Gwen looked out at the room.
Teenagers laughing.
Dancing.
Trying to pretend the world outside the gym didn’t involve electricity monsters and city-wide blackouts.
Maybe Harry was right.
Maybe one night of normal wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
She nudged his shoulder lightly. “You know you’re the only guy at this dance running a surveillance network from a folding chair, right?”
“Multitasking.”
“Uh-huh.” Gwen stood, smoothing down her dress slightly before glancing back at him. “You coming?”
Harry gestured at the laptop. “Kind of in the middle of something… give me five more minutes?”
She leaned down, closed the screen halfway, and gave him a pointed look. “The city is full of adults with emergency response training.”
“That’s optimistic.”
“And,” Gwen added, tugging lightly on his sleeve, “you promised me one normal night.”
Harry sighed dramatically, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward as he stood.
“Fine.”
Across the city, sirens still echoed through darkened streets.
But inside the gym, the music kept playing.