Chapter 3: The Streamer

*Thwip*

The Phantom Spider, wearing an all-black costume consisting of pants, a turtleneck, boots, a trenchcoat, and a black mask, swung through the city of New York gracefully with his phone attached to his chest.

He was a natural, flipping and twirling in the air as if web swinging was as easy as walking on the ground. Usually, the boy locked himself in his room, playing video games or doing homework all day. However, feeling the wind blowing in his face as he swung around the city was exhilarating.

As the boy had promised to himself, he had begun his streaming career, swinging through the city, performing stunts and tricks for the entertainment of his viewers. Almost immediately, the young man's stream had taken off, causing thousands of people to rush in to watch the Phantom Spider swing.

They thought he was some sort of superhero, which was exciting considering those were a rarity at that point in time. No one knew exactly what had happened to the heroes, as the Avengers went silent seemingly out of nowhere. The truth was that the Avengers were off-world, leaving only a few heroes left to defend the Earth, such as the Fantastic Four and Ghost Rider to name a few.

The Phantom Spider, truly unaware of how many people were watching his stream, continued to swing through the air. Wanting to actually see his stream's progress, the boy stopped at a hot dog stand, grabbing a glizzy for himself before swinging back up to one of New York's many skyscrapers. Removing only a small section of his mask, the Phantom Spider began eating his lunch while reading the chat.

"Are you a hero??"

"Are you an Avenger?"

"Are you single?"

"Fight something!"

"How did you get your powers?"

The boy was being bombarded with questions, as well as subscriptions and donations, he was making more money on day one than he'd ever imagined. He wasn't doing this at all to be a hero, so he made sure to clear it up.

"Guys, I'm not a hero. I'm just an entertainer. I can't fight anyone." The young man said to the chatroom plainly, causing another uproar of questions and demands.

"Yes, you can!"

"What's the point of powers if you won't use them?"

"C'mon, stop a robbery or something!"

The boy suddenly felt the weight of peer pressure getting to him as the hundreds of people continued to spam him and tell him what he should be using his powers for. Feeling overwhelmed, the boy ended his stream abruptly.

"Sorry, everyone. I need to go now, thank you for the support and donations!" Immediately, he shut the stream off, taking a sigh of relief.

'That was easy money, but I never want to do that again.' He thought to himself as he lept off the building he was sitting on, hot dog in hand, and began swinging back home. 'Do this! Do that! Ugh, they're like mindless sheep. If being a hero was as easy as punching a few guys, why don't they do it? I'm sure Oscorp has a few more spiders lying around for them.'

The young man continued to think to himself until he eventually found himself at home. After entering through his window, the boy peeked around the corner, seeing that once again he was home alone.

He sighed, feeling nothing but loneliness yet again in the empty apartment.

Eren spent the rest of the day doing homework and coming up with new designs for his costume. One of his designs was a skin-tight red and blue suit with a spider symbol on both the front and the back.

As he glared at his own drawing, he couldn't help but feel strange emotions within himself.

He felt hopeful.

He felt inspired.

He felt safe, just from looking at the masked man in his drawing.

'No.' The boy thought to himself, realizing he was letting the people's opinions on what he should be doing impact his own view of himself. He didn't want to be a hero, at least, that's what he told himself despite unconsciously drawing himself in a heroic light. He crumpled up the piece of paper with the heroic suit design and threw it in the trash.

After spending the rest of the day thinking about what to do with his powers, the boy went to sleep, still having thoughts of what is and isn't his responsibility with his new gift.

___________

The next day came, and Eren went to school as usual. Oddly enough, Eren, or at least his alter ego, was a celebrity amongst the high schoolers. Everyone, even his bully, was talking about how cool this new hero named the Phantom Spider was, though Eren disagreed with the hero part.

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After school, Eren went straight back home to find that his mother was there, just as she had promised. As planned, The two of them then headed out and took a cab to Eren's father's resting place. Eren hadn't visited his father's grave since he was a little boy. Going there was always hard for him, as well as for his mother.

The two eventually found themselves standing at his grave. The grave read: 'Here lies Richard Parker. A loving father, husband, son, and friend.'

Eren stared down at his father's resting place as his emotions began to overwhelm him. He looked over at his mother and could see tears running down her face as she held flowers in her hand. She then took the flowers and placed them down on the grave. As she did this, her tears fell and landed on the petals of the flowers.

The two remained silent as they both didn't know what to say to each other or to Eren's father. After a minute or so of silence. Eren's mom spoke to him.

"Did I ever tell you about how your father and I met?" She had a faint smile as she thought about the past briefly.

"You've both told me some things, but not really the whole thing. No." Eren shook his head. She hadn't spoken about the time she met his father since before his death.

Eren's mother then sat down at the grave and rested her hand on it as she looked at it with a bittersweet and tearful smile.

"Right after I graduated high school, I used to work at this restaurant as a server. He was one of the chefs. His uniform always fit funny because he was so tall. The pants were too short for him, he looked like such a geek, but I strangely found something about him to be cute." She told her son, her hand still on Richard's grave.

"We would interact with each other fairly often, considering that my job was to serve the food that he prepared. He eventually asked me out on a date one day. We had dinner at the same restaurant that we work at." She laughed at the silly memory, causing Eren to crack a rare smile himself.

"It was honestly a terrible first impression. I thought to myself 'Really? The same place we work?'. He wasn't very creative back then with those types of things. However, I did end up enjoying my time with him so I agreed to another and then another… You get the idea." She looked up at Eren with a faint smile, noticing that her son was smiling back at her ever so slightly.

"Eventually, we were really close. We might as well have been a couple at that point, I was just waiting for him to ask me properly. One day during my lunch break, he came over with a plate that had a single slice of the lemon pie he would always make. It was my favorite. Even after we quit working there, I still often begged him to make it for me all the time."

"On the plate, he spelled out the words: 'I want to be your man'. It was so incredibly corny, but that was our favorite song at the time. It really made me laugh and smile more than I had ever in my life, honestly. Figuring this was his way of awkwardly asking me out, I said yes. Then, five years later, we got married on the same exact day as that day. Two years later we had you."

"I didn't know he was so lame back then." Eren laughed slightly as his hand rested on the other side of the grave. "That does seem like something I'd do, though." Briefly, Eren began thinking of Cindy and how he would ask her out if ever had the guts to do so. He had multiple opportunities to do so, but he was afraid of girls, especially Cindy.

Eren's mother raised an eyebrow before probing into her son's personal life. "Are there any girls you're interested in at school? You're pretty close to the same age as your father and I when we met."

Eren, taken aback by the question, shook his head and lied as if Cindy Moon didn't exist. "What? No. I'm not interested in any girls."

"So, you like boys then? That's fine, as long as you're happy." She asked him. She really didn't care if that was the case, but she thought teasing him would be funny. Immediately, Eren shook his head again, almost in a panic.

"No! I like women!" His mother then laughed at his sudden flustered behavior, causing Eren to place his hand on his forehead in embarrassment. "I just... There is one girl. Her name is Cindy." As he confessed, he could instantly feel the intense weight of his secret lift off of his chest. "She's really nice. She's really smart too. I liked her since elementary school, but I'm worried that if I make a move on her, I might scare her off or something."

His mom reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder with a sweet smile on her face. "Don't be worried. You won't know until you ask. Plus, the worst she can say is no." She told him.

Eren looked up at his mother once more. "She could say something worse like 'Fuck no!' or something." He said plainly with the straightest face possible.

His mother laughed, covering her mouth before telling him more about his father. "You know, your dad thought the same thing when I asked him about it. You two are so funny."

"Well, I am his son." Eren spoke shyly.

"Yeah. You and him are very similar. You're like his miniature self. I'm glad it's that way. Seeing you every day feels as if he's never left. I still miss him and it still hurts sometimes, but at least I still have you. Our son." She told him as she smiled sadly once again.

Eren was visibly in pain, holding himself back from tearing up as he thought of both his father and himself. "It sometimes feels like a curse, to me." Eren spoke sadly as he wrapped both hands around his knee, looking forward at nothing. "Every day when I look in the mirror, it feels like I see him. I can't explain the feeling, but it feels like I'm letting someone down by not being him. Sometimes I even feel like I'm letting him down."

His mother shook her head before speaking softly to him with her hand still on his shoulder. "No, Eren. You don't need to be him. You're you, your job isn't to be him. Your job is to carry on your father's name and legacy as yourself. That's what he'd want. You should be proud that you are his son, that you are a Parker."

Those words were something that Eren desperately needed to hear. His whole life, at least after his father had passed on, he truly felt like nothing more than a disappointment and a burden. He wanted to fill those same shoes as his father but failed to do so.

"You're right, Mom. Thank you." Eren said quietly. His mother smiled, rubbing her son's shoulder as the two continued to sit next to his father's grave.

They talked to each other for a while before Eren's mother received a phone call from her job. They had called her in for something, though Eren didn't mind as she kept her promise in the end.

The two took a cab home before heading their separate ways. Eren went inside, taking a shower before doing his usual homework and gaming routine.

It was late at night and his mother still hadn't come home yet. Figuring it must've been a long day at the office, traffic, or both, the young man went to sleep, unknown to the reality that would come knocking soon.

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