Peter Parker...
Who was Peter Parker?
Peter Parker was different, he was not like the others. He himself always knew that. It was not out of pride, arrogance or some superiority complex, on a fundamental level, Peter was always someone who could never get along with others without feeling this feeling of being the only one different among a bunch of equal people.
But why did he think so? To answer that, we'll have to go back to the younger years of that brilliant boy.
Peter Richardson Benjamin Parker, that was his full name, given by his parents, Richard and Emily Parker, shortly before they died. Yes, they die.
Shortly after he was born, after leaving the boy at his uncles' house for a business trip, the plane where Richard and Emily were exploded and crashed somewhere in the middle of the sea, causing the death of both.
"Maintenance problems," said the authorities. The airline responsible for the flight had been hiding for months the terrible conditions in which some of its planes were, diverting money that should be for maintenance and purchase of resources. This mistake cost the lives of Richard, Emily and 138 other people.
Poor Peter didn't even remember their face. The most he had in his whole life to remember them were some old photos and a necklace with the Camelot coat of arms that his mother left with him before the trip. Necklace this one that Peter sold for some change.
After this incident, Peter was in the care of his uncles, Benjamin and May Parker. Benjamin, or Ben for the most intimate, was Richard's older brother and tried to take care of the boy after this tragedy. But when the bills tightened and they understood that they could no longer deal with children, they put Peter in an orphanage when he was 5 years old.
From that point on, Peter's life passed like a blur full of temporary homes and "parents" who could not deal with him. It was funny how Peter had everything they wanted and at the same time didn't either.
Peter was a quiet, silent and undemanding child, everything a father could want. In all the homes where Peter was, his temporary relatives always said the same thing. Everyone said that what they needed was an easy and quiet child like Peter.
Obviously, this was short-lived after they finally noticed some of Peter's peculiar behaviors.
Peter was a quiet child, but he had a need to always need something to do. Not necessarily play like the other children, but if he wasn't immersed in some activity of his liking, he would do something not very pleasant.
Like when he disassembled the computer and phone of one of his adoptive brothers to see how the circuits worked. Obviously, he was returned soon after, even though he reassembled the devices in a few minutes.
Another thing was that Peter had the strange habit of watching others as closely as possible, for as long as possible. which in itself was very uncomfortable. A remarkable episode was when he entered the room of another of his adoptive relatives and watched them sleep.
For 5 hours.
These and many other things made Peter be returned to the orphanage time after time, until he finally turned 18 and legally left the adoption system.
Most young people in this situation would probably go into despair. After all, without a home, without a family and without any academic experience, the most they could do is sleep in a shelter and look for some suspicious job with a low salary.
But not Peter. Peter had been waiting for this day for years and knew exactly what he should do.
First, he went to his uncles and asked if his parents had left anything he could complain about as their son. Ben and May then revealed that Richard and Emily had created a fund for Peter's university just before he died, along with an account that he could access as soon as he turned 18.
Strange that they did all this before going on the trip that killed them, but Peter didn't care about the story of dead people.
Going to the bank and taking with him documents that confirmed that he was the legitimate son of Richard and Emily and also the main beneficiary of the accounts, he had access to a little more than 600,000 dollars that they had saved for him.
A lot of money to be honest.
With the money in hand, Peter bought a simple house for himself. Neither too big nor too small, two bedrooms and a bathroom, very similar to the one where he lived with his uncles.
Now, with a roof over his head and money in hand, Peter decided to solve one of the most annoying problems he had at the moment. Your academic qualifications.
Peter Parker was a genius. There was simply nothing the school could teach that he didn't already know. But since he could not rise in life without a certain level of professional and academic qualifications, he would have to solve himself with this problem.
Through months of research and "preparation", Peter was able to apply for several special exams to speed up his teaching process, until he finally had enough qualifications to enter the university.
It was extremely boring but rewarding in the end.
At the end of it all, Peter applied to New York's Empire State University and entered with a full scholarship. Another victory for his growing curriculum.
Currently, there were a few weeks left for classes to start. And at that moment, Peter was sitting in his living room, reading the book "The Black Tower" by Stephen King.
He had bought several types of books over the months and had a full shelf just for his books. But while reading, Peter also reflected on one of the reasons that made him not normal.
There were many things about Peter Parker that stood him out from the others. His genius, his more closed personality, his "tragic and sad" story. But all these were characteristics that Peter simply saw as part of himself and didn't mind showing to others.
But something he definitely wanted to hide and maybe would never tell anyone, was that Peter was a kind of seer. In a nutshell, he knew about the future.
...
This was probably not the best way to explain, so let's recap well.
Since his childhood, Peter has always been haunted by memories of someone else, someone who was from a different world. A world without heroes, villains or mutants, where these things only appeared in stories.
Peter didn't remember when or how, but at some point he gained these memories and little by little they merged with his, creating a set of memories of two different lives.
With the memories he gained, Peter came to understand more about the marvel world, the world where he lived and existed, but which was nothing more than a set of comic books created by a company with the same name.
Along with these memories, Peter came to know about secrets, information and important events in his universe, because apparently the person from whom he inherited the memories was a "super try hard" fan who knew almost everything about the marvel universe (or multiverse).
Peter knew the threats that one day would come to earth, the villains and heroes that would appear soon, the futures and apocalyptic destinies that could become reality and other lots of extremely frightening things.
This information made Peter have many crises of anxiety and existence throughout his life. He couldn't do anything to prevent disasters, and he also didn't know how real his world was or not, which was already too much for the mind of a simple child.
Little by little, Peter got used to it and understood what was real for him and that maybe the things he saw wouldn't even happen, but this whole experience left marks.
To begin with, even wearing glasses, Peter almost couldn't see colors. He wasn't colorblind or anything, but from so much doubting whether the people around him and the things he touched were real or not, he started to see everything as black and white pages of an old magazine.
He didn't see color in objects or people. For him, everything had the same shade of gray.
Another was that he had extreme trust and communication problems. He didn't know how to socialize, because there were still times when he still saw people as "characters" and not as "people".
And to finish, he was someone extremely anxious. With the disasters that can happen at any time and with the next attack of the universe's destructive villain getting closer and closer, Peter couldn't walk the street without feeling that someone would try to kill him soon. In short, he was someone extremely paranoid and suspicious.
All these problems and many others contributed to who Peter is today, someone closed, anxious and in need of any kind of love. Even if for many he managed to stand up in the midst of all the difficulties, Peter had already collapsed a long time ago and now he was trying to fix what was still left.
Still, Peter was trying to build a life for himself. He wanted to talk without feeling that he wasn't talking to real people, he wanted to be able to walk without having to look over his shoulder, he wanted to live knowing that he could be happy and not simply an empty and hopeless person.
University was his first step. Maybe if he could interact more with others his age, survive a few school years and establish a routine for himself, maybe he could finally feel normal again.
Until then, those pages of fiction and adventure would be your comfort.