The night was quiet, the darkness concealing the slow creep of criminality that plagued the city. Peter Parker got off the subway, his conscience heavy with guilt. He knew he was late, and he was anxious to get home to Aunt May with her medicine.
Running through the final blocks toward his house, he suddenly skidded to a stop. He had just sprinted right past the drugstore.
"Oh, no! I forgot I needed to buy Aunt May's medicine!" Peter cursed his own tunnel vision. He quickly turned back, frustration fueling his steps toward the pharmacy he'd missed.
As he reached the store, his new, hyper-sensitive Danger Sense flared, though he didn't recognize it as such yet. He noticed a commotion next door: a small convenience store was being robbed—a brazen "Zero-Dollar Purchase."
Peter hesitated. His first instinct, the one sharpened by his emerging powers, was to intervene. But the urgent clock ticking for Aunt May pushed back.
"I can't stop everything," he rationalized, his feet rooted to the spot. "Aunt May is waiting. The owner can probably handle it."
In that critical moment of inaction, the Bandit, clutching a bag of stolen goods, burst out of the store and ran across the street.
The shop owner rushed out, yelling in frustration, "Hey, stop him! Someone stop him!"
Peter, still paralyzed by his conflict, watched the Bandit dart away. The owner turned his ire on the young man. "Hey! What the hell? Why didn't you stop him?"
Peter ignored the accusation, his focus snapping back to his immediate priority. He wheeled away, hurrying into the pharmacy.
The Bandit, fleeing in a panic, ran across the street and collided violently with a slight figure rounding the corner: Aunt May. She fell to the ground, her body hitting the pavement hard. The Bandit stumbled, and the stolen items—and a handgun—scattered around them.
Aunt May, recognizing the situation, held a hand out despite her pain. "You can't do this. If you have difficulties, there are other ways; stealing is wrong."
Enraged at being blocked and stalled, the Bandit snatched up the gun and aimed it at the frail woman. Aunt May, driven by an inherent moral core, still tried to reason with him. The Bandit, his patience gone, pulled the trigger.
A single, sharp gunshot tore through the quiet night.
Peter, standing at the counter in the pharmacy, heard the gunshot nearby. His head snapped toward the door. No... could that be the guy I just let go? Did my inaction just hurt someone?
Guilt, sudden and suffocating, seized him. He didn't wait to pay. He dropped the medicine and bolted out the door, running toward the sound of the shot.
When he arrived, he saw a familiar figure lying on the cold pavement. He recognized the simple, kind jacket, the familiar clothes he saw every morning.
"No, no, no," Peter gasped, his world dissolving into slow motion. "Aunt May! It can't be you!"
He rushed to her side, his mind flooding with agonizing self-reproach.
"If I had come home earlier, Aunt May wouldn't have come out."
"If I had stopped that Bandit, Aunt May wouldn't have been shot."
"If I had just done the right thing, I could have prevented this."
Peter screamed desperately for help, his powerful lungs unused to the raw, heartbreaking sound of genuine agony. The street, already empty, remained silent—no one dared to approach.
Aunt May, clinging to consciousness, reached up and touched Peter's face.
"Peter... don't blame yourself," she whispered, her voice barely audible. Her final words, a moral guidepost for his future, echoed the absent man whose role she had taken. "Remember, be a good person." She squeezed his hand one last time. "As your Uncle Ben always said... with great power comes great responsibility."
Peter erupted in desperate, bitter sobs.
Su Yi, already in the vicinity after teleporting near Mary Jane's home, felt the shift in the environment—a sudden spike of emotional pain and the reverberation of the gunshot. He swung over immediately.
"Damn it, the System's quest triggers are too ruthless!" Su Yi landed silently in front of the distraught Peter.
Peter, overwhelmed, looked up at the familiar figure of the Spider-Bully. "What are you going to do?"
"I can save her," Su Yi stated, his voice calm beneath the mask.
Peter, seeing no other option, nodded frantically, placing all his desperate trust in the vigilante.
Su Yi knelt beside Aunt May, quickly assessing the wound. Fortunately, it's the abdomen. Not the heart or the head. The Water of Life has a chance.
He retrieved the specialized vial. He noted, almost subconsciously, Aunt May's appearance.
"Wait, is this Aunt May? She's too young and too beautiful! More stunning than the Movie Universe version!" A mischievous thought flashed through his mind, quickly dismissed.
"I am not Cao Cao! Peter is my friend! We are classmates!" The idea of becoming the Spider-Man's godfather seemed safer than the alternative.
"Save her first," he commanded himself.
He administered the single drop of the Water of Life. He then used the Symbiote Suit, forming incredibly fine, flexible threads at his fingertips, which meticulously slipped into the wound and extracted the bullet without causing further trauma.
"She will be fine," Su Yi whispered, checking her pulse. "The regeneration will begin immediately."
Peter watched, mesmerized and terrified, as the profuse bleeding stopped, and the wound visibly began to close. "This is a miracle," he choked out.
"It will heal very quickly, but you must not let anyone know how fast," Su Yi warned. "It will create too many problems."
"I... I understand."
"I will come to you tonight," Su Yi promised, knowing he needed to cement Peter's path before the grief and guilt could overwhelm him.
Su Yi swung away, his mind still reeling. "Sigh, the system only asked me to guide Peter to become Spider-Man, but why do I feel like it's demanding I become Spider-Man's godfather and silent guardian?"
Peter, after cancelling the ambulance, carried Aunt May back to their apartment. He focused on keeping her comfortable until she slowly regained consciousness.
"Aunt May, are you okay?"
"What happened, Peter?" she murmured. "I remember talking to someone, and then I felt this wonderfully comfortable sensation." She touched her abdomen. "How am I home? And what happened to my wound? It's already scabbing over!"
Peter gently explained, "Someone saved you, Aunt May. A... a man in a mask."
Then, the guilt returned, raw and painful. "I'm so sorry, Aunt May. I should have come back earlier. And that Bandit... I had a chance to stop him, but I didn't."
Aunt May, her heart full of the newfound vitality and her protective love for Peter, quickly advised him.
"It's good that you realized your mistake, Peter. You can correct it in the future. Don't live in self-blame. Living in regret will ruin your life." Her words, imbued with the dying sentiment of a past universe's Ben Parker, hit him with renewed force.
Peter was immensely grateful to the anonymous Spider-Bully—his savior. Without him, Aunt May would be dead, and he would be lost forever in regret. He had no idea the savior he was praying for was his classmate, Su Yi.
Meanwhile, Su Yi, having returned to Mary Jane's neighborhood, quietly entered her room through the window. He needed to be close to one of his pillars tonight, secretly reaffirming their connection and drawing strength from the one girl whose destiny he had not fundamentally altered, but simply shared.
Peter Parker is now morally galvanized by tragedy and his newfound sense of guilt and responsibility, while his beloved Aunt May is secretly cured.