[center][quote=@HenryJonesJr][color=ec008c][b]"So if you want to chat, let's chat. Your Spider-Man, he sounds like a great guy. What's his name?"[/b][/color][/quote][img]https://i.imgur.com/ZfvPPwT.png[/img][/center][b]Manhattan, New York[/b]

[color=#ffffff]As loathe as Johnny was to admit it, it felt good to get it all of his chest. He had expected Spider-Woman to try to cart him away to the funny farm, but instead she had just listened – she'd even dropped Peter's "friendly, neighbourhood Spider-person" line. Though she obviously wasn't Parker, there was something about the way she carried herself that reminded Johnny of him. [/color]

[color=#ffffff]It was why, against his best judgement, he found himself giving away a secret identity he had guarded for years.[/color]

[color=#ea9999]"His name was Peter,"[/color][color=#ffffff] Johnny said with a smile as he recalled the first time the two of them had met.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Electro had drained almost every power source in New York to take Spider-Man down. Peter couldn't have been much older than fifteen or sixteen at the time but he held his own. No matter what Electro threw at him, no matter how hard Peter got hit, he kept on fighting. He was almost dead on his feet with the Fantastic Four had arrived. They'd been on some diplomatic mission to a galaxy far, far away that had gone awry – and returned to find the city at Max Dillon's mercy but for the sheer force of Peter Parker's will.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Boy, it had been something to behold.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]The five of them had worked together to take Electro down. If Johnny remembered correctly, the fight had ended with Ben breaking Electro's jaw in four places. Dillon spent the best part of six months eating through a straw on the Raft. Reed had been so impressed by Peter he'd tried to recruit him right there and then on the spot.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]"Sorry, Stretch, but I don't think the Fantastic [i]Five[/i] has quite the same ring to it," Peter had said before disappearing off into the night.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]It was only as the thin smile crept across Johnny's face that he became aware he'd become lost in thought. He shook his head, focusing back on Spider-Woman, whose hand had slipped from his back gently at the mention of Peter's name. He realised the name alone meant nothing. [/color]

[color=#ffffff]She needed to hear Peter's story to [i]truly[/i] understand who he was – and what he meant to Johnny.[/color]

[color=#ea9999]"His parents died when he was a kid. I guess we had that in common – though we didn't really ever talk about it,"[/color][color=#ffffff] Johnny shrugged. [/color][color=#ea9999]"Peter's aunt and uncle brought him up. They were decent, salt of the Earth types. Saw to it that he kept his head down and focused on his schooling."[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Peter had always sought to downplay his intelligence, both in the Spider-Man suit and outside of it, but Johnny knew there was a formidable brain beneath Parker's thick skull. If not for the spider that had bit him, he might have gone on to win a Nobel Prize or something.[/color]

[color=#ea9999]"So one day Peter gets these powers – like yours, I guess – and he has no idea what to do with them. He went from being the punchline to every joke to having superpowers overnight. And what does he do? Go beat the snot out of the kids that made his life miserable? No, Pete being Pete, he decides to start a [i]wrestling[/i] career to earn a bit of money to help his aunt and uncle out."[/color]

[color=#ffffff]The smile crept back onto Johnny's face as he remembered the day that Peter had shown him the awful, hand-stitched costume he'd worn in the wrestling ring. He still remembered how much his stomach had hurt from laughing after seeing it. It looked like something a child would come up with. [/color]

[color=#ea9999]"Not long after some low-life holds up the wrestling joint that he's working out of and ... well, Peter doesn't lift a finger to stop him. I guess he figures it's not worth getting shot over a couple of bucks that aren't even his, right?" [/color][color=#ffffff]Johnny said with a grimace. [/color][color=#ea9999]"And who could blame him?"[/color]

[color=#ffffff]There was a nervousness on Spider-Woman's face. He could sense that she had tensed up somewhat, maybe correctly suspecting the story was about to take a turn for the worse. Even now, after everything that Johnny had seen and lived through, he found himself fighting through a knot in his throat to talk about what happened next.[/color]

[color=#ea9999]"Anyway, Peter goes home that night to find a police car parked outside his house. By some wicked twist of fate, Peter's uncle, Ben, had been shot during an attempted break-in by the very same low-life Peter had failed to stop at the wrestling joint earlier that evening."[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Johnny and Spider-Woman sat in silence for a few moments. In the distance, Johnny could see a news helicopter watching them. He could even spot a cameraman basically hanging out of the back of it with his camera pointed at them. Johnny raised a hand in their direction and waved meekly before turning back to Spider-Woman with a sigh.[/color]

[color=#ea9999]"It tore him up inside. He told me once that the only thing that kept him going was something Ben had said to him a few days before he died."[/color]

[color=#ffffff]Johnny pictured Peter speaking along with him as he repeated Uncle Ben's words of wisdom. [/color][color=#ea9999]"With great power comes great responsibility."[/color]