MOU: Turn Back Time

A Spider-Man fanfiction

By H.R.C. Stanley

Prologue

My name is Peter Parker, but many people know me as the Spider-Man. Many years ago, I made a deal with the devil, and it became the biggest mistake I've ever made. I gave up my marriage, the one I loved, just for the life of my aunt. Just for One More Day...

Allow me to share a revelation I've had. I remember the old saying my uncle used to say, "with great power comes great responsibility," and rightfully so. Fr years, I've been one of the most irresponsible superheroes ever. I never learnt from my mistakes, nor did I ever take into consideration how my life as Spider-Man affect everyone else.

At first, I constantly struggled between the man and the mask, but I never actually gave any consideration to the man, preferring to make excuses about it. I disappointed people around me all the time just because "something more important" was going on as Spider-Man." But instead of trying to find ways to balance my two lives properly, I would go out of my way to make excuses and just be sad and mopey that being Spider-Man hurt my personal life. If I placed more importance on being Spider-Man, then Ie should've distanced myself from relationships that could and would hurt that. If I placed more emphasis on being Peter Parker, I needed to sacrifice more time as Spider-Man.

Now, that wouldn't always going to be the case for in the real world, but I never actually changed as a result of my actions; I just kept on making the same mistakes over and over, and I never realised the consequences until it was well too late. I don't even have life insurance; I never even made a plan about what would happen to my family if I were either killed by a supervillain, or even die from something as simple as cancer. I never even thought about the repercussions of my life if I should be maimed or killed while wearing the costume, to my wife or to my constantly dying aunt.

Now, admittedly, I was just a young, dumb teenager back when I started out and didn't think of those things. But I'm and have been an adult for decades now, yet I still seemed to operate like he's in high school, never growing up, never seeming to recognise adult relationships, and never actually taking responsibility for my life and any of the choices I made. It was no one else's fault but my own, my fault that I was unwilling to become an adult. I was about roughly twenty-five years old when I made that deal, maybe closer to thirty; and yet I repeatedly approached my problems like a sixteen year old would, and I never actually prepared to act like a mature adult.

There have been times when my life seemed like an endless spiral of shame and misery, what with my friends and loved ones dying all around me or becoming supervillains because of my life as Spider-Man, and it was. The truth is that if I ever cared about taking responsibility for my actions, I would've given up being Spider-Man a long time ago.

But I'm sure there's still people who don't want me to stop being Spider-Man altogether, I admit I don't want to either. But I should've listened to people when they say that I should grow up and act adult already, yet for a long time, I steadfastly and stubbornly refused to let that happen; Being Spider-Man was just a way for me to escape reality. The reason why I didn't think there was much "drama" in marriage was because marriage is an aspect of real life, and I didn't want the escapism of swinging through the air and stopping bad guys being infected with the drama of things that people have to endure in the real world. Ironically, I was supposed to face the real life challenges of the world, that was why so many people, even kids younger than me, related to me. But the truth is that all those kids had grown up; lot of them got married, had families of their own, had relatives that die, and had to move on. They all changed, but I didn't. If I was so unwilling to get out of my high school life, then why the hell aren't I still there?

I wish I could make up for the stupid choices and decisions I've made.

I wish I could undo the deal I made with Mephisto.

I wish I could Turn Back Time...

To be continued...