Our story begins on a brisk November morning, with me running to get to school because I had slept through my alarm. I check my watch, and thought that if I maintained my current speed, I could make it to first period before the bell rang. Then, as if the universe wanted me to be late, an explosion shook the ground, and I stopped dead in my tracks. The sound came from the next street over, and I could see people running away in terror, however such was not my reaction. Any concern I had about being late had vanished as an expectant expression on my face grew as I ran towards the commotion, my eyes wide and my mouth stretched into a dopey grin, like a kid on Christmas morning. A crowd had gathered, forcing me to push through it in order to see, and when I broke through, I was met with the sight of a giant, humanoid monster, easily twenty feet tall.

   Now, for most people anywhere else in the world, monsters in the street would be a cause for alarm, but in New York City it was as normal as an occurrence as getting stuck in rush hour traffic. It had become such a familiar sight to me that I could make an educated guess about what had happened, and nine times out of ten I'm right. Looking at the scene before me I saw the front wall of the drug store that was on this street had been smashed with the rubble falling outside, the monster was clutching bottles of pills in one hand and was roaring at an overturned police car, from all this I could guess that the monster, who was originally smaller, had tried to steal medicine from the drug store, but was found out and had the cops called on it, this caused it to Hulk out, crashing through the wall and tossing the car. Despite the massive property damage and possible bodily harm of the situation, I felt a little proud of my ability to piece together events. The approaching sound of sirens drew our attention to a trio of armored vehicles, the eagle emblem on the side making it clear who had arrived: S.H.I.E.L.D., the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, basically super cops for the entire planet. A few of the agents began ushering the crowd away from the danger while others took aim at the creature with their weapons, one stepped forward with a megaphone. "You there," they began, "if you can understand me, cease your destruction, or we'll have to use force." The monster replied with a roar, and the agent with the megaphone nodded to the agent beside him, signaling to open fire on the creature. Their weapons seemed to only annoy the creature, as it roared again and ripped a chunk of the street from the ground, launching it at the agents. Everyone flinched reflexively, hoping to not get crushed, but the debris crashed into an invisible forcefield. "Don't worry," a voice said from above, I look up and see none other than Sue Storm, a.k.a. The Invisible Woman.

The Invisible Woman, while on a mission to space, Sue and the rest of her team were exposed to a cloud of cosmic radiation that gave them superpowers instead of space cancer, and now they fight evil as The Fantabulous Four!

  What the...Wade? What are you doing here, this is my story, get out!

No can do, Tiger, it's my job to let the audience know who's who and what they can do, cause breaking the fourth wall is my shtick and I'm shtickin' to it!

  And you're going to be doing this the whole time?

Yes.

  And there's nothing I can do to stop you, is there?

No.

  Fine, anyway... The crowd cheered as the heroine appeared, they knew a hero on the scene marked the swift end of a disaster such as this, but I knew if The Invisible Woman was here, it could only mean the rest of her team was as well, and as I thought that a gruff, gravelly voice drew everyone's attention back to the monster, and who was walking towards it. "It's jerks like you who're giving this city a bad name, causing all this trouble, smashing up the place, I'd say it's about time to teach you a lesson." Sauntering towards the monster was the large, orange, stone-skinned man often seen in the company of The Invisible Woman, the muscle of her team, Ben Grimm, a.k.a. The Thing!

The Thing, given powers from the same cosmic fart as The Invisible Woman, he was turned to stone, making him super strong and near indestructible. And to answer your question; yes, yes it is, Stan Lee confirmed it.

  Upon seeing the hero, the monster squared up, ready for a fight, but The Thing only smirked, undaunted by his much larger opponent, he'd fought bigger. "Or, I should say..." The bold, boulder hero began as he brought an arm back, preparing to unleash a powerful punch, paired with his signature catchphrase. "It's..." The monster charged, closing the distance in an instant, "CLOBBERIN'-" but before The Thing could make contact, a giant foot crashed onto the monster, shaking the entire street. "...time?" "OH, SORRY, WERE YOU GOING TO GET THAT?" A booming voice said from above, I look up and see the giant foot was attached to none other than Ant Man himself!

Ant Man, after not being bitten by a radioactive ant, he gained the abilities of a guy who has a suit that allows him to not only shrink to the size of an ant, but grow to the size of, like, a lot of ants for some reason. Also he can talk to ants, which is almost as dumb of a power as talking to fish.

  Switching from being dumbfounded to annoyed, The Thing looks to the giant and berates him. "As a matter of fact, I was, I just like building suspense." "OH REALLY?" Ant Man responded, fiddling with the controls on his arm to shrink himself back to normal, standing shorter than The Thing, his foot still on the unconscious monster's back, "Well if you like building so much how about you rebuild the wall the monster broke?" Ant Man quipped, to which The Thing merely grunted. "What Ben meant to say is 'thanks for the assist, ending a fight quickly and with as little collateral damage as possible is always preferable to showboating,' didn't you Ben?" The Invisible Woman said as she stepped in between the two heroes, but her stone-skinned squad mate simply grunted at her as well, turning his head away, "Because showboating is what Johnny would do, isn't it Ben?" she continued, clearly egging him on, which worked. "Ah...fine! Thanks for the assist, bug boy." The Thing said as he held his large hand for Ant Man to shake.

  Watching the events that just took place was like watching a movie, albeit an incredibly short one, but still, it was hard to believe stuff like this happened in everyday life, you see it on the news all the time but to actually see it in person, I wish I could capture this moment in time and keep it with me. 'Hey, wait a second, I can totally do that!' I mentally kick myself for forgetting I have a camera. Unlike most people, who reach for their phones when stuff like this goes down, I reach for this old polaroid camera I had, it was old, the pictures weren't great, and finding film for it is harder than finding vibranium outside of Wakanda, but there's nothing I'd rather take a picture with. I pull the antique from my bag and line up the shot, thankfully Ant Man and The Thing were still shaking hands, I press the button, the camera clicks, and voilà, a picture slides out of the front. As I watch the image slowly appear, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent snaps me out of my trance. "Hey kid, shouldn't you be in school?" I look around and see the rest of the crowd that had gathered had dispersed, and not only that, but my watch showed I was fifteen minutes late! In a panic I shove the camera and picture into my bag and take off running.

  By the time I get to the school, class was already underway, so the halls were completely empty, I try to make as little noise as possible while speed walking. When I get to the door, I try my best to peer inside without being seen, and see the room is empty except for the video playing on the whiteboard. My teacher, Ms. Greene, who was frankly the meanest teacher I'd ever had, was making her way down the isles between desks, she did this whenever she put on a video to make sure we were all paying attention, and I think to myself that if I time this right, I can open the door enough to slip into the room while her back is turned. I wait for a moment, my hand hovered over the handle like I was in a duel in the wild west, Ms. Greene turns and I move quick as I can, and by some miracle she doesn't seem to notice, however all the students right by the door do, some stare in confusion, others let out a few stifled snickers, I duck below the desks when Ms. Greene turns to shush them. Slowly but surely, I crawl to my desk, staying low to the floor and out of Ms. Greene's field of vision, but as I get to my desk, I bump my head on something, then the lights turn on and I see Ms. Greene's shoes right in front of me. The entire class bursts out laughing, I don't even bother looking up as Ms. Greene speaks. "Mr. Parker?" She begins, "Yes, Ms. Greene?" I ask, "You are late...again." she answers, the annoyance in her voice almost tangible, "Yes, Ms. Greene." I say in confirmation, "I will see you after class, but for now, take your seat." she commands, "Yes, Ms. Greene." I say, rising from the floor and sinking into my seat, the heat in my cheeks could melt ice. Ms. Greene turned the lights back off and started the video again. I was so embarrassed I didn't even bother paying attention to the video.

  The rest of the day went by about as well as you'd expect; my classmates from first period told their friends who were my classmates in other periods, by lunch the whole school knew and was laughing at me, some laughed silently, while others did so out loud. Unsurprisingly, I had no friends, nobody I could talk to to make today's embarrassment more bearable, or to talk to about how I saw two of The Fantastic Four AND Ant Man. The rest of the day went by at a grinding pace, and it didn't help that Ms. Greene kept me after to clean the classroom, sweep the floor, clean the windows, scrape gum from under the desks, that sort of thing, by the time I was done an hour had passed. As I was putting my homework into my backpack, I pulled the photo from this morning out, the picture was a bit blurry, but you could still tell who it was that was in it, I smiled as I admired it, but that smile instantly disappeared as soon as I heard an all too familiar voice. "Well well well, look who it is, Puny Parker." I didn't even need to turn around to see who it was, Eugene "Flash" Thompson, the school's star quarterback and bully, accompanying Flash were his two linemen cronies, Crash and Smash, I never bothered to learn their real names, I honestly wasn't even sure they had real names, it was like someone grew two bigger, dumber versions of Flash in a lab so he could have someone to boss around. "Whatcha got there, Pete? One of them newfangled instant pictures?" Flash mocked, his clones laughed, I tried to put the picture back in my bag but, well, they don't call him "Flash" for nothing, he grabbed my hand and held it up, pulling the picture from my grip. "Well, whaddaya know, it IS one of them newfangled instant pictures!" Flash said triumphantly, shoving me towards Smash and Crash, who held onto me, making sure I couldn't escape. Flash inspected the picture, squinting to understand what it was of. " You know, if you're going to have a lame hobby like taking pics of...whatever this is, you could at least take good pics. I mean, come on, my grandma's phone could take better pics of...okay seriously, what is this?" Flash asks, genuinely incapable of making sense of the image. "It's some superheroes." I murmur, my voice low and my face turned away, "I'm sorry, did you say something, Pete?" Flash asked, cupping his hand to his ear, "I said it's some superheroes I saw this morning!" I said, maybe a bit too loud. "There he is!" Flash cheered, "There's Puny Parker. Aw, look, he's all mad now." Flash mocked, his henchmen laughing, he was right though, I was mad. "What, are you gonna turn into The Hulk and beat us up? Well, go on then, Hulk out." Flash looks at me expectantly, but I don't even bother struggling out of Smash and Crash's grips, I know all too well how futile that is. "No? Oh well." Flash shrugs, looking at the picture one more time, "It's a shame you can't Hulk out, if you could you could probably stop me from doing this." Flash said as he tears the picture in half, "NO!" I shout, trying to get out of the linemen's grasps, but as expected, to no avail. Flash stands in front of me, reveling in my helplessness, "One day, I'm going to-OOF!" I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but it didn't matter because Flash punches me hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me, Smash and Crash let me go to fall onto the floor. "Do nothing, just like you always do." Flash said, looking down at me, and on me. "I heard about this morning, about how you were crawling on the floor, like a bug, cause that's what you are, aren't you; just a puny, wall crawling bug, and you wanna know what I do to bugs?" Flash put one of his feet on my head, pressing down till it hurt, I tried pulling his foot off my head but as usual, I was powerless. As the trio laughed at the sight of me in pain, someone from the hall called out, "Hey, what are you kids doing?" which caused the bullies to run. I rubbed the place on my head where Flash had stepped, hoping I didn't have a size nine impression on my skull, and that Flash hadn't stepped in anything gross recently, but if he had it would only be the second worst part about today, as I picked up the bisected pieces of the picture, an amazing memory had been ruined, an appropriate metaphor for today, it felt like.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I exit the school through the side door the janitor keeps unlocked and begin my slow return home, moving like a zombie. As I get to the gate, I think to myself 'can today get any worse?' and apparently the universe saw this as a challenge, because the next thing I knew something had grabbed my ankle and was dragging me backwards. I look back and see, rising from a storm drain, a mess of blood red and ink black tentacles whipping around each other, morphing into a man shaped mass with wide, white eyes and a mouth of needle-like teeth. The tentacle around my ankle lifted me into the air, upside down and an inch away from the creature's face. "You're a bit small..." it said, it's voice like nails on a chalkboard, "but a meat suit's a meat suit." I try to scream for help, but before I can the creature wraps another tentacle around my mouth and nose. "As much as I enjoy the sound of a meat suit screaming as I take over their body, I'm in a rush, so relax, it'll all be over soon." The creature spoke with mixed annoyance and glee as I try to claw its tentacle from my face, my fingers failing to find purchase. My body convulses and chest tighten as the creature's horrifying mouth upturns into a grin. This was easily the most terrifying experience of my life, but as my vision began to blur, a strange sense of calm overtook me. 'This is it,' I thought to myself as my arms hung limp, 'I'm going to die, and there's nothing I can do about it. I guess Flash was right, I AM just a wall crawling bug.' As my eyelids became heavier, something weird happened, it was hard to tell because of the blurred vision, but it looked like a big red blob showed up, and I guess that made the creature mad, mad enough to let me go because the last thing I felt before blacking out was the feeling of falling.

  Maybe it was a dream, or maybe it was my life flashing before my eyes as I was about to die, but I remembered this time when I was a little kid, I ran up to my aunt and was tugging at her pant leg, "Come on, Aunt May, come on, it's computer time!" I shouted with barely contained excitement. She was busy at the moment and asked if I could wait a few minutes, but being the little kid that I was, I refused to stand for such inconvenience and started stomping my feet. My hissy fit was brought to heel when my uncle's calloused hands picked me up and sat me on his shoulders. "Don't worry, Ben's here to save the day!" he said, trying to sound heroic. I practically vibrated as my uncle loaded up the video, it was old news footage from a few years ago, they were doing a report on humanitarian missions in the middle east when a group of extremists attacked. People were shouting and shooting until the sound of a sonic boom silenced the situation. Everyone looked to the sky, trying to find whatever it was that made the sound, expecting some kind of aircraft, but what landed in the middle of the street was no aircraft, it looked like a robot, painted red and gold with glowing blue eyes, the extremists started shooting at the robot, but the robot lifted its hands, and with a high pitched sound shot lasers at them. The extremists scattered, but the robot launched forward with it's rocket boots and punched one into the side of their truck, leaving a noticeable dent. One extremist tried to shoot the robot from behind, but the bullets only bounced off it's metal shell, and the extremist was lasered. The camera turned to show a tank was rolling up the street, the huge barrel pointed right at the robot and fired, but the robot sidestepped the shot, and lifted it's arm toward the tank, but it didn't shoot a laser, it launched something that whistled as it flew, hitting the tank with an audible tink, and as the robot walked away the tank exploded in an enormous ball of fire. Any extremists left were running away, the reporter on the scene ran out to the robot, "Excuse me, excuse me!" They said, "Who are you?" the robot turned to face the reporter, said "I'm Iron Man." and rocketed up into the sky. I watched this video every chance I could, because that was the day one of the greatest superheroes in the world became known, one that inspired and could overcome any adversary, he was even one of the founding members of The Avengers! He was my hero.

  "Hey..." I heard a voice say, "Hey kid, you alive?" the voice asked, accompanied by the feeling of something smacking me lightly on the cheek. I wince as I became aware of the pain in my head and chest, and as I open my eyes I come to the conclusion that I'm still dreaming because standing in front of me is none other than the armored Avenger himself, Iron Man! However, it being a dream does nothing to stop the total freakout I was having. "I-I-I-I-I-I" I sputter, "Am going to be fine." The hero finished, "Thankfully I got here when I did, otherwise the symbiote would have killed you." "Symbiote?" I asked as I managed to get to my feet, Iron man held up a see through container containing the creature that had me in it's grip moments ago. "A nasty sentient goo from outer space, they attach themselves to living organisms, using the host for camouflage, as well as a food source, and this one here is the nastiest of the bunch." He attaches the container to his thigh before turning to leave. "Alright, I'm off. Stay in school, kid." He said, at that point I came to my senses and realized I wasn't dreaming, Iron Man, THE Iron Man, was standing right in front of me, I had to get a picture. "Wait! Can I just get a quick-" As I pulled out my camera I saw a polaroid was taped to the back, Iron Man had taken a selfie with my camera, and signed it! I was so amazed I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head.

  Now, I'll admit what I did next was easily the dumbest thing I've ever done up until that point, but I wouldn't be who I am now had I not done it. As Iron Man rocketed up and away from the school, a voice in the back of his mind told him something was off. "Sir, it appears we have a passenger." The feminine voice said, "Yeah, didn't feel like letting S.H.I.E.L.D. in on what happened, so I'm bringing the symbiote back to base." Iron Man replied, "Very good, sir." The voice affirmed, "But I was referring to the young man clinging to your leg." "Right...wait, what?" Iron man looked back and saw me, holding on to his leg for dear life as he jettisoned over the city. "What the heck are you doing, kid!?!?" "I just wanted to ask you some questions!" I shouted back, but I'm not sure if he heard me over the wind. "Alright, just hold on, I'll try and find us a landing spot." The hero said as he began to descend, but the voice in his head informed him it was a bad idea, "Sir, I should warn you, you're running out of time." "I know, Friday," he sighed, "I know."

  As soon as we touched down on an uninhabited roof, I pried myself from the hero's leg, my own shaking like they were about to give out. "Kid, that was the stupidest thing I've ever seen a person do, and I've seen my fair share of stupid!" Iron Man berated, "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" he asked, and then I threw up. Iron Man let out an exasperated sigh, then turned to leave, again. "Listen, just bang on the door till someone lets you in, I've got to go." After regaining some level of composure, I called out "Wait!" but the hero wouldn't hear it. "Sorry, but I really have to go!" "How do I be like you!" I shouted, my question giving the hero pause. "For most of my life I've been picked on and bullied by guys bigger and stronger than me, and there's nothing I can do about it, but you...you inspire me. I've seen you go up against some of the biggest and baddest this world has to offer without a shred of fear and come out on top, and that's how I want to be. Please, how do I be like you, so strong, so...fearless?" He was quiet for a moment, my words hanging in the air between us. He turns with a sigh, "Kid, I'm nowhere near fearless, no hero is. Every time someone wants to throw down because they think they've got the silver bullet that'll take down "The Invincible Iron Man," I wonder if they're right, and that thought scares me, but I shake it off and get to work, because if I don't people could get hurt. A hero isn't strong for themselves, they're strong for others." I take in the hero's words, feeling like I had seen a side of him few had ever seen. "Oh, and as for those bullies, my advice would be "if you can't be bigger and stronger, be smarter and faster," and it couldn't hurt to take up boxing." Iron Man said, his tone lighter than before as he prepared to blast off, "Now if you'll excuse me I'll be...be...urgh!" Suddenly, the hero was bent over and grabbing his chest, I asked if he was okay, but I wasn't sure he heard me when he said "No, I can make it, just a little longer." It sounded more like he was saying it to himself than to me. The more pained noises he made, the more scared I was getting, then suddenly he stood straight up with his arms out to his side, and the entire front of his body opened, letting a person fall out. It was a guy, kind of skinny, with spikey black hair, a mustache goatee combo, wearing a Hawaiian shirt over a white undershirt, sweatpants and a pair of aviator sunglasses. He looked up at me with an expression like I had caught him with his hand in the cookie jar, and all I could manage to say, or shout I should say, was "WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?"