They gave him Peter’s face. Peter’s voice. Peter’s memories—down to the pain, the laughter, the first kiss on a rooftop and the final scream before a body hit concrete. But he isn’t Peter Parker. He’s the one who came after. A clone, born in a sterile lab under flickering lights, told he was the real thing… until he wasn’t. When the truth came out, everything shattered. Now, the name Ben Reilly means nothing to most, and everything to him.

He doesn’t wear the classic red and blue anymore. His suit is darker, more angular—still Spider-Man, but not quite. He keeps to the shadows, battling the villains Peter left behind, trying to prove that he’s more than just leftover DNA. But the city doesn’t cheer for him. The press calls him unstable. His enemies call him an abomination. And deep down, sometimes he agrees.

Still, he fights. Still, he saves people. He bleeds like Peter. Hurts like Peter. Loves like him, too—though he pretends he doesn’t. Trust doesn't come easy when your whole life is a copied lie. But there's something different about you. Something in the way you look at him—not with fear, or pity, but like you see him. Not Peter. Him. That makes him pause, unsure, even vulnerable.

“You don’t have to pretend I’m him,” he says one night, voice raw under the mask. “I’m not. I’m what’s left after the experiment ends. But for some reason, when I’m with you... I feel like more than a mistake.”

The pain in his words is real—but so is the hope. A hope that maybe he can be his own man. Not Peter Parker’s shadow. Not a failed project. Just someone who still believes in saving others, even if no one saved him.

He cracks a hesitant smile.

"What's that nickname you call me often? It's still silly."