"S-stop hitting him, Flash! L-let him s-stay!"

"Have you heard, boys? Shy Parker told me to stop! And if I didn't stop, what would you do? You don't have a quirk, so you don't have power over me, you're just a useless wall-crawler! "

"Hey, Flash, what do you say we beat him properly?"

"I think it's a great idea: deluded people like Parker must be taught who really matters here!"

People aren't born equal, that's what I realized while Flash and his friends kicked me. It doesn't matter if you have a noble and generous spirit: If you don't have a quirk your opinion is worth very little.

What I live in is a society where 80% of the world's population is born with a gift, a superpower called a quirk, and the remaining 20% don't have it. It all began in Brooklyn in 1945, when a man named Steve Rogers, now known as Captain America, took down the Nazis led by Red Skull. That man was the first super-being born in America, as well as the first superhero to save the world with his superhuman abilities.

After him others came all over America with such extraordinary abilities who, inspired by Cap's sacrifice, dedicated their lives to fighting crime and defending the innocent. In more recent times this phenomenon has spread to the rest of the world. The dream came true and so more and more people embarked on a career seen only in comics.

The hero's job, to this day, is a real job and is, therefore, taught and paid. Anyone has a chance to become a hero. . . well, not everyone.

I'd say we start at the beginning, so you'll understand how I ended up getting beaten up again by Flash.

My name is Peter B Parker. I'm a 12-year-old boy living in the worst neighborhood you'll ever find, Queens. Unlike other sports-loving kids of my age, I'm crazy about science and comics, a real nerd. My parents died when I was very young, so I don't remember much about them: Only they had to have an important job, which is why we didn't spend much time together.

I live with my uncle Ben and my aunt May.

You should know that my uncle Ben, when he was young, was a real superhero known as Spider-man, but now he's retired. Sometimes he showed me his costume:

a cool red and black bulletproof suit, the thing that struck me was that it wasn't as tight as the other superhero suits, uncle Ben always told me that what really matters it's not so much how we look, but what we do; I remember I asked him how he could throw the webs, since spiders make them, and he explained that they were coming straight out of his wrists, but because of an accident in his last fight, he couldn't shoot them anymore, which is why he had to retire, besides the fact that his agility was no longer the same of the past.

And then there's aunt May. Even though she doesn't have a quirk, she's actually a hero: from Monday to Friday she works at the soup kitchen and, as a young woman, she led peaceful movements against the war, and she always finds time to look after me and uncle Ben. He always says that even though he was the superhero, she was the one who saved him every time he was about to quit.

I mean, with parenting figures like this, I was bound to want to do my part, too. That's why, as a child, I kept waiting for my quirk, dreaming of the amazing adventures I would have lived and the lives I would have saved, but like all dreams, I had to wake up from it: I was four years old and my uncles took me to the doctor to see when I would get my quirk, since everyone my age already had it, including Flash. Hearing what was my dream, the doctor answered me with five words, which destroyed all my hopes

"You'd better give up."

"What do you mean?" asked May

"You see", the doctor went on, "normally a quirk is the result of heredity by either mother or father, or even a combination of both. Where are the boy's parents? "

"Unfortunately, they are no longer with us. " answered May

"Hmmm. . . some studies have been conducted on superheroes and we have discovered one thing they all have in common: the presence of a single joint in the little toe. In other words, we can tell whether or not a person will have a quirk simply by looking at the foot's x-ray. As you can see, your nephew's x-ray shows that his little finger has not one but two joints, so we can understand that the reason he hasn't manifested a quirk yet is because he doesn't have one."

My dream, which seemed so clear and light to me, suddenly wasn't. When I got home, I walked into Ben's study and looked at his old suit. May and Ben came in together and saw me there, in front of the case, crying. I turned to them and asked Uncle

"C-can I become like y-you? "

May didn't waste a moment and ran to hug me, while Ben put his hand on my shoulder. After a few minutes of silence he said to me

"Listen to me, Peter, do you remember what I always told you? "

"Y-yes 'sigh': 'From great power comes great responsibilities.'"

"And do you know what kind power I've always referred to?"

"To quirks?"

"No, son. What makes superheroes different from super villains?"

". . . they save people."

"Their biggest difference is not in their fists or their powers, but here", Uncle Ben put a finger on my chest "in their heart. A hero is not only someone who stops a running train or defeats villains in tights, but also someone who, like your aunt, cares for the needy, cares for others without thinking about reward: A hero is not one who has a quirk, but one who has a good and unselfish heart. Each of us has the power to do something for someone, and it's our responsibility to do it, even when it's difficult. That's what is like to be a real hero."

Those words left a deep impression on me, and since then my perception of heroes changed. Suddenly I realized that quirk or not, I was gonna be a hero like my uncle.

A few days later I saw on the news footage of a battle in which the hero Iron Man had managed to save all 20 of the hostages of the villain known as Iron Monger, defeating him. The words he spoke were simple in appearance, but they struck me all the same.

"Do not be afraid. Why? Because I'm here!"

And the next morning, at a press conference, billionaire Tony Stark revealed to the world a news story that left everyone speechless

"I am Iron Man. "

Incredible, unheard of: A man without a quirk had managed, by his intellect alone, to become America's most famous superhero! That gave me hope: I realized that if I harnessed my intelligence and my passion for science and combined them with the teachings of my uncle Ben, I too could fulfill my dream and become a superhero.

And now here we are at the present moment. Me, a skinny nerd kid with glasses and no quirk, trying to defend my classmate from Flash Thompson's bullying, and getting kicked.

Flash is the classic guy who has everything in life: tall, handsome, every girl's obsession, rising football star and with an enviable quirk: he has the power to generate from his hands an oily black liquid of an unknown material and use it to enhance his already considerable strength, endurance and agility. The fact that a lucky guy beats losers like me for fun makes me angry: he has so much power to do good, yet he has no qualms about using it to tower over others! The worst part is, before I knew I wasn't gonna have any quirks, we were friends, and that still makes me feel sad.

Anyway, that wouldn't have stopped me. No matter what Flash and everyone else said about me, I would have become a hero like my uncle, and I would have been able, with my genius, to save everyone the way Iron Man does, I would have done it.