Negative.
Back at the lab, Eddie was sitting in Miguel’s chair - Miguel noticed for the first time that Eddie didn’t have one of his own - and had one hand placed on his neck, where the bite was in the latter stages of healing. Before, it had looked like his jugular had been ripped out - now it just looked like a cigarette burn.
“It still hurts like hell, though,” Eddie rubbed it gently.
“I can imagine. I would’ve thought there wasn’t much that could hurt you,” Miguel said, looking at the tank where the other Parker had been kept, wearing every part of his suit but the mask.
He’d been born in something similar.
“You ever stretch a rubber band so far it tears?”
Miguel looked over to Eddie. “Yeah,” he said, nodding slightly.
“Now I know how the rubber band feels,” Eddie grunted, standing up and walking over.
The two of them stared at the empty tank.
“... What are you thinking about?” Eddie asked.
“Can’t you read my mind?” Miguel said dryly.
“No, but your hormones are telling me you’re sad.”
“Hmph,” Miguel said quietly.
After a pause, he started again.
“I… know what it’s like, to be a… to be something made from something else.”
“Hm?” Eddie said, looking over.
“I was… designed.” Miguel cocked his head for a second. “Well, mostly.”
“By who?”
“... Two people who had far too much power.”
Eddie thought for a moment, then sighed.
“Look, I may not have come about the natural way, but isn’t… isn’t that everyone?”
Miguel looked over. He stared silently.
“Everyone is- …it’s like you said. Children are the product of their families. And every family has far too much power over their children.”
“... Mm,” was all Miguel responded with. Then, “I’m… like him.”
“Like my… like our new friend?” Eddie said.
“Well… yes, but no. I’m like… him,” Miguel nodded at the tank.
“... Like Peter Parker?”
“Mm. I was designed to be a new Spider-Man. One of many, hatched from the bunch just like a real hive.”
“Hive…” Eddie said quietly.
“Or, nest, I guess… Either way, I’m just a copy of Peter Parker that went wrong somewhere.”
“Got Mexican.”
Miguel glanced over, eyebrows up. “Yea-... Yeah, I guess so.”
Eddie smiled.
“Look, I knew the original Spider-Man. You’re nothing like him.”
Miguel stared back at the tank.
“Thank you,” Miguel said quietly.
“He was funny.”
“... Thank you,” Miguel said again.
“And I don’t know if you want to be like him, or be better than him, or just become yourself, like you said we all have to, but-”
Eddie reached out to pat Miguel on the shoulder, and as soon as his hand made contact, there was a flash of white, and he was thrown across the room, through two of the lab counters, into the back wall, carving a dent into the brick.
Miguel turned, slowly.
“Um… Eddie?”
There was a growl, a deep, whining, gurgling growl, and tendrils extended from the new hole in the wall. They pulled, and some of the brick came loose, but Eddie successfully pulled his body up.
And it was writhing in pain.
“Whackghk the hellgk is happeningk?!?!?” he gurgled, as his arm began to turn white. His body started to collapse, fold in on itself, become the frame he always was, the scaffolding of a living creature, and the white colour climbed along his strands. The black tendrils twisted as their roots became white, climbing like a vine along the vines of his birth, rewriting, reforming, recolouring, reshaping…
He fell to the ground, and the gurgling died out. Miguel walked over, and knelt down in the rubble.
Eddie lay on his back, eyes wide, not breathing, mouth open. The black t-shirt he always wore under his lab coat was now white.
He wasn’t moving.
Miguel stared, unsure what to do. He reached out to close Eddie’s eyes, out of respect. He’d seen enough dead bodies on Krakoa.
“God that was weird,” Eddie coughed out, and Miguel immediately startled, and then sighed.
“¿Qué paso, Eddie? Tú puta…”
“What the hell was that, man?” Miguel added in English.
Eddie looked over, and remembered to pretend to breathe.
“I have no idea.”
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