Strands.
The duo was back to work. Miguel was back studying his DNA, wondering why it had impacted Eddie so much, changed his genetic makeup from a simple touch.
Of course, the studies were also now into figuring out how Eddie’s genetic makeup had changed - beyond a palette swap.
Eddie had made a joke about that - how his ‘makeup’ had gotten a new ‘palette’. Miguel just rolled his eyes, and looked back into the microscope.
Eddie had, fortunately, preserved some of his webbing strands, because he had also been studying his own DNA before Miguel had even arrived.
For completeness’ sake, the two of them had also asked for samples of Peter Parker’s original DNA, from Tyler Stone, who had portions of it in storage.
Miguel recoiled at the idea of his template being a burned corpse in a cryogenic lab, but he was grateful for the samples. Tyler’s eyebrows went up when Miguel had snatched the vial, but neither of them said anything.
And so, Miguel now had three samples to study - his own, his template’s, and his step-brother’s.
He didn’t realise he’d been calling Eddie that, but he knew it was real. For him, at least. This man, this mutant being who looked like a man, had shared a bond with Peter, connected with him on a molecular level, just like Miguel was. For all intents and purposes, he was as related to Eddie as he was to Parker himself.
And maybe that was the point.
Miguel threw scans of the DNA structures onto the glass screen, alongside Tyler’s images of the clone’s double-helix. He lined up the four, side by side, and focused his accelerated vision on each one.
Spot the difference.
Peter and the clone’s were, unsurprisingly, almost identical. There were a few stray strands of difference, something that indicated a change of pigmentation here and there, and some of the strands were, like Tyler had explained, broken. Frayed.
Eddie and Miguel’s strands, however, were… markedly different.
“Huh.”
“What did you find?” Eddie said from the other side of the room, testing out his tendrils, seeing if they still moved the same. He felt… stronger, strangely. Purer, in a way.
“You were right,” Miguel said deeply. “We’re nothing alike.”
“What do you mean?”
Eddie trotted over, his white tendril arm slowly returning to his body as he walked, dragging it along the floor. He was having difficulty using his new body - like he needed to re-learn his musculature. Stretch everything out again.
Learn to be himself again.
“Look at the strands. Those two are me and you, and those two are Parker and… the new guy.”
“Okay, mix ‘em up.”
“... What?” Miguel turned to Eddie, a little thrown.
Eddie blinked at him. “I mean, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ve got a few years on you, old man. I spent a long time figuring out where Peter stopped and I started, and it wasn’t easy, but I already know I wasn’t him.”
He reached out to pat Miguel on the shoulder again, and hesitated. His hand hovered above Miguel’s shoulder-blade, and he winced, preparing for another jolt. Miguel tensed as Eddie’s hand got closer and closer… and landed with a soft tap.
Tap. Tap, tap. Tap tap tap tap taptaptaptaptaptaptap-
“You can stop now,” Miguel said, staring Eddie dead in the eyes.
Eddie was beaming to himself, and shook his head a little. “Sorry,” he smiled again, “got over-excited. Tell me the news.”
He turned back to the screen.
Miguel walked over to the console that controlled the images, and tapped some buttons. The DNA began to cycle, each one of the four coming forward, highlighting sections, blinking some of the nodes red and green.
First Peter’s. Then Eddie’s. Then Miguel’s. Then the clone’s.
Then it began to place them on top of each other - Peter’s and Eddie’s aligned, but the differences were still clear. They were able to… move each other aside, make room for each other, fit into each other, but not stabilise as one.
Peter and Miguel’s seemed to fit on one another like two frames in a sequence - one a moment before the other. But Miguel’s had other things in it, things that moved and changed, meaning they couldn’t fit together. They weren’t just unidentical, they were incompatible.
Miguel smirked at that. Take that, Dads.
Then, Miguel’s got placed over Eddie’s, and something strange happened.
Eddie’s DNA seemed to… re-organise. Rewrite, reform, allowing the new strands to integrate into its formation, and re-order themselves around it into the ideal pattern. Eddie before looked very different to Eddie after, and even as Miguel looked at his human form standing next to him, he could see that was true.
He wasn’t worse or better, or even that different from his old self - he was just something new.
Something about Miguel’s DNA, having just enough of Parker’s to be compatible with Eddie’s symbiote molecules, but something different enough to interfere with them, to cause them to take him in rather than allow his cells to be taken…
Miguel remembered how he was born. Conjured from an idea using reality-altering powers. One side of a corner of an image of Spider-Man, dreamed up by the Legion of a thousand personalities, and given a body by the son of Mr. Fantastic.
Miguel was just enough of a memory of someone else, to be something new entirely, and made of stuff just strong enough to overwrite that memory with something else.
Eddie turned to Miguel, and was startled. “Why are you staring at me? Are we gonna kiss? Why are you smiling?”
“Nothing. Something just clicked,” he said, turning back to the screen.
Eddie did the same, a little awkwardly. “Guess kissing happens later then.”
Something beeped on the screen. The last combinations were coming up catastrophic.
Miguel’s and the clone’s, and Eddie’s and the clone’s, the mix was… damaging. The clone’s DNA was damaged, already fraying, strings without nodes, like cut wires unable to finish a circuit. Adding Eddie’s DNA pulled it apart even more, strained it to the edge, an elastic band pulling so hard in both directions it was beginning to tear.
Miguel’s with the clone’s was like a tennis ball hitting a net, pushing it inward, bending it.
No wonder the creature had cried out in pain - Eddie’s offspring created a connection between Miguel and the clone on a molecular level, and it was already so damaged that doing so was like adding a bowling ball to a spider-web. Like a boar falling into a trap made of twigs and leaves, the creature’s DNA was collapsing just by touching him.
“Oh no…” Eddie said quietly.
“But that’s…” Miguel started, squinting at the screen. The version of Eddie’s DNA that was being simulated was from before he had touched Miguel. The version that moved, that was unstable with Peter’s, even more unstable with the clone’s, but that regulated with Miguel’s.
“Hang on,” Miguel said, walking up to the console. He tapped a few more buttons, set up a few more keystrokes - Mix Miguel and Eddie, and add that to the Clone and Eddie.
He also changed the colour of Eddie’s new strand to white. Just for demonstrative purposes, of course.
He stepped back. The simulation began.
Miguel and Eddie touched. Eddie’s DNA was rewritten into a new, stronger pattern. The clone touched the old Eddie. Its DNA was damaged, ripping, tearing, pulling itself apart.
The new Eddie touched the cascading DNA. It became frantic, seeming to come alive - Miguel was sure he almost heard it scream. It rewrote, some of the strands pulling apart like taffy, some of them building bonds with closer nodes. It expanded, contracted, pulled itself in every direction, and then-
Stopped. Silence.
It was… fine. The world kept turning.
And the pattern was stable.
A damaged clone of Peter Parker, a violent offspring of the Venom symbiote partnered with the malleability of the original, and just enough Miguel O’Hara to fill in the gaps, create some better scaffolding…
The DNA was… perfect, really. The most solid, steady, sturdy double helix Miguel had ever seen, and he’d been studying genetics a long time.
Miguel and Eddie turned to each other.
“Got it,” they both said in unison.
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