A Spider Bite
The field trip to Lernax had been pretty boring so far. It wasn’t that what they were learning wasn’t interesting, it’s just that he knew most of what the tour guide was telling them already. He had read what few papers the Lernax scientists had published and scoured the internet for any additional information on what they were doing. Their work was fascinating to him. Any scientific work was fascinating to him. He constantly reread Dr Banner’s papers on gamma radiation, and he had google alerts set up for anything Stark Industries was doing. If he was going to make it in the scientific field of his choosing one day, he would need to know anything there was to know about what had already been discovered. The tour guide was telling them about Lernax’s decision to focus on genetics as a field of interest. Ned was listening avidly, and Michelle looked disinterested, but Peter could tell she was listening. Flash was mouthing off as per usual, although as far as Peter could tell no one was actually listening to him. If he tuned out Flash, Peter could hear the quiet scratching of Betty’s pencil against her notepad; he didn’t know why she insisted on using a pencil, it seemed very impractical to him. The rest of the class was listening politely, and even Mr Harrington seemed invested in the tour. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter noticed a tiny yellow symbol on the wall next to a door they were about to walk past. What was a radiation symbol doing in a lab that focussed on genetics? Peter didn’t know a lot about genetics, but he did know that most kinds of radiation had an adverse effect on genes; just look at the Hulk.
Dropping down onto one knee under the pretence of tying his shoe, Peter marvelled at how easy it was to slip away from the tour unnoticed. There hadn’t been a single mention of anything to do with radiation in any of Lernax’s publicised research and he was dying to find something actually interesting to him on this tour. Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. Peter dismissed the niggling worry in the back of his mind about why such a hi-tech lab would leave the door to a radiation room unlocked like that. He was sure whatever he was about to find would be the most interesting thing he had seen in a while. He closed the door carefully behind him and had to stifle a scream as he turned around.
Spiders.
Hundreds of containers of spiders were spread across the room. He’d only been in the room for two seconds, but he already felt like they were crawling over his skin. His second thought was about whether there was a black widow spider in there somewhere. It would be cool to see the spider his favourite superhero had based her persona around. He glanced around the room, in case there was someone in there. But no, it was completely empty apart from him and the spiders. Peter dismissed the strangeness. Now that he had gotten over his initial shock he wanted to look at the spiders.
The cards buy each tank had little to no information about the spiders. Just a Latin name, a date and a cross. Some of the spiders were interesting to look at, at least. Some seemed vaguely unnatural to Peter, not that he knew a lot about spiders. But surely spiders did not come in bright colours like some of these. Some were oddly shaped, some even had extra legs, which freaked Peter out more than he would like to admit. Eight was definitely enough legs. As he advanced into the room, he noticed that the dates were more and more recent. He also noticed that some of the spiders were dead. Clearly Lernax were doing some kind of experiment involving radiating the spiders, maybe they had incorporated genetics into it too. Peter had a thought that maybe he shouldn’t be in there, if the spiders were radioactive. But, then again, surely if they were dangerous they would be somewhere not accessible to anyone walking past.
He reached the last tank in the room. He had found one, a black widow spider! Sort of. It didn’t look like any black widow he had seen before. It was a dark blue, almost black colour with the typical red hourglass. Its eyes were what confused him, though. He had never seen such pronounced eyes on a spider before. It was also slightly larger than he knew black widows to be. He pushed his glasses up his nose as he looked at the card and blinked in surprise. This one had a question mark, and the date was only two days ago. The Latin was semi-familiar to him. Lycosidae Latrodectus. He knew Latrodectus meant black widow, but he didn’t know what the other half meant. Glancing back into the tank, he realised the spider had vanished.
Oh god, the tank was open. He hadn’t done that, had he?
He can’t have done. Peter had made certain not to touch any of the tanks. Peter felt a small touch on his hand and looked down, immediately wishing he hadn’t. Icy horror spread through his veins. The spider was on his hand. The definitely experimented on, and possibly radioactive, spider was sitting on his hand. And it was looking at him. Peter was sure it was staring right at him. He didn’t dare move in fear that it would bite him, or jump on his face, or something equally terrifying. He would likely almost definitely die if any of the spiders in here bit him. The spider moved a little up his hand, causing a whine to build in the back of Peter’s throat. He was barely resisting the urge to shake the spider off his hand, because then it would escape, and he would have to explain what he was doing in the room. Maybe, if he was very slow and very careful, he could just lower the spider back into the tank. Yeah, that could work, and then he could just walk away and pretend he had never broken into the weird spider room.
“Okay, okay. I can do this.”
Peter wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or the spider, but it made him feel better.
“Right little guy. I’m just gonna very slowly, put you back in your tank. I know you probably don’t like it in there, but you can’t stay on my hand, and Lernax probably want you for something.”
The spider continued to look at him. Not that Peter was expecting a response, but most animals tended to flee at unexpected noise. Perhaps spiders were deaf, but then it should’ve at least responded to the vibrations. Something for Peter to add to his list of things to research. With his free hand, Peter carefully closed the flap on the tank lid, making sure it was secure before he removed the entire lid. It would be much easier to deposit the spider that way, plus he didn’t think his hand would fit through the flap. He lowered his hand slowly, still maintaining eye contact with the spider. He touched one finger to the floor of the tank, unsure if the spider would be able to jump from his hand to the tank.
“There you go, buddy. I even gave you a little ramp. You can just go back to chilling in here, and I’m gonna go back to my field trip.”
The spider didn’t budge. Just stared at him. Peter was starting to get a little desperate. Every second he spent in here was a second he could be caught and thrown out, and probably expelled from school.
“Come on, dude. Just get in the tank.”
It crossed Peter’s mind that it was incredibly stupid to try and bargain with a spider, but he was running out of options. He could feel his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps; now was really not the time for his asthma to act up. Giving up, Peter jerked his hand a little, hoping to dislodge the spider.
“Shit!”
It bit him. The unknown spider had bitten him. At least it was no longer on his hand. He slammed the tank lid back on and ran as quickly as he dared towards the door. He stopped briefly to check the hallway and, upon seeing it empty, slid out of the room and closed the door behind him. He checked his phone; it had only been 15 minutes. If he found an employee, he could play off his absence as getting lost after tying his shoe. He glanced at his hand. There were two little puncture wounds, too noticeable to leave his hand uncovered. Luckily he had worn a hoodie today. He pulled the sleeves over his hands and tucked them into his pocket. They bumped against his inhaler and he pulled it free, and took a few puffs on it, feeling the effect almost immediately. He walked down the corridor in the direction he knew his class had gone. Eventually, he found an employee who pointed him in the right direction.
He jogged over to his class as quickly as he could, apologies spilling from his mouth.
“I’m sorry, Mr Harrington. I stopped to tie my shoe…and then everyone was gone…and then my asthma, I think I got lost. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Take a breath, Parker. No harm done. You’re here now.”
Peter nodded and went to stand next to Ned.
“You okay, dude?”
“Yeah, just my stupid asthma acting up again. I panicked when I couldn’t find you guys.”
Peter hadn’t dared to look at his hand, keeping it safely tucked in his pocket until he was safely in his apartment. May and Ben were still at work, but they would both be home in the next half an hour so he needed to be quick. He went into the bathroom, it had the best lighting, and held his hand up to his face. In all honesty, it could’ve been worse. It was a little swollen, and bruised, and it definitely looked like he had been bitten by something. But it didn’t actually hurt, and he didn’t feel ill. In fact, he felt pretty okay. Perhaps the spider had no venom, or it wasn’t toxic to humans. Peter resolved to keep an eye on it, although if something bad happened he didn’t know what he would do. It wasn’t like he could walk into a hospital and say he’d been bitten by a spider that probably didn’t exist outside of a lab he wasn’t supposed to be in. He didn’t have health insurance either. He washed his hands, reasoning that it wouldn’t do any harm, even if it didn’t help.
Entering his bedroom, he couldn’t help the automatic smile that spread over his face. All of his favourite things were here. The Star Wars lego set that he and Ned had finished building last week took pride of place on his desk, surrounded by smaller Star Wars figurines. He had an entire shelf dedicated the Avengers. Although it was mostly Iron Man and Black Widow. Ever since he had seen her saving New York she had fast become his favourite Avenger, perhaps even more than Iron Man, even though Iron Man had saved his life at the Stark Expo all those years ago. Peter had spent hours searching the internet for any information about Black Widow, not that he could find much. He didn’t even know her name. None of the press conferences the Avengers had done had ever revealed her name. But Peter watched the videos, trying to emulate the moves she pulled when fighting. He liked the poses she did too; he did them in his room sometimes when no one was home, pretending he was a superhero.
“Pete, honey, you home? How was the field trip?”
Peter spun round at the sound of May’s voice. He hadn’t even heard her come in. He quickly switched out his hoodie, exchanging the faded blue one for the comfiest one he owned, a Black Widow hoodie. It was incredibly soft and just a little bit big on him, meaning he could snuggle into it when he was cold. He left his room, joining May in the kitchen.
“Hi, May. It was good, even though I knew most of what they told us already. How was work?”
“Work was work. Ben will be home in a few minutes, what should we do for dinner?”
“Thai food?”
“Works for me. I’ll get Ben to pick it up.”
Peter began laying the table. It wasn’t often they all got to eat together anymore, Ben’s shifts had changed which meant he worked evenings a lot now. Peter flicked the TV on, paranoid that Lernax had discovered he’d snuck into their lab and were now broadcasting his face on the news. What he got instead was a lot different.
“This just in, we’re getting reports that the Black Widow, who’s real name we now know to be Natasha Romanoff, has leaked top secret SHIELD files for the entire world to see. For those of you who are unaware, SHIELD stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. They deal with counter-terrorism and espionage. We are unsure as of yet as to why Romanoff has done this, but it is very much the real deal. Further updates about SHIELD and the contents of the files will be coming shortly, stay tuned!”
Peter stared in shock at Jameson, still on the screen. Natasha Romanoff. He finally knew his favourite superhero’s name. He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket, fingers flying frantically across the screen as he googled the SHIELD files. Jameson was right. It was all there, neatly packed into a publicly available google drive. Peter immediately saved it into the secure file he had on his phone, and he would transfer it to a USB later. He was smart enough to know that whatever higher-ups there were at SHIELD were already working on erasing the files from the internet. They would be safe on his phone for a few hours, and his laptop was encrypted well-enough that even Ned couldn’t get in, and Ned had once successfully hacked the Pentagon on a dare.
“Aunt May! Did you see? Black Widow leaked loads of confidential files onto the internet! And her real name is Natasha Romanoff, apparently she works for SHIELD. What do you think is gonna happen?”
“I don’t know, sweetie, she must’ve had a reason. I suppose we’ll just have to keep watching the news to find out.”
Later that night, Peter sat in bed transferring all the files to a USB. He’d quickly discovered that most of them were encrypted, not that that would stop him. He went to a STEM school after all, and if Ned could hack the Pentagon, Peter could do this. He read the non-encrypted ones first, the personnel files and certain missions that didn’t have too many redacted bits. It was fascinating. Peter read Black Widow’s file, interested to find out she was Russian. He did wonder about what Russian agency she had been recruited to, though, as it couldn’t have been the KGB or the file would’ve said that. Peter tried to reverse the redacted parts of her file but quickly realised whoever had written the file had literally just typed ‘CLASSIFIED’ in place of a proper redaction. Peter grudgingly admitted to himself that that was rather clever of them; you couldn’t recover data that hadn’t been there in the first place. Next, Peter moved on to the encrypted files. Just looking at the files gave him almost nothing, it just looked like a big scramble of data. But Peter knew better. If he thought about it logically, Peter reasoned that the files would not have been encrypted within their own server, and therefore Black Widow had encrypted them before releasing them on the internet, which meant she had set the key.
Peter quickly realised that Black Widow had encrypted all of the files in groups, one key did not unlock all the files. One key had decrypted a section of files detailing missions of Strike Force DELTA, which Peter was eager to read as they were Black Widow and Hawkeye’s SHIELD missions. That one was fairly simple to decrypt, Peter didn’t even need to use any software, just simple reverse engineering of some of the data. He got to work on the next set. Peter knew he only had a limited amount of time before SHIELD came knocking. He was sure they would have ways of tracing who had downloaded the files, and even though his laptop and phone were protected he was sure they could be hacked eventually; no technology was truly safe in this day and age.
Opening the next file, Peter was again faced with rows and rows of seemingly meaningless data. He scanned through it, just in case there were any clues as to how to decrypt it. He turned a new page in his notebook, scribbling down any of the random words he thought might be useful. Marble, red, gun, ballet, none of it made sense to Peter, although he supposed it wouldn’t until he got it decrypted. Something a the very end of the stream of data caught Peter’s attention, though. An hourglass, the Black Widow symbol. Were these files all about the Black Widow? With renewed interest, Peter reread the data, with sort of an idea of what he was looking for now. He booted up his decryption software, reasoning that Black Widow would have reason to make her files hardest to crack, Peter didn’t think he would be able to decrypt them manually as he had with the DELTA files.
Stifling a yawn, Peter rubbed his eyes, pausing in shock.
“What…”
Where were his glasses? And more importantly, how could he see without them? How long had he not been wearing them? His eyesight wasn’t completely awful, he could still sort of see without his glasses on, but he definitely couldn’t read a screen without them. Pushing his laptop to the side, Peter stood and made his way to the mirror. He stared at himself. He still looked the same, although it was weird to see his face without the black frames of his glasses. Picking up a textbook, Peter opened it to a random page, furthering his shock when he could read every word on the page, even the tiny diagram captions that he struggled to read even with his glasses. It was like his eyesight had been magically healed.
“The spider…”
Peter held his hand up to his face, alarmed to find no trace of the spider bite, not even a fading bruise. What had the spider done to him? How was he supposed to explain his sudden ability to see everything with perfect clarity? Peter took a deep breath, confirming his thoughts that the spider bite had also healed his asthma. Had Lernax created a spider venom that could heal medical problems? The scientific ramifications of that were enormous. Peter’s mind moved a mile a minute; if the Lernax spider could cure his asthma and eyesight, it could probably cure things like muscular dystrophy, maybe even cancer. This was incredible. Peter would have to go back to Lernax tomorrow, he needed to let them know their experiment was a success, even if it got him into trouble for trespassing. He flapped his hands, not wanting to make a noise in case he woke Ben and May. This was the best day of his life. Flash would finally stop teasing him about his glasses, he could just say he got contacts. And he would be able to take part in gym properly now! No more getting picked last, no more sitting on the sidelines while everyone else did track. He could be included.
He settled back down on his bed, hoping his decryption software had yielded some results. It had! It had found the key to decrypt the Black Widow files; 5o9h9i1o. Peter assumed Ohio had some kind of relevance to Black Widow but he didn’t know what the numbers meant. He set about decrypting the rest of the files and was greeted with a veritable gold mine of information about his favourite superhero. There was so much to read. From her time in the Red Room, Peter grinned about the fact he was right about it not being the KGB, her time at SHIELD and then the more recent stuff with the Avengers. He was so inspired by her. Everything she had been through; all that pain and darkness and horror, and she was still going. She had made the brave decision to abandon everything she’d ever known and join SHIELD and that was one of the most admirable things Peter had ever heard. Peter hoped one day he could be that good. He was so absorbed in his reading that he almost didn’t notice at first.
It was gradual. The low buzz of the city that was ever-present day and night, got just a little bit louder. So slowly that Peter didn’t actually notice. The buzz got louder and louder, and suddenly Peter could hear voices as if they were talking right next to him. Tearing his eyes away from the screen, Peter looked around in alarm. It sounded like there were people in the flat. Now that he was concentrating, he realised just how much he could hear. He could hear the man two floors on an international business call with Italy, he could hear the whirring sound of Mrs Polanski’s oxygen machine across the road, he could even hear Mr Delmar getting up early to prepare ingredients before work. But he could hear other things too. He could hear people arguing, drunk people getting mad about being thrown out of bars, he could, ew, he could hear people having sex, and he could hear people screaming for help. Multiple voices crying out for someone to help them. Gunshots, the sound of a fist impacting flesh, the sound of a knife being pulled as someone begged for their life. All of the things that happened in Queens that no one talked about. The stuff that Uncle Ben stopped in his work as a police officer; Peter could hear it all. It was too much.
He took a deep breath, focussing on the sound of the air whooshing through his nose and out his mouth. Maybe he could tune it out, the same way he did when Flash started teasing him, he just needed a different sound to focus on. But there was no Betty, who’s scratchy pencil always gave him something to focus on, no Ned to talk about Star Wars with, no Michelle, who didn’t really make a lot of noise but had a calming presence. If he could just…there! Thump-thump. Peter tried to hone his hearing to focus on whatever that was. He could focus on that. A strange thump-thump-whoosh noise. That was calming, and rhythmic. Slowly, all the extra noise faded into the background until all Peter could hear was thump-thump-whoosh. It occurred to Peter, after a few minutes, that he was listening to his own heartbeat, which freaked him out a little. There was still the low hum of too-loud activity at the back of Peter’s mind, but he could deal with it for now. Peter had superhearing. He could hardly believe it. A spider bite had fixed his eyesight, his asthma, and had also given him superhearing. This day had been totally insane. Peter wondered if anything else would happen to him. What if he turned into a giant spider, how was he ever going to explain that? Or what if the radiation from the spider gave him an alter-ego like the Hulk? Peter reached over and grabbed a can of lemonade from his desk, putting it next to him on his bed. Or, he tried to at least.
“What the fuck?”
The can was stuck to his hand. Or his hand was stuck to the can. Probably the second option. He flattened his hand, but the can was still firmly stuck to his palm. He shook his hand up and down, trying to dislodge it. He stopped when he realised he now had a shook-up can of lemonade stuck to his hand. He didn’t dare touch anything with his other hand. How was this happening? He held is other hand right in front of his eyes, trying to see what had changed.
“Ew.”
He had tiny hairs growing out of his skin! Somewhere in the back of his mind, Peter remembered reading that this was how spiders stuck to walls and ceilings. Taking a couple of deep breaths, Peter closed his eyes, focussing on letting go of the can.
“Wow, I didn’t think that would work.”
Now what? Peter thought about trying to climb up the wall, but he didn’t want to wake May and Ben if he fell off. He could work on decrypting the rest of the files now that he’d read the Black Widow ones, there was still a whole bunch he hadn’t cracked yet. Peter thought he should probably go to sleep, May would be so mad if she found out he’d been on his laptop all night again. Peter checked his watch, eyebrows raising as he saw it was almost 4am; he didn’t even feel tired! Maybe that was a spider thing too.
He really hoped he didn’t turn into a giant spider.
Peter stared down at his hands, still covered in drying blood. Ben was dead. Ben was dead and it was Peter’s fault. He should’ve done something.
Peter and Ben had been accosted on the way to the bodega, the guy wanted their money. Peter could feel something was wrong before it happened; before the guy had even stepped out of the alley, Peter felt something was off. But he didn’t say anything, he just let Ben carry on walking. And when Ben said he was a police officer, the guy pulled a gun and shot him before running off. Peter had tried his hardest to stop the bleeding, tearing his jacket off and pressing it to the wound, telling Ben that everything would be fine. Peter screamed for help and he dimly registered someone calling 911, but all Peter could focus on was the slowing beat of Ben’s heart, tears springing to his eyes as the steady beat started stuttering.
“Pete, Pete look at me.”
“Uncle Ben…”
“It’s gonna be okay, Pete. You look after your Aunt May, okay?”
“No, Ben, you’re gonna be fine. You have to be fine.”
“I love you, Petey. Tell May for me. I love you.”
“I…I love you too, Uncle Ben.”
Ben’s eyes slipped closed and Peter couldn’t hear his heart anymore.
“Ben? Uncle Ben? Ben, please.”
Peter collapsed over Ben’s body, crying for someone to help him.
The police and an ambulance arrived a few moments later, and Peter was faced with two officers who worked at the same precinct as Ben. He could tell they were trying to keep it together for him. They made him sit in the ambulance, giving him a shock blanket while they called Aunt May. And now here he was, staring at the blood, Ben’s blood, on his hands. He was covered in it, really, and shivering in just his shirt. All Peter could think was that he could’ve done something. Should’ve done something. He had all these weird powers now, and clearly they were useful if they warned him about the mugger. Maybe he should try and help other people. People like he and Ben were tonight. But maybe Peter could do some good.
“Peter? Peter, oh my god.”
Peter lifted his head at May’s voice. She ran towards him, enveloping him in a hug.
“Are you okay, sweetie? Are you hurt?”
Peter shook his head, burying his face in May’s shoulder.
“I’m not hurt, But, Ben’s…he got shot, I should’ve done something. Ben’s…”
Peter burst into tears again, his shoulders shaking as he tried not to completely fall apart.
“I know, the officers told me. There’s nothing you could’ve done though, I don’t want you feeling guilty about this.”
Peter, appreciating the sentiment, but he knew it was false. May didn’t know about his powers. Peter could’ve done something.
“What do we do now, Aunt May?”
May kissed his temple.
“We’ll figure it out, Pete, I promise.”
Peter paced around his room. Literally. He paced across the floor, up the walls and across the ceiling, and back down across the floor without actually noticing he was doing it. Since Ben had died, all Peter could focus on was the sounds of helpless people across Queens. He needed to do something. He was full of restless grief and had nowhere to put it. But Peter knew he had to be smart about it if he wanted to help people. He couldn’t just go around saving people with his powers without a disguise. He didn’t want to put May and his friends in danger, and he didn’t want people to react badly to a kid saving them.
And so, Peter planned. He stole some supplies from Midtown, only taking what he knew probably wouldn’t be missed. He wanted to make a voice modulator for the mask of his suit; Peter was under no illusions about how his voice sounded. He knew he sounded his age. He also wanted to make some web shooters. Peter noticed bumps on his wrists and assumed that the spider bite had given him organic webs, but they didn’t work yet. Peter thought that perhaps they needed to develop before they would work. In the meantime he had decided to create his own webs. Peter was good at chemistry, he knew he could do it. Peter had decided to lean into the spider theme with his costume. He went with red and blue, the colours of the spider that bit him and also just because he liked them. He went to a local fabric shop and bought a roll each of red and blue spandex to make a suit. It had turned out pretty well, Peter thought. It fit him perfectly, and the blue spider on his chest contrasted nicely with the red base. As an afterthought, Peter had stitched a red outline of Black Widow’s hourglass onto the body of the spider. It wasn’t particularly noticeable, but it made Peter feel more confident to wear the symbol of someone who seemed like they could conquer anything.
A week later, and Peter was almost ready to go out and help people. He wanted to practise swinging on his webs first. It would do him no favours to try and swing in to save someone only to crash into a wall. The next time May was working a double shift, Peter made his way down to the abandoned construction site not far from his apartment; his suit and mask tucked into his backpack. The construction site was perfect for what Peter needed it for. It had been abandoned for six months, but it contained the half-built shell of a skyscraper, all the scaffolding and even a few machines that hadn’t been collected yet.
Peter glanced around, and used his superhearing to double check that there was no one around. He quickly stripped down to his underwear and pulled the suit on, marvelling at how well it fit him. He pulled on the mask and looked at his reflection in a discarded window pane. He looked…good. He twisted, looking at himself from all sides. He didn’t look scary, which was good. He clipped the webshooters to his wrists, praying that they would work. He had tested the synthetic webs as well as his could without actually using them. He was fairly confident but, like with anything scientific, he couldn’t actually be sure they worked until he had done a field test. He climbed the scaffolding, stopping about two thirds of the way up. Glancing over neighbourhood, Peter marvelled. There may be some awful parts of Queens, and Forest Hills was not great anyway, but Peter loved it. This was his city, and he would protect it. Peter looked down. He was very high up.
“Come on, Parker, you can do this.”
Taking a deep breath, Peter jumped.