Variant Strain

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Peter remembered the backpack with his clothes was still back in the little corner park. There hadn't been any opportunity to find somewhere private to discard his excess mass.

The rubberneckers were out in force. The gunshots were not something the locals were familiar with. He could feel the shift in the neighborhood. They'd been worried about what had happened to Uncle Ben. Now this... everyone was keyed up. Tense.

He could see it in their eyes. Kids were kept well away, but Pete spotted a couple watching the proceedings as best they could from wherever they could manage it. The cops pulled back and the gawkers were kept even further away while the men in the bright yellow beekeeper outfits did their work.

Whatever it was they were doing.

By the time he had reached the Park, he was fully aclimatized to his new and much larger body. It was strange, but he felt strangely light on his feet. His entire body also felt warm and he tingled strangely.

He sighed in frustration as he realized his body was probably doing something else strange. The park wasn't that far from the ruined deli, but with everyone's attention turned to it, no one was really watching the red-headed stranger in the park.

Peter considered the lightness and heat. The heat seemed to be radiating from his belly. A strange and unfamiliar sensation. Kind of what he imagined drinking alcohol was supposed to feel like, from what he'd read.

He'd never had a drink in his life. Well, Cletus had, but Peter couldn't find any specific memories that matched what he'd been feeling.

On the other hand, had the thing he'd just consumed been drinking? Had the deli owner it had eaten been the one drinking? Was it possible for him to get drunk or tipsy by consuming someone who had? Or was it something else?

He was still too much in the open though he really wanted to get back to his normal size, no matter how comfortable actually being tall was starting to get.

A suspicion came to him and he flexed his knees, intending on simply hopping a few inches up. He did so and shot up, smacking unpleasantly into a tree limb that had been four feet above his head.

He landed in an inelegant sprawl on his back, dazed but not horribly surprised.

He felt lighter because he probably was. He held his hand up and noted the very fine reddish haze surrounding his skin.

He concentrated on the warmth in his chest and the lighter feelings and tried to will it away. To shut it down. The drago had been able to and he hoped those instincts were his now.

Peter slumped down in surprise as he felt his full weight settle on his body once more. He was... lighter than he had been since leaving the van. Certainly lighter than he'd expected. Even without whatever effect that red haze had on him, he'd somehow managed to shed excess mass without needing to discard it... well... the way he'd been expecting to need to discard it.

Somehow that short walk... or perhaps the jump... had burned fifty pounds or more from him. He wondered if there were some way to market that. He'd make a fortune. Eat your way to a leaner you!

It would probably never catch on.

He frowned and let his heart spike once more, shifting back to himself... in a different outfit, denim workshirt and the khakis. He felt extremely heavy in his normal form. He was still heavier than he'd been when he'd left the house, but that beat coming back to the Watson house looking like he should be part of the Giants' starting lineup.

Working hypothesis, he told himself. The red haze... or whatever that anti-gravity effect was... ate up a lot of his bio-mass. He wasn't sure where that mass actually went. Maybe breaking the laws of physics needed a lot of energy. Except... wasn't that breaking even more of the laws of physics by just making his mass disappear?

He sighed as he started the walk back, grabbing at his head as he tried to work out the specifics of what he was doing. His absurd healing abilities were strange enough, but the anti-gravity was a bit much. Anti-gravity that also somehow made actual mass disappear was beyond the limit. Either his body could somehow straight convert mass into energy and use that to fuel the red haze... or his body was consuming the mass for energy and the red haze was... what?

Some sort of byproduct? Could he be literally burning the material in his body and the haze was just what was left of that combustion? He could almost accept that his body was discarding its wastes as some sort of gas... except he began calculating just how fast his body must've been releasing the red haze if he assumed converting fifty pounds of his flesh into a substance the same density as air in the time it had taken him to walk from the deli to the park and the numbers started becoming absurd again.

This was giving him a headache.

He wondered if Tylenol would even work on him anymore.

Peter had taken a slightly more circuitous route. Mostly he'd been trying to get around the deli on his way back. There was no point in tempting fate by passing it by again. Besides the cops and the T-bolts had the street blocked off so there was no getting through that way anyway.

When Peter got to the Watson house, Aunt May's car was in the driveway again. Anna had apparently gotten back from work. The front door was open and the two women were standing on the curb, speaking in quiet voices as they looked down the street to where the deli was.

Anna perked up immediately as she caught sight of him and lightly touched Aunt May on the arm, pointing him out.

Aunt May practically flew up the street and caught Peter in a fierce, worried embrace. "Oh, Peter... I thought... I just... I was so worried! I was going to call you, but then I remembered your phone was back home and--"

"I'm fine, Aunt May." He did his best to keep his face neutral and confused. He glanced over to the deli and really hoped he didn't oversell it, "What's going on?"

"Some sort of terrorist attack down the street, I heard." Anna said quietly. "The only one who got caught up in it was poor Mr. Sandoval, but it could have been much worse."

May looked Peter over with a careful eye. Trying to reassure herself that he hadn't been anywhere near the incident when she caught sight of his backpack. "Peter!" She said sharply. "Did you go back home for those?"

He glanced down to where she was looking and winced. He'd intended to smuggle the bag in without her noticing, but there was no helping it now. "Um... I can explain..."

"Did you go back to our house?" She asked, her tone cutting and her eyes pinning him. Fear, worry, concern. There was anger there, but tightly controlled. It was an expression she'd unleashed on him more than once when he'd been reckless, the way one expects a child to be reckless.

He'd killed two men already. Eaten them. He was stronger, faster and could eat a bullet without dying. He could probably fly too once he figured out how... but his Aunt's gaze cut through all of that.

That was all so much window dressing.

He licked at his suddenly dry lips.

At his heart he was still Peter Parker. Sixteen year old. Perhaps a monster, perhaps not... it was so... absurd. He felt his eyes sting and his throat suddenly closed up as he realized that the question of whether or not he was even still human didn't matter. Not really.

His Aunt May had been worried about him.

She was mad that he might have done something stupid and put himself in danger.

End of discussion.

He hugged her suddenly. Fiercely, greedily. That one look had done him in. Told him exactly what he was. All the strange ways his bodies broke the known laws of physics and biology didn't matter. The questions he'd been wrestling with all afternoon just seemed less important.

She was surprised for a moment by his sudden embrace, he could tell. He could also tell that he was crying and despite his control over his own biology couldn't seem to stop himself.

"I'm sorry... I just... I wasn't thinking..." He babbled, not sure what he was saying, but it was just so much incoherent noise that her only response was to run her hands through his hair and make gentle soothing noises, assuring him it would be alright.

She kept patting his back and he briefly caught sight of Anna Watson retreating for the house. He was mortified that she'd seen his breakdown, but unable to stop himself. He'd barely had any time to process everything that had happened to him. No time to absorb it. It had been one thing after another. Events rushing at an absurd pace and it had taken all he had just to keep moving and it was horrible burden for a young man his age.

"There, there..." Aunt May continued to soothe him.

"Sorry," He mumbled weakly, sniffling. It hadn't been neat or pretty as he'd cried. Not like it would have been in a movie. He'd made a horrible mess of his aunt's blouse. "I'm so sorry."

She pulled away slightly and gave him a gentle smile. "You have nothing to apologize for." She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed at his cheeks and had him blow his nose.

Unable to resist, he'd allowed her to do it, an embarrassed flush coloring his cheeks.

"Do you... do you feel better, Peter?" She asked.

He nodded. He still felt miserable and overwhelmed. He missed his uncle and his mind wouldn't let go of the mysteries that had surrounded the man's death... but absurdly, the crying had helped.

He felt lighter... and not in a red haze sort of way.

"Why don't you go inside, Peter? Anna and I made dinner." May said, continuing to keep her voice gentle. It warmed him. Sheltered him.

"Thanks, Aunt May." He replied quietly, then hugged her once more. This time only briefly. "For everything."

She smiled and kissed his cheek. He could tell she was still stretched thin. He doubted she'd had anyone to do for her what she'd done for him. His cheeks flushed again at that. It was embarrassing, not only for having cried like a little kid... but because he hadn't been there for her.

He would be, he resolved.

In between figuring out why Uncle Ben died, his own voice drawled.

He stepped into the house, Aunt May stayed on the curb a bit longer. He walked into the kitchen and found MJ Watson, still in her hoodie, just about to leave.

The two of them stopped and stared at one another. Her hoodie was still up, despite being indoors, and her bright red hair had been draped down the side of her face, hiding the bruises he'd seen earlier.

Anna Watson was nowhere to be seen.

"Um... hi." Peter mumbled, awkwardly.

She gave a small, nervous squeaking noise and shied away.

They continued to both just stand there, the silence stretching awkwardly and Peter kept half-starting conversational salvos in his head, only to have them slapped down by his own drawling, sarcastic internal monologue. She'd just stood there... trembling.

They probably would've stayed stuck, neither moving nor speaking all night, but Anna exited the bathroom with a loud bang of the door that snapped the silence like over-stressed glass.

Peter whirled to the source of the noise. MJ took the opportunity to make a break for it, running up the stairs before he even registered what had happened.

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