prologue
Contrary to popular believe, Livia Octavius did in fact not get a kick out of torturing innocent civilians. No that special joy she got from making someone scream was only reserved for her enemies. What people also tend to forget was that she is, above all, a woman off science. So when she finally managed to recreate the infamous spiderformula responsible for making the arachnid themed pain in her backside she was overjoyed.
Now she only had to get a (un)willing test subject. She spend weeks injecting underpaid grad students who just wanted to make a quick buck. Unfortunately she also spend those weeks watching dozens of underpaid grad students die.
That is until she injected a woman who was currently in nursing school. This admittedly attractive woman had claimed she needed the extra money to buy a wedding dress.
During the small talk Liv made before she suspected this woman would also inevitably die. Liv gathered that the nurse ( named Rio Morales but who really cared about the name of a dead woman) was marrying a straight lased cop who ironically had some bad run-ins with the law in his youth.
It wouldn’t really matter as she was probably about to die, but Liv still had the decency to pay attention to this woman’s last words. Except when she injected the woman with her slightly deadly masterpiece. Nothing happened. There was no foaming of the mouth, no sudden limbs growing out of her back (that had been an especially eventful one) and no end of a heartbeat that signaled this as well would be a failure. Instead the woman ( Liv guessed she should start calling her Rio now that it was likely she would survive) stood up and politely informed her that she would tell Liv if anything weird started happening. Liv smiled and told the woman that "the new flu vaccine" should protect her for a while and thanked her for her assistants.
9 months later and still nothing had happened. Not a call from a puzzled Rio curious as to why she could now easily lift a couch, or an upset husband threatening to sue her for accidentally killing his wife. Now Liv was a patient person, she could wait for a while if beneficiary. But she must admit this was testing even her patience.
She decided it was best to just break in to Rio apartment. Now to a normal person this sounded insane. Luckily she was insane so she had no such concerns. After some research and planning she was more than ready to break into the cozy, low security apartment. It was almost insultingly easy to scale the walls and climb in through the window.
Suddenly she heard something that made her pause. She had expected frightened screams and furious shouts to “Get out of my apartment." What she hadn’t expected were the quit whimpers of a child. When she turned around she could see a small crib with a ( admittedly cute) baby inside. when she approached it the cries grew louder and the most shocking thing happened.
the child turned invisible! at first she thought she had just hallucinated the whole thing ( it certainly wouldn’t be the first time) but upon further inspection with her infrared goggles she could clearly see the baby right there. Then the realization hit her.
Rio had been pregnant during the experiment! It would certainly be easier for the formula manipulate the cells of an underdeveloped organism then it would be to rewrite the DNA off an adult! Her experiment was a success!
With this in mind she started to form a plan. Her original plan was to inject some unsuspecting civilian and experiment on them later. But even she wasn’t heartless enough to subject a baby to such torture. No this needed patience and careful observation. Unfortunately she simply didn’t have the time or skill to break continuously into the Morales/Davis apartment without anyone noticing. Plus as the baby grew older he would definitely notice her and alert his parents.
There was really only one thing she could think of. Raise the baby herself. That way she could observe him freely and with a little luck she would have an ally on her side who could go toe to toe with her greatest enemy. Yes with patience and the right training this could be her most successful experiment yet.
With a plan in mind and a new found motivation Liv grabbed the baby. Before she could jump out of the window and leave the child’s parents to a world of heartbreak she noticed the carefully painted name on the crib. "Miles" she whispered softly to the baby. Well, it would be as good of a name as any. With one last glance at the tiny nursery she disappeared into the night. Unknowingly changing destinies web.
For better or for worse.