Officially, the frosted glass doors at the end of the corridor read: The Emily Osborn Research Center.
Unofficially, it was the most over-engineered, heavily fortified teenage clubhouse on the Eastern Seaboard.
Peter pressed his palm against the sleek, black biometric scanner beside the door. A line of blue laser light washed over his skin, followed by a soft, mechanical chime. The heavy, reinforced doors slid apart with a pneumatic hiss.
"Hey, guys. Sorry I'm late," Peter called out, tossing his backpack onto a nearby desk.
Harry Lyman and Amadeus Cho were already inside, huddled over a glowing holographic drafting table.
Stepping into the room always gave Peter a severe sense of déjà vu. The space possessed a distinctly Oscorp aesthetic. And Peter knew exactly what that meant, considering the last time he'd been surrounded by this much hexagonal white polymer, he and Felicia Hardy had been breaking into Oscorp's restricted R&D wing. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all constructed from interlocking white hex-panels, with strips of harsh, sterile LED lighting bleeding through the geometric gaps.
Questionable corporate aesthetics aside, it felt undeniably cutting-edge.
"Check this out, Peter," Harry said, stepping away from the table. He gestured proudly to a massive, cylindrical glass tank bubbling with green fluid. "This is the primary air and water pollution monitoring terminal. We can deploy micro-drones from the roof to analyze airborne particulate matter across the entire New York tri-state area. And over there is the algae filtration analysis rig."
Unlike his father—who primarily viewed science as a tool to monopolize military contracts and crush competitors with patent lawsuits—Harry's mother, Emily Osborn, had been a pioneer in ecological and environmental safety. She hadn't just pointed out global crises; she had actively engineered solutions. Oscorp used to fund dozens of her non-profit philanthropic research initiatives. But after her passing, Norman had quietly shuttered almost all of them, keeping only a token few operational for tax write-offs and PR photo-ops.
Harry ran his fingers gently along the edge of the algae tank. He didn't have to say it out loud. Peter could see it in the slope of his friend's shoulders. Harry knew every single schematic of his mother's old projects by heart, and this lab was his desperate attempt to bring her legacy back to life.
Amadeus, meanwhile, didn't look up from his workstation. His fingers blurred across a mechanical keyboard as lines of code reflected in his glasses.
Harry suddenly blinked, shaking his head as if pulling himself out of a trance. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Right. I almost forgot. This lab is essentially yours."
"Ours," Peter corrected smoothly, offering a small smile.
"Right, our secret base," Harry nodded, his enthusiasm reigniting. "Like Batman's Batcave. We need a codename for the secure network. What should we call this place?"
Amadeus finally stopped typing and swiveled his chair around. "What about 'The Spider Web'?" he suggested, adjusting his glasses. "Spiders live on their webs. It's logically sound."
Peter physically winced. "Uh, I think we should probably pass on that one."
It was a perfectly fitting name, but Peter couldn't stomach it. He had just survived a brutal, mind-bending war in a desolate wasteland universe. He had spent hours listening to Anansi and the Weaver ramble about the Web of Fate, Spider Gods, and multiversal destinies. He felt like he had been abruptly dragged out of a grounded superhero life and thrown into a cosmic anime tournament arc. Right now, anything with the word "Web" attached to it made his teeth grind.
"Why?" Harry asked, tilting his head. "Can you come up with something better?"
Peter opened his mouth. He closed it. He stared at the ceiling for five straight seconds, trying to conjure a single cool, non-spider-related name. The Arachno-Cave? The Parker Pad? The... Bug Room? "You know what?" Peter sighed, hanging his head in defeat. "The Web is fine. Let's just go with The Web."
"So, let me show you what The Web can actually do," Harry grinned.
He tapped a sequence onto a glass touchscreen. A secondary scanner dropped from the ceiling, projecting a grid of yellow light over Peter's body. Once the system verified his identity, the room came alive.
The sterile, white hexagonal walls began to unlock and retract like a massive puzzle box, sliding backward to reveal cavernous, hidden alcoves. The harsh white LEDs instantly shifted, bathing the room in a warm, amber glow.
The environmental testing tables seamlessly folded into the floor plates. In their place, heavy manufacturing equipment rose from hidden hydraulic lifts. The centerpiece of the armory was the back wall: seven cylindrical, illuminated glass display cases, waiting to house combat armor.
Peter currently only owned four suits—and one of those was the Venom symbiote currently acting as the black t-shirt and jeans he was wearing—but the empty cases felt like a promise.
Flanking the armor pods were industrial 3D printers, carbon-fiber weavers, and advanced metallurgical scanners. It was a setup that rivaled Tony Stark's secondary fabrication labs at Avengers Tower. And the craziest part? It belonged to a fifteen-year-old kid from Queens.
"What do you think?" Harry asked, his eyes practically sparkling. "We can fabricate entirely new armors for you. Heavy ballistic plating? Holographic camouflage matrices? Thermal dampening? Just say the word, Pete."
Peter hesitated. Underneath his collar, the black fabric of his shirt rippled of its own accord, a silent reminder from Venom. Ever since bonding with the symbiote, Peter hadn't really needed a wardrobe change. Venom was infinitely versatile. The alien had perfectly assimilated Peter's upgraded Stark tech suit, seamlessly replicating its comms systems and even hacking its way into the Avengers' private server. Peter still had no idea how a pile of extraterrestrial goo understood TCP/IP protocols, but it worked.
Plus, Venom could mimic any clothing Peter wanted. If he needed the classic red-and-blue look, the symbiote shifted pigments in a fraction of a second.
Still, Peter thought, if Amadeus and Harry build physical tech, Venom can just eat it and assimilate the new functions. "We can also manufacture support drones or remote-controlled ordnance," Amadeus chimed in, leaning back in his chair. "What do you want to prioritize?"
"Um..." Peter rubbed his chin, a slow, dangerous grin spreading across his face. "I want a motorcycle. Specifically, one that can drive straight up the side of a skyscraper."
Harry blinked, thoroughly derailed. "A motorcycle? What do you need that for? You can swing."
"Because swinging requires buildings," Peter explained, holding his hands up to frame the imaginary problem. "What happens if a supervillain attacks Central Park? Or an open highway? If I'm fighting on flat ground, my mobility gets cut in half. Most of the guys I fight are stuck in two dimensions. I win because I fight in three. If they catch me in a field, I'm basically just a very agile gymnast in a onesie."
He didn't mention that his recent misadventures in the wasteland had brutally highlighted this exact tactical flaw. The Spider-Buggy was way too clunky for New York traffic. A bike could weave through gridlock and transition instantly into vertical pursuits.
"There's also another extremely crucial tactical advantage," Peter added, deadpan.
"Which is?" Amadeus asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Motorcycles are awesome."
Harry burst out laughing, slamming his hand on the desk. "He's got a point. That makes total sense. We can start drafting the suspension schematics—"
Knock. Knock.
The heavy, muffled sound came from the primary entrance.
Peter spun around. He glanced at Harry. All the color had instantly drained from Harry's face. The enthusiastic, brilliant teenager vanished, replaced by a stiff, silent board. Harry looked down at the floor, his jaw clenching so hard it looked painful.
Father and son of the year, Peter thought bitterly as he walked over to the security panel. He hit the release button.
The doors parted, revealing Norman Osborn.
He was dressed in an immaculate, dark navy suit, his hair perfectly coiffed. He carried himself with the effortless, predatory confidence of a man who owned the air he breathed. Norman offered his signature, razor-sharp smile—the one that never quite reached his cold, calculating eyes.
Standing directly behind the billionaire was a tall, sharp-featured scientist in a pristine Oscorp lab coat. The man looked vaguely familiar, sending a faint prickle of recognition up the back of Peter's neck.
"Peter," Norman said warmly, stepping into the lab. "It's been quite a long time."
"Long time no see, Mr. Osborn," Peter replied, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
"I wanted to personally thank you for your... assistance today," Norman continued, his gaze sweeping over the newly revealed armory with thinly veiled interest. "Saving that Oscorp cargo shipment was vital. It was a proprietary prototype. Very important to our upcoming initiatives."
Norman stepped aside, resting a hand on the shoulder of the man behind him.
"And, since Oscorp is fully funding this little venture of yours," Norman added, his smile widening into something genuinely unsettling, "I realized I forgot to provide you boys with the proper adult supervision. To ensure your research here reaches its maximum potential, I've specially assigned one of my most trustworthy, elite professionals to assist you."
The scientist stepped forward, his expression unreadable as he extended a hand toward Peter.
"Boys," Norman announced, "allow me to introduce Dr. Jonathan Drew."
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