After school that afternoon, Harry brought the group out to a massive warehouse in Queens.
This was one of Oscorp's surplus product disposal centers.
"Surplus" sounded harmless, but in reality, most of what was stored here were failed prototypes from various Oscorp subsidiaries, projects that had lost out in military contract bids, deep-sea exploration programs, or space research initiatives. There were also large quantities of advanced polymer materials that had never fully passed testing.
Because Norman was cutting ties with the underworld during this sensitive period, he had dumped authority over the scrap facilities onto his son Harry. Officially, it was supposed to be "management training."
Unofficially, it looked a lot more like he wanted Harry around in case someone needed to take the fall later.
"I'd bet my dad doesn't even know what's actually in here," Harry said.
Dressed head to toe in designer clothes, he sat casually on a crate, playing with the access card in his hand.
In front of him, Peter and Cindy were practically glowing. The two of them looked around like kids stepping into an amusement park, touching this and inspecting that.
Gwen kept her hands in her pockets and stayed close to Clark, while Clark had the expression of a patient father taking the kids out on a field trip.
"You guys came for fabric, right? Take whatever you want, as much as you need. My dad clearly doesn't care anymore. Just don't blow the place up. There's a lounge at the far end of the warehouse with the newest game console and an actual leather couch, so I'm gonna go play for a while. Anybody coming?"
Then, in a display of total indifference toward his family's property, the rich kid stood up, handed the access card straight to Clark, and walked off toward the lounge without another thought, leaving the entire warehouse in their hands.
The second Harry disappeared into the break room to play games, Peter's carefully maintained composure shattered.
He practically bounced in place with excitement.
"Whoa! Guys, do you understand what this means?" Peter spun around, arms spread wide toward the endless rows of shelves. "This is basically a holy site for materials science. I've been stressing over the fact that if we used ordinary fabric for the suits, they'd wear out way too fast."
Cindy nodded immediately and picked up the thread. "Exactly. Not just wear out, either. Our muscle density has already increased a lot, which means normal fabrics won't have enough flexibility anymore. And if, hypothetically, our clothes split at the wrong moment, I would genuinely rather die on the spot. Social death is way scarier."
"So our goal is obvious." Gwen snapped her fingers and pulled out a sketch she had drawn and tucked into her pocket.
"First, high durability. Second, excellent breathability and heat dissipation. Third, strong resistance to tearing and puncture." She tapped a marked section under the arms on the sketch, where she had drawn something like small wing membranes. "And for me, I also need something light and aerodynamic. My mutation leans toward glide control and agility. If I had a pair of compact gliding fins, my aerial mobility would go up by at least forty percent."
Clark watched the three high school theory specialists dive headfirst into a design discussion and could not help smiling.
This was exactly the kind of thing he wanted to see.
"All right, enough presentations. Get moving," Clark said, clapping his hands and sending them off on the scavenger hunt. "Harry may not care, but that doesn't mean we waste things. Only take what you need, and don't trash the place."
Peter let out a cheer, sprang upward in a single jump, and landed effortlessly on a shelf more than fifteen feet high, crawling across it like a real spider while searching for materials.
Cindy and Gwen did the same. All three split up and started hunting for exactly what they needed.
Their voices echoed through the warehouse, along with bursts of surprise and streams of highly technical jargon.
Watching them work like busy little bees, Clark felt genuinely pleased.
This was what he had wanted.
They were learning to equip themselves.
"Well, guess I should go look for what I need too." Clark stretched lazily and headed toward the back.
He absolutely had selfish motives of his own.
Sure, people already described him as having a body of steel. Even getting hit by artillery would not hurt that much. But if he ever ran into an evenly matched opponent, or got smacked by a missile, and his body came out fine while the clothes didn't, that was not acceptable.
Absolutely not.
The image was too horrifying.
Clark did not even want to imagine it.
He also had no desire for half the world to fall in love with him on sight.
And if he really did end up sprinting around naked, the Daily Bugle would absolutely run a front-page headline like:
SHOCKING! SUPERVILLAIN EXHIBITIONIST SPOTTED IN NEW YORK!
What he needed was a much more specialized material.
Its defensive properties could be zero for all he cared.
But it absolutely could not tear.
A Kryptonian's strength did not come only from the body itself. It also came from absorbing yellow solar radiation and generating a bio-electric aura. That aura not only protected the body, it also extended to whatever clothing was worn close against the skin.
But even then, in a real fight, clothes could still get wrecked.
That was just how it went. In a fight between equal forces, the body might stay intact while the outfit got shredded.
Using his X-ray vision, Clark instantly began scanning through tens of thousands of discarded materials.
Then he spotted it.
At the lowest level of the warehouse, inside an unstable temperature-controlled cryo-container marked as failed research, there was a label:
Bio-Adaptive Nano-Weave (Experimental)
Development Purpose: Spacesuit material for extreme extraterrestrial environments.
Reason for Failure: Material requires an intense electromagnetic field or biological electrical stimulation to maintain stable molecular structure.
"That's it."
Clark's eyes lit up instantly.
For ordinary people, or even for Oscorp scientists, this was completely useless.
No normal human could generate the kind of continuous bio-electric field needed to keep it stable.
But for Clark, it might as well have been custom-made.
As long as he wore it, the fabric would become part of his aura.
Clark walked up to the climate unit, casually snapped the locking chain, pulled out the material, and stuffed it straight into his backpack.
"Fabric secured. Next step is finding time to cut and tailor it myself. As for the emblem..." Clark rubbed his perfectly sculpted chin, and the first thing that appeared in his mind was that symbol of hope.
The S.
He was still thinking about what his future suit should look like when his super-hearing suddenly picked up something unusual.
Someone was moving above him with extremely light footsteps.
It was not Peter and the others looking through supplies.
It was not Harry raging at a video game in the lounge either.
Clark looked up.
With his X-ray vision, he had already seen who it was.
High above, about sixty feet up, a vent panel was being removed without a sound.
Then a graceful figure in a black catsuit dropped down like an elegant feline.
Clark knew her far too well.
Not just by scent.
Not just by heartbeat.
He could already see exactly who it was, and honestly, even without that, he would still have known.
After all, just a few days earlier in the school cafeteria, the owner of that heartbeat had shamelessly pressed herself against him and teased him half to death.
Felicia Hardy.
Black Cat.