6 AM. Queens.
Peter's temperature had dropped back to normal. The furnace heat that had been pouring off him all night was gone, replaced by slow, steady breathing. Deep. Calm. The kind of sleep that comes after the body finishes rebuilding itself.
I moved the chair back to where it belonged, took one last look at the hand shaped hole in the bedboard, and quietly let myself out.
The next part was his.
Ten minutes later.
Peter Parker opened his eyes.
The subway rumbled somewhere in the distance. Normally that sound was nothing. Background noise. Wallpaper. But right now it was inside his skull, rattling his teeth, a freight train running laps around the inside of his head.
"Ugh."
He sat up. The headache was gone. The fever was gone. The bone deep ache from last night was gone.
What replaced it was hunger.
Not regular hunger. The kind of hunger that felt like his stomach was trying to digest itself. He could've eaten a horse. Raw. With the saddle still on.
He reached for his glasses on the nightstand. Same thick lenses he'd worn for ten years. Without them the world was a smear of melted ice cream.
He slid them onto his nose.
The world went worse.
Everything blurred. Doubled. His stomach lurched and the room tilted sideways. He grabbed the edge of the bed.
"My prescription got worse?"
He pulled the glasses off.
The world snapped into focus.
Not regular focus. Not "got new contacts" focus. This was insane. This was looking at the ceiling corner and seeing a spider the size of a fingernail spinning a web and being able to count the individual strands. This was watching dust particles float through a beam of sunlight and tracking each one separately.
Then the sound hit.
Uncle Ben turning his newspaper downstairs. He could hear the paper fibers separating. The crisp little snap of each page fold. From the kitchen, the hiss of egg hitting hot oil. From next door, the muffled thump of water in the pipes as someone flushed their toilet.
Everything. All at once. All of it pouring into his ears like someone had ripped the volume knob off the world and thrown it away.
Peter clamped his hands over his ears and curled up on the floor. He stayed there, teeth clenched, until his brain figured out how to sort the noise into layers and push the unimportant stuff into the background.
Took about thirty seconds. Felt like thirty minutes.
He stood up. Barefoot on the carpet. He could feel every fiber. The direction each one was pressed. The texture. The temperature difference between the carpet and the strip of hardwood at the edge.
He walked to the bathroom. Hands on the sink. Looked up at the mirror.
Who the hell is that?
The Peter Parker in the mirror didn't look like Peter Parker. The bony, hunched, couldn't do two pushups Peter Parker was gone. The kid staring back at him had visible muscle definition through his t-shirt. Not bulky. Lean. Tight. Like someone had taken everything soft and replaced it with cable wire.
His abs were showing. Peter Parker had abs.
He pinched his arm. It was like pinching a rock.
The spider. The bite. The fever.
Even a nerd could do the math.
"Okay. Okay. Calm down, Peter. Calm down. This is. This is fine. You're fine. You're just. You're a mutant now. That's. That's a thing that happened."
He grabbed the toothpaste. Muscle memory. Normal morning. Just brush your teeth and everything is normal.
He squeezed the tube. Gently. Just a little bit, just enough for the brush.
POP.
The tube exploded in his hand. Mint green paste sprayed across the mirror, the sink, the ceiling. A green streak ran from the faucet to the light fixture like a crime scene.
Peter stood there holding the deflated, crumpled tube.
"Oh no."
He scrambled to clean up. Grabbed a towel, wiped the mirror. Reached for the faucet.
Gentle. Be gentle. Like touching a butterfly. Like petting a kitten. Like
His fingers closed on the brass knob.
SCREEEECH.
The metal twisted under his grip like tinfoil. The solid brass cross handle warped, bent, and snapped in two with a dry crack.
A jet of water shot straight up and hit him in the face.
"Peter?! Are you tearing the house down up there?!"
Uncle Ben's voice from downstairs.
"No! No! I just. I slipped!"
Peter's voice cracked on the word "slipped." He jammed his palm over the broken pipe. The water that should've been strong enough to push his hand away just trickled between his fingers.
I'm a monster. I'm actually a monster. I need to get out of here before I break something else. Something important. Something alive.
It took him five minutes to bend the pipe shut, mop the floor, and wipe the ceiling. He looked at himself in the toothpaste streaked mirror. New face. New body. Same terrified eyes.
He got dressed. Grabbed his backpack. Crept out of the room like a burglar, placing each foot with surgical precision, terrified of punching his leg through the floorboards.
He made it to the top of the stairs.
"Morning, Peter."
I was leaning against the doorframe across the hall, glass of water in hand.
Peter flinched. His eyes met mine and slid away fast. No glasses. New jawline. Broader shoulders under a shirt that had fit fine yesterday and was tight today.
And there he is. Spider-Man, day one.
"Uh. Yeah. Morning." He was doing that thing where he talked too fast and couldn't look at me. "Flu's gone. Sweated it out. Totally fine. Anyway I'm heading to school so."
"It's Saturday, Pete." I pointed at the clock on the wall.
He stopped. His toes curled inside his shoes.
"Right. Saturday. I knew that. I'm going to the. The library. Research stuff."
He turned and went down the stairs so fast he was almost running.
I followed. Slower.
Peter reached the front door and grabbed the brass handle. The old oak door always swelled in humidity. You had to give it a specific jiggle and pull to get it open. Peter had done it a thousand times.
This time he pulled with the same force he'd always used.
CRACK.
The sound was sharp and clear in the quiet morning house.
Peter's hand was still in the pulling position. The door hadn't moved. But in his fist was the entire brass handle with half the lock cylinder attached. The metal at the break point was twisted and mangled like something had bitten through it.
Peter looked at the handle. Looked at the door. Looked at the handle again.
His mouth opened. Nothing came out. His hand started shaking.
"Peter?"
Dad came around the corner, newspaper tucked under his arm. Mom was right behind him with a plate of muffins.
They both stopped. Their eyes went to the handle in Peter's fist.
Nobody said anything.
Peter's Adam's apple bobbed. His free hand wiped his temple. He held the handle up like he was presenting evidence in court.
"It. Just. Came off." Each word came out separately, like he was testing whether they'd hold together. "I think it was. Already loose. We should probably. Replace it."
Dad looked at the handle. Looked at Peter. Then his eyes moved past Peter, up the stairs, and found me.
He held my gaze for a second. Then he sighed. Rubbed the bridge of his nose. "What did I tell you about slamming doors? You yank them like you're trying to rip them off the hinges. Every time."
He walked over, took the handle from Peter, turned it over, shook his head.
"Third one, kid. Third one. You've got to learn to be gentle with things."
I watched Peter's shoulders drop three inches. The color came back to his face. His eyes found mine, wide, unblinking.
I came down the stairs. Took the handle from Dad. Turned it over like I was inspecting my own damage.
"Sorry, Dad. I was in a rush this morning. Won't happen again."
Mom put the muffins down. "Leave him alone, Ben. That handle's been wobbly for months. Leon, just be careful, honey."
"I will, Mom."
I turned to Peter. His back was to our parents. From the angle only he could see, I mouthed two words.
You owe me.
Peter's chin dropped to his chest. He let out a long breath through his nose. His whole body loosened, like someone had cut a wire that had been holding him rigid since he walked down those stairs.
"What are you standing there for?" Dad pulled a screwdriver from the toolbox. "Door's broken, nobody leaves until it's fixed. Come help, Peter."
"I. I really have to go to the library."
Peter grabbed his backpack, squeezed through the gap in the doorframe without touching anything, and bolted.
"Leon will fix it! He's stronger! I gotta go, bye!"
He was gone. The screen door banged shut behind him.
"What's gotten into that boy?" Mom stared at the empty doorway. "He didn't even eat breakfast."
"Puberty," I said.
I picked up the mangled brass handle and squeezed it back into roughly the right shape. Not pretty. Functional.
I put it on the shoe cabinet and looked out the door.
"I'm gonna grab a wrench from the garage," I told Dad.
"Go ahead. Check my tires while you're out there. I think the front left has a slow leak."
The garage door rolled shut behind me.
Dim light. Concrete floor. The smell of motor oil and old paint cans. Dad's beat up sedan taking up most of the space.
I raised my wrist. The Omnitrix was already active, data scrolling across the dial.
[Target: Peter Parker] [Status: Awakening complete.] [Strength increase: 800%. Continuously growing.] [Agility: Beyond human limits.] [Spider-Sense: Active.]
Crushing solid brass with one hand. So his baseline was already over five tons. And that number was going up.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. I had the Omnitrix. I could turn into aliens that would flatten Spider-Man in a straight fight. But Peter just was that now. No watch. No cooldown timer. No dial to slam. He woke up and his body was a weapon. Twenty four seven. No off switch.
I turned the dial. A red holographic silhouette projected into the dusty air of the garage. Four arms. Broad shoulders. A body built for breaking things.
Peter was evolving. I couldn't sit still.
And that spider's DNA hadn't just rewritten Peter. The Omnitrix had picked up the genetic data last night. A new sequence was unlocking. I could feel it in the way the dial hummed when I turned it.
Time to test drive.
I took a breath and slammed the dial down.
Green light flooded the garage.
The change was instant. Bones thickening, muscle piling on muscle, my perspective shooting upward as three feet of height packed onto my frame in seconds. My skin hardened. Turned red. Two extra arms punched out from my sides, fingers flexing, joints cracking.
Ten feet tall. Four arms. Crimson skin like plate armor. The Omnitrix symbol glowing on my left shoulder.
Four Arms.
The garage suddenly felt very, very small.
I looked at my hands. All four of them. Opened and closed the fists. Each one was bigger than my head had been thirty seconds ago. I could feel the power in them. Dense. Heavy. The kind of strength that didn't need to wind up or try hard. Just there.
"Okay." My voice came out deep. Really deep. A bass rumble that rattled the wrenches on the tool rack. "Let's see what you can do."
I threw a punch at the air. Just a straight right. Didn't put much into it.
BOOM.
The fist broke the sound barrier. The air compressed and exploded into a visible white shockwave that blew the tool rack sideways and sent a spray of nuts and bolts pinging off the walls.
I stared at my fist.
Then I grinned. All four eyes crinkling.