Two Weeks Ago

Peter Parker awoke to a splitting headache and a nauseas stomach. He lay in someone else’s bed in a room that wasn’t his. He sat up and looked around the room. There were several novels scattered on the floor, as well as women’s clothing. Across from the bed was a futon.

He stood from the bed and stretched out, walking over to the desk. Above it were shelves attached to the wall that had framed pictures. In each of the pictures was an attractive young woman with long blonde hair and brown eyes.

The door opened and Gwen Stacy, the room’s owner, stepped inside, holding two cups of coffee and a bag.

“Hey, you’re up,” she said.

“Yeah…” said Peter.

Gwen handed Peter one of the coffee cups. “I just got you a regular coffee, not sure if you liked anything special in it.”

“No, that’s fine, thanks,” said Peter. He took the cup and sipped the liquid. As soon as it touched his tongue, he cringed.

“Yeah sorry,” said Gwen, noticing his reaction. “Cafeteria coffee kinda… sucks.”

“Understatement,” said Peter, setting the cup down on the nightstand. Gwen set the bag down and pulled out a bagel. She handed it to Peter.

“Hungry?”

“Starving,” said Peter. He took the bagel from her and immediately set to devouring it. Gwen watched him stuff it into his mouth.

“…I’m guessing you didn’t want any cream cheese,” she said.

“I’d eat just about anything right now,” said Peter. Gwen sat in the chair at her desk and sipped her own coffee. Peter glanced around the room once again, then looked over at her. “Look, this may sound like a stupid question… but how did I get here?”

“You got really trashed at the AsigLam house last night,” said Gwen.

“I… did?”

“Yeah, I didn’t even see you come in,” said Gwen. “I was actually surprised to find you there, didn’t take you for a partier.”

Peter considered telling her about the accident at the lab, but decided against it. Nothing could make him sound more like a loser than spending his Saturday night working in a lab and then screwing up and getting bit by a spider.

“Well… college experience and all that,” said Peter.

“Anyway, you were ready to pass out and you threw up a few times. Harry and I took you back here, but we couldn’t find your keys. So I decided to let you crash in my room.”

“Oh,” said Peter. “Where… where did you sleep?”

Gwen gestured with her head to the futon. Peter glanced to it, then looked back at her. “Ahh, right. Futon.”

“It’s useful when people come to visit me,” she said. “And when freshmen decide to get trashed at a frat party.”

“So you let all the freshmen guys stay in your room when they get trashed?”

“No, you’re my first,” said Gwen.

Peter blushed and quickly tried to cover it up by changing the subject. “Hey, what time is it?”

“About one in the afternoon,” said Gwen. “Why, you have to be somewhere?”

Peter fished inside the pockets of his jeans, but he couldn’t find his keys either. “You said you weren’t able to find my keys, right?”

“Nope.”

“Crap…”

“Maybe you left them at the house?”

Peter realized he must have dropped them in the lab.

“Right… that’s probably where they are,” he said. “I should head over there and try to find them.”

He stood from the bed and picked up his messenger back before walking to the door. As soon as he opened it, he stopped and looked back at Gwen.

“Oh, thanks for letting me crash here,” he said.

“No problem.”

He walked out the door, then stepped back inside. “And thanks for the coffee… even though it sucked.”

Gwen laughed. “You’re welcome. Now go find your keys.”

WITH GREAT POWER

Part IV: Pumped

By Dino Pollard

As Peter ran from the dorms towards the science building, his mind raced with thoughts. A lot of last night was missing from his memory. He remembered getting bit by the spider and he remembered feeling sick and Connors telling him to go home… but he couldn’t recall anything else. He wondered if the spider was poisonous at all. It was the only way to explain why Peter felt so nauseas. Its venom must not have been very strong though, since he started to feel better by the moment.

Peter suddenly felt like he was hit by a bolt of lightning. There was an incredible pain in the back of his head, a buzzing noise almost. He looked up and saw he was in the middle of a crosswalk and the light had already changed. A car was racing towards him. Peter leapt out of its way, clearing the entire distance to the other side of the street in one pounce.

He turned around and looked at the spot where he was standing and then looked at the spot where he stood now. Back in high school, when he had to do the long jump in gym class, he couldn’t even reach half that length. Now he was able to clear it without any sort of running start?

Peter pushed that thought out of his head and continued to sprint towards the science building. As he ran, he realized he wasn’t getting winded at all. Usually, every time he was forced to sprint, he couldn’t keep it up for more than a few minutes at the most. But now, he felt no signs of fatigue whatsoever. Once he reached the science building, he looked down at his watch and his eyes bulged.

“Ten minutes…?” he muttered to himself. He looked in the direction of the dorms. “I ran across campus in ten minutes?”

He pushed those thoughts from his head and walked into the science building. Moving through the corridors, he found the laboratory he was in with Doctor Connors and looked through the window on the door. He could see his keys in the corner of the room.

He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He tried again, and he heard the sound of wood breaking. When he looked down at his hand, he saw that he had accidentally broken off the handle.

“Oh shit…” he said. He rushed inside and grabbed his keys, then quickly ran back out. As soon as he rounded a corner, he slowed back down to a walk and acted as if nothing had happened.

When he stepped outside, he looked down at his hands in surprise. He flexed his fingers and started to pump them. He brought them in a little and all of a sudden, some sort of strange substance shot out from his wrist and hit him in the face. He pulled at it with his hands and discovered it was a sticky, nylon-like substance.

Like a spider’s web.

He also realized something else. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. He must have dropped them somewhere last night. Yet, he found he had no difficulty seeing. In fact, his vision seemed even better than it was when he wore his glasses.

“What the hell is going on?”

He thought back to the spider. A thought popped into his head, but it seemed almost too insane to even entertain. Yet, he found he couldn’t explain the webbing or his newfound strength and speed through other means. Or that strange buzzing he felt.

Peter crossed around to the side of the science building, ensuring that he was out of sight. He looked down at his hand, took a deep breath, and then placed it on the wall. He felt a bit of tension there, as if his hand was sticking to it. He pulled himself up and raised his other hand, laying it above his head.

Slowly, he began to scale the wall without any effort whatsoever. As he pulled himself up, a large smile spread across his face. He moved quicker, scurrying up the wall as fast as he could and within moments, he reached the top of the building.

Peter looked out over the campus, and glanced down at his wrists. With a knowing smile on his face, he ran across the rooftop and leapt once he reached the edge. He extended one arm and brought the tips of his two middle fingers into his palm, applying just a little bit of pressure. The result was a stream of webbing that he caught before it went out of reach.

The webline snagged onto another building and Peter swung from it, laughing hysterically.

The next day, Peter went into Doctor Connors’ office. The young professor looked at his lab assistant with a smile.

“Peter, come in,” he said. “It looks like you’re feeling better.”

“I am,” said Peter. “In fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Professor.”

“Oh?”

“The other night, when I knocked over the cage and lost the spider?”

Connors nodded.

“Well, I had it in my hand, but it bit me and I accidentally let it go,” said Peter. “And that’s why I started to feel strange.”

“Wait… you said the spider bit you?” asked Connors.

“Right, and then I started to get nauseas,” said Peter.

“It was probably that cocktail my benefactors provided me with,” said Connors. “It’s obviously passed, though. Unless… are you feeling any side-effects?”

“Ohhhh yeah,” said Peter. He closed the door and sat down in the chair before Connors’ desk. He slowly lifted his arm and pointed it at the window. “Watch.”

Just as before, Peter applied a little pressure with his two middle fingers and a stream of webbing shot from his wrist and struck the window. Connors looked at the webline in shock and took it in his hand to examine it. He tugged at it and it wouldn’t give.

“Pretty resilient, huh?” asked Peter.

“This is incredible,” said Connors.

“Professor, it’s that spider,” said Peter. “I don’t know what you did to it, but it’s incredible. I’ve never felt so great in my entire life. It’s not just the webbing, it’s other things as well.”

“What ‘other things’?” asked Connors.

“Well, I’m a lot stronger than I used to be,” said Peter. “As in, I could probably give Crusher Hogan a run for his money. And I’m fast. Yesterday, I ran across campus in ten minutes. And I can stick to walls. And the weirdest thing is I got this buzzing sensation in my head, just before a car almost ran into me. Like a kind of warning…”

“Spiders have been known to sense danger coming, almost a form of precognition,” said Connors, resting his chin in his hand.

“Right, a spider sense,” said Peter. “Professor, we’ve done it. You said you wanted to change the world, well look at me! This means your theories were right.”

Connors sighed and rubbed his eyes. “This is… a lot to take in, Peter.”

“I know, but we’ve gotta talk about this, tell everyone what’s happened.”

“No!” said Connors. Peter looked at him in surprise.

“What? Why not?” he asked.

“Peter, if we bring you before the scientific community, they’ll want to study you nonstop,” said Connors. “No, we keep these findings secret for now. Come by the lab tomorrow, we’ll take some blood and examine it. I’ll file reports with Dean Warren, but I’ll tell him we’re still experimenting with the spider. I won’t tell him we’ve got a human subject.”

“Are you sure?” asked Peter.

“Trust me,” said Connors. “This is for the best.”

Three Days Ago

A manila folder landed on the desk. Doctor Connors looked up to see Miles Warren standing over him with a grimace on his face.

“And just what do you call this?” asked Warren.

“A report,” said Connors. “You said you wanted to be kept appraised of my progress, right?”

“Curt, have you been drinking?”

“What?”

“This ‘report’, and I use that term loosely, reads more like science fiction!” said Warren. “And what’s worse is you seem to have no basis whatsoever for your conclusions. There’s no real proof here. I don’t know what the hell this is, but it’s definitely not a proper report.”

Miles Warren sighed.

“I’ve spoken with the board,” he said. “They’ve decided to pull your funding.”

Connors slowly rose from his chair. “They’ve what? Miles, they can’t do that. I have outside investors as we—”

“Curt, your investors outside the university were the first to back out,” said Warren. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. I fought for you, you know I did. But this is beyond my help. You’ve dug yourself into a hole this time, my friend.”

Miles Warren turned away and left the office, closing the door behind him. Connors gritted his teeth in anger and threw his arm across the desk, sending papers and supplies flying.

Connors stormed out of his office, slamming the door behind him. He went over to his laboratory and grabbed a fresh syringe, tearing the packaging open. He stuck it into the bottle of the cocktail provided by his benefactors, pulling the plunger back.

His eyes drifted over to the lizard cage and he walked over to it. Opening the cage, he took the lizard out and set it on the table. Having one arm made it difficult, but Connors used the stump where his arm used to be to hold the lizard down by its tail. He stuck the syringe into it and pulled the syringe back, mixing the lizard’s blood with the cocktail. Once he lifted his arm, the lizard scurried off.

“Go, you’ve served your purpose anyway,” said Connors. He looked at the syringe and held it between his thumb and index finger while he used his other three fingers to unpin his sleeve and pull it up. He took a deep breath and jammed the needle into his arm, pressing down on the plunger.

He blinked a few times and felt his mouth go dry. Suddenly, he began to feel very cold and the stump of his arm was on fire with pain. He felt something pushing through and all of a sudden, something broke through the skin. Connors screamed out in pain when he saw the green, scaly arm that was now attached to his body. He felt his entire body itch like crazy and started to scratch at his body, pulling off chunks of his skin.

When he was finished, there was a husk of skin lying on the ground. Connors walked over to the door and he could see his reflection in the window. But what he saw wasn’t the face he had grown so accustomed to. Instead, it was the face of a scaly, green monster.