The very next day after Shocker was captured, some pretty bad news came out.
It turned out the gang members had been armed with brand-new rifles from Oscorp.
That immediately put another huge stain on the company’s already damaged reputation.
Nobody was directly accusing Norma Osborn of cooperating with criminals, but the fact that weapons that hadn’t even been released for sale had somehow leaked out of the company was bad enough on its own.
I could only applaud Fisk.
That woman really wasn’t afraid to use any means necessary.
I wondered how Shocker and her people had agreed to go along with it.
I couldn’t imagine their loyalty to their employer being strong enough to send them to prison at the first order.
Then again, what did I know about what had actually happened?
Maybe Shocker had simply gotten too ambitious, and Wilma decided to get rid of an inconvenient villain.
As for her lackeys, she might not have cared about them at all.
She had so many people working for her that losing a few probably meant nothing.
As for the weapons themselves, there was nothing particularly special about them.
According to the experts, they were simply solid assault rifles.
Oscorp normally didn’t deal with weapons like that.
The company preferred more advanced and ambitious projects.
This particular development had been an attempt to pull the company out of its crisis by betting on something simple, mass-produced, and easy to manufacture.
Now that project had been thoroughly discredited.
Norma would find buyers, I was sure of that.
She had an excellent business instinct.
However, any chance of achieving massive success with the project was probably gone.
Major buyers were unlikely to want an unreliable supplier.
All of this led to one simple conclusion.
The arrival of the Goblin was getting closer.
It was entirely possible that the world would see a new villain within the next few days.
I was doing my best to prepare for it.
It seemed obvious that Norma knew who was responsible for her problems and would want revenge.
Especially against Fisk and the members of her board of directors, who had clearly been bribed by the Kingpin in one way or another.
On the one hand, there was nothing inherently wrong with letting two villains fight each other.
If they killed each other, Penny, Gwen, and I, along with the other heroes, would have considerably less work to do.
On the other hand, the Green Goblin was an outright lunatic who had never cared about civilian casualties.
Fisk wasn’t exactly known for excessive pacifism either.
If their conflict got out of control, a lot of people would die.
Very likely, a lot of innocent people.
So I prepared myself.
In particular, I worked on Shocker’s gauntlets.
Most of the actual work was done by Penny, of course, but this time I made an effort to participate as much as possible.
She patiently explained how everything worked.
I paid close attention, memorizing what she taught me.
By now, I could completely disassemble and reassemble my new weapons on my own.
The biggest problem was the power supply.
Those little things consumed energy like there was no tomorrow, and obviously, there was no way to power them with ordinary AA batteries.
The batteries Shocker had used could be recharged, but I’d much rather have a few spares ready.
Unfortunately, making them required several fairly expensive materials.
I’d also prefer to have spare parts for the other components of the weapons, which meant spending even more money.
Thankfully, we’d finally managed to put my game development plan into action.
Now, only time would tell whether we could repeat the success of the original.
There also seemed to be a conspiracy forming around me.
Penny and Gwen had clearly decided to share me.
Over the past few days, Parker had frequently found excuses to leave Gwen and me alone together.
Of course, she made sure she wasn’t neglecting herself either.
Let’s just say I regularly ended up spending the night at her place.
As for Gwen, we still got along incredibly well, but neither of us was rushing to turn our friendship into a romantic relationship.
Although after the ball, or rather after Miss Hardy’s little stunt, she’d become slightly more forward.
She clearly didn’t want anyone else getting ahead of her.
“You’re a wizard!”
Gwen happily squinted as she put another spoonful of risotto into her mouth.
Today, we were hanging out at her place.
Penny had once again left us alone, claiming she had work to do at the Daily Bugle.
I liked both Penny and Gwen, but cooking wasn’t exactly considered a woman’s responsibility in this world.
At least, that seemed to be the case with these two.
Personally, I thought Gwen was exaggerating my skills.
The cooking abilities I’d inherited from Sam were pretty good, but they weren’t exactly good enough to cause culinary orgasms.
“Thanks.”
I smiled anyway.
The girl was trying to make me feel good with her compliment, so there was no reason to be difficult about it.
“How’s college?”
“Pretty normal.”
Gwen took her time chewing another bite before continuing.
“You know, Dr. Connors and I talked about it, and we’ve decided to continue our research after all.”
“Oh?”
I was surprised.
The last time we’d discussed it, Gwen had been extremely skeptical.
Connors, meanwhile, had been practically drowning in depression because of what she’d done.
“Yeah. I thought about what you said, and you were right. A drug of that level can’t be created successfully on the first attempt.”
She paused to take another bite.
“Besides, the doctor is still being eaten up by guilt. I think she wants to make peace with herself by creating a working version.”
“And?”
“Any progress?”
“Nothing yet.”
Stacy sighed.
“However, I’m almost certain we’ll succeed. I won’t bore you with unnecessary scientific terminology. I’ll just say that we’ve already managed two successful examples of gene splicing.”
She smiled slightly.
“So we know it’s possible.”
I could only nod.
She was right.
As far as I knew, she still hadn’t told Connors about her own abilities, and I wasn’t sure whether she intended to.
Still, when two girls with spider powers were running around the city, it wasn’t exactly difficult to connect the dots.
We continued chatting, but we avoided any more serious subjects.
Instead, we talked about all sorts of meaningless little things.
It was a welcome break.
I’d been pushing myself pretty hard lately, constantly trying to keep track of what was happening and predict how events would unfold.
The more time passed, the more impressed I became with Peter Parker.
He’d apparently gone through a huge part of his superhero career completely on his own and somehow managed not to lose his mind.
“I’ll wash the dishes,” Gwen announced when we finished eating.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind helping.”
“I’m sure.”
She nodded firmly.
“You already cooked dinner. I can’t exactly make you do all the work in my own house.”
She pointed toward the living room.
“You can pick something for us to watch.”
I didn’t argue.
I went into the living room, dropped onto the couch, and turned on the television.
The channel that came on was showing the news.
A report immediately caught my attention.
It was about us.
Watching a program dedicated to myself was probably a little narcissistic, but I tried to keep track of the public perception surrounding our activities.
Overall, the press was actually pretty positive toward us.
The only publication actively criticizing us was the Daily Bugle.
Honestly, I found J.
Jonah Jameson’s ability to turn practically everything we did into something sinister incredibly amusing.
Gwen agreed with me.
Penny, however, was noticeably bothered by it.
It wasn’t as though she craved fame or praise, but the fact that the newspaper constantly insulting her was the same newspaper she supplied with our photographs understandably put her in a bad mood.
“News?”
Gwen looked surprised when she returned from the kitchen.
By the time I finished speaking, the short segment about the new superheroes had already ended.
“So, what are we watching?”
Something told me I hadn’t been invited over simply to watch a movie.
For example, there was Gwen’s choice of home clothing.
She was wearing a strapless crop top that left her stomach completely exposed.
It was basically just a strip of fabric wrapped around her chest.
She also had on a very short pair of shorts.
There was practically nothing blocking my view, allowing me to fully appreciate her toned body.
Gwen’s body, like Penny’s, had been enhanced by her mutation.
And nature had been even more generous to her than it had been to Parker.
So naturally, looking at her was an absolute pleasure.
Especially considering she clearly didn’t mind.
Every time she noticed me staring, a satisfied smile appeared on her face.
We picked some comedy and started watching.
Neither of us was particularly interested in the movie, though.
Little by little, almost as if by accident, Gwen moved closer to me.
Although, to be fair, she’d already been sitting pretty close from the beginning.
The situation was rather amusing from my perspective.
Even though Parker had been the one to initiate my relationship with her, I wasn’t used to being the one getting seduced.
This was basically the exact opposite of the classic nerd and beauty scenario.
A nerd could fall for a beautiful girl and even win her affection, but after that, he might have absolutely no idea what to do.
That’s basically what had happened to me.
When I agreed to date Parker, she had no idea what to do with me.
I did my best to boost her confidence, and eventually, she had even become the one to initiate our first time together.
Gwen was different.
She was much more confident, but she was just as inexperienced.
As a result, her attempts to seduce me were a little chaotic.
She kept switching between slowly getting closer, light and casual flirting, and much bolder moves, like what she’d pulled in the fitting room.
Of course, I wasn’t about to complain.
If the prey willingly walked into the predator’s paws, what reason did the predator have to be unhappy?
Meanwhile, Gwen had moved right next to me.
She carefully watched my reaction before cautiously resting her head on my shoulder.
I decided to encourage her noble efforts.
I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her a little closer.
For a while, we simply stayed like that.
Gwen clearly needed a moment to gather her courage before taking the next step.
Then, after about a minute, she finally made her decision.
She lifted her head and looked into my eyes.
Apparently, she found the silent approval she was looking for there.
Then she covered my lips with hers.
The kiss was exciting.
Penny, for example, barely tried to take the lead during our kisses.
She usually let me do whatever I wanted.
Gwen was different.
She clearly wanted to take control.
She had more than enough passion and confidence to try.
I wasn’t about to surrender that easily, though.
Her lack of experience worked in my favor.
At one point, I pulled her onto my lap and brought my hands into the equation, happily exploring the curves of her body.
We only broke apart when we both needed to breathe.
We were both breathing heavily as we stared at each other.
Gwen’s face was flushed, and her eyes practically sparkled with excitement.
“Mom won’t be home tonight.”
Her voice was slightly hoarse as she whispered the words.
“We have the whole apartment to ourselves until morning.”
I smiled.
“I can’t promise we’ll make it until morning, but I can certainly give you a couple of exciting hours.”