Peter froze at first, caught in disbelief.
It had been a little over a month since he gained his spider powers, and he had been using his homemade web-shooters and web-fluid for more than two weeks.
Yet through all that time, the only firing method he knew was shooting a standard line of webbing.
The newer web-nets and web-pellets were things he had only learned how to make after traveling to Spider-Man Noir’s dimension.
Even Spider-Man Noir only knew a handful of web-firing techniques himself.
And yet, in this suit given to him by Iron Man, there were actually 576 scientific web-shooting combinations programmed right into the system?
How was that even possible?
Was it a joke?
It felt almost like a complete refutation of all his hard work over the past month!
However, as Peter carefully looked over the items in the training curriculum, he saw a long, sprawling list of names, with not a single duplicate in sight.
There were entries like “Web Grenade,” “Split Webbing,” “Taser Webbing,” “Rapid Fire Webbing,” “Ricochet Webbing,” “Web Parachute,” and many more.
In the end, he was forced to accept two undeniable facts: First, the web-shooters he had painstakingly researched were officially obsolete!
Second, science really was king!
Even though Iron Man didn’t rely on webbing as one of his primary offensive weapons, the scientific web-shooting modes he had analyzed through engineering principles were undeniably practical.
Take “Ricochet Webbing,” for instance—a web-pellet designed for delayed expansion.
Thanks to a specialized chemical synthesis, it wouldn’t detonate immediately upon launch.
If an enemy was hiding behind a wall, Peter could simply calculate a basic bounce angle and fire a Ricochet Webbing round around the corner to knock them out!
Then there was the “Web Grenade,” a specialized projectile loaded with a concentrated blob of web-fluid.
Upon impact, it would instantaneously burst open into a massive, full-scale web.
This instant-webbing capability could be applied in countless real-world scenarios.
For example, when dealing with reckless, drunk drivers out on the streets, Peter used to have to rely on his raw physical strength to pull an out-of-control vehicle to a halt before it slammed into pedestrians.
Stopping a heavy car dead in its tracks was incredibly difficult, often resulting in unnecessary property damage.
Even if he wasn’t the one paying for the damages, since he chose to step in and help, he naturally wanted to do things as flawlessly as possible!
In those situations, if he had a Web Grenade, he could instantly deploy a massive net to catch the falling or skidding vehicle mid-air.
That would buy him plenty of time to set the car down nice and easy.
Every other web-firing variation had its own tailored purpose as well.
Even without running through the actual tutorials, just reading the names and descriptions gave Peter a wealth of new inspiration.
Next, Peter casually checked out the rest of the training protocol’s contents.
Several options were currently locked, notifying him that he needed to reach a specific training level before unlocking them.
Yet even the unlocked features alone left him feeling immensely rewarded.
Only now did Peter truly grasp how precious this suit was.
The high-tech materials, construction, and AI were only one side of the coin; to Peter, the carefully curated knowledge embedded within the suit was worth every bit as much as the physical tech itself!
“Mr.
Stark…” Peter didn’t fully understand why Iron Man treated him so well, but he knew in his heart that he had to remember this kindness!
Even if it was technically just a “deal,” slapping together a half-baked suit to pass off to him versus crafting a masterwork with immense thought and care were two entirely different things!
Overwhelmed with gratitude toward Iron Man, Peter began bouncing and flipping around the hotel room once again.
*Splat!* *Splat!* *Splat!* *Knock, knock, knock!* A sudden pounding sounded at the door.
Peter executed a nimble flip, peeking through the peephole to check outside—nobody was there.
*Huh?* *Knock, knock, knock!* A few more knocks echoed, and then a door swung straight open.
Ah—it was the connecting door inside the suite.
Happy walked in.
Peter had almost forgotten that his room connected directly to Happy’s.
Happy stared expressionlessly at Peter in his Spider-Suit, his eyes sweeping across the ceiling and corners, which were now covered in dense layers of sticky webbing.
“Are you planning on turning this place into a spider lair?
You’re Spider-Man, not a spider monster.” Peter scratched the back of his head, feeling a flush of embarrassment.
Discovering so many cool new features had gotten him a little too excited, causing him to completely forget where he was.
He was in a hotel room; if housekeeping came in and found webs plastered everywhere, wouldn’t his secret identity be blown right then and there?
Fortunately, Happy recognized his awkward predicament and said, “Stop right now.
If you want to test the suit, wait until you get back home.
I’ll extend the reservation on this room for another day and have a specialized cleaning crew scrub the place clean before checking out.” “Thank you, thank you!” Peter breathed a sigh of relief, thanking him repeatedly.
He really didn’t want his secret identity exposed just yet.
It was no big deal that superheroes like Iron Man or Ant-Man knew who he was under the mask.
After all, they belonged to the same world.
None of them were going to go out of their way to disrupt each other’s normal lives.
But if ordinary people found out…
that would mean endless trouble.
He had already experienced a taste of that in Spider-Man Noir’s world.
In that universe, Spider-Man Noir’s true identity hadn’t even been leaked; simply because Ben Urich had maintained a close relationship with Peter before his death, grave danger had descended upon Peter and his Aunt May.
Had Peter not gained his spider powers—or had he failed to react in time and arrived home a step late—Aunt May surely would have suffered the Vulture’s cruel fate, following right in Uncle Ben’s footsteps!
He would never, ever bring those kinds of threats near his Aunt May!
After delivering his stern warning, Happy turned and headed back to his own room.
Left with nothing else to do, Peter lay down on the bed out of boredom.
Before he knew it, he drifted off to sleep.
He had a long, strange dream.
In the dream, he saw countless Spider-Men.
There was a hulking Spider-Man clad in a black suit, a sleek Spider-Man wearing a white suit, a Spider-Man outfitted in a steampunk exoskeleton, and even a Peter Porker with a pig snout…
Toward the end, he seemed to catch sight of a colossal web, with a lonely figure sitting quietly at its center.
…
The night passed quickly.
Peter never did see Iron Man return.
By the next morning, Happy received a message from Stark, after which he brought Peter aboard the same private jet they had arrived on to fly back to New York.
Word had it that Iron Man went to Siberia and got into a brutal fight with Cap and the Winter Soldier—a fierce, bloody clash fueled by deeply personal grudges.
It wasn’t until after they touched down in New York that Peter saw Iron Man once again.
However, Iron Man didn’t go into detail about what had happened over there.
Peter could only piece together a rough idea from the occasional flashes of somber, downcast emotion Stark let slip.
Iron Man didn’t offer him any follow-up assignments either.
Although Peter’s performance during the airport clash had been commendable, Stark was likely keeping Peter’s education in mind, wanting to prevent him from sinking too much time and energy into the superhero “career”—if it could even be called a career.
Regardless, during the car ride back, Iron Man repeatedly emphasized that Peter needed to focus on his studies and stop filling his head with crazy ideas.
To all of it, Peter could only nod along, offering vague, agreeable noises to brush it off.