Deep beneath the surface of the ocean, in a lab built from the last of his dwindling fortune, Otto Octavius sat hunched over a bank of monitors, the low hum of machinery the only sound accompanying him in the isolation of his own making.
One screen displayed rows of stolen Oscorp research data, scrolling past in dense technical script.
Another, off to the side, looped the same grainy footage that had been circulating everywhere lately — a figure in black, dropping between armed men and a school bus, catching a bullet out of the air like it was nothing at all.
“Fascinating,” Otto murmured, eyes fixed on the second screen.
He sat with it a long moment, mind already working through the implications almost against his own will.
What could produce something like that.
What combination of biology and engineering could grant a person that kind of strength, that kind of control.
He found himself, despite everything else weighing on him, genuinely curious — the same restless, searching curiosity that had defined his entire career before everything had gone wrong.
He shook his head sharply, forcing his attention back to the first screen.
Not now.
Whatever that is, it isn’t my problem.
Not while my own body is falling apart in real time.
His hands trembled faintly against the edge of the console — a tremor that had gotten worse over the past several weeks, spreading further each time, refusing to respond properly to anything he tried.
He’d built this entire lab, drained the last of his savings into it, for exactly one purpose: finding something in Oscorp’s decades of biological research that could help him reverse what was happening to his own failing physiology before it took the rest of him.
Something in here has to help.
Some enzyme, some compound, some genetic pathway I haven’t tried yet.
He thought, briefly and bitterly, of Norman Osborn — of years of collaboration reduced to nothing, of contributions quietly erased from every official record the moment it became convenient to erase them.
Norman had built an empire on research they’d once developed together.
Otto had been left with nothing but a body that no longer obeyed him and a debt of resentment that had only grown heavier with time.
You’ll pay for what you took from me, Norman.
One way or another.
He turned back to the data, and kept working.
A week has passed.
Peter had finally finished the suit simple spandex, carefully cut and stitched by hand, his sewing improving at a pace that would’ve embarrassed him a month ago.
It turned out enhanced motor control made learning an entirely new skill almost absurdly fast; what would’ve taken him weeks of clumsy practice before now came together in a handful of evenings.
He sat at his desk most nights that week making final adjustments hemming a seam here, reinforcing a stress point there and running a side project on his laptop that he hadn’t quite decided what to call yet.
Something to help with tracking his patrols.
Something practical.
It wasn’t finished, but it was coming together, one line of code at a time, tucked away in its own folder for whenever he had the bandwidth to focus on it properly.
He’d tried the suit on once already, just to check the fit, making a few small adjustments before finally calling it done.
He folded it carefully and tucked it into the bottom of his backpack.
Today, he decided.
I’ll bring it with me.
Just in case.
School that morning felt almost aggressively normal by comparison.
Felicia arrived late, dark circles ringing her eyes, her usual easy composure noticeably absent.
A few people asked if she was okay.
“Just having nightmares,” she said, waving it off.
“I’m fine.” Everyone let it go easily enough.
Peter didn’t, not entirely he noticed the way she held herself differently that morning, shoulders a little tighter, movements a little slower than usual, small signs of exhaustion he doubted anyone else had clocked as closely as he had.
I’ll ask her after school, he decided.
Somewhere quiet.
Just the two of us.
Maybe she’ll actually tell me what’s going on.
The day passed normally otherwise.
It was strange to think this was his last week of high school with graduation just around the corner now, closer than it had felt in months.
He made a quiet decision to actually enjoy what was left of it, even with everything else going on underneath the surface.
The past week, outside of school, had been busy in its own right.
Small stuff, mostly petty crime, muggings in alleyways, a couple of car break-ins caught in progress.
People had started recognizing him on sight now, waving instead of running, some of them even calling out his name as he swung past.
Spider-Man.
The name had stuck harder than he’d expected, helped along significantly by Flash Thompson, who had apparently appointed himself the unofficial head of what could only be described as a full-blown fan club.
Somehow, against all odds, the name had made it from a cafeteria lunch table all the way into actual news coverage.
The trafficking case had wrapped up too all six men found guilty, no clever lawyer managing to talk a corrupt judge into anything.
Small relief, but a real one.
Not everyone was thrilled about him, though.
“—the menace has struck again last night,” a tinny voice droned from Harry’s phone at lunch, some talk radio host clearly working himself into a fresh rant.
“Operating as a so-called vigilante, completely disregarding the law.
Who does he think he is—” “Can you turn that off?” Peter asked, more sharply than he meant to.
“I don’t even like the guy,” Harry said, already fumbling for the volume button, “but man, he is relentless.
Never misses a chance to take a shot at Spider-Man.” The table chimed in with their own opinions Gwen defending him, MJ mostly amused by how mad the radio host sounded, Harry somewhere in the middle.
Felicia said nothing at all, staring at her lunch instead.
“You don’t have an opinion?” MJ asked her.
Felicia shrugged.
“Don’t really care either way.” Peter filed that away too, alongside everything else about her that felt slightly off that day.
After school, he finally decided it was time.
He found a quiet rooftop a few blocks from school and changed into the suit for the first time in public daylight, checking himself over once in a shard of reflective glass.
It fit properly now — no loose fabric catching wind, no awkward bunching at the joints, the spider symbol settled cleanly across his chest exactly where he wanted it.
[Image here] He swung out from the rooftop, testing the fit in motion, and had barely gone two blocks before he heard it screaming, distant but sharp, cutting through the ordinary street noise below.
He changed direction immediately, following the sound to a building two blocks over, already fully engulfed on its lower floors, thick black smoke pouring from shattered windows.
He didn’t hesitate.
He fired a line and swung straight through the nearest window, glass shattering around him as he dropped into the smoke-filled interior.
He worked fast, letting his hearing do most of the searching tuning out the roar of the fire, the groan of structural damage, focusing entirely on human voices calling for help somewhere in the haze.
He found them one by one, carrying two people out at a time when he could manage it, moving through rooms too hot and too smoke-choked for any ordinary person to survive in for more than a few seconds.
By the time he’d cleared the last floor, firefighters had the exterior mostly contained.
Peter grabbed a hose line from an overwhelmed crew and helped direct the spray into a stubborn pocket of flame still clinging to the second floor, staying until the last of it finally died down to smoke and steam.
He swung off a few minutes later to a small crowd cheering below, someone shouting a thank you, another voice calling out over the noise: “Love the new look, Spider-Man!” Peter laughed, genuinely, and kept swinging.
On the way home, he found himself changing course, an idea tugging at him that he hadn’t quite planned for.
Felicia.
He swung toward her apartment building instead, perching quietly on a ledge a short distance from her window, close enough to see her moving around inside pacing, restless, looking as tired up close as she had at school that morning.
He sat there a while, just watching, debating whether to knock, whether saying anything at all as Spider-Man would even help.
A police siren cut through the quiet somewhere below, sharp and sudden, and Peter hesitated, glancing back toward the sound out of habit.
When he looked back at her window, something in him decided against it after all not tonight, not like this and he pushed off the ledge and swung away into the dark.
Inside, Felicia glanced toward the window at the same moment, drawn by some vague, unplaceable feeling that she was being watched.
She studied the empty ledge outside for a long moment, found nothing there at all, and shook her head, chalking it up to exhaustion.
She turned back into the room, missing him by only a few seconds.