Chapter One: In Which Peter Is Bitten By A Radioactive Spider

The fluorescent ceiling lights flickered erratically overhead, casting eerie shadows across the near-empty subway car. Peter Parker leaned his head against a metal pole, savoring its cold solidity against his burning skin. At the other end of the car, a homeless man with a shopping cart sang off-key to himself. Another half-dozen people were scattered across the seats, heads bowed as they listened to music or read the evening paper or simply slept.

A few minutes later, the train lurched to a halt at 33rd Street. The doors slid open with a ding that ricocheted painfully off of Peter's sensitive eardrums, and he winced as a couple entered the car, arguing loudly. In the woman's arms, a baby wailed shrilly.

"She's not a part of our lives anymore," the woman was saying in a no-nonsense, no-excuses tone. "I want her out, Johnny."

The man exploded. "She's my mother! We can't just kick her out of our lives like that! She's-"

"She's a danger to our child! She's crazy, Johnny, I can't believe you even let her go on like this for so long. She needs to be institutionalized. You weren't there when I walked in on her. She would have killed him."

Peter gritted his teeth, acutely aware of the sound of his molars grinding together. Beads of sweat rolled down his ribs, and his skin rippled with gooseflesh despite the fact that it felt like a hundred degrees in this subterranean tunnel. His knuckles whitened; his grip tightened on the subway pole as the couple's voices grated on his nerves and their baby shrieked desperately for attention.

Once again, the doors slid open, and Peter walked out. Behind him, the subway pole was dented with finger marks.

It was the spider bite. It had to be. He zipped up his jacket and jammed his hands into his pockets, imagining that he could feel the venom coursing through his veins.

Just a few hours ago, he had been standing on a catwalk in Oscorp Labs with a perfect view of one of the largest collections of genetic research in the world. Just looking at it made his fingers itch. He never would have mentioned it to his father, but he was jealous. Stark Industries was all metal and battery acid; it didn't have anything quite like this.

Something slammed into him, hipchecking him painfully into a lab table. "Be careful!" snapped the man who was working there, steadying a beaker. "This is delicate stuff."

"Sorry," Peter mumbled, moving away. Behind him, Flash Thompson and his cronies jeered.

"Nice job, twinkletoes!" they laughed. Ignoring them, Peter walked faster to catch up with the front of the group.

"These are some of our genetically engineered spiders," their tour guide was explaining. "They are test subjects for a serum that we hope to eventually use as a cure for various human genetic diseases." A couple of the girls squeaked in fright, but Peter stepped closer. Behind the glass, hundreds of spiders spun delicate webs, hanging from the lightest of threads and toeing their way delicately across the walls. They were no bigger than his thumbnail, glossy black with deep purple stripes. In short, they were beautiful.

"Come on, Peter, they're going to leave you behind." Mary Jane Watson was suddenly beside him, tilting her head and smiling, and he felt the blood rise in his cheeks.

"Right, sure, of course," he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck. As he turned to follow her, something plopped onto his shoulder, and he jerked reflexively, swatting at it. Nothing fell onto the ground, however, and he laughed sheepishly at his own paranoia and ran to catch up to Mary Jane.

A moment later, he felt the sharp jab of mandibles sinking into his skin and slapped at it, sucking in a sharp breath. "You okay?" Mary Jane asked, concerned, and he just smiled weakly and nodded. His hand came away empty but for two minuscule drops of blood.

"Hey, kid!" A rough voice snapped Peter out of his reverie, and without thinking- without seeing- he turned to avoid the stranger's hand, slipping past him and bringing his knee up into the guy's gut.

"Sorry!" Peter cried, backing away. "I just- I didn't mean to-" with a snarl, the stranger leapt at him, but once again Peter sidestepped and put out a leg to trip him. The stranger went flying and skidded across the pavement. "Sorry!" Peter yelled again, and then turned tail and ran for the beacon of safety that was Stark Tower.

Inside, the air conditioner dropped his body temperature about thirty degrees, and he immediately began to shiver. Keeping his head down to avoid the late-night laborers who were still streaming out, he made his way down the end of the hall to their personal elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. Inside, he stared at himself in the paneled mirrors. There were dark purple shadows under his eyes, and his cheekbones jutted out even more than usual. Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead, and his breath came in quick and shallow. Wiping his forehead, he inhaled deeply and tried to make himself presentable for his dads.

The elevator doors slid open on a familiar scene. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out a thousand feet over New York City, and tasteful furniture littered their living and dining rooms. This was what a billion dollars looked like, and Peter knew it. Steve and Tony were on opposite sides of the kitchen island, looking at what would have once been considered Avengers paperwork on a screen. They were too intent on their discussion to notice Peter's arrival at first.

Hoping to simply sneak into his room without having to deal with small talk, he slipped off his sneakers and tried to tiptoe past the kitchen. Steve's head whipped up the moment he came within ten feet of them. "You're home late," he observed, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, and it's a school night," Tony chimed in, swiveling around on his stool. "Haven't you ever heard of something called curfew? Because I swear we were just discussing it the other night."

Peter ducked his head. "Yeah, sorry. We had a field trip at Oscorp and I forgot something at school, so it took a while for me to go back and forth." He ducked his head. "I'm kind of tired, so I think I'm going to go to bed now, okay?"

"Don't you want dinner?" Steve called after him. Peter pretended not to hear. As he closed the door, he heard his Pops mutter, "I always answered my father when he spoke to me."

Heaving out a sigh, Peter turned off the lights, divested himself of his clothes, and flopped onto his bed. His body was sticky with perspiration, and his muscles trembled with a mixture of fatigue and adrenaline. He slept restlessly, his eyeballs flickering madly behind their lids as he drowned in personal nightmares and the spider's venom pumped through his heart.