5 YEARS AGO, Starling City:
Peter Parker and Harley Cooper were sitting on top of the rooftops and smiling at seeing the quiet and peaceful night they were able to give the city that's always under constant control of criminals.
The two of them were amazed by the other's incredible abilities, even though she doesn't know how she gained these powers, she uses them for the good of others. Peter knew that his powers came from a spider, and after ten minutes of laughter, convinced her that it was all true.
The two were both wearing homemade outfits that they ended up designing themselves, considering that they were only starting off their superhero careers.
"This has been nice, I don't really have anybody to talk to about this superhero life back in Central." Peter confessed to Harley.
Neither of them knew each other's name as they figured it would be best for both of them. But considering they live in two different cities, it shouldn't be a big problem.
"Yeah, it is." Harley agreed, taking a slug of a victory slushy the two got.
PRESENT DAY:
Back in STAR Labs, Johnny and Susan brought Bette in as they stopped in the cortex and saw everyone was there.
"What happened to your glove?" Cisco asked.
"Fun fact about Ms. San Souci here, she is a metahuman. She doesn't make bombs, anything she touches turns into a bomb. When she touched Johnny's glove, it blew up." Susan explained to the engineer.
"Sorry." Bette apologized to them.
"A meta human with the ability to produce spontaneous combustion on tactile contact." Wells interjected with shock. "Now I understand why General Ross is so interested in you, simply because with your abilities. You would make the perfect saboteur. You don't need to have explosives with you, just go somewhere, touch it, it explodes and nobody can detect you, because you don't carry actual explosives. Ms. San Souci, you are an asset and he's very protective about his assets, especially someone with the value you just demonstrated."
"Which explains why he took the case from CCPD. He didn't want us to know what she could do." Tess understood.
"So what do we do?" Johnny asked.
"General Ross isn't someone to give up an asset without a fight, so we need to keep her out of sight until things cool down with him." Harrison warned them all.
"I'll call Fury, tell him about our issue with him, see if he can get Ross off of her case, put her under S.H.I.E.L.D. protection." Sharon offered them.
"You can do that?" Ben asked, scaring Bette when she noticed the walking rock pile. "Sorry. Didn't mean to sneak up on you like that."
Bette looked to the others for answers on what she's seeing, no idea how to take it in.
"That's Ben Grimm. He was affected by the accelerator like you, except it did more damage to him." Harrison explained to her.
"Sorry." Bette apologized to her reaction to his form.
"No worries. I'm gonna have to get used to it if I ever decide to leave this place." Ben sighed.
Back in Mercury Labs, Reed stood in Tina's office while Peter and Tina stood outside her office and talked about their predicament.
"I can't show this guy around." Peter informed Tina. "I'm sorry, but I can't do it."
"Why? You would never turn something like this down before." Tina wondered, not following what's wrong.
"Reed Richards is the ex-husband to the woman who is currently staying with me in order to stay away from him!" Peter explains as quietly as he could so Reed didn't hear. "He would beat her, injure her, and she escaped this far away with her two kids to escape his clutches."
Tina was shocked to hear this and looked back into her office. "Oh my god."
"Yeah. You understand now?" Peter asked her.
"Okay, you should get out of here, and I'll see what I can do to get rid of him." Tina promised Peter who immediately nodded and left to warn Sue that Reed was back in town.
But what was he doing at Mercury Labs?
Tina watched as Peter left and knew she needed to find some way to get Reed out of her as soon as possible without letting on what she now knows.
Making back inside, Reed turned and she now wondered how he gained that scar on his face but wasn't going to bring it up.
"It would seem Mr. Parker was actually going to be busy; he has some...family in town and would like to spend some time with them." Tina lied and knew all he wanted was a tour of the labs. "But I actually do have some time if you wouldn't mind me giving you the tour."
"I'd be much obliged to accept." Reed said with a smile as they walked through the labs.
"And as the detonation dispersed, a number of people were exposed to a wave of unquantifiable energy." Harrison finished explaining using a presentation to Bette on what exactly happened to her. "One of them being you."
Caitlin had just come in and handed Bette some gloves that would help her from causing her from exploding anything else.
"I had just retired from Afghanistan." Bette said as she placed the gloves on. "I was there defusing roadside bombs and shrapnel ripped through me. I was flown state side and spent months recuperating. And the next thing I know, I became the thing that almost killed me. And then Ross' new favorite lab rat."
"The Dark Matter must have combined with the bomb particulate in your body." Caitlin took a guess on how this happened to her.
"I thought Ross did this to me." Bette admitted to them.
"Ross isn't smart enough to create someone like you." Sharon assured her.
"But is smart enough to see your value." Harrison said as an add on.
"Do you know of any others like me?" Bette wondered.
"There's been...not many." Peter said as he walked into the labs. "Who's our guest?
"Say hello to our bomber." Cisco introduced them. "Bette, this is Peter. Our representative superhero, Spider-Man."
"Sp-Spider-Man?" Bette asked in shock as she looked over Peter. "Wow. You look almost exactly like you do in my fantasies." That caused the room to go quiet quite quickly when Bette realize she said that out loud. "I am so sorry!"
"Trust me, not the first time." Peter promised her.
"Really?" Bette asked.
"You'd be surprised." Peter said with a smile. "So, how about Sharon sends a call to Fury, and we take a look on what's happening inside you?"
"And in this floor, we have protein structure, rDNA, chromatography, we've been working on all of this for some time." Tina said as she leads Reed down the halls.
"This has been an insightful tour." Reed said with a smile. "But, tell me, what do you do with all of the experiments that are too unstable? Even to the point you can't destroy them?"
Tina brought him down the halls where she showed him that there was a gigantic vault with a key, eye, and finger lock.
"We use this for the most dangerous devices we designed and we can't destroy." Tina explained why the vault exists and opens it as she has full access, the only one who has access.
"Smart. You're the only one with access to it?" Reed asked.
"Yes, of course." Tina confirmed as they looked at the devices inside the vault.
There were a few inventions that actually got out and caused havoc a long time ago to recently.
The mechanical wings that were used by the Vulture.
The helmet and equipment of Mysterio.
The Vibro-Shock Gauntlets from Shocker.
The mechanical arms from Doctor Octopus.
If he fought it, Peter locked it up in here.
Then the most dangerous thing out of everything in the vault. A small glass container with a black ooze moving around inside of it. It's been placed inside of a glass container that was five inches thick so there was no risk of it shattering.
It was an old experiment that was discovered by John Jameson years ago on a shuttle mission. It became too crazy and unstable so they needed to keep it somewhere nobody would ever see it again.
"Many of these experiments have been proven too dangerous for any use, and we keep them pit of the line of sight for reasons." Tina explained as Reed looked over them all and reached into his back. "Shall we move on?"
"No, I think this will do perfectly." Reed said as he revealed to have a gun and immediately shot Tina, sending her flying back into the wall, slamming her head in the process. "I'm sorry, I see you had great potential, but I need something from here." He then grabbed the container holding the Symbiote by the handle and made his way out.
Tina panted in exhaustion as she looked and watched him leave the safe. She tried her best to get up, but she was in a soundproof vault, meaning nobody heard the gunshot and nobody would be coming to help her.
After Caitlin got an examination on how Bette is working, they were working on seeing if there was a way to cure her, and the others were testing out her powers.
In the STAR Labs airfield, far away from the laboratory, Bette was picking up random objects and sending them flying into the air where they immediately exploded.
Right now they were up to Thisbe's, and they were up in smoke within seconds.
"427 KPA's. Her trauzl raring is around 45." Cisco commented on the results. "That's the same as any Plastique. Plastique! First try!"
Caitlin rolled her eyes when she eyed a boomerang and picked it up. "Didn't really think this one through, did you?"
Peter and Bette took a small walk away from the group, just wandering. "Downrange, insurgents started booby trapping cars. For the rest of my tour, I was terrified of touching a vehicle. Now I'm gonna spend the rest of my life afraid to touch another human being."
Peter sighed and knew this wasn't gonna be an easy thing to convince was an amazing gift. "We're gonna help you. The best we can."
"Have they tried to help you?" Bette asked, then looked back to eye the other four powered individuals. "Any of you?"
"No. Because we never asked to be rid of them." Peter admitted to her. "I mean, Johnny sees it as a cool way to stand out, Sue sees it as a way to protect her and her kids, Jennifer and Ben wanna help out. And I'm here to help them out."
"If they are able to, would you go back to being normal?" Bette wondered.
Peter sighed and looked back down at his hands. "No. Honestly, I've been like this for so long, this is normal to me. And when I got these powers, there are some wise words that always come to mind: with great power comes great responsibility."
Bette thought of it and were shocked. "Who told you that?"
"My uncle. The last words he said before he died." Peter said with a smile as their talk got interrupted by his phone going off. He then widened his eyes at what he was seeing and it was a message from Tina. "I-I need to go." He quickly ran off and ripped his shirt to reveal his shirt.
Peter made it back to Mercury Labs and raced through the halls that lead up to the safe vault for the most dangerous of experiments and was shocked to see that Tina was laying against the wall trying her best to stay conscious.
"Dr. McGee!" Peter cried as he raced over and kneed down next to her and saw she was bleeding. Quickly, he took out a piece of cloth to stop the bleeding. "Hey, stay awake. I'll get help."
"Peter..." Tina whimpered as she grabbed his hand before he left. "He...he took it."
"What? What did he take?" Peter asked as he looked back towards the vault and saw it was left open, and there was nothing missing. Except for one thing. "Oh god."
"You...you have to get it back." Tina tells him as she groaned in pain. "He knows. He knows your secret."
Peter looked shocked at how much changed in a short matter of time, but also to the fact that it seems she knew as well.
"You weren't really subtle about it." Tina said with a painful smile. "Don't worry, I never told anyone." She then coughed violently.
Peter reached up and felt her heart rate placing a finger to her neck, and it's not going in a comforting direction. "You're gonna be okay. I'm gonna get you some help." He then got up but was immediately stopped.
"No..." Tina whispered as she held Peter's hand. "Please...please don't go." She sounded so vulnerable, and Tina's always been a strong person and Peter knew he couldn't leave her.
"I'm right here." Peter promised as he held her hand. "I'm not going anywhere."
Tina was happy to have Peter here, as he was the most caring man she's met. The two just stayed there for a couple of seconds before her breathing started to slow down.
Reed knew exactly how to make a wound that would be fatal and slow. He's knew exactly what he was doing here.
"I swear, Tina, he will not get away with this." Peter promised her.
"Then stop him..." Tina whispered with her final breath as she dropped her head back and closed her eyes.
Peter started to tear up, sorry that he was unable to stop him. He was unable to save her. He should have been here.
But there was no doubt about it, Reed was going to pay.