After the party that night, Wanda seemed to have just vanished to Peter's eyes. But he had to thank her, she certainly got him out to that party he wasn't planning on going to.
The next day, Peter and Teresa were getting ready for school while Peni was getting prepared for her school trip that day. Peter was helping while May was getting ready for work and packed a lunch for Peni as Teresa was putting her blueprints and sketches together.
"Do you think I'll need anything for the trip?" Peni asked her older siblings.
"A longer-sleeved shirt," Peter muttered to himself, scratching the part of his wrist that the spider bit him. "So that a spider doesn't bite you and make you question your life choices."
May then came down the stairs just as the phone went off. "I've got it."
"You'll be fine," Teresa assured Peni and handed the lunch Peter prepared before tossing him his bag. "You ready?"
"Yep," Peter answered when he noticed May's face turning sour on the phone. "May? Everything okay?"
"Peter..." May was sorry that she had to deliver the news to him.
Peter became worried and waited for May to tell him what had occurred the other night, without him even realizing it.
In the basement of the school, Jackal was quick to work on the newer experiment after the failed experiment that was the Sandman. He used one partner to try and take down the Spider-Man, and Flint turned into a failure.
So now, he was going through Aleksei to try and create a stronger and better soldier to try and take down the superhero.
"Are you ready for this, Alexi?" Jackal asked as he got ready to fuse him to the suit. "Once this procedure is done, it can never be undone."
"But I will be able to take down that Spider-Man?" Alexi asked, wanting that clarified.
"Hopefully," Jackal said as he got ready.
"Then what's the hold-up?!" Alexi asked him in anger.
Jackal was happy with the eagerness and then activated the machine. Alexi's screams filled the basement as the lights flickered from the energy he was draining for this suit. The suit was designed to take heavy hits, even from a tank. It provides capabilities that will stop anything that can be thrown at him by Spider-Man.
Alexi looked down at his gigantic muscular hands and was immediately filled with energy. "Alexi?"
"I'm here," Alexi confirmed with a giant grin. "Ready for Round 2!"
"That's the spirit." Jackal was happy to see his second experiment was a success to the point that he was alive. But if this suit can take down Spider-Man...only time would tell.
Police and medics were surrounding Peter while he stood in the middle of the labs as he watched Lian being rolled away on the stretcher. Followed by Otto, who seemed to have been put into a coma of sorts, at least he was alive.
Peter couldn't believe that this had happened. While he was a few buildings away having a good night, his friends were running an experiment that seemed to have cost them their lives.
"Peter Parker?" Yuri Watanabe broke Peter out of his head and got Peter's attention. This would be the first time the two of them would be talking without his suit on. Hope he didn't give anything away to reveal he's Spider-Man. "You were their lab partner?"
"Uh...yeah," Peter confirmed, trying his best to not give his identity away. "Wh-what happened?"
"It seems that an experiment went wrong, Octavius clocked in, and seemed Lian was called to help him out as she was taken off the project," Yuri told Peter what they have discovered on what happened. "The cameras to the area seemed to have shorted out, some power outage went down."
Peter immediately knew that was his fault after what happened last night with Wanda and Avenger X. Yet again, if it was an accident then there isn't anything that he could have done about it. Well, he could have done something but there was no way he could have known that it was happening.
"I'm sorry for your friends," Yuri said and gave him some space as she walked away.
Peter stood there and watched as the police looked over and took photos to make sure everything was looked over. Professor Robert Callaghan looked sorry as he approached Peter and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Peter." Callaghan apologized for the loss of his friends. "Why don't you take the rest of the week off?"
Peter nodded, feeling he could use a few days to process what has happened. As he strolled out of the labs and passed the others they stopped him, and Honey Lemon was the first to react and pulled Peter in for a hug.
Peter accepted the hug and was then met with a group hug from all of the other guys who came in and hugged each other for the loss of their friend.
"You gonna be okay?" Tadashi asked him as he patted his shoulder.
"I'll be fine," Peter promised, but Teresa immediately knew that he was lying.
"Peter..."
"I'll be okay," Peter assured her as he walked off to have a day off to mourn his friends.
Peter was on the side of the school in his ruined suit and watched as life moved on as if nothing had happened. Having his suit completely ruined by the paint, to the point that there is no point throwing it back in the wash after three loads meant he needed to start over.
Luckily, he's been working on a few new suits for such an occasion, but most of them are half done. He would need some help to finish them as half of them are armor and gears for his suit, four iron spider legs, even a bulletproof symbol.
To see if anything good could come out of today, he decided to head for the Daily Bugle to sell his photos. Leaping off the building, he swung off and made his way through the city.
Teresa was sorry for her brother and the loss of his friends. She had never gone through anything like that, the closest thing imaginable was when she and Peter lost their parents. Even then, he was the strong one during that time trying to (and still trying) keep the family together.
"You think Peter will be alright?" Teresa asked her friends around the room.
"Pete's got a lot of strength, I'll give him that," Gogo admitted as she was working on the wheels for the bike. "But...I don't know how anyone could be okay after something like that."
"I think he'll be okay." Honey Lemon tried to look on the upside. "He just needs to take some time and process the whole thing."
Teresa nodded, feeling that's a good point, and got back to working on her new inventions. She had an idea while watching one of May's movies, where the main character's parachute fails on him and almost dies. Something to create tension and suspense for the audience, but it also gave her an idea for a sort of "second parachute" in a way.
The Exo-Suit is a specialized flying mechanical suit created to save people and even glide through the air if she can get the booster working on the back. The suit right now is just a prototype and looks a bit too big for use but that's sort of the idea. She needs to make sure the idea is suitable before trying to make it smaller.
Outside the Daily Bugle, Rhino has been marching towards the building, disturbing traffic outside the building before marching into the building. The security guard then put down his paper and was about to tell him off.
"Nobody comes in without a pass..." That's when the guard noticed how huge and buff Rhino was.
"Make an exception," Alexi demanded him.
That was easily enough to get him inside with no problem as Rhino entered the elevator where Benjamin Urich was waiting for the doors to close. The two of them stood there as the doors started to close.
"Hit 22, please," Alex asked of him and raised his fist. "These no good on the buttons."
"Uh...actually 22 is already pressed," Benjamin informed him, with no idea how the elevator is even supporting him. "Going to the Daily Bugle?"
"Yeah," Alexi confirmed and did a double-take. "Your name isn't Parker, is it?"
"No," Benjamin answered.
"Hm." Alexi shrugged and waited for the doors to open again.
Peter had just arrived outside of the Daily Bugle by sneaking in through the window into the supply closet. As soon as he changed out of his suit and into his normal clothes, his senses immediately went off, causing him to spin around and wonder what was causing them to go off.
That's when the Rhino came through the doors and started to break the desks and attack everything while everyone tries to escape. Rhino charges at the desk and uses his horn to destroy it.
"Bring me Peter Parker!" Alexi demanded as he was smashing everything in sight.
That's when Jonah exited his office when Peter opened the door to the closet and saw the man. "What is going on here?! Who do you think you are?" That's when Jonah took notice of Rhino. "What do you think you are? You have five seconds to write me a check-" Before he finished that, Alexi grabbed him by the throat and held him close. "I mean, how can I be of service?"
"Peter Parker!" Alexi cried in his face. "He's the one who takes the pictures of Spider-Man!"
Jonah then noticed Peter hiding behind the door to the closet and looked back to Rhino. "The photographer? Never met the guy." Then he started to gesture using his hand out of Rhino's eyesight to point to the stairway, telling Peter to make a run for it. "He only sends in his photos by email."
That angered Rhino as he tossed Jameson away and Peter used that time to sneak back into the closet and change back into his suit. Quickly jumping out the window and making his way to the other side of the building to hide his identity.
"What, do you think I am? Stupid?" Alexi asked as he picked up a desk and was getting ready to crush Jameson.
"Well, you are dressed stupid!" Peter declared as he came in and shot a web to stick to his face, blinding Rhino but causing him to drop the desk. Peter then leaped in and quickly grabbed Jonah before he could be crushed and landed on the ceiling.
Jonah immediately tried to get out of his grasp, and Peter would be lying if he said a small part of him wasn't enjoying this.
"Put me down!" Jameson demanded Peter.
Peter quickly shot him a literal web-net to catch and hold him on the ceiling, still as grouchy as ever. Although this is the only time Peter can understand why. "It's for your own safety, picklepuss." Peter then dropped down as Jameson was having a fit on the ceiling. "What do you want with Parker?"
"You!" Alexi answered as he ripped the webbing off his face. "Just you! And payback for the other day!"
Peter then remembered his face and was shocked at who he was looking at. "Wait, weren't you Flint Marko's partner?"
Peter then got over the shock and dodged as Alexi picked and tossed a desk through the office, causing Peter to react by flipping over it, allowing the desk to destroy Jameson's office.
"Hey! Watch it! glass doors are expensive!" Jameson cried from the ceiling while Peter was trying to process everything.
"First Shocker tries to rob the bank, then Flint Marko turns into the Sandman, and now his partner is a rampaging Rhino?" Peter questions as he shot several webbing nets to Rhino and used them to slingshot himself. But that ended with Peter slamming into Rhino, and he didn't even budge.
In the process, Peter noticed his suit was only tearing up more and more as the fight suppresses and his right arm was now exposed, his left boot was ripped, and his chest is visible.
Rhino then went to punch Peter, but he used his mass against Rhino as he crashed through the floor, and the two of them ended up falling through several floors before reaching the ground level.
Once they reached there, Peter saw he needed to come up with a better way of stopping him as the police arrived.
"Rhino, come out with your hands out!" Yuri called out when she saw how big he was. "I mean...Hands where we can see them!"
"See them now!?" Alexi asked as he picked up the guard's desk and tossed it out the door. Once he had a clearing, he ran out as fast as he could and slammed several of the cars into one another.
One of the cars went flying and was about to crush Yuri when Peter shot webs at it to catch it. Peter then saw that the police wouldn't be able to take the force of his strength as much as he can.
"Leave this one to me, Detective!" Peter cried as he swung past and got Alexi's attention. "Hey, Rhino! Party's this way!"
With that, the two of them went down the street and Peter did his best to stay out of Rhino's path of destruction. While in the meantime getting all of the civilians in their path out of the way before they were hurt.
"You like being hunted, freak?" Alexi asked as he chased Peter down the best he could.
"Would you see who the pot is calling the kettle right now?" Peter asked as Rhino smashed another car and sent it flying towards him.
Peter was going to jump out of the way of it when he saw a mother and her daughter before tackling the two and shielding them from the car.
"You okay?" Peter asked as he helped the mother and her daughter up. When he got a nod in confirmation, he saw they were okay. "Good, get out of here!"
While he was distracted, Rhino came charging in and slammed Peter with his horn, sending him flying down the street. While Peter was getting up, he noticed Rhino stopping and smashing a fire hydrant to get some water.
Peter immediately started to understand what can be done. Rhino's unstoppable, but the man inside is still nothing more than just that. A man. He needs energy, time to cool down. If he has none of those, then he can be stopped.
Looking around for somewhere he can get away from civilians and take Rhino down, Peter noticed the manhole cover in the street and gets an idea.
"Hey, Rhino! Let's play follow the leader!" Pete then lifted the cover before leaping down into the sewers as Rhino leaped in after him.
"You think you can hide from me down here?!" Alexi asked as he started to look around.
"Who's hiding?" Peter asked as Alexi sees him standing at the end of the tunnel, almost leaning on the pipes. "Come on, big lug. I thought you'd have caught me by now!"
Rhino started to become angry, even more than before, and charged over towards Peter. But as soon as he got close enough, Peter jumped out of the way and watched as he ran into the pipes. Once he hits the pipes, the pressure releases tons of smoke come and steams up the tunnels.
"Yeah, I noticed during our fighting your armor is tough," Peter commented as he kept on dodging all of the punches as Rhino keeps hitting the pipes and steaming the whole tunnel. "Meaning its impenetrable. For both inside and outside. Your face is sweating for your whole body, enough to make you hot as it is on a warm sunny day in San Fransokyo under normal conditions. But in a steam tunnel..." He then webbed several more of the pipes and yanked them loose, causing more steam to fill the tunnel. "Things get ten times worse!" He then swings and kicks Rhino into the heat of the steam. Rhino then tried to breathe, but the heat was starting to take him down. "Come one, come all! The dumbest rhino on the face of the earth!"
"I'll...crush you...crush you..." Alexi started to really lose it. "Promised him I'd crush you."
"I have a feeling we've officially lost it," Peter commented as he placed his elbow on his knee and looked close to Alexi. "Alexi, who is he?"
"He...Jackal." Alexi answered him and Peter was shocked that he's never heard of anyone calling himself the Jackal.
Peter then crawled out the sewers and met with Yuri and the other officers waiting for them to surface. Peter sighed in relief to see he was officially out of the steam room.
"You might wanna bring in a crane," Peter informed Yuri and swung off to get away from the scene.
That night, Peter decided to just find a way to maybe replace his entire suit, there being no way he's going to be able to continue his crime-fighting in this old destroyed suit he was currently wearing.
Seeing as nobody was expecting him at the school, and nobody should be there this late, he started to swing on over and make his way into his labs. With the project he and Otto were working on closed, he moved back to the normal labs until he was either assigned to a new project or something came up. Until then, he was back where he belonged with his friends and sister.
As he made it into the labs, he took off his mask and gasped for air. His entire suit was scorched and felt like it was just steamed. Which it technically was. As soon as he made it to his labs, he noticed a light on in Tadashi's labs.
"Tadashi again. And this is my 33rd test of my robotics project." Tadashi said when there was a sudden power outage. "I'm not giving up on you. You don't understand this yet, but people need you. So, let's get back to work."
Before Peter could even think of backing away from the labs, his door opened and immediately stopped when he spotted Peter standing in the middle of the labs, a torn Spider-Man suit on his body, and a mask to complete the collection.
The two just stood there, neither of them knowing what to do next. Peter just stood there and waited to see his friend's reaction to seeing that one of his oldest friends was the city's hero.
Tadashi just stood there, looking like he was exhausted from some hard work on his robot-nurse if Peter had to guess. In the end, Tadashi just sighed and removed his hat to run his hand through his hair.
"It's gonna be a long night, want some coffee before we get into this?" Tadashi asked him, seeming like he's just accepting the fact, due to it actually explaining a lot for him.
Peter was amazed at how well he was taking this and shrugged it off. "Sure, if you're making some."
Tadashi nodded and walked off to make a cup for the two and Peter just sat down and waited for him to be done. This was indeed going to be a long night, with a lot of explaining.