Part Two

Peter could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the hotel. "Wow." He simply said, staring at the plush and luxurious decorations, "This place looks like it cost a fortune."

Gwen nodded, "Which is why everybody pitched in." She laughed, slowly dragging Peter into the lobby where a number of their fellow classmates were already hanging out, "Something else isn't it? We all voted on the hotel after surfing on the net."

"Sure is." Peter responded, "I don't think I've ever been somewhere this nice." He felt a little overwhelmed and somewhat guilty that he hadn't helped pay for this. "Is that a pool?" He asked gazing through one of the glass doorways.

"Yep." She said. The lobby was crowded with guests moving back and forth, and the sudden influx of teenagers from Midtown High. "I was hoping you be impressed."

Peter laughed, "Impressed isn't the word. Is our room like the rest of this place?"

"You'll find out, but for right now, I want to show you the rest of this place." Gwen said, "You just have no idea how great this place is."

"First, Mary Jane and now Gwen Stacy." Said an irate Flash Thompson to a friend as they stood near the front desk with their bags on the floor. "Who does Parker think he is?"

"How does he go from the biggest loser in the school to bagging those two?" Asked his friend while he ran his fingers through his goatee. "Just doesn't make sense."

Flash clenched his teeth, "Well, let's make sure that this week's a living hell for him. We still have to pay him back for what he did to that car."

His friend gulped suddenly, remembering that wreckage, "What are we going to do."

"Nothing yet." Replied Flash, "Just keep an eye on him."

Peter, with bags in each hand, followed Gwen into their room. He was immediately surprised to find out how large it actually was and whistled once he was through the door. "I can't get over how nice this place is."

"It really is great." Gwen responded. "Come on, I'll show you around." She had relatively intimate knowledge of the rooms after looking at them for so long through the hotel's website.

"Sure." Peter put their bags down by the door and closed the door. "What's first?"

Gwen gestured across the room, "This is the living room of course." She said referring to the seat arranged around a dining table, "That's where we eat."

Peter nodded, "Sounds good."

"That's the bathroom, down there." She said pointing to one of the doors, "Here, follow me."

Gwen led him into the bedroom. There was a large screen television facing the end of a king-size bed, "That's where we'll sleep."

Peter frowned, "What?"

"That's our bed and there's the T.V., if you want anything you can call room service from there." Gwen remarked as she gestured towards a telephone placed carefully on a cabinet.

"I was under the impression we'd be in different rooms." Peter said nervously, "Or at least separate beds."

Gwen raised her eyes and leaned against the wall, "Is there a problem?"

"N-no, its just I-I didn't know y-you were planning on u-us sleeping together." Peter stammered.

"Why not?" She said with a sly smile, "Don't worry, Pete, I trust you. I know you well enough to know you won't take advantage."

Peter sighed, "But I don't know you. I've only known you for a little while, and even though I think you're great, I don't want to go and make that kind of a commitment."

Gwen was silent for a moment and seemed to be taking in his words, "I understand. The couch in the living room has a bed you can pullout. Its pretty comfortable." She seemed resigned, "I'm going to take a shower."

"I'm really sorry about this." Peter said regretfully, "I mean that."

"Its alright, Peter." Gwen plodded out of the room.

Peter sat down on the end of the bed and shook his head, "This is the second time I've refused the advances of a beautiful woman. What am I, gay?" He said sarcastically. Peter realized how similar this conversation and been to the one he had with MJ about the very same subject.

That's when he realized the real reasons behind why he had rejected them both. It was that damn parenting that aunt May and uncle Ben had given him, they had taught him to be a man of morality and he was one. Until he sorted out whom he really wanted: Mary Jane or Gwen, he didn't want to commit himself to either relationship.

Peter imagined that Harry Osborn had just smacked him on the back of the head and demanded to know what was wrong with him.

The phone suddenly rang, diverting Peter's attention away from his thoughts. He stood up and picked the receiver up and held it against his ear, "Hello?"

"Parker? Is that you?" A surly voice barked on the other line.

He frowned, "Mr. Jameson? How did you reach this number? Forget that, how did you even know where I would be?"

Jameson laughed, "That's not the important thing, Parker." The sounds of the Bugle were audible even through the phone, "Have you checked out any of those zoos?"

"Not yet." Peter said.

"What in the blazes are you waiting for?"

Peter's eyes widened and he looked at the phone in disbelief, "Mr. Jameson, this is my vacation!"

The man in charge of the Bugle mumbled something, "Well, you can start by seeing some wonderful animals. Now get out there Parker!"

Peter shook his head at the sound of Jameson hanging up the phone. "Gwen!" He called out.

"Yes?" She responded on the other side of the bathroom door.

He sighed and lowered his shoulders, "I need to do some work."

The Lizard gazed at the case full of syringes. His blue-tinted formula inside each syringe seemed to glow, boasting what power they had. He ran his fingers along the tube of one of the syringes. "Sssoon I can begin to myssstify the world. Onccce I finish the refinementsss the formula will be perfect." While, the results had been impressive, they were nowhere equal to the original product.

He was hiding in the bush of the nature preserve. Humans had been by all day long, keeping him in the shadows, to gaze at the alligators. The Lizard felt nothing but contempt for them, so sure of their superiority.

The Lizard raised one of the syringes and hissed angrily. He intended to show humanity the full force of his brilliant might; then they would learn who was the superior.

The monster put his reptilian hand beside his ear and shook his head angrily. The headaches were returning, stronger than before, but Lizard fought them off, nothing could get in his way. "I need help to finisssh my work. Thessse calculations are too much for one perssson."

It was then that his enhanced hearing picked up a familiar voice just over the perimeter of the habitat. The Lizard gazed out from the bush and spotted the source of the voice, he had known him in his past.

The Lizard clenched his fist and hissed angrily, "Misster Parker."

Peter took a snapshot of the ruined cage. A police line had been put up in order to keep people away from the scene. "Somebody really broke in here and let those alligators loose?"

He was talking to a security guard who was observing him work. "Yeah." His nametag read Ian Floor. He rubbed the sweat off of his brow and shrugged, "It was probably some environmentalist or animal rights loon. People think they should be in the wild." He laughed, "Thing is, the gators get more food and comforts here than they do in that swamp."

"I see." Peter took another shot and looked at the police officers sweeping through the perimeter of the alligator tank. "What are they doing?"

"Two of our guys went missing recently." Ian replied, his expression becoming that of nervousness, "The police searched everything; the habitats, the grounds, even the surrounding neighborhood. No sign of them."

Peter frowned, "That's pretty weird." He looked at the bent bars of steel that were supposed to keep him from walking into one of the habitats. "Do you think it's related?"

Ian grimaced, "Hell if I know. I'm not a detective; I just work here. The same sort of thing happened by the zoo at Greendale."

"I was told." Peter said, referring to the short briefing that Robertson had given him back in New York. "Thanks for letting me get these shots, I'll be on my way now."

The Lizard grimaced at Peter. Once the teenager was out of sight, the monster hid back into the bushes. The shade shielded him from the blazing sun and let him plan in solitude.

"Parker." He murmured, "Missster Parker." The Lizard remembered the boy was considered one of the school's few scientific prodigies, he also knew exactly how intelligent the boy really was via Connors.

He decided that such a boy, given the right incentive could be a valuable tool in his plans ahead, after all he still needed to refine the formula. Parker had worked with Connors on numerous occasions and had a respectable understanding of the mechanics behind the experiments. The Lizard decided that he would follow the young student and when the time was right, make his move.