Peter sipped his hot chocolate. "I think this guy called Mysterio might have hypnotized me. I know I wouldn't know if he did, and it's driving me a little crazy. If I am targeted with post-hypnotic suggestions, by the time I found out on my own it would be too late." He sipped some more. "This is really good hot chocolate."

Strange leaned against the counter in the kitchen, his bright red coat belted on like a bathrobe. He wore pajamas and slippers beneath, silken and smooth. "We'll have the truth of it soon enough," he said, his dark narrow face lit up with a saturnine reflection. He smiled. "You were wise to come to me."

"I try not to think about it too much," Peter said with the ghost of a smile. They headed up the stairs and down to the very end of the hall, to the ornate double doors. Strange gestured and they creaked open to admit the two, then closed behind them.

Peter looked around the room, somewhat in awe. The air felt… different in here. He saw many books, racks and shelves of bizarre artifacts. There was a large bed under the skylight. The walls were textured with wild squiggling gold patterns. The carpet was covered by a thick dull red carpet. There were several chairs and tables in the open spacious room.

"Welcome to my Sanctum Sanctorum," Strange intoned. He smiled. "Have a seat."

Peter sat in one of the huge chairs.

"And for my next trick," Strange murmured under his breath. He walked over to one of the shelves and quickly solved a complex puzzle box. Once he opened it, he pulled out an amulet about the size of his palm, a gold dome surrounded by what looked like gold beads fused together.

"That's some tacky jewelry you got there, Doc," Peter said.

"Not funny," Strange said shortly. He stood before Peter. "This is… this is the Eye of Agamotto." He hesitated. "Well, you'll see," he said.

"I can't be hypnotized, you know," Peter added quickly. "Beck, a friend of mine, gave me these hypnotic blocks."

"Really," Strange said. "Well, we'll see, won't we?"

"Uh," Peter said. "Yeah."

Strange settled the amulet at his throat. It clicked in place with his coat. "Now relax," Strange said. "I mean it. This won't hurt a bit. Unless you fight it. Then," he said reflectively, "well, it seems it hurts rather a lot." His eyes drifted half closed, and his senses began to wildly jangle in alarm as Peter's eyes were riveted on the amulet.

The gold dome of the amulet drifted open, and Peter was shocked to see a living eye of gold and light inside. It stared at him, piercing him, and every instinct screamed to fight back.

Peter forced himself to relax and open to the scrying.

The eye drifted clear of its amulet and settled itself on the forehead of Doctor Strange. Peter felt himself bathed in a golden light, and this time and place melted as the Eye probed his thoughts.

He saw himself in the living room of Aunt May's house, as the smoke coiled out of the kitchen. Back a little further.

As the scene played, the light was surreal. He saw the plants growing, saw the motes of dust hanging in the air from when he had walked in on his way upstairs. Timespace behaved as it wished in this peculiar half-memory. The entire encounter flashed by, and there was no evidence of hypnosis. Peter smiled.

Then he was crouched in his mesh, right before he leaped into Beck's living room. He moved, the bomb whirred like it was in fast forward while Peter spun slowly, leisurely, as though he were in slow motion in an instant replay. The entire encounter unfolded. Mysterio ducked out and ran away.

"No hypnosis," Peter breathed, relief in his voice. But the image spilled on, and suddenly it froze in clarity.

Peter, hypnotized.

Beck drew in a deep breath, then let it out. "You are tired of being poor," he said. "You are tired of charity. The spider ghost can bring you wealth undreamed of. You will not rest until you have stolen the Ardesty diamond collection at 20th and Bleeker, out of the Hammond Diamond shop. These desires will surface in you with great strength after you hear the word 'milkrun'." Beck paused. "When I snap my fingers you will awaken with no conscious memory of these instructions."

He snapped his fingers.

"No," breathed Peter. "That's impossible."

The Eye flashed further into the past, looking for something different now.

Beck turned on the tape recorder and put it on the table. "How did you get your powers?" he said.

"I don't know," Peter said slowly.

Beck nodded to himself. "When did you get them?"

"Nineteen ninety two," Peter said. "I was in a coma for months in nineteen ninety one. I failed fifth grade."

"Did you have an accident?"

"No accident," Peter mumbled. "Poison. I opened a trunk in the attic. It had a puzzle box. I solved the puzzle box. A spider bit me." He paused. "Grandpa died in World War II. It was his trunk."

Beck nodded. "How did your uncle die?" he said.

Peter turned his head, looked Beck right in the eye with a look that sent cold shivers racing up and down Beck's spine.

"We don't want to talk about that right now," he said in a low, tight voice. He was terrifyingly alert, aware in spite of the hypnosis. Peter saw and recognized the spider ghost part of himself.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he wondered.

Why do you think you're here? That's me telling you. The only way I can.

Beck said, "When I snap my fingers, you will awaken and forget the entirety of our conversation. Do you understand?" He snapped off the tape recorder and slipped it in the drawer on the coffee table.

Peter looked ahead again, his eyes glazing over. "I understand."

Beck snapped his fingers. Then he finished off his glass of wine.

Peter shook his head. "I feel woozy," he said. "What did you find out?"

"Not much," Beck shrugged. "However, you should be able to sleep now." Beck smiled at him. "Seems you didn't have much you needed to talk about after all."

Relentless now, the Eye sped further back…

As Beck's smile grew, the screen saver kicked in on the computer screen behind him. Shifting colors and patterns…

"Hey, that's a neat screen saver," Peter said, then his gaze was drawn into it and he sat absolutely still, slack jawed.

Beck thrust himself out of his chair and knelt at Peter's knee. "You will have trouble sleeping," he intoned, his voice low and fast. "A dark secret from your past has begun to plague you. If only you could talk to Beck about it, everything would be okay." He paused. "When you awaken, you will have no memory of this or the screen saver." Beck pushed himself up and back, and as he landed in his seat he nudged the mouse with his elbow. The screen saver shut off.

Peter blinked.

"So we're done?" he said.

The Eye drifted back down to the amulet, and the dome slid shut. Once again, the amulet looked like a piece of gaudy costume jewelry.

Peter sat stunned.

Strange looked away.

Peter felt like a bag of concrete had been rammed into his gut. His hands felt big and hot. He felt nausea, he felt as though his sinuses had been filled with sand. His eyes burned. He trembled.

"I can't believe it," he said, believing it.

Fury, grieving, shock, fear, resentment, and vengeance all tumbled in him and he just sat unmoving, trying to absorb the magnitude of the betrayal that had just been revealed to him.

"If he wasn't protecting me from hypnosis, then he must be in league with Mysterio," Peter said slowly.

Strange, who was much more astute in the revelations of the Eye, bowed his head and said nothing.

"Can you protect me from hypnotism?" Peter asked, his voice bitter. "I trust you."

Strange met his eyes. "I can," he said.

"I have cleared your mind of the old compulsions," Strange said, "or rather the Eye has. You will not be susceptible to further hypnosis," he added with a pass of his hand. He paused. "I'm here to help you, if you need it."

"Thank you," Peter said, looking away. "I don't want to be any more beholden to you than I already am. It's been that kind of month. But thanks, Doc."

Strange showed him to the door. "Don't be a stranger," he said softly.

Peter flashed him a smile full of pain, then jogged off down the street.

Strange watched him go. "Good fortune, Parker," he said as much to himself as the retreating young man. "Be careful."

xXx

Saturday dawn. Peter crouched in the alley, slipping out of his clothes and pulling on his mesh, complete with a gray patch on the dark silk. His head throbbed with the aftereffects of the gas, and he pushed down the heat and nausea of betrayal and all that came with it. He rubbed his eyes. They were swollen, but he wasn't sure if that was from the gas or from unshed tears.

"Mysterio knows I gotta come for him sooner or later," Peter muttered as he adjusted his mesh. "So he'd pick a place with lots of room and not a lot of neighbors. In New York.

Peter swung off towards the warehouse district.

Less than two hours later he picked up the scent of his spider tracer. In another fifteen minutes he was crouched on the roof of a warehouse, looking at the catwalk along the side of the warehouse, where his trace had come from. He also saw the state of the art cameras and surveillance gear. He stayed low and unobtrusive and simply observed.

This had to be the place.

Now or later? Stealth or frontal assault? Peter struggled with those questions. "At least there's no way they could expect me to come after them or find the place," Peter muttered. "Surprise is mine. I better not waste it."

Peter stealthed to the blind side of the warehouse, where the cameras were thinnest. He slithered up the wall and landed lightly on the catwalk, then in a single spring he was on the roof and laying flat. He crept to a skylight and inspected it for alarms.

Then Peter froze as he heard voices below.
"The boss got back from Japan last night," said a man with a slow, thick voice. "Better wrap this up quick."

"So why's Parker supposed to do this job himself? Beck is an artist, airtight is his signature. He could make it look like Parker did it and that wouldn't be as risky." The new voice was thinner, reedier, and had a hint of nasty in it.

"Don't bug me," the thick voice said. "Do I look like I'm in charge?"

Peter tugged the skylight and it snapped open; as the two men below looked up he landed between them. He snapped out with his fists, and they flew back to rebound with disturbing force from the walls. As an afterthought, he secured each of their right hands to the wall with a glob of web.

"No," he said softly to the big guy. "You don't look like you're in charge."

They both lay unconscious, taken by surprise and roughly handled. Peter crouched and moved to the door.