Spider-Man: Revert chapter 1
The Best Laid Plans...
I do not own Spider-Man or any of the other characters depicted within this work. They are all used under the free usage clauses of US copyright laws and as such I am not obtaining any monetary compensation for my use of them.
I never would have done any of it had I known it would turn out like this. My whole life has been turned upside-down. And it looked like it was going to be a good month too.
It had started out like any other day, I woke up to the smell of uncle Ben's famous Banana Pancakes, I got dressed and had a hearty breakfast.
Since it was Sunday, I didn't have classes at the college. But I still had to leave early to make it to my internship at the Natural History Museum. What internship you ask? Well, I work with Doctor Curt Connors on gene splicing. We're currently working on cross-species genetic transferal with lizards, but over the last year we've had phenomenal success with spiders. Fascinating creatures, spiders.
Once I left the house I took the 1 train down into Manhattan and got off at the 72nd street station. I called my fellow intern Zach Barnes on the phone and he picked up the phone like he does every Sunday, half asleep. I told him to wake up and said that I would be passing his apartment in five minutes. When I finally reached his apartment building he was waiting outside looking as bright and cheerful as he usually does. We talked about inconsequential things, like how our fellow interns Sam Blake, and Michael Morbius were doing. Zach has known Sam since seventh grade, and has been Sam's best friend for almost as long. We walked the eight or so blocks to the Natural History museum, and we entered through the staff entrance on the basement level. We took the elevator up to the top floor, putting our keys in the elevator in order to unlock the button for the top. When we got out of the elevator, we turned right and walked to the end of the corridor. After a few more twists and turns, we arrived at the museum's genetics department.
The department itself was fairly small, four rooms that were separated from the central corridor by glass walls. Each scientist had a room of their own in which both they and their Intern worked. Zach worked with Dr. John Fowler, Michael worked with Dr. Miles Warren, Sam worked with Dr. Paula Basker, and I worked with Dr. Curt Conners.
The first thing I did when I entered the lab and the last thing I do every day before I leave is feed the spiders. Dr. Conners and I had already completed research on the spiders, but I had always had a soft spot for arachnids, and I convinced the Doc not to throw them out.
That day was not a normal day. At around 2:00pm my cousin Ben Reilly was coming over to write a story on our work for Tuesday's science section of The Daily Bugle. No, that Sunday would not be normal by any means.
I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but somehow, I guess the gene splicing super virus that Sam and Dr. Basker were working on must have infected my spiders. I can't think of any other way that I could have gained the miraculous powers that now plague me.
The day went by perfectly fine. Dr. Connors came in, and we did a bit more research on lizard physiology before the department broke for lunch at 1:00. Sam and I had a couple of hotdogs for lunch from a restaurant called Gray's Papaya that was a few blocks away, Zach abstained from going with us citing financial reasons and instead chose to have lunch at his house which was also only a short distance form the museum.
When I got back, my Cousin Ben was waiting for me. He was sitting in my chair writing something on his laptop, and occasionally massaging his wrists. I greeted him, and once Dr. Conners entered the room we started the interview. I was told by Dr. Conners to observe as Ben asked the questions and he answered them. Seeing as my chair was taken I decided to sit on the only table with open space available, the table on which the spider tank resided.
The spider felt the cool rush of air as the cage was opened. It saw its chance to escape and began ascending its web on it's way out of the cage along with another spider. As it finally crested the rim of the cage it latched onto a shirt. It climbed down the shirt until it reached the inside of Peter Parker's elbow. And once it had arrived at said elbow, the spider confused and disoriented by the virus coursing through its body, bit into Peter Parker.
I'm fairly sure that it happened during that interview. Especially since I know that I wasn't bitten while feeding the spiders, and when I fed them during the afternoon I found the cage already open and two spiders missing. I later discovered the smashed remains of one on the floor, but the other spider was never recovered.
The interview between Ben Reilly and Dr. Conners ended shortly after 3:00pm, and at 4:00. After cleaning up, Both Dr. Conners and I left for the day. As I headed uptown on the 1 train towards my uncle Ben's house in the Bronx I started feeling a bit sick. It was small at first, a little fever, then I started to feel nauseous, by the time I arrived home I was close to delirious.
When I woke up the next morning I felt remarkably different. It seemed as if every step I took thrust me farther ahead than ever before. In fact, this sensation was so new and unheard of that when I first got out of bed, my legs launched me right at the door. After slamming face first into the door of my room, I was roused to a state of full awareness. Gathering myself together, I looked down and saw a sight that amazed me. My muscles, though never puny by any means, had suddenly bulged into huge specimens of peak physical conditioning.
"Peter! Breakfast!" Aunt May's voice pierced my narcissistic contemplation. I got dressed quickly, and after a small mishap involving; a pile of socks, my face, and the wall, I finally made it out of my room and down to the kitchen where I was quickly assailed by the sweet, sweet aroma of my Uncle Ben's world famous blueberry pancakes. Results were predictable.
Three servings later I was out the door and across the street in where one of my best friends, Mary-Jane Watson lives. I snickered as I saw her new doormat, which bore the inscription "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Mary-Jane's influence no doubt. I knocked on the door, and waited for Mary-Jane arrive so that we could embark on our odyssey through the New York City subway system.
When MJ and I arrived at the station there was a train just pulling in. We quickly swiped our Metrocards through the turnstile, and ran through the train doors just in time to have them close behind us. We grabbed a pair of seats, and started looking around. "What do you think of that ad?" I asked her.
"Peter, you have to be more specific, there are over twenty ads in this car alone"
"That one MJ, the one I'm pointing at"
"Dr. Zinner's Gynecology school"
"Err... no... I meant the wrestling ad"
"Ah, that one. Spend 20 minutes in the ring with Crusher Hogan and win $10,000? I can see how that might appeal to most guys, but Peter, you aren't in any condition to try that"
"It doesn't matter, even if I was in peak physical condition, I would never do something like that. Wrestling is for muscle-bound idiots and reckless fools"
Mary-Jane looked at me doubtfully. "I See..." she said, and then she proceeded to change the subject. The ride into Manhattan ended a few minutes later, and from then until 3:00 the day proceeded like any other school day.
After school ended though, things changed. The first thing I noticed was an insistent instinct that told me to "move!" before I could even think about it, I found myself thrown to the sidewalk as the Starbucks next to me exploded. Pulling myself together I saw a figure emerge from the smoldering wreckage. He was standing on a pair of giant black bat wings attached to a jet engine, the whole device seemed menacing, an image not helped by his personal appearance. The laughing maniac was dressed in what seemed to be a Halloween costume gone wrong, A ripped black fishnet t-shirt, and a pair of ragged black jeans shorts that cut off right above the knees. He seemed to have green skin, and blood-shot yellow eyes that glowed with a manic light. I stood up quickly, crossing the street at a run, somehow jumping over the speeding cars, and hoping desperately that I hadn't caught the attention of the insane goblin that just blew up the Starbucks. I just kept running and running until I reached Central Park, and past that to the relative safety of the Subway station.
At the time I was too scared to pay any attention to what I was doing, but as I got on the train home, I couldn't help but wonder if I had imagined myself jumping over cars, or if I had actually done it.
I was due to meet my cousin and his girl-friend later that day along with MJ. But in the wake of earlier events I had completely forgotten about it. That is, until MJ called me from the restaurant to ask where I was, and demand that I be there in twenty minutes. It took me about five minutes to get dressed and out of the house running at top speed into the pouring rain. I didn't look where I was going, I just ran, across the street, down the block, and straight on towards the restaurant. As I ran full tilt across a street it happened again, my head seemed to scream at me to "Jump!" so I did. I leaped straight up, about ten feet straight up! As I looked down I saw a car speed past the spot where I had stood only seconds before, and I felt a terror I had not felt since earlier that day.
"Holy Shit! That could have killed me!" I said to myself as I landed hard on my feet and hands. "What the hell is going on? What's happened to me? What am I?"
It was there on the corner of that intersection where MJ found me a half an hour later. I was damp from the rain, and dazed by earlier events, sitting on the corner of the sidewalk, not two feet from the site where I had landed.
"Peter, why are you out here instead of at the mall with your cousin Ben and his girlfriend Gwen Stacy?"
"MJ, you ever had one of those days where everything you thought you knew changes? When the whole world suddenly stops spinning and throws you off into the vast abyss?" Mary-Jane raised an eyebrow as she sat down next to me.
"And what brought this on?" MJ asked me.
"Just... things, you know? It's just; suddenly everything seems to be different. I don't think that I'm the same person I was last week"
"Everyone changes Peter. You can't stop that. You have to accept it. Change isn't bad; it's just, different. You'll always be you, even if you're a different Peter Parker than you were before."
At Mary-Jane's words I raised my head to the stars, and in a low, sad voice I spoke. "Thanks MJ. You always know just the right thing to say. I need some time to think about this. Tell Ben and his girlfriend that I can't make it. I need some time to think about all this." MJ smiled sadly at me and nodded.
"Okay Peter. I'll see you tomorrow then"
"Yeah, tomorrow." And with one last look at Mary-Jane I turned and headed home.
End chapter 1