Daveykins: Thank you for the review! I was so disappointed when no one reviewed this story, I hate it when no one reviews it's really depressing. Thank you!

Author's Note: If you read this chapter, I beg you to review it, and remember Flames are welcome! Come to think of it, I've been saying that ever since I started writing this sort of stuff and so far I haven't even gotten one flame yet! How disappointing, my work must be good or something, maybe I should write something crappy just to get a flame.

Chapter 2: Mutations and Transformations

That afternoon had gone almost as Norman had predicted. Ben's mother had come from work, but no one had been able to reach his father for some odd reason. Of course it really wasn't odd for Ben, his father was never where he was supposed to be, and no one could ever reach him. His mother was of course worried, but he seemed fine, except for the fact that his headaches had returned, a fact that he failed to mention to his mother.

"What's the diagnosis? Will you live?" Mike asked as he and Felicity came up to Ben as his mother checked him out of the hospital.

"Ugh. Yeah, I'll lived to be killed by Thompson another day." Ben answered.

"Wouldn't worry about him too much. Actually I think he's scared and freaked out, although he probably won't admit it." Felicity said with a smile.

Ben laughed. "Good. Maybe now he'll leave me alone."

Mike scoffed. "For a bit, but let's face it, he's picked on us since before kindergarten."

"Before kindergarten? I didn't even meet him until high school." Ben said with a smile.

"Okay so I exaggerated a bit for dramatic effect, but he's still picked on us since freshman year." Mike corrected himself.

Felicity laughed. "I never got what it was about guys that made them need to prove themselves by beating up other males."

"It's the testosterone." Mike answered.

"Yeah, it goes to our heads." Ben said with a smile.

"I must've just picked the absolute worst moment to walk in on a conversation." MJ said with a smile as she came up to the others.

They laughed. "Probably." Ben said as he closed his eyes for a little relief from the headache, but it didn't work. "You ready then mom?" He asked looking over at MJ.

"Yeah, do you two need a ride home?" She asked looking over to Mike and Felicity. "I could drop you off on my way back to work after I drop Ben off at home."

"Sure." The both said at the same time. Ben smirked.

"You're going back to work mom?" He asked.

"Yeah." MJ said with a nod. "Sorry, but I left in the middle of something and I have to finish it, but don't worry, I'll be home early, and you're dad should be too."

"Wonderful." Ben said sarcastically as the group left the hospital.

The ride home was pretty quiet, but Ben was in pain, his headaches were getting worse and worse as time went by. When he finally got into his house the headache was so bad that he couldn't think straight, and he was tired. He made his way to his bedroom upstairs, but by the time he got up there he was so dizzy and disoriented that it was all he could do to make it to his bed. Collapsing into it and clutching the sheets he fell into a deep, deep sleep.

His mother came home later than she planned to, but Ben was still asleep, and Peter wasn't there yet. In fact Peter didn't get home until after MJ had gone to bed, which seemed to be a trend. Neither of them wanted to rouse him, thinking that he needed his sleep due to the past day's events, in fact other than looking through his bedroom door and closing it, they hadn't really checked up on him either.

Ben didn't wake up until late the next afternoon, to find that his headache was gone. But with the headache gone his forearms itched again, and they itched like crazy, plus his legs felt funny, like they were wrapped up in a sheet or something. He opened his eyes and pulled his sheet off to free his legs, but they didn't come free. Instead Ben found that his legs were wrapped in a silver substance, stick and stretchy, and hard to tear.

"What the?" He asked as he ripped the stuff off his lefts, finally freeing them. AH! His forearms! Now they were itching even more fiercely then they had before, he couldn't help it, he had to scratch. He quickly scratched at the underside of his forearms to stop the burning and itching, scratching hard and digging deep. "Ah!" He yelled as a bunch of that same silvery stuff that had been around his legs shot out of his wrist and attached itself to the wall. "What the heck?"

He stared at his wrist in a daze for several moments before climbing out of bed. "What the hell is happening?" He asked himself as he scratched his other wrist and made his way over to his bedroom mirror. All of a sudden his head got this buzzing sensation just before more silvery stuff shot out of the other arm and ensnared the hand that had been scratching. "Ugh!" He yelled as he opened his fingers and broke most of the stuff off of his hand. "Well at least that stopped the itching." He muttered to himself as he came up to the mirror.

"What the?" Staring back at him was a physically fit, muscular version of himself. "How the?" He flexed a bit, pulling back his sleeve. "When did I get these?" He asked pulling up his shirt, revealing a washboard set of abs. "Okay, this ain't puberty. We had that talk, it did not involve going from stringy normal kid to freaky kid with muscles." He talked to himself in an attempt to calm himself down. "Unless-."

"Honey? Are you okay? Are you awake?" MJ called up the stairs. She must've heard him yelling or heard him moving around or maybe a combination of both.

"Uh… Yeah! I'm okay!" Ben answered. "At least I think so!" He said looking at what was left of the silver substance on his hand. "I… I think I'm gonna get a shower before I come down, I'll only be a few minutes!" He called down the stairs.

"Okay!" His mom answered.

Thoughts, ideas, concerns, and possibilities were racing through his mind at a million miles per hour and all at the same time. What was this? Was he a mutant? And if he was a mutant, was this it? This was his super power? He could become physically fit over night, and shoot sticky stuff out of his wrists? That was so lame! Why couldn't he have gotten a cool power, like the Hulk's super strength, or Daredevil's heightened senses, or Spider-Man's agility, or Wolverine's claws? " I wonder…" He said aloud to himself as he turned on the shower water. "What else can I do?"

What was this? Did he even want super powers? Did he want to be a mutant? Well maybe not, but that didn't change the fact that he had the super powers. He knew one thing though; his days of struggling through high school were done. Maybe he could find a way to make some money off of this, even if it did decrease his popularity. "This is great, I can see it now. Hey Mike! Guess what? I have super powers!" He mocked himself and imitated Mike's voice. "Really? Cool! What can you do? Fly? Shoot lasers out of your eyes? Control people's minds?" He went back to his normal voice again. "Well, I can uh… shoot sticky gray stuff out of my wrists." Ben laughed at himself and then was silent for a moment. "I have got to come up with a better description." He said as he got into the shower.

VVVV

Peter and MJ were sitting in the living room watching television as they heard the shower water turn on in the bathroom above them. "You need to tell him Peter, or at least start showing up on time for things."

"I know MJ." Peter defended. "It's hard."

"I know, but he's beginning to get curious… Peter, I didn't tell you this because I didn't want to upset you, but the other day he mentioned it. He thinks you're cheating on me Peter, on him, on me, you need to tell him the truth, about why you're never on time, or where you say you're going to be, and why you can never be reached. He's mature enough now, he'll understand." MJ pleaded.

Peter was silent for a moment, and nodded. "I know. I'll talk to him tonight. After dinner." He said seriously.

"Good." MJ said with a strong nod as she put her hand on his knee.

VVVV

Ben got out of the shower, and grabbed a towel to dry himself off with. "This is nuts." He said as he went to reach his comb. "I mean seriously. It all seems like some sort of story in a comic book or something." He said as he started combing his short brown/reddish hair. He breathed deep and finished combing and getting dressed. It wasn't long before he got downstairs. "Hey, what's for dinner?"

"Well good morning, or evening, to you too Tiger." MJ said as she got up from her seat in the living room. "We were just discussing actually what to do for dinner. I thought maybe we could all go out for pizza, you know to that one on sixth?"

"Sounds good to me. I'm starving." Ben said with a nod.

"Takes after me." Peter said with a smile as he came into the hallway. "Get your jacket and we'll go." He said with a smile to Ben.

Ben got his jacket, and got into the car quickly, as much as he wasn't really looking forward to having dinner with his family just for his dad to leave in the middle of it like he usually did, he was hungry. "Come on!"

"We're coming, we're coming! Hold your horses." MJ said as she got into the car, Peter was driving. It wasn't long until they were there and sitting down waiting for their meals.

"So… Ben. You were in a fight at school?" Peter asked as he sat back in his chair.

"Well… kind of. This guy was going to beat me up, and I broke his hand." Ben answered honestly. "And then I just sort of passed out."

"You broke his hand?" Peter asked raising a brow. "Exactly how did you do that?"

"I just blocked his punch, you know, caught his fist, but he hit me wrong or something, cause his hand just broke, like it was made of glass or something." Ben answered as he sat back. Of course now he realized that it might've had something to do with all the other strange events, like his newfound powers, though he still didn't know their full extent.

Peter gave a worried glance to MJ, and she nodded, Ben guessed to make sure that he was telling the truth and not joking around. "And who exactly was this guy anyway?" Peter asked.

"Thompson." Ben answered. "That's what every one calls him in school anyway. His real name's Fred Jr., he's coach Thompson's son."

"Flash Thompson had a son?" Peter asked looking over at MJ.

"I don't know, I hadn't spoken to him since our high school graduation." MJ said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"You know coach Thompson?" Ben asked curiously.

"Yeah, in high school. He used to pick on me a lot back then, he actually dated your mom for most of high school." Peter answered.

"Seriously? Eck, no wonder he doesn't like me I've failed gym class all through high school." Ben said with a smirk.

Peter laughed. "So what else is new Ben?"

"Well uh… Mike and me are teaming up for a school science report. We're actually using some of his dad's old work, the automated arms." Ben answered.

"This is the Octavius boy?" Peter asked.

"Yeah dad, same Mike that I've known since fifth grade." Ben said annoyed.

"And your studying Doc Ock's arms?" MJ asked.

"Well kind of. We're just doing a report on them, on how they were supposed to work, and what they were originally intended for. It's a little hard to explain, but it's cool." Ben said with a nod. "Mike seems to think it'll get us an A."

"I'm not sure I like that idea." Peter said with a fatherly tone in his voice.

Ben rolled his eyes as the waitress came up with their food and set it in front of them. MJ thanked her and she left. Ben picked up his fork and started eating with it, but when he went to set it down to pick up his drink he found that he couldn't.

His eyes darted to his mom and dad but they didn't seem to notice, they were busy eating. He quickly put his hands under the table and tried pulling it off with his other hand. But it didn't get him anywhere; he still couldn't get it off.

"So Ben, how are things going with that Felicity girl?" MJ asked looking over to him.

"Uh… Just fine." Ben said still concentrating on pulling his fork off of his hand without his parent's noticing anything was wrong. What was this now? He could make things stick to him? "Actually we were supposed to go to the movies yesterday, but we didn't cause of everything that happened."

"Aw, that's a shame. Maybe she could come over tomorrow and I could give you a ride to the theater or something." MJ offered.

"Uh… Sure." Ben said glancing down to his hands as he finally managed to pull the fork free. "I'll ask her about it, see if she can make it."

"Okay." MJ said with a nod as she glanced to Peter, and then towards Ben, and then towards Peter again.

"Uh… Ben, after dinner you and I need to talk for a bit, so we're going to stay here for some ice cream while your mother goes shopping across the street." Peter said with a hopeful smile.

"I'm guessing this is one of those moments where I don't really have a choice?" Ben asked sarcastically. "Sure, why not." He muttered.

MJ smiled but Peter gave a doubtful frown. This talk wasn't going to turn out well.

END

Author's Note: Please! REVIEW!!!! I BEG YOU!!!! IF YOU READ THIS STORY, YOU NEED TO REVIEW IT!!!!! Please?