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Chapter 7- A discovery
Willow was watching the news where Captain George Stacy was talking about the bridge incident but ended it with issuing an arrest warrant for Spider-Man because he had been spotted there.
"Great, save people and be a criminal", Willow sighed, shutting the TV off when there was a knock on the door and she opened to reveal Peter.
"Oh, hey Peter!"
"Hi", Peter greeted. "Can I come in?"
"Sure", Willow shrugged, letting him in before she closed the door, smiling at him. "From what I've seen, nice job at the bridge last night. You saved all those people from dying, you know?"
"Thanks", Peter said, sitting down as he told her. "When I was there last night, saving people and all that, I, well, I realized something."
"What?" Willow inquired, sitting down too.
"I realized this is what I'm supposed to do", Peter revealed, folding his arms as he smiled. "I'm supposed to use my powers to help the people of this city, protect them from harm. Not, not go after someone who may or may not have killed my uncle, this is what I should be doing."
Willow was impressed. Whatever had happened last night, it really had changed him for the better. Now instead of using his powers to try and track down the man who had killed his uncle for revenge, he was going to use them selflessly to help the people of New York and protect them from all kinds of harm.
"That is a commendable attitude to possess", Willow complimented him with a tap on the shoulder. She just hoped it didn't make him into a control freak like it had done to her. She too had started using her magic as a way to help others, but then she had fallen to using it for personal gain and decide what was best for others.
But then again, he had started using his powers in that way by first humiliating Flash for revenge and then trying to look for his uncle's killer. Now he had decided to use them for the better, so he had already gone past the previous bad phase and had come over to the good one.
That was good.
"Thank you", he said and she nodded.
"Then, there was also this big Lizard guy-"
"Wait, I saw that thing too", Willow revealed, shocking Peter. "It came out of a manhole. I used magic to attack it before it could do anything to me, and it went back in."
Peter sighed in relief that Willow was fine, but then again, considering she knew magic she could defend herself better than even he could for sure.
"We must find out what it is and where it comes from", Peter said immediately. "Its still out there and could hurt more people."
"Yeah, we have to stop it", Willow agreed with a nod.
"Also-"
"Yes?"
"I told Gwen."
"What?"
"I told Gwen who I am."
Willow was surprised now. "Really? You just told her-"
"I just couldn't keep it in", Peter defended himself from her. "And then we kissed."
"Oh!" Willow realized it was a good thing and raised both thumbs at Peter. "Congratulations. So I'm guessing you and her are a-"
"Well, I'm thinking we could be, though we only just had the one kiss", Peter sighed while rubbing his forehead.
"I think it's a good start, and she already knows so no secret identity stress to drive you two apart", Willow pointed out the bright side of all this, and Peter couldn't disagree on that, since Gwen already knowing meant he didn't need to lie to her or keep any secrets.
"Good point, guess I'll be talking to her more today to see where this goes", Peter told Willow. "And won't tell your secret to anyone else either unless I have your consent or whatever."
"Thank you", Willow said gratefully, liking Peter for that, as he got up.
"Its time to go now, see you at school", he said, walking out while waving to Willow who waved back.
Later, Peter and Gwen were sitting on the sidelines of a basketball game as he showed her the spider that had bitten him in a tube.
"It's so beautiful", Gwen commented.
Peter responded to that. "Knows how to bite though."
"Who else knows about this?" Gwen then inquired.
"Well, just one more person", Peter told her.
"Who?"
"Its Willow."
"Willow, as in the English Literature TA Willow?" Gwen asked and got a nod. "How?"
"My powers first manifested in a subway, and she was there, and she also saw my basketball mess, so she managed to figure it out, and she knows. She won't tell though, she's really nice", Peter explained to Gwen.
"Yeah, she is nice from the few conversation we've had", Gwen nodded in agreement.
"Helped me through this time too, you know?"
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Good."
"But anyways", Peter wondered, then asked. "Hey, you don't... You don't believe what the police are saying, do you?"
"Of course not", Gwen assured him. She knew Peter was a very good person. "Does it scare you? What you can do?"
It did at the start, yes, but now Peter knew what to do with his powers, so it did not scare him anymore. He shook his head and smiled. "No. No."
Gwen asked the next big question. "What did that thing on the bridge look like?"
"It was real big", Peter said, then added. "Too big to be human."
Gwen suggested. "You gotta lay low."
That was not in Peter's nature. "No, can't do that."
Gwen still didn't get the exact reason. "You've got to. I mean, why...?"
"Because of last night", Peter told her of the epiphany he had last night about what he was really meant to use his powers for. "Those people on the bridge. Whatever was attacking them would have killed them. So... I gotta go after it."
Gwen pointed out he had no obligation to do so. "That's not your job."
Peter remembered what Ben had said about how he was obligated to do things he could because it was his moral responsibility. "Maybe it is." He changed the topic to something happier for both of them though. "I really liked kissing you. You're an amazing kisser."
Gwen chuckled as she looked away but then looked back at Peter and nodded. "Well, you know, it was... It was good for me too. "
The two leaned in to kiss again when a basketball came near them, though just a second before Peter could catch it, it was stopped telekinetically and thrown down to the field.
Gwen thought Peter had done it but he knew who had, and looked down to see Willow waving to him from the other side.
He waved back and Gwen did too before the two teenagers ended up having their second proper kiss, which was once more really good for them for sure.
A while later, Peter had a bombshell dropped on him when he'd gone to ask Curt Connors about reptiles, and had seen one of his experimental rats was eating the other one up.
Connors had been doing research on cross-species genetics too. He was the Lizard!
So Peter had gone to inform George Stacy about it, but claiming to a police captain that a scientist could somehow turn into cheap Godzilla, when the same scientist was the mentor of that police captain's daughter and had given her a glowing college recommendation that had made the captain cry, it wasn't something that could really go well.
That effort had been futile (though unknown to Peter, after he'd left George had asked a man of his to look into everything they had on Curt Connors), so Peter had now come to Willow at her home.
He knocked and Willow opened it. "Oh, hey Peter, if you're here, it better be important, because I got 2 assignments to submit this week and-"
"I know who the Lizard is", he revealed to her and her eyes widened.
"Come on in."
A while later, Peter had told Willow everything he knew, as well as about the research that his father and Curt had together carried out at OsCorp, then his own role in helping out Connors with the cross-species genetics stuff by giving him the algorithm, then his discovery in the lab.
"So, Dr. Connors, I do know of him, lost one arm and was researching cross-species genetics, and now you say he's the cheap Godzilla I saw last night", Willow was in disbelief to some extent. "Oh well, even in Sunnydale I have seen sci-fi stuff before."
"Really? Like what?"
"A Demon trying to take over the Internet, and I online dated him."
"Really?"
"I had no idea what it was", Willow defended herself. "And a lifelike robot who could walk and talk like a normal human being. And-" Willow groaned in disgust. "One dude made a sexbot."
"Ewww, really?"
"Really, it was disgusting", Willow shook her head, and also remembered the Buffybot that she had to modify, but best not to bring it up for now. "Anyways, I can hack some stuff."
Willow opened her laptop and cracked her knuckles. "Been ages since I was into that stuff though. Like, still into it but not used these skills for a long time."
"You think you can do it though?" Peter inquired.
"I've to try", Willow shrugged as she opened the OsCorp site, trying to hack into the database, it was taking a while due to lack of experience and how many firewalls the company had, but eventually, she remembered and implemented her skills, and-
"I'm in!" Willow cheered happily, Peter smiling as he tapped her shoulder.
There was one thing she needed to check though, so she looked into the human mutation stuff, then sighed in relief.
"What?" Peter asked.
"There was one organization in Sunnydale who were experimenting on captured Demons, and had made a human/Demon/machine hybrid named Adam, that's the biggest sci-fi threat we faced, was just checking if there were any links or something, fortunately, there were none", Willow told him, when next moment she got a red alert on her screen. "Oh my God! I'm locked out now."
"What? Does that mean they'll co-"
"Nah, disguised my digital footprint pretty well, they'll never know who did it", Willow assured him. "But hacking into the database to find information is gonna be much harder."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, I could try to hack some surveillance to find where Connors could be", Willow pointed out to Peter, and then started doing the same. "Based on the directions he's taking according to the cameras and their footage, I'd say-"
So Peter had then gone down to the sewers to confront Connors, with a camera to take pictures and provide proof to the police and papers, only, Lizard had ambushed him and was upon him right now.
Peter struggled as Lizard used his claws to slice Peter's chest, making marks. "You stopped me once." Lizard grabbed Peter's covered face. "You won't stop me again."
Before Lizard could take it off, Peter managed to punch it twice as both fell down into the whirling water, Peter managing to kick it away.
He then swam and twirled around, breaking through some bars and going off as Lizard couldn't get in there, and he fell down much further and deeper.
Panting, he lay on the ground. "Oh, that sucked."
What he didn't know was Lizard had found his camera with his name on it, and now knew Spider-Man was Peter Parker!
Gwen was working in her home when there were thumps at her window and she turned to see Peter in his suit minus the mask. She gestured with her head. "Come in."
Peter opened the window and staggered in, Gwen not noticing his injuries yet. "You should maybe... consider coming in through the lobby." She stood up and walked to him. "Also, my father is under the impression... ...that you require psychiatric attention."
"Oh, really?"
Now Gwen noticed Peter was wounded and asked, concerned. "Peter. What happened?"
Peter simply told her. "You should see the other guy. The other guy, in this instance, being a giant mutant lizard."
The voice of George came from the hallway. "Hey, Gwen, honey. Do you want cocoa? Howard's making some."
Gwen opened the door slightly as Peter hid. "No, Dad, I do not want cocoa. Honestly, I'm 17 years old."
George reminded her of something. "Okay. I remembered somebody saying her fantasy was to live in a chocolate house."
Gwen did want it, but still shrugged. "Well, that's impractical. And fattening."
She closed the door as Peter whispered with a chuckle. "Chocolate house."
Gwen groaned and slightly opened the door while Peter hid again. "Sorry, Dad."
"It's good", George assured her.
Gwen now made up a better excuse due to having little time to think. "I can't have cocoa right now because I'm work... I'm doing this... I have cramps. I feel kind of pukey and just sort of... Like, emotional. I keep crying."
George kept assuring his daughter. "It's okay. Good. Good."
"It's brutal", Gwen exaggerated the best she could. "You don't want to know. It's, like, bad."
"Got it."
"Thanks, Daddy."
"All right", George walked off as Gwen closed the door again.
A while later, Gwen was cleaning a shirtless Peter's wounds as he tried to kiss her but she stopped him. "Easy, Bug Boy."
Peter let out an amused but hoarse chuckle. "What'd you call me?" Seeing her face, he assured her. "I'm going to be all right."
"No. No."
"Yes. Yes."
"I know what this is", Gwen told him.
Peter asked. "What is it?"
Gwen revealed what it was she lived with all the time. "Every day, for as long as I can remember, my father... has left every morning... and he's put a badge on his chest... and strapped a gun to his hip. And every day, for as long as I can remember... I haven't known if he was gonna make it home."
Peter held her face in his hands and Gwen grasped both of his. "I got you. Okay? Okay?" Gwen nodded as Peter then pointed out why he had to do this. "I gotta stop him, though. I have to, because I created him."
Gwen was confused now. "What do you mean?"
Peter revealed his own indirect role. "I gave him an equation... that made all of this possible. Something my father had been working on, you know. Secretly. Now I realise why he kept it a secret. Point is, this is my responsibility. I have to fix it."
Gwen sighed, knowing she couldn't talk her boyfriend out of this now. "Peter."
"Hey", Peter smirked as Gwen looked at him. "Let's get out of here. Let's just get out of here. Just for a minute." He asked her. "Can we?"
"No. No."
"Yeah. Yes. Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"If my parents see me leaving, I'm dead", Gwen finally said.
Peter told her. "Your parents aren't gonna see you leaving."
A minute later, Peter swung out of the house with Gwen holding onto him, and they swung together, having some fun.
Think this fic's about to be over soon, since not much of the movie is left to cover, and there will be the ending where Willow returns to Sunnydale to make it right with the rest.
Hope all enjoyed and see you all next time with another chapter. And, on a more serious note, if you live in Ukraine or have loved ones there, my prayers are with you.
