The next afternoon, Peter found himself atop a water tower near Central Park. He had dropped May off at the ice rink to practice her routines, and she would make her way to the lab afterwards to work on some gadgets she had been hinting at for a while. In the meantime, it was just him, Miles, and the city.
"Any new leads on this Loup-Garou guy?" Miles asked.
"I wish," Peter sighed. "Every trail MJ finds ends up being a red herring."
Loup-Garou was a newcomer to the New York criminal lineup. He had the ears and tail of the wolf he was named after, as well as the strength, and had already made a name for himself in muggings and other robberies. Recently, however, he seemed to be getting some upgrades, raising the stakes and committing more serious crimes. Peter had the idea that the guy was working for someone, but had no idea who, or what their end goal might be.
"Loup-Garou sighting near tenth and cathedral," the police scanner chirped in Peter's ear. "All available units, respond."
"Looks like it's fishing time," Miles grunted. Without another word, the two Spider-Men took up the pursuit.
"Nice moves out there, Parker!"
"Thanks, Coach Stephens," May replied, slinging her skates over her shoulder. "Gotta be at peak performance for finals, right?"
"Well, you keep it up, you should have nothing to worry about at the qualifiers next weekend."
"I don't think anything could keep me from worrying." When her end goal was trying out for the Olympic Figure Skating team, every performance counted. There was little over a year and a half left before her first opportunity to realize that dream, and May wasn't sure if she would ever feel ready.
"Don't sweat it," Coach Stephens assured, patting May on the shoulder. "Oh, hey, my junior class is just about to come in, but I left the new roster on my desk. Would you mind grabbing it for me?"
"Sure thing, Coach." May walked around the outside of the rink towards where she knew the offices were. The door to Coach Stephens's was open, so May let herself in and began scanning the desk.
New roster, new roster… she thought to herself. If I were a roster, where would I-
At that moment, May stepped closer to the desk, but still didn't see it. She turned to go ask Coach Stephens where else it might be, but her elbow caught the corner of the desk, knocking a pile of manilla folders onto the floor.
Smooth, Parker, smooth. She bent down to pick them up, when a word on one of the tabs caught her eye. Grave Dust. What is that, and why does it sound familiar?
Morbidly curious, she opened the folder. Inside were different chemical formulas, including their atomic structures and other properties, including storage instructions. All the files were labeled under something called Alchemax. Why would Coach have something like this?
The very last page had something that looked like the schematic of a building, with different points highlighted. The locations were described in the margins, along with a strange note: "Instructions for Werewolf."
I get the feeling I really shouldn't be looking at this. Nervously, May put the papers back in the folder and returned to picking up the others. She finally found the roster in the midst of the stack, and she quickly hustled out the office door, closing it behind her.
"There you are," Coach said when May approached. "Took your time, didn't you?"
"The roster wasn't where I could immediately see it," May explained, doing everything in her power to keep her voice steady. "Anyway, here it is, Coach."
"Thanks, Parker."
"I've got to go now. See you, Coach."
May picked up her bag from where she had left it, then walked out as quickly as she dared without looking conspicuous. Luckily, the lab was already her next stop, so she could start research on this Grave Dust, whatever it was. She did her best to keep the naive hope that it was the fancy name of some new protein powder, and not something worse.
One subway ride later, May arrived at her father's laboratory. Formerly the site of Octavius Industries, Tony Stark had purchased the place for the Parkers' exclusive use after her father signed on to help develop new Avengers tech. When Peter wasn't tinkering with inventions for Earth's mightiest heroes, the Spider family used it to create their own gadgets. Now, May was using it to research a drug.
She started by looking up the different compounds she had seen in Coach Stephens's files. Diox-3? And these are… Artificial amphetamines? This is starting to sound like a steroid: a powerful one. Maybe Dad's other files have some more information.
Surprisingly enough, she indeed found a file on Diox-3. It described conclusions about the drug which she had already come to, along with several effects.
"Another name for this compound is Grave Dust," she read aloud. "It was mass produced in 2018 by Lonnie Lincoln, aka Tombstone, in order to temporarily give his subordinates superhuman invulnerability and strength similar to his own. Whoa. This stuff was used by one of dad's old super-villains? Why does Coach want it, though?"
The file offered no answers to that question, though, or any of the others that started popping into May's head. Files about Tombstone weren't any more helpful, and certainly didn't mention any "were-wolf." The more she read, the more confused she got.
Maybe I should wait to ask Mom about this stuff, she thought. She has resources for things like this. Anyway, it looks like I've found everything I can, so I should spend the rest of my time working on my secret project.
May dug into the footlocker that Miles had made specifically for this. It wasn't that the project was something to hide, but the gadgets involved were the first she had made completely on her own, and she wanted to make sure they were working well before she showed her dad; not to mention that she wanted to surprise him with her style choices.
As she worked, she turned on her phone to listen to a podcast.
"Faithful listeners," the voice boomed. "I have reports of the so-called Spider-Gang, -the Harlem Spider-Man, the original Spider-Man and his offspring, the Spider-Girl- prowling around rooftops during a protest against Terrinc. Now, even though Roxxon's presence nearly destroyed Harlem several years ago, I choose to give this sister company of theirs the benefit of the doubt. So, what do these three spiders want with this business, you might ask? Are they looking for a chance to join in and take down a seemingly legitimate enterprise? Or are they planning to use their unnatural abilities to take down the protestors, and suppress their freedom of speech in an attempt to support Terrinc? Time will tell, but you know that I have little faith in this little band of arachnids."
At least you got our classification right, 4-J, May chuckled. She listened to Just the Facts for entertainment value more than anything. Now, this new host wasn't J. Jonah Jameson's son (in fact, May had heard that John Jameson was a very nice astronaut who supported the Spider Family), but people nevertheless called Don Daniels 4-J -short for J. Jonah Jameson Jr.- because he had taken up his predecessor's hatred of all things spider upon his retirement. Call it sadistic or masochistic, but listening to Just the Facts had become a family institution.
After the show was over, May turned on a playlist on Spotify. She worked for a couple of hours until she heard the electronic lock click to open the door.
"Hey, kiddo," her dad called.
"Hi," May called back, quickly shoving her things back in the footlocker.
"Whatcha got there?"
"It's a secret." She put her hands behind her back, holding the footlocker closed. "And it's not ready yet. I'll show you as soon as it is, okay?"
"Okay," Dad grinned. "Looking forward to it. Anyway, ready to head home? Your mom has chicken alfredo waiting."
"Sure. Let's go." Should I…? No. I don't have enough information yet. If I told Dad about Coach Stephens and Grave Dust now, he might think that I'm making it up. Or, worse, he'd believe me, but completely take over the case and not let me anywhere near it again. I think I'll do my own investigation later tonight.
