AN: First of all, big thanks to all of you who reviewed the last chapters! I love you guys, seriously. This update is for you.

Still following along with the traditional origin. I tried to work in a lot of Miguel's thoughts from the comic into the narration, especially towards the end. Enjoy!

Rapture

Shortly afterwards...

Stone managed to head O'Hara off before he could leave the building and divert him to his office. Miguel allowed it, if only for the fact that they would need to discuss his severance package, not to mention a parting bonus to pay for his therapy after seeing a human being mutate and shocking melt in front of his eyes. He knew that Stone would try to convince him to stay with the company, but Miguel's mind was already made up. Rather than allow him to arrive organically at an endpoint in his experiments, Alchemax had made him a murderer, even if the law wouldn't see it that way. There was no way he was going to chance another human trial after that fiasco earlier. Not. Even. One.

Tyler Stone's office was practically a penthouse. It was long, almost looping around the entire level of the building. Tempered and tinted glass made up the outer barrier of the room, allowing Tyler to look out at his leisure at the city and its traffic. Besides his L-shaped executive desk, it also had a bar and a long table set with conference chairs for guests. Stone led Miguel to the table, gesturing for him to sit.

"Take a seat, Mike. Let's talk, have a drink."

Miguel's mouth formed a thin line. For now he stayed standing. "I meant what I said, Ty, and I said I'm gone, I quit."

"You need to relax, Mike. Maybe take a couple of days off, get your head on straight again," Tyler told Miguel in what passed for comfort for him, turning his back. From his office bar he pulled out a wine bottle and started to pour them two glasses. With a hint of pride, he said, "This is from my private stock. 1994 was an excellent year."

"Are you even taking me seriously? I'm not going to be a part of another incident like today's. Even if you continue the work after I'm gone, at least I won't be a party to it."

Sighing, Stone slowly brought over the drinks and set them down. After another firm gesture from him Miguel finally sat down, deciding to humour him. He'd put up with Stone for years, so he could deal with watching his lips flap for another few minutes, especially with the help of some wine.

In a disappointed tone, Stone tried a chance in tactics. "Alchemax has groomed you, Mike. Cared for you, educated you, just as we did your father. He was a brilliant man, your father."

"You can bill me," Miguel bristled and snapped. Guilt trips wouldn't work on someone like him, let alone from Stone. Him talking about his father only added to his frustration, and he wondered if Stone had done that on purpose.

George O'Hara had had a few rare strokes of brilliance in him before he puttered out, this was true. Under Alchemax, he'd contributed to the redesign of the Public Eye's surveillance and security system for the entire city. Perhaps it was this that had attracted Miguel's mother to him. She probably had a soft spot for intelligent men hiding a darker side. Well, George had a darker side, alright, one that had landed his ex-wife in an institution soon after the divorce.

Stone passed Miguel one of the wine glasses, shaking his head slowly at the floor. "Well, Mike... You've obviously made up your mind. I can appreciate that, what's more, I can respect that. Despite what the Indys would have you believe, we here at Alchemax are not heartless monsters. Our employees are cherished participants, not prisoners. You are perfectly free to leave our little family if you wish, though we'll be sad to see you go. We're a business, not a stalag. Not only that, but I assure you that Roxxon, Stark-Fujikawa, Synthia... anyone who contacts us about you will receive nothing but the highest recommendation. Here's to a bright future."

Miguel raised an eyebrow as he accepted the drink, Stone hoisting up his. This was not sounding like Stone at all. Still, he liked what was being said, insincere or not. Cautiously, he allowed their glasses to clink together in a final toast, then took a sip. Stone did the same, frosty-blue eyes watching him over the rim of his glass. Stone hadn't been kidding about 1994 being a good year. Miguel didn't know the last time he'd had such good wine.

"Of course... I'm still hoping you'll reconsider," said Stone smoothly, setting down his drink. Miguel nearly choked on the wine, absolutely boggled by the man's nerve. He didn't feel as angry as he might've, though. In fact, he felt fine. Better than fine. Everything was light, the memory of Sims fate seemed faraway, and the future and all its endless possibilities felt closer and within reach. He chopped it up to finally relieving the weight of Alchemax off of his shoulders, being free to pursue scientific pursuits on his own or with an Independent, if he so chose.

"Ty, did we just have a synaptic meltdown in the last few minutes? I'm leaving, remember? Vapour. Poof. And y'know, now that I've made the decision... I feel more relaxed than ever."

"Yes," said Stone. Almost amused, he lightly took Miguel's wine from him and examined it up close, like a man over a telescope, fascinated by what only he could see under the slide. "That would probably be because of my parting gift: The Rapture."

Miguel's heart leapt into his throat, stomach twisting into knots. "Wh-what?"

"The rapture in the wine you just drank. I'm sure you're familiar with it."

No, no no no no...

The initial bliss was swiftly spoiling, moldering into a new sensation of dread that was all encompassing. Miguel could swear that he was starting to see little... things peaking out at him from behind the corners of his vision, manifestations of his feelings. Howls and shrieks whispered past his ears like a wind only he could hear. Versions of the mutated Mr. Sims crawled accusingly over Tyler Stone's desk, small as spiders, like that older "The Fly" holo...

"A mind-expanding hallucinogen. Very high-powered, very fast-working, and very long-lasting. Perfectly legal, of course. A number of Alchemax employees are already users," Stone said casually. A smirk slipped onto his face, and Miguel flinched back in his seat as a fork-like tongue flickered out from between his perfect teeth. "But my records indicated that you'd never availed yourself of it. I thought maybe the prohibitive expense had made you hesitate, so consider this a present."

Shakily, Miguel stood. His hands clenched into fists, eyes darting from Tyler to various points in the nightmare room. "You... creeping p-piece of..."

Tyler just tilted his head, as though a novel thought had suddenly struck him. "Now that I think of it... Perhaps you've passed on it because Rapture is so addictive. Once it's in your system you need it the way you need oxygen to breathe. Without Rapture, you'll shut down and die." His voice dropped, hands affectionately patting Miguel on the shoulder. The younger man had turned away and clutched his head, trying to regain some semblance of sanity.

"You want to hit me, don't you? I wouldn't. I think you'll want me to remain kindly disposed to you... especially since Alchemax is the only authorized Rapture distributor. That's probably another reason it held no appeal for you. You being such an independent sort, Mike... You'd never want to give up your ability to just walk out. You can still walk away, Mike. But you won't like the consequences."

He was suffocating in this office, drowning in the stench that was Tyler Stone. Miguel fumbled for the door, and Stone helped him open it and held it there as Miguel stumbled through. Stone smiled like a jackal at his retreating figure, but because he was facing the other direction, Miguel missed the parting look.

"I'll have a car bring you home," he called soothingly after him. "Get some rest... and enjoy the Rapture. If you fight it, it can be quite nasty, so I'd just give in if I were you. And Mike... Here's hoping you choose to be a member of the Alchemax family for some time to come."

/

Outside Babylon Towers...

Tyler Stone was a fox. He could turn on anyone at any moment, and Miguel had been a fool to trust him for even a moment. Now, Tyler Stone was a literal fox, snarling in front of him and licking his lips. The eyes like ice and the sleek blond fur were undoubtedly him. Miguel determinedly strode through him and into its open mouth, shivering until he got through to the other side.

None of it's real. Get a grip. Don't give in.

As hard as he tried, Miguel couldn't find it in himself to return to that state of calm before, nor did he really want to. Even if it was a matter of stupid pride, or self-suffering, he fought the drug all the way home. The day he listened to Tyler Stone was the day he died.

People looked at him like he was crazy, but his attention was always elsewhere. The walkways were a battleground of terrible images, bizarre sound and sights that he would not soon forget. Conchata the tarantula crawled down the side of Miguel's apartment building, but fused to her head was the face of his actual mother. Her front legs lifted, fangs bared, before she pounced. Out of reflex Miguel tripped and skidded across the sidewalk for a second, scrambling away from concerned and annoyed passerbys. He darted inside and all but sprinted to the elevator, hitting his floor's button since he couldn't trust his voice to enter the spoken command. The elevator was no safe-haven from the Rapture's adverse effects, unfortunately. He cowered stiffly into the corner, counting the levels as they went by.

The ride felt like an hour-long ordeal, but finally Miguel made it to his apartment door. With what little coordination he had left Miguel managed to stagger inside, groaning and keeping his eyes squeezed tightly shut. This was how his fiance, Dana D'Angelo, found him.

She'd come to his apartment to wait for him as was her usual routine, and to pass the time had started a cardio session with Lyla. The stunning, holographic projection was in the middle of a chant as she stretched and stepped and guided Dana visually through the workout. Lyla's voice was a quirky, peppy trill of encouragement.

"One, two, three, four, come on Dana do some more. Don't slow down, don't take rests, this will help to firm your b-"

"Uuuhhh..." Miguel unintentionally interrupted them, gripping a fistful of his hair and forehead. He was oblivious to the real world, lost in the climax of the Rapture, entirely engaged in the peak of his battle with it.

Immediately Dana stopped her movements and barked at Lyla, "Freeze program!"

Freeze Lyla did, right on the spot and holding her half-step pose. Meanwhile the brunette jogged over, lines of concern growing on her face. To her he looked utterly deranged. Miguel shied away from her footsteps, facing the wall and sweating profusely.

"Miguel! What's wrong, lover? You're home early! Are you sick? Should I-"

The Rapture was finally wearing off, but towards its end the effects seemed to spike for Miguel. They were just hallucinations, he knew, but the rational side of his brain was in a losing battle with the part that could see, hear, and smell them. They are real! Run! his subconscious all but screamed at him. So, when something physical touched his arm, to the point that he could feel it, that was the last straw.

"Get away!"

He lashed out blindly, flailing with all his strength. An arm caught something to his side, and that something turned out to be his fiance. Dana was practically flung from him, head knocked back from the force of the slap. She made a small sound that started to bring Miguel back to his senses. It'd been a purely defensive blow from Miguel's end, but it'd done its damage to her face.

Shaking his head, Miguel started towards her like a kicked dog, descending the steps one at a time with one arm ahead of him. A few fading apparitions slunk from his path, not unlike the way a mirage vanished when you got close enough. He gasped through his hand at the sight of Dana sitting on her knees, rubbing the side of her face. It brought back a flash of his mother, before the divorce. But if Dana was his mother, then what did that make Miguel...? No, he wouldn't even entertain going down that rabbit hole, wouldn't dare to consider that conclusion.

"Aw, shock, Dana! I... I didn't realize it was- I thought you were a-"

"Just... Just keep away from me," Dana grumbled.

"Honey, I swear, I-" He stretched out the arm to touch her shoulder and saw the bruise blossoming over the skin surrounding her eye. "Aw, man, your face. I... I feel like dirt."

"Good!" she shot back at him. "Why did you-?"

"It's the Rapture. I was fighting it... seeing monsters everywhere. I-"

"Rapture?! Since when do you drop Rapture?"

He helped her stand, tenderly touching the part of her face that was temporarily marred by his moment of weakness. His fingers brushed aside some of her short, brown locks to better see the extent of it. Eyes wide, Dana grabbed at him. The explanation had completely taken her aback. The man she knew and was engaged to had openly condemned Alchemax's drugs, and Rapture specifically, since it was the most prevalent at his work. Miguel moved away, as if ashamed.

"Since Tyler Stone decided to slip me some as incentive to stay."

"You were quitting Alchemax?" Dana was in disbelief. Something bad must've happened for Miguel to throw in the towel, very, very bad. She resolved to ask him about it later, but it was hard to get him to open up to even her.

"I... I was, but now... I mean, the effects have finally passed, but I can feel it gnawing at me. I'll need it again, soon... But then Alchemax has my ass in a permanent sling."

"Listen," said Dana. She tried to get him to look her way again, tried to help him find hope in this shit storm of a situation. "I have friends. Even if you quit Alchemax, I can probably get Rapture through Black Market-"

"You want me to be a lousy drug addict my whole life?!"

Distraught, she flung herself onto him, resting her head on his shoulder. After a few seconds she could feel Miguel rest his head against hers, accepting the closeness and the comfort that came with it. He honestly didn't deserve her, but then Gabriel had deserved her less. Neither one of them were about to complain.

"I want you not to hurt! That's all!" Dana buried her nose into his clothes, whispering. "That's all."

/

That night...

Alchemax HQ...

Dana may have been complacent to let his new drug addiction fly, but Miguel wasn't about to throw in the towel yet. All he had to do was get creative. Every problem had a fix, if one could only find it. This particular problem was right up his alley, and all the equipment he needed was already at work, ready for his disposal.

That night he'd waited for Dana to head home before returning to Alchemax. He didn't tell her about his plan, both because he didn't want to worry her any more should things go wrong, and because he was a private man by nature. Dana wasn't exactly dumb, far from it, but she wouldn't understand.

Luckily, his records were still in the system since Stone didn't consider his resignation official. Once signed in the building granted him access. The whole way to the lab he was sneaky, avoiding any sign or sight of stragglers in the building. He made a stop at a terminal room once to meddle with the records and the footage from his route. The security computer was overridden to play a loop of the lab, and he erased the log about his entering the building. Miguel's personal mission required that there be no witnesses and no trace of evidence of his ever being here.

That trick would've been impossible for 99.9% of Alchemax employees, but not Miguel O'Hara, super-genius, thought Miguel smugly and somewhat self-mockingly as he departed from the terminal room. Then, his thoughts became embittered. A super-genius who let himself get blind-sided by a smiling snake named Tyler Stone. I spend so much time talking like Mr. Overconfident that I let myself get that way. Brilliant. Well, O'Hara, let's see if you can turn some of that brilliance to your own problem...

Rapture was unique in that it contained an enzyme component that bonded to the taker's biology at the genetic level, rendering them permanently predisposed to being addicted. It was this utilization of epigenetics that made it the most profitable of any company's designer drugs, even if it was primarily distributed for cheap amongst the Alchemax itself. It still managed to find its way on the street markets, however.

The Rapture's already attached itself to me genetically. By morning I'll be a hopeless addict. My only prayer is to try to restore myself to what I was.

Fortunately for Miguel, he had a copy of his complete genome uploaded to the files of his project. On the machine's observation deck, he opened it up for viewing on a computer screen. It was labelled: FILE 1A O'HARA, GENEPRINT 100. Even before officially beginning work on the Spider-Man project, Miguel had already been using his own genetic code as sample working material, imprinting it on apes. Later it'd been the first and so far only homo-sapien base of his human-spider program. It would've never occurred to him at the time that one day he'd want to try imprinting it on himself.

It should work. All he had to do was update himself with the back up to make things go back to normal. There was nothing more compatible and safe of a genetic imprint to implement than his own. He typed the instructions to have the machine load the program into the machine and prepare for a low-level session. There was no sense in taking unnecessary risks with the power, especially when there was only him around to run the machine this time. This would be more than enough to erase the corruption caused by the Rapture.

Miguel strode down into the humming machine, stopping before the egg-shaped chamber. Shivering in the cool, sterile air, he started to strip. He haphazardly tossed the clothes into a pile, then stepped inside to settle into the seat. The humming was growing louder as the machine charged, and the top of the dome was descending around him. Miguel never saw Aaron Delgato enter.

/

"Miguel O'Hara, working overtime," Aaron muttered. At first he'd been startled to see the scientist here, but that surprise was rapidly being replaced by an evil enthusiasm, the kind that accompanied premeditated murder. Let no opportunity go to waste, Aaron always said.

His hands hovering over the dashboard, Delgato started to meddle with the first controls that caught his eye. Half of them didn't mean a thing to him. "A pity if something went wrong... something like... say... my pumping up the levels of every blasted piece of equipment in the imprint sequence. And what's this button do? Poor dumb old Aaron Delgato wouldn't understand your great concepts, would I, O'Hara? Doesn't much matter when I'm in the driver's seat, though, does it?!"

Unwittingly, Aaron added the spider-program to the already active human geneprint. The screen flashed the words, FILE 1A O'HARA, 50. FILE 47-A SPIDER, 50. The two programs mixed and mingled as the computer strained to comply with the conflicting commands being entered. WARNING: EXCEEDING RECOMMENDED SAFETY LIMITS.

It was impossible to look directly at the center-piece of the machine now, so blinding was the energy blasting off of it. The humming of the machine was deafening now, like a scream. No, that was O'Hara, screaming inside. Never before had a sound been so satisfying to Aaron Delgato.

"Warning. Equipment is exceeding recommended safety levels," calmly stated the computer when its on-screen warning went unheeded. "Automatic shutdown in T minus five seconds..."

"Override! Repeat, manual override!" Delgato roared. The computer complied, displaying a new message. OVERRIDE IN EFFECT. FILES MERGING.

He leaned over the control board, eagerly peering through the blinding rays to catch some sight or sign of the chamber. It was lost in the light and heat, but maybe if Delgato was lucky he'd see or smell a whiff of smoke. O'Hara, well-done, his favourite dish. The screams were still audible, and they reached a peak just as the whole thing came undone. An explosion rocked the room, deafening and powerful, but contained in intense close-quarters with the center stage and chamber of the machine. Delgato knew it was coming, so he threw himself behind the controls for cover and pressed his hands over his ears. His coat was quite dirty, but besides that he was unharmed.

"HAAH!" the man crowed, straightening to see the destructive fruits of his orchestrated "accident". "How do you like that, Mr. Genius! Mr. Smart-mouth, wise-cracker! HOW DID-! Huh?"

Delgato sucked in a breath, his tirade dying in his throat. There was a naked human form pulling free from the wreckage, unharmed, and very much alive. He didn't believe it, couldn't believe it, but there it was, clear as day. Unless O'Hara's shocking ghost was paying him a visit, then that was indeed him. This was not how this whole scenario was supposed to go, not if he wanted to get off scot-free. Delgato didn't know how he should react so as to save his own skin.

But wait, he still had one ace up his sleeve. Just from one look at the confused, huddled figure, Aaron knew that O'Hara didn't know that he'd been the one to overload the circuitry. Delgato could use that if he played along, put on a confident facade and laid the blame elsewhere. It was still possible for him to win in all this.

"Late night mad-scientist theatrics, O'Hara? You've just blown it big time, boy. When I tell Mr. Stone how you wrecked the equipment in some temperamental tantrum, that's going to finish you," sneered Delgato.

O'Hara didn't show any reaction to hearing him. He leaned against the remains of the leg-structures that had once supported the transformation chamber. Wires were hanging over his head, and soot had settled over the skin of his bare body. Though standing he'd curled into himself. One arm was limp, while the other was bent to his cranium. Soon his hands had joined each other in gripping the area around his eyes.

Daintily stepping over some debris, Delgato came ever closer. He wouldn't tolerate this impertinence; O'Hara had ignored him for the last time. The self-satisfied scientist had underestimated Delgato, too, not knowing how dangerous he could be when pushed.

"Then I'll be back in charge, doing things the way they should be..." Delgato drifted off and scowled. Still nothing from O'Hara. He roughly grabbed the younger man's shoulder to whip him around.

"Turn around and look at me when I speak to you, boy! Before I kick your butt from here to-"

A low rasping sound entered Aaron's ears, growing into a growl, or a hiss, something inhuman. O'Hara's back unhunched slightly, eyes without visible irises or pupils leering over Delgato.

"-To-" Delgato stuttered, petrified. His self-assured front dropped, mouth opening and eyes bulging. Automatically, the hand on O'Hara's shoulder lifted away and lingered in front of Delgato in a useless gesture of defense.

O'Hara had a hand of his own stretched out, each finger tipped by a flesh-coloured talon. Through that reaching hand and under O'Hara's unholy eyes Delgato saw elongated canine teeth. Fangs was the only word for them. At such close proximity he heard him hiss again, near-silent. So thorough was his shock that Aaron Delgato never even realized that he'd relieved himself on the spot.

End of Chapter

Dun dun dun.

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