CHAPTER 46

Costume Designing

Last time- Peter Parker went investigating into the issues of Felicia Hardy at her home, only to fine the domicile barred and locked. Waiting outside, his weakened body succumbed to unconsciousness in the cold. Waking up, he met with the doctor Elias Wirtham, who revealed the true opponent Peter has to stop- The Mysterious Kingpin of crime- and the fact that Felicia is working alongside him. Meanwhile, Gwen Stacy and Flash Thompson are also neck deep in their own problems.

OO

Yawning in exhaustion, you head to the bathroom and splash your face with cold water. You were up rather late talking with Elias Wirtham about what he knew- currently Felicia's not in danger, but she's probably up to no good. You wanted to argue against that, but there was a certain, resigned look in the man's posture. He's apparently gone through all of what Felicia left intact and is looking into some matters- he also handed you one last untraceable phone- said Felicia told him to give it to you in passing, and that she said you shouldn't look for her.

But, while Wirtham said all of this, he also said that she'd do something that she would forever regret- putting together the pieces, its obvious to assume that Felicia is on the trail of the person who killed her father and is working with the Kingpin to do it. But, when you asked for advice, Wirtham only had the faintest ideas.

"Look, kid, the Kingpin of Crime is called that because he's not easy to find or takedown. If you want to draw him out, you're gonna have to mess with his operations- get him to pay attention to you. Its risky, but it's the only way to draw him out- if you can do that, then you'll find Felicia without a doubt."

He gave you one last check over, including a promise to check out a blood sample you had him take for anything weird in your blood before heading out with the parting words that it was unlikely Felicia would return here any time soon.

After that you headed home and went to sleep. But, man, you're so freaking tired.

You decide to collapse back Into bed and sleep more. As the world fades to darkness, you feel yourself falling.

Falling forever.

As you fall, you feel yourself catching on things- landing as they catch you in a sticky snare before your weight makes it give way and break, as you keep falling. Over and over again.

As you fall, you force your eyes open as the abyss above you begins to move as you watch memories play out above you- of you studying, working harder to figure out life's mysteries. Of your childhood, being alone- your mother, father and closest friend gone.

…if you take into account that, then I think we've got the problem solved, Ri…

The film burns out as it restarts again. You're sitting in the playground waiting nervously. Mary Jane looking anxious and slightly afraid as she arrives, her hand held by her s- no, it was Mary Jane marching imperiously as she gives you a terrible grin, malice in her eyes.

"…but there's a slight problem with the substance, you see. It has the problem that its very, very resilient. What if something goes wrong?" "Keep your voice down, Peter's asleep."

The film burns out again, a new reel starting.

You close the book as you look at your friend. "I've decided, I'm going to become a superhero, Eddie!" The blonde boy gives you a patronizing look, ruffling your hair as he and your parents laugh. "Sure you will, Pete."

You need to be a better Hero than you have been. With people like Tony Stark pretending to be heroes, there needs to be a superior example of heroes to look up to.

The reel burns, leaving you alone as you land at the bottom of a pit, alone- torn pieces of webs above you. Looking down, your hands are that of you as a child. In the darkness something moves as you hear the sound of a heart beating….

Sitting upright, you try to piece the rapidly fading pieces of dreams together, but its like trying to catch mist with your hands- it seeps through the cracks. Looking at the clock, its almost noon and somehow you still barely feel any more rested.

Sitting upright, you try to piece the rapidly fading pieces of dreams together, but its like trying to catch mist with your hands- it seeps through the cracks. Looking at the clock as you awaken, its almost noon and somehow you still barely feel any more rested.

Heading downstairs, you fix yourself a cup of coffee before heading down to the basement to check on the news. Turning on the computer, you go to various news sites as you look into things that have been happening lately.

Looking into crime news, there's nothing readily apparent, but as you take a deep drink of the strong coffee, you choke on it as you see the image on screen and read the news article 'Black Suit Spiderman Saves Hospital'- fighting against some sort of lizard-person is a person in a black Spider-man suit- slightly padded.

Setting the coffee cup down with a loud 'THUMP' you search for more images as you feel your breath shortening. Its getting hard to breath as you find clearer images and you feel your hands shake and feel clammy.

You're going into shock, you need to take deep breaths and calm down. BREATHE!

Forcing yourself to take deep breaths of air you quickly close off the pictures before resting your head, as you try to stop the slight shaking in your arms.

Well, you don't feel tired anymore.

You try to force your mind into coherency as you start thinking up ideas.

If dealing with organized crime, a sturdier suit or more sophisticated systems might be needed. Likewise, more storage cannot be dismissed for webbing as prolonged battles will likely run out your webbing supplies. If hunting the other Spider-man and Lizard creature, then some sort of liquid nitrogen-based device to chill the Lizard creature's body temperatures would make it easier to subdue. Likewise, you'd need to prepare for potentially facing an antagonistic person with Spider-man powers- you'd have to be able to defeat someone with the same set of abilities. Mind you, you do have a possible ally for technology, if you're able to bring something interesting enough to the table.

Locking up the basement, you call Stella to check on her and find out she's currently out and about- invited by some classmates to spend the day out with Aunt May supervising. Relieved, you try to call Flash only to get him answering 'Sorry, Peter, I'm really busy right now, I'll have to call you back."

With his hanging up, you notice his voice was rather tense as if he was doing something else at the time. You think about calling Gwen, but hesitate as you pull out the police scanner- she wasn't thrilled with your choice during the Oscorp Incident, so it might be best to leave her alone for the moment.

Pulling out the last Spider-man suit you have, you look it over and see the poor craftsmanship already taking its toll. You'll need to work on another sometime- this one won't hold up much longer- continuously patching it will only do you so much good.

Pulling out some paper to write with, you give a grimace. Thought you had more paper than that. Regardless, you still have enough for the time being.

The design of the costume is currently irrelevant to the needs you have, that can come after you've decided what the costume needs.

Well, you could always work a new thin, agile suit out.

An agile suit would be useful in dodging, certainly- its thin profile doesn't hinder your movements. However, it won't protect you from any firearms or weapons- if you can't dodge, you'll take the brunt of the hit. You've also got limited space to store anything unless you invest in belts and pouches.

Hmm, but you could always remake your current attire, using better skills- make the jacket reversible, sturdier, and put some bulletproof materials inside between the layers.

It'd give you better storage but you'd be slowed some, so you'd need to adapt and overcome the costume if you'd want to get your whole range of movement out of it, but even then there'd be some hindrances. But, you'd be less likely to take damage from small arms and weapons.

Man, Tony Stark never had these problems, but then again he's rich, so he was able to come up with something like his Iron Man armor.

A heavier armor based on Stark's designs would, without being able to access them, mean you'd need to reverse engineer his power supply and modify his armor's idea into something lighter and more mobile. This would make it far less flexible, but you'd have the best protection and a technological suit available, along with the ability to pack stronger firepower. However, you lack the ability to build this on your own right now…

Resting your head on your arms, you idly let you mind think as you look at your mask. There's ways to improve it, certainly, and you'd basically be able to reuse it.

There are upgrades available for the mask, certainly. However, it would require linking wirelessly to update the information and for real-time support, but you would be able to have better lenses and have your support be your 'eyes in the sky' keeping you alert. However, you risk being hacked if found by an opponent while using wireless support. There's also eventual upgrades like night vision or thermal, which could be useful.

Hmmm…

Likewise, there's upgrades to have your phone be integrated into your mask- along with other upgrades- such as a police scanner. But, you again have the possibility of being cracked by an opponent who knows what they're looking for and what they're doing- Tony Stark would be able to do it, certainly.

Ugh. You're head's killing you as you feel one more idea slip out, unwanted.

Well, if properly utilized, the Suit designed by your father could be utilized- direct contact would have to be halted by a covering bodysuit with an electrifying mesh- but using that you could theoretically make a new, incredibly durable bodysuit that can be neutralized by activating the electric bodysuit- actual connection to the suit is unwise and ill-advised and this is the most dangerous option.

And it's stupid. Nobody would go for something like that. Actually? Scratch that last idea. it's a stupid idea.

Still, there's a lot to consider there.

Taking aside time, you draw out the plans for the mask. Working on the lenses- you begin working on plans for them while taking into account the various factors, such as not overheating and the like in your own costume. The ideas for the lenses are basic, left with room for upgrades, as you take ideas from things like Google glasses and motion tracking- and work on them to refine them into a pair of goggles. It's pretty basic design theory, but it should be able to work… in theory.

There's upgrades that could be done- such as the ability to polarize lenses against bright lights, night vision, thermal, but that's once you've proven the basic idea. There's still more improvements to be made.

Now as for the headset, it involves you actually copying and compartmentalizing the ideas and changes from your untraceable phone- which is difficult, for lesser minds. You though, have it figured out as you write down things at a frantic pace.

No, that entire segment is wrong, you'll fry the electronics with it like that. You need to compensate here and here.

Pausing, you correct yourself as you realize what an elementary mistake you'd be making as you work on basic ideas for the headset integration. It's pretty simple- its like using blue tooth headphones- but the phone is entirely within the headsets, along with other features, such as the police tracker, it has the possibility of different functionalities, but you first need to build the prototype before upgrading further.

Working on the designs for the durable suit, you start to add in different details options, such as the option to make the coat reversible- making it more or less bulletproof- what materials to use.

As you sit there, you notice you're idly sketching out an arm beneath a sleeve- instead of simple gloves, there's the idea of a gauntlet version of your webshooter- just rough ideas of size and the like, but huh. Weird. Its not like you couldn't think of it, but to doodle idly, you guess the ability to have more options is weighing on you pretty heavily.

That might be something to look into, soon.

Designing the outfit, you take note to make adjustments to it- rather being able to hide it in one way or another or have space for gadgets, it'd be best to look into making it as bulletproof as possible and look into ways of keeping it highly flexible to limit the amount the costume could hinder you. As it is, depending on the quality and skill of the person making it, you'd probably be able to take some small arms fire and hits better, but heavy weaponry and bladed weapons are what you'll need to look out for. Then again, that also depends on the quality of materials you can get a hold of.

Since you've been redesigning your webshooters a lot, you keep room open to make the sleeves adjustable to fit different varieties inside, considering the thicker materials.

Finishing up the overall design, you decide to keep it the same overall colors as before. There's a bit of sentimentality as it was the first costume you made, along with the fact that dealing with the underworld of NYC so subdued colors would help- you'd likely be operating at night after all.

Finishing up the design work, you realize that several hours have passed- its early afternoon now. Groaning at the headache and sick feeling you're experiencing, you head upstairs for a bite to eat after putting everything away. Aunt May's out of the house with Stella, and Uncle Ben's at work.

You should get to work on your costume- you've got an idea of what you'll need, so that just means that you need to go and buy the parts. While being thrifty- got to make your money last.

Enjoying the brisk, cold air, you head out and stop by several places and buy your necessary needed parts, pieces and particulars. Your head feels like its clearing up, so you actually find that you're enjoying yourself on these errands.

After haggling over a soldering kit, you leave happy with the deal you made- this was all buy necessary for your work today. Carrying your bags, you find your way home- efficient use of time allowed you to make it home before anyone else. Calling to check up on Stella and Aunt May, you get a hold of Aunt May, who says they'll be back in time to make dinner.

Perfecto!

Heading into the basement, you sort through your purchases and begin to get to work.

Working on the costume, you find yourself at peace as you cut and assemble each and every part with post speed and painstaking detail- having made this before you're familiar with the original flaws and problems and have compensated for them in the meantime. Using interlocking plates between layers, the costume is armored and flexible- you'll be protected from small arms fire, but you're still as vulnerable to knives and weapons that can penetrate.

Sometime, you might be able to advance the bulletproof nature, but that would require you to discover new materials to replace your current bulletproof parts.

By the time you're done, you've already paused to eat for the night, so by the time you're done here, its about ten at night.

Working on constructing programming the lenses, you manage to make a rough prototype in the shape of your lenses and try them out. They seem to work alright, but the programming is a little slow and there's undoubtedly tons of bugs to iron out. However, given time and patience, these bugs will probably be able to work out for a more refined version- as it is, unless you sufficiently debug and boost their output, other modules, such as the night vision or thermal won't work. Thankfully though, the cameras that are necessary for the lenses seem to work.

For a prototype, you're almost proud, but they probably need a lot more work.

However, its pretty late. You could finish the rest of the costume tonight and sleep in tomorrow, but that means you'd be even more exhausted if you had to wake up early. On the other hand- completing the prototypes tonight means you'll have more time to field-test them and get the bugs out before things dire and a malfunction or bug causes major problems for you.

Yawning, you put things away as you get ready to head to bed- your new costume is mostly complete, and even so you still have your old mask which fares marginally better than the rest of the costume. Heading upstairs, you yawn as you get ready to head to bed.

Laying back onto your bed you fall asleep.

In your dreams, you're falling. Forever through an endless void of blackness- wind whistling in your ears, even though there's no air to hear with.

But of what you dream- of what you see in this abyss…

You Can Not Remember

End
To Be Continued...

Please Review

Publisher's Note:

This chapter was mostly focused on building Peter a new costume since his most recent one has been eaten and his other ones are either not effective or are close to falling apart. Also I wanted to show more of Peter thought process. So hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. Now as you noticed many ideas were introduced for Peter's costume design in this chapter. He will get more upgrades later on in the coming chapters, but slowly and will get them realistically (or as realistically as possible as you can get upgrades in the Marvel universe) depending on his current assets.

Now I want to just talk about the current cannon series of Spider-Man. if there is one thing I disliked about cannon Peter(or in other words I disliked his writers) is that many times Peter gets major costume upgrades or gadgets throughout the Marvel universe in which case he never uses after the comic Issue or arc is over or wears later on in another comic issue or arc for only for a while or throughout the duration of said issue or arc. Such as the Iron Spider costume or more recently the Superior Spider-Man costume.

In the comic when Peter abandons the Superior Costume that the reformed Dok Ock has spent the duration of the arc upgrading (to help him fight against crime better)instead for his, original Spider-Man costume (which has no upgrades at all). (You do not know how many times I mentally faced palmed myself at this) I understand the suit was heavily damaged at the time so Peter couldn't use it but it just seems now every time writers are always trying to restore the status quo of Peter's abilities but they never want to upgrade Peter more or at least slightly, the major villains are more or less slowly becoming more powerful so why is it that Peter can't have more costume or rather more gadget, progression? (Web-Fluids are good and aren't the problem). The problem is that most of the upgrades in the Superior Costume you would expect Peter to be able to do since he's basically close on par to Dok Ock in intelligence, he should have some memory at least of the suit in order to recreate the designs but the writers are playing it off as if he can't. Now I love the Spider-man comics and that will most likely never change anytime soon, but these are just the problems that irk me at times when I'm reading through them(The other dimensional Spider-men do not count as getting upgrades). After all Tony Stark continues to get myriads of armor suits,well than again he is rich, but than again you would also expect Peter to gain minor upgrades also.

Well sorry for that, but thanks for reading along.

Also if you didn't realize it, most of the upgrades in this chapter are being set up to be more or less like the Superior Costume, except the colors will remain like the original Spider-Man costume.

P.S: Pictures have been updated in my profile for the characters in this story.

Until next time.

Please Review