Chapter 2: Jungle Giveaway

The spider was originally going to be a boy, but then I had this vision of Peter being the father figure to a little girl spider, and . . . I revised this entire chapter to fit with that. Spider-Man is just such an adorable overprotective father.

Thank you for all the reviews!

OfficialUSMWriter: I'm a sucker for Man-Spider stories too. I've been dying to write something like this. I hope this lives up to your expectations!

TheStoryWever: XD I absolutely love that scenario! I'm not sure if I can fit it in here, but the future of this story isn't set in stone at all. We'll see where it goes.

Thanks to Citruswyvern32 and Fletcher for name suggestions! I managed to avoid officially naming the spider yet, but I did put a lot of possibilities into this chapter. Let me know which names you like best!


Peter woke in a cold sweat, hands going to his mouth and sides like they had all the other times he had woken that night.

The same dream repeated every time he managed to fall asleep, and it only became more disconcerting each time. For one, the fact that it always had the same images (and scents and feelings . . .) only convinced him that it was more than just his imagination. By the third time he woke up, he stopped spending his time awake trying to convince himself it wasn't real and just began to console himself that it was over.

The spider on his nightstand that occasionally sent him calming mental images did not help much.

And on top of that, the dreams showed more each time. It was a small relief that he had not, in fact, succeeded in really harming the dinosaur. Wolverine had stopped him before that. But what seemed to follow was even more alarming. He had fought Wolverine with everything he had. He hadn't held back. At all. And if a (relatively) small spider bite had sent Wolverine to the med bay, then Peter could only imagine what a bite from him in that . . . savage state would have done.

It was all quite disturbing.

Peter decided to stop trying to sleep for the night.

It was three in the morning. That was just great. At least it was Sunday, so he could be a zombie at home instead of at school. He hoped he could get past this in time to be able to sleep later. But for now, he could use the extra time to be productive. Maybe he could work on some homework. He wasn't really feeling up to it, but he had to do something. He stood and stretched, trying to persuade his body that he wasn't exhausted. When that didn't work, he began to pace, searching his room for something that could keep him awake.

Was there even homework for him to do? He checked the calendar. Huh, he had managed to finish everything due this week. That was the first time in a long while. Of course, Ava had helped him with his lab report and Luke had proofread his essay, but he could still feel proud. What were friends for, after all?

Maybe he should tidy up his room. Wouldn't May be pleased if she woke up to a clean room for once? Not that it was really messy . . . Peter sighed. He wasn't really in the mood to clean in the middle of the night. Besides, that would run the risk of waking May.

His gaze fell on the little spider. It stared back at him, tiny eyes glinting green in the dark.

Hello!

Well, they were both awake. He might as well teach it some more words and stuff. It would be helpful if he could teach it to not bite people as soon as possible. There was no guarantee it would listen, but it wouldn't hurt to try. He grabbed the insect box from his bedside table and brought it over to his desk. It pushed against the plastic, trying to get out. Peter debated if he should let it out right now. He supposed it would be all right as long as he kept a close eye on it. Turning on the light would probably help; there was no need to risk losing sight of the spider in the dark.

Wait, the dark?

Peter looked around his room. He had neglected to turn on a single light since he had woken up. Only a thin crescent of the moon was visible through the window. The room should have looked as close to pitch black as he usually needed in order to sleep properly.

But it wasn't.

True, the place wasn't as bright as day, but it was light enough that he could see everything fine. He had been able to read his cramped handwriting on the calendar. That shouldn't have been possible!

Was there something lighting his room? He couldn't see any source of light aside from the little bit of moon, but it wouldn't be his first time encountering lights without an identifiable source. He had dealt with magic on more than one occasion. Maybe he had brought back some sort of jungle curse too. These things always happened in threes, right?

Maybe Peter would send the spider back home on an automated jet. The Savage Lands appeared to be nothing but bad luck for him.

Moving cautiously now, Peter began to check his room for anything amiss. There weren't any jungle tikis bent on revenge under his bed. There wasn't any man-eating slime on the floor either. There wasn't even the ominous sound of banging drums like in Jumanji. Everything looked normal in the room. Aside from the obvious light thing, of course. The next step was the closet. If there was a shaman's ghost waiting for him in there then so help him God he was going to—to—

He wasn't quite sure what he would do. He hadn't met a shaman's ghost before.

Nevertheless, Peter braced himself and jerked open his closet door. To his immense relief, there weren't any ghosts in there, shamanic or otherwise. Releasing the breath he had been holding, he shut the door and—

Leaped back into a crouch because there was a ghost! There was a real live, not-live, ghost! It was in his mirror, its green eyes glinting back at him as it mimicked his movements! It had dark hair and blue pajamas and . . .

Peter blinked at the figure. It blinked back.

Oh, it was just his reflection, which made sense considering it was his mirror for goodness sake.

Wait, but backtrack again, his reflection wasn't supposed to have glowing green eyes!

Slowly, Peter stood and approached the mirror. The reflection's eyes weren't green all the time. It depended on his position. He got as close as he could while still seeing the green. Curiously, he tilted his head until the green disappeared, then turned again so it was visible. He stretched to flip the switch and turn on the light. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but the green glow was gone. Light off, and the green was back again. It looked kind of like the reflective eyes of cats or other nocturnal creatures.

Peter shut his eyes. No. No, he didn't see that. He did not have reflectively green eyes. He peeked at his reflection again.

Who was he kidding? They were clearly visible in the dark.

He looked back at the spider. Its eyes reflected the same green.

Oh no.

Peter flipped the light back on and searched for his phone, opening up Google. On one hand, he really didn't want his suspicions to be true. On the other hand, he had to admit it would probably be worse if it wasn't spider related. Spider stuff made sense for Spider-Man, even if it was unsettling.

Just to be sure, he checked several websites to make sure the information was accurate. They all agreed: most spiders didn't have very good eyesight, but jumping spiders did. And of all the species, only one had green, reflective eyes to see in the dark.

The wolf spider.

And whatever species the spider in his room was, apparently, but then most scientists wouldn't know about the fauna of the Savage Lands.

Dropping his phone onto the bed, Peter went back to the mirror. Now that his eyes were fully adjusted to the light, he realized there was actually still a hint of green behind his irises. It gave his normally blue eyes a teal look.

Oh, come on! What was he going to do about this?! He couldn't go to school with weird eyes! Everyone would notice!

Peter flopped facedown onto his bed. He wondered when his eyes had changed. Had it been overnight? Or maybe he had had this since the jungle yesterday. He hadn't really looked May in the eye yesterday. He had been far too preoccupied with figuring out his spider dilemma. Then she had been distracted by the cleaning crew, and he had spent most of the night outside not doing homework. Had it looked lighter outside than usual then?

He had night-vision eyes. This could not be happening.

Hello?

He sighed into the sheets, pulling his thoughts together. Honestly, he had a talking spider in his bedroom, and he was freaking out about gaining night vision?

Yes. Yes, he was freaking out about it, and he had every right to do so. It was like he had won some awful jungle giveaway. He had gone to the Savage Lands to stop some villains, and had come back with nightmares, weird eyes, and a baby spider.

These things really did come in threes. And these were the three worst take-home gifts ever.

But at least he had someone to talk to.

He pushed himself off the bed and went back to the desk, folding his arms and placing his chin on them so he was closer to the spider's level. He noticed the spider was huddled in the corner of the box, legs covering all of her eight little eyes. She must have seen how uneasy he was.

Peter had spent some time before bed trying to figure out the spider's gender. After (yet another) Google search, he had figured out he was the proud owner of a baby female spider (apparently males had larger mouthparts, called pedipalps, than females. His spider had very thin and dainty pedipalps, so . . .). This was . . . a development. Many female spiders grew larger than their male counterparts. Peter still wasn't sure how big it might grow, or how fast. The largest spiders were about a foot long. That was close to the size of a little Chihuahua. Peter had no idea how he would hide a spider that big, especially not if it was any bigger than it had any right to be.

But now he was committed to this, so he would have to try.

Besides, she was kind of cute in her own, slightly creepy, spidery way.

"Hey. Sorry if I scared you. Are you okay?"

The spider stretched out a leg. Okay? She thought for a moment. Yup.

"Good. I was . . . Well, I was sort of startled by something." Peter refrained from glancing at his reflection again.

Calm?

Peter's heart rate slowed slightly. He sighed. "Yeah, I'm calmer now. Thanks. But since we're both awake, I was thinking we could do something. Maybe teach you some knew words? Or that people are friends, not food. What do you want to do?" The question would probably be lost on the little spider. She hardly knew enough words to answer yes or no questions, let alone decide—

Name?

Peter's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, that's right, I promised to give you a name. You've got a good memory, don't you? Okay, just so we're clear, names are used represent someone. Or something too, I guess. Like, my name is Peter. Peter Parker."

Pe . . . Pee . . .

Peter coughed and repeated his name.

Pee . . . Speet . . . Speter?

"You're confusing Peter with spider."

Her front legs pressed against the plastic, reaching for him. Speter!

"Peter."

Speter!

He sighed again, but smiled in spite of himself. "Right, so it looks like you're stuck with that. Let's see what we can come up with for your name." Reaching into one of the desk's drawers, Peter pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. He held the tip over the page, ready to begin jotting down the ideas as they came.

None came.

He needed some inspiration.

Rolling his chair over as quietly as he could, Peter grabbed his phone from the bed again. If there were websites on spider care, then there had to be one on spider names too, right?

There was.

Well, the first one right off the bat was a definite no. Peter wasn't about to name this sweet little spider Venom of all things. He skipped to number two.

"Okay, here's a good one. Would you like your name to be Charlotte?"

The spider uncurled completely now. Cha . . . Charlutt?

"Yeah, she's this spider from this book. She makes really neat webs. You . . . you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. She's pretty cool though, even if the story is kind of sad. Yes, or no?"

Yup no.

"You choose one, unless—Oh! You mean maybe?"

Yup no. Maybe.

"Okay, then. Charlotte goes into the Maybe pile. Okay, next is Spinderella. How about that?"

That?

"Um, no, Spinderella. Sorry."

No Spind—Spind—

"Got it. I wasn't feeling that one either." Peter crossed that choice out and consulted the list again. He scrolled past the boy names. Some of them were nice though. Aragog was cool. As were Anansi and Webster. Then there were some names that were fun. Names like Tarantalina Jolie and Ronald Rump were amusing. Peter snorted before saying the next name. "All right, how about Araña Grande?"

The spider looked particularly perverse to that one. No!

"Okay, no need to shout." Peter laughed out loud at the next one. Fluffy Bum. But he wasn't so cruel. Not to mention that the spider wasn't nearly hairy enough. She was mostly smooth, although her legs were soft and furry. Perhaps if she had been a boy spider, Peter would have considered names like Harry and Fuzzy, but then he wouldn't have wanted to name it after his best friend anyway. "How about Arachne?"

Maybe.

"Neith?"

Maybe.

Oh no, Octo and Octavia were definitely out. "Betsy?"

No.

"Spy?"

Maybe.

"Merriam? Like Merriam Webster? That's cool."

No.

The next one tickled Peter pink. "Aw, would you look at that? Spidey is on the list. But that's kind of my name. Hm, I like this one. How do you feel about Phobia? Or maybe Phoebe?"

Hm . . . The spider stretched her legs out, tapping thoughtfully on the plastic. Maybe.

"Oh come on, you've got to say yes to something. I really do like Pheobe." Peter sighed. "But I guess it can take a while to pick a name. We're not all fortunate enough to get stuck with the obvious like yours truly. I'll let you pick so long as it's nothing really embarrassing."

Okay.

"Good. Let's take a break from names and teach you some words now. Then we can have a proper conversation. Is that all right with you?"

Yup!

They spent the next few hours covering basic vocabulary. As Peter had suspected, the spider was a fast learner. She caught on as fast as he threw new words at her. He still had a suspicion that it was due to a mental link, but he really wasn't in the mood to get into that right now. He could only take so many shocking revelations a day. They could figure that out tomorrow morning. Or maybe later in the week. There was no rush.

So he taught it some basic words like cat, dog, and other ordinary animals (jungle animals would be a separate lesson). Then he started to explain some common words and phrases. It had occurred to Peter that he should wait until he could summarize the concept of 'people' before getting into why the spider shouldn't bite them.

But halfway through Peter's tricky explanation of the idea of truth and lies, his communicator began to beep. Peter grabbed it, glancing at the clock. It was past seven in the morning now. May would be getting up any minute. At least he could get breakfast soon. His stomach was starting to growl, and Shield probably already needed his help today, although he really didn't feel ready to have anyone see his eyes yet. He accepted the call, hoping the screen was small enough that they wouldn't notice his eyes.

"Hello?"

Hello!

Peter froze as Doctor Connor's face filled the screen. But the doctor seemed not to have heard the spider's greeting.

Yet another point for the mental link theory. This was just great.

"Good morning, Peter. I wanted to let you know that Wolverine is awake, and he would like to see you."

"Oh," Peter said, trying to sound as casual as possible. "He does?"

"Yes." The doctor's head cocked slightly to the side. "Is everything all right? You look worried."

"I was—I was just worried about him. I mean, we go to the Savage Lands, and of all the creatures there, a little spider sends him to the med bay." Peter offered his best corny smile.

"You're not wrong. I'm glad you weren't bitten. Although I've always suspected that you're immune to most spider venoms, I don't necessarily want to use you as the guinea pig. I may ask for blood samples when you come though."

Peter didn't really like when they took blood samples. Too many bad memories at this point. He was especially wary of them at the moment. He would admit he was afraid of what Connors might find. "But I have training later. Can't I keep my blood for today?"

Connors smiled. "Oh, all right. I'll get them out of you soon though. You'll want to know if you're immune if you're ever bitten. Again, I suppose."

"Makes sense, I guess. I'll see you later. Bye." Peter hung up, blowing out a breath of air. His gaze landed on the mirror again.

Now that the first rays of sunlight were lighting the room, his eyes looked greener than ever.

This was the worst.

Wolverine wanted to see him, and he really did have training later that day. He could wear his mask in the Helicarrier no problem, but what about school tomorrow? What about training tonight?! He usually joined the guys in the showers after training. He couldn't wear his mask in the showers. They'd see his face, and there was no way they were going to miss a major change in eye color!

Of course, he could always tell them, but . . . asking for a pair of blue contacts from the spies at Shield could work too.

Peter wasn't really sure why he had this sudden unexplainable aversion to telling anyone about his eyes. He could probably blame it on the fact that he had finally gained a lot of trust in his team over the past few months. They had fought together, played together, even lived together for a while. Peter had proven he was a good leader, not just some nerdy wannabe from Queens. And the others had proven themselves to be . . . not as annoying as they had initially been.

But Shield as a whole was such a pain when it came to trust. Fury had been so suspicious after the Venom incident. The entire team had been infected at least for a short while that night, and he had some idea in his head that it would leave lasting effects. Doctor Connors had long since proved the symbiote didn't leave any trace of its presence, but Fury's suspicion had leaked to the rest of the team by then, even if it was temporary. And none of them had ever really gotten over the fact that Venom was made from Peter's blood in the first place.

So what would they think if they knew he had possibly (probably) turned into some sort of spider monster?

Nothing good, that's what.

That was Peter's train of thought as he convinced himself that his fears were justified. Because, sure, if his adventures had taught him anything, it was that lying was a bad idea 90% of the time. But the truth wasn't always the best choice either. As a wise man once said, "The truth is a great and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with much caution." Of course, that wise man was Albus Dumbledore, but that didn't make the phrase any less true. Besides, this was only an aesthetic change. Nothing major. Hawkeye or the Black Widow would give him a pair of blue contacts, no questions asked. He would pick them up after he met with Wolverine. It was as simple as that.

Except . . . what about his Aunt May?

Peter had promised her he wouldn't lie to her anymore. And he saw her every single day. But if he told her, then she would make him tell Doctor Connors, and he would tell the rest of Shield.

On second thought, it looked like this was one secret he couldn't keep. And he should probably pick his battles at the moment. He already had a baby spider to keep secret. He would have to spill the beans on the eye thing. But . . . he could still tell them in his own time. He would have one nice, ordinary day before he told everyone and was subjected to a bunch of tests to figure out what was happening to him—

Oh no. What if this was just one of many little changes? He was already talking to a spider! What if there was more?!

No, nope. He would let Connors figure that out tomorrow. There was no sense worrying about things he didn't even know. Yet.

That did mean he would have to avoid May this morning . . . but he would tell her tonight. She would be the first one to know.

Peter rushed to grab breakfast before she came down, leaving a note explaining he would be at the Helicarrier most of the day, just like a normal Sunday.

But he forgot that, just like any normal day for Peter Parker, it would become decidedly abnormal.