Disclaimers:

All Spider-Man and all its related characters belongs to Marvel Entertainment, which is owned by Walt Disney Company, and the Sam Raimi Original Trilogy belongs to Sony Pictures Entertainment. No infringement of these copyrights are intended, and not authorized by copyright holders.

Inside one of the lecture halls of Empire State University, Dr. Connors was giving his lesson on energy theories to his fellow students. Sitting amongst them was Peter, who was just scribbling it all down on his notebook.

"... Thus, the second order term in the expansion of the exact order is identical to the second order calculated... "

Halfway throughout the lesson, Peter lost his focus on Dr. Connors's lecturing words, the look of self-contemplation started to slowly appear on his face when a depressing thought occurred to him.

As he drew a circle around a certain calculation on his notebook - referring to the fact that the amounts of energy were too high and unpredictable - Peter started to detract himself from the lesson and drew a trace down on the notebook, then sketched two figure heads of himself with a half Spider-Man mask and full face of MJ, with two arrows pointing in the opposite direction of each other, emphasizing his thoughts about how their separate paths prevented himself and her from being together.

Even though he knew Mary Jane was very understanding and forgiving of him living a double life, as she did also experience it the same way she did before hanging up her webs, Peter still felt his responsibilities were weighing down on his personal one, preventing him from able to live it healthily and being there for the ones he loved.

Noticing his student seemingly in a state of daze again, Dr. Connors called out for his attention. "Parker!"

Peter felt himself jumped slightly from his seat the moment he heard his name from the podium. He noticed the students around him were giving the weird looks, much to his embarrassment, and faced the front to see Dr. Connors' expression of disapproval... again.

"Do I need to repeat myself again?" Dr. Connors asked his once-again lazy, yet brilliant student.

Peter regained his focus on the whiteboards and his teacher, shaking his head. "No, sir," He said, pushing those self-loathing thoughts to the side as he tried his best to focus on what's left of the lesson.

After class ended for the day, Peter arrived at Otto Octavius' lab in time to see a good number of invited reporters, Harry also standing among them, feeling eager to witness his idol's science demonstration. He stood next to best friend to see Otto emerged from around the archway.

"Ladies and gentlemen. My wife, Rosie, and I would like to welcome you this afternoon. But first, before we start, has anybody lost a large roll of dollar bills in a rubber band?" Otto jokingly asked. "Because we found the rubber band."

The reporter, as well as Peter and Harry, chuckled in unison at Otto's joke.

"It's a terrible joke," Otto wheezed a little, before recomposing himself. "But thank you for coming. Today... you will witness the birth of a new fusion-based energy source. Safe, renewable energy and cheap electricity for everyone," He said with prideful confidence.

Peter and Harry gave each other a look when Otto said those words.

"And now let me introduce my assistants," Otto gave a sly smirk as he turned towards grey cloak covering something on a circular base. When he lifted it the cloak, it unveiled four long metallic arms that's attached to a spine-shaped machinery connected to the casting waist belt.

Peter couldn't help but feel his eyes widened in excited awe.

"These four actuators were developed and programmed for the sole purpose of creating successful fusion," Otto said, as he removed his velcro lab-coat and passed it to Rosie before stepping on top of the base. "They are impervious to heat and magnetism."

After a few taps with the on-board controls connected to the base, Otto raised his arms to allow the casting belt wrapping around his entire abdomen before sealing into place with its magnetic chains.

Just a few brief moments later, the scientist felt the metal spine creeping up to his back, then it inserted a few top rows of sharp wires, which made him winced in reaction to them slowly and painfully digging deep into his inner spinal cord, as if all four sharp needles were jabbing into the skin all at once.

Giving himself a few seconds to feel numb to the pain, the remaining wires joined in, this time all at once with a swift lunge with the rest of the spine, making the reporters cringed with disgusted expressions beyond belief at how gruesomely painful it looked.

With the hard part over, Otto lifted his head slightly, almost looking like he was in deep mental concentration. Next thing that happened, the four mechanical arms unsheathed themselves from their housing on the base.

Finally, the four arms slowly revealed themselves to the audience as they were majestically lifting themselves up above Otto's shoulders, unveiling their claws that split into three, as if new life just opened its own eyes for the first time.

"These smart arms are controlled by my brain through a neural link," Otto explained. "Nanowires feed directly into my cerebellum, allowing me to use these arms to control fusion reaction in an environment no human hand could enter."

"Doctor, if the artificial intelligence in the arms is as advanced as you suggest, couldn't that make you vulnerable to them?" One of the reporters inquired concernedly.

"How right you are," Otto nodded with a reassuring smile, before rotating his body around, pointing towards the bright blue light that was emitting near his neck. "Which is why I developed this inhibitor chip to protect my higher brain function. It means I maintain control of these arms," He then turned back to the reporters with a smug. "Instead of them controlling me."

After Otto gave his acknowledgement of the reporters' concern, he then gestured to the dark archway behind him. "And now onto the main event. Give me the blue light, Rosie."

The assistants grabbed the large rectangular portable computers that was concealing the far back of the room as the said-blue lights dramatically lit up, revealing the main so-called main event of the whole demonstration: Otto's fusion reactor. It had four spine-shaped arches, each with two built-in shinny pointers for their top and bottom corners, all of which were positioned to be facing directly above its own circular base.

The reporters, while still maintaining a good distance, followed Otto as he was approaching his reactor. They then took notice of one of Otto's mechanical arms, which retracted its claws into a three-pronged tweezer, reached for the luminous cylinder-shaped container that was residing on the side.

"Precious tritium is the fuel that makes this project go," Otto said, as he grabbed the rare isotope that was raised from its container and placed it into the direct core of his fusion reactor. "There's only twenty-five pounds of it on the whole planet. I'd like to thank Harry Osborn and Oscorp Industries for providing it."

"Happy to pay the bills, Otto," Harry said in full glee.

After releasing the tritium from the mechanical arm, it started spinning at an astronomical rate as it was being hold in place by the reactor's built-in magnetism.

Before Otto could began jumpstarting his life's work before his eyes, he glanced to the side when he noticed Rosie giving a proud smile as she was handing him the specialized goggles.

Returning the same smile of his own to his wife, Otto slipped the handed-goggles on his head and turned his attention to the reactor, allowing a moment of silence for the intense anticipation of his life's work becoming a reality. "Ladies and gentlemen... fasten your seat belts."

With that, Otto tapped a few quick buttons to activate each of the pointers, projecting lasers directly into the center of the fusion reactor.

As the lasers came into contact with the tritium, it slowly emitting into a small ball of light, illuminating the rest of the room with its increasingly warm-orange brightness. Before anyone knew it, the ball of light engulfed itself for a split second, then transforming into a literal miniature sized version of an actual sun.

"Doctor, we have a successful fusion reaction," One of Otto's assistants happily announced the scientist's success.

Otto smiled gleefully to Rosie as she, Peter, Harry and the rest of the gathered reporters gave their rounds of congratulating applause for a seemingly successful demonstration.

One of the other reporters tapped on Harry's shoulder. "This is a breakthrough beyond your father's dreams," He whispered.

"Thank you," Harry appreciated his words in a soft, sincere voice.

"We're producing a thousand-megawatt surplus," One of Otto's assistants informed his current update on the fusion reactor.

Otto didn't seem to notice or even pay any attention to his surroundings as he was being mesmerized by the sheer power of his fusion reactor. "The power of the sun... in the palm of my hand," He muttered to himself in a satisfied ego-driven tone.

While admiring Otto's experiment, Peter felt his senses going off the roof again. He couldn't help but glanced down and noticed a paperclip twitching repeatedly next to his shoe before suddenly shooting itself towards the reactor.

Then, Peter heard the loud clanking noises above him. He looked up to see the ceiling lights above were somehow slowly being angled towards the reactor.

That's when Peter realized something's about to go wrong.

Catching the reporters off-guard, their recording devices and personal jewelries got sucked into the artificial sun, causing the entire room gasped into a loud panic.

"Keep calm!" Otto tried to reassure the reporters, not wanting his work to go inevitably wrong. "It's only a spike! It'll soon stabilize!" He then turned to Rosie with a look of fear, who shared the same expression of her own.

Knowing he had to do something, Peter ran off to the side, finding a spot to change into his costume. Unknowingly, Harry tried to look for him, only to notice he's nowhere to be seen.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please clear the room!" The assistants advised the reporters.

A loud warning blare of the alarms started to go ballistic, warning them of the increasing dangers from Otto's fusion reactor that was getting worsen by the second.

"We have a containment breach!" One of Otto's assistants exclaimed.

Before Otto could react, the artificial sun let out a raging wave of fire at the roof, creating a crumbling debris that was right above Rosie, making her panic in fright.

As the rest of the reporters were evaluating from the room, Harry ordered the scientist to ceased the experiment immediately. "Otto, please get back! Shut it off, Otto! Shut it off!" He yelled top of his lungs.

"It will stabilize! It's under control!" Otto tried to reassure his investor with his loud voice, but with no success.

"I'm in charge here!" Harry stomped his foot down in a temper tantrum, not realizing that one of the portable computers was being dragged from behind due to the fusion reactor's gravity pull. "It's my money! I'm in con- " He then got cut off by someone swooping in at the last possible moment to save him from the incoming danger and flown away from the scene.

As Harry landed safely away from danger, he looked up with a disgusted expression on his face when he saw who was standing right in front of him, despite being saved. "This doesn't change anything."

Without a single word, Spider-Man turned his back to Harry and web-swing his way to Otto's fusion reactor.

Otto looked up to his right when he noticed the Wall-Crawler landed above the archway. "What are you doing?"

"Pulling the plug!" Spider-Man exclaimed, eyeing on the wall panels below him that had its power cords connected to the fusion reactor.

"NOOOOO!" Otto cried out loud, realizing what he was about to do. In a last ditch effort to save his experiment, he swiped one of his mechanical arms at the hero's chest, knocking him out to side.

That's when the unfortunate scientist made a miscalculation: Otto lost his concentration on stabilizing his machine.

Unknowingly, the large arch glass doors and windows behind him started to crack into pieces of deadly shards as they were, too, getting dragged towards the fusion reactor by its unstable gravitational pull.

That's when Otto heard an ear-piercing scream.

As he instinctually turned around the moment he recognized whose scream that was, Otto saw the glass shards were about to come towards him, making him grabbed all of his mechanical arms' attention from the fusion reactor to shield him with his hands up.

When Otto retracted his arms, he removed his googles as his eyes widened in horror when he saw the love of his life just simply fell down right in front of him.

She was dead.

"ROSIE!"

But that's when he made yet another miscalculation.

Being unintentionally left to be run even more amuck, the raging wave of fire was freed from its containment field inside the fusion reactor and then struck the unsuspected, guilt-ridden Otto from behind, right into the direct spine of his mechanical arms, destroying the embed inhibitor chip in the process as it was also paralyzing him with pain equivalent to being struck with high voltage of electricity coursing through his veins.

When Spider-Man recovered from his knock-out, he was shocked to see that Otto was screaming in agony. Needing to stop this right now, he quickly leaped towards the power panels and stood his feet against them, using his strength to forcefully pull the now-melted cords with his bare hands, spilling out uncontrollable masses of electricity from its ripped ends.

In the midst of the chaos, Otto was so overwhelmed, both physically and mentally, by the attacking shock he lost consciousness and fell victim to his own creation.

When Spider-Man managed to dismantle the entire panels from the walls, he landed his feet down the ground. As he turned around to see the aftermath, he saw the artificial sun expanded into a ball of fire before suddenly imploded into itself, sucking in remnants of the fusion reactor along with it until there's almost nothing left but unsalvageable parts.

The entire room was now left dead cold, with only flickers of lights and tiny sparks of loose electricity remained in the suddenly-haunting interior.

Spider-Man exhaled deeply at all the carnage he just witnessed. The chaos finally ended, but tragically, not without taking a few others along with it. All he could now was just leave the scene and let the authorities handle things from here, knowing the fact he could get blamed somehow for this unprecedented incident if he stayed any longer than he needs to be.

Words: 2442

A/N: Well, that was certainly a tragedy in the making. Poor Otto. Poor Rosie.

Grieving aside, this chapter feels like more of a filler, as well as the eventual Bank Heist much later. For those that remembered my Author's Notes from the last few chapters of the first movie, I did mention about some moments in this 2nd part of the fanfic won't be different from the original film, mainly due to lack of Mary Jane's presences throughout them.

Hopefully, after those chapters goes out, my twist on how Mary Jane becomes more involved in this story will make up for them.

Anyway, any constructive criticisms and comments would be greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter.

Reviews:

DCDGojira: Thanks, man.

TW: Greatly Appreciated.