The Secrets of Petra (Parker) Stark

9

2017 (Still)

Petra had a massive headache. All day, every sound seemed extra loud, the lights extra bright, smells extra strong... It was as if all her senses were goin haywire. She was really starting to regret deciding to come to school that day. Petra glanced at the clock in the front of the room. Twentyish minutes left and then she was home free.

Hopefully she could make it in time. 

Good News: She made it home before her brain exploded.

Bad News: Advil does not work on her. 

Petra laid on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her window and door were both shut, she had the lights off, and she had her earbuds in, but with no music. This was the second day in a row that she came home feeling like crap. What was going on?

Petra reflected on the events leading up to when she first felt sick. It had felt like something was literally crawling up her neck, then there was a sharp pain. Everything after that was a blur. Could something have happened then? What was she doing at that point in time? She had been standing right next to Ned at Oscorp. They were on a tour, and the tour guide was talking about radioactively enhanced.... Spiders!

Petra sat up quickly, causing a wave of pain in her brain. She ignored it and walked over to the mirror that was hung on the wall. She grabbed her phone, wincing at the light, and turned the camera to selfie mode. Then she positioned herself in a way where she could see the back of her neck in the phone from the reflection of the mirror. Sure enough, there was a small red mark. Petra took a picture of it and examined the photo. Yep, that was definitely a spider bite. 

She sat back down on her bed and put her head in her hands. So she got bit by a radioactive spider at Oscorp? Was that why everything had been so weird lately? What had the tour dude say about the spiders? They were enhanced. It was strength, speed, and... something else. But what did that mean for Petra?

In a world of superheroes and enhanced individuals, getting powers from a spider was not so far fetched. Petra would have to do some tests... After her headache went away. 

-

The next day was luckily a Saturday, so she was able to do some tests without having to worry about school. It also helped that she (thankfully) woke up without the headache. 

As she prepared some of her tests, she thought about the headache from the day before. It was because everything was too loud, or too bright. Maybe the spider bite affected her senses. Petra had no idea how to test that, so she figured she would just observe. 

The first test was strength. The first thing Petra did was lift up her small desk. Easy-peasy. Then she tried her bed, which seemed to weigh nothing. Petra piled a bunch of books and heavy items onto the bed and still lifted it up with ease. On a piece of binder paper, she wrote "super strength." 

When Petra tried to set her pen down, it stuck to her hand. This was not the first time that day that something had stuck to her, so she added, "sticky."

In order to test her speed, Petra went to the old treadmill in May and Ben's room. Both of them were at work, so she had the space to herself. She started at two miles per hour and then worked her way up to as fast as the treadmill could go. Petra ran for almost half an hour until she finally stopped the treadmill. Surprisingly, she was not sweaty or out of breath at all. "Speed/stamina" was added to the list. 

"This is too weird," Petra muttered to herself. 

Petra wondered if she should tell someone, but quickly decided against it. May and Ben would freak out, and so would Ned. Harry was the least likely to freak out, but she was afraid that because of his connection to Oscorp, she might become an experiment. Yeah, probably best to keep this a secret. At least for now.