The Perks of Being a Wallcrawler || Peter Parker

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The More You know

As soon as Peter regained consciousness, his head exploded. As if someone had scooped out his brains and put a bomb in his skull. He groaned, holding a hand to his head as if it might pacify the migraine currently ravaging through him.

The room slowly came into view, a blur of bright green that almost blinded him after so long in darkness. It was immediately obvious that he was back at the apartment...but he didn't remember returning. The last thing he could recall was a voice, like liquid gold, running through his veins and strumming his nerves. Then a face, framed by an unfamiliar tangle of blonde hair, that he had come to adore over the last few months.

"Annabelle..." Peter groaned, any ounce of shock quickly fading at the searing pain in his chest. He glanced down to see bandages woven over his chest, so tightly that it was almost hard to breathe.

Panic flooded his senses at the realisation that he was no longer in costume. He scavenged the room with his gaze, only to find his Spider-Man suit and mask folded neatly on a chair just beside him. It looked like it had been thoroughly washed. The colours were no longer fading behind dirt and blood, and the webbed design glimmered under the light like it hadn't done in years. He could even see fresh stitching in the chest, where he assumed that freaky lizard had clawed at his abdomen.

Annabelle's voice reached him from the doorway, and it took a great deal of effort for Peter to actually look at her, "I brought you scrambled eggs."

She placed the tray in front of him, and Peter noticed that her hair was still blonde. She must have noticed him staring because she quickly started fiddling with a few clasps underneath and yanked the wig from her head.

"N-No, you're-...that's-...no." Peter tried to form a complete sentence, but his head was spinning at the idea of her being Protonslaught.

Annabelle propped herself onto the wooden chair in the corner of the room and sat on it with her legs crossed. "So were you ever gonna admit it without something like this happening? For real?"

"W-Were you gonna tell me?" retorted Peter.

Her eyes widened in sarcastic disbelief. "As soon as you stopped being a doofus."

Peter bit his lower lip.

"That's...fair..." He sat upward, wincing in pain as he did. "I'm sorry, Belle... There's a whole lot of people out there who want to hurt Spider-Man. If they ever find out who I am, everyone I care about is in danger. I didn't want it to be true...that you knew. I wanted to push you away...to protect you."

He had this conversation with Mary Jane years ago. She wasn't exactly happy with that answer. She told him that it was justifying a big lie.

"Yeah, I get it. Those crooks really hate you."

Peter narrowed his eyes. "Wait a second...Protonslaught's a jerk. Like a massive jerk. Is that...is that who you really are?"

Annabelle rolled her eyes. "No, Peter. It's a...distancing thing. I'm playing it up. Trust me, it's really hard sometimes."

"I know a little something about that. Although I just talk a little more than usual. You...turn into a..."

"Giant asshole? Yeah," Annabelle said with a nod. "It works really well."

Peter smiled weakly. "Yeah. Fooled me."

They looked into each other's eyes for a moment. A brief one. Suddenly, it all came back into Peter's brain. The sewers...the Lizard. "Belle...that thing is still out there. W-Wait, all those people we found...!"

"Easy, dude. I took care of it. I told the cops what we found down there; they cut them all down."

Peter exhaled in relief. "O-Okay...good."

"Any idea what that monster was? I mean, I don't really have much experience in the 'weird shit' department. Alien? Mutant?"

Peter clutched his head. "Oh God...it was us. Our research... We made it."

"You and Doc Connors? What the hell are you talking about?"

"He was working on isolating a sequence in reptilian DNA...something we called the Early Growth Response gene," Peter started. "It was supposed to help amputees at first, to regrow limbs...but the applications were endless. We could potentially cure diseases by regenerating cells."

Annabelle thinned her lips.

"Whoever broke into the Connors' lab and apartment must've stolen the research...tested it on a human subject."

Furrowing her brow, Annabelle pressed, "Hold on...why did it turn them into a freaking lizard then?"

"Hybridising human and animal DNA is a...delicate process. If one side supersedes the other, it isn't gonna work. Take me for example. I was a freak accident, a one in a billion. The spider DNA that was spliced into me is perfectly balanced with the human part. That's why I have spider powers but not four extra arms."

"Or a giant spider butt. Right," Annabelle remarked. "The reptile stuff. It regrows, regenerates."

Peter nodded. "Exactly. It wasn't finished...and because of that, it literally overwrote that poor guy's human genes. We need to find him before he hurts anyone else...we need to help him."

Peter tried to move and a shooting pain stabbed through his entire body, centring from his stomach. He keeled over with a breathless gasp. Annabelle instinctively grabbed his arm and helped him back down onto the pillow, "You're not going anywhere. You're still healing."

"I'll be fine. I heal pretty quick."

"Yeah, not quick enough," Annabelle huffed, "I'll go look for him, but you need to stay put."

She started to leave, but Peter grabbed her arm and guided her back, "I can't do that, Belle. Please understand...Curt was my friend, Martha and Bill were like a second family to me. I need to be there. I helped make it. It's my responsibility to fix it."

Belle stared at him for a long time. Her eyes searched his, and there was a feeling of togetherness that overcame Peter; as if they were one soul split into two pieces. She understood. Somehow, Peter could tell that much. "Okay, we'll look for him together, but on one condition."

"Yeah?" Peter asked, admittedly surprised that she had agreed to let him tag along so quickly.

"Finish your eggs."

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