Spider-X: A Spider-Man Story

Chapter 11: Bullies

'You don't know me.'

'Don't I? I saw how she trapped you, fighting her holy moral mission. We don't need you to save us. We don't need to be fixed. These are not curses. They're gifts.'

'You don't know what you're talking-'

'I've watched you from deep behind Norman's cowardly eyes. Struggling to have everything you want while the world tries to make you choose. Gods don't have to choose. We take.'

'May. Run-'

Peter bolts up in bed, gasping. He gets up and gets the glass of water beside his bed. He always keeps water beside his bed, because he always needs water after a nightmare. Can he still call them nightmares if they're just memories? His dreams aren't some scary future possibility, he dreams about what's already happened, the people he's already lost, over and over.

He can't go back to sleep. He tries, tosses and turns for a little while, but all he can see is May's face when he told her to run. The moment everything went to shit. He throws the covers off and pulls a sweatshirt on, rummaging around his desk for the small kit of supplies he keeps here to work on his web shooters. He deems it safer to slowly take the pieces he needs instead of just working on it at school. He brings the kit and grabs the book, The Stranger, from his desk then climbs out his window and crawls up to the roof.

This wing of the house has a flat roof, with raised edges, so it makes a little rooftop patio, perfect for stealing moments at the crack of dawn. Peter should be exhausted, it's only five in the morning, but this is actually the most rested he's been since May's death. In his New York, he patrols all night then works all day. Rinse and repeat. Come to think of it, this is the most rested and well fed he's been since May's death.

Peter fiddles with the compatible circuit for his web shooters. Modeling off the ones Tony made for Peter, these should allow Peter to wear them all the time, unnoticed by others, and when he needs them, a quick click together should expand them. It's harder to make them with a screwdriver and scrap metal than the high tech Stark Industries lab, but it'll get done.

It would help if he could focus. He rubs his eyes, his nightmare still playing when he closes them. He sets his tools aside and just watches the sunrise. Maybe he'll read a few pages for English Lit. He'll probably skip that class today, so the least he can do is catch up on the reading.

**
The chem lab is empty after school. It's not a surprise, given not many people want to run extra experiments, unsupervised, after a full day of classes. So Peter can take his time. Jean and Scott both have cars, but the L train has a stop about three blocks from the Institute gates, so getting back isn't a problem.

He hums to himself as he mixes a few chemicals. They react a little differently in this universe, but it might just be Peter recalibrating the formula. Oddly, the periodic table is also different here. No vibranium. Peter wonders if it's because there's no vibranium in this universe or people just haven't found it yet.

He curses as he adds too much bichlorate and the whole serum foams up and over the beaker. He wipes it up with some towels before it has a chance to cool and stick everything to the lab table. The second time goes much better. Peter sticks a thermometer into the beaker to check the consistency of the webs. Perfect.

He filters them into thumb sized vials, sticking one in his web shooter prototype. He now has two functional web shooters. But they're pretty obvious so he can't wear them in public. He loads the webs and aims at his water bottle across the room. Shoots the web and nails it, jerking his arm back to bring the bottle to him, catching it easily.

Nice, he thinks to himself. Next he shoots another web at the wall, tensing the material and hitting it, testing its strength. It holds. Despite the crappy day, Peter smiles. He's one step closer to Spider-Man.