Life's a bitch {stony}

11:The Bug That Bit Back

I. Queens: A World Away

Setting: Mid-August. Peter Stark-Rogers, fourteen years old, stepping onto a secluded rooftop in Queens.

The Stark Industries shuttle, looking like an expensive, misplaced relic, deposited Peter Stark-Rogers in Astoria. He was here for "normalcy," a concept utterly foreign to the son of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. His mother had passed away when he was an infant, a tragedy wrapped in hushed, incomplete whispers about dangerous research from his agents of  uncles—a past that made his fathers maniacally protective.'Not like they really thought much of it since they're never home' Thought the young brunette .

Peter was staying with his Aunt May Parker, his maternal aunt. May's modest, warm apartment was free of blast doors and integrated A.I.s, which was exactly the point. Peter knew that any misstep—any sign of deviation or danger—would trigger the full force of the Stark-Rogers paranoia, ending his precious year of independence.

Peter's internal monologue: Just get through the year. No unauthorized tinkering, no accidental super-science. Don't give Dad a reason to put me in a medically induced coma until I'm 25.

**

Oscorp Industries, the Experimental Genetics Lab.

The sterile, buzzing environment of Oscorp only magnified Peter's low-grade anxiety. He lagged behind the tour, checking containment seals—a reflex drilled into him by his fathers. Suddenly, a flicker of light: a breach.

An unnaturally large spider, its carapace shimmering with an unsettling blue and crimson, scrambled from a broken unit. It wasn't an insect; it was an escaped science project. His instinct, driven by scientific greed, was overwhelming.

He lunged, his hand outstretched to capture the anomaly. The spider, reacting to the shadow, struck him on the back of the hand. The pain was immediate, searing, and deep—less a bite and more an electric, vibrating injection of pure, molten energy. Peter gasped, snatching his hand back, his entire arm locking up in an immediate tremor.

He shoved the throbbing hand deep into his pocket, trying desperately to mask the dizzying adrenaline rush and the cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. The spider vanished. The puncture marks were already weeping a clear, viscous fluid.

Peter's internal monologue: I can't breathe. Unregulated biohazard. Uncontrolled genetic vector. If I tell them, the Compound will be here in eight minutes, and I will be evidence. This stays buried.

**

 The Synaptic Inferno

 That night. Peter's bedroom, Aunt May's apartment.

The transformation was a violent, internal war. Peter writhed beneath the thin cotton sheets, engulfed in a raging, systemic fever. His body felt like a high-end reactor undergoing an unscheduled, painful overhaul. He was drenched in sweat, his muscles cramping as they rapidly stretched and reconfigured.

His senses became instruments of torture. The world was deafening. He could hear the faint, low-frequency hum of the apartment building's electrical grid. The tick-tock of May's grandfather clock d was a loud, rhythmic hammer inside his skull. The streetlights outside, filtering through the curtains, felt like blinding, white-hot beams.

His skin was excruciatingly sensitive. The cotton sheets felt like coarse sandpaper grating against his skin. He couldn't lie still; every fyber of his being was screaming with new, foreign data.

The bite mark itself was gone, replaced by smooth, painfully taut skin. But the sensation had moved inward: the tingling was a permanent, furious buzzing beneath his skin, constantly shifting, tracing patterns up his spine and across his scalp. It was a terrifying, chaotic radar system he couldn't turn off, making him feel like a nervous antenna for the entire city.