Spiderman Legacy

Chapter 3

     Jordan watched as his star pupil soared head first over a gap between two skate rails, flipping over halfway and landing crouched on the next rail. He stood and back-flipped off, landing squarely.
     Jordan stepped over, doing a quick rail flip across a small dip and off a concrete barrier to reach Peter. "Not too bad, Pete," he said as he moved squarely in front of Peter. "Still a little mechanical, though. We both know that if your muscles are too tight on a backflip, it can break your back."
     "Yeah, yeah..." Pete chuckled. "I know. I've been trying to loosen up; I've got a lot on my plate right now, though." Jordan looked him over. "I understand. Let's throw in the towel here today, but keep practicing. And kick butt at that internship, by the way, mr. Einstein." Pete chuckled. "Alright, mr. Chan. This time it was Jacob's turn to chuckle. "See ya." Pete waved as he roll vaulted over the short fence and jogged away.
     *                           *.                     *
     Pete rushed in the doors of the New York Community College, greeting students as fast as he brushed passed them. He burst through the doors of the study room his study group had reserved. "I'm here!" He waved the formula over his head. "With this, complete as promised!" He set the paper on the centre table. "Should we run the theoretic trials and prepare the showcase?" He looked around at his silent peers. "Uh... Yeah," Gracie said slowly, staring Peter down with the rest of his friends. Peter stopped. "Am I missing something?"
"No, no, nothing at all," Jesse said, failing at holding in a chuckle and producing a gravelly snort. Pete looked down at himself, wondering what was so odd. There was really nothing... Normal thick woven jacket, normal plaid shirt, normal jeans and shoes and satchel... Then he realised as a few strands of hair fell into his line of sight.
"Aw, guys, why do you never say anything?" he asked as he furiously combed his hair to the side with his fingers. There was a resounding chuckle in the room, then Jesse let out a loud snorting sound followed by an incomprehensible mash if words along the lines of "Bcz'tsrillyfnny!" Pete sighed. "Are we gonna do this, or what?"
"Of course," Joseph said, snatching the formula and beginning to enter it into a keyboard, the computations appearing on the large screen to the left. "We didn't come all this way for nothing, did we?" He looked at Pete with his seemingly sagely, yet light-spirited smile. "Oh, shut up with your perfect teeth and type," Pete said in response. "Ye' make it seem like you do anything besides that around here." "Hey!" Joseph said in a hurt tone, "I crack a few good wise ones here and there!"
     "Really? I thought they were dumb ones that were funny," Pete said, proceeding to set up his work station while Joseph prepared a snarky remark. "You can't out-fox an alpha wolf, Jose-brother," Jesse said, swiping the momentum from beneath Joseph's face. "So says the warthog," Joseph mumbled back. Jesse chuckled and continued to lean back in his chair and tap his phone screen.
    While Joe entered the formula, Pete began to set growth rate and window formulas, mimicking the human body; particularly his, the one he knew best. Since he'd also set the formula to his specific genome, he figured it was the best thing to do.
"Check it out, man!" Joseph leaned over and shook Pete's shoulder. "This is , like... Perfect!" He couldn't help but smile a bit as the time-lapse calculations unfolded before them. "Dude, this is, like, perfect," Jesse said with a slight chuckle, having surprisingly glanced away from his phone screen. "I literally just said that, man," Joseph chimed in.
"It's amazing," Gracie whispered partially to herself. "Wait, how would you know? You're all the way over there," the obnoxious jokester asked in his own special way. "We're all looking at the same screen," Gracie lobbed back with an air of irritation. "Not all of us," Jesse said as he raised an eyebrow and went back to tapping his phone's screen.
     Grace gave a disgusted snort and Pete laughed. "Remind me, again," Joe chimed in, "why we have this child in our study group." "Well, i do believe it is his superior knowledge of the Spiderman legacy," Pete replied half-mindedly.
     "Hey, are you guys seeing this?" He asked, gesturing to the readouts on the screen. "What in the..." Joseph leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "That can't be right..." Jesse looked up cluelessly. "Alright, so, y'all know I can't read no Latin, or math, so... Would you mind enlightening me as to what you're all gawking at?"
     "Jesse..." Peter held his hand up towards the miscreant, "Jesse, what is the approximated strength of Spidergirl? How much can she optimally lift?" "Aaaand of course no one accommodates me," Jesse replied under his breath. He tapped his phone screen a few times. "Approximately ten tons, monsieur Rogers." Suddenly Joseph looked at Peter, ecstasy written all over his features. "Dude, what the..." Pete slowly returned Joe's enthusiastic look. "What the heck, man??!" It was the best they could do to keep from shouting.
     "Uhm..." Jesse raised his hand a bit. "I always hate it when this happens," he mumbled to himself. "Would anybody--" before he could ask his question, Jesse was cut off by a squeal from Gracie. "This is impossible!" "Would anyone mind telling me what's going on?" Jesse said above the sound of excitement. "This formula can give a man the ability to lift tenfold the weight that the Spiderman genome can!" Gracie nearly screamed. "This is amazing!" Joseph cried.
     "Wait," Peter said, turning sharply to face Joe, "what if it's not just anyone? I mean, I do.., I am..." "You're Captain freaking America's son! That could change everything! Total cellular regeneration could mean that the tensile muscles rebuild stronger and stronger every time they build, and their own constant pressure would keep them at a constant maximum!" Joe spoke rapidly, leaving little room to interpret his jumbled words.
      "Wait," Gracie intervened. "Even if that were true, that wouldn't account for being that strong! I mean, maybe fifty tons, optimally, but not one hundred! So this either means that something major is up with Pete's double helix, or we just created a super-supersoldier formula!" "Holy freakin' guacamole!" Pete shouted, matching the decibel level of his peers.
"Okay, okay," Jesse shouted above the ecstatic laughs, "bring it down a little and let's talk like dumb English-speaking teenagers for a sec, okay?" The laughs subsided to suppressed chuckles, then sighs, then strained silence.
"Alright," Joseph said, doing his best not to yell again. "We can't know for sure if we actually did this until we run some tests." "Right," Gracie jumped in. "We'll need to compare Pete's DNA to that of another average male boy's, just to make sure this is legit." Pete chuckled. "I dunno if you've noticed, guys, but I can't exactly crush 10-gauge steel with my bare hands. I don't know if tests are really necessary."
Gracie chuckled back. "C'mon, Pete! You know that alterations to your DNA wouldn't have to be observable. Having DNA codes for extra muscle strength and endurance, and excess protein catalysts could double or even triple the effects of a manufactured mutation. I was wrong when I said your Rogers blood couldn't account for this. It could easily allow for this much of a tweak. Or you could even have Spidey genes that simply haven't manifested yet, which is less likely since at the age of sixteen you're halfway through puberty as a male. It is possible, though, that the protein and hormonal changes are just under the bar of you becoming Spiderman."
Pete let out a breath. "So... You're saying it's either the boring possibility of excess amino acids, or the awesome possibility that any day now I'll start manifesting spider powers?" "Basically, yeah. But I'm also saying you're going to need to buck up, because a blood test is still necessary, which means so is a needle." Her eyes glinted humorously as she grinned.