Chapter 90
Peter had become Spider-Man. He had passed the test. And, in a sense, so had I. At least by my own standards.
We had come out roughly even. Arms and legs intact, though the phantom, piercing pain from recently shattered bones still lingered, along with the memory of my internal organs turned to paste. Otherwise, we'd gotten off easy.
I looked down at my clothes. Clean. Not a drop of blood, not a single scorch mark from high-temperature attacks. But the test hadn't been an illusion. It had been a pocket universe, as Anansi called it. Here in the real universe, by all appearances, no more than a few seconds had passed. There, I had lived through an entire day: first ordinary hours, then hours of horror and agony.
Two possibilities. Either Anansi, out of some twisted courtesy, had fully restored my body and clothes after the test. I felt no heightened hunger from the energy expended on regeneration. Or the transfer into his pocket reality had been incomplete. It was not physical. It had operated on the level of consciousness.
"Simulacra." "A copy." Could I myself have become merely a pale imitation for that brief span of time?
The thought took hold and wouldn't let go. My reaction had been wrong. An emotional response unnatural for me. A sluggishness of thought. That primal, blind rage that had overwhelmed me, driving me to throw myself at Morlun, was rage I could have contained in any other situation.
What if that was the entire point?
Anansi hadn't needed "me." It wasn't the version standing here right now. He'd needed the real me. The one who doesn't analyze the situation in a fraction of a second, doesn't register its strangeness, doesn't make that single rational, measured decision that leads to maximum benefit.
He hadn't needed the System Crafter with a multi-core intellect and a wall of buffs. He hadn't needed the product of the fusion between a future engineer and a research mage. He'd simply needed a person.
And I'd acted like one.
I got angry. I flew into a rage. I felt primal terror for Gwen and threw myself into a suicidal attack. But thinking back to Hydra, I hadn't felt that kind of fury toward them. They'd been a problem to be solved. Taskmaster, for instance: the moment he simply surrendered, any negative feelings toward him evaporated. Problem solved; he became an asset. That asset had since been folded into S.H.I.E.L.D. and had already proven himself in the Hydra purges. All rational.
That rationality stemmed from the unsettling cocktail inside my head. I'd become unreal. I'd long since accepted that the Creator's Spark, the System, was rewriting my personality. In the end, it was better to be dependent on the process of creation than on something that led to destruction. But sometimes these changes frightened even me.
Who was I? The Ship of Theseus. A ship in which every single plank had been replaced over the past month. Did it remain the same ship? So too with me.
Was I still the same John Thompson? No. Alexander Cole?
And who was Alexander Cole anyway? A bachelor, a freelancer, a bit of an amateur craftsman. An avid reader of well-written superhero fiction. A transmigrant whose only real assets had been meta knowledge and a measure of life experience.
The moment I woke up in this world, I stopped being him. My thoughts, my identity, my experience: all of it turned to dust. The young, hormonal body of John Thompson began to fundamentally fracture my personality, and I noticed it almost immediately. Then the System hit.
A fragment of a future engineer's life experience. Practically the complete memory archive of a magical researcher.
And that old mage. He wasn't corrupt. He was simply a researcher. An artificer. A man who had devoted nearly a century of life to a single passion: understanding. No scheming, no long game, no hidden agendas. He had stood at the very top of his society, yet even at the end, when his body began to fail, he never considered extending his life. The options had been there. Absorbing the life energy of others at minimum. Given his importance, they would have allowed it. But he simply didn't want to. He accepted his end.
Given all that, it made sense that I'd confessed to Fury about creating and using the Mental Worm. An irrational act, driven not by logic but by conscience. The conscience of the old mage, and somewhere deep down, the conscience of Alexander, the ordinary man.
I regretted it afterward. Then I realized I would have regretted it even more if I hadn't said anything.
Irrational? Definitely. But as the recent test suggested, it had been the right call.
So what now, after all these revelations? Revelations I'd only reached after an existential jolt from an entity operating at God tier. And Anansi, however much he downplayed it, absolutely operated at that tier. When I thought of Thor and Loki compared to this ancient horror, they were roughly what an ordinary person was to Hyperion.
But Anansi wasn't what was on my mind right now. I was not myself. And the farther this went, the worse it would get. Every new piece of knowledge was power. But it was also a curse, erasing my original self.
And yet, power. I needed power. Morlun was real. Anansi was real. Other threats I knew well, threats no less than Morlun himself, were real. And.
Stop. Enough thinking. This road only led to navel-gazing and spiraling.
Even though less than a second had passed in the real world, that brief instant of reflection was enough for me to understand two simple things.
First: if you think you're the smartest person in the room, you've already been deceived. At minimum, you've deceived yourself.
And second: don't be a bastard. The fact that I had sacrificed Peter to save Gwen in that test still weighed on me morally. Even if it was the right choice specifically for me, it was repulsive.
Speaking of Peter.
I shook my head, cast off the trance, and finally opened the storage closet door.
What I had earlier identified as a Supernova was gone. The dense, vibrating spiritual energy that had seemed on the verge of burning through reality itself had dissipated, leaving behind only a faint, barely perceptible smell of jungle, like something wild and powerful.
Peter stood in the center of the room. He didn't look different. And yet he was completely changed. He was still the same ordinary teenager, perhaps a little more wiry now, but in his posture, in his gaze, in the simple way he stood, there was a quiet, coiled, spring-loaded force.
My face held no smile. Only quiet acceptance. Neither did his. He slowly raised his eyes to mine, and in them was no childlike wonder at having gained powers. In them was an echo of the same horror I had just lived through myself.
"Congratulations," I said, breaking the silence.
"That," Peter swallowed. His voice was hoarse. "John, don't ever do anything like that again. Ever."
"Completely with you on that," I nodded. "We got in over our heads. Too deep. Probably should have looked for other options."
"No!" Peter suddenly shouted. His face, already pale, went white as death. He flinched as though from a blow. "No. Other options. There weren't any."
I froze. His reaction. Animal terror.
"What did you see?" I already knew the answer. "Or rather, who? Anansi."
I noted how his eyes went wide in recognition. So he had met with him too.
"That lover of spectacle apparently put on a show for everyone involved. And it seems the show varied depending on the individual."
Anansi. He... he showed me the destruction of the world. The entire world, John." Peter spoke fast, breathlessly, his voice trembling. "He showed me. Knull. An entity at the very top of the food chain.
Knull. Unfortunately, that name wasn't in my index of meta knowledge. But Peter was already continuing, and his description sent a chill through me.
"Darkness. It just ate everything. New York, the world, you, Gwen, my uncle and aunt. Knull. In the vision, he came for me. And Anansi. He offered me a choice." Just like mine. A choice. The classic setup. "Either I escape with him to another world, another reality, gain power, a chance for revenge. Or I stay and die holding my family."
"I know which choice you made," I said quietly, struck by the resilience of this young man. If I had been offered that same choice... Damn. "Let's go up to the fifth floor. Test your new powers. And in the meantime, shake off what happened."
"What was your test?" Peter asked as we stepped out of the closet. He had already recovered somewhat.
"A choice as well," I answered honestly, turning my head to look him directly in the eye. "You or Gwen."
Peter stopped halfway to the elevator. He understood everything. But I saw no trace of hurt on his face, no anger, no disappointment. Only understanding.
"You and Gwen. Is it serious? In my vision, you were talking about a wedding." He coughed awkwardly. "I don't blame you for your choice, John. It was at least honest."
"Thank you." I nodded, genuinely grateful. "As for Gwen, it seems the jokes went too far. A wedding probably isn't happening in the next few weeks. But at the very least, we're both ready to give each other a real chance."
"You're good for each other." Peter nodded. At that moment we entered the engineering lab, which had quietly turned into an improvised stress-testing range. First my Extremis, then Gwen's invisibility, now Peter. I would need to get a proper training range out of Fury. "What are we testing?"
"By the book. We'll start with physiology," I said, walking to the rack of material samples. "Try bending, breaking, tearing. Start with this."
I handed Peter a small aluminum sheet two millimeters thick. He turned it over in his hands, looked at me, then back at the sheet. Then he simply tore it. Like an ordinary playing card. Like a sheet of paper. Without the slightest visible effort.
Keeping my expression neutral, though I was genuinely impressed, I skipped past steel, tungsten, and the other intermediate steps. I handed him a small rod. Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy. Military grade.
When Peter wrapped both hands around the rod, I finally saw the strain in him. His bicep swelled, forearm muscles corded with tension. But that was the only effort he exerted before the rod gave a dull, flat CRACK and snapped in two.
"Two hundred tons tensile strength," I murmured, staring at this monster. "You just exceeded a tank's structural limits with your bare hands, and you didn't even break a sweat. Hold on."
What if? An absurd, heretical thought flickered through my mind, one I couldn't dismiss. Anansi. Concepts. Choices. The Web.
"Five minutes, Peter. I'll be right back."
I shot into the materials lab. I pulled the piece of Adamantium from inventory. I loaded it into the chamber and quickly processed it into a small, elongated teardrop of secondary Adamantium. It was indestructible metal. It was indestructible by the laws of physics. But what about Anansi or Morlun?
Returning to Peter, I held out the still-warm, perfectly smooth metallic drop.
"Break it," I said.
Peter took it skeptically. He tensed again. His entire body, now wiry as a professional gymnast's, became one solid, vibrating muscle. Veins rose on his neck and hands. His face flushed. For a long, grueling minute he strained against the metal.
The Adamantium in his palm remained indifferent.
"I can't," he said, opening his fingers. "It feels like..."
"You're running up against physics," I finished for him, watching through activated Spiritual Sight as all of his immense physical force simply dispersed across the surface of the metal, finding no point of purchase. "Do you feel like you could break it?"
"Yes," Peter looked at me in surprise. "I feel like I can. But I don't know how."
"Try stepping outside physics. You're trying to bend it. Instead, command it to break." I wasn't entirely sure what I was saying, but the theory needed either confirmation or complete refutation. "You're not just a strong guy anymore. You're a Spider. You're connected to the Web of Destiny. Tell this piece of metal that its fate is to be broken."
Peter closed his eyes, focusing on the drop in his palm. He began squeezing it again. But this time, there was no muscular tension at all. He was relaxed. And yet.
CRACK.
No. Not a crack. A ring. A deafening, crystalline ring, as though reality itself had fractured.
No way. That was supposed to be just a wild theory.
Peter slowly opened his eyes. He looked at his palm in bewilderment and held the drop out to me. It was covered in a network of hairline fractures. Fractures that suspiciously formed the pattern of a spider's web.
"Conceptual superstrength." I nodded, maintaining my composure with effort. My mind was frantically cataloging data. "That's the classification. Morlun had better not come anywhere near our universe."
"Unclear. But very interesting," Peter murmured, studying the cracked metal. "Just how does this work? I barely put in any effort that time. And this."
"Adamantium," I finished for him. "Unbreakable, up until this moment."
"Right, Adamantium. It just broke because I wanted it to? But I wanted it to before, too."
"Before, you wanted to break it physically. But Adamantium is stronger than any physical force. And then you struck it with your concept. Your will, amplified by the Web, proved stronger than physical indestructibility. On that one aspect alone, Pete, you surpass nearly all your fellow powered brothers and sisters."
I looked at him. He still seemed grim and tense.
"And by the way, why so quiet? You look terrible."
It was true: from the moment he woke up, Peter hadn't smiled once. The reason was obvious. Anansi's test had shocked him too severely. But that was in the past. Right now, we needed to focus on the present and prepare for the future.
"It's just these powers." Peter looked at his hands, the ones that had just fractured the Adamantium. "They're incredible. And the responsibility," he said at last, haltingly, finally giving voice to what had been gnawing at him.
"You'll handle it," I said firmly. "If you weren't capable of handling it, you wouldn't have received them. Anansi doesn't give things away for nothing."
That didn't exactly calm him down. But at least he stirred himself, ready for the next round of tests.
The next hour in the lab was a revelation, an hour that turned my world, and Peter's, completely upside down.
I had always thought of Spider-Man as a street-level hero. Powerful, yes. But this much. I couldn't have imagined it.
Speed, agility, strength. We never managed to find a concrete ceiling for any of them. That didn't mean one didn't exist. It meant his strength seemed adaptive. It calibrated perfectly to the situation, producing exactly the minimum required to resolve the problem at hand. Today he only stopped a car. Tomorrow, I had no doubt, he would be able to hold up an entire skyscraper on his shoulders.
And his webbing.
First: it was organic. No web-shooters constantly threatening to break or run dry at the worst possible moment. The standard problem for most Spider variants was one Peter had simply bypassed.
Second: it was incredibly strong. And that was coming from me, a superhuman who had served as its test target. I tried to tear it with my full Extremis-enhanced strength. I couldn't. Even a Spirit Blade cut through it with difficulty.
But that wasn't even the most incredible part. This webbing was smart.
Yes, that was the most fitting word. Dissolve after a precisely set interval? No problem. At my instruction, Peter fired a web at the wall, and it literally melted away after ten seconds. Become rigid like a steel cable, or, conversely, light and adhesive like a trap? Also no problem.
Become venomous? Now that was an entirely new dimension of his abilities. He was now, what the hell, a venomous spider.
And it wasn't a standard chemical compound. Again, it was something conceptual. It was a venom capable of both paralysis and sedation. Peter could concentrate it in any part of his body: his palms, his fingertips. With a touch he could put a target to sleep. The venom entered into perfect symbiosis with his webbing, which, at Peter's discretion, now became a far more dangerous and versatile trap. I suspected that if Peter were truly enraged, this venom could kill. But that was something we didn't test.
What took considerable effort was staying awake when Peter used his sleep attack on me. Only an instant spike of Iron Blood and a directive to the nanobots in my brain to block the neurotoxins kept me conscious. And even then, had he kept pressing, I would definitely have gone down. Once again, the thing was conceptual in nature.
"The universe is doomed," I said with a sigh, concluding our improvised test as I sat on the edge of a lab table. "I think your powers aren't a gift. They're one more long-running test from Anansi. Because nothing can be this broken."
Objectively, Peter's potential placed him perhaps above even Hyperion. I didn't know whether Hyperion was capable of any conceptual manipulation at all. Peter clearly was. And these manipulations were by no means minimal. It was as though he had connected not to a single thread of the Web of Destiny, but to the entire Web at once.
"But at least..." Peter finally allowed himself a small, uncertain smile. "At least now I know I can protect everyone."
"Heroics." I nodded, understanding what he meant.
"Heroics," he agreed, with more conviction this time.
"These powers. This gift. I'm simply obligated to use them worthily. Save people. Eliminate threats. In short, treat them with maximum responsibility."
"Heroism of the mind," I said, shaking my head good-naturedly. "Somehow, in moments like these, people always forget that you can help in other ways, too. Develop medicines. Donate money. Patent technologies that make life easier."
"All of that will happen, too," Peter said seriously. "First and foremost, I'm a scientist at Thompson Corp. I just won't be able to sit still in my free time. And I already feel like I'll need a lot less sleep, so that gives me more time to work with. Call it a quirk. A hobby. But I'm going to be Spider-Man. Because it's the right thing to do. The main reason I wanted powers was to protect my family, but I can protect everyone else, too."
"Well, at least you're talking again." I smiled. He really had come alive. "And who am I to stop you? You want to be a hero, be a hero. Just be smart about it. Not like me." I kept quiet about my own failures and methods, for now. "Speaking of which."
"Of what?"
"Since you mentioned needing less sleep, we could start right now on something very useful."
"Your suit?" he guessed immediately. "The white and gold one?"
"How do you know? Ah." I waved it off. "Same place you heard about the wedding. But no, the suit can wait."
Dealing with Hydra had seemingly resolved the enormous problem of my personal security. But instead of relief, I felt only a new wave of paranoia. Had I caught it from Fury? Where was this paranoia even coming from? S.H.I.E.L.D. was stronger than ever, and my primary enemy had been neutralized. So why had I rushed to build a suit in Anansi's reality? Sure, an upgrade was long overdue, but this was just another case of kicking the important things down the road.
And there was still so much to do. I could finally focus on the company and step into the public eye. Fury had promised to help with that.
"We're going to build the company's AI." I let Peter in on the plan. "We're critically understaffed, and we have an ocean of work ahead."
"An AI?" Peter's eyes lit up with scientific curiosity. "A real one? That sounds ambitious. Where do we start?"
No Hydra. Parker was Spider-Man. I had a date with Gwen coming up that might turn into something more. As for me, I understood nothing about myself. But maybe the straightforward process of building something more interesting than another cyborg-killing suit would help clear my head.
"It's going to be the most ambitious project on this planet," I said with a wide, predatory grin. "Some bastard in Hydra uploaded its consciousness to primitive computers back in the seventies. Why should I settle for less?"
Peter's stunned, delighted stare was the best possible answer. Time to shake this genius up.
After all, today was perhaps the best day of his life. The day he was reborn.
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