Aria didn't sleep. She spent the night staring at the three words—Peter Parker, Primary Match—until they blurred into meaningless glyphs, and then snapped back into agonizing focus. The city's quiet vigil for its fallen hero felt deeply personal now, an unbearable, shared hypocrisy. The world mourned a stranger; she mourned a brother she never knew, a man whose existence was a carefully constructed secret. She replayed every news report, every solemn commentary, searching for any hint of her mother's name, any connection to the past she now knew was inextricably linked to this global tragedy. Nothing. Just the endless, faceless grief.
The sun rose, painting the eastern skyline in sickly shades of neon pink and smoggy gray. The shame of her detachment, the hollow space where empathy should have been, was replaced by a white-hot, consuming rage. Her mother, Elena Parker—the brilliant scientist obsessed with truth and genetic perfection—had forced Aria to exist in a shadow, a deliberate blank space in Peter Parker's vibrant life. Why? What monstrous secret had been so crucial it warranted two decades of deliberate familial erasure?
Aria snatched the lockbox from the floor and carried it, along with the ornate silver key she hadn't touched, into her mother's old, hermetically-sealed closet, now her personal research archive. The air inside was thick with the scent of old paper, ozone, and her mother's lingering ambition.
In the center of the archive sat a single, massive, industrial-grade storage cabinet. Its matte grey surface hummed faintly, a relic from a different era of secure storage. Aria inserted the ornate silver key into its lock—the first lock that had actually fit the key, not needing her intricate, practiced picking skills—and turned it. The mechanism gave a satisfying clunk.
The heavy door slid open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a surprisingly clean, empty interior save for a small, reinforced metal kit at the back. It was precisely placed, as if anticipating this very moment.
Inside the kit were five things, each packed with clinical precision: a medical-grade syringe kit, a vial of thick, dark serum labeled only "AP-002: Catalyst," a stack of detailed, handwritten journals bound in plain black leather, a thick file stamped NOVAGENE R&D, and a single, creased photograph.
Aria picked up the photo first. It was faded, showing two women in pristine white lab coats, laughing together in a sun-drenched, unrealistically clean laboratory. One was her mother, younger, vibrant, with eyes that still held a spark of hope. The other, she realized with a sickening jolt, was the same woman she'd seen in Peter Parker's old memorial photos—Peter's mother. Their arms were linked, their smiles genuine. The two had been colleagues. Friends. More than that, they had been a team.
A cold, stamped letter in the NovaGene file confirmed the link. Her mother, Elena Parker, had been a lead researcher on a top-secret program codenamed "Spider Gene Program." The program aimed to stabilize and replicate the natural genetic mutations found in Richard Parker's (Peter's father) early, non-lethal research—research that hinted at evolutionary leaps in human durability and agility, far beyond conventional understanding.
The journals only confirmed it: years of failed tests, animal suffering, and a corporation chasing control. The early enthusiasm in her mother's writing gave way to a growing sense of dread. Elena had grown disillusioned, seeing the program shift from medical advancement to weaponization, from a path to healing to a path to ultimate, uncontrollable power. She'd quit, but not before stealing the final, most refined formula—AP-002.
She hadn't taken the formula for herself. She had stored it. "A failsafe," Elena had written on the final page of the journal, her elegant script frantic and almost illegible. "If the world ever loses its protection, the Bloodline must ensure the fight continues. The Catalyst is the key. For Aria."
Aria's eyes fell to the syringe and the dark vial of AP-002. Her mother hadn't finished her work. She hadn't protected the bloodline. She had run. And she had left this burden, this terrible, dangerous inheritance, for her daughter.
They killed Peter. They killed the city's protection. And you left this here, waiting for me.
A strange, toxic determination replaced her grief. This serum wasn't just a potential weapon; it was a connection. A way to understand her brother, her mother, and the power that had both created and destroyed them. It was the only tangible link she had left to any of them.
"I'll finish it," Aria whispered, her voice rough, echoing in the confined space. "I'll finish what Mom started. But I'll do it my way."
Her hands, usually so steady in the lab, were trembling now. She drew the dark, viscous fluid into the syringe. There was no scientific method here, no peer review—just adrenaline, rage, and a terrifying sense of obligation. The liquid shimmered, reflecting the harsh overhead light like spilled crude oil.
She pressed the syringe's cold metal against her skin, just above the crook of her elbow.
The injection was agonizing. It wasn't the sharp prick of the needle; it was the serum itself. It felt less like a fluid entering her body and more like liquid fire searing a path through her veins, a blazing river igniting every nerve. The taste of copper filled her mouth, metallic and coppery. Aria gasped, falling backward against the cabinet, the cool metal a momentary counterpoint to the raging internal inferno.
The pain intensified, focusing first on her heart, a vice-like grip squeezing the organ, then her brain, then her entire nervous system. Every nerve ending flared, screaming in a primal panic. She could feel her DNA—every helix, every individual bond—being violently rewritten, molecular structures unraveling and re-knitting with brutal force.
Her skin grew clammy, slick with cold sweat, her teeth grinding together to suppress a scream that threatened to tear from her throat. She looked down at her arm. Under her skin, the veins were beginning to glow, not with blood, but with a horrifying, crimson luminescence. The red light pulsed, moving like electric current across her shoulder, down her back, and into her legs. It smelled faintly of ozone and old pennies, a cloying, chemical scent that clung to the air around her.
This is a failure. This is death.
As the light reached her eyes, a strange, overwhelming flood of noise rushed in—not just sound, but raw, unfiltered data. She could hear the distinct, rhythmic whir of the refrigerator fan two rooms away, the faint drip of a faucet in the apartment below, the specific, high-frequency sound of the copper wiring heating up in her wall, the distant, thrumming vibrations of the subway lines deep underground.
Then, cutting through the sensory overload, came a voice. It was like a headset in her skull, clear and undeniable, yet impossibly distant.
"Don't push it. You're not ready."
The voice was masculine, warm, yet laced with urgency. It echoed with a familiar timbre, a ghostly resonance of the face she'd seen in pictures, the brother she had just discovered.
Aria collapsed onto the floor. The pain receded into a dull, vibrating ache, like a constant, low-frequency hum beneath her skin. The crimson light faded, leaving behind only the faintest lines, like tiny, intricate burnt scars, tracing the route the serum had taken.
She opened her eyes, gasping. She was drenched in sweat, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was alive. And she was terrifyingly changed.
She looked up, but the room was empty.
"Hallucination," she forced herself to mutter, trying to ground herself in the sterile facts of her scientific training. "Sensory overload from the unstable reaction. The brain trying to contextualize chaos."
She forced herself to stand. Her movements were sharper, quicker. The world felt slower, heavier, the air thicker. She walked to the wall and lightly touched the surface. It wasn't the plaster she expected. It was textured, rough, almost welcoming. Instinctively, her fingers spread, and with a horrifying squelch, they adhered.
She ripped her hand away, leaving a faint, sticky, web-like print in the paint.
This wasn't a hallucination. This was real.
The sheer, raw power terrified her more than the pain. It was unstable, crude, and already screaming with a need for release. If Peter Parker had been grace and control, a dancer between buildings, Aria was raw, volatile energy, a lightning strike waiting for a target.
She threw on a simple black hoodie and a pair of dark jeans, her gaze settling on the fire escape outside her window. She had to test it. She had to know what she had become.
The rooftop was slick with the earlier rain, reflecting the city lights like a shattered mirror. The air was cold, smelling of burnt oil and distant, clean air from the harbor. Aria stood on the parapet, looking down at the eight-story drop. This was madness. This was the moment the hero was born, or the lunatic was broken.
"Run across the rooftops. Don't try to jump yet." The voice was back, softer this time, like a warning sigh on the wind, a ghostly whisper of Peter's concern.
Aria ignored the ghost, the hallucination, the voice of the dead man she desperately wanted to believe in. She needed to know the full extent of this curse. She had to push it.
She took three deep, shaky breaths, channeling the cold rage and the toxic serum inside her. She jumped.
It was not a controlled swing; it was a desperate, panicked leap. The sheer distance to the adjacent rooftop was manageable, but her body had no muscle memory for the landing. She mistimed the web-shooter—a basic, prototype device stolen from her lab—releasing it too late. The synthetic cable shot out, caught the adjacent building's cornice, but the jerk was violent, nearly tearing her shoulder from its socket.
She slammed into the brick wall, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs. She clung instinctively, her newly enhanced grip saving her from the fall. She scrabbled upward, her fingers finding invisible purchase on the rough mortar between the bricks, scrambling to the safety of the next roof.
She landed in a heap, her body aching with a dull, persistent pain—not the graceful landing of a hero, but the messy, undignified survival of a desperate animal. She rolled onto her back, staring at the gray, oppressive sky, panting violently.
The unstable powers were useless. They weren't a gift; they were a cruel, unfinished joke. A mockery of her brother's legacy.
Aria pulled herself to a seated position, resting her back against the cool chimney. She felt the tears welling up, tears not of pain, but of bitter failure and overwhelming guilt.
They killed him because he was saving the city. I can't even cross an alley without breaking myself.
As the failure settled, she saw the lights of the city burning, the NovaGene Tower a smug, towering silhouette against the rising sun, a mocking monument to her rage. A new, harder determination settled into her core, colder than the rain.
She looked down at her wrist, where a faint, web-like pattern was now visible, tracing the path of the serum. The Spider's Scar. It was a permanent mark of her connection and her curse.
She forced herself to her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain. She couldn't fly yet, but she could fall. And falling, she knew, was just another way of starting a long, difficult climb. The journals had mentioned a key NovaGene board member—Victor Thorn, former head of R&D Ethics Division—a name worth remembering. Thorn had been a vocal critic of the program's direction before going silent. He might hold a piece of the puzzle.
The one thing her mother's journals had also contained was a desperate plea for Peter to hide a specific message—a hidden thumb drive. If Peter knew he was in danger, he would have left behind the truth.
Aria looked out at the city, her eyes now hard and focused. She was done with grief and failure. Now, there was only one thing left: vengeance.
She had to find the message.