At the same time when Peter is experimenting on himself the scene in Norman Osborn's lab were not much different.
"Sir, we can still solidify the formula with the time available and run proper animal trials! Testing it on yourself carries enormous risk, and...."
Norman was already loading the serum into the chamber.
He had the look of a man who had made a decision he was comfortable with, which was one of the more unsettling expressions available to a human face under the circumstances.
The chamber was prepared.
The gas delivery mechanism was calibrated.
Promacloroperazine, 40,000 years of evolutionary biology and the question of what came next.
"Forty thousand years of evolution," Norman said, as if continuing a thought rather than beginning one, "and we have barely touched the surface of what is available to us."
He took a long drink from the bottle and lay back in the chair. "Do not worry, Mendel. Everything will turn out perfectly."
Mendel Stromm swallowed.
He said nothing.
He turned to the computer and pressed enter.
Cortana: "Relax your muscles, Peter. Take a deep breath."
Mendel: "The process begins in...."
Cortana: "Three."
Mendel: "Five. Four."
The green gas began filling the chamber.
Norman inhaled it and his eyes went wide and his body began to convulse.
Cortana: "Two."
Peter clenched his jaw around the cloth. "One."
Mendel: "Three. Two."
Cortana and Mendel, simultaneously: "One."
Peter and Norman, simultaneously:
"AHHHHHHH!!!!!"
....
....
Peter's eyes opened.
He lay still for a moment because the pain, while significantly diminished from its peak, was still present in the form of a full-body awareness of every vascular pathway in his system, the specific aftereffect of something having moved through all of them at once.
He had never wanted to know what it felt like to have his blood turn to lava.
He now knew, and the knowledge was complete and he did not want it again.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Cortana said, and her voice had the quality it always had when she was checking on something she had been monitoring carefully for a period of time.
"I felt," Peter said, "like someone who has just experienced something that I have no frame of reference for and would prefer not to repeat."
He breathed out slowly.
The restraints released.
He sat up. "Thank you, Cortana. The arms were essential for that. I feel...."
He stood carefully.
He stretched. "I feel significantly better than I expected to."
He felt different in a way that was distinct from the spider bite.
The bite had been an addition to what he was.
This was a multiplication of what was already there, a doubling of the foundation, and the result was that his body felt more like itself than it ever had, just more of it.
Cortana created a holographic reflection and he looked at it.
He had not gained height.
He had not gained the dramatic visual mass that Rogers' serum had produced in Rogers, because his body was not built on the same baseline and the formula had been calibrated accordingly.
What he had gained was density.
The same silhouette, the same balanced athlete's build, but with a quality to the muscle fiber that was visible even in the hologram in the way that material built under pressure looks different from material built under ordinary conditions.
"Report," he said.
"The procedure was a complete success," she said.
She materialized fully and her expression was the one she had when she was genuinely satisfied rather than professionally satisfied.
"98.95% retention of planned enhancement, which effectively doubled your existing physical capacity across all metrics.
While you were unconscious, I ran passive diagnostic scans. There are no abnormalities.
Your vital signs are better than they were before the procedure, which is remarkable given that the spider bite had already improved them substantially."
"The nervous system?"
"Optimal. Information transfer speed between body and brain has increased, which means your reaction time has improved beyond what the spider bite alone produced."
She paused. "There is something else. While you were unconscious I ran some additional tests to confirm something I had been observing in the data."
She brought up a screen. He leaned forward.
"Your cells," she said, "respond to foreign elements at a rate that I can only describe as remarkable.
Not just eliminating them. Evaluating them. Making decisions about them.
Some are neutralized. Others are adapted to and incorporated in whatever way your body determines is optimal.
The process is constant and without lag." She looked at him directly.
"If my theory is correct, your body is continuously evolving in response to the environments and situations it encounters. It is not a static enhanced state. It is a dynamic one."
Peter stood with that for a moment.
"Option A," he said slowly, "is that this is a gift from the One Above All, or a result of my father's experimentation on his own genetics before I was born.
Option B is an X-Gene."
"I cannot confirm which at this stage."
"If it is option B," he said, "I need contingency plans for people who can detect genetic anomalies. Telepaths being the primary concern."
He picked up a black t-shirt from the back of a chair and pulled it on. "For now. File the theory, continue monitoring, and do not flag it to any external system."
"Understood."
"And congratulations," he said, pulling on his shirt and buttoning it.
"I mean that. I used the research of a great many people as a foundation and asked you to do the construction work. The walls, the gaps, the structural integrity, that was you. So congratulations to you, my excellent assistant."
"I am very flattered," she said, and she was not performing the flattery.
"Gather all the data and statistics and archive them to the private server." He sat down.
"Once that is done, we focus on the spiders and the nanobots. Create a subfolder called Microbots inside the Nanobot folder."
"Understood. I should also mention that I have been running the spider analysis continuously throughout the past week.
I have sufficient data to design a new specimen independently."
"Good. What abilities would a bite from the designed specimen produce?"
She compiled a list on the display in front of him and he read through it.
Improved physical abilities.
Perfect spider-sense.
Accelerated vision.
Improved healing factor.
Arachnid camouflage.
Bioelectricity.
Venom secretion and poison immunity.
Retractable claws.
A low-level telepathic spider connection.
Hormone production and low-level hypnotic capacity.
Organic webbing.
He read it twice.
"Can all of these be combined into a single specimen?" he said. "I am not interested in being bitten multiple times. Once was sufficient."
"It will take time," she said. "But yes. With the data available I can achieve it. I can also include additional capabilities beyond this list if you want to discuss options."
"We will discuss it later. What spider do you want to use as the base organism?"
He thought about it for a moment.
"The Portia," he said.
"The Portia?" She looked genuinely curious. "Why that one specifically?"
"Two reasons. First, it is the most cognitively advanced spider species known. Second," he said, and smiled slightly, "we are similar."
She considered this and accepted it.
"Once the spider project reaches the next stage," he said, "we pivot to nanotechnology. That is the most versatile area on the current list."
"Understood."
"One more thing. Open individual files for Selina and Caesar. I have prepared adoption papers for both of them."
He crossed to Selina's enclosure and opened it. She looked at him for a moment with the specific evaluating quality of a cat deciding whether a thing is worth the effort, and then jumped.
He caught her and she settled against his chest and began purring. "There. Who is exactly as affectionate as their namesake?"
"I understand Selina's attachment," Cortana said, watching with the expression of someone maintaining scientific objectivity in the face of a scene that was undermining it.
"But Caesar? He is, developmentally speaking, still quite young."
Caesar, from his enclosure, looked at Cortana with an expression that was not young at all.
"On one hand, his cognitive test results speak for themselves," Peter said, still petting Selina.
"On the other hand, I refuse to name him Grodd." Caesar puffed his chest with visible approval. Cortana raised an eyebrow at the name.
"And on the third hand, I know he is going to achieve remarkable things. That matters." He looked at Caesar.
"You may throw the banana if you want to. I will catch it."
Caesar threw the banana. Peter caught it without looking.
"I see," Cortana said, in the tone of someone who does not entirely see but is willing to continue monitoring the situation.