Chapter 14: Building Pressure
The first thing my dad did when I walked into the room was hit play.
The wall-sized screen across the penthouse office lit up with security footage from Oscorp.
Black.
Sleek.
Moving across a laboratory floor with inhuman fluidity.
Me.
Or more specifically, Venom.
The symbiote suit looked incredible in high definition. I’d give it that much. The living black surface rippled as I vaulted over a security railing, landed in a crouch, and moved toward the lab access panel.
My dad paused the video.
Then rewound it.
Then zoomed in.
He must’ve already done this at least three times before I stepped foot into the office. And I could tell, because the frame was frozen at the exact same spot he showed me earlier.
With Venom crouched on the polished Oscorp lab floor.
My dad folded his hands behind his back and studied the screen like it was a presentation slide in a board meeting.
“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong about this image?”
His tone wasn’t angry.
That would’ve been easier.
It was the same calm, lecturing voice he used when dismantling someone’s quarterly projections in front of the Oscorp board.
I braced myself anyway.
The thing about being the son of Norman Osborn is that you never really know which version of him you’re getting.
The terrifying one.
Or the disappointed one.
Sometimes both.
My eyes drifted back to the screen. “Breaking and entering?” I tried.
My dad didn’t even look at me.
“No.”
He tapped the remote.
The footage advanced two seconds.
Venom swiped a keycard across the scanner.
The door unlocked.
My guest pass.
Then he paused it again.
Zoomed further.
Right onto the badge reader.
My name, perfectly visible in the system log overlay.
My dad finally turned to look at me. “Care to try again?”
Oh.
Right.
That.
The thing is, my dad already knew I was Venom. I mean, we never really talked about it? But it’s not like the news had been camera shy with the new superheroes on the block (thanks, Peter), and dad was the one who gave me the symbiote in the first place.
But, yeah, we never had ‘the talk’ about it before, so I don’t think he had a big problem with it.
Which begged the question… if this wasn’t about the vigilantism.
Then was it really about…
“…getting caught on camera,” I muttered.
“Getting caught on camera breaking into Oscorp laboratories after using your own access credentials to enter the building,” he corrected smoothly.
His voice never rose.
That somehow made it worse.
“Harry, do you have any idea how close you came to exposing yourself?”
I shifted my weight.
‘I handled it just fine.’ I told Venom silently. ‘Way to make a mountain of a mole hill, am I right?’
You were sloppy.
‘Who’s side are you on?’
Which side is winning?
My dad gestured toward the screen again. “Let’s walk through the scenario together.” He pressed play for exactly three seconds before pausing again.
Venom crossing the room.
Clear as day.
“If anyone else had reviewed this footage before I did…”
He held up a finger.
“You are exposed.”
Another finger.
“The symbiote is seized.”
And then the third.
“And without the symbiote…”
He let that hang.
I didn’t need him to finish the sentence.
I’d read the medical files.
My genetic condition wasn’t getting much better. It was making some progress, sure. But technically, I wasn’t even in remission, yet.
Without the symbiote regulating it?
My body would basically eat itself.
Venom stirred slightly under my skin.
We won’t let that happen.
‘… thanks.’
My dad set the remote down on the desk.
His expression hadn’t changed. But something in his eyes had hardened. “And you are not the only one at risk here.”
That got my attention.
“What does that mean?”
He regarded me for a moment like a professor deciding how much of the answer a student deserved.
Then he said it.
“I know about them, Harry.”
I blinked.
“…about who?”
My dad looked mildly unimpressed. “Must we do this part theatrically?” He folded his arms. “Peter Parker. Gwen Stacy.”
Oh.
Oh no.
My stomach dropped.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.”
He began pacing slowly across the room.
“Peter’s absences coincide almost perfectly with the appearance pattern of Spider-Man. Gwen’s injuries align with field combat. Both were bitten by Oscorp’s genetically engineered spiders.”
He glanced at me.
“And both spend an inordinate amount of time around my superhero son.” He stopped walking. “Honestly, Harry. It wasn’t a particularly difficult deduction.”
Well.
That was horrifying.
Inside my head, Venom shifted again.
We should eat him.
‘No.’
Just a little.
‘Still no.’
I forced my voice to stay steady. “So what? You’re going to turn them in?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
My dad walked back to the screen and turned it off.
The room dimmed.
“I respect initiative,” he said calmly. “Yours. Theirs.” He looked at me again. “But what I do not respect is recklessness.”
And there it was.
The real point of the conversation.
“In light of your… recent decision-making,” he continued, “you are grounded from all vigilante activity.”
I stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Indefinitely.”
“You’re serious.”
“I’m extremely serious.” He frowned. “Actions have consequences, son. A rather obvious lesson that all young boys your age need to learn sooner or later. It would be in your best interests to accept the consequences of yours now while they remain survivable.”
My pulse spiked. “You don’t get to just—”
My dad raised a hand.
I stopped talking.
It wasn’t even a threat.
Just a gesture.
And somehow that made it impossible to keep arguing.
“If you want to help people,” he said evenly, “do it where you are irreplaceable.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Instead of answering, he walked toward the far side of the penthouse.
A door slid open with a quiet hydraulic hiss.
Lights flickered on automatically beyond it.
Bright.
Clinical.
Rows of equipment.
Workstations.
Chemical analyzers.
Fabricators.
My brain took a second to catch up with my eyes. “…is that a lab?”
“It was mine,” my dad said. He stepped aside so I could see the entire room. “I’ve had it refitted.”
For me.
The realization landed slowly.
State-of-the-art Oscorp equipment.
In our apartment.
… no way that doesn’t violate the security deposit.
My dad watched my reaction carefully. “You have the intelligence, Harry. The creativity. The resources.” He gestured toward the lab. “You could build things that save thousands of lives.”
I crossed my arms. “And if I don’t agree?”
That was when his tone changed.
Just slightly.
“If you put that suit on again…” He met my eyes. “I will expose Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy.”
The room went very quiet.
Venom spoke immediately.
He is bluffing.
‘You think?’
It would expose you as well.
‘Probably.’
Then he will not do it.
Maybe.
But the problem with calling my father’s bluff was that the stakes weren’t mine alone.
Peter.
Gwen.
If I was wrong?
Their lives would implode overnight.
And honestly?
My dad wasn’t doing this to be cruel. He was doing it because he thought he was protecting me. It wouldn’t work, and eventually he’d be forced to see that. But for now? Maybe it was best to play along.
Norman Osborn was a spiteful, and stubborn man.
Tell him no, he’ll get a yes.
Tell him yes, maybe he changes his mind later.
I exhaled slowly. “…fine.”
He studied my face. “Fine?”
“For now.”
Temporary surrender.
‘Exactly.’
My dad nodded once.
Like we’d just concluded a negotiation.
“Good.” He turned toward the lab. “Then I suggest you begin.”
I stepped past him and into the room.
The lights brightened automatically as I entered.
Workbenches.
Microscopes.
Oscorp fabrication printers.
Enough equipment to run three university labs.
My reflection stared back at me in a polished steel surface.
A High School sophomore.
Grounded from being a superhero.
Standing inside one of the most advanced private laboratories in New York.
Behind me, my dad spoke one last time.
“Harry.”
I glanced over my shoulder.
“If you insist on changing the world,” he said calmly, “at least do it intelligently.”
The door slid shut behind him.
I looked around the lab again.
We could build many things here.
I picked up a tool from the nearest workstation.
‘Yeah,’ I admitted.
A slow grin spread across my face.
‘We really could.’
…
The lecture hall at Empire State University smelled like dry erase markers, old textbooks, and the faint electrical hum of equipment that probably cost more than Gwen’s entire house.
Which, to be fair, wasn’t saying much.
Still.
She loved it.
Gwen sat forward in her chair with her elbows resting on the narrow desk, pen already spinning between her fingers while she scanned the diagrams projected onto the front screen. Most of the room was filled with college students—actual adults with degrees in progress and caffeine addictions to match. Gwen and Peter were the only ones who still had homeroom teachers and a lunch period.
Technically they were here because of a “youth outreach internship initiative.”
Realistically?
They were here because they were both terrifyingly good at science.
Beside her, Peter Parker was vibrating with the specific brand of nervous energy he got whenever something scientific was happening within a fifty-foot radius.
He leaned toward her slightly. “Okay, but if this is what I think it is—”
“Don’t jinx it,” Gwen whispered back.
At the front of the room, the professor abruptly clapped his hands together with the enthusiasm of someone who had clearly consumed far too much coffee.
“Good morning, future Nobel Prize winners!”
A handful of the grad students looked up with mild confusion.
Gwen didn’t have to check the nameplate on the desk to know exactly who this was.
Curt Connors had the exact chaotic academic energy she’d imagined from reading his papers. Slightly wrinkled lab coat, hair that had long since surrendered to gravity, and the excited expression of a man who’d spent the entire night thinking about electricity.
He grabbed a marker and started sketching a crude diagram over the projected slide.
“New York City’s electrical grid,” he said, circling Manhattan like it had personally offended him. “Is old. Painfully old. Like dial-up internet old.”
A few students chuckled.
Peter raised a hand halfway before remembering this wasn’t high school and slowly lowering it again.
Connors continued anyway.
“The infrastructure still works,” he said, tapping the diagram, “but it wastes energy at an almost criminal rate. Power loss through transmission lines, inefficient distribution, aging relay systems—it’s like trying to run a modern computer on 1990s wiring.”
Gwen felt the spark of excitement building in her chest.
She’d read about this.
Connors switched slides.
A sleek diagram appeared on the screen.
“Which brings us,” he said, grinning like a kid about to reveal a magic trick, “to the ESU Grid Stabilization Initiative.”
Peter leaned forward.
Gwen didn’t even realize she’d stopped spinning her pen.
Connors tapped a component in the center of the diagram. “A high-efficiency power transmission system designed to stabilize the city’s grid.”
Another slide appeared.
This one showed something that looked suspiciously organic layered around a capacitor core. “The heart of the project,” Connors continued, “is a prototype bio-electric capacitor system.”
Peter made a tiny strangled noise next to her.
Gwen kicked his shoe lightly under the desk.
He whispered, “Bio-electric capacitors are theoretically capable of storing—”
“Peter,” she murmured.
He shut up immediately.
Connors continued pacing.
“The idea is simple. Instead of relying purely on traditional electrical storage, we integrate biologically inspired conductive materials capable of adapting to fluctuating energy loads.”
He paused.
“Think of it like giving the power grid a nervous system.”
Gwen’s brain immediately started mapping possibilities.
Adaptive storage systems.
Dynamic load balancing.
Reduced power loss across long-distance transmission lines.
If this worked…
New York could run twice as efficiently on the same power output.
Connors leaned casually against the desk. “And that,” he said cheerfully, “is where our internship program comes in.”
He pointed toward the front row.
“Peter Parker.”
Peter sat bolt upright.
“And Gwen Stacy.”
Oh.
Right.
That part.
Gwen stood, trying very hard to look like she belonged in a room full of graduate students.
Connors gestured them forward with enthusiastic impatience.
“You two submitted the most interesting preliminary research proposals I’ve read in the last six months,” he said, flipping through a tablet. “Peter, your work on bio-conductive polymer lattices was fascinating. Gwen, your capacitor stabilization model nearly made one of my postdocs cry.”
Gwen blinked. “…in a good way?”
Connors grinned. “Scientific envy. Highest compliment in academia.”
Peter looked like he might actually explode.
Connors clapped his hands once more.
“So! Congratulations. You’re both officially accepted into the program.”
Peter turned toward Gwen, eyes wide.
“We got in.”
Gwen smiled.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “We did.”
Connors was already launching back into a rapid-fire explanation of lab schedules, testing phases, and safety procedures involving phrases like “controlled discharge environments.”
Most of the room looked slightly overwhelmed.
Gwen felt right at home.
But as the discussion shifted toward project groups and equipment access, her eyes drifted toward the back row of the lecture hall almost instinctively.
Empty.
Harry should have been sitting back there with his feet up on the chair in front of him, making sarcastic comments about academia while somehow solving the problem faster than everyone else.
He hadn’t even applied.
Her pen slowed.
That was… weird.
Harry loved science.
He lived for this kind of project.
So why—
“Hey.” Peter’s voice pulled her out of the spiral. He leaned toward her slightly. “You’re doing the thing again.”
“What thing?”
“The thinking face.”
Gwen frowned. “I do not have a thinking face.”
“You absolutely do.”
She opened her mouth to argue.
Then closed it again.
Peter smiled faintly. “You’re wondering why Harry didn’t apply.”
She sighed. “Maybe a little.”
Peter shrugged. “He’s probably just busy.”
“With what?”
Peter gave her a look. “His internship with Jessica Jones, maybe?”
Right.
Alias Investigations.
Harry had been working cases with Jessica for weeks now.
Between that and… you know… being Venom.
It actually made sense that he might skip a university science program.
Still.
Gwen twirled the pen between her fingers again. “It just feels weird,” she admitted quietly.
Peter bumped her shoulder lightly. “Then we’ll swing by his place later.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You say that like visiting the Osborn penthouse is a normal after-school activity.”
Peter grinned.
“For us it kind of is.”
Fair point.
At the front of the room, Connors started explaining the first lab assignments.
Gwen forced herself to focus again.
Bio-electric capacitor stabilization.
Adaptive energy grids.
City-wide infrastructure.
This project could change everything.
And she was exactly where she needed to be.
Still…
As Connors kept talking, a small part of her brain kept circling the same thought.
Harry should have been here.
…
Swinging through New York never got old.
Peter had tried explaining this to people before—well, not people, because that would require revealing he was Spider-Man—but hypothetically speaking. In theory. If he could explain it.
Nobody really understood it.
It wasn’t just transportation.
It was flying, except better, because you had to earn every inch of it.
Momentum.
Timing.
Angles.
Every swing was a tiny physics equation solved in real time, and Peter’s brain loved it almost as much as the rest of him did.
Beside him, Gwen arced across the avenue in a clean, graceful swing that honestly looked a little unfair. She moved like someone who had been born knowing how to do this.
Peter shot a webline past her, vaulting over a taxi. “Race you to Harry’s building!”
Gwen twisted mid-swing to look at him. Even through the white mask, he could practically hear the grin. “You say that like you’ve ever beaten me!”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“…statistically speaking, the data set is still developing.”
She laughed and kicked off a fire escape ladder, launching into another perfect arc above traffic.
Okay.
Maybe she had a point.
Still, this was easily the fastest way to cross Manhattan. Between superhuman reflexes and web-swinging physics, they could reach the Osborn penthouse in minutes.
And honestly?
Peter was looking forward to seeing Harry.
It had been a weird couple of days.
Between the wax museum disaster, the train, the fire, and the general chaos of being fourteen-year-old vigilantes in New York City, things had gotten a little intense.
Which meant hanging out at Harry’s place sounded pretty great.
His spider-sense exploded.
Peter’s head snapped toward the street below just as a black sedan fishtailed off the road.
The car jumped the curb.
Flipped.
Time slowed.
The vehicle rolled toward the sidewalk in a violent arc of twisting metal and shattered glass.
And directly in its path—
A man in a tie and glasses froze mid-step, briefcase clutched in one hand like his brain hadn’t quite caught up with what was happening.
Peter didn’t think.
He fired a webline.
The world snapped back to full speed as he yanked himself downward in a tight swing, releasing the line at the last second and slamming into the pavement beside the man.
“Hey!”
Peter grabbed him around the shoulders and launched upward just as the car smashed into the spot where he’d been standing a split second earlier.
Metal screamed.
The sedan crashed into a light pole and flipped again before finally skidding to a stop.
Peter landed on the wall of a nearby building, clinging there easily while the guy he’d grabbed stared at him like his brain had temporarily stopped working.
Which, fair.
Being rescued by Spider-Man probably wasn’t a normal Tuesday experience.
Peter set him gently on the fire escape landing. “You okay?”
The man blinked behind his glasses. “I—yes— I think so—” His voice cracked halfway through the sentence.
Peter tilted his head slightly. “You’re not bleeding, right? Because that’s usually a bad sign.” Although, it would be a cool opportunity to see if his webs could work like bandages.
The guy shook his head rapidly. “No, no, I’m fine. I mean—I wasn’t fine—but now I’m fine.”
Ah well. Maybe next time.
Peter risked a quick glance down at the street.
Gwen had already handled the car.
She landed on the hood with the casual confidence of someone who’d stopped a runaway vehicle before breakfast. A webline snapped tight across the engine block, anchoring it to a streetlight while the driver inside tried to figure out what had just happened to his day.
Peter turned back to the guy he’d rescued. “You might want to move away from traffic for a minute.”
The man nodded quickly. “Right. Yes. Traffic. Good idea.” He hesitated, staring at Peter’s mask. “…you’re Spider-Man.”
Peter shrugged. “The one and only.”
Well, technically speaking, there were three spider-themed vigilantes in New York… Harry’s right. They do need their own twitter accounts.
The man let out a small, incredulous laugh. “You just saved my life.”
“Part of the job description.” Peter scratched the back of his head slightly, suddenly aware they were burning daylight. “Uh… what’s your name?”
The man adjusted his glasses nervously. “Max.”
Peter gave him a quick thumbs up. “Nice to meet you, Max.”
Max looked like he still hadn’t quite processed the situation. “You’re really him.”
Peter tilted his head. “Really, really.”
Max’s expression shifted into something that looked suspiciously like hero worship.
Which was always a little weird. Because Peter knew exactly how unpolished Spider-Man actually was. Half the time he was making this up as he went.
“Well,” Max said quietly, “thank you.”
Peter waved it off. “Anytime.”
Behind him, Gwen flipped up onto the fire escape with effortless grace. “The car’s handled,” she said. “Driver’s stunned but alive.”
Peter grinned underneath the mask. “Nice one!” He glanced back at Max. “Looks like your day just got significantly less terrible.”
Max still looked a little starstruck. “You two are amazing.”
Peter felt his face warm slightly.
Okay.
Compliments were also weird.
“Just doing our thing.” He shot a webline upward toward the skyline. “Anyway, we’ve got somewhere to be.”
Max blinked.
“Right now?”
Peter gave a small shrug. “Superhero scheduling.” He crouched on the railing. “Nice meeting you, Max!”
And with that, he jumped.
The webline caught a moment later, launching him back into the New York skyline beside Gwen as they resumed their swing toward the Osborn penthouse.
Peter was already calculating the next swing.
And wondering if Harry had snacks.
…
Max Dillon floated for almost three full blocks.
Not literally.
But it felt like it.
His feet carried him down the sidewalk on pure momentum, briefcase clutched under one arm while his brain replayed the last five minutes on an endless loop.
Spider-Man had saved him.
Not just Spider-Man.
Two of them.
The city’s two most famous vigilantes had dropped out of the sky, stopped a runaway car, pulled him out of certain death, and then casually swung off like it was just another Tuesday.
Max couldn’t stop smiling.
Spider-Man had shaken his hand.
Well, sort of.
He had asked his name.
Nice to meet you, Max.
Max Dillon.
Spider-Man knew his name.
For a brief, bright moment, the entire world felt different.
The city looked sharper.
Brighter.
Like he mattered.
Like maybe—
The feeling faded somewhere around the front gate of the Oscorp power facility.
Reality had a way of doing that.
The security guard at the entrance barely looked up from his tablet when Max walked through the checkpoint.
Max nodded politely anyway.
“Morning.”
No response.
The guard lifted the scanner wand, passed it across Max’s badge without making eye contact, and waved him through like a piece of furniture.
The smile faded from Max’s face a little.
That was fine.
Security guards saw hundreds of employees a day.
They couldn’t remember everyone.
Inside, the control floor buzzed with the constant low hum of transformers and cooling systems. Rows of monitors tracked power flow across New York’s experimental grid network.
Max slipped into his workstation quietly.
Nobody noticed.
Which… wasn’t unusual.
Across the room, two technicians leaned over a console reviewing a diagnostic report.
Max recognized the data immediately.
He had written the analysis yesterday.
One of the technicians tapped the screen proudly.
“I told you the load-balancing fix would stabilize the sector,” the man said.
Max blinked.
That was… his algorithm.
The second technician nodded approvingly.
“Good catch.”
Max opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
Neither of them had even glanced in his direction.
He slowly sat down at his terminal.
That happened a lot.
People used his work.
They just… forgot where it came from.
His supervisor walked past a few minutes later holding a clipboard.
Max straightened slightly.
“Morning, sir.”
The man stopped beside his desk.
Squinted down at him.
“…right.”
Max waited.
The supervisor frowned.
“Uh… Mike?”
Max felt something small sink inside his chest.
“Max.”
“Right. Max.”
The supervisor gave a distracted nod and kept walking.
Max stared at the monitors in front of him.
For a moment he let himself remember the way Spider-Man had looked at him earlier.
Like he was a person.
Like he mattered.
Then the moment passed.
The grid diagnostics flickered across his screen.
And Max Dillon did what he was actually good at.
Electricity made sense.
It always had.
He could feel the patterns in the numbers.
Where the current flowed smoothly.
Where resistance built.
Where energy bled away through inefficiency.
It was like watching water move through a complex system of pipes.
Once you understood the pressure points, the whole structure revealed itself.
Max’s fingers moved across the keyboard as he pulled up Oscorp’s experimental grid overlay.
Something immediately felt… wrong.
He frowned.
The load distribution curves were higher than they should be.
Not by much.
Just enough to catch his attention.
Max leaned closer to the monitor.
Sector 12 was running at ninety-three percent capacity.
That wasn’t normal.
The experimental grid was designed to peak around seventy-five.
He pulled up another diagnostic.
Then another.
The numbers kept climbing.
Max’s brow furrowed.
“Why would they push it this hard…?”
He scrolled through the system logs.
Power draw across multiple districts was being routed through the experimental relay network.
Too much of it.
The system was compensating.
Barely.
Max’s stomach tightened.
This wasn’t a theoretical issue.
Electrical systems didn’t politely fail when overloaded.
They cascaded.
One failure triggered another.
Then another.
Max quickly opened the maintenance request portal.
His fingers flew across the keyboard.
Grid Sector 12 experiencing abnormal load distribution. Recommend immediate review of transmission routing protocols and capacitor stabilization limits.
He hesitated.
Then added another line.
Current usage approaching design thresholds.
He submitted the request.
The system chimed softly.
Ticket filed.
Max waited.
Nothing happened.
Across the room, the technicians kept chatting.
His supervisor laughed at something near the coffee machine.
No alerts triggered.
No engineers rushed over.
Max refreshed the ticket status.
Still unread.
Of course it was.
He leaned back slowly in his chair.
The monitors hummed quietly around him while the experimental grid continued pulling power through circuits that were never meant to carry this much load.
Max watched the numbers creep upward.
Ninety-four percent.
Ninety-five.
His fingers tapped lightly against the desk.
“If this spikes wrong…” he muttered quietly.
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t need to.
The numbers on the screen spoke for themselves.
…
Reverse engineering a mad scientist’s weapon is weirdly relaxing.
There’s something therapeutic about taking apart something that tried to kill you and figuring out exactly how it worked.
On the stainless steel workbench in front of me sat the remains of one of Zoltan Drago’s fear grenades.
Or what was left of it, anyway.
The metal shell had been cut cleanly down the seam, its internal dispersal assembly laid out across the table like the world’s most unsettling science fair project. Micro-valves, aerosol chambers, a compact chemical agitation coil—whoever designed this thing had known exactly what they were doing.
Which was unfortunate, because the thing they had been doing was terrorizing civilians.
Still.
Good engineering was good engineering.
I rotated the dispersal chamber with a pair of tweezers, studying the valve geometry.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Behind me, the elevator doors slid open with a soft chime.
I didn’t even have to turn around.
“You know,” Gwen’s voice said, amused, “most people put up posters when they decorate a new room. Maybe something motivational?”
I kept working on the grenade housing.
“I looked. Too many cats, not enough spiders.”
Peter walked into the lab behind her, already scanning the room with the kind of awe that came standard with Peter Parker encountering advanced scientific equipment.
To be fair, the place was pretty ridiculous.
Oscorp-grade fabrication printers.
Industrial microscopes.
Chemical analyzers.
My dad’s version of grounding me apparently involved giving me a private research facility.
Gwen leaned against the workbench and gestured toward the grenade pieces. “Trophy?”
I snorted.
“Serial killers and overachievers keep trophies.” I lifted the dispersal core slightly. “This is the baseline for a new idea I had.”
Peter leaned closer immediately. “What kind of idea?”
I tapped the small cylindrical dispersal chamber.
“This thing aerosolizes compounds with ridiculous efficiency,” I explained. “Drago used it to spread fear toxin. But the delivery system itself?”
I rotated the chamber again.
“Actually kind of brilliant.”
Gwen tilted her head. “Please tell me you’re not planning to weaponize psychological terror.”
“I’m not a monster,” I said.
Well.
Not in that way.
I reached over to a second tray and picked up a small spherical casing I’d been prototyping.
“Same dispersal mechanism,” I continued. “Different payload.”
Peter’s eyes lit up immediately. “Wait.” He pointed between the grenade shell and the casing in my hand. “You’re thinking—”
“Web grenades,” I finished.
Silence.
Then both of them leaned closer at the exact same time.
I popped the casing open, revealing the micro-canister inside.
“Instead of aerosolizing gas, the dispersal system fractures the internal chamber and atomizes pressurized web fluid in a radial burst,” I explained.
Gwen blinked. “…which means?”
I tossed the prototype lightly into the air and caught it again.
“You throw it.”
I mimed the motion.
“It detonates.”
I spread my fingers outward.
“And suddenly everything in a fifteen-foot radius is very, very sticky.”
Peter stared at me.
Then at the grenade.
Then back at me.
“…I love you.”
“I know.”
Gwen picked up the prototype and turned it over in her hands, inspecting the casing. “This is actually amazing,” she said. “Area denial, crowd control, immobilization—”
“And dramatically less likely to give people trauma-induced psychosis,” I added.
Peter grinned. “We should make like a hundred of these.”
“Already working on it.”
They both looked happy.
Which made what I had to say next kind of suck.
I leaned back against the bench slightly. “So, funny story…”
Peter glanced up.
“Oh no.”
“Yeah, that’s the correct reaction.”
Gwen set the prototype grenade down slowly. “What happened?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “My dad saw some security footage.”
Peter froze. “…what footage?”
“You know.” I made a vague gesture. “The kind where I broke into an Oscorp lab.”
His eyes widened..
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Gwen’s expression sharpened instantly. “And?”
I exhaled. “And… I’m grounded.”
Peter blinked.
“You stopped a train.”
“Yes.”
“With your arms.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re grounded?”
“Yeah, you can kind of see how the two are related, right?” I spread my hands. “Welcome to my life. Heroic deeds are punish, profitable ones are rewarded. Makes it real hard to be a philanthropist.”
Gwen frowned slightly. “What exactly does that mean? No offense, but can’t you just kind of sneak away, if you want to? Or fight back? You and the symbiote are pretty capable together.”
Damn right.
“We are,” I said carefully, “which is why my dad didn’t threaten me. If I suit up again, he reveals your identities.”
The room went quiet.
Peter straightened immediately. “He can’t do that.”
“He can,” I replied calmly.
“He wouldn’t.”
I shrugged. “You want to test that theory? Because I didn’t.”
Peter opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
Because the truth was obvious.
Norman Osborn absolutely could expose them. He didn’t like making bluffs, threats, or deals he couldn’t deliver on. Whether or not he actually would is something I’d rather not find out.
Gwen understood it first.
I saw the moment the logic clicked behind her eyes.
Her shoulders lowered slightly. “…he’s protecting you,” she said quietly.
“Yeah.”
“And controlling you.”
“Also yes.”
Peter looked between us. “So that’s it?” he said. “You’re just… done?”
I pushed off the workbench and picked up the grenade casing again, turning it in my fingers. “It’s okay,” I said lightly.
They both looked at me.
“You can take the man out of the costume,” I continued, “but you can’t take the costume out of the man.”
I tapped my chest.
“Literally, in my case.”
Venom shifted faintly under my skin.
We are still magnificent.
‘Debatable.’
I tossed the prototype grenade toward Peter.
He caught it automatically.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I guess I’ll just be the Q to your Bond. For now.”
Peter frowned. “…which Bond?”
Gwen answered immediately. “Craig.”
Peter looked offended. “Connery.”
I pointed at him. “Brosnan.”
Peter stared at me. “Brosnan?”
“GoldenEye,” I said. “Objectively iconic.”
“Connery invented the character!” Peter argued!
“Craig rebooted the character!” Gwen protested.
They both looked at me.
“Brosnan had the best gadgets.”
We prefer the one with explosions.
‘That’s… all of them.’
Peter crossed his arms. “Connery.”
Gwen shook her head. “Craig.”
I gestured toward them. “You’re both wrong.”
Peter sighed. “We’re never resolving this argument.”
“Probably not.”
The debate faded into a comfortable silence for a moment.
Then Gwen looked at me again.
Really looked.
“Are you actually okay?” she asked quietly.
I gave a small shrug. “Yeah.”
Which wasn’t exactly a lie.
Just… incomplete.
Being grounded from saving the city wasn’t exactly ideal.
But I still had the symbiote.
Still had my friends.
Still had a lab full of ridiculous technology.
And honestly?
I’d survived worse.
“Although,” I admitted, “if I’m being honest… I could probably use a distraction.”
Peter perked up slightly. “Oh.” He hesitated. “Actually…”
Gwen raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Peter scratched the back of his head. “MJ has a play audition later,” he said. “I was planning on going alone, but…”
He glanced between us.
“If you guys want to come?”
…
Mark Allan had been in a lot of dangerous rooms.
Pool halls where knives came out over ten-dollar bets.
Back rooms where deals got settled with broken fingers.
One memorable warehouse where a guy had introduced a baseball bat to someone’s kneecap while calmly discussing shipping logistics.
None of those places made his stomach knot quite like this office did.
The door behind him clicked shut with a quiet finality.
The room itself wasn’t flashy.
That was the first thing people usually noticed.
No gold statues.
No ridiculous luxury furniture.
Just a wide office with clean lines, dark wood, and a view of the city that stretched across half of Manhattan.
The kind of place that whispered power instead of shouting it.
Behind the desk sat the man who owned most of the city whether anyone wanted to admit it or not.
Tombstone.
The Big Man.
L. Thompson Lincoln leaned back slightly in his chair, pale hands folded calmly on the desk in front of him.
His expression looked almost relaxed.
Which somehow made everything worse.
Mark stood a few feet from the desk with his hands in his jacket pockets, trying very hard not to look nervous.
Because showing fear in this room felt like bleeding in shark-infested water.
Tombstone studied him for a long moment.
Not angry.
Not smiling.
Just… studying.
Finally, he spoke. “Mark.” His voice was smooth. Calm. Controlled. “Do you know why I asked you here?”
Mark shrugged lightly. “I figured it had something to do with the casino.”
Tombstone nodded once.
“Yes.”
Silence stretched across the room for a moment.
Mark could practically hear his own heartbeat.
Then Tombstone leaned forward slightly. “Power,” he said calmly, “is not about winning fights.” His pale eyes stayed fixed on Mark. “It’s not about making money. It’s not about showing off.”
His fingers tapped the desk once.
“It’s about being the one person in the room everyone knows to listen to.”
…
“Or else.”
The words weren’t loud.
They didn’t need to be.
Mark shifted slightly.
“Picking petty fights,” Tombstone continued, “is unbecoming.”
Mark felt the heat rise in his chest.
Because he knew exactly what Tombstone was referring to.
The casino incident.
The drunk.
The girl.
The part where Mark had decided he wasn’t going to ignore it. He tilted his head slightly. “Oh,” Mark said dryly. “My apologies, sir.”
The word carried just enough edge to be noticeable.
“Next time I see a girl getting harassed by a drunk asshole, I’ll just turn my nose up.”
Silence slammed into the room.
For the first time since he’d walked in, Mark wondered if he’d just made a catastrophic mistake.
Tombstone’s eyes hardened slightly. Not explosive anger. Something colder. “Don’t you disrespect me, little man.”
Mark felt the weight of those words settle in his chest.
“Don’t you derogate,” Tombstone continued calmly, “or deride.” His voice stayed perfectly even. “This is my world. Not yours.”
Mark forced himself not to look away.
Tombstone leaned forward slightly. “I know how the game is played,” he said quietly. His gaze never wavered. “And swinging your ego around won’t do you any favors.”
The room went still again.
Mark realized something in that moment.
He had crossed a line.
Not accidentally.
Not subtly.
He had planted both feet over it and waved.
Which meant one of two things was about to happen.
Either Tombstone was going to make an example out of him.
Or—
Something else.
L. Thompson Lincoln leaned back slowly in his chair again.
And to Mark’s surprise, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
Not a smile.
But close.
“However.”
Mark blinked.
Tombstone folded his hands again. “You did not run.”
Mark frowned slightly.
“You spoke your mind. You defended someone weaker than you.” The pale crime boss tilted his head slightly. “Those qualities can be… useful.”
Mark felt a slow chill crawl up his spine.
Because that tone didn’t sound like punishment.
Tombstone opened a drawer in his desk and slid a small folder across the surface.
It stopped a few inches from the edge.
Mark hesitated.
“Pick it up.”
He did.
Inside were several sheets of paper.
Maps.
Numbers.
Addresses.
Mark’s brow furrowed as he skimmed the contents.
“This is—”
“Territory,” Tombstone said calmly.
Mark looked up sharply.
“You will oversee it.”
The words hit him like a punch.
“You will collect,” Tombstone continued, “manage disputes, and ensure that my interests in that district remain… protected.”
Mark stared at the folder.
This wasn’t discipline.
This wasn’t a warning.
This was responsibility.
Authority.
Tombstone watched him carefully. “Do not mistake this for kindness,” he said. His voice remained calm. “It is opportunity.”
Mark’s pulse hammered in his ears.
“You impressed me,” Tombstone finished.
Mark closed the folder slowly.
Something cold and electric spread through his chest.
Because he understood exactly what had just happened.
This meeting wasn’t about correcting his behavior.
It was about evaluating him.
Testing him.
And apparently—
He had passed.
He looked up at the man who ran half the city.
Excitement flickered in his stomach.
Sharp.
Dangerous.
Terrifying.
Because the realization settled in all at once.
This wasn’t just a promotion.
It was the beginning of something much bigger.
…
The stage lights were hot.
Mary Jane Watson loved them anyway.
Standing under them felt like stepping into another version of reality—one where everything mattered just a little bit more. Every word. Every movement. Every pause.
It was electric.
Out in the dark auditorium, the teachers sat behind a long folding table, clipboards resting on their laps. Somewhere behind them, scattered across the seats, a handful of students waited their turn.
And three very familiar silhouettes sat together near the middle row.
Peter leaned forward in his seat like this was the most important event in human history.
Gwen sat beside him, composed but clearly excited.
Harry lounged like he owned the place.
MJ fought the urge to smile.
Focus, Watson.
Across the stage, her competition waited.
Liz Allan stood a few feet away, script in hand, posture perfectly straight.
Liz looked… flawless.
Her hair was immaculate.
Her stance was polished.
Her expression held that calm confidence that came from someone who had done this kind of thing before and knew exactly how to hit every mark.
If auditions were a science experiment, Liz Allan had already memorized the formula.
MJ respected that.
Really.
But acting wasn’t supposed to feel like math.
It was supposed to feel like lightning.
The drama teacher cleared her throat. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Liz went first.
She stepped into the scene with smooth, practiced precision. Every line landed exactly where it was supposed to. Every gesture was deliberate.
It was good.
Really good.
MJ watched from the side of the stage, arms loosely folded.
Liz finished her final line with a graceful flourish.
For a moment the auditorium stayed quiet.
Then the teachers nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, Liz.”
Liz smiled politely and stepped aside.
Her eyes flicked toward MJ.
Friendly.
Competitive.
Your turn.
MJ rolled her shoulders once.
Alright.
If Liz was the polished version of the scene—
MJ was going to light it on fire.
She stepped forward into the spotlight.
For a moment she let the silence settle.
Not awkward.
Enthralling.
Then she started.
The lines came alive the moment they left her mouth.
Where Liz had been precise, MJ was instinctive. She moved across the stage naturally, voice rising and falling with emotion instead of rehearsal.
The character wasn’t something she was performing.
It was something she was being.
Out in the audience, Peter leaned forward even farther.
Gwen smiled.
Harry’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
MJ finished the final line with a dramatic pause, letting the emotion hang in the air for just a heartbeat before stepping back.
The silence that followed felt different from before.
Charged.
Then the drama teacher scribbled something on her clipboard. “Thank you, Mary Jane.”
MJ stepped off to the side of the stage where Liz waited.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Liz gave a small, impressed smile. “Not bad.”
MJ grinned. “Thanks.”
The teachers leaned together briefly, whispering.
MJ tried not to look like she was watching them.
Liz didn’t bother pretending.
Finally the drama teacher stood. “Alright,” she said, glancing down at the clipboard. “Thank you both. The decisions were… difficult.”
MJ’s stomach did a small flip.
“Mary Jane Watson,” the teacher continued, “you’ll be playing the lead.”
The flip turned into a full-on somersault.
“And Liz Allan,” she added, “we’d love to have you as the supporting role.”
Liz blinked once.
Just once.
Then she smiled again.
Graceful.
Professional.
“Of course,” Liz said. “Thank you.”
MJ watched her carefully.
Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed the tiny shift in Liz’s shoulders.
But MJ did.
Because competition recognized competition.
Liz had wanted that lead.
And losing it—even gracefully—still stung.
A small seed had been planted there.
Not resentment.
Not yet.
But something quieter.
Something insecure.
The teacher dismissed them with a polite nod.
MJ stepped off the stage—
And immediately heard cheering.
Peter shot to his feet like he’d just witnessed a championship game. “That was amazing!”
Gwen clapped enthusiastically.
Harry leaned back in his chair and let out a loud wolf whistle.
Heads turned across the auditorium.
MJ felt the grin spread across her face before she could stop it.
Oh.
They were doing that.
Fine.
If they wanted theatrics—
She pivoted dramatically back toward the stage, swept one arm out wide, and gave the empty auditorium a full theatrical bow.
Peter laughed.
Gwen covered her mouth, trying not to.
Harry applauded slowly, clearly entertained.
MJ straightened again, chin tilted proudly.
Because if you were going to win the spotlight—
You might as well enjoy it.
…
The lab at Empire State University carried an undertone of ethanol, whiteboard marker, and the quiet desperation of overachieving teenagers.
Gwen Stacy loved it.
Rows of polished lab benches stretched across the room beneath bright fluorescent lights. Glassware gleamed neatly beside microscopes and digital analyzers. On the far wall, a whiteboard was already half-covered in equations written by someone who clearly believed space efficiency was a myth.
It was perfect.
Gwen adjusted the goggles resting on top of her head and leaned over the workstation, quickly sketching the final step of the chemical equation on her notepad.
The reaction chain made sense.
Mostly.
She traced the variables again.
Reagent A bonded to B under catalytic pressure, producing the intermediate compound that triggered the energy transfer—
Yep.
That checked out.
Her pencil tapped once against the page as she ran through the math again just to be sure.
Across the table, Peter Parker finished adjusting the microscope lens and glanced over at her work. “You solved it already?”
Gwen didn’t look up. “Mostly.”
Peter leaned closer. “Mostly?”
She tilted the notebook slightly toward him. “The yield rate in step three isn’t balancing with the theoretical output.”
Peter squinted. “Wait… shouldn’t the catalyst reduce the energy threshold?”
“That’s what I thought,” Gwen said. “But if you apply the equation directly, the reaction efficiency drops by—”
She stopped.
Peter blinked. “Drops by what?”
Gwen stared at the page. “…nothing.” She flipped the page closed with a small, decisive motion.
Peter tilted his head. “You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
She reached for a beaker, pretending to examine the measurement marks like they were suddenly fascinating.
Peter watched her for a moment. “You’re doing that thing again.”
Gwen frowned. “What thing?”
“The pretending nothing’s wrong thing.”
“There is nothing wrong.”
Peter gave her a look. “You’ve solved every assignment in this class like thirty minutes early for the past two weeks.”
“That’s called competence.”
“And today you’re staring at a notebook like it insulted your family.”
Gwen crossed her arms slightly. “I’m fine.”
Peter leaned back against the counter. “Uh-huh.”
She refused to look at him.
Because if she did, she might admit the obvious.
She was doing great.
Actually—better than great.
Academically speaking, things had never been easier.
The labs were interesting.
The professors were impressed.
The material made sense in the satisfying way good science always did.
By every measurable metric, she was thriving.
Which made the other feeling even more annoying.
Peter’s voice softened slightly. “You miss him.”
Gwen’s head snapped toward him. “I do not.”
Peter raised both hands in surrender. “Okay.”
She turned back toward the lab station. “I mean it.”
“I said okay.”
“I’m serious.”
Peter nodded solemnly. “Very serious.”
Gwen glared at him.
He smiled innocently.
She exhaled through her nose and returned to the experiment setup.
For a few minutes the only sound in the lab was the quiet clink of glassware and the faint hum of equipment.
Across the room, other students worked through their assignments, scribbling notes and whispering to their lab partners.
Gwen measured out the catalyst solution carefully.
Her hands moved automatically.
Precise.
Efficient.
She’d always been good at this.
Science made sense.
It followed rules.
If something didn’t work, you could figure out why.
You could fix it.
Which made it deeply irritating that one part of the lab felt… off.
Her gaze drifted across the room before she could stop it.
One workstation sat empty.
A stool tucked neatly beneath the counter.
Notebook untouched.
For a moment she just stared at it.
That should have been Harry’s spot.
Before.
Before the grounding.
Before the whole “Norman Osborn will publicly reveal your secret identities” situation.
Gwen looked down at her own notebook again.
The unfinished equation stared back at her.
She frowned.
Because suddenly the missing piece felt obvious.
Not logically obvious.
Instinctively obvious.
Her pencil tapped against the paper once.
Harry would have solved that equation instantly.
The thought slipped into her mind before she could stop it.
She imagined the way he would’ve leaned over the bench, eyes lighting up when he saw the reaction model.
The way he’d grab a marker and start scribbling alternative variables on the whiteboard while explaining three different theoretical approaches at once.
Probably while making some ridiculous joke about mad scientists.
Gwen blinked.
Then she quickly returned to the equation.
Because that was a stupid thought.
Harry wasn’t here.
And she didn’t need him to solve it.
She stared at the numbers again.
The solution clicked into place almost immediately.
Of course.
The catalyst wasn’t lowering the energy threshold.
It was redistributing the reaction pathway.
Her pencil moved quickly as she finished the calculation.
Peter leaned over again. “You got it?”
Gwen nodded. “Yeah.”
He smiled. “Told you.”
She closed the notebook again, a little more gently this time.
Across the room, the empty workstation stayed empty.
…
The hum of electricity was constant.
Max Dillon had learned, over the years, that most people never noticed it.
They heard the loud sounds—the whine of turbines, the heavy clunk of breakers engaging, the buzz of fluorescent lights—but the deeper noise of the grid itself? The quiet, ever-present current moving through miles of cable and machinery?
That sound faded into the background for most people.
Not for Max.
He sat alone in the control room, shoulders slightly hunched, the glow of several monitors reflecting faintly in his glasses.
It was late.
Way past the end of the normal shift.
Which meant the facility had grown quiet in the way large industrial buildings did when most of the staff had gone home. Distant machinery still operated somewhere in the complex, but the footsteps, voices, and phone calls were gone.
Max liked this time of night.
It was easier to think.
He adjusted one of the sliders on the control interface and watched the numbers on the screen update.
Power flow stabilized.
For the moment.
His eyes moved across the grid monitor again.
Sector A.
Sector B.
Substation routing.
Everything looked normal.
Almost normal.
Max frowned slightly and leaned closer to the screen.
There.
A spike.
Tiny.
So small most operators would have ignored it.
The load graph dipped and climbed again, a faint ripple running through the system like a pebble dropped into water.
Max’s fingers moved across the keyboard, pulling up a more detailed diagnostic.
The source appeared almost immediately.
The new capacitor array.
Experimental.
Installed last week.
Scheduled for testing tonight.
Max’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
He opened another panel, checking the energy draw from the primary grid.
It was already higher than expected.
Not dangerously high.
Yet.
But higher.
He ran the calculation again.
Then again.
The numbers didn’t change.
His fingers hovered above the keyboard for a moment before he reached for the desk phone. It rang twice before someone picked up. “What?”
Max adjusted his glasses. “Sir, it’s Dillon in grid control.”
A sigh crackled through the receiver.
“What is it?”
Max glanced back at the screen. “The capacitor array in Sector C is pulling abnormal load from the grid. The preliminary numbers don’t match the projected test parameters.”
“So?”
Max hesitated briefly. “I recommend we delay the test until we can run a full diagnostic.”
There was a pause on the line.
Then a short laugh.
“You’re kidding.”
“No, sir.”
“The entire engineering team signed off on that system.”
“Yes, sir, but the grid draw is trending upward faster than expected. If the capacitors discharge while the system’s already under load—”
“Dillon.”
Max fell silent.
“Run the test.”
Max swallowed slightly. “Sir, I really think—”
“I said run the test.”
The line clicked dead.
For a moment Max just stared at the receiver in his hand.
Then he slowly set it back into the cradle.
The control room hummed around him.
On the monitors, the capacitor array continued drawing power from the grid.
Slowly.
Steadily.
He turned back to the console.
His fingers hovered above the keyboard again.
Max Dillon had worked at Oscorp long enough to understand how things worked.
Tests happened on schedule.
Deadlines mattered more than caution.
Engineers liked to prove their designs worked.
And the people in charge didn’t like hearing the word delay.
He knew all of that.
He also knew what overloaded systems looked like.
Max quietly opened a secondary control panel.
Safety protocols.
Manual overrides.
Emergency breakers.
If the array surged beyond acceptable limits, these systems would isolate the circuit from the rest of the grid.
In theory.
His fingers moved carefully through the interface, enabling additional safeguards that weren’t normally active during testing.
Redundant grounding.
Automatic load diversion.
Manual shutdown authority routed directly to his terminal.
Just in case.
The monitors continued to glow softly in the dim control room.
Numbers scrolled across the displays.
Voltage levels.
Load percentages.
Capacitor charge.
Max leaned back slightly in his chair, watching the data climb.
No one else was here.
No engineers.
No supervisors.
No one watching the grid except him.
He’d made the call.
Raised the concern.
Done everything he was supposed to do.
The test would happen anyway.
Max adjusted his glasses again and rested his hands lightly on the console, ready.
Just in case something went wrong.
Across the control room, the clock ticked quietly on the wall.
No one thanked him for staying late.
No one even knew he had.
…
The police scanner crackled softly in the corner of the lab.
“—possible break-in reported on West 43rd—”
Static.
“—units responding—”
Static again.
I leaned back in the chair, spinning a pen slowly between my fingers while the monitors around the room glowed in the dim light. Oscorp labs at night had a certain vibe to them. Quiet. Expensive. Slightly illegal feeling.
Technically I did have clearance.
Just… not necessarily clearance for everything I was doing.
Across the city right now, two spider-powered vigilantes were swinging around Manhattan rooftops.
One of them was the amazing Spider-Man.
The other was the spectacular Ghost Spider.
And I was here.
In a chair.
Listening to police radio chatter like a guy waiting for his pizza delivery.
It sucked.
“—robbery in progress—corner of Delancey and—”
The scanner popped again.
I drummed my fingers against the desk.
Because I knew exactly what was happening out there. Peter was probably bouncing off water towers and cracking jokes. Gwen was likely being efficient and terrifying in equal measure.
Meanwhile I was… supervising.
You are building weapons. That’s useful.
I sighed.
‘Tools.’
There was a brief pause in the back of my mind.
Weapons.
‘Tools.’
Weapons that shoot webs and electrocute people.
‘Multi-purpose crime prevention equipment.’
…Weapons.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the workstation.
On the monitor, several design windows sat open.
I’d already been working through a few improvements.
Peter’s web shooters had been built on a shoestring budget and the power of teenage genius. Which was impressive, but also meant there was a lot of room for optimization.
I pulled up the formula again.
“Alright,” I muttered quietly. “What if we stabilize the polymer lattice with a secondary binding catalyst…”
The keyboard clacked under my fingers as I updated the chemical structure.
Improved tensile strength.
Faster curing time.
Lower viscosity so the shooters wouldn’t clog.
Boom.
Web formula 2.0.
I saved the file and leaned back again.
That part had been easy.
The next project was a little more practical.
The suit lining.
Peter and Gwen were both incredibly durable thanks to the whole radioactive spider situation. But “incredibly durable” wasn’t the same as “immune to blunt force trauma.”
Which meant getting thrown through walls still hurt.
A lot.
Speaking from experience.
I rotated the material model on the screen.
“Shock absorption layer… flexible polymer weave… maybe a micro-mesh lattice…”
If I got this right, the lining would disperse impact energy across the entire suit instead of letting it concentrate in one spot.
Less broken ribs.
Always a plus.
Or we could simply let them heal faster after fights.
‘That’s not how medicine works.’
We could experiment.
‘We are not experimenting on my friends.’
The symbiote made a mental grumbling noise that somehow felt distinctly sulky.
I saved the suit design anyway.
Two projects down.
One more.
I opened the next file.
Mini drone camera.
Because while Peter had accidentally stumbled into the greatest freelance photography gig in New York history, actually getting those photos was still a logistical nightmare.
“Okay,” I muttered. “Lightweight frame… stabilized lens…”
If I built the drone small enough, it could hover near the action and capture footage while Peter focused on not getting punched by supervillains.
I was halfway through the propulsion model when I stopped.
Because suddenly something on a nearby lab bench caught my eye.
A small metal case sat half-open among the equipment.
I frowned. “…Wait.”
I stood up and walked over.
Inside the case sat a cluster of tiny metallic circles.
My eyebrows shot up.
“No way.” I picked one up carefully. It fit perfectly between my fingers. Familiar. Like a coin. Or more specifically…
My microbots.
I stared at them for a moment.
“Holy crap.”
Peter, Gwen, and I had designed these months ago… which I could swear felt a lot longer ago at this point. Way back when we were younger and had more time to get distracted by ridiculous science projects.
I always wondered what happened to them. Dad mentioned he was saving them for us, but after we got them back from Shocker, it was like he put them in cold storage… huh. Come to think of it, wasn’t that my first real stunt as Venom in public?
… might be related.
Still!
It was awesome to see these again. They were really some of our best work.
Programmable micro-scale robots. Each one individually simple. But together? They could assemble into almost anything.
Tools.
Structures.
Machines.
The problem had always been the manufacturing cost. Mass production had been impossible, which really limited the scope of what we could do with them. At least… back then. When we were working on a school-approved budget.
I turned the microbot slowly in my hand.
My mind immediately started running through possibilities. “Okay,” I murmured. “If we simplified the joint articulation… and swapped the rare metal alloy…”
The idea snowballed fast.
Adaptive tech.
Modular equipment.
Instant tools.
Maybe even battlefield support systems for the spiders.
A grin spread across my face.
This was actually a pretty great distraction. Way better than school plays… no offense, MJ.
Uh huh. Cool. We’d still prefer to hit something.
‘You heard Norman,’ I thought dryly. ‘That’s going to need to be tabled for a bit.’
The symbiote grumbled again.
This sucks. Think of all the bad guys who are totally getting away with their nefarious schemes right now.
I glanced over at the police scanner.
“—suspect fleeing the scene—”
Static.
I shrugged slightly.
‘There are at least two other spider-themed vigilantes out on the prowl right now.’ I set the microbot back in the case and returned to the workstation. ‘I think we can afford to take a hiatus.’
The symbiote didn’t respond.
But I could feel its irritation simmering quietly in the back of my mind.
Meanwhile, I opened a fresh design file.
Because if I was going to be stuck playing Q, I might as well build the coolest toys possible.
…
At first, it was just a number.
Max Dillon had spent most of his career watching numbers.
Voltage levels. Load distribution. Capacitor charge rates. Grid stability metrics scrolling across a dozen screens.
Normally they behaved.
Normally they followed the neat, predictable curves engineers loved so much.
Tonight they didn’t.
Max leaned forward in the control station, eyes narrowing behind his glasses.
The capacitor array was charging faster than projected.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
The load graph climbed in a slow, steady slope that didn’t match the test parameters.
Max typed quickly, pulling up deeper diagnostics.
Grid draw increased.
Thermal buildup rising in the containment core.
The safety thresholds flashed yellow.
He frowned. “That’s not right…”
The system hummed louder around him, a deep electrical vibration traveling through the massive facility.
Max switched channels and keyed the intercom. “Grid control requesting confirmation on capacitor charge levels.”
Static.
Then a voice.
“Engineering signed off, Dillon. Just monitor the test.”
Max glanced back at the screen.
The charge rate spiked again.
Not yellow now.
Orange.
He swallowed. “Requesting shutdown authorization.”
“Denied.”
The line clicked off.
Max stared at the receiver for a second.
Then he slowly set it down.
The numbers continued climbing.
Capacitor banks were designed to store massive amounts of energy.
They were not supposed to feed that energy back into an already stressed system.
Max’s fingers moved across the console, pulling up the core structure diagram.
The problem revealed itself immediately.
A conduit node in the central grid ring was overheating.
If it failed—
The energy would cascade through the system.
Capacitors would dump charge into the grid all at once.
Max exhaled slowly.
He already knew what he had to do.
The control room door slammed open as he hurried into the maintenance corridor.
The grid core towered above the facility floor like a metallic skeleton of steel beams and humming cables. Massive conduits ran along the structure, glowing faintly with contained energy.
The capacitor array pulsed deep within it.
Max grabbed the nearest safety harness and clipped it onto the access ladder.
He started climbing.
The air buzzed with electricity.
Every step upward brought him closer to the failing conduit.
He could see it now.
A thick cable cluster branching from the central node, insulation beginning to discolor under the strain.
Max pulled himself onto the maintenance platform and opened the access panel.
Heat washed over his hands.
“Okay,” he muttered under his breath.
He’d done repairs like this before.
Not during a live capacitor test.
But the principles were the same.
Stabilize the conduit.
Re-route the load.
Prevent the cascade.
His tools moved quickly.
Bolts loosened.
Connectors adjusted.
A grounding relay snapped into place.
On the far wall of the facility, the capacitor array pulsed again.
The lights dimmed briefly.
Max tightened the final clamp.
The conduit stabilized.
Voltage readings dropped on the nearby monitor panel.
The cascade stopped.
Max let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Got it.”
For a moment the grid hummed normally again.
Then the system discharged.
Max saw the spike on the panel a split second before it happened.
“No—!”
The lights detonated into white.
Electricity erupted through the grid core.
Bolts of blue lightning tore across the metal structure, racing through conduits and grounding rails in violent bursts of energy. The air filled with the smell of ozone and burning insulation.
Max turned toward the conduit he had just stabilized.
The surge hit it like a bomb.
The world exploded.
Electricity slammed through the platform beneath his boots and straight into his body. Every nerve lit up at once, pain so bright it erased thought entirely.
His muscles locked.
His hands couldn’t let go.
For one endless second the entire world was nothing but light.
Then the platform gave way beneath him.
Max fell.
The grid core blurred past in flashes of steel beams and arcing current. Somewhere above him the capacitor array thundered again, dumping more energy into the system.
He hit the containment tank hard.
Water closed over his head—
—and the electricity followed.
The surge poured into the tank like a living storm.
Max’s body convulsed violently as the current ripped through the water around him. Every nerve fired again and again until pain stopped feeling like pain and became something distant and abstract.
His thoughts scattered.
Too much power.
Too much—
The world dimmed.
Sound faded beneath the roar of electricity in his skull.
His vision tunneled, blue light filling the water around him.
The grid flickered somewhere above.
Max couldn’t feel the tank anymore.
Couldn’t feel the water.
Couldn’t feel anything.
Just the light.
Bright.
Brighter.
And then—something inside it answered.
The glow in the water intensified.
And Max Dillon stopped falling.
And started screaming.