Marvel – I am Spiderman

The labs were better than he expected.

Harry had talked them up on the train ride to Manhattan, talking about Oscorp with the easy familiarity of someone who'd grown up in the building and knew which elevator buttons to hit without looking. But Peter had assumed rich-kid exaggeration. He'd assumed glass walls and chrome and maybe a few impressive centrifuges and a lot of branding.

He'd been wrong.

Oscorp's R&D floor was five stories of open lab space connected by catwalks and transparent lifts. The biotech wing alone had gene sequencers Peter had only seen in papers. The nanotech section was running particle assembly at a scale that shouldn't have been commercially viable for another decade. A clean energy prototype in the back corner was generating stable cold fusion output and nobody in the room thought that was remarkable.

This is what money does.

He walked between the stations and tried to look appropriately impressed instead of staggered.

"This one's my favorite," Harry said, stopping at a bioreactor that was growing synthetic tissue in a clear column. Pink and fibrous, slowly thickening. "Dad says it could replace skin grafts in five years."

"Could replace them now," Peter said, looking at the growth rate. "The scaffold density is already viable. You'd just need FDA clearance."

Harry looked at him. "How do you know what scaffold density means?"

"I read."

"You read about bioreactor scaffold density."

"I read about a lot of things."

"You're weird, Parker."

"Yeah."

Harry grinned and moved on. Peter followed and his spider-sense prickled at the back of his neck and he looked up.

Norman Osborn was on the catwalk above them.

Standing at the railing with his hands in his pockets, watching. Dark suit, no tie, red hair combed back and going grey at the temples. Same as the gala minus the tie, and Peter's foreknowledge fired the same images it always fired: green mask, yellow eyes, pumpkin bombs, a bridge. Willem Dafoe grinning in a mirror. Wrong for this world. But the feeling underneath was right.

"Peter." Norman came down the lift. His handshake was firm and dry and lasted one beat too long. "I'm glad Harry brought you."

"The labs are incredible."

"They're adequate." Norman smiled. It reached his mouth and stopped. "What caught your eye?"

"The cold fusion rig in the back."

"Good answer." Norman's eyes sharpened. "Most visitors say the gene sequencers. The fusion work is the real prize, but it takes a certain kind of eye to see it."

Peter didn't say anything. He'd learned that saying less around Norman was better.

"Harry tells me you're applying for the summer internship."

Peter looked at Harry. Harry shrugged. Peter hadn't applied for anything.

"I mentioned it," Harry said. "You told me to bring the Parker kid."

"I did." Norman looked at Peter. "You'd be working with Dr. Stromm's team. Materials science, molecular bonding. Mendel's work was foundational before he-" Norman paused. "Before he moved on."

The pause. Peter caught it. Dr. Stromm had been Norman's business partner. The foreknowledge was thin here, movie-shaped, but it included Stromm, and in the movies Stromm was dead and in the comics they'd had a falling-out and whichever version was true for this world, that pause was a man editing a sentence in real time.

"Sounds interesting," Peter said.

"I think you'd thrive here." Norman turned and walked toward the biotech wing and Peter followed because not following would have been conspicuous and Harry was already moving. Norman walked them through the wing, pointing out projects, naming researchers, and his voice was smooth and warm and Peter's spider-sense was a steady low hum at the base of his skull.

They stopped at a display case near the elevator. Inside it, under glass, was a collection of specimens preserved in resin. Insects, arachnids, a section of what looked like a hornet's nest. A plaque read GENERAL TECHTRONICS CORPORATION — DONATED COLLECTION.

Peter's stomach tightened.

"Fascinating event, that exhibition," Norman said. He was looking at the case. "I funded part of it, you know. Through the Oscorp Foundation."

"I didn't know that."

"Harry's school sent students. A field trip, wasn't it?" Norman looked at Peter. His eyes were blue and steady and they didn't blink. "I heard there was an incident with an escaped specimen. A spider?"

The hum sharpened into a needle. Thin, precise, directly behind his right ear. This man knew. Or suspected. Or was fishing. The difference between those three was smaller than it should have been.

"I don't remember a spider," Peter said. "We looked at the radiation demos mostly."

"Of course." Norman's smile came back. Mouth moving, eyes still. "You should come work here this summer, Peter. I could use someone with your mind."

"I'll think about it."

"Do." Norman squeezed his shoulder. His hand was heavy. "Harry, get your friend a visitor badge. Standing invitation."

Norman walked back toward the catwalk and Peter watched him go and his skin was crawling. Arms, neck, the backs of his hands. His spider-sense settled back to a hum and then to silence and he stood in front of the General Techtronics display case and looked at the preserved specimens under glass and thought about a spider that had bitten him and then bitten Cindy and then died on an exhibition floor, and about the man who'd just told him he'd funded the event where it happened.

"You okay?" Harry said. "You look weird."

"I'm fine. Just impressed."

"Right? The labs are sick."

"Yeah," Peter said. "They really are."

They took the elevator down. The lobby was marble and glass and a security guard who nodded at Harry by name. The Oscorp logo on the wall was brushed steel, forty feet wide. Peter walked past it and through the revolving door and the Manhattan air hit his face and he breathed and the crawling on his skin started to fade about a block from the building and was gone by the time they reached the subway.

Harry talked about the cafeteria the whole ride home.

Monday. Lunch.

"So my dad liked you," Harry said. He was eating a sandwich and looking pleased. "He doesn't like anyone."

"He was nice."

"That's what I mean. He's not nice. He was nice to YOU." Harry pointed with the sandwich. "That's like a bear being friendly. It means he wants something."

Peter almost laughed. A bear being friendly. Harry had no idea how right he was.

"I might do the internship," Peter said.

"You should. The cafeteria alone is worth it."

Across the table, Gwen had her laptop open. She was filling out a scholarship application and typing fast and not looking up. She'd been like this for two weeks. Junior year ending, senior year approaching, and Gwen Stacy was applying to everything that had the word "science" in it.

"Columbia has a joint program with Oscorp," Harry said. "My dad's on the board. I could put in a word."

"For Peter or for you?" Gwen said, still typing.

"Both."

"I'm applying to twelve places, Harry. I don't need a word put in."

"You're applying to twelve places?"

"Fourteen. I cut two." She looked up. Pen cap between her teeth. "Peter, did you finish the Henderson problem set?"

"Yeah."

"Can I see your work on question seven? I got a different answer and it's bothering me."

College applications. The future. Peter hadn't thought about any of it. He was sixteen and fighting people with wings and dating two girls and swinging across Manhattan at night and the idea of filling out an application felt like it belonged to a different life. MJ had been looking at art programs. Harry had Columbia locked in by blood. Gwen was applying to fourteen places. Everybody had a plan except the guy who could stick to walls.

The conversation moved to problem sets and Peter let it and across the cafeteria MJ was sitting with her art friends and she was laughing and her hair was catching the light and Peter looked away before she caught him looking and ate his lunch and didn't mention Norman or the spider or any of it.

She was at the door at seven.

Peter heard the knock from his room and came downstairs and MJ was standing on the porch with a sleeping bag under one arm and a backpack over the other. Oversized flannel, the one that was too big for her and probably belonged to someone she'd never talk about. Messy bun. Her eyes were red at the edges.

"Can I use the guest room?" she said.

May was already behind Peter. "Of course, sweetheart. Have you eaten?"

"I'm fine, Mrs. Parker."

"I'll make a plate."

May went to the kitchen. MJ came inside. She smelled like cold air and lavender hand soap and underneath that a sharpness Peter recognized as adrenaline. She'd walked here fast.

He didn't ask about her father. MJ didn't answer questions she hadn't been asked.

She set up the guest room in ten minutes. Peter heard her moving around, the sleeping bag unrolling, the window opening an inch because MJ slept with fresh air even in winter. He was in his doorway when she came out.

She stopped.

They stood in the hallway. His door. The guest room door. Six feet of carpet between them and May downstairs making a plate nobody asked for and Ben's crossword pen scratching in the kitchen.

"Just so you know," MJ said. "I'm not staying because of my dad."

He waited.

"I'm staying because this house is the only place that feels like home."

She went into the guest room. Closed the door. Quiet.

Peter stood in his doorway. His heart was going fast and the hallway smelled like May's cooking and MJ's cold-air-and-lavender.

He heard Ben on the stairs. Slow. Ben came up and saw Peter standing in the doorway and looked at the closed guest room door and looked back at Peter.

"The redhead?"

"It's complicated."

"It always is, kiddo."

Ben squeezed his shoulder. His hand was warm and broad and it sat there for a second and then he went to his room and the hallway was quiet.

Peter went into his room. Closed the door. Sat on the bed.

Through the wall he could hear MJ settling in. The sleeping bag rustling. A phone charger plugging in. Then quiet. Then, very faint, the sound of her breathing evening out.

She'd called his house home. His uncle was alive downstairs finishing a crossword. And Norman Osborn knew about the spider.

He didn't sleep for a long time.