Peter entered the temporal dimension at 12:08 AM.
The dimensional complex materialized around him. His city block of personal reality. The gymnasium dark and quiet. The laboratory humming with FSIS's background processes. The library exactly as he'd left it, three textbooks open on the central table from his last research session.
He went to the laboratory. Sat at the main workstation. Opened a new document.
*SPIDER-MAN OPERATIONAL PROTOCOLS — DRAFT 1*
He thought for a moment. Then started writing.
*Identity separation.* Peter Parker and Spider-Man could not overlap in any traceable way. No webs near the Parker house. No activity in a three-block radius of home, school, or any location directly connected to his civilian identity. If someone ever tried to triangulate Spider-Man's base of operations from incident locations, the map needed to point nowhere useful.
*Engagement criteria.* Spider-Man did not respond to every crime. That was impossible and attempting it would be exhausting, conspicuous, and ultimately counterproductive. Criteria for engagement: immediate threat to human life, situation where his specific capabilities provided decisive advantage over police response, and situations where intervention would not create larger problems than it solved.
*Evidence management.* FSIS scrubbed footage when possible. Web fluid cartridges used a formula that degraded within six hours of exposure to air, leaving no recoverable synthetic markers. Any suit contact with surfaces needed to be minimized. He would develop a post-mission checklist.
*Escalation awareness.* Tonight had been four amateurs with handguns. That was the low end of what he'd face. The moment Spider-Man became publicly known, the difficulty curve would increase. Criminals would prepare countermeasures. Powered individuals would take interest. Institutional forces — government, SHIELD, private military — would begin assessing threat level.
He needed to control the narrative before the narrative controlled him.
*Public identity management.* This was the complicated one. Peter Parker had to remain boring. Moderately exceptional. The kind of teenager who was clearly smart and athletic but not so far beyond normal that anyone asked uncomfortable questions. Spider-Man, meanwhile, needed a public persona. Not a secret one. An actual persona. Attitude. Voice. Humor. Something that made him identifiable and human without giving anything away.
'The mask helps,' Peter thought. 'But masks aren't enough. People see through what you wear eventually. They read how you move. What you say. What you choose to protect.'
He kept writing. Twelve pages of operational protocols in forty subjective minutes. Communication security. Pursuit and evasion procedures. Rules for engaging powered individuals versus unpowered ones. Medical protocols if injured in the field. Cover stories for unexplained absences.
Then he started on something different.
*Phase 2 Enhancement — Pre-Integration Checklist.*
FSIS had said eight days until the lizard regeneration serum was ready. Eight real-world days. He could use the dimensional time to complete final preparations. Study the serum's composition one more time. Run the integration simulation again. Make sure the medical monitoring systems were calibrated for reptilian DNA markers specifically.
He would not rush the enhancement. The spider bite had been deliberate and controlled. Phase 2 would be the same.
But it needed to happen soon. The timeline was accelerating. He needed to accelerate with it.
Peter worked for six more subjective hours. Then returned to reality. 12:09 AM. One real-world minute had passed.
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