On a high-rise rooftop, Spider-Woman was sitting on the edge swinging her legs. Then there was a sound behind her like someone landing from a jump. Without turning her head she already knew who it was.
"Sorry Gwen, I got caught up with something and didn't notice the time," Peter said with an apologetic tone.
"No problem. Let's go." Seeing Gwen jump from the building, Peter followed her.
Soon both of them started their work — catching small robbers, rescuing people from accidents, the usual.
Just as they caught a robber near the Hell's Kitchen area, a group of 10 to 15 guys with weapons and covered faces entered the street, clearly searching for something.
"There, there boss! I was sure it's the same spider couple — Kingpin's gang announced a bounty on them!" one guy with a hat shouted.
Seeing both Spider-Man and Spider-Woman, the guy at the front started yelling. "It's really them — the spider couple!"
Hearing that, both Peter and Gwen looked at each other. Gwen immediately shot a web and sealed the guy's mouth.
"Who's a couple, idiot?"
"Mmph!" The guy tried to undo the seal but it was stuck on like strong glue.
Seeing that, the rest of the thugs started to attack.
A few guys with steel bats and pipes came straight at Peter. He watched them coming and almost felt bad about it. To him they were moving like they were underwater. He stepped to the side of the first swing, let the bat pass right by his face, then grabbed the guy's arm and sent him into the wall. The second guy swung low. Peter hopped over it without even thinking, caught the guy on the way back up with a quick right hand, and that was that. Third guy tried to tackle him. Peter sidestepped, grabbed him by the back of the jacket mid-run and webbed him neatly to a nearby lamppost.
Three guys. Maybe four seconds.
On the other side, Gwen was already working.
She shot two webs low and fast — one caught a thug's ankles mid-step and he went face first into the pavement. The second wrapped around another guy's legs so tight he couldn't even shuffle. She swung herself off a wall, came around fast and hit a third guy with a clean kick to the chest that sent him sliding back across the street. Before he stopped moving she had already fired a web at a metal trash can nearby, swung it hard, and knocked two more guys off their feet with one hit.
She landed, checked her angles, and moved again without stopping.
That was when the guns came out.
Three guys at the back of the group raised their weapons at the same time. Peter's spider-sense screamed before they even pulled the triggers.
He shot two webs instantly — one for each of the nearest guns — and yanked hard. The weapons flew out of their hands before they could react. But the third guy was a half second faster than Peter expected and got a shot off before losing his grip.
The bullet came fast.
Peter was already moving. He dropped his shoulder and the shot went past him so close he heard it cut through the air next to his ear. He came back up, closed the distance in two steps, and webbed the guy's hands together before he could reach for anything else.
"You really almost got me there," Peter muttered, looking at the guy.
The guy said nothing. He was too busy trying to figure out how his hands were stuck together.
By then Gwen had the last few thugs handled. One was webbed to a fire hydrant. Another was stuck upside down against a brick wall. One more tried to run and made it exactly four steps before a web caught his ankle and pulled him down flat.
Gwen landed in the middle of the street and looked around.
Every single thug was down or stuck.
Peter walked over and stood beside her, both of them looking at the mess.
"Not bad," Gwen said.
"We're getting faster," Peter agreed.
Gwen woke up one of the guys she had knocked down.
"Tell me — why are you attacking us? What's this bounty you mentioned?"
The thug, clearly shaken after seeing what they could do, told them everything about Kingpin's bounty.
For a second neither of them said anything. A bounty. Kingpin had put an actual bounty on them. Every gang in the city would be looking for them now.
"Looks like we're pretty famous now," Peter said with a grin.
"This is serious. Every gang in New York is going to be coming after us," Gwen said, not finding it funny at all.
"Hey, relax. With both of us they can't do much. We'll just be extra careful from now on." Gwen nodded, thinking it over.
They called the police from a public phone booth nearby to report the fight and then left.
They found a quiet spot on a rooftop a few streets away, the city noise low below them, and sat down to catch their breath.
"Any update on the killer who attacked Mr. Stacy?" Peter asked.
"No. Police said he's been quiet since the attack." Gwen said it simply but her eyes went somewhere else for a second. Just the mention of her dad's name was enough to do that.
"Don't worry. We'll catch him and get justice for everyone he hurt."
"If I catch him myself, I'll beat the hell out of him." Gwen said it with a punching action.
Peter laughed. It wasn't every day you heard Gwen talk like that.
"Hey, it's not funny." Gwen came at him and Peter bolted, laughing, with Gwen chasing after him. The night passed quickly after that.
The next day school was the usual peaceful routine. The moment class ended, Peter headed straight to Oscorp. He couldn't wait to show Dr. Connors the formula.
When Peter entered the lab, it was mostly empty. Dr. Connors was still there, working alone, looking exhausted — dark circles under his eyes, red from lack of sleep.
He looked up when the door opened.
"Peter, it's you." A small tired smile crossed his face.
"Dr. Connors, you look terrible. You should take a break," Peter said softly.
"I can't waste a single minute, Peter. I don't have much time. Osborn cancelled the project and everyone who was working on it left."
Peter didn't say anything to that. He just quietly sat down at a nearby computer and started working on the experiment data.
Dr. Connors glanced over but said nothing and went back to his own work.
Time passed and it got late into the night.
Working from both his father's research data and Dr. Connors' files, Peter noticed the differences between them. Using the decay rate algorithm his father had left behind, he slowly figured out where the problem was — and completed what his father hadn't been able to finish. The incomplete algorithm was now whole.
The computer began running the updated formula through a digital simulation.
"Dr. Connors, look at this."
Connors, exhausted and barely holding on, looked over at Peter's screen.
Seeing the success percentage climbing, his tiredness disappeared in an instant.
[50%... 70%... 90%... 99%]
The digital disabled rat's limb was growing faster and more stable than in any previous test. Both of them watched, barely breathing.
[100%]
"YES! PETER, IT WORKED!" Dr. Connors checked the data again and again, making sure he wasn't seeing things.
"Dr. Connors, you did it. The project is a success."
"No, no — Peter, without you this would have been impossible. I couldn't have done it without you." He grabbed Peter's shoulder. "We need to test it on a live subject. Quick, get a rat from the storage room. I'll prepare the serum."
"On it."
They injected the new serum into a disabled rat and stood around it watching closely. A digital success was one thing. Reality was another.
Slowly, little by little, the rat's missing limb began to grow back.
"SUCCESS! WE DID IT! WE DID IT!" They both hugged each other, too excited to hold it back.
Once things calmed down a little and they confirmed the rat was stable and showing no problems, Peter said carefully, "Dr. Connors, even though it worked, we still need to run more experiments. Don't use it on humans until we're really sure."
"I know, Peter. I would never do that." Peter believed him and said no more about it.
"Oh no, it's really late." He checked his phone. Several missed calls from Uncle Ben.
"Dr. Connors, I have to go."
"Yes, go ahead, Peter. I'll take care of things from here."
"And please get some sleep, Doctor." Peter gave him one last look before heading out of the Oscorp building.
After Peter left, Dr. Connors didn't move toward the door.
He sat down and started going through everything Peter had changed, trying to understand what had made the difference.
"That kid is something else. To think this was the area I had wrong all along."
He was finally ready to sleep when he passed by the mirror on the lab wall.
He stopped.
His eyes dropped to his missing arm. The empty sleeve hanging flat against his side like it always had. Like it always would.
He stood there for a moment just looking at it.
The memories came without warning. A colleague laughing at a conference. A student staring too long. A stranger on the street who looked away too fast, that specific kind of pity that somehow felt worse than mockery. Thirty years of small moments that added up to something heavy. A brilliant scientist who had spent his entire career being remembered first for what he was missing, second for what he could do.
He looked over at the rat.
It was sitting calmly in its cage. Both front legs working perfectly. The regrown limb identical to the original. No side effects. No problems. Completely stable.
He looked back at the mirror.
Then his eyes shifted to the remaining serum on the lab table — the same batch used on the rat earlier.
He picked it up slowly.
His hand wasn't shaking exactly. But it wasn't steady either.
Peter said not to use it on humans yet. More experiments first.
He knew that. He had agreed with it when Peter said it. It was the right call scientifically. He knew that too.
He looked at the mirror again. At the sleeve.
He set the syringe back down on the table.
Picked it up again.
Just one more experiment. Just one. And all of this ends. The thought kept coming back no matter how many times he pushed it away.
He stood there for a long moment with the syringe in his hand, not moving. The lab was completely quiet with just the soft sound of the rat breathing in its cage.
Then he injected it before he could talk himself out of it.
He set the syringe down carefully. Stood up straight. Waited.
For a few seconds, nothing — like the serum wasn't working. Then the itching started slowly, where his arm ended.
Then the pain hit suddenly.
"Ahhhh—!"
This pain was nothing like he had imagined. It felt like his entire body was tearing itself apart from the inside out. He grabbed the table with his one hand and tried to hold on but his legs gave out and he went down hard onto the floor.
He lay there gritting his teeth, eyes squeezed shut, trying to breathe through it.
It felt like a very long time.
Slowly — very slowly — the pain pulled back.
He opened his eyes. The ceiling of the lab looked back at him. He was breathing very hard, his heartbeat loud in his own ears.
He moved his head and looked down at where his arm had been.
It was covered in something white. Solid. Like the outer shell of a cocoon wrapped around where his missing limb should have been.
He reached over with his good hand and pulled at it.
It tore open.
Underneath was an arm.
A full arm.
He stared at it.
He lifted it slowly. Turned it over. Moved the fingers one by one.
It worked.
Everything worked.
He sat up on the lab floor and looked at both his hands — both of them — for the first time in decades. His vision blurred slightly. He blinked it away.
"I did it." His voice came out quieter than he expected. "I actually did it."
He got up and stood in front of the mirror.
The man looking back at him had two arms.
"Hehe... hahahaha." It started slow, then came out louder.
"No one will ever call me the one-handed doctor again."
He stood there for a while just looking at his own reflection. Then he turned off the lab light and left, still smiling to himself.
The lab went dark and quiet.
After some time, something moved inside the cage.
A low sound. Not quite a squeak. Something deeper.
A growl.
The cage door bent outward. Then broke.
What stepped out onto the lab floor was not the small white mouse they had run the experiment on.
It was green. Much larger than it should have been. Low to the ground, breathing heavy, red eyes cutting through the dark.
"GRRR."
A/N:🚨 Power Stone Goals! 🚨
🔥 200 PS = 1 Bonus Chapter
🔥 500 PS = 2 Bonus Chapters(Max 2/week)
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