Making the "Future Spider-Man" Catch Up on Math

The living room at Aunt May's was filled with the scent of freshly baked butter cookies. Sunlight filtered through the lace curtains, scattering flecks of light across the arithmetic textbook. Lin Mo circled Peter's third mistake in red pen, the tip leaving a faint scratch on the page. "You expanded this quadratic function wrong. You reversed the signs."

The tips of Peter's ears reddened slightly. His fingers unconsciously fiddled with the calculator buttons, making a string of random numbers flash across the screen. His gaze drifted past Lin Mo's shoulder to the power line outside the window—two sparrows were chirping and fighting, their gray feathers tossed by the wind like a bouncing ball of yarn. "Oh..." the boy answered vaguely, his pencil drawing a crooked spider on his scratch paper.

"Peter." Lin Mo tapped the table. His Dynamic Vision caught the bob of the boy's Adam's apple. "That's the fifth time you've drifted off today. Aunt May said you got only sixty-two points in math on your last monthly exam. Keep this up, and you won't even finish your summer homework."

"That's not it." Peter suddenly snapped back to attention. His glasses slid down to the tip of his nose, and he hurriedly pushed them up. "I was just... thinking about something." He tugged his scratch paper back, trying to cover the spider drawing, but accidentally knocked over the milk beside it. The pale brown liquid spread across his workbook like an ugly cloud.

"Careful." Lin Mo grabbed some tissues and helped him wipe it up. The soaked portions of the paper turned translucent, faintly revealing the words "Spider Silk Strength Calculation Formula" written beneath. Holding back a laugh, he brushed Peter's burning earlobe with his fingertips. "What were you thinking about? Something more important than quadratic functions?"

The boy's cheeks instantly flushed red like sun-ripened tomatoes. He gripped his pencil so tightly that his knuckles turned white. After a long pause, he mumbled in a voice as quiet as a mosquito's, "I was thinking... why can spiders climb walls? What's so special about their feet?"

Lin Mo's heart skipped a beat. Here it comes. He pretended to straighten the textbooks, catching a glimpse of a metallic edge poking from Peter's school uniform pocket—an improvised device made of paper clips and rubber bands, with a little silvery-white sticky substance on it. It looked remarkably like Spider-Man's Web-Shooters. "That question..." He slowly opened the science textbook, landing on the page about surface tension. "Solve this problem first, and I'll tell you a secret."

"Really?" Peter's eyes instantly lit up like tiny bulbs. Even his pupils behind the lenses seemed to widen. He immediately sat up straight, snatched back the workbook, and let his pencil race across the scratch paper as he muttered, "Let the unknown be x, substitute it into the formula... No, I should complete the square..."

Aunt May's laughter came from the kitchen, accompanied by the crisp clatter of dishes. "Lin, don't be too strict! Let him have a cookie before he studies any more!" She set a tray on the coffee table, and the butter cookie fragrance grew even richer, with faint steam still rising from them. Aunt May wiped her hands and came over. Seeing Peter scribbling away, she covered her mouth in surprise. "Has the sun risen in the west? Our Peter is actually doing problems on his own?"

"He's waiting for me to tell him a secret." Lin Mo picked up a cookie and held it to Peter's mouth. The boy instinctively opened his mouth and took a bite, but his eyes never left the scratch paper. Cookie crumbs clung to the corner of his mouth like a tiny white ant.

"What kind of secret works this well?" Aunt May sat down with a smile and poured them each a glass of milk. "If it can make this child fall in love with math, I'll give you my family's baking tray." Her gaze fell on Peter's scratch paper. When she spotted the spider drawing, she shook her head helplessly. "This child has loved bugs since he was little. Last time, he even put a grasshopper in my flour jar and made me redo a cake three times."

Peter's pencil paused, and his ears turned even redder. He hurried through the final step, then pushed the workbook in front of Lin Mo, fine beads of sweat forming on the tip of his nose. "I finished! Is it right?"

Lin Mo carefully checked the steps, his fingertip tracing the neat equations. The kid really was smart; his mind just wasn't on the right track. His solution was even simpler than the standard answer, but he had misplaced a decimal point in the last step. "Not bad." He circled the error in red. "Other than this small mistake, everything else is right."

Peter corrected it at once, then stared eagerly at Lin Mo like a puppy waiting to be fed. Aunt May chuckled beside them, picked up the tray, and headed back to the kitchen. Before leaving, she gave Lin Mo a wink that clearly said, "He's all yours."

Only the soft scratch of pencil on paper remained in the living room. Lin Mo took a copy of The Book of Insects from the shelf and turned to the chapter about spiders. Pointing at an illustration, he said, "Here's the secret—spiders' feet have thousands of bristles, and each bristle splits into hundreds of even finer branches. Those branches can create Van der Waals Force with molecules on the surface of a wall, like countless tiny suction cups. That's why they can climb smooth surfaces."

"Van der Waals Force?" Peter's eyes went round. He grabbed the book and examined it closely, lightly rubbing the illustration with his fingers. "The force of interaction between molecules? Then if we could copy that structure, could people climb walls too?"

"In theory, yes." Lin Mo looked at Peter's shining eyes and thought of that red-and-blue figure swinging between skyscrapers in the future. "But humans are much heavier. You'd need extremely strong adhesion, and you'd have to consider safety too." He picked up Peter's scratch paper and pointed at the Web-Shooters sketch. "Your design idea is good, but the silk would need tensile strength of at least 800 megapascals. Ordinary materials can't manage that."

Peter's mouth formed an O, as if someone had hit pause on him. He looked from Lin Mo to the sketch, then suddenly covered his pocket and leaned back as though his secret had been exposed. "I... I was just doodling," he stammered, his cheeks red enough to drip blood.

"You doodle this professionally?" Lin Mo deliberately teased him, picking up a pencil and drawing an improved design beside the sketch. "Add a pressure mechanism here, and the web can shoot farther. And this switch—magnetic control would be more responsive than a mechanical button."

Peter even held his breath. His eyes seemed glued to the drawing, and he did not notice his glasses slipping down. He suddenly grabbed Lin Mo's wrist with astonishing strength. "How do you know all this? Could it be you also..."

"I've repaired similar mechanical devices." Lin Mo calmly withdrew his hand and stuffed a cookie into Peter's mouth. "Some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s discarded equipment had similar designs. The principles are about the same." The excuse was flawless—he really had repaired S.H.I.E.L.D. parts; he had just never told Peter those parts had actually been used to make weapons.

Peter nodded as though he half understood. He chewed the cookie slowly, but his eyes were moving quickly, clearly processing the information. The sparrows outside flew away, leaving the empty power line swaying in the wind like a taut string.

"Another problem?" Lin Mo opened the workbook again. This time, he chose a geometry proof involving the principle of triangular stability—something that had much in common with the structure of a spider's web.

Peter did not drift off like before. Though he occasionally stared out the window in a daze, he always pulled his attention back quickly. His pencil danced across the paper, drawing auxiliary lines with speed and precision. Sometimes he would abruptly stop and mutter, "No, it should be fixed in a crisscross pattern like a spider web," before erasing and redrawing.

Lin Mo sat beside him, quietly watching. Sunlight fell on the boy's focused profile. His eyelashes cast faint shadows behind his lenses, and the sweat on the tip of his nose reflected tiny sparks of light. This was the future Spider-Man, still only a high school student troubled by geometry problems, his eyes filled with curiosity about the world rather than the resolve born from facing alien invaders.

"Done!" Peter tossed down his pencil and let out a long breath. The proof in his workbook was clear and neat, and it even included two more solutions than the standard answer. "Brother Lin Mo, look at this." He suddenly pulled a small box from his backpack. Inside was a mechanical spider, its legs made from watch springs. "I made it. It can climb glass, but it's a little slow."

The mechanical spider moved across the coffee table, its eight legs stretching and contracting in alternation. Sure enough, it clung firmly to the smooth glass surface. Lin Mo used his Phasing Ability to scan its internal structure and discovered a tiny magnet and several suction cups hidden inside. It was cleverly designed. "Not bad," he praised sincerely. "You're much better than I was at your age. Back then, I only knew how to take apart radios."

"Really?" Peter's eyes shone even brighter. "Then can you help me improve it? I want it to climb faster and walk on the ceiling too."

"I can, but only if you finish all your summer homework." Lin Mo closed the workbook and pointed at the date written on it. "There are only two weeks until school starts, and you've got enough problems left to keep you busy for a while."

The boy's face fell like a popped balloon. But he soon raised his head again, hope in his eyes. "Then... every time I finish a problem, will you teach me a mechanical principle? Like you did just now?"

"Deal." Lin Mo held out his hand. Peter hesitated for a moment, then held out his own. Their palms met lightly. The boy's hand was a little sweaty, but strong, like he was holding a seed that had begun to sprout.

Ted's booming voice suddenly came from the hallway, making the windows buzz. "Mo! Peter! Come out and see my new magic trick! I can make a coin walk on the wall!" He shoved the door open with a bang, holding up a coin and rubbing it against the wall. "Look! Doesn't it look like a spider?"

Peter's attention was instantly pulled toward him like iron filings to a magnet. Lin Mo helplessly shook his head and watched the boy hurry over to discuss the coin's "magic" with Ted. Their heads pressed together as their fingers gestured over the wall, while sunlight cast their shadows upon it like two clumsy giant spiders.

When Aunt May came out carrying fruit, this was the sight she found: Lin Mo leaned against the sofa reading the math textbook, while Ted and Peter crouched on the floor fiddling with the coin. The three of them laughed amid the cicadas' chirping outside, their voices gently flowing through the living room. "Looks like I don't have to worry anymore." She smiled as she placed sliced watermelon on the coffee table. "Someone is better at keeping this child in line than I am."

Lin Mo picked up a slice of watermelon and watched Peter's excited profile. The boy's fingers moved rapidly over the wall, imitating the path of a climbing spider, while he continued calculating something under his breath—probably converting the movement-speed ratio of a coin and a spider. Lin Mo suddenly felt that perhaps a superhero's growth did not require earth-shattering events. Sometimes, all it took was someone willing to listen to his ideas, and an afternoon spent discussing how spiders climbed walls.

By the time the tutoring session ended in the evening, Peter had folded down the corners of every problem he got right and tucked the workbook into his backpack like a treasured possession. He suddenly stopped at the door, turned around, and said to Lin Mo, "Thank you, Brother Lin Mo." His cheeks were still a little red, but his eyes were unusually serious. "I'll finish my homework quickly. When I do... when I do, you can't go back on your word."

"I won't." Lin Mo smiled and nodded, watching Peter skip downstairs. The spider charm on his backpack swayed behind him like a tiny shadow.

Aunt May handed Lin Mo a glass of iced tea with a slice of lemon in it. "That child has always lacked a friend who could really talk with him. He used to hide in his room alone, taking things apart. I was worried he'd make himself sick from being so lonely." She watched Peter and Ted outside playing with the mechanical spider, her smile as gentle as water. "Lin, thank you so much."

"It's nothing." Lin Mo took a sip of the iced tea. The sourness of lemon mixed with the bitterness of tea on his tongue. He knew there was not much he could do. He could not stop the dangers that would come in the future, nor could he bear Peter's pain for him. But at least for now, he could be the person willing to listen to him talk about spiders and keep him company while he worked through math problems.

When he left Aunt May's house, the setting sun had dyed the sky orange-red. Peter was still studying the mechanical spider with Ted, the boy's laughter crisp as wind chimes. Lin Mo touched the fruit candy in his pocket—Grandma Gretchen had insisted on giving it to him as a "reward for an excellent teacher."

He suddenly remembered the spider silk strength formula on Peter's scratch paper, the crude yet creative Web-Shooters sketch, and the light shining in the boy's eyes. Perhaps the seed of a hero was never planted in some earth-shaking moment. Perhaps it quietly sprouted on a sunny afternoon, amid a math workbook and a few conversations about spiders.

Lin Mo quickened his pace toward the repair shop, already thinking about what to teach Peter next time—perhaps he could start with triangular stability, move on to the structure of spider webs, and then expand into structural mechanics. It would suit Peter's interests while helping him catch up on math.

By the time the streetlights came on, he had already written a detailed plan in his notebook. Beside it, he drew a small spider climbing across geometric shapes like a brave little explorer.