Peter nodded. "Yes. My father is the reason I have superpowers. His experiments... let me adapt and evolve."
"Peter, I'm so sorry." Susan hugged him. Peter smelled watermelon. Sadness.
He hugged Susan back. A normal kid might have felt sad or angry that his father had done something like this to him. But Peter? He didn't care at all. It wasn't like that was his real dad, right?
"It's okay, Susan." Peter let go of her and turned toward the monitor. "I just... where did he work?"
"What do you mean?"
"He worked for someone. Someone gave him funding and research facilities. So where did my father get this stuff he injected into me?"
Susan worked quickly at the terminal. But every time they thought they were getting close to the truth, they hit another dead end. One after another.
Susan stepped back and sighed. "Sorry, Peter. This is beyond what we can handle right now."
Peter considered it. Someone obsessed with getting the Super Soldier Serum? Sounds like Hydra. Maybe Richard Parker was tricked into working with them? Like those scientists last night? Very possible. When Richard discovered the truth and refused to keep working, Hydra killed him and his wife.
"This is such a mess." Peter rubbed his temples.
"I'm so sorry, Peter."
"It's okay. It's not your fault." Peter sat down. "But now... what exactly am I supposed to do?"
Susan sat beside him. "I think all you can do is keep doing what you're doing. Saving lives, being a hero."
"Yeah... Susan, please. Please don't... please don't tell anyone what we found today. Not S.H.I.E.L.D., not Reed, nobody. I'm not anyone important. I... I don't want people to know."
"I promise, Peter. I won't tell anyone." She nodded.
"Thanks... wipe all the data on my blood from the servers. S.H.I.E.L.D. can hack those systems. If they find a way to clone me, to recreate the Super Soldier Serum using my blood..."
"It would start a war." Susan nodded. "I know."
Peter turned toward the screen. His blood... could trigger an arms race. He was lucky Richard Parker had encrypted it so no one could figure out how it worked, but cloning was still an option.
He had to stay alert... maybe it was time to figure out what else these new powers could do and upgrade his tech while he was at it. The Chitauri would arrive soon, and he had to prepare for the invasion.
Hmm, maybe it's time to start recreating Otto's mechanical arms?
Peter found that Natasha no longer showed up at the training grounds.
She had been permanently reassigned to other missions, replaced by a guy named David-the creepiest, most sadistic instructor Peter had ever met in his life.
He still remembered the day they first met.
Peter had been waiting with his feet up on the table in the tactical briefing room when the elevator doors opened and a muscular, burly Black man walked out. His face looked fierce and vicious.
David stared at his feet on the table, his gaze sharp as lightning.
"If you're going to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., everything you do represents us." He swept Peter's feet off the table. "So this isn't appropriate."
Peter raised an eyebrow. "Hi, I'm Peter. And you are?"
"David." The man grunted.
"Just David?"
"Yes." He nodded and sat beside Peter. "Agent Widow has brought me up to speed on your training progress, and frankly, it's terrible. You treat everything like a joke. You have no focus whatsoever."
"I'm only fifteen. Cut me some slack, will you?" Peter rolled his eyes.
"Your IQ is the only reason I'm still willing to train you into a qualified agent." David snorted and opened the file. "You disobeyed orders, acted without authorization, tried to post a video of a corrupt congressman on Twitter, and insulted the director to his face several times."
Peter shrugged. "So?"
"So the only reason I'm here is because I follow orders," David said through gritted teeth. "I don't like you, Parker. Not one bit. But I'll train you. That's my job. Hopefully, by the time training is over, I'll have knocked you into something resembling an agent."
Peter raised his eyebrows. "I'll make your life a living hell. Just you wait."
David stared coldly back. "I'd like to see you try."
Peter grinned at him.
Good.
This man will soon regret saying that today.
A few months passed in the blink of an eye.
Peter kept fighting crime, and life was going swimmingly.
During that time, he also gradually grew familiar with his new abilities.
His bioelectric blasts were ridiculously useful. His body was now like a walking electrical conductor. He had even modified his suit so the energy from Parker's Blood could flow directly back and forth between the suit and his body.
He worked out different levels of electrical discharge: he could knock people unconscious, numb them, or overclock it to blast them clean off their feet. If he really wanted to kill, he could also fry someone to charcoal from the inside out, just like Electro.
He also discovered that he could absorb a certain amount of electricity into his body. Not only did it not hurt him, it even replenished a little of his energy.
He was working on his pheromones, too. For now, he could only detect and identify scents, not actively secrete pheromones like Jessica Drew. He might need more practice. After all, he had ventured into territory no one had explored.
Besides his powers and training, equipment upgrades were another major priority.
The Chitauri would come sooner or later. He didn't know when, but they would definitely come.
He needed to get stronger.
First, he made the entire suit system voice-controlled, recognizing only his own voice and integrating every system in the suit. He could actually have gone a step further and built an AI, but for one thing, his software skills weren't that amazing yet, and for another, he didn't want a smart-mouthed artificial intelligence yapping in his head while he fought crime.
He modified the helmet, too, adding a zoom function to the lenses. That would definitely come in handy later.
He also borrowed a few tricks from Batman and started making multipurpose gadgets.
First up was a utility belt. It took some effort to keep it from interfering with his swinging and fighting, but he eventually sewed it into the suit's lining, solving the problem perfectly.
He also made a batch of throwing stars shaped like eight-legged spiders and painted them red. Johnny had absolutely no idea why he wanted those things, but Peter couldn't be bothered with him.
All that matters is that they look cool.
Other gadgets followed one after another: a gun that fired liquid nitrogen pellets, a spray gun that shot expanding foam, a few bugs for eavesdropping, several smoke bombs, and, just in case, a smaller version of his previous electromagnetic pulse emitter.
Unfortunately, he couldn't cram anything else into the suit. Any more would throw off his center of gravity.
Next came the main event: Doctor Octopus's mechanical arms.