Chapter Text
Chapter 2
Keeping Up With The Parkers
Somewhere in New York at the top of fancy penthouse lived a young married couple, the Parkers. The two of them personality wise were quite different from each other with the husband, Peter, being of science nerd and his wife, Felicia, an attractive woman who might have been a model for a fashion magazine that anyone would know. How these two met was not exactly normal for little did anyone know was that these two met for even that would've made their relationship look all the more stranger, of course, that was their secret they kept from many for good reason.
Peter and Felicia Parker both had a secret identity known better to the rest of the city as Spider-Man and Black Cat, the city's crime fighting duo who met in a museum just funnily enough two years to the day when they first crossed paths and only six months ago they finally got hitched. Despite their likes and dislikes, they were happy together and had changed each other for the best with Peter now embracing the superhero life while Felicia was learning a life of responsibility that previously she left a rather reckless life.
Then again, the Parkers were never quite a normal married couple to be fair and it was on this day that they were about to encounter something that turn their lives upside down in more ways than one.
It was later in the afternoon in which the superhero couple landed on the balcony of their penthouse and promptly removed their respected masks. It had been quite a tough day in which they had to take down one familiar costume character that Peter had dealt with two years ago bring a man known as Aleksei Sytsevich, better known to many as the Rhino, had had managed to escape prison and had Spider-Man and Black Cat having to battle him and after one, long and tiring battle, the couple managed to finally stop just for the police to take the costume menace back behind bars.
Felicia breathed a sigh of relief as she removed her mask and fell back on the black leather couch. "Thank God that's over. I don't know how you managed to take him down the first time, Peter."
"I wonder myself to be honest," Peter admitted was then suddenly pulled down on the couch falling on his back while Felicia crawled on top of him playfully.
"Perhaps maybe we're getting older," Felicia purred and snuggled onto his spandex clad body while giving him a tender kiss. Peter, who always loved the feeling in turn of Felicia's leather clad body on his, then grabbed the remote on the armrest next to him and used it to turn the TV on and the two began watching it quietly.
As they began watching the TV, Peter suddenly thought more about his wife's words. Was he getting older and losing his touch? He was probably overthinking it, after all, maybe Rhino had learnt to fight better? Then again, he had a crime fighting wife alongside him which he did not have that luxury than before. Still, four years had past since he become Spider-Man and thus changing his life forever and he didn't really had time to reflect on life and how things were only now starting to really pick up for him ever since he had met Felicia.
No longer did he have to worry about money as Felicia was rich, though Peter did wonder at first given how Felicia was a former Cat Burglar as if most of the stuff, including this luxury penthouse was legit. Still, he still did his 'bit-on-the-side' at the Bugle to gain some extra money and to find amusement in J. Jonah Jameson's arrogant view how after all these years he still viewed Spider-Man as a menace despite there being many costume menaces that would fit that bill easily. Some things never change.
The married couple lay there snuggled up on the sofa watching a news report which was showing the astronauts who had returned from the Moon with a certain cargo were being released from quarantine after two weeks.
"I would hate to be stuck in quarantine like them," Felicia admitted.
"Even with me?" Peter replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Only if you don't give this cat her cream regularly," Felicia whispered huskily in Peter's ear which made him shudder. They were quite a wild couple often playing off each other with jokes of varying degree and at times had a lot of sexual undertones. No prizes were needed as to guess what Felicia meant by cream…
Then the platinum blonde's thoughts changed and asked her husband a question. "Just a minute, that…thing they've got…"
"The 'symbiote' they call it?" Peter asked.
"Yeah that alien thing," Felicia replied. "Isn't that former teacher of yours, what's his name, Dr Connors? Is going to look into it?"
Peter's eyes widen and he suddenly sat up. "Oh God, your right, that's today! I completely forgot about it!"
The brunette then ran into the bedroom so fat that Felicia had barely time to register as to what was going on.
"Honey, what's the rush?" Felicia asked with bemusement as her husband came back into the room holding a bundle of his casual attire in his hands and looking quite flushed.
"Look at the time!" Peter pointed at the clock on the wall reading just after half past six in the afternoon. "I'm suppose to be there before seven and his lab is on the other side of the city!"
"You could web swing you know," Felicia pointed out and as she said that, her husband began to web up his clothes into what looked like a sack and she quickly put two and two together to see what Peter was planning to do. "Oh, right…you plan to take it with you across the city."
Peter then grabbed his mask and gave Felicia a peck on the lips. "Sorry got to go so soon, I'll be back for dinner."
"Have a great day, honey," Felicia replied with a teasing tone as she watched her husband making an exit off the balcony with his web sack in tow until he was out of sight.
As soon as he was gone, Felicia sighed and stretched herself out on the sofa and felt like the luckiest girl in the whole city, after all, how many could say their husband was the famous Spider-Man? That all being said, he did still need to loosen up one way or the other…
Despite his fears of being late, Peter managed to get to Dr Connors' lab on time which was actually an improvement considering during his time trying to get to his classes at university, Peter always was late was often due to his time needed as Spider-Man. This often caused much strain in his relationship with his teacher and saw his grades slowly go down.
Yet despite all this, Peter did manage to somehow come out on top with full grades and Curt was left impressed by this in which in the years following his time at the university, the two had become firm friends with Peter happy to talk about his own life such as how his life with Felicia was going on though he was wise not to bring up his secret identity.
After hurriedly getting changed into his casual gear in an alleyway nearby, Peter then hurried into the complex that once belonged to Oscorp but following the disgrace of Harry Osborn, the building was passed over to an independent group called 'Columbia Enterprisers' that was in fact a consortium of scientists that on many levels of this building were various experiments taking place in which Peter hoped were going to lead the world towards a better place.
The main plaza had many people, quite a number in white coats, making their way around the place showing it to be quite busy place as Peter made his way to the reception desk where a young woman was there busy writing something on her computer and stopped as Peter approached.
"Can I help you?" The woman asked, her tone a mix of suspicion and forced friendliness.
"Um, yeah. I'm here to Dr Curt Connors," Peter informed her. "My name is Peter Parker. He was expecting me at this time?"
The reception girl checked her computer to see if there were any emails she had gotten from Dr Connors and after some looking around, she found one message that indeed showed that Peter was an invited guest. Upon seeing it, she then made a call.
"Dr Connors? Somewhat called Peter Parker is here to see, he will be with you in a minute," the woman announced on the phone and after making this call, she handed Peter a visitor badge. "You'll find at lab one-one-nineteen on the third floor."
"Thanks," Peter smiled, though the woman muttered a 'yeah, whatever' response. Maybe she hated her job?
Whatever the reason that did not matter, Peter was on his way to the third floor to meet up with Dr Connors and see what was going on. After quite a trek up to the third floor, Peter found the lab and knocked on the door.
"Dr Connors? It's me, Peter."
"Come in!" Came the sound of Curt on the other side of the door and Peter entered a lab that was something that Peter, as something of a scientist geek, would have loved to have at his place. There were many machines, glass chambers and all the sort of stuff you would get in a lab. Of course, he knew his wife would not allow such a thing to have been built in their home.
"Long time no see Parker!" Curt greeted warmly and shook Peter's hand.
"Same to you do, Sir." Peter replied.
Curt though chuckled and shook his head. "Come on, Peter. Just call me Curt, how many times must I say that?"
"Sorry, force of habit," Peter replied sheepishly.
They didn't have long to stay on that topic as Curt, like a kid at Christmas, led Peter over towards a glass chamber with a certain slimy black substance in it.
"No words needed so…here it is," Curt said, and Peter looked on with a mix of wonder and trepidation.
"So…this is the symbiote?" Peter asked.
"The very same," Curt nodded. "We're inviting a team of all the top scientists in the United States to all take a better examination of it."
Peter took a step forward to take a closer look at this weird…thing from another world that seemed like it was trying to get out and something in the back of Peter's mind told him that even with how well secure the glass chamber looked, the Symbiote looked strong enough to break out.
But that was not the weird thing, the closer Peter walked up to it, the Symbiote seemed to focus its attention in trying to get to him.
"That's strange," Curt muttered.
Peter looked back at his former teacher. "What'd you mean?"
"It hasn't done that to anyone," Curt noted. "It seems interested in you, Peter. It must sense something in you it likes."
Peter felt nervous. Had this alien like thing seemed to have worked out his superhuman abilities so easily while many were none the wiser? He didn't know what to think, however in order to try and take his mind of Curt possibly working it out himself, Peter then noted a small lizard in a glass case which looked out of place in this lab.
"Um, what's with the lizard?" Peter pointed out and this thankfully made Curt happily change the subject around.
"Almost forgot about that!" Curt chuckled and led Peter over to the lizard who was lying on top of a branch. "While most of our resources are being used to work on the Symbiote, this is something of my personal project I have been working on for a few years now and I think I'm almost there."
"What'd you mean?" Peter inquired.
"You know how lizards have the ability to regrow limbs?" Curt explained in which Peter nodded in agreement. "I did think about the prospect with today's modern science that maybe, just maybe, that technology could be used on humans. I think you can understand why…"
Curt glanced down at what was his missing right arm and Peter immediately knew why Curt was very much interested in this. Way before Curt had been a teacher, he had worked as a medic in the army but had to give that up after his arm was blown off during his time in the Gulf War and though Curt had made little to no mention of this tragic part of his past, Peter had always felt that this has always scared him.
Such was perhaps this unfortunate fate for him that many, even some of the jerks in his science class had even been that wise to avoid any jokes that were of poor taste. Nonetheless Peter felt a sense of excitement that whatever Curt was planning on doing was actually going to finally help him once and for all.
"Wow, that's…really something," Peter muttered placing his hands on his hips and nodding and nodding feeling impressed. "But how are you going to do it?"
On cue, Curt brought forward a large injection that had a mix of blood and some tint of green in it. "This will be it. I've studied into this little guy's abilities and after doing some mixing of DNA, I think I've found the breakthrough needed for it to work."
"But is it safe?" Peter asked, he remembered with the late Otto Octavius had mentioned the same thing when he tried his fusion reactor.
"It should be now," Curt replied. "Peter, if this actually works and that we could have the ability to grown missing limbs then…Lord knows what could follow."
It wasn't hard for Peter to find his former teacher's enthusiasm infectious and he could see how much Curt wanted this to work. Surely for once this could be an experiment that would actually work?
"I have faith in you sir," Peter smiled warmly.
After that, they spent the next half hour chatting about not only various science facts that most would find boring to more humble facts such as how married life was treating both men and once again Peter found himself being asked the question was how exactly he had managed to find a girl like Felicia.
He did his usual excuse of how he bumped into her while taking photos for the Bugle at the art gallery which in some ways was actually true…just that they met while in their costume alter egos.
After which, they made their farewells and Peter left for home while Curt stood there looking at both the Symbiote and the injection on the table nearby, the latter of which he felt so tempted to try out for himself.
Little did he know that both those things in that lab would in fact be lynchpins of the seeds of chaos in New York. Soon enough, there would another menace in the city though for once would not be a costumed menace but rather, something disturbing.