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Peter scratches absently at his wrist, chasing away the tingle-itch just under his skin. It's been happening for weeks, ever since he got bitten by the spider and had his life flipped upside down. It's different from a normal itch that he would have experienced, before, but not enough to raise alarms. It's just faint enough, a slight amount of falling-asleep, pins-and-needles pain, and he can pretend it's nothing. Pretend he can't feel something crawl below the tissue.
Because that's not something that can happen, even in this world of superheroes and supervillains, where fantastical powers are starting to be the norm.
And it's not like it's a constant feeling. Consistent, yes, but it's rare. A few moments every other day.
It's fine. Peter hasn't quite figured out what all that spider bite did to him, so this… could just be that. Of course there's a negative effect to go with his increased senses and new abilities. Mild itching is honestly not that bad of a trade off.
It continues. Weeks turn to months turn to a year, and still there's the sensation of tiny legs scampering through his muscle, blood and tissue. The tingle just under his skin that makes his spine crawl, sometimes, the urge to tear at his flesh until he can drag these intrusive feelings out.
It's gotten worse.
Peter can't even say he's surprised. The signs were there, even as he reasoned them away, ignored them. Downplayed them. Just an itch. Just a side effect of this new change, something that will disappear with time.
There are spiderwebs all over his ceiling. He tried to clean them away, in the start. They always came back, thicker, stronger, and eventually he gave up. He never sees the spiders who weave these webs, but he can tell they're there. Waiting in the shadows, out of sight. He can sense them.
That's a new power he's grown aware of. The constant knowledge of where, exactly, every spider near him is. His eyes catch on them automatically, wherever he looks. And there are so many.
There shouldn't be this many.
Peter knows there can't have been this many spiders around before he changed. There weren't, in the start. Just a few in abandoned corners, in alleyways. On store windows, hidden in tree leaves. He would never see more than ten in a day, and most of those were repeats, neighbours he would have known by name, if they had any.
Now, there are dozens everywhere he goes. They watch him when he walks to school, when he goes to work. They follow, sometimes, when he just walks for the exercise of it.
They lead him to the hidden, secret corners of the city, when he's out as his other self. Sometimes, he thinks he hears them whisper, telling him overheard criminal plans. But that can't be real; he must be hearing it himself, his improved senses catching quiet voices from far away.
But, deep down… Peter knows that is only a part of it. Yes, he can hear so much more than he ever could. But the little voices that sound more like thoughts than speech are not from anything human. They can't be. He knows they aren't.
Peter brushes his hair one morning and the comb comes away holding wisps of string. Cobwebs, old and abandoned, entwined with strands of his own hair. He sets the comb down with more calm than he thinks he should be feeling, but he is calm. He can't deny it. There are webs in his hair. Sure. He has spider themed superpowers, of course there are other spider themed things happening to him.
He leans in close to the bathroom mirror, tilting his head this way and that, squinting. He can barely see the webs, the strings only glinting in the light at the perfect angle. No one will ever notice unless it's something they're actively looking for. And why would anyone do that? No one would suspect Peter Parker is connected to Spider-Man, and certainly no one thinks his powers are so literally connected to the species he's named after. He has the strength, the burrs on his fingertips. But the webs he shoots are synthetic, and his teeth are entirely human. He has no venom, no extra limbs or eyes.
Physically, he is nothing more than superhuman.
Except for the webs in his hair, and the skittering under his skin, and the spiders that follow him wherever he goes.
…maybe that bite did more than he thought.
Maybe he should be more worried about this than he is.
But he isn't, and he doesn't really want to be, so. It all works out.
Peter coughs, and tiny legs run over the skin of his palm, hide under his sleeve almost before he sees them. But he does, his eyes catching the flash of movement easily. He freezes then, and the spider under his shirt circles his wrist, just out of sight.
It's warm, tingly in a similar way to the itch that's been plaguing him for years now. But different, because this is outside of his body, not within the confines, and it feels weird for those legs to brush against the hair on his arm. Weirder than the sensation he's grown so used to, that he's stopped worrying about.
When did it become normal to have spiders inside his veins?
Peter waits until he's in his room, door securely locked, before he rolls up his sleeve.
Eight tiny eyes stare up at him.
He's never been good at identifying spider breeds, even after his life became defined by them. This one is small, black that shades to brown in the light. It's legs are long, and for that Peter guesses it's male, because he read something about that, months ago.
It doesn't look like a black widow, doesn't look dangerous, and so he watches calmly as the spider slowly uncoils from its defensive crouch. It walks in a slow circle over his skin, eventually making its way to his hand, to a fingertip. Trusting him to hold it steady, to keep it safe.
And Peter… believes he will. He doesn't want to kill this creature. He doesn't think he could, even if he had the desire to try.
Eerily enough, this spider feels like his. Like something he needs to protect.
Makes sense, if it came from the multitude slowly growing inside him.
(Peter goes on a school trip, gets bitten by an experimental spider, and goes home.
Dinner that night is quiet, and Peter pushes his food around more than he eats it. He isn't hungry. He feels sick, suddenly, nauseous and slow, like he's wading through water. Like his head is full of heavy cotton.
His aunt sends him to bed while his uncle looks on worriedly, but Peter barely hears their words. He felt fine for hours after the bite. Why is it only affecting him now?
(Under his skin, in his veins, the spider's venom travels ever closer to his heart.)
Peter falls into a restless sleep, tossing and turning and burning with fever. May places a cold cloth on his forehead at one point, but he isn't aware of it, and it doesn't help. Night falls, and he settles, as much as he can.
And then—
The venom reaches its goal. And Peter sucks in one ragged breath before he spasms, just once, and lays still. His arms slowly relax from where he'd been unconsciously clutching at his chest, slumping to rest awkwardly on the bed beside him.
Silence descends.
A spider, nothing more than a baby, races through the pathways it finds itself in. It can't see, not in this warm darkness, but it doesn't need to. Not to know where it needs to go, and not to get there. That is instinct, instilled from the moment of its birth in this new nest.
It finds its way to the core of this enormous place, to the heart of it. There are strands here, tangled and ensnaring and they are all part of one giant web, but only one can restart the system.
This spiderling only knew the proper nest for a single moment—its birth perpetrated by its death. But in this infancy, it knows it will do everything in its power to return to that perfection.
It makes its way into the centre of everything, and plucks the cord.
And Peter Parker gasps as his heart begins to beat again. He doesn't wake, and he doesn't realise what has happened. He wakes the next morning to an improved body, increased senses, and powers he can only scratch the surface of.
And while he has no knowledge of the death he overcame, the growing collective within him knows. They know, and inasmuch as they can, they celebrate, because without this event, they would not be.
And they very much wish to be.)
Spider-Man patrols the streets of Queens, swinging between buildings and watching from hidden corners. There is remarkably little crime happening tonight and he's just considering heading back home, when he spots her. Senses her, maybe, the colony inside him waking with a surge of hungry murmurs.
He swings towards her without a second thought, and stares down at her from his position on the side of the building. She staggers through the alley below, murmuring to herself, to the millions within her.
There are flies in her hair. On her clothes, crawling over her skin. Small, silver flashes, barely visible to anyone else. As he was before, he wouldn't have been able to see the fruit flies swarming around her. He wouldn't be able to hear them. But he can, now, with these powers gifted to him by that bite, and he is drawn to their song which is so discordant to his own. It is wrong. It grates against his nerves, sends his colony into a manic frenzy.
There is a solution, they whisper to him. Spider-Man knows, and his growing disgust towards this lesser hive overrides his sworn duty to protect the people of his city.
She is barely a person. She is hollowed out and used, and it would be a mercy to end her.
(And his family is so hungry. How long have they waited for a chance like this? How long has he kept them deprived?
No longer.)
Spider-Man creeps closer, silent, and spiders seep out of the seams of his suit. They coat the wall, cover the brick and grime until there is only shifting darkness, thousands of bodies and millions of eyes, all narrowed in on her.
For the first time in years, Peter feels alone. Empty in the worst way, a hollow shell with all of his family out and hunting. He hates this feeling, more than he was ever scared of it, and he urges them to be quick. To return home as fast as they can.
The spiders descend with fervour.
The woman, if she can still be called that, snaps her head up to face the attack, but it's too late. There is nowhere to run, and no escape from the inevitable, from the natural outcome of predator against prey. What good is a swarm when his outnumbers hers?
Her scream is the buzz of a thousand tiny wings, and the act merely opens one more passage into the hive.
The husk of her body crumbles into dust when the spiders are through with it, scattering into the grime of this alley, indistinguishable. And when his colony returns to him, sated and full; when Spider-Man slips back onto the roof and swings away—there is no evidence that anything happened here at all.
Peter likes spiders. Or rather, he wasn't ever bothered by them in the past. He kept clear of the webs he found in the corners of his house, of the places he frequented. He left them to their business, and herded them away from his spaces when he saw them venture too close. He tried to avoid killing them, old superstitions echoing in his head alongside newer entomological facts. They're helpful, and besides the one, have never done Peter any harm. So why would he harm them?
And now… It's hard to really hate something that loves you the way these spiders love him. He doesn't know how he can tell, because he can't read their minds, however that might work. But they whisper to him, they sing a song made just for him, and he can feel it, in his blood, in his marrow—his colony loves him. He is their home, he keeps them alive. He's their entire world.
How could he not love them back?