5 Take this mess, it's yours now

"My friends call me MJ, Nice to meet you Pete"

"A-A-Ah, My name is Peter Parker, my friends call me Pete"

"I know you" *giggle*

'Man, My first time meeting her and I am already blowing it, it would have been real handy to have complete my occlumency right now'

"Peter, you should show MJ around the house."

"Sure, Aunt May"

"So, uh, the tour! Yeah, let's start from the kitchen, This is the kitchen, this is some apple pie May made, want some?"

"Sure, Tiger"

Peter gave MJ, a plate of pie

"Let's continue the tour upstairs, so this is the storage closet, this is May and Ben's bedroom and finally this is my room."

"Wow, that was a quick tour tiger, were you in such a hurry to show me your room"

"What! No, I totally didn't mean it like that, I meant-"

Mj stopped Peter from speaking by putting a finger on his lips

"Don't stress it tiger, I was just joking. So this is your room huh, it doesn't look like what I expected it to look like"

"Well, you got lucky, I just cleaned up today."

"Well, looks like your luck is definitely showing up today tiger. So tell me about life at midtown high"

"Well there are two versions. the short one or the long one, which one do you want?"

"Well, just give me the short version first and then you can give me the long one"

"Well the short version is,nerds nerd, jocks jock, teachers teach and everybody is miserable together"

"*chuckle* That describes every school ever."

"The long version is basically, that jocks contain most of the football team led by my ex-childhood friend Eugene Thompson, though don't call him Eugene, he goes by Flash nowadays. The popular girls/cheerleaders faction is led by Liz Allen who is the girlfriend of Flash as tradition dictates.

Well, now I don't mean to brag, but I am the leader of the nerd faction."

"Wow, that impressive, leader of nerds huh? That takes a lot of smarts tiger"

"Now you are just pulling my leg, anyway, why are you changing schools in the middle of the year? That too senior year?"

" Well, I have been having some problems at home with dad, so my mom sent it to Aunt Anna, so they can have some space."

"Oh, sorry for asking"

"No, don't be, but just lets not talk about it anymore"

"Yeah, By the way as you are new here, why don't I show you around sometime, say sometime next saturday?"

"Looks like I chose the right nickname, you sink your fangs fast tiger asking the girl you just met for a date"

"Wait, I didn't mean it as a date, not that you aren't beautiful and anything, but you totally are, but I just meant-"

MJ once again stopped Peter mid-talk by putting her finger on his mouth.

"Shhh, I didn't say no to it tiger. It's a date, come pick me up at 6pm saturday, then you can show me around as you were telling"

"Mary Jane! We are leaving"

"Looks like our time ran out tiger, see you tomorrow"

"Uh, Yeah, It was nice meeting you, Bye!"

'So, that just happened. Man, to think I would have a brainfart just by interacting with her, I get why most Peter's fall for her.'

/*Next day, Bus stop*/

"Hey tiger"

"Hi Mj, so first day at midtown high, excited?"

"More anxious than excited"

"Hey, don't worry, its me who should be worried about my bombshell of a date being swept away"

"Thanks tiger, don't worry, I wouldn't miss the date even if the city was busted"

/*Lunchbreak*/

"Dude, the new girl is so hot!"

"Yeah, she is a solid 10"

Said Harry and Ned as they looked over to MJ who was standing in the line getting lunch

"Right? That's why I am taking her out for a date this saturday"

"Yeah, Good fo-, Wait a damn minute!"

"You got a date with her?"

"You don't need to lie Peter"

" Do I look like the type of guy who would lie about this kinda stuff Harry?'

"No, you wouldn't joke about this kind of stuff, that means it is real. Duuuude, that is so awesome!'

" Yeah! How did you do it? Please teach us humble peasants your ways master!"

" What Puny Parker is taking the new girl on a date! No way!"

"Urgh, Do you have nothing better to do than to listen in our conversations Eugene, or is it because you want to rekindle our childhood friendship?"

" Hmph, there is no way the new girl is going out with Parker! She just hasn't had a chance to talk with a real man yet!" declared Flash as he slowly walked up to MJ and struck up a conversation, after some talking MJ followed Flash to the jocks table.

Peter felt like his heart was being crushed in a grinder seeing how free MJ was with jocks. Intellectually he knew that she wasn't doing anything wrong, in fact he was in the wrong to even assume that she would be his exclusive friend, but his heart felt like it was being betrayed.

It didn't help the smug looks that Flash kept throwing towards him from their table.

"Maybe she is just talking?"

"Hmph, do you think she is just talking? Look at her laughter and her talking so freely with the jocks, she fit right in. Give up Pete, don't get your hopes too high. I will bet you 10 bucks she will be on the cheerleader team before the school ends"

'Huh, didn't know I had it in me to be jealous. But Harry is right, I shouldn't get my hopes too high. If it happens, it happens, no good will come from forcing the issue, and what do they say "Confidence is not they will like me, it is I will be okay if they don't"'

/Empire state university biology lab/

"Dr Connors, It is nice to meet you again, this young Peter that I was talking about"

"Nice to meet you Peter, I have heard great things about you from Mr Warren. Hope we have a good working relationship"

"Thank you for the compliment Dr. Connors, and nice meeting you as well. So when can we start the interview?"

"Interview?"

" Well, I guessed there would be some kind of an interview"

"Oh, no Peter, this is an internship position for highschool students only and qualified people from highschool near us were already slim pickings after Mr Warren recommended you, we looked through your school record as well as some of your test papers and decided that you were the one.

The internship position for the college students has already been filled. In fact you may already know him, he is also one of the people who gave the recommendation for you"

"Hey Pete, betcha didn't expect to meet me here huh?"

"Eddie! It's so nice to meet you again, since you have moved because of college, you have been coming less and less to our home. You should visit sometime, Aunt May asks about you all the time"

"Sure thing Peter,"

"Well looks quite the party around here,"

"Ah, Mr Warren, Peter, this may be the first time you are meeting her, this is my wife Martha Connors, she is also a geneticist and works alongside me, but her focus is more on the animal side of things whereas I tend to focus on the human side"

"Nice to meet you Dr Connors- I mean Mrs Connors, no Dr Martha?"

"*chuckle* Don't worry Peter you are not the only one confused, just call me Mrs Connors when Curt is around. Your last name Parker, are you somehow related to Dr Richard and Mary Parker?"

"Yes, they were my parents before they, you know- passed away in that crash. I now live with my Aunt and Uncle"

"Terribly sorry for making you remember that dear, but now I see how you and Eddie know each other. His father worked together with your parents and was also in the same plane"

"Yeah, after that incident Eddie stayed with us for some while, until his uncle came to pick him up, though I heard he recently passed away"

"Sorry for bringing up such a somber topic everyone, though now knowing your parent's I have high hopes for you Peter"

" Of Course Mrs Connors, I will try my best"

" You needn't worry about Peter Mrs Connors, he is a genius and frankly just needs a platform to show it off"

"So you have said Mr Warren, Very well, thank you for bringing Peter here Mr Warren for now I think the break time is over and we have to start getting to work."

"Oh, then I should get going, good luck on your internship Peter"

"Thank you Mr Warren"

"Now Peter, I have seen through your science projects throughout the years from the files Mr Warren gave me and feel like you already have most basic research techniques down, but just in case we will run everything through before you start your own project."

"My own project?"

"Yes, of course,based on your previous work it would be a criminal wastage of your time and talents if you just do chores around the lab.

You can start your project that you work on when we don't have anything for you to do, and who knows if the project is good enough you can even publish a paper on it. But I will warn you we have a limited budget so I won't care for expensive projects.

With all that said. you do have an idea for your project right Peter?"

Peter looked at the spiders in their terrariums and said " Yes, Yes I do"

/*Timeskip to after the internship*/

/Peter walking towards Roosevelt station/

'To think I can work on my project in the open without stressing out about equipment, money and time management and the best part is if I publish a paper on it and patent it, I can maybe start up on Parker industries.

Uh, I should be excited about all of this yet all I can think is imagining MJ blowing me off on saturday. I think I need a distraction and a break, let's get something into the stomach while I check up on how much my occlumency has progressed'

Peter stopped at a nearby smoothie shop and got a smoothie and some fries, as he ate he closed his eyes and slowly sunk into his mindscape. The first thing that stood out to him was the massive spider web that extended to many directions.

It looked as if someone left a spider in a box and allowed it to make webs as pleased. From the intuition he got from the golem the web was 15% done. While he somewhat expected it, he was still in a bit of disbelief at the speed of progress.

Normally if going through the traditional method there would have already been some noticeable improvements in their intellect at this level of progress. But the one downside of this technique he was using was that he was left essentially defenseless as well as seeing no improvement in his intellect until the entire mindscape was completed.

This meant that he was trading away short and medium term benefits for increased speed, drastically reducing the time required to be a master from 7 to 10 years to 3 to 4 months which was a massive win in Peter's opinion.

But it wasn't as if there weren't any immediate benefits, his recall would be increased immensely to the parts that were mapped already; he had noticed that he was able to recall many small details with much more clarity.

Finishing eating Peter once again started walking towards the abandoned station, within 5 mins walk he reached it. As he entered the train station, it looked exactly as in the movie. So Peter took one coin and put it into the machine, and within seconds the subway car came up from underneath the tracks.

The subway car immediately started powering up as lights, equipment all came to life. Peter entered the subway car and looked around to see all types of scientific equipment, as well as plenty of dust and cobwebs.

"Well, looks like I have lots of cleaning to do before I can even use this place"

Peter then moved towards the computer and turned it on. On the homescreen of the computer there was a video file named "for whoever finds this place"

"I am Doctor Richard Parker, along with my wife and my friend Eddie, we have been working together on our project to create a cure for cancer and most forms of disease.

When we first started our research, our idea was to create a drug which only acts upon specific markers which we could target towards the cancer cells. However, one of our geologist friends in Arizona came upon certain dead cells in one of the rocks.

According to him this rock was part of the meteor that created the crater near Winslow, which is also the oldest known crater site in the USA. When we went there to examine the cells to identify the creature we came upon an amazing discovery!

These cells didn't belong to any known species on earth! At first we didn't want to believe it thinking it to be a mistake in our experiments but as we continued experimenting and reverifying our findings, we came to a frightening yet amazing conclusion, these cells were of an alien creature complete different from any of earth's ecosystem and considering the fact that it came from a meteorite meant that it was a sign that there was true life out there.

At first Mary and I wanted to report our discovery to the world, but Eddie convinced me that it would be better for us to study the sample a little bit more before publishing as it would most certainly be confiscated by the government.

However as we continued studying the cells we found its many amazing properties, like its DNA being unable to degrade naturally by any of earth microorganisms, or the fact that when we artificially made similar cells they had the amazing property of symbiosis with any living cell.

They bonded to any living cell and massively improved the cells systems and in some cases even repairing genetic damage. However, this symbiosis only lasted for a limited time as the symbiote slowly took over the host organism like a virus and converted it into itself.

Seeing this we immediately increased our safety precautions. However, while we were scared of the dangers of the cells, we found the answer to most of humanity's health problems. If we could somehow study the cells, we could create a proper symbiote that would revolutionize medicine and humanity as a whole.

This discovery meant that our priorities had started shifting from studying the cells to try and recreate our own version, a true symbiote. Slowly, even Mary and I were getting less and less enthused about showing our discovery to the world and at some point along the way, we eventually stopped talking about it.

It was because on some level, we were a little scared that somehow someone could release it into the world and we didn't want to be the cause of a plague that eventually destroyed all life on earth.

We named the project Venom, it was originally an acronym but I think we forgot what it was. (Author also forgot, if someone does know it please leave a comment) Another reason that we named it so was its mode of effect was similar to some common venoms seen in nature,

Eventually as the years passed we were getting closer and closer to the completion of our dream. By phase 2 we had managed to completely copy the beneficial effects of the symbiote and were already working on removing most of the negative side effects of the symbiote.

It still had its problems such as its tendency to cannibalize the host if it isn't fed long enough, but eventually our funds started to dry out and we needed further funding to push over the final edge.

It was here when Eddie suggested that we apply for funding from Trask industries, it was also our biggest mistake. The initial honeymoon period was fine as we both got what we wanted, we got our money, Trask got their reports of our progress.

It was however after our first live test subject report that everything changed. The rat we had experimented on started fine but as time passed on, the hunger problem of the symbiote persisted, we initially assumed that it would consume its host like the previous tests and move onto to the other rats in the cage

However the rat instead devoured the other rats until only it remained before eventually cannibalizing the host itself.

If it was just this it would have created no more problems, however before the symbiote consumed the host it used it to launch a final attack at the cage in an attempt to break it and come after us.

It was here we observed the enhancement properties of the symbiote for the first time as the rat managed to make a crack on the cage when it shouldn't have been able to. Bolivar Trask who had been following our project had immediately sunk his claws into the project, using various loopholes he had confiscated our project and our hard work.

Luckily Me and Mary have always been a little skeptical of Trask so we made this place and backed up our work daily. From there on out our life turned miserable as we were in the never ending legal battles with Trask Industries.

Our lawyers are even saying that we are likely to win, but I don't know how long we can last as our funds are starting to dry up. This incident has also made a wedge in the relationship between me and Eddie so I still haven't told him about this place.

This brings me to the end of this video, me and Mary have managed to work out the tendencies of the symbiote to cause aggression in the hosts but are still working on solving the hunger problem.

But if you have found this video, it means that we have either been tracked, killed or you have somehow stumbled into this place. Whatever it may be, I beg of you to not let the project die. This project means too much for humanity."

As the video stopped playing and Peter saw his reflection on the black monitor screen he couldn't help but say out loud

"What a mess!"

---------

To all my fans of Flipping the galaxy, I am promise I am not dropping it anytime soon, I just had this muse after watching no way home and spectacular spider-man. To all the fans of this books, this is what that I have currently have written, which means like the fans of Flipping the galaxy you will also have to play the waiting game for when I update this fic.

At least it will not be anytime in the next three days as I have an exam day after tomorrow. I would not suggest making paragraph comments because they will be most likely deleted when I eventually find time to fix the errors.