Changes. So Many Changes.

Quicker than I thought possible, I lurched up and emptied the barely digested burrito I knew I'd eaten just nine hours before onto the concrete floor below the operating table I was on. But that knowledge took a backseat for the rest of the memories that poured into my head. My head that felt simultaneously too small and too large all of a sudden.

Muscle spasms wracked through my body and I rolled off the table and into my own vomit as a sob burst from my mouth.

So many memories. So much goddamn pain. All at once.

Getting bit by that spider and gaining superhuman powers. Feeling like my world was crumbling down around me when I realized how utterly different I now was. Becoming Spider-Man. The stress of hiding my new vigilantism from Aunt May, balancing school life with my new 'hobby' of beating up thugs at night, struggling to find a job after University and having to work for pittance under J.J...and then came the heartbreak.

Losing Uncle Ben had been one of the worst nights of my life. Made only worse by it being *my* fault. I'd had the chance to stop that guy but I'd shrugged it off, said it wasn't my responsibility, reasoned 'when did a random stranger help me out of the goodness of their heart?' and 'I'm not the police, so it's not my problem'. Then that...that fucker had gone on to break into my house and kill Uncle Ben.

My inaction, was unforgivable. Every night for years afterwards, I remembered that night when I'd let my soon-to-be Uncle's murderer and played a part in Uncle Ben's murder.

That's when I took on fighting crime with a zeal I'd only ever had for science before that point. Because as Uncle Ben had said to me, with great power comes great responsibility. If I could stop a crime, I had every responsibility to do so lest something bad happens again because of my inaction.

I remember the debt Uncle Ben's death brought to Aunt May and I. I remember having to get a job at the Daily Bugle. I remember dating Betty Brant and then her dumping me because she thought I was still hung up on Liz Allen. Aside from all this, I remember fighting Doc Ock (and how he'd knocked me on my behind the first time), Sandman (and how annoying it had been fighting the guy), Dr. Connors (and then curing him) and then fighting the Sinister Six for the first time too (that was a real close one!).

I went on and on, fighting and making friends with other superhuman vigilantes and even teams of heroes who got a heck of a lot more positive publicity than me. I even began to enjoy it, got more confident because of it...felt more comfortable in my skin. It felt good to do good.

Then I graduated and got into Empire State University. Fought the Rhino and Shocker for the first time. Met Harry Osborn as well.

And I met her. Gwen Stacy, the love of my life.

I remembered the rocky start we'd had, then clearing up the misunderstanding. I remembered falling in love with her and feeling like I'd never be able to get with her. Then she surprised me one night when she leaned over and kissed me, and I remember thinking 'This is it, she's the one'. I remember dating her and how it made every day feel like I was on cloud nine.

The sobbing got worse, tears and snot running down my face as I relived the heartrending memories. Sobs turned to cries of anguish and then screams of despair as the memories went by.

I lashed out physically, hitting the operating table with the back of my fist and it flew away from me with the screeching sound of metal and the heavy bang of it hitting the wall. Rage flooded me at whatever was causing me to relive the memories and then the rage was pointed at one man.

Norman Osborn. Nutjob billionaire and one of the crazies I had to fight on a regular basis. He figured out my identity and knew of me through his own son, Harry. He tracked me down, did his research and then abducted Gwen. I found them on top of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was just like usual, a back and forth fight as I held back so as to not kill him. I loathed him for bringing Gwen into this but at the time I hadn't cracked. Hadn't known what was about to happen. You know, for a guy with an IQ as high as mine...I was shockingly dumb at times. Catastrophically so.

Gwen fell because of him and I raced to catch her. Couldn't catch her, so I tried to web her. My spidey-sense had been going haywire and at the time I thought it was because Osborn was trying to attack me. I was wrong. Oh so wrong.

I remember how joyous I felt when I sensed the web catch her and go taut. How relieved I felt at having saved the love of my life.

Then I heard Osborn cackling maniacally. Then I saw how limp she'd gone.

Then I saw where my web had caught her. Right on the neck.

I'd gotten arrogant. Complacent. I could lift a car with my pinky finger, dodge point blank gunfire even without my spidey-sense, no-sell getting hit by a car and yet despite all my strength, all my speed, all my everything--I'd been too slow. Too useless to save her. Too idiotic to listen to my spidey-sense that tried to warn me of the danger.

She was dead. Gwen Stacy...was dead. Because of me. The rage puttered out and cooled, hardened, into hatred. At myself and Norman Osborn.

Part of me watched on with sick glee while another part was surprised at a divergence to what it thought was going to happen, as I remembered beating the Green Goblin to death.

Blow after blow, I kept punching him. I kept going and going until even his Oz-Serum enhanced flesh and bones gave in. Until he was a misshapen pile of broken bits. By the time I was done, the police had arrived, saw Gwen's body and the pile of flesh I was still beating. You can bet the Daily Bugle and J.J had a field trip with that. It was everything the mustached man had been saying come to life.

And I didn't care.

I began to operate under a different ethos. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I killed Kraven when one of his little hunting trips bore innocent victims. I permanently crippled Rhino by blinding him when I saw him brutally injure a child during one of his bank heists. After that, the rest of the villains I'd usually clash with began to stop coming out as much, probably wondering if they came out and fought me next...what would I do to *them*?

I'll be the first to admit it: I lost my way. Instead of hope, I was spreading fear. And I was drunk with the power it gave me.

After Gwen's death, MJ and I got closer after she and Harry split because of the latter's drug addiction. It mellowed me out a little--I was still angry. Hateful. Bitter. But I had one ray of hope that maybe the world wasn't so bad. I began joking a little more, smiling and laughing more too, and then Harry became the next Green Goblin. It was part for part an exact replica for what happened with Gwen. He kidnapped her, took her to Brooklyn Bridge and we fought.

Except this time, I saved my lover. Yet that wasn't the problem, was it? The problem was that I was putting those I love into crappy situations. Over and over again.

Uncle Ben, Aunt May, Gwen and now MJ.

I pulled myself away from the memories, the images and feelings brought forth in my head and chest feeling like I had hot coals forcibly shoved into me.

Sitting there for who knows how long, shivering and crying, I slowly began to pull myself together.

I opened my eyes and kept them like that because whenever I closed my eyes, the memories would surge to the forefront of my mind again. Deep breaths in and then out was my only way of keeping myself centered and not breaking down into even further of a mess. I pushed myself up, uncaring of my vomit-covered state, and stood. I focused on more recent memories - like 'Why was I here?'. I ignored the other stream of memories for now, the ones from another person, and focused on the memories of Peter B. Parker.

I'd broken up with MJ a few weeks ago--I sidestepped that memory and buried it, no matter how relevant it was to my current circumstances. I searched through the sea of recent memories and found the ones that explained my current circumstances.

Power. Everyone wanted it. I wanted it. I needed it. I couldn't afford to have another Gwen Stacy. One was already too much. Over the two years since her death, I'd been playing the situation over and over in my head, and not just to wallow in self-pity either. I did it so I could think about what I could do better. How *I* could be better.

At first it was training. Before...'that' night, most of my so-called training had come during fights. Spur of the moment innovations with either tech/science and my own powers. I realized if I never wanted something like 'that' to happen again, I needed to put the effort in now, to save myself the heartbreak later. I began actually training. It wasn't easy to workout with muscles like mine but when you have Mr. Fantastic in your phone's contact list, it isn't that hard to sort something out.

I started out training with Ben Grimm aka The Thing. I'd always thought that name was a bit meanspirited--Focus, Parker. I'd started working out with Ben and they'd been on the scene way longer than I had, so they had an entire room filled with stuff to train with. Say what you want about Ben but he was more than willing to put me through my paces.

Though enhanced metabolism aside, my gains were too slow for me. My real progress came in actual combat training.

I relied too much on my spidey-sense. So much so that when it went off 'that' night I ignored it and made a terrible mistake. I needed to train it, make it better, fine tune it so it wasn't just a vague sense that something was gonna go wrong and more like a threat radar. But first I needed to make myself a better fighter without it. Problem; I had no idea how to fight without my spider-sense. It'd well and truly become my crutch.

Good luck, I guess, that I found Shang-Chi when I did.

When I was web-slinging around the city, doing my nightly patrol, I came across what looked like a bum about to be killed by a bunch of mobsters. Just as I was about to step in, the supposed bum burst forward and took down a dozen men armed with guns within the blink of an eye. Then his gaze landed where I was perched on a rooftop overlooking the fight.

I took a chance and asked for his help. He seemed curious and when I told him the barest minimum about my wanting to learn to fight without my powers hand-holding me all the time, he seemed interested.

He gave me a card with a number and an address in the end, telling me to go there tomorrow morning at dawn.

The rest is history, really. Over a year of training and he'd helped me become a better fighter, develop a style of my own and even introduced me to the Iron Fist. Fun times, really. A nice break from everything. But it wasn't enough. I was a better fighter, yes, but I was still too weak in my eyes. Looking back on it with a fresher perspective, I was being a perfectionist and overly hard on myself - but that's trauma for you. You never give yourself a break. If there's something you can do, you have to do it. You need to do it.

So, I looked for ways to get stronger.

And the way I figured out, led here.

You see, I discovered I was only given a restrained version of what the Spider-DNA could give me. The fact I'd been 'betrayed' by the thing that gave me my powers had gnawed and ate at me for weeks, until I decided to undo those restraints. It was stupid. Reckless. Rash. But it had worked.

Full genetic unlock on my Spider-Human mixed DNA. And without turning me into some sort of hideous Man-Spider thing. Yay me.

Already, I could feel the differences as I stood in my own vomit and in the cold, dank basement I'd got for myself. Who knew abandoned warehouses cost so much to buy and then renovate into being your vigilante base? I did. Now I did, anyway. A few patents dispersed into the world through ol' Stretch and I got a decent sum of money. Money with with I'd brought this place and the equipment used to made the serum I'd taken to unlock myself fully.

I was already used to my muscles feeling powerful, but now they felt downright herculean. Even the dim-lit basement laboratory I was in was clear to my eyes like I had..."Huh, I've developed night vision," I mumbled to myself, scratching at the chin underneath the stubble growing there.

A slight draft caught my attention as it brushed against the hairs along my arm. I nearly flinched at the sensitivity but instead chose to focus on the feeling. Or feelings, now that I actually concentrated. It was like I could feel the vibrations and air currents in the room. It was like a lesser version of spidey-sense.

"Need to run some tests..." I continued muttering before finally catching a whiff of myself, "On second thought, a shower seems more important. Jeez," I winced at the harsh smell of bile and half-digested food before shaking free whatever I could.

The shower I had down here wasn't high-tech. If anything, it was low-tech. Just a tank filled with purified rainwater connected to a shower head I'd brought cheap. Oh and a valve to control the flow. Water pressure was terrible but it worked.

I stood there and rinsed myself off, too used to the ice-cold water after spending so much time down here, before lathering myself up with soap and then washing that away as well.

Done with that, I walked over to the little bed in my lab and sat down, looking across at the full-body mirror opposite me. I couldn't see any massive differences. Maybe an inch or two taller, a little more muscular in both definition and mass, some scars I'd had before were now gone...but I hadn't grown four extra arms. So that was a plus.

Still, I let my head fall into my hands and groaned, "Why'd you have to rush ahead like that, Parker?" I questioned myself. I allowed the other memory stream to come to the forefront. One of an average man with an un-average will. An irregular reader of comics but what he had read, showed a reality where Peter Parker did grow four extra arms. A reality where he became an abomination - a humanoid spider...thing.

I wasn't sure what had happened, but something had merged two...me's together. Two Peter Parkers, but one was a vigilante and the other existed in a world without all this crap. I didn't know which one had more luck, honestly.

Though I did smile knowing there were other multiverses out there. Ones where Gwen was alive and well. One where she was even Spider-Woman.

I chuckled at the thought before rubbing my face and bringing my head back up to look at myself.

No need to think about any of that. Who knows, maybe I became the same type of nutcase I fight on a daily basis and I'm imagining all these new memories. Besides, I've got some tests to run on myself.

. . .

"That's pretty...funky," I whispered to myself, losing myself in the research of my own body. Everything was still the same. Proportional prowess of a spider and everything...but unlike before, now it was like the spider-part of me was on steroids.

I'd given up trying to use a needle to get a blood sample, having to use my teeth to draw blood and even get a skin sample. Had to use a handheld scanner, courtesy of Mr. Fantastic, to get the rest of the info.

Power-to-weight ratio for my muscles had gone through the roof again alongside density. Bone density had increased, alongside their tensile strength, and I'd even found traces of naturally occurring carbon fiber lining them. Skin density, overall resistance and shock absorption had become so high I was no longer surprised a needle couldn't pierce my skin. Not at Luke Cage's level but a damn lot closer than before. If the numbers are right, low caliber and even some higher caliber rounds wouldn't get through my skin. And if they could? Sure as heck aren't getting through the muscle and bone after that.

Non-radioactive sperm and bodily fluids--I just had to check. Those new memories have got me questioning everything I'd taken for granted up until now.

Anyway, metabolism has increased again. Better healing and regeneration, then? Probably. I don't feel like I'm chomping at the bit for food either. How's that work? More efficient usage of energy or does it only drain me when I'm injured? Better absorption of nutrients? So many questions, so little--

*Bzzt!* *Bzzt!* *Bzzzzt!*

I was knocked out of my thoughts by my phone vibrating. A text. Considering the lacking contacts I have, and I have a clue who was messaging me. Carefully - I'd already gone through this 'suddenly stronger than before' rodeo once, so I knew I'd need to get used to my new physiology little by little - I picked up the phone. It was battered and cracked, an older version of an iPhone, but it worked and that was enough for me.

Opening up the phone, I was met by yet another reminder of my broken relationship with MJ when I saw my phone background. Yeah, I was one of those guys who had a picture of him and his girl as his background, get over it. Vowing to change it soon enough, I opened up my texts and there it was.

[MJ: Are you still coming to pick up your things? Xx]

Sighing, I typed out my reply while mumbling it at the same time, "Yeah...Be round in ten minutes," I stopped and leaned back into the dingy swivel chair I was sitting in, "Should I add kisses at the end? I mean, she did it so...and not putting any would seem a little cold," I pondered the deepest of philosophies before deciding on just adding one 'x' at the end before sending the message. "Who says Peter Parker isn't a social maestro?" I said sardonically with a grim grin before dropping the phone and stretching my arms.

Best to finish this stuff here, go to MJ's, get my stuff and then come back for some shut eye. That way I can right back into it after I wake up.

Having decided what to do, I stood up and wandered over to a pile of clothes. Picking out some underwear, jogging bottoms, a loose fitting shirt and a thick parka jacket, I got it all on before pulling on some socks and trainers.

I caught myself in the mirror as I left the basement/lab/place-I'd-been-living-out-of-for-a-while and self-consciously pawed at the stubble on my chin. Hopefully MJ doesn't think I'm spiraling after the break up. I really don't want to worry her - I broke up with her to keep her safe. Not to keep her up late at night wondering if I was looking after myself or not.

Before I could stop myself, I found myself reminiscing on some of the times I wanted to keep her up late at night. The magic she could perform with her mouth. The whimpers and mewls she'd make when I performed some magic with my own. The way she'd shake and cry my name when I really went at it--Okay, so that's not normal. I'm a red-blooded 23-year-old and sure, I might not be a teenager anymore, but I had a more than healthy libido.

But right now? After a few saucy thoughts? I felt a sexual hunger I'd never experienced before. Like an animal...in heat...Oh frick. Sugar. Darn--No, I can allow myself this. "Fucking hell, you genuine fucking idiot, Parker!" I harshly reprimanded myself in a whisper and softly thudded my head again the concrete entrance for the exit to the basement.

The crack in the concrete didn't help my mood one bit.

My serum had worked. It'd brought my Spider-DNA out of it's restricted state. Helped bring it more into balance with the rest of me. Ironed out the kinks, so to speak. But I'd just willing let a much more beastly part of me, responsible for instincts I still hadn't fully understood, become a much bigger part of myself. Animals, insects and arachnids alike all have one goal in life - to breed and pass on their genetic heritage. Humans have the same goal but we're not inherently controlled by our instincts like that.

But now I - in all my infinite wisdom - have allowed myself a second set of instincts that don't have that kind of control.

I can already feel that I'm not gonna just lose myself and start attacking women or flashing people on the street. But this amped up sex drive...it was the last thing I wanted when I took that serum. And here I am, about to go to my exes house and see her look all sexy with her beautiful red hair and her brilliant green eyes and that body with curves that just wouldn't quit--"Stop, stop," I slapped myself on the cheeks, "Don't make me get the spray bottle, Peter."

How the hell was I gonna survive this?