Walking home through the evening streets of Queens, Peter was thinking. At the same time, he bitterly noted how agonizingly slow and... dull this process had become.
Standard thinking after several hours of a brain juiced up by the Potion of Intellect felt like a cruel mockery. It was as if a blind man was given sight for a couple of hours, shown the world in ultra-high definition, with all its invisible patterns and connections, and then had his eyes gouged out again, leaving only the memory of the light. The world, which had just been a crystal-clear stream of data, was once again turning into a murky, slow-flowing river. His own mind, which he had always considered his greatest asset, now seemed sluggish and inefficient.
But even so, Peter adapted. He forced himself to get used to the old, unhurried thoughts, the absence of thousands of brilliant ideas per second, the non-absolute memory. And now, in this familiar slowness, he was thinking about John.
An ordinary guy. Studies in the same year as MJ, who, however, couldn't really tell him anything about him. Bland clothes, bland appearance, complete, all-encompassing... ordinariness. Peter himself would have been the same if not for his passion for science. But Peter, unlike John, didn't have recipes.
Recipes that turned his scientific worldview upside down. Recipes that, as he now understood, even a genius on the level of Reed Richards or Curt Connors would hardly be able to create. They worked within the framework of physics and genetics. And John's "alchemy" seemed to simply ignore these frameworks, forcing reality to obey its own alien logic. And all this came from a guy who, by his own admission, had no scientific background. So where from?
Okay. Screw it. Peter wisely decided not to interfere in things that weren't his business. When the time comes, John will tell him himself. And if not, there will be reasons for that. All he could do was keep his secret. And he was good at keeping secrets...
This thought flowed smoothly to another, the most serious and carefully guarded secret he had. A secret he uncovered almost by accident, simply by applying the scientific method where others saw only coincidences.
The identity of Spider-Woman. His lab colleague, Gwen Stacy.
Naturally, she had no idea that he knew. And Peter himself... he just couldn't help but notice. At first, there was a hypothesis, born from a simple comparison of facts: moments when Gwen suddenly left work ("I urgently need to see a doctor," "family problems") coincided strikingly with the appearance of the heroine on the streets of the city, as trumpeted by news sites.
Just out of interest, he created a password-protected file on his computer. A spreadsheet. In one column—the time and reason for Gwen's absence. In the other—the time and place of Spider-Woman's appearances according to news reports and police reports. After a month of observation, the conclusion was obvious: during all this time, Gwen Stacy in the lab and Spider-Woman on the streets of New York were never in two places at the same time. The correlation was one hundred percent.
After that, Peter began to notice small details. A small scratch on her cheekbone, which she tried to hide with foundation, the day after Spider-Woman stopped a robbery by flying through a window. A deep scratch on her forearm, perfectly matching a news photo where the heroine was dodging a criminal's knife. A slight limp after a hard landing that he saw in an eyewitness video.
But most of all, he was struck by her unnatural regeneration. Scratches and bruises that would take a week to heal on a normal person disappeared on her overnight. Even the phrase "heals like a dog" was inappropriate here. It was a biological anomaly.
Naturally, Peter didn't tell anyone about his observations and suspicions. Not even Gwen herself. Why? To burden her with another secret, another reason to worry? He respected heroes who sincerely helped others. As Uncle Ben once told him when the first report about Spider-Woman was shown on TV: "With great power comes great responsibility." Gwen used her power responsibly. A little reckless and risky, in his humble opinion, but who was he to tell her what to do?
At least, who was he before? A scrawny student, with almost no friends, living off his aunt and uncle.
And who is he now?
The past evening changed everything. Now he knew how to create a combat stimulant that turns a person into a predator. He knew how to create a muscle stimulant, the very principle of which made his scientific core cringe. He knew how to create "Proteus"—a fabric that was decades ahead of modern technology. He now had real power in his head, in his hands. Power capable of changing the world.
And with it, as his uncle's voice echoed in his memory, comes responsibility.
What's the point of all these stimulants, of cool protective fabric, if they're just going to gather dust in a box at John's place? Isn't it irresponsible to have power and not use it for good? He could become a real hero. The one he had always dreamed of being deep down...
But these were not thoughts for today, or even tomorrow. He needed to think everything through carefully, work with John, and maybe even discuss this with him. Who knows what other surprises this guy has in store? Especially given his latest "assignment."
The Ghost Orchid. A special flower that Peter had never heard of before, and which was a key component of the Potion of Intellect. The task set by John was both simple and incredibly complex: to understand what the alkaloid "Phantasmin" contained in the flower's pollen was. Analyze its structure, properties, and find a way to synthesize its analogue. John helpfully left him one flower in a special container, after first instructing him on how to care for it. And these instructions... again went beyond the bounds of science. However, Peter was already starting to get used to this madness.
But besides the Orchid itself, John left him something much more valuable. The very recipe for the Potion of Intellect. It wasn't just a list of ingredients. It was an act of the highest trust, which Peter simply could not and dared not betray.
And he wasn't planning to. On the contrary, he was going to go all out in studying this strange flower, giving it his all, 200%. He would build a theoretical foundation, formulate dozens of hypotheses, conduct all possible analyses, so that he would have something to rely on before the final brainstorming session. A storm that he would conduct under the influence of his own, created potion.
Besides the synthesis of Phantasmin, they had other, even more ambitious tasks. To improve the potion, perhaps change its form factor to pills or capsules. And ideally... to achieve a permanent effect. At the mere thought of it, Peter gasped. A permanent, irreversible intellectual buff. This was a goal worthy of a genius. And these temporary sessions of "insight" would have to be used to the fullest.
Peter walked along the night street, a faint smile playing on his face.
Intellect. Something he secretly took pride in all his life.
It turns out, it can be several orders of magnitude cooler. And Peter was incredibly excited about what other heights he had yet to conquer.
Creating Blade's alchemical grenades turned out to be a surprisingly meditative process. This was thanks to the "Master Clockmaker." A skill that turned out to extend far beyond gears and springs. It gave me inhuman precision and accuracy in my movements, turning dangerous work with volatile chemicals into a precise dance. Not a single extra drop, not a single wrong move.
In four hours of focused work, I created five copies of each of the three grenades. And I was more than pleased with the result.
[Created Potion "Solar Flare." Difficulty: Low. Received +100 OP!]
[Created Potion "Garlic Cloud." Difficulty: Low. Received +100 OP!]
[Created Potion "Silver Gel." Difficulty: Minimal. Received +50 OP!]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Gain access to 30 new chapters ahead at:
https://patreon.com/redofic