The bell's shrill echo faded into the hum of footsteps and conversation. Kaine walked alone through the corridor — that liminal space between classrooms and the world. He could still hear Harry's voice in fragments, cheerful, persistent, lodged somewhere in his memory like an echo he hadn't asked for.
It had been… tolerable. Statistical anomaly, really. A conversation that didn't end with screaming or blood or the sound of a man begging for his life. He supposed that qualified as progress, though the benefit-to-cost ratio was still debatable.
The next corridor stretched long and pale under flickering lights. Kaine's eyes tracked each bulb, half-noting their wattage drop as he passed — small distractions that kept his mind quiet. The engineering lab was open to his right, and as always, it caught his attention.
Through the door's window, he saw Dr. Mendel Stromm lecturing to a group of undergraduates, a tangle of wires and small servo motors strewn across metal tables. The room buzzed with activity, with theory and experimentation, with life. Kaine paused just long enough to take in the rhythm of it — the sparks, the human curiosity, the familiar tang of ozone.
He could have joined the class if he wanted. Could have learned everything they were learning and more. But why? Information was a tool, and he already had access to every schematic, every model, every algorithm ever published. What Stromm offered was a method. Kaine preferred the results.
Still, his gaze lingered on a small contraption on a nearby workbench — a micro-hydraulic actuator, crude but functional. Stromm was talented, though misguided. His ambitions drifted too close to the mechanical imitation of life. Kaine's interest was in the opposite direction — understanding the mechanics within life itself.
He moved on.
Biology. Dr. Curtis Connors.
The lab was nearly empty when Kaine entered, the faint smell of ethanol and formaldehyde blending into the hum of cooling fans and sterilizers. Connors was at his desk, glasses sliding down his nose as he scribbled notes into a research log. The man's coat was wrinkled, his tie loose, his missing arm folded behind his back out of habit. He didn't notice Kaine. Or maybe he chose not to.
Kaine slipped into the far corner — the shadows where he could observe without interference. Approaching Connors now had too many possible outcomes. He calculated the risk mentally: 12.4% probability of immediate suspicion or hostile reaction. Unacceptable. Patience was a resource he still possessed.
For now, he had other data to analyze.
He pulled his sleeve back, slow and deliberate. Underneath, along the inside of his wrist, small circular openings had begun to form — unnatural, organic apertures that pulsed faintly with the rhythm of his heartbeat. They closed and opened with minute muscle flexes, like gills struggling for air.
Kaine retrieved a pair of sterilized tweezers from his bag, aligning them with the precision of a surgeon. He pressed them into the wound and pulled gently.
A thin strand emerged — translucent pink, glistening. Sticky. Elastic. It stretched, clinging between the tweezers and his wrist before snapping free with a faint snap.
He turned it in the light. It was not blood. Not tissue. The texture was protein-based, possibly a variant of silk polymer, incomplete and unstable. The human body wasn't meant to synthesize this. He wasn't purely human anymore.
He tested another sample. Then another. Each strand is thicker, more refined. His regeneration patterns were changing again. The spider-gene wasn't mutating at random — it was reorganizing. He noted the cellular pattern in his head, tracing the theoretical sequence: Protein type SP2-Alpha… secretion response triggered by adrenaline… incomplete webbing adaptation.
"Ah… so this is a sign of further transformation," he murmured, voice low enough to drown in the hum of machinery. "Or was I simply unaware of such a change before…"
He reached for a flask of acetone, pouring just enough to dissolve the biological residue on his tweezers. Evidence destroyed. He dropped the sample into the solution; it fizzled, turned cloudy, and was gone.
Students began to file in, dragging backpacks and voices. Kaine concealed his arm beneath his sleeve before anyone could notice. Connors called the class to order, speaking about mitosis and gene sequencing with the tired enthusiasm of a man who loved the work more than the world it served.
Kaine listened only enough to confirm the man's expertise. His focus was elsewhere. Every cell in his body was trying to tell him something — evolving, adapting. It wasn't decay. It was designed.
By the time Connors began discussing the ethical implications of genetic modification, Kaine had already packed up his notes, sliding them neatly into his bag. He rose quietly and slipped out the side door, avoiding the clusters of students who lingered near the front.
Near the door, he caught sight of one of them — a girl with dark hair and alert eyes: Anya Corazon. Her attention flicked toward him for only a moment, sharp, assessing, suspicious.
Hypervigilant, Kaine noted internally. Trauma response. Potentially observant. Keep profile low; use as an alibi if necessary.
Outside, the air smelled of rain and ozone again. He tightened his jacket around him, mind churning through new equations — ones that weren't written in numbers, but in blood and silk and memory.
The mutation was accelerating. He could feel it.
And somewhere, buried in the shifting code of his body, perfection wasn't just a philosophy anymore. It was becoming inevitable.'
"...This rain is a perfect camouflage., Kaine noted as he walked back inside, he just needed a moment to adjust, after all...
The hallway outside buzzed with life, voices bouncing off lockers, laughter sharp and bright. Kaine's eyes scanned the crowd automatically, picking out familiar signals — energy, hierarchy, the gravitational pull of popularity.
He was looking for Harry.
Because if his mutation was evolving, if his body was generating new functions — silk glands, possibly enhanced cellular adaptation — he needed proper facilities. He needed access.
And Harry Osborn, golden son of Oscorp, was his most direct route to those resources.
Kaine moved through the current of students like a ghost among the living, following the noise, the laughter, the scent of privilege that hung around the popular crowd like cologne.
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[Auther: I have to learn just to make sure this story is lore-accurate...please support emotionally.]