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Peter sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, the thin material of the mask over top of his face sliding against the same material that was over his fingers. “Look, Strange.” He started, “I’m not asking for the world here, I just need some help. It isn’t like Shocker to go all mumbo jumbo all of a sudden with this kind of stuff. Just. See if there’s some kinda…” He rubbed the back of his neck, “I dunno, disruption in the, the magic whatevermc-callits. Or something. If that’s a thing you can do.”
Sitting there, eating a club sandwich in his sanctum sanctorum, Stephen swallowed down the last vestiges of meats, cheese, and bread that were in his mouth. “Look, Peter–” he began, his tone carrying the same gravitas of epic proportions as it usually did. “My hands are rather full at the moment–”
“I can see that.” Peter deadpanned.
Stephen continued on, taking a bite, chewing, and swallowing, “And while your eyes peer and gaze onto my physical form, you have not seen where I have been, and even currently am in the spiritual, magical, and astral realms beyond mortal comprehension.”
Peter pointed a finger at him, “Well then– there, can’t you just use one of your spare astral eyes or something to look at his, like, wobble waves in the magicsphere or whatever?”
The doctor let out a bit of a huff, “Peter–”
Peter had gotten used to holding in his wince at his name.
Strange, unaware of this, continued, “I recognize that this malevolent malcontent is causing serious issues for you, for New York, and if left unchecked, possibly more for the people of this planet. Yet This does not mean I can suddenly shift my focus any more, I have already dragged a small part of myself away from the 7th plane of breobexath in which I am doing serious work in the war efforts.”
Peter squinted, “I have no idea if you’re messing with me right now or not.”
Strange chewed a bite of his sandwich, scarfing some more down, and swallowed, “You’re more than welcome to look yourself.”
Spidey looked both ways, “Uh, doc I don’t know if you know this but I don’t exactly–”
He was cut off, however, by Stephen muttering something under his breath, a set of magic rings flickering around his wrist, and jabbing his hand forward, palm up, to the web head’s chest.
Peter felt himself leave his body. Suddenly floating in the air, he felt weightless, and he felt… different. He wasn’t Spider-Man like this. The clothes were something he’d worn before, that Peter had worn before.
Stephen looked at him quizzically. Eyes furrowing in concern, confusion, attempting to dissect the information in front of him.
Adjusting to his new astral self, he attempted to balance himself, keeping his body upright. “Geeze Strange can’t you give a–”
He blinked.
That wasn’t his voice.
That wasn’t his voice at all.
He did not have blood to run cold, he did not have sweat to run down his back, and yet, he knew unequivocally, irrevocably, he was indeed, fucked.
Strange looked at the astral form in front of him.
There was a woman, standing there, right where Peter’s soul should be.
Had he been replaced? Body swapped? Had what happened with Octavius happened once more, this time with a woman? Some Jane Doe he had never met before sweeping away the identity that was Peter Parker? That didn’t seem very likely, and Strange had hope that more people would not pester him in the same way.
Someone he had never met before wasn’t quite right either. Her face was familiar. Her voice too. In fact, she looked and sounded exactly like Peter, just if he was a–.
His eyebrows shot up to his hairline, he gasped, and proceeded to choke on his club sandwich.
Pet– Parker, he corrected himself, scrambled back into the body he was used to while Strange began cleaning the mess he made.
They sat at the table in a deeply awkward silence.
“...”
“...”
Strange, being the instigator of this situation, felt the need to speak up first. “You know, Pe– Parker, there’s really nothing wrong with this. Yes, the road ahead is perilous, and it is… Winding, and confusing, and difficult, but that doesn’t mean you cannot, or should not go about molting your skin and becoming who you are meant to be.”
Peter took in a deep, deep, breath. “Stephen. I’m not gonna talk about this with you. This? Whole thing? It never happened. I wasn’t here. You didn’t see me. Consider this my personal spell of forget you saw it.”
The sorcerer supreme began speaking, “Parker, I’m sure–”
And was quickly and swiftly interrupted, “Don’t– don’t do that man. It’s Peter. Just call me Peter. Or Spider-Man. Or whatever. Don’t– don’t do that whole song and dance number.”
The sound of Strange’s foot tapping against the floor was repeated as he attempted to figure out how to navigate this blunder of a situation. “I’m sure.” He started, speaking slow and careful, extra picky about every word that exited his mouth, while not leaving his focus away from the spiritual warfare he was engaged in at the same time. “That if you let yourself process this, you’ll find it worth it, embracing this new sense of life, this new aspect of your mental, that too, can become your physical.”
“Stephen.” Parker growled at him, taking on a voice nobody had heard since he had put on the venom suit, “I don’t. Want. To Hear it. This. Didn’t. Happen.”
He started to walk out of the sanctum sanctorum, not looking back, “I’ll go find Shocker myself.”
“God your poker face sucks Ben.” Johnny mocked.
“Shaddup.” He grumbled, squinting over at the blonde.
The clean pristine interior of the Baxter building hummed with various gadgets, whatsits, and machinery as Ben, Sue, and Johnny all sat around a table, each with two cards in front of them. An empty chair sat half spun away from the table, two cards face-down in front of it.
Smirking towards the rubble-made-man, Johnny nodded his head towards Reed’s empty seat, “You should swap cards. Your hand is bad.”
Ben groaned, “My hand is fine, loudmouth. Now are you gonna call? Or fold? Its poker night, not poker wait a week for Johnny to stall one hand!”
Sue seemed a little lost in thought, looking out the window as she saw Spider-Man swing away, off to go do something or other. “Do you guys think he’s been phoning it in lately?”
“Lately?” Ben started, “Johnny’s been phoning it in since day one.”
“No no.” She said, shaking her head, “Petey.”
Taken aback from the verbal lashing he was about to deliver on Ben, Johnny found himself somewhat stunned. “Uhhh… I mean… I guess I haven’t seen him around that much. Webhead hasn’t slung his way around here in…” He started to lose himself in thought, “Huh. It's been a while since he dropped by here.”
Ben leaned back in his chair, “All business no pleasure I guess. Must be busy.”
She let out a bit of a sigh, “I just– when we were out in the far reaches of space a few weeks ago fighting Harry Osborn’s robot past clone from the future*, he just seemed… kinda… on autopilot.”
*[TO SEE THAT RABBLE-ROUSING ADVENTURE, CHECK OUT “FANTASTIC FOUR BECOMES FIVE! RED AND BLUE MEET GREEN!”]
Johnny hummed as he went ahead and folded, “It was kinda… off-color how he ended one of his quips with ‘or something’. Usually he’s got better material. Y’know I thought it was just because I was totally destroying him in a battle of wits but, he seemed to really barely even do our usual banter.”
Everyone’s heads turned as the door to the lounging area opened, Reed Richard having brought someone else with him in tow. He first stretched his head over to look at his spot at the table, “Good, cards are the same angle they were before.” Before letting it snap back to its proper spot at his shoulders. “Alright everyone, first of all, you were all wrong about who was at the door, it was our lovely local mage, Doctor Strange. Second of all, he has come here because he has something important to say. I don’t know much else more than that, so I’ll leave it to him.”
Cards were lowered, attention was held, and Reed sat down at his spot, making sure all his chips were fully aligned in perfect towers while Strange focused on his newest spell, conjuring up what to say.
“Hello. Fantastic Four.” He started, and supposed it was good enough, “Everyone in this room is aware of the identity of Spider-Man. Correct?”
With varying levels of hesitancy, the group affirmed his statement.
“Good. Yes.” He said, clasping his hands together, clearing his throat, “Well, I have been given an unbroachable topic that must be broached, and a gate in my path that has no key, and, as it were, I am going to simply…”
“Jam a bunch of crud in there until it opens?” Johnny helpfully supplied.
“That about sums it up, yes.” The doctor said while he nodded, “This is about… Peter.” The word came out awkward and stilted from his mouth, “And I’m aware that you all are some level of close with him.”
Sue smiled, “Oh! Pete’s like family to us, we’ve invited him to some of our getaways. That guy could seriously do with more vacations.”
Stephen beamed, unclasping his hands to simply clap them together once more, “Fantastic! This is perhaps the best case scenario then. Now. I will be… as blunt as permissible since addressing this in the first place is likely already stretching myself past the spider’s armor and fortified walls, however, if you do consider yourself to be friends of… Peter…” Once again the word felt like ash in his mouth.
The blonde smiled, flipping his hands open wide out, as if swinging open a gate, “Duh! Pete’s a real great guy. I think anyone would be lucky to have him… but if you tell him I said that directly, I will deny it.”
“I think you should invite him over, and perhaps end up having a… very serious talk. About… male and female spiders.”
“Ah.” Ben said, “M’kay.”
“Yes.” Doctor Strange replied, feeling grateful someone understood.
“The hell does that mean?” Johnny said, looking between the two of them.
Reed rubbed his chin in thought, and he began thinking about male and female spiders. What were the differences? The similarities? What could Doctor Strange’s cryptic message mean?
Strange and Ben shared a look in the spacious lounge, the air conditioned room feeling blessedly cool for the awkward sweat Stephen had accrued over this conversation. The rocky rubble man leaned back in his chair, “Yeah… explains a lot.”
“And, it is very important that I was never here, and you did not hear this from me.” Strange added, placing his hands in front of him as though he was making peace with raptors.
“Makes sense.” Ben said.
Reed’s brain was going into overdrive, calculations, textbook diagrams, theorems and scientific inquiries, studies and gene splice testing, Spider-Man, what Spider-Man means as a spider, how does that compare to him being Spider-Man. What are female spiders known for? Well, they’re bigger, they’re stronger, and they tend to be less busy or restless than male spiders. They’re more likely to be on their own, more likely to be less out in the open. Of course, then there’s the most popular piece of trivia, they often cannibalize, specifically after mating.
His brain went into overdrive.
Big.
Strong.
On their own.
In the shadow.
Cannibal.
His eyes popped open.
The symbiote.
Doctor Strange most likely saw into some sort of future, or perhaps saw into Parker’s brain, saw some symbiote, maybe saw some alien prophecy from some chaotic divine being. That’s why they couldn’t tell anyone that he was here, some cosmic loophole maybe. Reed didn’t super understand how all of that worked, and figured it would be best left to the professional. He had wide eyes, full of concern, already trying to figure out what to do, “I see. This… is… thank you, Doctor Strange. We’ll get right on this. Maybe run some tests before it’s too late. Try and figure something out.”
Ben looked around the room, furrowing his brow, “Wouldn’t… you just use… hormones?”
“Heh.” Johnny snorted, “Whore moans.”
Reed pointed a finger out, shaking his arm from his elbow with emphasis at his old friend, “Hormones.” His mind raced, electricity firing off in every direction of his brain, each chemical that made up every atom in his head all working in complete synergy. Ben was right. Hormones would be perfect. If there was any disturbance to the balance, it would be obvious that there was something with the symbiote in there, how far along it would be, and what could be done, rather than having to experiment from the ground up at a genetic level. Reed smiled at him, “And you say you’re nothing but brawn. That’s genius, Ben.”
Ben, who felt very patronized at the moment, just looked from side to side, a bit of a growing frown, “... M’kay.”
Ultimately, if they wanted any real answers, they’d have to go and get–
“Spideyyyyy!” Johnny called out, arms open wide.
“Hey Torch.” Peter replied, giving a small wave to his friend.
Reed walked out of the front of the Baxter building where the other two stood, the hustle and bustle of New York relatively calm in this area. Mr. Fantastic smiled at the family friend a little warily, “It’s good to see you, Spider-Man.”
“Yeah uh y’know, likewise.” replied the Spider with a bit of a shrug. He saw Reed smile back at him warmly, and started to walk the two back in the building. The automatic glass doors swished open as the building’s security recognized the three familiar people.
Deciding to rib his best friend a little, Johnny nudged Peter, “Aw c’mon Webface, aren’t you grateful to be in the presence of moi~?”
Despite himself, Peter let out a little snort of a laugh, “Sure dude, I’m grateful to you, and all the other dumpsters in this city. Thank you for your service.”
“Hey!” Johnny said, flicking Spidey on the temple as they approached the elevator.
Peter’s snort had turned into a chuckle, and as the steel doors opened up with a ding, the three walked inside, with an elastic finger reaching out to press the floor to the research facility.
The clearing of Reed’s throat broke up the two poking and flicking each other, “I wish our meeting was all smiles but, there is some business to be done.”
“Yeah…” Peter started with a sigh, a twinge of disappointment present, as well as a lack of surprise, “I figured this was a call from ‘Mr Fantastic’ and not ‘Reed Richard’. Lay it on me. What’s the sitch?”
The elevator filled with the sound of the deep breath Reed took in, “Look, Peter–”
Reed saw how he tensed up at saying his name, “--And don’t worry, our building’s security is top notch, I can assure you, nobody will hear me say that name, I know you’re jumpy about it, but we’ve only made it more secure since you’ve last been here. I’ve made sure any instance of that name gets scrubbed and deleted automatically.”
At that, he seemed to ease up in tension, “Ah, okay, that’s… comforting, actually.”
With that having been settled, Reed continued, “Peter, I won’t really mince words too much with you, we’re worried about the possibility of another symbiote.”
Johnny’s eyebrows shot up, “Holy shit THAT’S what’s going on!?”
“How– did you not know that?” Spidey said, squinting at his friend, “You live here.”
He then turned to Reed, and his voice took a more serious, grave tone, “Are you sure?”
Peter’s worries did not ease up when that response was met with a sigh, “I can’t be entirely certain, but that’s why we wanted to call you over. If there was any way to know, it would be to get some tests done.”
The elevator slowed to a stop, and the doors opened with a satisfying chime, revealing a white, pristine lab, with Sue already running some tests, examining spiders, and, much to a little bit of the webhead’s comfort, making sure they were unharmed during these trials.
Sitting nearby, bored as a stone, was Ben, who, upon seeing Peter, got a little more intense looking, and yet, that intensity looked less like a man on-guard for himself, or how he looks when ready and prompted to fight. It looked as if he was preparing for a whole different kind of battle, one against nobody in this room. He gave Peter a nod. A little hesitantly, he nodded back.
“Ahhh Petey! Welcome, welcome!” Sue said, waving at them all as they stepped out of the cramped moving nook. She then proceeded to give a kiss to the head that was on the end of a very stretched out neck that went to her, of which it slunk back to Reed’s body with a beaming smile on his face, for just a moment, before he went back to being all business.
Peter found himself hooked up to a machine, tapping his foot in thought. “I just don’t get it.”
Sue seemed to be measuring her data set, the hormones of a standard spider, while Reed managed his own data, Peter’s hormone levels.
“Get what?” Sue asked, watching as bars slid up and down with only slight variation.
“You know I would think you’d be looking for, y’know, goop. Like the symbiote stuff specifically. Not… checking out my T levels.”
Ben turned his head, lifting it away from the newspaper he was reading as he heard ‘goop’, furrowing his brow quizzically at the scientists.
“Well Peter, it's an important part of the process.” Sue said, “We have extensive knowledge on what’s normal for humans, and normal for spiders, and so if we can figure out what parts of those are influencing you, we can find anything that’s off!”
Sue was surprised to see his face get so pale.
“... anything?”
Reed put a hand on his shoulder, “I know it's a scary situation Peter, and I know it won’t be easy, but we’ve got it all under control. If there’s anything that smells symbiote, we’ll have it under control.”
“What.” Ben deadpanned, fully letting the newspaper flop forwards in his mighty hands.
“The… symbiote.” Reed said, confused in Ben’s confusion. “That’s what this is about, that’s what… it was about. You suggested checking for hormone levels yourself! I was shocked at how smart the idea was, well, no offense Ben.”
“What.”
“Yeah Ben! Get with the program!” Johnny called out, as if not shocked by this information mere minutes ago.
“That’s. Not at all what he said.” Remarked Ben with what could only be described as, a tone, “If I had known this is what you all were doing with this I woulda stopped this myself.”
“Ix nay on the an may!” said the flamed wonder, swiping his fingers at his throat.
Ben’s words stopped Reed in his tracks. He looked at Ben, then back at the machinery, then back at Spider-Man, who was currently unmasked, sitting on a stool, with sensor patches all over him. “If it wasn’t for this–” He murmured, “Which I really do believe is what’s going on, and we should take it seriously,” He continued in a standard voice, “Then why did you suggest hormones?”
Peter’s eyes were wide and his pupils were tiny. All he could hope was that Benn Grimm would treat this situation with subtlety and a deep discretion. In this dire, dire situation, it was the very, small, distant light at the end of a tunnel.
He shrugged, “I thought you were gonna like– make spider estrogen or something for her. You’re the scientist.”
As it turned out, the light was an oncoming train.
“Aw c’mon Ben! Pete’s a guy!” Said Johnny, elbowing his best friend.
Everyone immediately could see the way Peter shrank in on himself, while Johnny wasn’t even facing him.
“Though–” He put a hand to his chin, “if she was a girl, she’d make for a cute chick I think.”
“Bgwuhgbh”
His head snapped towards Peter, whose face was beet red, and looked thoroughly humiliated and embarrassed, and like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Johnny’s eyes widened in the realization, “Oh my god Spidey’s a chick.”
They sat in the awkward silence of the science room for a while, Peter fully scrunched in on himself in the stool he was sitting on.
“You know P–” Sue hesitated, “Petey,” she reluctantly started to continue, and Reed only now processed the similarity in which she said her name and the way Doctor Strange did, “There’s– it’s– honestly pretty accessible to start. You– it's– I want you to know this doesn’t change anything. You’re still family. You’re still one of us.”
“Yeah!” Johnny added, “And like, my best friend’s a girl! That’s like, pretty huge and progressive and cool of me.” He said, patting himself on the back.
“Oy vey.” Ben said, his palm over his face.
Peter scoffed.
“You know, I could get you a good endocrinologist, on the house, pre-paid. It wouldn’t be hard and it would be the least we could do, get you covered. I know starting is hard, but… it's the least you can do for yourself.”
“That’s all nice of you to say, Richard.” Peter started, biting back some venom, and yet could not help but spill some out, “But it won’t work on me. So stop. I already decided, I can’t stop being Spider-Man. Which means you’re gonna be stuck with Peter Parker. Regular ‘ol Peter. Vanilla. Original flavor!” He said, a wretched level of cynical mock flair in his voice, “Now with twice the dysphoria! That’s that. It’s just how it is.”
Reed put a hand near the family friend, “But it can be changed. Peter, there’s patches, pills, injections–”
“I ALREADY TRIED.”
The room fell deathly silent.
“I already tried.”
“What and you just gave up?!” Johnny said, pointing a finger at Peter, “I thought your whole big selling point, your whole shtick was always getting back up!”
“Y’know what Johnny.” Peter started, and Johnny already wished he could suck the words back into his mouth at the sound of his friend’s voice, “You’re so right. I do get back up, and try, and I fight again and again and again. Even when it hurts like hell and I don’t think I can breathe and I’m about to black out from the pain. How about you sit there, for eleven months. Eleven. Full. Months. That’s 334 days, mind you. Eleven twelfths of a whole calendar year. And watch as you don’t even make a dent. Do it. Go ahead, have fun, and then me and you can have a nice looooong chat about getting up. Because I did. I did for so long. And I’m not doing that to myself again.”
A set of pursed lips ensured that Johnny wouldn’t let his mouth open again after that.
“That’s what I thought.”
Sue’s shoulders sagged, “Oh Petey…” and she wanted to wrap her up in the biggest hug ever, but figured the last thing she needed was to feel in her own body right now.
“That… that doesn’t make sense.” Reed started, eyes frantic, assessing the outcome of such things, “That’s not really how human anato–” he looked at the spider on their research table. “Oh.”
“Ding ding ding.” Spidey said, voice completely defeated, “Winner of a brand new… car. Or. whatever– I dunno.” She waved her hand in front of her as if swatting away the unfinished quip. “Yeah. Doesn’t work.”
Mrs. Richard’s eyes lit up, “But you’re a scientist, couldn’t you synthesize something that could?”
Peter let out a little mock chuckle, “Ohohoh! Well you see, I actually did think about that.” Suddenly his voice went back to being more serious, “Two words. Curtis. Connors.”
She nodded thoughtfully, before she blinked, opened her mouth and shut it a few times, and then asked, “Why… didn’t you come to us about this? We care about you, Petey. I… you’re family.”
“It was Johnny wasn’t it?” Ben offered flatly.
“HEY!” The Torch called out.
The room watched Peter put out his hand and wiggle it in rotation side-to-side in a ‘so-so’ motion, “Yeah kinda.”
“WHA–” Johnny reeled before leaning forward, “DUUDE! I AM LITERALLY SO SUPPORTIVE! THE MOST SUPPORTIVE! I LOVE WOMEN! SO MUCH! I LOVE CHICKS! CHICKS ARE GREAT! I THINK THERE SHOULD BE LIKE A MILLION! AND I’M LIKE, SO SUPPORTIVE OF GAY AND TRANS PEOPLE! WHAT THE HELL, MAN!?”
He paused for a moment, and looked a little awkward, “I mean– girllllll, girlypop,,,, queeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen,,,,,,,,” he put out his hands like finger-guns, “sistahhhhhh–”
“Stop. Just– stop talking.” Peter said, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger.
Johnny pinched at one side of his lips, and with a ‘ZzzZZ’ noise, he slid his hands to the other side.
“Well. However it happened, we know now. And we can, and want to help.” Reed said, getting back to the topic at hand after Johnny had dispelled some tension.
“Even if we got through all that–” Peter started, head hung low, hands limply hanging off his lap, “it wouldn’t be good for Spider-Man. I uh, I saw girls talking about muscle atrophy, and there are days where I barely scrape by.”
“Oh, well that’s no issue.” Sue said, with a chuckle.
This got an eye-roll from the webhead, “I’m not putting steroids into estrogen.”
“No no no!” Sue reached out her hands, “Peter– Peter– Peter–, think this through.” She said, a smile had crept up on her face, “Hormone Replacement Therapy, it simply adds the hormones to your body, and overtime, it knows what to do with them to acclimate to, well, puberty more or less, you’d go through what your DNA goes through for the process of its species. For us, humans, that means some muscle loss.”
“Thanks Mrs. Richard.” Peter deadpanned, “I’m glad you recapped my misery.”
“No!” She scoffed out a small laugh, “No no no, you’re not getting it Petey! You’re NOT full human, that’s why it didn’t work. So, if it was part SPIDER, what would a SPIDER go through if it could transition just like us?”
“Well it would–” His eyes snapped open. “Oh.”
“Right!” She said, with a smile, “Petey your muscles wouldn’t atrophy through estrogen, if we put the same spider DNA you have right now, synthesized it with estrogen, and got you through HRT, you would almost certainly get stronger!”
Peter blinked. “Huh.” She processed that information. Slowly, it sank in, “Holy shit.” She paused once more, “Is that why I get the most envy looking at She-Hulk?”
Sue let out a small laugh, “Probably!”
This got a loving smile out of Reed, seeing his wife in full-gear reminded him so much of why he adored that woman.
Johnny thought about a version of Peter that was a girl, tall, and muscular, and had to sit down, hand on his chin, thinking for a moment. Reconsidering everything he thought he knew.
“... Patty.”
The four looked at her, “That’s… I wanted that to be the name. Patty. I thought maybe Patricia but, I dunno, feels too long and formal. I think, I want, Patty.”
“Well then, Patty,” Reed started, putting a hand on her shoulder, “Let’s get to work.”