40 X Marks The Spot

Gwen sat in her fairly large room, curled up on her soft bed as a large tub of ice cream topped with peanut butter sat beside her.

She sniffled, and her red, teary eyes flicked to the side at the vase of flowers on her bedside table. It smelled of lilacs with a hint of cherry blossoms - a mixture of her favourite flowers. While it looked gorgeous and she treasured it, keeping it as a reminder of one of the best nights in her life, it reminded her of Peter, which in turn reminded her of the conversation she desperately wished to forget.

Her eyes threatened to tear up again, which made her hand scoop up a spoon of the ice cream and PB mixture and stuff it in her mouth with practised ease. It calmed her down for a short while, but she broke down into muffled sobs soon enough.

Of all the things she expected Peter to say, him killing the superterrorist and another supervillain was not it. Well, after seeing him almost kill the superhuman before her... maybe she should've.

'My boyfriend is a murderer...,' she thought, curling back up into a ball, her heart painfully beating in her chest, as though small daggers were digging deeper into it every time she breathed in. She wished to confess everything to her father, but the more logical part of her was telling her that she was being a gigantic idiot.

Did both the men Peter killed even deserve to be redeemed after what they'd attempted to do? - after attempting to kill over a hundred people for their own selfish purposes?

It was easy to say 'yes' and be done with it. The sanctity of life and all that, but Peter's question continued to ring in her head every single time she tried to justify her stance on killing.

'If your father was among the dead, would you have stopped me?'

When Peter had asked her the question, it had ever so slightly cracked the firm wall that housed her morals. She'd broken the jaws and arms of all the masked men when she'd seen her father injured, and she didn't know how she would react if she saw him lifeless.

Would she lose control?

Or would her morals continue to guide her?

She twisted uncomfortably in her bed as she gulped down some more ice cream.

As much as she wanted to believe that she'd follow her morals, she knew a small part of her would demand blood for blood.

The part of her that would want to rip apart her father's killer with a vengeance, morals be damned.

A part of herself that truly terrified her.

CLICK!

She sat up as her enhanced hearing warned her of someone entering the house.

'Dad's finally here,' she deduced as she heard his distinct voice consoling her worried mother.

Her eyes flashed with pain and sadness once more at the thought of losing a member of her family - something that had almost happened today.

Her eyes flicked back to the half-finished tub of ice cream.

'Perhaps I should have a talk with my dad. He's a police Captain after all...'

  ***

Toby climbed up to the window with great dexterity before turning around with a large, juicy cricket in his mouth.

Peter watched him with amusement as he gave him a chirp of goodbye before scuttling outside to the garden below.

He'd wanted to let Toby stay in the house for his protection; after all, lizards had a great many predators, and Toby was a well-fed lizard. Putting two and two together, he wanted to give Toby some form of protection, but the lizard had vehemently shown annoyance at any attempt to do so. He seemed content with his life.

He was already three years old, which was fairly old for a garden lizard, and he wished for his life to continue as it was - eating insects, sleeping, and gambolling in the garden. As for the prospect of danger, predators were as much a part of his life as the insects he ate, and in a slightly warped sense, removing that threat would make the lizard's life... empty.

Of course, Peter didn't understand that mindset, but he did respect Toby's wish to live life as a lizard would. It was a perspective that he'd never even considered.

Would he wish to live life as a human would? What did that even mean?

"Too much philosophy for the day," he grumbled and turned around, looking at his machines whirring behind his back. The new contract that he'd be drawing up with Oscorp hadn't been completed yet, as the proceedings could only start after FDA approval of his cure. That would only begin after the WCCR in Latveria. Thus, he could continue to use the machines as Norman hadn't taken them back; he hoped he wouldn't, as he'd have to wait for the money to start pouring in to buy his own.

'Currency propels the globe into motion,' Peter grinned, quoting the Professor's version of the famous phrase, before adjusting his lab coat and putting on skin-tight gloves.

He grabbed two syringes from the fridge and allowed the largest machine in the room to dispense two different serums into the respective syringes.

One was a familiar pale maroon - the GeneLock Serum.

The other was a fiery red, with occasional veins of orange light appearing within it, akin to lava - the modified Extremis Serum for Gwen.

He'd previously theorized that Gwen's regulatory sequences were much, much more highly expressed than a normal human being; thus, when the spider bit her, and the compounds in its venom altered her genome, most of her powers were suppressed - including her strength.

He didn't know what powers this serum would give her, but he knew for a fact that it wouldn't give her much, as the serum's main function was to unlock her already prodigious potential. He'd modified Extremis in such a way that when its genetic material is integrated into her genome, it would specifically target the regulatory sequences that had suppressed her aforementioned latent potential, allowing her powers to be expressed.

Think of it as the serum's new genes kicking out most of the genes for the regulatory sequences and taking their place. In even cruder terms, it's akin to somebody barging into your home and kicking you out before lounging on your favourite sofa and eating all your food.

His eyes were one of uncertainty as he carefully boxed and put away the syringes in the fridge. He didn't know how his relationship would progress with Gwen, but a promise was a promise - especially when he meant it with all his heart. A birthday present was a birthday present.

'Just stop thinking about it,' he sighed to himself before sitting on a chair and rolling it toward the part of the desk where he sequenced genes.

'I underestimated this. I really did,' Peter thought as he looked at Shaw's X-Gene represented as a series of base pairs.

5′−ATGTCGGGATCTGCTGCATTAAAGCCCCTCAGTGAACTCAAGCTTTGTCCACCAGTGCTCCTGGTGCTCCTGCTGCATTAAAGTGAACTCAAGCTTTGTGAACTCAAGCTTT.......−

3'

This was but a minute drop of water in the ocean of genetic complexity that was the X-gene, but what made the X-gene truly complex and fascinating was the sheer number of possibilities it displayed and its malleability to certain stimuli.

He could easily make certain parts of the X-gene jump from one part of it to another using the same mechanism as Transposons (jumping genes), and it would morph into a seemingly new gene with a completely different expression!

'So this is the sequence for Kinetic Energy Absorption...,' he thought, going through the original sequence that he'd memorized.

'This is Thermal Energy Absorption... a more complex version of the same gene,' he went through another sequence.

Chemical Energy Absorption.

Sound Energy Absorption.

Electromagnetic Energy Absorption.

The list went on and on as he continued to figure out newer combinations.

'Wait... Psionic?' his eyes widened as he spotted a sequence that was highly similar to the one that coded for his own Psionic Powers. 'There's Psionic Energy Absorption! Wait... isn't this the perfect mental defense?!'

After all, how can his mind be read if it absorbed the energy used to read it in the first place? Sure, Kinetic Energy Absorption was incredibly powerful and had applications that could dwarf Psionic in the long run. Still, his mind would be his, and only his if it could absorb Psionic energy.

'But why can't I have more than two types of energy absorption at once?! Where are the genes that are stopping it?', he thought, a little miffed. Having sequences for two types of absorption was feasible, but once he tried to fit in another sequence, it promptly collapsed, and the X-Gene refused to express itself.

Usually, there would be specific pairs of genes that coded for such a thing, but he didn't find any sign of them. It was as though that process was ruled by magic, not genetics.

"Is that why they need secondary mutations?" he frowned, leaning back on his chair and rubbing his chin.

Ice Man's Organic Ice Body, Wolverine's Heat claws, Xavier's minor telekinesis.

They were all examples of secondary or tertiary mutations in the X-gene when subjected to certain stimuli. Perhaps Shaw's gene also needed a secondary mutation to support more types of Energy.

"Need more time than I can spare currently," he sighed. Merely studying the X-gene could take months if he truly delved into its intricacies, and he probably needed better equipment for it anyway.

"The question is...," he muttered while the mad scientist in him rubbed his hands in glee. "...which two forms of Energy absorption should I include in my serum?"

***