P2A - Chapter #7: Discovery

After nearly two hours of sleep, Peter rose up from his bed and yawned a bit. He rubbed his still heavy eyes and blinked a few times. Seconds later, it occurred to him that the painful and shivering sensations had disappeared and he wasn't sweating anymore. When the heaviness disappeared, his vision was clear, much to the brunet's confusion. He placed his hands on his cheeks to check if he was wearing glasses. He wasn't, as it was on a desk nearby.

While processing what happened, the hairs on his hands and legs quickly stood up, accompanied with a vibrating, tingly sensation inside his head. As if it was pointing Peter toward something. But as it was new to him, he instinctively turned to the direction - which was his ceiling's corner - in a flash and shot five web lines from his fingertips as a reflex. He widened his eyes and immediately shut his mouth, stopping himself from screaming. Slowly, he took a few deep breaths and opened his mouth.

Peter's eyes followed the direction of his vibrating sensation, which showed him a house spider hanging upside down from his room's ceiling. It eventually eased down.

His weblines were still attached to his fingertips, like he was a puppeteer controlling his puppet. Due to shock, the tip of his fingers were stiff, as hard as a rock. So, Peter relaxed them and detached the web lines at his will easily.

"Geez... Gotta clean these.."

The teenager then inspected his fingertips, showing him the "holes" on them, along with small hairs he had never seen before. His eyes lit up, as he was familiar with spider anatomy. This caused him to recall to an earlier moment at Oscorp's lab, when he and Kaine yelped painfully. They were both bitten by super spiders.

"Spinnerets... So that explains everything!" he exclaimed as he snapped his fingers when reaching to a conclusion. But he silenced himself when he remembered that his parents were sleeping at the moment.

//"Note to self: Try not to exclaim when you have an eureka moment,"// he sighed, wanting to slap himself.

The brunet couldn't help but continue inspecting his spinnerets, while giggling to himself. It was so unreal, like fiction coming to life. He thought of showing his discoveries to his cousin. Before that however, he better take a quick shower first.

While getting out of his bed, his phone vibrated a few times, catching his attention. Peter walked toward his desk and retrieved it. A notification appeared on the phone's screen, showing two messages from Annabelle on a group chat between the three.

Hey guys. Are you feeling alright now?

Just wanted to check up on you two since you were shivering a lot earlier...

He couldn't help but smile as he typed a reply.

Yuppp. Thx for the concern XD Idk about coz though

I'm doing alright. But... I had a weird dream earlier. A nightmare, idk.. And now there is this voice talking inside my head (Kaine)

I'm glad to hear y'all are alright. And K, do you wanna talk about it? (Anna)

I guess... (K)

Everyone waited as he typed, which took a few minutes.

I'll just give the gist. So I was in an empty cinema, sorta. I was chained to a seat, while I had to watch a montage of my childhood memories, both good and bad.

It sent chills to Peter's spines when he read it.

Then, you know what's worse..? I saw someone watching dead bodies being hanged up. Bodies of my father and those who bully me, with Peter slowly dying. This someone is like...a part of me. He said that all my pent up negative feelings will be unleashed soon. And everyone will feel what I feel... At first thought he wasn't real, but he is. And right now, I feel like this the end of the world for me.

The chatroom went quiet for a moment. Peter himself and Anna were quite taken aback with what Kaine just told them. While the younger Parker was processing everything, his friend started typing a response.

K, this is... new... It sounds serious. Idk what to say... I'm sorry I can't be there because I'm preparing for my music class. I wish I could hug you. But I'll still be here if you need me, bud :) (A)

Thx, Ann... I appreciate it.. (K)

I think I will be heading to Kaine's apartment. I wanna accompany him for a bit, if he's fine with it of course.. (P)

Sure. Besides I'm the only one here atm. Mum's still busy with work (K)

Alright then. Take care, you two. I gotta continue preparing. Ttyl when I can <3 (A)

Ttyl (K, P)

Peter then looked at the two texts Kaine had sent earlier. He stared at them for some time, deep in thoughts... He questioned if his own cousin really wanted to kill him after all this time. He needed to know more from Kaine himself.

---

(Minutes later...; At Kaine's apartment...)

After taking a quick bath and wearing new clothes, the buzzcut brunet sat on a chair in the dining room. He took a spoonful of rice, vegetables, and a few pieces of cut sausage from the soup on his bowl, bringing it to his mouth and swallowed them. While taking glances at the soup in a cooking pot he reheated with stove. The wonderful, refreshing taste of his mother's soup filled him with warmth, but it did not ease his mind nor his feelings. His mind was clouded by his last dream and his demon.

Kaine gave a blank stare at his nearly empty bowl. His grip on the spoon was... weak, shaky. This soup was like a temporary escape to a safe haven. But his demon's words sounded like an imminent, inevitable doom. The teen dreaded of the time his darkness would be unleashed. Would it happen soon? Or sooner than he thought? He'd never know. Letting out a deep sigh, Kaine finished the soup and put his now empty bowl in the dishwasher. As the machine did its job, he stopped reheating the cooking pot after it started boiling.

Out of nowhere, a vibrating, tingly sensation manifested inside his head, with the hairs on his hands and legs stood up. For a moment, Kaine widened his eyes in surprise. The sensation seemed to direct him to...someone similar to him coming to his bedroom from outside? He rushed into the bedroom and turned to look at his window, only to find a hooded teen swinging toward it.

"Peter?"

The younger Parker bumped his head with Kaine's window in accident, causing him to lose hold of his web line. Reflexively, he placed his hand onto the wall, sticking to its surface.

"Oh shit," the older one ran and slid the window open and peeked out of it, looking at Peter with widened eyes. "Pete, what in the hell? What- Uh, how-"

"Well, I'll explain in a bit," he smiled sheepishly, before getting inside Kaine's room, with his cousin stepping away to make space.

"You okay?" Kaine asked in a worried tone, while checking Peter's head, which earned a thumbs up from himself. He just chuckled, but he was at disbelief at the same time. "How could you do something impossible like that?"

"Remember the trip? We got bitten by super spiders when we were on Genetic Engineering floor. And we suffered from spider bite effects. But then, somehow the effects disappeared and we got spider-like abilities," he showed his fingertips to his older cousin, "Spinneret. A part of spider anatomy which allows it to spin webs."

Upon seeing those, Kaine recalled the moment when he found them. He lifted his hand and looked at his fingertips, "I see..."

"Uh," he turned to look at Peter, "You could've just walked to here or called a taxi, right?"

The younger one giggled, "Well, I just wanna try things out. I mean, this is just amazing, right?"

Kaine shook his head as he chuckled. "Amazing, huh? So now you're the what? The amazing, sensational, spectacular human spider?"

"Lo and behold, The Amazing Fantasy of the Human Spider!" Peter mimicking a movie narrator, causing the two teenagers to laugh together, "This sounds like a superhero comic book."

"No kidding," his cousin said, while holding his chest, trying to contain his laughter.

Eventually, the laughing died down. After some moments of silence, Peter remembered what he wanted to ask with Kaine.

"Coz, I wanna talk about something," the brunet asked with his tone changing from casual to a mix between serious, fearful, and confused tone.

"Yup?"

"About your dream... You said that I was one of the bodies being hung up, right? And that there was someone watching over them, who turned out to be a part of you. Does that mean...you want to kill me after all these years..?" Peter asked.

Kaine froze momentarily. He could feel his hands and feet starting to sweat. At that moment, it was like he was stripped down to his core–vulnerable in front of his younger twin cousin. "No, Pete. I don't want to kill you. I... You know that I love and hate you. At times, you become the reminder that I'm just your...imperfect mirror–that you have a perfect family while I don't. And I envy you for that. But I won't go as far as killing you," he confessed.

For a while, the two didn't speak anything. But then Kaine continued, "Maybe a part of me just want to remove those I hate. I'm still...stuck with the past."

The younger twin sighed, "Not this again..." He then pulled the older one to his embrace and patted his back a few times. "Kaine, how long are you gonna keep being like this? Holding onto the past won't help you. Sooner or later, you will have to face it."

"I don't know if I can... It's so hard to move on, to let it go when I'm still tangled in it... It's like... I keep getting reminded of those who hurt me, disappoint me. And I can't stop wishing that I had a perfect family like yours, Pete. I don't know how I can escape from my own prison..."

"I guess you'll figure something out, Coz. Because in the end, it's all up to ourselves. I can't do much... But I'll be there when you need me," Peter smiled.

Hearing those words made a warm smile form on Kaine's face. He hugged back Peter in return. "Thanks, Peter. And now you sound like my mom," he giggled.

"For real?"

"Yeah, she kinda said the same thing."

The two chuckled and let go of each other from their embrace.

"Say, wanna go swinging around the neighbourhood?" Peter smirked at Kaine of his own suggestion.

"Swinging? That's...crazy."

"Heck yeah it is," he winked.

"Oh goodness, please help me."

---

(Moments later...)

"Whaaah!!!" fearful screams escaped Kaine's mouth as the hooded teenager swung from building to building, with Peter taking the lead.

This was his first time swinging around. He could feel the wind brushing against him, with his hands and legs getting sweaty. As if he could slip from his web line at any moment. The sight below him made him terrified. Deep down, he regretted doing this.

"Come on. Keep up, Coz!" Peter snickered at his older cousin.

"Ugh, how can you even swing that easily?" he groaned to the younger one.

"Try to imagine you're a pendulum! That might help!"

"Sheesh, easy for you to say!"

Peter got carried away with his laughter that he did not pay attention to the direction of where he was swinging to, which led to him to hit against a building. The impact made him let out a painful moan, but he regained his momentum. Unfortunately, this was an opportunity for Kaine to overtake Peter as the lead.

"Hey! Try to keep up now, Coz!" Kaine mocked what Peter said earlier.

"Ohohoh boy, I'm gonna get you for that," he simply laughed it off and kept swinging.

Meanwhile, pedestrians were capturing this phenomenon of two hooded figures swinging around on their smartphones. On a street corner, two old men were observing the phenomenon too, amazed by the sight.

"You know what, Stan? Sooner or later, the whole country will marvel at the awesome might of these two," one of the old men commented.

Stan, the other old man wearing sunglasses, simply said, "Nuff said, Terry. Nuff said."

A/N #1: So that concludes the first three chapters of Part 2! The remaining four will be where things start to get messy for Kaine and tie in to Chapter 1. After that, Part 3 will come, which is set during and after Chapter 1. It will culminate everything that happened before. For now, I will have a break. But I will get back to writing after I focus on my college. Don't worry, I do not intend to leave this unfinished ;) Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoy it. With that being said, stay tuned for the remaining four chapters. And have a good day, y'all! :D

A/N #2: The two old men were Terry Kavanagh (one of Kaine's co-creators) and Stan Lee himself (one of Spider-Man's co-creators; rest in peace, Stan...). I just thought it would be fun to include them here ;)