The Amazing Spider-Man
Livin' on the Edge 11/???
Mini-arc: Night of the Lizard 2/4
Chapter Seventeen: The Pressure of Evolution
The field trip continued without a hint of trouble. By the time the sun drifted past noon, the students were buzzing with excitement, their chatter echoing through the polished halls of Oscorp. They had explored the reptile behavioral wing, the DNA sequencing labs, and even a restricted-floor observation deck where Dr. Curt Connors proudly showcased the earliest prototypes of his regeneration research.
But even geniuses needed to rest. Connors rubbed at his temples with the stump of his right arm. "Feel free to explore the main lobby displays," he told the group with a tired smile. "Grab a snack. I'll return shortly."
He slipped down a quieter hallway, the hum of the field trip fading behind him. A quick swipe of his keycard opened the door to his private study, a small, dimly lit sanctuary of books, data drives, scribbled equations, and half-finished prototypes.
The door clicked shut. Connors exhaled and froze. Someone was sitting behind his desk. A figure almost swallowed by shadow. Gloved hands leafed through handwritten research logs with slow, surgical precision. Connors' pulse spiked.
"W–Who…?" The man lifted his head. First came the goggles, thick circular lenses tinted a poisonous green, reflecting the monitors like the cold, unblinking eyes of a mechanical insect. Heavy straps dug into slick, combed-back hair. His lab coat was immaculate, militaristic, its seams pulled tight over reinforced armor plating beneath.
"Dr. Octavius?" Connors breathed, staggering a step back. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."
Otto Octavius closed the notebook with a quiet, deliberate snap. "Curt," he said, voice smooth and falsely warm, "I asked you weeks ago. Was the blood sample we provided useful?"
Connors swallowed hard. "Yes," he admitted. "The subject with… arachnid DNA produced a remarkable stabilizing factor early on. I still have questions about its origin, but..."
Otto simply stared at him through the twin green lenses. No blink. No expression. Just that faint ghost of movement behind the glass. He did not answer the question.
Instead, he stepped around the desk with a fluidity that felt wrong, too controlled, too steady. "We are growing impatient, Connors," Otto said. "You've reached a critical threshold. We want to begin human testing."
Connors blanched. "Human...? No. No, absolutely not. The serum's still unstable. The neurochemical backlash, the cellular distortion, there are too many unknowns."
"This is not a negotiation." Otto's tone remained calm, but the air in the room chilled as if the vents had shut down.
"If we don't see an update from you by tomorrow morning," he continued, adjusting his gloves with mechanical precision, "all funding will be terminated. Every cent."
Connors' breath hitched. "You can't. My work, my lab, my team depends on..."
Otto moved closer. Too close. "You wouldn't want your family to suffer because of your hesitation." he said softly. Connors' heart slammed against his ribs.
Otto lingered long enough for the threat to sink in, then walked to the door as if nothing had happened. "Enjoy the rest of your… field trip." he added, dripping disdain, and stepped out. The door sealed behind him with a hiss.
Connors stood alone in the dim glow of his monitors. The brilliant scientist. The devoted father. The man who dared to hope he could regain what he lost. Now trembled in his own sanctuary, completely and utterly defeated.
---
Lunch hour at the Oscorp research campus was surprisingly peaceful. The early winter sun filtered through thin clouds, gentler than usual, washing the courtyard in pale gold.
Peter finished the last bite of his sandwich at a small metal table, surrounded by Harry, Liz, and Flash. Across the courtyard, MJ, Cindy, and Jean laughed about something, not at him, hopefully, and the shift in their attitude felt like a slow bit of progress. Their stares had gone from we want to murder you, Peter to mildly annoyed. Progress.
If all went well, they might talk to him again next week. Maybe.
Sunlight sparkled off the tall glass lab windows. Too peaceful. Too calm. The kind of calm that made Peter uneasy, because his life rarely let quiet stay quiet.
"It's nice seeing you enjoy a field trip for once," Liz said warmly. "Last time we went anywhere, you ended up in the hospital."
Flash leaned forward like a nosy aunt. "Yeah, man, you got any side effects from that? Radiation poisoning? Spider rabies?"
Peter rolled his eyes and raised his hand, showing the faint circular scar on the back. The only physical reminder of the bite that changed everything.
"Just this," he said. "And Norman Osborn paid the hospital bills. Pretty cool of him."
"That's my dad," Harry said proudly, though the pride dimmed, replaced by something quieter, as he noticed Peter glance toward the labs. "You thinking about applying for the lab assistant program?"
"Yeah," Peter admitted, standing and tossing his trash into a nearby bin. "I'm gonna talk to Dr. Connors about it."
Harry perked up. "I can put in a word. I know the committee. A few phone calls and..."
"No." Peter held up a hand, gentle but firm. "I want to get in because I earned it. Not because someone helped me."
Flash let out a dramatic gasp. "Rejecting nepofriend privileges? Bold choice, Parker. Either respectable… or incredibly stupid."
Liz elbowed him, but even she smiled. Peter waved the trio off and stepped inside the main building.
The temperature dropped instantly, warm sunlight replaced by the cool, sterile breath of Oscorp's air conditioning. Displays along the walls flickered with diagrams of DNA helixes, cell division cycles, reptile anatomy in mid-regeneration.
He spotted Dr. Martha Connors, kind eyes, lab coat, clipboard tucked under one arm, speaking with two interns. Billy stood beside her, clutching a backpack and yawning.
Peter approached. "Excuse me, Dr. Martha? Do you have a moment?"
She turned, her expression brightening. "Oh! Peter Parker. You're one of Harry's friends."
"That's me." Peter smiled. "I wanted to ask about the lab assistant position. I was hoping to talk to Dr. Connors about..."
"Oh, of course!" she said warmly. "Curt would love to meet a student who's genuinely passionate. Come with me." Martha gave Billy to her assistants and started to walk.
Peter followed her through the maze of quiet hallways, the hum of machinery vibrating faintly through the floor. Martha opened the door to Curt's office. Empty.
Not just empty, untouched. Lights off, chair perfectly aligned, computer screen asleep. "That's strange…" Martha murmured. "He said he was going to take a short break."
Peter's stomach tightened. "Maybe he's in the DNA wing?" he suggested.
They made their way there, walking with the calm of people who expect normal answers. They searched. Nothing.
Not a trace of Connors. Not in the labs. Not in the observation rooms. Not even his keycard pings on the access logs someone checked for Martha.
Peter felt something cold crawl up his spine, the quiet, instinctive alarm he had learned not to ignore.
They went to reptile behavior wing showed no sign of Curt anywhere, and the longer they searched, the more Martha's composure began to crack. Her hands trembled slightly as she clutched the clipboard.
Finally they decided to search in the deepest parts of the lab, on the small observation room with the mouse's cage, Peter froze.
The enclosure was torn open.
Shredded, as if something with claws had forced its way out. Inside the tank, reptilian scales shimmered an eerie emerald green. Peter felt a cold knot form in his stomach. "That's… not good," he whispered.
Martha gasped, covering her mouth. "Oh dear God…"
They continued deeper into the restricted corridors, darker, less polished areas filled with abandoned prototype equipment and dusty tanks. Then they found him. In the deepest, most secluded lab chamber.
Dr. Curt Connors sat slumped against a metal workstation. A half empty bottle of whiskey dangled from his left hand. On the table in front of him sat a vial of green serum, still full. His eyes were bloodshot from despair.
"Curt?" Martha's voice cracked. "Honey… what are you doing?" Connors looked up slowly, and there was something devastating in his expression, a man who had reached the end of his rope.
"I had to…" he muttered. "They're cutting the funding. Tomorrow. They want progress. Human trials."
Peter felt his stomach drop. Martha stepped forward, panic rising. "What madness is this?! The serum is nowhere near ready, Curt, please, we can fix this, we'll talk to the board..."
"It's too late," Connors whispered, hollow. He lifted his right arm, or what remained of it. A syringe was embedded in the stump. The green liquid inside was gone.
Martha staggered back as if struck. "Curt… no... NO!"
Peter's breath caught. Suddenly Connors lurched, dropping the bottle. It shattered across the floor. Then came the scream, raw, primal, bone-tearing, a sound that echoed through every hallway of the facility.
Students from Midtown High heard it from outside and began rushing in, drawn by the noise, crowding the corridor behind Peter and Martha.
"Everyone stay back!" Peter yelled, throwing himself between them and Connors. Around him, gasps and horrified murmurs rose. Several students already had their phones out, recording.
Jean's voice flooded his mind in a sharp telepathic whisper. "Peter? What's happening?"
"Whatever you do," he sent back, "don't come close. And don't let anyone else near this room."
"Understood." Jean replied instantly.
Connors collapsed forward, convulsing violently. His spine arched at an unnatural angle. Bones cracked like snapping branches. He clawed at his lab coat, shredding it.
And then, from the right stump a shape pushed outward beneath the skin. The flesh stretched. Split. Reformed. Fingers sprouted first, long, trembling, twitching. Then a palm.
Then an entire, fully formed, scaled reptilian hand, gleaming and wet beneath the lab lights. The crowd behind Peter erupted in a sickened chorus of awe and horror.
The spasms finally ceased. Connors lay panting, shaking, drenched in sweat. Slowly, trembling, he lifted his new hand into the light.
"God…" he whispered, voice breaking. "It worked." Phones were raised everywhere, students capturing the impossible in shaky horizontal and vertical videos. Dr. Curt Connors, gentle, brilliant, universally liked, had just regrown an entire arm in seconds.
Miraculous. Grotesque. Mesmerizing. Martha Connors forced her way through the scattering crowd, pale and trembling. "Curt, Curt, what were you thinking!?" she burst out. "This is the stupidest thing you've ever done!"
Curt stood there, he had put on his lab coat again, his brown slacks had torn a little, he was breathing hard, staring at the hand he hadn't seen in years… flexing the fingers like they were made of glass. "We have to send word to Doctor Octavius, the serum works on humans." he said, ecstatic.
Peter exhaled shakily and sent a telepathic pulse to Jean. "It's okay, he's alive. Coast is clear for now. But… stay back. Just stay back."
Flash jogged up, having missed everything important, eyes wide. "Dude, didn't he, like… only have one arm five minutes ago?"
Peter was about to slip away when the back of his skull detonated. Spider-Sense. Hard. Wrong. Now. He froze. Then he saw it.
On Curt's newly regenerated arm, patches of skin were changing color. Hardening. Segmenting into overlapping reptilian scales. Peter stiffened. "Oh no…"
Martha saw it too. "Curt?" Her voice cracked. "Curt, honey, something's wrong. Everyone, please, PLEASE leave the room!"
The students didn't need to be told twice. Panic tore through the crowd as the second mutation hit like a bomb.
Dr. Connors dropped to his knees again. A raw, animal scream ripped from his throat, worse than the first, this one deep, guttural, the roar of a dinosaur echoing through the metal rafters.
Skin split. Muscle knotted. Bones warped. Chaos erupted around them. Peter fired another thought at Jean, sharp as a blade. "Jean, I need you and Cindy to suit up. Right now. This is about to get ugly." He didn't wait for her reply.
Kids were tripping over each other to escape. Some cried. Some screamed. Some kept recording, because they didn't understand that terror meant run.
Connors writhed on the ground as his arms thickened and scales spread across his chest like mold. His spine bulged, then erupted outward into a long, muscular tail. His skin, no, his scales, turned deep green. His face lengthened. Teeth sharpened into curved reptilian knives.
His eyes snapped open, slit, yellow, predatory. His tongue flickered like a serpent. Doctor Curt Connors was gone. Something ancient and hungry stared out from where he had been. A Lizard stood in his place.
Peter pushed through the last students, shoving people toward the exits. Flash did the same, surprisingly fast, surprisingly brave. The final groups stumbled out, sobbing.
Then the Lizard lifted its head… sniffed... Tongue flickered. Its pupils locked onto Peter. It lunged.
"PETER, LOOK OUT!" Flash yelled, and body checked him aside. The Lizard slammed into Flash instead. Flash's body crashed into a metal terrarium, shattering glass before he dropped, unconscious.
"Flash? FLASH!" Peter grabbed his friend, enemy, whatever Flash was and looked around frantically. The room was nearly empty… except for Martha, trembling and frozen.
"Mrs. Connors!" Peter shouted. "Go! Get security, get anyone! I'll… I'll distract him! Just go!"
She hesitated, torn between her husband and her own terror. Then she nodded and fled, tears streaking her face.
The Lizard swung its massive head toward Peter and hissed, low, guttural, vibrations crawling up the walls. Peter gently lowered Flash's limp body, turned…
…and punched the creature square in the jaw. It barely flinched. With a violent sweep of its tail, the Lizard lashed out, striking Peter with the force of a speeding car. He flew back, skidding across the floor. Breath gone. Ribs screaming.
By the time he staggered up, the creature was already slithering into the maze of machines, vanishing between metal and shadow.
Peter steadied himself, wincing. "Great. Awesome. Totally normal science trip." He scanned the dark aisles. Nothing but the hum of lights… and the faint scrape of claws through the vents.
"Jean," he whispered telepathically. "He's loose. Keep everyone out. Don't let anyone near the building."
"Uhhhh, we might have a problem with that, but more importantly, where are you?" Jean's voice was tight with worry.
"Inside. Trying to get to the exit. And what do you mean "problem"?" Peter grunted as he dragged Flash by the shoulders toward the main doors.
He reached them. He pushed. They didn't budge. Locked. Fail safes engaged. Peter's blood ran cold. "I think I know what you mean by 'problem'…"
"Okay so… that's one problem but I'm referring to another one," Jean said. "There are also five students still inside—not counting you or us. At least Cindy and I are in here, though. And MJ... In her defense she was trying to help get people out, and, uh… well… failsafes engaged quicker than we expected."
Peter felt sweat bead across his forehead. Most students were outside. But not all.
Which meant…
Peter Parker was trapped inside a sealed laboratory with an unconscious Flash Thompson, five scattered students, his friends that were mad at him and a raging, mutated man turned reptile hunting anything that moved.
Peter adjusted Flash's weight on his shoulder and muttered "This is really, really bad."
To be continued...