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Peter felt like sleeping for three months. After the whole fiasco with the DODC and Jean, getting new spider mutations, having multiple emotionally exhausting conversations and meet-ups with his old friends and getting shot.
Yeah, he was due for a nap.
After he healed up quite well, he took a trip to visit his aunt May before heading back and getting a pizza for himself. A single, large cheese pizza because simple is nice and damn did he really deserve a little reward.
While on the way to the elevator he clutched his stomach as it cramped. He winced at the sharp pain, hissing out silently. The pizza really did smell good and he hadn’t eaten all day. He sighed as the cramping finally calmed down.
When the elevator dinged, he quickly got off and opened his door, closing it with his foot before heading to his computers.
“Welcome home, Peter,” E.V called out as she turned all the monitors.
“Hey E.V,” Peter replied as he set the pizza down. The minute he sat down, another sharp and painful cramp hit him, making him once again clutch his stomach and groan.
“It seems you are experiencing pain, want me to run a diagnostic?” E.V called out.
“N-No need, E.V. It’s just hunger pains,” Peter told her. He grabbed the Advil and took a couple pills before going to town on the pizza.
“Understood,” E.V replied.
After Peter finished the pizza, he noticed that his place was a little warm, which was surprising considering its usually cold inside. He flicked his shirt, trying to get air flowing through it to cool off a little.
He pursed his lips and huffed in annoyance as he shifted in his seat. He feels restless, uncomfortable, and weird. He didn’t know what was happening to him, as he can’t get sick like a normal human anymore.
‘Maybe it’s a new mutation in my spider genes?’
Peter groaned and sat up. He decides that he’ll turn in early for the day, otherwise he might get scolded again by DeWolff. He grumbled as he headed to his bedroom and settled down on the bed, shifting and turning until he found a comfortable enough position.
“E.V, run that diagnostic after all and let me know when I wake up,” Peter grumbled before slowly falling asleep.
“Understood, running diagnostic,” E.V replied.
With that, he took a nap.
Peter woke up with his head in the clouds. He couldn’t process anything when he opened his eyes. He groaned as he tried to sit up, however a sharp pain made him fall back onto the bed and clutch his stomach.
“Arg-!” Peter yelped, curling up into a ball as he carried out the cramps. It hurt. It hurt so much he couldn’t move. He doubts he could’ve moved anyway, as he couldn’t form a single thought.
He panted and hugged himself. Was he always this warm? Was it always so hot in the room? He could feel the creep of sweat beading down the back of his neck and his face. Despite the overbearing warmth he felt, he shook like a leaf in the wind, as if he was cold.
His stomach and something else he couldn’t understand ached. He felt like whining, like curling up, like burrowing into something safe.
It was too much. Everything was too much. His senses, his body, his room, everything was just too much to handle.
He heard something whimper as he shifted. He barely even noticed it was him making the noise before he shakily sat up on his knees to examine his room. He sniffed the air unconsciously, almost instinct.
God, what is wrong with him?
“Good morning, Peter. I have run the diagnostic while you were sleeping, and it appears you have gained a new spider attribute due to your mutation,” E.V spoke, hearing the noise that came from him.
“What is it…” Peter mumbled as he looked around his bed. He saw all his blankets scattered around and decided, no. That they need to be on. His. Bed.
He felt like he wasn’t in his own body when he moved. He gathered all the blankets quickly and plopped them right onto the middle of his bed. Then, as if he were an animal, he crawled around on his bed to arrange the blankets in whatever random order he decided was right.
He arranged them with hesitant efficiency, only instinct driving him to put whichever blanket in whatever placement. It wasn’t until he made a noise in his throat that he realized that the blanket arrangement almost looked like a…
A nest…?
“E.V…?” Peter muttered before he dived straight into the middle of the nest and curled up, feeling only a little better as opposed to what he was just experiencing. He still felt sweaty, he still felt hot, itchy, and in pain.
‘Speaking of which…’ Peter thought as he took off his shirt, sighing in relief as the air chilled him from the itchy and gross fabric of the shirt. He decided that it was not enough and before he knew it he was curled up like a cat in his bed with just his boxers on.
“It appears you are experiencing a spider-like hormonal life cycle, or if you wish to go by mammalistic terms, you are experiencing a heat cycle.”
A fucking what…?!
“S-Sorry, what did you say, E.V?” Peter reiterated. He kept trying to burrow into the bed more, almost as if he was trying to make an actual hole in it.
“You are experiencing a spider life cycle. Or a technical heat cycle. It is a period of time where animals have increased fertility to mate and reproduce offspring. Would you like more information?” E.V informed, not knowing she just dropped a shatterball onto Peter’s head.
He gapped, horrified at what he just heard. Horrified that this is real and truly happening. Horrified that that heat he’s feeling in his gut isn’t just some illness and is instead from what he gathered, arousal.
“Yes please,” Peter pleaded, desperate to know if he could possibly get rid of this…cycle. Oh my god he’s having a heat cycle. Like a damn cat! He’s not a cat! Why is he having a heat cycle!
“Spider’s typically do not have mammal-like heat cycles. With mammals, they have a recurring hormonal cycle every season that dictates their fertility. Meanwhile Spiders must have certain requirements before they initiate courting rituals–”
Peter winced and groaned in pain as another cramp worked its way through his body. He wiped his hand over his forehead to get rid of the building sweat, feeling the heat on his face and making his hand come back drenched. He whined.
“-to signal for mating. If the courting rituals succeed, will spiders then go into a period similar to a heat cycle to produce offspring, with male spiders creating a sperm web and female spiders storing sperm in internal structures,” E.V finished.
If E.V had a face, she would see Peter giving her the most perturbing and distraught face ever made on man.
“W-What are the requirements…?” Peter asked. His face was burning and he tried to ignore him squirming his legs together in a useless effort of getting rid of the…discomfort.
Nope, nope. Ignore it.
“Requirements involve: optimal environmental conditions such as seasons and temperature, and food availability,” E.V answered.
“E.V I literally have asbestos on my walls, I’m broke, food is few and far between and I’m constantly stressed…” Peter deadpanned.
“It could be that since your living situation has become better socially and that your time in the hospital had let you recover enough to mutate more traits that it manifested,” E.V suspected.
Peter hummed before another spike of cramps hit him and he yelped. God, that hurt. He could feel his eyes tearing up from the pain. He gritted his teeth until it passed. Once it did, he slumped onto the bed, completely drained of energy, taking heavy breaths as sweat fell off his face.
He felt delirious. He felt weak.
He hopes the ‘Spider’ won’t take hold of him while he’s like this.
He really hopes it doesn’t, who knows what it’ll do to him.
“H-How can I get rid of this? Without the inhibitor?” Peter slurred his words.
“You can choose someone to mate with, or you can ride out the cycle until it stops,” E.V concluded.
Peter groaned both in pain and in disbelief.
“I’m not…having sex with someone E.V,” he muttered as he curled up in another ball in his bed. He sat in silence for a while before he turned back to his AI.
“How long would this cycle last exactly?” Peter hesitated, hopeful that maybe, maybe this would be a few days or less.
“I’m unsure at the moment, I will have to monitor this current cycle of yours in order to make an estimate for your new spider cycle,” E.V explained, making Peter huff and flop on his bed with his face staring aimlessly at the asbestos ceiling.
This is going to be a lonnnggg day.
Throughout the entire day, Peter stayed in his bed. Squirming, shaking, shivering, and in misery. Several times he almost had heat stroke from the bodily heat he was emitting. He shuffled and snuggled up into the bed so much it made a dent in the middle of it and with the sweat it only made the bedding stinky and soggy.
Don’t get Peter wrong, he's been through a lot. Stabbings, bullets, the occasional being punched through a wall. Hell, he died once! Yet Peter can say that this cramping is one of the top pains Peter has felt…physically. It was constant, even after the waves ended the phantom pain left discomfort like no other.
He had no idea how women went through this constantly.
Those cramp simulator videos aren’t no joke.
Not to mention his…instincts. A little voice in his head trying to say ‘hey! Let’s find a mate!’ and constantly nagging him for some form of relief. He already tried to sate it by spreading his webs (the ones on his wrists!) all around his place just like when his mutation first happened. It was as if he was trying really hard to claim this area as his and his only by doing that.
Whenever something even remotely happened–whether that be someone a little too close to the door or some birds on the glass roof–he hissed like he was feral. A mean, abnormal noise straight through his teeth as he glared at whatever it was that offended him.
If the birds hadn’t immediately left he swears he might’ve thrown a chair or something.
Not to mention his other cravings…
He really tried ignoring them as much as possible. He really tried despite all his instincts screaming at him. He was never sexually active as much as he was at this moment. It felt like he was a common teen, not to confuse his teenage years considering they were filled with crime-fighting.
Safe to say…it sucked.
A lot.
It was already day four of this cycle. Peter was pent up, both in arousal and irritation. This was no doubt the worst week he's had in his life. This was almost similar in feeling when he first got bit by the spider and he spent that week deathly ill. However, instead of cool superpowers, he got a boner.
Well, technically in this sense it was still part of his superpowers…just less wanted and extremely unnecessary.
It was just hopefully three more days…
Hopefully…
“The hell happen to you?” Frank asked as he looked at Peter. Frank was just in his hideout when he heard a knock at the door. He knew only one person knocked on his door willingly so he begrudgingly opened it.
He wasn’t shocked to find Spider-Man at the door, unmasked. What he was surprised about though, was how dead and hollow Pete looked. He looked almost haunted, maybe a little dehydrated.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Peter groaned like a zombie.
“Do you have any extra bedsheets?”
“It’s been two weeks since you picked up the phone after the hospital and you’re comin’ here to ask if I have bedsheets?” Frank asked, both annoyed and astonished.
“Yeah, I need new ones since my old ones are fucked up,” he simply stated. As if that didn’t give Frank a billion more questions.
“The hell were you doin’ to fuck ‘em up?” Frank says gruffly. He regretted asking when he saw Peter grimace and make a self-depricating expression.
“Look, I’ve had a long two weeks and I just need a favor. Please?” Peter said, sighing. He looked like a drenched puppy, all sad and shit. Frank huffed and grumbled.
“Yeah, I’ve got extras.”
“Thank you, Frank.”
…
“You gotta tell me what happened though,” Frank revealed.
“Fuck.”