"This is unbelievable!"
As soon as Peter snapped out of the hair raising sensation, he jumped up excitedly: "I'm telling you, there's something wrong with Osborn. Let me use your computer." He sat down at Ben's desk and booted up the old, bulky CRT computer.
"Whirrr "
The entire computer tower hummed and groaned.
Peter opened a browser and, after a few keystrokes, brought up numerous pictures of spiders: "Oscorp is researching spiders, but they're definitely not just interested in silk."
"You plan to investigate Oscorp?"
"Don't you want to know how we mutated and if there are any side effects?" Peter retorted.
Ben thought to himself, You mutated because you were chosen by the Spider Totem. I mutated because the Omnitrix protected me.
He knew a lot more than Peter did.
But he just shook his head. "I don't want to know at all."
While Oscorp still lagged behind Stark Industries, it was a top tier corporate giant in New York. In a society where capital equaled power, opposing them would only bring endless trouble.
Several of Spider-Man's enemies were intricately connected to Oscorp.
Ben had no plans to become a superhero, let alone get involved in that mess.
He'd much rather use his superpowers to make life easier for this less than wealthy family.
So, making money was the top priority.
Thinking of this, Ben felt the Grey Matter DNA inside the watch calling to him.
A little invention here, founding his own company there... he could call it Parker Industries. Wait, scratch that. The name's unlucky. The name "Parker Industries" always made Ben think of Doctor Octopus.
"It should be called Primus Tech," he murmured.
"Primus Tech? What's that?" Peter asked without turning around.
"The company I'm going to start. You'll be working for me someday, Peter."
"Very funny," Peter敷衍 (fūyǎn perfunctorily) replied. He opened another webpage; this time the pictures weren't of spiders but a blond man. "Look, Curt Connors. A famous biologist. He used to work with my dad... and he works at Oscorp now."
"So, you suspect he knows something?" Ben asked, placing a hand on the back of Peter's chair.
Of course, he recognized the famous Dr. Curt Connors, the future Lizard.
"I want to go talk to him," Peter said, his eyes burning with a fanatical fire. It was clear he wasn't just doing this for his powers; he wanted to talk to this former colleague about his long deceased parents.
Honestly, it was hard to blame him.
But Peter seemed to forget that no amount of digging would bring his parents back. He was getting obsessed, even arguing with Uncle Ben about it. Both Ben and May were worried he'd get hurt.
"You go ahead if you want, but I'm not joining you." Ben wasn't biologically related to Peter's parents. He was adopted by Ben and May first; Peter was sent to live with them later.
For him, the most important thing was protecting Ben and May, keeping them from harm.
Spider-Man could manage without Uncle Ben, but he couldn't!
He didn't care about some Web of Destiny or Canon Events. Even if the massively powerful Spider-Man from the comics stood before him, Ben would just transform into Four Arms and punch his lights out first!
"Aren't you curious about what's happening to our bodies?" Peter asked, amazed. He couldn't understand Ben's apparent indifference. "This could affect our whole lives! We could become superheroes, or... super monsters."
"I trust that if you find any research results, you won't let your own cousin turn into a spider monster," Ben said flatly. He grabbed Peter's shoulder and lifted him effortlessly, the feeling akin to picking up a watermelon.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" Peter struggled, dangling in the air.
Spider-Man's powers didn't peak the moment he got them; they needed time to grow and required honing.
But lifting a scrawny guy like Peter was easy.
"Kicking you out, of course. I didn't invite you into my room." Ben unceremoniously tossed him out, then closed and locked the door.
He planned to keep the Omnitrix a secret for now.
It wasn't really about hiding it from Peter, but more about keeping it from a certain shady organization cough Hydra infected S.H.I.E.L.D.
"First things first, let's see if I can bypass the Omnitrix's protection protocols." He activated the watch again, twisted the popped up dial to the Grey Matter icon, and pressed it down gently. A flash of green light instantly filled the room.
The next second, his body had shrunk to the size of a palm, transforming into Grey Matter a small, grey, bipedal alien that looked like a frog, with huge hands, bulging eyes, and horizontal pupils.
"Whoa! I feel so much mechanical knowledge flooding my brain!" Ben exclaimed in surprise.
He hadn't expected that transforming into Grey Matter wouldn't just make his brain sharper, but also surface knowledge he never knew he had.
"Can Galvan knowledge really be passed down through DNA like this? That's incredible!"
However, this knowledge clearly wasn't enough to let him hack the Omnitrix. In fact, Azmuth had probably anticipated this possibility and deliberately placed the watch's core on Grey Matter's back. Now, not only was hacking it impossible, even reaching it was a challenge.
Ben pinched his chin, thinking. "Looks like I need a precise robotic arm to do the work for me first."
But that wasn't easy either. While Grey Matter's brain was packed with knowledge, it was all too advanced for Ben's original human mind.
Even Einstein, suddenly faced with technology centuries ahead, could only marvel at it as a miracle.
"Guess I should be more practical," he said, punching his right fist into his left palm, clearly having a new idea.
"Might as well get my homework done first!"
No sooner said than done. Ben climbed onto the desk. The physics textbook lying there was almost larger than he was. He grabbed a ballpoint pen that felt like a spear in his hands, bit his finger thoughtfully, and stared at the book.
"'Find the minimum value of magnetic induction intensity and the corresponding velocity of the sphere'?" He shook his head, muttering in disbelief. "This is what Earth kids learn? Unbelievable. A newborn Galvan's intelligence is far beyond this."
"Simple. Too simple!"
He scribbled down the correct answer effortlessly. Shaking his head all the while, he used the giant pen to continue writing.
In less than ten minutes, problems that would normally take hours were solved as easily as filling in "1+1=2."
With his homework finished, Ben looked up at the computer screen, which was larger than he was, and made a gesture of rolling up his sleeves.
"Alright, now... time to get down to some real business!"
/-\
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