“Ugh!” Peter wrinkled his nose at me even before he sat down.

I gave him a stink-eye. “The best test-taker in this bunch, and you’re whining already?”

“Yeah, but it’s YOU, not my chemistry instructor.” I waited for him to expound on that. “I mean, he’s not dumb, but it’s basically memorization and regurgitation there. I don’t even have to go to class to pass his stuff.”

“Oh. Well, this isn’t an assessment of your Baxter work. I review that stuff with Dr. Richards and Susan when it’s appropriate, making sure credit is applied where due. This is about your SHIELD stuff and relevant materials.” I eyed him coolly. “Have you talked to Cindy and Gwen yet?”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t say anything. They were acting all mysterious and stuff. It was kind of annoying,” he mumbled.

“Mmm. Well, there’s a couple things.” I casually webbed the wall behind me. “Let’s start with your lack of focus. For someone who can think fifteen times faster than an average human, you gape, gawk, sit around thinking up quips, and just plain don’t do anything for a very long time... as you are doing right now.”

He jumped in his chair at my voice. “Who, wha, huh?” He pointed frantically behind me. “What is going on?” he blurted out.

“We are in the beginning of your assessment,” I reminded him coolly.

“But-but you just sprayed webs all over the wall?!”

“And what does that have to do with you focusing in the middle of your assessment?”

His jaw worked up and down, trying to process that, his thoughts scattering. “But, but!”

I snapped my fingers, and a swarm of spiders popped up on the wall. He jumped up out of his chair on seeing the scuttling horde of them. They promptly trundled around and formed up into strange characters as they clambered on top of one another, and went still.

PETER FOCUS, they spelled out.

He stared, gawked, stared some more. He looked at me, pointed, and I rolled my eyes and tapped my pen, the complete picture of impatience. “Do I have to get you something prescribed to come down off a sugar high or something?” I asked him narrowly. “Or do they need to spell it out in English or something, too?” I continued, my voice dripping sarcasm.

He finally realized he was acting really dumb, and sat back down slowly. “Hey, you really surprised me!” he protested.

My eyes narrowed. “You have reflexes fifteen times faster than normal people. You process information and can respond at that speed. You just wasted thirty goddamn seconds gaping at a bloody wall. That is seven and half minutes of acting like a gawking fool to a normal person.” He swallowed as my eyes drilled into him. “Have you ever been tested for autism?”

He really swallowed hard then. “N-no...” he admitted.

“Did you typically take several minutes to stare at something surprising happening before you were bit by that spider?” I went on grimly.

“I... no, it was never that long...”

“So, the spider inflicted on you some sort of mental inability to respond to new situations appropriately?” I tapped my pen and began to write.

“No, no, wait!” he protested, almost lunging across to grab my arm. My eyes flicked to his hand with a pop of voltage, his spider-sense went off, and he snatched it back.

“Explain to me why you waste so much time in and out of combat, and your lack of ability to focus on the task at hand. You are by FAR the worst of the whole batch in that regard, and that includes both Gwen and Cindy, who find being here so annoying, and Jessica, who has lost her whole family and is still trying to cope with that. It’s even more surprising when you are the smartest person among them!”

“Well, uh...”

I tossed a thumb over my back at the wall. The words PETER FOCUS moved in and out as the spiders rippled, and he flushed.

“Thirty seconds. Forty-five. Sixty,” I intoned, looking at my notes. “You are wasting my fucking time, Peter Parker!”

He had never heard me angry. He clenched up, sat up straight, and he Focused on me.

“It’s kind of my style?” he began, badly.

“Wasting my time is your style?” I asked dangerously, rolling my eyes at him.

“No, sorry, I’m just...” He took a quick breath. “I’m-I’m not used to people who can keep up with the speed I think at.”

“You spend hours a day with Gwen and Cindy.” My voice dripped disbelief.

He squirmed. “But they don’t think all the time like I do, and they are much better with people! My head is always full of facts and figures and little bits of trivia coming in from every direction and-and...”

“Yeeesss? Quit wasting my time, Peter Parker!”

He swallowed again, visibly speeding up. “I always have time to think about things, and I can just kind of go with the flow and adapt to things as they happen! Then the references start coming up, and I can say things that start generating more time as they piss off the other person...”

“And drag out the fight so you can grandstand more?” I finished, and he swallowed again. I wove my fingers under my chin and stared at him. “Do you actually go out there to help people, or do you just want to amuse them as you beat up bullies?”

He grimaced again. “God, this feels like a psych evaluation.” He scratched his head. “My mouth just sort of runs in combat, it helps me deal with the stress of the moment. I don’t talk like that normally, you know?”

“The problem is not that you talk like that. Taunting is a very effective tactic. Furthermore, being able to joke around while beating someone up is a show of strength, and it is intimidating and infuriating. If you have time to joke, you obviously have strength to spare to deal with them. Your problem is that you don’t deal with them any faster.” I pointed at his face, and he flushed again. My pen moved back, and the wall of spiders pulsed again.

PETER FOCUS.

“One second. To a normal human, that is no time at all. To you and I, it is tick, tick, tick...” I counted off fifteen seconds, letting them stretch out. “One second to focus. To see the whole situation. To assess, and to move appropriately, as opposed to move in reaction. To be pro-active and guide the fight, instead of reactive and respond to the fight.

“You are the smartest person on the team. You and I both know that. You have the most capability to think ahead, see what has to be done, and do it, then start spouting witticisms as you execute.” I tilted my head. “But you don’t. In terms of level head, Danny is by far the best, and he and Luke have the best instincts, while Rich follows orders the best. Jessica does her best to help, and Gwen and Cindy pitch in where they can.

“And you... waste time and grandstand until something happens that you can respond to, instead of creating a situation.

“The girls hate being here and don’t really have violent bones in them, but they’ve still got better instincts on what to do than you do. It’s crazy to see it in action, because you’re so much more effective when you finally get around to it after wasting time before doing something.”

His face was falling at the sharpness of my voice. “Well, that’s pretty harsh...”

“You wouldn’t be taking it so hard if it weren't true.” I tossed my thumb over my shoulder again, and he stared at it helplessly. “Combat has all the distractions your brain can possibly deal with. Everything there can command ALL of your attention, and you’re not letting it.

“You are aces in just about every other performance category, but you and I both know you’re basically phoning it in. Your powers make you superhumanly good at all the basic tests of speed, agility, strength, and stamina, and it’s really hard to push someone like us to the very limit, especially if we aren’t the arch-competitive sort.

“So, in the mental area, you’re at the bottom of the whole class, despite being the most mentally talented of all of them.” I leaned forwards to him. “From the standpoint of a tester and an instructor, I shouldn’t even have to tell you how bloody frustrating that is to see.

“You know how you see high school? So dull, so boring, so utterly below you in what they teach?”

“Y-yeah?” he replied, face rather ashen.

“That’s what it feels like to us, watching you do your stuff. You’re bored, you’re dull, it’s below you, and so you suck at what you should be great at.” I just shook my head at him. “Come ON, Peter Parker! You are being taught by Shields! They see EVERYTHING. And watching you making only limp-wristed efforts when the rest of the class is trying so hard, just because this is so easy for you, totally pisses them off, although they will never show it to you.

“You’re on easy street, and you think they can’t see it because you’re so gods-damned awesome, and yet EVERYONE KNOWS you are just wasting time.”

I gave him four seconds to think about that, his whole face flushed, almost tearing up. “Time’s up, I gave you a minute.” I snapped my fingers, and the wall of spiders and the webbing they were scattered over disappeared. “Did you ever investigate the origin of your powers like I recommended?” I went on in a neutral voice.

His head shook as he tried to keep up with me. “No?”

“Wonderful. Well, to inform you properly, you are a Spider Totem Warlock. Congratulations.”

“What?”

“Moving on.” I gave him his one second to flounder. “Your particular totem is similar to Gwen’s. It makes you stronger than Cindy and I, but you lack the innate webbing and some ancillary powers.”

“Wait, what?”

“It’s probably based on a tarantula or wolf spider. Also, you are weaponized.” I pointed at his forearm. “Hold your arm up. Picture a big ivory spike nestled inside your forearm. Now, push it up through your palm, starting from your elbow outwards.”

“What is that – Oh My God!” He jumped out of his seat as the stinger-handfang shot out of his hand, a nice curving ivory-esque arc.

“One second. Two seconds. Three seconds,” I ticked them off icily, and he forcibly calmed himself down. “Now, yank it back inside your bloody arm so it doesn’t keep distracting you, and stop waving it around.”

He blinked at me, stared at it, and a breath later it slid back into his arm, vanishing as if it wasn’t there.

“Gwen has them, too. We already did the X-rays, there’s nothing there,” I said as he felt his forearm all over nervously.

“Wait! You said you were a Spider Totem Warlock, too!” he accused me.

“Was it the webs or me saying I was one that tipped you off?” I replied evenly. His jaw flapped as he sat back down carefully under my stare. “My bioelectric powers are part of my Pact. My Repulse and Attract are just juiced-up versions of your own wall-crawling... which you could duplicate if you bothered to work on them.” His mouth flapped at me again. “The girls figured it out, so now I’m telling you. They were getting proactive about sticky-fu fighting, you see, and noticed that I had the exact same energy signature as the three of you did when I was sticking to stuff.”

He said nothing. I held up fingers. One, two...

“I could learn to shoot webs?” he asked abruptly.

“Probably,” I confirmed. “It’s not a primary power of hunting spiders, so you don’t have them naturally. Ambush spiders and web-spinners.” I stood up, turned around, and lifted up the back of my shirt. “My Patron.”

“Oh, crap,” he muttered, staring at the black and red spider there, which seemed to be moving under his eyes. “It’s looking at me...”

I let my shirt fall, sat back down. “Yes. Because I’m an Alchemist and magically aware, I’m also aware of its attention, all the time. Be thankful you don’t have a Tattoo.”

“I am!” he said hastily, before my fingers could rise. “So, I’ve got more powers than I thought I had, and I can develop new ones I have no ideas about?” he went on.

“That’s about the gist of it.”

“Do you, uh, know what kind of powers?” he asked hesitantly.

“Depends on Patron, but...” I tapped the desk thoughtfully. “Tremblesense, which is sensitivity to vibrations. Stand in a spot, cast it out in a web of awareness, it can cover a large area. It can be developed to be an instant-awareness combat sense, but that’s somewhat different.

“You don’t have any magic, so you can’t Summon spiders like that, but you should be able to become aware of any spiders around, potentially see through their eyes, and communicate with them. Furthermore, no spider should normally attack you unless they are much stronger than you are. You could walk through a spider horror movie and never get bit.”

“So, I only have to fear super-sized magical spiders?” he emphasized.

“Spiders are cannibals, so they do eat their weak and wounded,” I pointed out for him, completely serious.

“Oh, yeah.” He scratched his head.

“The Repulse power I have is basically anti-sticking. It’s likely meant to emulate the power a spider has to move along its web without being stuck. Being a bit more intelligent than a bug, I’ve made extra uses for it. Even at your level, if you can emulate my sparkfoot, you should still be able to glide and slide like the world is coated in oil upon command.”

“Do you have a spider-sense?” he asked quickly.

“The girls said theirs manifests as a tingling sensation, like something is pulling on their awareness in certain directions where danger is. That like yours?” He nodded quickly. “Mine manifests as red eyes in my mind, staring in the direction of the danger.” I hooked a thumb at the Tat on my back.

“What about your bioelectricity? Can we learn that?” he asked.

“I doubt it. I’m guessing it’s an extension of my stronger connection to magic through alchemy. Cheer up. You should always be stronger than me... and you can develop that, too. I’m guessing up to somewhere between thirty and fifty tons, depending on how bulky you want to get. Our Might seems fairly relevant to the amount of muscle we have, but we lean towards slim and toned instead of buff. Go on a training kick, and you might end up as strong as Luke Cage is now.”

“Wow.” He kind of stared at me, and my finger ticked up. “That, that is pretty impressive,” he admitted, sighing. “This is really strange, talking with someone who thinks as fast as me...”

“Like all the Shielders?” I asked archly, and his face fell again. “Yeah, you waste their time, too.”

“How did you learn all this?” he had to ask.

“Alchemists study. I wasn’t born with this stuff. Naturally I wanted to learn all about it, and the Tat on my back was a great big bloody impetus to do so. I’m just not limited to the chemical side of the equation.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know your blood is radioactive. So are the girls’. Mine is not. And there’s no way your blood would be radioactive from just that one bite. It’s radioactive because your Pact power is moving through you, giving you the energy and strength to operate at a superhuman level.” I lowered my head at him slightly. “You DID do some of the caloric consumption calculations on how much juice it actually takes to run around like we do, right?”

“Uh, yeah. That was actually kind of interesting. I didn’t know what to think when it was plain I didn’t eat enough food in a day to even go webslinging...”

“Especially without a Core or Matrix. The energy is getting funneled to you via your Pact from your Patron. The reason you eat is to maintain your physical body. Your energy needs are provided from your Pact,” I stated firmly.

“Oh, do the Shielders have the same thing?” Peter asked suddenly.

“No. Shielders have a passive Core. It provides the energy for most of their passive benefits.”

“Oh.” He sighed again. “So, is this assessment done?”

“Pretty much. You knock everything out of the park in real terms, there’s nothing to complain about, because you’re naturally the most awesome guy in the room.” He couldn’t even smile. “In relative terms, you’re a slacker with no focus thinking you can get away with it because you’re so much better than others, and everybody has noticed it. They just haven’t told you, and I am.”

“Wow. I guess I got too confident in nobody ever really noticing anything about me...” he muttered.

“You’ve got four areas to develop, Peter Parker.” I held up my fingers. “One, and the most important, is your focus. As soon as you start thinking ahead instead of reacting, wow, will that start making a difference in things.

“Two, you’ve got the ability to enhance your own spider-powers.

“Three, you’ve got access to some of the best teachers in martial skills in the whole world here, and you aren’t taking advantage of them, you’re poo-pooing them, so when it comes time to need the skill, you won’t have it.” He grimaced again.

“Lastly is the fact you’re very smart, and you’re fifteen times faster than the equivalent human very smart. You’re working on that at the Baxter Building, and you can’t slack there because I’m there and Doc Richards is there. You’re doing good there, can’t fault you in any way, but watching you perform there and then coming here to watch you just...” I waved my hand. “Disappointing, Parker.”

“I’ll... I’ll try to do better!” he said instantly.

“Do better, Parker. Although trying is better than not trying, I suppose.” I just rolled my eyes. “Also, don’t look down on everyone just because you can outperform them when you start this. They’ll all notice the difference between trying to improve and showing off, which is generally trying to encourage them, too.”

“Yeah, well... I think the girls need a good kick in the butt, too, right?”

“That is true...”