Memories Of What Had Been

Serena sighed as Peter started to become upset when he learned that the black suit had been destroyed. "Listen to me Peter. That suit was evil. It was alien in nature and it was taking over you and changing you. I know you don't want to believe me but it's true. I only did what I had to do to help you because I love you and I can't lose you either. Black sludge came out of your nose and then began to crawl across the floor. If that doesn't convince you that the suit was evil then I don't know what will, besides the fact that when my father destroyed the suit you went into a coma."

She gripped his hand tighter and looked at him. "You don't have nothing Peter and if you consider yourself nothing without a suit then you shouldn't have one. It isn't the suit that makes you Spider-Man...it's you. No one else could put on your Spider-Man suit and do what you do because they aren't you...they don't have your heart. I admire Spider-Man...but I love Peter Parker."

Her words touched him but she had to know that he couldn’t just go out there as himself. Between her and her father they had essentially grounded him. Peter loved Serena and he knew that she loved him, he felt her love almost every day but it also seemed to him that she was taking her father’s side of things. He didn’t like that at all. He felt like lashing out at her for what she did but he knew that wasn’t right either. What was right? He was so confused and he didn’t understand. The part about black stuff coming out of his nose worried him though.

“Serena...I’d...like to be alone...for a while please,” he said much colder than he felt. He fought the urge to say something mean to her though his heart swelled just because she was near him. ‘Was that the suit too?’ He wondered. ‘Why am I so...angry?’ He asked himself. He didn’t know. He was angry, he loved Serena and he missed the suit now that it was gone.

Serena was worried about Peter, but she decided not to argue with him about the suit. It worried her that he was angry over the suit, even after all she had told him, but she hoped that now that the suit had been destroyed that whatever effects it left behind would fade over time. She nodded and slowly released his hand and got up. She paused a moment and looked at him.

"I love you Peter...more than you will ever know."

She then turned and left the medical suite. She headed straight up to her father's lab. Her father had technology specifically to design suits and he had showed her once (well technically twice) how it worked. She brought up Peter's current suit design and looked at it. It was displayed in a 3D hologram that she could easily manipulate and move. She was starting to go through all the various options when she suddenly heard something behind her. She turned and looked over her shoulder to see her father standing there. He didn't look angry...more curious as to what she was doing.

"I thought Peter's suit could use some updating."

Tony was always amazed at how Serena’s mind worked. She was intelligent and creative like he was and she had her mother’s empathy and compassion. (As well as her bad temper) He knew what she was doing, the holo-imager was what he used to concept suit designs. When she looked back at him and he smiled at her. He still had no intention of giving Peter the suit he had made for him. It was far to dangerous, especially now when he was likely still not himself.

“Serena,” he said as he came up to her. He looked once more at the imager and then he focused on her. “I know you love Peter but when you give him tools like this suit, you also are taking responsibility for him. I know you two are a couple but putting yourself in that role...are you sure you want to do that? Are you prepared to accept that kind of responsibility? I took his suit away because I wasn’t prepared. But you know him better than I. I won’t stop you from doing what you feel you need to do but you need to be willing to take away what you give if things do not turn out as you hoped. I can help you...I will help you but I will not make that choice for you,” he said honestly. “Especially when your mother finds out,” he said and smiled at her.

Serena listened quietly to what her father had to say. She respected her father and looked up to both he and her mother. They were beloved public figures and their relationship and marriage amazed and inspired her.

"I'm not planning to give it to him now," she told him. "He's awake now and I can see that the black suit's effects are still with him somewhat. I'm hoping that those effects will dissipate over time as he recovers. He told me that he was nothing without his Spider-Man suit and I think he needs time to realize that that isn't true at all. My intention is to have this new suit ready for him for when he realizes that. I think only then will he be ready for it."

Tony nodded and rubbed his hands together briskly. “Then lets get to work,” he said and rolled over another seat and put on the other virtual driver on his fingers.

“So with the gold edging we can give him a stealth mode that turns the blue to black and the gold to a dark brown like a brown recluse. The suit should be able to sustain him in a vacuum or under water for a time and self seal if breached,” he said and they began adding those components. “A bullet resistant, puncture resistant weave and under arm gliding flaps. A tiny, remote homing spider that he can shoot from his left forearm and on his right a small, controllable remote spider he can use to hack into security systems using a virtual keyboard that he will be able to see in his HUD,” he decided. He removed most of the other junk he had in the suit but kept the stunning webs, fire webs and acid webs. He also keeps the retractable legs that come out of a small area in the suit at the base of his spine.

“What do you think?” Tony asked.

Serena always enjoyed working side by side with her father. They each brought ideas to the table that perhaps the other had not thought of, and her father, with his vast experience, would tell her when something just wasn't going to work. Together they created a suit that not only they were proud of, but that she knew Peter was going to flip-out over. That thought made her smile. They both stood back and looked at the rendering of the suit they had created with the list of what it was capable of doing. Serena grinned at her father and put up a hand for a high-five.

"I think it's incredible. Can we go ahead and create it?"