As a single woman, Aunt May worked at a charity organization, so her salary was not high.
Though their living situation couldn't be called impoverished, it was just enough to get by.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have had to scavenge for parts to build his own computer.
If he had the means, he would naturally hope for Aunt May to live a better life.
In the past, he wouldn't have thought about these things.
But after the experience with the Shadow Spider-Man, he had indeed grown up a lot overnight.
The first step of growing up is to start caring about the people around you.
"Alright, you prepare yourself first. I still have some other matters to attend to. In the afternoon, my assistant will come to pick you up and take you to the destination. His name is Happy," Tony stood up, ready to leave.
"Okay," Peter nodded and also stood up.
He needed to produce some more webbing during this time.
After seeing Tony off, Peter had to address Aunt May's persistent questioning.
He took the opportunity to mention that he had received funding from the September Foundation.
This was good news for the family.
Aunt May was immediately delighted and said they would go out for dinner to celebrate properly.
However, Peter told her about Iron Man's arrangements for him: In the afternoon, Iron Man would send someone to pick him up and get him set up with some things, to ensure he met the criteria for the September Foundation's support, and so on.
This was their unified stance regarding this "business trip."
Although disappointed, Aunt May knew important matters took priority.
So she gave Peter another round of reminders, telling him some tips for dealing with other people.
Peter felt overwhelmed listening to her, but he had to patiently endure it.
He had the mischievous thought of whether the Shadow Spider-Man was also lectured like this by his Aunt May.
This was probably the "wisdom of experience from adults."
Indeed, it meant well for the younger generation.
But the younger generation really didn't like listening to it.
After talking for about half an hour, Peter made frantic hints that he needed to prepare for his departure in the afternoon, and Aunt May finally let him go.
Afterwards, she prepared some spare clothes and such for Peter's trip before leaving for work.
Back in his room, Peter lightly jumped up and clung to the ceiling, pushing open the movable panel to retrieve a few small webbing pellets from inside.
These were the webbing he had made himself.
The formula for the webbing was something he naturally learned after being bitten by the spider and gaining his abilities.
Just like how spiders in nature spin webs.
"One, two, three, four... there are eight webbing pellets left. That should be enough, right?" After counting the webbing pellets, Peter stuffed them all into his pocket.
This was going to be an "expedition," so he had to be prepared with ammunition.
He then turned his attention to the web-shooters.
Compared to the webbing formula, which was an ability-derived product, the web-shooters were his true pride and joy.
Because he was not an actual spider, his body didn't have organs to shoot webbing like a real spider.
So he had to rely on external tools.
For this, he self-studied biology, materials science, and mechanical dynamics.
Biology and materials science helped him understand the structure of spider silk and how to actualize it using the formula.
The structure of spider silk is quite complex.
It has three levels of structure.
The first level is hydrogen-bonded β-strands formed by amino acid molecules tightly connected to each other through hydrogen bonds.
The hydrogen-bonded β-strands are then interconnected by hydrogen bonds to form the secondary structure of spider silk—hydrogen-bonded β-sheet nanocrystals.
The hydrogen-bonded β-sheet nanocrystals are embedded into the semi-amorphous state of the β-turn polypeptide chain to form the α-helical structure, which constitutes the third-level protein nanocomposite structure, or the third-level structure of spider silk.
Based on this structure, he devised a method.
First, prepare the materials to the third-level structure of spider silk formation, then use a sub-atomic compression machine to compress it back to the sub-atomic state.
This way, a few hundred meters of webbing could be compressed into a solution the size of a fingernail.
The web-shooter, on the other hand, was a miniaturized version of the sub-atomic compression machine, but for portability, it removed other functions and only retained the pressure.
Because the webbing solution needed enough pressure to achieve an instantaneous start and stop.
If the pressure wasn't sufficient, the webbing would keep spraying without stopping once triggered.
For these reasons, the materials used for the web-shooters were also quite demanding, with many materials on Earth not meeting his requirements.
Either they were too expensive or too brittle.
Eventually, he secretly went to the site of the Avengers' battle with the aliens in downtown New York a few years ago and found some metals that met his needs.
After painstaking smelting and forging, he finally managed to make it the way he wanted.
At this moment, he couldn't help but envy the Shadow Spider-Man, who didn't need to artificially synthesize webbing but could directly shoot it from his wrists.
He didn't know if, when he possessed another Spider-Man in the future, he could gain such an ability.
But for now, Peter was preparing to modify his web-shooters slightly.
This was inspired by his experience with the Shadow Spider-Man.
The Shadow Spider-Man's webbing could be freely altered according to his will, taking various forms like webbing, web pellets, web nets, and web whips for different scenarios.
He didn't demand that much; modifying his web-shooters to that extent wasn't something he could do at present.
He planned to add the "web pellet" and "web net" firing modes.
In the past, the simple webbing was merely a tool for him to move around, occasionally used to tie people up.
But with web pellets, he could instantaneously release a large mass of webbing, using the web-shooter to generate a momentary huge kinetic energy, creating an effect similar to bullets.
Although made of webbing material, and with the webbing solution rapidly crystallizing upon contact with air, these web pellets wouldn't be lethal, but if an ordinary person was hit, they would definitely be disoriented.
This was clearly a decent attack method.
As for the web net, it was an extension of the existing method of tying people up with webbing, directly spraying the webbing in a net pattern to not only cover a larger area but also directly restrain the enemy, rendering them immobile and instantly incapacitated.
For this, Peter studied a large amount of information and carefully researched similar objects like bullets and fishing nets, observing their motion changes from release to finish.
At the same time, he repeatedly recalled the sensations he experienced when possessing the Shadow Spider-Man.
Finally, before 2 PM, he managed to complete his modifications.
After testing the finished product, he found it fully met his expectations.
A while later, a message was sent to Peter's phone.
"Hello Peter, this is Happy. Tony should have mentioned me. I'm downstairs."
Peter grabbed the newly adjusted web-shooters, checked his equipment, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and headed downstairs.
He knew that next, he would be facing the first ever superhero in history.
Captain America!
(End of chapter)