MARVEL: BUYING GODHOOD

Chris didn’t answer that one.

Watching him, I had a feeling Gwen wasn’t the only person he expected to use whatever they eventually built there.

Gwen pulled her hand away and deliberately pointed somewhere slightly closer than where he’d moved it.

Chris stared at her for a moment before finally saying, “Fine.” Apparently satisfied with getting at least some of the distance back, Gwen moved on to the next thing.

Speed testing ended up with its own large open area as well.

By the time they finished, Gwen had stopped looking upward entirely and was walking around with Chris while pointing out where she wanted things.

Eventually, I interrupted them.

“Buildings aren’t the only problem.” Chris looked toward me, so I continued, “You need access, water, drainage, ventilation, communications and emergency routes.”

Chris immediately answered, “Four lifts and four stairways.

Separate access points so losing one doesn’t cut off an entire section.

Utility tunnels can run underneath everything.” I asked what he planned to do about power, and Chris paused before saying, “Leave that out for now.” When I asked why, he simply told me, “Give me three days.”

Gwen immediately looked at him.

“Is that the energy project you mentioned?” Chris told her it was part of it, which naturally made Gwen ask what he was making.

Chris only replied, “You’ll see.” Gwen sighed.

“You enjoy doing that.” Chris didn’t bother denying it.

I asked, “And you’re planning to build all of this down here?” Chris answered yes, so I asked how long it would take.

He looked toward the area Gwen had chosen for her laboratory before replying, “Not long.” After what I’d just seen, I decided not to ask what that meant.

Chris walked several steps away before placing his hand against the ground again.

This time, stone began rising.

Massive pillars pushed upward throughout the cavern, spreading into organized rows before reaching the ceiling.

They appeared one after another, each large enough that constructing it normally would have been a project on its own.

Within less than a minute, the empty cavern had changed completely.

Once he was finished, Chris started walking farther into the cavern before looking back at Gwen.

“Come on.” Gwen frowned and asked where they were going, but Chris only replied, “We’re already down here.” That didn’t answer anything, and apparently Gwen thought the same thing because she stayed where she was until Chris continued, “We don’t have the proper equipment yet, but there’s enough space to test the basics.”

Gwen’s expression changed immediately.

“My powers?” Chris answered, “Unless you want to wait three days.” Gwen was already walking toward him before he’d completely finished.

I followed with White beside me, but my attention remained on Chris for another moment.

Less than half an hour ago, we’d been sitting upstairs discussing Gwen’s laboratory and how much of the neighborhood we’d managed to purchase.

Now I was standing more than a hundred meters underground in a cavern over a kilometer across, and Chris had called it enough.

Gwen POV

Chris kept walking until we’d put a good distance between ourselves and everyone else.

With how enormous the cavern was, that still left more empty space around us than I knew what to do with.

I glanced back once.

Mom and White had followed but stopped farther away, apparently deciding they didn’t need to stand directly beside us for whatever Chris had planned.

When Chris finally turned around, I asked, “So how are we doing this?” I’d been waiting to properly test what the spider had done to me, and now that we finally had somewhere I couldn’t accidentally destroy anything important, I wanted to know what I could actually do.

Chris told me, “We start with control,” which wasn’t what I’d expected.

I thought we’d start with strength or maybe speed, so when he held out his hand, I frowned.

“What?” Chris simply told me to take it.

That only made me more confused, but I did it.

Chris looked down at our hands before asking how much strength I was using.

I almost told him that I wasn’t using any before realizing that obviously wasn’t true.

I was holding his hand.

I just wasn’t thinking about how much force it required.

Chris must have seen me understand because he pointed out, “You’ve touched me plenty of times since this happened. You haven’t hurt me.”

That was true.

I looked down at our hands and tightened my fingers slightly before stopping.

I could feel that I was doing it, but I couldn’t have said how much stronger my grip had become.

“So my body already knows how much strength to use?” Chris answered, “Sometimes,” before pulling his hand free.

“That’s what we’re finding out.”

He stepped away and told me to jump normally.

That sounded simple enough, so I bent my knees slightly and pushed against the ground with what felt like the amount of force I’d always used.

The ground disappeared beneath me almost immediately, and an embarrassing sound escaped before I could stop it as I shot upward.

For a moment, all I could see was the enormous cavern opening around me as I continued rising before gravity finally took over.

Landing turned out to be much easier than the jumping part.

My body seemed to know what to do without me thinking about it.

I bent my knees as my feet struck the stone, absorbing the impact before straightening again.

Chris was watching me when I looked over, and I immediately pointed at him.

“Don’t.” His mouth moved slightly as he said, “I didn’t say anything,” but the smile that followed told me enough.

Instead of making another comment, Chris gave me a point to aim for and told me to try again.

I jumped and went well past it.

The next target was higher, and somehow I got closer, only for him to lower it again on the following attempt.

That one was worse.

After several tries, I started noticing the problem.

Going high was easy.

Holding myself back wasn’t.

My body responded to what I wanted almost too well, and small differences in how hard I pushed changed the jump much more than I expected.

Chris had me repeat the same height until I finally came close to where he’d indicated.

It still wasn’t perfect, but when I landed, he gave a small nod and said, “Better.” That was enough for me to immediately ask, “Now can I see how high I can actually go?” Chris told me we’d do that later and started walking farther into the cavern.

I gave him a look before following and asking what he wanted to test next.

This time, his answer was running.

Chris marked a point in the distance and had me run toward it without trying to go particularly fast.

The first few seconds felt normal enough, but the moment I pushed harder, the acceleration caught me completely off guard.

The cavern rushed past as my speed climbed, and I crossed Chris’s marker before I properly registered that I’d reached it.

I tried to stop, stumbled through several steps and finally managed to bring myself to a halt much farther away than I’d intended.

When I turned around, Chris was still standing back at the starting point, and even from here, I could tell he was amused.

I walked back before he could say anything, and this time he changed the test instead of simply telling me to go faster.

He gave me places to stop, change direction or slow down.

That made a much bigger difference.

Speed itself came easily.

Controlling it took concentration.

After a while, I stopped thinking about every individual step.

My feet landed where I wanted them to, my balance adjusted almost instantly whenever I turned, and my eyes had no trouble following what was around me.

The faster I went, the more obvious it became that the spider hadn’t simply made my muscles stronger.

My entire body was keeping up.

Eventually, Chris moved the marker much farther away and told me, “Go as fast as feels comfortable. Don’t force it.” I looked across the open cavern.

There was nothing ahead of me except stone and distant pillars, and for the first time, I didn’t worry about slowing myself down.