I stepped forward and opened the rear door up, taking a long sniff. “New car smell!” I had to smile.

Wide-eyed, Peter stepped forwards to do the same thing, and could only agree.

I noticed the gas tank was suddenly full, too.

He stepped to the front of the car, and the hood released itself and swung up. He stared at the engine within, which was as grime and grease-free as if it had just come off a showroom floor.

“Wow...” Peter murmured.

“Are these permanent changes?” Ben Parker asked, staring at the engine.

“They are unless you want them to be otherwise,” I said calmly.

He reached up, slowly pushed the now showcase-worthy hood down, and stared at his reflection in the polish, it gleamed so nicely.

“This is a very, very dangerous amount of power,” he said in a low voice.

“With great power comes great responsibility,” I answered, and both Parkers gave me a funny look. “What?”

Peter grinned. “He says that all the time!” he pointed at his uncle.

“Well, then, I hope you believe it, Mr. Parker. Because if that book is real, you just became responsible for a whole helluva lotta stuff.”

He sighed and stepped back, watching his car roll back into his suddenly clean and rebuilt garage. Even as we watched, tools flickered back to their proper places, dirt vanished, cracks in the cement were fixed, wear and tear vanished, cobwebs evaporated, and junk sitting around was suddenly sitting in a couple gleaming new trashcans.

“Good move, not just disintegrating the trash. Messes with energy and balance and stuff,” I commented, as the door slid smoothly and quietly shut, and the bright lights inside went out.

Mr. Parker turned to face me, a contemplative look on his face. “Ain’t no one in the world ever accused me of being too smart,” Ben stated bluntly. “I know what I know, and I’m good at what I know, but Peter here is smarter than I ever was, and he says you’re as smart as he is.”

“Smarts and wisdom are two different things, as every mad scientist ever will absolutely refuse to believe, Mr. Parker. It doesn’t take smarts to wield power well, although you might do it more effectively. It takes wisdom and restraint.” I nodded at Peter. “He doesn’t go running around showing off his brains, he just uses them. Nor does he show off how strong and fast he is; he uses enough to get the job done with minimum fuss.”

I did reach over and cuff Peter’s head. “His mouth, however, he runs at full speed.”

“Hey!” Peter protested, ducking away too late. “That is a perfectly viable combat tactic and you know it!”

Ben and I met eyes, and he laughed despite himself. “Alright, let’s head inside and taste that cooking you were working on. Peter did mention you are an amazing cook.”

“Your wife is excellent. She could be working in a restaurant easily.”

“Is that so?...” he mused. “Well, I can tell that I’m going to need some good advice going forwards on stuff that I might be doing.”

“First good advice: don’t miss Mrs. Parker’s blueberry pie.”

He laughed again, and we went back inside.

----------

Peter swallowed as he closed the book. It was late, and Ben and Aunt May had already turned in. He’d run through it at 15x speed, totally possible with his reflexes, a skill I’d forced him to learn for studying and working with me.

Being plugged into the information network at the Baxter Building meant access to all sorts of scientific sites, journals, reports, and news, but I only gave him an hour to skim stuff a day. He had reworked the electronics area with multiple screens so he could be downloading multiple stuff and rapidly scrolling through the rest, getting the equivalent of one or two days of reading done inside that hour.

I did much the same thing. I also found myself doing peer reviews of articles, including those of Dr. Richards himself.

I had Int 36 and 11 Ranks in several relevant fields now, and was accruing Karma towards Mastery Ranks and Feats as I worked at that level here, surfing on the superscience wave with my Alchemist Levels. I was totally capable of working at that level, and if I initially was introduced under Richards’ umbrella, I was fully capable of standing on my own.

I was nudging Peter in that direction, but while he was smart enough, his knowledge base wasn’t there yet, and he didn’t have a rigorous scientific method and the discipline worked out for himself yet.

He was a teenager, it wasn’t unusual.

“This... is what my Uncle Ben can do?” he asked, totally shocked, which was understandable.

“Maybe. He has to get there, of course. Understanding is a big part of it, but your uncle is like a bulldog, with a solid work ethic. He’ll find his limits, or lack of them, eventually, and without turning the world on its ear.”

“But... how will people treat him?” he asked softly. “I mean, he’s potentially so dangerous...”

“Like they do Primus, or the Lantern, or any of the Epsilon-class heroes. Politely, I’d imagine. Rudely, if they think they can get away with it. Avoiding them, if they think they can’t. You’ve heard the one about Primus and the tires, right?”

“Everyone’s heard that one,” he admitted.

Supposedly, some government twat had insulted Primus to his face, twisting words and misrepresenting facts to make him look bad in public.

As a result, every week that guy blew out a tire on any car he drove or rode in regularly. Eventually he could only take public transportation to get around, as nobody would ride with him, and he couldn’t drive anything anywhere reliably.

Nobody knew exactly who the guy was, as he’d dropped completely off the radar and had supposedly changed careers to something he didn’t need to commute much for.

That was not something supervillains put up with at all. Roast Mechanar, and you might wake up in a brainbox somewhere, being used as an organic processor, with emails sent to all your friends, family, and maybe some news outlets, letting them know that you didn’t have the right to insult him.

A lot of supervillains thrived on any news about themselves, good or bad, it didn’t matter, but they also had some specific views of their own images. Midas had the money to utterly ruin anyone who stood against him who didn’t also have money backing them, and so his media image remained untouched, even if the deep whispers knew he was a total arse.

Imagine someone who could move molecules around fucking with your life. That would be the very definition of a bad idea.

“But won’t the High Guard or someone think he’s a danger?” Peter went on, his imagination running wild with him. “If they came down and attacked...”

“They’d be much stupider than you or I think they are,” I said calmly. “They didn’t come down to snatch up the Phoenix, right?”

His mental runaway stumbled at that. It was true, after all.

“And what makes you think someone doesn’t already know?” I pointed out the book in his hands. “Someone had to get that from another dimension, and realize what it meant. You’re in that book, along with a lot of other hero-types, and villains we haven’t even met yet. You think they didn’t realize the implications?”

“Why aren’t you in here?” he had to ask.

“Not important enough? Don’t belong? Who knows? They don’t have the Great Bear, or any of the Champions, either. Probably published by some company in the States on the East Coast, and they didn’t care about the rest of the world.”

“Oh. So, what do I have to do?” he asked, finally setting it down gingerly.

“Well, between you and your uncle, you should make up a list of things not to do.”

“Of things NOT to do...” he repeated, thinking about that. “Not stuff TO do?”

“Stuff to do will naturally come up, right? It’s inevitable. What not to do is more important.

“Example of a Rule One for Cosmic Beings: Don’t do charitable favors for others, unless they are secret and on a whim. Doing so means doing charitable things for everyone, which becomes obligation, not charity.

“Corollary for Rule One: Make them work for your favors if you want them done openly. The best way is to just pay them.

“Rule Two: It’s your power, and nobody can tell you what to do with it, but they can judge you on it. Be sensible.”

He was silent for a minute, thinking on those things. “So, like, waving his hands and fixing all the streets in New York is a bad idea.”

I nodded. “What’s it going to lead to?”

“Nobody is gonna maintain the streets, figuring I’d do it for them.” Ben came down the stairs quietly, dressed in his night shirt and pajamas. “It’s not my job to take care of them. However, I might want to help them take care of themselves, right?”

I nodded once, holding up my hand. “The Norse gods exist. Thor is right here in New York. The Greek Gods exist, Hercules is out in SF, and the other Olympians have been spotted around more than once.

“But they don’t really have churches like the Christians do, withdrawing from the world and not telling you how to live your lives.”

Ben rolled his eyes as he sat down in his chair. “Like they are good character models. Especially Zeus!”

“Exactly. Then again, the Christian Churches do a fine job of preaching morality and acting like total arseholes themselves, so they aren’t alone. Regardless, gods with power to receive faith and tell men what to do to earn miracles aren’t doing so. That should be a big example to live by.”

“I heard Hercules has a church out in California,” Peter blurted out.

“He does. The Tribes insisted on it. They sat down and talked with him about his creed and how he wanted to go about it, and especially how not violate the Compact of the Skyfathers. I’ve got a copy of his Creed if you want to read it.” I threw a thumb at my Masspack. “The gist of it is that he’s a God of Strength, so that’s where his dominion lies. Instead of giving his strength to others who pray, he helps others lend their strength to those who sincerely need it. As a god, he can vet their prayers and sense whose appeal is sincere and faithful, and worshippers can lend their strength to others.”

Ben Parker thought about that, and nodded slowly. “But... he could grant his power if there was real need, right?” he pressed.

“Yes. He’s a god, and can do with his power what he wants to. If some policeman needs to shove a fuel tanker out of the way to rescue some people before it explodes, he’s totally capable of giving the guy enough strength to do so, if they are a sincere worshipper.

“Of course, the whole bodybuilder culture is kind of centered around him now, giving strength to others when they need it. As I understand it, they choose a percentage, typically ten or fifteen percent, and it all becomes a bundle of strength Hercules can allocate here and there.

“I remember him going on a talk show out there and people asking about it, and I think he said the most common usage of it is little old ladies and single mothers asking for help carrying in the groceries.”