I was bored. One of the rare few times I get a break from going through the arduous and rigorous training of S.H.I.E.L.D., which I suppose was part of the problem because I normally had no free time to fill. To make matters worse there was no-one around; Loki had disappeared a few days ago saying nothing about why or when he'd be back- he never did, Tony and Pepper had gone back to Malibu, Clint and Nat were doing top secret stuff, Thor was on Asgard and Steve was… well I don't know what he was doing.

So upon looking outside to see the sun shining I forced myself to get up and go out- do some exploring. There were definitely parts of the city that I had yet to visit which wouldn't be a good thing if a bad guy turns up in one of those parts and I have no idea how to get there. Grabbing my stuff I left the apartment and headed downstairs, taking a random direction and walking on.

Things had been pretty peaceful since we'd come back from the Chitauri world, by which I mean no major criminals or life and death situations. Sure there had been a few minor villains, some of whom Loki had purposely found for me to 'train' against. It was a good thing for the city, but sometimes I wished we had a bigger villain to fight. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't hoping for mass destruction and death- I just wanted a chance to make a difference, to work with the Avengers on the front line this time.

I looked up at the towering skyscrapers, looming overhead in an attempt to inspire awe and wondered how those buildings could have ever excited me as much as they used too. Without looking I brushed of a man's clumsy attempt to try and pickpocket me and went on with my gaze now forward.

When you'd been to a world where you are surrounded by stars it's a little hard to appreciate the things you find here on Earth. Or maybe that's just me, because I've always had a thing for stars and much preferred the night to the day. I'd also seen the gleaming golden towers of Asgard and the frozen land of Jotunheim (The latter not so much appreciated).

But I'd met the Avengers, joined S.H.I.E.L.D., fought the Chitauri and even befriended a villainous god. I'd come to the world that thousands of people have dreamed of and made some of the greatest friends I've ever met. And yet there was a part of me that wasn't happy.

I often wondered if it was something to do with the nightmares, the memories of the more terrifying moments of my time here that, and then wondered if it was that I missed my old life. It was bound to happen wasn't it? I mean I had to miss my old life.

That was when I heard the chanting, my head tilting as though I were some kind of guard dog and picked up the words 'eat it'. Without my knowing I had seemingly ended up outside a school, and out of curiosity I stopped and looked over to the source of the commotion. As expected, there was a ring of kids- although I think teenagers might have been more appropriate- who were obviously watching some kid get bullied.

Some students had the sense not to get involved and my gaze was drawn to a girl sitting on one of the wooden tables, a book in her hands. Blonde hair tied back, a thin black hairband and wearing a cream coloured coat with the dark blue of a top peaking out; she wasn't someone I'd met before but there was something oddly familiar about her and I chewed at my lip in thought. This was going to bug me all day if I didn't figure this one out.

"Put him down," someone said loudly, and I turned my head back to the group to see who had spoken. "Eugene."

There was an oohing noise, followed by another as I guessed the kid who had spoken up got hit. Part of me wanted to go in there and show them what I had learned from S.H.I.E.L.D., but another part of me told me that it probably wasn't a good idea to do so. Weren't there any teachers around?

"Get up!" snapped another voice- the bullies most likely.

I watched the blonde get and push past the people as she entered the ring, the shouting stopping and voices dropping to normal levels. No doubt the fight had been ended, meaning I should have left but something told me to stay and so I remained.

A bell rang out and just like magic the group began to disperse as they headed off to their lessons. As they did, I spotted a kid on the floor and watched as he tried to get up. One of the boys who walked past kicked what looked like a camera and as he picked it up to check on it I realised that I knew his face as well.

The gears turned in my brain as I tried to figure out why these two looked familiar when there was a sudden strong gust of wind. Several sheets of paper flew from the boy's bag, heading in my direction and with a noise of annoyance he got up and chased them. He managed to pick up most of them but one dodged his clasping hand and made to glide past me. Without even looking I reached out and grabbed the bit of paper with a quick glance down at sheet I disregarded the formulas and tried to find the only bit of information that mattered before I held out the sheet to the kid as he came over.

"Nice catch," he said, taking the sheet back from me with a grateful nod. "Thanks."

"Are you okay?" I asked him, looking at the bruise forming on his jaw. "That looks pretty nasty."

"I've had worse," he said with a grin, stuffing the sheets back into his bag without much care and looking at me with a frown. "Were you watching the whole thing?"

"I was considering going in and taking the other guy down," I replied truthfully. "I'm not fond of bullies."

"Well be my guest," he said with a mock bow, then hesitated and pointed back over his shoulder. "I should get to class."

"Yes you should," I agreed, and raised his hand in goodbye before jogging over to the school building. He opened the doors, but before disappearing inside glanced over at me one last time and for a second we stared at each other. Then he was gone and I continued on my way, this time with a destination in mind.

Java The Hut was a great place to hang out, if you didn't cringe at the name and were in desperate need of a coffee. I hated coffee myself, but it had free to use computers and a whole load of comics to browse through. It was interesting to see what kinds they have here seeing as we live in the Marvelverse. I ordered myself a hot cocoa and sat down at one of the computers, pulling up Google and typing a name into the search bar.

Midtown Science High School, that had been the name splashed across the front, and I clicked on the link to the schools website. As I thought there were several photos of students, all relating to great achievements, and I looked around for the name of the photographer because I would bet that kid was the one who had done it.

I gave a thanks to the waiter who had brought over my drink and gave it a tentative sip, almost scalding my tongue and putting it to one side as I continued my search. I clicked my tongue in frustration, searching through all the pages until at last I came to the name I wanted.

Peter Parker. My heart skipped a beat and I almost banged my head against the table. Of course it was, I remembered that know- the blonde girl was Gwen Stacey and no doubt 'Eugene' was that Flash guy. How could I not have remembered this? I mean I'd seen the film quite a few times so why I hadn't I thought of it?

Obviously because of copyright issues, what with the rights to Spider-Man being held by some other company, and as I realised that he was actually in the same world as the Avengers I almost burst out laughing in glee. Spider-Man was here, the universe wasn't giving a crap about copyright and had kept the Marvel heroes together- either that or something was going on in my own world that I didn't know about.

So I'd just met Spider-Man, or the soon to be Spider-Man anyway. Running the events through my head I was pretty sure that scene came near the beginning, before he'd found the briefcase and gone of to Oscorp. So also before Connors turned himself into a giant lizard and started running rampant across the city, something which Fury wasn't going to appreciate.

A thought came to me, something that was probably going to land me in the middle of a problem that had nothing to do with me and yet was so appealing. There was no way I was just going to sit back and watch this play out, besides, someone had to make sure the Avengers didn't interfere.

Looks like I had a date with Oscorp.