Preface

"Mr. Parker?"

He didn't answer. He stared at the floor, the white tiles that were so pristine and carefully polished that he was afraid he would dirty them simply by staring. He could not remember how he'd been brought here. He couldn't remember anything upon entering the building he was in now, or the people, or anything. His fists were clenched in frustration and his eyes squeezed shut. Something, he thought. I need something.

"Mr. Parker." The man was glaring at him now, an apologetic look in his piercing blue irises. He seemed like he didn't want to interrogate Peter—like he knew he was troubling him immensely. Couldn't they just let him go? Clearly his head wasn't in it; he wasn't going to answer them willingly if he wasn't going to be here willingly.

"Can you just tell me what the hell is going on?" Peter exploded, slamming his fists down. He was about to stand up until he heard the fizz of electricity in the silence behind him and decided that some kind of monstrous creature would be awaiting his death if he dared to make any sudden movement that was considered remotely threatening.

The man remained calm, though, despite Peter's outburst. "We understand that you are confused, Mr. Parker—"

He put his head in his hands, swallowed, and ran his fingers through his loose chestnut hair. "Please," he said, "just call me Peter."

"Peter: okay, that's fair enough." He leaned over the table a bit more, but what did it matter? The surface was long, and Peter was at one end while this man was at the other. A safe distance in case Peter wanted to attack, he decided. These people definitely knew about what had happened in the past few weeks—they probably knew a lot more about Peter than Peter even knew about himself.

"My name is Agent Coulson, but if you want, you can call me Phil." He smiled, his eyes wrinkling at the corners and his laugh lines appearing. Peter settled down a bit at that.

"Agent, I hate to be so forward, but what exactly am I doing here?"

Phil nodded and glanced down at the table, a knowing grin on his face. "Well, usually we find our suspects and speak to them wherever they may be, but you're different." He looked up. "You're special, because you're much younger than our other suspects. You're just a teenager."

The nervous feeling returned to Peter's stomach and sent his insides tingling with fear. "Suspects?"

"Not bad suspects—no, no, the quite opposite, actually. You see, Peter, you've been summoned for something called the Avengers Initiative."

"The what Initiative? Did you say 'Avengers'?"

Phil blinked and bobbed his head in response again. "Believe it or not, we know all about the incident you had with that radioactive spider a few weeks back." He fluttered his hands nonchalantly and shrugged, making his way down towards the end where Peter was seated. He felt his palms getting clammier by the second. Whatever this was about, he wasn't all too comfortable with it.

"That's our job here at S.H.I.E.L.D., to find people like you. You've put yourself on the maps recently with your 'hero activity' and we're interested in someone like you." He leaned back against a chair and folded his arms. "You ever heard of Iron Man?"

Peter racked his brain for any memories he had of Tony Stark's incredible invention, but he couldn't think of any instances of its greatness. He'd heard about how awesome it looked, how high-tech and innovative it was, but he couldn't recall any specific events. Besides, Stark lived in Manhattan while Peter was trapped down in Queens. Nothing ever happened in Queens. Nevertheless, he nodded slightly.

"He's only one of the agents that we've called in for this mission—the Initiative. His abilities are rather stunning, and he's put himself on our radar." Phil shrugged. "He was on our calling list before anything, actually, because of his father and his involvement with the Super Serum…"

The what?

"…but that's a different story." Phil shook his head. "We call on special people, on agents and superhumans that we believe can help us in our times of need. And in case you weren't aware—which most civilians aren't—we're in one of those times right now."

Peter tried to make connections in his head as the guy went along, but he was still confused from whatever they'd doused him with upon coming in here. "Are you saying that you need"—he glanced around the room for a moment before lowering his voice—"Spiderman to do the job for you?"

The agent cocked his head and scratched his neck, sighing deeply before continuing. "That's just the thing. We would love for Spiderman to join us, but he's a bit too young." He raised his eyebrow. "According to our tracking and monitor systems, you're only seventeen. You're still a minor, and it's not legal for us to put you in such endangerment."

"But aren't you a government agency?" Peter had no idea what he was saying. He had no idea what S.H.I.E.L.D. was, but he assumed it was something under governmental protection branches.

"Secret military law enforcement, yes, but you're still a minor, kid." A small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, and Peter began to wonder why they'd needed him if they were only going to tell him about something he couldn't be a part of.

"So then, why…?" He motioned to the room around him. "Why all this?"

"Because we're bringing you into training," Phil said, sitting on the table in front of the boy now. "We are not allowed to put you out on our front lines with the rest of the Avengers Assemble, but one day, you'll be eighteen, and Spiderman will be able to make an appearance when we need him."

Peter couldn't help but wonder what the sudden worldwide emergency was that Phil had referred to, but it was overridden with excitement. He was being taken in a superhero initiative where he'd be greeted with open arms by freaks just like him. It was weird, but what more could he ask for?

"Also," Phil said, folding his hands in his lap, "do you happen to know anything about a girl named Grace Hunt?"

Grace Hunt…of course he did. She was a junior like him—in his physics class at Forest Hills High School, ironically—but she was quiet. She had friends, she wasn't a total loser like Peter, but she and him had never actually spoken about non-school matters. They'd been partnered for labs a few times, but that was it. She was nice…was she a mutant like him?

"I know of her. She's in one of my classes."

"Right, right. Well, she's like you, in case you haven't yet figured that out; not exactly like you—I mean, she wasn't bitten by an arachnid as well, but she's been genetically modified. Her father was one of the only scientists as S.H.I.E.L.D. who could figure out a successful alternative Super Serum much like that of Howard Stark, and she was his test subject." He raised his eyebrows. "Pretty strange, but Jerry Hunt was a messed up guy. That's why he was fired."

Peter knew her dad had problems, but he didn't know what kind of problems. Alcoholic, maybe? Abusive? Did he have mental issues? He didn't know much about Grace, even though he'd been in school with her for eleven years. "Messed up?"

Phil seemed to ignore his question and paced around the table again, his loafer heels clicking on the pristine floor as he spoke. "Grace was the love child of him and another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Miss Jessica Drew, who vanished off the face of the Earth only a few days after her daughter was born. Jerry was madly in love with her since the day the two started working, but she never wanted to be tied down. It was rather odd when she announced her pregnancy, but none of us were surprised when she left. I don't even think Jerry was.

"He experimented on her out of contempt, I believe, because there was nothing else he could possibly do with her. He didn't know how to handle children so he took his own and…" Phil shrugged. "He just played around with the Serum when he wasn't supposed to, which resulted in the mutation of his daughter, and Director Fury cut him out of the picture. He was pissed, he took off to Queens with the kid and the Serum, but nobody knows what he did with it."

Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing; all of those years he'd passed by Grace in the hallway, been seated next to her in class, passed a paper back to her…and he thought he had problems.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. always knew that one day Grace Hunt would come to some use, but the problem was, we couldn't find her."

Peter paused. "…how'd you even find me?"

"Everyone in New York is traceable somehow. Plus, we've got state-of-the-art equipment that even the FBI doesn't have access to."

"Then how come you couldn't find her?" She'd been sitting across the aisle from me in physics all year, Peter thought, dazed. I'd been in class with one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most wanted subjects for eleven years, and they didn't know all this time.

"Ah, here's the problem: the Super Serum that Hunt developed unlocked an additional area of Grace's brain, allowing her the ability to…well, turn invisible on command. It enables her to hide from all radars and tracking devices somehow, and whatever we've been able to get from her is only little bits and pieces that don't make complete sense."

Peter raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair in disbelief. There was no way this was really happening; maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he'd fallen off his bike and hit his head really hard, and he was in some sort of coma. He pinched his arm inconspicuously, but nothing happened. I guess I could get used to this, he thought, his mind wandering to what could be if he were part of a group of superheroes. He'd be famous, most likely, and he'd be kicking the asses of bad guys, like in the movies.

"This is where we need your help, Peter," Phil continued. "Since you go to school with Grace, we would like you to find out a bit more about her. You don't need to get too up-close-and-personal with her, but just find out enough so that we can track her."

Did he have to stalk her?

"Just find out enough so that you two can be collected before we move to the helicarrier and your training commences," Phil said, rubbing his temples.

"Helicarrier?"

"You'll find out," the agent said with a sly smile, and Peter stood up to shake the man's hand, but he felt his knees buckle beneath him and his vision go black as he did.