It was a windy night, colder than to be expected in April, but it wasn't bothering the young webslinger. At least, not too much. The homemade costume wasn't exactly the most, well, professional. But how much time is a high school kid going to get during the school year to make a full-on suit? Exactly.

He would get weird enough looks as it was, going into stores and buying spandex, so right now, all that would distinguish the super spider from a strange criminal would be the odd mixture of red and blue colors, along with mirrored goggles and...no shoes. Well, how else is he going to climb walls as he so easily does?

It had been hard enough to make the web shooters.

Shooting another string at the nearest support beam of a building, an unexplainable sense in his head told him something was up nearby. Following his "Spidey Sense," he found a landing spot low enough to listen, but high enough to stay hidden, near the two figures he soon spotted.

"—they're bound to find out, that Rogers guy—" a whispering voice said, and the webslinger doubted this was the beginning of the conversation. Rogers? Why was that name so familiar?

"—is just one person. Don't get your tail in a twist. We've got this," another whisper interrupted, this one lower. Tail? What kind of people were these? The teenaged hero squatted lower, trying to get a better listen in on them.

"Funny, I wonder how you came up with tail," the first voice said in a sarcastic whisper, "and what about Romanoff? You know she's good, you're compared to her anyways," it said—she said, as the teen had surmised. Romanoff...that one wasn't quite as familiar to him; it sounded Russian, possibly.

"Just wait. Soon enough, everything about her will be out in the open. Trust me," the second whisper said, causing the webslinger to frown. Who would have so many secrets that it would be imperative to let her secrets out in the open?

"But Grant—"

The voice was immediately hushed by what he assumed was the second figure, "SHIELD has eyes and ears everywhere, don't be ignorant," he said in a near-hiss, and in the dim light, the teen could just make out the taller figure glancing from side to side, "We've been here too long," he said, "I can't block the tracker for too long, they'll get suspicious."

"Mm, who could get suspicious of such a smooth-talker like you?" The more womanly voice said in a near purr, but the teen had just enough time to look a little disgusted before the taller figure gestured for her to come with him.

The teenaged hero was left frowning and confused, trying to figure out what exactly he'd just happened upon. It must've been something important, possibly even bad. Wasn't SHIELD the agency that he kept seeing everywhere any kind of super seemed to show up?

Now that he thought about it, he could've sworn he saw some of those guys at that field trip in seventh grade, the one when he witnessed Tony Stark admitting to being Iron Man.

Iron Man...SHIELD...Rogers...oh.

Oh, that wasn't good.

That wasn't good at all.

-.-.-

"Earth to Parker..." Harry said, knocking lightly on Peter's head, "Yo...anyone in there? Yoo-hoo..." He whistled, waving a hand in front of the teenager's face. "Hey, we're still working on our Geography project, yeah?" He said, cocking an eyebrow.

Peter shook his head with a jolt, "Sorry," he murmured, mind still on last night's overheard conversation. "Just...thinking."

Harry laughed, "Well, then would you mind thinking more about Peru?" He said jokingly, "This thing is due next week. We still gonna try and make something food-wise for this?" He asked, "I mean, an A+ would be nice at the end of the year. Y'know."

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Peter half-mumbled, "Uh, food-wise? What, like actually cook something? Don't even make me think about that," he said, giving a half-hearted laugh.

Harry paused a beat, obviously taking notice of his friend's less-than-usual laughter, before speaking again, "Well, hey, anything to keep you paying attention to the project," he said, chuckling a bit on the tail-end of the sentence.

Peter nodded with a slight grin, "Yeah."

There were a few long seconds of silence, only broken by the turning of pages of the school books and clicking of computer keys.

"You think MJ really likes me?" Harry asked finally, although it wasn't exactly Peter's most favored way to break the silence.

He squirmed a little, shifting as he scribbled down a few more facts on the South American country, "Uh, I dunno, man. You know I suck when it comes to relationships and...stuff..." He said somewhat awkwardly.

"But, I mean, you used to like her, right?" Harry asked, "You would know if she, y'know," he shrugged.

Peter chuckled sheepishly, "Yeah, used to," he said through his teeth. Used to? Still do. But maybe this wasn't the time, with Harry and MJ seeming to be hitting it off. "I mean, she said yes to the movie, right?"

"Yeah, so what?"

"Just go with it. You know, whatever. See what happens," Peter tried in a quick manner. "Found anything interesting on Machu Pichu?" He asked, changing the subject quickly and hopefully.

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Harry said, looking back to the computer screen, "Yeah, except we can't use Wikipedia, can we?" He said, rolling his eyes, "Why even bother with the Internet if we can't use Wikipedia?"

"Hey, remember when you edited the page on America to say it was discovered in 1992?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well?"

"...right," Harry said, rubbing the back of his neck with a rare sheepish grin, "Guess you're right."

Peter nodded, looking back down at his textbook.

"You gotta admit that was funny though, right?"

-.-.-

"Ma'am, SHIELD has been compromised," a very worried (only internally) Agent Drew said to her advisor, an already flooded with information Agent Hill.

"I know," the higher-up said curtly, just exiting from a conversation with Agent Coulson, "Get everyone out of here, you know what to do," she said, glancing towards the dark-haired woman with a quick nod.

Agent Drew nodded, "Of course, ma'am," she said, before giving a sideways glance to the agent at the other end of the room, motioning for her to follow her.

"But how?" Agent Hardy asked simply as they walked, "I thought HYDRA was long gone."

"They've been growing, leeching off of SHIELD this entire time," Drew said quickly through gritted teeth, "You want the rest? Ask them yourself," she added.

Now, Agents Drew and Hardy were hardly accomplices, let alone friends. Their pasts were rather...rough, when it came to dealing with each other. It was always a continuing competition between the two: Who could get the highest stealth mission, who would be classed higher in terms of rank level, etcetera, etcetera. Needless to say, they could be a bit more than snappy and dry with each other.

"Don't encourage me," Hardy said with a smirk, putting her hands on her hips as the two walked, "You remember that little fiasco with the remains of that Chitauri ship, don't you? I think we both know who took out the last brat trying to get a few souvenirs," she said simply, her tone smooth.

Drew clenched her fists behind her back, neatly folding them so to make it seem normal, and allowed a slight smirk of annoyance towards the other woman, "Yes, but then we would both remember who got the promotion, wouldn't we?" She said simply, allowing not enough time for a response as they arrived at communications. "Send out a message on all comms," she said to the young woman in half-moon glasses, "Evac on all floors, consolidate all data, leave nothing of importance behind."

"Clearance level seven knows what to do," Hardy added, tapping the young agent on the shoulder, giving a sideways glance to Drew before heading out another door, giving a sarcastic wave to the agents on her way out.

Drew grit her teeth beneath closed lips, giving an irritable half-smile to the young agent, "That we do," she said simply, heading through the other door.

-.-.-

"With the attacks on the cities by the ships of an agency known as HYDRA, which seems to have come from the secret SHIELD agency, more questions are rising. Multi-million dollar corporation OSCORP has kept information under wraps about the recent fiasco, new information as we receive it. And next—" Peter turned off the TV, eyes wide. He'd known something about this. He'd heard. But it didn't add up—why would those people be trying to hide from SHIELD if they were just going to blow up some stuff so soon after?

And why did he get a feeling there was more to the story than the public was letting on?

Ding! A text from Harry. Given the recent news, the teen was rapid to pick up the phone. You heard the news, I'm guessing? Was the text on the screen.

Yeah, I'm sorry, man. Everything alright?

Idk dad isn't saying anything

Well...you need to come over?

Sure, Aunt May alright with it?

She won't mind. You're like the son she never had :P

Yeah. I'll be there in ten.

K, cya.

Peter exhaled slowly as he threw the phone back down on the couch, leaning back as he tried to think all this over. He wasn't sure he wanted to, if he had to admit, and would really rather just pretend it didn't happen. But it did, and it was affecting his best friend. He couldn't just stand by and wait for things to tide over, now could he? Of course not.

So instead of worrying, he tried to focus on his friend, who had just come through the door. "Hey man, come on in," he greeted with a small, kind smile, pulling his phone off the couch and leaning back a bit more.

"Thanks," Harry said, a little less than his usual self as he sat in a nearby chair, hunching over and placing his elbows on his knees. "Yeah, Dad's a bit...y'know...given the circumstances, thanks for inviting me over," he said with a faint half-smile.

"No problem, gotta look out for my friends, don't I?" Peter said in response, shrugging a little. "So, I'm guessing he hasn't actually told you anything about this stuff?" He asked, raising a brow.

The Osborn boy shook his head, "No, lots of people have been stopping by, though, real quickly. He's been more touchy than I assumed, hugging them or something. I think he whispered something in their ear, but I dunno. Maybe I'm just messed up because of all this," he said with a shrug.

Peter nodded, frowning a bit at the hugging part—Mr. Osborn rarely even touched his son, let alone other people. Something was up, he just wasn't quite sure of what, as of now. "Well, do we sit around and talk about the news, or do we go barricade ourselves in the basement with about twelve hours' worth of Netflix and junk food?" He tried with a slight smile, gaining one in return.

"I'll get the popcorn."

-.-.-

"Peter Parker?" Skye asked with a slight raise of her brow, "Haven't heard of him. He some new agent?"

"Not yet, Skye," Coulson said, shaking his head, "No, we've been keeping tabs on him for a while. Tell me, does Spider-Man sound familiar to you?"

Skye shrugged a bit, "I mean, I'd heard of the guy, he's that little scrawny hero who swings around the city, right?" She said, folding her arms out of habit as she spoke.

The older agent smiled just a little, "That's him. Young Peter Parker is a very special kid, we put him on the index after a mishap at OSCORP not too long ago, one of our agents was undercover there."

"Wait, what about HYDRA? Weren't you saying there was a big hideout for them back at OSCORP? Is that agent still ours?" Skye asked with a raised brow, not wanting another Ward incident.

Coulson shook his head, "She got out. It was her 'day off,' luckily enough, the day HYDRA broke out. She was with Agent Hill that day," he explained, "She's still ours," he added with an assuring smile.

"So, what are you gonna do with this kid? He doesn't look much older than fifteen," Skye asked a bit skeptically, "You putting him in the Academy or something?"

"The Academy isn't exactly in running order as of now," Coulson reminded the young agent—or at least, agent-for-maybe-a-day, "I've got something else planned for him," he said with a knowing smile, leaving Skye to try and figure him out like often had to.

-.-.-

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