Peter gave Aunt May a hug before she left to go home. He insisted on paying her for helping with the twins but she refused to take his money. Before she left, he quickly slipped two twenty dollar bills into her purse.

It wasn't that he was struggling for money right now; it was actually the opposite. His time working for Harry allowed him to start saving up, and his old friend hadn't been exactly honest about how much he was giving him. In just the couple months he had worked for him, he had nearly fifteen thousand dollars.

Then there was the fact that Harry had left Peter everything. His company, his mansion, his money, everything.

At the time, Peter had been in such shock that when told about it, he had told the estate agent that he didn't want any of it. Felicia had caught up with him not too long afterwards. He remembered the last conversation he had with her perfectly...

"I know that it's soon, and you're still in pretty bad shape after everything that's happened," Felicia said, trying to calm Peter down. They were in Aunt May's kitchen with the twins sleeping upstairs.

A hysterical laugh escaped Peter's mouth. "Soon!? I just watched my best friend get stabbed and poisoned right in front of me, and I wasn't able to do anything! He wouldn't let me, Felicia! A week before that, my fiancee was murdered. Now, I'm supposed to act like everything is okay and just take over Oscorp? Move my family into the Osborn mansion? No... no way." His voice shook.

Felicia rolled her eyes. "No, you're not supposed to act like everything is fine, because it's not. I know you and I don't get along, but we both lost him."

"Why didn't he just leave it all to you," he said more to himself then anything.

"Oh, please," she laughed. "I'm doing pretty well for myself. I don't need Harry's money. You were his favorite anyway," she said with a sneer on her face. "But listen, I don't think you should just give away the business. I think we should make a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"For now, how about you and I become the owners? We can share it. That way you don't have to worry about running things. Every once in awhile you'll need to go to a meeting, approve or disapprove of projects every now and then, that way you will still know what's going on in Oscorp. That's what Harry would do. I can handle the more detailed stuff."

Peter huffed and stared at the piece of paper in his hands: the deed to Osborn Mansion. "This is a lot to take in right now, Felicia."

He heard a cry from upstairs and excused himself from the table. A moment later he was coming down the stairs with a baby wrapped in a red and blue blanket, black designs swirling around it.

"Which one is that?" Felicia questioned.

"Violet. Andrew doesn't really cry ever," he answered, cradling the baby against him.

He felt her eyes follow him as he made a bottle for the baby. It was rather peculiar; the same lady that had betrayed his family was sitting there in his aunt's kitchen with them. He felt his anger rising but he gritted his teeth and let it pass. It didn't do well to dwell on revenge. This he knew firsthand.

"I don't like being in debt to people, so let me take care of this stuff for you. I'm not letting you just throw this all away. Keep ownership of the mansion, keep the money. I'll make the payments for you and everything. Dealing with Oscorp now, like I said, we can have a co-ownership deal. I'll help you through this, Par-Peter."

He glanced up at her as Violet was drinking. She didn't seem to be deceiving him in any way; then again, even if she was trying to take full ownership of the company or mansion, he didn't really care. He just wanted his friend and fiancee back. He didn't care about the stuff or the money.

"Okay, Felicia. But I want as little to do with this stuff as possible. My main responsibility right now is to take care of my family, Spider-Man comes second. So all of this other stuff isn't very high on my priority list."

Felicia tried to hide her grin. Without him, she wouldn't be involved in the company whatsoever anymore, so it was evident she liked his answer.

"Great. Then, this is where we part. I'll get back to you shortly about the details. I'm sure after that, we won't really need to see much of each other at all," she said as she started packing up the papers.

A small smile spread across Peter's face. It was like she had read his mind. "Sounds good. The less I see of you the better."

"Couldn't have said it better myself." she nodded.

After that night, he spoke with her over the phone every couple of months. He only had to see her in person several times at the more important meetings. It was just odd that the last two years he hadn't seen her at all. Not that he was complaining, but she would only ever answer his emails, and even then it was the shortest vague replies. He almost missed her sarcastic remarks... almost.

He checked the time, noticing it was nearly six. He had a couple hours to kill before his nightly sweep of the city.

He turned the TV on just as Violet came running down the stairs.

"You forgot to tell me about your date!" she said as she sat next to him on the couch.

"Oh uh- yeah, it went okay." He nodded and laughed when Violet raised an eyebrow. "Okay, maybe not so well. Let's just say I won't be seeing her again."

She sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder. "When are you going to get a girlfriend?"

"Why are you and Aunt May trying so hard to get me to get a girlfriend?" he replied, tousling her hair. She responded with a mock pout and straightened up her hair.

"I just want you to be happy, Daddy." she shrugged.

Peter scrunched up his face. "What do you mean? I am happy. I have you and your brother, and you guys are all I need." He smiled at her. "Besides, do you really think I have time to date? Between work, Spider-Man, and helping you two with all your advanced classes, it wouldn't be fair to whomever I was seeing."

"You're just making excuses." She looked up at him and smirked.

"Excuses? You do remember a certain girl named Emily that I brought home for you guys to meet last year, right?"

Violet threw her hands up. "How can I forget? That lady was such a—"

Peter gave her an unamused expression and raised his eyebrow at her.

"Well, she was," she grumbled to herself.

They sat in silence for a minute, watching the television.

"Okay, maybe she was," Peter agreed.

"Don't worry, Daddy. The right lady for you is out there somewhere," she said as she snuggled up against him.

He was about to answer when the familiar beeping of the Spider-Pager went off. He quickly kissed Violet on the forehead and got ready.

"I'll be back as quickly as I can. You and your brother stay in the house," he said to her as he rushed out of the house.

After pressing the button notifying the police he was on the way, they informed him that there was a bank robbery going on with hostages. He made his way to the coordinates they gave him.

There was already a huge police blockade when he got there. Swiftly landing on a parked police cruiser nearby, he surveyed the scene. He shook his head as the bystanders crowded the blockade, eager to see what was going on. Loud noises came from inside the bank, and a dozen police officers surrounded the building with their weapons drawn.

"Spider-Man!" A bulky police officer with sandy blonde hair made his way over to Peter. His name tag read Officer Kirkman. "There are two suspects inside that we know of. One of them was wearing some sort of helmet, and he was floating!"

"How many hostages are in there?"

"Two. A mother and her son. He's just a kid. Looked to be about nine or ten years old."

Only two? Should be a piece of cake, he thought.

"I'll get them out," Peter said and was about to swing away when the officer stopped him. "What?" he questioned quickly.

The officer seemed like he didn't really know what to say. "The other suspect, she- my partner Murdock swears that she was—" he mumbled.

"Look, Officer Kirkman, I've got to get to work," Peter said as he took a megaphone from another officer and landed on the steps leading up to the bank. He didn't have time to chat about the details when there were hostages.

He put the megaphone up to his mouth. "Bank robbers, this is Spider-Man speaking. I'm going to have to ask you to release the hostages."

Peter waited nearly thirty seconds, and then another loud noise erupted from inside. Bystanders screamed and backed away a few feet. He could only guess that they were breaking into the vault, but he didn't want to startle them and end up getting the hostages hurt, so he tried again to get their attention.

"I know you can hear me, so I'm going to ask you one more time. Release the hostages!"

Not even ten seconds later, the front doors opened and a man walked—no, floated—out. He was wearing all green and had a flowing purple cape. Peter suspected it was a man, but he couldn't see what he looked like behind the one-way glass helmet. A small boy with short blonde hair walked out next to him.

"We will release the boy, but to ensure we are not followed, the woman stays with us," the man yelled.

"And who are you supposed to be?" he contained his laughter at the typical super-villian attire.

"You can call me Mysterio!" the villian yelled in a proud voice.

"Okay then, Mysterio. Let the boy go. Now."

Mysterio raised his hands into the air and the police officers visibly tensed up, when suddenly they all lowered their weapons and their eyes glazed over. It was as if they had been put into some sort of trance. He let go of the boy, who came running down the steps towards Peter. The villain floated back inside the bank just as the police officers started coming out of the trance.

"Come on, kid." Peter picked up the boy who wrapped his arms around his neck, and brought him over to the nearest police officer. The officer quickly brought him to the ambulance. Peter swung back towards the bank.

He could clearly hear the woman inside pleading for them to let her go. He decided his best bet was to go inside to try to diffuse the situation; this Mysterio guy had already released the boy. Maybe he could talk him into letting the mother go as well.

Peter opened up the front doors slowly. All of the lights were out. "It's just me coming inside. The police are staying outside," he told Mysterio. Mysterio had several bags of money in his arms.

"Get back! You will not stop me, Spider-Man!"

Peter held his arms out in front of him in a calming way. "I just want to talk. I want you to release the woman. The money is one thing, but I can't have you harming innocent people. I'm not sure what your situation is, but you already released the boy. You don't have to make this worse on yourself. Let her go and I'll bring her outside to safety which would buy you time to hit the road."

The man in the helmet laughed. "You're lying. You would not let us go just like that."

"Help me, please!" he heard the woman cry close by.

"So, who's 'we'? Where's your partner? Can I talk to that person?" Peter wanted to keep the man talking to him.

"Of course you can," the man said in a way that Peter knew he was smiling. "Come on out, with the girl." Mysterio called out.

An office door, next to the vault slowly opened. The hostage slowly walked out first, with the man's partner behind her. A knife was held at the woman's throat. Even in the darkness, Peter could tell the man's partner was female. She was shorter than the hostage, and had long blonde hair that was showing under the black beanie she wore over her head.

"Easy, now," the partner said as they made their way next to Mysterio. Peter flinched when he heard the voice. It sounded familiar.

"Spider-Man tells me that, if we release the hostage to him now, we are both free to leave with the money and he will not pursue us," Mysterio told her.

The blonde laughed in a cynical way. "Did he now? The Spider-Man I know wouldn't just let criminals get away like that," she taunted. He could see she was wearing a black leather biker-like jacket and black pants. She sounded young, too young for something like this.

"Do I know you?" Peter questioned, an eerie feeling in his gut.

"Maybe," she said innocently.

"We need to leave, now," Mysterio said.

The blonde laughed again. "Now... what do we do with her?" she asked in a rough voice. He thought he heard Mysterio sigh.

Peter took a step closer to them. "Please, just give me the hostage, I'll let you go. Easy as that." He watched as the knife was slowly pulled away from the woman's throat. A couple more inches and he would be safe to—

"Ah!" the woman gasped out as the blonde stuck the knife into her back.

"No!" Peter shouted as the girl tossed the hostage towards him. "Don't worry, there's an ambulance outside. You'll be okay," he told the woman as he gently picked her up, trying to avoid touching her wound. The woman was doing an amazing job at remaining calm.

"Aw, such a pity," he heard the blonde tsk. "I'm guessing you're experiencing some deja vu right now, having a woman who had just been stabbed dying in your arms."

When he looked up he froze completely.

It couldn't be.

He had to be dreaming, having another nightmare.

There was simply no way that Gwen Stacy was standing there in front of him.

"Might want to hurry up there, Spider-Man." The blonde winked and ran off towards the back with Mysterio.

Peter ran out the front doors with the woman and went straight to the ambulance. It seemed like his body was moving for him, because his mind was thinking of a hundred other things at this time.

He could faintly hear the paramedics talking. Apparently the stab wound was minor, and they didn't think it had hit any major organs or arteries. They took off in the ambulance.

Police officers came over and congratulated him for rescuing both hostages. The new Police Chief, Captain Winchester, patted him on the back.

"We knew you could do it, Spidey!" he said to Peter as the other officers started to get the crowd of people under control and investigate the bank.

He still wasn't completely sure if he was awake or not. There was no mistaking the face that he saw in that dark room. Her features were exactly the same as he remembered, as if she was forever frozen at nineteen.

Although her features had been an exact replica, her expressions were completely opposite from the Gwen that he knew. Where there had been ambition and happiness, he saw cruelty and sarcasm. Her voice sounded a little off, but he could still hear the familiarity of it.

It couldn't have been her! She had died. Peter had seen the whole thing. He was there for her funeral. It had been over ten years! He shook his head. It felt hard to breathe and he almost ripped his mask off before he remembered he was in public.

He felt a small pressure on his shoulder and looked up to see Captain Winchester staring at him. "You alright there, son? Don't you worry a bit about that money. What matters the most to us is those hostages you saved," he said before turning to investigate the bank with his squad.

Peter found himself on his front porch shortly after. His head was pounding as he quietly made his way inside.

"Vi? Andrew?" he called out.

"Here!" he heard them both call out at the same time. They were used to his greeting every time he came back from a patrol.

He nodded to himself and then found his way to his living room and plopped himself down on the black leather couch.

What had happened today? How did things get so crazy so fast?

Ever since the Sinister Six had basically destroyed itself, he hadn't had to deal with 'real' super villains. These days it was thieves, muggers, and the occasional bank robbery. The city had been safe for quite some time now. This guy who called himself 'Mysterio' was the first guy that had been in a costume since... well, since Harry and the others.

Then he had the Gwen look-alike to deal with. Since the moment he had laid his eyes on her his mind had been trying to process how something like that was even possible. Every possibility seemed less likely than the next.

Could it even be her? He would think it a possibility if it looked like she had aged at all, but she looked the same age as he last saw her. The word vampire had made it's way into his mind, but he quickly pushed that aside. Could it be a clone? Was the person even real? Did 'Mysterio' have something to do with her?

It couldn't have actually been Gwen Stacy. He knew that, but even with the smallest possibility of it being her, he wanted to find out.

He turned the television on and switched to the news, assuming he would see something about the break in at the bank. Instead, there was a story going on about a supposed 'terrorist' attack in Chicago, Illinois.

"... and as you can see, there is no way these people can be fully human. From the footage here caught on camera, the one in the red suit seems to be able to either hover or fly. The one in the black suit is using some sort of acid to cause structures to fall, as seen with the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel. The Chicago Police Force have tried to reason with the two highly dangerous suspects, but to no avail. Shots were fired and the red suit suspect was about to stop the bullets simply with a wave of the hand..."

Peter watched as the two caused chaos seemingly without any kind of reason, and then all at once they both left the scene, leaving people confused and hurt.

Hopefully there is someone there that is about to stop those two, he thought to himself. If not, maybe he would take a side trip for a couple days. These two seemed a bit dangerous for just the police force to deal with.

His phone buzzed, startling him. What was wrong with him? He jumped and then quickly stuck his hand in his pocket to dig out his cell phone.

When he brought it out and looked at the message that was sent to him, he felt his breath catch in his throat.

"They'll be coming for you."