"Ned, you coming over?" Peter asked into the phone.
"Yeah, my mom and I are about to leave now, your family gone?" Ned asked.
"Yup, I need your help with something today." Peter said.
Ned agreed and hung up with promise of being over soon.
Peter swiveled in his chair and pulled open his laptop, multiple pages of code filled the screen and the holograms in his room.
"Friday, override still a go?" Peter asked and started typing.
"Your override is still active, boss has not seen or looked for it." Peter smiled.
"Alright awesome, delete the next 6 hours of security feed for this floor and replace it with me napping on the couch from a few days ago, reply the feed until you hit 6 hours. Override code "Peter667399"."
"Override accepted." Friday said.
"Don't tell Dad anything if he asks either, okay?" Peter asked.
"Certainly, Ned is at the elevator."
Peter stood up and shut off the monitors, when he descended the stairs he saw his friend looking at the living room with question in his eyes.
The living room was huge, Tony had gutted three floors down so the ceilings reached to the top of the tower and huge glass windows hugged the tops to let as much sunlight in as possible. Peter had moved all the furniture out of the living room and all that was left was an empty room.
"What did you do?" Ned asked.
"I'm trying out new webbing today and thought I would start in here because a 40ft drop seems kinder than a 140ft drop." Peter shrugged and rolled up his sleeves to reveal new web shooters.
"Dude, your life is so crazy…and unfairly awesome. But why not just do this in the training room, ya know where there are mats to fall on instead of a rug…" Ned said with awe in his eyes.
"Training room has cameras I can't hack…yet. So, we are stuck up here." Peter said.
"Dude." Ned deadpanned.
"Just make sure to catch me if I fall okay?" Peter smirked and jumped onto the walls.
Peter crawled to the ceiling and shot a web at the middle, he tested the strength with a tug of his arm and noticed it looked thicker. He fixed the formula this morning right after his dad's left and thanks to Tony's thinking he got it to be slightly more durable, but the thickness was so Peter could walk along it.
He took a deep breath and jumped off the wall, the webbing held, and he flipped himself upside down and slid down the web until he reached Ned, "It works! Now watch this."
He attached the web to the ground and hopped down on his feet, with a smirk in Neds direction he started casually walking up the webbing.
"Dude, this is cool and all but what is the point of this?" Ned asked.
"I need a new way to get home from patrol, Dad and Pops are always in the living room and yesterday Dad heard me crawling up the side of the building, so I changed the formula, so I can stand on the webbing and basically tight roping back into my room. Plus, last week I caught a car and webbed it to the side of a bridge and the webs broke and the car fell. Huge waste of money." Peter replied.
"Oh, okay." Ned said.
"Now, set up your computer, I'm going on patrol. Need my guy in the chair." Peter said and walked up the stairs to change into his suit.
Tony and Steve arrived and were now sitting in a conference room with Ross staring down at them from the other end of the table.
"So, what do we owe this great pleasure to?" Tony asked, tapping a pen on the table.
"I have some information I feel you would like to know about." Ross answered and turned as the screens behind him came to life. Videos and pictures of Spider-Man now filled the room.
"Spider-Man, what about him?" Steve asked.
Ross huffed out a breath, "He was seen two weeks ago in an area of high restriction, a government facility. To be more precise, MY government run facility. There are high grade weapons and precious technology there. He was back there again last week. He was and is trespassing on government property and I have issued a warrant for his arrest. I want him locked up and interrogated. We have let him roam free for too long, and now he is abusing that." Ross said.
Tony looked towards Steve, "He isn't causing direct harm to anyone or stirring up drama around here."
Steve nodded, "This seems a little farfetched for arrestment and imprisonment. Why not just bring the guy in?"
"He isn't a dog Rogers, he doesn't play fetch. We have tried to reach him multiple times and he's slipped away every time." Ross seethed.
"Who cares, this is pointless. I can't believe you dragged me away from my son on a Saturday afternoon to talk about this." Tony said angrily.
"This isn't a joke Stark. Whoever he is, he is a mutant and is becoming reckless. I want him locked up!"
"Ross. The accords have outlines sections regarding mutants, remember that whole year long process? Ratifying that thing was a pain in the ass. Im not bringing some guy in because you don't like him. And don't give me that look, trespassing once or twice is not enough to bring a guy in." Tony fought back.
"Stark you work for me, what I say goes and if you don't do this there will be consequences." Ross said.
"I still have the right to say no." Tony shot at him.
Ross' face was turning red, he was about to say something when Steve spoke up.
"You want him for something else and just want us to do your dirty work."
Ross stopped and stared at the man, "That isn't it."
"You have always been too curious about mutants, Spider-Man is a mutant essentially." Steve said.
Tony noticed since Steve said mutant, Ross had a glimmer in his eye, a look of wanting or seeking. He wanted Spider-Man for reasons he wasn't willing to share.
Tony spoke up before Ross could, "We will do it."
Steve turned towards Tony, he opened his mouth to say something, but Tony shot him a look that kept him quiet.
Ross faced Tony, "And why the sudden change of thought."
"I don't need him going reckless, especially when hes centered in New York. Peter is there. He stays away from Peter, so he needs to be removed somewhere else."
Ross nodded, "48 hours."
Tony gripped Steve's sleeve and escorted the two of them out, when they were seated in the car Steve finally spoke up.
"Why would you agree to that?" He asked.
"Ross wants to experiment on him. It's clear as day, he can't. I don't know who Spider-Man is, but no one deserves that. We're going to find him, but we aren't going to give him up. Maybe he'd be a good addition to the team?"
A look of horror crossed Steve's face when Tony mentioned experimenting, he nodded along and spoke, "Do we need to call Clint and Nat in on this?"
Tony shrugged, "It would be nice, doing all the work is just so exhausting." He said sarcastically.
Steve hit Tony on the arm, "I'm sure Pete would love to see them."
Tony nodded and turned on the music, that meeting took all of 20 minutes they could go home early now. Tony figured Peter would be so excited to see them home early.
Peter was swinging and talking to Ned, "So anything to look out for today?"
"A few weeks ago, I came across a group of guys that stole some biotech from a research building, they got away with maybe half the stuff they took. I followed them to see what they were doing with it because who steals that kind of stuff? Anyway…I ended up at this huge warehouse that had barbed fence and chemical signs everywhere, it was like an hour of the city. The guys took the truck they were in underground." Peter said.
"Biotech? Think they are making weapons?" Ned asked.
"That's what I am trying to figure out, a few days ago the same company was robbed but different location, I stopped it and followed the truck back to the same spot. So im assuming these guys ran out of whatever it was they needed, they should be back in the city now looking for more." Peter said and landed on the top of a roof to look out into the city.
"Do you know what it was they stole?" Ned asked.
"Nope, unlabeled boxes. But I am a block out of the first building they hit. Maybe they will come back, got anything on the company?" Peter asked back.
"It's called "Motion Research" they focus on making drugs and manufacturing them to help people with muscle spasms and tremors, mainly veterans. All the money is from philanthropy. It's kind of amazing what they are doing, they've had multiple successful trials in the last year."
"What would a facility in the middle of nowhere need that stuff for?" Peter wondered.
"Peter, there are 2 black trucks coming up to the loading dock around the back side of the building. The security camera picked up 4 guys and 2 guys waiting for them in the building." Ned said.
Peter swung down and around the corner. He climbed down the building and peered around the corner.
2 men in uniforms were handing boxes to guys dressed in all black, "They aren't stealing them…they are giving them away. Im going in." Peter said.
"Peter, wait. What if they have guns? Stay back and just listen." Ned said.
Peter crawled more towards the guys, his enhanced hearing picked up every word.
"14 shipments, just like you asked." One guy in a uniform asked.
"And the new formula?" The guys in black asked.
"Should keep them under for at least 5 hours, no double dosing though. That may kill the individual." The uniform one said.
"Ross expects better results than last time, apparently the test subjects woke up in the middle of the trail last week."
"Expect better results this time. Did the transfer go through?" the other man in a uniform asked.
"Should be finished tonight, if not you know where to reach me."
"Ross? As in secretary Ross?" Ned asked.
"Yeah…what would he be doing with this, and test subjects?" Peter questioned.
"I don't know man, but every time I see Ross on the TV I get chills. There is something wrong about that dude."
Peter watched the trucks leave, "Well, now we know what the drugs are and where they are going."
Peter shot a web at the garage door as the two guys were closing it. he ripped open the door and landed on the street in front of it.
The two guys in uniforms threw their hands up, Peter webbed them together and slowly walked towards them.
"We don't have anything! Take what you want but we don't have money!"
Peter cocked his head, "Money? I don't need…wait you're broke?"
The guy on the right nodded his head aggressively. "We lost our funds last month."
"So, what? You're selling product to people who just give you money. Not even thinking about where it is going?" Peter said slowly raising his voice.
"We are so close to a breakthrough, losing the funds meant losing all of our work! We didn't know what else to do."
"Do you know someone names Ross?" Peter asked.
The other guy answered, "Yes, he made a deal with us. We supply him with product with higher concentration and dosages and he covers the funding we need for research."
Peter shook his head, "Do you know what he is using the drugs for?"
They shook their heads, "No idea, all I know is his guys came back saying the concentration wasn't enough and people kept 'waking up'".
Peter froze. Muscle relaxants in higher doses could kill a regular person…or keep an enhanced one under for a while.
"Stop selling to that man. Find funding elsewhere. What he is doing with those drugs is unethical and is hurting people." Peter told them.
They nodded, and the guy asked, "Let us go and we will stop."
"Guys im not a bad person I would have let you go anyway, just don't sell to them anymore. You are helping him hurt people." Peter backed away.
"Hey wait! Let us out!" They called out.
"That will dissolve in 2 hours! You guys deserve it!" Peter yelled back and shot a web at the neighboring building and disappeared.
"Peter? You think Ross is…" Ned asked quietly.
"Yeah…I do." Peter said looking down.
"You have to tell your Dad's." Ned said.
"I can't! They cannot know I am Spider-Man! You are right they need to know but I don't know how to tell them I now know all of this." Peter said. He jumped onto the railing of the roof and sat down in defeat.
"Meet them." Ned said.
"What?" Peter asked.
"Meet them as Spider-Man and tell them. They will never know it's you if you never take the mask off." Ned explained.
Peter thought for a moment then realized that was probably the only way.
"Oh my god Ned I have to meet my parents…" Peter fell backwards and put his hands over his eyes.
Ned started laughing, "Like I said dude…Your life is crazy."
"Shut up." Peter said in defeat.