Avengers Academy

by lyokoMARVELanime

Inspired by the mobile app game. You think you had it rough in high school? Try dealing with that and the pressure of training to become the next generation of Avengers. These kids may be young, but they have the potential to become great heroes in their own right, and there's not a doubt in their teachers' minds that they'll one day become...Avengers!

4. After School Time

AN: Hey everyone and welcome back. Hope your ready, cause its time to continue on with our adventures at Avengers Academy. You don't want to be marked late now.

Deadpool: Really? School jokes? LA-AAAME! OOH! Hey, you know what would be awesome? If you had me show up and teach a class! I could show them how to be real badasses, how to kill people, how to kill a lot of people, how to make people blow up in massive explosions, and for the guys, how to really bang a hot babe, cause let's face it, when Spidey finally gets with Wasp, he's gonna need all the help he can get.

AN: Oh for the love of...What do I gotta put salt lines in front of the door or something? Why do you keep coming back here?! [moves to hit the control so to cause Deadpool to either be blow out of the building or just make him start running away screaming like a little girl]

Deadpool: NO WAIT! I'LL BE GOOD! I PROMISE! Don't shut me out! Let me in! Please! I wanna stay and help! I wanna! I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wannahahaaaaa!

AN: [glances between control and Deadpool for a minute before leaning back with a sigh] You had better behave, because I've got every weapon and security system in this place trained on you along with my newest security guard.

Deadpool: YAAAAAAAAAAY! So what's first? Go right to the disclaimer and let 'em enjoy the awesome? Spoiler prevention gag? Foreshadowing on things to come?

AN: Answering reviews.

Deadpool: Awe, that's boring [sees AN reaching for controls] But it be could really fun too! Let's do it!

AN: First off is a mass response to a point that a good deal of you guys wanted to complain about in your reviews: the fight between Black Widow and Ms. Marvel from last chapter. See, what I'm taking away from what you guys said, is that you think that Carol should've won just because she had the stronger abilities and super powers. By that logic, Batman should never be able to beat Superman with or without kryptonite, and to further my point, Fin Fang Foom, Juggernaut, and Wolverine should never, ever, ever, have been beaten by Squirrel-Girl, who's powers include being part squirrel, having a large, bushy tail, and being able to talk to squirrels.

Deadpool: Wow, how judgmental can you be. Although me, I would've wanted him to keep it going until they both started ripping each others clothes off and giving everyone a good show of...[sees AN reaching for controls] I'll shut up now.

AN: Good nutcase. Here, get the snack! [throws him a dog treat]

Deadpool: OOh! Got it! Got it! [jumps for said treat only to land flat on his face when he lunges for it]

AN: Wow. That actually worked.

Deadpool: I'm okay!

AN: Anyway, back on the main point here, another thing you have to realize is that the way you guys are thinking, you're basically thinking of how a match-up between those two would go if they were like how they typically are in the comics, right down to the fact that they are both close to the same age and have years of experience under their belts. For Carol, that is not the case in this story. She is a teenager, and as we all know, most teenagers tend to act without thinking, and sometimes let themselves believe that they are on top of the world and invincible. Carol's pretty close to being that last one, so even with whatever discipline she possesses, at the end of the day, she's still a teenager in this story, so she will have that kind of problem somewhere in there. Pair someone like that up in a fight against the calm, cool, collected Black Widow, who has years of experience as a spy and a master assassin and well...boom! Down ya go.

Well, that's my rant for the day. Moving on to one-on-one responses. First off, "dragonrider66". Glad you liked the references, but in the movie Captain America: Civil War, War Machine did indeed have a fancy energy baton, staff, thing that he tried to use against Cap.

Deadpool: Shame on you Rhodey!

AN: ...Continuing with the answer to the previously mentioned review, yes, Spidey's outfit will be getting an upgrade, but that won't be for a long while.

Next up to answer, is actually an answer to both "Riderman09" and "howard576", since they were pretty much asking the same question. I can't really reveal any details about who will end up joining as new students just yet, but you never know. Some of the guys you're asking to see may or may not end up attending the academy.

Finally, in response to "HaywireEagle", or at least one of his questions. Of course it's not much of an academy right now. I'm pretty sure I've implied at least once that the place had only just recently opened up, and the Avengers are not going to just bring in a massive amount of students right off the bat. The X-Men did not all come to Xavier's school along with a bunch of other mutant kids right from day one you know. This is only the first few chapters, and during this time, we'll be building up the student body little by little, kinda like how they did things in the first few episodes of X-Men Evolution when it came to the X-Men.

Deadpool: So should we expect more hot babes that'll have a thing for Spidey? Like say Jessica Jones, cause you know that in the comics, after she learned Spidey's secret identity, she revealed that she had a crush on Peter Parker in high school, and that would bring a massive amount of drama into the mix between the Spidey&Wasp relationship.

AN: Let's just get on with the story before you do or say something stupid, like we all know you will.

Deadpool: Hey! I resemble that remark!

AN: I know. That's why I said it.

I do not own anything from the Marvel franchise or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

---

Chapter 4: After School Time

After the excitement of Gym Class, the four, young heroes changed out of their hero attire, save for Spidey who only removed his mask once again, and split off for their various extracurricular classes. Strangely enough, Sam and Carol both had some extra classes for additional training, but considering Sam's military family background and Carol's desire to join the Air Force, that did not come as much of a surprise. Janet had gone on to some type of art class, the name of which Peter could not remember, leaving the web-head on his own in his first additional science class with Doctor Pym. Peter was not really complaining that much, if he were being perfectly honest, seeing as he was mostly doing work that was started by his father with Giant-Man, but after the first hour or so of dealing with Hank's overly excited attitude towards science on his own, Peter was beginning to hope that he would not have to endure it alone for long. Sadly, those hopes were in vain, and he had ended up spending the entirety of that class in Hank Pym's overexcited company.

Of course, there were some small benefits to enduring Hank's overexcited company. In that time, Hank had helped Peter to revise the formula for his web fluid so that he could use it to create a variant that would harden more quickly to cause a greater impact, giving him something that was more like an actual projectile as opposed to the webs he already used on a normal basis, which were usually best used for blinding or tying up whoever he was fighting. Of course, that would mean he would have to contain such a substance in a different type of capsule, so if he wanted to use it without changing cartridges mid-battle, he would have to make some modifications to his web shooters. Still, it was always good to have it just in case the moment ever came that he would actually need it, and Hank said that Tony would be more than happy to help him with making any modifications he felt were necessary to his wrist devices, since Stark was far better at the technical aspects of science than he normally was. The most important thing that Peter took away from this though, was that there were various possibilities when it came to what he could do with modifying his webs for various situations.

Peter did not really encounter most of his other classmates for the rest of the day, aside from Sam, who he shared a computer class in Stark Tower with, so when classes finally did end for the day, he found himself heading for the school's main gate in full Spider-Man attire on his own. He had made it quite clear that the only way he would become a full-time student at Avengers Academy would be if he could continue doing what he had been doing as Spider-Man, but he still made sure to double-check with Captain America that it would be alright for him to go out and do his thing. The instant the super soldier had done as such, Peter was practically out the door and on his way to the wall around the perimeter of the campus so that he could return to the city and start swinging into action. Just as he was reaching the wall though, fully prepared to jump over it if he had to, a voice from behind him asked, "What're ya doing?"

The fact that he was not expecting anyone to be all the way out there right now, coupled with the fact that he had not even sensed anyone approaching was all the reason that Spidey needed to let out a startled yelp as he nearly jumped ten feet in the air before he spun around to see who had snuck up on him. Upon turning to the person, Peter was instantly greeted with the bright, smiling face of Janet Van Dyne, who was actually laughing at the fact she had just scared him out of his skin just now. It was actually at this point that Peter finally took note of the fact that Janet was not wearing the outfit she had worn since they first met, which led him to think she had switched it out for this more casual look. Instead of her yellow shirt, white pants, and black boots, Janet was now wearing a yellow babydoll dress, white stockings, and black high-heels. She had the same sunglasses he saw her wearing earlier on her head again, and in addition to this, she had also removed her gloves and replaced them with a set of bracelets on her right wrist. The only part of her Wasp attire that she kept was the black jacket, which she now had unzipped, allowing her to wear a white necklace around her bare neck.

"I…I thought you had a…Spider-Sense to warn you of stuff…like that," Janet managed to say between chuckles, drawing Peter's attention away from how pretty she looked in her current outfit and back to the fact that she was laughing at how she had scared the thwip out of him.

"It only goes off when I'm in danger, so unless you were planning to shoot me just now or something, it wouldn't have…" Spidey started to say before he shook his head at the fact that this was not what was important right now. "What're you doing out here?"

"I asked you first," Janet pointed out with an impish little grin, even though she was right about that. Said grin immediately faltered a little when a thought crossed her mind, prompting her to ask, "You're not leaving, are you?"

"Well…kinda," Peter admitted, not realizing what she meant when she asked the question until after he saw her face fall into a much more depressed expression. "No! No, I'm not leaving! Not in the sense that I'm leaving the school for good. I'm just…I'm going out for a bit."

Any sadness immediately evaporated from Janet's face when Spidey said he was not leaving, but she was not going to let him leave it at what he said. "To do what," Janet asked like an innocent little child.

"Uh…ya know, stuff," Spider-Man stuttered. It was not that he was ashamed of the fact he was going out to patrol the city, but he was just unsure of what she would think of him doing so after the conversation they had with Sam and Carol this morning regarding such things.

"What kind of stuff," Janet continued to prod, clearly intent on not letting up until she got a real answer.

Realizing this, Spidey finally let out a sigh of defeat and said, "I'm going out to patrol the city. It was part of the conditions I set out for my enrolment here that I be allowed to do that so long as it doesn't interfere with my studies and I'm back by the Academy's curfew."

"So you're basically saying you're going out to stop crimes, beat up bad guys, and help people in danger," Wasp asked, just to make sure she was understanding right. The simple nod in affirmative that Spidey gave was all that she needed before she asked her next question. "Can I come with you?"

"What? Why," Spider-Man asked, having not expected that from her, especially after what Carol had said this morning. He had been very certain that Sam and Janet had shared the blonde's attitude on using their powers to stop normal crimes instead of just focusing on the bigger threats.

"Well because, all we've ever done here is train and practice. We've never had a chance to use our powers to do some real good and help people like you have up until now," Janet explained. "Besides, you can't tell me that you wouldn't appreciate having a little backup out there, can you?"

"Uh…no, I can't say that, but I'm pretty used to doing this type of thing on my own," Spider-Man admitted.

"Hey, you don't have to do it alone," Janet pointed out. "Sure, we may not be one in an official sense, but I'd like to think that you, me, Sam, and Carol are all part of a real team now, so we might as well get some practice in by doing stuff like this together, right?"

"I suppose," Spider-Man hesitantly shrugged, since he had not thought of that.

"Besides, how were you even going to get into the city? Last I checked, we're a pretty long distance away from the closest tall building, so you're webs aren't really going to get you very far very fast, right," Janet continued to point out.

"I…I would've thought of something. I could've web-zipped over there," Spidey tried to argue.

"Web-what?"

"It's, uh…it's what I call it when I fire a web-line straight ahead of me and basically pull myself forward really fast," Spidey explained as best as he could.

"Which would've wasted a fair amount of webbing that you could use for the actual patrol or for catching bad guys, I'm guessing," Janet finished for him.

"Well…uh…" even without the stuttering just then, Spidey could see that he really had no basis for a better argument, until he finally thought of something. "How would you get us there then? You gonna carry me as you fly us both out there or something?"

"Psh, please; while I may be able to do that, it would be a little tiring, since you seem kinda heavy even right now, and boring," Janet scoffed with a wave of her hand. She then turned a beaming smile to Spidey and waved her hand as she said, "Just follow me, and I'll show ya how we're gonna get there, and how we'll do so in style."

Thinking he really had nothing to lose, Peter finally shrugged in defeat and moved to follow Janet when he thought of something else. "Uh, don't you need special permission or something to go out into the city?"

"I already got it for today, and I've cleared it so that I can be out there for as long as you, assuming you really are going to be going at it until curfew," Janet shrugged indifferently. She then stopped in her tracks so that she could turn to face Spidey again, causing him to stop as well, and allowing her to look him up and down with a studious eye. "Yeah, this isn't going to fly."

"Heh, I see what you did there," Spidey chuckled when he noticed the funny she had made. Apparently Janet did not really notice it herself until Spider-Man pointed it out, but there was a more important matter of concern right now. "What's wrong, exactly?"

"Well if we're going to go into town in the way that I have in mind, we can't do it with you looking like that," Janet revealed. A minute later, she was behind Spidey and pushing him in another direction as she said, "Come on, Web-Head. We've gotta get you into something a little more stylish and less attention drawing than a superhero suit."

'I get the feeling there's going to be no arguing with her on this,' Spidey thought to himself, and he simply let Wasp continue pushing him to wherever she wanted him to go.

---

"Welcome to Van Dyne's, Spidey," Wasp announced with a grand wave of her arms once they had arrived at their unexpected destination. The size-changing, rookie heroine had actually led Peter into what he had originally thought was a closed-off classroom in Avengers Mansion, but clearly that was not accurate, given the grandiose way that Janet had introduced the place. The room was rather expansive, and the friendly neighborhood hero could see a variety of different outfits for about as far as the eye could see on several different shelves and hangars, all of which were in varying styles, be it casual civilian, black-tie attire, or even outfits that seemed much more fit for a superhero than his current homemade suit. It all honestly looked like one thing to Spider-Man.

"You have your own clothes store here on campus," Peter finally asked in slight awe.

"Well…sort of," Janet admitted. "This is really more of a workshop that Tony and Hank let me use as my own personal workroom for practicing my skills with designing and making cool outfits, but a lot of people on campus, be it Sam and Carol, some of the Avengers, and even a few of the SHIELD guys around campus seem to come in here asking me for some stylish outfits for one occasion or another like this is such a place, so I guess you could say that it's more of an unofficial store to be honest. The only difference is that I don't charge anyone for the clothes I make for them, no matter how tempting it is or how often Carol says I should."

That made a bit more sense to Peter, seeing as he had a hard time believing that someone would actually give a high school teenager their own business, even if they were a superhero, but after looking around again and seeing how everything was organized, he had a hard time really believing that it was just a workshop like Janet had said. Shaking the thought from his head, he decided to get them back on track, since they were burning daylight that could be spent patrolling, assuming Janet would still want to come with him after they were done here, and asked, "So…why did you bring me here?"

Janet just beamed in excitement at this question, and then told Peter to wait right where he was before she dashed to the back of the "workshop" (Peter was fully intent on calling it a store, no matter what she said). A minute later, she came back out with a large box that she immediately held out to Peter like she was giving him an unexpected present. Upon tentatively taking the object, Peter just had to ask, "What's this?"

"Just my little prototype of your new civilian costume," Janet replied.

"A prototype of a whoozy," Peter asked in disbelief.

"You know how earlier you were saying that you didn't have any civilian attire like mine, Sam, or Carol's? You know, something you could wear on campus that still identified you as Spider-Man but was still something that you could wear as street clothes," Janet asked in response to this new question. When Peter nodded in reply, the excitable woman immediately continued, "Well, I spent a bit of time in my art and design classes coming up with such an outfit that would work for you, and…voila."

"You made me a civilian-style superhero suit," Spider-Man asked again in disbelief.

Janet did not seem to take that in a good way, as she immediately placed her hands on her hips as a cross look etched itself onto her face before she asked, "You know, you could at least look at it before you decide that you don't like it."

"Uh, no, no; it's not that! Not at all! It's just…well, no one's ever really done something like that for me before. I've even had to make do with designing my own Halloween costumes with what little I had when I was a little kid, so…" Spider-Man tried to insist.

At that response, Janet's cross look instantly returned to being the bright, excited one Peter normally saw her wearing as she revealed, "Relax, I'm just teasing you. You really have no experience talking to girls do you?"

"Uh…my experience in such a department is limited to my aunt, my next door neighbor and her niece, and a childhood friend, so you tell me," Peter replied with a shrug.

Janet could only giggle in response to this before grabbing Peter's arm and pulling him towards the back. "Come on, don't just stand there gawking; try it on. I've got something of a dressing room back here that you can use," Janet revealed as she reached said area.

"Um, okay," Spider-Man shrugged, and a minute later, he had disappeared behind the door to said dressing room.

Janet was very tempted to shrink down and sneak a peek of Spidey's real face right then, along with a few other aspects of his body, like the typical teenage girl she was, but she managed to suppress all of those urges. Like Cap had said when she first met Spidey, it was his decision to keep a secret identity in this fashion and she had to respect that. That did not mean she was able to refrain from glancing towards the door to the dressing room Spider-Man was in at the moment every now and then as she let her imagination try to provide her something of a picture on the subject though. After another couple of minutes, Spidey finally emerged from the room, prompting Janet to turn around and smile a little at the apparent success of her work.

Spidey was now completely out of his normal hero suit, save for his goggles once again, and was now decked out in dark blue jeans, a long-sleeved light blue t-shirt, red and white sneakers, and a red t-shirt with his web design running across it while a small version of his Spider-Symbol occupied the left side of his shirt over the area of his heart. In addition to this, he also wore a grey backpack on his back, which Janet had intended for him to use as a way of holding his main costume in, since he seemed like the type to want to keep it close at all times, and to round it out, he kept his web-shooters on his wrists, well hidden beneath the sleeves of the long-sleeved shirt. The outfit seemed a little baggy on him, right to where it was hanging over his hands and feet a little too much, but not to a very great extent. All-in-all, Janet thought that Spidey looked pretty impressive, and would probably look better once he swapped out the goggles for something else.

"It's a little big for my tastes," Spidey admitted.

"Not a problem. I can easily make some small, quick adjustments," Janet reassured him as she quickly pulled out some fashion designer tools that she had somewhere on her person. Where exactly she had them stashed away, Peter could not tell you, but that was probably because he was more concerned about something else.

"It's still pretty close to my actual size though. Did you take my measurements when I wasn't paying attention at some point or something," Peter asked, honestly finding it a little creepy if the answer was yes.

"No; I eye-balled it," Janet admitted with a shrug. "Carol was right about you being kinda skinny, but I figured that you had a bit more muscle on you than it seemed, or that you would be the type to wear something that was at least a little baggy to hide a well-toned physique that you'd think would be a giveaway to the fact you're Spider-Man, and of course, I also knew that you'd probably want to keep the color-scheme of your suit and maybe your symbol so…"

"Wait, wait, back up a minute. You mean you got this close to having my measurements right just by eye-balling it," Spidey asked, incredulously.

"What can I say? I'm very good at what I plan to do," Janet shrugged, modestly. She then paused in her measurements to give a hard look at Peter's face, part of her daydreaming about what color his eyes were for a moment before she finally said, "We've really got to get you something else to use in place of those goggles, otherwise the whole point of this outfit isn't going to work." She then immediately turned to start glancing around her workshop before her eyes finally found something that would work for what she had in mind, which she immediately snatched up and held out to the web-head. "Here, try these."

Peter accepted the object in question and then looked to see that Janet had handed him a pair of black sunglasses with gold lenses, quickly reminding him of the earliest version of his costume when he saw said lenses. "Uh…a pair of sunglasses? Wouldn't I look weird wearing them at night though?"

"Relax. They aren't actual sunglasses; they're just like those fake glasses you see people wearing sometimes, only with tinted lenses, and if people do question you about them, you can just tell them you have an eye condition or something," Janet reassured. When she saw the small look Spidey was giving her, she simply shrugged and said, "What? I heard that's what that one X-Man with the visor used to tell people before mutants came out."

Peter looked back at the sunglasses for a minute before he returned his gaze to Janet and said, "Turn around."

"Why," Janet asked, only to get a look that was obviously asking her if she really needed to ask such a question in response. "Oh come on. It's not like letting me see what color your eyes are is going to tell me your secret identity, unlike telling me what your name is."

"Just turn around," Spidey insisted.

Janet simply sighed in defeat and did as he asked, even going so far as to cover her eyes in addition to this. After that point, she could have sworn she heard him turn around as well before removing the goggles at last, and after a minute of silence, she finally heard him say that she could look now. Upon doing so, Janet just beamed with pride at having called it right once again, as the sunglasses that she just gave Spider-Man were definitely just what he needed to have a proper civilian-hero attire, and if the smile on Spidey's face was any indication, he clearly agreed with her on that.

"Perfect," Janet exclaimed with a clap of her hands. "Now I'll just take a couple more measurements, make the necessary adjustments to the rest of your outfit, and we'll be good to go."

"Do I really need to wear this if we go into the city in the method that you have in mind," Peter asked. He did not want to sound like he was whining, but he was honestly wondering just how necessary this really was.

"Yep, now hold still. This'll take longer if you move too much," Janet insisted as she used a pin to mark the point where Spidey's pants leg would need to be brought up to so that it was not too baggy.

Peter just sighed in response and did as she asked, at least as best as he could, hoping that Janet's adjustments really would not take very long as she had said so that they could get to his patrol sometime that day.

---

"So we've now gone from the clothing shop to…to…what is this place, exactly," Spider-Man asked as Janet led him into a very large room that was midway between the Mansion and the back-most part of the campus. He could not really see all that much aside from what was directly in front of him, which was a somewhat annoyed Wasp.

"First off, it was not a clothing store; it was my workshop that a few people just call a clothing store for the fun of it," Janet insisted with her hands on her hips. "Second of all, this is where we're getting our ride from: the Campus Hangar."

A second later, the lights in the room came on with a loud clunk similar to that of the sound that the lights in a sports stadium made when they were switched on or off, and the room was completely illuminated, allowing Spidey to openly gape at what was inside. The first thing he noticed was that they were obviously underground, which he could have told you just from the fact that they had to take an elevator down to get in here, but the second thing he noticed was far more stunning. Just a few feet away from where he was standing was the silver and red aircraft that everyone would recognize as the Avengers' main mode of transportation: the Quinjet, and not only that, but there appeared to be two of it sitting in a berth in the large room, along with a third jet that was slightly bigger than the Quinjets, and had a red and white paintjob.

Janet could only smirk at the look on Spider-Man's face, while also admiring how good she thought he looked in his new, trimmed up civilian-hero attire, before she continued her explanation of their location. "This is basically where the Avengers and us students store our vehicles when we're not using them. Of course, the Avengers are the ones who typically have more vehicles here than us students, since most of them prefer to stay at the Avengers Tower or in their own personal homes over staying here on campus with us, but they do tend to have at least one of their famous Quinjets and a second Aven-Jet here just in case."

"Aven-Jet," Spider-Man questioned.

"It's basically a bigger, faster, and tougher Quinjet that Stark designed for more high-risk stuff that the Quinjet couldn't really handle, and which can even go into space a lot more easily than the Quinjets can," Janet clarified. "Anyway, pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah," Spider-Man admitted, but he instantly froze up a little when he started to think of what Janet could be implying by bringing them here. "Wait, we're not going to take one of the Quinjets to go into the city are we?"

Janet immediately burst out laughing in response to this before she quieted her chuckles and replied, "No way. Us students aren't allowed to fly the Quinjets. In point of fact, the closest any of us have ever gotten to flying one of these things is doing sessions in a flight simulator, and considering how often I've ended up crashing the thing in the simulator, there's a very small chance I'm ever going to drive the actual thing any time soon." Spider-Man's sigh of relief did not go unnoticed by Janet, and that was when she thought of something that had not occurred to her before. "You're not…scared of flying, are you?"

"What? No," Spider-Man squeaked, before he cleared his throat and spoke again in a deeper tone of voice. "No! Of course I'm not scared of flying. I'm Spider-Man, remember? I swing through New York on a very thin web-line. I just…I have a slight…teeny tiny problem with planes."

"So you're saying that you're afraid of flying in a plane," Janet clarified.

"You do remember how earlier this morning I mentioned that my parents died in a plane crash, right? I think any problem I have with such vehicles would be well justified," Peter pointed out.

"Fair enough," Janet shrugged admittance. "Either way, even if we were allowed to fly the Quinjets, we wouldn't be taking one to get into the city for what you have in mind. We're going for something that definitely stays closer to the ground."

At that point, the Wasp had directed Spider-Man's attention over to another area of the room in which he could see a few different ground-based vehicles were parked. Among these vehicles were a few different trucks or vans that had that same kind of Avengers flare that the Quinjets had, some of Tony's sports cars, and what could only have been Captain America's motorcycle. Along with these vehicles, he could also see what appeared to be a few different hover-cycles as well, and it was finally starting to become a little more clear as to what Janet had in mind for how they would get into town. "So are we taking a one of those hover bikes, Cap's motorcycle, or one of the various Avenger-Mobiles," Spider-Man asked.

"Nope, no way, and no," Janet replied. "And for future reference, the hover bikes are Sky-Cycles, you definitely don't touch Cap's bike unless you're riding with him, and never call any of the Avengers' ground-based vehicles something like that again, especially when you're in a room with…"

"Don't tell me; Black Widow, right," Spider-Man interrupted.

"Oh definitely. Sam learned that the hard way," Janet confirmed.

"Good to know," Spider-Man nodded. "So what are we taking to get into the city, because all that's left is…" Spidey had trailed off at the end when he finally realized just what Wasp was thinking of taking. "No way."

"Yes way. It would help us keep a bit of a low profile, and is way cooler besides," Janet confirmed as she strode over to the nearest one of the various different sports cars that belonged to Tony Stark, which just happened to be a silver convertible.

"Uh, are you sure Tony would be okay with us taking one of his cars like that though," Spider-Man asked nervously.

"What he doesn't know, won't hurt him. Besides, if he didn't want us to take one of his cars, then he shouldn't be leaving some of them here in the Hangar in the first place," Janet shrugged with a smirk as she opened the door and plopped herself down in the driver's seat. Upon checking the mirrors and glancing over to see Spidey had not moved from where he stood, she could not help but smile a little at his nervousness before she asked, "Well are you coming? You are the one who wanted to go out on a patrol, remember?"

At that point, Peter took one last glance around the room, and when he saw that they were the only ones who seemed to be there, he finally shrugged in defeat with a smile before jumping over into the passenger seat with a single flip from where he was standing, and said, "Hit it." Of course, it was just seconds after Janet had turned the ignition key that he thought of something else that was very important. "Uh Jan, you do have a driver's license or at least know how to drive, right?"

Janet gave him a sly smile when she asked, "That depends. Would your reaction be better if I said yes?"

"After hearing you say that, not by that much, really," Spidey replied in full honesty.

"Well, too late to worry about that now," Jan giggled, and a minute later, she floored it, sending them rocketing up the ramp that would lead them out of the hangar and onto the street leading out of and away from campus, with Spider-Man screaming his head off as she laughed the whole way.

---

After half an hour of driving, which was accompanied by Spidey screaming his head off for nearly the entire ride, the two finally arrived in the city and Wasp had parked the very expensive sports car in a place that they could easily find and which was also out of sight from anyone who might notice either it or a pair of superheroes coming and going from it. By the time they had finally parked and left the vehicle, Janet was still giggling a little at how freaked out her new, web-swinging friend was by how she had driven at first, and the fact that he had started kissing the ground after getting out of the car only made her laugh more. "Oh come on, I told you I was just kidding about not having a license," Jan repeated once more upon noticing that Peter was still shaking a little as she and Spidey walked out onto the sidewalk.

"Considering the way you drove half the time on the way here, I can't help but wonder about how true that is," Peter retaliated with a shaky voice.

Janet wanted to argue with him, but she could not deny that he did have a point in what he said. When it came to flying, at least with her powers, Wasp had no problems at all, but put her behind the wheel of any vehicle, and she was not just an animal, she was a freaking monster. There were a vast number of times that Peter thought for sure they were going to crash into something, only to narrowly avoid doing so at practically the last second, and each time, he could have sworn he saw his life flash before his eyes. If she really got her driver's license on her first attempt at the test, Peter would be seriously questioning the circumstances behind it.

"Okay so maybe I had to retake the driver's test…a few times," Janet sheepishly admitted.

"You sure it was only a few and not a few hundred," Peter retorted.

"Hey, I got us out here and saved you some of webbing, didn't I," Janet pointed out with a small huff. Any agitation she had then evaporated once again when she asked, "So what do we now?"

"What do you mean 'what do we do now'," Peter asked in tone a confused tone, since he had thought it should have been obvious that they needed to find somewhere to duck away, change into their heroic alter egos, and head out on the patrol he was supposed to be doing.

"I mean do we go out for a quick trip to the nearest mall, or do we go grab a bite at a restaurant," Janet explained in a tone that made it sound like it was so obvious.

"How about neither," Peter immediately responded. "We're out here to patrol the city. You know, keep people safe, catch bad guys, stop crimes-in-progress, that kind of thing?"

"Well it's not like there's anything going on right now," Janet pointed out, because as far she could see, there really wasn't anything going on.

"That's because you're only looking at the immediate area, and you're looking for some high-profile supervillain. Just because we're superheroes doesn't mean we should just ignore the troubles of the common man," Peter explained in a whisper so that no one would overhear them.

"I know that, Spidey. I do believe we should do whatever we can with our abilities to help people, and unlike what Carol said earlier, I'm all for helping anyone who needs it, whether it involves supervillains or not, but that doesn't mean we can't have a little fun while doing it," Janet said with a smile.

Peter wanted to argue that point, but he had to admit, Janet did indeed have a point in saying that there was no way they could do this without having at least a little bit of fun along the way. That was part of the reason why he liked to make jokes and throw out quips while fighting bad guys, but he figured that what Janet had in mind was not quite the same thing that he was thinking. This was proven true when he suddenly found himself being pulled along by the excited size-changer to a nearby clothes store, which she insisted she was just going to look around in.

Oddly enough, she did just look around in the store, but she was soon off to browse around in another one a few seconds after leaving it, all the while, Peter remained on constant alert. This may not have been quite what he had in mind for the start of his patrol, but it was still something of a start all the same. After stopping in three more stores though, he finally felt that he had to ask, "Did you only ask to come with me so you could have a quick shopping spree?"

"No, of course not. If this was a shopping spree, I'd have actually bought something by now," Janet immediately disputed.

Peter had to nod in agreement with that fact, and once Janet had finished, the two left the store, giving Peter the chance to finally pull them out of sight so that he could properly start a patrol of New York. "Okay, first off, did you bring your superhero suit with you," Peter asked before they got any further.

"No, you brought it for me," Janet replied. The look of confusion on Peter's face almost made her laugh at him again, but she stamped it out long enough to explain, "I might've slipped it into your backpack earlier."

Peter did not know how to respond to that, and instead of saying anything he just turned around and let Janet rummage through said backpack until she had located everything she normally wore when she was flying high as the Wasp. Once she had gotten everything she needed out of his backpack, Peter turned to see that she had indeed stashed her Wasp suit in his backpack, though some of it was shrunk down, no doubt to make sure it all fit in there. "So where should I change," Janet then asked.

Peter glanced around and said, "Out here on the streets, you have to take what cover you can get." At Janet's rather horrified look, he immediately rolled his eyes and said, "What? You can just shrink down until you're too small to be seen changing into your outfit. I actually have to find something like a dumpster to hide behind while I get into mine."

Janet knew Peter had a point, and after they both promised not to look at each other while they were changing, she shrunk down to the smallest size she could managed, shrinking her outfit to the same size while Peter ducked behind the closest dumpster he could find and retrieved his Spider-Man gear from the backpack. A few seconds later, Janet had returned to normal size, completely clad in her white pants, black thigh-high boots, yellow shirt, and black gloves, with her jacket zipped up once again, and Peter was fully decked out in his usual Spider-Man suit. "Okay, despite the fact that I was too small to be seen, that was a bit disturbing," Janet shivered.

"And this is why I continue to say that this type of thing never happens to Captain America," Spidey quipped in response. A second later, his face morphed into a smirk behind his mask, which he was almost certain could be seen through the red, web-patterned cloth, and he fired a web-line up towards the top of the nearest building as he said, "Now just try to keep up."

By the time Wasp had turned to ask what he had meant by that, Spidey was already high in the sky and swinging away at full speed, providing her with the answer to the unasked question. "Hey! No fair," Wasp shouted as she shrunk down, spread her wings, and took off after him as fast as she could.

At that point, all possibilities of a making a simple patrol of the city were lost, because while the two were in fact keeping an eye out for trouble, they were also having an impromptu race against each other, which Janet could not help but note was actually pretty similar to some of the races that Sam and Carol would have in the simulator rooms when they wanted to really practice their flying. Spidey was holding an easy lead ahead of her, until she suddenly fired a stinger through one of his web-lines, slowing him down just enough to allow her to catch up with him, and once she had, she could not help but throw him a playful smirk, which she was pretty sure was being matched by an equally playful glare from Spider-Man. They continued this little race without a finish line for a few hours with absolutely nothing happening, which made Peter think for a minute that they would probably end up having a quiet night for once without running into any problems, until they both heard the sound of breaking glass coming from close by.

Turning on point towards the source allowed the two to see a number of thugs in the typical, black ski masks climbing into the broken window of a small bakery that Peter recognized as one that he and his aunt would often visit every now and again. He was just about to quietly move closer when he noticed Wasp was charging up her stingers and preparing to charge in guns blazing. "Whoa, hold up there, Eager Beaver," Spidey quickly and quietly called out to halt Wasp's charge.

"Why? These guys are robbing a place blind. We have to stop them," Wasp stated.

"And we will, but we can't just go in guns blazing, or in our case, webs and stingers blazing. They may be just street crooks, but that doesn't mean they can't be a threat," Spider-Man advised. "We need to wait for a couple of minutes and listen out for anything that they might say or do."

"But why? It's not like they have something important to say," Wasp argued.

"That's what you think," Spidey disputed. "Consider this Street Crime Fighting 101 with Professor Spidey. The reason you need to wait, watch and listen is because there are times when it's not just a simple matter of black and white. Now this could be that simple, but for all we know, this could also be part of a larger string of robberies being committed by a larger gang, or it could be something completely different than what it seems."

"So by holding off and waiting, we can learn a bit more about what's going on," Wasp finished in a questioning tone.

"Exactly! The one thing you can count on when it comes to bad guys like these, it's that they're always chatty, so they'll likely have something pretty important to say, even if it only seems like something that's part of a passing conversation," Spider-Man nodded. "And there's one other thing that we can learn from waiting and listening."

"What's that?"

"When the perfect time to make an entrance with a clever one-liner is," Spidey joked, getting an eye-roll from Wasp that was clearly playful if the accompanying smile was any indication.

At that point, Spider-Man's joke fact was proven true when one of the thugs spoke to the rest of his gang. "Alright remember, grab all the cash from the register and safe, and don't touch any of the baked goods, and definitely don't eat nothing! Mrs. M's my great auntie."

Wasp knew that Spidey was smirking in victory behind his mask when the thug had told his partners in crime all of this, because a minute later, he had swung himself down to hang in full view of the window and called out, "So you'll rob the piggy bank, but won't touch the cookie jar? Wow, you must qualify for nephew of the year, twisted division."

When the thugs spun around to see who had spoken and saw the red-and-blue clad hero, the reaction that followed was both obvious and predictable in any lifetime. "It's the Spider! Get him!"

"First off, the name's Spider-Man, and second, really? 'It's the Spider; get him'? Is that the best you got," Spidey asked as one of the thugs charged and started swinging a baseball bat at him, which he easily dodged by leaning back and forth without dismounting from the web-line he was hanging from until he finally dismounted and landed on the thugs back after the last swing caused said the thug to trip a little. "I mean I go to all this trouble to turn you guys into famous Spider-Perps, so the least you could do is keep things interesting. I always do," Spider-Man continued before shooting off another web to pull a nearby tin of cookies in the store into the back of another crook's head.

"And tonight, he did so by bringing a new friend along," Wasp suddenly announced, drawing one of the remaining thugs' attention to his shoulder when he heard her. Upon doing so, he immediately spotted the small-sized hero standing on his shoulder before she jumped back into the air and prepared a stinger to fire and said, "Hi."

A second later, the thug was blasted onto his back by the blast from Wasp's stinger, and the size-changing hero was quickly joining in on the fight with Spider-Man, cutting the number of thugs that he had to fight in half, easily since she was able to evade any hit they threw at her without any trouble, mostly due to the fact that she was much smaller than anything that they normally tried to punch. When she spun herself over one guy's arm, she quickly returned to normal size, making the kick she landed in his face hurt that much more. Wasp had to pause and smile proudly at her little performance just then, but as a result, she nearly ended up getting her head knocked off by another thug's bat. Thankfully she managed to avoid it by shrinking down at the last second, but she still had to throw her attacker a cross look.

"Hey, didn't anyone ever tell you to never hit a lady," Wasp snapped crossly as she continued to evade the swinging bat.

"Seriously, even when comes to low-class crooks like you guys, I expect better of you. So disappointing," Spider-Man quipped in addition to this before swiping the thug's weapon away with a web, and he then dropped down on the crook with an easy kick to the head, knocking him out in an instant.

"Oh great, now there's two of 'em! Like our lives weren't already completely fu-," the lead thug started to say, only to receive a mouthful of webbing before he could utter the offensive word.

"Hey! Watch the mouth. We're in the presence of a lady, remember," Spider-Man scolded. "Can you believe this guy?"

"Common thugs these days, huh," Wasp quipped in reply as she zapped another one into unconsciousness.

"Oh you have no idea," Spider-Man nodded in agreement after he had webbed up the last thug to a lamp post.

With everything taken care of, the two heroes made their exit just seconds before the cops arrived, at which point all they found was a card that read "Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and Wasp."

"Okay, that was fun," Wasp cheered once they had landed atop a nearby roof. "Seriously, I can't believe I've never actually done something like this until now! And the look on that one guy's face when I suddenly appeared on the scene. HA! I should've brought my camera for that alone!"

"Glad to see that you enjoyed yourself," Spidey chuckled in response to Janet's enthusiasm. "Now, what did we learn just now?"

"That you are the Avengers Academy expert when it comes to fighting real-life street crime," Wasp complimented with a smile. When Spider-Man said nothing in reply, she then added, "And waiting to listen to what the bad guys say to each other can be just as important as stopping them from committing the crime."

Spider-Man nodded in response to that and brushed away a fake tear as he said, "It's always so rewarding when a student takes their teacher's lessons to heart."

Wasp just giggled in reply to this and gave him a playful shove before she lifted up into the air again and said, "Well, the night's still young, and last I checked, bad guys don't beat themselves up."

"Well technically, they probably would if they were fighting a telepath who told them to beat each other up, but since that's not likely to happen tonight, you would be right about that," Spider-Man nodded, and with a simple flick of his wrist, the web-head was leading them off into the night to find more criminals to stop and lives to save before they had to call it a day and return to Avengers Academy.

---

It was starting to get really late at night when the two finally began to wind things down from their patrol, and in that time, they had done a lot of good in helping the city. The most notable accomplishments being stopping three muggings, four store robberies including that first one they prevented, an attempted rape, and a bank robbery. Of course, that did not mean they were going to ignore anything that happened on the way back to the car, which was why they were now stopping to stop another criminal who was terrorizing people in the streets in an attempt to make a getaway. The criminal in question was decked out in a ridiculous outfit, if you were to ask Wasp, which consisted of black jeans, a blue coat, a light blue visor, and strange gauntlets on his hands which seemed to shoot out some type of shockwaves. While Wasp did not really know what else to think about this guy beyond the fact that his outfit was completely ridiculous, Spider-Man did have more than a few thoughts on the guy, some of which he definitely did not hesitate to voice.

"Herman old buddy. Boy did I miss you! Not really though, but that's mostly because of your chosen path in life as a would-be criminal. Seriously, what is this, the third time this month that I've had to beat you up because you were doing something stupid like this," Spider-Man called out to the guy, drawing said criminal's attention onto him once he was on the ground.

"Oh no, not you again," Herman moaned before firing his shock blasts at the web-head.

Spider-Man easily evaded the blasts by flipping over both them and Herman, easily landing behind the crook in a swift motion. "Now don't act like you aren't happy to see me, Herman."

"The name is Shocker, web-creep," Herman shouted as he prepared to fire another blast at Spider-Man, only for the gauntlet he was about to use to suddenly end up getting jammed by webbing.

"Yeah you're a shocker alright, but only because I keep running into you when you should be in jail. I'm being completely serious here when I tell you this, dude; you suck at being a themed-criminal," Spider-Man easily retorted as he fired another web into Shocker's other gauntlet as he was about to raise it up to firing level. "But seriously, why do you like prison so much, and why, oh why, are you not in jail from the last several times I caught you red-handed doing this kind of stupid, crime-related stuff? No really, I'm sure that there's at least a few people in this crowd alone who've seen me stop you at least one time before now, so why are you not in jail?"

"Why can't you just leave me alone," Shocker shouted as he attempted to charge Spider-Man, clearly having not figured out that he was already beat.

The point was easily driven home when a bio-energy sting collided with his chest and sent him flying into the wall where he was soon left all wrapped up in more webs, courtesy of both Wasp and Spider-Man respectively, and seeing that the Shocker had fallen unconscious after hitting said wall, the web-swinger just shrugged at the fact that he would probably not get an answer to his question today and just made to return to the car with Wasp. After stopping in a nearby alley so that they could change into their street attire once again, the two were soon back in the car with Janet driving at a much more calm pace than she had been earlier, on their way back to the academy, with a little bit of small talk to fill the silence.

"Seriously, do you know all of your more major bad guys on a first name basis," Janet questioned.

"Nah, me and Herman do that whole routine like every other week or so," Spidey shrugged in response. "Seriously, I really want to know how he's not in jail."

"Bet you wish that Jameson was in jail."

"Have you peeking at my Christmas wish-list?"

The two had to laugh a little in response to this, and their conversation continued like this all the way back to the Academy. At least until they were just about at the gates of the campus, at which point, Janet felt that she could not keep herself from asking about something that had really been bothering her anymore. "You really seem to take that whole thing pretty seriously, huh?"

"I always take things seriously when it comes to stopping bad guys, despite what some people might think," Peter replied.

"I get that, and I kind of figured after that little moment you had with us on the way to first period this morning."

Peter immediately became a little more sheepish at this point and said, "Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't really mean to come off as being mean or anything, I just…"

"Relax, I get it. This is a big deal to you. I guess…I'd just like to know why that is," Janet finally confessed. Peter did not say anything for a moment, which prompted Janet to add, "I kinda heard what you said at the end of your little semi-rant as well. The part about how you couldn't look the other way again. What did you mean by that?"

In all honesty, Peter wanted to just brush it off and tell her to not worry about it, but when he saw the concerned look on Janet's face, he found that he just could not do that, and that's when he decided that he should tell her. He knew that he had to tell someone about this sooner or later if he did not want to go nuts keeping it to himself, but he always figured it would be a long time before he did say anything about the matter, and yet somehow, he was getting a strange vibe off of Janet Van Dyne that was telling him that he could tell her if no one else. So, after taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Peter looked Janet in the eye as best as he could while she was driving, and told her that they would want to stop somewhere for this, because he was pretty sure that they should probably not be driving while he told his tale.

When Janet did stop the car, it was actually on the side of the road right next to the school, and after taking another moment to completely compose himself, Spider-Man began his tale. "Well, you know how you guys all told me that you pretty much went right into the role of being heroes the minute you got your powers and all that," Peter began, getting an affirmative nod in response. "Well, I honestly wish I could say that I had done the same thing, but I can't. The first thing I did after getting my powers, while it was mostly for my family, was a bit more selfish."

"What do you mean? Did you get into showbiz or something," Janet questioned.

"Depends on what you would define as showbiz," Peter replied. "You see, as I said earlier, after my parents died, I ended up living with my aunt and uncle. The problem there was that they were never really well-off in terms of money, right to the point where I would sometimes overhear them talking about bills they should hold off on paying just to pay for my school tuition, and when I got my powers, I figured I could change all of that. The first attempt I made was by taking part in a wrestling match where the winner would receive three thousand dollars if they won. Before I even thought about entering though, I designed an early version of my costume so no one would recognize me. I spent a lot of time doing that though, and it ended up causing me to forget about the other responsibilities I had in my life for a little while."

"I'm guessing your aunt and uncle weren't too happy about that," Janet commented.

"Well, my aunt is typically a very forgiving woman, but Uncle Ben was not really too eager to just leave it at sorry. He didn't exactly try to ground me or anything like that, but he did try to teach me a really important lesson. I still remember his exact words from when we last spoke. He told me, 'You're a lot like your father, and that's a good thing, but your father lived by a philosophy, a principle. He believed that if you could do good things for other people, you had a moral obligation to do those things. It was not a choice, but a responsibility to use whatever power we had to do those good things.'"

Janet smiled a little at hearing this, because it really did sound like a good philosophy to live by, but when she saw how Peter's face was not one of happiness, she had to figure that this was not a pleasant memory for him. "It sounds like your uncle was a wise man," Janet said in an attempt to help Peter feel better.

"I like to think that he was a lot smarter than everyone else I know. I just wish I had thought so at the time," Peter admitted, and he did not wait for Janet to ask why that was the case before he explained it himself. "When he had finished telling me that, I, in my great teenage wisdom, just got mad and said, 'That's great, so where is he? Where's my dad? He didn't think it was his responsibility to be here and tell me this himself?'"

"Spidey," Janet gasped.

"I know, I'm just as disgusted by the fact that I threw that in Uncle Ben's face now as you are, but like I said, I had been mad and I was reacting like any other teenager would have at the time. Uncle Ben tried to tell me that I shouldn't have, but I just got even more upset and stormed out." Peter chuckled humorlessly before he added, "I was still adjusting to my new found strength at the time, so when I slammed the door I had caused the window to shatter apart."

Janet neither said or did anything in response to that, as it was clear that it was more of an attempt for Spidey to keep himself from breaking down right then than it was to lighten the mood of the story, and just let him continue. "I was already heading out to the wrestling ring when that fight happened, so I figured I'd just take my troubles out in the ring, which was no problem for Spider-Man."

"So I'm guessing you won," Janet asked.

"Yeah, I won, but the guy running the whole thing cheated me, and said it wasn't his problem when I told him I needed the money, so I didn't think it was my problem when he got robbed. Even if that wasn't the case, I wasn't too interested in stopping bad guys like some superhero back then, so part of me can't help but wonder if I would've done anything even if the guy hadn't cheated me. After that I just stormed out of the building and went around the block to help cool my head, thinking that maybe there would be a chance that my aunt and uncle would've just gone to bed by the time I did go home. When I did get home though, that definitely wasn't the case, given that I had arrived to see the police were parked outside the house."

"Oh my god," Janet gasped. "Don't tell me…"

"Yeah, that was the same night that the crook who killed my uncle had broken into our house," Peter confirmed. "After sitting with my aunt for a little while as she recounted the story of what had happened as best as she could, I overheard a couple of the cops saying that they had chased the guy into an abandoned warehouse somewhere near the docks, so I left my aunt with our neighbors and took off to get first crack at him. I never even thought I would be in for the shock of my life when I did find him though." It was at this point that Janet could see that Spidey was very near the point where he would just break down completely, but when she reached over to tell him that he did not have to keep going if he did not want to, he just waved her attempt off and pressed on, insisting that he felt like he had to anyway. "When I finally got a look at the guy's face, it felt as though my heart had stopped, because…because it was the same crook from the arena. The one I could've stopped but didn't. Even now I keep thinking that maybe if I had then Uncle Ben wouldn't have…"

Janet did not hesitate at all this time when she leaned over to comfort Spider-Man, even if he did attempt to wave off any offer to do so, and not a second later, Peter found himself being held tightly in Janet's arms as she wrapped him in the biggest hug she could manage. "Hey, it's alright," Janet whispered softly as she rubbed his back comfortingly. "There was no way you could've known. Don't blame yourself for something that wasn't your fault."

Any attempts Peter would have made to say something in reply were silenced due to the fact that his voice had been caught in his throat both from the unexpected hug, and the sudden emotional drain he had just unloaded, right to the point where he was feeling very choked up due to the sheer amount of emotion that he was currently feeling, so he simply had to make do by returning Janet's hug as a show of thanks while letting a few tears fall from his eyes, likely getting the shoulder of her jacket a bit soaked as he did. After letting Peter cry for a little bit longer, Janet finally released her hold on him and gave him a small smile of understanding as she said, "I guess I can see why you feel as though you can't ignore anyone who needs help after something like that."

"Yeah," Spidey nodded. "Ever since that night, I swore to Uncle Ben that I would never ignore that lesson he had tried to teach me again, and I would also make sure to use the power I've been given as Spider-Man to help anyone in need, and not just by fighting supervillains or anything like that either."

Janet nodded in understanding of this, and remained silent afterwards before she decided that Peter should not be the only one sharing the pains of their past right now. "You know, when I first became the Wasp, while part of the reason was because I wanted to help people, there was another reason as well." Peter quirked an eyebrow in confusion at this, which Janet took as a signal to continue in her explanation. "You see, part of the reason is because I wanted to find out what had happened to my dad. Hank has always told me that my dad disappeared during a lab accident, but he's never said exactly what. I know that's not really much to base a theory on, but some part of me has always felt like Hank wasn't telling me the whole truth, and that someone, somewhere, had a part in my dad's disappearance. I'm not saying that I think someone killed him or anything, but…sometimes I can't help but feel that if there was a chance he was still alive then…"

This time it was Peter's turn to wrap Janet in a comforting hug, which the young woman gladly accepted. She did not break down and cry like Peter had, but she was pretty sure that she was pretty close to that point. After letting go of one another again, Janet looked to see Spidey had pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, leading her to voice her confusion on this action. "What're you doing?"

Spidey sighed in response before he revealed, "During that walk I mentioned, Uncle Ben had tried to call me, but I sent it directly to voicemail. I tired listening to it once, but…after what had happened, it was just too much for me, so…"

Janet smiled in understanding, and soon placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and said, "I get it, but if I had something like that from my dad, I would definitely want to hear what could have been his last words to me." Spidey did not say anything in response to this, seemingly contemplating if he should listen to the message, so Janet suggested, "Come on Spidey. How about we listen to it together?"

Spider-Man appreciated that suggestion, as one could have guessed from his smile, but he knew that if they were going to carry it out, there was something else that he needed to say first. "Peter."

"What," Janet asked in surprise.

"You wanted to know my real name, and that's it: Peter," Spidey elaborated.

Janet just stared at the web-head in surprise for a minute before she finally asked, "Why tell me this now, and why only me?"

"For a few reasons, actually: first off, because the first thing that Uncle Ben said in this message was my name, so you would've learned it either way. Second, I got the feeling you would've kept bugging me until I at least told you that much of my name," Peter joked in reply, gaining a small smile from Janet even as she slapped his shoulder in response to said joke. "The big reason though is…well, I guess I just feel like taking a chance on trusting you with that."

Wasp smiled in response to this and gave him a small hug of thanks for that show of trust, and after being released from said hug, Peter put his phone on speaker and accessed his voicemail so that they could hear his uncle's last words. "Peter, I know things have been difficult lately and I'm sorry about that," the recording of the late Ben Parker said. "I think I know what you're feeling. Ever since you were a little boy, you've been living with so many…unresolved things. Well take it from an old man, those things send us down a road, they make us who we are, and if anyone's destined for greatness, it's you son. You owe the world your gifts. You just have to figure out how to use them. And know that wherever they take you, we'll always be here. So come on home Peter. You're my hero, and I love you."

Hearing those last words were what really did it for Peter, but this time when he started shedding tears, they were not ones of sadness, but of happiness at the fact that his uncle did not die angry with him, and that the last thing he had said to Peter was that he loved him. This touching message also led Janet to shed a few tears of happiness for Peter, since she could really feel for Peter on this matter, but, they knew that they could not sit out there reveling in such emotions all night, so once they both had a good enough control over their emotions, Janet finally drove the car back onto the academy grounds and into the hangar, where she swiftly parked it back in its original space.

Of course, all sense of the moment that the two had just shared completely evaporated into nothing when they turned to see a surprisingly stern-looking Tony Stark standing in the doorway out of the hangar. After staring at the two in silence for a minute, and making them extremely uncomfortable under the judging look, the billionaire genius finally asked, "So who's idea was it to take one of my cars out for a joyride?"

"Hey, we just took it to get in and out of the city so Spidey could go on his patrol. Plus we brought back in one piece, and without a scratch on it…this time," Janet immediately defended.

"Yeah we…wait, what? 'This time'," Spider-Man asked after Janet's full sentence had registered in his mind.

Any further dialogue from the teens was halted when Tony raised a hand to silence them, and then suddenly smirked as he said, "Next time you want to borrow one of my cars for a patrol date, you should just ask first."

"It wasn't a date," Janet immediately protested, a little too quickly and too defensively, not that Peter's sputtering protests were any better than hers.

After letting the two teens trip over their words for a few more minutes, Tony just laughed and said, "Relax you two, and go on and head back to the dorms. It's getting a little close to Cap's curfew last I checked. Oh and Jan, I will be checking for scratches all the same."

Janet just nodded to Tony, and then she and Peter immediately walked out of the room as quickly as they could, each feeling a knowing look from Stark as they left until he turned to examine the car that Janet had taken out, just to make sure Wasp really hadn't damaged one of his cars this time.

---

After the little scene in the hangar with Tony and saying goodnight to Peter, Janet finally returned to her room where she let out a sigh of relief as she slid down against the door with a smile. When Cap had asked her to accompany Spider-Man on this little trip and show him a way to get into the city without wasting webbing, she had not expected anything like what she had just went through, but maybe that was the point. In a way, Spider-Man really was something of a teacher, because unlike the rest of them, he actually had some real life experience fighting bad guys while all she, Sam, and Carol had were experience in fighting simulations, and that just made the night even more satisfying for Janet. In her moment of euphoria, she never once registered that someone else was in the room with her until said someone had spoken up. "You sound like you had a good day," one Carol Danvers observed.

When the blonde spoke up, Janet could not stop herself from jumping up in shock due to how sudden it was for her, and the brunette quickly leveled a small look at her friend before she asked, "What're you doing in my room, Carol, and how'd you even get in?"

"You registered me as someone who could enter your room without you needing to be here, remember," Carol reminded Janet before her look turned more serious. "And I've actually been here waiting for you so I could ask what the hell has been up with you today?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Janet immediately refuted as she turned her back to the blonde.

"Oh really? Then you don't remember how you were acting like a shy school girl around a certain web-head earlier today," Carol reminded her friend in a knowing tone before growing serious again. "You've never acted like that for any reason, so spill and tell me what was up with that?"

Janet knew that there was no way she could hide something from Carol, so she let out a small sigh and revealed, "I just…I figured he was the kind of person who was a little shy around people at first, and he would probably be a little more attracted to someone who was at least a little like that, so…"

Now Carol understood. Janet had been acting shy on purpose so she could try to get Spider-Man to like her a little more, which could only have meant that Janet was honestly into the web-head for some reason beyond her. "Jan, if you really do like this guy, then just be yourself. If he doesn't like the real you, he's not worth the trouble," Carol advised her friend.

"Hey, I've done plenty of that today, and I think I've made some decent progress in getting close to him. I mean…we kind of shared a moment earlier today after getting back from a little patrol run of the city," Janet started to say before her blonde friend interrupted.

"He actually does do that? Wow; I guess that would kind of explain why he seemed so serious about the matter, but we'll get into that later. Right now, you need to spill the details on this moment you two shared," Carol practically ordered her friend.

"No I don't," Janet immediately argued. "It's all really personal stuff for both him and me, some of which involves his secret identity, and he told me that stuff in full confidence, so I'm not gonna just break his trust to spread his secrets around for gossip between girls. More importantly, though, at least to you, it's getting really close to curfew, and I know you won't want to get in trouble with Cap or anyone else on the staff for being out of your room past curfew, now would you?"

Carol could honestly respect Jan's desire to not betray Spidey's trust if the things they shared with each other really was that important, but she did want to know at least something about their little moment other than the fact they had shared some personal stuff with each other. Still, she was right about the fact that it was a little too close to curfew for them to have a serious girl-talk about anything, so she conceded defeat on this for now and bid Janet goodnight with a promise that they would continue this conversation later. Janet could only smile in an attempt to humor Carol's little promise, but she still went to bed with a content smile on her face, one that, unknown to her, was shared by Spider-Man as the same thought passed through both of their minds: today had been a very good day.

---

Unknown to any of the heroes of the world, in an undisclosed location, a man in a smart business suit was meeting with the green-haired co-leader of HYDRA, Madame Viper, also known as Madame Hydra, to discuss some recent developments that they had both just recently discovered. In all honesty, if it were up to the man in question, he would not be talking with the woman at all, but as of now, his goals coincided with those of HYDRA's, which meant that now was as good a time as any to open at least a few negotiations with the terrorist group. Once he had seated himself in the darkened room, he quickly took note of the fact that Madame Hydra had not come alone, but had in fact brought along a man who wore a helmet with a white skull painted over the face, a bullet-proof jacket with a set of crossbones painted on the front, dark brown cargo pants, padded gloves, black boots and a dark silver belt. The business man had no problem with HYDRA's representative bringing along someone else for added protection, seeing as he had brought along an associate of his own in the form of a man with a set of goggles over his eyes and a large trench coat concealing most of his body, save for his lower legs.

"I trust you received our most recent news," Madame Viper asked, bringing the man's attention to the meeting at hand.

"Yes," the business man nodded. "It seems you were right. The Avengers did approach Spider-Man, and now he's a student at their little school. I suppose it goes without saying that any hopes I had of capturing Spider-Man and weaponizing his abilities are now a pipe dream without your assistance."

"Indeed it does," Viper confirmed with a sly nod, which made the man think she knew this would happen all along. "So I take it that means you have reconsidered our offer?"

The man was silent for a moment before he finally gave his answer. "Yes. I have decided to accept. HYDRA will have the full support of my company, off the record of course. Can't have everyone knowing about such an allegiance, now can we? And as a show of good faith, I'd like to offer the personal services of one of my best scientists to you." The man's associate then stepped forward and opened his trench coat a little so that the four mechanical arms beneath it had some freedom to move about. "Allow me to introduce Doctor Otto Octavius. I believe you know him better as Doctor Octopus?"

"Indeed," Madame Viper nodded. "And you are certain that Doctor Octavius has no qualms serving under our leadership?"

"Dear lady, Otto Octavius serves no one but himself unless it provides him with some benefits. I'd prefer to think of us as business partners for the moment," the not-so-good doctor clarified.

"Watch your mouth, Octo-boy," Viper's extra muscle growled.

"Crossbones," Viper warned said muscle, prompting him to immediately stand down. She then turned her attention back to the doctor and said "I understand your meaning, Doctor, and I assure you that we will be most happy to welcome such a brilliant mind into our ranks."

"Just another step towards crushing both the Avengers and their little academy, I assume," the business man inquired, just make sure he was understanding correctly.

"Indeed," Madame Viper confirmed as she stood up and extended a hand forward, which the man accepted to seal the deal. "A pleasure doing business with you, and welcome to HYDRA's ranks, Mister Osborn."

"The pleasure is all mine, Madame Hydra," Norman Osborn of Oscorp Industries smirked in reply, signifying the beginning of what were sure to be dark days that were soon to come for both the students and staff of Avengers Academy.

---

AN: What? Did you really think I'd write a superhero story without throwing in some villains? I mean come on, we've already established that HYDRA was around, and look at that, we've now seen the addition of three different Spider-Man villain (Doc Ock, Green Goblin, and Shocker in case you weren't paying attention) along with Crossbones, and they are up to something evil-sneaky.

Deadpool: Hey, how about we talk about those lame [sees AN reaching for controls] I mean, awesome various references you threw in this time!

AN: Well I suppose it couldn't hurt. Yeah, a lot of this chapter saw some Spidey references. Stuff from the Ultimate Spider-Man comics, The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series, and even something from The Amazing Spider-Man 1, in case you didn't notice it. Yeah, this really seemed to focus on Spidey, like the last few chapters seemed to, but this one especially so. I really wanted to wrap up Spidey's first day with a bang, and this chapter seemed like the way to go with that. Plus, we saw a little more progress with Wasp and Spider-Man's relationship.

Deadpool: Let's not forget the fact that you totally had Spidey blow his secret identity by announcing it to Wasp.

AN: I just had him tell her his first name. It's not like he revealed his social security number to her or anything. By the way, "HaywireEagle" I hope that this clears up your problem with Wasp's little shy act, you know, because that's all it was: an act? While we're on the subject, we'll see a bit more development for the happy, excited size-changer, as well as the other students, so keep an eye out for when those adventures happen.

Also, of course I had Wasp design a civilian-hero style for Spidey. After all, she wants him to like her, and one of the best ways to help with that would be by helping him fit in a little more so that he won't be uncomfortable around their classmates due to the fact that he's the only one who seems to be wearing his hero suit full-time. If you need a better idea of how Spidey's new style looks like, just check out his Rank 1 attire in the Avengers Academy app, and replace the glasses with the shades I mentioned earlier.

Deadpool: Which make him look like a Cyclops-wannabe.

AN: Why are you still here?! You know what? That tears it. Security!

Deadpool: [suddenly gets drop-kicked, then slashed, punched, slashed, and then shot repeatedly] Hey! Who did that?! [looks to see who did it, only to freeze when a sword ends up at his throat...sorry, we should be saying that a gunblade was at his throat]

Lightning: I did.

Deadpool: [stares at Lightning for a minute] I can show you really good time ya know? [gets blasted out of the building by Lightning] BUT I DIDN'T EVEN TELL YOU WHAT THE SAFE-WORD WOULD BE!

AN: Lightning Farron of Final Fantasy XIII everyone. Our newest Deadpool exterminator. Give it up for her.

[audience applause]

Lightning: [spins her gunblade back into its holster] I'll be going now.

AN: Okay, thanks for the help. Oh, and hey, we still cool about the possibility of working together for a possible crossover in the future?

Lightning: [stares at AN for a minute] Let me know when you start doing some real planning for it, or if it ever becomes more than just a random idea. [Leaves the building all dramatically like only she can]

AN: Okay then! I'll just have my people call your people!...Man I hope we get to see her in Kingdom Hearts III. Ahem, anyways, let's get you all rolling Onto the Preview! That should help me deal with the Deadpool-induced headache...

Another super-powered teen has appeared on the Avengers' radar, and Carol is asked to join Tony and Hawkeye in the attempt to recruit him to the school, but a potential new student is not the only thing that the three will have to contend with, as something far more devious is on the prowl here. Can the three bring this indestructible man into the fold before anything goes bad for him or them? And just what will the other three young heroes be doing while this is going on? Find out next time!

See that? Already we're adding someone else to the student body, and we'll be focusing on someone other than Spidey next time. Well, until then...

Please read and review, and I'll see ya next time, fellow true believers!