"Sarah seems nice," Ned said as he and Peter walked home from school later that afternoon.

"Very nice," Peter agreed, nodding.

Ned suddenly stopped walking and turned to face Peter, wearing an expectant look on his face.

"So…?" he said, causing Peter to frown in confusion.

"So what?"

Ned's eyes widened. "Are you gonna ask her out?"

Peter sighed, shaking his head.

"Ned, I told you, I'm not looking for a relationship right now."

"Aw, why not?"

Peter rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed by his friend's persistence about asking out some girl that they just met.

"Why don't you ask her out then if you like her so much?"

His response caught Ned by surprise, but the larger boy quickly recovered as he authoritatively placed his hands on his hips.

"Maybe I will."

Peter rolled his eyes, knowing full well that if his friend ever even gathered up the courage to approach a girl with asking her out in mind, he'd probably chicken out at the very last second.

"Maybe we should be focusing more on Oscorp," the brunette suggested, hoping to change the subject.

Ned shook his head, immediately turning serious. "You're right," he said, as the two began to walk again. "So, what do we know about Oscorp?"

Peter shrugged. "Well, we know that it's a place that's known for making cool science stuff."

"To put it simply," Ned scoffed, amused by his friend's juvenile description. "I mean, what is so important that someone would want to take something from there?"

"They make lots of things," Peter answered. "Technology, medicine—a bunch of cool stuff."

"But the news said that it was a serum that was stolen," Ned reminded him. "So it must be a medicine of some kind."

"Good point," Peter said. "But why would a bad guy want something that could help people?"

"Because…" Ned began, struggling to come up with some sort of explanation. "He or she is actually a doctor?"

Peter gave his friend a look, causing the dark-haired boy to pinch his nose in exasperation.

"I don't know, man," he said. "There's just a lot that we don't know yet. Man, I wish Tony Stark were here. Maybe he could help us figure this out."

Peter nodded. "I know. But knowing Mr. Stark, he's probably extremely busy. Plus, I kind of wanna prove to him that I can do this hero thing on my own, ya know?"

"Yeah, I hear that," Ned agreed. "But we need some kind of direction."

Peter glanced down at the ground, trying to organize his thoughts. "We need to figure out what was taken. That should be our first step."

"Agreed. Maybe we can get Sarah to ask her dad about it," Ned suggested.

The brunette boy frowned, clearly skeptical about the idea.

"I doubt he would tell her," Peter said. "She said that the information was classified."

The friends walked in silence for a minute, wracking their brains to try and figure out a strategy.

"However…" he started. "Maybe the company wouldn't mind explaining a little to a certain friendly neighborhood hero."

This time, it was Ned who gave Peter a skeptical look.

"Spider-Man? Really, dude?"

"Yeah," Peter said, the enthusiasm growing in his voice. "I mean, come on, Ned. Everyone knows that Spider-Man works with the Avengers. I feel like they would talk to me."

Ned shrugged. "It's worth a shot, I guess, since we don't really have many other options."

A smirk slowly spread across the smaller boy's face. "Trust me, Ned. If no one else can get the authorities talking, the funny and extremely personable neighborhood Spider-Man will."

"Hey, Mr. Stark. It's Peter. Parker. Peter Parker, sir," the young hero rambled as he spoke into his cell phone. "Just wanted to give you an update. So far, no crimes here in Queens. I stopped a couple of bank robbers earlier this week. It was no big deal, I totally whipped their butts…"

From behind the mask, the young hero's eyes widened, realizing he was probably sounding extremely unprofessional.

"I'm sorry, that was inappropriate. I don't know if we're on that level yet. I hope so, since we've worked together and I'm planning on becoming an Avenger…and now I'm just rambling…" he trailed off, mentally kicking himself for sounding like such an idiot to his mentor on the phone.

"Anyways, everything's good here," he concluded. "And if anything happens, I'll put a stop to it. I promise."

Slowly pulling the phone away from his ear, Spider-Man pushed a button, ending his voicemail to Mr. Stark.

Letting out a sigh, the masked Peter Parker watched the sun slowly fall behind the old Avengers building. He desperately wanted to please Mr. Stark and to prove that he was ready to become an Avenger. He wanted his mentor to stop treating him like a kid and to be seen as a valuable asset to the team. And while the iron man had seemed to loosen the reins on him a little since last year's battle with the Falcon, he wanted to be treated as his equal, not just a kid he used to babysit.

He knew that the Oscorp incident would be the perfect opportunity to achieve his full-time status as an Avenger. If he were able to handle this case, then maybe Mr. Stark and the rest of the team would finally start to take him seriously. Maybe he would then be invited on more missions before he graduated, preparing him for his fulltime employment.

He glanced down at his phone and saw it was already quarter to seven, meaning it was definitely time to start heading heading home.

Tomorrow, he would set up his meeting with the head of Oscorp, Norman Osborn. After doing a bit of research, he and Ned found that Oscorp Industries-the building he was sitting on top of currently-was a major research and manufacturing firm, and that Mr. Osborn was the company's leading scientist, specializing in cybernetics engineering. Peter hoped that maybe the CEO would be willing to share more about the technology that was created there, including the serum. Even at his young age, the superhero knew that if such advanced technology fell into the wrong hands, the outcome could be catastrophic.

With that, the hero slowly stood up from his sitting position, dusting the imaginary dirt off his suit. He would get to the bottom of it.

I'll prove to Mr. Stark I can do this on my own.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, however, he heard a rustling noise from behind him. A normal person may not have been able to detect such a faint sound, but thanks to the radioactive spider that had bit him, Peter's senses were on high alert.

He whirled around just in time to see a shadow dart behind the roof access.

"Hey!" he shouted, as he sprung into action, racing towards in the direction the figure had gone.

When he rounded the corner of the structure, he was surprised to see the figure had already leaped onto the rooftop of the building next to Oscorp.

From behind, he could see the silhouette of the figure was that of a female, the last rays of sunlight illuminating what appeared to be a metallic suit with gold accents.

"I didn't even get your name!"

Using his quick reflexes, he shot a web at the next building and swung across the gap, landing in a graceful somersault onto the roof of the next building. He was determined to speak with this new acquaintance of his he had met the previous evening.

The mysterious figure turned around to watch him land on the same rooftop she was on, only for her to whip out some sort of weapon out and aim at him from over her shoulder.

"Whoa, hey! I was just trying to be friendly!" he exclaimed, as he narrowly missed a fatal beam of light.

The figure didn't respond; instead, it continued to leap from rooftop to rooftop, with him trailing close behind her.

"Haven't seen you around! I'm Spider-Man, by the way!"

To his surprise, he watched the figure jump off of the building they were currently on, likely after realizing that his insistence on pursuing her was not going to dwindle any time soon, and fell into the alley below.

When he reached the end of the rooftop, he peered over the edge to find that she was nowhere in sight.

Frowning, he carefully descended the building with his webs. Upon his descent, he was greeted by the darkness of the alley below, landing with a soft thump. Even with his spider-like abilities, it was difficult to make out his surroundings, as though everything was covered in a thick black veil.

Taking a small step forward, the hero tried to maintain his composure as he struggled to adjust to his dark surroundings.

"I just wanna talk," he stated calmly, in hopes that it might convince the masked figure to reveal herself to him.

Realistically, he knew a simple invitation would not be enough to lure someone out of hiding, especially if they were up to something they shouldn't be. After the way she had reacted, he doubted she had wanted to be seen.

He glanced around the area with caution, the deafening silence unnerving him.

I'm an Avenger, I'm an Avenger... he recited to himself, attempting to calm his racing heartbeat. If she was still here, he wouldn't put it past her to jump out at him and shoot him with that laser-thing she had fired at him.

Thet sound of movement caused him to whirl around abruptly, his defense-mode kicking into overdrive as he assumed a fighting stance. Instead of the figure, however, he found a pair of bright green eyes watching him, belonging to a large black cat. He sighed, a strange mix of relief and disappointment washing over him.

She was gone, for now.

Peter knew his aunt May would start worrying if he didn't come home soon, and he figured it was useless to try and find the mysterious figure without having any leads as to where she went.

If he didn't catch her today, he had a feeling that he would be seeing her again, maybe sooner than he was planning on.

"At least now I know it wasn't my imagination," he muttered under his breath.

Glancing over his shoulder one last time, the young hero turned to head home. He reminded himself to not let the events of the past hour distract him too much. First step was to talk to Mr. Osborn, then he would go from there.

He would keep his promise to Mr. Stark. If anything strange was going on, which was beginning to seem like a strong possibility, then he would put a stop to it.