A Familiar Face
"SHIELD's being dismantled?" Steve Rogers strokes his developing beard.
He had intended to shave days ago.
Free time hasn't been a commodity of late.
"Of course," a man speaks. He is plastered on a large transparent screen, face covered in deliberate shadow.
Steve doesn't know the name of this individual, nor does he really care. It's a SHIELD benefactor, that much is certain. Possibly a CFO.
Who knows.
Who cares.
"Can't say I'm surprised," is Steve's simple, yet honest, response.
"After recent events, you understand why this is the best course of action. Don't you, Mister Rogers?"
Steve nods. "Yeah... It was expected. You did allow HYDRA to burrow itself into your little organization for a few decades."
"...That tone isn't welcome. The time for pointing fingers has long passed. Refrain from speaking-"
"Don't reprimand me. You're at fault. There's no discussion here. And instead of admitting to your mistakes, you turn and try to cover everything up. Typical." Steve doesn't really care about his social standing at this point.
If SHIELD is no more, these people deserve the attitude they're receiving.
Steve continues, irritated. "Create a social catastrophe and place the blame on everyone but yourselves? That's - that's just wrong. I won't stand for that. You're all pathetic."
The screen doesn't respond for a moment.
Suddenly, several others appear.
Steve simply sighs.
A female voice responds. "If Fury had noticed any intrusion earlier, this HYDRA attack would never have-"
Steve interjects. "Fury is dead."
"Killed by the very force he should have noticed years prior. While it's true that HYDRA was hidden exceptionally well, Fury should have foreseen such a clear attack and-"
Steve shakes his head, slowly. "Fury is dead."
Several other voices, all seeping from invisible faces, fill the air. They attack Steve all at once, anger hardly hidden.
"And what about you, Mister Rodgers? Why did you not see the HYDRA threat earlier?"
"If you are an Avenger, how could you let the enemy easily attack-"
"Fury's death was warranted because he-"
"HYDRA will fall with SHIELD-"
"-we have other measures of defense. SHIELD was just one. We can destroy it and replace it with a better-"
"Are you aware of the lengths we went to secure-"
"-perhaps the Avenger Initiative should be scrapped as well-"
Steve's ear twitches. "...I'm sorry?"
The female voice repeats herself, evidently too lazy to hide her irritation. "I simply stated that the Avengers Initiative Program is, at present, performing under standard. Your team has caused far too much destruction already, and to add this HYDRA debacle on top of everything else... well..."
A scoff escapes Steve. "Well? Well, what? The destruction you're referring to was necessary to defeat a threat - to complete our mission. Imagine if we hadn't stopped the Chitauri? Or HYDRA? You people - you make me sick. Stop pushing your failures onto us."
Each screen falls silent.
After a hesitant moment, all disappear aside from the original male.
He clears his throat and continues in a falsely caring tone. "We apologize for any unprofessional conduct you may have just experienced, Mister Rodgers."
"Shove it right up your ass."
The Avenger turns to leave, his back to the projection who hurriedly exclaims, "This - this isn't something you can just dismiss, sir! Mister - hey - Mister Rogers! You need-"
The door closes behind Steve, who exhales a sigh.
Now walking with no destination in particular, the older man finds himself in the Avengers common-room.
Clint is the only present team member. "How you feeling, bud?" he asks casually, cradling a beer.
Steve releases a small but reassuring chuckle. "Never better," he shakes his head.
"You look like shit, man. Have you been sleeping?" Clint tosses an icy beverage which lands directly in the hands of the older Avenger. The archer didn't even have to look at where he was throwing.
Steve eyes the beer. "You know I don't drink." He uncaps it anyway, taking a sip. "I've been sleeping fine. As fine as I can, I guess. I dunno."
"Don't blame you. I'm tired too," Clint smiles cheekily. "Been a long week at work."
"Don't even get me started," Steve jokingly sighs, cruising his palm across the nape of his neck. "Do you know where Tony is?"
"Stark? Nah. He doesn't pop up in the common-room as much as he used to. I see him coming to and fro the workshop, but that's only once in a while."
Steve simply nods, in contemplation. "How come you're up here, by the way? Not lonely?"
Clint laughs. "I've been looking over reports for a solid five hours. Can't head home until I finish 'em. Plus..." he eyes the glass-plane wall that overlooks New York in its entirety. Tony ensured it was repaired after his scuffle with Steve before the SHIELD raid. "...the view is nice. Calming."
"I think a calming view is just what I need after this week, to be perfectly honest."
"Plus, it's almost Christmas!" Clint faces Steve, eyes lit with glee. "The one day of the year where I don't have to work - at all."
"To be perfectly honest, I don't think there'll be a SHIELD to keep us employed after all the HYRDA crap."
Clint nods. "I heard. The higher-ups are thinking of scrapping the whole organization. I mean, they do have others but SHIELD is important. It gave people... like..."
Steve faces Clint. "Hope."
Clint nods. "Yeah, man. Hope." The archer cradles another beer from the fridge. "Let's not discuss work. It's Christmas Eve. Shouldn't you be, like, out swooning some festive women? There's plenty in New York."
Rising to his feet, Steve shakes his head. "I left the love scene behind decades ago. Well... it hardly started before it was stopped."
"Because of the whole ice thing?"
"Because of the whole ice thing, yeah."
"...You left a lady behind?"
"I did."
Clint clasps his shoulder. "Man, I'm sorry. Never even knew. That... that really sucks."
Steve shrugs. "It was necessary."
"Alright, no - you know what? Everything's gloomy lately. Everything. We need a pick-me-up."
Steve eyes his beer. "I'm already holding one?"
"No, no, no, no, no, no - I have an idea," he faces the veteran. "Bowling."
Still caressing his beard, Steve eyes the archer. "Bowling. You think you can beat me one-on-one in a fair game of bowling?"
"It's not a fair game. You're jacked up on super-soldier steroids and an unprecedented workout ethic. However-" Clint motions to his bow which lay idle on the kitchen counter. "- I'm quite the shot."
At Clint's request, they head down to the local alley to play a single game.
The single-game quickly turns into two games.
Two games turn to several.
Before long, the Avenging pair ask to stay overnight.
With a quick thanks to the manager, they continue their contest.
xxx
"Peter."
Peter turns to Gwen, eyes droopy. "Mnyeah?"
She looks at him with a smile. "It's done~~~"
The new suit.
Both Peter and Gwen had been awake for well over twenty consecutive hours.
The conceptualization and creation of a new Spider-Man suit had been their main priority.
And now, it was finally completed.
The suit was generally the same as his previous one, but with a few slight modifications.
The once vibrant blue on the original costume was now replaced with a sleek black, though the red remained in place. The design of the spider-symbol on the back was changed, and the web design on the mask (mainly around the nose) had been somewhat altered. His lenses were now made entirely of refined glass, with Tony's HUD still in-built with the optics.
"I gotta say, it's different but..." Gwen ponders her words for a moment, eyeing the suit over. "...I like it."
"It'll do. Just playing around with ideas. Nothing's set in stone."
"I like it."
"I like it too."
Gwen eyes her watch. "It's very early."
"In hindsight, I probably could've finished my investigative major if we didn't spend the whole day on this."
Gwen tuts her usual tut. "I finished that ages ago. Knew you wouldn't even look at the notes I sent."
"You know me so well, Gwendolyn Stacy."
She leaves after another hour or so.
Peter's room smells faintly of sweet perfume.
Smiling, he adorns the new suit.
It feels sensational.
Grabbing his police radio-transmitter, Spider-Man prepares for another night.
"What have you got for me tonight, New York..."
After a moment, the radio frequency picks up a conversation. The female voice speaks sternly, "-have a unit responding to a silent alarm at Five West 66th Street. Another penthouse break-in-"
Bingo.
He arrives at the roof in no time.
Ripping a metallic gate from its hinges, Peter enters the ventilation shaft.
However, the situation feels eerily off.
He continues to crawl, deeper and deeper into the building's intestines.
After several moments, the exit finally presents itself.
He leaves the shaft, falling toward the ground -
- and landing directly into a pile of already dead bodies.
xxx
A figure lies on the floor.
A teenager.
Officers tape off the area.
The blue and red lights are little more than smudgy illuminations in the slanting rain. But beneath their glow is the white bodywork of a police car. It's yellow-white headlights spotlight the dense hedgerow to the side of the lane where the tail-lights sit unusually high off the ground and tipping upwards into the night sky.
A policeman sees a woman enter the crime-scene, notebook in hand.
"Easy, Officer Cooper."
She spares a glance at the policeman before averting her attention to the body.
"We're in the middle of Central Park. There are no tall buildings around. If he's a jumper, where'd he jump from?"
"The arch," is the man's simple reply.
"Which is always brightly lit," Cooper responds. "And no witnesses saw him climb up."
Shrugging, the policeman speaks gruffly and unconcerned. "We'll canvass the neighborhood. Something will come up."
Cooper shakes her head. "We're twelve yards away from the arch. The world record for long jump is under thirty feet. Does the kid look like an Olympic athlete to you?"
The male officer sighs. "You trying to make me look stupid? In front of my men? Miss Cooper, I-"
Officer Cooper cuts him off. "There's something wrong about this, Chief. This is the fifth body of its kind in a month."
Another officer interjects into the conversation, her voice stern. "Chief. We're getting a call from Uptown. You'll want to hear this. We have a unit responding to a silent alarm at Five West 66th Street. Another penthouse break-in."
The Chief diverts his attention away from Officer Cooper, signaling the end of their conversation. "Tell 'em we're en route. Anything on thermal?"
"...They can confirm. Footprints that crawled up the side of the building wall. Made a forced entry. Going by the prints, the burglar is humanoid."
xxx
The entire floor is suddenly lit with blindingly bright-white light.
Peter turns.
He's been caught out.
However, what he sees takes him completely aback.
It's the police - that much is certain.
However, they appear to have also undergone a wardrobe upgrade.
Around half-a-dozen officers are armored in mechanical power suits, adorned with a white and blue color scheme.
They look advanced.
Powerful.
"What the heck..."
Suddenly, Peter remembers hearing about this on the news.
After the SHIELD incident at the Triskelion, the general public was scared.
Frightened.
Terrified.
And most importantly - vulnerable.
Tony Stark must have realized this, because he quickly launched a campaign with the one purpose of upgrading the police force in New York.
Supervillains could rip straight through simple cops.
To combat this, Tony funneled his money and time into creating weaponized suits for the police.
Obviously, there were nowhere near the complexity and power of his own Iron Man armours.
However, they could definitely get the job done.
This was most likely Tony's way of easing his own conscience, if only by a little.
Peter almost scoffs to himself.
"FREEZE!"
Instead, Peter sighs. He raises his hands into the air.
"I can explain. This is not what this looks like!"
There are dead bodies beneath Spider-Man's feet.
This situation could end horribly, at any moment.
"CHIEF! IT'S SPIDER-MAN!"
"Yep. That's me. Licensed Avenger."
This was not a good situation.
None of this made sense.
"HE'S - HE'S STANDING OVER A DEAD BODY!"
Was this set up?
"My hands. In the air. My hands are in the air. Your friendly neighborhood, law-abiding Spider-"
"CHIEF! WHAT DO WE DO?!"
It was hardly a question that required an answer.
The suits suddenly begin to open fire, unleashing an exorbitant amount of ammunition in Peter's general direction.
Twisting and turning in the air, Peter curses to himself. "Didn't need my spider-sense to see that coming..."
He lands on the back of a suit with unprecedented fluidity.
The main circuitry is covered by a powerful steel barrier.
Looks heavily fortified.
However, Peter raises his hand -
- and a small claw forms at the tip of each finger.
His hand slices through the steel like butter, instantly creating a suit-meltdown.
"WHAT - WHAT'RE YOU DOING-"
"What's it look like? I'm voiding your warranty."
Peter, rather admittedly, does not like to fight with New York's finest.
However, these are Tony-made suits.
And, as such, Peter knows his way around them.
For example, the bombs currently being launched at Spidey have a specific explosive yield.
Peter estimates that four should be just enough to knock out the suit's hydraulics without harming the officer inside.
Putting this theory into practice, Peter smiles at his own supported hypothesis.
Another suit crumbles to its knees.
One remains.
"I GOT YOU-"
"A gift? You shouldn't have."
The arm of the mechanized power suit launches forward several meters, reminiscent of a deadly stilt.
Tony really gave them his scraps.
Laughable.
A single punch is enough to break the arm clean off.
"All right. We done here?" Peter isn't even taking a defensive stance at this point. He watches as Tony's cheap suits flail around. "Now what say we all take a deep breath, count to ten, and talk to each other like civilized-"
The doors behind Peter burst open. Several dozen SWAT officers enter, half of them adorning suits of power-armor.
"Hold it right there, Spider-Man! Zachary Pratchett, Chief of Police." He raises his gun. "Explain yourself. You're in a world of trouble."
"For what? Not getting shot?"
Peter sighs, quickly reaching into his belt and pulling out -
"Voila!" It's his Avenger licence. Tony said to never show it to the public. In all honesty, it's probably not even an official one. "Spider-Man: Avenger. Deputized by Captain America and everything. See? We're on the same team."
The Chief lowers his firearm but hardly seems impressed. "You're not on my team. This is an NYPD crime scene, and you contaminated it! This hurt our investigation! You have hurt the investigation!"
Peter scoffs this time. "What? I wasn't the one punching down walls and chucking bombs like we're inside a firing range. But... look, I'm sorry about how this went down. Really am. I have no idea what investigation is going-"
"Keep it that way, Spider-Man. Now GET OUT! And stay away from this investigation or so help me, I will shoot you and myself!"
"Jeez, man. You sure I can't help or anything? If you told me about what was going on I could-"
Several of the SWAT officers take handcuffs from their belts.
Peter continues. "Alright, alright. I caught the visual hint. I'll take... my leave."
With the shot of a biocable, Spider-Man escapes into New York's icy night sky.
As he swings closer to Aunt May's new apartment, Peter finds himself ruminating on the night.
Three things were certain.
One - Peter's new suit was amazing.
The retractable hand talons acted as an unbreakable sword against an army of wheat.
Peter was glad he experimented with new ideas.
He was already eager to create even further utilities.
Two - the robbery was a set-up to lure Spider-Man onto the crime scene.
Why?
Who knows at this point in time.
Three - the police are investigating something.
However, they're bad at their job and will never realistically solve the case on their lonesome.
Should Peter intervene to help?
Probably.
However, he notices a slight rip in his brand new attire.
"A-are you - kidding - what - no!"
xxx