HOBOKEN

Thwiiipppp!

A jet of super-mega-ultra-reinforced webbing shot across the interior of the abandoned warehouse, fastening its tip with a satisfying squish to the far wall, and Peter Parker took a deep breath. "Okay, now thisone has to work," he said aloud (though under his breath, for fear that some of the neighboring walls just might have Wakandan ears). "There can't possibly be anything known to man that's going to cut this webbing. See!" he continued in a theatrical tone, lifting the vibranium knife from a nearby pile of empty crates. "I raise Prince Pussycat's trusty magic dagger; I muster all the strength a radioactive spider's bite can give; I bring the shining blade down upon the web; and…"

Had he completed the sentence, he might have said something like, "I jump up and down five or six times in sheer frustration at seeing my greatest invention foiled yet again by a stupid hunting knife." But his dismay at this latest demonstration of vibranium's indifference to tensile strength was too great for speech, so he limited himself to just the salticid routine.

Having gotten that out of his system, he paced about the warehouse and assessed the situation in his mind. He couldn't keep hiding out in New Jersey forever; judging by Aunt May's tone during their last call, he suspected that his cover story of being on assignment for the Bugle was already starting to wear a little thin. (In retrospect, if he had wanted to claim that Jameson and Robertson were setting him up in an all-expenses-paid hotel room for an open-ended period of time, he probably should have thought of a more compelling story for them to be chasing than the opening of a new Sharpie factory – but, really, what else was there to cover in Hoboken?) And his face was basically okay now; between his accelerated healing powers and some liberal applications of aloe vera, no-one could have guessed that he'd been hit in the face with an industrial-strength cattle prod less than 48 hours before.

But the thing was, he couldn't bring himself to go back to Queens until he'd figured out some way to deal with this Wakandan mystery metal. He had no idea how much of it was out there, or who had some; if a random U.N. ambassador could just pull a chunk of it out of his suit pocket, who was to say that the Vulture or somebody couldn't turn out to be packing some as well? And, thanks to Insanity Claws slashing his webs in front of a couple dozen TV cameras, anyone who cared now knew that this stuff was Spider-Man's own private Achilles heel. That wasn't the kind of end a guy in Peter's position could afford to leave loose.

With a sigh, he dropped the knife back down on the crates, and squatted down until its blade was right at his eye level. "Maybe I'm coming at this from the wrong angle," he muttered. "I mean, it has to be possible to deform this stuff somehow, right? Or they couldn't have made a knife out of it in the first place. So maybe the trick isn't to try to make my webs stronger, but to figure out this thing's weakness and go after that."

Which was all very well, but, when he tried to imagine where the weakness of an object might lie that could collide with a 200-J/g web-strand and not even feel it, all he succeeded in doing was making his head hurt. Of course, there were probably other causes for that – notably, the fact that he hadn't eaten in almost seven hours; maybe it was time to go and raid the local Burger King's dumpster again. (He'd never realized before how much perfectly good food the average fast-food outlet just threw away every day, because it wasn't perfectly symmetrical or something. It was just as well for him, since it had allowed him to save his limited cash reserves for things like the aloe, but it still revolted him; here he was extracting crime-stopping super-silk from discarded bottles of hand lotion, and these people were turning treasure into trash as a business policy.)

He picked up a length of stained gauze scavenged from a fabric shop on Adams Street, and carefully wrapped up the knife's blade before slipping it behind the waistband of his jeans, and ruffling the bottom of his shirt so that no faint silhouette showed through the fabric. This done, he moved over to the door of the warehouse; after a quick check to ensure that no oddly dressed black women were loitering around suspiciously (there had been a tense moment the day before), he emerged into the sunlight, turned toward the cross street where the Burger King was – and nearly jumped out of his skin as a jet-black arrow shot out of nowhere and attached itself to the wall right next to his head.

When his heart started beating again, his first thought was to wonder why on Earth his spider-sense hadn't warned him of incoming danger. The next moment, though, he noticed that the arrow's head wasn't a traditional sharp point, but a suction-cup; also, that there was a rolled-up piece of paper attached to it with rubber bands. He glanced up sharply in the direction from which it had come; there wasn't anyone visible on the rooftop opposite, but something about the commotion of the pigeons suggested that there had been, a moment before.

With a frown, Peter pulled the arrow off the wall and unrolled the paper. The message scrawled on it was terse and to the point: S.M.: Saw your act in Manhattan the other day. Love your spunk, love your attitude, don't think you have the faintest idea how much you've bitten off. If you're interested in making a friend (worth fifty tanks, one of mine says), I'll be at 3205 Bloomfield Street in 20 minutes. –Barton.

A cold chill went through Peter. If Hawkeye knew, that meant the Avengers knew… good gravy, that meant Cap knew his secret identity. There he had been, blithely twitting the big guy and his stuffed-shirt colleague, and all the while they'd only been a phone-call away from…

Okay, Peter, don't panic, he told himself firmly. Just go to the address, and find out what the guy wants. 3205 Bloomfield… what's there, I wonder?

What was there, as it turned out, was a small building with a red-brick façade, the quietly proud air of a local landmark, and a large sign over the door proclaiming it, with no hint of self-consciousness, to be THE CRACK HEAD PIZZA PARLOR. (There was even a medallion next to it on which the bust of a Roman emperor was portrayed with a large fissure running through the domed pate.) Peter stared at this for a long minute, then shook his head, reminded himself that he was in New Jersey, and stepped inside.

The luscious aroma that hit him as he opened the door did a good deal toward reconciling himself with the place. This mildly embarrassed him, since, as a loyal New Yorker, he knew he was supposed to maintain that no other city in America (and certainly not Hoboken) knew how to make pizza, but his near-empty interior was too beguiled by the smell of fresh-baked, garlic-buttered semolina to raise the proper objections. And what was that faint overtone in the sausage…?

His musings were cut short by a sharp whistle from a nearby booth. He turned, and saw a buff, rugged-faced man in a flannel shirt and jeans beckoning to him; after a second glance, he recognized it for the Avenging archer he had come to meet. (It was startling how nondescript Hawkeye appeared in civilian garb; if it hadn't been for that whistle, Peter would never have looked at him twice.)

"So," said Hawkeye, as Peter slid into the booth next to him, "is it Peter, Pete, or something else entirely?"

Peter laughed awkwardly; it was amazing how much more nervous he felt now than he ever had in costume. "Peter's fine," he said. "The only person who really does nicknames with me is this one big galoot at my school, and I'd just as soon you didn't call me Puny Parker."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered what in the name of all that was holy had moved him to volunteer that tidbit. Hawkeye was cool about it, though. "How about Punctual Parker?" he said, with a glance at the clock above the counter. "When I dropped you that note, I wasn't expecting you to get here in exactly twenty minutes."

Peter shrugged. "What can I say?" he said. "I'm fast."

"Fast, too?" said Hawkeye, cocking an eyebrow. "This sounds like a pretty sweet deal you got."

Peter flushed, and tried to think of a suitable reply that wouldn't give his secret identity away if overheard. (Not that that was a huge risk, in a place as noisy as the pizza parlor was, but one never knew.) Banter was so much harder when it was the engrossing part of one's life one was concealing – but Hawkeye, of course, didn't have that problem. "I knew a fast Peter, once," he remarked. "Good kid, too, behind the Carpathian-Che façade. Shame he took so long to figure out which end was up."

This, Peter thought, was going a little too far. Before he could find a way to say so, though, a busty, dark-haired waitress came up to their table and dropped menus in front of him and Hawkeye. "Afternoon, sirs," she said. "I'm Monica, and I'll be your server today. Can I start you off with something to drink?"

"Just water for me," said Hawkeye. "How about you, Peter?"

"Oh…" Peter flipped his menu over, and ran a hasty eye down the beverage options. "Sprite, I guess."

"Right," said Monica, scribbling rapidly and probably illegibly on her pad. "I'll have those out for you in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

"Tell the old man thanks for his service," said Hawkeye.

"Will do," said Monica with a grin, and departed.

Peter cocked his head. "Service?" he repeated.

"The founder's a Vietnam veteran," said Hawkeye. "Made second lieutenant before picking up a cranial injury at Tet and getting honorably discharged, so he came back home and went into the restaurant business. That's where the name of the place comes from; he thought it was a cute little irony, apparently."

"Seriously?" Peter rolled his eyes. "Wow. I knew the people here had issues, but I had no idea they were that twisted."

Hawkeye shot him a sidelong glance. "You know, I was wondering about that," he said. "What's a Big Apple brat like you doing in the Garden State, anyway?"

Peter shrugged vaguely. "Oh, you know," he murmured. "When you go to ground, you're supposed to try and cross state lines, right? It always helps in the movies; I figured it couldn't hurt here."

Hawkeye arched a skeptical eyebrow. "Sure, okay," he said. "I can just see Mr. King saying to himself, 'Dear me, I didn't mind creating a major incident in Mr. Cuomo's state, but I'd hate to upset that nice Mr. Christie.'"

Peter stifled a snort. "Okay, yeah, it sounds pretty dumb when you put it that way," he said, "but what else was I supposed to do?"

"Well," said Hawkeye mildly, "you could have tried apologizing to Cap and asking for sanctuary from the Avengers. I know you two didn't exactly hit it off, but I don't think he would have actually thrown you to the Leopards – much less to S.K."

Peter frowned. "S.K.?" he said. "Is that the guy who… you know, who threw the thing?"

It seemed a reasonable enough question to him; he couldn't figure out why it made Hawkeye's eyes visibly widen, and a look of gravely sorrowful pity flit over his face. For a long moment, the archer was silent; when he spoke, it was only to say, gently, "What do you want on your pizza?"

Like the animal that had empowered him, Peter was fundamentally a carnivore, and he eventually settled on something called the Penta-Meater ("poetry on a tray"), personal pan size, with extra sausage substituted for the ground beef. Hawkeye relayed this to Monica when she returned, and threw in a spinach-and-green-pepper calzone on his own initiative; when Peter twitted him for this unexpectedly girly taste, he replied that it was to take home to Mrs. Hawkeye, as he himself had already eaten. Peter, who hadn't even known there was a Mrs. Hawkeye, was appropriately intrigued, and Hawkeye spent the next few minutes fielding questions about "Laura" (and hearing stories about Gwen) before the pizza arrived to thoroughly derail Peter's train of thought.

It wasn't much more than fifteen minutes later that all four high-piled slices were sitting pleasantly in Peter's stomach, to the astonishment and mild alarm of the stolid Monica. ("Is this what it's going to be like when my son's a teenager?" she whispered nervously to Hawkeye as she gave him the check. Hawkeye replied, truthfully enough, that Peter's metabolism was something special, but added cheekily that second mortgages had been invented for a reason.) To someone who had sustained himself for two days on cold chicken nuggets, this was a blissful sensation, and Peter would have been quite content to lie back and bask in it for an hour or so if Hawkeye, after paying their bill, hadn't gently but firmly escorted him outside, to a blue rental car with New York plates, tinted windows, and a locking system that turned out to take some half a minute to spring.

"Can't be too careful with valuables in the car," said Hawkeye as they climbed inside. (He jerked his thumb toward the back seat, on which lay a shapeless lump of blankets just about the size of a bow and quiver.) "You can put that knife of yours under there, too, if you want."

Peter's suspicions were galvanized into life, and he shook his head firmly. "Thanks, I'm good."

Hawkeye shrugged indifferently. "Okay, whatever you say," he said, sounding sincere enough that Peter relaxed again. "Just thought it might take a load off your mind; it can't be comfortable, having something that sharp so close to your flesh."

"I'll survive," said Peter.

At that, Hawkeye turned and fixed him with an intense stare. "You're sure of that?" he said. "You've done all your research, know exactly who all's after you and how to deal with them? You've absolutely ensured that you and everyone close to you will survive your little Saturday escapade? Because it seems to me that, if you'd really covered all your bases that way, you wouldn't be sitting in this car talking to someone who'd found out your identity just by calling in a few favors."

Peter squirmed uncomfortably. "What are you saying, exactly?" he said.

Hawkeye's expression softened ever so slightly. "I'm saying I like you, Peter Parker," he said. "And I don't want to see you get hurt. And I think you will get hurt if you keep busting into places without worrying about consequences, just because you've got to say your piece."

"Jane Foster did it," Peter protested.

"No, she didn't," said Hawkeye. "Number one, she was invited; number two, she'd just done something that really did need explaining. And number three, she didn't go slapping gags on Sergei Kravenoff without bothering to find out who he was."

Kravenoff… Peter had heard that name before, somewhere. It took him a second, but… "Kraven the Hunter?" he said, a chill running down his spine. "That's who I webbed? I thought he was a prime minister or something, not a U.N. ambassador."

Hawkeye's face was grim. "Kravenoff's a wild card, Peter," he said. "He takes a different job every three months or so, and he's never much suited to any of them. But Doom keeps him on Latveria's payroll because Kravenoff's got something on him; that's pretty much taken for granted in the international-intelligence world, though even Nat doesn't know what the something is. Which should give you some idea of just how tricky, unscrupulous, and dangerous a man you decided to humiliate on international television."

"Oh," Peter murmured. "I had no idea."

"My point exactly," said Hawkeye. "If you're going to do this stuff, the first thing you've got to do is take your ignorance seriously. There are monsters out here, Peter, people who would tear out babies' innards and pat themselves on the back for it, and you invite them to come and get you every time you put on that ski mask of yours. You can't afford to get cocky; you can't afford to get careless; you can't afford to assume everything'll work out fine because you're one of the good guys. If you do, bad things are going to happen, and they're going to be on your head."

Peter sighed. "Listen, Mr. Barton," he said. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, and I am glad to know about Kraven. But if you did all this because you think I need a mentor or something, you're wasting your time. I may not look like much, but, believe me, I can take care of myself; I don't need…"

A blast of indie rock from his hip pocket cut him off abruptly. He started in his seat, and looked around vaguely for a moment before recognizing his phone's ringtone; then, with a muttered apology to an amused-looking Hawkeye, he pulled out the offending device and cut off Alt-J in mid-scale. "Hello?"

"Hello," said an unfamiliar voice. "Is this Peter Parker speaking?"

"Yes…"

"This is Sergeant Burge, NYPD Homicide," said the voice. "A body was found in your apartment of residence at 11:35 A.M.; someone appears to have rigged one of the closets with a snare powerful enough to snap a human neck." There was a pause, and Peter's blood ran cold with a premonition of what was coming. "Sir, I regret to have to inform you that the body has been positively identified as that of your aunt and legal guardian, May Isabella Parker.

"I understand that this is difficult news to receive," the Sergeant continued, over the ineffectual mewling noises that were all Peter could immediately manage to produce. "In the interest of justice, though, I have to ask you to come down to the station and answer a few routine questions. Will you need a squad car dispatched to pick you up?"

As Peter was struggling to collect himself enough to answer that one, Hawkeye reached over, put his hand on the phone, and gently but firmly lifted it from Peter's ear to his own. "No, he won't," he said.

"This is Clint Barton," he added a moment later, apparently in answer to a question from Burge. "–Yeah, that one. I was just having a conference with Mr. Parker about something that both of us are very interested in. –You could call it that, sure. Anyway, I don't think the rest of the team would appreciate me going into more detail at this stage. –Sure, I understand that, and we'll cooperate with you as much as we can. I'm just saying, don't take it the wrong way if we have to refer you back to Tony or Natasha on a couple questions. –Okay, I can live with that. So what's the address of this station of yours? –Got it. See you there."

He flipped the phone shut and handed it back to Peter with a rueful sigh. "Story of my life," he said. "Here I'm trying to be retired from the Avengers, and then some kid gets himself in a scrape and I jump right back into the center of things."

Peter barely heard him; his mind was still full of images of Aunt May's mangled corpse dangling like a rabbit from the apartment ceiling, of the walls splattered with her blood. The last piece of his family, gone – and, just like last time, it was his own stupid fault…

"You heard?" he croaked. "About… what the… you heard?"

Hawkeye nodded. "I have good ears," he said. "Goes with the marksman thing."

"It was Kraven, wasn't it?" said Peter. "He found out about me the same way you did, and then he snuck into the apartment somehow and set a trap for the 'fierce beast' he thinks I am. And of course he made it super strong, because he'd seen my powers in action and knew that nothing else would hold me – and then Aunt… Aunt May somehow got in the way instead, and…"

His voice broke, and he looked up desperately at the older superhero. "I thought I was being responsible," he pleaded. "I thought that was what it meant: that when you saw something happening that shouldn't be, you didn't hold back because you were scared or ticked off."

"That's part of it." Hawkeye's tone was at once utterly firm and unspeakably tender – the voice of every father Peter had ever imagined. "Like a friend of mine once said, there's fortitude and there's prudence; a man's got to have both, and know when to use which one. You're not the first person to learn that the hard way, and you won't be the last – but I'm sorry it had to cost you so much."

Then Peter broke, and dove forward into Hawkeye's arms and sobbed into his shirt for a good minute and a half. He couldn't even bring himself to reflect (as he would have at any other time) how creepy and pathetic it was to be clinging this way to a random celebrity he'd met less than an hour ago; when he first tried, it just reminded him over again why he had nobody else left to cling to – and, by the time he was ready to try a second time, he'd already clung too long, and could feel in both his own heart and Hawkeye's arms that he and the archer were no longer just random celebrities to one another.

He detached himself slowly, and sat back down in the rider's seat with a deep, shuddering breath. "So what do we do now?" he said. "I mean, I know we go to the police station and answer their questions, but what after that? I can't very well go home, and, whatever you told that sergeant, I don't think the other Avengers would appreciate me crashing in your Facility. Do I call Gwen, or one of my other friends, and offer to put them in mortal danger for a couple days?"

"Wouldn't recommend it," said Hawkeye, pulling out a phone of his own. "Better to get you out of town entirely, into someplace even Kravenoff's contacts won't know to look."

"Like where?" said Peter.

But Hawkeye was already busy with his call. "Hey, honey, it's me," he said. "–Yeah, good to hear your voice, too. Listen: do you think you could set an extra place for dinner tonight?…"