Once they were back on the street, Peter held his hand out to Katya for a high-five, which she took giddily, swinging her hand to meet his on the accompanying low-five. "I don't know what he meant, you were very intimidating." She snickered. Peter rolled his eyes before checking Karen's interface.
"Okay, it's 10:48 now- quickest way to the docks would be by slinging. You okay with that?"
Katya frowned slightly. "Erm, yes?" She answered as if it was obvious. Teasingly, she imitated his wrist actions when he used his webshooters, beaming. "I've only been waiting forever for it."
Peter couldn't help but laugh. Two minutes ago she was poised to cut an ear off and now she was practically giggling with excitement. "All right, grab on-"
She scrambled onto his back almost like a koala, holding herself steady primarily with her thighs - which were intimidatingly strong, despite the fact that he could barely feel the weight of her on his back- and wrapped her hands across his shoulders. "Let's go!"
Making sure she was secure, Peter shot a web to the nearest tall building and retracted, flinging them through the air before he aimed his other hand at a lamppost.
Katya shrieked from behind him, but it followed with peals of laughter- Peter smiled to himself and did a couple of extra loops around the lamp post, just to make it fun, and then aiming for the nearest billboard.
— —-
They arrived at the docks just in time just as the ferry was pulling away. Peter managed to swing onto it just before it detached, and swung over the side, adhering himself in place with his hands and feet.. "That was amazing!" Katya bubbled, slightly breathless, but managed to keep her voice low. Peter grinned at her excitement.
"Isn't it?!" They grinned at each other for a second before Peter started to climb, Katya still clung to his back, up to the nearest window.
"Okay, Karen, activate Advanced Reconaissance Mode." Karen did so, identifying a group of men in the far corner, amplifying their conversation so Peter could hear it.
"Upper floor, main deck." One of them said.
"I hate this guy. Just keep me posted." The man got up and walked away.
"That's the guy from the bridge, right?" Peter asked Karen. "And who's that other one?" Karen scanned him, but reported no files she could retrieve.
Peter turned to Katya. "Okay, so, something's going down on the main deck. I can deposit you up top, and I'll swing around the side, so we can ambush them. Sound good?"
Katya nodded, sticking her comms earpiece into her ear and handing Peter his from her pocket .He took it gratefully and did the same. Katya reached out to feel the ridging on the windows's edges. "Sure, I can make it up there."
"No, I can take you-"
Before Peter could finish his sentence she'd climbed up him, placed her feet on his shoulders, and leapt up to the next level's windowsill. She held on by mere fingertips but mostly through practiced, balanced leverage. She looked up at the last level she had to go, and then down at him. "I"ll be fine, go!"
Peter hesitated, but before he could come up with anything to say back, her form was already disappearing topside.
Peter swung around the side of the ship as agreed, ducking just out of sight of the group of men that had gathered on the main deck and using Karen's advanced recon to identify each person, some of whom had extensive criminal records, including homicide.
"Would you like me to activate Instant Kill?" This was her second offer in as many hours.
"No! Karen, stop it with the Instant Kill already!" Why had that even been put in his suit? He had no intentions of killing anybody.
The Advanced Reconnaissance Mode allowed him to hear the conversation between the guys on the deck below. Peter'd perched himself just to the edge and if he craned his neck up enough he could just see wisps of Katya's blonde hair being pulled by the wind from her position on top of the ferry, belly-down.
"White pickup truck" one of the men said as he casually joined the few who were already lounging about. Another of the men nodded to a third, who then turned to take the level down to the part of the ferry that held the cars. The spider-drone Peter had activated whizzed to his aid.
"Droney, I need you to scan the ship for a white pickup truck."
At the corner of his vision he could see the proceeds from the drone's scans, which located the white truck with ease and zoomed in to get a closer look. From that vantage point, the drone could see the truck's bed, covered with some sort of tarp, before the man who had been apparently waiting inside the truck flung it aside to show the buyer. The bed was absolutely full of glowing weapons. Peter pulled out of the view and set it to the side of his interface so he could still see all the men below as well as what was going on with the car. "Perfect" he said to Katya over comms,, "We've got the weapons, buyers, and sellers all in one place!"
"Incoming call from Tony Stark." Peter's heart stopped.
"No no no, no, don't answer-"
Too late.
Tony's face popped up in the middle of Peter's vision, in a vehicle of some kind- looks like he was driving somewhere.
"Mr. Parker," He started, but something about his tone was off- meanwhile, behind the image of Tony, there was movement within the group of men. Of all times and places, not now-
"Got a sec?"
Peter stammered. "Er, I"m actually at school-" Peter prayed Mr. Stark couldn't see him.
"No you're not." Thanks, Karen. Peter wondered if Tony could hear her, but he continued talking so it seemed like he couldn't. That, or he was ignoring it.
"I just wanted to say, great job in DC-"
"Erm, okay-"
"My dad never really gave me a lot of support, so I"m trying to break that cycle of shame-"
"-Erm, I"m kind of in the middle of something right now-"
"Don't cut me off when I'm trying to compliment you." Mr. Stark looked more exasperated than anything else. "Anyways, great things are about to happen-"
The Ferry's foghorn blew, shooting Peter's heart almost out of his chest with it. Tony froze.
"What was that?"
Behind the image of Tony, however, the men were beginning to mobilize- who knew where they were going, and Peter couldn't just let them get away-
"Er, band practice" Peter managed to spit out, adjusting his position so he was at an easier angle to drop.
"Funny, Happy told me you'd quit band six weeks ago." Both Mr. Stark's face and tone suggested there was nothing funny about it. "What's up?"
The man who'd gone down to the truck had returned, now with the keys, shit. If he didn't do something soon-.
"Er, I gotta go- end call!" Whatever Mr. Stark had been saying was shut off abruptly as the call ended and the image left Peter's visual interface. He shot a web down at the keys, yanking them up to him as he dropped down into the group of men. "I'll take those!"
He adjusted his stance a bit. "Hey, guys, the illegal weapons deal ferry was at 10:30, you missed it!" He then shot splitting webs at the two men in front of him, pulled them backwards, and managed to flip and kick a third off the ship. A cry was heard from behind him and Peter spun around just in time to watch Katya land on one of the men's shoulders, who was armed with that big taser-looking arm piece, but it was a different guy this time. . She'd gotten her legs wrapped around his arms and yanked them back,and her arm wrapped around his neck, the inside of her elbow shoved up to his jugular. The movement alone threw the man off balance and he went crashing into the ferry's railing, his taser-arm-thing getting stuck in the rungs. He made to lift his head but Katya planted her boot heel at the base of his skull. She hesitated, then instead raised it a bit higher and kicked, knocking him unconscious. Peter wasn't an expert on human anatomy but knew that where her heel had been before would've severed his brain stem, killing him instantly.
Shit.
Peter heard movement behind him, and instinctively shot out webbing, grabbing three men and a motorcycle together and tossing them across the platform with a hard thud . "Whoa whoa whoa-, not so fast!" there was a crash as the motorcycle landed on one of the men, and Peter cringed, "Ah, my bad, that was a little hard-"
Suddenly the bay doors exploded and a few of what Peter had previously assumed were just passengers ran out, armed with pistols. "FBI! FBI!, Get on the ground, FBI-"
Peter flung his arms out in an attempt to placate the sudden chaos. "Whoa whoa whoa, what do you mean FBI?!"
"THe FBI is the Federal Bureau of Investigation-"
"No, I know what the FBI is!" Peter chastised Karen, "but what are they doing here?!"
Behind them, a giant, bladed wheel suddenly burst out of an unmarked white van, soon to be followed by the rest of a metal wing- and the rest of the Winged Man.
