Peter backed against the wall, motioning for Riri and Sam to do the same. He listened intently, but he heard almost nothing, except for the occasional breathing sounds. This meant that someone was around the corner somewhere, waiting for him and his allies, just as they were waiting as well.

"Are they around the corner, or somewhere nearby?" Sam whispered.

"Yeah," Peter said, his eyes still trained to the corner, half expecting an ambush at any second. "I can't tell exactly where though."

"If we move quickly, I'll bet we can take them," Riri suggested.

"Are you forgetting who's likely on the other side waiting for us?" Sam countered. "Trying to ambush them is just asking for trouble."

"I think I have an idea," Peter spoke up, his tone still a whisper. "I'm going to rush out there, try and draw their fire. I should be able to avoid anything they throw at me just long enough for you guys to spot where they're shooting from and flush them out."

"Good plan!" Riri replied, realizing her voice was getting above a whisper. She looked embarrassingly at her two allies, but Peter made a point to refocus them.

"Okay, on my mark," he said, turning to the corner again. His knees were bent, ready for action. "Three, two, one."

Peter then rushed forward, running briefly before diving over a barrier. However, to his surprise, not a single shot had been fired at him. He dared to peer around the corner of his barrier, where a shot was finally taken at him. He only barely dodged it in time, but the fact that it was only one shot had to mean a certain thing. He turned around and motioned dramatically with his arm, trying to get Riri and Sam to look behind them. They did so, but before he could see anything else, his spider-sense tingled lightly in the back of his brain.

He looked up above the barrier, just in time to see none other than Kate Bishop, who was somersaulting over the couch, her weapon drawn and aimed his way. Before she even hit the ground, she fired a shot. Thankfully, Peter's reflexes were just enough to dodge out of the way, turning and firing a shot of his own, hitting her square in the stomach just as she landed.

Kate hung her head in defeat for a moment, before looking back at Peter.

"One of these days, I'm going to figure out how to counter that ridiculous sixth sense of yours," she said. "Yeah, good luck with that," Peter replied.

Kate stood up, offering her hand to help Peter up, which he accepted. The two of them turned and looked to see that Peter's team, having heeded his warning, had their "weapons" drawn on their opponents, who had their hands up in surrender. They then all came out to the main room.

"Honestly, I still don't see the practicality behind this," Amadeus said, holding up his nerf gun. "None of us even really use any actual handheld weapons that shoot anything in the field except you, Kate."

"It's not about the weapons, it's about the strategy, remember?" Riri reminded him.

"Exactly," Kate agreed, gesturing towards Riri to acknowledge her.

"Besides, I thought nerf guns would make it a little more relaxed, you know?" Peter added. "Less like a training exercise and more like a bunch of friends having some fun."

"I think it's fun," Sam replied. "A lot more interesting than the training my dad would always talk about doing on Xandar. He tried to make it sound interesting, but even as a kid it just sounded boring and like a bunch of work."

"I just can't believe you all caught on to me and Amadeus sneaking around the corner," Eli chimed in.

"I can't believe that it didn't come down to these two again," Amadeus said, gesturing towards Peter and Kate. "I think this is the first time we've done this where more of us made it to the end."

"Good point," Riri added. "Usually, we're just spectators watching you guys by the end. It almost feels like the kids watching the parents, with half routing for mom and half for dad."

Peter and a couple of the others couldn't help but laugh a little at Riri's description of their team dynamics, particularly during training exercises like this one. Over the last few years, Kate had settled quite nicely into a role as co-leader of the team alongside him, which had lifted a tremendous weight off his own shoulders. She'd also been perhaps the biggest standout during these training exercises, her marksmanship on full display even when they used nothing more than foam darts. Were it not for his superhuman agility and reaction time, he probably would have gotten out a hundred times over at her hand.

"Yeah," Kate remarked, "and he always wins thanks to that ridiculous spider-sense of his."

"Guess there is something that the world's greatest archer can't hit after all," Peter replied with a smirk.

"Uh huh," Kate said, "it's called having a built-in cheat code."

"Anyway," Peter replied, rolling his eyes as he looked to face the rest of the team, "good job everyone. None of you guys took the bait when I rushed out, so that was good."

"Amadeus, Eli, be a little more careful next time though," Kate said, "don't just rush to get to the others."

"I still say it's kind of unfair," Amadeus complained. "I mean, I don't even get to transform into the Hulk if I want to actually use this thing. Plus, I'm not exactly one for stealth much; it's kind of impractical for me, you know?"

"Oh, then you're going to LOOOOOVE next week's training," Peter explained.

"Really?" Amadeus asked, perking up.

"Oh yeah," Kate added, "it'll be much more up your alley, trust me."

"You know, I think I could figure out a way past that sixth sense you have," Riri spoke up.

"Really?" Peter asked, confused. "How?"

"Well, from what I understand, it warns you of unseen dangers, right?" Riri asked.

"Yeah," Peter said, still unsure where she was going with this.

"So, if someone were to, I don't know..."

Suddenly, Riri fired a dart right for Peter, who caught it effortlessly without moving anything other than his arm.

"Really?" Peter asked. "I didn't even need my spider-sense for that one."

"I know," Riri said, "but I thought that if you knew I was here, you wouldn't think to do anything."

"Ri, we calculated once that his reflexes operate at, like, forty times faster than a normal person," Amadeus reminded her.

"Yeah, I mean...wait, you guys calculated that?" Peter questioned.

Suddenly, there was a guilty look across most of the team's faces, with the lone exception being Kate.

"What's going on?" Peter asked.

"No one's ever gotten you before when we do these kinds of trainings," Sam spoke up,

"Okay," Peter replied, still confused, "so..."

"So, we analyzed some footage of you from some of our fights to try and deduce how to finally get you," Amadeus said.

"You guys STUDIED him?" Kate asked, confused and a little weirded out.

"Come on, Kate," Riri complained, "you of all people know how aggravating it is that none of us can hit him. He's literally the ONLY ONE of us with a perfect record!"

"Think of it like a sports thing," Eli suggested. "To prepare for a game, you study the moves of an opponent you'll be going up against, so you'll know how to defend them, right? It's the same thing."

"That makes a little less weird, I guess," Peter said, though the idea did still sound a bit strange to him. To be fair, he wasn't on their side of things, so maybe he just didn't understand.

"Honestly," Amadeus said, "what if we all just, like, led a mutiny during training one day and just all went after you? I'd bet at least one of us could find a way."

Peter was about to say something, but Kate cut him off.

"Actually, who says we have to wait?"

Peter looked at her, seeing a mischievous but focused look on her face. The rest of his teammates suddenly shared the same look.

"Oh boy, here we go," Peter said, rolling his eyes.

All at once, the rest of the team began shooting at him at point blank range. Leaping back, Peter flipped around all over the room, dodging various darts and calling out his teammates for all their misses.

"Come on guys," he jabbed at one point while hanging off the side of the wall, "If this is the best you've got, then..."

An alarm suddenly went off throughout the building. Peter jumped down as everyone ceased shooting immediately. Riri tapped a device on her wrist, shutting down the alarms. All eyes were trained on her as she worked to pull up what had caused them to go off in the first place.

"What is it?" Kate asked.

Riri's eyes grew wide.

"It's a breakout at the new Raft site they built just outside of the city," she replied. "No one's made it off site yet, but security is getting overwhelmed."

"I knew it was a bad idea to build that place so close to the city!" Eli proclaimed.

"Alright everyone, grab your stuff and meet at the Quinjet," Peter said. "You have two minutes."

Everyone entered the Quinjet, with Eli taking the pilot's seat. Since they had the jet made for them, everyone on the team had learned how to fly it, but Eli had turned out to be the best among them, so he was usually the one to handle shorter flights like this. They would all take turns on longer ones, but that would not be necessary here. He fired up the engines, and soon, they were flying off from the base, headed towards their latest crisis. They had been through their fair share of them over the last few years, facing everything from natural disasters to alien invasions to man-made machines gone wrong, so there wasn't much that was really a surprise to them anymore.

After making sure everyone was ready, Peter and Kate wandered over to one of the windows near the back, looking outside.

"Good job leading the training today," Peter said.

"Thanks," Kate replied. "The only thing that would've been better is if I had finally gotten you out, but whatever."

Peter let out a huff.

"Yeah, keep trying," he replied teasingly. "Seriously though, you've really come into your own this last year or so as a leader. It's kind of nice for me, because..."

Peter glanced over to the rest of the scattered members of the team, who were either checking their equipment or discussing something.

"I've been kind of running with the whole 'fake-it-til-you-make-it philosophy' since we all got together," he whispered.

"I don't think that's much of a secret really," Kate replied, giving him a skeptical look. "I mean, wasn't that basically what you said in your whole speech to us back when you first told us who you were?"

Peter thought about it.

"Actually yeah, pretty much," he confirmed.

It was crazy to think that it had been nearly three years since he, Kate and the others first came together to fight off the Xandarian Worldmind's attempt at making Earth into a new Xandar. That experience somehow both felt like just yesterday and a lifetime ago at the same time.

"For the record, that wasn't a complaint," Kate clarified, a somewhat nervous tone slipping out of her normally confident voice.

"You weren't wrong though," Peter asserted. "Honestly, I feel like my whole career as Spider-Man has been one big improv act, so when all of you guys were suddenly thrown into the mix, it really stressed me out at first. I really feel like I owe it all to you guys for how supportive you all were and still are. Everyone contributes pretty evenly when we're in the field anymore."

"That's true," Kate said. "Plus, I'm sure it's been nice having such an incredible woman by your side through all this."

Peter could feel his lips stretch out across his cheeks, realizing Kate wasn't talking about herself.

"Yeah, it has," he replied, the image of M.J. coming to mind.

"Speaking of which, you got everything set up for tonight?" Kate asked.

"I think so," he said. "It's taken forever to get everything arranged the way I want, but I finally..."

"Heads up, we're coming on the Raft!" Eli called out from the front. Peter, Kate and the others all gathered around, looking out the main window.

"Everything looks normal on the outside at least," Amadeus observed, "so hopefully that means it's not too bad."

As soon as he finished his words, a massive explosion occurred on the far side of the building.

"You had to say something, didn't you?" Riri said.

Well, here we go!

I would like to thank all of those who've supported me, especially during the preceding stories to this one. You guys are what motivate me and have made all this possible, so I hope I can deliver a truly satisfying conclusion to this series. I'm really excited, but also very nervous!

Anyway, as always, continuing to pray for you all! Stay safe and healthy!

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." 1 Corinthians 13:4-5