Chapter 1: Recovering from an Exile and Trucks.

"Ghost Spider, is that you?"

I glanced at the officer who had spoken, though I didn't see much behind the heavy riot shield and mask.

"Who else would it be?" I joked, glancing out of the window of the helicopter before turning back to the SWAT team in the cramped helicopter. "Mr. Negative?"

"I would like to say that I'm a huge fan," the man behind the mask continued. "Once this is over, could you like, sign my shield?"

I winced at that and glanced up at the rest of the heavily armed team.

"Perkins, you know all our gear is at least going into decontamination when we're done, right? That autograph is going to get scrubbed off with industrial grade chemicals."

"What?"

I almost giggled at how the guy just deflated. Almost.

"What did they call the stuff again?" the officer who had laughed at him asked, his voice still hiding laughter. "New-Storm? Noob-Form?"

"Ghost Spider, this is your stop," the pilot's voice called from the cockpit, interrupting the banter around me. "Good luck with whoever this maniac is."

"Right," I muttered to myself before shouting back over the din of the helicopter. "I'll send word when the landing zone is clear!"

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the group didn't say anything over the din of the chopper's blades, and I leapt from the chopper, already scanning the damaged facility below.

There weren't really any people left in the facility, from what security camera footage had shown. From what my briefing had been when I got pulled off the street, there would be a group of guards at each of the labs that wouldn't evacuate unless the lab was set to self-destruct, but anyone else in the building was supposed to be hostile.

Of course, that meant that the squat little robot I was about to land on was hostile, if the heavy gun in its hands wasn't a dead giveaway.

Crash.

I almost hoped the robot would see me before I crashed into it, but no. It crumpled on impact, and I was sure my leg would be pretty sore in the morning.

But that wasn't the objective of the mission. Whatever the intruder wanted from the labs, they weren't going to stop, especially given the description given by the staff of the centre.

And given how many robots came with them, they were serious about not being disturbed, especially when one of the robots charged me with an electric club.

It wasn't hard to sidestep a downwards blow and then punch the robot thing in the chest. Then the head, then pull one of its legs out from under it.

But that proved to be a poor decision, because the leg just… detached?

I probably stood there for a half second before I managed to dodge out of the way of the robot falling over. Right in time too, given how the damn thing hit the floor.

To make sure it stayed down, I hit it with the still-twitching robot leg before I headed down to the next corridor. All clear except a pair of robots riddled with bullets.

"Ghost Spider?" a voice came in from the small communication device a police captain gave me. "We heard something strange from your end."

"Robots are down here," I muttered as I nudged the two downed bots. "I broke two of them, and it looks like the guards turned two more into swiss cheese."

"I'll send the word for your backup to move in then," the voice replied. "Elevator should be behind the door at the end of the hallway, to your right."

"Thank you kindly," I said as I looked up in the direction the voice pointed me to. "Hmm. There's no door."

The voice didn't say anything to that, but I figured he was busy yelling at my backup. In that case, show time.

But I didn't just walk in. That would be stupid and I would probably be ambushed.

I used my web as a slingshot to build momentum, and threw myself at what I figured was an ambushing robot.

I was half right. There was a robot there, but it was broken, having been shredded by a guard, possibly by automated defenses. It was funny too, because it had landed on the missing door, probably blown off its hinges by explosives.

"I see the elevator."

"Noted," the voice in my ear replied. "Our searches of the building's security protocols say the password is nine six two seven oh six."

"Nine six two seven oh six," I repeated into the machine. "Is that correct?"

"That is correct," the voice said. "Be careful down there. Backup is landing in three minutes."

I nodded and headed to the elevator. It was a plain, silvery thing, and, in all honesty, probably bulletproof. And the light behind the button was a nice shade of dark blue, reminding me of dad's uniform back home.

But the bottom floor was a different story.

"Hello?" I called into the darkness, my voice booming back in an echo, followed by… what was that light?

My spidey-senses kicked in, and I found myself flattened against the floor as shattered glass rained down on me.

"Not cool Gwen," I muttered to myself as I leapt out of the destroyed elevator, inching forward against the floor and vaguely aware of the risk of being blown up. "Not how you want to end the week."

"Fire on it!" a voice shouted in the distance, somewhere in the darkness. "Send that thing back to the scrapyard!"

"Finally some help," I scoffed as I followed the gunshots. "Maybe I can finally get an understanding of what's going on here."

"Boss!" a voice came from somewhere right in front of me, though I couldn't see in the darkness of the lab. "It's the Ghost Spider!"

Great. They knew who I was too. I wonder if they wanted autographs after.

"Took long enough!" another voice yelled back. "Get her to-"

I didn't hear the voice, but not because I tuned him out, but because something close to me roared to life.

You know that feeling when the curtains are first torn open and you have to deal with the day? Yeah. Now make that first bit of sunlight a hundred times brighter, add screaming, bullets, and a giant six-legged murder machine in the background.

And oh, a supervillain you last saw under the wheels of a truck.

"Hey Liv!" I shouted over the din. "Your hair looks flat! Like you got hit by a truck again!"

Olivia Octavius, creator of beloved children's science cartoons and part time minion for Wilson Fisk, pointed and screamed at me, and I got a good look at the six-legged robot that she brought with her.

Observation one? The light of its tail-mounted cannon was blue.

Observation two? That pretty blue light could destroy concrete, and probably me as well. Thus it was bad. Classic Gwen logic.

"Hey Liv!" I called out. "Just because your hair is bad doesn't mean you have to make my hair look bad too! Go to a barbershop! Support the local economy!"

"Silence!" Doctor Octopus shouted back. "You're not stopping me!"

She had a point, especially given that the machine didn't look like it could be destroyed simply by punching it, but I had a better point.

"And how do you think you'll get out of this vault?" I called back. "I doubt your robot will fit in the elevator!"

"Oh dearie, I don't need an elevator."

Something inside me, probably my spidey-sense, kicked into gear, and I hit the deck again. Sure enough, the wall behind me exploded, showering me with fragments of steel and concrete.

"That hurt," I muttered as I dodged one of the tentacles emerging from Olivia Octavius' suit. "Let's even up the score, shall we?"

Olivia Octavius did not do that. Instead, she ran- all the way back to the large machine. Then she hopped onto the machine.

I decided I didn't want to figure out what she intended to do with the machine, so I did the smart thing and webbed her hands, then jumped onto the six-legged robot too.

"Liv, just give up, please," I sighed as I dodged a clumsy, awkward strike from one of her mechanical tentacles. "Spare yourself the truck this time around."

Olivia took a look at me before she took a step back.

And promptly slipping on something on the side of the robot, crashing to the ground next to us with a heavy thud.

I resisted the urge to snicker as I fired a smattering of web at the tail cannon, pinning the machine in a single, extremely awkward pose, as if it was a modern art piece.

A modern art piece with the power to melt concrete sure, but a modern art piece nonetheless.

But in the meantime, the bad news that was Olivia Octavius had not only torn herself free of my web, but had gotten back up too.

And oh, she had something in her hand.

"You won't get me, Spider Gwen."

Ok, first of all, nobody calls me Spider Gwen without eating a knuckle sandwich. Second, what was that big canister in her hands, and why was it glowing?

"Let's not be hasty now," I muttered, raising my hands. If I could disable her hands, maybe I could get clear before she blew herself up, and probably me with her.

"You're right that I won't get the Nuform here." Olivia had a smile on her face I didn't like, not one bit. "But there are other worlds where you wouldn't be able to stop me."

I should have shot her with my web shooters, but suddenly the canister in her hand began to crackle with a lot more energy.

And she slammed it into her machine.

My reflexes took over from there. Stop the robot, save the vault from going kaboom.

But it didn't go that way.

…

Earth-1048

I wasn't sure where I was. There had been a flash of light, then nothing. Was I dead? Could I meet Peter Parker again? Was he still bitter about me kinda killing him?

Doubtful, actually, because I was sure that I could hear the roar of New York traffic.

I opened my eyes. Yep, asphalt. Lots of asphalt. And a pair of sneakers.

With really cool lights too. Maybe I had stepped into a world with excellent taste in fashion.

Except my spidey-sense was screaming, and instinct meant that I managed to roll over and avoid the equally fashionable neon-violet electric bludgeon the owner of the sneakers had swung at my head.

How rude.

"Hey!" I snapped as I climbed back to my feet. "What was that for?"

My neon-purple attacker paused for a moment before he turned to the alleyway behind him.

"SPIDER!"

He was loud, that was for sure.

But so were the half dozen guys dressed in neon purple that burst out of the back of a building, as if expecting a fight.

And oh, they had guns, also coloured neon purple.

"Hey Jake, are you sure that's one of the Spiders?" one of the new guys called out. "I'm not sure I've ever seen a girl Spider."

I looked down at my outfit and back up at the assembled gang, and used my web shooter to steal one of the bright purple guns, tying it to the top of a fire escape behind me. If they had doubts about me being a Spider, they didn't anymore.

There was a moment of silence and more than a few dropped jaws, and then the two guys who still had guns opened fire.

If I wasn't trying to avoid dying, I would have been impressed. The guns were good, really good. Possibly even better than what the police were issued back home.

Which meant that these guys weren't just your run of the mill thugs.

I leapt up in the air and climbed over a nearby building. If I could get the jump on them, then maybe I could even the odds before the two guys with guns could fire again.

No such luck. All six of the gangsters, including the one without his gun, jumped up onto the roof after me.

Electric weapons, high powered guns, and rocket shoes? Seriously?

I did the only logical thing: I ran, ducking and diving around their bullets until I reached the only cover on the roof, a machine room, humming along in the cold.

Then I waited, safe behind the wall of machines, ready for a surprise attack.

Surprisingly, my trap actually worked, and the first of the gangsters ran in unprepared, and I decked him into the guy behind him before I kicked him in between the legs.

He made a noise that sounded like a cross between a choke and squeal, and I ducked to the side as one of the four active gangsters leapt down from the top of the machinery room, armoured fist aimed at my head.

I shot a stream of web into his eyes, and he began grabbing at his face while stumbling back, heavy gauntlets and all, now completely out of the fight.

Then it hit me, not a brilliant plan of course, but one of the two active guys with guns shot me.

And that hurt. Not enough to leave me in a whimpering ball on the ground, but it still hurt nonetheless.

And why was half my Ticket to the Multiverse on the ground?

I glanced down, and sure enough, the shot had torn the little spider shaped machine into two pieces. Welp, so much for getting home in time for dinner.

"You're paying for that," I muttered as I looked back at the guy who had destroyed my Ticket to the Multiverse. Was my Venom suit kicking in? Because he looked like he was going to cry for his mother.

Nope. He shot me again. Well, that certainly got Venom-Gwen angry.

So I did exactly what you would expect, rolling by the two guys on the ground and giving him a heavy uppercut. Ah, sweet revenge. It wasn't going to bring back the one thing that could get me home, but it was still fun nonetheless.

"Freeze!" a voice shouted from the alley below us. "You're all under arrest!"

"Perhaps next time don't play around with guns in broad daylight," I suggested to the lone guy with a gun still. "Police don't like that much."

"We can take him right?" the guy without the gun asked.

I strongly resisted the urge to facepalm, while the guy with the gun turned to look at his partner in silence, his gun lowered.

"I quit this thing," he muttered as he turned back to look at me, shoving his rifle over his shoulder. "If you can't tell that's a chick, I honestly don't even know why the Tinkerer armed you idiots."

"Hey!" the other guy shouted. "Where are you going?"

"Home," the guy with the gun said before he took a high jump, like a big purple kangaroo, landing two buildings away.

Which left me alone with the guy without a gun.

"So," I said casually. "Who's this Tinkerer?"

The guy without a gun flinched, and turned around to flee.

Except I had seen that coming, and I glued his fancy shoes to the roof with a quick blast of web. Nice try though.

"I'm not answering to a Spider!" he shouted. "Now let me go!"

I heard heavy footsteps on the staircase, and I looked over and saw a police officer run up over the fire escape.

"Officer!" I called over. "They're over here!"

"You can't hold me!" the annoying guy shouted. "I'll break free of this stupid web!"

So I webbed him again. Even if he could break free of one set of web, he wasn't breaking through two.

The officer coming up the stairs sighed as he looked at me. "I mean, thank you, but I'm going to need more handcuffs than I have on me."

I laughed at that. "Sorry about that. I'm sure this will help clean up the gang though."

The officer shook his head. "These guys are just bottom feeders. Nobody has seen the Tinkerer since Roxxon Plaza."

I looked down at the gun that shot me. Bottom feeders came with electric hammers, guns, rocket shoes, and really nice jackets? Seriously?

"Where's this Tinkerer?" I asked.

The officer looked at me funny. "Were you like, living under a rock since Christmas?"

"Let's go with that," I said, glancing over to the guy struggling against two layers of web. "You know, I need a place to train and all that."

"Right," the officer muttered as I heard another set of shoes on the stairs. "You missed a lot then. Where do I start?"

"Hey officer," a voice said from above as a shadow covered me. "I'll take it from here."

I glanced over to the new voice. A new Spider Man. Was this the Peter Parker of this world?

He was looking at me too, his steps hesitant as he hopped down from the top of the machine room, as if the half-dozen gift-wrapped criminals on the roof weren't enough proof that I was friendly.

"Parker," I blurted out.

He flinched at the name. Yep, classic Peter Parker.

"Pardon?" the officer asked.

"Oh, I remember now." The other Spider Man laughed. "We met before, at the FEAST party, you know, the one held by May Parker."

"Oh." The cop looked uncomfortable as he took a step back to the fire escape, as if he had walked in on something personal. "I'll leave you two to it, sorry."

"No, it's alright," Peter Parker said as he gestured for me to follow. "We're taking this somewhere else anyhow."

…

That somewhere else turned out to be a church I was vaguely familiar with back on Earth 65, with Parker pacing on the roof.

"First question," Peter Parker said quietly as he sat down. "Who are you?"

"Name's Gwen," I said, sticking out my hand. "Gwen Stacy, but call me Ghost Spider."

The mask didn't change, but he nodded. "I wasn't aware that you were a Spider too."

A light went off inside my head. "No, Peter, I'm not from this world."

Even though he wore a full face mask, Peter Parker seemed confused. "I'm sorry?"

"I'm from another universe," I explained, watching the mid-afternoon skyline of New York, so familiar, yet so different at the same time. "I was blown here by some weird machine made by this scientist from my world. I'm trying to find her before she causes more damage."

"Okay." Peter Parker paused for a moment, as if he was searching for the right words, perhaps ready to call me a maniac. "I guess you already know me as Peter Parker then. I'm the original Spider Man here. Please don't call me by my real name. I'd rather not put those around me in danger."

I nodded at the request. It was reasonable, standard hero protocol. For someone who had just been told about hopping through space-time, Parker seemed pretty chill about it. "I was… exposed back home, and let's just say that hasn't gone well for me."

He nodded as well, and shifted from foot to foot, as if stretching his limbs. "I'm glad we can get that out of the way. Anything else you want to know?"

"You said you were the original Spider Man here." I guessed. "There's another one too?"

"Yeah," he said. "There's another-"

"Miles?" I asked. "Miles Morales?"

"Guess you know that too," he muttered, shaking his head. "Yeah, Miles Morales. He's… in training at the moment, though I guess he's off today with personal stuff."

I understood perfectly, after all, I was part of a band, and Mary Jane obsessed over practice. "Did you see any news of a six legged machine with a cannon tail running around New York? I'd like to bag Doc Ock and go home, preferably avoiding massive property damage."

"Doc… Ock?" Peter sounded surprised, even though his mask hid his face.

"You had one too?" I asked.

"Doctor Otto Octavius," he replied. "He was my boss at one point, but now he's in prison."

I took a moment to process the information before I spoke. "Ours was Doctor Olivia Octavius. She was famous for these little funny kids shows on science. Before working for Kingpin, that is."

"Kingpin's behind bars too," Peter said after a moment of silence. "Apart from Krieger, there's not really any major villains out on the street. They're practically all behind bars, or dead."

That was good news, if a bit dark. "What about this Tinkerer though?"

Peter Parker shifted and took a step back. "I wasn't in town when that happened. I was busy with Mary- erm, personal business."

"Mary Jane?" I asked, thinking to my old bandmate, back on Earth-65. The practice-hound drama queen.

"I guess you know her too," Peter sighed. "We're dating, and we were out of the country when the Tinkerer was running around. If I knew what was going on back home though, I would have stayed in New York."

There was that name again, the Tinkerer. Was the old little guy in this world so desperate for cash that he sold his weapons to street punks?

"That's not answering my question though, about the Tinkerer. How many of those high tech guns are out on the street?"

A slow hiss escaped Peter and he shook his head. "Hundreds, maybe thousands. Under the Tinkerer, they'd at least avoid going after civilians, but with her gone-"

He paused at that point.

"This Tinkerer is… dead?" I asked.

"I don't know the full details," he admitted after another long pause. "But from what Miles was willing to tell me, she's gone."

Something in my head flickered at the new information. Ok, so maybe it was a little old woman rather than a little old man behind the gangsters I had beaten up. "So you have a gang with better tech than the police, possibly the army running loose, without leadership?"

"They're not really the smartest criminals," Peter replied, shaking his head. "A lot of them have been caught for minor things, and they've been fighting each other as much as they've been doing damage to the police. The Tinkerer was the only thing keeping them unified, and now that she's gone, they've reverted to a bunch of squabbling teenagers."

"What did this Tinkerer want?" I asked.

"Roxxon Plaza levelled," Peter replied, glancing over to something in the distance. "She might have succeeded too, if not for Miles."

"Did he- kill her?" I asked.

Peter shook his head vigorously. "He wouldn't have. From what I was willing to get out of him, he was close friends with her, right up until the end."

The image of the little old granny snapped out of my mind, and a dead face floated up, unasked for. Peter Parker, back home, once my best friend, but dying as the Lizard. Did Miles have to see someone he loved die? "I see…"

Peter nodded. "I don't have all the answers, but if you have to meet with him, I need to ask you . to not push him too much. It's only been two weeks since the incident."

"Do you know what happened?" I asked.

Peter didn't say anything, but he pointed to something high up in the sky.

I didn't see it, not at first, but when I saw it, it was obvious. Unmistakable.

The clouds at one part of the city looked like they had been obliterated, like a bomb had gone off.

And this was supposed to be two weeks ago? I wasn't very good with science, but the obliterated clouds in the sky looked like someone had detonated a bomb in the sky an hour ago, not two weeks ago.

"It's still a quarantine zone with the government and Roxxon on the scene," Peter explained. "But it is still in the middle of Harlem. It could be weeks, maybe months until the whole mess is cleaned up."

"Damn," I muttered. "Is that where Miles is?"

Peter sighed and nodded. "I don't have all the answers yet. Miles is in a bad place emotionally, and I would rather not push him. Still, I think you should talk to him, to tell him about your Doc Ock problem."

…

We swung quietly across the city, and apart from a few distant shouts below us, we didn't get much attention.

"We're here," Peter announced as we reached the end of a quiet street, complete with the old brick apartments I remembered from our Harlem. "Miles is at home right now, but I can text him if you need to ask him anything."

"What's he doing?" I asked.

Peter shook his head as he reached into a backpack hanging from a pipe. "He didn't tell me, but he asked me to not contact him today unless there's an emergency."

"We can come back tomorrow," I offered. "I could probably crash somewhere for the night and we can talk about this tomorrow."

Peter paused and looked down at a cell phone. "Miles says he's free for a few minutes, but I need you to do something for me."

"What is it?" I asked.

"If Miles mentions a name you don't recognize, let it slide" Peter said, his voice suddenly hard. "I'll explain it to you afterwards."

I glanced over to the building across the street. "Alright."

Then I saw Miles, his face twisted in confusion in a window around the middle of the building.

"I see him," I muttered.

"Head to the roof," Peter ordered, taking a moment to leap over the street.

I looked down at the window where I saw Miles, now empty, before I took the jump myself.

It wasn't the hardest jump I've ever taken, but I still glanced around me to ensure that nobody on the street saw me. To my relief, nothing.

The door leading to the inside of the building burst open, and I noticed Miles up close for the first time.

"Sorry to bother you," Peter said from the side. "But this is urgent."

Miles nodded, and I thought of the Miles Morales I had met fighting Doc Ock for the first time. Meeting another Miles Morales felt kinda weird. "What's going on?" Miles asked, turning to look at me. "And who are you?"

"My name's Gwen, Gwen Stacy," I explained, pausing as the words came slowly. "And I'm… not quite from this world."

Miles' eyes narrowed but he nodded. "I… see. Uhh, I guess, continue?"

"I was in the middle of fighting Doc Ock back in my world when she triggered some form of teleportation device," I explained. "When I woke up, I was… attacked by a gang of thugs."

Miles nodded, his face grim as he glanced back at the door behind him. "Look, I can help, but not today. There's this big search group that's trying to hold a vigil for Phin. It's her classmates and teachers, and they want mom's help. It's not like we can say no either."

Peter nodded as he turned back to me. "I think you should settle down for a while, maybe recover, maybe do some research before you go on a wild goose chase."

"Ok," I turned over to the mangled clouds in the distance. "Doc Ock said she was going after something called Nuform. Do you know where I could find something like that?"

The two Spidermen didn't say anything.

"Guys?" I asked as I turned around.

Peter Parker was still in his previous position, posed against a pipe, with a mask covering his face. But Miles?

Miles had frozen in place, his head turned back to me, one hand on the handle of the door.

"Miles?" I asked. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Nuform?" Miles asked in a small voice. "Did you just say Nuform?"

"Yeah," I muttered, remembering the canister of glowing energy in the hand of Olivia Octavius back in the vault. "Some kind of blue light, stored in these reinforced glass containers."

"And toxic," Miles finished. "But packed with a massive amount of energy."

I paused at the information. Why the hell didn't the police mention that? "I wasn't told about it being toxic. I was just told that some maniac with bad hair wanted to steal it."

Miles and Peter exchanged a glance before Miles spoke.

"I'm not sure what it's like with you, but here, Phin's brother invented the stuff."

"Where could I find him?" I asked. "If I know Doc O-"

"He's dead," Miles interrupted, his voice heavy as he shook his head vigorously. "Simon Krieger killed him. I saw it with my own eyes."

"Oh," I whispered, feeling both disappointment and sadness rise up within me. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Miles shook his head. "Phin… she was willing to do anything to take down Krieger, but-"

He didn't need to continue, and I turned to the oddly shaped clouds in the distance, and wondered what sort of power could have melted the clouds into a thin, bent strip. "And that was the end result?"

Miles paused before he looked up at the distant clouds, his voice bitter. "Yeah, that's what happened. Roxxon Energy still kinda standing, and Phin… gone."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I whispered, my mind racing to the memory of Peter Parker, the Lizard, dead. "Was she trying to find evidence or?"

Miles shook his head, his eyes misty as he turned back to the inside of the building. "I have to go. Pete, if there's still anything she doesn't understand, tell her what she needs to know."

"Right," Peter said, grabbing my arm a little too hard. "We'll be at the church."

The door swung shut, and I pulled my arm free. "That hurt."

Peter shook his head. "Sorry. I shouldn't have done that, but there's a lot that you don't understand. I'd rather not strain Miles emotionally, especially when he has to meet with the search party."

I looked up at the skyline and the setting sun reflecting in a thousand panes of glass. "Tell me about this Roxxon."

"Energy company," Peter explained. "Think of a nuclear reactor, but much more powerful. Krieger promised that his reactor could power all of Harlem. Rio Morales-"

"Miles' mom, and she's against it, right?"

Peter nodded. "All of Harlem's against it at this point. But Roxxon had lots of security, and the Tinkerer's plan was to overload the Nuform within the reactor and blow up the entire plaza."

"Would that take Roxxon and this Krieger guy with it?" I asked. "Because if the reactor tech still exists, he could just rebuild it elsewhere."

Peter paused at that. "She wasn't thinking straight, from what Miles told me. She thought the blast would only destroy Roxxon Plaza."

"I'm sensing a but," I muttered.

"Miles said she miscalculated," Peter said, his voice grim. "The blast would have taken Harlem with it. She didn't see it, not until the very end. She wanted revenge against Krieger so badly that she almost wiped out an entire neighbourhood in the process."

"Damn," I said, looking up at the semi-obliterated clouds in the sky. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Peter nodded as he pointed to a weirdly shaped skyscraper in the distance. "And the worst part of it is that we have nothing on Krieger. No evidence that he did anything wrong. Whatever evidence Phin might have collected on Krieger died with her."

I nodded as I followed his finger, and something inside me clicked. The building didn't look funny because of bad design, but because parts of it were smashed, as if someone had been fighting in it. "Phin was the Tinkerer?"

Peter nodded. "But don't tell a soul. You know how it is if people find out about us having families. Her family is gone, but if the public found out about who she was under that mask, I'm scared for what could happen to Miles and Rio, especially since people will start accusing Miles because of this middle school science prize they won together."

"Does Rio know?" I asked. "About Phin."

Peter shook his head. "Very few people would know. There was nothing left of Phin after the Roxxon battle."

"So there's not even going to have a body to bury," I finished, wondering about the life of a girl I had never met. "How old was she?"

"Eighteen," Peter responded, his voice quiet. "In a few months, she would have been applying for college."

"With her whole life in front of her," I concluded. "Mistakes and all."

Peter nodded as he paused, his tone light as he spoke again. "I talked with Miles when I got back to New York, and he wants to take down Krieger, for Phin. If you're willing to help with that, I think we can work something out."

I nodded. "Olivia Octavius is likely gunning for the Nuform still in the sky, and it sounds like this Krieger guy needs to be behind bars. Not to mention mopping up the Underground."

"That's true," Peter said as he rose to his feet. "But we also have you now."

"Lovely. My talents are punching and kicking things, with a side of drumming. No technology or math though. I don't do those things."

Peter chuckled before he looked down at his phone. "A source of mine says that there's supposed to be a lockdown at Roxxon Plaza tonight. I'm guessing they're finally getting around to collecting what's left of the Nuform. I didn't think much of it at first, but if its Nuform you're dealing with, I don't think we have much time to waste."

"And we'll be there, waiting." I finished. "Because Doc Ock will be there too."