There was an old adage that claims that everyone has their own cross to bear. To go through life carrying your troubles and hardships as they make you fall again and again. For Peter Parker, this cross was both metaphorical and very literal. For the one-ton metal cube that he struggled to hold above him. Friday counted down the seconds in her usual inflection that Peter had come to get used to.

"Eighteen... seventeen… sixteen..."

His head buzzed, his Spider-Sense warned of imminent danger. If the cube's crushing weight wouldn't make him yield, then his natural instinct to listen to his Spider-Sense will. He succumbed to the weight and laid the cube back on its four-foot-high bench.

Peter cursed to himself with a loud, "Damn it!"

He looked up at his cross, or more appropriately- his wall. This wall didn't have craggily edges or cracks he can grab on to. No, it was a sheen and perfect cube with no imperfections. Even though Peter could climb any wall, he sure felt like he's back to being Quirkless again.

He sighed and checked his phone for the time: 6:00 AM. Three more hours until students have to be present at the secondary Avengers Academy campus, and only one hour left until Mr. Stark's deadline. Anxiety and fear slithered up and down his spine. It moved in between the crevasses of his vertebrae and biting down on his nerves, and it sent dread throughout the whole of his body. That dread traveled through his nervous system and ended up in his brain, where it produced one emotion: fear. Fear of running out of time. Fear of not being able to be a hero. Fear of breaking Uncle Ben's wishes. Fear of-

"Friday, why is there a sweaty gremlin in the bunker?"

"Jesus!" Peter yelped and jumped to the ceiling, clinging onto it for dear life.

-being surprised, apparently.

As Peter hung upside down, he got a better look at who scared him. Standing there with an iced coffee in one hand and a lanyard in the other was a girl he'd never seen before. Stylish curly hair adorned her head that perfectly complimented her dark skin tone. What caught his eye, however, was that she was wearing just a t-shirt and shorts.

It's like twenty-three degrees outside!

"So, you gonna stay up there or…?" She took a sip of her coffee, and idly swung her lanyard in a circle, keys clinking off of each other as she did.

"I… uh… maybe! What if I did, huh?!" Peter's delivery was stilted and unsure. After some intense staring from Peter and bored staring from the stranger girl, Peter finally let go of the ceiling and lowered himself using a web. When he touched base, he pointed past the stranger to the monitors in the next room and yelled: "Friday, why is there an intruder in the bunker?!"

The stranger girl looked behind her, an unimpressed expression on her face. "You know Friday really isn't in the monitors, right?" she said after another sip of her drink, "She's in a server room in Cali. No way would Tony put her in New York."

"Thank you, Riri," the bored-secretary voice known as Friday said, "And there is no intruder, Peter. Riri is Tony Stark's apprentice.."

Peter took a deep long look at the girl called Riri, and she did the same. He did, however, felt a little dirty after the 45-second mark of the physical analysis, though.

Wanda would kill me… wait, why would she?

Simultaneously, the metaphorical light bulb clicked on above both Peter's and Riri's heads.

"Ah! You're Ironheart!" Peter exclaimed while pointing at Riri.

"You're Spider-Boy!" Riri exclaimed while pointing at Peter.

Peter frowned. "It's Street Sentry…" he whispered.

Riri tilted her head in curiosity. "Well, at least it's not gendered."

"So you like it?!" Peter asked with extreme enthusiasm.

Riri bit her lip and answered with a simple, "Not at all…"

The two then started a small conversation about how they met Mr. Stark. Apparently, Riri found one of his old armors on Lake Michigan's beaches and went to work on it. One thing led to another; Mr. Stark found Riri's potential and took her under his wing.

"I managed to find out his biggest secret by reverse-engineering the armor itself… oh and by hacking into his personal files."

"That's… disturbing," Peter replied with a nervous smile. "But, uh…" He paused, taking note of her choice of clothing. "Why are you dressed like that? It's a freezing tundra outside."

Riri answered him as she walked towards the computer room, "Quirk."

Peter snatched his Hero Notebook and a pen from his bookbag, to which he laid against the wall of the bunker, and followed her like a moth to a flame. "What kind of Quirk is it? Do you not have any feeling like Bald' r did? Or are you always war- well, actually, Bald' r could feel it's just that he was invincible. It's really interesting, the family of Thor actually. They're not actually gods, they're just really strong humans with a bloodline that's obsessed wi-"

"You don't have many friends, do you?"

Peter felt blood rush to his cheeks and scratched the back of his head. "Two."

"Figured." Riri plopped herself down on the swivel desk chair and spun to face the computer. She then started to type away, bringing up multiple windows and programs that hurt Peter's head if he looked at them for too long.

That's so much bio-chem, holy crap!

"So what're you doing with the-," she took a sip of her coffee, "Destruction Cube over there?"

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"The cube. The one that you were lifting. Why? Tell me. Now."

Peter was put off by how direct Riri was in her questioning. "Mr. Stark wants me to lift it for thirty seconds before 9:00 AM today, or I won't be allowed to participate in the entrance exam."

"Bummer," Riri replied without breaking eye contact with the computer monitors. "Fun fact, that cube is used for testing armor durability, by the way. It's not meant to be lifted."

Wait, what?!

Peter's mouth was left agape at this revelation.

"We just drop it on new armors to see how sturdy they are. "Riri stepped out of her chair, leaned closer to the monitor, and adjusted her glasses. "My poor Ironheart,"

Peter felt his soul leave his body. He began to question truth. What is life? What is truth? What is heroism? Peter shook his head and eliminated all of the reality-altering questions from his head and paved a path forward.

"Wait, wait, wait, so he's been lying to me?" The negative thoughts rushed back into Peter's head. "He doesn't actually believe I can become a hero? It was all just a cruel joke?" The tears started welling in his eyes. "I'm just a wall-crawler after all?"

Riri rolled her eyes and turned to face the sorry sight. "Oh, snap out of it." Riri took another sip of her drink. "Tony told you all of his secrets. He'd be an idiot if he did and didn't see something in you."

Peter turned to face Riri, but all he could see was a blurred outline of her.

"Y-you think so?" Peter sniffed as he said this.

Riri gave him a slight smile. "Tony Stark is a lot of things. An idiot is not one of them. He knows your strengths and weaknesses. I've seen your files. You just have a problem with…" She fiddled with her hands. "Oversimplifying things."

"Oversimpli-!"

"Yeah, like, do you know what I would do if I had a near limitless supply of-"

"Webs!" Peter exclaimed and pointed at his wrist. "I have my webs!"

"Dear lord, he forgot about that." Riri widened her eyes in complete and utter disbelief.

In a blink of an eye, Peter jumped up and clung to the ceiling. With his middle and ring finger curled into the palm of his left hand, the web shot out and stuck to the ceiling. Then, he dropped down back to the floor, crawled under the cube, and then jumped back up to the ceiling. With the thick strand of web in his hand, he pulled the cube upward as he stood on the ceiling.

Who knew when you use physics to your advantage, all of your problems become much easier?

With all of his might and the wonders of torque at his disposal, the cube lifted into the air ever so slightly, and the Peter stuck the other end of the web back to the ceiling. He then jumped back down to the floor. And there it was, hanging in the air by a single strand of the web was his wall, and damn, did Peter feel good.

"A cradle?" Riri asked.

Peter turned around, his face beamed of sunlight. "Yeah! Mr. Stark said I have to hold it up over my head for thirty seconds. Technically, I will! He's always looking for innovation! A futurist! How to make the common man's life easier. Friday! Does this disqualify me?"

"Nothing in the notes that the Boss left me says it does, Peter."

"See? Perfectly legal!" said Peter as he walked towards the cube.

"Pshh. Alright, then."

Peter positioned himself under the hanging cube. He looked up as it floated a good few inches above his head. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath through his nostrils, and thought about Aunt May, Pietro, and Wanda.

"Last chance," he whispered to himself. He placed both of his hands above him, the steel stinging his hands. He looked back at Riri, who still sat in her swivel chair.

"Okay, Riri, Friday, start the timer."

Riri then pressed the space button on the keyboard behind her. "Good luck, Spider-Kid," she said.

Friday began counting down from forty, to give Peter a ten-second buffer. "Forty, thirty-nine, thirty-eight…"

Peter groaned. "It's Street Sentry."

"Thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one…"

Peter braced himself and lifted ever so slightly. His arms weren't on fire, and his back didn't immediately feel like it was going to snap in half.

Why... Why didn't I do this before?

His face turned red. A rising sensation came from within him—a volcano about to erupt.

"Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven…"

If I would've done this before… Uncle Ben….

The lava reached his head, and it couldn't stop buzzing.

"Twenty-five, twenty-four…"

No… I can't… I can't think about that. Not now.

His head kept buzzing with a vengeance.

I have to…

"Twenty-three, twenty-two…"

Climb this…!

He cut himself off mid-thought. His head wouldn't stop buzzing. It wasn't because of the heat of the moment. It wasn't because of his excitement.

"Spider-Sense…?" he muttered.

"Oh shit!" Riri exclaimed.

"Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen…."

It was because the web snapped in half, and the cube fell back onto Peter's shoulders. With a grunt of pain escaping his throat and his arms spread out to support himself, Peter could feel his legs straining from the absolute weight of the cube. Something he thought he'd get used to by now.

"Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen…"

Every passing second felt like an eternity to him. He could feel every muscle in his body scream in pain as they all worked to keep that cube above its resting place, but it wasn't enough. Peter found himself succumbing to the weight of the cube.

"Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…."

"Parker!" Someone yelled. Peter couldn't remember who was in the room with him. "Your heart rate is skyrocketing! You'll pass out! Stop!"

"No!" Peter yelled back. With only a small amount of energy to spare, Peter fired off two webs. Those webs then snagged the hanging snapped webs that once held the cube just moments ago. Without warning, the torque of the webs forced his arms to spread out even farther. He swore he felt something in his arm snap in half. "I'm not giving up! I… I won't -!"

His right knee bent at a wrong angle, and Peter cried in pain. He faltered, and the cube started to slide off to the side. As Peter fought through the pain, he pulled on the web, which shifted the cube back onto his upper back. Peter's forehead itched as a river of sweat dripped from it. His brain, his body, his everything made every excuse for him to stop. Little irritations that infected different places on his skin, desperately pleaded with Peter to just give up.

"Twelve, eleven, ten…"

"I won't let anyone else die because of somebody else's selfish mistake!" he screamed.

"Nine, eight, seven…"

"I'll be an Avenger!"

His vision became blurry.

"Six, five, four…"

With all of his might, he pulled the webs into his chest, thus trapping the cube and its weight onto a singular point.

"I'll be a hero!"

"Three…"

"And I will!"

Visions of Wanda and Pietro cloud his mind...

"Two…"

Uncle Ben and Aunt May...

"Climb!"

Iron Man and Captain America...

"One..."

"That!"

Flash and the wall from the playground.

"Zero."

"Wall!"

His body went numb, and his blurry vision turned dark. His grip loosened on the webs, and gravity took its course. The last thing that he saw before blacking out was a familiar girl running toward him.