2 years ago…

Peter picked up the packet, inspecting it. The slip of paper was emblazoned with a red dragon, and contained say, half a gram.

Still staring at the packet, he spoke "What am I looking at Emit?"

Emit was a year older than Peter, dressed in a ratty hoodie and looking gaunt and twitchy as usual. He was severely underweight and looked half dead.

Emit crossed his arms "Dope. new strain. You can't get stuff like this from anywhere else, it's pushed by hundreds of dealers and suppliers but it's all the same brand, comes from the same place."

Peter scrutinised him, "There are different types of heroin everywhere. what makes it so special?"

Emit shrugged "You don't need to increase your habit. It stays the same"

"And for people that don't quite speak drug dealer? What does that mean?" Peter groused

Emit sighed "If you spend say, ten dollars a day on scag, you have a ten-dollar habit. What I mean is that you can't develop a tolerance to it. All you need is one packet of this stuff. It's absorbed through a patch on skin. It kicks in straight away, good stuff too."

Frowning Peter enquired, "But… that is a good thing, right? So why have you come to me? This doesn't seem like a spiderman thing, no amount of policing will end the opiate epidemic. no amount of prohibition"

Taking a breath emit paused "The group in question who is distributing these little beauties are led by a certain person or so I have heard. There have been whispers on the street about a 'Madam Gao'."

Peter looked up abruptly "Gao? The same Madam Gao that was responsible for the massacre on 142th street last month and all those mysterious deaths? That Gao?"

Emit nodded "The very same. They've started to kill anyone who sells anything else, anyone that gets in their way. And they've started to make some very specific acquisitions, some specific streets and they've made a play for the docks in hell's kitchen."

Peter smirked "They won't get the docks; the hatchet gang would never sell up."

Emit snorted "Yeah, fat chance. So, what were those deaths about anyway? Did you ever find out?"

Clearing his throat Pete answered "Human experimentation, they were testing some drug on them, thinking back, it was probably this one. They found addicts and promised them money and heroin. They were desperate. If there is one thing I hate, it's the vulnerable being exploited for profit. These guys are more vicious than previous gangs in this area." Dismissing the thought, he turned to Emit "You hungry? I was going to make a sandwich anyway I'm starving."

Emit shrugged "sure" though he seemed awfully fatigued, the bags under his eyes heavy. Peter made his way into the kitchen and prepared sandwiches. The apartment was empty, it was a weekend and May was at work. They sat on the sofa in the living room, Emit devoured the sandwich in under a minute, while Peter nibbled on his.

Peter spoke after a brief silence, "Can I keep this? To analyse in a lab, I'll pay you back for it."

Emit handed him another packet "Yeah sure, and take a spare in case you lose one or something"

Peter bristled at this, "I'm not that incompetent."

Emit raised an eyebrow.

Sighing, Peter grumbled, "Well alright sometimes I am a bit… clumsy." Emit's expression had somehow become more sardonic than before. Peter glared, "don't look at me like that, I'm not that bad"

Emit laughed, "The first time we met you were on patrol and, if I remember correctly some idiot you were fighting managed to take off your mask."

Crossing his arms, Peter said sullenly, "He didn't see my face."

"But I did" Emit said smugly.

"Doesn't count, and anyway it worked out in the end, didn't it?"

Emit snorted "I guess". The silence dragged on and Emit shifted awkwardly and went to leave.

Peter stopped him, "Do you want to um… stay round here for a few hours, I've got a Star Wars Lego set to assemble" Ned would feel betrayed, but he would understand.

Emit smiled "Lego, seriously?"

Peter grinned impishly "yeah. seriously"

Emit blushed and mumbled "yeah alright. sounds good."

Peter pressed the button in the elevator and ascended to the top of the avenger's tower. He hadn't actually met any avengers apart from Mr Stark which he was fine with. Starstruck was not a particularly good look on him.

The door opened and he was hit with a wall of sound. black in black was blaring from the speakers and the lab was characteristically messy, pieces of machinery strewn everywhere and in the middle of the fray stood Mr Stark stark absorbed a by hologram showing one of his designs.

Peter walked in startling Mr Stark from his work induced stupor.

Smiling, Mr Stark greeted him, "Hey kid".

Peter swung his back-pack off his shoulders, "Hi, Mr Stark. How long have you been here?"

"What day is it?"

Rolling his eyes, Peter replied, "Sunday. Is Miss Potts's still on her trip?"

"Yeah, she's gone till Monday. Anyway, so what brings you here? It's not a lab day."

"I was wondering if I could use the lab to analyse a… substance. A new strain hit the streets a few days ago, you can't develop a tolerance to it. Its super cool and if I don't figure out how they did it, it's really going to bug me."

Mr Stark cocked an eyebrow "What type of substance?"

Peter coughed and tried to sound casual when he said "Heroin."

Mr Stark stopped "Please tell me you didn't bring that into the building with you."

Peter tried his best not to look sheepish "No" he lied.

Mr Stark sighed "You did, for god's sake." He deflated "Oh well, A look can't hurt." They made their way into the next room. "Where did you get it anyway?"

Shifting uncomfortably Peter confessed, "A friend."

Mr Stark tilted his head "Care to elaborate on that?"

Peter squinted at him "Not really."

"Well chemistry isn't really my thing so you're going to have to the lead on this one"

"Mr Stark, why do you have an entire state of the art chem lab if 'chemistry isn't really your thing'."

"Because I can. Also, so certain spider nerds can use it. So, what are we doing first?"

Peter grinned with barely contained glee "well because this is such a unique specimen, I would start with a general gas chromatography." He walked through the lab and stopped at the chemical cabinet and took a bottle from it "we'll need to mix the heroine with methanoyl" he took the patch out and dropped it in an empty beaker and used a pipette to drop a small amount of the clear substance in.

Peter mixed the beaker then filled a syringe with the liquid. He approached a large box of a machine, flicked a few switches then injected the syringe into a hole int the top. He depressed the plunger, what could possibly go wrong…

Ten minutes later…

"Yep, you definitely broke it." said Mr Stark

"I just don't understand, for the tubes to be clogged there would have to be a solid in the compound, I'm sure I didn't contaminate it."

"Do you have any spares?" Mr Stark asked

Peter reached into his pocket retrieving an identical packet "Only one spare. We're going to have to try something else…"

"I found the difference, it's an enzyme, that's what jammed the machine." Peter proclaimed looking very pleased with himself.

Mr Stark tilted his head, "Y'know I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that proteins usually aren't in heroine or any recreational drug, it's a bit advanced for a gang."

"Yeah, you're right, they would have to use extremely advanced equipment. The method is really cool though. in heroine B-arrstin attaches to a receptor which uncouples the G proteins, this process leaves the receptor less sensitive. The enzyme they have added to the heroin appears to be designed to repair the damage done by the reaction between the drug and receptors"

Mr Stark frowned "So you're saying the drug damages the brain and the enzyme fixes it? Sounds a bit convoluted." He sighed "we should probably take a break; we've been here for three hours"

"We have?" Peter glanced at the clock "Oh man, I told Ned I'd go round before I um… never mind just spiderman stuff." He grabbed his bag and made his way to the elevator "I've gotta go, bye Mr Stark".

Peter had fled before Mr Stark could even point out he had left a pile of books on the workbench.