(A/N: I do not own Spiderman or Assassin's Creed. That right belongs to Ubisoft and Sony).
To say Aunt May was shocked at how Peter looked when he came home was akin to saying that grass was green or that the sky was blue. She practically screamed because she didn't recognize Peter for a second until she got a closer look.
"Peter?" May asked, leaning her head closer as she was cleaning up in the kitchen.
"...Hey, Aunt May? D...do you like it?" Peter asked sheepishly as he took another step in the kitchen.
"It's not that, honey. It's just well...it's...different...pretty handsome. These clothes look expensive. Where did you get them?" May asked, stepping towards Peter and feeling the clothes. Must have been some buffalo skin or something.
"Well...Chris gave them to me along with some other clothes" Peter said.
May gave Peter a stern look. "Peter, you didn't suggest they buy it for you, did you?"
"No, Aunt May. I didn't! They had the clothes ready when I went to visit. They gave it to me" Peter explained.
"...Did they? That's...odd. Why did they do that?" May asked, curiously.
"They...were just trying to be good friends, May" Peter explained.
"You only met these boys yesterday, didn't you?" May asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well...yes" Peter said, pausing in between his words. He wanted to tell May the real reason but knew he couldn't as this was a secret group that had been around for thousands of years and relied on pure secrecy to stay hidden from these criminals they talked about.
"That's a bit odd, Peter. It sounds like they may be trying to buy your friendship" May said, a bit concerned.
"It's not like that, Aunt May. They're just really nice. I've never implied they've had to do anything for me" Peter said, trying to calm her nerves.
"Well...just don't let them buy anything else for you. I do like the clothes, you look very handsome but...it's just odd to me, Peter" May said.
"Alright, Aunt May. I'll let them know tomorrow" Peter said, nodding, relieved he got out of that one.
The young man kissed Aunt May goodnight and went upstairs to his room. After he got undressed and changed into his pajamas, he lied in his bed and just played on his phone for the rest of the night. He decided he was going to wear his new clothes. It was kind of exciting. He felt it was sort of sending a new message that there was a new, confident Peter with new friends around.
So about an hour and a half later, Peter plugged his phone up and went to sleep, whisking away into dreamland for the night, not even thinking about stopping the criminals for these Templars as they called themselves.
*The next morning*
Peter got up, took a shower, got dressed in his new clothes, pulled his hair back into the ponytail like Mrs. Rikkin showed him how to do and went downstairs to eat breakfast.
May was a bit surprised he decided to wear his new clothes but she actually did like seeing him in dapper clothes like these despite her slight disapproval on how he got them. He looked like a fine gentleman.
After eating, he went off to school. While he was excited, he was a bit nervous as well, not too sure as to how people around him would react to his new look.
Peter walked inside the main school doors. He played it cool and didn't look at anyone as he walked to his locker. However, many people were looking at him, astonished as they found out who was wearing these new clothes.
"Is that...Parker?!" Sally asked as he walked past him.
"Woah...where'd he get those clothes?!" Randy Robertson asked, just as shocked.
"He's just a photographer, isn't he? Does it really pay that well?" Sally asked.
Flash didn't say anything, still recovering from his mental beating a few days ago. He just went about his day, getting his books from his locker.
Liz was the same. However, she didn't say anything because she was in awe of the sight before her. Peter Parker, her ex-boyfriend, who normally could hardly afford a new pair of shoes, was looking pretty styling in these new clothes. He looked….hot. She couldn't take her eyes off him.
"Liz...girl? Liz, why are you staring at Parker like that?...Liz! Yo!" Sally shouted.
Liz snapped out of her trance and looked to Sally. "Oh, uh...nothing, Sal. I...I was just thinking about how dorky Parker looks in those new drags. Oh and that slicked back hair...and that little ponytail…."
Liz went back into her trance for a second before Sally noticed and snapped her fingers in front of his face.
The Latina snapped out of it...again and looked back. "Yeah...pretty lame"
Sally rolled her eyes and just got over it. She started to go to class with Randy following her, leaving Liz alone as Flash went to class as well.
Liz just stared. This used to be her boyfriend. She cursed him for leaving her and cursed herself for not fighting for him to stay with her. Oh well...maybe all was not lost. After all, Gwen chose Harry over him. Maybe there was a chance for reconciliation. She needed to talk to Peter alone sometime. It would be a bit difficult as his two new friends didn't seem to leave his side but she'll manage. She's now determined to get him back after seeing him look so….hot!
Speaking of Harry and Gwen, they were discussing on what they were doing over the weekend. Harry was excited while Gwen...was just listening.
"So how about a dinner at my house and a walk in Central Park?" Harry asked, grinning at her. He was trying to reignite the love they had before and get her mind off Peter. He hoped that would get her to forget about breaking up with him for good.
"Uh, I don't know, Harry. I'm scheduled for Dr. Connor's lab that night" Gwen said, shifting nervously, obviously not really wanting to go.
"Oh come on, Babe. It'll be perfect. Sometime that affirms our love for one another! Can't you just take one night off?" Harry asked.
"Harry, I've told you I don't like those stupid pet names and no. I can't. I'm sorry but this is my life. I can't just leave it for one night out. Maybe another night" Gwen said, kissing Harry's cheek.
Harry was really frustrated. It's like he didn't even have a girlfriend anymore. Just a really good friend. She comforted him over his father's death but there was no passion anymore. No heart. No fire. There kisses didn't excite him anymore and they were usually just a peck and the ones that weren't didn't last more than a few seconds.
The Osborn had honestly thought about ending it between them for some time, ever since he found out Gwen and Peter were conspiring against him for Gwen to break up with him for Peter but he couldn't allow it. He lost his father because Peter was too busy taking pictures of Spiderman instead of helping and now he was going to take his girl too? No freakin' way.
This wasn't to say he didn't think of Peter as a friend anymore. Harry still loved him like he was his own brother but there would always be a barrier in between them with everything that happened. He would like for things to go back to the way they were but he honestly wasn't sure that was possible. Not now anyway.
"Alright then…." Harry said as he put his books into his bag and closed his locker.
"I'm sorry, Harry. I'll make it up to you. I promise" Gwen said, taking his hand in hers.
Harry's chest slightly huffed in amusement. If he had a nickel for every time he heard that over these past months, he'd be….well, significantly richer than he was now at least.
"I'm sure" Harry said, not hiding his disappointment.
Before Gwen could retort, she looked behind Harry and her mouth practically dropped to the floor at what she saw.
"Gwen...Gwen? What are you looking at...is that...Peter?!" Harry asked as he turned around and looked completely and utterly shocked and confused.
Peter walked by, looking straight ahead, not noticing Harry and Gwen until Harry called his name.
"Pete...is that you?" Harry asked his friend, walking right past him like they were mannequins.
Peter turned and noticed them. He put on a confident smile. He didn't really want to speak with them right now but he was obligated, he thought.
"Oh. Harry. Gwen. Good to see you. How are you doing?" Peter asked.
"You...uh...look...different" Harry said, addressing the elephant in the room.
"Oh, do you like it? I just got these yesterday" Peter said, displaying his new clothes to them.
"Uh...yeah. I guess so" Harry said, not wanting to admit that Peter was looking pretty stylish.
"You look great, Peter. Where'd you get those?" Gwen said, sending a warm smile towards her friend. She was pretty flustered as to how handsome Peter looked right now. Her face turned red. Harry saw and sneered at her lightly.
"Oh, I just got these from a high end store yesterday" Peter lied.
"I assume your two new buddies got it for you? Thanks for blowing us off the other day for them, by the way and telling such wonderful things about us apparently" Harry said sarcastically, slightly glaring at him, remembering the other day perfectly.
"All I told them was you haven't exactly been communicating with me throughout the past few months. Is that wrong?" Peter said, giving a slight glare as well. That wasn't precisely true but he felt it wasn't his place to tell about the secret.
"I don't know if you heard, Peter but my dad died and I needed some alone time" Harry retorted.
"Alone time with Gwen, I assume" Peter retorted back in Harry's face.
"Gwen is my girlfriend, Peter! I'll always have time for her!" Harry practically shouted.
"But not for me. Your supposed best friend that you've known for years. I got you" Peter said, not even raising his voice and having a neutral face.
"Wait, wait! Let's not fight. Please!" Gwen practically begged.
Harry sighed. "Ok. You're right. Peter...I'm sorry I didn't call or text you...but that also goes both ways. You didn't call or text me. I hadn't heard from you at all since my dad's funeral"
"I was giving you space that I didn't know would last the whole summer. And I was going through my own problems, Harry not that you care" Peter said which caused Gwen to shift guiltily.
"Oh and what problems were those, Peter? You struggling to get more pics of Spiderman? Oh but it's for your aunt, right. I remember" Harry said, rolling his eyes.
"My aunt is elderly and practically frail, Harry! I'm sorry I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth and didn't have the good fortune to have no financial troubles growing up and I'm so sorry I grew up with both my parents dead and my uncle shot and murdered and leaving us in a one income household. I suppose I'm always the bad guy to you, aren't I, Harry?" Peter said, getting angry. A crowd was forming behind them.
Harry just blinked a few times. "Pete...I...I don't…"
"You know what, you can say whatever you want about me, Harry, but leave my aunt out of this. You don't know anything about what that lady has been through and as far as I'm concerned, she's the only family I have left and I don't even know how long that'll be for! And with how you're acting right now, I say I made the damn right choice in going with Emmanuel and Chris instead of someone like you. You've turned into this hateful person that only cares about himself. I gotta get to class. Later" Peter said, turning and giving a mock peace sign.
"Peter! Wait!" Gwen called out but Peter ignored her. He just stormed off to class.
Gwen angrily turned towards Harry. "Look at what you did!"
Harry turned to Gwen with a shocked look on his face.
"What I did? He's the one who started mouthing off about us to his new pals of his" Harry retorted.
"After how you just acted and how you've been treating him over the summer, it seems he had a good reason. I'll see you later. I'll talk to you again when I'm good and ready and not before! I also expect you to give an apology to Peter!" She said as she stormed off as well, leaving Harry alone with people awkwardly staring at him. He ignored them and went back to putting his books back into his bag and heading off to class.
Harry felt bad about bringing up Peter's aunt. Maybe he should do something nice for her to try to make it up to Peter. He would have to figure out how soon.
*9PM at night, Queens*
Emmanuel and Chris gave him coordinates to meet at and they instructed him to wear his Spiderman costume.
The coordinates led to the top of a building which he landed on from a swing of his web. On top were his 2 said friends.
"Hey Peter" Emmanuel said.
"Uh...if you don't mind, whenever we meet like this, can you call me-" Spiderman tried to say before he was interrupted.
"Spiderman. Right. Sorry" Emmanuel winced.
"Yeah or Spider or Spidey. Any one of those will do. Gotta keep the whole secret identity thing a secret otherwise, it kills the purpose of the secret part, wouldn't you say?" Spidermanasked.
"Of course, Peter. We'll be careful. Won't we?" Christ did a side glance to Emmanuel.
"Yes, yes. I'm sorry. Jeez" Emmanuel said.
"So…what've you got?" Spiderman asked.
"See that warehouse down there?" Emmanuel asked, pointing down to what was indeed a warehouse.
"I do" Spiderman nodded.
"That's where the criminals are setting up camp for their little experiment. They're developing a poisonous gas that as far as we know only causes sleep for now but we have a bad feeling it'll move on to more deadly toxins" Chris said.
"So why not just call the police and give them a tip?" Spiderman asked.
"It's not that simple, Spiderman. These criminals are highly skilled. No matter how well armed the NYPD is, they won't stand a chance and most of the criminals will disappear before they even get a chance to launch any offense" Chris said.
"Plus, they'll just use the gas on the police and then escape. No. We have to use their methods against them. Then the police will be able to arrest them" Emmanuel said.
"Ok…so how do you propose we do that?" Spiderman asked.
"There should be three large storage tanks where they store the gas. Simply put, rip them open and then the gas will enter the room and put them all to sleep. From there, after an anonymous tip to the police, they'll be in the clear to arrest them then" Chris explained.
Spiderman raised an eyebrow.
"Ok….how am I supposed to rip in open. My strength is accelerated but I don't know if I can do something like that. I'm not the Hulk" Spiderman said, concerned.
"No worries, Spiderman. Use these" Chris said, passing him a few small circular objects.
"What are these?" Spiderman asked.
"Little tiny explosives with enough force to rip a good chunk of the tank open" Emmanuel explained.
"Uh…I don't really work with explosives. I do want to stop these criminals but I don't want to kill anybody" Spiderman said, getting worried.
"Don't worry, Spiderman. These will only set up a small enough explosion to blow the tank open, plus if you explode them from the tanks which should be pretty large, for sure no one will get hurt. They'll all be put to sleep and these criminals are off to prison" Chris persuaded him.
"Well…alright. How do I make it work?" Spiderman asked.
"Nothing to it. Just turn it here and it'll go off a minute and a half after it's switched on" Emmanuel said, referring to a switch.
"Alright. Just one more question though. I've been doing this for a long while now. How exactly have these people not only avoided the police but me as well if they've been at this for a bit?" Spiderman said.
"As we said before, Spiderman, these people are crafty and very skilled. Their organization started not much longer after ours did and they've been doing it since, under the nose of the authority and the people" Chris explained with a hint of distaste.
"So it's pretty much a war between the two of you?" Spiderman asked.
"Pretty much. Though we hope to turn that around quickly in the next few weeks" Emmanuel said.
"How so?" Spiderman asked.
"We'll explain on another day. This isn't the time or place. Now…I think we need to get started. They may test this gas out tonight. We can't risk that" Chris said.
"Yes. I agree. Well…see you on the other side" Spiderman said as he took the small detonators and leaped off the building, leaving his 2 friends on the top of the building. He honestly wondered how they even got there in the first place without anyone noticing but figured it wasn't worth the trouble. There were more important matters at hand.
He let out another string of web and landed on the roof of the warehouse. This is the kind of thing where he wished he had X-ray vision or something like that because he couldn't see a window or anything. He looked around and found an air vent.
The young hero ripped the vent open and climbed inside. It was a maze but Spiderman was getting used to these so it didn't take him too long to find the inside of the building.
He found another vent gate and popped it open but made sure one screw was still intact so as to not let it drop to the floor and alert the criminals.
Looking inside, he saw numerous people, both male and female, wearing hoodies. It looked pretty weird, especially since they were indoors.
"Must be a new weird fashion trend in the criminal underworld" Peter said.
He quietly shot a string of web towards the ceiling of the warehouse and lifted himself up so that he was hanging upside down and took a good look around.
As Emmanuel and Chris said, there were 3 large storage tanks holding this gas. All guarded but not too heavily. They must have figured there was no need for heavy duty security.
Spiderman needed to be crafty and safe about this. If he alerted them, the plan would be foiled. His plan was this: He would hang from the ceiling above one tank, drop down, stick a detonator on the tanks and activate it before moving on to the next. This is a plan that would require speed and stealth but he figured he would be able to handle it.
He shot his web to just above one tank so that he was hanging above it. He then dropped down and landed on top of the tank. No one noticed or even heard him. After Spiderman knew it was safe, he placed the detonator on top of the tank and turned the switch, activating it. He could see a countdown from one minute and thirty seconds downwards.
Spiderman needed to hurry. He quickly shot back up the ceiling and moved on to the next tank. This one he did even quicker.
"About 75 seconds left" Spiderman thought as he moved onto the last one.
As he was hanging upside down and landed on the tank, a nearby hooded figure noticed him and got out a form of air gun. He aimed it at Spiderman and shot it at him.
Luckily for Spiderman though, his spider sense went off and quickly moved out of the way before he even pulled a trigger. A dart shot right past him.
"Woah now. Didn't your mother ever teach you not to play with airguns? You could shoot your eye out with those, you know?" Spiderman quipped.
"It's Spiderman!" The hooded figure said.
"Stop him! He's trying to blow up the tanks" Another said.
The hero was suddenly surrounded by a group of around 5 hooded figures. One came at him, revealing a knife from under his wrist and charged at him. Spiderman ducked, moved behind him, put the hooded man's arms together and tied his hands together with a shot of his webs.
"Woah, that's really cool…if not utterly creepy" Spiderman said, examining the knife. His spidey sense went off again and jumped straight up in the air, causing a hooded woman to run right into the tank. The woman dropped to the floor and groaned in pain as she held her nose.
"Sorry. You wouldn't believe how many times that's happened to me" Spiderman said, bringing some levity in the situation.
The 3 other hooded figures charged at him. Spiderman kicked one in the chest, sending them back and as the others tried to delve those blades they had hidden in their sleeve into his throat, he ducked again, moves quickly behind them and bashed their heads together. The impact knocked them out almost instantly.
The young man figured there was only about 30 seconds left before the explosives went off so he quickly put the last detonator on the tank, activated it and shot a web to the vent he came in from, paying no mind to the other hooded criminals quickly coming his way.
Spiderman quickly dived into the vent and maneuvered his way through until he was outside again. He quickly swung a web and leaped off the building. Seconds later, an explosion went off. Not a big one so that eased the young man's mind about it hurting anyone.
Spiderman could hear the panic and the gas spread even from outside. He swung to the building where Emmanuel and Chris were still standing. They were grinning pretty wildly.
Seconds after, he could hear another explosion from the building, and then about a minute after, another one. He knew it was sleeping gas but he kind of winced.
He sent a tip to Captain Stacy about the warehouse and the criminals with the sleeping gas. He also sent a tip to wear gas masks. He then suggested to his friends they get out of here.
"Agreed. I think we've done our part here. Well done, Spiderman. You did a good service here tonight" Chris said.
"So this is what your group does?" Peter asked, curiously.
"Well yes and no. A lot of people in our group fight from the inside while some fight these criminals head on" Emmanuel explained.
"Hm…alright. I think I'll do a trial run and see if this Templar thing works out" Spiderman said, finally starting to get on board.
"Great! Glad to hear it!" Emmanuel said, excitedly.
"Alright. I'll see you guys tomorrow" Spiderman said as he again leaped off the building and swung towards home.
Chris and Emmanuel then began to walk away, going towards an elevator that would take them to the parking garage that would take them to their limousine waiting for them.
The same hooded young man who spied on Peter, Emmanuel and Chris a few nights back watched from another building from binoculars and glared. This was going too far. He needed to get a handle on this or things will get even worse. He made a mental note to inform his mentor and then ran off into the shadows of the building, soon disappearing from the building all together.
(A/N: Thanks for reading. Please leave a review if you liked it or have constructive criticism to give. Please give a favorite and an alert if you liked it).