So I've seen the movie twice now and it doesn't have a lot of influence on this story, so I'll probably go in an alternate timeline direction. In other news, I have a new-ish story called Boys Support Boys which does take influence from Far From Home and Endgame. You don't have to read it just like you don't have to read this one, either.

Chapter 9- Ned

The waiting was the worst. Both Shuri and Peter had gone quiet. Maybe they were locked in combat with some mysterious force. Maybe something really bad was happening. Maybe they were gone. What scared him more than the silence was trying to break it. If he called out to Peter and Shuri and they didn't answer he would have confirmation. Fortunately, he still had the trackers. He could see them moving. That was good. It wasn't exactly enough to calm his racing heart, but if he blamed his heartbeat on the Red Bull he felt a little better.

To ease his mind further, he began to sketch some ideas for those upgrades Shuri had referenced. One idea, in particular, kept him going. What if he had a way to see through Peter's eyes? What better way to be Peter's guy in the chair and have his back than to be able to see and process what Peter saw? He'd obviously have to adapt Karen. Well, someone would have to adapt Karen. Would that be disrespectful to Tony Stark? Probably not…

As he sketched he tried to keep awake, loathing the fact that he had school tomorrow, no, I guess now it would be later today, not tomorrow. He doubted his ability to stay awake through classes. At least his homework had been taken care of by a more awake version of himself. Though he had had contact with Peter for maybe half an hour now he hadn't remembered to turn off his text blast invention. Now he securely shut it down, throwing it in as an option for his own personal Karen adaption. And, while he was at it, he came up with a name and an acronym for what he had previously been calling, "New Karen." He first had to gender his AI, recalling that his standard preference for Siri and his GPS was male. He scribbled the name KNIGHT in his notebook to see if he could come up with an equally cool sounding acronym. He managed to come up with "Kid needing intel gotta help," and he fell short after that because he couldn't come up with any good names or nicknames for Peter that started with T. In his sleep-deprived phase he laughed at the prospect of the name KNIGHP for his highly advanced and highly theoretical piece of AI. Then he started thinking about upgrades, which make him think about the song Upgrade from Be More Chill, whose Broadway debut had happened while he was blipped out of existence (not cool) and which gave him thee more ideas for his AI. The names Michael and Jeremy felt too long or clunky for his acronym. So how about George, Will, or Joe? George Salazar and a tale of two Wills had played the leading men, with Joe Iconis providing the stellar writing. "Just overriding evolution," or, "Willingly inviting life's lemons," okay maybe he shouldn't allude to lemons in the fanfiction age, maybe, "Gotta earn overwhelming respect, genius, einstein…." Okay, now he was going insane. Deep breath, calm down, stick with Joe. Joe had been decent.

Now that Joe was planned out, Ned sat back, expecting to hear nothing more than silence on the other end. The silence was the box holding Schrödinger's cat. The cat and his friends were both dead and alive in the silence. That's why he'd spent twenty minutes crafting an acronym for AI that didn't exist yet. But when he listened, he could hear something. The cat box was still intact, but Ned now faced death alone.

"Ned Leeds, I need you to tell me the location of my sister." Ned freaked out and fell backward out of his chair.

"Who are you?"

"I am T'challa, King of Wakanda and you're the last known contact for my little sister. Carefully consider your answer, where is she?" Ned didn't know how he'd been keeping Peter's secret for so long. He didn't manage to keep this one. He was terrified.

"She's in New York, rescuing the Spiderman…" He blurted. There was silence over the line.

"Shuri?" Ned called out into his kimoyo beads, taking a peek in Schrödinger's box.

"Yeah? Is this urgent?" The cat was alive, for now. She sounded like she was in the midst of a battle that he was very concerned about.

"Somewhat, your brother just contacted me."

Shuri sounded grim, "We'll cross that bridge when he gets here."

Ned waited for a moment, wondering which Wakandan royal would speak first.

"My sister has made it impossible for me to track her tonight. Where is your Spiderman?" T'challa demanded.

"They're at Oscorp's main building. I'm really sorry about this, I don't want Shuri getting hurt either, but my friend is in danger."

"Fight your own battles," T'challa threatened, though he was proud of his sister for helping people. He was just scared.

"I can't. I'm just the guy in the chair. Shuri is strong and tough and I know that she can take care of herself. I'm nothing in comparison." Ned broadcasted this to T'challa, Shuri, and Peter, as well as anyone who was awake in his house at that hour.

"Shuri is strong and tough, and she makes her own decisions and fights whatever battles she pleases," much to his displeasure, "so I'm not going to blame you or your Spiderman for this. But that does not mean I trust you." Ned didn't really know what Shuri and Peter were facing off against at Oscorp, but it couldn't possibly be scarier than the Black Panther saying that he didn't trust you. When was that shoe going to drop? Ned would probably spend the rest of his life terrified that one day the King of Wakanda was just going to be like, "never liked you, Ned," and drop kick him off the empire state building or something. Ned's anxieties, before Peter had become Spiderman, had always been more dramatic than real life. Now real life was dramatic. Now his anxiety actually had real threats to deal with.