I gasped awake. Sitting up in bed, sweat trickling down my face, I tried to figure out what was happening.

There was a creak outside my door.

I rubbed at my face, groaning. I peeked through my fingers. I was at Visions. Ganke was below me gently snoring away and the ceiling was still popcorn-like. Everything was pretty normal. I didn't even feel the usual weight of dread in my stomach after a nightmare - I couldn't remember having one.

It was just a creak outside the door, no need to think about the scientists. And the needles. And the cramping pain from starving all the time. And-

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts like a dog shaking off snow. Just like a dog shaking off snow, they stubbornly stuck on.

I heard another creak and my head snapped back up. Ok, someone was definitely out there. I felt a whisper from my spider-sense, sending a shiver down my spine. Nothing bad, but something unpleasant was out there.

I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep if I didn't investigate.

I reluctantly crawled out of bed, taking the soft top blanket with me, and went over to the door. Peeking through the keyhole, I spotted two shadows moving around. Correction, two students whispering. Couldn't hear what they were saying though, they were being surprisingly quiet.

One of them brought something out of their pocket and approached the door. Yep, that was enough for me.

I stood straight back up and opened the door. Which caused the students to look pretty funny with their mouths open, ready to catch flies. In the black haired boy's hands he held a marker. The short haired, blonde girl was stock still and looked like she was ready to flee.

"You guys having fun out here?" I drawled, leaning against the door frame. The girl's mouth opened to say something, but the other was quick to interrupt.

"Oh, Miles! This is your dorm?" he asked, eyes going wide in an attempt to look innocent. I just pointedly looked at his hand, which still held the pen. He noticed and put it hastily back in his pocket, smiling wider.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," I said dryly. I yawned into my hand, I hadn't even checked what time I had been forced awake. Too late, or early, depending on perspectives. "What are you guys even doing?"

They both hesitated for a long moment before the girl sighed. "We got dared to draw a moustache on you in permanent marker."

I snorted. I couldn't be angry, they were just being stupid. "That never would have worked, I hope you know. I'm super powered and all."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah? You got a 'sixth sense' or something?"

"Yeah, actually," I grinned. The boy folded his arms, clearly not believing me.

"Sorry for waking you up," the girl interrupted before the boy could try and test my claim. "We'll go back. I am so not looking forward to having to lick the toilet seat."

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"It's what happens if you don't complete the dare. We're playing a game of truth or dare, dude."

"Ah, right." I paused for a second, thinking. "Can I join?" I folded the blanket up absently and tossed it on my bed.

That got me two shocked faces. The boy was the first to get a word out of his mouth. "You sure? I mean, you've never met most of us."

"Eh, it was about time I made a couple more friends. Lead the way." I realised I was basically inviting myself a second too late and hastily added, "If you guys want me to join of course."

They looked between each other. The boy shrugged, "I wanna prove that sixth sense is fake, don't know about you."

"Yeah, alright." The girl offered her hand. "My name's Gwen, he's Kevin." Huh, now that I was looking for it, I could really see the similarities between this Gwen and Spider-Gwen.

"You sure you're names not Gwanda?" I joked.

"Uh, no, I'm not from Africa," she said, eyeing me suspiciously.

I snorted, looking away. "Sorry, inside joke." Kevin gave me a confused look over her shoulder. I took her hand, shaking it. "If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been going here?"

"A while. Anyway, follow me," she said with a shrug, walking away with Kevin. I closed the bedroom door behind me and quickly matched pace with them.

We ended up in a dorm two corridors across from mine and Ganke's. The room was filled with three other kids, all in comfy pajamas.

"Yo, you were supposed to draw a moustache on him, not bring him along," one of the girls complained.

I raised an eyebrow, "I could go if you want me to?"

"Nah, stay, its whatever," she shrugged, leaning back on the frame of the bed.

"What are your names?" I asked.

'Why no moustache' girl spoke up, pointing to the respective people as she did so. "I'm Melissa, that's Phillip, Nat, Kevin and Gwen."

"Nice to meet you all," I said politely, while I sat down by the door. Gwen and Kevin took up what looked like their normal spots.

Kevin spoke up first, "I wanna ask Spider-Miles his first truth-or-dare."

I put my hands up, "Hang on, first of all, Spider-Miles? Second of all, sure go ahead."

Long-haired-dude beside me shrugged, "Didn't you know? That's what people are calling you now."

"I… ok, sure. Anyway, Kevin, hit me with a truth," I said. I could analyse how I feel about Spider-Miles later. I would never admit that it was a great way to distinguish Peter and I.

"Hmm, how did you get your powers?" He asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't you have a more interesting question? I got bit by a spider dude."

"Yeah," Phillip added, "Miles answered that on his tumblr."

"Huh, didn't even know people were looking at that to be honest," I mumbled, more to myself than them.

Melissia interrupted us, "Here's a better one, were you related to the prowler?"

I shifted uncomfortably, "How about dare?"

Gwen rolled her eyes, "Fine. I dare you to take a selfie with all of us in your mask and post it to your instagram."

I frowned and reluctantly pulled my mask out of my pocket. "Sure, I guess." I just wouldn't tell them that I would delete it five minutes after posting.

I gathered them all in the picture and put my mask on. I was quick to post it on instagram.

"Sweeet," Nat said, "now my instagram is totally going to blow up."

It was right about then that I realised why the whole 'making-new-friends' idea had been a really bad one. I ended up staying with them for another ten minutes before disappearing back to my dorm, tail between my legs.

Another day, another round of patrolling.

I felt like I was getting better at the whole 'people seeing my face while in the Spider-Man suit' thing, but it was still weird. I was probably never going to be completely used to it, but at the very least it seemed to make some people happy. I didn't really get it, it wasn't like I had been around as long as Peter, or even Peter B. Maybe it was that I was so new that people wanted to check me out? Or was it the novelty of a superhero with a mask but still knowing what's underneath?

I hadn't thought about what Peter had looked like under the mask, or who he was or what he got up to in his down time, until he had been unmasked. Spider-Man was just that- Spider-Man. A guy in a mask with super powers saving the city every couple weeks.

Until he died.

And now I was Spider-Man, and I was doing the superhero thing. For better or worse.

But, no matter what, saving the day and swinging through New York was awesome. Parkouring around, on and in buildings? Fantastic! Having some people actually like me and call out my name? Still weird, but incredible!

And even better than that, fighting people. I really wanted to punch a guy today, get rid of some of the restless energy that had been building and building.

A bank robbery was just what I wanted. I mean, when wasn't there a bank robbery? It felt like every week there was some group of wanna-be millionaires strutting into a bank and demanding money.

In fact, bank robberies were so routine at this point that I didn't even think about swinging straight into the building, ignoring the multitude of sirens wailing. The police hadn't gotten here yet, I absently noted to myself.

"You should have done this on a weekday! Honestly, you guys know my identity and you're just asking me to defeat you!" I yelled, strolling casually over the shattered glass. I guess the robbers of the day were still in the vault because there was no one in sight.

I vaulted myself over the counter, trying to see who I had to beat up first. It was eerie, like a horror movie. If only there was creepy music it would complete the atmosphere-

Spider-sense!

I threw myself to the floor, sheltering my head as the wall in front of me smashed to pieces, as if something had been tossed into it. And that something must have been big and heavy. I rolled myself to my feet. Just in time, too, because the ground where I had just been cracked with a solid 'BOOM.'

Right, an invisible man with super strength. Or invisible woman. Invisible person? "You camera shy or something?" I yelled at thin air, jumping over the counter once again and narrowly avoided being thrown across the room with the desk. The desk shattered to pieces when it hit the wall.

"You will not stop us!" the invisible goon yelled from somewhere closer to the vault. Were they like Juggernaut-big? I seriously hope not. That guy was scary enough without being invisible.

"You sure about that?" I retorted, earning myself another chunk of desk chucked at my head. This whole invisible thing was super annoying! I didn't know where I was supposed to punch!

Hmm, well, two could play at the invisible game. I dived for the closest desk and tipped it on its side, computer and all, sheltering me from their projectiles. Then I camouflaged. They couldn't see me, I couldn't see them. Fair's fair.

I heard their footsteps approaching the table and I got up, taking a few quiet steps away. There was a moment's pause before the goon came back into view, peering over the desk. He was wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest with two creepy owl like eyes on them. His face was obscured by a plain black helmet and he had a walkie-talkie strapped to his belt.

What was the most surprising, however, was the fact that he didn't look any more beefed up than a normal fit person. I could have sworn with the amount of damage he caused...

He looked around for a long moment, not seeing me anywhere, before grabbing his walkie-talkie. "The brat's scampered off, lets go!"

There was a commotion of noise from the vault. My chance to stop them was slipping by, I had to move. I leapt forward, grabbing at his helmet while at the same moment kneeing the invisible goon in the groin. The goon crumpled in on himself and I pushed him down into the ground, smothering him in webs in the same moment. There, that should do it. Even I wasn't strong enough to break fresh webbing, and I was pretty strong. He should be out of the fight.

I took a deep breath and let the camouflage seep away. I stretched, ignoring the familiar ache from camouflaging. This wasn't over, clearly. There were other people hanging around stealing stuff. But I had a moment to spare, it was fine.

When I skidded to a stop in front of the entrance to the vault, I immediately found twenty or so men holding bags overflowing with cash and gold. They were all wearing similar gear to the invisible goon, creepy owl eyes and all. "Seriously, guys, did you have to be so stereotypical?" I complained.

One of them made a mad dash, probably to try and get out of here, or attack me. Either way, I thwipped a big spider web to cover the entrance, blocking their escape route. With five of those webs in place, there was no way they were getting out until the police got here.

There was some pretty loud cursing, one guy got himself stuck in the webs and another threw his bag down hard. I pointedly ignored them. I made my way towards the door to see where the police were at when the invisible goon piped up. "Don't you even want to know where I got my powers, twerp?"

I paused mid-step and folded my arms. "Uh, wasn't really thinking of that. Why? Should I want to know?"

I couldn't see the guys face, but I could hear the thick, smug grin as he said, "Oh, you really do. I've got you to thank, after all."

A shiver went up my spine. I swallowed. So the scientists had been able to do it, even without my oh-so-precious blood. They had been lying to me. "So, they figured out my powers, huh?"

"Oh, more than that. We know everything there is to know about you. We didn't even need your blood, the DNA you left scattered everywhere was enough for us. You really should be more careful with these types of things," he said, turning his head towards me. The effectiveness of his intimidation was somewhat taken away by the fact he looked like a turtle.

I shrugged like I didn't care, starting forward again. "Couldn't really do that with the whole kidnapping thing. Hope your jail cell is nice and cold!"

"Don't you want to know who I'm with?" the invisible goon demanded.

I frowned, stopping again. "Do you want me to interrogate you? Because you're basically doing the job for me, you know."

He laughed like I had just told him the funniest joke. "Even if you know our name, you'll never be able to stop us. Even Mr. Fisk is powerless against us."

"Huh, well that takes away my first guess of who's behind this. But seriously, stop with the 'he-said, she-said. What are you called?" I asked. At least when I had nightmares about all this later, it would be convenient to know what my enemies were called.

"The Owls," he declared.

I snorted, "Yeah, I could have guessed that. Your costume department did a pretty good job on that front." I could see red and blue flashing lights at the entrance and two figures moving towards the bank. "Anyway, I have better things to do than talk to you. Bye."

I strolled up to the policemen. One of them, at the sight of me, put his gun away and tipped his hat. "Miles."

"I'm on the job, fellas, you can call me Spidey, Spider-Man, Spectacular, or all of the above." I motioned to the chaos inside. "Sorry about the desks, the invisible guy didn't like my attitude much."

"I'm sure you did your best son. Can you help us clear the webbing so we can jail these folks?" the second policeman asked.

"Uh, yeah, sure. There's about twenty guys in the vault, and one super powered, invisible, strong guy wrapped up in webs. You might want to call a couple more guys down," I said, rubbing absently at my neck.

"We'll do that. You happy to give a statement on what happened?" the first one asked, gesturing to his colleague to go call some back up.

"Yeah, sure thing. Happy to be of service." I said.

If I still felt off balance by my DNA being in the hands of the enemy, well, that was a freak out for when I got home. Not now, I still had a job to do.

A couple hours later, I was sitting on a rooftop with a taco in one hand, phone in the other, and a police scanner quietly murmuring in the background. Turns out there was, in fact, an app for that.

It would feel nicer, though, if it wasn't for the raging anxiety making my hands shake.

Me: Ganke, I'm serious, I don't know what to do. Theres another Kingpin situation going down and they've got my super powers!

Ganke: Well, you only mentioned the guy being invisible and having super strength. Maybe they have some but not all of them?

Me: Yeah, but even one of my powers could chaos a lot of damage

Me: Like, imagine my villains all having my spider-sense

Me: How would I beat them then?!

Ganke: Idk, but you have spider-sense too, so at least it would be a fair battle?

Me: It's not fair if they have more years of experience fighting than I do!

Ganke: Ah, right

Ganke: What are all your powers anyway?

Me: Spider-sense, super strength, venom strike, camouflage, I'm really bendy which is cool and sticking to stuff

Me: Oh and I heal super fast

Super healing had saved my butt more times than I could say. It was so useful. Except for the metabolism which came with it.

Ganke: Neat

Me: I might get more, you never know

Ganke: More? You've had your powers for like a year and a half dude. Shouldn't you know all your powers by now?

Me: Yeah, but I'm also a growing teenage boy

Me: And I haven't been in half as many fights as Peter, or even like a fraction

Me: So, maybe I'll develop one in my 'hour of need'

Ganke: Well, if you do you have to tell me straight away

Me: Yeah, yeah

Ganke: I want to know before the masses!

Me: I might not get the chance, depending on how I get them

Me: But anyway, new superpowers or not, VILLAINS HAVE MY SUPER POWERS

Ganke: Right, that thing

Ganke: Whats your plan of attack?

Me: I was hoping you had some ideas

Ganke: Well, do you still not know who the scientists who got your DNA are?

Me: Nope, I was avoiding that area of Brooklyn like the plague tbh

Ganke: Well, then its obvious!

Ganke: Go investigate dude! If you know the enemy, you might be able to get more intel

Me: You do know this isn't a spy movie. "Intel"

Me: You're sure a nerd

Ganke: Yes I am

Me: But I already know who it was

Me: The Owls

Ganke: Huh?

Me: I know, never heard of them either. I think they're trying to be the new Kingpin or whatever

Ganke: But what if they're getting the DNA from some other organisation?

Me: …

Me: Well, that'll be even worse

Ganke: If you go investigate, you'll find out!

Me: I'll do that

Me: After I've finished my taco

Ganke: You got tacos?

Me: Yep

Me: From taco bell too

Ganke: Lucky! Now you've made me hungry :(

Me: Sounds like a you problem

Me: Alright, I'll tell you how it goes

Ganke: Good luck dude

I turned my phone off and stuffed it in my suits nifty pockets. I was so glad Aunt May had reminded me about pockets when we made this spare suit a couple of months before my kidnapping. They were super useful.

I even put in extra padding around it so my super activites wouldn't break things, like, instantly.

I swallowed the last bite and crumpled up the wrapper. I really, really didn't want to go back there. But the bad guys had my DNA, and this was probably urgent enough for me to go back to that place.

Life, why do you have to be like this? I just wanted to never go back there, ever, in my whole entire life. It wasn't much to ask, but apparently, I can't have nice things.