I OWN NOTHING

AN: Welp, we have hit that point in the story where the main characters have been established. In each update I'll be dedicating mini-chapters to each character while progressing the plot to form bigger "chapters," the biggest mini-chapters belonging to Peter and Kim, of course. I might start doing this for some of my other stories, as it has worked in my DBZ/Everybody stories (if interested, just start with 'Dark Tournament' and go to 'Expedition'), however I will not suddenly start doing it with long running stories like The New Face of Justice until the next book of the series (Oh yeah, Book 2, TNFoJ readers, but not now).

Peter

"Harry!" Peter shouted across the hallway of what seemed like an office building for the school. The wall sign with "Undergraduate Affairs: Room 283" had several large fist-shape holes in it and the windows showing the beauty of the Rocky Mountains in the distance had been shattered. Empty gas cans littered the floor and Peter's surroundings seemed to be dampened in a soft, dead gray. Peter ducked a punch from a man in a black suit and threw his own, twisting as the impact spread across the man's chest. The man in black flew across the hallway and Peter looked down the hallway in distress, watching a young man wearing a green and black armored jumpsuit barely keeping up with three men in suits. Four more men charged toward Peter and the young hero vaulted over them. Peter aimed his web shooters at Harry's adversaries but nothing came out. "Come on, come on!" He looked down at his wrist, seeing the small circular device on his costume smoking and sputtering sparks. His eyes widened and he let the sudden surge of adrenalin propel him forward and onto the ground as a small RPG flew overhead. Peter tried his other wrist and a familiar white beam of dense and sticky polymers caught the weapon. The missile dragged him across the room and the agents fighting Harry hit the floor. Peter cut the web line and hopped to his feet next to his friend. Harry was roughly as tall as Peter with light skin and short, straight, dark brown hair. He wore a green and black facemask to compliment his outfit but a long gash above his eyebrows made it hard to see through them. "Grab on, Harry; I don't know what either of us are doing here, but I think it's safe to say that this isn't the best place to be."

"Really?" Harry said, catching his breath. "What gave you that bright idea?"

Peter and Harry darted toward the open window at the end of the hall and they leaped out, looking down and seeing ant-sized black trucks similar to what a SWAT team might come in. Harry caught Peter's arm and Spider-Man shot a webline at a building a few meters shorter than the office building. He yanked the line toward the building and the surge of adrenalin he called his "Spider Sense" forced him to let go of that webline as a flying disc cut it in half. He turned toward the source and his eyes widened. He threw Harry onto the roof of the building they were headed. "We'll talk later. I have to take care of this."

"Yeah, sure, just throw me," Harry said, landing not very gracefully on his feet.

Spider-Man turned his full attention on the redheaded girl and blond boy wearing black jumpsuits and riding sleek, Omega-shaped hover devices riding fast toward him. He fired a webline at the blond boy and whipped him through the window of the office building before taking a hard kick by the redhead to the face. Spider-Man caught himself on the side of the shorter building and flipped upward, landing next to Harry. "Do we have to do this, Kim?" Peter asked, seeing his new friend's eyes narrow as she ascended to their level.

"You knew this was coming, Pete," Kim said venomously. Her mouth opened wide and a blaring beeping noise shook Peter to the core, making Harry and everything else disappear before everything went black.

Peter's eyes flew open and he leaped out of bed, webbing himself above Gil's bed. He looked down and Gil, with all of his friends, were laid out on the bed and the floor haphazardly. He carefully and quietly made his way down and turned off his phone alarm that he would now forever associate with Kim's mouth. He shook himself awake. He didn't get much sleep, and fighting friends and foes in dreams wasn't very new to him. "Fifteen minutes until class starts, right, right," he said to himself, hopping into a white tee shirt with a red, white, and blue shield finished with a white star in the middle of it and a pair of jeans. He sprayed himself with a bit too much body spray and put on his glasses, taking his backpack and coughing out of the room. He continued to get himself ready in the elevator, using a water bottle for brushing his teeth and his phone for a mirror. Thankfully, no one else needed the elevator. He stepped outside his building and took a deep sigh of relief. "Ten minutes to do a fifteen minute run to Pementil Hall," he said to himself, throwing out his water bottle. "Easy, easy, come on Spidey," he muttered under his breath, starting to run as fast as he could. He pushed his glasses as far up as they could go and dashed across the street, running every red light and dodging cars at the large four-way intersection known as the "Misty Market" as most of the stores and restaurants affiliated with the school were located there. Five blocks later he crossed the street that sequestered the M.I.S.T chemistry block from downtown Middleton. Peter ran up a steep sidewalk hill and toward the four-building complex, slowing down and joining the flow of early bird chemistry students. He saw a shaggy blond head ahead of him in the growing crowds and felt quite confused. "Gil?" he shouted.

The blond's head perked up. "Yo?" he said, turning around in a tank top with the California bear symbol on it in red and cargo shorts. "Peter!" he said, swimming through the people to his roommate. "Tsup, bro?"

Gil looked like he hadn't broken a sweat. "Not much, uh," Peter said, still awestruck. "How did you get here before me?"

A deer-in-headlights stare slapped Gil's face. "I… just walk fast, I guess? I dunno, man; I left the room like, five minutes ago. Why?"

"You weren't even awake when I left and I had to run here!" Peter said.

"Huh," Gil chuckled. "Weird. Maybe you're a slow runner?"

"Next time, invite me to go with you," Peter said.

"Sure thing, brah," Gil laughed, "I'm going in. Try to keep up."

Hundreds of students filed into the circular lecture hall labeled "Pementil Hall" in gold above the side entrance. It was fairly old, with plaques dedicated to the long list of Nobel Prize winners in faded bronze on the brick walls curving inward toward the two sets of double doors leading into the hall.

"I gotta use it," Gil said, turning around and heading down a flight of stairs on the outer wall of the inside of the building to the bathroom on the ground floor, "find us some seats in the front."

"Got it," Peter said, opening one door and peering down the rows that were comprised of over five hundred seats. Most of them were already taken, but the row in the front with the older, wooden desk chairs were completely empty. "Yikes," he said to himself, "when they said 'get here early,' maybe I should have listened." He started down the steps, looking right into the rows for anybody else he knew. "Never too late to start thinking about finals groups." He stepped onto the floor, seeing an empty podium with a laptop sitting open on it and the front row directly adjacent to it. He looked at the stairwell at the other end of the lecture room and his jaw dropped. Gil already took the seat at the end of the row. He sat down next to his roommate.

"Oh yeah, I'm back," Gil said nonchalantly, turning his attention to the group of sliding chalkboards and the large projector screen above them that put any IMAX screen to shame. "You know the front wall spins, right? That's hella dope!"

"Hello, everyone," Ann Possible's voice said from the back of the room. The entire class turned around and saw the red-headed doctor in her white lab coat and holding a cup of Starbucks, quickly making her way to the front of the room. "I hope you're excited to start your journey in the jungle of chemistry and quantitative analysis; I'll be your guide, and try to keep your hands and legs inside the vehicle at all times, not many students like the ride because it tends to get a bit-" She yelped and nearly fell down the stairs. She caught the railing. "bumpy at times." She made it to the floor and glanced at Peter and Gil before turning to her laptop. The projection screen turned from a blue screen to an enhanced view of the boards of the front of the room. "A few things about my class: be on time. We start on time all the time, if I'm not here, I will lose out on valuable note-taking time and whoever decides to be the professor that day has to scold me."

The class let out a murmur of a laugh in response.

"Try not to take too many notes," Professor Possible said, "I post the slides and the lectures online so watch the lecture now and absorb it later."

About a fourth of the class stood up and left, and in the small commotion Peter watched Ron snake his way to the front of the class and sit right next to Peter.

"Hey Pete, what did I miss?" he whispered, keeping the Rufus-shaped bulge in his shirt still. "Rufus ate too much last night so I was a bit late crushing his Tums into his Mister Fizz."

"Not much, she's just explaining the syllabus and-"

"No talking during class," Ann said, shooting a serious look at Peter. "There will be plenty of time to do that when I'm not looking. Finally, my office hours are from five to seven, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Any questions? No? Let's get started. For those sitting in the front, good luck on the questions I may ask during the lecture to make sure you're awake. I'm a bit excited; I haven't had a chance to use them since 2003. Sorry about the chairs. No one ever sits in the front during my class."

Peter swallowed nervously. He'd set his alarm earlier for Wednesday.


Ron

"Keep your pants on, Rufus!" Ron half-whispered to the naked mole rat with stomach issues in his shirt, returning to the flashes of texts and symbols on the chalkboard as Mrs. Possible blew threw four lines of chemical equations. Ron glanced over at the kid from New York's notebook. If the guy wrote any faster, the pencil would catch flame. He looked at his own notebook, and he was doing well at first, but it devolved into drawings of his dreamed mechanical projects and monsters. He knew what lecture he was watching tonight.

"Oh!" Mrs. Possible piped, hearing a musical alarm on her computer go off in a tune that lifted Ron's confidence a bit. "That's nine o'clock; oh well, see you Wednesday and your first online quiz is due on Friday."

The class started chattering about everything and the students filed out. Ron saw Peter and his roommate talking about the lecture that nearly went over his head as they walked out. Mrs. Possible really hit the ground running. Rufus's head popped out of Ron's shirt and the mole rat started squeaking. "How are you doing, little buddy?" he said. "Don't worry, one more class and then breakfast. Nothing too bad for Ron Stoppable and Rufus, right?"

Rufus made a groaning sound before sinking into his owner's shirt.

"Just hold out, alright?" Ron said a bit louder, not noticing all of the strange stares he was receiving as he walked down two blocks. He crossed the street into the gray, metallic, Engineering block with ten to twelve tall buildings on a flat and paved plaza. He found the whole plaza boring and robotic. "I really hope the classes aren't this lifeless," he said, his eyes widening, "I have to make sure our mascot won't be this lifeless!" A boost of urgency, due to the time restraints between classes, worry about his mascot tryouts, and having to pee, pushed him from the start of the block to the inside of a thin building labeled "Corey Hall." Immediately Ron's nostrils were assaulted by the thick scent of burning electronics and heavy metallic odors. This hall wasn't as cool as the last one, Corey's first floor was a ghost town of blinking lights and old, unused lockers with large metal doors for the engineering labs. He found the nearest staircase and scaled four flights with ease, seeing the side of Peter's head before it vanished into a small classroom. He looked at the clock next to the door and took a quick breath of relief. He rushed into the room as the door closed, hitting him on the butt and sending him skipping forward into the professor. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, hitting the carpet and hearing papers going up into the air.

"Mister Stoppable," the professor said in a serious tone.

"I'm so so sorry," Ron said, scrambling around the floor grabbing as many papers and folders as he could. "Professor-" Ron looked up at the man he throttled and felt a mix of shock and relief. "Possible?!"

Ron could tell Kim's dad was fighting a grin and the professor helped him up. He smiled at his best friend's dad. "Sorry about that."

"Here you are, professor," Peter said from his side. Ron turned to the kid from New York and saw nearly all of the papers the doctor had dropped in a perfect stack. Ron looked at the crinkled bunch of papers in his hands and back at Peter and the rest of the class impatiently staring at him.

"Thanks," the professor said, taking the papers and setting them on the large brown desk at the front of the small classroom. "You can sit down now."

"Oh, yeah," Ron said, nervously chuckling his way to the desk directly in front of Peter.

"Hey Ron," Peter said with a small grin.

"Hi," Ron said, sitting down and rubbing Rufus's back through the shirt. He hushed Rufus and took out his notebook and pencil, looking up and nearly yelping at the walls of text on the whiteboard.

"Welcome to Engineering for the Physical and Life Sciences; I know I'm known for my work in Physics but biological engineering is where the field is headed," Kim's dad said, writing his name on the board with his office hours. "I'm not going to be as long-winded as other professors you may have had today, so I'll just open this class with a question: how are nature and engineering related? Think about that question for a couple minutes, talk about it with your neighbors- there are only eighteen kids in this lecture so feel free to get to know them- and don't raise your hand. Just brainstorm for a few minutes in small groups of three or four, then we'll begin today's lesson."

The class came alive with taking and Ron turned around in his seat, seeing Peter, Peter's roommate, and a frail, pale-skinned boy with jet-black hair and goggle-like glasses. He wore a black tee-shirt with a block of coding he couldn't understand and a distinct silver ring with a small metallic diamond rising over the knuckle. He wore all black.

He looked at his three partners, he guessed, and spoke first. "Hey guys, I'm Ron, from Middleton, majoring in mechanical engineering, and this is Rufus." The naked mole rat's head popped out from his shirt and the goggled kid recoiled in disgust.

"What in the hell is that?" he said with a thick, high-pitched Eastern European accent.

"My service animal," Ron lied, shooting a glare at the international student.

"Well he shouldn't be here," he bit back. "He should be in a lab."

"You don't get to tell me who should be where," Ron said, followed by a nod and angry chittering from Rufus. He wasn't going to let anyone diss his numero uno. "Naked mole rats have made a ton of contributions to engineering like anything digging and tunneling, so you can-"

"I am here on a Mensa Merit scholarship, full ride and don't have to work a job until I have my PhD," the accented boy said. "You look like you were the 'holistic' admit to make the school look like it doesn't care about the numbers, degenerate white trash."

"Hey, hey, just chill out," Gil said, putting his index finger up to the lips of both Ron and the black-haired boy. Ron tried to move Gil's arm away but found Peter's roommate surprisingly firm. "It's little dudebro's like Rufus that give us the inspiration, man."

"Get your hand away from me," the boy in black snarled. "The sooner we get this pointless exercise over with, the better."

"Then I'll go next," Gil said with a content grin. "Name's Gil, from SoCal, chemical engineering major, and to elaborate on what I said before: when we see birds, mammals, insects, y'know, we think 'how can we make something easier like they did' and then we copy them. Life and machinery compliment each other, man. Life is driven by mechanisms but without life, those mechanisms have no purpose."

Ron was taken back a bit. He never would have expected that to come out of someone as laid back as Gil. "And going back to rodents," Peter said, "many of the algorithms that determine how diseases are spread and how we orient quadrupedal machines use the structure of rodents. It's not just in function, but in the anatomical-"

"Who are you?" the boy in black said, "and did I give you permission to talk during my turn?"

"Peter, Queens, New York, biochemistry and biomedical engineering," Peter said, sounding less excited. "Go ahead."

"Well it's about time," the boy in black said, "my name is Dmitry Semjonov, hailing from Mumansk- in Russia, I'm guess you didn't know- majoring in biochemistry and biomedical engineering as well. You are both wrong: nature and engineering have the aspect of control around them. They are our tools, we are simply smart enough to know that we can place ourselves above other beings by putting them down and reinventing them to better suit our needs. We, I at least, can become gods among men by lowering the floor for everyone else, and I plan on doing just that. Look at the greats: Doctor Octopus, Vulture, Electro, Sandman- they have all used nature for their bidding and I plan to do the same thing. Stay out of my way."

Gil and Peter glanced at each other and at Ron uneasily. Peter seemed the most disturbed by it. Welcome to the West, guy.

"Way to state your motive," Ron said.

"What did you say?" Dmitry asked, staring at the blonde with his beady eyes intently.

"Nothing," Ron said, writing down Dmitry's name in his notebook for future reference. Ron's hunch on things like undercover crazies was usually correct, even if Kim found some of his theories a bit farfetched.

"Alright," Mister Possible said, silencing the class and pulling Ron's attention back to the board. The professor curled his arms in the air slowly for the whole class to see the motion. "I heard many answers out there, some a bit more interesting than others, but something we can all agree on is being presented by my gains."

Some of the class laughed. Ron related the equation written on the board to the curling motion, but that was about it. "That underlying principles of physics and mathematics can be used to explain both," Dmitry blurted. "Professor, would you mind fixing your mobility formula? It's completely incorrect; how unexpected. I thought you were the best."

The class went silent and Ron's jaw dropped. Rufus's eyes widened and he sunk into Ron's front pocket. "Excuse me?" Kim's dad said, his face no longer kindly smiling.

"No, it's correct, he just simplified it by pulling out the multiplicative of the function after the infinite sum," Peter said from behind Ron. The blond tried to make sense of what was on the board and even though he could, he started to think that maybe he wasn't the most experienced freshman in the room. Ron glanced at Dmitry who was glaring a hole in the side of Peter's head. He turned his attention back to the board and gasped. Kim's dad had moved on and was writing faster, adding formula after formula on the board. Ron feverishly started writing down what was on the board, while being mindful to write Dmitry's name down every now and again. He wondered how her morning was going. No way could it get worse than embarrassment, getting insulted, and hand cramps to really kick in the school year, but he was excited anyway. With her on the cheer squad and him in the mascot suit, it'd just be like old times.


Kim

The attention was great, but after four years, being the public hero could get a bit annoying. One of the few things she missed about high school was that everyone knew who she was and they were over it within the month, except for Bonnie, and she knew that. At a giant school with thousands of students, it would be a bit harder for everyone to forget. She's saved the world once or twice before anyone outside Middleton knew the world was in danger, and thismade her afraid to go outside sometimes. She and Bonnie stood in the elevator, waiting to rush to the breakfast halls before they closed at noon. So was everyone else. The elevator was packed and a taller guy's constant fidgeting to pull his phone out of his pocket kept messing with her hair and bumping the back of her head. She wore a plain purple V-neck tee shirt and green cargo shorts with tennis shoes and would have to change into something more sporty for tryouts later that day, but she was in a rush. "Excuse me," she said to the student with phone troubles, having to look up at the mountainous young man, "your elbow keeps hitting my head."

"Maybe it'll fix something in there," Bonnie said. She was already in her sports shorts and black tank top. Kim never really liked to wish ill on someone, but if Bonnie didn't make cheer, Kim wouldn't be necessarily angry about it.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the tall man said, turning to face the redhead in the cramped elevator. He looked down and gasped. "You're Kim Possible, right? I'm from San Diego and we absolutely love you down there!"

At times, she couldn't wait to meet the fans. "I'm flattered," Kim said, half laughing. "Thank you. It really means a lot to know that people know I'm on their side."

"So then you are Kim?" the girl standing next to Bonnie said, pushing past the brunette with her phone drawn. "My friends back home won't believe I'm going to school with the Kim Possible." The fan put her arm around Kim and kept the flash on, taking three photos with the half-smiling hero before she said something. "Oh, sorry; I should have asked if you-"

"No, it's fine," Kim said, shuffling uncomfortably in the elevator. She stood on her tiptoes to look at the floor number. She swallowed nervously as the elevator ringed to stop on another floor. By the time they hit the first floor, ten people had taken more than forty pictures with her. The door to the ground floor opened and everyone spilled out, with a few more devoted fans following Kim.

"Come on, Kim," Bonnie said with a devious grin, "you know you love it. Of course you would like ten more selfies, absolutely she can autograph your folders, and-" She took a shorter boy by the arm and nearly pushed him into Kim. "Kim, you said you'd take him out, right?"

The boy hopped back, his face beet red with embarrassment. "What what what-"

"Bonnie, knock it off!" Kim exclaimed with an angry scowl, turning back to the pranked classmate. "She's just joking, don't take it seriously, okay?"

Her kimmunicator went off in her pocket. "The brave and gallant, off again to save a day with her boyfriend-"

"Shhhh!" Kim said, pulling the purple smartphone-styled device from her pocket. She let out a sigh of relief as "Wade is calling" scrolled across the screen instead of Betty's. She had enough of the GJN to last her awhile after yesterday's indoctrination to the evil of mutants. Her own experiences have her always at odds with mutantkind, but she was a bit suspicious over Betty's sudden urgency to capture a particular mutant, when certainly they could have gone out and found anyone themselves if SHIELD was as loud about their operations as she said. There was something she wasn't telling Kim, but she had felt that way since she set out on her first mission under them. She tapped the green icon. "What's the sitch?" she said quickly.

"A collection of hairy dweebs are robbing the Middleton National Bank on Fifth Street and DeLacey," Wade said, taking a long sip of soda. "They're carrying some pretty heavy weaponry so I wouldn't recommend trying to take them all at once, and there are quite a few of them."

"Don't worry," Kim said, "with Ron and Rufus there, they'll be outnumbered. Watch for me on the news at noon, will you?"

"Of course, now get going," Wade said, "the bank isn't going to un-rob itself."

"Bonnie!" Kim loudly, seeing Bonnie about to go into the dining hall.

"What?" Bonnie said, sounding annoyed already.

"Did you lock our window?" Kim asked.

"No, why-"

"Yes!" Kim said, running around the back of the building and whipping out a grappling gun from her pocket and firing it at the window to their room. She quickly threw on her mission outfit and jumped out the window, racing across campus and downtown toward the bank.

"Kim! Wait up!" she heard her sidekick shout from behind her. She turned around, bouncing on her toes as Ron pushed past people sprinting down the sidewalk in his black sweater and cargo pants.

"Ron, come on!" Kim said, turning back around and darting forward again. The duo made impressive time, traveling two miles on foot, flipping over cars, grappling onto streetlamps, even using the hood of some cars as temporary transport, but they still weren't fast enough. As Kim approached the concrete steps to the large, square, glassy bank building, a familiar projecting sound made her stop cold. She looked up, seeing a streak of red and blue in the clear blue sky dart toward the rotating doors on a line of white, sticky material that acted like a grappling hook.

"That guy again?" Ron said.

"Spider-Man," Kim said sternly, racing toward the doors of the bank. "Get ready for a fight, Ron."

"Aw man!" Ron whined, running into the building behind her.

Kim looked around the room, seeing seven beefy men in black ski masks with machine guns. Three of them stood behind the bank teller counters in the back of the building, two were on the main floor, one stood in front of a door labeled "employees only" behind the bank counters while the seventh one made his way up the stairs with several empty duffel bags. The two men on the main floor seemed to be too occupied to notice her, as they were emptying their magazines at something on the high ceiling. "Get the bastard!" one of the men shouted. He screamed as two sticky white beams grabbed him and his friend by the shoulders, yanking them into the air and suspending them. Some of the panicked bullet spray flew toward the doorway.

"Use the SPC!" Kim said, rolling out of the way and tossing one of her grappling hooks to Ron.

"Got it," Ron said, catching it and aiming at the teller counters.

Kim fired the hook behind the teller counters and hit the retract button, using it as a zip line over the counter. "I have a million things I'd rather be doing right now, so at least put up a good fight!" she said, sailing toward the three gunmen.

"No! Don't listen to her! Don't shoot us!" Ron exclaimed, flying toward them as well.

One of the gunmen took his eyes off the ceiling and gasped at the redhead quickly closing the gap. "Boys! We have bigger problems! It's Team-"

Kim didn't let him finish that statement by kicking him in the chest and taking his gun, whipping it at another gunmen but finding him and his friend already unconscious. "Ron, was that you?"

"I wish it was," Ron said, "he went toward the stairs!" Rufus crawled out of Ron's pocket and scampered up the stairs. Kim and Ron followed their companion, finding the gunmen waiting for them glued to the wall. Kim started to get annoyed and rushed into the back area, seeing five more gunmen plastered to the ceiling or on the ground with bruises. Kim growled in aggravation and made it to the room guarded by a tall steel door that had been blown apart by some kind of explosive.

She stepped into the small, boxy room with nothing but tall file cabinets that had been yanked open. Three men in masks with bags sat in the center of the room, tied up by the white substance and knocked out. Behind them was a message written in the sticky material: Too slow! Sincerely, Spider-Man. She looked around the room, seeing only the masked men in the center and bank papers scattered all over the floor. Rufus stood up on his hind legs, looking confused and slowly chittering.

"He was right here," Ron said, paying no mind as Rufus climbed back into his pocket.

"There was no other exit besides that door, meaning that he slipped by us while we were running down the hallway," Kim said, picking up some of the material. "He wasn't this fast last time we met." It was very dense and smooth, with short adhesive segments and longer, non adhesive sections in between the short ones, like a real spider's webbing. She took a fairly sized sample of webbing and stuffed it into a small travel bag strapped to her thigh. Her parents would love to crack it and her brothers could accidentally tie each other up in it, and maybe it would bring her closer to the new vigilante's identity.

"We weren't expecting him, Kim," Ron said, following her out of the bank after a last sweep for crooks. "Next time we see him, and we will see him many more times, you can kick his butt."

"You're thinking he'll be a frequent guest too, right?" Kim asked with a hint of worry.

"Superheroes don't just visit, especially from a city with more crime than us," Ron said, "Batman never just visits Metropolis, Superman never just visits Gotham. He's working with someone on something big."

"That someone is S.H.I.E.L.D, according to the Director," Kim said, looking at her kimmunicator and expecting it to go off. It also worked as an effective watch, and she didn't have much time before her next class.

"But why are they here?" Ron asked.

"Those are questions for later," Kim said, darting across the street. "I have to go; class at one, sorry!"

"Hey!" Ron shouted, struggling to keep up with his best friend. Kim reached her dorm building and grappled into the window again, stopping cold again at the two tall, lean men in black suits and sunglasses in the room. They were twins: pale skin, brown hair in buzzcuts, and both standing just above six feet tall.

"The webbing," one agent said.

"Doctor Director wants it," the other one said. They even sounded the same. "All of it."

"Why do you want it?" Kim asked, folding her arms. "There's more to this than the protection of mankind and I want to know if I'm going to keep working for-"

"The webbing in your bag," the agent said with an emotionless face. "Now."

"Not until you tell me what's really going on here," Kim said, standing her ground. "I'm as suspicious of Spider-Man and mutants like Shego, but the Director's attitude toward me has changed like night and day and you will get nothing until I know exactly what I'm working for."

"It will be revealed once you're ready," the agent said.

"Don't make us come get it," the other agent said.

"No need to have to tell the Director that you got beat up by a girl, alright?" Kim said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a wad of webbing. "Just tell the Director that when she wants to stop keeping secrets, I'll be more willing to help."

"Just give us what we came for unless you want us to take matters into our own hands," the agents said, stepping forward and grabbing at the webbing. Kim's eyes narrowed and she threw one agent over her shoulder while kicking the other man in his cheek, knocking him on his butt. She placed what they wanted in one of the agents' ties.

"I'm not your coworker, nor am I getting paid to put up with your attitude," Kim scolded, "so if you're going to threaten me, make sure you're in a place for me tp say 'yes sir,' are we clear?"

The agents stood up, emotionless, stone-faced and monotonous in voice. "We'll tell her you send her your regards and wish to get in touch." The agents opened the door to Kim's room and walked out. Kim quickly slammed the door and felt around in her pocket until the tiniest strand of webbing stuck to her hand. She smirked at her own trickery, but it quickly faded remembering the use of force they were cleared to use from the Director. It wasn't like this before with the GJN, and she was going to find out why she was no longer a freelancer with the sudden appearance of the mutant "threat," whether it be through Spider-Man or the Director herself.


Shego

The money wasn't good, but it was money. She was twenty one, had just gotten out of college with a bachelor's in child development and psychology, and instead of living a quiet life with a steady job after quitting a superhero team, she was here, in a cave lair, with this idiot. Maybe she missed the action, maybe she didn't want to spend her day behind a desk, but this was her reality. Plus she was green and wore a black and green jumpsuit with clawed gloves and boots all the time. She couldn't go into a job interview like that, at least for any non-mercenary jobs. She sent a volley of side kicks at the punching bag hanging in the workout room in the lowest level of the Middleton lair. She threw a powerful right hook into a picture of Kim's face near the top of the bag, accidentally blowing the bag off the chain. She was getting paid for losing, and although she loved the "getting paid" part, she hated the losses. "SHEGO! Get up here!"

The mercenary rolled her eyes and took off her black sparring gloves. She wore a light blue tank top and black gym shorts and she put on a pair of suspiciously acquired sandals on before leaving the room and taking an elevator up to the top floor that functioned as a large, usually empty, laboratory. The doors opened and Shego walked up to her boss. Drakken was quietly chuckling as he scrolled through blueprint pictures on his giant multi-monitor supercomputer built into the large rock in the center of the lair. His workbench and desktop chair was a large, comfortable leather chair; she got a high school desk and chair. "Did you find another YouTube Poop video of yourself?"

"Nevermind those, Shego," her evil, blue boss said with a yellow grin. "I was thinking about yesterday."

"You were thinking?" Shego gasped. "Do go on."

"Shego, I swear, I-" Drakken balled up his fists and took a deep breath. It was one of the few perks for being the only merc who would put up with him. "I was thinking of a new way to defeat the blasted 'All That' idol, Kim Possible, and her sidekick, as you know."

"That's kind of our job," Shego said, smirking at the steam coming off her boss's head.

"And then I remembered that another hero thwarted my plans and started doing some research," Drakken said.

"Oh, you mean the guy we specifically wanted to fight-"

"He isn't just an ordinary hero like Kim or Ron, Shego," Drakken said, "he is a superhero, a mutant gifted with supernatural powers, and he's a very high profile one at that."

"You sound like you've never heard of superheroes before," Shego said, rolling her eyes. "Were you asleep when aliens invaded New York three years ago?"

"He's worked with the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Defenders, and whatever the Super Hero Squad is, among other freaks that were supposed to stay in the East, and is considered to have the ability to lift ten tons, the speed to outrun a speeding car, the reflexes and agility to dodge bullets, and defeat us and our opponents with relative ease!" Drakken said angrily.

"I don't know about that," Shego said, figuring he was up all night reading the fanpages on Spider-Man's speculated powers. There's no way something that could dodge bullets and lift cars would have such a problem with the likes of Kim Possible. "We gave him a run for his money yesterday, and he ran away from the GJN agents. Maybe if you had stuck around instead of leaving, you would know."

"My point is that if this plan doesn't work against that little creep than I don't know what will," Drakken growled.

"You say that every time you come up with a new plan to beat Kim," Shego said. After four years, she had no idea where he kept getting these plans.

"Spider-Man is a lesser threat to us," Drakken said, gesturing her over to the screen and presenting a gray and red metal spider standing at ten feet with robotic, pincer-like toes on each of its eight slim legs, "but I won't take any chances."

"Oh not this again," Shego said, rolling her eyes. "Don't do that thing where you try to imitate them then get angry when you lose and simply make more of-"

"And I made eight of them just in case!" Drakken cackled. "It's foolproof, my sidekick!'

"Why do I even talk," Shego said bluntly.

"Oh, Shego," Drakken said, rolling in his chair across the cold, stone floor to squeeze Shego's cheeks. "Because I value what you have to say."

"Don't touch me," Shego warned quickly.

"Got it, still mad about the whole abandoning thing, again," Drakken said, sliding over to the computer again. "We leave at five!"

"It's five forty five," Shego said.

"We leave immediately!"

"Remember that you have three mandatory evil laughs schedules at 5:50, 5:53, and 5:58," Shego said.

"We leave at six! Get in uniform!" Drakken exclaimed, looking down at himself. He already was in uniform, but Shego guessed he had been up all night. "Meet me in the garage of evil-hicles!"

"You got it, boss," Shego said dryly, taking the elevator back down to the basement. She walked past the gym to a small room with a small bed, mirror on the wall, and closet. There was one dim light bulb illuminating the cold cube and her uniform lay folded at the edge of the bed. She hopped into the skin tight uniform, quickly brushed her hair and did her makeup. She took a nail filer to sharpen her gloves and headed to the middle floor, a huge parking lot filled with half-built and broken automobiles, except for the eight spider robots lined up by the wide, steel-shuttered garage door that led to a shallow undersea cave in Middleton's largest lake. She noticed Drakken had yet to be seen. "Typical." She leaned up against the wall and nearly let out a content sigh.

"Shego!" Drakken barked, stomping into the garage. "Why don't the controls work on these things?"

"I didn't build the robots," Shego said, "maybe ask the fifteen mechanical engineers you had me kidnap to build you a jacuzzi game room."

"That would require bothering Todd," Drakken said with a grave expression. "I let Todd do his work and stay out of the way until Friday when it's time for money."

"Speaking of money," Shego said, "don't be late with my payment on Wednesday like last week, or the week before that, or the week-"

"Haha!" Drakken exclaimed, hitting the right button on the remote in his hand. The red, glassy centers in the top of their abdomens glowed red. "Pick one and hop on, Shego!"

"I was telling you something important-"

"It can wait!" Drakken shouted, climbing onto one of the spiders and opening the garage. The spider he sat upon leaped onto the cavernous cave wall and quickly ascended toward the surface.

Shego's head felt like it was going to explode but she went with it anyway, finding the closest spider and following Drakken on it. They reached the outskirts of the city and within seconds, the screaming started. Shego grinned and fired a green and black energy bolt from each hand into the sky, announcing their presence. They were the biggest baddies in the state, and she wanted everyone to know it. If they weren't as infamous, she wouldn't really care, however. The income would still be the same, or she'd be hired by a better villain, but there were no other choices. Sometimes, she felt thankful that her only opponents were a teenage girl and an agency that seemed to not really care about the operation she and Drakken usually ran. "Aw, come back!" Shego shouted to the fleeing civilians. "We just wanted to say hello! No, guys, come on!" The street was abandoned in under one minute, and not before long did the familiar wail of the police siren attack her ears.

"Stay alert, we have company!" Drakken said.

"Trust me, there is no possible way I'm sleeping on this thing," Shego said.

A team of eight police cars filled the streets and doors opened, guns drawn. "Get off of the vehicle and lean up against the wall!

"Combat mode." Drakken laughed and suddenly the spider stood up on two legs, the other six morphing into laser guns. Shego cocked an eyebrow at her own spider.

"Combat mode?" Shego said, grinning as the metal monster copied the master's pet. "Wow, Drakken, you've really outdone yourself."

"I can't outdo me," Drakken said, "I'm me! Fire!"

"And I regret saying anything," Shego said, looking down at her pet. "Fire?"

The policemen screamed and hit the deck as the spiders fired a quick burst of blue laser fire from the six legs into the cars, setting them all on fire. "Come on, Shego; to downtown!"

The six guns morphed back into legs and followed Drakken for two miles through the early evening city and its orange skies, looting, stealing, and assaulting with a fiery tint to welcome them in, the fun part of the job. Shego chuckled at the large amount of jewelry and diamonds she was stuffing in her pockets, and anyone saying anything as she and her boss drove by warranted a blast to the chest. They approached a small but busy park in the center of the city with a tall, pristine tree in the center of it. The little children and adults already ran from the site, they were expecting the target to show up sooner. In the meantime, they could do whatever they wanted. Like a child on a bike, she rode through the park tearing up the dirt and grass, along with running over as many bystanders as possible like they were arcade points. She looped around the park twice before noticing the news cameras discreetly watching her and her boss from the street square surrounding the park. "At least get my good side!" she exclaimed, firing a volley of green and black energy beams from her fingers at the cameras. They were intercepted by several globs of webbing and Shego looked up, sure enough seeing Spider-Man drop into a tree.

"Look, I get it, working with a guy this long with no rise in position may look horrible on a resume," Spider-Man said, "but you'd think after yesterday one would at least start the process of finding a new job." He leaped from the trees and was greeted by a metal hand to the face. Spider-Man flipped back, landing on his feet and crossing his arms.

"In today's economy, it's a bit tough to find a job where I'm not overqualified," Shego responded, hopping off the back of her spider. Drakken followed her sidekick until the two spiders were adjacent and he slid off one of the legs.

"Well, you know what they say," Spider-Man said, "when you're at rock bottom, the only way to go is up. You could always just not be evil to everyone around you and help out in the spike of crime affecting the inner city populace; the good guys get much better benefits, less hospital bills, and merchandising!"

"I gave that up a long time ago, but I'll give you that you're much better at this than Kim," Shego said with a smirk.

"No he's not, no he's not, no he's not!" Drakken said bitterly. "Bring me a real hero! Where's Kim Possible?!"

"She'll be here in about two minutes," Spider-Man said, "saw her on my way here with a couple men in suits. Wanna bet it'll only take me half the time to beat you?"

"I've read up on you," Drakken said.

"Wow! A fan already?" Spider-Man placed his hands over his heart. "I'm flattered."

"You've been bouncing around the east coast superhero teams like a mutt kicked from pound to pound," Drakken said, "there's a reason why no one kept you and that's why you're here!"

"I don't know about that," Spider-Man said, bouncing on his toes. "I'm on tee shirts and pajama pants and cool tourist mugs, but if you want to talk about failure, I don't ever recall 'Drakken' getting recruited by the Masters of Evil. If you did, maybe I'd take you and your artistic expressions next to you seriously."

Shego gasped. Drakken had waited for a response from them for two and a half years with no response. She grimaced at their masked threat. No one besides her gets to make Drakken feel bad about himself. "I'll feed whatever's left of you to the crocodiles infesting Drakken's pool."

"Attack, attack, attack!" Drakken barked, running behind Shego while the spiders jumped into the air.

Shego's hands came alive with black and green flames and she threw a powerful cross with her right hand that would normally send Kim flying, and speaking of the devil, Kim, Ron, and four GJN agents broke from the trees surrounding the park and raced toward the one-on-four melee. Shego's arm was caught in a familiar grapple but the grip was so strong her technique to slip out of it wasn't working. She got flipped onto her back and looked up, barely rolling out of the way from a nasty heel kick that left a hole in the mud. Shego hopped to her feet and had to duck again with Spider-Man as a blue ice bolt from Drakken's freeze gun sailed overhead. "Watch out!"

"Hit harder!" Drakken shouted, firing several ice spikes with a shotgun-styled cryo weapon at the spider dancing toward their arch nemesis with the spider bots in hot pursuit.

Kim moved past Spider-Man and ran head-on toward Shego. "Good to see he saved you for me," Kim said, throwing all her might at the mercenary with a flying spin kick.

Shego ducked and shot upward, nailing Kim's chin. "I am too; it's been too long since I've felt my boot in your back."

Shego and Kim clashes in a contest of martial prowess, each fighter stern and determined to find the slightest weakness and exploit it. Kim's weakness, of course, was her partner. "Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim, KIM!" Ron shouted very quickly.

Kim whipped around, giving Shego the devastating kidney punch she needed. Kim flew across the grass and into one of the agents throwing fists at Spider-Man. Their guns were strewn about the grass, covered in webbing. One spider was on its back legs, holding Ron in the air and slowly crushing him while Rufus tried gnawing on the steel. Shego chuckled at Ron's face of sheer terror and started to fire green bolts at Ron's legs, making the young man swing for his life. Kim climbed to her feet and kicked back, hitting Shego square in the nose and running toward Ron to sweep the metal bug off its feet. "I'll make you wish you never did that!"

"Did I ruin your nose job?" Kim asked, hitting her in the face with her grappling claw and yanking her into the spider holding Ron. She hit the bug in the side hard with her head and when the first bug fell, she saw the second one in a heap with fist-shaped holes and webbing all over it. Drakken was out cold and only two agents with knives and the second robot were left to fight the new vigilante. Within seconds, she heard the sputtering of a dying machine and the heavy groan of injured agents.

Shego rolled to her feet and blocked a side kick, sending a punch into Kim's cheek that immediately started bruising. Shego threw another punch at the other one. "I thought I'd make it even."

"Two against one is sounding pretty odd to me," Ron said, standing up and charging toward Shego with a battlecry.

Kim and Ron drove Shego toward the battle of suits and the girl in green rolled back, kicking Ron in the stomach and Kim in the chest. She stood over the two heroes with fire on her palms pointed at them. "This has been a long time coming, Kimmie."

"It hasn't been long enough," Kim said, pointing past Shego.

A red fist hit her cheek with more power than she had ever felt. She grimaced and threw a right hook enhanced with energy. Spider-Man caught her wrist and seemed to ignore the energy burning through his glove as he slowly turned Shego's hand upward. He wasn't nearly this strong yesterday. She noticed he had fair skin; it narrowed his secret identity down to all the white guys in Middleton. Great. "What is this, condensed gamma waves?" he asked. "Blackball radiation? Come on, at least give me something I can shout in despair if you land a hit."

Shego threw another punch. "It's 300 milligrams of knock-out!"

Spider-Man ducked and sent an elbow strike into her stomach and a kick back into Kim's chest. "Oh really? Well, that's only half the recommended dosage," he said, dodging and blocking strikes from in front of him and behind, almost like he could see them before they happened. Shego reckoned it must be his Spider-Senses. "Ask your doctor if you experience headaches, sneezing, itching, coughing, nausea, dry eyes, swelling, soreness, bruising, and-or uncontrollable diarrhea after you use 'knock-out.'" Spider-Man ducked a punch and she ended up exchanging face shots with Kim. Spider-Man whipped around, kicking Kim in the side of the head before drawing the mercenary to him with a webline. "Symptoms may vary!" Spider-Man said cheerily, before everything in Shego's vision went from red to black.


Peter

"That was so cool for our first night," Vivian said, taking off her lab coat in a small, well-lit laboratory with no windows and several black-top tables dedicated to developing research techniques. Chemistry equipment stuffed the overhead shelves and the whole room smelled like burnt nail polish remover; the isolation of the organic material was the easiest part, but the worst smelling. Doctor Possible had left the room to get the keys to the lab doors from the office on the higher floor of the square lab building. "Sure we got yelled at, a lot, but it's such a great experience to be working with the Doctor Possible, right? And who knew you knew so much about biosynthetic strings!" He and Vivian started talking about biology, then engineering, then somehow ended up on the topic of spider silk while cleaning the lab glassware and stowing the organic material in a supercooling freezer. He completely nerded out, something his last research partner found a tad annoying dealing with gamma radiation. He was glad someone found it interesting.

"I was kind of a nerd for stuff like that during high school," Peter grinned. Saying he invented a way to capitalize on the strength on silk could have also been good in this conversation, but it might give someone a hint about his secret. Good thing she knew more about it than he did. "And for sure! Kim warned me just to get used to the shouting- it won't be stopping any time soon." He took off his coat and placed it on a hangar in the closet of the lab next to his lab partner's. "Let's hope that the smell in the room keeps Doctor Possible's attention off of us for awhile."

"I'm afraid that won't happen, Mister Parker," Doctor Possible said, entering the room with her graduate student instructor, a tall and lanky, angry Norwegian guy with blonde hair. Peter and Vivian's faces went red. "The walls are thin, watch what you say. Matt here will do the last minute sweep; it's eight fifty five right now so I really have to go."

Matt brushed past the two worthless undergrads and put a set of gloves on, going through the shelves and examining the glassware. Peter and Vivian turned to him. "Is there anything we can do to-"

"No," Matt said bluntly.

"Well alrighty then," Vivian said, following the doctor out of the room. "Come on, Peter."

Peter threw his backpack onto one shoulder and pushed up his glasses, following the blonde brainiac out of the room. They followed the doctor through a very narrow hall to a steep, cold stairwell going down, and by the time the undergraduates' feet touched the steps, the doctor started picking at their performance. "When we measure amounts of reagents with micropipettes, we never settle within the margin of error unless we're dealing with amounts that are too small to be used by a P-50. Vivian, your bob needs to be tighter wound during lab, so either have Peter do it for you or we're going to have problems. Peter, I understand your enthusiasm for the project, but putting 38 grams of isolated alpha amino acids in the wrong containment freezer because you're giddy will most certainly lead to disaster."

"We understand," Peter and Vivian said.

"Good," the doctor said, opening the stairwell doors to the empty, small plaza floor with two spiral staircases going up, "because the next few steps to ensure the correct orientation of the biosynthesis by supercooling the amino acids below negative eighty degrees involves exact timing, and don't think I didn't notice you swishing the separated chloroplasts four times, not three, Vivian." They stepped outside. "Overall, you could have done worse. Be here tomorrow, same time, alright? And don't be late, Peter; every minute counts."

"Sorry about that," Peter said.

"Don't apologize to me now," Doctor Possible said, "just don't do it again." She started a brisker pace in front of them toward her car parked on the street. "Have a nice-"

"Mom!" Kim's voice shouted down the street.

The three scientists turned toward the spitting image of the professor in her mission gear with Ron lagging behind.

Kim stopped in front of her mom and quickly grinned at Peter. "Hey Peter, loved your stance on american cultures today in political science; we should catch up, okay?" She reached into her small bag strapped to her thigh and presented a small string to the Doctor.

"It was a good debate with that one guy from Arizona, but you ended it fairly swiftly," Peter said, his voice trailing off as his vision became unnaturally sharp. He lifted his glasses and squinted at the strand while Kim told the doctor about her run-in with the east coast superhero. He swallowed nervously. That was a web strand that hadn't degraded. If it hadn't degraded in between his last run-in with Kim and now, then Peter Parker could be in trouble if Spider-Man didn't fix it. He was the common denominator in the Stark, Banner, and Connors labs that helped him perfect his artificial webbing, and if Kim's as good of a detective as she is a spy, Spider-Man's secret may not stay secret. He should have seen this coming, but he wanted his name in the published journals. Peter felt every muscle fiber tense, waiting to snatch the strand and run.

"Peter," Vivian said, seeing the stress in her partner's face. "Are you alright?"

Peter felt like he had just been splashed with cold water. He jumped back five feet and his face went red as the three women stared at him with concern. He tried laughing it off. "There was a spider."

Vivian's face lit up. "Where? What species? Hairy? Smooth?"

Peter spat out a random spider species name and helped Vivian search for it, eavesdropping on Kim's conversation.

"With luck," Kim said, handing her mom the strand, "you can finally have an example of hyper-dense superpolymers or whatever you call it, and finding the brains behind it might lead to the person behind the mask."

"Thanks, sweetie-" Ann caught herself. "Miss Possible. Go get some rest. Now."

"What do you think of Spider-Man so far, Kim?" Peter asked. "I've seen you and him on the news duking it out." He hadn't, but it was a good enough excuse. "Coming from his territory, I couldn't imagine why you two were fighting."

Peter watched Kim's expression darken. "I'm still unsure whether I like him or not. It's only been two days, but after doing some research on him, he'd make a good ally or a powerful foe. As for what's happened recently, let's just say he and I have a conflict of interests."

"Well, I hope you settle it. You guys would make a great team!" Peter said, watching the Doctor pocket the strand after several minutes of handling it. He had to get to a lab, fast. He couldn't let that fall into the wrong hands- one strand wouldn't be enough to do anything harmful, but a handful would lead to some problems.

"Sorry Kim, but I really have to go," the Doctor said, hugging her daughter. "I'll pull up anything I can on this and get back to you as soon as I have a guess."

"Thanks, mom," Kim said cheerfully. She turned toward where she came and started running. "See you later, Peter! We should eat lunch together sometime!"

Peter waved and he and his partner started walking toward the dorm complex. "It was light outside when we started," he said, just to break the silence. It had become pretty dark outside, it being 9:00 and all.

"That just goes to show how much time we lose trying to figure out what isn't wrong," Vivian said.

"Or dropping acids in more dangerous acids and hoping we don't kill ourselves in the process," Peter said dryly.

Vivian laughed. "You have little faith, Peter. You also sound like you've done this before."

"I held a few positions in New York," Peter said, "but at least Doctor Stark waited for me to mess up before he yelled at me."

Vivian gasped. "Tony Stark?! Iron Man?!"

"You know about New York's superheroes, then?" Peter said, curious to see if people out here other than the GJN had a positive opinion.

"Not many," Vivian admitted, "most of the states in the west vilify them, but a scientist always does her own research."

"What do you think of Spider-Man?" Peter said. "And why are they vilified out here?"

"He's my second favorite, Iron Man being first," she said, making Peter's face light up. Back home, he was constantly overshadowed by the main Avengers, but he didn't do his job for fame. Still, he felt honored that he was in someone's top five. "I was pretty glad when Spider-Man suddenly showed up here; being such a young superhero is very inspiring to the youth, but you won't find anything I said in the media. Some higher-ups from who knows where is drilling the media with a bigoted 'mutants-are-bad' rhetoric because of the Magneto incident in the 80's. The feds let the states choose where they stood on the issue, and, well, here we are. I hope Spider-Man's presence here can change some of that."

"I hope so too," Peter said, "considering that enemies like Magneto could easily come over here and have a great time with all of Middleton's metal, we need people like the Avengers and Spider-Man to keep him in control." Peter knew that statement firsthand. "I never would have guessed the divide between the east and west would go this far."

"So much is happening on both sides of the spectrum that one never has time to think about it," Vivian said, stopping at the crosswalk sign keeping them from the residential buildings. Peter noticed a tall man in a gray hoodie and black jeans across the street grin at Vivian. She noticed and her expression turned to an embarrassed scowl. "Let's cross that way," she said, turning to the other crosswalk at the four-way intersection.

Peter kept the grinning creeper in the corner of his eye and followed his partner in an L-shape across the street. The creeper waited for them and followed them back to the dorm complex. "You go on ahead, I'll-"

Vivian grimaced. "I'm going to head inside and call campus PD," she said fairly loudly so the creep could hear. They were the only three in the center of the complex. Everyone else was eating or heading to parties; the latter was standard during the first two weeks of school. "Get inside, Peter, it's getting late." She quickly turned toward him with one last look of concern before closing the doors to the building behind her. Peter's eyes widened and he ducked a knife from the creeper and he stepped back, elbowing him in the stomach and ribcage. Peter stepped on his foot and swept him to the side, dropping him like a rock.

Peter stood over the surprised man and shook his finger at him. "Now why'd you go and make me do that?" Peter asked, snatching the knife and crumpling it in his hands like paper. "Get out of here unless you want to see what a punching bag feels like." Within seconds, the predator was gone.

The doors to Vivian's building opened again and the blonde poked her head out. "Peter, are you coming? I just called the police and-" She saw only Peter outside. "Where's the other guy? I thought you would have texted me when you got away. He wasn't focused on you."

"I told him I was undercover campus police and he ran," Peter said, keeping his expression serious. "I don't know where he ran off to." That part was true for the time being. Some spiders hunt at night.

"I gave the police his full description, and they'll be around the complex tonight," Vivian said, stepping outside. "Did he hurt you?"

"No, I didn't give him that chance," Peter said.

"Good for you," Vivian said, her voice staying in a range of concern, "but don't wait out here for something like that to happen. I get that you're from a rougher state but what if that guy had a weapon? Do you know any self defense? If anything, you should have gone inside to call the police!"

"Then I could be one heck of a car salesman with lying skills like that," Peter said.

"Nevertheless, don't do that again," she warned. "I need a lab partner, Peter."

"Right, right, my bad," Peter said, keeping the grin on his face. ""I'll go jumping out of buildings next, how about that?"

"That's not funny," Vivian said, crossing her arms. "I'm being serious. You can't get hurt now, unless you want to destroy your GPA."

"Come on, I'm just kidding," Peter laughed.

"Well, I'm going to go eat soon," Vivian said, "so I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Definitely," Peter said. "Stay safe." He walked back to his building and made it into his room unnoticed, changing into his Spider-Man costume under his tee shirt, jacket, and jeans with the mask and gloves stuffed in pockets.

"Yo!" Gil's voice shouted from the other side of the door. "Peter! I saw that!"

Peter gasped and quickly concealed his web shooters under his sleeves. "Saw what?"

Gil opened the door and he and his surfer posse walked in. "You and the girl, right before the elevator closed on Ralph's face."

"It hurt," one of the Gil-clones said. "A lot."

"What about it?" Peter asked.

"That one guy was messing with her so she ran inside so you could beat him up, right?" Gil said.

"Not exactly," Peter said, "she ran inside to call campus police and-"

"Then you whooped him like he stole something, no need to be modest, man," Gil said, patting him on the back. "She's really hot; what's her name?"

"Vivian, my lab partner," Peter said quickly, feeling cornered at the following onslaught of questions, many of them involving the word "boyfriend." Peter had to cut in. "I met her yesterday, guys! I know little more about her than you do!"

"Well then, you need to get in there!" Gil said, playfully shoving him. "Speaking of girls, there's a party tonight at Alpha Delta, you coming? Bonnie told me to invite you, you know, the cheerleader chick? She seemed really intent on you going."

"I'm not really the partying guy," Peter admitted. "The last time I went to a party, I got heat stroke and passed out. Don't tell anyone else that."

The blonds burst out laughing. "Dude, you're great," Gil said. "You don't go to parties wearing that! It gets tense and dense in there, man! Throw on 'people clothes' and join us, bro!"

"Actually I can't tonight," Peter said, feeling his overwhelming sixth sense kick in. "I kinda have to go now."

Gil looked at his posse with a sly grin. "I bet it's Vivian."

"It's actually my bladder," Peter said, making one of Gil's friends snort. "I'll head out with you next week, I promise."

"I'll take you up on that," Gil said, watching Peter leave the room. Peter ran into the nearest shower stall and changed into his costume, shoving his stuff into a bathroom locker and whipping open the door. He ran to the window and opened it, swinging into the city night before anyone could see. He followed his gut into the beautiful Middleton skyline on his own lines, still bustling and alive with civilians and criminals as his senses suggested. He found himself in the small parking lot of a restaurant, hearing the struggling behind a dumpster. Spider-Man leaped onto the brick wall behind the dumpster and his eyes narrowed, seeing a familiar blonde bombshell throwing all of her might at the stalker who followed her earlier. Her phone and pepper spray were scattered on the ground. He shot in between them and sent a punch into the assaulter's gut that doubled him over.

"No, no, no!" the criminal wheezed.

"Spider-Man!" Vivian exclaimed, watching the masked vigilante break the creeper's nose.

Spider-Man raised the man to his feet and broke his cheekbone with an elbow strike. He noticed that Vivian had done some damage herself and was a bit impressed. Peter would have to investigate. "Didn't your mother teach you never to hit women, Derek Alabaster Smith? What's she going to say when I tell her?"

"I thought you were in New York," the creeper croaked.

"Miss," Spider-Man said, turning toward Vivian while firing several web beams at the thug. "Is this New York? Are these web beams? Am I-" He gasped. "SPIDER-MAN?!"

"Why are you here?" the criminal asked through grit teeth, watching Spider-Man use Vivian's cellphone to call the cops. He searched the man as well, finding several small white bags of cocaine and a handgun. He placed them on the creep's chest.

"Because people like you ask stupid questions," Spider-Man said, punching the man's nose again to knock him out. "Boop!" He stood up and turned to Vivian. "I assume this is yours?"

Vivian's wide, astonished grin turned into bawling grief. She hugged the hero tightly, making Peter's throat choke up. When that happens, it really made him think about his impact on people. It reminded him of why he started doing this in the first place. "Thank you so much, I can never thank you enough- this happens to me all the time, and I feel like I can't go outside because I get harassed or worse- I don't know what would have happened if-"

"It will be alright," Spider-Man said softly, rubbing the back of her head while she cried it out. He went through the list of things that made children and adults happy. "Just tell me what happened."

"I was going to Golden Panda and then this guy who followed my friend and I to the dorms jumps me," Vivian said, her crying turning into quiet sniffles. "Sorry, I just got tired of getting angry over it."

"Don't apologize," Spider-Man said sternly. "If you want, I'll go with you to Golden Panda."

Vivian's sniffles disappeared. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Spider-Man said. "Eating is part of the superhero comforting process," he said in a mock macho voice, making a heroic stance.

Vivian couldn't help but smile a little and she took her phone from his hand. "Follow me, I know where it is."

"Do you want to walk there or webline there?" the vigilante asked.

Vivian gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Go, go, go, go, ahhhh!" she exclaimed. Spider-Man whipped them into the skyline within seconds, holding her around the waist with one arm and zipping across five blocks. They found the fast food restaurant with the large, golden panda statue outside of it and he set her down, ignoring all the strange stares from inside and outside the building.

Peter's senses became sharper once again and he turned toward the street. My Spidey Senses are tingling…

"Thank you so much," Vivian said once again, still out of breath from the ride. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay-"

"Don't worry about it," Peter said, giving her a thumb up. "I have to go, but take this." He reached into a pocket of his costume and pulled out a metallic black widow with a glass marking on its back. "Whenever you need me, squeeze this little guy, but only for emergencies, okay?"

"Only for emergencies, right," Vivian said, shakily taking the gift. "What counts as an emergency to you?"

"It depends on how hard I have to hit something," Spider-Man said, taking off again to stop another crime and hopefully make it back to the dining hall in time for dinner. He had a feeling he would be seeing her again, very soon.

Will Peter be able to keep his secret? Will Ron find his confidence? What is the GJN hiding from Kim? Where will Shego wake up? Find out next time on SpiderBall Z!