I OWN NOTHING

Peter

Twenty days had passed and things had gotten busier. From then to now, he was busier than any other college student on campus by his estimate, maybe equal to Kim Possible. He started responding to more crime calls, clashed with Kim a bunch of times, found the rest of Drakken's toys running around, saved Vivian a million times, and made steady progress in the lab and making friends. His pleas to Doctor Possible to work in an unsupervised lab had been denied so far, so he'd have to find a way around them to fix his webbing. Thankfully, the webbing hadn't been acting up lately, or so he thought. Gil was still an issue on a personal and privacy level; that's why at seven in the morning, Peter was already swinging around in the city. He had felt his Spidey Senses tingling once he entered the city, but when he got back to the dorm he'd have a talk with Gil. He yawned as he sailed through the blue morning over the skyline and zipped downward, silently sailing through a broken window of a dark jewelry store without an alarm. He dived behind a counter with gold and silver watches under glass and quietly climbed up to the ceiling. He looked down, seeing a scrawny, short man filling a black duffel bag with as many jewels he could grab with a tall, muscular partner. He stopped on one item, a hand-sized golden monkey head with ruby eyes and sapphire teeth. What a strange piece to have, Peter thought. It must have been the prime objective. They were generally nondescript from the back, late 30's or early 40's, male, bad grammar, and abnormally large ears on the smaller man. "Wait, what?" Spider-Man said to himself, looking closer at the men. What he mistook for standard black masks and jumpsuits was hair and they wore no shoes, with feet looking similar enough to their hands. The smaller one had lighter skin while the other one had grayish palms. "A bank robbing chimpanzee and ape, yeah? I'm not sure which one I should call: a policeman, or a zookeeper!" he said, firing a webline at the scrawnier one and plastering him to the ground faster than his partner could react.

"Ambush!" the smaller man said with his face stuck to the floor. His partner dropped the bag and beat his chest with his fists, looking around the small store. "Up!" he shouted.

The ape looked upward and Peter dropped his heel on the animal's head, dazing him. Peter darted between his legs and yanked a web attached to the ape's fast, dropping him fast. The animal roared and rolled to its feet, throwing its fists at the agile spider. Peter swept the ape off its feet with a kick and raised it above his head. "I wonder if this is considered animal cruelty," Peter said, slamming the thrashing ape to the floor. "Eh, PETA won't really care what the talking apes do." The chimpanzee howled and tore through the webbing,charging at Peter while screeching at a volume that drove Peter's hearing crazy. Spider-Man blocked a volley of powerful jabs to the face and flipped over the ape, letting the chimp trip over his partner. The chimp caught Peter's ankle and slammed the back of his head into the floor before jumping up and down on his chest, clawing and biting at his face. "Alright," Peter said, dodging a bite and rocketing upward with an uppercut. "You guys are going bananas!" he said, ducking a punch and a kick from the ape then throwing all his weight into a gut kick that blew the ape onto the sleepy sidewalk. Peter dragged the chimp out on a web beam and tied him to a light pole on the corner of the street. He turned back to the charging ape and flipped over him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him into the air with amazing strength. Spider-Man slammed the ape into the ground again, this time knocking it out. "Well, no more monkeys jumping on the bed," he said, walking inside the shop and leaning under the counter to press the alarm button. As soon as the ringing started, his sudden urge to jump activate on its own. He vaulted over the counter and over a row of chimps prepared to take him down.

The chimps screeched and charged on their knuckles, flinging themselves at the vigilante. Peter noticed that it wasn't wild either; he was dodging punches and kicks like any other fighter. These animals were being trained to do crime. He let a little more of his brute strength show as he delivered three powerful kicks to the chimps, dropping them instantly.

"No more monkeying around, yeah?" Peter said, opening the duffel bag and dumping the jewels behind the counter. He picked up the monkey statue and turned toward the windows. "Things are going completely ape," he said nervously, seeing at least twenty chimps and two apes with a few monkeys standing silently outside the window. He started waving the statue around in the air, finding all their heads following the object in unison. "There it is," he said, aiming for the doors and launching himself out of the store and into the primate fray. With the idol in one hand and his open hand balled up, he fought with terrifying speed and precise strikes; he knew he was dropping more than enough of them but they just kept coming. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling he needed to call Nick about this. He hated that feeling. He let out a battle cry and broke from the growing pile of unconscious primates with a web-guided uppercut taking him to the top of the three story office building next to the small jewelry store, seeing the police cars in the distance. He took out his phone and hit the small S.H.I.E.L.D icon in the center of the screen, dialing Nick instantly and tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear as he crawled up the side of a building for the news helicopter honing in. Peter continued his climb and he glanced at the helicopter, watching Kim and Ron angrily make their way toward the scene of battle. "Pick up, pick up, pick-"

"I thought you weren't talking to us," Nick said with a slight mocking tone.

"I thought you'd find a bunch of talking primates searching for a golden monkey statue interesting, you know, just to talk about," Peter said sarcastically. "I might need an artifact drop from you guys soon if I can't escape these guys, which is unlikely but I'm just feeling kinda lonely; oh and Kim Possible is-"

"Stop right there!" Kim shouted, rolling onto the rooftop across from Peter's from a twenty foot fall. She and Ron slid through the chimp hoardes appearing from nowhere like it was nothing,

"Right here, so I should probably go," Peter said, waving to Kim before diving back into the madness as monkey met cop. "Is it worth Strange running some tests on it?"

"When we send our operatives, you can take it with them to our support drop location in Denver," Nick said, "they'll be there in one week, during homecoming weekend, yes? October fourth? Just hold onto it for now. The GJN is closing in on your location so I wouldn't stay there for long."

"Just hold onto it? Do you know how many times Gil has gone through the twenty bags of SunChips in my desk already?" Peter asked, pulling police from the melee and placing them safely onto the rooftops. Kim and Ron were doing the same thing, except it was Ron doing most of the fighting this time and Kim moving the police from harm. He noticed that Ron was doing exceptionally well against the chimps and started bouncing on their heads, throwing himself at Spider-Man and landing a hard palm strike in Peter's chest. Peter flipped back, returning with a chin kick as he stuffed the idol in one pocket. "I can't just leave it in the bathroom locker!"

"Keep it on your person until the drop," Fury ordered. "You are dismissed."

Peter blocked several hard strikes with his knees and kicked Ron in the face. "Hey, Ron," Peter said, putting his phone away. Kim hopped onto the rooftop and Peter looked past them, seeing all of the primates down for the count. "Nice one, Kim. Can we skip the fighting for today? I have a dentist's appointment at 12 and a mandatory conference meeting at 10."

"What are the chances of us just letting you go?" Kim said bluntly.

"You have something that isn't yours," Ron said angrily, staring at the head of the idol poking out of Spider-Man's pocket. "Either give it to me or I'll go ape."

"I already made that joke," Peter said, folding his arms. "At least make it original."

Kim and Ron shot their grappling hooks at him and he ducked, grabbing the hooks and yanking them toward him. He rolled in between them and shot a webline to the building across the street. Peter gasped as a grappling hook grabbed his ankle and smashed him face first into the building. Peter rolled on his back and kicked the pursuing Kim in the chin before firing another webline toward a building.

"That's my purse!" Peter said, hopping to his feet and kicking Ron's guard hard enough to break it. He followed with a punch that was dodged and he took a hit to the stomach. Peter crawled onto Ron's shoulders. "I don't know you!"

"Hey!" Ron exclaimed, hitting at the vigilante choking him with his thighs.

Peter vaulted over Kim from Ron's shoulder and zipped away on a webline. He felt the idol move and he patted his thigh, receiving a painful bite. "Ow!" he exclaimed, looking down at the naked mole rat in his pocket. Peter laughed. "That was a good one," he said, whipping around and firing a web beam at Ron's hands, yanking the artifact away from him. He picked up Rufus with one hand. "Sorry, Rufus," he said, whipping the mole rat at his owner and swinging away. He put the idol back in his pocket and called Nick again. "Alright, I have it. Why is it significant?"

"It's a Jade Idol, according to Doctor Strange," Nick said, "we had a problem in the nineties with a nosy archaeologist trying to covet the abilities they granted from us. It was a small excavation in the Wakandan territories, so Black Panther might want it back."

"But why monkeys?"

"We don't know," Nick said, "and after that the tribe that capitalized on the idols went to war with the Wakandans, we didn't care. Hold onto it until we get there. Don't worry, it's only nine days away and we won't interrupt any midterms."

"So how are you guys dropping in?" Peter said.

"We'll be making some special appearances," Nick said. "I'd recommend hurrying to class; you're still being followed."

"Yeah, I know," Peter said. He glanced back, watching Kim and Ron run from rooftop to rooftop as fast as they could. "I'm going to vanish soon. Bye." Peter hung up and darted over the crowd of students waiting at the stop sign to cross into the urban camp. He had fifteen minutes to get to his Thursday chemistry lab section, and tardiness meant low grades. He wasn't going to repeat high school again by barely making A's. He turned into a red and blue flash as he darted toward his residential complex. He climbed up the wall and vaulted into his room; Gil kept the windows open at night. He was useful sometimes, and he had already left for his classes. He closed the blinds and started to change into his civilian clothes for the day and as he grabbed his mask, he hesitated. He turned toward the window and his eyes narrowed. The blinds had been rustled. He pulled out several small, black spider trackers from the back of his desk under a bag of SunChips and started placing them around the room. On the back of each tracker was a small but high definition camera. Peter closed the window and webbed the blinds shut before taking off his mask, grabbing his backpack, and heading out the door. He picked up his phone again. "Nick, I was followed," he said in a hushed voice. "I don't know how it evaded my senses, but my room won't be the safest place for a while." He felt his pants pocket and grinned as the idol was safely in his khakis, tucked under his "Stark Industries" t-shirt and red jacket. "I'll be watching my roommate and everyone in the complex closely and will notify you when I find out who ghosted me."

"It wasn't any GJN whelps, I know that for sure," Nick said. "Could it have been one of the monkeys?"

"Maybe," Peter said, reaching the urban campus with eight minutes to go eight blocks. "Whoever's training them isn't a novice, but I don't think it's anything I can't handle."

"Fair enough," Nick said, "keep me updated." Nick hung up on Peter and Spider-Man spent the next few hours looking over his shoulder. Later that afternoon, the news caught up with him, and with helpful intervention by the media bias he was branded as a thief. Back to square one, he guessed. He experienced the same flack in New York before the Avengers picked him up, but the West was actively against his kind, so any assembling might make things harder. Peter returned from his dull math class to the dining hall by the dorm complexes. He stood in the various lunch lines, gathering a massive amount of food due to his altered metabolism, and was presented with an almost traumatic conundrum dating back to his middle school days: where to sit. He started walking around the public cafeteria, seeing a mix of students from all school demographics, even a bunch of tired graduate students intently working on papers in the modernist building. He swam through the groups of students like a fish without a school with his tray of entrees, moving past the deli and soup lines and around the corner to the soda machines. He gasped and hopped back as Dmitry tripped forward with a bowl of yogurt and a glass of milk. Peter tossed his food into the air and caught Dmitry and his things before spinning around, catching his own food perfectly. He cursed under his breath- he wasn't supposed to do that in front of other people.

"You blundering oaf!" Dmitry barked, bringing some attention from the people in the booths and long tables past the soda machine. "I nearly fell and it was your stupid fault! Don't those glasses work? I could slap them off your face for doing that!"

Peter felt like he should have let him drop. "I apologize."

"First you get in my way in engineering class with your asinine views on nature, you get in my way in chemistry lab this morning, and even during my solemn moments without you, here you are!" he snapped, bringing even more onlookers.

"I caught you and your food," Peter said, "I apologize for the other times I've gotten in your way, and we're not sitting together, so," Peter put all his food on one hand and extended the open one. "Are we cool?" Peter leaned back, dodging a quick slap.

"No, we are not cool," Dmitry growled, "and I'll make sure people like you never get into my way again!" He brushed past Peter and nearly fell again as the New Yorker was as solid as a rock.

Peter felt tens of eyes staring at him; he was bigger than Dmitry and they probably already saw Peter as the perpetrator. He blushed and continued to find a table. He headed into the back area with round tables big enough for eight people and televisions broadcasting the news on a glass wall and felt the same fish out of water feeling. "Hey, Peter!" a familiar voice said from the center of the room. He turned toward the voice and it was Bonnie in a green and gold cheerleading outfit with other cheerleaders and mountainous football players sitting at the table with one extra seat. There was no way he would be able to squeeze into that seat in between the two green and gold varsity jackets, but he couldn't just ignore them. He grinned and walked over to the table, immediately feeling the judgement from the cheerleaders washing over him like a plague. After four years of rejection, he could tell when someone thought he was nowhere near their league, and Peter Parker was nowhere near the four cheerleaders' league, not that he cared.

"What's up, Bonnie?" Peter said.

"This is the guy you've been telling us about?" one cheerleader with long, straight black hair asked the brunette with a scoff.

"Your study buddy looks like he does nothing but study," one jock with a brown buzzcut scoffed. Peter and Bonnie had agreed to study chemistry and math with each other, mainly on Bonnie's persistence. Peter's study spots were quite eccentric, such as rooftops, ceilings, walls, and in web hammocks in between trees.

"Is that why he's going to get better grades?" another cheerleader with wavy blonde hair said. "Studying more isn't anything to laugh at, even if he could be hitting the gym a bit more."

"We all go to M.I.S.T," a slimmer player said arrogantly, "everyone here can get good grades, so your point is?"

Peter laughed, silencing the sports players. "I get it, the roast is real- now can I sit here, or are you just going to sit there staring at me until I disappear?" No words could offend him now after dealing with a guy like Flash Thompson.

"Yeah, that's why I called you over here?" Bonnie said, rolling her eyes. "Guys, scoot over."

The slim player and the buzzcut player looked at each other with shifty eyes and smug grins. "Alright guys, give him a break," the third football player, a mountain of muscle with a deep voice and long, blonde hair said, moving over on his seat. "Sit down, man."

Peter saw the glare the buzzcut guy gave him and sat down anyway, turning to the blonde player. He extended his hand. "Peter Parker."

The blonde player had a hard, ridgy face with a thick jawline, blue eyes, and a pointed nose. "Brick Flagg," he said smoothly, not returning the handshake. "You play football?" he asked.

"No," Peter said, expecting the chuckle from most of the table that followed. He could have played sports if he wanted to, but the sudden change from clumsy brainiac to Superman would make people a little suspicious. Brick smirked.

"Any sport other than E-Sports?" Brick continued, getting a bit more laughter. Bonnie looked around the table and back at Peter, watching him shrug it off, so she joined in on the laughter.

"He's read about sports, maybe someday, he will have the knowledge to throw the ball," Bonnie said with a chuckle, watching Peter's grin shrink into something a little more sly. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she felt like he might be hiding something.

"I played a little baseball back in New York," Peter said, folding his arms. "I guess you guys got lucky; without football, you would have had to compete with me."

The laughing stopped and Brick flashed a frown. "And what is that supposed to mean?" Brick watched Peter slurp up some pasta.

"Oh, you'll figure it out," Peter said. The next fifteen minutes or so was simply them versus Peter, with every topic ending in comedy where he's the punchline and Peter rising like the phoenix with the perfect comeback. Brick was the only one getting irritated visibly, but he tried to play it off by forcing himself to laugh at himself. Bonnie stared at Peter quizzically as he was taking their constant teasing in stride; most people would have left by now. Peter must have dealt with this a lot. She then over his shoulder in envy, seeing a flawlessly beautiful tan and blonde student with a tall model's curvy figure and bright blue eyes wearing a red long jacket and a blue skirt with black heels. She walked quickly past the table and Brick's teammates surely noticed. Peter's face was down toward his food, chomping away at it like a demon, so he missed what they saw.

"Wow," Brick said. "She's hot!"

"I mean, she's okay," one of the cheerleaders said.

"I would like to get to know her so well," the buzzcut player said with a wolfish smile.

"Hey guys," the slim player said quietly, leaning forward on the table with a small sheet of paper. "Bet I could pick up that chick over there?"

"Doubt it," Brick said. He looked at his teammates and at the cheerleaders and smirked. "Hey, Peter; you know what? I think you could take her."

Peter looked to the corner of the room and his grin vanished. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah," Brick said, snickering with his table. "She's a 11 outta 10."

"Go up to her and say, 'are you Russia? Because I'll be Putin it in you,'" the slim player said, stifling some of the laughter from Bonnie's friends. "Don't come back either; it'll make it obvious."

Bonnie opened her mouth to object but Peter had already stood up with his food. "Peter, they're just-"

"Go on, big man," Brick said, pushing Peter away from the table.

"I guess I'll see you later, then," Peter said calmly, moving away from the table. Bonnie looked at the blonde again and grimaced. Peter heard the guys laughing as he walked across the room. Didn't people like that stay in their small town, big fish, little pond? Not if the fish has a football scholarship. He approached the blonde sitting alone at the table for eight and sat down across from the girl buried in a scientific journal he still had yet to read. He should probably get on that. "Hey, Vivian."

"Oh!" the brainiac exclaimed, looking up at her lab partner. "You startled me."

Peter chuckled. "Sorry about that. May I sit here?"

"Of course," she said, "I'm just reading the placed his plates down, startling the girl buried in the scientific article he should probably have been reading. Her other hand held a slice of pizza. "Oh! Hey, Peter. I didn't see you there."

"Sorry for startling you," Peter said, "are you busy?"

"I'm just going over the background readings for tonight's procedures, something you should be doing too," she scolded lightly, "but you can sit here."

"I've been pretty busy lately, sorry," Peter said, sitting down and putting his backpack on the floor.

"That's no excuse," Vivian said, "you shouldn't be overwhelming yourself as a freshman."

"There have been some personal things going on lately that have been taking my time," Peter said, pulling the article from his backpack and putting it next to his food. They read in silence for the rest of the meal, commenting occasionally on the results' interpretation and to share notes.

"Where are you headed after this?" Vivian asked. "I have something I want to show you. I think you'll really like it."

"I have political science at two," Peter said, "Ki La Shing Center."

"The gym is just a few minutes past it from here," Vivian said, "I'll go with you. You have to see this."

Peter collected his belongings and felt inside his pockets, feeling the Jade Idol. He followed Vivian out and glanced at the table, seeing Brick's face red with anger. Peter and Vivian walked part of the way with Vivian deciding whether or not she should tell him. "If it's a secret, then you shouldn't tell it."

"I know, but…" a wide and excited grin spread across her face. "Ugh! I have to tell you!"

"Are you sure?" Peter asked.

"I don't know," Vivian said, reaching into a pocket of her jacket and pulling out the calling beacon Spider-Man gave her. Peter nearly turned white and looked around, looking for Kim, Ron, or anyone dressed in a black suit with glasses.

"What's that?" Peter said.

"I have a friend that I can call at a drop of a hat," Vivian said giddily. "He's tall, muscular, clever, suave, heroic, and wears spandex. I think you know who I'm talking about."

Peter laughed, trying to hide his nervousness. Next time 'he' met with her, which he figured it would be very soon, he'd have to clarify the secrecy between him and her.

"Peter!" Bonnie said, sliding in between them and shouldering Vivian aside. "I have a few questions from today's chemistry lecture; do you think you can help me out? Also, I thought I'd give you a ticket to the party tonight and after next week's homecoming game at Delta Gamma. Don't worry about research or anything; they start at eleven."

"Wow, thanks!" Peter took the tickets shoved in his face and pocketed it. Even though he wasn't a party guy, he felt like saying no to someone crushing his arm with her grip was a bad idea.

"It's going to be so fun," Bonnie said, "but before play, there's work. I just need help on chapter five's homework." She took Peter's hand and dragged him forward, looking back at Vivian with a glare.

Vivian stopped and looked at the brunette innocently. "What's her problem?" She shrugged it off and looked down at the mechanical spider in her hand, happily going about her day. She felt bad though; she would have to tell Spider-Man about Peter.


Kim

The redhead heroine in her cheerleading outfit sat in her political science course next to her friend Monique, a tall, slender African American girl with wavy black hair and brown eyes, and couldn't pay attention very well. This had been her 17th time in a row she and Ron, along with several GJN agents with jets and helicopters, had missed the vigilante sharing their limelight, and Betty wasn't too happy about it. She had mentioned two surprises in store for her today, and Kim wasn't very excited. Kim still needed to know the truth, as soon as Spider-Man suddenly claimed Middleton, Betty became a nightmare. Every night, every morning, either she was blowing up her phone or sending agents waking she and Bonnie up in the middle of the night. She still had yet to see Spider-Man's danger other than being a general pain in her butt and a major thunder stealer, but the GJN had always been right before in their motives. This time made her more than a little suspicious, and she was determined to find out why. She looked three rows down to the front of the class, seeing Peter leaned forward and furiously scribbling down everything that was on the slides. "Alright, everyone, class is dismissed," the petite and bubbly professor said, "remember for our next meeting I need you all to prepare arguments on identity privacy."

The professor got a mumbled response and the class filed out. "Today dragged on," Monique said, "but this hour especially. I'm heading over to Burger Boy for lunch right before lacrosse; do you wanna go?"

This was just what she needed for the week she had been going through. "Yes I would," she said with a smile. "But I have cheerleading practice today and-"

Her Kimmunicator beeped and Kim's expression turned grave. "Sorry, Monique, I have to take this one."

"Don't worry," Monique said. "Go out and save something."

Kim picked up the kimmunicator and pressed the "talk" button. "What's the sitch, Miss Director?"

"Meet me at an agent drop point in ninety minutes," Betty said sternly. "It seems you're incapable of claiming our target yourself this time, and still haven't grasped the seriousness of this situation, so I need to remedy those with you in person."

"Wait, what-"

"Dismissed," Betty said, ending the transmission.

Kim scowled. She remembered how sluggish the director was; during their sparring matches Kim always came out on top, she would edge forward against Betty in the physical fitness exams, if she couldn't catch Spider-Man then there was no way on earth Betty could.

"What's wrong?" Monique asked.

"Ever since Spider-Man came into town," Kim said, "my boss has been treating me like a dog, and I don't like it; next time we have a meeting, I will demand clarification and if she wants to keep me in her employ then she better explain. I have to go."

"See you," Monique said, watching her friend race across campus to the football fields. Kim ran from endzone to endzone faster than the training runningbacks and stopped in front of the onlooking cheerleaders and Ron. Her best friend wore a clunky, green and gold outfit of a Spartan with a foam short sword and throwing spear. Bonnie stood in the center of the cheerleaders with a scowl.

"It's about time you showed up," she said, "are you going to take us through our drills already or what?"

"No, I was just going to go around playing 'duck duck goose,'" Kim said. "What do you think I was going to do? Let's get into formation."

"Let's hope you can catch your target this time," Bonnie spat. Kim balled up her fists, but it wasn't worth it.

"And what about me?" Ron asked.

"Practice your fake sword fighting," Kim said, standing in front of the three squares of cheerleaders, "then once we form the tri-towers, flip, cartwheel, any cool gymnastic, in front of us. We have our homecoming game next week and a game on Saturday, so we can't afford to mess up."

"Got it, Kim," Ron said, performing a series of backflips and handstands most of the cheerleaders were envious of. Little did they know, Ron had four years of ninjitsu training under his belt.

"Alright, girls," Kim said, tossing pom poms to the cheerleaders. "Entry formation, let's go."

They practiced hard and repetitiously, leaving everyone sore but ready for this weekend's game. Kim felt a heavy hand on her shoulder as she looked at the line of sweaty, athletic cheerleaders taking collecting their belongings after practice and dispersing. "Oh, Coach Mallory, I didn't see you today so I just went with what we'd do for tonight's-"

"Possible," Betty's voice said. Kim turned around, seeing the muscular and curvy middle-aged woman with fair skin and brown hair in a bob and a black eyepatch over her right eye wearing a blue and black jumpsuit. "There are a few things we have to go over."

Kim's eyes widened and when she blinked again, she was in a cold, grey hallway with metal walls and a grate floor. She hated teleportation. The metal ceiling was brightly lit by round lamps and every step Betty made started to ring throughout the narrow passageways. "Betty, are you finally going to tell me what your deal is, why you're so mad at me, and why you've become obsessed over Spider-Man? I can't complete your task if I still only have half an idea of what I'm doing!"

"Come," Betty ordered, taking Kim onto a giant main deck. Walls were lined with computers and surveillance terminals and the men and women working on them diligently, and the lines of thick windows along the tops and bottoms of the walls revealed they were thousands of feet in the air. On the ceiling above the hanging lamps was a large symbol in black and green of six snake-like creatures curling outward with an eagle's head at the tail of each in the center surrounded by a green circle. Below them was the organization's acronym in big white letters on the ground. Kim followed her into another set of narrow, metal hallways to a small, dark room with a projector screen and two chairs."Sit."

"I'd rather stand," Kim said, leaning against the wall.

Betty scowled. "Very well."

Kim was nearly blinded as the projection started on the wall. Footage of New York City with a timestamp of "1962" in the corner started rolling. "What is this?"

"Attack on the Empire State Building," Betty said, "a team of mutants called the Hellfire Club tries to assassinate JFK during his cross country campaign. Magneto took them down himself, but still wanted him dead, leading to a fight against the X-Men that killed scores."

Kim watched the side of the famous landmark explode as a man wearing a red and purple outfit floating into the sky bent the metal into a twisted, ugly shape before whipping it at a group of running civilians. A rugged man with spiky black hair and blades from his knuckles leapt from the hole in the building toward the metal-bending man, but she stopped the clip. The next tape showed the same man in red and purple in the White House office, tearing the place to shreds with the powers of magnetism.

"1973, the X-Men break Magneto out of prison and Magneto tries to kill Nixon; this shows that mutants will help each other no matter what they've done," Betty said.

Kim watched a later clip of Cairo, dated 1985, watching a bald man in a wheelchair, the black-haired man with long claws, a dark-skinned young girl with flowing white hair, and a man and woman with blue skin, the man with blue hair and the woman with short orange hair, charging toward a tall, blue-skinned man wearing extravagant robes among a destroyed Egyptian village and scores of dead bodies. She was taken back a bit by the gore.

"1985, a mutant calling himself Apocalypse decides he's going to take over the planet and the few mutants willing to stop him completely ignored the dying people around them, showing that they only care about themselves," Betty said, "mankind is just in the way."

Kim also noticed that there were no human agents or any GJN helping them out, but before she could question it, Betty had already changed the screen to a 1991 timestamp showing two opposing small armies of mutants, one led by a man in a black trenchcoat with an eyepatch over one eye and the other led by a man wearing a grey metal suit with a green cowl.

"The humans that do help them are shoved to the front lines of the battle, and the mutants don't care whether they live or die." Betty changed it to a more recent timestamp, this one in 2003, showed footage of the spiky-haired and clawed mutant tearing GJN agents in a warehouse to shreds. "And when the mutants turn on man, it is merciless whether it is direct brutality," she changed the video to an even more recent clip of New York in 2012; the strange otherworldly invasion that the Avengers supposedly had stopped. Everyone in the southwest was banned from seeing the footage, and this was the first time she saw a glimpse. A giant, green wall of muscle and rage tore through pale aliens and leaped through a building under the madness caused by a giant blue hole in the sky spewing gold and black aliens and spacecraft. The building the green man had crashed through collapsed and the screams Kim heard from the clip shook her to the core. "Or indirectly. They don't care about human lives," Betty said, changing to a 2014 clip of Spider-Man flipping over a flying saucer that impaled a lanky man in a green suit with a demonic mask on. Blood squirted from the man and he slumped onto the device, lying still. She started flipping through more clips, specifically choosing clips showing Spider-Man fighting a villain indirectly hurting civilians because of the fight, and she knew that, but the danger was there. She didn't feel like Betty was telling her everything still, but she listened. "They take human lives with no remorse, they only care when their lives are involved, and when someone questions it?" She turned to the last clip with a timestamp of 2015, showing Spider-Man among a melee of mutants fighting human-looking people. "They turn on the humans who helped them like dogs. They are more powerful than we could ever imagine, and the death tolls of what happened in Slokovia and New York shows us that they're too harmful when…" She paused like this when she tried to find a nicer word than what she meant. "Regulated."

"I doubt every mutant is like how you're portraying them," Kim said, "would we be done for already if-"

"That kind of thinking is exactly why we need to bring Spider-Man in and make him answer for what he's done," Betty said quickly, folding her arms. "Do you want to wait for Spider-Man to bite you before you find out if he's a friendly spider or not?"

"That's a loaded question," Kim said with a grimace. "What aren't you telling me, Miss Director? You make them sound like if they were such a threat, S.H.I.E.L.D would have taken over already."

Betty smirked. "That's why we're not going to wait until they do."

"But-"

"Tell me, Kim," Betty said, "when have mutants helped you out? Used their powers for good? Shego? Monkey Fist?"

"We've talked about this," Kim said.

"Then you know I'm right," Betty said.

"What happens when he hurts you? Ron?" Betty said, keeping her smug grin. "What will you say next time you try to reason with him and he throws a fist at you? It seems as though you need a look at the carnage of mutants firsthand, along with the only thing they're good for."

"I'm not going to hurt the innocent indiscriminately," Kim said sternly.

"Then the guilty are going to indiscriminately hurt us and all of mankind, and you know how the GJN deals with rogue agents," Betty said, "and their families."

"I'm freelance," Kim said, her eyes now wide with fear. "I'm freelance, you can't do anything to my family, I won't let you."

"Not anymore," Betty said, "I won't have you lose your life over some petty ideals; I care about you too much. Calm down. Your family is safe. All I mean is that they would lose their GJN status. No one's getting hurt on my watch, alright? When have I lied to you before?" She flipped on the lights, nearly blinding Kim again. Her never lying to her before was the reason she felt so suspicious. It wasn't like Betty to dodge questions. "You will learn that we are right in our mission. Follow me."

Kim followed Betty down the hallway and down several flights of stairs to a small observation deck over a dimly lit row of cages on a wide, concrete floor. "In these four cages, we have two mutants and two men. When I release them, watch their interactions. We confiscated the mutants from Weapon X. The men are war criminals who have murdered thousands and chose this way to go out."

"Go out?" Kim folded her arms and watched what she considered to be a pointless exercise. She pressed the shiny red button on the panel of the observation deck and they looked out the viewing window, seeing four humans step out from their cages. The ones labeled "human" and "mutant" were separated by infected tattoos across their backs. The two men looked haggard and starved, tall, thin, and bony, with long and unruly hair. They stepped toward the young mutant twins and extended their hand. What was next truly horrified the young vigilante; one of the twins' skin shot out several blades, impaling the man and dropping him in a pool of his own blood. The other man screamed and jumped on the other mutant twin, beating the young adolescent to a bloody pulp. The man started screaming too and the child he had been beating set himself on fire as the GJN agents rushed onto the scene. "You killed him!" she exclaimed. "He's dead; why would you-"

"Even the children can't see past their own evil," Betty said, "they're a scourge that needs to be regulated. It's them or us; as you could see from the example, they stick to their own and attack anyone different. How many more lives need to be lost?"

Kim figured at this point, she wasn't going to listen to reason, but seeing the man lying on the ground, twitching and writhing as he bled out, would never, ever leave her mind. Even as they walked away, the images flashed every time she blinked. "How do you plan on taking Spider-Man in? If it's anything like this, count me out. He might be a thief but he's done even more than me over the past month."

"It's a trust tactic, don't buy it," Betty took her back into the hallways, up several flights of stairs and toward a conference room. "I plan on exploiting the one thing mutants are good for."

"Which is?" Kim asked.

"Fighting other mutants," Betty laughed, opening the door. Five men sat at the end of a long wooden table at the end of the hall, one in a red and black suit, another with a metal arm, the third with a leopard-fur coat, the fourth with blonde hair and metal skin, and the fifth one with a blue and white target themed jumpsuit. "Kim, meet our very own squad of mutant mercenaries who will deliver Spider-Man into our hands. They all have experience fighting S.H.I.E.L.D's puppets, but most importantly, Spider-Man. Nick Fury is too concerned about staying a secret to come over here to back him up, so all you'll have to focus on is catching that red and blue bug. Boys, introduce yourselves."

The five mercenaries looked down the table at Kim, all nodding or waving. The man in the red and black suit gasped. He had two swords on his back and had several packs on his sides for the ammo to his guns strapped to his outer thighs. "You're Kim Possible!" he exclaimed. "I'd watch you on Disney Channel all the time as an adult!"

Kim stared at the man with a confused look. "Disney Channel?"

"Hi," the man in the red suit said, "I'm Deadpool, your friendly neighborhood fourth wall breaker and chimichanga maker. Your first three seasons were great, but I felt like the ending to season four was kinda forced."

"Fourth wall? Seasons?" Kim said. "What are you talking about?"

"Excuse him, he get excited around new people," the leopard coat wearing man said in a thick, Russian accent. Kim could tell this guy was huge simply by the fact that his arm was as thick as her thighs and his chest was as wide as the short ends of the table. He had slick, black hair and a thick but neat mustache. "I'm Kraven ze Hunter, I fight ze Spidejr-Man many time." He pointed to the quiet, discontent-faced man with long, brown hair, brown eyes and metal arm. "Zat is ze Vinter Soldier, Soviet brainvash man ve 'acquired' from SHIELD vhen they no look our vay," he said, moving to the blonde metal man. "Ze Omega Red," he said, finally pointing to the target man. "Ze Bullseye. Stay vith us and ve vill get your Spidehr-Man."

"Their payment comes next week," Betty said, "so in the meantime, you and Ron will become friends with them to make your survival during this mission that much more important. We will complete our objective, understood?"

Kim swallowed nervously as she noticed just how many weapons they all had. She wondered how Betty was able to hire these guys to take Spider-Man in alive; she wasn't going to ask where she even found them, but she knew that with their intervention, the webhead vigilante was coming in dead or alive. She was worried that the man suddenly carrying half the weight of saving Middleton would be at the mercy of a twisted Director, and that the unfairness of this fight combined with the shadiness of these men may leave Spider-Man more dead than alive. With Betty still holding back on her real motivation, she wasn't sure how she felt about aiding these men. She would find out next week.

"Where…" Kim started, "did you find these men?"

"We have three big beneficiaries, one out of New York with an intimate history with our wall crawler, calls himself the Kingpin," Betty said, "we stay out of the east coast, he supplies us with willing and unwilling mercenaries."

"Unwilling?" Kim said.

"It's for the greater good," Betty said, taking her by the shoulders. "Please, Kim. It's for the greater good."


Ron

The mascot suit was hot, sweaty, but insanely fun to wear all the same. Ron looked up at the black, starry sky as the band played a powerful rendition of the school's fight song at half time. They were playing the Denver Pioneers that night and were crushing them horribly by a 21 point lead. Ron waited by the sidelines for the announcer in the commentator's box to say the names of the mascot for a MIST tradition with their Denver rivals: a best out of three, friendly brawl with the foam weapons and soft costumes at exactly 10:30. MIST had lost the fake fight ten years in a row, supposedly causing the losing streak the team had against Denver, and Ron hoped to break it. The announcer said their names and Ron charged from the sidelines toward the bulkier Daniel Boone styled mascot carrying a pioneer's sword. Ron flipped forward onto the cool grass, feeling the fall winds welcoming him into halftime with the roar of the crowds. Ron leapt forward and spun around, knocking the Pioneer to the ground with a soft heel kick. Ron rolled forward onto one knee and thrust his blade in between the Pioneer's arm and side, taking the first round. He stood up and raised his foam blade as the announcer called the match. Ron turned to face his opponent and theatrically took a stab to the chest, dramatically falling to give the other team hope. Ron stood up for the third round and wasted no time, catching the Pioneer in a lock and tearing the sword from his hand before flipping the Pioneer over his shoulder. Ron finished him gladiator style by looking to the crowd. The student section gave him a thumb down and Ron poked his opponent in the chest with the sword, creating an uproar in the crowd. Rufus chittered approvingly from inside his headpiece. "Yeah, Rufus! He never knew what hit him! Hold on." He flipped backward all the way to the sidelines and turned toward his best friend and the cheerleading captain. "Hey Kim! Did you see that?" He looked at Kim, noticing she wasn't looking very excited.

Ever since she came back from Miss Director's meeting, she hadn't been acting herself. He was brought up for the tour after she went back down, so what was her deal? Did she not see the threat mutants presented? During missions, especially when they encountered Spider-Man, it was like she struck harder but with more caution, as if she wasn't sure to hurt him or not. He had seen the footage of Spider-Man, the "hero," letting the flying saucer impale whoever was trying to end his evil ways. More personally, Betty had reminded him of his family members in New York during the green man's rampage and his grandfather losing his ability to walk due to Magneto in DC. He didn't like the thought of imprisoning Spider-Man, but it had to be done. There was no escape this time. He had met the squad of mutants who were going to finally catch him in seven days, so why was Kim feeling this way?

"Kim?" Ron said, walking over to the captain and tapping her on the shoulder. "Kim!"

Kim blinked and hopped back, startled. "Oh! Yeah, Ron, great job! You finally ended the streak!"

"Now it's your turn," Ron said, pointing to the field and seeing the Pioneer cheerleaders run through their routine as a challenge. "Go kick their butts. Not literally, you know."

Kim laughed. "Thanks, Ron." She turned to the rest of the cheerleaders and beckoned them to follow her onto the field, twirling and flipping all the way.

Ron watched her friend's squad crush the Pioneers until the third quarter began and they rushed to the sidelines for their pep squad routine. Kim and three other cheerleaders threw Bonnie up into the air for a flip when they got the call right before the fourth quarter. Bonnie was good, but she'd always be second best to Kim. The girls finished their set and Ron followed her to the locker rooms. They branched to their respective locker rooms and Ron quickly took off his mascot outfit revealing his mission uniform underneath, ignoring the football players adjusting their helmets and shoulder pads. "Rufus, you ready to kick some butt?"

Rufus pounded his paws together and climbed into Ron's pocket. He ran for the door and bumped into Brick Flagg; it felt like hitting concrete face first. "Watch out, shrimp," Brick said bluntly, brushing past him.

"Watch for yourself," Ron said, hopping to his feet.

"Excuse me?" Brick turned to face Ron and his eyes widened. "Oh, Kim's friend!"

"Yeah," Ron said, seeing that same suck-up grin Brick had used on him in high school. "Kim's friend."

"Is she single yet?" Brick asked.

"No, she's still dating the foreign exchange student from Brasabravia," Ron lied, leaving the locker room. He smiled seeing Kim outside the lockers in her mission outfit. "Let's go before Brick comes out. What are we dealing with?"

"Monkey Fist's agents," Kim said, "Wade reported several of them roaming around the residential areas."

"Why would they come here?" Ron asked.

"Spider-Man ran this way with the idol on Thursday," Kim said, "they're probably just sweeping through but we shouldn't take it any less seriously."

"Leave it to Spider-Man to take us away from this game and next week's, possibly," Ron said. "The Director was right about them being a pain in the butt, right?"

Kim's confident grin faded. "I guess," she said, leading him to the halls on the east side of campus to the west side, finding nothing. She took him to the south side and then the north side, their set of residential halls, to find sixty chimps, apes, and monkeys charging into the halls.

"Wow," Ron said, watching them split into four small squads to find the idol.

"You take the two on the right, I'll take the two on the left," Kim said, darting to the buildings on her left. Ron and Rufus charged toward the primates guarding his building and the one to the right of it with a spinning side kick, beating his way into the first buildings.

"Alright, stop chimping about!" Ron shouted at the fifteen or so primates that trashed the lobby and cornered the check-in guard on duty. The primates turned toward Ron and one ape gestured to the six monkeys. "One against nine, this might leave a couple bumps in the morning," he said, letting out a battle cry with Rufus and charging into the fight. Ron moved with amazing agility and struck with surprising power, taking them down within a matter of minutes. He turned to the guard on duty, switching his leads like a boxer and spinning around, firing a finger gun at a downed ape. "They just got 360 no-scoped! You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," the guard said; he was a short and lanky boy with messy brown hair and broken thin-rimmed glasses.

"Why did they come in here?" Ron asked, hoping he'd get a name.

"They shouted about some doll, I don't know," the guard said, "I'm going to pass out now."

"Alright cool," Ron said, running toward the stairs. He went up every flight, taking out every monkey in his path, knocking on every door to check every civilian. He neared the top floor and heard a scream and then three thuds. He gasped and rushed up the stairs, kicking down the door.

"Ron Stoppable, member of Team Possible!" he said, barging in the room of the blonde girl Peter had been hanging out with lately; he had seen them around and she'd always leave with him after Peter would eat dinner with them. Three unconscious monkeys laid on the ground of the roomy double, with one side filled with pictures of the girl's family and friends while Peter's friend's side was covered in blueprints. The closet smelled a bit like burnt metal and the desk in the center of the room was littered with tools. He figured she was another engineer. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," she said, rolling off her bed in a white tee shirt and red pajama pants. She wore her glasses and had her hair up in a bun with several books spread out on the bed.

"Did you take these guys out?" Ron asked. Unless she got back on the bed, there was no way she took them out that fast by herself.

"Yeah," Vivian said, standing up and pushing Ron toward the door. "You're probably very busy so I won't annoy-"

Rufus jumped onto Ron's shoulders and pointed upward with an angry chitter. "Huh?" Ron looked up and to the ceiling and the shades to the room suddenly shook. "Aw, man!" he said, looking back at Vivian. "Don't trust Spider-Man," he said, taking a reluctant running leap out of her window and firing a grappling hook at the window of a room on the fifth floor, screaming the whole time. He rolled into the lobby of the ground floor, finding the primates already webbed in the corners of the room or on the floor unconscious. He growled in aggravation and ran up the flights, checking every room but finding Spider-Man had already completed his job. He was always one step ahead of Ron, and Ron hated that feeling. He made it up to the seventh floor and found one door open. He ran into the room labeled "Peter and Gil," finding it to be absolutely ransacked. The desk was overturned and the drawers had been thrown about the room, the bed turned over, the clothes all about the room, and books, small gadgetry and wiring, and school supplies all around the room. Two apes sat up against a wall, each unconscious and drooling. There was no sign of the Spider-Man. Ron took a quick look around the room, searching for any indicator of why the primates would search the room, or if it was just a result of the fight that he just missed. He found two MIST ID cards, one of Peter Parker's and another of Gil Lehnsherr's. He mocked Peter's grin with an exaggerated impression before contacting his partner. "Kim," he said in his kimmunicator. "It seems there was quite a bit of a scuffle in Peter's room, or they were looking for the idol. Spider-Man stopped them before I could engage."

He heard Kim sigh. "Is everyone alright? I'll be over there in 30 seconds."

Ron continued searching the room and Kim rushed into it, gasping at the mess. "Oh god," she said, "where are Peter and Gil?"

"I saw Gil at the game with his friends," Ron said, at least he thought he did. "Peter should be coming back from his research with your mom or whatever; his lab partner was back already."

"I just hope they're okay," Kim said.

"Kim? Ron?" Peter's voice said from down the hallway. Peter ran into his room. Ron noticed he looked unusually sweaty for someone walking home "Oh my gosh! What happened here?"

"Spider-Man wrecked your room while fighting our enemies," Ron said, "nothing was taken or damaged, so it's all good- did you see where Gil was?"

"He said he and his friends were going to the game," Peter said, quickly setting up his room again with their help. He closed the windows and fixed the blinds. "Why were these apes in my room?"

Ron explained to him what happened that morning, from Spider-Man stealing the idol to the attacks on the school. "Just don't trust the guy. All he brings is trouble."

"That's not true," Kim said, "he did help us stop the primates in the first place."

"It looks like he doesn't know how to clean up after himself, then," Ron said. He took a look around the room, finding nothing amiss except for the two handcuffed apes just outside the door.

"Let's do one more sweep around the halls and get back to the game," Kim said. "Peter, do you want to come back with us?"

"He's fine," Ron said quickly.

"I'm fine," Peter said, glancing at Ron, "but thank you."

"See Kim, he's fine so let's just-"

"I am going to the party afterward," Peter said, "are you two?"

"We're going together," Ron said, folding his arms.

"You're going?" Kim said with a confused stare. "Why?"

"I was a bit strong armed into going," Peter said, "but I might as well try it."

"It depends on how busy I am tonight," Kim said, "but I might see you there. Let's go, Ron."

"Alright, bye Peter," Ron said, following Kim out the door. For some reason, he didn't really like Peter. He felt like Peter was hiding something, never letting his true emotions show; he was very relaxed and amiable but calculating, and he and Kim talked a lot. It was like Peter was wearing a mask. Yeah, that was it. It had nothing to do with Kim at all.


Shego

She sat in that jail cell for ten days. Not a call, no bail, both things Drakken would demand she do, and after waiting that time for Drakken to buy her bailout, no dice. She was getting sick of it, and Spider-Man simply made it worse. She knew it wasn't his fault though, she might be a bad girl but she was fair. Drakken started taking his aggression out on Shego, whether it was blaming her for his failures or throwing things at her when she tried to calm him down. She leaned forward in her tight green and black costume, pensively placing her chin in her hands as she tapped her cheek. She lost her patience and stood up in the gray, metal cell, walking toward the bars. She yawned, prying the bars apart and stepping out, triggering the red, blaring arms down the dim hallway. By the time any police showed up, she was already gone on one of their motorcycles. She put a helmet on with a glass visor and a built in headset. "Drakken, it's me," she said, "I'm coming back to the lair now. I have a little heat on my back but I'm going to lose them."

"Hurry up," was all Drakken said. Shego outmatched the policemen in riding skill and quickly passed through a dark and starry Middleton undetected. She found the rocky crevice serving as the entrance to her boss's lair and she skidded to a stop behind his chair.

"You forgot to pay bail, again," Shego said.

"You blundering buffoon!" Drakken barked, turning around in his chair at his wide desk. "Can't you see I'm working here? Go make yourself useful and order some food, I'm feeling like Indian food tonight."

"We need to talk," Shego said, feeling the rising anger bubbling through her veins as Drakken groaned.

"Take your emotions and capture Spider-Man with them," Drakken said bluntly, further insulting his henchman. "Unless they are making me king of the world or ordering takeout, I couldn't care less."

"We're talking," Shego growled, gripping his shoulder so tight she nearly crushed it.

Drakken smacked her hand away and turned back around. "Go away, Shego-"

"I quit," Shego blurted, silencing the blue devil.

"You what?" he scoffed.

"I quit," Shego said, "I'm sick of the way you've treated me for the past five and a half years, and your actions over the past month have been the last few straws."

Drakken laughed. "Do you hear yourself? You're a green goblin of a woman! What are you going to do for a job? Please, Shego, you're just a disgruntled henchman who has gotten on my last nerve! Go into your room and think about what you've done."

Shego balled up her fists. "I'm not just a henchman, remember that most of your successes in this business were because of me," she said. A pained smirk stretched across her face. "You know, I thought that for once you'd actually pull your head out of your behind long enough to listen to what I had to say, but I was wrong. I guess I'll just have to show you how a real villain should act. I'll teach you a lesson for mistreating the drive behind your schemes."

Drakken scoffed. "You? Outdo me? Hilarious!"

"Keep laughing," Shego said bitterly, "I'll be downstairs. Good night."

Drakken smirked, hearing her stomp down the stairs to the elevator to her room. She always found that redundant, but he didn't see it. She went down to her room, which was set up like a jail cell practically, and gathered all of her belongings into a black duffel bag. She went through her drawers, placing the cut of all the recent jobs she succeeded into a smaller bag. It would be enough for an apartment until she could start pulling off serious heists. She waited until Drakken fell asleep at ten, he usually did, and he did tonight. She snuck out of her room and realized no one was going to stop her, so she traipsed across the floor to Drakken's project room.

"I really hope he didn't just get rid of these," she said, pulling open the doors to a heap of discarded suits and technology from past escapades. "Oh. Look at that." She started sorting through the objects, looking at the pieces with fond or bitter memories, more bitter than fond, and she found what she needed. She closed the doors and changed into a black spandex jumpsuit with a neon green outline of the sleeves and thin shoulder pads for rolling that zipped from the thin neck down to her navel. She slipped on green, paper thin gloves and socks that were covered in bionic wiring. There were small, gold pads that fit on her pale green fingertips and toes that she adjusted before covering the biomechanical wear with black clawed gloves and steel-toed combat boots built for running. Dark green lines traveling to her fingertips from the palm and back of the hands glowed brightly, as well as the laces for her shoes. She completed the outfit by pulling the mask with tiny, green glowing scalp ridges attached to the jumpsuit over her head with a set of yellow goggles that turned clear as soon as her peered out of them and made her green eyes glow like the neon tracings. She noticed that the mask gave her night vision and a targeting HUD. "This will come in handy," she said, "too bad Drakken wore the suit the first time." The mask forced her hair inside of the jumpsuit, bringing more attention to the figure-hugging spandex and her black lipstick. She continued looking through the discarded projects, finding a dark green, slim utility belt with at least 30 different compact pockets for weaponry and tools and a dark green, ovular hoverboard with six small rocket thrusters pointing upward and inward. The board had a large, white "G" in the center of it- she had forgotten which tech lab they stole this from. Finally, she pulled a set of collapsible whips with electromagnetic hooks on the other end for a nearly limitless range for casting them out. She opened the doors with the hoverboard under one arm, closing the doors behind her as she hopped onto the board.

The board roared to life, nearly throwing Shego off as it sped toward the wall. Shego regained her balance and skidded to a halt right before she slammed into the wall. She chuckled nervously and cautiously flew her way toward the garage in the dark lair. She flew through the garage door and rolled onto the ground. The board seemed to stop on her command, waiting for its master to return.

"Whoever built that, props to them," Shego said under her breath. She turned toward one of the metal spiders that hadn't fled and ran toward it as the HUD stained it red in her vision, laughing as the power socks made her move faster than a speeding car. She leapt toward the machine and threw all her might into a right hook enhanced with her green energy, cleaving the beast in two. "You're going to make a girl quite a bit of money tonight," she said, tossing the duffel bag on the board and kicking a hole into the garage door. She hopped onto the board and the light to the garage flipped on, startling the supervillainess. Shego gasped and whipped around, facing her former employer in his robe and pink pajama hat.

"Intruder! Intruder!" Drakken barked, whipping out his freeze ray and firing at the black and green woman on his stolen device. "Shego!" he shouted back. "Be of use and take out this intruder!"

Shego dodged the frost beams and burst toward the exit. Shego never came to his aid. "I don't think she's coming," she taunted.

"Shego!" Drakken shouted angrily. He noticed the black lipstick and the anger drained from his face. "Shego?" he said in an outraged yelp, watching her sail out of the lair and into the sky.

"I'm a green goblin, yeah? Nothing but a monster?" Shego said, taking off into the night. "I'll show you how much of a monster I can be."


Peter

He finished his homework over his desk that night to the roar of his classmates at the game halfway across campus. That's what he did, usually, on Saturday nights, besides for taking down the occasional supervillain. His right hand cramped as he looked at the stack of books. "39 questions for chemistry, 43 for math, two short answers for political science, 15 short answers for engineering, one hand I'll never be able to use again, and a pounding headache! Go MIST!" Peter said under his breath. At least he could work in his room this time. Gil hadn't returned from the game yet, giving him time to return the ape carnage on his side of the room to the appropriate piles under Gil's bed or on top of it. He took off his glasses for a second and took the idol out of his pocket, glancing toward the closed window with a chuckle. "I wonder how duped their boss felt after finding my lair with nothing inside it." He dropped from the ceiling and did a handstand on his desk, rolling off of it and vaulting onto the bed in his MIST green and gold sweatshirt and blue jeans with his costume underneath. "Pew pew," he said, pretending to fire the web shooters on his wrists. "Yeah, that's cool." He heard a knock at the door and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He crawled across the wall and silently landed on his feet. He opened the door. Bonnie stood in the doorway with her ticket for that night's party, something Peter had forgotten about. Maybe the apes hit him too many times on the head. "Hi, Bonnie, I-"

"What are you doing in that?" Bonnie said, wearing a green and gold tank top and black leggings that hugged her figure. The apes must have hit Peter on the head, because for a girl who was constantly being mean to his friends and sometimes him, she looked good. "It's a party with alcohol, not a party with LAN access- and lose the glasses, you look better without them."

"I need these to see," Peter lied. Bonnie walked into the room and looked around. She waved her hand in Peter's face.

"No you don't, you're fine. Here, move." She brushed past him and opened his closet, sifting through his clothes. "Don't you have anything cool?"

"I like my clothes, thank you very much," Peter said, catching a green and gold tee shirt, khaki pants, and his sneakers.

"Really? New Balances?" Bonnie said. "You'd better be thanking god you're cute, or else this wouldn't be happening. Hurry up; I want to get there before the setlist is decided." She slammed the door and waited.

Peter sighed and changed anyway, rolling up the sleeves of his costume and stashing the gloves, web shooters, and idol in his pants. He emerged from the room and was immediately dragged by Bonnie across the campus to a large frat house that literally shook from the sound system. Bonnie and Peter waited in a long line of Bonnie's friends, all talking to each other and her while he was just there. Why was he here again? They got to the front of the line and a lean, muscular, tan student wearing the frat's respective letters on his backward baseball cap let Bonnie in without even looking at her ticket. He looked at Peter and held out his hand.

"Ticket?" he said.

Peter produced the ticket and the check-in took his sweet time checking its authenticity while letting every girl and jacked bro go inside. "Is there a problem?" Peter asked.

The check-in looked back at Peter and took the ticket. "Go in," he said bluntly.

Peter walked inside the tall double doors and was smacked with the body heat of everyone stuffing themselves into the frat house. He wasn't sure, and didn't care, where the lines for the alcohol started, there were three ping pong tables set up for beer pong and a neon flashing strobe light dance floor in the basement. On the couch near the stairs was a couple furiously making out, and upstairs was where the bathroom was and where people relaxed. The entire place had a light scent of alcohol breath, or 'Parfum d'Logan,' as Peter called it when around a certain mutant. He felt Bonnie grab his arm and take him to the front of the shot line.

"Two shots of rum, please?" Bonnie said. She handed the golden brown liquid in a tiny paper cup to Peter and she dragged him into a circle with several cheerleaders and the three football players he had met Thursday. Brick glared at Peter and Bonnie before raising his shot. "To another win?" Bonnie said, all of her friends except Peter and brick took the shots.

"Oops, sorry about that," Brick said, turning his drink upside down on Peter's head.

Peter looked up and darted back, catching the rum into his cup and handing it to Brick. "No worries," Peter said, handing him his cup.

"Let's dance, Peter," Bonnie said, dragging him again across the room and beginning a night of awkward dancing, even more awkward and brief grinding, and wallflowering-ing only to get dragged back in. He never stayed for more than twenty minutes at a time; his Spidey Sense had been leading him more than once around campus to take care of leftover primates and occasional burglars and robbers. He dropped onto the top of the frat house again and crawled on the ceiling of the top floor of the frat house filled with drunk and unvigilant people who couldn't do so much as care to look up. Peter changed into his party clothes again and rushed back to the dance floor, pushing his way to Bonnie for the fifth time that night.

"Sorry I left, again," Peter said, awkwardly trying to copy another guy's moves. "Phone call."

Bonnie smiled as they danced but she still questioned him. "You've had five phone calls since we've been here," she said, "and if your Aunt is asleep in our time zone, then you're going to have to find a better reason to leave." Her smile faded. "I get it, you don't want to be here, but at least try, okay? No more leaving."

Peter was trying, however. He just wasn't good at it. Two more "phone calls" later and ten more songs and Bonnie and Peter sat up against the wall on a bench, the slightly buzzed Bonnie starting to talk about anything. She was a very smart girl; Peter knew this already, but her competitiveness and meanness stemming from her siblings' mistreating of her masked that. She giggled a little and turned toward Peter.

"So tell me about yourself," Bonnie said, "I don't really get to see you often outside study sessions and when you're out with Ron and Dim-witted Possible, and you seem to be getting the hang of this whole 'normal' thing, so what's under that shell, egghead?"

Peter laughed. "There isn't that much to know," he said, "I'm just a kid from Queens, New York, who likes pizza, baseball, science, and dogs."

"Oh, come on," Bonnie said, "you know that's not what I asked. Everyone already knows that."

Peter's phone vibrated and played a special ringtone. "Hold on one second; another phone call."

"No, Peter, come on," Bonnie said, scooching closer to him on the bench so their thighs touched. "Talk to me."

"I want to, but," he looked at his phone, seeing Drakken's name next to a downtown crime alert on an app on his phone. He was going on a night rampage; he couldn't waste any time. "I really do have to take this one."

Bonnie had glanced over, just barely seeing the word "alert" on the screen. Peter stood up. "Wait. It can wait, Peter."

"I'll be right back, I promise," Peter said, giving her a reassuring grin before standing up. Bonnie let Peter get about ten steps in front of her before she stood up too, following him up the stairs and toward the window leading to the balcony over the quiet, darker side of the house. Peter had vanished and Bonnie's anger swelled. Why didn't he want to hang out with her? Why wasn't he drooling over her like the other guys? She's Bonnie! She stomped over to the balcony for some peace and some fresh air, hearing nothing but the crickets overpowering the soft thumping from the basement speakers. A rustling in the bush by the road next to a parked car caught her attention. She stared at the creature silhouetted by darkness until it darted out in a flash of red and blue. She gasped and vaulted the balcony, landing on her feet then falling into the grass. She got up quickly and shook her head from the shock, looking down the road to see a head of short brown hair conceal itself with a red mask on Spider-Man's body before it took off on a webline.

Bonnie thought it was the alcohol talking at first, that in some crazy world, her self-proclaimed date was leaving so many times to go play superhero, but then she looked in the bush and under the car for curiosity's sake to find the animal making that noise and she found the green and gold tee shirt and pants she picked out for Peter neatly folded underneath. She slowly took them out and held them in her hands, absolutely slackjawed. "Oh. My. God." Her shock and awe slowly changed to a wide, starstruck grin with a twinge of mischief. "My, my, Peter Parker," she said, "there is far more about you than you would like to let on." She placed the clothes back under the car and hurried inside; surely enough, Peter was back in ten minutes in his party clothes.

He found Bonnie still on the bench looking at him with a triumphant grin. "Hey Bonnie, what did I miss?"

Bonnie stood up and wrapped her arm around his, making him recoil a little bit. Where did that come from? "Oh, nothing," she said. The thumping in the basement stopped and people started flooding the main floor again. "Let's go back, Peter. I can't wait to see you tomorrow for our studying session."

Peter blinked. "Why?"

Bonnie giggled and pulled him outside into the fresh air, taking the exposed vigilante back to the dorms.

THOUGHTS? REVIEW PLS.