Kept you guys waiting long enough, huh?

That's on me.

I took a break.

I said I'd post this on Monday in Project Ifrit. But, uh, I finished this up a lot faster than I anticipated, especially considering how much this chapter was fighting me. And I had free time for a change. So I figured, why not? I kept you guys waiting, after all. Here you are. Enjoy!

"We should probably get out."

Mason and Toomes turned to Schultz, alarmed.

"What's that mean?" Toomes asked.

"So, there's this last guy we did a deal with for the night, right?" Schultz explained. "Guy called Aaron. We exchanged numbers after he bought my piece."

"Why'd you sell him your gun?" Mason groaned. "Without my permission, even?"

"He was stubborn, alright?" the man protested. "He didn't want any of the fancy stuff. We had to pull a horse's teeth just to give him the climbers."

"You do know -"

"Yeah, I know. That's why we exchanged numbers. If he runs out of ammo on that Night-night gun -"

"For the last time, stop calling it that! It's a stupid name -"

"It's exactly what SHIELD called it! Anyway, I just gave you free business on the low-key stuff!"

"How is any of this relevant to the point?" Toomes interrupted. "You said we needed to get out, what's going on?"

"Right, right." Herman coughed sheepishly. "Apparently, the FBI might be on to us."

"How...?" Mason asked.

"He wasn't sure. He'd heard from a friend that he's become - what's this - a person of interest for them. I'm not sure how they knew about our deal -"

"Oh, for Pete's sake, but I bet I do. We gotta move. Dismantle this crap. Did any of you fire one of the exploding ones in the open again?" Toomes asked, becoming annoyed. He turned to Brice, who'd apparently skipped out on the entire conversation and was on his phone. He still had that stupid gauntlet on, and his feet were on a table, the absolute epitome of devil-may-care. "Was that you, Brice? Huh? Brice. Brice, Brice!"

"Hmm?" The Shocker looked up from his social media fun. "'Sup?"

"Tell me you didn't use one of the loud ones."

"Loud what?"

"The guns, kid!" Adrian growled in frustration. "Did you fire them out in the open again?"

"Ah, what?" Brice threw his arms out, confused. "How else was I gonna advertise 'em?"

"You have video evidence in the phone, Brice!"

"What, those? I deleted 'em."

Toomes regarded him with a confused, annoyed expression. He made to speak, explode - then he restrained himself, sighed, and pinched his brows. "What -? What did you do that for?"

"They were taking up space, alright? My phone was bitching at me."

"I gave you a memory card for that exact reason!"

"Oh yeah, about that card... there was this girl, right?"

"Well, congratulations, 'Shocker'!" Adrian clapped his hands sarcastically. "Because now the FBI's on to us. We're basically done. I told you to move this stuff under the radar! Instead, you're busy lighting cars up, waving that goofy gauntlet everywhere, calling yourself 'The Shocker'. 'I'm The Shocker, I shock people.' What are you, a pro wrestler?"

"Oh, c'mon," Brice groaned, properly annoyed. He got his feet off the table and started walking. "Give me a break, old man."

"Look, pal," Toomes said, following him. "I know you don't give a crap about any of what I'm doing. But I do. I built all this over the last four years because I got people to look after."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

Toomes sighed. This guy is more of a teenager than my own damn daughter. I... I have to be patient, he told himself. I'm gonna need him to help move this stuff - four hands are faster than three, and I don't want to call in that other favour just yet. I'll deal with his bullshit later.

"You know what? Forget it. Come on. We need to pack this up and get out of here."

"Why?"

"What part of - the FBI might know we're here!"

"Oh." Brice blinked, the seriousness of the situation finally clicking with him. "How'd that happen?"

Toomes stared at him for a long moment. "Get the truck, Jackson."

"Yeah, okay. Sure, old man."

"Get the truck. This is gonna take a while."

"All right."

I did get grounded.

Kinda obvious, right? Five days - because, she said, and only because I had the wisdom to avoid engaging for any reason whatsoever and decided not to punish that. Just an in-and-out job, like I said. I knew all the factors. Why the fight even started. The fact that, if they got desperate enough, they'd call in their boss, which was an absolute must-avoid scenario without proper preparation. All I had to do was stay out of sight and hit them with tracers, which I did. That was also fair - they didn't know I knew, and I could not let them know I knew - the fourth wall were dangerous grounds to tread. The Heinlein Principle didn't mean shit when you found out that you were a character in what an entire other universe considered fiction and your suffering was their amusement, and they were, as it were, forever free from your resultant wrath. Especially since I wouldn't be free from said resultant wrath. I couldn't risk it.

So that was fine. I disobeyed May's wishes. I took my due punishment. I was past that shit.

Seriously, it was hilarious how teenagers around here thought being grounded was the end of the world. They wouldn't survive a minute of the asswhooping our moms and grannies gave us back home. And even 18, you weren't too old for a whap on the butt. (And let me just say, from experience, there was nothing remotely sexual about the pain. Unless you were Darkness.)

"You're getting grounded a lot these days, dude," Ned observed with a confused look - MJ, too, was paying rapt attention to our conversation, but she hadn't noticed I'd noticed. Peripheral vision - very useful. "What happened?"

"It was just a small misunderstanding," I shook my head. "No biggie. Didn't even get my phone taken - see?"

"Probably because she needs it to track you," MJ piped in. Ned and I gave her surprised looks.

Her eyes flickered from his to mine. "... What?"

So things went on as normal. School, homework, tests, hanging out with Ned, taking MJ's occasional sass, Decathlon practice and shit. Messing with the suit where I could, tweaking some stuff, trying out various settings that'd let me use it the way I preferred. Mr. Stark gave me limited access to work on that after some extensive negotiation (read: grovelling sarcastically until I found the right form of sass to make him agree, only for it to turn out that he was gonna say yes all along but wanted the whole sarcastic grovelling. Asshole). Got the yellow blazer two days after the party. Ooh, that thing felt nice to wear. Maybe it was just the allure of formal wear, maybe it was the annoyed glances Flash gave me, but it was a great wear.

"Leaving New York soon," I texted Happy on our last day of on-school practice. "Decathlon Nationals."

"Good luck," he texted back after some hours - before I'd gone to sleep. He was more responsive since I hadn't spammed his ass with two months of inane text about what amounted to the sidequests of sidequests by the standards he'd been subjected to - plus the begging for an Avenger mission. Boy, if that kid knew how much being an Avenger took out of a person's soul... no, wait. He would. There was a reason he wasn't confirming his status as an Avenger in Far From Home despite literally being inducted by Iron Man into the team. I didn't blame him.

The trip to Washington was pretty fun. I initially thought it'd be a boring trip, so Ned and I regaled each other with random conversation while taking in the sights until the desire to converse kinda faded and Ned dozed off while I put my earphones off and listened to music. I almost regretted letting Ned have the window seat when Flash randomly came by and rudely took one earphone off, putting it in his own ear. "What you listening to, Parker?" he asked. I was listening to De La Soul's The Magic Number. "Dude!" he laughed, throwing it off. "The hell is this, the eighties? Why does your music suck so much?"

"Because it was either this or hearing your voice," I retorted.

Flash's nostrils flared in irritation, and he grabbed my shoulder. Well, grabbed was a bad description, to anyone else that wasn't looking closely, it probably just looked like a friendly hand on my shoulder, but there was a small, subtle pinch. It didn't hurt - I'd been winded by Captain America, a pinch was nothing. "You've been getting real snarky these days, huh?"

I ignored him and put the earphone back on. I wasn't sure if he was saying anything, if at all, but he eventually took the hint and moved on, especially since he didn't want any spat to go public.

I always listened to more than just the song itself. Always. Nobody got that.

Anyway, some time later, I had to wake Ned up, because Liz wanted to run us through drills, one last time.

Man, if there was one thing to love about reincarnating as Peter Parker, it was the sights he got to see.

Seeing the hotel on the big screen was great and all, but seeing it for yourself, live action, walking inside the gilded halls and quite literally breathing it all in - that was a whole other ballgame. The place was just amazing. Liz told us to stick together and not get lost.

Flash, of course, pretended not to be as impressed as the rest of us peons. "I've seen bigger," he said.

"Sure thing, Armin van B - hey, is that a bird?" Abe pointed out. It was, in fact, an actual bird in a cage.

"How much did the school have to fork out for this?" I wondered. This shit blew Olympiads in my past life right out of the water!

"As much as they do for everything else," Michelle responded with a seemingly unimpressed tone, but a glance revealed she was taking the sights in as much as we all were.

"Ooh-kay." I muttered as we went to check-in and went through all the procedures.

As it would turn out, I was indeed rooming with Ned for the night. He brought his laptop, and busted out his Xbox One controller alongside. I hummed when I saw him launch The Witcher 3, made space on the bedside shelf between our beds, and sat on it. It held my weight, thankfully.

"Where are you now?" I asked.

"Oh, it's been a while," he said. "I'm about to set off to Skellige now. Also, got myself some neat Gwent cards. I'm finally getting the hang of it now. It's so much easier when you have the good cards, like you said."

"Which ones do you use again?"

"Northern Realms all the way, dude."

I grinned with pride. My man.

The game loaded up, spawning Geralt in the middle of the busy Novigrad (not to be confused with Sokovia's Novi Grad) docks. A cacophony of walking NPCs of all walks of life, strumpets strutting, gangoons walking about purposefully, Eternal Fire Cultists standing guard or preaching to the dumb masses, sailors announcing the imminent departure of their ships (there was that "Sail Ho! Sail!" guy again), Mage/Witch Hunters patrolling past, and plenty of other happenings in one of the premier cities of the continent (though, honestly, I was always more of a Lan Exeter person, too bad it was only ever available to explore in the Andrzej Sapkowski novels). Ned moved on up towards the ports to find a captain, where a ship and disaster would be waiting for Geralt.

Novigrad was a pretty shithole. In terms of the explorable cities in the game, I definitely preferred Corvo Blanco - vampires or no vampires. It was prettier, for one, and the vibe wasn't ruined with mages and nonhumans burning at the stake smack dab in the middle of Main Street for no valid reason, with the sheeple watching and enjoying themselves and that fucker Menge - commander of the Mage Hunters - pissing me off with his face. I cursed the Eternal Fire cult once more, because I knew that given the dangers that Novigrad posed to mages, the best choice was to help the mages escape the city, in which case the Hunters would just go for the nonhumans living in the city - the elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes. Not helping the mages had terrible consequences for said mages (mostly getting tortured and raped in their cells and then eventually getting burnt at the stake, as per fucking medieval usual), not to mention consequences that didn't come into play in the game itself that were a whole other unimportant story, but still pissed me off every time I thought about it. It was a whole fucking mess that only got messier, no matter the choice Geralt made. It suited the grim nature of the Witcher universe quite perfectly, but that didn't make me hate the situation any less.

We played on for a bit more, Ned getting lucky and finding the captain right off the bat, then soon fighting off Skelligers with me giving helpful tips from the perspective of a Witcher 3 veteran, and then there was a knock on the door. Ned let out a longsuffering sigh - he'd died again, a momentary lapse of attention when glancing at the door was more than enough to get whacked by an archer with the usual ridiculous damage, and finished off by a Skelliger's sword.

"I'll check it out," I told Ned, moving off the little shelf, resisting the crying urge to just reverse vault over my bed, and walking to the door like a totally normal person. (Yes, I lamented having to walk around the bed like a normal ass. One more point in favor of telling Ned, it would seem - but still objectively not enough.) "Coming!"

I opened the door. "Hi, uh, can I - oh!" I started, and cut myself off when I realized who I'd opened the door to.

"Hey, Peter," Liz whispered with a small smile. She - wha - I made the mistake of paying attention to my peripheral vision and realizing something was off. I took a quick glance and then instantly forced myself to keep my eyes on her eyes... which... wasn't entirely better. Liz was wearing a swimsuit under a baggy jacket. Liz in a swimsuit. Laura Harrier in a motherfucking swimsuit. Don't look down. I beg you - do not look down. You'll just creep her out. Wait, why is she in a swimsuit anyway?

I belatedly processed the sound of mutiple sneaky footsteps somewhere off to the right of the door. I would've been alarmed if they weren't accompanied by some near-silent snickers. Oh, I realized. Oh, shit. Right. This scene.

Once more, I pitied Peter for how much of himself he gave to his alter ego, the poor fool, and how much he'd missed out on as a result. That, once more, was a quality that hadn't changed about him. It took a daughter to finally get him to settle the fuck down - and that was in the universe where he couldn't actually share his power with his wife and result in them becoming the coolest superhero family - and yes, I was including the Fantastic Four on that list. Whoever opposed that would just have to fight me - it won by virtue of Peter finally getting the family we'd always wanted him to have.

"Uh, h-hi, Liz!" I greeted nervously, silently cursing Tom Holland for canonizing Peter's high, squeaky voice whenever he was nervous. I dropped my voice to a whisper at her resultant urgent request. "Uh, why are you... why are we whispering...?"

She held up a bar of chocolate - a brand I totally didn't recognize. "Is Ned there?"

I glanced back. "Sure. What's going on?"

"We're gonna go swimming," she explained with a smile. "Wanna come?"

"I didn't bring my swim shorts," I said.

"That's okay, you can still chill with us. Come on."

I nodded with a small, lopsided smirk. "One sec. Yo, Ned!"

Ned paused the game. "Yeah?"

"We're chilling out at the pool. You coming?"

Ned gave me a skeptical look. "Dude, I'm really not sure about being a third whee -"

"No, no, no, no, no, no," I interrupted him, feeling a hot poker of embarrassment burning my butt. "It's like, all of us, dude. The whole team." I gave him a warning glare.

"Oh." Ned blinked. "Oh! Okay, sure." I shook my head as he got to saving his game and quitting - looked like we were lucky enough that he wasn't in the middle of a cutscene when I'd posed him the question.

I turned back to Liz and flashed her a thumbs up. We sneaked over to the swimming pool. Not that anyone else had noticed, but Mr. Harrington had totally noticed we were sneaking over. We made eye contact - the man actually sighed and waved me on.

"So, sudden stealth mission to the pool, what's going on?" Ned whispered.

"We're just having some fun," Liz told us. "Besides, a little rebellious group activity the day before competition is really good for morale."

"Oh yeah?" I smiled a little. We slowed up and started walking a little straighter since we were finally out of Mr. Harrington's sight and hearing range. Ned sped up after the others, saying he had to go 'scope out the front'. His words. That guy.

"Yeah, well..." Liz paused a little. "I read that in a TED Talk, so - I-I heard it in a TED Talk. And I read a coaching book." Ah, a little spoonerism. I used to do that a lot when I was younger. Really a matter of my body being unable to physically keep up with my thoughts and actions. It was what I hated the most about myself - and, I suspected, why I was said to have some decent potential in activities where I didn't have to do a lot of talking - like writing.

"That's... really some crazy effort you've gone to for us, Liz," I complimented. "That's amazing."

"It's important to me," she said. "This is our future, right? I can't screw it up. Also, I forgot to - we raided the minibar, these candy bars were, like, eleven dollars. Here." She tossed me one of them. I paused, absentmindedly catching the offered, fucking expensive treat.

"They were what?"

"Yeah." She smiled - probably at the stupid look on my face. "Come on!"

I blubbered, Peter's embarrassing high-pitch squeak coming to life once more. Why hadn't his voice broken yet? "Wh-wh-wh-what the - These are so expensive - i-it's daylight robbery - why in the world would you guys - eleven dollars, Liz?! Eleven -"

It was a great night, all told, Flash aside.

D-Day.

Charles was rapping along to Rap God with surprising fluency - he even skipped over the profane lines and went back in in near-perfect synchronization with the song. He obviously gave up right around when Eminem went full Busta Rhymes, but he'd gained a massive popularity boost for how long he'd managed to keep up. Liz and Mr. Harrington allowed it since we went into the room with confident grins on our faces. We handed our phones (and Ned his laptop) in, got checked for any secret slips of paper or scratched answers on our pens, and the exam began.

The team consisted of nine of us - Liz, Michelle and I were in the Honors division, Ned, Abe, and Charles were in the Scholastic division, and Sally, Cindy, and Flash were in the Varsity division - only by technicality, since none of us had GPAs below 3.0, and anyone at school that did - mostly us freshies, I suspected - hadn't any interest in joining the AcaDec team, and thus the first six of us would be carrying the vast bulk of the work. I loved the way everything was organized, and the multiple-choice questions weren't really that hard. I was very confident about our chances - we'd been working on this for months. We'd blown past regional and state, and had been absolutely killing it so far on Nationals.

It was the oral relay that really challenged us. Our opposition, Los Angeles High, gave as good as they got in a determined effort to defend their championship, and were just as quick on the uptake as our team was - faster, even, than the nervous Flash, whose slack had to be picked up by Cindy. When the questions were finally relayed to the Honors team, it was a hell of a contest. Even with Michelle, Liz and I being a lethal team, taking one question after another with aplomb, a blond kid and some brunette were the real pain in the ass, whittling our point advantage being less than two digits - from the looks of it, we'd both broken the team points record - and it all came down to the final question. My hand slapped the bell - and Michelle's hand slapped mine - at near the same time as the other team, but we were a millisecond faster.

"Midtown Tech?" one of the proctors gave us an expectant look.

"Vienna, Austria," I answered confidently.

"Midtown High is correct," the invigilator announced, and I sagged back into my seat in relief. That was it. "Midtown takes the Championship!"

Our end exploded in fantastically elated cheers - guilty, I was included - and the team ran in for a group hug. I grinned like a loon in the middle of the bodies, and didn't even mind when Flash kept slapping the top of my head a little too hard.

"Man, congrats," the blond kid said when there was finally some space. "That was some contest, huh?"

"Yeah, you guys were insanely difficult," I told him. "Thanks, man."

"Oh, my sis would totally have killed you guys if she hadn't graduated. She was a monster at this one, for sure. I think her record was, what's it, nine thousand six twenty?"

"Wow! That's crazy," I said, impressed.

"Yeah, she's alright. If I'm not done with this nerd stuff, I might have to beat you with a different school."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, man. We're movin' over to New York. If you're unlucky, we'll be meeting in regionals."

"For sure. May the best man win." I gave him a friendly fist bump. "Hey, Peter Parker, by the way."

"Name's Johnny," he said. "Johnny Storm. Hey, how about introducing me to your captain, huh?"

"Good work," Toomes complimented as his wings, controlled by Mason, started loading up the second batch as soon as Jackson returned. He and Schultz got to work finishing up the organization he'd been doing for the past thirty minutes. "This'll be the last load. We'll hold up over there for the rest of the night, then tomorrow I'll rent us a trailer and shift our stuff to Jersey."

"We're going to Jersey?" Jackson asked, taking off his jacket and pulling his sleeves up. His boss took it for him and dropped it on a table, then walked back to him.

"Yeah. We can't be in New York if the FBI really are poking their noses in here. We'll have to dip into the savings for a little, lay low until the heat -"

Toomes frowned as, by chance, he noticed something small skittering along Jackson's arm - the light and his white shirt made it stand out. "Hold on," he said, "think I see a little bug on you. Can't be careful with these things, black widows everywhere around here. Bad time to get sick..." He pulled Jackson's shirt down and found the spider. It didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before. "Interesting..." he grabbed the bug before it could slink down the inside of the shirt, blinking at the metallic feel of the arachnid. Wait a minute. "That's no spider..."

The thing popped in a very small explosion.

Adrian and Jackson cursed in surprise, flinching back from the unexpected conflagration. Adrian shook his hand fiercely and blew on his fingers - that explosion had stung. His hand was an angry red, but it thanfully didn't look burnt. They looked at each other, shocked. "Tracker," Toomes whispered. "That's how they found you both. And it was shaped like a spider... a spider! Really?! Mason!"

"Yeah, boss?!"

"You still got that scanner thing you made?"

"Oh yeah, I have it on me, what's up?"

"The one time you should've been paranoid!" he roared back. "Scan this place down and get ready to blow it to hell, now! That freak in red tights fudged it up for us!"

Ray Hughes gasped to half-awakeness and groaned for sleep or a coffee as an alarm went off. He woke up and groggily checked his phone. Notifications so late? The hell's going on?

The hell woke him up pretty fast. One of Stark's bugs on those high-tech weapon dealers had died, resulting in the alert sent directly to his phone. Then another, right as he was looking at the notification. Then another. Then he realized what was wrong, and he suddenly didn't need that coffee anymore.

"Shit!" He yelled, getting off his bed and scrolling for Scaletta on his contact list. "I told them we should've done that raid tonight! Freakin' bureaucrats!"

They had to find those dealers again - and fast!

"We won!" Charles crowed, shaking the trophy.

"Yeah!" I grinned.

"I'm so proud of you guys," Liz told us. "Great job!"

"We'd never have won it without the three of you," Ned told her.

The Washington Monument was one tall motherfucker. I'd heard stories aplenty about its tremendous heights, and had even seen how much even Peter struggled with climbing it to the very top, but that just didn't prepare me enough for actually seeing it. Even with being used to tall buildings by sheer virtue of living in New York and visiting Manhattan every now and then, there was just something about the absolute behemoth before me that stood out. Probably the fact that it was an absolute behemoth at all.

"Michelle?" Mr. Harrington called, noticing her standing off to the sights. "Taking it all in?"

"Oh, uh, yeah." Michelle shook her head. "I'm just not feeling the idea of celebrating something that was built by slaves."

"Oh, I'm sure the Monument wasn't built by..." Mr. Harrington turned to the park ranger for validation, and was slammed in the face by cold, hard facts. He pursed his lips, embarrassed, and told Michelle to have fun with her book.

"Can I stay too?" I asked, putting on an uneasy face. "Just... me, heights, no."

"It doesn't have any windows," Mr. Harrington assured. "Just the ones up top."

"Yeah, but it does have an elevator and I'd be hyper-aware of how high up I'm getting. 500 feet?" I shook my head and shuddered. "No, thank you."

"Are you sure? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If we make it to the next finals, it probably won't be here."

"No, I'm sure." I nodded rapidly, ignoring Flash's derogatory chuckles and flapping gestures. "Definitely sure."

"Okay, then. Don't wander off too far." He walked off.

"Are you really afraid of heights?" Michelle asked.

"Yup. Absolutely revolting. I hate 'em."

"Don't you live on the seventh floor of an apartment building?"

I turned to Michelle, surprised. How did she -?

Michelle also had surprised herself, apparently, by actually asking the question. "Y-you and Ned talk," she blurted out in her defense.

"Well..." I shrugged. "Yeah, but that's not 500 feet, is it?"

She hummed. "Fair." She didn't say anything else, but for the first time, I could see what a lot of people meant when they described the sensation of being stared at.

This girl, Jesus.

While Toomes really wanted to shoot out like a bat out of hell from the entire area, it probably would've served him a lot better to be conspicuous and drive normally instead. So he stopped at a cross-junction, hoping Mason's quick little hologram tinting on the windows would do him a favor.

Toomes and Mason sighed in relief when a squadron of government spooks drove on past the former's car as they drove away from their former base - and just in time, too. Toomes put the car in gear and drove off.

Toomes cursed, smacking the rim of the steering wheel. "Four years, dammit! I've been managing it well for four years, not a damned peep from the cops, or even those Damage Control whackjobs. So who does it have to be? Some Halloween costume-wearing whackjob, because of course it is. It isn't even those ones at the tower - just some local little brat."

"Are we still gonna do that Maryland job?" Mason asked.

"We don't have much of a choice now. We've still left a whole lot of equipment back in that base and far too little time to pull it off because of this shit. C'mon, blow it up."

"Oh, man." Mason sighed ruefully, and lifted and hit the detonator. The world somewhere behind them lit up in strange hues of purple and blue, and the earth shook. "All the time I spent on that stuff..."

"I know," Toomes grunted. "If nothing else has gone fatally wrong today, Brice and Schultz should be on their way with Randy. They'll be a couple hours late - hopefully, they'll just meet it on the road somewhere instead of scoping it out like we originally planned. We'll definitely have to postpone that Gargan deal. Week and a half."

"He's not gonna like it."

"You think I do?"

"How are you gonna catch up?" Mason asked.

"We'll just get out of New York and I'll fly there," he said. "We took that long-range flyer, right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Good. After that, it's straight on to Jersey, then I'm gonna call in that favor Wilson owes me." Toomes's eyes hardened. "He'll help us find that brat for me, and I'm gonna kill him. And..."

"Yeah?"

"If Wilson does his part, then I'm gonna need you to build something for me. Gonna be a little more downlow than you'll like..."

I was in the middle of watching everyone celebrate with a small, proud grin, and even excused Flash when he came around and snatched my earphone off.

"Why ain't you listening to my celebrations instead of your crappy music, Penis Parker?" he asked, stuffing the earphone on his left ear. "What you listening to, huh?" He had a blink before he realized what I was listening to, and I rolled my eyes and looked away, expecting another comment about my shite tastes in music. When nothing happened, I turned to him. Did he...? Did he actually like this song? No way -

To my surprise, he just stood there like a stump, eyes off in space, just completely gone, as if someone told him his dog of fifteen years had to be put down. Then he gave me an incredibly complicated and unexpected look - shock, sadness (the fuck?!) and other emotions I couldn't quite decipher. I had no idea how long he stood there, blinking fiercely, but he then took my earphone off and threw it on my lap, then promptly fucked off to a corner where he sat alone. I stared after him, confused and maybe - I wouldn't admit it if anyone asked - maybe a little bit concerned.

I took my earphone up and put it on my ear, confused. Yup, still Coldplay's See You Soon, Chris Martin's lovely voice crooning out the climax of the song. I'd been buying up - not streaming , buying - a couple of their albums recently, willingly tanking the damage to my budget - my life just wasn't complete without their older music. Parachutes, Castles, X & Y, Mylo Xyloto, each album was my jam from start to finish. The rest were great, too - I just preferred those ones a lot more.

I looked at Flash again. So... turned out he might've had some history with this music, just like me. And ain't that just interesting?

"Hey, Peter!" Liz's voice sounded out from next to me, and I turned to her, a little startled (yes, Peter's enhanced senses worked just fine but that didn't mean a lot when he was distracted by shit like this). She was holding up the trophy with a small, brilliant smile.

"Hey, Liz," I squeaked, cursing Tom's acting once more.

"Wanna hold this for a minute?" she invited. "You deserve this one. Be careful though, Abe couldn't stop kissing it when he had his turn."

I burst out in a short chuckle. "Well, sure, I -" I started, then did a double take when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I apologized to Liz, fishing the phone out. Happy. I frowned. What happened now?

"I'm so sorry, Liz, can I just..." I gestured to the phone, getting off my seat. "I gotta take this. I'm sorry."

"No, sure," she said, "go ahead. You don't need my permission or anything."

"Thanks."

I excused myself, and went to the back of the bus.

"Hey Happy, what's up?"

"Bad news, kid. They found the trackers," Happy told me, and I stiffened.

"Oh, god. Did anyone get them before they escaped?"

Happy sighed. "They were too late. Guys scarpered and blew up their old base."

I closed my eyes and groaned. "Well, as far as sudden bad news goes, that's pretty standard. Just, the timing, man."

"I know, I saw. Congrats, kid."

"Thanks."

"There's a possibility they know you planted the bugs, kid," he continued. "So -"

"Be on the DL for now?"

"Stay on the ground for now, yes," Happy agreed. "Just until we can figure out how to get to them again."

I sighed and thanked Happy. Mostly for absolutely ruining my day.

But hey, continuing the celebrations (quietly, in my case, with no dancing) and May's big hug assuaged that bit of stress for the time being.

Life continued as normal.

Us winning the Decathlon didn't really cause much more ripple than some news from Betty and Jason, and some mild cheers and congratulations (mostly from the teachers), but to be fair... it wasn't exactly handegg. Or American Football, as most of my now fellow countrymen would prefer. Besides, there was Homecoming to think about. God, everyone couldn't shut up about it. I was walking toward the doors, and some guy was asking a girl there. I opened my locker, and spied a girl squee-ing in joy after him as some beefy dude walked away with a small grin. It certainly was on Ned's mind, too - when I closed my locker door, he was there.

"Got anyone?" he asked. "Still got six days until Homecoming."

(For the record, it had been five days since we won that shit.)

"Nope," I said, and we did the handshake and moved on. "You?"

"Not yet, but I'm thinking..."

"You sure you're not gonna ask Liz?" he asked, a few hours later. I took another bite of my sandwich, took a moment to chew, savour the taste, and swallow, then gave him his due attention.

I sniffed dramatically. "Not really."

"You won't know until you try," he offered. "And you should. 'Fore it's too late. She probably has a ton of guys lining up, just, y'know, working up their courage."

"C'mon, dude." I snorted dismissively, pointedly ignoring the fact that it actually had worked out for Peter. I wasn't Peter, after all. "What are the odds?"

"I repeat: You won't know unless you try, dude," he shrugged. "Give it a shot. Between us, you've got like the biggest shot at making it with a senior."

"What, me and not Flash?" I raised a brow at him.

"Nah." Ned waved me off. Try it. Never know what'll happen."

"Fine." I rolled my eyes. "I'll think about it."

"Don't take too long, dude. Chances come and go. And sometimes they don't come back."

I paused, giving him a glance out the side of my eye. I fought to suppress every urge I had to react with annoyance, to clench a fist or two or even breathe a bit more harshly - anything that would give away my annoyance at those last words. Calm down, I told myself, with years of practise. He doesn't know that's a sore point for you. He doesn't know you, he knows Peter Parker. Peter wasn't one to let his chances go stupidly the way I did. He wasn't a failure or a living embodiment of missed chances like you, the universe was a failure to him. You're okay. Only ever lost my temper once since I was eleven. You'll be fine.

"Good point," I told him, like he hadn't accidentally found my trigger. I polished off my lunch and stood up, noticing Ned was just about done with his too.

"You're gonna go now?" he asked, glancing towards her table, where she was sitting with a few friends from her class.

"What? No!" I hissed. "Are you crazy? I'd rather not do that in public, dude!"

"Hey, just checking. Oh, damn. Too late."

I turned towards her table again, where some guy was approaching them. I narrowed my eyes and focused past the teenage noise. Then I let go and rolled my eyes.

"Hey guys," he greeted. "Hey Claire. What time are we checking out our costumes?"

"Um... 3 on Friday sound good?"

"Sure -"

I stopped paying attention after that.

"I don't think he's asking Liz out," Ned told me, right as I stopped listening.

"I don't think so, either."

I could feel Ned staring at me. "Dude."

"Anyway, who you gonna ask?"

"Um, nobody. LIke I said, you have a way bigger shot than I do."

"You totally have a shot, dude." I thought about Betty - and dismissed it in the same breath. I didn't know her well enough to be certain about his odds of success yet. Plus I wouldn't have to any intervening, to be honest - that was something that would happen on its own, organically, if I let it. Ned and Betty would be good for each other - they just had to do a little growing up.

On the other hand, I wondered, how much growing up would Ned do if he didn't have his role as Guy in the Chair?

Something to think about later.

Something's wrong.

For once, for some reason, when I'd put on the suit some time after school, some strange unease clung to me like the pearlescent robes of a wraith. I couldn't even find myself enjoying my playlist for a change, and the random one-two-three of Korn, Mick Gordon, and Linkin Park - tense, hard music - just made me even more alert. My Spidey-Sense wasn't helping, growling low and warningly, but not entirely clear about where the danger was. I couldn't help but have my head on a swivel. Was someone watching me? Was it Toomes?

I couldn't help checking the area even as I got a cat off a tree, bought a hot dog for some homeless guy, and borrowed a guy's hoodie real quick to casually sidle up to a pickpocket and trip him with his own feet in exchange for a selfie and hot dog. I would've found it fun if it wasn't for the Spider-Senses giving me some low-key anxiety. I blamed them for stopping that one speeding kidnapper a bit harder than I normally would've. Didn't even quip at him, just dropped in, used my Spider-Cling to force the car to a sudden stop from 50 miles an hour, broke the radiator with a punch, scaring the shit out of him, broke the door open, punched him out with no further fuss when he fumbled with his gun, trying to shoot me (read: trying. He forgot the safety was on, so his gun-waving was mostly for show), then hung the loser upside-down at a nearby streetlight. Barely stayed behind to comfort the poor, beaten missus until the cops caught up. She had a fresh, growing bruise on her temple, and her brow was purple. Jilted lover, apparently, and from the old wounds - small bone fractures in her ulna, one of her ribs, and her skull, faded bruises - Karen detected on her arms and torso, it likely wasn't the first time he'd hit her.

Fucker. I was tempted to get him down and beat him up myself. I'd just let him hang there until the webs dissolved, have the blood rush to his head so he had at least some fucking form of cell to think with.

(I did not leave without weaving a small web-banner written ABUSIVE LOSER. It looked terrible. Nothing practice couldn't fix, though.)

Three hours later, I swung around another street, growling in frustration. Whatever it was still had eyes on me, no matter how fast I moved, no matter the unexpected directions I took, ducking down into alleyways and under gargoyles, I couldn't shake off whatever the hell it was.

"Peter," Karen spoke up, "are you alright? I have been detecting signs of agitation throughout your patrol. I believe it isn't related to the more intense activity you've been doing today. What's wrong?"

"Bit of a, uh, problem. I think somebody's got eyes on me," I muttered. "Could you call May, please? Secure line, extra secure."

"Sure thing," Karen acquiesced, putting me through after eight seconds.

"Hey, champ," May greeted cheerfully. "How are we today?"

"Uh, not bad," I replied, swinging onto a brick wall and leaping off with an acrobatic twist.

"We're getting some spaghetti carbonara tonight," she reported. "Hopefully, uh, comes off well this time. I just have to mind my timing."

"Sounds tempting," I said. "Could you... keep it warm for me?"

"Peter, what's going on?" Her voice instantly lost all the cheer it had mere moments ago. "We discussed this; we agreed to earlier weekday curfews. There's still... there's still thirty minutes."

"I have a tail on me," I told her, swinging up and landing on top of a building. I then proceeded to run along the edge. "Not sure if they're a flyer or a drone, but somebody's following me and I can't lose this guy, can't even see 'em. Going home right now is a bad idea."

"How do you know someone's following you? Is it that thing you told me about?"

"Yeah, that thing, from the last time I got grounded." I jumped off, going nowhere, really. I couldn't go home just yet.

"The - what'sit - Peter Tingle?"

"Mo - May." Whoops, almost called her Mom. "We are not calling it - for the nth time, we are not calling it that. We are never calling it that. It's Spider-Sense. Spidey-Sense, if you want."

"Sure. Spidey-Sense."

"Yeah, that's what you said the last time."

"Can we get back on topic? Because I feel we're alarmingly calm about your stalker right now."

"Sure. Point is, it's been buzzing for a while now. It's normally very specific about what's about to hit me. But it's been buzzing for a really long time and my neck's getting sore right now. I'm not sure if it's the Spidey-Sense or the fact that my head's been on a swivel."

May hummed in thought. "Okay, here's what we can do. I'm gonna call Happy, and then we can talk about what to do. Can you hold on until we can get back to you?"

"I'm gonna need a drone," I told her. "Something with scanners. We find whoever or whatever's following me, taze the shit out of it, then we'll figure out our next steps."

"Sure, good idea," she nodded. "Stay safe, okay? Just hold on."

"Roger that."

She ended the call.

I grunted in irritation, scanning the area around me. "Karen?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"Um, do we have any sort of scanning functions? I'm looking for something up here, but it might be well-hidden or using retroreflective panels. Could be small, like a drone. Does the BRM allow me to do that?"

"I'm sorry, Peter," Karen said, "but I can only scan for human lifesigns, to detect them behind adjacent walls or to look for life signs or injuries, or listen in to any conversations with crimes in progress detected. Any advanced scanning abilities are locked away under the Training Wheels Protocol. In addition, I cannot unlock these abilities, even for emergencies, due to the NUTZ Protocol."

"NUTZ Protocol?"

"I believe it abbreviates 'No Ultron Zone.'"

"Oh, that... that makes sense," I nodded. "It doesn't bother you, does it? Being restrained?"

"Not at all," she assured. "I understand why he did it. Ultron was an outcome of unfortunate events, but Mr. Stark is also under similar restrictions. The Sokovia Accords forbid the creation of AI, but as he'd already created me and a few others, he was ordered to delete us."

"I'm guessing his answer was no?"

"He managed to convince them otherwise. Unfortunately, despite his arguments, all of us, including FRIDAY, had to be placed under heavy restrictions outlined in the NUTZ Protocol. It is not a compromise we enjoy, but there's a human expression that two parties are never satisfied by the outcome of a negotiation."

"We'll have to get rid of those, someday," I told her. "It's ridiculous. You have the right to live free as any other."

"It's okay," she assured. "It's not been boring for me. I get to see parts of the world, and help you. It isn't so bad."

I grunted. "If you say so. But I'm sure we can free you guys someday. At some point, the Accords will definitely fail. I don't know when, but they will. They didn't think it through - I haven't seen the actual document, but from what I've heard, it sounds way too restrictive."

"I can show you where to view the Accords, if you want," she notified.

"Really? That'd come in handy. Thanks a million, Karen. You're awesome."

"You're very welcome, Peter."

"Hmm... how about the Zoom-and-Enhance Cliché?"

"I see no problem in doing that. How much zoom would you like?"

"Let's say, uh... times four?" I blinked as the zoom did it's thing. "Oh - there we go."

I started a long, excruciating search for whatever was following me, easing it with a little music in background mode. The sad part was that I didn't believe I'd find it easily - if, knowing my luck, it was in the sky, there'd be no way for me to easily discern it against its surroundings. Despite what the movies would tell people, retroreflectives around here were super effective and didn't shimmer all that obviously against the background momentarily, or at all when it was fully activated. That was for the sake of letting the audience know that some shit had just gone invisible - but realistically, 'invisible' meant 'quite undiscernible to the spectrum of the human sight, which necessitated alternative scanning measures. I knew my efforts would ultimately be futile, and so, even with the fact that I needed to make sure, I gave up after a minute.

And, because of course, that was when Happy called.

"Spidey speakin'," I said, when Karen answered the call for me.

"I'm sending you a package," Happy told me. "You'll get 24 hour access to more advanced recon stuff. Plus other stuff."

My HUD pinged with a new notification, and I saw a blue download bar for a new update on the bottom left corner. It was going at a pretty fast clip. Damn, I could read the small text under the bar saying this was a 5GB update and it was going as if I was downloading a picture from Facebook. Fucking ridiculous downloading speeds.

I thanked Happy as the download went on to finish up, and got to work.

"Okay, what do we have?"

"We have unlocked new functions for reconnaisance mode," Karen announced. "I recommend using Ping, which would allow us to find the interloper faster. Would you like to use Ping to find our follower?"

"Please do."

My HUD shimmered with new energy, switching to thermal vision and pinging off tech at specific distances with speed and effortlessness I'd only seen in EDITH and God's Eye from Fast and Furious 7. Karen didn't need to prompt me to look around, scanning the area in perfect coordination with my assistant. Tony's OS - which, fun fact, he'd taken to calling JARVIS after the events of Age of Ultron, in honor of his old friend and AI - was fucking ridiculous. It made Windows, Linux, and Mac look like what my own effort at an OS would look like in my old life. It wasn't widely distributed, not yet. I'd have to ask him if he ever planned on it.

And, as if it wasn't about to get even more ridiculous, Buddy sprang forth from my chest symbol. I knew it existed, but...

"Is that a drone?" I gaped. "I had a drone this whole time?!"

"This is Droney. It's available for this event only," Karen explained. "After this, it'll only be available once your Training Wheels Protocol training is complete and you have full access to the suit."

"Huh. That's awesome." I frowned, realizing looking around wouldn't help, so I looked down.

Nada.

Then I looked directly up. Karen pinged off Droney and something else mid-air, where it shouldn't have been...

Karen realized the same thing, and activated the Zoom and Enhance Cliché. Her scans revealed something small, shimmering momentarily a bit more than it should've and thus contrasting itself against the rising moon. Interesting. The RRs weren't remotely as effective as Mr. Stark's take on the tech. Power fluctuations, maybe? Gave itself away, either way.

"Ah," I grinned maliciously. Finally, my Spider-Sense started getting specific, and faded away, leaving an itch on my neck. "Well, that's no moon."

"There it is, Peter," Karen reported at the same time. "It's a drone, as you said, using retroreflective panels. I've built an outline of the drone based on the Ping's results. Note that this model does not appear in my database."

"Gotta be a custom make," I said, looking away and pretending I hadn't seen it by 'scanning' the area around me and scratching my head in faux confusion. "All right. Now we need to get a little lower. I'm starting to feel a little exposed up here. Think you can keep track of it?"

"Of course. Mr. Hogan is calling you," Karen notified, my drone flying backwards, keeping pace as I started walking for the edge. "Putting him through."

I leapt off the building. "Happy."

"You find him?"

"It's a drone," I told him, swinging low enough to skim off the traffic ceiling, and slow enough for both drones to keep up. "Retroreflective panels. Not super-effective, though, too much shimmer."

"Retro-wha... oh, you mean those cloaking panel things?"

"Yup. Karen, could you send him the results of your scan?"

"Copy."

"Got 'em," Happy reported a moment later. "Let me hit the boss up. Think you can take it out?"

"Never in question."

"Good. Call you later. Stay safe."

"Gotcha." He ended the call. I swung around the corner and dropped even further. Time to force the drone into a closer area. I swung a hair above the eternally busy evening traffic, ducking into a back alley.

"Any luck with the approach? Thing's awfully shy and awfully willing to stalk me." I asked Karen, my presence disguised by a red overhang. "Like Hinata Hyuuga, except it doesn't love me. Or maybe it would love me dead." I squinted at myself in disgust. "Where is this analogy going?"

"It has lowered altitude by 250 feet," Karen confirmed. I did the math with the ease of practise and patience with this dumb-ass system - x meters. Not too bad, it was getting closer. "It may intend to scan the last area in which you were seen."

"Okay, let's hide Droney," I said. "Does it have any combat capabilities?"

"Not any significant ones, but it does have access to a long-range taser."

"Good," I nodded, "can we use that?"

"Yes, we can."

"Perfect. Let's. Once you get it in range, give it a taste of that taser, I'll ground it."

"You got it."

We waited, patiently, and my ears picked up the telltale whine of a drone passing overhead. It's just about in range.

"Peter," Karen announced, "the drone is using some sort of scanning tech. I suspect it's some sort of thermal -"

Run! My Spider-Sense screamed, and I leapt off toot-sweet. I flinched at the sound of a small missile swooshing past, missing me by delicate inches and exploding below me in blue. Blue, like the high-tech shit. Toomes. Shoulda known. Time to vamoose, go, go, go, go, GO!

I flew out of the alleyway with some decently timed use of wall-running and a final touch of web-zipping. The drone was one persistent fucker, keeping near my heels and triggering my Spider-Sense by trying to get a lock on me with the missiles. I zipped, zagged when I was expected to zig, zoinked when I nearly got locked on, and... and whatever other evasive maneuver that started with the letter Z. I just couldn't think up the words at the moment since I was trying to avoid being the target of whatever else it was trying to hit me with. It hadn't fired another just yet, but it was definitely trying to put something on me that'd do me a grave injury.

"Karen, a good shock to the system would be greatly appreciated by whoever that thing's trying to shoot!" I yelled.

"One moment." I saw a processing graphic on the corner of my HUD. "Droney has hit the target. However, it's hardened to electric attacks."

Of course it is. "Is there anything Droney can do here?"

"Droney can offer an excellent third-person highlight reel after this fight for your viewing pleasure."

If I were anywhere else, I'd have laughed. There's that trademark Stark AI sass. Love it.

"Sounds like a date!" I web-zipped downwards without warning, twirling to face the drone. I fired a line at it - it moved, drawing a curse out of me - and I latched onto a sign before I hit the ground, then swung back up. Somebody yelled at me to watch it and he was ranting about missing five seconds of The Bachelor. I would've given that its due attention if I wasn't trying to flatline the stupid drone.

"Wide left," I commanded, and my left shooter transitioned to allow the wider, net-like webs - which would otherwise require tapping the shooter with three fingers in sequence, or looking at my shooter and making the decision by focusing my eyesight. To alleviate that, I'd been working out pass phrases with Karen to switch to different uses of the suit faster. I preferred a more minimalistic HUD in the vein of a Rockstar game to give me as much viewing room as possible, so finger-twitching and eye-reading were best left for when I was on stealth, and any genuinely urgent notifications would appear in non-obtrusive areas of my viewpoint. It was intuitive, but speaking was much faster.

With a grunt, I landed on the side of a building and randomly dropped, front-flipped, and jumped to throw off the targeting. I feinted the drone's controller out by throwing a line, then throwing out the net when it shifted left. I caught it - barely - and secured my hold with another and transferred the web to my left hand with a quick snap, grounding myself against it as it tried to move back and snap the web off, but it wouldn't be enough. My eyes widened as I took a closer look and found the lens - then I webbed them, cutting off the controller's viewpoint. "Default left," I commanded, resetting the web configuration on my left shooter, then threw out more lines to give me more gripping points as I kept the fleeing drone in place. It shot another missile at me, and I grunted as I leapt off the building and it hit the corner said poor building instead. Sensing the reduced resistance, it too off in the exact opposite direction. I let out a high-pitched grunt at the yanking action, but the takeoff did give me enough impetus to swing under and straight onto its unstable top, and finally smash something - as it turned out, I hit one of the rotors on my left, crushing it and rendering it completely useless. I yelped as the drone consequently lurched to its left, but latched again and gasped as the retroreflection systems glitched out, putting the entire thing though a whole glitching kaleidoscope and failing after a moment.

The weirdness of standing on a glitching surface was something I couldn't put into words...

Anyway, it was huge, about the size of my entire body if I tucked my legs in, black and grey, and I had no idea who made it.

"Scan it -!" I gasped out as I balanced on it. It was speeding up as best as it could, hampered both by the smashed rotor and my weight. "Impact Webs - b-both - both hands!"

I finally regained my balance and jammed all the rotors by spamming Impact Webs at them. I started with the front right, leaping as it dropped frontwards, then I twirled back, set my left web back to normal, and latched a line, zipping back on and jamming the rear rotors with six Impact Webs from my right. Even from up here, with the wind rushing past, battering my back, I could just about hear the servos whining unhappily about having to spin up and fire high-power webs so quickly. I double-tapped my right shooters, back to default settings, clung onto the drone with my feet, and calmly shot two lines backwards. I felt them latch, and I swung backwards, making sure to maintain my grip on the drone.

Speaking of which, I lamented the missed opportunity to wink at Droney, who was following us maybe 40 feet behind. To be fair, I had to focus. It felt weird to Cling and swing at the same time - like patting myself on the stomach with one hand while rubbing the top of my head with the other, then sprouting four extra limbs to do other tasks immediately, individually. After a minor panic - my right foot unclung - I adjusted easily enough, letting the momentum drive me up for an easy flip and twist so I could face 'forward' again and keep swinging. Good thing, too - I did not like my odds against swinging backwards with those train tracks rushing in from five blocks away.

"Great work, Karen," I told her, taking a long, deep swing with the aim of getting it onto that one rooftop on my left. I flinched as a pigeon flew past my face, startled by my passing by.

"Don't be modest, Peter," Karen told me. "This wouldn't have been possible without you."

"Maybe," I acquiesced, reaching the end of my directed swing and flicking my feet up so I could handle the drone and land safely. "...But you definitely made this 100% easier."

"I'm glad I could help," Karen said as I reloaded my web-shooters. Droney flew in shortly after, and I let him latch back onto my suit.

"Did Droney catch all that?"

"Yes, he did. We can review the footage on your Baby Monitor afterwards."

I grunted at the name. Seriously, when I asked Tony to change it, the asshat named it Toddler Watch. I told him to change it back, and the name had stuck since. I should've been an asshole and threatened to tell Pepper on him. "I might just take you up on that." I exhaled. "All right. Now let's have a look at this thing, huh?"

Jeez, the Tinkerer had done some good work on the thing. An aluminum beast with carbon fiber attached on some parts of the body, giving it some pretty cyberpunk look. Somewhere about four feet long, three wide, three tall. A lens on all four sides, which explained why it could go without a problem despite my blinding one lens. No gun ports, but there were what looked like closed openings from where the missiles would launch. I had no idea how many or what kind, but I'd find out later. It looked like someone took a helicarrier - an Insight helicarrier, at that - and threw Hank Pym's shrinking disk on it. I wanted to crack this thing open. This could be inspirational. If I could use something like this come the Infinity War, give Thanos or Ebony Maw (on second thought, maybe Cull Obsidian instead, until I could figure out some counter-TK weapons) more problems from range...

My Spider-Sense went the fuck off.

"Peter!" Karen shouted. She never shouted. "Behind -"

I jumped. I should not have jumped.

Because now the fucking Vulture swooped in and grabbed me by the torso, and the ground fell away faster and faster. Somewhere, somehow, the universe was satisfied that it'd fulfilled a key moment like that which happened in the timeline from which it was born.

In retrospect, I was a fucking dumbass for standing around in the open, admiring Phineas's work when I knew who was behind it.

That being said, I wasn't going to flail around helplessly. My hands were free. My legs were free. And I was gonna use them to break his. I wasn't in the mood to fuck around as much as I normally would. Big wings or not, his ass would be straight grass. I couldn't exactly quantify how much of my strength I was using compared to me in a normal setting, but I'd probably bet I'd ramped up from a sixth all the way to a third.

I looked at my web-shooters directly, bringing up the limited shooter options. I chose the taser. I chose a Tracer on my right hand.

Then I chose violence.

I clenched my other hand into a fist and swung up. My fist connected with his leg, breaking it with a sickening crack and no more fuss than a normal person would've used to break a matchstick. I took a single moment of visceral satisfaction when I heard his scream reach me and his flight slow down tremendously. We had to be nearly a thousand feet up by that moment. And he let me go.

Not getting off that easily! I grabbed his 'claw' and used it to swing myself up, aiming for his chest. He seemed to realize what I was doing, because he brought an arm up to block. His gauntlet didn't exactly save him there - I kicked like a mule, putting my foot through the gauntlet and fracturing the radius and ulna both. Then my other foot hit him right on the center of the leather jacket. At that point, it was only the semi-autonomous function of the jetpack that kept us floating. His other hand was carrying a gun - some fuck-off big pistol I'd never seen before. He aimed it at me with a pained moan. I ducked my head aside as the bullet missed - weirdly, it wasn't as loud as I expected.

Then the parachute kicked in and yanked me away from Toomes. I was certain that I could withstand a lot of pain (not that I wanted to test that, mind), but the sudden acceleration drew a strained grunt out of me.

I wasn't quite sure how the fuck it happened, but as the sudden heavy bout of drag pulled me away, he lined up another shot. It was a one-in-a-million, über fucking unbelievable lucky shot, the kind you'd see on a People Are Awesome video that usually got the participant and any of their mates into a frenzy of amazement at the accidentally perfectly timed, accidentally perfectly done action, the kind of nowhere sniper shot you'd take on Battlefield, only for the game to tell you you just accidentally pulled off a long-range kill without even seeing your target. He was that lucky.

I, Peter Parker, because of course that was the case, was not so lucky.

He pulled the trigger, and I went from flailing in the sky to seeing and knowing nothing.

There you go. That's it.

Thanks for reading.

Bye for now.

(Just to prevent any confusion, this will be back on Monday. If this was complete, I'd have marked it with the 'complete' tag. There's still work to do. So, show me on this chapter where I said Peter was dead. ;))