"Pete!" Carol shouted as she shook the sleeping Spider-man. "Peter!"

"Wh- I'm up! Carol? Don't we miss enough slee…"

"Pete! Alice isn't in her crib!" Carol shouted frantically.

As though shocked with electricity Pete sat bolt upright in the bed.

"What where is she?"

"I don't know!" Carol was hysterical.

"Have you looked for her?"

"No, I was waking you up."

"Well she has to be in the apartment somewhere." Peter said as he got out of the bed and opened the wardrobe.

"What are you doing in the wardrobe?"

"Well there's no harm in looking!"

"The door was closed!" Carol fumed as she checked beneath the bed.

"We're talking about a 6 month old who can escape from a crib, she could be anywhere here." Peter countered as he checked the en-suite bathroom.

"Yeah but if she closed the door and was in the small dark closet we'd probably hear her crying." Carol shouted through the wall.

"Look, this argument's getting us nowhere," Spider-man said as he re-entered the bedroom. "We need to check the other rooms."

He rushed out of the bedroom and flung himself through the apartment.

"The front door is closed." Spider-man said as he rushed back into the living room. "And so are all the windows. Good."

"The windows, what the hell does it matter about the windows?" Carol raged. She knew she was perhaps behaving unfairly towards Pete, but Carol was terrified and any attempt to reign in her current emotions would be a fruitless endeavor.

"Well we may be dealing with a baby who can fly here."

"Fly? She's not even walking yet. It's much more likely she crawled out of her cage." Carol said as she upended tables and sofas in desperate attempts.

"Crawl? How would she crawl out of… oh right, we both have powers." Pete said as he opened every single cabinet and drawer in the house.

"Maybe she didn't get any of our powers and she's just invisible."

Both of them paused in their search and let the sentence hang in the air for a moment.

"I'll go check." Captain Marvel said and rushed back to the bedroom.

"I'll look in my lab." Spidey shouted to her.

"Jesus, I forgot your lab! We should've checked that first! The amount of dangerous crap you have in there. She's not invisible! Or at least she's not invisible and in her crib!" Carol shouted.

It appeared that Pete couldn't hear her from the lab. It must've been the case because if there was one thing Carol knew about Peter Parker it was that he always had a response. Carol was virtually crashing through the living room and kitchen as she knocked over things and moved everything from its original position.

"Come on, Allie. I know yesterday mummy asked you to stop crying but mummy was a fool. It would really be helpful if you could start crying now. Or make any sort of sound. Please, baby, let mummy know where you're hiding."

"She's not in the lab." Peter said as he rushed back into the room. "I checked in every crevice."

"Well where is she then."

"Well we have to consider the possibility that she didn't 'escape' her crib."

"What are you saying Pete?"

"You know we both have a lot of enemies…"

"Pete!"

"It's a possibility, Carol. As much as I hate to say…"

"We still haven't checked everywhere." As she upended more furniture that had already been moved that night.

"I'm gonna call Tony."

"What?"

"If this is an incident involving superpowers he'll probably be able to track where she's gone."

"OK."

Pete rushed over to the landline and began to dial frantically.

"Pete, It's three in the morning." Tony's voice sounded through the phone.

"Sorry, Tony, this is urgent. It's Al…"

Peter stopped as he felt his head become doused in liquid. He looked up and sure enough, there was little Alice Parker-Danvers crawling along the ceiling, the last vestiges of her spit-up dribbling down from her upside-down mouth; most of it, though, was covering Pete's hair. From across the room Carol paused as she absorbed the scene, before erupting in gales of laughter. Alice, for her part, finally broke out in tears. Her wailing was a familiar sound for her parents, but for once it was welcome.

"Pete? You still there?"

"Yeah, sorry Tony, false alarm."

"False alarm? You can't wake me up at 3 only to say three seconds later that it's a false alarm!"

"Sorry Tone, it was Al. We couldn't find her, but she was just crawling along the ceiling."

"Is that a metaph...?"

"No."

"OK, well try not to do this again."

"Gotcha, I'll see you later today." Tony groaned before there was a click signaling he had hung up.

"Well, little lady." Pete said as he jumped onto the ceiling and gently plucked his daughter from it. Carol would have flown and got her were she not still recovering. And laughing, she was mostly laughing. "You gave us quite the fright. I don't know why you're crying. I should be crying. I thought my daughter had been kidnapped and then get thrown up on by that same devious little girl." Spider-man gently lowered himself down on his web, careful not to give the baby a fright.

Spider-man gently shook the baby in his arms, trying to ease her. Carol came over to them, still giggling. The three members of the Parker family retreated back to the bedroom. Peter cradled his child until she stopped crying and placed her gently back in the crib.

"I wish I'd had the video camera for that." Carol laughed.

"Just another episode in the Peter Parker Humilithon."

"That's a long series, could give Simpsons a run for its money."

"Mhmm. So I think we need to ask Sue and Reed for help."

"It's three in the morning."

"Right, in a couple of hours we'll ask Sue and Reed for help."

"But you were the one who said we could do this on our own."

"We can, but there's no reason not to receive help when it's offered."

"No, you were right, we should do this by ourselves."

"Why, though? To prove we can?"

"No…"

The argument was interrupted by a loud crack from the direction of the crib. The parents turned to see their daughter's hand glowing yellow. Opposite her was a massive hole in the crib.

"OK, so she has powers from each of us." Carol said as their daughter giggled. "But she gets her sense of humour from you."

"That's great!" Pete exclaimed, Carol said nothing but looked at Pete. "What? Is that not great?" Carol again chose not to answer.

"OK, I'm gonna stay up and watch over her and I'll call the Richards in the morning." Carol conceded.

"Don't worry, I'll stay up, you can sleep, I'll watch her."

"No, you have other things to do."

"Like what?"

"Shower."

Spider-man clung to the bottom of the helicopter waiting for the moment to leap. He could finally see the island, but with few places to web he needed to time the jump right. He wasn't used to jumping from helicopters though. With so little experience it would be impossible to time it perfectly, thankfully there was a large margin of error with this, given the big landing platform. He was just about to leap when he felt the helicopter dip. That was just his luck, Pete thought, the one helicopter going to the same place as him. That meant he had a pretty good estimate as to what kind of helicopter this was and who owned it. If it was landing that meant he had to get away from it as soon as possible, but he couldn't just let go as he had intended. He needed to improvise, and fast. Perfect.

He clung to the landing skid and swung as far as possible away from the helicopter, hoping no one had seen him. Then, redirecting himself in mid-air he fired a web to the underside of it. He swung beneath the helicopter and launched himself as far as possible, this time in the direction he was headed. He made himself one of his webbing parachutes and slowly floated towards the island. He looked at the helicopter; neither person inside appeared to have noticed him. He only knew this based on the fact both were facing forward, surely if they'd noticed at least one would be looking in his direction. His trajectory was some way from where he'd originally intended, but it was more important that he got away from the helicopter at this point so he looked to the ground.

There were four guards atop the roof, one on each side. The roof was very wide so they were spaced far apart. Unfortunately he wasn't going to be able to land on the part closest to the entrance. That meant having to probably take out all of the guards. Peter Parker's mind whirred trying to come up with a plan. How did Steve Rodgers manage to be in positions like this and come up with a plan? Why couldn't he? He was coming close to landing now and saw one of the guards look up at him and eyes widen in shock.

"Mmm… mmm." The guard spoke into his transceiver, unable to enunciate with the webbing covering his mouth.

Spider-man dropped from his makeshift parachute and landed silently before launching into the guard and holding him down.

"Mmm… mmm!" The guard struggled, body shaking and eyes wide.

Spider-man knocked the guard out before placing his wrist over the guard's mouth. A few drops of a green liquid fell, dissolving the web. There could be no evidence. He snatched the transceiver from the gloved hand of the guard.

"Agent? Respond!" Came a voice from the device in Spider-man's hand.

"Mayday, there are six figures attacking the east section. Send as many agents down here as poss- aarrghh!" Pete shouted down the walkie-talkie before crushing it and throwing it at the fallen guard.

Pete took one last look at the fallen soldier before wrenching his head away and running to the other side of the building, all the while trying to get the image of the S.H.I.E.L.D insignia emblazoned on the guard's armor out of his head.

Pete could see the three other guards converging on his position, but he kept running forward with great speed.

"Freeze or we will subdue you with force!"

Peter said nothing but launched himself into a fly-kick, taking out one of the guards instantly. The other two began shooting, but it was a simple matter avoiding the fire. He jumped up high into the air, judging the jump perfectly to come down on the second guard with a drop kick. Rolling away immediately to avoid the last guard's bullets, Spider-man went immediately from a crouched position and the end of the roll to flinging himself at the last guard, his fist crashing heavily into the guard's jaw. He had to restrain himself from giving a witty remark as he snatched another communicating device from this guard.

"There were 3 on the roof but they fled to the north quadrant." Spidey said into the device as he ran to the southern part of the island. "Wait, there are more on the roof, our guns are doing nothing, we need help here!" He said as he reached the edge of the building facing south. He threw the transceiver back in the direction he came, hoping it would land roughly near the three downed guards.

Spidey hopped off the wall and started crawling along the wall of the building that faced south, heading west, towards the entrance. He reached the corner and subtly stuck his head round to see a wave of guards leaving the building. Lights were flooding the area, rendering the black costume he was wearing useless. Many of the guards were running to the opposite side of the building while others were using jetpacks to fly up to the roof. Unfortunately many were remaining outside the only entrance.

"OK that's enough, close the gate. And make sure the chopper is covered."

Spider-man sighed; he had been hoping to avoid this. He took his backpack off and unzipped it. He pulled out two pumpkin bombs and a grappling hook with a rope. He launched the two bombs, one beneath and one above the helicopter then used all of his strength to get the grappling hook sunk into the corner of the building. The pumpkin bombs exploded and the helicopter veered away. The chopper was protected enough to keep everyone inside safe, but the guards were all drawn to the attack. Spider-man could hear the creaking of the gate and assumed it was almost closed.

He took two steps back before running and leaping, keeping tight hold of the rope. He made his trajectory low and slid along the ground, the rope and hook pulling him back towards the building and he slid under the sliding metal door. He heard a loud clang behind him, signaling the thick door had closed. He jumped straight up to the ceiling and ran, upside-down, to his destination.

He crossed many guards who had their guns out, ready to shoot, thankfully none of them considered looking to the ceiling. He relied on his spider-sense to avoid security cameras, with no idea if it would work, but he didn't have time to carefully tiptoe around them. It took a long time to reach the room he wanted, it made sense that it would be deep into the building. When he did he withdrew a can of spray paint from his bag and covered the cameras in the room, afraid to use his webs for this. He then wasted no time in dropping down and swiftly taking out the one guard left in the room. He ran to the cell he was looking for. It was protected by some kind of energy force field, but no problem. He punched in the 7-digit code on the device to the side and the lights instantly blinked out. Immediately spider-man webbed the occupant of the room, trapping him against the wall.

"Hello, Norman." Spider-man all but spat.

"Peter, great to see you, so have you finally come round on my offer to team up, it's still on the table you know." The Green Goblin said jovially, as if greeting an old friend.

"You know I have a child now, 6 months old."

"With the wonderful Captain Marvel, no? Another blonde, but this time with superpowers, did I have something to do with that?"

"This morning we couldn't find her, I thought she'd been kidnapped, but she had just used her powers and was crawling along the ceiling."

"Ooh, she has powers, does she have all of yours and her mothers? Or maybe just yours? Or perhaps some of yours and some of her mums? I would love to study her." Norman said, a feral grin splitting his face.

"I've always been confronted with the question of whether I'd die for someone."

"You're answer to that question is your greatest weakness."

"I always thought I had the answer for whether or not I'd kill for someone."

"Another weakness of yours."

"But today I had to change my answer. It had been a resounding no, never. But now there's a new answer, her name is Alice." Spiderman said before taking Norman Osborn's face in his hands.

"What? NO!" Spider-man twisted his hands, breaking the neck of his greatest foe.

"I can't have someone like you knowing my identity, I'm sorry."

Spiderman leapt back from the wall and surveyed his work with great depression. He withdrew a vial of green liquid from his wrist threw the contents all over the web still holding up Norman Osborn. His limp body fell from the wall and landed on the ground with a thud.

Spider-man gave one last look to his arch nemesis before turning to leave. But there, standing on the edge of the cell was Daredevil.

"Using the walkie-talkie's to divert the guards, an oldie for a reason. The pumpkin bombs, to come after the Green Goblin, were brilliant. But I think my favourite part was Spider-man using a grappling hook, truly inspired." Matt said, offering a slow clap. "And you managed to keep your mouth shut, no one will believe Peter Parker was here."

"I screwed up though, I webbed one of the guards on the roof before knocking him out. Also had a web parachute that I think drifted to the ocean without me but I can't be sure. Were you on the helicopter?"

"Yes, so I knew you were here as soon as you webbed yourself to the underside. I got out before you bombed us, needed to get through the gate after all."

"And you didn't announce yourself because you wanted to see – or know – what I was doing."

"Yep, I heard everything."

"Typical Spider luck isn't it. For you, of all heroes, to be here tonight… Look, Matt, I don't want to fight you."

Nothing could have surprised Peter more than for Daredevil to start laughing.

"Fight you? I told you I heard everything."

"So…"

"So it's about time. And don't worry about my presence, there's still no eyewitnesses." Matt smirked.

"It's not about time. Heroes shouldn't kill. It's not our right to decide the life or death of people. He was already in prison and defenseless. But that doesn't even matter. It's wrong. And I hate myself."

"As far as everyone but the two of us is concerned, as far as your daughter is concerned, Spider-man did not kill Norman Osborn. I'll cover the mistakes. Now go."

"Matt… thanks, I…"

"Go!"

Spider-man took one last look at the limp form of his greatest enemy before turning, jumping to the ceiling and running. It was just in time as well because guards came rushing into the room.

"Daredevil! We heard that Osborn's cell had been breached. Wait… is he dead?"

"I followed the person here, I don't know who, I didn't recognize their scent or anything about them. By the time I got here this was all I found, I've been scouring the cell, but I can't find anything that would lead me to the perpetrator."

"What could've done that?"

Spider-man bowed his head as he ran from the scene. He was ashamed of himself for making Matt an accomplice; he was ashamed about everything he'd done tonight.

"Did you do…" Carol began as her husband entered their apartment. She trailed off because of his distraught face, well not just his face but his whole body was sagging with the weight of what he'd just done. It was answer enough.

"I'm going to sleep on the couch tonight." Pete said, his voice hollow.

"What? Don't do that, stay here."

"No, I don't deserve to sleep in the same room as you two tonight." Pete lent down and kissed his wife chastely. "Love you."

"I love you too. I hope this is just for tonight." Carol said soothingly.

"I don't know." Pete said as he walked over to the new crib, designed to specification by the smartest man in the world. Pete lifted his daughter out of it and held her in his arms. "I love you. So much. You don't know, could never know, just how much. I'd do anything, anything, for you."

Hey guys, thanks for reading so far. I left my comfort zone with this chapter, there's much less dialogue than I'm comfortable with and it's way too serious. Also I jumped forward in time quite far for this one and I'm anxious to know how you guys will respond. I think my next update will be their first date. After that I'm going to try to shift the focus away from Spider-man and onto Captain Marvel, I don't feel she's gotten enough attention from me. Also I feel I should apologise for describing Carol as hysterical. I usually hate using that word (it has this connotation that the hysteria is unwarranted and I hate that) but I feel in the case of describing someone whose baby is missing it's justified. So please leave a review and let me know what you think about this chapter, and the story so far. That's Vivacious Valerianfelicis signing out... for now.