I see our shadows on the wall, I'll be there when you call, there when you fall, just like the perfume you wear, that's how close I'll be there

Tony and I talked a lot for the next hour. I had no idea that he was, well... normal. In a way at least. I'd never seen anything other than the hero in the armor or the head of a billion-dollar corporation in him before now. He was a pretty cool guy actually. He also told me that it might take a while a for him to remove the viruses that Digitek uploaded to his armors. That meant Iron Man wasn't going to be helping us out on this one, not that we wanted it. We can handle ourselves just fine against guys like this. Granted we were a little prideful, I'll admit that much but seriously, would you want the "grown ups" to always jump in on what you're doing because it's "too big for you".

I went to work soon after we departed from one another and the day went by as usual. Luckily Stan didn't go into detail about questioning my black eye. He kind of just let things go after I said "I'd rather not talk about it". I knew I wouldn't get the same treatment from the team. They definately would pry until I told them the truth. Then the guys would laugh. Then Kate or Cassie would tell them to shut up.

Boy was I right. The guys were cracking up hysterically while Cassie told them to shut up and Kate shook her head. Vision didn't do anything. I kind of just waited for them to regain their composure. "Anyway... back to our current situation," Kate finally said. "Vision said he's tracked Digitek to a warehouse and Diamondback to a hotel. Now instead of going at them one at a time I think we should split up and hit them both at once. Since Diamondback's at a hotel our best bet to getting to her is stealth, plus that'll give us an element of surprise. So Vision, Stature, Hulkling, and X-23 will handle her. Then-"

"Laura? Wait when'd she get in on this one?" I asked shocked to hear her mentioned.

"I called her earlier," Kate explained. "Anyway, the rest of us: Patriot, Aracnor, Wiccan, Speed and myself will go after Digitek. We strike at dusk."

About half an hour before dusk Laura walked in, nodded and gave me what I think was a half smile and sat down in the corner of the room waiting. It was surprisingly quiet as we got ready. Nerves, maybe. Or it could have been lack of anything other than my blackeye to talk about. Either way it made the wait all the more longer.

*Warehouse on the bay, 40 minutes later...* "This is it," Hawkeye announced as Patriot, Wiccan, Speed, and I stood with her in front of it. "Speed, run around the place really, fast. How many ways are there in and out?"

"I'll be done faster than you can say-" Speed disappeared for a second. "Four unless you count the windows up top."

"Okay that works out. Everyone split and take a door. Aracnor you go in with me. 3 minutes from now we go in there and get him," Hawkeye instructed. We waited outside of the nearest door like statues. "Jason..."

"Huh?" I asked almost not hearing Hawkeye.

"Get some stingers ready," she told me. I nodded and reloaded my left webshooter with stingers instead of webfluid. Another minute slowly passed by and Hawkeye had her hand on the door, and slowly she opened it. The lights were all out and it was almost pitch black. The warehouse was just one main room lined with mazes of crates. It seemed impossible that we'd find Digitek in here. My heart started throbbing harder as I feared a sneak attack. I needed my spider-sense.

We slowly advanced into the warehouse. Every step felt like a chance for Digitek to attack. After a minute or so of navigating through the rows of crates we heard movement. Without a word Hawkeye motioned towards the wall of the crates, we pressed our backs to it and inched forward slowly. As we reached the corner we saw a faint purple glow and knew we'd found Digitek.

*Meanwhile..., -Stature's point of view-* I'm two inches tall right and hiding inside Teddy's pocket. He's disguised himself as a maid while Vision is shifting the colors of his particles to blend in with the background and essentially become invisible. Laura... I actually have no idea where she is. Vision was the one in charge of our half of the mission and didn't comment on X-23's leave so it must have been part of the plan.

"Cleaning," Teddy knocked on the door. Even though we've been teammates for what feels like forever I'm still amazed at how realistic Teddy's maid voice sounded. Well I'm still surprised about everyone's powers really. And well Jason's lack of powers too... I feel so bad for him. He's been going through a lot because of it. I know I wouldn't be able to deal with not having my powers. I'd have gone crazy but Jason's something else. He got used to it. I almost forgot he didn't have his powers until today when I saw his eye.

The door opened, "I'm busy," I heard a woman say.

"That's fine, don't be distracted by me," Hulkling went on. He forced himself into the room.

"Really... I'm a mess right now, can't you come back later?" the woman went on.

"No can do ma'am, I need to finish this room up before the hour's up," Hulkling went on but he bumped himself into the wall.

"Ow," I couldn't help but mutter. Hopefully she didn't hear.

There was silence for a moment. "Fine... I'm going to be in the bathroom for a bit... don't disturb me while I'm in there."

"Yes ma'am," Hulkling replied.

I didn't think it'd be that short of a wait but a few seconds later I heard Diamondback break down the door. I jumped out of Hulkling's pocket and grew to my full size, Vision revealed himself and Hulkling reverted back to his normal appearance and ripped off the maid's outfit. I soon saw that Diamondback had actually been knocked through the wall by X-23.

"You kids are so dead," she glared at us as she got up and hit a button on her bracelet and she was covered in her costume almost instantly.

*Back to Aracnor, Hawkeye, Patriot, Speed, and Wiccan...*

Honestly speaking the next few seconds felt like they went in slow motion or like I had my spider-sense almost. I saw it coming but I honestly couldn't stop it. Our plan had been going so well up until now too. I definately should have expected something like this to happen. Kate sneezed.

Before I even had a chance to react Digitek was in front of the two us. I grabbed Hawkeye and pulled her down as fast as I could. Unfortunately it wasn't fast enough because Digitek's punches still hit the tops of our foreheads. We were knocked back into a row of crates. Patriot lept over the row of crates we hit and slammed his shield into Digitek's face before punching him square in stomach.

I rubbed my head for a second and roundhouse kicked Digitek. It didn't seem to hurt him much though. I continued my assault with a right hook to the face, a knee to the chest, and a load of webbing to his and Hawkeye by this point were ready to get back at Digitek, Wiccan and Speed had just rounded the corner to where we were. "Wiccan, Speed you almost missed the party," I told him as we regrouped in front of Digitek.

*Back at the hotel...* Okay, this really should be easy. We outnumber her four to one. Somehow she wasn't exactly an easy task.

Vision was having trouble phasing his hands into her, she kept moving. I wasn't too much use. The ceiling was too low for me to grow that big and if I shrunk I'd be no help. It was a lose lose situation for me really. Hulkling and X-23 were doing most of the real fighting. Hulkling lacked the experience of a mercenary at hand to hand combat so he was doing poorly. X-23 was holding her own. I saw why Kate asked her to help out with this mission.

X-23 sliced at Diamondback but she dodged it. They refused to let the other touch them. X ducked and rolled to dodge all of Diamondback's attacks before launching a flurry of her own that Diamondback dodged. Hulkling pulled back at this point. "How are we supposed to help her?" I asked Vision.

"I'm calculating it... we need a hole in that wall," Vision pointed at the wall facing the city. I grew as large as the room permited me and gripped my hands into the wall and yanked out a section of it from the entire wall. "Hulkling... grab X-23 on the count of 3."

"But she's fighting Diamondback," Hulkling questioned.

"Just do it," Vision instructed.

"But-"

"NOW!"

Hulkling grabbed X and Vision was phasing his hands through Diamondback almost instantly. He pulled her out the window with him. Vision's plan made sense. Diamondback was good at fighting us in closed off areas. We'd have an advantage outside. The three of us jumped out of the "window" we made. Hulkling grew a pair of wings to fly, X-23 used her claws slide down the side of the building, and I grew to the size of a building. Vision phased through one of Diamondback's punches when X and Hulkling landed.

*Outside the warehouse...* Okay we might be in a little over our head at this point. We had no idea Digitek was one of those villains who could morph their body into weapons. He had changed his arms into chainsaws and to make matters worse his legs were now a motorcycle. "What's wrong Young Avengers? I thought you wanted to fight," Digitek taunted us as Hawkeye barely ducked out of the way of Digitek's next attack.

Speed ran up alongside Digitek and in a blur had tied his arm to a tree. Digitek was snagged back hit the tree next to it hard. We took advantage and started attacking. I started shooting webs at him to trap him on the tree. Hawkeye shot an arrow that started to electrocute him. Wiccan started to chant "I want him to fall asleep..." until Digitek's eyes closed and his body became motionless.

"I'mgonnagogetsomecopsforthisguy," Speed blurted out as he sped off only to return 30 seconds later. "Okay there's two coming from around the block."

"Yo guys, I think we oughta help the others out," Patriot suggested.

"What makes you say that?" Hawkeye asked.

"Because I can see Stature," he replied pointing behind us. We turned and saw Stature just up the block. She had just grown giant and from the looks of it Diamondback was in the streets now. She might get a chance to escape now. Speed became a green blur and was there instantly, Wiccan, Hawkeye, Patriot and me on the other weren't. Instead Wiccan's eyes started to glow blue and he created 4 blue discs. We hopped onto them and they started to speed in Stature's direction.

When we got there Diamondback was exchanging blows with X-23. Both of them looked tired, especially X. She was the only one fighting Diamondback. It was like the others were afraid or something. This became a problem when Diamondback stabbed X-23 in the face. She fell to the ground motionless. "LAURA!" I screamed out. Instantly I was sprinting over to her ignoring everything else that was going on. Diamondback took advantage of this when she sidestepped Hulkling and barely missed doing the same to me. She simply sliced open the side of my neck. I stopped and grabbed my neck in pain. I would have been killed right there if it hadn't been for Speed who had pulled me out of the way.

Hawkeye shot an arrow at Diamondback that hit her in the wrist, it started sparking. Patriot hit her in the face hard with his shield and Hulkling punched her into a building. She fell down unconscious. I got up and ran to Laura who was starting to move. I got on my knees and sat her up. Her right eye was gone but from the looks of it it was starting to heal. "Laura..." I muttered.

"It's just a scratch," she replied, and if I wasn't mistaken, with a half smile.

I smiled, "You had me scared for a sec."

"Yo Aracnor! You wanna do us all a favor and web her up?" Patriot called.

"Come on," I helped Laura up and we walked over to our unconscious enemy.I started to cover her in a coccoon with my webbing until her entire body was covered and the cartridge was emptied.

We made our way back to the Avengers mansion completely drained of any energy we had left in our bodies. Everyone excluding Vision collapsed onto the couch and each other once we got inside and were out cold for the rest of the night.