XXXI. Expedition

The tunnel under the bridge was choked thick with webbing, which made it look more like a cave than anything else. Pete led the way, MJ and Felicia following closely behind. As he crept toward the mouth of the tunnel with Dr. Banner's injector in hand, he felt as if he were a knight in some fantastical tale approaching a dragon's lair. Except, this wasn't a beast meant to be slain; it was a maiden that needed disenchanting.

It was already dusk; soon night would fall. Peter wondered whether Gwen was nocturnal now—that was certainly true of many common spiders. If that was the case here, they might even catch her sleeping. Peter turned to MJ and Felicia and whispered, "Watch where you step. Don't disturb the web."

"Duh," hissed MJ, "I think we all figured that part out."

Black Cat stepped in front of them both and whispered, "Maybe you should let the burglar go first."

"You want to play Bilbo Baggins? Be my guest," answered Peter.

"I don't know what that means," said Felicia; nevertheless, she went first into the yawning tunnel-mouth. The trio stepped lightly, making sure to avoid any spot where the webbing touched the ground. As they went, they passed the webbed-up cocoons of animals of varying sizes—some of the web-sacs were even large enough that they might have contained human bodies, a thought that made Peter and MJ both shudder.

A chill October wind blew through the cave then, making an eerie whistling noise as it subtly vibrated the webs. Something shifted overhead, up in the nest: a big dark spot was moving, ever so slightly, at the center of all the thick strands and funnels. Black Cat stopped in her tracks when she saw that; Peter and MJ almost ran into her from behind. Cat pointed and whispered, "There she is. We're in luck; I think she's sleeping."

"Thank goodness for that good luck of yours," whispered MJ to Cat.

Peter held up the injector. "Now I just have to get to her, without waking her up… hmm." He scanned the roof of the tunnel, looking for a bare spot with no webs. He took careful aim and fired a web-line of his own, not far from where the Spider-Thing was sleeping. Slowly, hand over hand, Peter climbed. Soon, he was within arms' reach of the slumbering beast. He could feel her breath, heard her gurgling, and smelled something acrid and foul on the air. She was inches away now… all he had to do was find a soft spot… he was nervous enough that his hands shook as he reached out with the device. If I've ever needed Black Cat's luck to counteract the Parker luck, this would be the time. He jammed the needle into a gap between plates of chitin. The creature woke up immediately, opening all eight of its beady black eyes, and shrieked in pain. Peter was only just able to depress the trigger before a powerful limb caught him on the chest and flung him back down to the ground.

MJ forgot herself then. "Peter!" she shouted, running to help him up. There was a nasty, bloody gash across his chest where Gwen's claw had torn through fabric, skin, and flesh. She and Black Cat were beside him in an instant, helping him to rise.

"I got her," said Peter, breathing heavily and wincing from the pain. "Let's hope it works."

Up in the nest over their heads, the Spider-Thing was hissing, screaming, and flailing her limbs. She was tangling herself all up in the webs, even as she was changing. The extra legs shriveled up and shrank back into her body; barbs and plates flaked away, or sank into her skin and disappeared. In mere seconds, Dr. Banner's drugs had worked their magic, and in place of a monstrous mutant, there now hung a naked, sixteen-year-old girl. She was unconscious and covered in some kind of fetid slime, but she was human again, and with only two arms.

"Cat, can you cut her down?" asked Peter.

Felicia smiled. "Sure thing… 'Peter'. It's nice to finally know that, by the way."

MJ blushed underneath her mask. "Sorry! That was my bad—I wasn't thinking, I slipped up—"

"Aw, don't worry about it," said Peter. "We'd have probably told her who we are eventually. She's practically already a part of our little… gang, or team, or whatever it is we've got going on here now."

"I guess we'll have to make the formal introductions later," said MJ lightly.

"Oh, that'll be fun…" snarked Peter.

After using her claws to tear through the webs, Black Cat came down from the ceiling carrying Gwen in her arms. "I don't suppose any of you thought to bring a coat?" After a beat, "Didn't think so; guess these webs will have to do for now."

"Let's get out of here," said MJ. She looked at one of the larger web-sacs and shuddered again. "This place gives me the creeps."

Peter took Gwen from Felicia, and they left the tunnel.

• • •

Silver Sable, the Wild Pack, and Kraven the Hunter had finally managed to dodge the news-cameras and sneak around the SHIELD agents' picket line. Once they were in Central Park, Kraven took point, sniffing the air, searching the ground for tracks and clues. Kraven had already been a master tracker as a mere human; now that he also possessed feline DNA, he was skilled beyond measure—possibly the best in the world. And everything his great skill and enhanced senses could tell him pointed to a tunnel under a bridge, a couple hundred meters ahead. That was when Sable took point, her mercs surging ahead of Kraven with their weapons primed. As a tactical unit, they were unmatched, a well-oiled machine… and they were all itching for a firefight with a mutant monstrosity.

That was when a moderately wounded Spider-Man emerged from the mouth of the tunnel, carrying in his arms a young girl wrapped in webbing. Scarlet Spider and Black Cat followed behind, warily eyeballing the armed mercenary force.

"Spider-Man!" snarled Kraven. "The creature? Where is it?"

Spidey looked down at Gwen, and then back over his shoulder, at his friends and at the tunnel behind them. "Uh… I don't know," he said glibly. "But you're free to keep looking around. I really don't care."

Silver Sable put up her rifle and narrowed her eyes at Spider-Man suspiciously. "You don't?"

"Uh, well, you know us super-hero types. Rescuing civilians is the top priority." He held up Gwen a few inches higher. "Hey, look at that, I found one! We're gonna get her to safety. You guys… keep on, uh, doing whatever it is that you do."

Kraven sniffed at the air again. "There is something… funny going on here. If I find out that you are somehow deceiving us…"

"Moi?" said Spidey. "Never!"

Meanwhile, Silver Sable was already done with Spider-Man's silliness. "Wild Pack, lock and load; we've got a monster to kill and a paycheck to collect!" She made a few tactical hand-signals and then charged into the tunnel. The mercenaries cocked their weapons and followed after her.

Kraven glared at Spidey. "Someday, Spider-Man, you will do me the honor of a rematch. And when that day comes, I will do you the honor of tearing your head off with my bare hands!"

Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider shared a look. "Should I?" asked Spidey.

"I don't know," said MJ. "It's almost so easy, it's embarrassing."

Spidey turned back to Kraven and said, "You don't have bear hands. You have lion hands… or, like, hand-paw things. Which reminds me, I've been meaning to ask, do you still have opposable thumbs?"

"Bah!" spat Kraven. He turned towards the tunnel and stalked away after Silver Sable.

"Scarlet's right, that was embarrassing," said Cat. "You're usually much better than that."

"Give me a break," said Spidey. "I'm injured. Besides, you can't expect me to waste my best material on a whackaloon like Kraven."

• • •

Peter carried Gwen back to the SHIELD van. "We've got her! Your drugs worked, Dr. Banner—we seriously can't thank you enough."

Bruce helped Peter get Gwen into the back of the van and lay her down on the floor. "Rest her down here… easy… there we go. Let's see how I did." He took a blood sample, and then fed the sample into an analyzer. A magnified image of Gwen's red blood cells appeared on a screen, along with numerous lines of data. "Good… looking good," said Bruce. "What do you think?"

Betty looked over Bruce's shoulder at the readouts and nodded. "I agree. As long as we keep her dosed, say, every twenty-four hours, that should keep the mutation in check. But her body might fight back and develop a resistance to the drugs."

"How long before that happens?" asked Peter.

"Oh, a week at least," said Bruce. "Don't worry. We'll get her some real help before that happens."

"That's a relief," said MJ. "I can't wait for this nightmare to be over with."

"We should go to the ESU genetics lab," said Peter. "Try and get ahold of Dr. Curtis Connors—"

"Uh… no," said Bruce.

"No?" echoed Peter in disbelief.

"We already had an agent interview Dr. Connors," explained Bruce. "He ran some preliminary tests, but the prognosis wasn't good. No offense, but we're going to need the help of a real expert to cure this girl."

"But the mutation—everything that caused it—was all based on Doc Connors' work!" said Peter, who was now a little angry at Dr. Banner's presumptuousness. "He's one of the top geneticists in the world! Who else could possibly help us?!"

"Peter, calm down!" snapped Bruce. "You really… really don't want to get me riled up here."

"Bruce?" said Betty. "Here, look at me. Remember to breathe… count down from ten. Eyes on me."

Bruce did as Betty asked: he faced her and took several deep breaths. Then he closed his eyes. Inside the van, all was momentarily quiet.

It was Peter who broke the silence. "You know who I am?" he asked.

Bruce opened his eyes again and fixed them on Peter. "It's need-to-know among SHIELD personnel. But Director Fury decided that the Avengers needed to know. Which brings up another point," he added. "If we go to Dr. Connors with this problem, it could compromise your secret identity with a civilian. Fury doesn't want that."

Peter nodded. "Then you, uh… you knew my parents. You worked with my dad."

Bruce smiled. "Yeah. I did."

Peter found himself suddenly speechless. Mary Jane rested a gentle hand on his back. "Promise me," said Peter, "that you'll, uh… you'll tell me about him sometime. What he was like back then."

"Sure, Peter," said Bruce. "No problem. Oh—! It looks like the patient's waking up!"

Gwen groaned and opened her eyes. "Unh… what the…?"

"Gwen!?" said Peter and MJ together, kneeling down. Peter tore off his mask; Mary Jane did the same. Felicia shrugged her shoulders and joined the club, removing her black domino-style mask.

"We're here, Gwen," said Peter.

"How do you feel?" asked MJ.

"Like shit," Gwen mumbled.

"Hey—I recognize you!" exclaimed Felicia. Everyone looked at her. "Harry's friends from the party! Oh!—does Harry know?"

"Um… let's talk about that later," said Peter. He asked Bruce, "What happens now? If we can't go to Doc Connors, who'll help us?"

"Well, there is one scientist in New York whose work has dealt with just this sort of problem," said Bruce. "I mean, not exactly this, but close. That would be Dr. Henry McCoy."

"Get outta town…" said Peter.

"We're gonna have to," said Bruce. "He lives in Westchester, at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. That means we've got a bit of a drive ahead of us, so… buckle up."

"Ooh, road trip!" cheered Felicia. "I'll get the door!" She went to close the back of the van; as she did so, she heard the sound of a gunning motor nearby. She peeked outside and saw a queer sight: up on a hill overlooking the copse of trees where they were parked, there was a man on a motorcycle. He seemed to be scanning the whole of Central Park from his vantage point, except… he was wearing sunglasses. After sundown. He was dark-skinned, with close-cropped hair and a powerfully built physique, something which Felicia always appreciated; but he was also wearing a flack-jacket and carrying what looked like a samurai sword. That was pretty weird. Huh; must be another one of those mercenary guys out looking for Gwen here. Oh, well; snoozers are losers. She promptly shut the van door and forgot all about the weirdo on the motorbike with the shades, vest, and blade.

• • •

The drive from Central Park to North Salem took about an hour and a half, thanks mainly to traffic. Along the way, Peter called home to assure Aunt May that everybody was safe and sound, including Gwen, and that they probably wouldn't be home until very late that night, if not the next morning. For her part, May was just relieved to hear that they'd found Gwen without anyone getting hurt.

For most of the rest of the trip, Gwen slipped in and out of consciousness, sometimes chatting with her friends and sometimes drifting off into restless, dream-plagued sleep. Peter and Mary Jane did everything they could to keep her comfortable in the van. Whenever Gwen slept, Felicia used the opportunity to get to know Peter and MJ better, and to learn what she could about the girl they'd just rescued.

At last, they arrived at their destination. As it was now well after dark, it was difficult to make out the details—the armored SHIELD van had no windows in the back, naturally—and so Peter was forced to strain his eyes to see the huge mansion up ahead of them. It must have been surrounded by acres of land, way out here in the sticks north of New York City. Dr. Banner stopped the van at a wrought-iron gate, where a couple of lights mounted on the fence around the property illuminated the approach. After some minutes' wait, he spoke to a woman via intercom and explained who he was. Then the gates opened, and he was able to drive onto the grounds. They went up a long and winding driveway, past topiary and a marble fountain, before coming to a stop outside the mansion's front door. More lights shone on the door, and on a nearby sign, carved in stately Roman letters, which read, "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters." The mansion itself had lights on in almost half the windows: clearly they hadn't arrived so late that everyone here would have already turned in for the night.

"This is a school?" asked Felicia, who jumped out the back of the van first. "It's even nicer than the academy I go to."

While Bruce and Betty emerged from the front of the vehicle, Peter and Mary Jane gently roused Gwen and helped her to stand. Gwen was now wearing a trench-coat that Bruce had given up; the webbing had mostly dissolved away, leaving her feeling all sticky and gross and very naked under that coat. "I hope they have some clothes here," she mumbled.

"Are you kidding?" said Peter with a grin. "Do you know where we are? This is the X-Mansion! I swear, if I get to meet Charles Xavier, I'm totally gonna geek out over here…"

"Watch it, Gwen: Peter's about to have another nerdgasm," giggled MJ.

"X-Mansion, huh? Like the X-Men?" asked Gwen. "Well then maybe they can hook me up with some of that blue-and-yellow spandex they wear."

Our party of heroes, now six strong, went to the front door, where they were greeted by two women: one in her late twenties, a tall redhead with a demure but confident manner; she was wearing a jacket, blouse, skirt, and heels, very business-chic. The other was a teenager, shorter than the redhead, with mousy brown hair, wearing whitewashed bluejeans and a babydoll-t with a pink heart on it.

"Hello," said the elder of the two women, "and welcome to Xavier's School. I'm Jean Grey, one of the faculty here; and this is Kitty Pryde, one of our top students."

Kitty, a look of joy and surprise on her face, ran right up to Peter. "Oh, wow!" she said. "You're—you are really him, aren't you? Spider-Man?"

That was when Peter and MJ both realized that they were both still in costume, but they hadn't bothered to put their masks back on. Upon seeing the looks of dismay that darkened their features, Jean Grey laughed and said, "Don't worry. We're used to being discreet about secret identities around here. Nobody's going to pry, or tell the world who you are. You can trust us here."

"That's a relief," said MJ. "It seems like our secret identities are getting less and less secret every day."

Jean laughed again and said, "Well you don't have anything to fear from us. Now, Peter, Mary, wait here; I'll go find Hank and see if he can take a look at Gwen." She nodded at Bruce and Betty—"Dr. Banner; Dr. Ross."—and left.

After Jean had disappeared, Peter said, "Uh… we didn't tell her our names…"

"You wouldn't have to," said Kitty with a shrug. "Jean's a telepath, like the Professor." Kitty led our heroes into the mansion, to a comfortable sitting-room where Gwen was able to rest on a sofa near a fireplace.

"By the way, when do we get to meet Professor Xavier?" asked Peter, with no poker-face whatsoever to conceal his eagerness.

"Oh… sorry," said Kitty. "He's not here. He's away on a mission, with some of the X-Men. They do that a lot, you know."

"Aw, man…" grumbled Peter, looking to the floor in disappointment.

"But, hey!" said Kitty. "How cool is this? It's not every day you meet Spider-Man! I'm a huge fan!"

"You are?" asked Peter.

"Ahem," said MJ.

"Yeah, what are we, chopped liver?" asked Black Cat.

"Um… actually, I don't know who any of you are," confessed Kitty.

"What? That's crazy!" said Peter. "Come on; these are my partners-in-crime-fighting! Scarlet Spider and Black Cat!"

Still lying over on the sofa, Gwen piped up, "And Spider-Woman, over here!"

"Whoa… you have a whole team?" said Kitty. "That's so awesome!"

"Says the girl who goes to school with the X-Men," said MJ.

That was when Jean Grey returned, accompanied by everyone's favorite blue-furred Beast. Dr. Hank McCoy, wearing a specially-tailored tweed suit and wire-frame spectacles, prowled straight up to Bruce and Betty and said, "Dr. Banner! Dr. Ross! It has been too long! How are you doing, my friends?" His amiable, mild manner was downright infectious; there was just something about Beast that made Peter trust he really would be able to cure Gwen's condition.

Betty answered, "All things considered, we've been worse." She took Bruce's hand in hers and smiled at him.

"Hm, I can imagine," said Hank. "It would seem that all present have, in their own way, suffered 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'. But we all do our best to cope, don't we?" He knelt down next to Gwen and immediately went into 'bedside manner' mode. "Hello, my dear. I'm Dr. McCoy; you can call me Hank if you like."

"Gwen Stacy," said Gwen, pointing a thumb at her chest.

Hank produced a couple of needles and said, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to draw a little bit of blood. Nothing too invasive, of course; just enough to examine. Once I'm done, if you'd like to get cleaned up, I'm sure Kitty can find you some clothes—"

"Yeah, leave that to me," said Kitty. "I'd love to show you guys around the mansion!"

• • •

A while later, Gwen and Kitty joined Peter, MJ, and Felicia in one of the mansion's dining rooms. Peter and Mary Jane, especially, thanks to their spider-powered metabolisms, could really pack the food away, and neither of them had eaten anything since lunchtime. They were still stuffing their faces, long after Felicia had finished, when Gwen and Kitty found them. Gwen's face lit up and she started to dig in. "Oh, God; I'm starving!" she cried, reaching for fruit, bread, meat, anything on the table within reach. "I didn't even notice until I smelled the food."

"How are you feeling now?" asked MJ.

"Like a million bucks, now that I've had a shower," said Gwen between mouthfuls. "But I don't think I'm ever gonna get the smell of that spider-gunk out of my hair. Hey, maybe I'll just lop it all off; then I can wear a full mask, more like yours, Pete."

Peter swallowed something and asked, "Do you still have your powers from before?"

"Um… I dunno," said Gwen. "I've been kind of afraid to check."

"Now's as good a time as any," said MJ.

And so Gwen pointed two fingers at an apple on the table, fired a web-line, and snapped the apple into her hand. "Hey, check it out," she chuckled, "snagged it on the first try."

"Whoa…" said Kitty. "You really are Spider-Woman! I'm gonna have to get a new poster…"

"Poster?" inquired Peter.

"Oh, yeah, you shoulda seen it," said Gwen. "She's got a poster of you in her bedroom. Total Spidey fangirl over here."

Peter blushed, and Mary Jane said, "Hm. I'm not sure I like the idea of my boyfriend on someone else's wall."

"Aw, relax, MJ," said Gwen. "You know that Petey's only stickin' to your walls and nobody else's."

"So you two are like… an item, then?" asked Kitty. She sounded kind of disappointed.

"Practically married," said Gwen. She was beaming with the same roguish grin she always wore whenever she teased her friends.

It was then that Hank, Bruce, and Betty came into the dining room to join the teens. Hank had a few papers in his hands—magnified images of Gwen's blood sample that he'd printed out. "Forgive the intrusion," said Beast, "but I have a few more questions that I must have answered before I can solve this little conundrum of ours. First of all, it's clear from my examinations of Miss Stacy's genome that she does not possess the X-gene. Am I right in concluding that none of you are mutants?"

Felicia raised her hand. "I might be. I have no idea where my powers came from."

"Well, that's easy enough to check," said Hank. "But nobody here with spider-powers was born with them?"

"Nope," said Peter. "We're all spliced with super-spider DNA."

"That would explain the retroviral particles in the blood," said Hank, "but not these. I've never seen their like, and neither has Dr. Banner."

Peter looked at the image and gasped. "I have. Space spores!"

"What?" said Hank.

"I've got what in my blood?" said Gwen at the same time.

"They came from Colonel Jameson's shuttle mission," explained Peter. "We don't know very much about these little buggers, except that they're extraterrestrial, and they're infectious."

"But how did they get into me?!" asked Gwen.

Peter thought for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers and exclaimed, "The red symbiote suit! Eddie Brock made it from materials at the ESU lab, including stolen tissue samples! The spores must've come from there!"

"Whatever they are, wherever they came from, they have a decidedly unpredictable effect on terrestrial mutagens and gene-switching enzymes," said Hank. "This would be the missing piece of the puzzle. Do you know a way to counter or kill off the spores?"

"Electricity," said Peter. "It was only thing we could find that kills them."

"Hm," said Hank, stroking his chin. "I believe I can state with some confidence that our infirmary isn't equipped for electro-shock therapy. But I might be able to modify a defibrillator… Miss Stacy, I'm sorry to say that this may be our only option. It's not without risk."

"Will it keep me from turning back into a monster?" asked Gwen.

"It should make Dr. Connors' original cure effective, yes," said Hank.

"Then I'll go through with it," said Gwen.

"Very well," said Hank. "I'll make the preparations." He turned to Felicia and asked, "Do you want me to test you for the X-gene, Miss Hardy?"

"Sure, why not?" said Felicia. "I was starting to feel left out anyway." She rolled up her black leather sleeve and let Hank take some blood.

• • •

Another tense hour passed, with Gwen in the infirmary being treated by Doctors McCoy, Banner, and Ross. Peter and Mary Jane were made to wait back in the sitting-room with Felicia and Kitty. Eventually, Hank reappeared, leading Gwen by the hand. Gwen looked shaken and pale, but she was otherwise unharmed.

"How did it go?" asked Peter.

"She'll be fine," said Hank. "The spores are gone from her system now, and I've inoculated her with a gene-stabilizer that should prevent further mutation."

"Check it out," said Gwen. She held up her hand, and it started to glow with a weird greenish-yellow hue. "I'm still Spider-Woman!"

"In that case, welcome to the team!" said Felicia.

Peter looked from MJ to Felicia to Gwen and said, "I'm starting to feel a little outnumbered here…"

"You could call us 'Spidey's Angels'," suggested MJ with a laugh.

"It was really great to meet all of you guys," said Kitty. "And I won't forget you: Scarlet Spider, Black Cat, and Spider-Woman. I definitely need a new poster, one with your whole team."

Their conversation was interrupted by the repetitive chop-chop-chop of an aircraft outside. "That's not the Blackbird…" said Kitty.

"It sounds more like a helicopter," said Peter.

Everybody poured outside of the mansion to see a black helicopter landing on the school's front lawn. A few minutes later, two men emerged from the craft: Nick Fury, in his customary long black coat… and none other than Captain America himself.

"Whoa…" said Peter, MJ, and Kitty together. It was hard not to react that way when you saw the nation's greatest hero walking towards you in that blue mask and carrying his famous red-white-and-blue vibranium shield.

Fury walked up to the assembled crowd of teen heroes and mutants and said, "Let's go inside and talk."

• • •

"I've got a few words for you first," said Fury to Gwen, once everybody was back in the mansion's comfortable sitting-room. "We swept Central Park and cleaned up any evidence that you were ever there… including two bodies."

Gwen paled and swallowed. "Bodies?"

"Two corpses, still unidentified, wrapped up in your webs. Their juices had been sucked dry—by a giant spider."

"Hey!" said Peter, stepping up to defend Gwen. "You can't hold her responsible for that! She was under the effects of a—"

"Of a mutagen that she injected into herself," said Fury. "So I can, and do, hold her responsible. She killed two people!"

"So what happens to me, then?" asked Gwen.

"The simple fact is, you're now an illegal, unnatural genetic mutation," said Fury. "But… you're a minor. I can't touch you yet, not legally. So here's how it will go down: you keep on going to school. You can even play super-hero with your friends here. Whatever you want; enjoy your youth while it lasts. But once you turn eighteen and finish high school, Spider-Woman is mine. Parker and Watson here: they get a choice. You don't. That's the price you pay for what you did."

"So let me get this straight," said Gwen. "I turn eighteen, and what? I have to go work for SHIELD? Be a full-time super-hero?"

"Pretty much," said Fury. "Them's the breaks."

"I think I can live with that," said Gwen.

"Like I said, you don't get a choice," said Fury.

Dr. McCoy sounded furious when he interrupted their talk. "You came all the way out here, in person, to say this to a young girl who's just been through a terrible ordeal?"

"No," said Fury, "not really. This was just a convenient time to get that part out of the way. The real reason that we're here is because of her," he said pointing to Felicia.

All eyes fell on the Black Cat. "Me?" asked Felicia. "What could you possibly want with me?"

Bruce cleared his throat and said, "Um, the truth is, I called them here. You see, Felicia, the results of your blood test… they were negative for the X-gene. You're not a mutant."

"I'm not? Okay. What am I, then?"

"Well, in simplest terms… you're a super-soldier," said Bruce. "Like Captain Rogers here. In fact, exactly like him. The effects of the Stark-Erskine serum are unmistakable. I knew as soon as saw your blood."

Nick Fury added, "The work that Dr. Banner here did back in the day, along with Peter's father and many, many others, including the accident that turned him into the Hulk… it was all part of a program that SHIELD's had ever since World War II to recreate the super-soldier serum. We'd thought that Captain America was the world's only successful result. Now it seems that there are two."

"But… how?" asked Felicia.

"We're not exactly sure," said Fury. "But it's a good bet that it has something to do with your cat-burglar dad, and your grandfather, Jack Hardesky. Miss Hardy, I'd like you to come back to SHIELD headquarters with us, for a little debriefing. Maybe there, we can get to the bottom of this mystery."

"Am I being arrested?"

"No," said Steve Rogers. "That's not what we do. We just want your help with answering a few questions; the scientists might want to run a few quick tests to help with the investigation. But that's all, I promise."

"If she goes, we come with," said Peter.

"There isn't enough room in the helicopter," said Fury with a deep chuckle. "But you can go with Dr. Banner and meet us at HQ if you like. Felicia comes with us right now; it's kind of urgent."

"Why?" asked Peter.

"Because… earlier today, some SHIELD servers were hacked," admitted Fury. "Someone got in and searched for everything we had on the super-soldier serum. And they just might have found something. We don't know what, yet; but we're gonna find out."