Hi, sorry for the late update. I'm currently travelling Europe, I had hoped to have this chapter done but oh well, you have it now.
Please thank Dog1056 for telling me to get on with it. I didn't realise how many people actually liked it, so to all those favouriting, following, reviewing and reading, thank you.
Quick note: PEOPLE We need more Enemy (by Charlie Higson) fics. To people who read zombie books, books with little romance (okay it's mentioned and stuff but oh well) please read them and help expand the fandom! If you do, I will love you forever.
Peter rushed home as quickly as he could. It took him exactly fifteen minutes to swing near to the Avenger's Tower, quickly change into civilian clothing and finally get back to his room. It would have been two minutes quicker if he hadn't had to make the detour of swing back to where he left his clothes. He thoroughly regretted leaving them in a dumpster. Someone had decided to drop some form of sticky drink – orange Fanta by the colour and smell of things – all over a nice pale blue shirt. Sadly, that probably wouldn't wash out easily.
Peter changed shirts, not wanting any awkward questions to come out about why he had a pee coloured stain on his shirt if and when Steve finally arrived at his room. Thankfully he had avoided both Pepper and the other Avengers whilst going to his room. That made life sooooo much easier.
Peter lay on his bed, relaxing from a boring day at school and an interesting experience as Spider-man. It still got him how well Steve had fought. And for all his talk, Tony was a very serious fighter, it looked like his moves were tactically planned and the punches were laid with precision and an accurate amount of force. That way it would seriously injure but not kill anyone.
Probably Jarvis calibrating the odds, joked Peter in his head.
Peter rolled on his stomach and slumped on his bed, begrudgingly realising that he had left his costume strewn over the floor. Peter, very unenthusiastically, crawled to the floor, attempting to grab the offending items of clothing without his feet leaving the bed. When he used to do this before the years of amazing powers of sticking to things and balance, Peter would have failed miserably and probably, loudly and painfully, slumped onto the floor. Now he successfully grabbed everything (with a little help from the web fluid that came in handy so often) and shoved it all unceremoniously into the hidden safe beside the bed.
Peter attempted to do a similar tactic with his school bag. Sadly, this time, it failed. With his web slingers in the safe and his bag on the other side of the room, Peter had to actually move! He got up and walked over to his bag. He carefully ignored the homework, telling the tale all teens do I'll do it later and rummaged for his phone. After thirty seconds of no success Peter dropped to the floor and emptied his bag. Still, there was no sign of his phone.
Crap! Peter thought. His head buzzed with all the places he had been and all the places he could have left it. Kitchen, no. Bathroom, no. School, no.
The list went on. He retraced his steps from the previous day. He had promised Gwen that when he got back he would text her. She knew he had been up late and wanted to make sure he wasn't out when he was half asleep.
After at least two more minutes of mindless rummaging through his room Peter stopped dead in his tracks. He knew exactly where his phone was... it was right next to Tony's lab, where he was working on the Lizard cure.
"Jarvis." Peter said quietly.
"Yes sir." Jarvis responded.
"Is anyone up in Tony's lab?" Peter asked, practically frozen in his tracks. He knew that the texting could wait but if it went off and someone was in the nearby vicinity he was doomed! And if he forgot to get it and left it until later or tomorrow he was doomed! Gwen would fry him alive.
"Do you mean the one situated next to your non-existant work place?" Jarvis questioned robotically.
"Yeah." Peter replied, holding his breath as he waited for an answer.
"No sir, Doctor Banner is currently refilling his tea and conversing with Miss Romanof while Mister Barton is training. Mister Stark is currently outside of the building along with Captain Rogers. Miss Potts has just arrived in the lobby." Jarvis responded and Peter finally exhaled. He dashed out of his room and to the lift. He pressed the going up button and watched as the numbers tortuously slowly showed the lift moving up. Peter ignored the lift and took to the stairs. He could run quicker than the lift to get to the right floor anyway.
Two minutes away Tony flew towards the tower. He would have gone faster but he feared the speed of the air on Steve's wound might agitate it. This was thoroughly illogical though since Steve reassured him that he was fine and hid the wound from the offending air particles by keeping one hand pressurising it.
"Sir." Came Jarvis's British voice. "It seems there has been a breach of security in the tower. Someone is shutting of my from the hard drive."
Tony's head immediately snapped into action.
"Jarvis, transfer all data files in danger and yourself into the suit once you've alerted the others." he commanded.
He watched as a loading bar appeared on the right side of inside his helmet a moment later. Tony watched as Jarvis fully uploaded himself into the suit and out of the tower's system along with other important files.
Steve had of course heard Tony's response, but even with his excellent hearing, he had not heard Jarvis's part of the conversation. He looked up at Tony questioningly.
"We might have to wait a little longer to get that wound checked. Someone's in the tower." Tony said seriously.
Steve looked in the direction of the tower, calculating how long it would take to get there. He estimated just over a minute.
"I can drop you off on the next building and come get you when it's over." Tony suggested half heartedly. He knew what response was coming next.
"Not a chance. It's not that bad." Steve protested vigorously. "Ask Jarvis who was in the tower."
"Jarvis?" Tony questioned knowing that the automated butler had heard.
"Miss Potts, Miss Romanof..." Jarvis started listing off. Tony repeated them using first name basis.
Steve cut them off quickly.
"Was Peter in the Tower?" he practically begged. He knew all but Pepper could defend themselves and she was probably safe with the others. Peter might have been in his room or something.
"Yes, sir." Jarvis responded. Tony relayed the message.
Tony then engaged in a conversation with Jarvis about who the attacker was. Sadly Jarvis wasn't able to maintain much information before someone found the towers power source and started fiddling with it enough to cause a problem for Jarvis.
Inside the tower, Peter started lifting and moving things in his little work space, so far there had been no success. He slid to his knees and started hunting for his phone under one of the desks.
Suddenly, Jarvis's voice rang through the building.
"Intruders in the building, please evacuate. Intruders!" he said. Peter looked up, idiotically imagining that Jarvis was standing in front of him, thankfully he didn't lift his head high enough to hit the table above. It was still confusing talking to the air.
"Jarvis, who's intruding?" Peter asked. There was no response.
"Jarvis?" He called again.
The lights in his little room went down. Little did he know that this was happening throughout the tower.
Peter cursed loudly before trying to stand up in the dark. Thanks to his spidey sense he avoided a collision between his head and the table above him. He put his hand unnecessarily on the table beside him to steady himself. His finger tips brushed against a solid object. It wasn't paper, it was his phone! Peter almost hit himself for being so idiotic and not checking more thoroughly. He grabbed at it and turned it on, he used the light from the phone to guide himself forwards to the door. Peter knew he could have made it there without the light but he preferred doing this the quick and easy way.
Peter pushed at the door. It didn't budge, he pushed a little harder. Sadly, the door used electricity to open. Something of which this building currently did not possess. Peter banged his head on the door fruitlessly realising how stupid he was, once again. The reason this door would not open was because it was re-enforced so that if something happened in the lab only the lab would be damaged. You know what that made this room that had suddenly become Peter's prison? Sound proof. No one would hear his phone, he would not be doomed if it went off, he was an idiot! Peter weighed his options. There could be some dangerous villains lurking in the room next door or through the corridors of the building. He could stay safe in here and wait it out. Then again people might wonder where he was and then find him and wonder what the hell he was doing.
Okay, thought Peter, that's a definite nope.
Idea number two, he broke out of here using his super strength and then went looking for the others. As much as he wasn't ready for anyone to find out his connection with Spider-man, he was also not willing for someone to get hurt because he wanted to keep it a secret.
Peter pushed on the door. It didn't budge. He pushed even harder, there was very little difference. He could only slightly hear the hints of metal beginning to strain.
Then again, thought Peter, it could just be me causing two hand printed dents in the door.
Peter immediately shuddered at the thought. Last time he had seen hand prints, it had been on those dead bodies yesterday. How they had been burnt into those men, killing them. Peter ignored this train of thought as much as possible and went back to pushing at the door. The more he pressed the louder the straining noise sounded. He pushed with all his strength but that still wasn't enough. He was almost there though, he was sure of it. He walked back as quickly as he could, stopping when his sense picked up an object behind him, most likely a table. Peter prepared himself and then ran at the door, using his arm as a cover for his face and ribs.
The door and Peter fell with a large bang. How he was going to explain the door or anything inside, he had no idea.
Peter quickly inspected the room. It looked how it always did, clean and sterile. The only difference was the lights that were usually on, brightening up the room, were off. Peter quickly went to the wall sized window and saw a group of people outside the tower, there were about three of them, just standing outside. Peter didn't know if there were more surrounding the area or if these were even the intruders. They didn't look like much.
Peter abandoned the window and ran to the lift. Like all other electrically powered objects in the building, it was offline. Peter ran towards the stairs just as they opened and three men walked through the door. They didn't look at all out of breath from the stairs. They had military cropped hair. The one at the back had blonde hair and a young face, he looked the most uneasy, especially when he saw Peter. The next two had dark brown hair, however, the middle looked to be in his late thirty's, dark skinned and angry, his cheeks seemed to be glowing somehow and the man in front of him had tanned skin in his mid twenties. This man held a face of indifference and kept walking towards Peter.
"Jackey, you didn't say nothing about no kids!" the last man whispered to the middle man. Peter's enhanced hearing picked it up.
"Shut it." the man, now identified as Jackey, hissed. Peter stood in awe, wondering what he should do; wondering what these men would do.
"Gentlemen." The first man said stopping right in front of Peter. "Please go to your posts."
The youngest walked away from them to the other side of the room, Jackey stood in the stairway and the first man, the one who was obviously in change, stayed in front of Peter.
"And who do you think you are?" questioned Peter.
"I, I am somebody who will bring justice for the man who helped me and many others." The man said.
"What kind of answer is that? Are we doing a riddle contest now, Mister Gollum?" Peter quipped.
The man before him smiled but Peter could tell it was strained.
"There is nothing you can do, boy."
With that, Peter saw each of the men start to burn from the inside. It was like there was a fire in their skin! Peter felt his spider sense buzzing from all angles and knew this was a fight he couldn't win. He charged past the man in front, careful to avoid touching him. The man blocking the door was almost as easy to get past. They didn't seem to want to stop him. Peter's hand brushed against Jackey's arm as he barged past. He could feel himself being burnt. He glanced at the pained skin and saw that he had an actual burn on his hand. Peter began to race down the stairs.
Disregarding the glass in front of him, Tony smashed through the window into the main living area. He had warned Steve of his plan and the captain had raised his shield to protect himself. Nobody was there. Tony flew towards the stairs and started to fly down them. Steve was about to protest when he saw his team mates. There was a gun shot.
Natasha and Bruce were in the middle of the staircase with two people unconscious on the floor. One man, one woman. On the stairs in front stood two men and another woman, all in fighting stances. One of the men looked like his right arm was sun burnt. That just happened to be the same arm Natasha had shot a second ago.
"Oh crap." Tony muttered as he assessed the scene.
Steve climbed out of Tony's arms and dropped to the ground, ignoring the pain of his bullet wound as much as possible.
The woman at the front smiled.
"We have a message for you, Tony Stark. Mister Killian doesn't like dying." she said.
"Hey Bruce," Tony said nervously, not turning around. "Now would be a good time to suit up."
Bruce looked questioningly at Tony. The three intruders moved towards the heroes and Bruce started to turn green.
Steve put his shield up just as two more people came into the staircase from the door leading to the second floor.
The intruders all stopped moving and started to glow red. Right at that moment Peter ran down the stairs. Steve looked over his shield but it was too late. At that moment, the building exploded.