Chapter Three

"We're on his tail, sir! Spider-Man is dead ahead," the young cop called into his walkie talkie, leaning his head out of the passenger side's window while watching the small figure swing on a thin, web-like substance from building to building.

"Keep him in your sight, you here me?" The police chief barked from where he was with the criminals, who they found tied up in the fluid. "I want him detained tonight, and I'm not accepting empty hands," he added.

"Yes, sir," the first responded, nodding his head—he wasn't in sight, but the sheer voice of the chief made him stiff and wary—as he gave a look and nod to the driver. He knew what he was implying.

Meanwhile, the web-slinger himself was up ahead, checking over his shoulder every few moments, sighing sharply as he squinted into the wind. He'd broken his goggles a week ago, and without a job, he was broke. Very broke. Broke enough to be unable to replace key parts of his super suit—well, he couldn't really call it a super suit. More of a modified...you get the idea.

Each string behind him hung limp, his movements muscle memory by now—too bad fate decided he should run out of web fluid right when he had finally gotten used to swinging around like New York's Tarzan. "Crap," he muttered, tiny remains of web fluid squirting from his shooters. Shimmying awkwardly up the last strand Peter shot, he crawled up onto the rails of a fire-escape stairway outside of an apartment building.

The spider barely had enough time to take a tense breath before powerful lights glared into his eyes. He stuck his hands up to shield the light immediately, squinting as he pulled up the cloth tied around the bottom half of his face. He stood up slowly, toes curling on the edge of the bannister as he balanced himself carefully.

"That's right, hands up!" The young cop called, gun in position as he trained it on the small figure. He was indeed hesitant, noticing how childlike the figure looked, but steadied himself and dropped any hint of emotion as he shouted again, "We've got you surrounded!"

"Actually," Spidey said, glancing around, "I'm not surrounded. You're just over there, I don't see guys on the stairs behind me," he responded, a small and half-faked grin on his face. He didn't really think it would show, but he thought a little acting might help him look...not so freaked out.

In all reality, he was very freaked out. Extremely freaked out.

"Good job, men," the chief said as he arrived at the scene, placing his hands on his hips as he looked up at the costumed teenager. "So, the famous Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson has told us so much about you," he said, now folding his arms as he kept his gaze on him. "Any more quips before we get you down from there?"

The teen in question opened his mouth and took in a breath, about to say just that kind of quip, when the blades of a chopper interrupted any conversation they had planned on having. "Sorry, Captain Stacy," a different voice called from the helicopter, shoving a rope ladder down towards the boy, "but this one's ours."

Spidey looked up quickly, raising a brow at his possible saviors, but decided he really had no better choice. He'd rather not be imprisoned at fifteen. So with a quick leap, he matched half the height of the ladder, holding on tight as he nodded to whomever was controlling from above.

"Oh, get in, don't be dramatic about it," another voice, female, called from above, "come on, they've got guns, anyways," she added, motioning for him to climb the rest of the way up.

He did just that, and after one more leap, he leaned against the inside wall of the helicopter, breathing deeply as he tilted his head back. "Thanks," he said, words slightly muffled through his mask, "I owe you guys one."

"No problem, Spider-Man," the female voice said, stepping closer to get a better look at him. "You look younger than you are, y'know," she commented, tilting her head slightly. "Hang on, didn't you have goggles?"

He narrowed his eyes slightly, brows pulling into a confused frown, "Uh, I broke 'em. Crime's rough around here, you know," he said with a shrug, his expression not changing one bit.

"Skye, manners," the first voice said from the co-pilot's chair, "He's probably just as confused, if not more, than you were when we first picked you up," he said, his tone stern but amused at the same time.

"Right, sorry AC," she said over her shoulder, giving a half-smile back to the teen, "Sorry, kid, bit of a fan. Well, I've snuck a few glances to the Index, and I saw the name. Well, I saw the code-name," she added, "Spider-Man? Really? Nothing else you could come up with?"

The teen shrugged, "I was fourteen," he said simply.

"Right," Skye said—he was gonna go with the name, she had responded to it earlier, anyways—as she leaned against the opposite wall of the copter, "By the way, you can take off the mask if you want. We know who you are, so the cocky teenager act is kind of pointless," she said, raising her brow a bit.

"Skye," the other man reprimanded, getting up and out of the chair, and heading towards the two. "Sorry about that, Peter," he said, earning a look of surprise from the kid in question, "It's a lot to take in, I know. But you can be honest with us, we aren't going to arrest you," he promised, sounding quite sincere to the teen's ears.

Peter pulled down his mask slowly, inhaling before sighing softly, "Who are you people, anyways?" He asked, loosening his hood and pulling it down, running a hand through his hair. "I mean, you've got to be the good guys, unless some HYDRA agents are looking for a scrawny teenage boy in a spider suit," he said.

"We're the good guys, don't worry," Skye said, "I'm guessing by now you've heard of SHIELD, we're kinda sorta everywhere," she explained, Peter responding with a nod. "Great, but just to say again, we're the good guys. Not HYDRA. They're the bad ones," she said, basically drilling it in at this point.

"I'm Coulson," the man said with a kind smile, "We've been keeping tabs on you for a while, so I thought now was as good a time as ever to bring you in," he said, extending a hand to the teen, who in turn shook it firmly. "We're heading towards one of our hideouts, we've been working a cloaking device. Engineering hasn't got that quite figured out yet," he said, his eyes falling for a moment, "But we've got a few places left that HYDRA hasn't infiltrated. You'll be briefed once you're there," he said.

It was a lot to take in, that much Peter decided on his own, but he had a feeling this was better than scraping the last few bits of his allowance for spare lenses and web fluid components. "I get to go back home, right?" He asked, raising his brow and standing up tall (which wasn't that tall, in all honesty).

"Don't worry, you'll be back home as soon as we can get you there," Coulson said with an affirmative nod. "May, how close are we?" He asked over his shoulder, folding his hands in front of himself as he spoke.

"Hour at most, closer to forty-five minutes," another voice responded, sounding womanly but reserved, "We'll get there."

Coulson nodded, turning back towards the two, "Then perhaps we've got enough time to brief you on the way there," he decided with a small smile.

-.-.-

Okay, it was a hell of a lot more then a lot to take in. But still, Peter had to admit that it was pretty cool. Besides the part where he remembered his best friend's dad is kind of-sort of one of the big guys of HYDRA. He wasn't exactly excited about that part, but Coulson had promised him they would try their best to keep Harry out of it.

Good, because he couldn't lose his best friend in all of this. Harry kept him tethered down; kept him from diving off into the deep end when he was stressed over juggling his two lives: School and crime fighting. He needed Harry, just as much now then before.

But now, Peter was in a freaking plane full of more tech then he'd ever seen before, and more people that understood him then he could find in his entire high school. He's also flying over the Atlantic Ocean, heading towards an overseas base—no big deal.

"The, uh, web-shooters," a Scottish voice said from behind him. Peter turned around to see the guy he'd heard about behind him wringing his hands a bit, and tilting his head at an angle to show that he wasn't very confident in anything he said or did. "How did you, you know, how did they..." He moved his hands again, fiddling with the top of his sweater as he tried to piece together the sentence, for which Peter waited patiently. "It's like spiderweb, but it's...its capable of with-withstanding the pressure of a lot of weight." He finished at last, pursing his lips as if not fully pleased with how he'd managed to explain the devices.

Peter nodded, giving Fitz a kind smile, "Yeah, I developed the compounds myself. It's, well, it's hard to explain without some paper and a pencil. Mind if I write it out for you?" He offered, raising an eyebrow.

The young engineer shrugged before looking over his right shoulder as if he'd heard a voice, and then he mumbled something inaudible before turning back to look at Peter. "Um, sure. I've got the stuff just this way, actually-" He broke off, glancing over Peter's shoulder this time instead. "Actually, I...I think someone else needs to talk to you. Maybe we could—maybe later..," He said, gesturing lightly at the figure entering the lab

"Oh, yeah, of course," Peter said, glancing the same way and taking note of a familiar young woman, "Yeah, I'll be sure to write it all out. It would be my pleasure," he said, turning back towards him with a nod.

"Yeah, yeah, I—I look forward to it," he said with a quick nod, heading for the other door.

"Hey, uh, Fitz?" Peter added, getting a look over the shoulder from the quiet engineer, "Good luck on that cloaking device, man," he added with another kind smile, watching Fitz walk away.

"I think he'll appreciate it, Peter," the young woman said, cutting the distance between herself and the kid in question, "He's asked me about the makeup of the webbing before, but I couldn't explain anything," she admitted with a chuckle.

Peter frowned lightly, looking at the woman with a gaze of curiosity, "Yeah...I've seen you before, haven't I?" He asked, tilting his head slightly, "I swear, you look too familiar to just look like someone I know," he added.

She chuckled a bit, "You would recognize me, yes, remember your field trip to OSCORP? When you were bit?" She asked, raising her brow, "And your subsequent visits to OSCORP with Harry?"

He rose his brow, not saying anything quite yet. He wanted to hear her out.

"You're waiting, aren't you?" She guessed correctly, raising her brow with a light smirk, "I'm Agent Cindy Moon, I work a lot in undercover. Worked for your friend's father for a while, gathering intel. We've had...suspicions for a while now about OSCORP. They were confirmed just last week when HYDRA revealed itself," she said formally, although he could tell in her eyes that she wasn't always like this, she was just on the job.

Peter nodded, "So SHIELD's got eyes and ears everywhere, especially on me, huh?" He said, earning a nod from Agent Moon, "Little creepy, but it's no worse than the IRS, or whatever people are complaining about now," he said with a shrug. "Any other friend's dad's coworkers I should know about that are SHIELD agents?" He asked drily.

"You should be good for now," the young agent replied with a bit of an amused smile, heading for the door again. "We should be there soon!" she called over her shoulder, "I suggest you pull on some normal clothes, given your current attire."

-.-.-

Thought I would mention at this point (and this won't be the last) that I've had a great deal of help from my beta-er, fictionhashijackedmymind! You rock, girl :)