Queens, New York

Peter

The next Monday, people were talking about how great Liz's party was.

And I was there! Kind of.

But Spider-Man hadn't shown up, giving Flash even more reasons to taunt me.

Now everybody thought I was bluffing about knowing Spider-Man.

After Mr. Stark had left, I was able to scavenge some of the alien tech that the weapons dealers lost.

Today in engineering class, we had a workshop day, so I found a station to pull apart the stuff.

I started with the big electro-gauntlet. On the outside, it looked pretty similar to some power tools I'd seen at construction sites. But after unscrewing the outer casing, that's when things got pretty weird.

Ned came up from behind me.

"Hey, thanks for bailing on me."

"Yeah, well, something came up."

His eyes widened.

"Whoa. What is that?"

It was the power core of the gauntlet. Only instead of electrical wiring connected to a motherboard or a battery, the wires were connected to a glowing rock.

"Some guy tried to vaporize me with it last night."

I took a pair of pliers and wedged off the metal battery holders so we could get a better look at the rock.

"Wow. Awesome!" Ned said.

I gave him a weird look. I think he was forgetting that I kind of almost died.

"I mean, not awesome. Totally uncool of that guy. So scary."

No matter how hard I pushed, the rock just didn't want to come undone.

"I think it's a…" I grunted. "Power source."

"Yeah, but it's connected to all these mechanical processors."

Ned pointed to some of the metal conductors covered by yellow insulation.

"Look, those are inductive charging cables. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush."

What Ned was saying just proved my suspicions. There was no way somebody on Earth could create weapons with that kind of stuff.

"Well, whoever created these weapons is obviously combining alien tech with ours." I said.

Ned stared at the alien charging core in a daze.

"That is the coolest sentence anyone has ever said to me."

I bent down to look for extra tools under the workbench. There had to be something to unscrew the power core!

Oooh. I found a hammer. That would do it.

Ned kept staring at the electro-gauntlet.

"I just want to thank you for letting me be apart of your journey into this amazing-"

I hit it a little too hard.

The power core sprang from the casing with a loud ZAP!

We jumped. Somebody had to have heard that. I braced for a lecture about safety, but luckily, we had a substitute teacher today.

He barely looked up from his book.

"Keep your fingers clear of the blades!"

We turned back to the power core. It was like one of those purple gemstones you can get for really cheap in the arts and crafts aisle, but the way it hummed and shined said something different.

"We've gotta find out what this thing is." I said.

"We'll go to the lab after class and run some tests."

That sounded like a plan to me.

We did our secret handshake- the one we made up when we were ten.

During lunch period, Ned and I headed to the school's lab.

"First, let's put the glowy-thingy in the mass spectrometer."

It'd be tricky to identify whatever the glowy thing was, so measuring the mass-to-charge ratio was a good first step. We needed to know if it was really reactive.

"Great idea." I said. "But first, we've gotta come up for a better name than glowy thing."

"You're right."

Further down the hallway, two men came into view. It wasn't rare to see adults at school that weren't teachers. There were always guest speakers or maintenance crews coming and going.

But it was the two dealers from the weapons deal on Friday night.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Crap!"

"What?"

I leapt behind a corner.

"Come on, come on!" I hissed at Ned.

He shuffled behind me.

We peeked behind the corner. The dealers came closer.

"High Schools always freak me out." the shorter one said. "They've got this weird smell. You know what I mean?"

Was that a geiger counter in the taller one's hand

We ducked back behind the wall.

"That's one of the guys that tried to kill me." I whispered.

No sense in calling over one of our resource police officers for help. Sure, these guys were dangerous, but I had to have definite proof that they almost vaporized me and that could get messy.

"What?"

"Yeah."

"We've gotta get out of here!"

"No, we've gotta follow them. Maybe they can lead me to the guy that dropped me in the lake."

They disappeared behind the bend.

I came out of our hiding place.

"Peter!"

"No, stay here, Ned."

I needed to stay silent, but I also needed to move fast.

I leapt from side-to-side as fast as I could.

The two guys went downstairs to the workshop. They stopped at our workbench.

They were trying to track down their gear. How did they even think to look here?

They scanned their geiger counter over the area.

The electric pops from the geiger got louder. They were scanning for radioactive traces from the glowy thing. Was it really that radioactive?

"It was here." the taller guy said.

His buddy looked underneath the table.

"But there's no sign of the weapon."

The taller guy turned around. I slinked back upstairs before he could find me.

I was running out of time. I had to track down the vulture and their hideout before it was too late.

After school, Ned and I went to Academic Decathlon practice. It was something I signed up for last year before I got bitten by the spider and when I thought I'd have enough time to do it. But I went on patrol almost every night these days.

I knew that I'd have to spend even more time trying to learn more about these weapons dealers. (look at police reports, run facial scanners, make more webbing, ect.)

My schedule was filling up with more than I could handle, so the Decathlon would have to go.

Right before our meeting, I went to Mr. Harrington.

He's a nice guy, but he wasn't happy to find out I was quitting.

"Peter, it's only a week before the tournament in D.C. Is there any way you can't join us then?"

"Wow. Way to bail out on your team." Flash grumbled. "Just like your buddy, Spider-Man did."

"Wait, you're quitting?" Liz asked.

I managed to keep my focus on Mr. Harrington.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Harrington, it's just that the Stark Internship has more commitments than I thought it would."

He sighed.

"Alright. There's always an open spot in case you change your mind. And go easy on yourself. I know stuff in the technology industry can get pretty hectic. I wouldn't want to see your school work suffer."

"Why not? He's already quit robotics club and marching band." Michelle Jones said from the corner.

She was right. Academic Decathlon wasn't the first extracurricular I'd taken out because of Spider-Man. But how did she know that?

A few of us gave her weird looks.

She shrugged.

"I'm not stalking him. I'm just very observant."

A few minutes later, I left the auditorium with a pat on the back from Ned and some dirty looks from our teammates for quitting at the last second.

I was sorry to quit Academic Decathlon. Ned and I had signed up together in the spring. Plus, Liz was on the team. I wouldn't get to see her as much.

But I'd made my choice. I wouldn't be coming back to the team.

Washington D.C.

Okay, I don't have much time, but I'll sum it up.

I rejoined the Academic Decathlon team.

I found out that the weapons dealers had links to Washington D.C. and since I couldn't get any help from the Avengers, I went with our school team to D.C.

The night before the tournament, Ned and I hacked through my suit's so-called 'training wheels' protocol implemented by Mr. Stark so I wouldn't be tracked.

Honestly, he treats me like a kid sometimes. It's really annoying.

I snuck out of our hotel, caught the Vulture helping himself to even more tech from a government eighteen-wheeler, but got trapped in the truck after he left.

I ended up in the Department of Damage Control warehouse where they store all the wreckage from superhero fights.

I managed to break out by using my calculator to hack into the security system.

And now I've screwed up big time.

I brought some of the alien tech with me and left it with Ned last night.

I just found out that the power cell is explosive.

And it was in Ned's backpack and he was with the rest of our decathlon team in the elevator of the Washington Monument!

I swung back to Washington D.C. as fast as I could.

I was worried I'd be too late and there would already be police cars and ambulances showing up.

I was sprinting down the pool of reflection in front of the Lincoln memorial. No trouble yet. Whew!

Then a big explosion shook the obelisk.

Chunks of debris shot from the tower while people screamed.

I shot down the sidewalk.

People were staring up at the monument while police officers circled the tower, telling people to stay calm. Not so easy to do over the clamor of a crowd of tourists. They were probably already thinking that it was a terrorist bomb or some kind of criminal up there.

I thought the entire team was up in that elevator. But Michelle Jones saw me.

"Help! My friends are up there!"

"What?" I tried to lower my voice. "Uh, don't worry, ma'am. Everything's gonna be okay."

I ran to the monument. It was a lot taller when you were right next to it.

There was no time for that. I leapt onto the wall and sped upwards.

Karen, my new AI, was explaining the whole thing to me.

Ned and the others were in the elevator right now. That much I knew. The elevator was extremely unstable.

"Minutes until catastrophic failure." she said.

I urged my body to move faster.

The higher up I went, the dizzier I felt. I took 1 millisecond to catch my breath and then I propelled myself higher.

Hopefully, the safety systems in the elevator would buy me some time.

"Safety systems failing." Karen reported. "The occupants are in imminent mortal danger."

Never mind.

This was taking forever. I shot my webs a few yards and pulled myself up.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" I shouted at Karen.

I pumped my arms and legs harder.

"You have 125 seconds until catastrophic failure."

I stopped in my tracks. That was only two minutes!

"What? Why?"

My lens switched to x-ray. Overhead, I could see people inside a gray box move around. They were trying to get out of the elevator, but the cables were frayed.

"Unexpected motion has caused the deterioration to escalate."

"How do I get in there?"

"Activating reconnaissance drone."

The spider symbol on my suit flew off and beeped at me. It looked just like a robotic spider. This suit had all kinds of little toys.

"Whoa. Has that been there this whole time?"

The little drone flew off to get a better look at the situation.

"Locating optimal entry points." Karen said.

I could see the camera feed from the drone on my own visor screen.

It showed a box-shaped window at the top of the monument.

"Proceed to southwest window."

"Karen, I'm on my way!"

I swung myself onto the other wall and kept climbing.

But I was pushing my body to the limits.

I had to take a break.

That's when I took a peek below.

My stomach dropped.

The Washington Monument is 555 feet and five and a half inches. I was staring down at 550 feet. The people and cars looked like toys from here. Had I really climbed that high?

The wind whistled around the obelisk, making my limbs shake. I vaguely remembered reading something about how the Washington Monument is the tallest structure in Washington D.C, but that didn't help my fear of heights anymore.

I leaned against the wall.

"It's ok. It's ok." I said to myself.

"What's wrong?" Karen asked. "You have reached the southwest window."

"No, it's fine." I panted. "I've just…never been this high before."

Two pigeons were perched on top of the box-shaped window I was supposed to go through. They gawked at me. It wasn't every day they saw a human this high up.

Unless they saw Iron Man once or twice.

I batted them away.

"You also have not reinstalled your parachute, so a fall from this height would most likely be lethal."

I shoved that thought out of my brain and leapt onto the window ledge.

"Alright." I sighed.

I turned around with my back away from the wall. I fought against the dizzying feeling in my head.

Get yourself together, Peter.

I slammed my foot into the window, but it did nothing. I was still stuck up here and my friends were still in that elevator. That sent my anxiety up even more.

"Why is it not breaking?" I shouted desperately.

"It's four-inch ballistic glass." Karen explained. "You'll have to gain more momentum."

Ballistic glass? Who uses ballistic glass on a public monument?

I shot a web higher up on the wall and took a breath.

I jumped away from the monument and landed back on the glass. Nothing.

I tried again. I heard a crack. Yes!

I just needed more momentum.

I heard the whir of helicopter blades and sirens. I had been so focused on getting to the top of the tower that I hadn't noticed the police helicopters that came in.

"D.C. Metro Police. Identify yourself." someone said over a megaphone.

One of the helicopters had the door wide open. They had a machine gun pointed at me.

This was even scarier than the ATM robbers in Queens!

"No, wait! I'm trying to help!" I shouted.

"Return to the ground immediately!"

There was a loud metallic jolt from inside.

I could see the broken elevator through the window!

It bounced a little. People were screaming.

"Stand down." the police ordered. "Return to the ground immediately!"

I could dodge those bullets, but I also had to save my class. What could I do?
A lightbulb went off in my head.

I scrambled up the rest of the obelisk.

The helicopter followed me.

I reached the top.

"I've got this."

The height didn't scare me as much, but I still gripped onto the corners.

"This is your last chance!" they shouted.

Well, it was either now or never.

"Oh, I'm gonna die." I groaned.

I kicked off the obelisk and soared over the helicopter. I threw webbing onto the belly of the helicopter and shot towards the glass.

"Incoming!" I shouted.

I broke through it and slid inside with a spray of glass.

A few people yelped.

I heard a snap. It was the main suspension cable of the elevator.

The elevator started falling.

Sliding across the floor, I shot a web towards the shaft. It caught onto the top of the elevator box. I got pulled towards the shaft. I caught myself against the doorway.

Finally, it stopped. I managed to pull the elevator up a few inches.

"I did it!"

But I was holding onto a 1200 kg box with a string.

The last cable snapped and I fell in with them.

I could hear Liz and Ned screaming.

Beams stopped the elevator's fall and I fell right into the elevator.

Something else broke and we went back to freefalling.

I slammed onto the ceiling and shot more webs. It stopped.

I looked around at all the scared faces gaping at me. They'd gotten some people out.

Now there was just Liz, Ned, , and Flash.

I switched to a New York accent.

"Hey, how's everybody doin'? Don't worry 'bout it. I've got you."

Ned grinned like it was Christmas.

"Yes! Yes!"

"Hey, big boy, keep movin' around!"

"Sorry, sir."

Being called 'sir' felt weird, but I'd allow it.

I grabbed onto the webbing and began pulling the elevator up like it would've normally done if a chitauri power cell hadn't exploded.

After what felt like forever, we made it to the top floor.

Security guards and civilians were there to help everyone out.

"Alright. This is your stop." I said. "Go, go, go. Everybody out!"

Mr. Harrington got out, Flash got out, Ned got out.

I felt the wimpy ceiling tiles straining under my weight.

I don't know why Liz hadn't left yet. She was just too shocked to move.

"Move it people, move it!"

Mr. Harrington reached for Liz.

That's when the elevator ceiling gave out. Liz screamed. I reached out my hand. She jumped. The elevator fell. I shot a web at her hand. And she dangled a precarious 550 feet in the air.

"It's okay. You're okay."

I'm not sure if I said that to myself or to her.

Her whole body was trembling. She sucked in a breath.

My mind was racing. Liz could've died. I saved her. I saved the girl I'd been crushing on since my freshman year.

"You're alright." I said.

I helped her back onto the floor. Security guards and Mr. Harrington pulled her away from the edge.

All the while, she stared at me.

"Show-wise, is everyone ok?" I asked.

Liz gave me a shaky nod.

"This is your chance, Peter." Karen said. "Kiss her."

Uh, what? I mean, I'd love to kiss her, but this was a terrible time!

The webbing that held me gave out and I fell down the elevator shaft like a ping pong ball.

"Thank you!" Mr. Harrington said.

"Are you really friends with Peter Parker?!" Flash shouted.

Yes, Flash. Yes, I am.

Michelle Jones stared up at the Washington Monument.

She wouldn't have gawked at a structure that was built by slave labor, but her entire class was up there and from what she'd just overheard from the police radio chatter, everyone got out safely thanks to Spider-Man.

She heard fast-paced footsteps coming from behind her.

Peter Parker dashed over to her.

"Where the heck have you been?" Michelle Jones said with a scowl.

First he dropped out of the decathlon team because of the Stark Internship thing that supposedly let him meet Spider-Man, then he jumped back on, then he disappeared the day of the competition, and now he's shown up out of the blue?

Something wasn't adding up.

"I was sick." he said, panting.

She shook her head.

"Not if you were going at that speed."

"Uh, it was just stage fright….because of the tournament…..I'm feeling better now."

"You missed it."

"Huh?"

She pointed to the monument.

"Our whole class almost got killed because of some kind of explosive and you decided to show up minute?"

"I'm sorry. I got here as fast as I could."

He was cute, but dumb. And a really bad liar.

Michelle knew she'd made a mistake of watching Peter after falling to his innocent charms. But she hadn't realized how much he had to hide until now.

Part of MJ told her to just mind her own business and keep to herself like she always had. In hindsight, maybe it was better. She hadn't realized how much of a world of trouble she'd gotten herself into when she started watching this kid.

But Michelle's curiosity got the better of her.

Right then and there, she took it upon herself to figure out what Peter Parker was hiding.

Thanks for reading, guys!

Another chapter with Natasha is coming up.

I'm not gonna focus a whole lot on Peter's relationship with Liz, but because MJ is going to be a big part in the rest of Peter's story, I'd thought I'd had that little snippet.