Hearts of Avengers

by lyokoMARVELanime

Instead of Traverse Town, Sora lands in New York after Destiny Islands fell and just moments before The Breakout happens. One superhero team-up later, and the Keyblade Hero is now a member of the Avengers. It's the story of Kingdom Hearts with a marvel of a new spin. Just see how Sora and the Avengers will affect both of their adventures, now.

13. Spider-Gwen Begins

Weiss: [on the phone] Studio of lyokoMARVELanime, please hold. Studio of lyokoMARVELanime, please hold. Mister Tennyson, you'll be happy to know that lyokoMARVELanime will in fact be able to hold your meeting with him, but he does hope you'll avoid using certain...transformations during the meeting at all times. And if that isn't the case, he wishes to inform you that a power dampening system will be activated to prevent any and all transformations, even if they are made using technology. Thank you...

AN: [walks into the room, only to pause when he sees who's sitting at the desk] Uh, Weiss? What're you doing?

Weiss: Hm? Oh, one moment. [turns back to the phone] Studio of lyokoMARVELanime, please hold. [puts most recent caller on hold before turning her attention to author] Well, I noticed that your secretary was out for the day, so I figured I should take it upon myself to help ensure that all operations at your studio were running smoothly. After all, fantasy studio or not, you can't be expected to keep this place operational at all times alone.

AN: Uh, that's very nice of you, Weiss, but...

Weiss: It was no trouble really. You don't need to thank me. I'm just doing my part to help out.

Ruby: She's actually just doing this in the hopes that it'll get us to appear in one of your stories sooner, or that you'll actually start up a full-fledged RWBY story of any kind.

Weiss: Ugh! You can't prove that!

AN: Guys, really, I appreciate the help, whether the reasons are selfish or unselfish, but...Wait, Ruby, what're you doing here?

Ruby: Oh, just hanging out with Sora and the rest of the KH cast. If our earliest appearance is going to be in one of your Kingdom Hearts stories, then I thought we should get to know our future costars.

AN: Okay, sure.

Weiss: Now then, I believe that I have a few more calls to answer, along with some files to organize for you, so...

AN: Weiss! I'm sure you mean well, but...

Ruby: Uh, shouldn't you be in the interview room right now?

AN: [turns to look at the clock Ruby's pointing to] Crap! You're right! Come on! To the secret roller coaster! [rushes over to the nearby entrance to said coaster with Ruby stopping at the entrance controls] Pull the lever, Ruby!

Ruby: [pulls the lever, only to slam back into the wall to avoid being hit by a large statue of Sora that had dropped down on the author from somewhere above him] Whoa! Where did that even come from?

AN: [muffled, pained voice] Um, other lever maybe?

Ruby: Got it. [pulls the other lever and gets spun around onto the roller coaster with AN, which immediately takes off as soon as their in]

[roller coaster carries Ruby and author through several spin and turns at high speed until it suddenly comes to a stop]

Announcer: Your ride has come to a temporary stop, and will resume momentarily.

Ruby: [waiting for a few minutes] Hey, what's the point of these secret passages, anyway?

AN: I just felt like it, really. And it serves as a great way of avoiding Deadpool if he ever finds his way back in here.

Ruby: And this roller coaster one?

AN: Eh, it's just for fun.

[ride resumes until dropping both author and character into the interview room]

AN: Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait, but we're finally back with the next chapter in the first story of the Kingdom Marvels series!

[audience applause]

Ruby: Oooh! I can't wait to see what happens! This is so exciting!

Wasp: She does know she's not in this story, right? And what is she even doing here?

Sora: She was hanging out with me and the rest of the KH Crew. You know like Kairi, Xion, or my boys. [turns to wave at the other KH guys] Yo boys!

Iron Man: Yeah, Sora. Do us a favor, and never talk like that again. It doesn't really feel natural or like you.

Sora: And yet watching videos of Star Wars characters in like Darth Vader, the Stormtroopers, and Chewbacca in a dance-off seems natural?

Spidey: He has a point.

AN: Hey, Spider-Man! My man! Gotta say, I loved your new movie, Spider-Man Far From Home, and it's a good thing that this chapter was focused a lot on your end of the Kingdom Marvels spectrum, because I have had a lot of ideas centered around you lately.

Spider-Man: You're too kind. But seriously, glad that you liked the movie, because it was great. I'm not too crazy about how my new suit at the end of the movie was red and black, you know, like Superior Spider-Man's suit was, but that's just a minor thing, and I'm glad to see that it has kicked off the new age of the MCU so well. Plus that mid-credits scene...

AN: I know, right?! Ahem, anyways...Let's answer some review before we get too much farther into it. First off, as a general response...Really? You guys really didn't catch the obvious hint on how Gwen got her spider powers? I mean, I made sure that the characters talked about it a lot in the previous chapter. Well, it'll be pointed out again here in today's chapter, so even if you didn't, it should become a lot more clear today.

Oh, and "Dragon Rider 66", no, Spidey's suit technically doesn't have the Training Wheels Protocol, but it doesn't have all of the gadgets that he had in the movies either. If anything, it's more like a mix-and-mash of stuff he had in the movies recently and stuff he had in the PS4 Spider-Man video game, as we'll all see here today.

"Soulofnone911", I'm afraid that the face-off with Kang won't be as dramatically different as that, but it will see at least one or two changes from what was canon in the Avengers EMH cartoon. Sorry, but no Young Avengers teams here just yet.

In answer to your question "GuestWithIdeas", Sora's going to survive this series' version of the Infinity War, although it may end up being more of an Infinity Keyblade War, or by some other, more simple name here, and he will more than likely clash with Thanos at least once, so no worries there.

To "Althea Sirius", specifically your question regarding the X-Men, this time around, I'm going to make it draw from only Wolverine and the X-Men when we get to that point. I already had a mix-and-match version in my Code Avengers series, so I figured this time around, I'd just go with an X-Men set up that drew from one series as opposed to two.

Now, "Kahili", we won't actually see the 358/2 Days saga, at least in its entirety as it happens here, but Roxas, Xion, and the Organization will be a big influence on the events that take place in the sequel to this story, make no mistake about that.

Next review answer is for "Guest Isa"...

Roxas,Xion,&Axel: [all burst into the room, Roxas and Xion with weapons and glares ready, while Axel just looks around hopefully with one chakram out] WHERE?!

AN: Again, not that Isa, you guys. A guest reviewer.

Roxas,Xion,&Axel: Oh. [calm down]

AN: Good grief. Ahem, as I was saying, yes, we will go through season 2 of EMH and past that into this series' own version of KH3, which will include a few Marvel-based elements as well.

Now to wrap it up to the reviewer "AvidReader". I know, you're probably not going to see this one, since you've claimed that you've stopped reading it, but I still felt like I need to address your issues with the story all the same. That and the fact that even negative criticism is always good to have in its own way is a big reason why your review was not deleted. The reason why Sora's allowed on the Avengers' adventures is because 1) he's one of their most powerful members, without even realizing it, and they need all hands on deck for most of their situations. And 2) two words: The Heartless. There's always a chance that the team is going to run into those things no matter what mission they go on, as evidenced by how they encountered the Heartless during their confrontations with Enchantress and Zemo, and since Sora's Keyblade is the only thing that can truly destroy them, they don't really have a choice but to bring him. Add in the fact that they could stumble upon the Keyhole at any time, and it only makes sense to bring him along instead of just making an extra trip later on and risking the Heartless getting to it while their making the extra trips. Besides, don't forget, that he was allowed to tag along on a lot of dangerous adventures in the canon timeline too, even when there were actual adults around, so that argument seems a little moot. As for the fact that the first incident with Night Hunter happened at the same time as the Wonder Man incident...well, the alternative was to just write a whole chapter where the only difference was that Sora was just there. Sure, I could've changed it up like I did in my Code Avengers series, but that just felt a little cheap in my opinion, and like there wouldn't be enough for Sora to really do there. The only change would've been that Sora joined in on the final fight, and that would've barely made for more than a few paragraphs, if anything.

Moving on to the other complaint, it's not really intentional for Sora to come off as preachy, and I'm not trying to make him seem like a jerk who's belittling the losses of others by bringing up his own, but you have to remember, it's Sora. He makes friends and does his best to help them out wherever he goes and without even trying, so of course he's going to give a few speeches about stuff like that a lot. Sorry if it's not coming off that way, but it was my intention for him to seem like the good friend he normally is. Plus, I wouldn't say everyone's sharing everything right at the tip of a hat. In most cases, it takes at least a few chapters, between which there is usually a time-skip of a few days, or weeks, depending on the chapter and what happens in between. I hope you can take all of that into account and keep with this story for a little longer, despite whatever grievances you have. I promise, things do get better as the story goes on.

Hawkeye: Sheesh, anyone else think that guy might've been a little unnecessarily harsh?

Gwen: Who, lyoko or the reviewer?

Hawkeye: The reviewer.

AN: Maybe, but like I said, negative criticism can be just as beneficial as positive. I personally like to believe that there's no such thing as a bad review in most cases.

Ant-Man: Too bad the rest of the world doesn't share that kind of belief.

AN: Well, you can't change everyone's opinions to match your own. The world would be really dull and boring if that were the case. Now then, I think we've wasted enough time, so let's get on with the main event that everyone's been waiting for: the rise of Spider-Gwen!

I do not own anything from either the Kingdom Hearts or MARVEL franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

---

Chapter XIII

When Sora awoke the day after they had all gotten back from Spira, he was expecting, nay, hoping that he would be able to sleep in until almost noon at least. Heaven knows, he certainly was exhausted enough by the time the previous day had ended, but apparently, the universe had other plans for him, starting with a call from Gwen. More accurately, Sora had been awoken by a call from Gwen's dad, who was using her phone. Sora figured that the man was using his friend's phone since it would have been easier than just dialing the number on his own phone as Gwen recited it or something, but his curiosity about that was silenced when Captain Stacy said that he needed to get to the Stacy household with Spider-Man as soon as possible. Just from that one comment, Sora figured that it probably had to do with the double dose of reflect spells that Gwen and Peter were hit with, so he wasted no time in calling up Peter and relaying the message from the police captain to him, even as he was slipping into his usual daily outfit.

A few hours later, both Keyblade Samurai and Spider-Man were on the doorstep of Gwen's house, with the former knocking on the door to let the residents know that they had arrived. Peter felt a little uncomfortable going into a place like this, partly because he normally visited Gwen's house as Peter, and partly because he would not usually use the front door to get into a place as Spider-Man, or at least not in this manner. The only reason he was doing so this time was because Sora had insisted on the grounds that it would save them the trouble of freaking out Gwen's dad. Peter had wanted to rebuke that claim by telling Sora that Captain Stacy was one of the hardest people to shake he had ever met, but they had already arrived on the doorstep and the younger hero had already knocked by the time he had opened his mouth.

A few minutes later, George Stacy himself opened the door, and while he did look very worried, he still managed to smile just a little when he saw who was at the door. "Normally I'd be thinking that at least one of you was someone pretending to be Spider-Man for some reason that's less than honest, but seeing as the other person is identical a picture on Gwen's phone, I'm a little less skeptical," the police captain informed the two. They took that as their cue to come in, but they were still stopped when the man raised a single hand, indicating that he still had something else to add. "But just to be sure, I'd still like to ask that the one in the Spider-Man suit answers a simple question that only he would know the answer to."

"Is that really necessary? I mean, from what Sor…uh, Keyblade Samurai said, it sounds like this is really serious," Spidey commented, making Sora roll his eyes at the web-head's correction. Clearly Peter had forgotten that Sora did not actually have a secret identity and thus, did not need to use his hero name.

"I believe it is," George easily countered. "So…what warning did I give you during one of our first real conversations?"

Thinking back to that moment, his mind quickly going to his first encounter with the Chameleon and in the earliest of his days wearing the symbiote suit, Spider-Man was able to figure out the answer very easily, and quoted, "'As long as you wear a mask, some folks will always wonder.'"

George smiled in satisfaction when he heard that, and then let the boys in. Of course, he continued to surprise them after he closed the door and said, "Of course, I'm not one of those folks anymore, or at least I don't think I am anymore. After that whole mess with Venom, I admitted that I started thinking that maybe a man in a mask doesn't have something to hide, but something to protect. A sentiment that I recall you agreeing with, Peter."

That made both boys freeze up, and Spidey quickly stuttered, "Uh…With all due respect, Captain Stacy, but I'm pretty sure that all the rumors about me being Parker were debunked, so I'm actually a little hurt that you would start believing that again."

To his surprise, George actually started smirking a little bit when he crossed his arms and pointed out, "I never said that I thought your name was Parker. Just Peter, and even then, I was a detective long before I was the police captain, son. I was able to put together a few clues. Most people would have just overlooked them or missed it, but then again, I do happen to know my daughter's best friend, so I was able to notice a little more easily."

Backtracking a little to run the police captain's words through his head a little, Peter realized that George was right, and he let out a defeated sigh before he removed his mask, glad that all the windows in the Stacy house were closed at the moment so no one could see inside. "How long have you known, anyway?"

"I'll admit that the suspicions did somewhat start during that whole fiasco where the Bugle had printed that story about you being Spider-Man, but really, the first time I started drawing up conclusions was last New Year's Eve when Doc Ock launched his little master plan. I kept it all to myself though, mainly because of the reasons that I just mentioned, and because I felt that it didn't really matter who you were behind that mask. Spider-Man may not always have the best reputation, be it in the press or among the people in general, but if there's one constant that I've always seen about you, Peter, it's that you give people hope. You save lives even when no one else thinks they can be saved, and you do it without asking for any kind of reward or thanks. That's something that this city has needed for a long time now," George explained, his words showing just how highly he thought of both the web-head and Peter. He then gained a playful look in his eyes as he added, "Besides, you did save my daughter's life on more than one occasion, and my own life once or twice now, so I'd say that I owe you more than a few favors for that."

Peter was able to pick up on the fact that George was only partially joking on that last bit, so he could not help but smile a bit as he nodded his thanks to the man. Sora was happy about this too, but if you were to ask him, this did not seem as important as the reason why they were here. "So, not to break up the moment, but didn't you call saying that Gwen was in some kind of trouble or something?"

"Well I wouldn't say she was in trouble, but something has happened to Gwen, and she insisted that you might have some answers on what it was, or at least what the cause of it was," George clarified. He then motioned for the two boys to follow him upstairs, and they both quickly marched after him. "By the way, Peter, I like the new suit."

"Thanks," Peter nodded as they stepped into Gwen's room. It had been a long time since Peter was last in here, but from what he could tell, not much had really changed. In fact, the only difference he really saw was that her glasses case was no longer on her bedside table like it used to be when she was always wearing them, but there was one other thing that he could not help but notice was missing, and that was the room's occupant. "Uh…Gwen? Are you in here?"

"Yeah, and why are you wearing that Spider-Man costume, Peter? Don't you know it's not Halloween yet," Gwen's voice questioned, surprising both boys. Still, they were impressed by her quick thinking in coming up with a cover story for Peter's secret identity.

"It's okay, Gwen. He actually knows," Sora revealed, somehow managing to keep some of his composure despite being startled. That did not stop him from trying to figure out where Gwen was.

"Wait. You knew and you didn't tell me," Gwen snapped at her father, clearly upset by the fact.

"Don't you give me that look Gwendolyn Stacy," George warned, smiling all the while as both boys tried to locate his daughter. "I figured it out a while back, but I kept it to myself because I was sure he had reasons for not telling anyone. It wasn't my secret to tell, so I wasn't going to say anything unless he did."

"Okay, whoa, hold on," Peter interrupted before the debate could go on anymore than necessary. "Gwen, where are you?"

"Um, up here," Gwen replied a little weakly, and both Peter and Sora turned their gaze to the ceiling, and to the shocking sight of Gwen sitting up there like Peter often would. "Yeah, it's pretty crazy, right? I mean, probably not for you, Peter, but for me…"

"Yeah, not that crazy Gwen," Sora stated as calmly as he could while summoning out his Keyblade just to prove the point. He then gave her a more confused look before he asked, "How long have you been up there?"

"All night," Gwen admitted with the best shrug she could manage, and she was soon making a show of the fact that she was in fact stuck where she was. "I can't get down at all, and I'm a little worried that I might accidentally break something if I try pulling or pushing any harder than I already have. I'm not sure what's more surprising. That I was even able to get myself up here from the wall that I first ended up stuck to, or that the blood hasn't started rushing to my head after hanging upside down for hours on end."

"Yeah, I'd go with the first one," Peter suggested. "It's actually pretty normal to not get dizzy from blood rushing to your head while you're upside down for a long period of time. I could actually go for days like that if I wanted to. Not that I ever have."

That got a small bit of laughter from anyone, making the situation a little less tense, until George asked the all important question. "Any chance you can help her get down?"

"Not a problem," Peter replied, and the next thing anyone knew, he was up on the ceiling with Gwen. "All right, Gwen, let's see if we can at least maneuver you to where you're above the bed."

"I'm not sure if I can," Gwen hesitantly countered, once again pointing out that she was stuck where she was.

"Hey, don't worry. I had the same problem at first," Peter promised. "It's no different than when you're learning to walk. Just put one hand over the other, relax, and then release."

"If you say so," Gwen humored him as she tried to pry one of her hands off the wall again. She paused in her efforts though when she heard Peter's web-shooters going off, and looked down to see that he had spun up a quick web net beneath them, running along the path to her bed.

"Just in case," Peter reassured her when she looked at him for explanation. When Gwen tried to move again but ended up struggling to get unstuck, Peter figured they might as well skip over moving along the ceiling for now, and get her on the ground again. "Okay, forget moving for now. Let's just get you down."

"I've been trying for hours, Peter," Gwen almost growled at her friend, still trying to pull her hands free.

"No, no, no! Don't actually try to do it," Peter immediately waved off, earning him another look from Gwen. "It's all an instinct that you have to trust in. Just relax your fingers, and live in the moment."

"I am living in the moment. It's a terrible moment where I'm stuck on my bedroom ceiling," Gwen disputed, clearly getting annoyed.

Peter was starting to get pretty frustrated as well, but he kept his cool, and kept it up with his coaching, not noticing how Sora had pulled out his Kingdom Caller to make a quick call. "It's okay, Gwen. Just take a deep breath and think of…of doing some easy Chem. Lab work, or just anything else that you would do to relax."

Following Peter's advice, Gwen inhaled slowly and then breathed out, thinking of the very things that Peter told her to, until, one by one, her fingers started to get unstuck from where they were on the ceiling. When her last finger came free, Gwen came with it, and she likely would have crashed to the floor had it not been for the safety net that Peter had spun out from his web-shooters earlier. "Whoa! That was crazy," Gwen panted in disbelief as George and Peter helped her to her feet. "And probably going to take some getting used to."

"Assuming you even have to get used to it. I mean, how's it even possible that you have these powers to begin with," Peter questioned.

"I think I might have a hunch," Sora revealed, reminding everyone that he was still there. "Remember when we were fighting Seymour, and you guys both got hit by those two reflect spells?"

"Yeah," both teens nodded, while George just looked between the three, not really knowing what they were talking about.

Sora made a note to fill him in on as much as they could later, and continued, "Lulu said that there was no way of knowing what would happen after having two reflect spells mix together like that. What if the mixing actually caused your powers to be copied onto Gwen?"

"That seems like a bit of a stretch, Sora, and a little too easy of an explanation," Peter countered. He was not ruling it out completely, but it did make some sense in a weird way.

"Well it's not like we have any better ideas, or know a magic expert that can confirm it one way or another," Gwen pointed out.

"Actually, I do, and while you were busy getting down from the ceiling, I gave him a call to see if he could come lend a hand. Lucky for us he happens to be close by, so he should be here any minute," Sora revealed.

Any minute turned out to be any second, because just after Sora had finished talking, a cylinder of light suddenly appeared in the middle of the group, and from that cylinder came the court magician of Disney Castle himself, looking a bit ruffled as usual. "What's the big idea, Sora," Donald squawked in demand, not noticing the wide-eyed looks he was getting from the Marvel-topia natives. "Goofy and I were just on the trail of a clue to where the king could be when you called!"

"Sorry Donald, but this is really important, and you're the only one I know that could give us a hand with it," Sora replied, gesturing to his friends as he spoke.

Donald looked over the three for a minute, and then turned to ask Sora for more details, while Peter just looked between Gwen and her father in pure bewilderment. Finally, he just could not hold it in anymore, and had to ask, "You guys both see Donald Duck too, right? It's not just me?"

"Nope, I see him," Gwen confirmed in disbelief.

"I'm still in the process of convincing myself not to go over and try to see if he's just a guy wearing a costume," George admitted.

"Okay. Glad to hear I'm not going any crazier than I already have, at least," Peter lightly sighed in slight relief.

---

It took a while to convince Peter and the Stacys that Donald Duck was indeed very real and standing in the room with them, but that was also because that they made it a point to take several pictures with the famous cartoon character just so that they could prove to themselves that the whole thing was not a dream when they woke up the next day. Add in the fact that Donald's sudden appearance also meant that they had to explain a few secrets about other worlds to Gwen's dad, and it was no wonder that Donald was a little grumpy as he waved his wand around Gwen to better study the residual magic that was still left over on her after she and Peter were struck by that the two reflect spells the other day. Everyone was watching with baited breath, while Gwen herself was finding it hard to relax, despite Donald's constant insistence that she at least try to do so, and you could just feel the tension in the air from the worry that was being held for the blonde girl.

"Well," Peter asked after another five minutes had gone by.

"Shh! I need another moment," Donald quickly hushed before going back to his analysis.

The quiet returned to the room for only two more minutes. This time though, it was Sora who broke the silence. "Anything yet?"

"Shush! Give me a little more time," Donald repeated, sounding a bit more annoyed this time.

The silence did not last nearly half as long this time, but it was understandable that George was the next one to break it, considering this was his daughter that was getting examined. "Have you…"

"I SAID TO BE QUIET AND WAIT," Donald angrily shouted before the police captain could finish. "How am I supposed to do any kind of magical analysis if you palookas can't keep your mouths shut?!"

"Sheesh. He's just as short-tempered in person as he is in the cartoons and movies," Peter whispered to George, to which the man could only nod in agreement.

"Honestly, I feel like he's bit better than that," Sora disputed, trying to defend the magician. From the looks on the others' faces, he clearly was not doing so well, and he could not help but add, "Okay, maybe just marginally better."

"I heard that," Donald snapped before he went back to work. This time, everyone stayed quiet until Donald finally dismissed his staff to the pocket dimension he normally kept it in, and made his report. "Yep, the spell definitely caused Peter's powers to be copied onto Gwen, and if what I can tell is accurate, her new powers are exactly the same as his."

"Yeah, we got that part. What I want to know is whether this is gonna be a permanent thing or not," Peter pointed out.

"That makes two of us," George agreed.

"Three, actually," Gwen confessed.

"Well…that's hard to say," Donald shrugged. "Combined reflect spells often lead to results that can last for an unpredictable amount of time, depending on what it is they cause to happen. While other magic elements are easy to figure out, it takes a great deal more to determine the length of time the results that two combined reflect spells will last in a subject."

Coming from anyone else, that would have been easy to figure out and understand, but coming from Donald Duck, the others had a hard time puzzling together what he had said. Of course, some of them were a bit hesitant to ask him to repeat himself, but Sora was not one them. "Uh…run that by us again, please?"

Donald let out a lengthy sigh, having been well-aware of how hard it was for some people to understand him for a very long time now, and decided to simplify it for the three humans. "Basically, I need to perform a certain test to figure out how long it'll be before her powers wear off, assuming they will at all."

The magician then re-summoned his staff, and waved it around while he chanted an incantation under his breath. As he did, the others could only watch as a rainbow of colors appeared around Gwen's body in several different rings. Donald continued his magic work without pause after the rings had materialized, and as his chanting continued, they all saw some of the rings and colors begin disappearing one at a time. Finally, when Donald stopped his incantation, only three rings remained, and they were divided up into the colors of red, blue, and white, with a faint trace of black being mixed in on each of the rings in a striped pattern. When he saw this result, Donald's face turned slightly worried, and that made the three men's concerns grow a little more.

"What is it? What does that mean," George struggled to ask, worried about what could happen to his daughter.

"Well…Uh…" Donald hesitated to reply, but he knew that he would have to break the news to them somehow. "When the results come back like that it usually means that…it's permanent."

"You mean…there's no way for Gwen to get rid of her spider powers, or that they aren't going to just wear off after a while," Peter asked, just to clarify.

"Yes," was all Donald said in reply. He was not really sure if there was another way to get rid of Gwen's powers without magic, but he did not want to let the others know that. Besides, he did not have time to go into nitty-gritty details regarding this sort of thing. "Now, are we done here? Goofy and I need to get back to work in searching for the king, and I don't want to leave the gummi ship in orbit of this world for too long. They have way too many ways of finding stuff close to the world for my liking."

"Don't worry, Donald. I think we got it from here. Thanks for your help," Sora reassured his cartoon friend.

With one final nod to the Keybearer and the others, Donald radioed for Goofy to teleport him back to the ship, and in a flash of light, the court magician of Disney Castle was gone, likely back on his ship and ready to continue with the search he and his best friend were currently working on. Everyone was silent at that point, until Peter finally asked the all-important question. "So…what now?"

"What do you mean 'what now,'" Gwen questioned like it should have been obvious. When the others just looked at her with various forms of bewilderment, Gwen sighed and explained, "It should be obvious to Peter at the very least. I need to learn how to control these powers, and who better to teach me than the original wall-crawler himself?"

That did seem like a reasonable conclusion, there was one major concern that the others all shared, but only one of them was brave enough to ask it. "While I don't disagree with that, honey, I still have to ask what you plan to do once you have control of these new powers of yours," George informed his daughter.

Gwen could not help but smirk a little bit when she gave his reply, and she had to admit, the astonished looks on the other three's faces were actually pretty funny in her eyes. "Easy. Peter will get a new partner in crime fighting, because I'm going to start doing whatever I can to help Peter keep New York safe."

While Peter and George both found their faces frozen in the stunned looks of shock that had taken them over, Sora eventually managed to shake his off and asked, "So…do you plan to make your own suit, or should I give Janet a call?"

---

The four had ended up paying Janet a visit, at Gwen's insistence, and for the next several hours after that, the two girls were either hard at work drawing up sketches or studying various fabrics and color schemes for Gwen's costume. Of course, Peter had insisted that the material would need to be skin tight for when the blonde started web-swinging, and especially so on the palms of her hands and soles of her feet so that her adhesive powers would not be hindered, but that did not stop them from still looking at every type of fabric imaginable, which had made the whole process take a lot longer than George, Peter, or Sora felt was necessary. The other thing that made the whole process take so long was how the girls pondered away at finding the perfect costume design for Gwen. She made it very clear right from the start that she did not want to look like a female version of Spider-Man, so that immediately ruled out any ideas of the suit retaining the red and blue color scheme that Peter's had, but the real trick was finding something that would be unique and distinctly her. Obviously they needed to find some way to include the webs somewhere on the suit, and Gwen did say that she still wanted a spider emblem somewhere on her person to help make it clear that she was in fact a spider-powered hero, so by the time that the girls finally finished, half the day had already gone by, and Peter insisted that they spend the rest of it training Gwen on how to use her powers.

You would think that since he was now allowed to access to the facilities in Avengers Mansion, Peter would have brought Gwen down to the training room to help her practice, but they did not do that for two reasons. The first being that Peter felt it would be better for her to practice somewhere that had a bit more open space, and that he could better help her figure things out in the city than he could in some room with a bunch of fancy machines. After all, he had to figure out his own limits with his powers without the need for special equipment, beyond what he could get access to at the time at least, so why try and do something different when he already knew what worked? The other reason was because Sora had insisted that using the training room to help Gwen get ready for hero duty was a bad idea, and after hearing the story about the Avengers first time running through the thing, Peter had to agree with him.

The only catch was that they could not afford for anyone to recognize Gwen on the off-chance she accidentally landed somewhere that people could see her face, and since Janet had admitted that it would take a couple of days or so for her to get Gwen's suit ready, they had to make do with whatever they could find at a moment's notice. Thankfully, Peter had kept his old suit and was able to lend her the mask from it, but Gwen had to cobble together the rest from what she could find in her closet. The end result was probably far more basic than what Peter had in mind for his first prototype costume. Going from top to bottom, Gwen's prototype suit was composed of Peter's old mask, a white, zip-up hoodie, the hood of which Gwen kept up at her insistence, a pair of black sweat pants, and a pair of light blue running shoes. The only other things she had on her were a pair of thin, white gloves, because Peter insisted that it would be better for Gwen to figure out how to use her powers at a reasonable level before he gave her a pair of web-shooters.

Sora and Gwen both had a feeling that there was more to it than that, especially with how often Peter was going off to whisper to Gwen's father about something while a concerned look had taken over George's face. In Gwen's eyes, it could not be more obvious that the two were going to do everything they could to discourage her from doing this, which only served to make her a little annoyed with the two, but Sora was of a different mind. From what he knew about Peter, he knew that the older boy was the type to always put others ahead of himself, and he had a feeling that Peter was going to try and use his little training exercises to prove to Gwen just how dangerous fighting crime with him could be. After all, there were more than a few times that Peter had tried to talk him out of being a hero, despite Sora always insisting that he had no choice, given how he was the only one capable of stopping the threat that the Heartless posed to all the worlds.

Speaking of the Heartless, Sora found it a little odd that the dwellers of darkness had not been seen on Marvel-topia that much lately. Sure, he had fought them a lot on other worlds, the most recent being Spira, but ever since Night Hunter's attack at Midtown, there had been little to no sign of the Heartless at all. It almost made him think that they were preparing for some major offensive, but then again, the Heartless were creatures of instinct, incapable of higher thought or planning, at least without any kind of master, and even then, there were still some that would break off from the larger pack to attack mindlessly. Either way, it was more than a bit suspicious to Sora that there had been no sightings of Heartless recently, so he had to assume that Night Hunter's control of the Heartless on this world was much stronger than any other, or that there were more people commanding the Heartless here than he originally thought. It certainly made sense, given that Enchantress and Zemo both showed the ability to control the Heartless when they appeared before the Avengers, and that made Sora a little worried about whatever was going to come for them next. Hence another reason why Sora felt that he needed to be here in order to help Gwen learn how to be a superhero. Sure, he did not like the idea of his friends risking their lives like this, but if it was their choice to help others, Sora felt like he had no place to say otherwise unless they did not really understand the risk. He had no intention of letting Gwen or Peter fight the Heartless again if he could help it, but it was still better to be prepared just in case.

For the rest of that day, Peter did his best to help Gwen better grasp her spider powers, and it proved to be a much easier task for her than it had for him since she had someone with experience to teach her. Thanks to Peter, Gwen was able to figure out how to turn her adhesive powers on and off without any trouble, and she was soon moving from scaling the walls of a small room to the inside of a large, empty warehouse, and eventually, even up the side of a building in downtown New York without trouble. Learning how to control her new-found spider strength proved to be a little more difficult, given that doing so was not something that could just be taught, but learned through practice and experience, but thankfully, Peter was able to help her figure that out before she accidentally crushed anyone's hand. Gwen just wished that she had done so before she accidentally crushed more than a few doorknobs, but there was no way she was going to say that being able to bend metal pipes with her bare hands was anything but cool.

Of course, Peter was not the only one who gave Gwen some pointers on being a crime fighter, as George was more than happy to teach Gwen a few more self-defense techniques that would help her to better fight. He also taught Peter a few things as well, and he made it a point to show them how to quickly disassemble certain firearms so that they would be unusable just in case. There were only so many times that Peter could just pull away and then web up a gun before someone figured out a way to use said guns even while they were ensnared in the webs. All of this and more had ended up lasting well into the night, and even into the next day. The only reason why it was not interfering with anyone's school work was because both George and Tony had called ahead to tell Sora, Peter, and Gwen's teachers that the three would all be absent for a variety of reasons. For Gwen, George said that she was sick, but for Peter and Sora, well, one of them was an Avenger while the other was now an intern at Stark Industries, so the excuses were a bit more obvious and easy. George did not really like having his daughter basically playing hooky, but if what Peter had said about his experiences in getting better control of his powers was any indication, it was probably for the best that Gwen learned to control her powers before she went back to class.

It did not end in just two days though, as evidenced by how that the training extended into a third day. That very morning actually saw George, Peter, Sora, Gwen, and Steve all gathered atop a short line of rooftops in New York, with Gwen standing at one end of the line with Peter, while George was at the other, and Sora and Captain America were positioned at different points in between them, each holding a control device for a series of tennis ball launchers that had been randomly positioned along the obvious path. "Alright Gwen, this one's going to be a little tougher than what we've done so far," Peter cautioned as he explained what she needed to do, all while Gwen adjusted the sleeves of her hoodie out of anxiousness. "The objective here is to get from this rooftop to the one that your dad's on by any means necessary."

"And what's the catch," Gwen asked, knowing that there was no possible way it was that simple.

"Simple: you can't get hit while you're going," Peter replied. He then waved over to where Sora and Captain America were as he continued the explanation. "Sora and Cap will be using those launchers to try and hit you with rubber balls that you will need to dodge, and if you get hit so much as one time, you automatically fail."

"Seriously? I get hit once and I fail? I thought it was supposed to be three strikes and you're out," Gwen joked.

"Not when you're dodging knives and gunfire," Peter immediately rebuked his voice even and holding a very hard edge to it to show Gwen just how serious he was about this. He then turned a little sheepish as he amended, "Well, maybe knives, depending on where you get stabbed, but that's beside the point. The purpose behind this exercise is to help you get used to your new Spider-Sense, and learn how to react quickly enough so that you can let it guide you away from danger. The world's not going to suddenly slow down and wait for you to avoid certain attacks or hazards like it does in some video games, after all. You feel that tingle; you need to be ready to move however your Spider-Sense is telling you to right then and there."

"Yeah, I think you made that pretty clear when you tested me to see if I even have it," Gwen reminded him with a pointed look that Peter could feel through her borrowed mask.

"Ehehe…In my defense, it's not like I had Thor throw his hammer at you, or asked Sora to shoot you with fire or ice," Peter sheepishly chuckled.

"No, you just had my dad and Sora throw several paper balls at me out of nowhere without telling me in advance," Gwen grumbled. That experience may not have hurt her too much, but it did leave her feeling more than a little annoyed, especially since it was just to better test her new reflexes than anything else. At least, that was what Peter told her when they started. What he did not tell her was that Sora was going to throw in a few more at the last second when she thought they were finished, and he would have hit her had she not suddenly felt that tingle Peter always mentioned his Spider-Sense giving off when Sora had made the throw.

"Well, that was then, and this is to help you learn how to make quick adjustments on the fly, and in an open, real-world environment. Besides, the Spider-Sense does a lot more than sense when you're in danger," Peter went on to add.

"Yeah? Like what," Gwen asked, not to be rude, but honestly curious as to what else it could help her with.

"Uh, how do you think I almost always know where to shoot a web when I'm swinging through the city," Peter rhetorically asked. "Like I said, your Spider-Sense acts as a guide for your movements, even when it's not actively warning you about incoming danger. This is to help you get used to that guidance, both in terms of the subtle cues you get just when moving about, and in terms of dodging unexpected attacks."

"Okay. Let's do this," Gwen determined.

Peter gave a short nod before he slung himself over to where George was waiting at the finish line, and after giving Gwen a few more seconds to get herself ready, he gave her the signal to start. Gwen quickly figured out that it was not going to be easy to get through the course, as she was pelted with several rubber balls not even seconds after she had made it to the second rooftop. The exact same thing happened on her second attempt, albeit she did manage to dodge a few balls before she was knocked down. At that point, she was sure she had figured out what pattern the two Avengers were going for, and she was a lot more confident at the start of her third run. That confidence quickly vanished when she only noticed that there were much fewer rubber balls flying at her that time, but instead, they all came flying when she was halfway across the second rooftop.

When Gwen turned to glare at one member of the responsible party, Sora could only shrug with a grin in response as he asked, "What? Did you really think that it would be the exact same way every time?"

"No two situations are ever truly exactly the same, Miss Stacy," Captain America advised from where he was standing opposite of his younger teammate. "You need to approach every situation like it's an entirely new encounter."

"And besides, it wouldn't be a test of your Spider-Sense if you just had to memorize a specific pattern to get through like you would in some video game," Sora added.

While she could not stop herself from rolling her eyes at the two, Gwen would begrudgingly admit that they had a point. The point was further proven when she failed to get through at least seven more times, but with every failure, she was starting to recognize the signs of when her Spider-Sense was going off and attempting to direct her on where to go or how to move. So, on her eighth attempt, she made more of an effort to just ignore what she saw and heard, and let that strange tingle in her skull guide her. The end result was an incredible show of acrobatics across the rooftops, gymnastics that would be worthy of the World Olympics, and no matter how many times or how many angles that Sora and Cap shot at her from, she was able to avoid the flying spheres of rubber like it was nothing. After vaulting over a few air conditioners, flying between the legs of a water tower, and spinning around a flag pole, all while avoiding a series of launched balls like it was nothing, Gwen finally came to a stop before Peter and her dad, landing with perfect grace and a proud smile that was only invisible because of her borrowed mask.

"How do you like me, now," Gwen cheered, almost boastfully, thinking that she had mastered the whole thing. While her father grinned in approval, Peter's reaction was hard to gauge, mainly because she still could not see his face, and his body language was not giving anything away. Before she could ask what he thought, Gwen suddenly noticed that the tingling in her head had not stopped, but instead, was now buzzing a little more than it should have been. The next thing she knew, she heard a small beep, and several launchers she had not seen before were peppering her back with several rubber balls without pause. When it finally stopped, she looked to see that the thing that beeped was actually a remote that Peter was holding in his hand. "Did you…You shot me?!"

"Let that be a lesson for you. Even when you think it's over, there's always a chance that there's something else waiting to happen. If your Spider-Sense says that something else is going to come for you, then ninety-nine percent of the time, it's most likely going to happen," Peter simply replied, and he probably would have sounded a bit wise if Gwen were not so obviously pissed off. "Hey, it's just a few more rubber balls. You're acting like I shot you with arrows or something! I mean, we may heal faster than most people now, but that wouldn't be any excuse to be shooting you with a deadly weapon or something."

"This is ridiculous," Gwen groaned, and even Cap and Sora could hear the frustration in her voice as they made their way to the other three. "I've been doing practice drills and stupid training runs ever since we started. When am I going to do some actual superhero work?"

"When you're ready," Peter stated.

"And when will that be, Peter," Gwen questioned. "Next century? Maybe some time around Neverurary? You won't even let me have web-shooters, for crying out loud!"

"Because I want to be sure that you understand just what having these powers means," Peter tried to insist, but it was clear that Gwen was not going to listen right now. Then again, he was not really listening to her at the moment either, so it seemed to balance out.

"I get that it's a big deal, but you know I'm not like Flash and likely to flaunt my powers to the world just because," Gwen snapped.

"Now I think that might be a little insulting to Flash, considering he's not really like that anymore…Well, not that much," Peter attempted to joke.

"The point is that I'm never going to so much as pull a cat out of a tree if we keep going at the rate you've been dictating," Gwen countered. She then came to another conclusion as she accused, "Assuming you even plan on letting that happen at all. You just want to scare me away from all of this by doing all these dumb things."

"Are you serious? Gwen, of course I'm worried about you," Peter countered. "I care about you more than anything, and if you get hurt doing this, it will kill me more than anything that any bad guy could do. That doesn't mean I'm going to try and trick you out of this with some underhanded trick like that."

"Then why not let me go on just one patrol with you," Gwen questioned.

"Because you're not ready," Peter almost shouted.

"And if you are the only judge on the matter, then I'll never be ready," Gwen retorted just as loudly.

"How are either of you supposed to really know for sure," Sora asked, getting the two's attention. They also took notice of the fact that George had silently excused himself to answer a phone call, or so it seemed, but they were a little more interested in what the two Avengers had to say. "Do you really think that I was ready for any of the stuff that I was going to have to deal with by getting the Keyblade, or by joining the Avengers?"

"Sora's right," Steve agreed. "Even I didn't know for certain if I was ready when I took the Super Soldier Serum back in the Forties, but I still went through with it all the same. Not only that, but my first real mission in the war, I had no clue if I was ready for anything, but whether I was or not didn't matter. All that mattered was the job at hand, so I just had to hope for the best and take a leap of faith. Sometimes, that's really all you can do, and all that it is."

Those words seemed to stew in the minds of the two spider-powered teens, but it did so especially for Peter. Hearing Cap mention that the whole thing was really as simple as a leap of faith reminded him of when he first started trying to get control his powers. Sure, his leap had him jumping off the roof of a building as part of a test-run for his first web-shooters, but the similarity was definitely there. More than that, it also made him start to wonder if making Gwen do all of this was keeping her from taking her own leap of faith. Glancing to the girl he loved so much, he could tell that she was definitely frustrated, but more than that, she was still standing as strong and confident as ever. If that was not proof that she wanted and felt ready to do this and enter the insanity that came with the other half of his double life, then it was hard to really know what else could be.

He was about to get a chance to really test whether or not it was time for Gwen to take that leap when George suddenly got off of his phone and came back over to the group, a look of urgency on his face. "Hey, I just got off the phone with some of the boys at the station," George informed the heroes. "A call just came in about a group of suspicious looking people moving what looked like some very impressive artillery over at the docks in Hell's Kitchen. I have an officer in the area who can investigate it, but I'd appreciate it if you could help out at the very least, Peter."

"Uh…Not that I don't appreciate you knowing my secret identity, Captain Stacy, or see a few benefits to having you on my side like this, but I don't think a simple investigation of suspicious people is something that would prompt you to call in Batman, Robin, and Batgirl," Spider-Man admitted.

Sora looked between the original spider-hero and Gwen for a few minutes, until he finally whispered to the blonde, "Should we take that as a compliment or an insult?"

"I'd go with compliment for now," Gwen suggested.

"The thing about those suspicious individuals, they were described as wearing masks that looked like jack-o'-lanterns. Sound familiar," George then asked.

That made the eyes on Peter's mask go wide, much like his actual eyes had, because that definitely sounded more than a little familiar. "I thought the old Gob-Squad had split up or just been arrested after what happened to Osborn."

"Most of them were, yes, but as for Goblin's weaponry and tech, we were never entirely sure if we got it all, or that we were able to find all of his stores. I've suspected that Oscorp found a way to clear it all out and dispose of everything before we could get it so that they could avoid any lawsuits, but there was always a chance that something else was going on," George revealed.

"Like that maybe some die-hard Pumpkin-heads had set up some private or exclusive stores that no one else knew about besides ol' Normmy," Peter filled in.

"Maybe, but that wouldn't explain why they would suddenly become active after all this time," George pointed out.

"Well, no one better to look into all of this than one of the foremost experts on all things Gobby. I'll swing over and have a look," Spider-Man determined. He glanced over to other heroes and asked, "You guys want in?"

Sora just smiled before he said, "Like I'm gonna say no?"

Peter could only chuckle in response, feeling like he should have known that would be Sora's answer, and he then turned to the super soldier among them. "I would, but I've got to hurry back to the mansion to take over on monitor duty for Hawkeye."

"Even Earth's mightiest heroes have take on the most boring of jobs, eh," George lightly joked, getting an amused chuckle from the army captain soon after.

Peter looked to Gwen and then asked, "So, you really want to find out if you're really ready?"

"Seriously," Gwen asked.

"Well, only if you can keep up," Peter challenged with a smirk that obvious even through his mask. "Don't worry; Sora will make sure to slow his pace so that you know which way to go."

A minute later, the two captains were watching as the three kids took off for their destination. The leader of the three doing so via his trademarked web-swinging, the second boy flying a short distance behind on his Keyblade Glider, and the lone girl of the three following behind him as best as she could via rooftop running. The sight of these three heroes all racing off to investigate a possible crime in progress that could lead to something bigger made both Steve and George feel like they were witnessing the beginning of something great. At least, they hoped it would be, but that would all depend on what would happen when those three kids reached their destination.

---

The tip that Captain Stacy told them about turned out to be good, as the whole area was crawling with members of the Gob-Squad, as Peter called them. While this was the first time that Sora and Gwen were seeing the pumpkin-headed gang members in person, Spidey had honestly been hoping that he would never see them again, or at least that he would not see them wearing those stupid pumpkins again. They brought back way too many bad memories for him. He could not let that stop him from helping the others to figure out what the Goblin's old crew was doing here, and the first step to figuring that out was dealing with the pumpkin-heads guarding the boathouse they were all currently outside of.

The problem was that they could not afford to fight the Gob-Squad up close, given that they were all carrying some serious fire-power, be it in terms of regular guns or the artillery that Goblin had provided them once upon a time. Thankfully, they would not have to, as Spider-Man did actually have some experience with taking a more stealthy approach, and he was soon directing the other two on what they would need to do. Gwen was in charge of taking out the snipers, without the guys on the ground noticing, and thankfully, she found a way to do so even despite the fact she still did not have her own web-shooters. Once that was done, she was to act as a lookout for the other two boys so that no one could get the drop on them. Not that it was easy to do so in Sora's case, as he was able to use his teleportation magic to pop in, knock someone out, and pop out again before anyone noticed. Of course, he would occasionally freeze a thug where they stood, but only when he had the time to get his Keyblade to work with him on that bit of magic. Beyond that, he normally just left restraining the criminals to Spider-Man.

The rest of the problem was dealt with by the original web-slinger himself, and all of the new tricks he now had up his sleeves thanks to the new suit and upgrades that he and Stark had given him. With the HUD in his mask, he was better able to track the movements of various bad guys, even through walls, and that helped him to better plan his attacks and know when it was better to take cover and wait. Then there were the web-shooter upgrades, which he was especially proud of. One of the ones that he got a particular rush of pride from was the Trip Mine webs, which fired a small device to attach to a wall, and upon detecting a nearby enemy within the laser sight that it emitted, it would immediately fire off a web that would pull the target in to web them up completely. It could be used to tie two enemies together more quickly as well, but right now, he felt it better to use it as a special trap. The other one that he made a point to make good use of was the Impact Webs, which would tie up enemies in an instant, and often times send them flying into a nearby wall. He normally used that particular gadget against an enemy that was already close to a wall or whatever was tall enough to match the particular thug's height.

With the three working together, it was no surprise that they were able to take out all of the members of the former Goblin gang, but what was most impressive was how the last one was taken out. Somehow, Spidey had missed that last thug, and the thug had managed to sneak up behind the web-head. Right after Spider-Man had turned around, Gwen had dropped in, tackled the crook, and knocked him out with a single hit upon landing. With the last thug subdued by her own hand, Gwen could not help but turn a smirk to Peter as she asked, "What was that you were saying earlier about making sure that it was all over before relaxing?"

"…I coulda taken him," Peter insisted after a brief pause.

Sora could only roll his eyes a little in good humor, more than a little amused now by the two's banter. He would have made a comment to them had a siren not suddenly sounded, getting the attention of all three heroes. They all turned to see a squad car pulling up to where they were, and while Sora just stayed where he was, Spider-Man and Gwen both made it a point to spin out a web to hang down from and perch on a nearby wall, respectively. When the car came to a stop, the driver stepped out, and glanced around the area before she leveled her gaze on the three heroes, while the heroes made a brief study of the group. The woman in question was of Asian descent with short black hair and brown eyes, and she was decked out in a red, button up shirt, black pants and shoes, and a black leather jacket, with her police badge fastened onto her belt, and her side arm fastened to her right side.

The policewoman paused to take another once-over of the area before she finally addressed the three heroes in a serious, no-nonsense tone of voice. "You know we can't have vigilantes trespassing or doing illegal searches, Avengers or otherwise," the cop informed them.

"Yeah, we know," Spider-Man sighed, already thinking that this woman was going to be one of those by-the-book cops that did not like him, or really just any one of those other kind of cops that did not like him.

He was pleasantly surprised though when the woman produced a certain piece of paperwork for all to see and smirked, "Which is why I brought a warrant. So what do you say we all do some perfectly legal searching?"

"I like the sound of that," Spider-Man smiled from behind his mask before dropping down from his web.

"Glad to have you helping us out, Officer…" Sora added, trailing off at the end as a way of asking for an introduction.

"Detective," the policewoman corrected before accepting the handshake that the kid was offering. "Detective Yuriko Watanabe. Call me Yuri."

"Nice to meet you, Yuri. I'm Sora," the Keyblade wielder greeted.

"The Keyblade Samurai. I know," Yuri finished for him with a smile. "You've made almost as many headlines as your wall-crawling friend over here."

"Which one," Gwen jokingly questioned, making sure that Yuri could see her on the wall when she did.

Yuri just looked at the female spider-hero for a minute, honestly a little surprised before she admitted, "Okay, you are the only one here that I don't know about. Are you Spider-Man's new sidekick or something?"

"What? No, I'm not his sidekick! I'm his partner," Gwen indignantly replied.

"In-training. She's my partner-in-training," Spider-Man clarified, knowing that Gwen was now likely giving him the look for that through her mask.

"Well I hope when she's finished training she gets a better costume, because that doesn't really seem to do it for her," Yuri observed. She then asked a question that none of them were quite ready for just yet. "So what do we call you?"

"Uh…what," Gwen asked.

"You do have some kind of fancy superhero name, right," Yuri questioned.

In all honesty, Gwen had not really thought that far ahead, and neither had Peter or Sora, and they were all now feeling really stupid. How could they have not thought of a name for Gwen's new hero identity before now? That was a basic requirement for most superheroes. Even Sora had ended up getting a superhero name, despite how he had so little desire for one, so they really should have tried to think of something before now. There was no changing it now, so in the end, Gwen just went with whatever first came to her mind.

"I…I-I'm the spectacular Spider-Woman," the blonde ended up stuttering.

"Spider-Woman, huh? Not the most original thing, but I guess you don't really have many other options from the look of things," Yuri observed.

"So Yuri, that warrant cover breaking down doors, because unless they made anything they were moving invisible, it looks like all of their stuff is inside the boathouse," Spider-Man stepped in, hoping to move on from the topic.

"It would, but it would require a LOT of extra paperwork," Yuri sighed.

"Somehow I don't think they left the door unlocked either," the now-officially named Spider-Woman noted.

"Guess we'll just have to find another way inside. Maybe a backdoor, an air vent…" Spider-Man began to think out loud, only to stop short when he heard Sora's Keyblade materializing once again. He and the others then watched as Sora pointed the magical weapon at the door, shot out a beam from it, and then dismissed the blade before stepping forward and simply pushing the door open. "Or you could just…do that."

"Hey, what's the point of having a friend with a magic sword that can open or close any lock if you never let him do his thing," Sora pointed out with an easy-going smile and his hands rested behind his head.

"Impressive. Remind me to call you the next time I lock myself out," Yuri joked as she made her way in with the heroes. A simple glance around showed them nothing more than the simple, rundown boathouse that it appeared to be, which made Yuri comment, "Well, nothing illegal in plain sight."

"Yeah, that's pretty anticlimactic," Gwen sighed, honestly a little disappointed by the lack of bad guy stuff.

"Only at first glance," Spider-Man corrected. "Gobby and his pals were experts at keeping things under wraps until they wanted people to know about it most of the time, so if we're going to find anything, it's going to be hidden somewhere in here."

"Right. Let's have a closer look," Yuri agreed.

"Anything in particular that we should be looking for," Sora asked.

"Just any sign of secret doors, or passages, or anything that's just out of place," Spider-Man reasoned out.

"I know of a good starting point," Yuri revealed as she made her way to a large, old container. "This yard's been here a long time. Bootleggers used to use it back in the day."

"Uh…Who," Sora asked, not having a clue as to what a bootlegger was.

"And those guys loved their secret passageways," Gwen filled in for Yuri, unintentionally ignoring Sora's question.

Yuri then moved along the wall of freight crates, tapping against them as she went, until she paused when she heard an echo coming from one in particular. "That sound suspiciously hollow to any of you," Yuri asked. She then took another look and spotted something else that was out of place. "Check this out. A hidden panel like the one I saw on the door while we were coming in. Think that magic sword could open this up too, Sora?"

"Shouldn't be too hard," Sora shrugged in reply while readying his Keyblade for action. One simple beam of light later, and the secret door was unlocked and opening up for the four.

"Well, that's a little worrying," Spider-Man could not help but quip once they saw what was inside.

There before their eyes, were several shelves of Goblin equipment. Everything from pumpkin bombs, to razor bats, and even the blasters that fired out Osborn's Gobwebs was all there before their eyes. The only thing that was not there was Goblin's glider, but somehow, Spidey just knew that there was no way that Norman only had one of those things. The only thing that was not among the shelves of Goblin supplies were vials of Globulin Green, and that was what really worried the two spiders.

"Never thought I'd ever get to see a Goblin armory in person," Yuri whispered to herself, unaware of the worries that had overcome the two spiders at first. It was not until she realized that the only answer she was going to get was silence that she finally realized that the two had frozen up. "Hey, you two okay?"

"Y-Yeah," Spider-Man stuttered. "Just…you know, memories."

Yuri had to nod in response to that. It was no secret as to how his last showdown with Green Goblin had ended after all. The battle spanned across nearly half of New York City, with Goblin having apparently weaponized the city itself to take down the web-slinger. She would have said something to the two had Sora not suddenly brought everyone's attention elsewhere. "Hey guys! Is it me, or does the floor sound a little different over here," the Keybearer called out from where he was standing, stomping down on the ground with one foot just to help his point.

The three quickly headed over to Sora's location and began to stomp on the floor as well, hearing the same echo that Sora had picked up on. "Must be an entrance to an old bootlegger's tunnel," Yuri guessed.

"Think you could open it up, Sora," Gwen asked.

"I don't know, but I can give it a try," Sora stated. "You might want to stand back," he then cautioned as he moved into position. Everyone then watched in silence after backing up as Sora pointed his Keyblade at the floor, only for nothing to happen. Nothing continued to happen for several minutes until Sora finally said, "Sorry guys, but I've got nothing."

"Maybe I do," Spider-Man reasoned, and he began scanning the area with his HUD. After another moment, everyone watched as Spidey leapt over into the upper levels of the boathouse, with Gwen following right behind him, curious as to what Peter had found.

It did not take too long for that mystery to be solved, as Spidey came to stand before an active junction box. Such a thing definitely stuck out in an abandoned boathouse, but there seemed to be quite a few of those, so Gwen had to wonder why Peter came to this one. She did not even need to ask, as Peter was already providing the answer. "I picked up on traces of electrical current running from that point on the floor Sora found to this junction box. If we can overload this, it should open that secret door in the floor right up."

"Great. You have anything that can do that, because I don't think Sora's lightning magic is the best thing to use for something so precise," Gwen pointed out.

"Not a problem. Electric Webs coming in for the win," Spider-Man announced with pride, activating the gadget in question on his one of his web-shooters. The next thing Gwen knew, she was watching as an electrically infused web-bullet shot out from Peter's web-shooter and into the junction box, shorting out the box, and cutting the electricity to the lock. "Hey, did that do anything," Peter called down to Sora.

"Nope. The thing's still closed," Sora replied.

"Damn. There must be another box," Spider-Man guessed as he started scanning again, only to pause when he spotted the box in question on the other end of the room. "There!"

"I'm on it," Gwen replied, rushing over to the box before Spider-Man could say anything. The next thing that Peter knew, she was pulling out a stun gun from one of her hoodie's pockets, and shot it right at the junction box, overloading it in seconds.

"Where did you…" Peter started to ask, only for the answer to come to his mind before he had finished the question. "Did you take that from your dad's office or something?"

"Hey, when your partner refuses to give you the really good stuff, you have to make do with whatever you can," Gwen shrugged unapologetically while returning the stun gun to her pocket. "By the way, I do actually have a license to use this, and your welcome."

Peter could not help it. He actually had to smile a bit at Gwen's ingenuity. It was definitely a sign that she could handle being a spider-hero, because he had lost count of the number of times when he had to improvise a solution with whatever was available to him at a moment's notice. He was about to give her a little praise for her cleverness when Yuri and Sora called them back over, and they both quickly returned their focus to their current job. Upon doing so, they made tracks to meet back up with Sora and Yuri, and they arrived just in time to see the two had pried open the secret door in the floor, and saw that led to a secret underground passageway. A very old underground passageway, at that.

"Well, that isn't spooky at all," Sora sarcastically shrugged.

"It's probably an old bootlegger's tunnel," Yuri reasoned.

"And it looks like no one's cleaned it since Al Capone," Gwen half-joked as she took note of the tunnel's state of disrepair and the thick dust that covered the walls and floor.

Sora looked back and forth between the two girls before leaning over to Peter and whispering, "You guys do remember that I don't get any of those references, right? You know, since I'm from…very far away?"

"I'll explain a few of them later, and probably schedule a few sessions for me, Gwen, and Miles to get you up-to-date on Earth pop culture while we're at it," Peter promised.

"This tunnel may not have been cleaned much lately, but it's definitely been used a fair bit," Yuri suddenly noted as she studied the floor. Pointing to where she was looking, Yuri explained, "These footprints are recent. Very recent. Someone's been down here, and they've been coming a lot from the look of things."

Peter knelt down to get a closer look at the footprints, and to his surprise, he actually found the pattern on the footprint familiar to him. "I've seen this before," Spider-Man muttered.

"Really? How could you recognize a shoeprint," Yuri questioned.

"Because it comes from a very expensive brand of shoes that I used to see quite a bit," Spider-Man revealed. "And so did a lot of other people in New York before he crashed his glider into a vat of his own pumpkin bombs."

"So what? Are you saying that Norman Osborn is back from the dead or something," Yuri questioned.

"Hey, my friend here works with the god of thunder, a couple that can change their size and mass at will, and a soldier who's like a hundred years old but still looks like he's barely even gotten out of his mid-twenties," Spidey pointed out as he indicated Sora to Yuri. "I don't think it would be a huge stretch that Osborn Senior might have found a way to survive. He threw people off his scent the last time someone suspected him of being behind something illegal, after all."

"I don't think this is Norman though, Spidey," Gwen disputed. "The size of the footprint seems a little too small to be that of an adult's."

"She's right, but that doesn't really narrow down on who else this could be by much," Yuri pointed out.

"Well, maybe there's a few more clues at the end of the tunnel," Sora suggested as he took point on leading the way. He stopped short though when the tunnel shook and caused a few rocks to come loose from the ceiling. The Keybearer likely would have been flattened if Yuri had not rushed forward and pushed him out of the way. "Thanks."

"No problem, but you probably should be a little more careful when exploring old tunnels like this one," Yuri advised with a smile.

The two spider-heroes soon joined them via wall-crawling and once they had all gathered together again, they proceeded onward into the tunnel, following it all the way to the end where they found something that was definitely not from the Al Capone era. The whole room was very new, and lined with several more shelves of Goblin tech like the ones they found earlier, only there was a lot more in here. This time, they did find one of Goblin's gliders, and in addition to that, there was also copies of the Goblin's old suit, some of which had appeared to be modified in some way that only Peter and Gwen were able to really pick up on for different reasons, but the most worrying thing that they found was a refrigerated case that had several vials of Globulin Green.

"I'd say we just found one of the Goblin's vaults of weaponry that the police missed the first time around," Sora muttered aloud as he activated his helmet, taking scans and pictures with the visor as he continued looking about.

"No, this definitely isn't one that was missed. If anything, this one's new," Yuri stated. "But who could've put all this down here?"

"I think I might know of at least one person," Gwen whispered. She then noticed another door on the opposite end of the room, and after going over to see outside, she saw it led back out to the docks that they had previously been standing on. Turning around to the group, she told Yuri, "I think we might have a few ideas on who could be behind this. Spidey, Sora, and I are going to follow-up on it."

"And how am I going to know if you find something or not," Yuri asked.

"We'll call," Gwen said as simply as possible, but Peter and Sora could definitely pick up on an edge in her tone.

"And if I find something before any of you," Yuri asked, but Gwen had already gone out the door. The detective looked to Spider-Man and said, "You've got an interesting girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," Spider-Man corrected. "But she is definitely something else. If you find something, either call Avengers Mansion or let Captain Stacy know. He has a way of getting into contact with us."

Yuri nodded in reply as Spider-Man left the vault as well. She would have taken her leave as well had she not noticed that Sora was still next to her and smiling after the departing spiders. Seeing that, Yuri could not help but ask, "Are they really not dating?"

"They're not at the moment, but they will be soon enough," Sora promised, his knowing grin not falling at all.

Yuri could only chuckle at the apparent innocence of this kid, even as she joined him in leaving the room. "And Mom said that nothing good could really come from becoming a cop."

---

"This is a bad idea," Peter's voice said through the earpiece that Gwen was currently wearing as she rode the elevator up to the Osborn family penthouse.

"Yeah, I heard you the first time," Gwen grumbled under her breath in reply while crossing her arms out of frustration.

"And yet, you're still going up there," Peter pointed out without fail.

"You know just as well as I do that Harry's had a vendetta against you…Spider-Man, since what happened to Norman, and his change in behavior lately isn't exactly that different from when he was on the Green last time. Maybe not in the same way as before, but it's still a pretty drastic change. Besides, who else would be able to get access to all of that Goblin tech besides someone from Oscorp?"

"You mean aside from anyone who's ever stolen from Oscorp?"

"As I recall, most of the time that someone stole from Oscorp, it was Green Goblin stealing from them as a way of covering his own tracks. The only time that wasn't the case was when Mysterio first showed up."

"Still, are you sure you want to confront Harry about something like this? If he's really gotten as bad as you've said he has…"

"I can handle myself. Besides, I'm not confronting Harry directly. I'm just going to be looking around his penthouse for any signs of anything that could tie him to this. I have been here a lot more often and more recently than you have after all, and considering his recent attitude towards you whenever you're brought up, even in passing, I think you can see why it would be a bad idea for you as Peter Parker or Spider-Man to be snooping around here, especially if you get caught."

"Right. Because it would be so much better if you get caught."

"That's why you're here, remember? To watch my back and come swinging in to save the day in case something does happen."

"Uh Gwen, Peter? You do remember that I'm here too, right? Or that Peter isn't the only one watching your back, Gwen," Sora interrupted, surprising the blonde a little at the sudden intrusion of the Keybearer's voice.

"Wait, Sora, how much of that did you just hear," Gwen asked.

"Try all of it. You do remember that the comm. frequency in Peter's mask that we're using right now is the same as the one in my helmet, and the one that the rest of the Avengers use, right," Sora reminded them.

Gwen would have let out a small, quiet laugh in response, since she had forgotten that, but she had to stifle it as the elevator had just reached its destination. The minute the doors opened, Gwen was welcomed to the massive expanse of the Osborn family's main living room, and from what she could tell, it did not seem like anyone was home. Quietly proceeding inwards, Gwen kept her eyes and ears peeled for any signs of the Osborns actually being home, because if they were, that would probably make her search a little harder. The idea was simple; all she had to do was take a look around and see if she could find any kind of proof that Harry had been following in his father's green-clad footsteps. The footprint that they had found in the tunnel was a sure match for one of Harry's shoes, and after the way Harry had been acting lately, along with what he had said at the cemetery after his father's funeral, Gwen was starting to think that maybe he had decided to become the next Green Goblin. If not that, then there was definitely a chance that Harry had fallen back into his old addiction to the Globulin Green, and after seeing the vials of the performance enhancer in that vault, Gwen's suspicions only grew.

She did not want to believe that Harry had backslid into his addiction, especially after he had told her that she was the only thing keeping him from doing so, but with the way Harry had been lately, and what they had seen last night, she could not help but think the worst. That was why she was now sneaking around her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend's penthouse in an attempt to find anything that would either prove he was guilty of the whole thing, or that he was innocent and someone was trying to set him up. She just had to hope that Harry was not home, and that he, his mother, or his butler caught her doing this, otherwise she would have to test just how valid her excuse of hoping to see Harry really was.

Thankfully, it seemed that no one was home, as far as Gwen could tell, even as she continued to snoop around and look over anything that she could with an extra critical eye. You could not blame her for taking a second look at everything, especially after she found out from Peter how the knight's armor was actually the entrance to the Osborns' wine cellar. You would think Harry would have mentioned that to her and Peter at some point over the course of all the years that they had been coming to this place. In the end, Gwen did not seem to have too much luck in finding anything, and could not help but let out a long, tired sigh as she leaned against the wall near one of the few family portraits that were in the entire penthouse. The moment she did, a soft click went off, and Gwen jumped back just in time to see a panel in the wall open up to reveal a keypad underneath.

"Okay, didn't expect that, but I'll take it," Gwen whispered to herself, only to pause a moment later when she realized she had no clue as to what the passcode for this keypad could be. That was not going to stop her from trying though, and she was about to make an attempt at guessing the code at random, until she stopped short. "Maybe if I can uncover the fingerprints on here, I can get the code from that."

Taking out her make-up kit from her purse, Gwen quickly set to work applying whatever she could to make the prints on the keys a little more noticeable, and upon seeing which numbers had been pressed the most, it was easy enough for her to figure out what the code could have been. "Harry's birthday? A little obvious, don't you think, Har," Gwen muttered to herself as she typed in the digits necessary. She then watched as the wall opened up to reveal a secret lab that was definitely geared towards anything and everything Goblin-related, and among all of the tech were several pages of notes littered amongst the lab tables. Those notes all had one thing in common that made Gwen's heart sink a little: they were all written in Harry's handwriting. Looking around, Gwen also spotted a map that pinpointed where the most Spider-Man sightings had been, and alongside every Spider-Man photo were sticky notes that said things like fraud, liar, and killer. There were a few Daily Bugle articles as well, most of them being the more scathing articles against Spidey, but they were small potatoes in comparison to what all the rest of this really meant. "Oh Harry," Gwen whispered. "How could you?"

"About as easily as you did all of this, Gwen," Harry's voice replied from behind her, and Gwen instantly spun around to see her current boyfriend glaring at her from the lab's entrance. "You know, I was hoping to tell you about this when the time was right, but you just had to go and ruin the surprise, didn't you?"

"What? That you're taking Globulin Green again? That your making more of your dad's old Goblin weapons and tech? That you've restarted his gang? Just how exactly were you planning to justify any of this," Gwen demanded, a little more bravely than even she expected.

"Because I would be getting justice for my father," Harry easily replied as he stepped in, not seeming the least bit worried about anything. "I'd have exposed Spider-Man as the criminal he really is, and then made him pay for what he did to my father. I mean, if he really is a hero, then he should've tried to save Dad, right? My dad was obviously sick and needed help like I did when I was first on the Green, but Spidey didn't try to help him. He just let my dad get blown up and killed."

"That's not what happened, Harry," Gwen tried to argue, but her words fell on deaf ears. Then again, it could've been more accurate to say that the person she was directing them to just did not want to listen to them.

"You weren't there that night! You can't prove any of that," Harry practically shouted. "Spider-Man killed my father, and he needs to pay for it! I mean, I know you're not okay with that, but does anyone else cry when bad guys die? I mean, sure, my father wasn't a saint, but he was still my dad."

"Who framed you for his crimes, and hurt you to do it," Gwen continued trying to point out.

"Like I said, he was sick," Harry excused. His anger then faded away for a grin that was much more sinister and frightening than Gwen would have liked to see on any of her friends. "But you don't really care about that, do you? You think that Spider-Man was justified in what he did. After all, it wasn't that long ago that you felt like it was okay for you to stab me in the back, right?"

"What're you talking about," Gwen asked, now a little confused as to what Harry was getting at. She was still backing away from him as he started to loom a little closer to her.

"Don't play stupid, I know all about you two. You and Peter," Harry snarled, making Gwen freeze a little when he mentioned those names. "Yeah, I thought so. I heard you two that night when I told you about my history with the Green and Goblin. You guys were going to stab me in the back all because you wanted to be together. I mean, I always knew that you had a thing for Peter, but I thought that since he was with Liz, that meant you would be able to move on and actually feel something real for me. Then here comes old Pete, spouting off all this nonsense about wanting to be with you, and you fall into his arms like it was no big deal, while thinking up ways to end things between us just so you can be with him."

Gwen was shocked of course. She had never thought that Harry might have heard the conversation she had with Peter that night after he left, and she knew that it must have hurt for him to find out about things that way. Still, after hearing all of this, something else clicked in her mind, and her sympathy was quickly beginning to turn more towards anger. "You knew…And that's why…That's why you said I was the only thing keeping you from backsliding," Gwen realized, her voice already showing just how upset the whole thing was making her. "You lied to me because you were jealous of Peter, and made all of that up so that I would stay with you."

"It wasn't all a lie, but I wasn't about to lose to Peter again," Harry admitted. "Despite what he thinks, he's the one between the two of us who's always had it best. The loving and supportive family, the great friends, being the smartest guy in the room; it's always been the great Peter Parker who was on top. Hell, he probably would've made the football team too, if he had actually tried on the last day of try-outs last year, but he threw it because of one conversation he and I had. I guess I can at least thank him for that, but you know what really hurts? That he even had my father's approval, and that he had your love! I had already figured out that I was always going to be second to Peter in my dad's eyes, but I had at least hoped that wouldn't be true in your case! Too bad it was already too late, or at least it would've been if I hadn't said what I did that day."

Gwen could not believe what she was hearing. Sure, she knew that Harry had been a little jealous of Peter in one or two areas, but she always believed that he did not mind it too much, given how close they were. After all, Peter and Harry had been best friends for years, almost as long as she had known both of them, so she could not truly believe that Harry really hated Peter that much. "Harry, you don't mean that. This has to be the Green talking," Gwen pleaded, hoping against hope that she was right in that regard.

"Yeah, you'd like it if that was the case, because then you could just talk down Harry Wussy Osborn, but newsflash: this isn't the Green; it's all me," Harry confessed.

"And you really want to talk like that, or even consider hurting people who've been your best friends for years," Gwen questioned, doing her best to not give him the look. Considering that this whole conversation had been relayed to Sora and Peter through her earpiece, she had a feeling that the two boys were already on their way, so she had to buy them some time until they got here, assuming they were coming at all.

"Oh, my best friends, huh," Harry asked in total sarcasm. "Funny how those so-called 'friends' are so eager to betray me, and how one of them never once thought to come near me after his web-swinging buddy killed my dad, but I guess that since Spider-Man's his big money maker, it'd make sense that Peter would want that menace to stick around."

"Harry," Gwen gasped, astonished that he would actually say something like that about Peter.

"No! If Pete really was my friend, then why wouldn't he do something to help me a little more, like by helping me to find Spider-Man so I can finally get even," Harry insisted. His grin was back again after that remark, and he raised one of his hands up towards Gwen. She was sure that Harry was about to try and attack her, but what really came as a surprise was when a dark orange and black glove suddenly materialized around Harry's hand and then began to spark with electricity as he spoke. "Maybe he just needs the right motivation, like knowing that his precious little Gweny won't be around for much longer if he refuses."

Now Gwen was horrified. Harry may have been bad in some of their fights, but he had never threatened her before, especially not like this. The only thing more worrying was the strange gauntlet that had appeared over his hand out of nowhere like that, and she had a feeling that it was just one of the improvements that he had made to his father's old Goblin tech. None of that mattered right now, because in that moment, seeing Harry approach with full intention on attacking her, Gwen had to stop herself from lashing out and fighting back with her new spider-strength, knowing that it would blow her secret identity, as new as it was, clear out of the water. That did not mean that she was out of options, and she did not hesitate to go for the one that was easiest to reach. "SORA," Gwen shouted.

Harry was not sure what had happened. One minute he was about to fire a blast from the fingertips of his gloved hand, and then the next minute, there was a flash of light, and his blast was being deflected. Looking to the responsible party, he was surprised to find himself staring down a fully armed and very angry Keyblade Samurai. "Really? First Peter, and now the little brat of the Avengers," Harry snarled at Gwen. "Just how much of a slut are you?"

"Now that's enough! If you really are her friend, then you wouldn't need anyone to tell you that Gwen's not like that," Sora snapped, clearly still upset with what had just happened and with all the horrible things that he heard Harry say through Gwen's comm. device. "I get that you're jealous of your friend, but that's no excuse for doing what you've done. To Gwen or anyone else."

"You know, you should just stay out of this, kid. It doesn't concern you," Harry waved off Sora, almost like he believed Sora to be an annoying little bug.

"If you mess with any of my friends in any way, then it definitely concerns me," Sora retorted, waving for Gwen to get out while he had Harry's attention.

Gwen did not have any problem with making tracks out of the secret lab, but if Harry noticed her leaving, he obviously did not care too much. He was already moving on to something else. "Fine, if you want to play the hero, then by all means, but you'll find that us Osborns are not to be messed with," Harry growled, darkly. The next thing Sora knew, more of the strange, black and dark orange glove from before began expanding around Harry's body, until he was completely decked out in a full suit that was made up of dark orange armor over a dark blue suit, with black gloves, a dark orange hood with silver antenna stuck out from the sides like pointed ears, and a silver mask with glowing red eyes that hid all of Harry's face. "What? Did you really think I was going to try and use all of my dad's old crap to take down Spider-Man when it obviously couldn't get the job done," Harry asked once the suit had fully formed. "I've been working for months on improving all of his old stuff, building up a new Goblin suit using nanotech and some of my own inventions. Despite what everyone else thinks, I do actually have some smarts when it comes to science, even without the Green. Now, there's a new goblin in town, and he's going to be the one that finishes what the old goblin started." He then reached into his belt and drew out a black handle that ignited what looked to be a sword made of fire as he finished, "This is now the age of the Hobgoblin!"

Sora could hardly believe that Peter and Gwen's friend had really fallen this far, but right now, he had to focus on the fight at hand, and if Harry really wanted to try and best him in a sword fight, Sora was more than happy to show the rich brat how hard that was going to be. A minute later, magically-infused steel clashed with burning flame, as the two swords clashed with each other, and after holding their lock for a minute, Sora managed to push Harry off and begin overpowering the Hobgoblin with fast, powerful swings. That did not slow Hobgoblin down for long, as he eventually managed to find a break in Sora's attacks for him to actually leap over Sora, and then land on his own Goblin Glider, which he had called out to earlier as he was activating his suit. Charging forward on the glider, Harry forced Sora to dodge to the side in an effort to stay ahead of Harry, but between dodging his glider and avoid the swings of his fire sword, Sora was barely able to get much time to actually counterattack.

Now, Sora knew that he could just blast Harry off the glider with a bit of magic, but there were several reasons why he was avoiding that. The first and most obvious was that there was no way to know for sure if the spell he called out would work, and in a fight like this, Sora did not want to risk getting a fire spell when he was trying for an ice spell. More importantly, he was worried that any magic he tried, save for time magic would really hurt Harry, even if he was wearing armor. Granted, he did not really care if he roughed up the young Osborn, but the guy was still Peter and Gwen's friend, and they seemed to think he was better than this, so Sora somehow managed to hold himself back. It was a struggle to be sure, given all that he had recently heard and now seen about Harry, but Sora was not one to let his friends down like that. Of course, with the way that Harry was going though, Sora was not sure how long his patience could hold out.

Unfortunately, Sora's hesitance ended up costing him some ground in the fight, and he did not even realize that until they were already out of the secret lab, through the Osborns' living room, and standing on the balcony overlooking the city outside. The only reason Sora did realize this was because Harry had backed him right into the railing that went around the balcony to keep anyone from falling off, and now, he was pressed against that railing as he used Kingdom Key to keep Harry from either burning him alive or slicing him in half with his fire sword. "What's the matter, kid? Too afraid to really fight back," Hobgoblin mocked as he continued pressing down on Sora's Keyblade with his weapon. "I thought you were supposed to be one of the tougher members on your team, given how you're always seen shooting fire and ice on the news."

"I'm trying not to do that right now," Sora admitted with a growl. "I may not have a high opinion of you at the moment, Osborn, but Gwen and Peter still think of you as their best friend. I'm not about to hurt someone that my friends care about."

"Don't talk to me about who my friends are or aren't! Especially when it comes to those traitors," Harry shouted in Sora's face, adding more strength to his push as he did.

Sora's guard almost faltered under the sudden increase of pressure on him, proving that the Goblin strength was all that Spider-Man claimed it to be, and he probably would have caved completely had something not suddenly pulled Hobgoblin off of him and thrown the son of the original Goblin clear across the patio. "I'd say that even the original Goblin had never stooped so low as to pick on kids, but you and I both know that isn't true, Harry," Sora's rescuer quipped as he dropped down from above, revealing the target of the young Osborn's vengeance to all.

"Spider-Man," Hobgoblin snarled. "If I'd know that you would come running the minute something like this started, I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to find you the old fashioned way. Granted, it might make me seem like more of a villain at first, but I'm sure once I've exposed you as the fraud you are, no one will care."

"Harry, listen to me. I didn't kill your father, and I never wanted to kill him either," Spider-Man tried to reason. His attempts were less successful than Gwen's, because before he could further than that, Harry had fired out a blast of electricity that made Peter feel like everything was being flash-fried.

"I don't want to hear your lies or excuses! You're going to pay for what you did, and nothing's going to stop me," Harry roared as he continued to fire off the electric blast from his gauntlet.

Sora was about to move in and help Spider-Man, but he was soon forced to dodge to one side when Harry fired another blast from his other gauntlet. Hobgoblin kept his blast on Spider-Man going for a little while longer, slowly approaching the web-head as he did, until he was finally close enough to slug Spidey across the face. Since Spider-Man was getting blasted with such a constant stream of electric energy beforehand, he was not able to block or dodge Harry's punch before it could connect, and as a result, he ended up plummeting over the edge of the balcony to the city below.

Normally, Peter would have shot out a web to save himself, but he was still really dazed from Harry's attacks to focus well-enough. This looked like the end of Spider-Man, until suddenly, someone caught him before he could fall any further. Looking to his rescuer, Peter was surprised to see Gwen holding him up while perched on the side of the building, and fully decked out in her temporary costume. "Sorry I took so long. It took me forever to find a good place to change and hide my clothes," Gwen quipped out like a pro. "You would think that there would be a few more places for a girl to change into her superhero alter ego without the risk of anyone seeing her half-naked or something."

Peter could only smile in response to Gwen's jovial words, even as he moved to reorient himself and perch alongside her on the wall. Once he had gotten there though, he finally replied, "Gwen, I could tell you so many stories. I mean, I don't want to, but I could." He then fired a pair of web-lines straight up, and handed one to Gwen as he said. "Follow my lead, and when I give the signal, stop sticking."

Gwen nodded in response, and was soon matching Peter's movements as he backed up, making their respective web-lines stretch more and more as they did. When they had finally reached just the right point, Peter gave his signal, and the two spider-powered teens went flying upwards, right back to the balcony, just in time to see Harry exchanging sword strikes with Sora once more. Sora had actually just rolled away from another one of Harry's swings when the two decided to step in and lend a hand, or in this case, a web.

"You know, I thought you'd have learned the rules after watching your dad lose this game, Harry," Spider-Man quipped as he yanked away Hobgoblin's fire sword with a web. "Rule one might say that Spidey must splat…"

"But Rule two clear states to ignore Rule One," Gwen finished as she jumped in and kicked Harry away.

Normally, Harry would have retorted, but right now, he was a little more curious about the newcomer to this fight, and why they were wearing a copy of Spider-Man's mask. "And just who the hell are you supposed to be," Hobgoblin demanded.

"No one special," Gwen shrugged. "Just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Woman."

"Spider-Woman," Harry gasped in disbelief. He then looked to the original web-slinger and asked, "What is she, your wife or something?"

"WHAT?! No! Where did you get that idea from," Spider-Man demanded. That was a much bigger leap of logic than Yuri had made earlier that day.

"He's right. If anything, they're on the verge of starting to date," Sora revealed.

"Sora!" Gwen hissed, even as she turned her head away in an attempt to hide a blush out of reflex.

"That makes this a lot easier for me either way," Hobgoblin snarled, grinning behind his mask in a way that would have doubtlessly made the three heroes worried. "Why just settle for killing for Spider-Man, when I can just make him suffer like I have."

Before anyone realized what was happening, Harry was rushing towards Gwen with the intent to grab her, but just as he was within arm's reach, Gwen managed to jump clear and vault over him with another show of grace like the one she had given that morning. "Sorry, but I'm not really into guys who are so grabby," Gwen quipped, more out of a need to hide how freaked out she was that Harry had just done that than anything else.

"And I'm afraid that I'm something of the jealous type myself, something I'm sure you would know all about after everything we just overheard, Harry," Spider-Man added as he shot out an Electric Web to stun Harry. Since Harry was wearing armor, Peter was sure that it would not hurt too much, so he had no problem using one of his more offensive new gadgets.

That electrified webbing did seem to hurt Harry at least a little bit, but he did not seem to pay it too much mind for long, as he ripped the web bullet off of his chest even as he wobbled back from the three. He probably should have paid more attention to his surroundings though, as he ended up stumbling right into the railing of his own balcony and falling over it like Spidey had just recently. Spider-Man would have jumped after Harry in an attempt to catch him, had his glider not suddenly come flying out to rescue its rider first. The only downside was that Peter's head had ended up being in the path of one of the glider's wings, and he ended up getting hit pretty hard when it came, sending him falling as well to the ground several stories down as well.

Gwen and Sora reacted in an instant, jumping over the rail to try and catch one of the two. When they saw Harry land on his glider and prepare to attack the falling Spider-Man again, Sora finally decided to stop holding back and tried for an ice spell in an attempt to force Harry away from his friend. He ended up getting a fire spell, but the result he was going for was still the same, and it allowed Gwen to catch Peter just in time. Unfortunately, it looked like Peter was either dazed or unconscious, so Gwen quickly aimed his web-shooter up towards a nearby building and fired it herself. The web did land on a target, but not quite the one she was going for. Instead, the web was intercepted by a train that had been passing by at the time, and as a result, she and Peter were both suddenly pulled along for the ride when the web connected.

"WHOA," Gwen cried out as she and Peter were dragged along for the unexpected ride. "HEY! SOMEBODY STOP THAT TRAIN!"

"Oh boy," Sora sighed as he transformed Kingdom Key into its glider form, and he was soon racing after the run-away Spider-Heroes and the train that they were latched onto, with Hobgoblin hot on both of their trails, and firing more electric blasts along the way.

When Harry started adding some pumpkin bombs into the mix of his attacks, Gwen started working double time on her efforts to wake Peter up, and ended up having to slap him a couple times before he did. The only downside was that when Peter did awaken, it was just in time to face-plant into a sign before their train ride continued. "OW! That still hurts," Peter grumbled after the fact.

"Sorry," Gwen apologized, feeling a little responsible for the event.

Peter waved it off though, and upon noticing Sora getting peppered by Hobgoblin's attacks, he released his web-line and dropped down onto the back of Sora's Keyblade Glider. He then did his best to aim behind them so that he could fire some web-bullets at Harry, if for no other reason than to discourage him from attacking anymore. The only downside was that Harry's attacks started to go a little wide as a result, and several nearby structures were struck instead, forcing people to scream, panic, and run for safety.

"We've got to stop this before anyone gets hurt," Gwen said to the boys.

"And while we're at it, we should probably look into getting a more comfortable ride," Peter quipped as he squirmed to find a better seat on the flying motorbike.

"Hey, don't look at me. My Keyblade Glider isn't really made for carrying a lot of passengers, if any," Sora informed the two. He then made a hard swerve to the right to avoid another electric blast from Hobgoblin, and asked, "Any ideas on how we're going to stop him now?"

"We've gotta at least try and talk him down," Peter insisted. "I know we can get him to listen to reason if we just…"

"I'm not so sure," Gwen interrupted. "Harry might be too far gone for us to do anything. I couldn't get him to listen to me, so I don't think you can either, Pete."

That made Spider-Man go quiet, and Sora was worried that it meant he was ready to give up and treat Harry like any other criminal that he had put away, until the web-slinger perked up again. "You might be right. Maybe Spider-Man won't be able to reach him, but I think I know someone who can," Peter figured aloud. He then quickly reloaded his web-shooters with fresh cartridges, looked to the other two, and instructed, "You guys do what you can to either help civilians or find someplace isolated from any and all prying eyes. I'll keep him busy."

"Wait," Gwen asked, grabbing his arm before he could jump off. "What're you going to do?"

"Just trust me," Spider-Man insisted before he pulled himself free from Gwen's hold and jumped off, firing a series of web-bullets from one his shooters so that he could ensure that Harry's attention was on him. "Alright, Hobgoblin, you want me? Come and get me! Assuming you think your Goblin enough to keep up!"

"Oh, I'll show you who's Goblin enough," Harry promised as he gave chase to the fleeing Spider-Man.

From that point on, Spider-Man and Hobgoblin could be seen battling it out, but it was clear that while Hobgoblin was throwing everything in his arsenal to try and end the wall-crawler, Spider-Man merely kept his distance as best he could while firing off webs to prevent his attacks from causing any more collateral damage to the surrounding area. Or at least, he was doing that as much as he could, because when he was not doing that, Spidey was firing off webs to make sure that Harry continued to pursue him and not either of his friends, leading Harry in an uneven circle until he got word from the other two about a place that they could lead the new Goblin towards. If his plan was going to work, then Peter needed to make absolutely sure that there were no witnesses around to see what he was going to do.

Things seemed to be going well from Peter could see, given that Sora was using the struts of his Keyblade Glider to prevent any falling debris from hurting the civilians below, and Gwen seemed to be doing well in keeping people safe as well, given how many times he saw her pulling people to safety, but he soon discovered that his job was going to be a bit harder than he realized when he went to fire off a web-line from his left web-shooter. When the web never came, he first thought that it was because the shooter was damaged, but when he looked to the arm it was supposed to be on, he found that it was not there! "What the," Spider-Man gasped. "What happened to my other web-shooter?!"

---

Peter's answer was actually not that hard to figure out, because before Peter had taken off to engage Harry again, Gwen had made it a point to slip his second web-shooter off of his arm. Strapping it onto her right wrist, Gwen quickly started making some adjustments so that it would work better for her, not realizing she was muttering about those adjustments out loud until it was too late. "Hooke's law; elastic force is linear with distance, given all factors are equal, but since Peter and I aren't equal…a little adjustment here at the nozzle, and…good to go."

"What are you," Sora started to ask as he glanced back, only to stop short when he saw what Gwen was doing. "Did you just steal one of Spidey's web-shooters?!"

"Now Sora, 'steal' is such a harsh word. I'm…borrowing it…without him knowing," Gwen weakly corrected. Knowing that her defense was probably weak, Gwen quickly tried to change the subject. "You know, do you think we should get a different nickname for either Spider-Man or me, because if I'm going to be called Spider-Woman, that would mean that there would be two people that everyone would refer to as Spidey, right?"

"Gwen," Sora snapped, not willing to let go of the previous topic just yet.

"Hey, shush! Secret identity, remember," Gwen scolded.

"We're a few feet up in the air, and flying really fast. I don't think anyone's going to be able to hear me that well," Sora reasoned. "More importantly…"

"Look, I know Pete said that I'm not ready yet, but in this situation, I've got to at least try and use one of these things. I'll be of more help with them than without," Gwen interrupted.

"Are you sure about this," Sora could not help but ask, still worried about Gwen. "How do you even know you can handle it?"

"I don't," Gwen replied with a smile. "Like Cap said, it's all just a leap of faith." That made Sora go quiet, and Gwen then turned her attention towards the city below them, took a deep breath, and prepared to jump, all the while quietly muttering, "Come on Spider-Sense."

Her self-preparations done, Gwen made a powerful leap off of Sora's Keyblade Glider, catapulting herself high into the air when she did. She would have fired the web-shooter right after that, but she immediately stopped herself when she felt like there was a very subtle nudge telling her to wait for a moment. So instead, Gwen spun herself around so that she was free falling through the air, waiting for just the right time, and once she got to just the right position, she reacted on instinct, spun around, and fired the web-shooter. The result was so beautiful you could consider it pure poetry or a work of art, as Gwen easily hit her target, and swung through the air with incredible ease. When she released her hold on the current line, she turned to aim at another, unseen structure, and fired again, hitting her target and using it to swing forwards so that she could pull a couple out of the way of one of Hobgoblin's stray blasts. Another web-line fired, and she was zipping through the air towards a lamppost that she easily vaulted over to reach a car that had been crushed under some rubble. Using only her bare hands, Gwen pulled the door off its hinges, and quickly pulled the driver and his passengers out of the car before anything else could fall and crush them all.

Sora could only watch in awe for a few minutes as Gwen showed off just how much Peter's training was really pulling off, and even executed several web-slinging maneuvers like she had been doing so for years now. Sure, there were one or two moments when Gwen missed a target, but she was able to adapt quickly and improvise on whatever the situation had given her in that moment. Sora was not sure if Peter was seeing any of this from where he was, but something told him that if he was, then Spider-Man was definitely feeling really proud of her right now, assuming he was able to get over the fact that Gwen had swiped his web-shooter off of his arm quickly enough.

Sora had to shake off his amazement though, because there was still a situation to deal with, but thankfully, he had an extra edge in finding nearby, isolated areas while keeping people out of trouble. He had been scanning for such locations with his helmet ever since Peter had told them to find a place like that, so by the time Sora had pulled another group to safety, he had located an area that he was sure that might be what Peter was aiming for. "Spider-Man, warehouse at two-o'-clock! No one's used it in years," Sora reported.

He saw Spider-Man glance in the direction he had indicated, and then heard Peter's voice call in over his helmet's built-in radio, "Nice work, Sora. I'll lead Harry over there, but once we're inside, I'll need you and Gwen to stay back. Partly because I'm going to need a lookout for anyone passing by that might try to sneak in for any reason."

"Why? What're you gonna do," Sora asked.

"You'll see," was all the reply that Peter gave, and Sora ended up unable to do anything more than watch as Spider-Man swung away to what he could only assume was going to be the final battleground in the fight against Hobgoblin. Then again, Sora had an odd feeling that whatever Peter was planning may be something that came with way more risks than any of them would like.

---

The minute that he had lured Harry into the warehouse, Spider-Man made it a point to seal off all entry and exit points, save for one. That one would be the point where Gwen and Sora could stand watch for any moment that they would need to step in. Not that Sora really needed an opening, given that he could teleport, but Peter was not really all too focused on that right now. He just needed to keep his attention on his best friend. "Harry, please. Just listen to me for a few minutes," Spider-Man pleaded.

"I'm so far beyond done listening to you," Hobgoblin shouted as he reached for another pumpkin bomb. He paused a second later though, and was soon searching his belt and glider for more of the most well-known projectile weapon of the Goblin arsenal.

"Yeah, don't you just hate it when you run out of ammo at a critical moment," Spidey asked, knowing that his friend had likely run out of bombs while he was chasing after them. He just hoped that Harry did not have any razor bats on him as well, because he really hated those things. Shaking the thought off but still keeping his attention tuned in on his Spider-Sense, Peter attempted to reason once again. "Harry, I didn't kill your father, and I never even wanted to kill him. Yes, I was mad when I found out what he did, but not to that point. I was basically running on adrenaline when the fight reached that moment, and by the time that I was able to try and shoot a web in an attempt to save him, it was already too late."

"STOP LYING," Harry shouted as he drew his fire sword again and charged. Without a second though, Spider-Man fired off a few Trip Wire webs, and Harry's glider was soon webbed down to the floor, sending its rider flying towards the superhero. Harry did not let that stop him though, as he merely tucked and rolled across the ground before slashing away at Spider-Man. Eventually, Spidey caught Harry's arms on their next downward swing, only to grunt under the intense pressure of finally realizing just how strong Globulin Green really made his friend. "Nothing you say will ever make me believe you wanted to save him! It's all just lies! Everything about you and your so-called heroics are lies!"

Normally, Spidey would have made a quip about listening to J. Jonah Jameson's rants in response, but this situation was not the time for that. If anything, it was a time when he had to play his ultimate trump card. "Well if you won't believe Spider-Man," the wall-crawler began, reaching up and pulling his mask off as he spoke. "Then how about your best friend?"

"What," Harry gasped, his arms finally going slack and dropping to his sides once Peter released him. He then retracted his mask so that the world could see his shocked face as he continued to stare in disbelief at the true face behind Spider-Man's mask. "Peter? You're…But how…It can't be…"

"It is, Harry," Peter insisted. "And you know that I would never want anyone to suffer through the same thing I did when I lost my parents and Uncle Ben. I've never wanted to hurt you, Harry, and neither did Gwen, and despite everything that's happened, I still consider you my best friend, just like how I still consider Eddie my bro, even after all the things that's happened between me and him. Harry, you need help, and I should've been there for you a lot sooner, and I'm sorry that I wasn't. I just wasn't sure how to really be around you or anyone else after everything that happened that night, but now…I want to do whatever I can to help my best friend."

Harry just continued to stare at his friend, processing what he was hearing, until he finally lowered his head and started shaking. At first, Peter thought that he was crying and reached out to place a hand on Harry's shoulder, but he was proven wrong when Harry grabbed his arm as tightly as he could and began laughing madly. "It all makes sense now," Harry whispered between cackles.

"Harry," Peter questioned, worried about what this meant his friend was going to do. He was right to be concerned, because a minute later, he was thrown across the room, until he collided with a metal support beam, hard.

"It all makes so much sense," Harry declared madly with an equally mad grin now on his face. "You've been jealous of me for years, Peter, so what better way to make things better for you while destroying my life, than to become Spider-Man? A few simple charity acts here and there, like when you saved Dad from Vulture, or when you backed out at the Football tryouts last year, and no one would think twice about questioning your 'heroics' when you finally make a move to destroy my life!"

"Harry…" Peter pleaded, but he was quickly interrupted by a flash of light and a voice he had only heard speak in an angry tone like that one time before now.

"Are you even listening to yourself?! That's your best friend your talking like that about," Sora shouted, making both boys spin and face the ticked off Keyblade Samurai when they heard him. Sora then retracted his helmet so that he could better look Harry in the eye, and his voice did lower in volume, his words were still just as heated. "I told you already that the only reason I wasn't going all out and treating like any other villain was because Peter and Gwen still think there's some good in you, despite all evidence to the contrary, and even now, Peter's risking everything to get you to see sense. If Peter really was that jealous of you, don't you think you would've realized it a lot sooner? He and Gwen have both done so much for you, and they both care about you to the point where I'm sure that you're like family to them."

"Like…like family," Harry stuttered, almost as if the concept was completely foreign to him now.

"Yeah, you heard me. With his powers, Peter could've easily become just another jock and left you high and dry, but he didn't because he would rather stick with you and the rest of his real friends," Sora pressed on. "And after what happened to your dad, Gwen was willing to stay with you so that you could heal, even though her feelings for you weren't the same as yours were for her. Not only that, but after that night, Peter thought that the only way he could keep others safe was by keeping them at a distance, and he did that for months. You really think someone would do that for selfish reasons? If anything, I'd say that Peter and Gwen are more like your family than your dad ever was. Do you really want to throw that away and be like the man Norman Osborn was? A man who would frame his own kid for crimes he committed, and even made sure to hurt said kid to make it all the more convincing?"

"Harry, don't forget that one of the big reasons why you first started taking the Green was so you could make your dad proud of you, and even then, it wasn't ever really enough," Peter added, seeing what Sora was getting at. "But you never needed to be something you're not with me and Gwen. We've both always preferred the real you over some stupid image that you thought you had to live up to with your dad. Please…just stop this before you succumb to the ugly, monstrous being inside of you like your father did." He then reached for his remaining web-shooter, removed the device, and tossed it aside before holding his arms out wide. "If there really isn't any of the Harry Osborn I know in there, then here's your chance to prove it."

Harry was panting heavily now, almost looking like he was hyperventilating to some as he rapidly looked about the room like there was some random object in it that could give him all the answers if he could just find it. The two things he looked between the most though were Peter, standing perfectly still with his arms out and completely vulnerable to any attack, and his fire sword that was still activated in his hand that currently hung at his side. For months now, he had wanted to make Spider-Man pay for what happened to his father, but now, after learning the man behind the mask was his best friend, and hearing all that Sora and Peter had said, Harry was suddenly unsure of what to do. All of his planning, all of his preparations, they all seemed like something he could not help but question the worth of if it meant that he would lose so much. Looking back to Peter once more, Harry saw that Peter had not moved, but was still looking at him, his gaze unwavering, clearly hopeful, but most importantly to Harry, not judging at all. There was not even a single ounce of that in Peter's eyes, unlike his father's, which were always calculating and making him feel like his worth was always being measured. Peter's eyes, like always, were just looking at him in the same way they always had.

When a few more moments passed with nothing but silence and inaction on Harry's part, Sora could not help but grow more nervous, and from where she was outside on the roof, Gwen was just as worried. She still held her position, sure that Peter knew what he was doing, while keeping her Spider-Sense tuned into what was happening inside for any sign of something bad happening to either of the two boys. Eventually, Harry finally raised his weapon, and rushed at Peter with a roar of anguish that made Sora and Gwen feel like they needed to move in right away, but they both froze when they saw that Peter was still holding his ground and not moving at all. Just when Sora had shaken off his shocked reaction, Harry's weapon came down, and struck nothing but air and the ground near Peter's feet, while the man who called himself Hobgoblin just dropped the weapon, letting it deactivate after it hit the floor, and fell into Peter's arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Pete…I'm…I'm so sorry," Harry softly cried as he felt his friend's arms wrap around him in a hug while lowering him down to the floor before his legs gave out. "I just…I can't…"

"I know, Harry. Trust me, I know," Peter reassured him. "It's going to be okay now. I promise, everything's going to be okay."

"Will it," Harry asked. "He's still here. Everywhere I look now, I see him judging me, telling me what I should be doing, and even now, I can see him glaring down at me like he always did when he was alive. I don't want to keep living with that."

"Don't worry, pal. We can get you help, and once you're better, Gwen and I will be here for you like we always have been. After all, can't let our best friend go through tough times alone," Peter reassured him.

"Thanks Pete," Harry finally smiled in response, before he started crying again, knowing that this was going to be last time that he saw his friend for a while. Before that though, he had to let Peter know something else. "I'm sorry for what I did to you and Gwen. You know…she really does love you. Don't ever let her think you don't care about her, or be like…"

"Trust me, you don't have to worry about that," Peter said, looking up to where Gwen was watching with tears forming in her eyes that she could not wipe away because of her mask. "I already know just how spectacular she is, and I don't plan on letting her think I don't believe that any time soon."

---

A few hours after the scene in the warehouse, Gwen and Sora were happy to help Peter get all of the Hobgoblin tech off of Harry and hidden away where no one else could use it, save for Harry himself, assuming he ever felt like he would want to again. Sora did not think that letting Harry have access to any of that stuff was a good idea, but Peter insisted that Harry could put it to good use and be a better person than his father was as a whole new Goblin, if he had the chance and ever wanted to, so he had to take Peter's word for it. It was a lot easier to believe when Gwen vouched for Peter's beliefs. As for Harry himself, the three heroes did end up handing him over to the authorities, but they made sure to make it clear that Harry was not responsible for the Hobgoblin's attacks, and that he needed some serious help far more than he did a prison sentence. Looking at Harry and how broken up he seemed to be, it was easy for everyone to believe that, and that was why Peter and Gwen ended up watching with heavy hearts as Harry was carted off to the Ravencroft Institute. They did not like the fact that he would still be in a place that was full of criminals, but they did acknowledge that it was best suited for helping Harry with his problems, especially after the breakdown he had recently had. Peter's only hope was that being around people like Electro and Eddie Brock would not cause Harry to relapse back into the monster he had just fought with.

In regards to the Hobgoblin matter, Spider-Man, Sora, and Spider-Woman informed the police that a die-hard follower from Green Goblin's old gang had forced Harry to design the tech and found a way to force Harry onto the Globulin Green so that he would be driven insane. They made it a point to make it clear that the attempt had failed, and Harry had not been the one flying around in the Hobgoblin suit, but the whole event had caused him to suffer his breakdown, and it only grew worse when that same follower put on the Hobgoblin suit and attempted to make it look like Harry was the one behind the mask. To round out the story, they concluded by saying that they were able to save Harry and destroy the tech, but the actual criminal had escaped, and they could not get a good look at him. With Captain Stacy's help, the story seemed to be bought by most everyone, but some people were still not entirely sure.

"You're sure that no one is suspicious about the cover story," Janet asked the three teens and the police captain the following day after they had all gathered together at Avengers Mansion. Sora, Peter, and Gwen had taken another day off on the grounds that they had heard what had happened to Harry, and the whole thing had left them feeling rather upset, and while some people were upset about that, no one complained. Even Peter's aunt was willing to back up the story, as she felt that Peter needed to take a day off from everything in order to deal with another good friend suffering from such a tragedy.

"The only one that seems to question it by that much would be Detective Watanabe, but after I had a brief talk, she agreed to keep quiet about it if she ever found out the full story," George explained with a smile.

"You know, I think out of all the cops I've ever talked to, she's got to be pretty high up on my list of favorites," Peter admitted.

"I certainly hope my dad's on that list," Gwen playfully teased.

"Of course he is. He's got the top spot, easy," Peter grinned in return as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

Seeing that and how Gwen snuggled into Peter's embrace with a happy hum made the others smile a little more. When Harry was being taken away yesterday, he had spotted Gwen in the crowd and gave her a small nod with a sad smile, making it clear that he no longer had any problem with the two of them splitting up. Ever since then, Gwen had been hanging on to Peter quite a bit, clearly reveling in how she could finally be close to him like she had wanted to be for so long without worry. The fact that the two looked so cute together was just a small bonus for everyone, but it did not keep anyone from missing what Gwen's father said next on the matter regarding Yuri.

"I have to agree on your feelings about Watanabe, Peter," George confessed. "Her recent actions and attitude on this case, despite the circumstances surrounding it, and her service record since joining the force are all great reflections of how good a cop she is, especially given the fact that she's one of the few honest cops on the force who've never been corrupted by any means. It all makes me think that she would be the perfect choice to be the next police captain."

"Easy there, Captain Stacy. You almost sound like you're thinking about retiring," Janet cautioned with her usual cheerful grin.

"Not retiring, Ms Van Dyne. Just moving up the ladder," George corrected.

That got everyone's attention, but none more so than Gwen. "Dad? What're you talking about?"

"I've been meaning to tell you for a few days now, sweetie," George admitted. "Our constant watch on L. Thompson Lincoln had recently revealed that he had the police commissioner in his pocket. While that and other things that recently came to light did finally provide us with enough evidence to finally put him away without bail, it wasn't until after he decided to try and go underground that it came out. Still, it was enough for the mayor to have the previous commissioner fired, and since I was a leading cop on the case, the mayor offered me to take over the position."

"Are you saying what I think your saying," Peter asked in awe.

"Yep, starting in a few days' time, I'll be taking over as Commissioner George Stacy of NYPD," George proudly announced.

"Dad, that's great," Gwen cheered, bouncing up from her seat to give her father the biggest congratulatory hug she could.

"Yeah, congratulations, sir," Peter grinned in agreement, while Sora and Janet both gave a short applause for the man. Of course, that did not stop him from making his next joke. "I just hope that doesn't mean you plan on putting some kind of Spider-Signal on one of the precincts' roof so that you can contact me and my partner for help."

While Gwen gave Peter an expectant look at how he had called her his partner as opposed to partner-in-training, George could only chuckle in response to the joke as he quipped back, "Now why would I do that when I have Spider-Man, his spectacular partner, and his amazing friends on speed-dial?"

Everyone got a laugh out of that, both out of the way George had worded that, and how true the statement was. When the laughter ended, Sora jumped in to say, "So if you're naming Yuri as the new police captain, then I guess we should congratulate her, too the next time we see her."

"Yes we should," Peter agreed. "Of course, she and Captain…sorry, Commissioner Stacy aren't the only ones that deserve congratulations." Everyone looked at him weirdly for that as he reached into his bag and began searching for something in it, only to stop and turn a slightly annoyed look to Gwen as he said, "Before anything else though, I believe you need to return something that belongs to me, Missy."

Gwen grinned a little as she extracted the web-shooter she had swiped from Peter from her purse, and joked, "I was starting to think you were going just going to let me keep it so I could build my own based off of this one's design."

"Now why would I do that," Peter asked as he accepted the shooter and stuff it into his bag. When his hand came out of the bag again, though, it was holding a different pair of web-shooters in it that he happily held out to Gwen as he finished his statement. "When I was already going to give you these."

"Peter…Are those…" Gwen stuttered in surprise even as she hesitantly reached out to take the wrist devices, thinking Peter was going to pull a fast one on her at any second.

Peter did no such thing, but actually continued smiling while handing them over to her as he declared, "Yep. As of now, you've officially earned your webs, Spider-Woman."

If he was going to say anything else in addition to that, he would end up having to wait, because the second that Gwen had strapped the devices onto her own wrists, she let out a loud squeal of joy and jumped onto Peter, knocking him down onto his back as she hugged him tightly. "Thank you! Thank you so much, Peter! This is now officially, the greatest day ever," Gwen cheered. She then pulled back and boldly added, "I could kiss you right now!"

"Well what's stopping you, pretty lady," Peter teased in return, though his smile was filled with nothing but honest love and adoration for the blonde in his arms.

The two were actually starting to lean in towards each other so that they could kiss, when a soft cough cut into the moment, reminding them that they were not alone at the moment. "Aside from the fact that her dad and all the rest of us are still here, you mean," Sora asked, being the one who had made the fake cough.

Janet lightly swatted Sora on the arm for interrupting the moment, and quickly said, "Not that you should let that stop you. Please, go on. Don't mind us."

"What're you saying?! Yes! Please, mind us! Why do you think I coughed in the first place," Sora pleaded, but anyone could tell that he was not entirely serious.

"I have to agree with your friend on that," George stated, but despite having his arms crossed in an attempt to look like an annoyed parent, everyone could still see the hint of mirth in his expression that gave away how he really felt about that.

"Uh…Maybe we probably shouldn't…" Peter stuttered with a small blush.

"Yeah, maybe not," Gwen agreed as she slowly crawled off Peter with a matching blush. Just before she had backed away completely though, that boldness from earlier made her lean back in and place a kiss on Peter's cheek before she whispered, "Doesn't mean we can't later on though."

Hearing that made Peter's sheepish smile turn into a happy grin once more, and everyone had a feeling that he was going to be in a bit of a daze for a while, so Janet took this opportunity to step in. "Well, if it's finally official, I think you're going to need something else besides webs if you're still going to do this. Unless you want to be stuck with that outfit you've been wearing up until now," the Wasp declared as she pulled up a case that had been resting beside her chair ever since they all came in.

Placing the case on the table between them and sliding it over to Gwen, Janet just nodded for Gwen to open it up and the blonde did so at once. When she saw what was inside, her smile somehow grew even brighter upon seeing its contents, and she immediately turned to Wasp and said, "It looks perfect."

"So why don't you see if it fits just as well," Janet asked with a knowing smirk.

---

Later that night, a group of thugs were attempting to break in to one of the convenience stores in the city, and they were all set with a get-away car waiting in the alley just a block down from their location. It would have seemed like easy money to anyone else who wanted to pursue a criminal lifestyle, had it not been for the arrival of New York's most well-known superhero. "You know, I gotta say, even after fighting crime bosses, supervillains, and just about everything else under the sun, it always feels good to just relax and deal with a group of cliché thugs like you guys," Spider-Man quipped as he arrived on the scene, shinning the light of his Spider-Signal out over the group to better let them know they had been caught. "Really, kicking your butts is actually like a kind of stress relief for me after all of that. You know, like how you would go to fight a simple mob or something after tackling a boss fight in a video game."

"Aw man! How's he always show up wherever we go," the lead thug asked aloud as his buddies all rushed to charge him.

"Well, I could say that it's because I've got connections in the police force, or that I've got a sixth sense for danger, which is actually true, but to be quite honest, it's because you guys are so loud, and because of how badly you stink. Literally," Spider-Man quipped as he kicked one thug aside, and then flipped over that one to punch another. As he was webbing the first one to the ground, he added on, "Seriously guys, you do know that being a dirty criminal does not mean you skip on your personal hygiene, right? Showers were invented for a reason."

"How about I just wash you away, you stupid little bug," a third thug growled as he pulled out a knife. He never got the chance to use it though, as his knife hand was suddenly webbed up by someone other than Spider-Man, and his webbed hand was then pulled into his face by whoever was on the other end of the web-line. Thankfully, his knife was so wrapped up in webbing that it did not cut him even a little with his fist connected with his face.

"I'd honestly be surprised to find out you were smart enough to wash anything," a female voice jested as the new arrival dropped down to join the fray. "I mean, you were stupid enough to bring a knife to a spider fight after all."

"True that, Spider-Woman," Spidey nodded as he punched another thug in the face without even looking at him.

Upon hearing the newcomer's name, the remaining thugs either panicked and tried to make a run for their getaway car, or they just tried to up their game and use whatever weapons they brought to take out both spiders. Neither move was met with success, as Spider-Man easily took down the attackers, while Spider-Woman tied up the runners in a large web. Working together, both spiders easily swung over and disabled the getaway car and the thugs inside it before they could even pull away from the area, and in no time at all, all the bad guys were webbed up to a wall, the ground, or a nearby lamppost.

One of the only ones that were still conscious could not help but groan, "Great. Like things weren't bad enough with just Spider-Man. Now there's two of 'em, and the new one's a dame."

"'Dame?' Seriously? Who says that anymore," Spider-Man questioned, though whether he was entirely joking or not, no one knew for sure.

"Got me, Spider-Man, but I couldn't care less. I much prefer any names that you come up with for me," Spider-Woman shrugged with a flirtatious tone that sent a few tingles up Spider-Man's spine.

A short time later, the police arrived on the scene to find the captured thugs, along with a single card that read "Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and Spider-Woman." Meanwhile high up on the Empire State Building, said heroes were actually standing proud as they looked out over the city, and at that point, Spider-Man could not help but take in Gwen's hero attire once more. It was mostly black, with the upper torso, shoulders, and arms being white, while the soles of her feet were blue and the underarms of her suit were dark pink with a blue web pattern. Her mask was all white as well, save for the eyes, which were a very light blue and outlined in dark pink, and she also wore a white hood over her head, which was dark pink on the inside with the same blue web pattern as the ones on her arms. The final touch was the blue spider symbol on her back that was identical to the one on Spidey's back, save for the color. All-in-all, the look definitely worked for Gwen, and seeing her in the costume, and how said outfit seemed to fit on her like a second skin while hugging her every curve, Peter could not help but stare for a few minutes every now and then.

"Not bad, partner," Peter admitted.

"Well, I had a pretty good teacher," Gwen shrugged. She then lifted her mask up so that her mouth was exposed, allowing Peter to see she was grinning at him rather slyly as she sauntered over to him and said, "And I think he deserves a reward of his own."

"And just what kind of reward did you have in mind," Peter questioned with a hidden smile of his own, his arms wrapping around Gwen once she was close enough on instinct.

"I'm sure you can make a pretty good guess," Gwen teased as she lifted Peter's mask to the same position hers was currently in.

When her arms then moved to rest around his neck, Peter did not hesitate to pull Gwen in close, nor did he resist when her lips came into contact with his in a gentle, loving kiss. If anything, his hold on Gwen actually tightened a little more as he returned her affectionate gesture, and when he did, Gwen felt like she had taken off and landed on Cloud Nine. The two would have continued their affectionate embrace for an endless amount of time, had the sound of sirens not reached their ears and forced them to break apart so that they could look in the direction of said sirens. They probably would have broken apart to check things out, but when they saw Sora already flying in that direction, they just shrugged, figuring he could handle it for now, and returned to what they were doing before. As they did, only one word flittered across both of their minds. 'Finally!'

---

AN: Phew! [pants a lot] Okay! That was...*pant*...That took a lot longer...Than I thought. Seriously, I did not expect this particular part of the story to be so long! But, it's done now, and so many things happened here. Gwen's got her famous Spider-Gwen costume, which is indeed the white and black number we always see her wearing when she's the spider-powered hero, she's going by the handle of Spider-Woman, and then there's all the other Spidey stuff that went down here. Namely the appearance of Yuri Watanabe, Harry becoming the Hobgoblin, and even a few references to Into the Spider-Verse. I'm sure you guys must've caught that, right?

Anyways, Harry becoming the Hobgoblin does indeed take inspiration from the 2017 Spider-Man series, and the Hobgoblin suit is a match to that one in said series. Add in how his arsenal was largely the same, but with some Spectacular Spider-Man stuff added in as well, and well...nuff said, true believer! Also, I mentioned a little while back that Sora was going to try and help Peter and Gwen get Harry back to normal, and he did. He just didn't really do too much. After all, Sora wasn't really there to fight Peter and Gwen's battle for them. He just had to give a small nudge here and there.

The story behind how Gwen got her costume, I think is a little more important though. Now, if you've read or at least know a little bit about the comics version of Spider-Gwen, you would know that Wasp did indeed design some of Gwen's spider-gear, so obviously, having Janet design Gwen's costume was a little nod to that. As for her starting outfit, just think of it as a Spider-Gwen version of the home-made suit that Spidey had in Spider-Man Homecoming, and you'd have a good basic idea on what it'd look like.

Gwen: You know, I gotta ask, how necessary was it really to include Yuri in this chapter.

AN: In my personal opinion, very. I really like Yuri, at least when she's not gone off the deep-end and being a deadly vigilante. She's been one of my favorite Spider-Man supporting characters ever since I played the PS4 Spider-Man game, and I really wanted to bring her into this story. I also didn't want to kill off Gwen's dad, but he was already the NYPD police captain, so I woulda had to leave Yuri as a detective if I wanted them both. Then I thought to myself, why not give ol George a promotion to a big job, and then boom. We get both George Stacy in a high-level position of the police, and Captain Watanabe as well. Easy-peasy.

Spider-Man: And the whole thing about Gwen's dad figuring out my secret identity?

AN: Also something that draws from the comics. Of course, there had been more than a few times in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon that it was hinted that Captain Stacy had figured out Peter's secret identity on his own, even after the episode where the Bugle ran the story that said Peter was Spidey, and then ran another that said otherwise, so would it really be a stretch to say that he wouldn't eventually admit to it?

And of course, there was also the final scene at the end of the chapter. Not gonna lie, yes, that was necessary. Both for the sake of debuting Spider-Gwen's official superhero suit, and for the kiss scene between Peter and Gwen, because I think we can all agree, that was long overdue, especially after how we all waited for so long to see them get together only to be disappointed when it didn't happen at the end of season 2. Plus, out of all the Spidey pairings, I have to say, Peter&Gwen is one of my top favorites. It's only made better if it would be in a world where Gwen also has spider-powers and is able to fight crime with Peter, so I guess you could say I've got my dream Spider-pairing here.

Sora: Is anyone else not willing to talk about how me and the Avengers barely did anything here?

AN: Dude, this was basically a Spider-Man-centric chapter. What did you expect? You were there for a few important parts, but in the long run, of course the story was going to focus more on Spidey and his pals. Be glad that you're now counted among those pals, otherwise you probably wouldn't have appeared at all.

Oh, and before I forget, I'm sure some of you probably caught that little reference to the Arrow-verse earlier on in the chapter when Peter was helping Gwen train. You know, the scene where Peter made a surprise attack on Gwen even after she finished the obstacle course? Let me go ahead and say right now that yes, it was inspired by this scene:

[rolls a clip from Season 1 of The Flash, in which Oliver is training Barry and shoots him with a pair of remote controlled crossbows]

Yeah, of course Peter's not going to do the exact same thing to Gwen. For one thing, he loves her. No way is he going to willingly hurt her like that. And for another thing...He's not Oliver, or Batman, or Daredevil, or any other hero who would go and do something like that to a friend. Besides, it's not like Oliver didn't get what was coming to him for that stunt.

[rolls another clip, this one from the Elseworlds special event in which Barry shoots Oliver with remote controlled crossbows, laughs, and gets a picture of it]

HAHAHA! Oh, that is STILL so funny! Man, after four years, Barry finally got his payback!

Sora: [also laughing, but trying not to] Okay, I know I probably shouldn't be laughing, but...hehe...it is kinda funny.

Spider-Man: [laughing almost as hard as author] Right?! And knowing Gwen, if I did something like that to her, she would've retaliated just like that.

Gwen: He's right. I would've. [joins the rest of the cast in laughing at the clip]

Hawkeye: Oh! Let's see that again!

[hits replay so that they can watch Barry shooting Oliver again]

AN: Well, I think we're going to be enjoying ourselves with this for a while, so I'll let you guys all get Onto the Preview!...

What starts out as an average day for Sora and his friends, quickly takes a turn when the Avengers are almost systematically taken down one by one, namely by Zemo, Enchantress, and their new, villainous allies. Of course, Sora is spared from that same fate for the most part, but only because Night Hunter has set up the perfect distraction for him on the other side of New York: a constant, almost unending swarm of Heartless. Unable to help his teammates without leaving the Heartless to harm innocent people, can Sora fend off the dwellers of darkness with Spider-Man and Spider-Woman's help? Will they be able to save the Avengers before it's too late? Or will the shadows finally take the Keyblade Samurai along with the rest of this world? An epic struggle and a shocking return are both soon to come, in the next thrilling chapter!

AN: [stops laughing long enough to see chapter preview has ended] Ahem, yeah, the Masters of Evil are on the way, but it looks like their not the only ones who are going to show up next time. Just who else could it be? Well, only way to find out is to tune in next time, and until then...

Please read and review, and see ya real soon, fellow true believers!

Ruby: Uh, lyoko? Weiss wanted me to tell you that she has several messages that you need to see, along with a few calls.

AN: [sighs tiredly] Ruby, could you do me a favor?

Ruby: What?

AN: Go find Weiss, and explain to her that my secretary is out today...because I don't even HAVE a secretary!

Ruby: But then...why is there a secretary desk at the front entrance?

AN: It's a reception desk for visitors to sign in at!

Ruby: And the phone?

AN: I...I'm not really sure, actually. Look, look, just go find Weiss and tell her that already, please!

Ruby: Okay, okay. Can I have some more of those cookies you made for us on my way out?

AN: Yeah, sure thing, kid. Help yourself. I feel like you're gonna need the comfort food after that talk with Weiss.