Peter Parker

I was having a good day. I was having a good day. But of course, good days don't last that long for me.

As I stood on the lamppost, all I wanted was for something to be translated. See, the screens in Time Square went black before a picture of a lion was shown on it. And under that picture were words in an alphabet I couldn't quiet recognize.

Считай свои дни, Паук.

I couldn't make it out if I could try. I knew English (obviously). I knew Italian. And I knew Spanish. I didn't know what this language was. But, I had a feeling that a certain AI could help.

"…Hey Edith, you awake?" I asked.

I heard a yawn in my ears. "Sorry, Pete, I dozed off. Today's been relatively quiet."

I smiled slightly. "Yeah, it has. Are you seeing this?"

"I am."

"Do you recognize the alphabet?"

"Hmmm, let's see…" Edith went quiet for a moment. "It's Cyrillic script. It's used for a lot of languages. I believe, in this case, it's being used for Russian."

I tilted my head. This was even weirder to me. Still, I wasn't alarmed. "You don't say. Would you kindly translate?"

"Sure thing, it says…" Edith trailed off. "…Um, Pete, you might want to contact the others as soon as possible."

I blinked. "Why?"

"…I just translated the sentence. It says 'Count your days, Spider'."

I stood there quietly. I then sighed.

"Well, the break was good while it lasted."

With that said, I swung away. I had Edith contact the other X-Men and The American Idiots, telling them to meet me at the X-Men's apartment as soon as possible. I made a beeline home and quickly changed into my quick-change outfit. After Edith transferred herself to my sunglasses, I made a beeline towards the X-Men's home. Once I landed on the roof, I made way down using the stairs, unmasking myself in the stairwell. A couple of minutes later, I made it to the door. I knocked on the door three times. It wasn't long before Scott opened it.

"Hey Peter," he greeted before he stepped aside. I quickly walked in.

"Hey Scott," I greeted as I took off my shoes. "I'm sorry to have everyone meet here so suddenly out of nowhere, but…" I trailed off when I saw a large bald man sitting on the sofa. Said man looked at me.

"Howdy," he greeted with a country accent.

"…Um, hi." I raised my hand and gave him an awkward wave. I then turned towards Scott. "Was this is a bad time?"

"Not really, no," Scott assured. "But I'll wait for the others to come before I formally introduce him."

I nodded slowly. "Okay."

The others did arrive. First was Kitty, followed by Joanna a few minutes later. After that, Craig, Carmilla, MJ, Ned, and Betty arrived. I figured Craig picked them all up.

"So, I'm guessing it's not a coincidence that Spider-Man is trending on Twitter at this very moment, huh?" Betty said as she looked down at her phone.

I sighed. "Probably not," I replied as I shook my head.

"Okay, before we talk about anything, there's something we need to address," Joanna spoke up. She nodded towards the mystery man. "Who is this guy?"

"I'm Buford Hollis," the man said as he stood up and walked up to us. I tilted my head back. This man was almost as tall as Joanna. "I'm a friend of Misty Knight, as well as an NYPD detective in same precinct. Due to me having something in common with you guys, she put me in contact with Mr. Summers here."

"So you're… 'gifted', too?" Craig asked. Buford nodded quietly. "Interesting. What can you do?"

Buford shrugged. "It ain't exactly a flashy power. I just got the ability to instantly know how to drive and operate any vehicle I get behind the literal or proverbial wheel of. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be as simple as a bicycle or something way out there like a moon-sized space station. I could even drive an Iron Man suit with no problems."

"It's not flashy, but that is pretty awesome," Kitty commented. She then looked at Scott. "Are you sure he can be trusted? I just want to know before we start talking shop."

"Misty hasn't steered us wrong yet," Scott pointed out. "I already contacted her to make sure that Buford is telling me is the truth. If she believes him to be solid, than I have no reason to believe otherwise." Of course, this was Scott we were talking about here. He probably had a plan to deal with Buford in case Buford wasn't on the up and up. I hoped it wouldn't come to that though – Buford seemed nice enough.

After we took some time to introduce ourselves to Buford, we sat down in the living and started talking about the reason why I called for this meeting.

"Did you guys see what happened in Time Square?" I asked.

"You mean that pic with a lion with words in Cyrillic?" Craig replied. I nodded. "I can't speak for the others, but I saw it blow up on Twitter."

"Ned, Betty, and I found from Twitter as well," MJ stated.

"Me, too," Kitty added.

"I saw a news report about it CNBC," Joanna added. "There're people saying that's a warning for you. Is that true?"

"It seems like it," Carmilla spoke up. "'Count your days, Spider'. I read that clearly."

Joanna looked over at Carmilla. "So what? Somebody else is going after Spider-Man?"

"Isn't that par the course?" Buford asked. We all looked at him. "Look, no offense, Peter. But, between Vulture and his crew, Mysterio, and Scorpion and Hammer, it only stands to reason that you're a wanted man – especially with The Accords still in effect."

"But that why go through the trouble of flashing an image as a warning?" Kitty asked.

"They might be just trying to get into my head," I offered. "But why in Russian?"

"Well, whoever is behind the message would likely be from Russia or a former Soviet state," Scott pointed out. "But that's not guaranteed. There are a couple of possibilities. The best case scenario is that we're dealing with a troll or troll farm that is just targeting you for whatever reason. Annoying as that is, it's nothing that can't be shrugged off."

I tilted my head. "So what's the worst case scenario?"

Scott grimaced. "There's probably a bounty on your head that someone wants to collect."

I quickly stood up. "Excuse me?! I have a bounty on my head?!"

"I think most of the people in this room do," Joanna said nonchalantly. I turned my head towards her, glaring at her slightly. "Oh don't glare at me. It comes with the territory. You don't make as much noise as you do without somebody wanting you gone." I shook my head. I didn't know how to take this. There were scenarios running through my head, from the city being under siege from people wanting my head to assassins going after my friends… my family… just to get to me. But that begged the question…

"Then how come no one went after me before over that?" I asked.

"Risk and reward, my dude, risk and reward," Craig answered. "For one, you got quite the combo platter of powers, and that makes you one of New York's heavy hitters – which is saying a lot. Secondly, you're an X-Man, so you're rolling with a bunch of people who are quite the threat in their own right."

"Not to toot your own horn, right?" MJ deadpanned. Craig chuckled at that. During this, MJ grabbed my hand and gave it a slight tug. Slowly, I sat back down. I moved my hands into hers, lacing my fingers between hers. I felt myself calm down a bit, but I was still worried.

"The point is, going after you is risky," Craig continued. "One would have to be rather stupid or crazy to even try." He then brought his hands to his chest. "And me personally? If I was a mercenary or bounty hunter, it would take about five billy on your head for me to even start daydreaming about going after you."

"Same, to be honest," Carmilla said in agreement.

"So what do we do?" Ned asked.

"We live life as normal, but keep our heads on a swivel," Scott declared as he looked around at all of us. "If anything else suspicious happens, we'll get ready for it. Hopefully, it's just a troll trying to get a rise out of all of us. If not, though, well, we'll act accordingly." Scott sighed. "Hopefully, nothing will happen while I'm gone."

"Gone?" Kitty repeated. "What's going on?"

Scott looked Kitty. "I'm sure you heard about the recent events regarding Wakanda. I'm going to be spending time in Haiti with Shuri and Nakia so we can reconnect and touch base." He frowned. "T'Challa… I didn't get a chance to hang out with him much. But every time we connected, he treated me like a dear friend. I owe him quite a bit. So, I'm going reconnect with Shuri – who is now the new Black Panther, but keep that to yourselves – and Nakia so they can know that Wakanda has allies in the X-Men. While I'm sure it's an alliance that X-Men will benefit from in some shape or form… I'm really just doing this so I can repay a debt to a fallen friend. That said, while I'm gone, Kitty is in charge."

"And what about me, Scott?" Buford asked.

"I'm going to ask that you be there to assist the X-Men as we talked about. And when you're ready, we'll help with your issue as well. Sounds good?"

Buford nodded. "Sounds good."

Scott nodded back. "Good." He then looked at me. "Peter, don't worry your head too much about this. Whatever happens, we'll take care of it. For now, just go home and rest."

"Okay," I nodded.

I made my way home after saying bye to everyone. Craig took it upon himself to take Ned, Betty, and MJ home while Joanna and Buford took their respective vehicles to get to wherever they needed to go while the others stayed. On my way home, I did a little more patrolling along the way. There wasn't much of anything. The only thing that happened was me weighing in on a friendly argument between people. What was the argument about? It was about pineapple on pizza – yay or nay.

I personally wasn't opposed to pineapple on pizza.

When I got home, I changed out of my suit. I wanted to do my homework and study, but I was barely able to do the former. Studying was out of the question. I was just too worried. I knew I probably shouldn't have been. I knew Craig had a point. I wasn't alone anymore. I was with the X-Men, and we showed that we were quite the force. The problem was that I remembered fighting alongside Tony Stark, Doctor Strange, and half of The Guardians of Galaxy when we took on Thanos, and we were defeated before I was snapped away. I wanted to think that whoever was after me would be easy to handle, especially if I faced them alongside the other X-Men. But I knew better. There was always a chance that there was a threat we couldn't take care of, and that could be whoever sent that picture over.

I tried to keep myself preoccupied by looking at videos on YouTube. But that did little to put my mind at ease. So, I went to bed early. I lay in bed for hours, but I couldn't get any sleep. I just stared at the ceiling for hours, mentally telling myself not to worry, which did absolutely nothing. I looked over at the digital clock on my nightstand, I then groaned.

"It's eleven o'clock," I muttered to myself as I sat up. "It's eleven o'clock and I can't sleep. What the heck?" I threw the sheets off of me and turned my body until my feet were on the floor. I put my face in my hands and took in a breath. "Why can't I just have the rest of year of nothing but Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man stuff? I'm sure Luke Cage could cover the heavy stuff if I meet him and ask him nicely, right?" I lowered my hands from my face and looked over at my phone. I stared at it for a few seconds before I reached over and took it off of the charging pad. I unlocked it before I went through my contacts. I pulled up MJ's name. I hesitated. It was pretty late. Would it be too late to call? And what if her parents were home? Would that open a can of worms? I decided it would be safer to send a text. And that's exactly what I did.

"You up?" I typed before sent the message. The thing worst thing that could happen was that she too deep in sleep to hear the text incoming or she had her phone on silent. A bit to my surprise, I got a response back just some seconds later.

"Wow, Peter. A little late for a booty call, don't you think?"

I rolled my eyes, trying my best not to let the mental image takeover my head as I texted back.

"I h8 you."

"You love me." I scoffed. But she was right. "Seriously, Loser, is everything ok?"

"Yea. Can't sleep."

"Still worried?"

"A bit." I frowned before I sent another text. "Am I being stupid?"

"No. Not at all. You're being cautious." I nodded, even though she obviously couldn't see it. I almost wished she did say I was being stupid, but I did feel a bit better knowing that I wasn't looking crazy to the person I trust the most. A few seconds later, another text came. "Do you want to come over?"

"I do but is that okay with you? I don't want you to get in trouble with your folks."

"It's fine. I can just lock the door. So are you coming or what?"

"I'll see you soon. I love you, Em."

"I love you, too, Tiger. See you in a bit."

I sighed as I set my phone down. I didn't know who was behind that image at Time Square. Maybe it was just some troll who was just doing it for shits and giggles. And I wanted to believe it was. But, with the way my Parker Luck was set up, I was due for another major situation. Between reconnecting with Dr. Strange and Prom, things were going too well for me lately. But what could I do? I could only prepare so much for a threat that's unknown. Shaking my head, I stood up and got ready, dressing back up in my quick change outfit before I made way up to the roof.

Once there, I put my mask on and ran towards the edge of the roof. Once I reached it, I jumped off of it and went into a swan dive. I allowed myself to fall for some seconds before I shot out a strand of webbing. Once it hit a building, I used to swing forward.