There's a moment of silence as everyone thinks, and Peter's the first one to speak. Maybe he's watched too many zombie movies, played too many games, who knows—all he knows is that he has a pretty good plan when it comes to anything that resembles the undead.

"Luke and Deadpool should stay here and guard the door, make sure they don't get out. These guys aren't slow—think more like World War Z. They can't break Luke's skin to infect him, assuming that's what the biting was about, and Deadpool's unkillable, so it makes sense to keep them here," Peter says, thankful for the nods in agreement for his plan. "He said it can be transferred through air and water, but it seemed like direct contact was the way they were trying to infect the others. Treat it like rabies, I guess. Don't come into contact with any of their, uh, bodily fluids. By that, I mean blood and saliva. I really don't want you to even think about anything other than those being a possibility for coming into contact with." Peter tacks on the end bit quickly as he sees Deadpool putting up a finger as if he has something to say to that. He lowers his finger after Peter's clarification, thankfully.

"Alright, Deadpool and I will stay here, keep an eye out. And call the CDC," Luke says just as Danny comes back, Frank at his side.

Frank, concerningly enough, has some blood on his hands, literally, but Peter really doesn't want to ask about it. They don't have time to deal with the fallout from that right now.

"Sunday doesn't seem like the best day to unleash a virus that passes from person to person; a lot of people just stay home, so he's gonna have to find a place that'll still be busy. The rest of us should split off in pairs and go to the most likely places he'll use as ground zero," Matt adds in.

"So, where has a lot of foot traffic?" Danny says, wondering aloud.

"Public transport hubs," Peter says immediately. "I mean, think about it. Tons of people go through there every day, every hour. If I wanted to get a ton of people infected, that's how I'd do it. My money's on Grand Central Station, JFK International, or LaGuardia."

Peter looks around, and everybody seems to be in agreement judging off the slight nodding and distinct lack of arguments. It makes him preen a little as he realizes everyone is looking to him for further instructions.

"Mr. Cage and Deadpool, stay here and keep everything contained. Ms. Jones, you and Mr. Castle go to Grand Central. If Mr. Castle goes within a mile of an airport I'm pretty sure the CIA or someone is gonna know. Danny and Colleen, you two head up to LaGuardia. Daredevil and I are gonna take JFK. Be on the lookout for anyone acting suspicious, loitering around. He'll probably be wearing gloves, and maybe a mask, since I doubt he wants to infect himself. Might try and disguise himself as a janitor or something like that; it'd give him an excuse to be spraying something," he continues.

"You put a lot of thought into this sort of thing before?" Frank asks, sounding a little concerned by just how thorough Peter's plan is with only about a minute devoted to thinking about the whole thing.

Peter shrugs. "I've picked up some stuff." By which he means he watches a lot of movies, and zombie/general plague movies are a niche genre he and Ned worked their way through a while back. But he knows how adult superheroes feel about plans based off of movies.

"Enough talking, let's go. We don't have a lot of time" Matt says. "Send a text once you get where you're supposed to be."

Peter and Matt, or more accurately, Spider-Man and Daredevil, are walking away from Genlabs when Peter realizes he isn't quite sure how it is they're going to get to the airport. Swinging there would probably take a while, and it would take longer if he had to slow down and keep pace with Matt.

"So uh… are we gonna take the subway again?" Peter asks as he trots alongside Matt at the slightly-faster-than-walking pace he's setting for them.

"That'd take over an hour; we'll get a cab. There's one less than a block away," Matt replies, turning down an alley to cut over to the next street.

Soon enough, the cab comes into view, but before they can get too close, Peter sets a hand on Matt's shoulder to stop him.

"Let me talk to the driver. No offense, but you're kinda absolutely terrifying."

Matt pauses a second before he shrugs in a 'fair enough' gesture and follows behind Peter, somehow managing to stick in the shadows despite his inability to see them. Peter lifts a hand, and the cab that has been rolling along comes to a stop in front of them.

"Nice costume, man!" the driver yells after rolling down his window. "Hop in."

It's at that moment that the guy notices Matt, and Peter can see the way he tenses up and his eyes widen when he realizes this isn't one of the guys from Times Square who dresses up as Spider-Man and charges tourists a dollar for a picture; this is actually Spider-Man, being accompanied by Daredevil of all people. But to his credit, that isn't enough to scare him off from picking them up. As a cab driver in New York, he's probably had weirder passengers in all likelihood

Once the two vigilantes are settled in the back seat of a cab that absolutely reeks of weed, the driver turns over his shoulder to look at them.

"So, uh," he says, "where can I take you?"

"JFK International," Matt answers curtly, and the driver abruptly turns back to the road.

"Uh, yes sir."

Peter looks over at Matt, and part of him wonders how he managed to cultivate an alter-ego so completely different from his actual persona. Sure, Matt's tough, but he's not the kind of scary that inspires people to shut up the moment he walks into a room. He's a lawyer who does mostly pro-bono work defending innocent people, or people who don't deserve to be in jail, even if they've broken laws. The energy he gives off as Daredevil is just entirely different from Matt Murdock.

He must be pretty obviously staring at Matt while he wonders this because after a minute Matt shifts in his seat.

"What is it?" he asks.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. Just thinking about stuff," Peter answers vaguely.

"Are you okay?" Matt asks a little bit softer. "What happened earlier, that was—"

"We're not talking about that," Peter interrupts immediately, sitting up a little bit straighter. The task at hand is important, and he knows if he lets himself think about what happened earlier, the only thing he'll be able to hear is Aelisha's terrified screaming and begging.

Matt looks concerned but nods anyway. "Alright."

The cab driver coughs to reestablish his existence in the minds of the two superheroes in the car who are on the cusp of what sounds like a highly personal conversation.

From the time they get in the cab, it takes roughly forty minutes to get to the airport. Peter gets a text from Danny confirming that he and Colleen have arrived at LaGuardia, and right as they're getting out of the cab after Matt pays the driver, a text from Jessica arrives saying that she and Frank are at Grand Central Station.

Fortunately, their driver seems to be competent enough to realize that maybe Spider-Man and Daredevil don't want to be noticed by the police within half a second of getting out of the car, so he pulls up to the most deserted looking entrance- which, unfortunately, still has a fair amount of foot traffic.

On the bright side, most of these people look like they're just getting off red-eye flights or like they're up way earlier than they wanted to be, so none of them pay more attention than a cursory glance at the two costumed weirdos in their presence. Maybe the people of New York have just gotten used to seeing superheroes in their everyday lives and isn't that something to think about.

"How are we gonna get past security or, like, TSA or whatever?" Peter asks as they approach the door, but he's surprised that there isn't a security guard or a cop or anyone standing by the doors like there almost always is. "That's convenient…"

"And concerning," Matt adds as they walk into the building.

There are a fair number of people, mostly lined up and waiting to go through the TSA checkpoint, but there are also a lot of people just walking through, maybe heading out to where the lines of cabs are waiting to pick up passengers or to the parking garages.

"The woman at that desk just noticed us. She's calling security," Matt says under his breath, inclining his head towards a young woman with bleach blonde hair standing behind the Delta check-in desk. "They're sending an officer over this way, but only one. I don't think they think we're the real Daredevil and Spider-Man."

"Because so many people come to the airport in a spider-themed onesie and a leather devil costume," Peter replies, looking around the place for anyone who seems out of place. It's definitely been long enough for whoever it was at Genlabs to get here, and Peter's suddenly overcome with the fear that maybe there's some other place this guy would rather spread his disease, somewhere they didn't send anyone to watch.

Matt appears to be scanning the crowd as well, his head tilted down and towards them, shifting slightly every so often to get a different angle.

"Are you getting anything?" Peter asks, and he's sure that his nerves are creeping into his voice.

"There's a lot of people here, checking them all is gonna take me a minute," he says, sounding on edge himself.

"Well, hurry it up, because security's coming for us," Peter hisses, his eyes catching on an older man in a security uniform. Just then he feels every hair on his body stand on end, and the Spidey-sense absolutely loses its mind.

There's a man about thirty feet away; he's just… plain. White, middle-aged, wearing ugly khakis paired with a golf shirt. He has a black suitcase sitting at his feet, and he's kneeling to pull something out of it. In all regards, there's nothing about this man that makes him stand out from the rest of the people, but Peter's learned his lesson with not listening to the Spidey-sense, and the stakes this time are monumental.

He starts walking towards the man before picking up the pace until he's running. "Everybody get back!" he shouts as the man's hand finally closes around something.

Of course, this incites screaming and running because this is an airport in New York, but it also causes about fifty cellphones to be pointed at the scene Spider-Man is causing.

The guy's balding head shoots up, and he goes pale before fumbling with the object in his hands: a can of hairspray. Before he can pull off the cap, Peter shoots a web at the can and pulls it back to himself despite the way the thing makes Peter flinch as Spidey-sense starts screaming at him even louder.

Matt is on the guy a second later, restraining him against the ground so that he can't go for anything else, given the chance that he might have more of the virus stashed somewhere. The man is screaming and freaking out, thrashing uselessly with Matt's knee digging into his back and pinning him face down on the ground. Just like every time Peter's seen Matt use that move on someone, he also has the guy's arm bent behind his back at an awkward and incredibly painful angle.

"You're limiting them!" the man screams. "You can't stand the thought of not being the only special ones—I was going to make everyone great! Give everyone a chance to be more than human!"

"Shut up," Matt hisses.

Everyone's eyes are on the scene happening in the middle of the airport, and Peter glances between the phones pointed at them to record every detail of what's going down and the mass of security converging on them. It looks like none of the officers are sure whether they should be pointing their guns at Spider-Man and Daredevil or at the man under Daredevil who has now ceased the useless flailing and is just screaming about how everything has been ruined.

"Uh, can one of you call the CDC or something? I'm not sure if a can of hairspray can be hermetically sealed," Peter says awkwardly to the group of people with their cellphones pointed at them, still holding the can in his hand and shaking it just barely to draw attention to it.

And boy if that doesn't cause mass panic.

The airport is very reasonably put on lockdown once Peter explains to the nearest security guard that the man Daredevil is very mildly brutalizing on the floor is a mad scientist and the hairspray can contains an actual, functioning zombie virus. Even if he absolutely despises that descriptor, it is the easiest way to communicate the magnitude of keeping this contained. With every entrance and exit to the building shut as well as all incoming flights being diverted to different airports, there's nothing to do but wait for the correct officials to arrive and deal with this. Unfortunately for them, the CDC has already dispatched all available workers to Genlabs to deal with the actual infected people, so there's nothing for Spider-Man, Daredevil, and the rest of the people stuck in the airport to do aside from watching the news vans and national guard slowly surround the airport.

Matt assures Peter that the can's seal hasn't been broken, and the people all calm down once Peter passes the information onto them. There's a lot less crying after that and a lot more trying to get pictures with Spider-Man. So much so that Peter has to parkour, web, and climb his way high enough that he can get enough relative privacy to inform Jessica, Frank, Colleen, Danny, Luke, and Wade that they foiled the villain's master plan.

Wade tells Peter that he too is hiding; apparently some folks at the CDC are incredibly interested in Deadpool's regenerative abilities and won't stop bothering him and asking how he got them which is apparently an 'awful fucking memory' that doesn't need to be 'dredged up from where it resides in Hitler's ass in hell'. Peter decides not to ask how Wade got his powers.

Eventually, he hangs up and drops down from his hiding place when he sees Matt waving him over from where he's letting two guards handcuff their bad guy to one of the counters under his direct supervision.

"What's up?" Peter asks, bouncing a little on his feet as he comes to stand in front of Matt. The adrenalin from the whole situation is still coursing through him, so staying still isn't the most easily accomplished task.

"Just wanted to let you know we'll probably be stuck here another few hours. The CDC is going to set up a mobile lab as soon as they can to verify that the can is still sealed. Once that happens we'll be good to go." As soon as the words are out of Matt's mouth, he turns to glare in the direction of the nearest security guards.

The guards' hands have started to drift a little closer to their tasers, and some even towards their guns. Matt has started growling, and the tension in the air is palpable even from where the civilians have all gathered near the front windows. The chatter from them falls to a hush, and Peter's absolutely positive there are cameras pointed at them once again, and not just by the guy who's been filming since Spider-Man and Daredevil entered the airport.

"Woah, you're not— you guys aren't going to arrest Daredevil, are you?" Peter asks, and the tight looks he gets in response from the guards is all the answer he needs. "You're—wow. Just wow. Guy saves the city—no—the world and you wanna punish him for it?"

"Spider-Man," Matt hisses, shaking his head.

"No, you know what? Try it. We'll see how far you get," Peter snaps at the guards, taking a step forward.

Matt grabs Peter's shoulder and pulls him back, quickly turning both of them away from the security personnel.

"I'm serious," he whispers, turning Peter to face him. "Drop it, okay?"

"But—"

"Drop. It."

"You just saved their lives and—"

"And I'm still Daredevil," Matt interrupts. "I'm still the scary one who hides in the shadows, knows whenever someone lies, can seemingly read minds, and beats the shit out of people. You're their friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. You standing up for me fucks with both our reputations and besides, you're the one who did the saving today; not me."

Peter wants to argue, but everything Matt said is the truth. Daredevil scares the shit out people, Spider-Man is seen as someone friendly and trustworthy, and he saved the day. He did the decoding, he figured out where it was going to go down, and he stopped the virus from being released. He was a huge part of stopping something truly horrible.

Honestly, Peter feels a little bit choked up, but he nods. "Okay, I won't make myself seem scary or you seem like a pussy."

Matt laughs and smiles at that. "Alright, I think they've calmed down anyway. They smell less on-edge at least."

Peter's sure he makes a face at that.

All in all, it takes three and a half hours for the CDC to set up a seal on the door to the airport so they can safely come in and check that there hasn't been any deadly virus exposure and that the can is indeed sealed. Peter spends that time talking to people and keeping them calm while Matt lurks and broods over by where their perp is still cuffed to a desk as well as occasionally growling at security when they get too close after the earlier stand-off. He knows that Matt's listening to him though, because whenever Peter says something particularly funny he sees the corner of Matt's mouth twitch upwards.

Right around the time everyone has been cleared to leave and their mad scientist is in police custody, the adrenalin rush that's been fueling Peter for hours by this point is wearing off. He doesn't even notice Matt slinking away into the shadows once the police arrive on the scene. In fact, it takes every last bit of energy for him to swing home and strip out of the costume before falling directly into bed and sleeping for a record eighteen hours.

Peter takes a deep breath.

In. Out.

That's all he has time for before the elevator doors are opening and he forces his stiff legs to take two steps into the room. For once he isn't going to the lab, or even the offices to see Tony; instead, he's in the penthouse.

The TV is turned onto the news, and just like every other channel, it's running the story of the world's close brush with a zombie apocalypse nonstop since the evil plan was foiled yesterday morning. Peter found out later that the man's name was James Edwards, and he used to work for a biological weapons engineering program contracted by Shield-but-actually-Hydra. After Hydra was exposed, his work was immediately stopped and defunded, but he became obsessed with continuing his work and unleashing it on the world. The guy's manifesto apparently showed up at the New York Bulletin addressed to one of their freelance journalists: Karen Page. According to a text from Matt sent to the group chat, Karen is 'fucking tired' of these psychos sending their 'methed-up book reports' to her, but she writes the article anyway after the paper's editor asks her nicely (he begs). A few hours later she mysteriously gets a copy of the ledger that was given to the fifteenth precinct by a mysterious source.

Peter's eyes finally catch on some movement exiting the bedroom, and despite his best preparations his heart rate still spikes when he sees Tony.

"Mr. Stark," he greets with excessive formality to try and mask the way his words want to stick in his throat.

"Peter," Tony says, walking over to the excessive bar. "Why don't you sit down?"

His voice is much kinder than what Peter had been prepared for. He expected yelling, another lecture, another futile ban on working with the Defenders and Friends, but this gentleness is off-putting. So much so that Peter takes a seat on one of the couches without another word.

Tony pours himself a drink and comes to sit across from Peter on the coffee table, his fingers tapping nervously at the rim of the glass before he downs it all in one gulp, and boy if that isn't concerning. Peter tries to hold eye contact with Tony despite how awkward it is, but even that doesn't work since Tony keeps looking away. Peter nearly jumps out of his skin when Tony finally speaks.

"I know it isn't my job to approve of what you do or who you work with. It's none of my business because I'm not your parent, and I've barely even been a mentor to you. Daredevil was right; I gave you fancy toys and ditched you, and I want you to know that it's nothing you did. I have my own shit I'm dealing with, and it wasn't right of me to put you through any of it. I wanted to protect you, okay? And I know I did a shit job of it, but I still want to protect you. Which is why I want you to hear this from me."

Peter feels his heart sink. "Hear what from you, Mr. Stark?" he asks hesitantly.

"I have friends in high places, and one those friends work for the CDC," Tony says before taking a deep breath, white-knuckling the edge of the table. "As far as they can tell, the virus is a genetically modified form of rabies. It spreads faster and is more specific about how it interacts with the host, but at its core, it's still rabies."

Peter feels sick, but he just closes his eyes and forces nausea away. He knows exactly what Tony's saying, but he wants to hear it said. "So what you're saying is..?"

"It's incurable. Once it reaches the brain, there's nothing they can do, and this thing has an incubation period of less than four hours before the virus takes over the host. They're trying their hardest, but for almost everyone… it was too late. There are a few they might be able to save, but for the rest, there's nothing anyone can do for them. For rabies, it takes about a week from the brain being infected to death, and so far, it seems like this is going to do this same thing, just on a slower scale, probably over a few months. They're trying to contact next of kin to get permission to put these people out of their misery, and I've got Friday running facial recognition to try and find out who they are, so it shouldn't take too long." Tony takes a deep breath. "I'm so sorry, kid. I know you want to save everyone, but it can't always work out like that. You saved a lot of people, though, and I'm proud of you."

Peter's been keeping it all bottled up pretty well, but Tony's sympathy is enough to break the floodgates, and suddenly he can't keep the tears in anymore. He's angry; he's furious that all those people are going to die. But he's also horribly upset by it.

Tony moves to sit beside Peter on the couch and wraps an arm around his shoulders, running a gentle hand over them as Peter finally lets out all the pain and fear and anger he's been keeping inside.

"It's gonna be okay… I've got you…" he says softly, and Peter's crying too hard to say that it'll never be okay for those people ever again.

It takes the better part of an hour for Peter to calm down enough that he can actually speak coherently, and once he does the first question out of his mouth is, "How many do they think they can save?"

Tony looks pained by the question. "Four. Two women, two men."

"Did… is Aelisha Trenton one of them?" Peter asks quietly.

"Do you mean Angela?" Tony asks.

"Angela's okay?"

"The infection hasn't reached her brain yet, they're managing to hold it back for now. Do you know her?"

Peter shakes his head. "Her sister—Aelisha— I was trying to help her find Angela. I've been watching her cat…"

"I'll let you know if I hear anything, okay?" Tony says earnestly.

"Thanks…" Peter looks away awkwardly. He wants out of this conversation topic. "Um, speaking of cats, are the kittens old enough they can be adopted yet?"

Tony looks a little like he wants to say something about the abrupt shift in conversation topic, but thankfully he drops it. "Yeah, yeah I think they're ten weeks old now? They've been eating dry food for a while. You gonna finally take Spatula to her new dad?"

Showing up to Daredevil's day job with a cat isn't the weirdest thing Peter's done in the last twenty-four hours, but he still feels out of place sitting in the waiting area with a few of Matt, Foggy, and Karen's potential clients, especially since Spatula is periodically meowing to remind Peter of her unhappiness with being put in the cat carrier. Matt is meeting with a client, according to Danielle, but he should be done in just a few minutes and she promises she'll tell him that Peter is here with the cat. Peter thanks her even though he knows that Matt must know he's there already.

It's about twenty minutes before a young woman walks out of Matt's office and Danielle waves Peter over to her. Peter gets up and grabs Spatula's carrier before heading into Matt's office and shutting the door behind himself.

"Sorry for disappearing yesterday," Matt says apologetically. "But the police planned on arresting me."

Peter just shrugs. "It's alright, I don't want to be the one having to bail you out of jail anyway. Besides, we have more important matters at hand."

"I'm assuming those matters have to do with the living animal in your bag," Matt says.

"Her name is Spatula, and she's yours now," Peter says, setting the carrier on the floor by Matt's desk. "I was just at the tower, so I thought I'd bring her by."

Matt offers Peter a smile which he returns. "Thanks, Peter."

"Anytime," Peter replies. "I gotta go home. I skipped school today, so I have some stuff I need to make up."

As Peter turns to leave, Matt sets a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asks softly, his worry clear even through the dark sunglasses.

Peter takes a deep breath and gives Matt a wobbly smile. "I'm gonna be," he says, and it isn't a lie.