Disclaimer: Everything you recognise here either came from the MCU films or the original Marvel comics, but I hope you enjoy the results anyway

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The Legacies' Triad

Peter wondered what it said about his view on his role as a hero when he was this uncomfortable stepping back into his old role on the Decathlon team.

Actually, 'uncomfortable' wasn't the right word; as much as he felt he was taking a step back by going back to the team to follow up on this particular mission, it also felt good to have an actual goal for a change, beyond just swinging around every afternoon and finding random crimes to stop. He was a bit surprised that Yelena had been so quick to agree to this, but as the younger Black Widow had explained, until she knew for certain why Kate had been targeted by this rogue Widow or that situation had been dealt with, letting Kate leave New York was too risky, and Yelena herself had to stay put both to keep an eye on Kate and in case she lost track of the chain of evidence she was following to find her target. Travelling to Washington as part of the Decathlon team would be a good way for Peter to get to the capitol in a manner that nobody would be paying attention to, and it was easy enough for him to pack his costume and not be discovered.

As Peter called May and Ned to inform them of his plans to rejoin the team, Yelena had done some additional research to establish what the gang might be doing in Washington. She had soon managed to discover (and Peter wasn't going to ask how she could do something like that, since it probably involved breaking a few rules) that there was a planned transfer to a warehouse used by the Department of Damage Control the night before the decathlon tournament. It was a weird moment of idle convenience, but it at least meant that Peter could be reasonably sure of accomplishing something if he went to Washington now. Yelena in particular had affirmed that these criminals so far struck her as relatively opportunistic, taking advantage of opportunities rather than creating the chance to act on their own, so it seemed reasonable to assume they were getting into position to intercept that particular transfer.

Kate had tried to suggest that she could come along as well, but Yelena had stopped that suggestion before Kate could finish making it, reminding her of the previously-discussed risk and affirming that Kate would be more use staying in New York to help keep an eye on things in the safehouse. As Yelena had reminded the other two, her own mission to find the other Black Widow in action in New York was still an ongoing concern, so Kate could help out by letting her know if anything came up that might lead them to that particular threat. The blonde had also reminded Peter to call Happy Hogan to let him know that Peter would be going out of the city for a couple of days, and had even suggested that Peter claim he was leaving the suit behind so nobody would realise that the inbuilt tracker had been disabled. It had felt a bit odd to go back to his own apartment in a taxi rather than swinging, but Peter took Yelena's point that it would be better to go into the Decathlon fresh, so taking a more relaxing trip home was the advisable option.

Even with Yelena's advice helping him keep track of a few details, Peter had been a bit rushed getting everything together for the decathlon, but if it meant catching these thieves off-guard, he was prepared to take one for the 'team' and risk embarrassment by basically going back to the decathlon even after his resignation. The thieves might be a local problem so far, but the more tech they gained the greater the threat they could become, so it was better to deal with them while they were still relatively small-scale.

Arrangements made and his bag packed, Peter did one final swing around the city before he made his way to the school once again, landing discreetly to the side of the building to change back into his civilian wear before hurrying over to the waiting bus.

"Hey, it's Peter!" Abe said as Peter walked briskly up to the rest of the team, already dressed in their yellow uniform jackets as they stood around the bus.

"Guys," Peter said politely.

"Peter?" Liz looked at him curiously.

"Yeah," Peter said, hoping that his plan to appear nonchalant would pay off. "I was hoping maybe I could rejoin the team?"

"No," Flash stepped forward with a surprisingly firm expression on his face. "No way. You can't just quit on us, stroll up, and be welcomed back by everyone."

"Hey, welcome back, Peter," Mr Harrington said as he walked out of the bus, smiling broadly at Peter before he turned to look at Flash. "Flash, you're back to first alternate."

"What?" Flash said.

"He's taking your place," another boy called out.

"Great!" Ned grinned, raising a hand to exchange high-fives with Peter as the rest of the team smiled and laughed at Flash's reaction. "Glad you could make it!"

"Same," Peter grinned at his old best friend. Even if Ned was safer not knowing about his other activities, Peter suddenly felt guilty to think about how long it had been since they spent time together just to hang out-

"Excuse me, can we go already?" another voice broke into Peter's thoughts. Glancing around, Peter saw Michelle standing behind him and Ned, noticeably not wearing the yellow jacket. "'Cause I was hoping to get in some light protesting in front of one of the embassies before dinner, so…"

"Protesting is patriotic," Mr Hartington said before jerking his thumb back at the vehicle behind them. "Let's get on the bus."

As Peter grabbed Flash's jacket where the other boy had sullenly tossed it into the air, it was easy to pretend for a moment that he was just getting back into his usual routine, even as he quickly reminded himself of his final mission as he slung his bag back onto his back while discreetly feeling the form of the tracker at the bottom.

He might be publically returning to his old activities, but he also had a mission to deal with…

By the time they had checked into the hotel, Peter wondered if half the reason most of the Avengers didn't bother with secret identities was that it was just too much work to keep everything in order. The practice sessions during the journey had been a good way to keep his mind sharp, and it was refreshing to confirm that he hadn't forgotten some of the more trivial facts that commonly came up as questions, but when the practise stopped it was hard for him to know what to talk about. He'd briefly discussed with Ned how he'd started hanging out with Kate again, and that just led to a new sense of awkwardness as Ned did everything but explicitly ask if there was a reason Kate was getting Peter's attention these days instead of Ned. Peter had managed to pass it off with some awkward explanation that Kate had just ended up involved in some out-of-school project that Peter was affiliated with through his internship, but the way Ned had looked at him afterwards…

As must as Peter had accepted that it wouldn't help anyone if Ned knew more about his current activities, he really hadn't wanted to hurt his friend. Even if it had hurt Peter's feelings when Ned dismissed the idea that anyone would want Peter to be himself at Liz's party, he knew that was just Ned being thoughtless rather than deliberately hurtful, and he appreciated Ned's enthusiasm about their shared interests. He'd been particularly put out when Ned questioned what was going on at the old Triskellion site and Michelle had dismissed that as Captain America taking down the helicarriers 'for no good reason', even if her interruption gave Peter the moment he needed to remember that he was actually here to investigate the site where Damage Control took that kind of stuff.

Seriously, I can just about get that some people think it might have been 'better' if Hydra stayed active in SHIELD even if I think they're idiots, but acting like Captain Rogers destroyed those things just because?

Talking about the other Avengers hadn't been a comfortable topic of conversation, but when that particular topic had come up Mr Stark had never expressed any doubt that Captain Rogers had made the right call stopping the Helicarriers. The older man even told Peter that his only regret was that he hadn't been able to take part in that mess himself, as he might have been able to find a quicker way to shut the helicarriers down, even if he understood that there was no time for the Avengers involved in that mess to contact the rest of the team without alerting Hydra to what they were doing.

Once they reached the hotel that had been set aside for the Decathlon tournament, Peter had been assigned Ned as a roommate, which at least gave them a chance to talk a bit more in private even if there were still things Peter couldn't say. The two of them had spent some time practising a few further questions to prepare for the next day's decathlon, but eventually Ned had dozed off, deciding that if he didn't give himself a break early on that night he wouldn't be alert enough for the contest.

As soon as his friend was asleep, Peter had opened his bag and taken out his costume, taking it into the room's small toilet. After he checked the tracking equipment to confirm that the gang weren't on the move yet, he quickly pulled on most of the costume, shrugging his hoodie on over the top part and pulling on his jeans at the bottom. So long as he didn't do anything to make people look at his feet and realise he wasn't exactly wearing regular shoes, at this time of night he should be able to get out of the hotel without anyone noticing. Taking a last check to confirm that Ned was asleep and his mask and gloves were in his pocket, Peter walked out of the room, and nearly ran straight into Liz Allan, who was wearing a blue-and-white tartan-esque shoulder-less one-piece (there was probably some name for that pattern he wasn't aware of), a towel over her shoulder and what looked like a bin full of snacks in her right arm.

"Hey, Liz," Peter said, suddenly simultaneously struck by the fact that he was looking at the girl of his old dreams in a fairly revealing swimsuit and how this didn't affect him as much as he might have imagined.

"Perfect timing," Liz whispered back to him. "We're gonna go swimming."

Peter barely had time to whisper 'What?' before Liz began waving some of the others around the corner, a couple of them in robes and others just wearing T-shirts over their swimwear. Cindy and Sally gave him a brief polite greeting as they went by, but a sudden sense in the back of Peter's head prompted him to step aside just in time to feel something skim by his side, followed by an indignant noise from Flash even as he kept moving.

"Uh… enjoy," he said, looking back at Liz, finding it almost too easy to keep his eyes on her face rather than giving into the temptation to check out her body.

"You're not coming?" Liz looked at him curiously.

"I was, uh…" Peter could have slapped himself for not preparing a cover story for this particular event. "I was gonna go study… um… in the business centre."

"Peter, you don't need to study," Liz said with a warm smile. "You're, like, the smartest guy I've ever met."

Peter suddenly wasn't sure what to think at that particular declaration; had he been that oblivious to her attention that he hadn't realised she thought that highly of him?

"And besides," Liz added, "a rebellious group activity the day before competition is good for morale."

"It is?" Peter looked at her in surprise.

"Um, well, I read that in a TED Talk, so, I-I heard it in a TED Talk," Liz explained, her manner suddenly awkward. "And I read a coaching book."

"Hey, nothing wrong with getting extra insight," Peter observed with a smile. "I've been… getting some interesting insight into things myself."

"You have?" Liz looked at him curiously. "Is this anything to do with the Stark internship?"

"Kinda, but she… it's complicated and I'm not really allowed to talk about it," Peter said, wishing he'd actually done some research on genuine internships so he could come up with a plausible cover story for why he'd be working with someone like Yelena on non-Avenger-related matters. "The point is, I get how we all do different things to improve ourselves."

"Exactly," Liz nodded. "This is our future, and I'm not gonna screw it up. Besides, we raided the minibar and those candy bars were, like, eleven dollars… are you sure you're not going to join us?"

Liz tossed him a bag of Skittles as though as an extra incentive, but then was called away by a couple of the other team members, leaving Peter to look after her in thought for a moment before he turned to head the other way. Once satisfied that he was out of view of anyone in the other rooms, he jumped onto the wall and then jumped up to the roof, leaving his clothes up against a suitable protrusion before making his way to the roof of the hotel's indoor swimming pool.

Looking down at the pool through the glass roof as the rest of the team splashed around, Peter's eyes turned to focus on Liz, but it only took him a moment to confirm that he didn't have the kind of reaction he was expecting. He could appreciate that Liz Allan looked good in that blue swimsuit (even if he wouldn't actually say anything about it out loud), but whenever he turned his attention to her now, he found himself picturing a taller figure with paler skin, either with similarly dark, loose hair or tied back in a lighter shade.

Actually, why had he never seen Yelena with her hair loose… and why did that suddenly matter so much…?

He shook his head and turned away in frustration, reaching up to pull the mask over his head-

"Good evening, Peter."

"Hello?" Peter said, immediately on edge at the unfamiliar female voice addressed him out of nowhere. "Hello?"

"Congratulations on completing the rigorous Training Wheels Protocol and gaining access to your suit's full capabilities," the female voice said, as the HUD in his mask began to display a circle of what looked like different web-patterns before offering some kind of display of the windows around him.

"Ah… thank you," Peter said, mind flashing back to some of those additional protocols Yelena had mentioned when she was shutting down the tracking device. She must have accidentally set something in the suit to think that he'd completed some kind of training program he didn't even know was in there.

"So where would you like to take me tonight?" the voice said.

"I-I put a tracker on someone," Peter said, deciding to go with this situation. "He's part of this group of… well, they're selling high-tech weapons."

"Tracker located," the woman's voice said, the HUD displaying a red line through a digital map of what Peter assumed was the surrounding area. "Plotting course to intercept target."

"OK," Peter nodded as he took in the map display. "So long as I make it back for the Decathlon, this should be fine."

Even as he started swinging, part of his attention on the map on the HUD and another part on his real-world surroundings as he jumped onto the roof of a bus going the right way (he might as well stay fresh before any potential upcoming fight), he wished that he could get the rest of his mind to stop thinking about the two women in his spider-life.

He'd hoped that thinking of Yelena at Liz's party was just a passing thought because he'd been spending so much time in the field with her recently, but if he was thinking of her and Kate now…

A part of him wanted to dismiss it as just him being in an emotional state given the stress of everything going on in his life right now, but he knew that wasn't it. He could still acknowledge that Liz looked great in that swimsuit, but after meeting Yelena in that white spysuit… and seeing Kate in those exercise clothes when he and Yelena arrived at the safehouse…

He'd known that Kate looked good for years, but it was the same way he could recognise that Betty or Princess Leia or the Scarlet Witch were attractive women without seriously thinking about taking that further. It was only when he saw her in that tight outfit that Peter had really become aware that Kate Bishop was a beautiful woman in her own right.

He felt as though he was betraying his younger self on some level, but he couldn't help it; the way he'd used to look at Liz had somehow shifted to him looking at Kate and Yelena that way, and he didn't even know which of them he liked more. Kate got him as an Avengers fan, but Yelena had really been helping him feel like Spider-Man could be more than just going around taking out purse-snatchers or bike thieves…

After a few more minutes as an unknown hitchhiker, which included jumping to a couple of different trucks as he followed the map on his display, Peter found himself approaching the current location of his tracer.

"One hundred metres from destination and closing," the suit's voice said, pausing for a moment before speaking again. "Jump now."

Leaping off the truck as instructed, Peter rolled down a grassy bank for a moment before landing on his feet and running alongside the thick bushes. He briefly registered the voice informing him that she could detect three individuals before he paused to take in the location he'd arrived at.

"Why is their secret lair in a gas station?" he wondered out loud, even as he moved to take up a position on top of the pole that would have displayed the gas prices if this place had been open. "That is so lame… Hey, suit lady, what are they doing?"

"Do you want to hear what they're saying?"

"I can- sure," Peter stopped himself. Suit Lady seemed friendly so far, but he didn't want to do anything that might give her a reason to alert Tony or Happy to what he was doing before he had something useful to share with them.

"Activating Enhanced Reconnaissance Mode," the female voice said, the suit's HUD focusing on the van in front of the building and amplifying it to show thermal images of three men sitting in the front of the vehicle.

"I got the gauntlet from the Lagos cleanup," one of the men said. "The rest is all my design."

"Whoa," Peter said. "That is so cool…"

"Can't believe they're still cleaning up that Triskelion mess," another man said.

"I love it," a third put in (Peter thought he recognised the voice, but the radio distortion made it hard for him to be certain). "They keep making messes, we keep getting rich."

"Target inbound," the first speaker said.

Got it, Peter thought to himself, grateful for this proof that Yelena's theory about the heist had been correct. If he could catch them robbing Damage Control pretty much red-handed…

"OK," he said out loud, feeling that the suit lady might be able to offer something to the next stage of his plan, "I'm gonna get a little closer so I can see what's happening."

"Would you like me to engage Enhanced Combat Mode?"

"Enhanced Combat Mode?" Peter repeated thoughtfully. He wasn't planning to actively fight anyone right off the bat, but if that was an option there couldn't be any harm in being ready. "Yeah, sure."

"Activating Instant Kill," the voice said as Peter's vision was suddenly tinted red.

"What?" Peter yelled in shock, only just remembering to lower his voice in case the men in the truck heard him speak. "No, no, no, I don't want to kill anybody!"

"Deactivating Instant Kill," the suit lady said, the red tint vanishing from Peter's eyes. With that sorted, Peter jumped off the sign and fired a web-line-

He only realised that the webbing wasn't a web-line when he hit the ground face first.

"What the hell just happened?" he said, staggering back to his feet; he could take a blow like that more easily than before he got his powers, but it still hurt to hit a hard surface like that. "What was that?"

"You jumped off the sign and landed on your face," Suit Lady responded. Wanting to confirm what was happening, Peter raised his arm and fired webbing at another sign on top of the gas station, confirming that the suit now fired web pellets rather than the lines he'd been expecting.

"Suit Lady," Peter said, already sure he needed to give this voice a name later, "what's wrong with my web-shooters?"

"Rapid-fire is the default for Enhanced Combat Mode."

"Why would I need that?" Peter wondered out loud as he went to hide behind one of the gas pumps. He supposed the pellets could be useful for pinning down opponents, but this felt like something he should have been consulted on…

"Would you like to see more options?" Suit Lady continued, as Peter's HUD was suddenly filled with a wide range of alternative webbing formations displayed around his hands. "You have 576 possible web-shooter combinations."

"Whoa…" Peter said, rapidly searching through his options. "Mr Stark really overdid it… come on, come on… That one."

"Great choice," the suit's voice said. "Would you like me to set this as your new default?"

Peter tested the new webbing option, and found himself launching an electric web at the neon sign in front of the gas station. Quickly glancing over at the van to confirm that none of the villains had seen that, he quickly ran to hide behind the main building in the old gas station.

"What was that?" he said, jumping onto the roof to keep a better eye on the vehicle.

"Taser webs," Suit Lady replied.

"Taser webs?" Peter repeated. "That's- we don't need that right now!"

"You seem to be very unfamiliar with your web-shooter settings," Suit Lady said as Peter kept his eye on the van. "Would you like to run a refresher course?"

"No, just…" Peter shook his head, deciding to assert himself. "Default back to standard web-lines, like what I was using for swinging, unless I ask for something else."

"Understood," Suit Lady said.

That issue dealt with, Peter turned his attention back to the van just in time to see a trio of trucks passing by on the road nearby. A faint sound from above prompted Peter to glance up, his lenses adjusting to confirm that the man in the wing-suit was flying overhead.

"Oh, that's him," Peter said, watching carefully as the main in the wingsuit fired some kind of cables to attach himself to the roof of the last truck in the convoy. Making sure that he stayed out of sight of the van, Peter began to carefully swing after the convoy, sticking close to the trees so that he both had something to swing on and to give himself something to hide behind if anyone seemed to be looking his way. His target did something to the roof of the truck and then seemed to vanish into it, leaving his wings to keep flying overhead. Jumping onto the roof of the truck himself, Peter was amazed to see a strange purple 'hole' in the roof of the truck, shimmering with some kind of energy.

"Whoa," Peter observed, reaching out to touch the purple stuff and confirm that his hand could pass through it. "Cool; it's some kind of matter phase shifter…"

His curiosity satisfied, Peter noticed the man in the bird-suit put something inside a duffle bag in the middle of the truck. Not wanting to be spotted just yet, Peter crawled back a few feet so that he was hanging onto the back of the truck and waited until he saw the man standing on the roof of the vehicle.

As far as Peter was concerned, that was his cue to act. Satisfied that he had his target in sight, Peter fired a web-line and pulled the bag out of the man's hands and into his own arms.

"Hey, Big Bird!" Peter called out. "This doesn't belong to you!"

The bird-man stood up and turned to look at him, a glare behind his glowing green visor as he jumped backwards and reattached himself to the wing-suit. As the wings clamped into place (the tech involved would have just been cool if the man using it wasn't clearly his enemy), Peter tensed for action until the man had started flying towards him.

"Taser web!" he yelled, jumping upwards so that he would be directly over his attacker, hoping that he had calculated everything just right-

Like he had intended, a few quick tasers struck the wingsuit and sent the whole elaborate system into a kind of overload. The older man in the birdsuit barely had time to yell in outrage and shock before the jets in the wings took him flying off towards the side of the road. Noticing the strange devices on the corner of the portal, Peter examined each one until he found what seemed to be a switch, pressing each as quickly as possible and taking the four pieces for himself once the portal had been deactivated.

That technology reclaimed, Peter stood up and looked around, but found that he couldn't see any sign of the man in the wing-suit. He almost let himself relax at the apparent success of his 'counter-heist', but reminded himself of Yelena's warnings about how important it was to stay alert even when dealing with apparent friends unless you knew for an absolute fact there was no threat. With that winged guy still out there, until this truck got to its destination he would stay put and stay on guard.

Mind made up, Peter sat down on the roof of the truck, exerting just enough of his power to ensure that he stayed in one place as the vehicle moved, and began to examine the contents of the bag. The first thing he took out was some kind of wheel-shaped piece of metal with a Y-shape in the centre that meant nothing to Peter, and the Ultron head was only kind of cool- when killer robots try to destroy the world the only thing anyone should do with them was not make any more- but when he took out a familiar purple glowing object he had a better idea what he was dealing with.

"This is Chitauri, right?" he asked.

"Correct," Suit Lady said. "This is an explosive Chitauri energy core."

"Explosive?!" Peter said sharply, quickly putting the energy core down. "You mean it's a bomb?"

"It would require radiation to transform it into an explosive state," the female voice confirmed.

"OK, that's… good to know," Peter concluded, even as he put the objects back in the bag; he must have interrupted the wingsuit-guy before he could get many more things out, or the thief had just never planned on taking out that many things in the first place. "Hey, Suit Lady… I kind of feel bad calling you 'suit lady', you know? I think I should probably give you a name... like…"

He was about to suggest 'Liz' out of what he could only consider an old habit, but swiftly stopped himself; even without his currently conflicting feelings about Liz, Kate and Yelena, calling the voice in his suit after any of them would have felt weird at best. Naming the voice after May or some variation of that name would just be a different kind of 'weird', the name 'Karen' came to mind but felt too close to Kate for comfort…

He wasn't sure which was the final 'source' of the inspiration, but suddenly he remembered a name from an old TV show and a favourite childhood book that had more recently become a very good film. It was the name of the protagonist's granddaughter in the TV show (some of those old episodes had some interesting ideas even if the effects were basic back then), and even after what happened to the identically-named character in the final novel in the series, he'd always hoped she found her way back eventually after the novels had ended…

"What about Susan?" he suggested.

"You can call me Susan if you would like," the voice said.

"Cool," Peter smiled, glad to have that sorted. "So, Susan, apart from asking you to do it, how do I alternate what type of webbing I want to use?"

AN: For the reasons stated, I thought that I should change the name Peter gave his A.I. in this particular version of events to mark another subtle distinction from canon. Can anyone guess what TV show and book series inspired him to choose 'Susan' as an alternative?