When Gwen woke up she looked at the tablet, shook her head and put it in a drawer. If she couldn't' see it, it was a problem that didn't exist. After a good breakfast. She headed to the subway to get to Manhattan. It would drop her about ten blocks from the tower because the area around the tower was still under heavy lockdown. She was slightly amused when the national guardsman at the gate looked her up and down like she was crazy after she showed her SHIELD issued id badge. He looked very sheepish when he waved her through after a conversation with someone over the radio. She was about eight years too young to be a convincing SHIELD agent. She was at least dressed the part of gainfully employed office worker. Though she still looked like a fifteen-year-old girl.

She made it a block before a black SUV pulled over to the sidewalk. She pushed her sunglasses down her nose so she could see through the tinted windows. Gwen shook her head. The passenger side window slid down.

"Uncle Liam. How did you get in here?"

Her uncle grinned.

"I could ask ya the same thing, Wendy."

Gwen pointed at Stark Towers.

"Work. Your turn."

He chuckled.

"Checking on my workers. Best salvage team in New York. Hop in, lass. We're heading your way."

Gwen climbed in the back seat and the SUV pulled away from the curb. Her Uncle Liam looked back at her.

"Bloody aliens in the streets. Gods and demons. What's next the rapture?"

Gwen shrugged.

"They aren't Gods, Uncle Liam. Just people who live a long time and have superpowers. Even Loki's pretty uh… well normal for a sort of God."

Liam gave her a look.

"And how would you know that lass?"

Gwen rolled her eyes.

"So, apparently, he heard of me somehow, maybe saw my file at Stark Towers, so he says to the government, I'll tell you everything you want to know about what's what, but I'll only tell Gwen Stacy. So, guess who has to go see him at the prison they have him at? Your favorite niece."

Uncle Liam looked like he didn't quite believe her.

"Seems a bit far-fetched there, lass."

Gwen held up her hands defensively.

"I swear to you on my mother's grave it's the truth. I think Spider-Woman might have hit him a few times with Thor's hammer. He seemed really obsessed with her. She said no, government has no way of finding her, so I guess I was his backup plan to get to her?"

Gwen shrugged.

"I have no idea. Whatever. I got the info they wanted and so I get to go to work, I kind of told SHIELD I'd only do it if I was allowed inside the perimeter to get to Stark Towers."

Liam shook his head.

"No doubts what family you came from. Remind me of your nan. She'd demand the sun and moon before she'd look at ya. You be careful around here. There are still some undetonated explosives those alien bastards left lying about."

"Don't touch randomly beeping alien boxes. Got it."

He looked forward.

"So, Iron Man has you coming in to work already?"

"Yep. I'm glad. My dad didn't uh, call you umm, did he?"

Liam nodded.

"He did for sure, lass. Have ya spoken to him?"

Gwen nodded.

"Yep, we had a great talk last night."

The SUV pulled over at the secondary perimeter which was formed around Stark Towers. Gwen leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thanks, Uncle Liam you're the best."

He patted her cheek.

"Be safe, Wendy. You had better call your da' back. And behave yourself."

Gwen blinked innocently.

"I always behave myself."

He laughed.

"That's about as believable as saying I'm an honest businessman."

Gwen hopped out. She waved as the SUV pulled away. She flashed both her SHIELD badge and her Stark Badge to the next security gauntlet and was let inside. A few minutes later she was walking off the elevator on the eighty-sixth floor. Everything above was being renovated, or would be once workers could be brought in. She stopped immediately when she saw Nick Fury standing beside Tony. She wasn't able to make her escape before she was noticed. Tony motioned to her. She sighed and entered the room. Nick Fury looked at her. Fury reached into his trench coat and pulled out an envelope.

"Your government thanks you for talking to Loki. The fee that you requested."

Gwen nodded and took the envelope. Nick looked at her.

"Now where the hell were you for the last two days? We have intel for Spider-Woman and no way to get in touch with her. You remember me telling you I could lock your ass up to protect national security? It's getting goddamned tempting right about now."

Tony had his arms crossed and was giving her a disappointed look. Gwen made a choice then and there. She would go on the offensive. She scowled and poked Fury in the chest several times.

"It is your fault I was missing! You made me talk to Loki. You talked me right up to Asgard so I could be interrogated by Odin. Do you know how scary that man is? The guy has an Uru eyepatch riveted to his face. I missed two band rehearsals. My dad had the entire NYPD looking for me! What am I supposed to say to him? Hey dad, sorry I didn't return your messages, I was in a different Galaxy? Worst of all, I had two paid days off that I had plans for. Oh, and my boyfriend probably thinks I'm dumping him. Thanks, sooo much for your concern. I'm fine."

The two men were stunned into silence with Gwen's revelations. She motioned to the touch video table they had been inspecting when she arrived. It had the imaging she'd done with Steve the day before she left displayed on it. Tony must have noticed the betrayed look in her eyes. He motioned to Nick Fury.

"I could not find any information on the project you were asking about. I reached out to Director Fury and provided Spider-Woman's video."

Gwen motioned to Fury.

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with SHIELD being involved in this conversation, Tony."

Nick leaned on the table Gwen would guess he was not pleased by what the pair had discovered. He looked at Gwen.

"I'm not here as the Director of SHIELD, I'm here as a private citizen who is wondering what the hell is going on with my tax dollars. What is discussed here doesn't leave this room, doesn't go on Facebook, you don't make a TikTok about it, it doesn't go on YouTube. You got me?"

Gwen made a face and leaned on the table and looked at the display.

"No one my age uses Facebook. What's up?"

Nick tapped the screen and brought up the floor plans for a building.

"This is a secret SHIELD facility I was unaware of, in fact everyone I've asked was unaware of. It is within the Chitauri cleanup perimeter. Four nights ago, unknown parties from within SHIELD ordered it cleared out before it could be discovered during the cleanup. As of this time we have found no information as to what it held, except for the video Spider-Woman was able to acquire. The mercenaries she captured died enroute to the police station in an 'accident'. We were able to get a location for the destination of the cargo from the original driver before he had an allergic reaction to peanut oil that somehow made it into his turkey sandwich. Are you seeing a pattern here?"

Gwen nodded.

"Yea, but why are you telling me this?"

He raised his one good eyebrow.

"Because Spider-Woman isn't answering my calls, but she's answering yours. Should I continue?"

Gwen shrugged.

"Whatever. Go ahead."

He looked at Tony and shook his head.

"Stark, you hired this one? Does she take anything seriously?"

"Sometimes. When the pay is right. Come on Gwen. This is important."

Gwen rolled her eyes.

"I'm listening guys, go on."

Nick gave a small, exasperated sigh.

"SHIELD is in some way compromised. Somehow someone managed to launch two fighters carrying enhanced nuclear weapons, now there's a secret storage facility in Manhattan? Unauthorized transfer of hazardous materials? I can't send anyone from SHIELD. Stark here is too obvious. Now if Spider-Woman were to say dress in black she could probably infiltrate the site. Maybe see what data she could acquire with that worm of yours."

Gwen crossed her arms. This was all sounding a little too cloak and dagger to her.

"Why would she do that?"

Nick tapped the screen a few more times and brought up a photo of a human blood cell with what looked like hundreds of goo covered nano-spiders.

"Because this was one of her blood cells before the sample containers got shredded and black ooze spiders walked out of Stark Industries and vanished into the night. I figured she might want to know where that black goop came from, and maybe what it is."

Gwen felt sick. What was living inside her? Tony put his hand on her shoulder.

"She's an Avenger. We'll figure this out and help her, I promise, Fury is right though. This is a job for her."

"What about Natasha? I'm sure you can trust her."

Nick shook his head.

"No, they'll notice her. No one has eyes on Spider-Woman. Right now, the only people who know we have the location of this black site are in this room. If I send someone who has visibility, they might start a data purge or worse. She has the ability to get in and out unseen. To get one of those spider bots of yours to get us into that system."

"She's not a cat-burglar. Getting in and out unseen is not really in her skillset."

Nick leaned on the table again.

"Gwen, she is our best chance."

Gwen shook her head.

"Look, she almost died in that transport truck. Now she's got black goo floating around in her cells, now you want me to tell her she has to go break into a super-secure facility. What if her powers are impacted by the goo? She lost her bracers. She lost her armored suit. She doesn't even have a new set of web shooters yet. I haven't had a chance to help her re-equip. I've been too busy being bossed around by SHIELD, Asgard and my band."

Tony left the table and came back with a silver suitcase. He put it down on the table.

"I know. That's why I had the fabricators working all night."

He opened the case and inside was a jet-black version of her suit with armored plates and a pair of black web shooters.

"I can't replace her bracers. I have no idea where dad sourced the Vibranium. Latest Stark Industries ballistic weave with ceramic plates. It has thermal reduction weave that will hide her from thermal optics. It has carbon nanotubes on its surface that absorb 99.97% of all light. She'll be practically invisible in the dark. The lenses have night vision optics built in."

Gwen picked up the new costume. She ran her fingers around the inside of the neckline, it was soft. Not as soft as the iron silk ballistic weave but if she were to do what they were asking she couldn't use her actual costume. This would do.

"I'll ask her."

She held out her hand.

"Give me the details, I'll pass it on to her."

Nick put a memory stick in her hand. Gwen wrapped her fingers around it and grabbed the silver case after Tony latched it.

"I'll be in touch when she has something. Tony, I'll need the rest of the day, and tomorrow off because she's going to need me in the chair tonight. Paid!"

Tony nodded. She turned and walked to the elevator.

Gwen because she could hardly be called Spider-Woman when not in her costume was kneeling in some bushes looking at a fenced and heavily guarded complex. Whoever was funding this from within SHIELD was really sparing no expense. She hadn't been lying she was no master thief. It was a completely unmarked building. It was on Federal land. She sighed.

"No use sitting around thinking about breaking in."

She stood up when the guards had passed and set off on a dead run towards the electrified fence. She jumped up and did a back flip, tumbled a few times and landed on her feet between two containers. She peeked out to verify she was in the blind spot she'd identified from the satellite images Tony had taken. She dashed across the paved lot and slid behind a dumpster. She waited for a few moments as a patrol passed and climbed up the wall. Once on the roof she made her way to an HVAC vent she identified and slipped inside. She let herself fall several feet and caught herself on the walls of the vent just before she would have hit the bottom of the vent she'd entered. It was at this point she was going in blind. She had no idea what the interior looked like. She tossed down four spider bots and sat down and tapped a few commands on her new suit's holo-display and let her bots map the facility out for her. There were two secure warehouse-like vaults, a barracks and what Gwen was looking for an old-style mainframe. Unfortunately, she couldn't find an interface for her bot. The network cables were fiber optic and whatever was translating the data from the new signal to the older one was inside the mainframe somewhere and it was massive.

"Shoot."

Gwen left the bots out and on ceilings. She transferred the video feed to her HUD and began crawling through the vents towards the single console for the mainframe. There did not seem to be any cameras in the mainframe or console room. The vent she picked to exit was in the dead center of the stark white console room. She gently loosened the grate and then webbed it to the ceiling and dropped down. She smiled under the mask and cracked her knuckles. She reached her fingers towards the keyboard then the screen which was monochrome green came alive. A camera she hadn't caught with her spider bot because it was hidden under the monitor focused on her. The screen was filled with a face which was drawn using ascii characters. The lips on the image moved and a man with a German accent began speaking.

"And who are you?"

Gwen used her fake Spider-Woman deep voice.

"No one of any importance."

As she was speaking her eyes caught something her bot hadn't, copper wires her bots could use to interface with the mainframe. She tossed one on the counter. She spoke.

"Drain and burn mode."

The spider bot crawled past the camera and onto the main data cable. She leaned on the counter, she spoke still using her fake deep voice.

"What are you? Some seventies artificial intelligence?"

The face on the screen looked insulted.

"I am Doctor Arnim Zola you incredulous primitive woman!"

Gwen watched as her spider used the digital key provided by the AI Martha gave her to effortlessly break past the primitive security of the mainframe. Her polymorphic worm did the rest.

"What are you doing?"

She grinned under her mask.

"Stealing all your data how's that for primitive?"

Arnim started shouting.

"Cease this instant!"

Gwen laughed.

"Or you'll what? Ask me to stop again?"

Her spider sense triggered, and she cartwheeled out of the way and ran up the wall and across the ceiling avoiding assault rifle fire. Armin was yelling.

"Watch my systems you morons!"

She dropped down and crouched. Ready to pounce. She leapt through the air and landed on one of the men. Her momentum and weight knocked him down. She noticed more were coming. She backflipped and jumped between walls, evading bullets. Eventually there were just too many bullets and she got clipped by one. She felt a rage building up inside her and her skin burned. She felt like she was going to be torn apart from the inside. She blacked out.