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

Feedback: Feel free

AN: To clarify this right off, we begin basically in the opening sequence of Homecoming, as Peter is on his latest patrol of the city while waiting for Happy or Tony to call him back, but things will change soon enough.

On a wider note, I still intend to only start this in depth once I've finished a couple of my current projects, but I was aiming for a mass update for my birthday and decided to do a bit of work on this as well. In any case, while RL issues will prevent me focusing on this at the moment, I do intend to include it in my future update schedule when I can, and hope you like the results anyway.

The Legacies' Triad

Swinging through the city, Peter wondered if anyone could feel as good as he did with his life right now. He'd started out thinking of himself as just some guy who was doing what he could to help out around the city, but the idea that he had been chosen to be part of Earth's Mightiest Heroes over the likes of more established vigilantes like Daredevil… well, Peter would be lying if that didn't make him feel better about himself and what he was doing.

OK, so the circumstances that had brought him into the team weren't great, and he would admit that he still wasn't entirely sure how everything had reached that point between the original line-up, but he was sure he'd been on the right of it. After all, one of the main 'rules' of being a super-hero was to stop people breaking the law, which meant that Captain America's team were the bad guys, right? Maybe Cap and his team had at least thought they had good reasons for going against the rules at the time, but the law was the law…

As much as he told himself that, it was one reason Peter was kind of glad to just be focusing on lower-level street crime at the moment. There might have been a few embarrassing moments, such as that time he thought that guy was stealing the car when he'd actually just locked himself out of it, and he still wasn't sure if he'd actually managed to return that bike to its original owner, but at least he knew he'd been able to help that old lady find her way.

He knew that he was cutting himself off from most of his own social activities, but it was probably best to make a cleaner break of it before he officially moved on to join the team anyway. He was keeping up with his usual academics, and it wasn't like he needed things like band practice or the decathlon at this point when he'd kept up so many extracurriculars for so long anyway. He regretted that he wasn't being more open with Ned or Kate in particular, but he wasn't entirely sure he was ready to see how they'd react to learning that he'd become an actual Avenger, particularly when he'd technically been fighting against Kate's favourite even if he'd never actually been face-to-face with Hawkeye…

Frankly, it was a bit like that philosophical debate he'd heard about in a Stargate episode once; the whole thing with Dr Jackson going evil had been disturbing, but the argument that sometimes the best way to 'win' a fight was not to start it made a certain grim sense.

Coming to a halt on a suitable fire escape, Peter looked out at the setting sun as he munched on his sandwich, turning over what he'd been through over the last few hours. Even with the Avengers having moved on and the uncertain situation for the team itself, New York seemed to be doing pretty well at the moment, which was good in the sense that it made it easier for him to keep the city safe by himself but on the other hand felt like a bit of a let-down. He went from fighting to bring in rogue members of the Avengers to dealing with bicycle thieves; it frankly felt a bit embarrassing.

"Hey, Happy!" he said, after his attempt to call Tony's security head got diverted to voicemail once again. "Um, here's my report for tonight. I stopped a grand theft bicycle. Couldn't find the owner, so I just left a note. Um... I helped this lost, old Dominican lady. She was really nice and bought me a churro. So I just, um, feel like I could be doing more. You know? Just curious when the next real mission is gonna be. So, yeah, just call me back. It's Peter. Parker."

Hanging up the call, Peter could only stare at the phone while wondering about what he'd just said. Even as he replaced a low web cartridge, so used to his powers that he was automatically standing on the side of a fire escape to catch a loose cartridge, he couldn't understand why he'd bothered to mention the churro to a man who was obviously busy dealing with Iron Man-related issues and probably wouldn't be interested in the kind of stuff he'd found today.

It wasn't like he wanted people to be in danger, but he just wanted to feel like he was making a real difference… like he had something actually interesting to tell anyone about later…

"Can't wait to see this thing, guys," Peter heard a voice say from further down the street. His enhanced senses still took some getting used to, particularly when it came to picking up on what was or wasn't important, but when he saw a group of four men walking into the Queens Community Bank, he fought down a guilty surge of pleasure.

Bank robbery still felt a bit small-scale, particularly when he wasn't sure how much money these places held these days anyway, but at least it was a more active opportunity to help someone. With the bank's walls made of glass, it was easy for him to see that the men were doing something to one of the ATMs as he got closer. By the time he reached the door, they had somehow cut away the fronts of at least two of the ATMs and were sorting through the money that had been inside. One man was holding what looked like a shotgun while there were a couple of complex-looking devices on the floor, but for the moment Peter's priority was the thieves rather than their equipment.

"What's up, guys?" he said, trying to lean casually against the main door. "You forgot your PIN number?"

When the robbers turned to him, Peter wasn't sure if he should be amused or offended at the revelation that they were wearing Avengers-themed masks; the man with the shotgun was wearing an Iron Man mask, and the others were wearing Thor, Captain America and Hulk masks.

"Whoa!" he said, deciding to have a bit of fun with this scenario. "You're the Avengers? What are you guys doing here?"

The Iron Man thief loaded and aimed his gun, but Peter quickly pulled it away with his webbing, swinging it in such a way that it struck both its holder and the man in the Thor mask standing alongside him. The Thor thief spun around and landed against Peter, leaving him with an interesting opportunity to hit the Hulk thief as he tried to attack while 'Thor' was a temporary 'human shield' (obviously Peter wouldn't use this against an actual gun-wielding enemy, but the other guy could take a punch or two).

"Thor, Hulk, good to finally meet you guys," Peter added as he jumped up to grab the ceiling with his fingers, tossing 'Thor' into the wall with his feet. "I thought you'd be more handsome in person… hey, Iron Man," he continued as the masked thief started trying to hit him, only for Peter to casually dodge each punch by only moving his head. "What are you doing robbing a bank? You're a billionaire."

Spotting the man in the Hulk mask approaching him with a strange glowing gun, Peter grabbed the oncoming fist and tossed 'Iron Man' back so that he fell into his own colleague, the two of them falling to the ground. Peter had just started to relax when he realised that the man in the Captain America mask (seriously, why would any criminal use Avengers masks for a heist?) pick up a large device with three big claws on it and point it at him. Peter leapt for the other man, only to find himself frozen in mid-air by some kind of blue force field.

"Hey!" he yelled automatically, a part of him noticing the odd effect it had on his voice. "Oh, this feels so weird-"

His musings on how strange that particular experience was were interrupted when he was thrown from the gun's energy field, flying past one of the other criminals and hitting the wall near the main door. Peter barely had time to wonder what that weapon actually was when he was caught in its energy field once more.

"I'm starting-" he tried to say as he found himself thrown back and forth between the ceiling and the floor, "to think- you're not- the Avengers!"

Finished with that particular bad joke, Peter managed to 'grab' the ground with his fingers before he could be sent upwards again, and used his other hand to fire a shot of webbing at a nearby desk. A quick pull was enough to basically toss the desk at the man in the Captain America mask, leaving him free to get on the move once again, ignoring the money flying around him to focus on pinning down the thieves with his webbing.

"Alright, guys," he said, kicking the man in the Thor mask away as he tried to grab the shotgun, "let's wrap this up; it's a school night."

As he landed on one of the remaining ATMs, Peter saw the Iron Man thief holding up the force-field device that had been used against him earlier, only for Peter to intercept it with a quick blast of webbing that left the weapon pinned to the glass wall. With its current wielder trapped by the same webbing, Peter jumped onto the man and pulled off the Iron Man mask, revealing a tanned man with short dark hair.

"So," the wall-crawler said, "how do jerks like you get tech like this?"

His potential interrogation was interrupted when he heard something behind him, spinning around to see the man in the Hulk mask aiming that glowing purple weapon at him once again.

"No, wait-!" Peter began, before there was a small spark on the side of the weapon and it stopped making its strange noise. The man holding the gun looked at it in surprise at first, but that brief distraction was enough for Peter to put down his current 'prisoner', jump forward, and pull that weapon out of its user's hands. The man holding the gun went down with a swift kick to the chest, leaving Peter to examine the weapon. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting to find, but the sight of what looked like a bullet-hole in the side of the gun hadn't been it.

"What the-?" he began, turning to look in the direction that the shot must have come from, bypassing the small bullet-hole in the glass to focus on a figure in white on top of the building opposite who was putting away some kind of rifle. Part of Peter registered Mr Delmar's deli, where he'd picked up some food just a few hours ago, was underneath the building, but another part of him was focused on the question of who'd just literally shot a gun from that distance. With the advanced weapons disabled, Peter leapt over to deliver a final quick punch to the Thor and Captain America thieves before webbing them each to the ground after making sure there wasn't any money underneath them. The dollar bills flying around the bank were a bit of a problem, but so long as he took care when opening the door everything should still be here when the police arrived.

Picking up the damaged gun from the floor, Peter turned back to the one he'd webbed to the wall earlier and activated the dissolving solution Mr Stark had added in case of this kind of situation. Once again blessing his fast reflexes, Peter managed to take the force-field gun out of the Iron Man thief's hands and then web those hands back up before the thief could attack him again, leaving Peter free to create a quick web-bundle to hold the weapons. With the bundle now on his back, he left the bank and practically jumped up the opposite wall, his gaze quickly focusing on the woman in white running along the rooftops a short distance away.

She was fast and clearly trained- the way she just jumped across one gap was so good Peter wondered for a moment if she had powers herself- but there was something about the way she was running… and that outfit… the blonde hair was different, but if you allowed for colour…

"Wait!" Peter called out, starting his own run before he leapt up and sent out two simultaneous strands of webbing, using them to literally throw himself forward towards the escaping woman. He still almost fell short of his target, but another quick tap of his shooters hit the woman's back with a final strand of webbing that halted her just long enough for him to land in front of her with a final jump.

"Ms. Romanoff-" he began, before his eyes widened under his mask as he realised that he was looking at a stranger. There was a certain similarity to the first female Avenger in her stance and her costume, and her eyes had the same intensity he'd only glimpsed briefly during the battle at Leipzig airport, but this blonde was clearly not who he'd initially thought she was. "…You're not Black Widow?"

"I am," the young woman replied with a slight edge to her accent that Peter was going to identify as Russian until someone told him otherwise. "I am just not Black Widow you are familiar with."

"There's more than Ms Romanoff?"

"Many more," the young woman nodded at him (and she was a woman; she had to be at least a few years older than him, even if she was still really cute). "Including me."

"Huh," Peter nodded in understanding. He supposed that she could be lying, but something about the way she had just shot out that weapon and then pulled off all those stunts to get away…

Granted, he hadn't seen much of Black Widow in action in person, but he'd watched enough video clips of the Avengers to have a feel for what she was capable of, and it did seem to match this woman's own abilities.

"So… you and Ms Romanoff were trained by the same people?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound too stupid.

"More than just trained," the woman replied with a slight smile. "Have you met my sister?"

"Sister?" Peter repeated, uncertainty shifting to a smile at this news. "Ms Romanoff's your sister?"

"Adopted," the woman clarified. "Romanoff is not my name."

"Oh… sure thing," Peter nodded in quick understanding; if she didn't want to share her real name yet, he could respect that. "And 'met' is a strong word; we just fought on the same side a while back… so… what are you doing here?"

"Working holiday," the new Black Widow shrugged. "Tracking potential problem; I overheard about advanced weapons in use in this city and decided to investigate."

"You mean you were tracking those crooks for a sting operation?" Peter's grin became broader at this news before his mood shifted as he realised what that meant. "Wait… I interrupted your sting operation?"

"You could not have known," the other Black Widow gave him a brief smile of understanding.

"Well… I got the weapons," Peter indicated the equipment on his back. He was about to suggest that she could go back and interrogate the thieves, but the sound of police sirens at least suggested that might be a challenge. "I… take it you're not that 'in' with the cops?"

"I am not… affiliated with the Accords," the Widow nodded at him in acknowledgement. "Is that a problem?"

"No," Peter replied, briefly wondering if this was the kind of thing he should report to Happy or Mr Stark before deciding this was one part of his daily patrol he was going to keep to himself. Mr Stark might think the Accords were a good idea and Peter was happy to go along with that so long as he didn't have to make his identity public, but he wasn't going to turn someone over to… whoever he was meant to turn someone who violated the Accords over to… after she saved his life when she was dealing with another problem. "I mean, if you're here to find someone using those kind of weapons… can I help?"

"Can you help?"

"I mean, no offence to you, but if you're going up against someone with enhanced weapons, nothing wrong with bringing along an enhanced human, right?" Peter indicated himself, hoping he didn't sound too cocky. "C'mon, I've got the strength and the speed, and I'm-"

A sudden sense in his head- that strange sensation he still couldn't explain where he just knew he had to move- prompted him to duck to the side when the young woman launched a punch at his face.

"Whoa!" he yelled, parrying her next few punches and kicks. "What- did I- can you- I just- stop hitting me!"

When he jumped over the latest kick, he managed to reach down and grab the woman's outstretched arm from where she had been about to try another punch, landing on the ground in time to spin her around and grab the other arm while she was off-guard. For a moment her fists remained clenched as she looked at him, but then she nodded and relaxed her fingers.

"Good speed, but you are not trained," she said.

"Uh… yeah?" Peter replied, deciding to take a chance as he released his grip. "So… was that like a Seraph thing?"

"Seraph?"

"The Matrix?" Peter elaborated (seriously, did adults just not watch movies?). "He did that whole 'you do not truly know someone until you fight them' bit?"

"It is a good way to judge your skill," the woman said with a brief smile before she gave him a more pointed stare. "And you rely too much on your powers."

"…That's a bad thing?"

"You have power, but you lack precision," the Widow said. "You dive into that robbery and you never think about what the weapons could do until they are being used against you. You need to learn to mind your surroundings when you engage your enemies; you have the speed to do it."

"'Mind your surroundings'…" Peter repeated with a thoughtful nod. "Got it; I'll… try and keep that in mind?"

"Good," the young woman nodded at him with an approving smile before she indicated the weapons on his back. "I will take those somewhere safe; meet me at this address tomorrow evening."

"Uh… sure thing," Peter said, taking the small card the woman gave him even as he handed the weapons over to her. He knew that this might seem overly trusting to an outside view, and there was always a possibility that he was being won over by how good she looked in that tight outfit, but at the same time, if he still didn't feel that she was a threat… she had probably saved his life with that whole 'shooting the other guy's gun' thing… and she did give off good 'Widow-vibes' (if that was a thing)…

"So… see you tomorrow?" he said with a cautious nod.

"See you tomorrow, Spider-Man," the woman nodded at him in turn before she turned and resumed her old run along the rooftop, this time with his webbing-bag on his back.

"That webbing dissolves in an hour, so be quick!" Peter called after her.

"Thanks!" the young woman called back to him before she jumped over another gap and kept running, leaving Peter to look thoughtfully after her.

He knew that what he'd just done might seem naïve, but on another level… it wasn't just that he wanted to believe her, it was that he felt like he could believe her. Maybe he was just tired of feeling like Mr Stark and Happy weren't taking him seriously where this new Widow had basically invited him to help her on her current hunt for… whoever she was looking for… but the idea of helping another hero actually do something…

He briefly thought about calling Happy with a new update regarding the ATM robberies, but decided against it; if the new Widow wanted to keep her presence secret from the Accords, it was probably best if Peter didn't draw attention to it. He'd stopped a real crime, met another hero, and had a new mission; right now he just had to get home and have a rest (while finding the time to think about the new Widow's advice regarding watching his surroundings)…