"Alright, ready for this?"
"I'm ready Mil- Spider-Man!" The 15 year old standing next to Miles pressed her hands to her mouth and gasped. "I am so, so sorry!" she gasped. "I didn't-"
"Its fine," Miles assured her. "It happens."
"It does?"
"More than you'd realize." He reached over and patted her hand. "Listen… its going to be alright. You got this, Kamala. You did well with the training." And she had. She had gotten some of the best scores on the Aptitude Tests, beating out even some of the X-Men. "You will make mistakes. You'll mess up. Everyone does. Every hero screws up at some point. But the difference between those that don't make it doing this and the ones that become legends is that the legends pick themselves up, fix their mistakes when they can, don't dwell on the ones they can't, and learn from them all."
Kamala Khan, otherwise known as Ms. Marvel, gave a shaking head bob, a smile forming on her lips. "Alright… let's do this."
With that Miles fired off a webline, Kamala stretching out her arms to grab onto flag poles and the sides of buildings so she could keep up.
"Lookout, this is Spider-Man. Ms. Marvel and I are beginning our first patrol."
"Acknowledged." There was a pause. "Okay, that's out of the way… give'em hell, Bro."
"Will do."
Miles shook his head as he began to search for some crime. It didn't matter that he'd lived every moment of it… he still found himself marveling at his life and how he'd ended up in the position he was in now. The fact that somehow he'd ended up one of the most seasoned heroes on his world… and he wasn't even 18 yet!
His world had never had that many adult heroes. Spider-Man, the original one. The Fantastic Four. The X-Men though they hadn't been made public. Daredevil though he stuck to New Jersey, dealing with The Rose. A few random ones that were, according to his research, known in their own cities but otherwise not making many waves. So when Miles had ended up playing a lead role in saving the world from the Spot he had suddenly found himself very much in demand… and more so when more and more heroes emerged from the woodwork.
Young heroes.
Jamie Rogers had been caught in a Vita Ray attack by some enemies of Amadeus which had caused the genetic mutations within his DNA to active, giving him enhanced abilities. It had taken the Avengers a few weeks to find out that Jamie's grandpa had been experimented on back during WWII to try and give him super powers, only for it to fail. But it the was Vita Rays that had finally caused those mutations, passed down from father to son to son to son, to activate.
Thrudr Thorsdotter had arrived from Asgard, sent there by her parents after she had gotten in a fight with her cousin Hela, in order to learn humility. She had caused a lot of disasters during her first few months on Earth to the point that Miles had believed she was some new villain. It was only when Valeria had finally realized that she was speaking ancient Norse, what from what few words she had cried out, that they had been able to talk with her and help her realize just what she was doing and how others saw it.
The X-Men. That… that was an interesting one. Miles still didn't quite know what had happened with them and even after Chris Chase had explained it to him five times he still didn't quite understand the, in Chris' words, 'timey wimey' stuff that had occurred.
"Man," he had complained, "I only saw the British remake of Doctor Who and that stinked."
"The… what now?"
"You know… they did about 25 seasons in America, it got canceled, Britian tried to bring it back, didn't work? Ganke keeps telling me to try out the reboot with Nicolas Cage but-"
Chris had grabbed a bunch of DVDs of the show and left for a month. When he'd returned he's said Cassie and Nathaniel had been screaming so loud his ears still hurt. For some reason that delighted him to no end.
But the X-Men had gotten caught up dealing with some weird Sentinel thing, whatever that was, from the future named Nimrod (which sounded really stupid) who had then had his plans interfered with by someone named Mister Sinister (better name) and the end result had been their timelines being completely rewritten. Where before they had been a group of adults hiding out amongst humanity, quietly trying to help… now they were anywhere from 3 years old to 14. They had some basic memories of who they had been but they were slowly fading away, overwhelmed by their hormones. The result was that they wanted to be heroes… but didn't know HOW to be heroes.
It had been their appearance, and the fact that even Franklin and Valeria's parents had spent days bickering and debating what to do, which had led Miles to sucking it up and stepping forward to try and help them out. Which had, after he'd managed to somehow do a good job of it (something he would be forever shocked about considering his OWN training had basically boiled down to a disillusioned Spider-Man teaching him how to websling and then getting beaten up), led to the older heroes deciding that he and the Avengers should handle the training of their younger peers.
Thus… the Avengers Initiative.
"Spider-Man, this is Cyclops. Storm and I just spotted someone racing down Rosevelt. Near 12th." There was pause. "Storm says the car clearly had a green dragon painted on the side."
"The Fin Fang Fooms," Miles said with a roll of his eyes. "Wonderful."
"Storm can try and pursue-"
"Its your day off and its not an emergency, Cyclops," Miles stated. "And I know you got tickets for the Ice Capades. Go enjoy your date."
"You'll let us know-"
"I will but go have fun!" Miles chided, using his best "Dad" voice. It was a mix of his own Father's voice, Chris' voice, and Ben Grimm's good natured grumbles. It was weird to think that at 17 he was basically the 'dad' to so many heroes but…
It was something the Council of Mary Janes had been very firm about when he'd come to them about the Avenger Initiative: make sure heroes got a chance to be people. Take actual days off. Be able to be there for their loved ones. Yes yes, if some massive world ending disaster occurred all hands on deck but there were enough heroes now that you didn't need twenty heroes all skipping out on school just to deal with it.
'Besides,' he thought, 'we've worked hard to get Scott to work up the guts to ask Ororo out and we worked even harder to get her say yes.' The two clearly liked each other but the lingering memories of their altered timeline, faded to near nothingness as they were, had caused them both to dance around each other for a month. Miles and Doreen had quietly worked to get the two to finally admit they liked each other and the Fin Fang Fooms were NOT going to ruin their date!
"Lookout, you get that?"
"I did," he told him. "Alerting PDNY that you are in pursue. Officers Castle and Grant are currently moving to assist."
"Understood," Miles said as he shifted to take a shortcut that would get him closer to Rosevelt. "Ms. Marvel, what do you know about the Fin Fang Fooms?"
"Street gang," she said, and Miles was thankful for the comm units that all the Avengers, be they full time, part time, or trainers, wore at all times. Kamala's voice was crystal clear in his ear, the winds that were whipping around him not bothering him in the slightest. "Gun runners mostly. Not into the Drug Trade or Prostitution."
"Yeah, but they've been branching into laundering stolen goods and moving product, which is making them an even bigger problem than when they were just peddling guns. But don't forget that they are willing to use those guns they have… they are only able to maintain their rep by protecting what they have been asked to smuggle and move. You know what that means?"
"They will fight back."
"They will fight back." Miles glanced at her. "Are you okay with-"
"Yes," Kamala said. "I am."
"Alright there. But if it gets too bad… get out of there. No shame if things get too hot for you."
"It won't," she assured him.
'It will,' he silently thought, knowing she wouldn't like it. She needed to believe that she was strong and powerful and could take on the world… even though Miles knew that she would be scared out of her mind.
They leapt over a building and Miles spotted the Fin Fang Fooms' descriptive black car with a green dragon curling around it driving through traffic, cutting through slow moving cars like the entire thing was covered in butter. A police car was giving chase but had to be more careful so they didn't accidentally strike a pedestrian or a vehicle, allowing the gang members a greater chance to get away.
But Miles wasn't going to let them slip away from him.
He dove down, feeling the wind rip around him, while Ms. Marvel made her legs suddenly grow so that for her the fall was just her taking a large step. She began to nimbly run around the cars while Miles fired off another webline, rocketing past trucks and taxis.
"GUN!" he shouted as one of the Fin Fang Fooms leaned out of the window, aiming a Glock right at him. Miles twisted out of the way, glancing back briefly to see that that Kamala had caused her limbs to become as thin as sheets of paper, making her a near impossible target to hit. While her suit did have the special unstable molecules Mr. Fantastic had made, which would give some protection from gunfire, Miles could attest that a bullet could still mess someone up. After all, as his father reminded him often, people could die from the impact of a bullet, even wearing a vest.
Landing on a car Miles took aim and fired off some webbing, striking the gun and webbing up its barrel. He then fired another shot just before the gang member ducked back into the car, locking the gun to the man's hand.
'Won't be able to swap for another one any time soon,' he thought. 'Now we need to stop that car… okay, think Miles…' he began to look around, trying to spot something he could use to block off the road. The problem was that there weren't any billboards that were low enough for him to safely grab onto and fling down; last thing he wanted to do was hit someone else.
"Spider-Man!" Kamala called out. "I have an idea how to stop the car!" She moved to be running next to him. "At the next intersection, I'm going to shrink myself down to normal size… can you fling me forward, to get in front of them?"
"Yeah," he said. "You sure?"
"We have to stop this before they hurt someone. I'm sure."
"Alright," Miles said and he made a half hearted attempt to fire a webline at the car, making them think he was still focused on them and not plotting with Kamala. The moment they passed the intersection he fired a webline at Kamala, latching onto her before giving her a hard throw.
The young teen flew through the air, going right over the car. She twisted and then suddenly she shot her hands down, swelling her arms and stopping herself so she was sitting in the middle of the road. Miles no longer feared when she did that, as Kamala had explained that she had learned how to thicken the callouses on her skin to make them able to withstand the sudden friction and heat.
But it still put her right in front of a speeding vehicle.
Before Miles could even cry out Kamala proved she'd meant to do that, enlarging her feet to nearly 30 feet tall and slamming her boots together.
The wall of fabric and soles stopped the car dead, taking out the entire front with a horrific crunch. Before the gang members could even think about getting out of the car Miles fired webbing at the doors and windows, wrapping the entire thing up nice and tight, keeping them locked inside.
"Gonna need to send in some knock out gas to get them out safely," he murmured as he landed on the street, "but that should do it. You okay, Ms. Marvel?"
"Yeah, should be," she said. "Ever step on a Lego? That's what it kinda feels like?"
"Well, you might want to shrink back to normal… unless you want to end up on certain fetish sites."
Kamala let out a yelp at that and quickly reverted her feet to normal, quickly standing up and looking around as if she expected a bunch of porn stars to step out and ask for her number. But when none came she beamed as she looked to Miles. "That was amazing!"
"You did real good," he assured her. "Real good."
"Thanks!" she said and while she was remaining still her tone was making him think of a puppy bouncing up and down, ready to begin a new game. "I suddenly remembered Applejack doing that in this My Little Pony Fanfic, The Amazing Winged-Pegasus Search."
"The one where everyone is trans?" Miles asked.
"YES!" Kamala squealed. "I love it so much! I know it's a parody of that… other… fic, but-" She took a breath, realizing that she had let her fangirling get a bit out of control. "So what's next? Sure there are more of the Fin Fang Fooms around." She prepared to leap off… only for Miles to grab her wrist.
"The fun part," he said dryly as Officer Castle pulled his shop up and stepped out. "Frank."
"Spider-Man," the officer said with a nod. "And this your newest trainee?"
"Ms. Marvel," he said. "Provi-License and all."
"Well, I trust you," he said gruffly, "but still need to run it, you understand? Get with Grant while I do that."
"W-what is going on?" Kamala asked, befuddled.
"Paperwork," Miles said and when she shot him a startled look he shrugged. "Hey, this isn't the wild west. We have to do things right and by the book."
"The fanfics never mentioned paperwork…"
"This isn't a fanfic," Miles said, though he did get the oddest feeling that Chris was suddenly looking up and frowning.
Huh. That was weird.
~MC~MC~MC~
Several hours later Miles had seen Kamala off, the last thing they'd gone over being her cover story. Her parents knew what she was doing (one of the many requirements the Avengers Initiative had… they weren't going to make the same mistakes other Earths had done) but that didn't mean the world had to know Kamala was Ms. Marvel. As such the cover story was that she was doing an internship with one of several companies that was working with Miles' group and they had gone over what she would have been doing that day if she had had a boring office job.
That left Miles leaving Potts Tech and heading on home himself. Gone were the days of Miles changing in alleyways or in his dorm. Now there were about 15 different locker rooms throughout the city he could duck into for a quick change. There was talk when the Time Out was over with that perhaps they could better use the multiverse for that but right now Miles wanted to keep as much as he could on his earth as he could.
Heading towards Queens Miles briefly thought of his family's old apartment. It had been nearly 18 months since they'd moved and it still felt so very odd not to head that direction but the arrangement they had now was so much better.
"I'm home," he said, not yelling but also making his voice loud enough to be heard.
"Hey baby," his mom said as she walked in from the kitchen, a towel in her hands. "How was training?"
"Good. Real good. I think she's going to do real well." He walked into the living room. "Hi Aunt May."
Miles and his parents had spent… well, frankly weeks… discussing everything related to him being Spider-Man after the battle with the Spot. It had sometimes been handled like mature adults and sometimes all of them had been like toddlers throwing fits. In the end Aunt May had been the one to help smooth things over, being able to both understand things from Miles' point of view and get across the emotions his parents were feeling but couldn't quite get into words.
She had also suggested, when they'd decided to move, that they simply move in with her.
"That girl is going to be popular," Aunt May said with a shake of her head. "You'll need to watch out for that… make sure she doesn't get a big head. We don't need her deciding to make her boobs grow in the middle of a fight just to get views."
"Seriously?" Miles said, raising an eyebrow. "That was your first thought?"
"It's a good one!" Miles' mother called out from the kitchen. "Young girls don't take time to think about their reputations when they are that age and then suddenly discover they don't have good ones when they want to be respectable."
"Kamala won't do that," Miles assured them.
"Oh! Someone has it bad," Aunt May teased as she got up and moved towards the kitchen, Miles following.
"I am not interested in Kamala," Miles said fiercely.
"Of course you aren't," Aunt May said as she moved to help Rio put the finishing touches on dinner; with his mother taking a leave of absence from nursing she had been spending more time in the kitchen. In turn Aunt May had been excited to learn how to make new dishes, seeing it as a challenge. "Not saying that. I mean you have it bad."
"That still sounds like you are saying I want to date Kamala."
"No," Aunt May said.
"Then what-"
"She means," his dad said as he stepped in from the mud room, "that you are protective of your trainee."
"Nothing wrong with it," Aunt May said.
"Not in the slightest," his father echoed. "Just… don't let yourself be blinded by how much you care for your student that you don't see her flaws."
"Or see them too much," his mom chimed in. "That can happen too."
"You know, back when I was hiding all this from you I didn't have to worry about being ganged up on."
All three adults shot him dark looks.
"Sorry, sorry!" he said quickly, holding out his hands.
"Mmmmuph! Mmmmmfff!"
Miles at once was at the fridge, grabbing a bottle before he snagged a bag of veggie puffs.
"I got her!" he called out.
"I swear," he heard his mother mutter, "sometimes he acts like he's the parent and we're her siblings."
Miles didn't hear the response to that as he was already racing up the stairs, bursting into the room right next to his and grinning as he set down the snacks.
"Mmmm-mmm-mmm-eeeeeeee!"
He chuckled as he walked over to the crib, lifting up the 1 year old that was trying to find a way to escape. "Hey Billie!" he cooed as he settled her on his hip.
Billie Morales. His baby sister. It had turned out that his mother was a month pregnant during the events of the Spot's attack, which made Miles even more thankful his parents had been kept far away from the loon. When she had been born Miles had fallen utterly in love with her, swearing to do all he could to be the best big brother ever. Everyone teased him that he acted more like her dad than her brother but he couldn't help it!
"First off," he told her, "you are adorable." He opened up the poofs and she began to happily cram them in her mouth, giggling as he snagged her bottle and began to walk her around the second story. Billie loved to go for walks after her nap. "I mean, who couldn't help but love you when you are almost illegally cute?"
"Swah!" Billie proclaimed with a mouth full of poofs.
"And second… I have weekly video calls with Chris. That rubs off, you know." Billie perked up at the mention of Chris Chase but then settled down; Miles had held her during several of the video chats and Billie had gotten to know him and several other of the multiverse spiders that made sure everything was going well in his universe. "Of course I could have done with him not telling mom and dad all the ways you'd most likely get powers."
Chris was utterly convinced that Billie was destined to have superpowers. He was also convinced that either through time travel, magic, interdimensional bullshit, or some science experiment she was destined to not grow up normal and be Miles' age in a year or two. He didn't WANT that to happen, of course, and had gotten several different multiverse spiders to keep track of the situation, but his laundry list of things for Miles and his family to watch out for had left his parents a bit stressed out.
"I get that things can get weird in our lives, Billie. I really get it. Heck, this last month has proven it! But do us all a favor and age like a normal kid, would you?"
His sister merely gurgled at that.
"This will be easier when you can talk," Miles teased as he came down stairs, Billie now happily attacking her bottle like it was foe that needed to be bested.
Honestly it was just nice to have things be calm, with him only having to deal with the Fin Fang Fooms and the like. Three months ago Dr. Octavius had been framed for murder and Miles had needed to work with her to prove it was her demented sister that had done the deeds. He was still in an awkward situation with the villainess, as half the time she talked about him paying for ruining her… only to then ask if he wanted to help her with her latest project. The other half of the time she was fussing over him like she was one of his many Aunties. At least she was limiting herself to just taking on Alchemax.
Two months ago had begun what Otto and the Superior Six had warned him would be his 'Clone Saga'. Thanks to the X-Men timey wimey bullshit the Jackal and Mister Sinister had ended up working together to make a deranged AI to aid them… and it had promptly killed them both and decided to do things itself. The Assessor, as it called itself, had begun collecting DNA from random people and using it to make clones and it had all come to a head two months ago when Miles had discovered three clones of himself with vastly different powers and fragmented minds. He had sadly only been able to get Shift to see the light and fight against his creator, losing the other two, but thanks to the warnings from the Multiverse Spiders and Otto bending the rules to get him the serum needed to stabilize clones the "Clone Saga" had only lasted about 2 weeks.
Shift, unlike many of the other clones, didn't have Miles' memories and thus he had decided to set him up to have a fresh start. Davis Morales was currently down in Florida, adopted by Miles' Aunt Pepa, and was making a name for himself as a hero in his own right.
'Of course… I couldn't have done it without-'
The doorbell rang and Miles called out, "I got it!" before hurrying over, opening it up. "Hey Mary Jane."
"Hi Miles," Mary Jane said as she pushed the wheelchair into the house. "Smells good."
"Yeah, Aunt May has done well this time."
"She does well every time," the occupant of the wheelchair, who had only returned a month ago, said with a grin. "Hey Billie! You see that Spider-Man and his newest student saved the day?"
Miles smiled and handed his sister over to the newly resurrected Peter A. Parker.