10 | SAVED THE DAY

After for what seemed like hours, the truck finally stopped moving. Valdís had fallen asleep long before the truck stopped moving. Peter had quickly awakened, and instantly broke down the door to the back of the cargo bin, which caused Valdís to jolt up from her sleep. The bright fluorescent lights blinded her as she pried her eyes open. "What is this place?" Peter asked as he looked around the outside of cargo.

Valdís' vision refocused and she noticed that they weren't outside anymore. Hundreds of bins, just like the one they had gotten trapped in, were lined up in a massive warehouse. "The Damage Control deep storage vault?!" Peter exclaimed after his AI had informed him on his location.

"No! Seriously?" Peter groaned.

Valdís walked out of the cargo bin and looked around for an exit. The only door that seemed to be present was a massive concrete gate that was sealed tight. Peter instantly began to pry at the door, hoping to open it— but it was no use.

Sighing, Valdís found a place in the warehouse to sit and mess with her suit. Peter seemed to catch on and began practicing with his intricate suit. Eventually, Peter calmed down and laid down somewhere else in the warehouse. He began speaking to his AI, whom he had named Karen now, but Valdís didn't listen into much of it. For, she had been busying herself, trying to figure out what else in hell her suit could do.

Although Valdís had been trying not to listen into Peter's conversation, her ears perked up when she heard him begin talking about a girl... probably Liz, she thought.

"She's the best. She's awesome. She's... just a girl who goes to my school. And, yeah. I really wanna tell her, but it's kinda weird. You know?" Peter rambled. Valdís looked down at her feet, a bit discouraged at the fact that she would never even have a chance with Peter because he was far too attracted to someone else. He had always been obsessed with Liz.

His AI responded, but Valdís couldn't hear it. "What if she's expecting someone like Tony Stark? Like Captain America? Imagine how disappointed she'd be when she's with me?" He mumbled.

Again, the AI responded. "Thanks Karen. It's really nice to have someone to talk to..." Peter trailed off, and Valdís stopped listening.

After some long minutes, Peter got agitated. "We've gotta get out of here!" Peter announced.

Valdís shrugged, tiredly. Peter entered the cargo bin that he and Val had arrived in and began digging through the stored objects. "There's gotta be something in here we can use." Peter mumbled.

He began digging through each of the objects and found one that looked like the energy source they had analyzed in the Robotics class. "Hey, it's like the glowy thing." Peter mentioned.

His AI gave further background on the object, and Peter fell silent. "A—an explosive Chitauri energy core?" Peter stuttered nervously over his words.

He then looked up at Valdís with a worried expression. "Ned has one with him." Peter dropped the energy core on the ground.

Valdís' eyes widened, fearfully. "You mean we've been carrying around a ticking time bomb?!" Val exclaimed.

Peter picked up his phone and attempted to call Ned, but there was no service in the warehouse they were trapped in. Peter rushed out of the cargo bin and jumped onto the wall once again, hitting it. "Somebody let me out, hey, please!" Peter yelled.

"I have to override the time lock!" Peter shouted, then hurried over to the panel next to the gate and began attempting to override the time lock. Suddenly, the gate began to open.

"It worked!" Peter exclaimed, and Valdís prepared herself to sprint out of the warehouse.

Once the gate was fully opened, a truck appeared and rolled into the warehouse. Valdís let out a giggle, realizing that it wasn't Peter who had overrode the gate... it was a shipment entering the storage.

The two managed to hop on top of a truck and hitch a ride out of the warehouse. "We have to get to decathlon as fast as possible!" Peter shouted.

"Calm down, Parker. If you freak out, we won't get there on time before the bomb goes off." Val attempted to calm him.

Peter continued to frantically speak to his AI, who directed the two toward the decathlon meet. Eventually, Ned finally called Peter back. And Peter proceeded to tell Ned the glowy thing was a bomb. By that time, Peter and Valdís had made it to the Washington Monument and began running toward the tower, where the glowy thing was presumed to be.

As the two vigilantes sped to the tower, they noticed the tower beginning to crumble. Valdís sucked in a sharp breath and calmed herself, just as HYDRA was taught her when she would go on a mission. Val secured her bandana on her face and enter the monument, hastily making her way up the emergency staircase and parting ways with Peter.

"Lia, update me on the occupants in the monument!" Valdís asked as she sped up the hundreds of stairs.

The AI scanned the tower. "Occupants are in severe danger, safety systems are down, the building will collapse in 140 seconds, motion in the building is disrupting the level of deterioration and causing it to escalate." Lia explained, then quieted herself.

Valdís cocked her head. "Well, shit..." Valdís cursed as she hurried up the steps.

Suddenly, the stairs beneath her began to crumble, causing her to hurry up the tower even more. The moment she reached the top, the elevator had began to collapse. She and Peter had heroically joined the scene right on time. Peter shot his webs out and Valdís shot out her astonishingly strong grappling hook. The two suspended the elevator in the air, stopping the elevator from collapsing down 500 feet.

"We did it—" Peter began, but then fell down after the elevator. The sudden change of weight caused Valdís to fall be yanked down too.

Peter shot up his webs to the ceiling and held the elevator in place where it was. "Hey, how you doing? Don't worry about it, I got you." Peter spoke in a heavy New York accent.

"Yes, yes!" Ned shouted.

Valdís stifled her cough then spoke into her earpiece with her original broken accent so that no one could recognize her. "Anyzing zhat can get us out of here?" Valdís asked Lia.

"Deploying suspenders and boosters now." Lia told.

Out of nowhere, small boosters flew into the monument and began slowly pushing the elevator up to the top of the tower. Once it reached the top of the tower, Val pushed everyone out of the elevator, saving the day for once.