He hissed as a strong punch collided with his jaw. Ignoring his spidey sense was something that he should be used to by now, but at times it became almost deafening as he refused to obey it.

The opponent threw him down to collided their knee with his stomach. He choked back a gag as the wind was knocked out of him. Before he could catch his breath, the opponent quickly picked him up, holding him above the crowd as they let out a triumphant yell before tossing him into the electric bars. His body spasmed and twitched as pain shot through every nerve. 

The lights of the arena faded out as were quickly replaced by darkness as he jolted awake.

The ground was too soft, the smell of the room was wrong, everything was too damn quiet.

Nor shot up trying to figure out where he was. He jumped to the bedpost before launching himself into the ceiling corner as he tried to get his bearings. His breath ran ragged as he tried to force himself to calm down. None of this made sense, where was he? It had to be some kind of trick. Maybe a trap set by Mr. Thomas and May. That wouldn't surprise him.

He had to find an exit, the door was out of the question they'd be expecting that. He quickly glanced around the walls, there was a window covered in blackout curtains. Nor almost snarled at the sight of them, before jumping over to the curtains and ripping them down with his own weight throwing them across the room haphazardly. They clashed against the opposite wall with a loud bang, Nor didn't have much concern for discretion at the moment, he was a wild animal trapped in a cage. He NEEDED to get out.

He jumped to the large window, sticking to the glass as he raised both fists to bash his way through. When he contacted the surface, the glass immediately cracked, spider webbing around the focal point, but to Nor's frustration, it didn't shatter. He yelled as a result before he jumped to the opposite wall preparing himself to launch his way through the glass at full force.

"Peter!" someone called. Nor startled at the voice and quickly dropped down from the wall to hide behind the bed, he was shaking but he tried desperately to fight it. He was no use in combat if he couldn't keep a steady hand.

"Peter, it's me, Tony," They said gently.

"Tony?" Peter said weakly.

Tony slowly started to approach Peter. "You're alright, everything's fine. We're in the penthouse you're in your room. Everything is perfectly fine." He stepped around the bed with his hands up in view.

Peter relaxed from his defensively crouched position as he sat on the floor awkwardly. His feet still partly tucked under him and his knees sticking out; it probably would have been uncomfortable for anyone else. He rubbed his eyes as he tried to shake the nightmare's haze out of his head.

"Hey kiddo," Tony said gently, now crouched in front of Peter. "You coming back to us?"

Peter sniffed as he nodded, his eyes sparkling with unshed tears. "I thought-" he choked back a sob, "I thought I was back out there." He took in a deep breath trying to hold back the waterworks. He's cried enough, hasn't he?

"I know Petey," Tony sighed as he pulled Peter towards him in a hug. He settled himself next to the teen with his back leaning against the bed.

"Sorry," Peter whispered.

"Nightmares like that can be a bitch," Tony gave a small pat on the back, "You don't have anything to be sorry for... Now, what I'm really worried about is your leg. Let's take a look."

Peter nodded before stretching his leg out. It was only then that he noticed he was still wearing his suit. The boots and gloves had been taken off and he definitely wasn't wearing a mask. The suit was loosened and felt more like very fancy pajamas then what he was used to feeling in the skin-tight suit. Revealing his injured leg, he noticed it was all cleaned up, no sign of the smears of blood from earlier and it was all wrapped in a nice looking bandage instead of the webbing he substituted earlier.

Tony peeled some of the medical tape off to peek under the fabric. The injury must have looked fine since he smoothed the fabric out gently before sticking the tape back on to Peter's skin. "Looks like it checks out. I gave you some stitches after you passed out, and they looked intact from what I can tell. No additional bleeding." He patted the uninjured part of Peter's leg and Peter took that as a signal to pull away.

A small silence stretched between them.

"Anything... you want to talk about?" Tony asked a little awkwardly. He wasn't the greatest with talking and feelings, but Peter could tell he was putting in the effort to change that for Peter's sake.

Peter's gaze drifted to the floor. "It wouldn't be anything new. I was in the arena again."

Tony nodded silently, "Has the little girl been causing you any trouble lately?"

Peter cringed at the thought of the mutant girl shot in front of him... and it was all because he refused to kill her himself. So much for trying to be a hero. He shook his head, "No, but she has a habit of creeping up on me when I don't expect it."

Tony let the silence fall over them again before saying, "How about we go watch some Star Trek reruns? You're probably not going to sleep anytime soon so might as well continue out marathon, so what do you say?"

"Yeah," Peter said with a faint smile. "Sounds good."

***

"Dude, did you study for the English test?" Ned asked as he sat down at the lunch table.

Peter was resting his head on his arms with his hood pulled over his head, but it was up enough that he could look out and watch the people in the crowded lunchroom from the safety of the hood's darkness. His tray was pushed in front of him. The sloppy Joe was half-eaten and he finished his milk. Other than that, he wasn't feeling hungry.

Before he lived with Tony and Pepper, he couldn't afford missing school meals and would often eat everything on his plate, but now, especially with the high-calorie protein bars he ate every morning, if he wasn't feeling up to it, he didn't have to eat the subpar school lunch.

"No," Peter said a little bitterly. "Karen made this whole study guide for me but I didn't even get through a quarter of it because I got shot in the leg." Peter tried to stifle a yawn but failed miserably. He wasn't even going to mention how he only got two hours of sleep last night. There was no way that he could have gotten back to sleep after an episode like that. "I hope Karen isn't too disappointed," he sighed.

"You got shot?!" Ned whispered loudly.

"No need to advertise that," MJ said as she sat down across from them. She gave Ned a sharp look.

"Sorry," Ned muttered. "But seriously, are you okay?" he asked nervously. MJ was also interested in the answer.

"Yes, I'm fine, promise. It was in the calf. I'm just glad that we didn't have gym today," Peter sat up pushing his hood back only slightly making sure it hid the claw marks from the rest of the room. It wasn't that he was embarrassed by it, he just wasn't keen on attracting eyes right now.

"Wait, really?" Ned switched from worried to fascinated in an instant. "You weren't even limping today! I didn't know you can heal that fast, that is epic."

Peter just game a sly smirk. Ned was probably overestimating his healing ability. His leg throbbed with pain and every step only made it worse, but he assured Tony it was fine and he really didn't want to miss any school. Plus, it would be healed by the end of the school day, so he wasn't too worried.

After that Ned dropped the subject, MJ just narrowed her eyes at Peter, who responded with a toothy grin. She just rolled her eyes. He always appreciated her ability to just know but that she still trusted him enough to know his limits.

***

" Alright, on to item 118 of the docket, " said the tired judge.

Tony was listening in to the ongoing cases of different countries and politicians who were challenging the very poorly-written Sokovia Accords while he was sitting in his home office doing some minor maintenance on a water purifier prototype. Some of the major basic human rights violations were slowly on their way to being corrected in the document. It had been over a year since the Accords had been signed and a year since the Avengers had split because of it. But they were finally adjusting the accursed document and adding some very important amendments to it. Or at least, trying. The rate of changes were already slow but as time went on, it would soon come to a stand-still.

Tony was using his bureaucratic charm at full force, putting pressure on some politicians and smooth-talking government officials, both foreign and domestic. But frankly, he knew that he alone wasn't enough to propel the needed changes. His influence as Iron Man and Tony Stark could only go so far, and it didn't help much that a lot of people were set in their ways of hating him. Not that he could blame them of course, because he could be a bit much at times.

Still, it was beyond frustrating to think that that was the reason people refused to change an obviously flawed system.

Tony scrunched his nose, his lips almost curled in a snarl as he thought of Peter growing up in a world where fear shrouded the minds of powerful men like Thaddeus Ross. This irrational fear caused men like Ross to make such a ridiculous document that might as well have been written in crayon. Ross would have had Spider-Man behind bars if he wasn't such a small fish compared to Captain America; the manhunt for Cap was a large endeavor that no one was getting a lead on.

In a burst of anger, Tony abruptly stabbed his phone with the screwdriver he had been holding with a white-knuckled grip. The audio from the judge was cut off by FRIDAY.

> Boss, your breathing exercises. <

Tony closed his eyes as he looked away from the burst of destruction, his hand shook as he released the screwdriver that was still embedded into the phone. Luckily, he's stopped carrying his latest prototype and was using the current StarkPhone on the market, making it easily replaceable.  "Right," he said, sounding strained.

In through the nose... Hold... Out through the mouth.

Bureaucracy was frustrating, but it didn't help that he was still recovering from the effects of the Widower suit. He missed the feel of the nanoparticles curling around him, the extra edge to his senses, the near-unstoppable power, but he didn't miss how it affected his mind. "I don't need it," he told himself. "I don't need it..."

But he wanted it.

Tony shook his head. He hated that he wanted it, but at least it was destroyed. It helped against the temptation. After the shock that he had received on the back of the neck when his shrouded judgment let May Parker get the jump on him, the connection between the nanoparticles was fried. They were nothing but useless dust on the streets in New York now.

It took a moment to finish calming himself. After a while, he took the screwdriver out of the phone, tossed the destroyed tech in the recycling bin, and immediately pulled out an identical phone from the closest desk drawer. He turned it on and FRIDAY did her thing in restoring the data. The judge's voice filled the workshop again.

Where was he?

Something about the kid and Captain America...

Rogers.

That gave him an idea. Probably a terrible idea but the only one that actually had a chance of working.

Tony sighed as he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, "Friday, what are the chances I could get a pardon for Spangles and his super pals?"

> Extremely low with Secretary Ross on the opposing side. <

"Sounds about right." He took his fingers off his eyes as he blinked to clear his vision and took a moment to think. "At the risk of sounding like a supervillain, I think we've got to get rid of Ross."

> How do you propose we do that? <

"Well, he did blatantly ignore the evidence that supported Roger's claims of Barnes' innocence. I wonder what else he's conveniently forgotten to get what he wants," Tony tapped the surface of his phone bringing it to life. Unfortunately, it didn't include a holographic-projection display. Ross' file showed on the screen, with many parts heavily redacted.

> He was the one to push for the limited rights of the enhanced individuals that had signed the accords. There is even a loophole that is three lines down that suggests he could incarcerate any enhanced individual without proper cause or a signature <

"I wonder how much else he hid in those accords," Tony mumbled. "Make a list of everything he contributed in the original writing of the document. It alone won't be enough, but it'll help. I'll start gaining access to the digital stuff but I'm sure there's more than enough buried in physical archives." He already knew that he was going to need all the help he could get in digging up dirt on Ross. He slipped a hand in his pocket pulling out an old flip phone. The flip phone. The flip phone that he couldn't make himself throw away no matter how much he wanted to, the one he had to carry around on his person at all times because of some misplaced sense of loyalty that still lingered.

Was he really about to set in motion a plan to pardon the ex-Avengers?

If it meant a safer future for Peter?

In a heartbeat.

But that didn't make it any less painful.

He flipped open the phone staring at the only number in the contacts.

Steve Rogers; 678-136-7092

Tony's thumb hovered over the call button, then immediately slammed the phone shut and returned it to his pocket. He still needed to work out the full plan; the call could wait.

After retrieving the screwdriver, Tony went back to listening to the meetings and tinkering with the water purifier with the additional activity of looking over the digital files now projected on his desk hologram concerning Thaddeus Ross. He did his best work when multitasking.

The work session lasted an hour or two more, but he wasn't really keeping track, and he only stopped when he heard the ding of the penthouse elevator down the hall. The court recordings stopped a while ago and he'd been focusing on the water purifier and Ross documents.

Something in the documents caught his eyes and he vaguely registered the zipper of a bag then the refrigerator opening in the distance.

> Boss, you have an Email from Mrs. Stark concerning Peter. <

"Pull it up," he said after finishing the section he was reading, his eyes shifted to another monitor as he looked over the email. With the purifier long abandoned, he used his hand to absently scratch his jaw.

He read as Pepper explained how the police stopped by that afternoon, they were wanting to question Peter about his time as a courier and asked if the boy would be willing to testify at any court hearings.

' ... I don't like the idea of Peter getting thrown into this so soon after his trials with May, but something like this would have to be his choice. We both know that he's a hero type, and I don't think we could stop him if we tried, but even then, it might damage his trust in us if we take that away from him. It's admirable but terrifying. I worry about him too, you know? So don't think I didn't notice him limping this morning. If something happened, I want to know. Don't keep me out of the loop, we're in this together.

Your Wife , Pepper Stark.'

Tony winced as he read through to the end. He didn't really mean to keep that from her, she was already in bed by the time he got the call that Peter was injured and didn't want to stress her out that morning since Peter was already doing much better.

He stood up with his projected desktop closing down automatically at the gesture.

He'll tell her what happened tonight, though he might just keep the part where Peter dug out the bullet to himself.

Stepping out of his office, Tony walked down a hall that opened up into the living room. Through the semi-open design, he could see Peter sitting on the kitchen island with a popsicle in his mouth as he tapped his pencil rhythmically against the table, only stopping to mark something down on the paper in front of him.

Tony made his way into the kitchen and he lightly patted Peter on the shoulder as he made his way to the refrigerator. "Hey kiddo, how was school?"

Peter pulled an earbud out of one ear as he glancing over at Tony giving him a small shrug before looking back at his homework. "It was school. It's nice to have those advanced science classes finally," he looked back at his homework writing down the answer to a physics question he had been working out in the margin. "It's less boring now, not that it was boring before, I like science, it's just more..."

"Stimulating?" Tony provided as he grabbed a water from the fridge.

"Yeah, everything was too easy before," Peter nodded.

"Definitely too easy if you can design webbing in the free time of your chemistry class," Tony joked.

Peter just grinned as he lowered his head in slight embarrassment. "I had to do something with my free time, and it's not like anyone else was using the chemicals. Speaking of..." he leaned back in his chair, slightly glancing at his leg. "I have an idea for a new type of webbing. My normal webbing held up extremely well as a bandage, so if I could mix an antibiotic and anesthetic to help prevent infection and reduce pain, I'd have a sort of emergency bandage. I'd have to alter the base chemical which would reduce the tensile strength since that'll reduce the thickness and allow the wound to breathe but still contain the blood, letting it scab over and I don't need it to hold weight..." Peter trailed off as his gaze drifted with thoughts. "What if... wait, actually!" He practically dove for his bag and pulled out a well-worn composition book, turning to the next blank page somewhere in the middle.

Peter quickly started scribbling down a chemical structure that Tony recognized as a drastically altered version of the original webfluid. "If I decrease the carbon, preventing the nano-tubing from thickening and increase the glycine and other amino acids then I can- oh my god," Peter sounded shocked as an epiphany formed, "I can not only create a bandage but also excel tissue growth, as it uses the webbing as an organic scaffolding during the healing process! Holy shit, holy shit!" Peter jumped out of his chair as he gathered his things. "I need- gotta- lab!"

Tony grinned at Peter's giddiness. He adored how Peter was just as in love with science as himself. He really couldn't have asked for a better kid. Unfortunately, since Tony was now supposed to be the responsible one, he was about to say something extremely hypocritical. "Hold up, Petey," he had to grab the kid by the back of the collar to stop him from rushing off to the lab. "You gotta finish work before you can play. Write down all your ideas but you can't go to the lab until you've finished with your homework."

"What?!" Peter protested, "No way, you can't."

"Hey, you heard me. Homework, then groundbreaking developments in medical biochemistry," Tony managed a stern look despite how much he wanted to smile.

"Ugh, fiiiine," Peter let out an exaggerated sigh as he quickly hopped onto the stool again. He wrote down notes in his composition book for nearly ten minutes before starting on his homework at a breakneck speed. Tony was sitting in the living room by then. He took care of some emails from SI's R&D department while Peter worked. He made a silent note to check over his homework answers when Peter escaped to the lab. Couldn't have him losing grade points from rushed math; he'll make sure that Peter looks over any wrong answers he finds after the science high has worn off, and talking to Peter about Pepper's email could also wait. It was rare that Peter was in such an energetic mood, and he didn't want to spoil it.

***

Unsurprisingly, Peter was excellent at rushed math. There was only one wrong answer out of the 40 questions that he was assigned, and that was only because the question wasn't very clear on what it was asking for.

It was close to dinner by the time Peter came up from the lab because of his growling stomach. Tony had already started cooking a pot of garlic parmesan pasta. Peter sat down at the island in front of the school supplies he left scattered.

"You might want to look at number 38, but other than that, everything else looks good," Tony said almost absently as he stirred the sauce in the pan.

Peter frowned as he looked down at the paper, rereading the questions. He scoffed, "Well that's stupid," before listing the correct answer. "It's like they purposely want you to find the wrong number."

Tony glanced over at Peter as the teen started to clean his stuff up, he was very meticulous with where everything went. "There's still a few minutes until dinner is done," Tony commented. "But hey I was wanting to talk to you about something."

Peter practically straightened to attention as he put his full focus on Tony.

"Pepper had a visit from the police today and they wanted your help in apprehending some of the people you worked with," Tony watched Peter out of the corner of his eye looking for any kind of reaction.

"Oh?" Peter said with a light tone in his voice, it was as if he was expecting Tony to say something worse and was now pleasantly surprised.

"Pepper didn't like the idea of that stuff being brought up so soon after... everything... and I'm kinda with her on that, but we still wanted to leave the choice up to you. Either way, we're... uh- we're gonna be supportive," he said a little awkwardly. Tony internally winced at himself, and he wished he didn't have the emotional expression of a lumpy potato, but give him a break, he was trying.

"I want to do it," Peter said decidedly. "There was some fucked up shit in some of those places. I'd gladly give up what I know to take those monsters down."

Tony was surprised at the steel in Peter's tone. He hadn't thought Peter would be so for the idea. Sure, he knew Peter was going to help the police since the kid was Spider-Man after all, but he thought that there would be a little reluctance. Guess when you had to deal with a Russian fighting ring, the courier business was a piece of cake in comparison.

"Okay," Tony just nodded in response. "I'll make sure to tell Pepper about it tonight." He glanced at Peter again who was looking off in thought, but this was somehow different from his inventing thinking. His eyes were darkened and his brow furrowed as he stood perfectly still (definitely not in a position that Tony would call relaxed). If anything, he looked like he was strategizing.

"I'll need a time frame, but there's someone I want to warn about this. His name will definitely come up, but he was only the middle man, and he never did anything. He just relayed information." His serious tone faltered at his next words, "He was... nice to me," Peter looked down at the table where his hands rested.

Tony looked over at Peter with a small frown. "Who was it?" he asked gently.

"Mr. John, he was nice to me," Peter said again.

A flash of anger welled up in Tony's chest, he quickly looked back to the stove as he continued with dinner. "That man," Tony tried to keep his tone calm Luckily, he was successful, "He had you living in a closet."

"There was nowhere else!" Peter said quickly, "It was comfortable and there was enough room to sleep in. I had a bed and there was a place to put my stuff!" he defended.

"He also had you cleaning the apartment," the anger seeped into Tony's tone this time.

"I did that voluntarily... Wait, how'd you know?" Peter asked looking up at the man.

"I could see your fingerprints on the cabinet and cleaning supplies when I was there looking for you," Tony said plainly as he finished preparing dinner.

"Oh... Well, he didn't make me do anything. He just told me what my jobs were and he was nice. He just got caught up with bad people," Peter said quietly.

Tony sighed quietly as he turned to face Peter, he leaned back against the countertop. "Alright, I'll figure out how long we have. If we can get him to agree to some kind of settlement, we can get him into protective custody, maybe even with some witness protection."

"Thank you," Peter smiled at him gratefully.

"Anything for you, kid," Tony said reaching a hand over to Peter's shoulder giving it a quick reassuring squeeze.

It wasn't long after that when Pepper got home.

She greeted them as she passed through the living room to get to her bedroom to drop her stuff off and change out of her heels. Once they all settled down at the kitchen table they ate their meal together. Pepper and Tony talked about SI and the R&D department until moving on to less business-oriented conversations. Peter usually stayed quiet, at least until they started to verbally pull him into the conversation, which always happened eventually. It's not that Peter minded, he was just getting used to the fact that he can participate in fast-paced conversations, something he couldn't do before when he had to type his replies down.

"So Peter, how did that poetry test go?" Pepper asked.

"I.. um, probably could have done better. I think I passed, but I won't know until Friday," Peter looked down at his pasta, he was almost done but pushed the remaining food around on his plate just so he could have something to do.

"Hey, passing's good," Tony provided. 

"Did anything else interesting happen during your day?" Pepper asked.

Peter just shrugged, "Not really. Just school, homework, and I'm going out later to patrol and I'll be working with Karen to make a new training program."

"What about decathlon?" Tony asked.

"Decided not to join this year, just wanted to focus on Spider-Man stuff. I just have the required classes," Peter said casually.

Pepper gave Tony a quick glance, the look in her eye suggested there was a conversation to be had later.

The meal ended and Peter was the first to get up, only to immediately started doing the dishes. Despite Pepper saying that she could handle it, the teen insisted. The moment the dishwasher had started, Peter rushed to get suited up and was out the window before the Stark parents could say another word.

Pepper let out a loud sigh, as she wiped down the stovetop.

"Honey, I'm not a mind reader," Tony said fondly as he walked over to kiss her cheek.

She looked back at him perplexed, "Do you really not see the problem?"

"That sounds like a trick question."

"I'm serious Tony," Pepper said crossing her arms leaning back against the counter.

"So am I," Tony replied.

"Haven't you notice that Peter only does school and the Spider-Man thing?" she said carefully, and Tony had a feeling that this was an iceberg question. A seemingly innocent statement but a larger conversation hiding just under the surface.

"So he's got a hobby," Tony half-heartedly defended, "We've talked about this, we can't take Spider-Man away from him without him doing it behind our backs."

"No, that's not what I mean," Pepper was silent for a moment as she put her thoughts into words. "We both know this hero thing his much more than a hobby, and you know that better than anyone, but we can't let this be the only thing that consumes his time. "

"He's got school," Tony provided, "His friends."

"School is a requirement and he's doing the minimum for that, only focusing on academics, and he barely invites any of his friends over."

"Ned was over here yesterday, he had that computer project," Tony said trying to think of when the last time Ned came over. That wasn't the first, was it? Peter talks about his friends all the time but was that really the first time he invited the other kid over?

"I really think that he was only working on that because you asked him to. I'm not saying he didn't enjoy it, I'm just saying that Peter..." She paused for a moment but continued. "I think Peter is limiting himself. We said that we would give him space, especially at first, but I'm afraid if we don't start pushing him to try other things, he might forget that he's a teenager. That he can have other hobbies, find out what he likes, what he doesn't - just to have fun and not focus so much on the hero thing."

"He doesn't do the hero thing all the time," Tony tried.

Pepper just gave him a Look ™ . "Friday, how much of the day does Peter dedicate to patrols?"

> On average, over 45% of his day is spent on patrols or working on Spider-Man related activities < The AI replied.

"45% Tony, that's over ten hours a day doing Spider stuff," Pepper sighed. "Seven hours of school activities, five hours of sleep, two hours of everything in between, and that's it, that's what he does every day. Weekends are a little better; he worked in the lab on the computer project, but I think he'll just start going out more now that that's done."

Tony blinked, Pepper was right, and now he felt horrible for not even noticing. "Then what do we do, Pep? Because, hell, I didn't even notice that! God, what kind of parent does that make me?" Tony started to rub his eyes. Pepper moved over to him to rap her arms over his shoulders.

"That's why there's two of us," she said with a small smile. "He still has trouble talking to me, so you'll have to bring it up, but I really think we should encourage him to do more activities. Get an actual hobby that he would like, something to put his time toward that's purely for his own enjoyment," she worried her bottom lip, "I don't think he realizes how much freedom he has now."

"Alright," Tony nodded, "When he gets back tonight, I'll talk to him."

"Good," Pepper nodded, a smile returning to her face. She pulled away and started looking at her phone, "Oh, and did you talk to him about the police stopping by?"

"Yeah, he was surprisingly excited to help them out."

"I'll make sure to let the police know," she said with a short nod. "Now, why don't you tell me what exactly happened last night?"

"Um, funny story..." Tony began sheepishly.

***

> Augmented Reality Training activated. Loading training sequence Cityscape:Maneuvers. < Karen said as Peter's mask projected a set path and instructions onto his HUD.

"I can't believe I didn't think of this before," Peter grinned to himself as he took off down the path.

After hours of analyzing his movements and scanning the city to calibrate the augmented reality training sequence, he was finally ready to actually start training. He wanted Spider-Man to be as fast and as efficient as possible when traveling through the city. Something like that could mean the difference between life or death for the victims of crime. He couldn't let himself be the cause of something like that, especially if he could make sure that was never a problem.

Oddly enough, he's been running on pure instinct up until this moment. Never had he considered a dedicated training regime, but just think of how formidable Spider-Man will become with it.

Using the augmented reality goggles he started to develop during the internship, it was easy to modify the suit's mask to work the program with the necessary hardware additions. Sure he was going to make games for the AR goggles but he never really had a solid purpose for them, but they were just something he's always wanted to make. Who knew they would be so perfect for training exercises?

After sliding under an air duct and using a back handspring to propel him onto the next roof, he landed at the corner of the building where a large X marked the finish line.

> 2 minutes 28 seconds to cross 10 blocks. Augmented reality projection remained stable and was sufficient in scanning and recognizing paths. Would you like to continue training? < Karen asked.

"Yes, and keep tabs on police scanners and audio in the surrounding area, it would be ideal to incorporate crime-fighting into the training route if the circumstances permit it," Peter paused a moment. "Actually, make that a new program preset. Copy Cityscape:Maneuvers, rename new ART file to Cityscape:Traversing RL Crime. Increase the area of effect by three? No - five hundred percent. Incorporate a patrol pattern into the sequence. Lower complexity to compensate for the wider area, can't overwhelm the pathfinder. Also, create three more presets. ART files Cityscape:Speed, Cityscape:Efficiency, and Cityscape:Precision but leave them blank for now. I'll need to fine-tune those ones later."

> Gotcha! One moment please, < Karen replied cheerfully.

"Thank you," Peter hummed. He was growing excited about this training program; there were so many possibilities with it!

> All done! <

"Awesome," Peter stood up from his crouching position and looked down over the street below as he looked at 'START!', which was spelt in big green blocky letters floating in front of him. Once he jumped into the projection it would begin the training session. "Oh, another thing," Peter said as he launched through the letters. He shot his webbing out to slingshot himself onto the next building to follow the projected path.

> Yes, Peter? <

"Call Ned, then I need you to isolate the footage from last night," his voice sounded strained as he lept between rooftops. "Start from the moment I landed on the bank roof and stop just after I was trapped in the vault... I don't want him to see the part with the police." He couldn't subject Ned to something like that. When he finished speaking, he could hear the dial tone in his earpiece.

"Yo, what's up Peter?" Ned answered.

"Hey Ned," Peter greeted, "You busy right now?"

"Just playing Injustice 2. Dude this thing is so awesome, the lighting is just epic, and the new arenas are amazing! Have you seen Swamp Thing's character? I didn't even know he had wings! So awesome. Oh! They also added Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, and there's a Batwoman DLC skin!" Ned rambled.

"Actually, I was hoping for my guy in the chair right now," Peter asked hesitantly, he heard the background noise from Ned's game go silent only to be replaced by the wheels of a chair moving and they typing on a keyboard.

"What do you need, Pete?" Ned asked excitedly.

"I'm sending you a video recording from last night, there was a bank robbery and some pretty weird stuff was going on. I've watched it a thousand times but I feel like I'm missing something." Peter was almost panting by the time he finally rolled to a stop at the training program's checkpoint, but his spider endurance kept his breathing even.

"Whoa, is this like another investigation? Do you think it's another villain?" Ned asked.

"Don't know about the villain thing, but yeah, I guess this is another investigation," Peter sat down on the water tower he found himself on as he put the training program on pause.

"You know what we should totally do? Set up a file system for all the cases we investigate. Keep things organized and it'll look so cool with our own system. I can set up an encrypted network to store it on so we can access it from anywhere, but I'll need to piggyback on a Stark server if we want it to be fast. Think we can do that?" Peter could hear the tapping of keys on the other end of the line.

"Yeah, I don't think Tony would mind. I'll have Karen send you the info to get that started, though, she might have to talk to FRIDAY since she's the one with the access to that stuff. I think just a password for it will work for now, and if we want to up the security, we can later," Peter hadn't even thought of an actual file system. He never even imagined Spider-Man as some kind of detective, but thinking now, Ned was definitely right, they had to put all that information somewhere.

"I got one," Ned said immediately.

"What, a password?"

"Yup. How about 'World's Finest'? Capital W and F, apostrophe S, and a space between the two words," Ned paused his typing.

Peter laughed fondly, "You must be really into DC right now."

Peter could practically hear the shrug as Ned replied, "Hey, you know how it is when you get back into a fandom. DC comics is totally my jam right now."

"You'd think they'd start losing popularity with the rise of real superheroes," Peter commented.

"I know right? Weird how they actually got more popular."

A notification flashed on Peter's HUD. "Hey, gotta go Ned. There's a mugging I gotta handle."

"Alright, I look over that footage and work on the file system. See ya later!" The line clicked and Peter launched into the air to hurry towards the crime in progress.