[ Queens ]

—No, the world didn't get over the fact that Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

Even after two months, nothing has changed. The whole world wouldn't stop talking about Peter Parker. It was the same problem day after day. School kept on pressuring—both grades and the spotlight. They wouldn't stop coming at Peter. There was still no help from either S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers. It wasn't surprising. There was too much national and worldwide coverage on this case—Peter Parker was a murderer.

Still, he was grateful that he was able to stay in his apartment. Aunt May had been coming now and then to greet him. Even Matthew Murdock came to get some information from him; maybe bring in some Thai food from the restaurant across the street. MJ and Ned were also coming in to spend some time with him.

But besides that, it was the same day over and over again. There was only one place he could go to—school. Anything else, the guards outside the door were protocoled to handle. It was boring for most of the time.

So days like these, he was just moping around the apartment, looking for something to do.

He had already eaten dinner; courtesy of the guards bringing him take-out. There was nothing else to do but check his phone.

Peter Parker continues to avoid media. When will he admit to Mysterio murder?

Of course, that was the first thing to pop up on his feed.

Rubbing the dirt in his eye, he placed his phone down and scanned the room. It was so... empty. There was no one to talk to or be with. If he could compare it to somewhere, it was he was in his own luxury prison. He had the protection of a criminal but the vanities of a teenage kid.

But who cared about his living conditions. He needed something to actually do.

That was when he spotted a certain pair of glasses lying down on the table. He promised to only use it when necessary; but how could you see this as not necessary? He placed the glasses on and activated it, "E.D.I.T.H."

"Hello, Peter. How may I assist you today?" The A.I's protocols were as sharp as ever.

"I'm sorry for bothering you again, E.D.I.T.H."

"It's okay, as I am only an A.I; I do not feel such emotion or have the need to indulge in such frivolous matters."

"That's... just sad." He shook his head and got into the matter of things. "Is it okay if you tap into the police department's communications? I want to hear everything going on around the area."

"Alright, accessing all available police telecommunications in Queens."

All of a sudden, jazz music began playing out of the glasses. It was so loud that you could have heard it from a floor down. Peter removed the glasses and put it near his mouth.

"E.D.I.T.H, what are you doing?!" He tried his best to keep his voice down.

"You said to play all available police telecommunications in your area, did you not?"

"Parker! What's going on?!" The guard on the door indulged into the hideous noise.

"Nothing! I just accidentally turned on the TV!" When Peter ordered E.D.I.T.H. to stop again, they listened. He laid back on the couch, catching his breath. "Let's try that again. I want you to listen to all calls regarding crime in the area. It doesn't matter if it's real or just a hunch, I want to hear everything."

"Tapping into Queens' police telecommunications."

In a matter of seconds, Peter began hearing everything that the police were receiving in Queens in a much more refined and silent volume. There were calls about complaints and too much noise. It was the typical shift that every cop would have to endure.

But there was something that caught his ear. It was only a few blocks from the apartment. It wasn't the usual 9-5 that he heard every now and then he put the glasses on.

"Calling officers to the scene, there seems to be a electricity leak in the power supply in Forest Hill. Passerby reported seeing someone in all black entering the facility. It might be something; it might be not. If any off—"

Peter was gritting his teeth. It could be dangerous—but if he didn't do anything, this would be on him. He remembered what he had said before: "When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you..."

He was annoyed by himself. He knew that he shouldn't be going out of his apartment in the middle of the evening to check out a hunch; Murdock would kill him if he did it. Still, there might be cops who are in danger of getting in the crossfire.

As Peter sat on his couch, he decided that he was who he was—Spider-Man.

Shooting a web onto an object under his bed and pulling it, his chest came into view. It had the black and red suit he had been wearing for the past four months now. He had brought it back into the apartment about a month ago after feeling bad for it sitting on the other rooftop—camouflaged.

He slid into the suit—which was still a perfect fit—and opened the living room window. He had found a way to connect E.D.I.T.H. into his suit's lenses so it was much more convenient. Now that he was ready, he placed the high-tech glasses on the oval table.

Peter aimed his lenses onto the ankle monitor that was attached onto him, "E.D.I.T.H, I need you to deactivate the sensor."

"Sensor deactivated. Detaching on local end... complete."

—And just like that, the monitor came off.

"Also, project my voice into the glasses; but only when I say so, got it?"

"Understood, Peter. Equipping voice manifest. All activated."

"Woo~" Peter stretched his entire body before setting up a jump point from his living room floor. "Activate camouflage on my go..."

He began running and jumped perfectly out of the window. As the snipers caught a whiff of air coming out of the apartment, Peter commanded.

"Go!"

All the snipers in the area aimed at Peter's window, checking the cause of the sound. After a while, they realized it was nothing.

—But for Peter, he was already on the way to check out the potential blackout that might occur.

Carefully, he made it to the location of the commotion. Utilising the shadows, he managed to not gain any attention from the public eye.

The place that was called for was an alleyway that had a gate leading to a generator building—it was essentially one of the sources of electricity in Queens. One mishap and the entire connection might collapse.

Peter, who was already feeling enthusiastic, crawled along the wall to scout the area. "Hope it's a bad guy, hope it's a bad guy..."

When he saw that there was a man with a pair of cutters at hand, Peter smiled.

"Bingo!" He perched on top of a broken wall light—flashing on and off—and was about to stop him until he heard something in his earpiece.

"Parker! You all right in there?" The voice of the guard went into his ear.

"E.D.I.T.H—"

E.D.I.T.H. interrupted. "Voice linked. You may begin speaking, Peter."

"Yeah?!" Peter raised his voice to answer the guard. He began scaling down, getting to the level of the robber. "I'm watching a horror movie..."

"Oh..." The guard informed the others. "Alright, didn't mean to bother you."

Peter got to the ground and webbed the assailant's hand. He grunted, not believing that the Spider-Man was actually there. Being the superhero he is, Peter had to say something.

"Hello mister, you're arrested!" Peter happily told him.

"What was that, Parker?"

"What the he—" Peter looked around and realized. "E.D.I.T.H..." He spoke in a low voice, "my voice is still connected?!"

"Yes, Peter. You're voice is still connected. Would you like me to disconnect?"

"YES!"

The guard knocked again. "Parker? Is someone in there with you?"

"NO! I'M JUST... roleplaying?"

"..."

He heard the footsteps of the guard fade away. The face of the criminal was also confused at what Peter was expressing at that moment.

"Don't ask," Peter pressed his two fingers on the floor while his other hand reached behind his back—his signature pose. "Now..."

He leaped towards the criminal. Hanging off the wall, he began a conversation with the struggling criminal.

"So, what are you doing here, sir?"

"Yo—you're Peter Parker, aren't you?"

"Dude..." Peter sighed, "Tha—that wasn't the question. Why are you trying to break into the generators? Plan on stealing something while there's a blackout?"

"HELP! IT'S SPID—"

Peter shot a web onto his mouth, stopping him from talking. He tilted his head, the eyes fully opened, staring at him.

"You are one—"

The sound of a police siren wailed off. Peter backed up to the side of the criminal, just enough for him to grab the cutter with his other hand and swing it towards Peter. He jumped up vertically, dodging the attack. He tried to shoot webs, but he missed multiple times while making a lot of noise. Before he could attack again, a large flashlight was pointed at the both of them.

There was a female police officer staring at the both of them. She was of Japanese descent and nearly the same height as Peter. She looked fairly young, but had a poise of a veteran. Immediately, she aimed her gun at the man who wasn't tied up—Spider-Man.

—But she didn't say anything.

She simply stared.

Peter muttered, "Please..."

"WATANABE! You got anything?!" The woman's companion was calling as he swept the street. "Watanabe?"

"Ye—yeah!" She answered, lowering the gun and onto the criminal. "Someone's getting arrested for breaking in and entering."

"E.D.I.T.H, dissolve the webs."

—And like that, it was as if Spider-Man was never there.

The other officer began speed-walking to his partner—Yuri Watanabe. The criminal dropped to his feet after being free of the webs. He looked to the sky where Spider-Man had disappeared to.

"It—IT'S SPIDER-MAN! HE DID THIS!" The man pointed to the rooftops above.

"Yeah, nice try, punk..." The cop boldly stated, looking up. As was told, there was nothing. "What you can tell us is why you're breaking in and entering."

"HE'LL FIND YOU! HE FINDS EVERYONE!"

Thirty minutes later...

After one relaxing shower, Peter was getting ready to sleep. He wasn't able to sleep comfortably on his bed, because of the snipers that he could see from outside, so he was taking his rest on the couch.

That cop—Watanabe—she didn't say anything. Didn't even react to him. He was so, so thankful for her. He really wanted to thank her if he ever met her again. He couldn't even recall how stressed he was at that moment.

As he thought of that, his phone began ringing. Picking up, he saw who it was—Michelle Jones.

"Hey, MJ. Why are you calling this late?" He asked, his ear up to the phone.

"Peter, it's a video call. I can only see your ear."

"Oh!" He distanced his phone from his face. "Hey, what's up?"

"Nothing... I just wanted to check up on you."

"Oh," He chuckled light-heartedly. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. I also... 'kinda missed you."

"MJ..." He smiled, "I miss you too."

"Okay, stop..." She shook her head, "That's kind of weird."

"But you just—"

She shot a face of judgement at him and half-agreed, half-against. "So, you do anything interesting today?"

"Well..." Now that he thought of it, Peter mostly stayed at home that day. But he did... "I stopped a crime in Queens."

"?" She was rather confused, "You do know that they might be tracking our call, right?"

"It's fine! I got E.D.I.T.H. to block any source of recording between my calls. So, you could say anything."

"Al-right then." She sighed, "You stopped a crime as Peter or..?"

"Uh—Spider-Man, of course."

"They didn't stop you?" She asked, which he promptly answered. "Wow, they should really invest in your security."

"Well, it's hard to beat Stark tech money."

They both giggled, until they finally stared at each other.

"Peter... does any part of you feel relieved by all of this?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know... now that everybody knows, you don't really have to hide or lie to people."

"Hey, for the record, I never wanted to lie to you. Or to Ned. Or to May."

He sighed, thinking about everything again.

"But... how do you tell somebody that you're Spider-Man? Now everybody knows. But this isn't about me. This is hurting a lot of people."

"It's not hurting me." She said, with a face of appreciation and thankfulness directed towards him.

"Still... I've just been thinking about how to fix all of this."

—Wait a minute.

"Fix all of this..."