Spiderman Bites Back

Responsible response?

"Three weeks. I'm disappointed, Clint" Natasha teased him. "You got shown up by a tiny Hydra grunt and still can't find him?"

Clint pressed his forehead into the table. "Oh yeah? Where were you while I was chasing this guy?! Oh, that's right. You were interrogating Carl, the drunk janitor!"

Natasha's face was expressionless. But internally she was kicking herself. She was supposed to be the best of the best when it came to espionage! And some low level grunt, a wounded low level grunt, gave her the slip and had a whole fourteen hours in the tower with no one any the wiser except for Clint.

Just then Tony walked in. "To be fair, the guy did make a streetwide jump from the tower into the next building over. Punching through bulletproof glass only to get up and run like Ferris Bueller's chase scene."

"Making excuses for missing him, Stark?" Natasha asked.

Tony waved her question away. "The point is that this guy was obviously enhanced. And given what we now know about the recently evicted Oscorp's research" he took a second to blow a little toy party horn "we can assume that the soldier must've used something that lab cooked up. Probably took it out of desperation when he was injured and realized that Natasha was after his ass like Cap chasing Bucky."

Steve shot Tony a look but didn't say anything. He still felt guilty for not telling Tony about the Winter Soldier. Maybe someday...

Natasha on the other hand wasn't going to react even that much. "So what are we going to do? Even if Hydra can't replicate whatever he got they'll train him much more. They'll do whatever it takes to shape him into the ideal weapon. So we need to deal with him first."

There was a chilly silence in the room as her words took effect.

Thor summoned Mjolnir. "Then let us handle this new villain!"

Tony facepalmed. "Okay Rapunzel, where do we find him, huh?"

Thor didn't say anything but grinned. "I was wondering when you would ask. I shall consult with Heimdall. If this new villain is anywhere on Earth then Heimdall can locate him with ease before he can do any dastardly deeds!"

Meanwhile Peter was trying to see if he could sleep upsidedown. That would be so awesome for playing pranks at Halloween! He could even get a vampire costume and pretend that it was all special effects.

After escaping the tower and apologizing for breaking the window in the adjacent building and ditching the armor, Peter had been figuring out what had happened to him. After explaining his absence to Aunt May and Uncle Ben of course. Man that'd been rough. Ned hadn't been much better. But Peter had stuck to his story of being held for questioning by Shield. No one was going to call them to check so it should be fine.

Peter had found a dead spider plastered to his neck and a swollen bite mark. He photographed it. And it was a good thing he did too since it faded almost as fast as his other injuries had.

From the little he could tell Peter was able to do a few things now. He was stronger, faster, more flexible, and super sensitive. He was still figuring it all out. Maybe he could run tests on his own.

He hadn't told anyone. Anyone who could do what he did to escape would definitely be a suspect. The last thing he needed was getting arrested or killed by the Avengers.

So instead Peter worked discreetly by himself to avoid getting caught. He wondered what his Aunt and Uncle would think of his newfound powers. But he didn't want rules to restrict his freedom before he even knew his own limits. And besides he wasn't sure that he wanted them to know period. At least not yet.