While There's Still Something Left

The Chapter with Too Much Dialogue

"We wouldn't have this issue if you would just ask Tony if he's utilizing my system."

"I know. He's just-I swear he's seriously busy. I've barely even seen Tony in two days.

Peter wasn't going to add that he still felt stupid for not just talking to Tony about the drive himself when Tony was mad about him almost getting blown up, but judging by the look Ned gave him, it wasn't that hard to read himself.

He looked between Peter and the list of directive commands Peter sent him through their specially encrypted emails. It might take a bit of time for him to find a loophole, but at least if he did it, he would know Peter wasn't going to ruin his relationship with the people helping him look for May.

"Fine. I'm not sure how you are planning to get in the room though. None of this helps at all if you can't be in the room with them while they are going over the important stuff."

"Already thought of that," Peter grinned, pulling out a red and gold box, shaking the lid softly until it came free. "You remember those notes I showed you on the Spidey-Cam?"

He pulled Goggles out of the box carefully, laying him on top of the lid, the sound of his untensed hinges settling against it sounding like a wind chime, beautiful and delicate. Peter ran two fingers over his back and there was a low golden glow in the eyes, signaling his powering on. His legs straightened and he looked even more lifelike in the dim light of his bedroom than he remembered. Peter held out the lid and Goggles hopped onto the laptop, his camera zooming in on Ned's image.

"Goggles, authorize Ned Leeds as second in command. Full access granted."

Goggles stiffened, then chirped, signaling the end of the requested action.

"Dude!" Ned's eyes widened comically, a smile stretching across his face. "You really finished it."

Peter nodded, proudly. "And it's technically connected to JARVIS, so as long as he doesn't breach any protocols, JARVIS isn't required to disclose anything to Tony."

Ned's smile dimmed a little. He knew that doing this was risky in a way that Peter fighting bad guys in Queens wasn't. From what Ned could tell, Peter seemed to have a pretty good relationship with Tony. If this went wrong, though, he wouldn't just lose his chance to keep the first father-like figure he'd had since he was 15, but he could lose his chance to find May too.

Ned didn't want Peter to give them any reason not to want to help him, or not trust him by helping Peter hack the system, but Peter was right. Peter was probably the smartest person he knew, but even he couldn't help if he didn't know what was going on.

Ned watched Goggles scamper across the laptop and his chest swelled with pride in his best friend. No matter how crappy everything was right now, Peter really was where he was meant to be and he would keep him there until they got May back, no matter what it took.

"What can it do?" He asked.

"Anything you can think of pretty much. Record, take pictures, take commands. He obviously has limitations because of his size, but he's amazing at recon. Tony made me think of stuff I never would have considered."

"So he's basically like Tony's AI, just physical?"

"Yes and no. I was going to use the spidey-cam as a vessel for JARVIS, but he had to be a lot bigger or I'd have to have reliable wireless connection to be able to use him. Since neither of those sounded very efficient, I decided I'd just program him with stuff I wanted by myself. Plus, I like him like this. He can communicate with JARVIS but he's still his own little dude."

Goggles turned and crawled over to Peter, bumping his hand so Peter would open it palm up. Peter opened it obligingly and he scampered inside.

"He cuddles?" Ned crooned. "That's adorable."