He was doing the right thing. Fighting for the right cause and Maria was proud of that but also terrified. Peter was alone. He didn't even have her suit which had the capabilities of contacting people for help. He was all alone out there and that thought just echoed around her head constantly, tormenting her. She couldn't do it; she just couldn't leave Peter to face the Vulture on his own.
Swearing, Maria made a run for it. She bolted out of the entrance of the hall and ran passed an array of students who were only just arriving to the school. With a few clicks of her watch, Maria called one of her father's many auto-piloted cars to her location. She would have called on of his suits but she was well aware he had changed all the codes so that she couldn't get access them and she didn't really have the time to hack into the suits. As she waited a small beep sounded beside her along with the sound of tiny rotators. Looking to the left she spotted the drone watching her quizzically. She smiled as she patted her shoulder and the little robot landed upon her. She had wondered where the little fella had got to. Seconds later, Maria found herself staring at a familiar car. Quickly, she ran around the sleek blsck model and slid into the driver's seat.
She had KAREN bring up the Vulture's suspected warehouse location on the car's navigation system - Maria had finally been able to pinpoint the area from where the Vulture always flew from and with the scans of the city reading the wingsuit's energy readings, pinpoint the exact warehouse where the wingsuit's readings always started and disappeared at. Luckily, Happy had been teaching Maria how to drive since just before she turned sixteen and she was pretty good at it. She was yet to take her test though so she was going to have to be extra careful in the traffic - she really didn't need her father bailing her out of jail.
Smoothly, Maria was able to pull away from the school and enter the busy traffic of New York. Following her Sat Nav closely, she carefully began weaving between cars and using back alleys to close the distance between herself and the Vulture faster. Maria was pretty certain in her haste she had made driving mistakes here and there but she was desperately pushing those thoughts out of her mind, if she dwelled on them, she would start messing up even more than usual.
Eventually, Maria was heading into the quiet area of the city, away from the houses and stores but towards the warehouses. By the end, the Stark girl found herself pulling up beside an old industrial park in Brooklyn. Knowing that parking beside the building would be highly suspicious, Maria moved the car slightly beyond the building before she parked up. Knocking the car off, Maria sat for a moment staring at the old, dark building. If the Vulture was inside she had to be more than careful. She had promised her dad to not get involved anymore but she couldn't let the criminal get away. But could she really disappoint her father again?! She felt like she was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"Are you alright, ma'am?" KAREN suddenly asked in her ear. The AI had clearly picked up on Maria's distress.
"I just don't know what to do. My father would be furious if I walked into that building but ... if I do nothing then he'll get away or someone will get hurt. I can't get the police; the FBI went up against him last time and spectacularly lost" Maria admitted as she rested her elbow on the door and leant her head against her hand. For a moment the AI was silent, Maria could practically hear the code thinking.
"You would do no better than the FBI" KAREN bluntly answered. Maria was annoyed by the answer but she also knew that that was true.
"I know that, but I know more than the police know, I'm more here to help Spider-Man if he needs it but I don't know if I should inform my father" Maria explained.
"You should tell your father" KAREN answered immediately. It seemed Maria had programmed the AI to know her father well, including his reactions. Maria was dreading this conversation. She was going to be lectured again.
"KAREN, call my dad" Maria said with her eyes closed, her earpiece picking up the words. Ringing filled her ear as she waited for her father to answer his phone. She did not have to wait long ... to get his voicemail. Maria frowned as she heard the arrogant message before the beep sounded. "Hey Dad, it's me, look I know you wanted me to stop but I found that Adrian Toomes is the Vulture and he is at an old industrial park in Brooklyn." Maria quickly recited the address before she sighed heavily. "You need to catch him or send someone ... I'll be waiting." With that she ended the call.
Maria hated waiting but what else could she do. Whilst she had raced to get to the Vulture so that Spider-Man had some form of back up, there was nothing she could physically do. Though it was worrying Maria that Peter hadn't reached the warehouse, her eyes landed on the building once again. Looking down at her watch a thought occurred to Maria: she could help without stepping foot in the building.
"KAREN, give me a scan of the building" Maria asked as she pulled up her holographic computer. Within seconds KAREN had completed the task and Maria was staring at an x-ray of the building, however, there was one problem. According to the scan, there was only one person in the building along with the wingsuit a floor beneath that person. If the wingsuit was at the warehouse Maria knew that Toomes was the person, he wasn't an idiot he knew not to leave the wingsuit with just anyone.
"Where is everything? What's going on?" Maria questioned. The place was empty but why was the question Maria couldn't answer. As Maria racked her brain the sound of a car crashing slammed into her ears. Her head snapped around and she watched as an expensive silver car slid across the road on its side towards the warehouse. Maria watched in complete shock as the car luckily came to a halt inches from slamming into a lamppost. The driver seemed fine in his seat but it took Maria a second to realise that the driver was wearing a red mask with black goggles, she recognised that costume. It was the old Spider-Man suit, Peter's Spider-Man suit which meant that ... Peter was an awful driver.
Maria watched as the boy jumped out of the trashed car and headed straight into the building. She sat up in her seat with worry and felt her panic start to rise the moment Peter was out of view. She didn't have eyes in the building. She was blind. Maria slammed her hand against the wheel in frustration. What was she going to do?
Suddenly, Maria felt something crawling down her arm. She looked to her left arm and spotted the drone at her wrist staring at her. The drone!
"Hey dronie, go into that building and follow Peter" Maria ordered, the drone beeped an affirmative before Maria opened her car door and allowed the flying spider robot out of the car. "Link us up KAREN." It took seconds for her computer watch to activate and show the view from the drone.
Maria anxiously waited for the drone to find Peter within the abandoned warehouse. Almost immediately the drone picked up voices in the warehouse and headed towards them.
"Hey! Surprised?" That was Peter.
"Oh, hey, Pete. I didn't hear you come in" And according to her software that voice was the same as Adrian's or the Vulture's.
"It's over. I've got you" Peter announced; the sound echoed which made Maria assume the pair was in a large room. She wasn't wrong. The drone finally caught up with the voices to find Peter and Adrian in a long, empty industrial garage. There was nothing there except for the two of them and a table Adrian was leaning against. Why did this look like a trap?
"You know, I gotta tell you, Pete, I really, really admire your grit. I see why Liz likes you. I do. When you first came to the house, I wasn't sure. I thought, 'Really?'. But I get it now" Adrian said. Though his tone was not menacing, Maria was becoming more and more uneasy. Normally when bad guys came up against their own enemies, pleasantries were not a thing. There was no easy talking ... what was Maria missing?
"How could you do this to her?" Peter asked stopping several metres away from Adrian but the garage echoed their voices meaning they didn't have to be any closer.
"To her? I'm not doing anything to her, Pete. I'm doing this for her" Adrian argued. Apparently, that wasn't the answer Peter wanted.
"Yeah" he said before he shot a piece of webbing at Adrian's hand - sticking it to the table. At the action, Adrian only sighed. Slowly, the drone began moving closer to the Vulture so that it was half way between the hero and the villain.
"Peter, you're young. You don't understand how the world works" Adrian started. His words being one of kindness. Why was he trying to explain the world to Peter? Maria was getting more and more frustrated as she didn't understand what was going.
"Yeah. But I understand that selling weapons to criminals is wrong" Peter retaliated.
"How do you think your buddy Stark paid for that tower? Or any of his little toys? Those people, Pete, those people up there, the rich and the powerful, they do whatever they want. Guys like us, like you and me, they don't care about us. We build their roads, and we fight all their wars and everything, but they don't care about us. We have to pick up after them. We have to eat their table scraps. That's how it is" Adrian finished. Maria knew that was a dig at Stark, at herself. But the bitterness that ran in his voice came from something else. Maria remembered how Adrian was led on this path. How he came to being the Vulture, and it all started with losing his company due to her father's actions. The ironic thing was had her father not offered to pay towards the DODC then he would have been marked as an arrogant, selfish man who was not willing to help clean up the messes he made. "I know you know what I'm talking about, Peter."
"Why are you telling me this?" Peter asked, finally asking the question that was getting on Maria's nerves. Maria ordered the drone to scan the room for any signs of anything unusual but there was none. Until the drone scanned the far wall. The drone's scan began to pick up energy readings ... from the wingsuit! The wingsuit had been activated, its rotators beginning to pick up speed. Adrian had been stalling!
"Shit" Maria swore, she went to tell Peter but she had no way of communicating with him. She had to get to him. Grabbing the car door's handle Maria opened it and climbed out of the car. Maria split her attention between watching her computer watch and racing towards the building.
"Because I want you to understand. And I needed a little time to get her airborne" Adrian finished, revealing a switchblade he had hidden in his jacket. All hell then broke loose. The wingsuit came smashing through the brick walls heading straight for Peter, whose Spider Sense had tipped him off. Maria then watched as Peter jumped around, avoiding the sharp blades of the wingsuit whilst it circled around him smashing into the pillars of the garage. Rock was crumbling everywhere. Maria frowned though, the wingsuit wasn't even really following Peter, its flight pattern was all over the shot in relation to Peter ... so what was it actually doing. "I'm sorry, Peter."
"What are you talking about? That thing hasn't even touched me yet" Peter shouted back. Maria had just reached the other side of the road when she came to a stop - something bugging her about it all. Maria suddenly pulled the drone back and x-rayed the building to find the truth of the situation. The wingsuit ... it was destroying the pillars of the garage! the wingsuit wasn't going after Peter it was trying to destroy the building! Maria lifted her head and bolted towards the warehouse, her heart racing.
"True. Then again ... wasn't really trying to" Adrian confirmed. Peter discovered the truth seconds later. Just as Maria's hand touched the door of the warehouse the roof collapsed. Maria stumbled away from the building as dust gathered and the building fell before her to rumble. The drone was able to catch footage of heavy stone raining upon Peter, his cry of fear and pain cut short as he disappeared beneath the collapsing ceiling. Once it had settled, Maria looked towards what was left of the warehouse. Her eyes widened in horror. Huge pieces of concrete, tonnes of the stuff were piled high ... burying Peter. Could Peter survive that? Was Peter alive? Had she just seen her friend die?