Peter Parker had a very strange dream.
Actually, it was a nightmare. He dreamed the spider that bit him hadn't died when it was swatted to the floor. Instead, it scurried away into the shadows. It climbed up another person's arm and bit them. Then another. And another. Faces flickered in the absolute dark—an older guy with an angular jaw, a tall guy with wild hair, a kid who looked vaguely like him but wore a different suit. They all had the exact same tired eyes. An endless web stretched out into the void, a different Spider-Man caught at every intersection.
"Spider-Man..."
A distant, echoing voice called out to him.
"You must find—"
Find what?
"Another spider."
It was a woman's voice. Gentle, strangely familiar, yet muffled, like she was speaking to him through a foot of water. Peter wanted to ask her what she meant. Were there other radioactive spiders out there? Or did she mean the guys from his dream? But his body refused to respond. His eyelids felt like they were glued shut with wet cement. He thrashed blindly, fighting his way up through the dark.
He groaned, forcing his eyes open.
A young woman with a sharp, short brown haircut was setting a plate of sliced fruit on a bedside table. She paused, her warm eyes crinkling with relief as she looked down at him.
Wait, I know her from somewhere.
"Hey, take it easy," she said softly. "You need to stay flat."
"The... the bridge..."
The memories crashed into him like a physical blow. The groaning steel of the viaduct. The deafening roar of the commuter train. The agonizing fire tearing through his spine as his muscles began to snap.
Where's Herman? Did he blow the street? Where am I?
Peter bolted upright. Pure instinct took over. He launched himself off the mattress, flipped backward, and stuck all four limbs flat against the ceiling. He hung upside down, panting hard, scanning the room for threats.
He was still wearing his tattered, dust-caked suit. His torn mask lay neatly folded on the pillow below. He glanced toward the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows. The Manhattan skyline glittered in the mid-morning sun. But the angle was entirely wrong. He was looking down at the Empire State Building. There was only one tower in the city this high up.
Peter looked back at the woman. His jaw dropped.
"Oh my god, you're Janet van Dyne! The Wasp! Am I in Avengers Tower? Is this actually happening?"
Janet laughed, leaning against the bedframe. "Relax, kid. Yes, you're in the Tower. Now, could you please peel yourself off the ceiling? Craning my neck like this is terrible for my posture."
"Oh! Yeah. Sorry."
Peter detached his hands and dropped. The second his boots hit the floor, his knees buckled. He grabbed the edge of the mattress to stop himself from eating carpet. Every single muscle fiber in his body screamed in protest. It felt like his skeleton had been pulverized and hastily glued back together.
Janet picked up a sleek, transparent Starkpad from the nightstand. She swiped through a holographic chart. "JARVIS ran full diagnostics. You have multiple ruptured tendons, severe internal bleeding, pulmonary contusions from the concussive force, and dozens of micro-fractures. Any normal human would be in a medically induced coma right now. But your cellular regeneration is frankly ridiculous."
The spider-bite had given him a healing factor. It wasn't instantaneous, but a few days of sleep usually knitted his bones back together. He waved off the medical report.
"Where's Herman? The Shocker? Did the Avengers catch him?"
Janet's smile tightened by a fraction of an inch.
"I'll let the team handle the debrief," she sighed, setting the pad down. "I'm just PR. I handle the press conferences, the civilian damage control, and the public apologies. Tactical briefings are down the hall."
Peter grabbed his torn mask and forced himself to stand straight. His gut twisted. The Avengers hadn't caught him.
"Can I... get the tour?"
Down the hall, the main conference room was bathed in the cool blue light of a massive holographic projector. A three-dimensional rendering of the Midtown Bank fight played on an infinite loop in the center of the table.
Tony Stark slouched in a heavily padded chair, his boots propped up on the polished vibranium table edge. He spun a stylus between his fingers, looking completely unbothered. "Good news first. Herman Schultz is an arrogant, insecure idiot. He has a massive chip on his shoulder, which means he's never going to mass-produce or sell that tech. He wants all the glory. Bad news? He built the suit in a cave with a box of scraps, and the thermal regulators are already failing. We're on a ticking clock to catch this yellow-armored Mario before he goes critical."
Steve Rogers stood on the opposite side of the table. He wasn't smiling. His arms were crossed over his chest, his eyes locked on the holographic explosion that had leveled the bank.
"He doesn't understand the yield of his own weapon," Steve said grimly. "If the power core overloads in a densely populated area, the concussive blast will level a one-kilometer radius. This is Manhattan, Tony. We can't afford a detonation."
The pneumatic doors slid open.
Tony spun his chair around. He whistled sharply, throwing his arms wide. "Hey! Sleeping Beauty joins the land of the living! How are we doing, kid? How's the hangover from your first heavyweight bout?"
"Everything hurts, Mr. Stark," Peter said, shuffling into the room with Janet close behind.
"Considering you essentially bench-pressed a multi-ton commuter rail, 'hurt' is getting off easy," Bruce Banner said with a mild, reassuring smile from the corner of the room.
Peter blinked, looking around the massive space. "Um, where's Dr. Pym? Miss Janet said he's the one who pulled me out. I really want to say thank you."
"Don't hold your breath. Hank rarely leaves the lab unless something needs shrinking," Tony said, waving a hand dismissively. He kicked a rolling chair out toward Peter. "Sit before you fall over. Listen, kid. You held the line. You saved a lot of civilians today. How does it feel?"
Peter gripped the back of the chair. He didn't sit. "Did I?"
Tony lowered his boots from the table, his brow furrowing. "What do you mean?"
"I blacked out," Peter's voice wavered. "My eardrums blew out. I couldn't see or hear anything at the end. Did they actually get off the platform? Did I save them?"
The room went dead silent.
Banner cleared his throat. He nodded. "Yes, Spidey. You did. You held the structure for a full twenty seconds after the platform was entirely evacuated. People were screaming at you to let go, that they were safe. You just couldn't hear them."
Peter exhaled a long, shaky breath. His shoulders slumped. The crushing knot in his chest finally unspooled. "Thank god. Okay. Nobody died."
"Right. You did great," Tony said, clapping his hands together to break the heavy atmosphere. "You stopped the bad guy, you took a beating, you saved the innocents. Standard superhero procedural. Now, your current mission is to go home, ice your ribs, do your homework, and not give your aunt a heart attack. We'll take it from here."
Peter's head snapped up. "What do you mean, you'll take it from here?"
"It means Herman is out of your weight class, kid."
Steve Rogers stepped around the holo-table. He looked Peter dead in the eye, his voice calm but absolute. "Bruce and Hank ran the numbers on the Shocker's power output. His gauntlets are a walking bomb. Every time he fires them, the structural integrity of his battery cells degrades. The Avengers are taking full jurisdiction over this pursuit. We need you to stand down."
"But—" Peter tightened his grip on the chair. "I understand, Captain. I do. But what if I stumble into him on patrol? Or what if he comes after me? I can't just let him hurt people."
Steve held Peter's gaze. He didn't dismiss the kid's drive. "If he initiates contact, your only objective is containment. You keep the civilians clear and you stay alive until we arrive. But understand me, Peter. Engaging him right now is incredibly dangerous. Do not play the hero with a live bomb."
Peter swallowed hard. He nodded. "Okay. I... I should probably get home. My aunt is going to freak out if I miss curfew."
"Janet will fly you back," Steve said gently.
The heavy doors hissed shut behind Peter, leaving Tony and Steve alone in the quiet hum of the conference room.
Tony leaned back in his chair, rubbing his goatee. He looked at the closed door, then glanced up at the super-soldier. "Well? What's the verdict, Cap? What do you think of the kid?"
Steve stared at the empty space where Peter had been standing. He let out a long, heavy breath.
"He's a good kid," Steve said softly. "He has an absolute, uncompromising sense of justice. His empathy... it's so pure it's actually painful."
"That's a bad thing?" Tony asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Did you hear what he asked?" Steve turned back to the holo-table. "He didn't ask how many people he saved. He just needed to know that he didn't fail them. He was terrified of the blame."
Steve looked at the frozen projection of the red-and-blue teenager getting pummeled by the Shocker.
"I served with soldiers like that. The ones who take every single casualty as a personal failure. They think if they just push a little harder, take a little more of the weight, nobody else has to bleed." Steve's voice tightened. "Soldiers like that race each other to jump on the live grenade. It's a straight path to self-destruction."