Chapter 9
“Gwen Stacy,” Natasha read. “Female. Birth date unknown; age placed at approximately seventeen years old.” She looked at Peter. “Doesn’t ring any bells?”
“Still no,” he mused. He leaned forward, over Natasha’s shoulder. From there, he could see the picture clearly. She was a girl who looked around Peter’s age, with shoulder-length blonde hair and cold blue eyes. She wore a little smirk that reminded him somewhat of the look Natasha gave him so often, but in this case it looked dangerous, like she was plotting to kill the cameraman. She had a piercing over her right eyebrow, and her cheeks were sprinkled with freckles.
Peter rubbed his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. “Geez, I feel like I know her, but I swear I’ve never seen her in my life!”
“That’s so weird,” Natasha puzzled. “Here, I’m going to read her file. See what I can find.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s do that.”
Natasha scrolled down, and they read in silence.
Stacy was apprehended after assaulting government officials. She refuses to give any information excepting her name, which is not recognized in any government register or census. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross has kept her under close watch, and she is contained at the Raft Prison. Stacy is reported to be uncooperative.
Stacy has superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, healing, reflexes, and agility. She has the ability to affect the attraction of surfaces in her hands and feet, which she describes as “Wall-Crawling.”
“I-” Peter stammered. “That’s me. Those are my powers. How does she have them?”
“Well, I guess this explains why this is a Spider-Man rebirth program. Ross has another. He doesn’t need you any more.”
Peter stared. “Well, that’s just great. I’m being demoted.”
“I think replaced, actually.”
"Oh, even better."
"Secretary Ross has disclosed no further details on Stacy." Natasha grimaced.
“Whoever wrote this isn't very informed,” Peter huffed.
“Shh, I’m still reading.” Natasha was silent for a few more moments as she skimmed the file. “Jasper Sitwell,” she groaned finally.
“What?”
“Jasper Sitwell,” she repeated darkly.
“Yeah, I heard.” Peter told her. “What about him?”
“He’s supposed to be dead.”
“Supposed to be dead… as in you saw him die, or-”
“I mean, I saw him get hit by a truck on the highway,” Natasha explained dispassionately.
“Ah. That would do it, I would think.”
“Ha. Apparently not.”
“Well,” Peter leaned once again over her shoulder, “What does it say about him?”
“He seems to be very involved in this project- working with Ross. Ah, he helped draft the Sokovia Accords. Of course he did, the little fucker. Yeah, I bet he ran back crying to the US government after the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D., saying whatever he could to convince them he wasn’t Hydra-”
“He was Hydra?” Peter’s eyes widened. “Damn.”
“Yeah, and when he convinced everyone he was innocent, he hid in their ranks, trying to rise to power and take down the Avengers,” Natasha speculated bitterly. “He doesn't care about anyone but himself, we saw that when he gave us Hydra info in exchange for his life… but he sure hates the Avengers.”
“So now he found a way to help take me down.”
“This says he’s working here in New York, doesn’t say where exactly…”
“I should ask Karen about this!” Peter said suddenly. He clambered across the room, and pulled his mask over his head. “Hey, Karen, do you know anything about someone named Gwen Stacy?”
“There is no record of a Gwen Stacy on any official documents that I can find.”
Peter rubbed his forehead as if he had a bad headache, and Natasha sighed. “So weird. What about Sitwell?”
“Jasper Sitwell, male, born December 8, 1973. Worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. until 2014. Sitwell is currently working for the CIA,” Karen informed them.
“Not helpful,” Natasha grumbled. “Whatever, everything important about him is going to be classified.”
Peter tossed his mask onto his bed. “Karen says that she can help find him. I mean, if we’re going to find him. If that’s what you’re thinking. ‘Cause, like, that’s what I’m thinking.”
“Yeah, I think that might be a good idea,” she agreed. “He seems like the most important person in this whole project besides Ross. And he works around here.”
Suddenly, Peter’s phone beeped. He quickly grabbed it off of his bed. “Hey, Ned just texted me, he says he has… footage of your cell? While you were captured?”
Natasha perked up immediately, and spun around her chair. “No way. Really?”
“Yeah, really.” Peter’s expression hardened. “What the hell did he do to you?”
“Not important right now. Have him email it to you right away. This could be super useful.”
“Okay, I’ll ask him… He says he’s sending it. It’ll take a bit to load, though.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Oh yes!” Natasha clapped her hands together, standing up. “This is great!”
Peter seemed less excited than her, more disturbed. “What the actual fuck did that-”
“Language.” The familiar taunt slipped from her lips before she could stifle it.
“Sorry,” said Peter quickly.
That earned him a smirk from Natasha. “What Ross did was… bad in the eyes of most people. Luckily for me, it was nothing I hadn’t seen before. I mean, I was kind of disappointed, he didn’t even threaten to pull my teeth out-”
“What!?”
Natasha tilted her head to the side. “I just said he didn’t.”
“But that- that’s like- that’s a normal-” Peter spluttered. “That’s a normal thing?”
She shrugged. “When they really mean business.”
Peter stared at her, his expression a mix of shock and horror. He didn’t seem to buy her casual manner. But before he could say anything, a new email from Ned popped up on his computer.
Natasha clicked on the file. “We have the footage,” she said triumphantly. “Man, this is such a good break.”
“Well, let’s leak it now!” Peter urged.
“No,” Natasha said firmly. “We keep it for now. It could be useful later.”
“Like blackmail, or something?”
“Exactly. We confront him, we tell him if he doesn’t clear your name and whatnot, we’re leaking it. Hopefully the general population doesn't hate me so much that they condone what he did. But I suppose even that might be a long shot.”
Peter wrinkled his nose. “No, I think you’re good. I think more people are on your side than you realize.” After a moment of thought, he pointed out, “You did help Cap get away, after all, and tons of people support him.”
Natasha tilted her head to the side. “Yeah. We’ll see, I guess.”
Peter looked down at the ground. The sad, wistful little frown on Natasha’s face was slightly unsettling. He said abruptly, “So, how are we going to confront Ross? I’m guessing you have a plan?”
Natasha nodded, business-like once again. “Indeed.”
“Awesome. What do I get to do?”
Natasha hesitated, her smile fading.
Peter’s face fell immediately. “You aren’t seriously considering doing this all on your own, are you?”
The spy sighed, and sat back down in her chair. A silent war raged in her brain. The kid was a good fighter, he could be a lot of help. But at the same time, this was dangerous stuff, and he could get hurt. She would never forgive herself if that happened. And if Tony found out that he had been hurt, he would probably kill her. Or try to, at least.
She looked around. The kid definitely had an extremely advanced suit that could protect him well. And she wasn’t a bad fighter herself. If she protected him, and Tony didn’t hear anything about it…
“Maybe you can help me a little bit. Fine. But, listen, you can’t tell Tony. Not about what has happened, not about what’s going to happen.”
“Yes! Let’s go!” Peter punched the air. “And yeah, I know not to tell anyone.” He remembered Natasha’s conversation with Clint Barton. She hadn’t told him about Peter. He sensed that she was starting to trust him, and he also understood that that was a rare thing. So he wasn’t going to betray her and tell Tony. He wasn’t going to break her trust, no matter what. Ever.
Natasha sighed. “Ross is ruthless. I’d like to make it very clear that I don’t even want you two in the same room as each other, okay?”
“Oh, that already happened,” Peter said indifferently.
“What?”
“Yeah, back at the prison. But don’t worry, I used interrogation mode.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Makes my voice deeper. He could never tell that I was a kid, or anything.”
Natasha rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’re staying away from him. You can do other stuff.”
“Fine.” Peter stared at his feet.
Natasha set a long, fixed gaze on him. “But Peter, you have to understand, Ross is crazy dangerous. I don’t know what happened in the prison with you and Ross, but I don’t want you getting a big head. And you have to promise me that if I tell you to get out of there, you get out of there, got it? I don’t want to be responsible for you getting hurt or killed. Got it?”
Peter nodded fervently, his smile fading a bit. Natasha knew the warnings and prospect of danger were starting to sink in.
Natasha smirked. “Good.”
But then Peter brightened up. “We can be a spider team, y’know? It’ll be awesome!”
Natasha grinned. “It won’t be all fun and games,” she warned.
Peter stood up, and jumped to the ceiling, hanging from his feet. “Well, danger’s already an occupational hazard for me.”
Natasha looked up with an amused expression. “Your upstairs neighbors probably spend a lot of time wondering why those downstairs people keep banging on the ceiling.”
Peter jumped down, landing easily on his feet, and grinned. “I never thought about that.”
“Mm.”
“So, now that we’ve got that over with, can you tell me the plan?” Peter implored.
Natasha nodded grimly. “Yeah, I guess we should get to it.” She paused for a moment, then said finally, “Well, obviously the first step is to find Sitwell. We need to figure out where he works, and how to capture him without being caught up in a big fight. From there, we can figure out what Ross is planning.”
“Okay,” said Peter thoughtfully, “But how do we find Sitwell?”
Natasha glanced over at Peter’s mask. “We’ll need Karen’s help. She can hopefully find exactly where he works, and then we can track his movements until we know his schedule. Then we take him down quietly.”
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. Then suddenly, Peter’s phone rang, making him jump. He ended up on the ceiling, upside-down in a fighting position. Natasha found herself with her hand, which was sitting right next to his ringing phone, stuck to the table by Peter’s webbing.
“Um, ow?”
“Sorry,” Peter winced. “I get tense when I’m excited.”
Natasha leaned over to see who the caller was. “Someone named MJ?”
Peter’s eyebrows shot up, and he quickly jumped back to the floor. “Uh… what do I do?”
Natasha thought for a moment, then her mouth twitched. “MJ’s your crush, right?”
Peter shrugged, his hands fidgeting wildly. “Um…”
Natasha used the hand that was not webbed to the table to pick up his phone. Before Peter could react, she answered the call.
“Natasha!” he whispered.
Natasha tossed the phone to him, and he fumbled it for a moment before holding it tightly, and putting himself on mute. “Why did you do that?”
“You can’t ghost your crush!”
“Uh, hello?” MJ asked.
Peter put his phone to his ear, and took himself off of mute. “Uh, hey, MJ.”
Put her on speaker! Natasha mouthed.
“Shh!” Peter whispered back.
“I… didn’t say anything,” MJ said, confused.
Peter hesitated, then explained to MJ, “Uh, sorry. Was talking to someone else.”
“Imagine. Anyway, I was thinking of scheduling a few extra practice sessions for the decathlon team before the tournament next month… Are you free tomorrow, after school?”
“Yeah, I should be,” Peter said, trying to sound as normal as possible.
Natasha frowned at him. “I want to hear,” she hissed.
“Ok, great,” MJ was saying. “I’ll tell the rest of the team.”
Peter shook his head at Natasha, then said to MJ, “Why did you ask me first?”
“Because you’re the smartest on the team, dumbass. Well, besides me. You need to be there.”
Peter blushed, and Natasha audibly snorted, despite having no clue what caused his reaction. Peter glared at her, then told MJ, “Uh, okay. Thanks?”
“Hopefully nothing crazy happens at the tournament, like in Washington,” MJ said dryly, and Peter pursed his lips uncomfortably.
Natasha was still cackling silently in the background. “What did she say?” she whispered.
Peter bit his lip, trying not to smile at Natasha. “Yeah, for sure... Uh, is that all?”
“Yep. Bye,” MJ said briskly.
“Bye.”
Peter threw himself onto his bed in defeat. “That was so awkward!" he groaned.
“What the hell did she say to make you look like a tomato?”
Peter turned an even darker shade of red. “Shut up.”
“Never.”
“We need to get back to the plan,” he protested.
“Oh, I need to make a plan for how to get you two idiots together!”
Peter buried his face in his pillow. “And thus, I die.”
Peter tossed and turned in his sleep. He watched, unable to move, as the huge building crashed down on top of him, and the laugh of the Vulture echoed in his ears. The concrete blocks crumbled over him with immense force, and knocked him hard onto his stomach. He tried to scream, but no noise came out. He was trapped.
Wet blood dripped through his fingers and onto the dusty ground. A jagged rock was digging into his forearm, and another piece of concrete smashed his foot. His old Spider-Man onesie was torn and bloody, and his breath rattled in his chest. He looked around, but the ruins of the garage were just dust and huge pieces of concrete. He could barely crane his neck up high enough to see the night sky above him. When he looked down into the pool of water in front of him, he could see his hair matted to his face with wet blood.
He felt something prodding his shoulder, like someone was stabbing him with an electric bolt. He groaned, and jerked his arm away. Finally, he felt a sharp flick to his ear, and suddenly his surroundings disappeared. He was in his bedroom, at home in Queens. Again, Natasha was staring hard at him from her spot on the floor, pulling her hand away.
“Sorry,” she said simply. “You wouldn’t wake up, so I flicked your ear.”
Peter rubbed his face. The room was almost completely silent, except for the usual humming of his computer. “Yeah,” he managed. “Thanks, I guess.”
Natasha bit her lip. “You good?”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure you are,” she said disbelievingly.
Peter glared at her. “I swear, I’m okay.”
Natasha nodded slowly. “So, this happens pretty regularly, huh?”
“Yeah, kinda,” he said shortly.
“Want to talk about it?”
Peter shrugged, and looked down at his hands. “The Vulture.”
“Ah. The guy with the wings?”
“That’s him,” Peter sighed.
“I see.”
They were both quiet for a few moments. Then finally Peter said, “He dropped a building on me.”
Natasha winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. I got out, though.”
“That’s good.”
“He also dropped me into a lake.”
“That’s kinda mean.”
Peter almost laughed. “Kinda.”
“Well, is there something we can do to cheer you up?” Natasha asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied listlessly. “What time is it?”
“Like, two in the morning.”
“I don’t want to go back to sleep.”
“Completely fair.”
“But I don’t know what else to do.”
Natasha thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers, beaming. “Let’s go to McDonalds!”
Peter brightened immediately, his whole manner seeming to change. “Yeah!”
Suddenly, Natasha’s smile faded. “But I’m a fugitive, I can’t just drive around New York.”
“I can drive!” Peter told her. “I don’t have a car, but we can use May’s.”
“I’m not sure I have faith in your driving ability.”
“I’m not terrible…”
“Either way, I can’t be seen,” Natasha maintained.
“Just sit in the backseat and stay low. You’re short.”
Natasha raised an eyebrow dangerously. “The audacity!”
Peter shrugged. “Well, it would work.”
“Choose your next words very carefully, Peter.”
“C’mon, Natasha. Please?”
“I am not sitting in the backseat.”
Ten minutes later…
“This is humiliating,” Natasha muttered from the backseat, sitting as low and hidden as possible.
“Not for me, it’s not!” Peter replied cheerfully. “Hey, dude, turn on your freaking blinker!” he shouted at the car that had just cut in front of him.
“Shut up!” Natasha told him.
“What?”
“Too loud,” she said grumpily.
“Don’t care. I will be heard. Give me liberty, or give me death.”
“How did I end up here?”
“Well, I think it started back when the Sokovia Accords were signed or whatever-”
“It was a rhetorical question.”
“I see.”
They turned the corner smoothly, and McDonald’s came into view.
“What do you want?” Natasha asked.
“I wish to devour the unborn.”
“That’s nice, but I don’t think it’s on the menu. Anything else?”
“My will to live,” said Peter, without breaking stride.
“You and me both, kid. Anything else?”
“The souls of the innocent!”
“A bagel.” Natasha quipped, smirking.
“Noo!” Peter replied, trying and failing to keep a straight face.
“Two bagels!”
“We’re so funny.”
“Top tier comedy.”
Twenty minutes later, the pair snuck quietly back into the apartment, McDonald’s burgers, fries, and sodas in hand. They sat down on the floor, across from each other, spreading their goods between them. It was still dark, but their eyes had adjusted, and city lights shone through the gap between the window shades.
They both ate in silence for a few minutes, neither meeting the other’s eyes. Then finally, Natasha spoke. “Feeling better?”
“Yep,” Peter said quietly. “Thanks.”
“No problem. If you ever need anything, I’m here for you.”
“‘Kay.”
“Seriously.” Natasha caught his eye. “Always. You have my phone number. After this is over, if you’re in trouble, call me. I’ll be there.”
“‘Kay.”
“Okay.”
Peter dropped his gaze, looking down at his burger. “Thank you.”
“Thank you, Peter.”
Peter’s brow furrowed. “For what?”
Natasha sighed. “You’ve given me a reason… to care, I guess. I wasn’t doing so well. Wondering if anything mattered anymore. But you gave me a reason to keep fighting.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry,” she said awkwardly. “That was kind of a bombshell, forget it-”
“No, no. It’s okay.” Peter nodded. “That’s cool.”
“Oh… okay.”
“You’re awesome, Natasha.”
Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Thanks. You’re a good kid, Peter.”
"I can't wait to fight crime as the amazing spider heroes.”
“Spider duo.”
“Taking down bad guys.”
“Since 2017.”