Chapter 2
It wasn’t until Peter was in the Stark Towers elevator, carefully propping up three webbed-up goons against the wall so that they didn’t fall over, that he realized he probably was supposed to have turned these people in to the police.
“Where to?” asked the voice of FRIDAY.
“Mr. Stark,” Peter replied automatically. Wait, wasn’t Mr. Stark supposed to be doing something important today? He’d mentioned it to him earlier...
The doors of the elevator slid closed before he could fully process the realization.
There was the familiar dropping of his stomach as the elevator started to rise. One of the goons made a noise that was probably supposed to be a growl, but instead came out as a sort of whimper. Peter leaned against the elevator corner, suddenly questioning his life choices, as the elevator shot up.
He hadn’t really even thought about what he was doing-- his first instinct, like always, was to go to Mr. Stark. Especially since this time the issue actually concerned him.
The elevator shuttered as it past the fifty-second floor, as usual. Peter belatedly remembered promising Mr Stark that he’d climb down the elevator shaft to try to figure out why it was doing that. One of the webbed-up goons started to tip over, and Peter instinctively sent out a spritz of web fluid and fastened the man to the wall.
The elevator dinged open, and they opened to reveal Mr Stark, looked mildly confused. The expression quickly changed to mild annoyance at the excessive amounts of webfluid coating his elevator.
“Spiderman,” he said in a semi-exasperated tone, “what are you doing here?”
Peter blinked. The elevator started to close, and he quickly webbed the sensor. The doors opened back up abruptly and stayed there.
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Are you just here to destroy my elevator, or…?”
Peter snapped out of his frozen state. “Uh, no, Mr. Stark. You see, these people, well theyhavesomethingthatcanhackoursuitsandIthoughtyou’dwanttoknowaboutitand--”
Tony sighed. “Just get them in here, calm down and repeat everything you just said.”
Peter nodded. “Right, right.” He grabbed one of the goons from their leaning position against the wall and shuffled into the room guiltily, depositing the person on the ground rather unceremoniously. He grabbed the second, then stared at the third critically, who was webbed to the wall. In hindsight, that had not been the best plan.
The goon let out a muffled scream as Peter approached him and yanked him away from the wall. Some of the elevator’s wallpaper came with the fluid, and Peter chanced a glance at Mr. Stark, whose expression had gone from exasperated to annoyed.
Peter exited the elevator and deposited the second two alongside the first.
Tony sighed. “Kid, whatever you were saying, it sounded important. Now slow down, and repeat what you told me.”
Peter swallowed. “Um. So, I was out patrolling, right? And I was in a ghost town because I’d received a tip-off about gang activities that operated from there. And they were there, and they hit me with something, but I barely felt it so I thought I was fine--” Peter took a deep breath after realizing he hadn’t really been breathing while he’d been telling his story. “Anyway, it turned out they attached this thing-- virus? Probe? Actually I’m not sure what to call it, but it hacked into my suit and deactivated Karen and set off the emergency web-fluid despositers on my feet to trap me on the beam I’d paused on.”
Tony tapped his fingers against the table absently. “So you took it apart and recoded it.”
Peter nodded in agreement. “Right. But I was looking at it, and clearly it was made by someone who really knew our suits. Like they had blueprints and the firewalls and the specs and everything. It was all very precise and specialized.”
Peter opened up his left hand, which had been tightly gripping the disk ever since the encounter, and presented it to Tony. The billionaire spun it around, inspecting the outside carefully, before turning back to Peter. “How does it open?”
The high-schooler shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I ran a current through it and it clicked?” He paused, realizing that required a bit more elaboration. “I was on a copper beam-- which really was a fire hazard to be honest, no wonder the place is abandoned-- and I rerouted some power through my suit into it? And then laid it against the beam?”
Tony hummed. “How much power?”
Peter squinted, trying to remember. “Around 15 volts I think? It’s hard to tell, because I kind of blew a hole in my suit to get it to work.” He pointed to the part in question, which was a little above his elbow.
One of the goons made a noise, causing both superheroes’ attentions to return to them.
“I’m not really sure why I brought them here,” Peter admitted. “I just--well, if my suit was hacked yours could be too, so I felt like I needed to get you all of the information I could?”
“You realize this is questionably legal, right?” Tony commented, sounding almost amused.
The teen winced. “Well…”
Tony sighed. “I told you not to do anything I would do.”
One of the goons, the tallest one, had started to wiggle. The webfluid was clearly starting to wear off. Peter raised his hand, but Tony grabbed him by the wrist to stop him. They watched the man struggle to a sitting position in silence that felt drenched with a dread that neither of them could quite explain.
The man managed to sit up with some difficulty, and spat off the gag with a big more struggling. He coughed once, twice, before his face twisted into a strange grin.
“Long live the Jade Pyramid,” he spat, before biting down hard on something in his mouth. He began foaming at the mouth, and both Tony and Peter swore audibly as they realized what he had done.
Tony hit the man in the throat violently, in a last ditch effort to save him-- but it was far too late. The man twitched three times before going still.
Silently, Peter re-webbed the two remaining goons. He wasn’t going to let them get their jaws free enough to imitate the man who now laid still on the floor.
Both superheroes stood in silence, the creeping dread they had both been feeling rising farther as they wondered just how big the Jade Pyramids was.
Who were they? What did they want?
How on earth did they get into our suits?