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Chapter Text

Claire knew something was up when she saw the car in front of her apartment. Then, before she got to it, there were two men walking toward her.

“Claire Nunez?” One asked.

“Yes?”

“We’d like you to come with us.”

Claire stopped. She didn’t have her staff, but well, after four years of training with Angor Rott, she didn’t need her staff. Not for something like this. But…

“And I don’t go off with strange men. Do you have ID?” And there they were, flashing FBI badges.

“We’d like to talk to you about your possible violation of the Sokovia Accords.”

Claire stared at them. “I haven’t signed your accords.”

“And as such, you are forbidden from taking part in any law enforcement or vigilante activity.”

Claire briefly fantasized what Angor would be doing right now, but then sighed, and in full sight of some other students, including some in her graduate macro-economics class, was handcuffed and put into the back of the unmarked government car.

It didn’t take long for her to find herself in a small room with an unsmiling man.

“You are aware that powered individuals are forbidden from taking part in law enforcement activities.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Yes. Which is why I am retired.”

“Evidently not.” The man smirked. “We got this on CCTV.” He touched a button and the image called up. Someone running down the street, then Claire got in his way, and after a few moments, he was on the ground, Claire standing by him.

“The man who assaulted a young woman?” Claire blinked, and shook her head. “I wasn’t aware that calling 911 was taking part in law enforcement activities. Wait, or is this another right the Accords seem to have trashed.”

“We cannot be certain that you didn’t use your powers. You’re a very small woman, after all, and he was what, two-hundred pounds?”

I was fighting two-ton trolls and winning… But that wasn’t something they wanted out there.  Claire hadn’t stopped giving thanks at how tightly Fury had kept things quiet when the whole blow up at SHIELD went down. Even so, it was a bit of a backhanded complement to know that she, Jim and Toby were all targeted by INSIGHT.

“A big man who is a klutz isn’t hard to fight,” Claire said. “And the violence used was well within both state and federal standards for self-defense. I didn’t seek a confrontation, and I immediately called the police.”

“Still…” The man leaned back. “We’re prepared to go easy on you if you sign the accords, and remove your name from the Class-action lawsuit.”

“Oh…” Claire said. “That’s what this is about. Let me guess, the LA Times editorial?”  She smiled. “The one that mentioned that the Accords don’t even have the force of a treaty, because the president is trying to enact them by executive order?”

“I will point out that the Accords do allow for the indefinite imprisonment of those suspected of violations.” The man, who still hadn’t given his name, pushed the paper forward. “Not to mention the stress this would put your family though—“

“Let me give you  a free bit of advice,” Claire softly said. “Threatening my family. Even hinting that you are threatening my family, is a very, very bad idea.”

“Is that a threat, Ms. Nunez?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?” Claire said. “I’m not signing your piece of paper. So you can either take me off to the Raft, and endure whatever consequences ensure, or you can let me go and tell Asshole Ross, that this isn’t going to work any more than sending some agents to harass my thesis adviser did.”

Two hours later, Claire was allowed to leave, with numerous warnings. Then there were news reporters at the front, not many. With what was going down with the Avenger’s public implosion, who cared about a twenty-two year old graduate student who had last publicly used her powers almost a year ago with that fire in Queens.

She fended off some questions, once again holding to the statement that she and her mother had come up with. Yes, powers did raise issues of law enforcement and civil rights, which would require changes in the law, but giving up freedom in exchange for security was a bad bargain, because you lost your freedom and didn’t get any more security.  She even handed out a few pins they’d printed up quickly. Captain America’s shield superimposed on the Bill of Rights.

Granted, we may need to change that, because what the hell, Steve, since when does a fight in a German airport sound good?  Three weeks and the fallout from that was still ongoing.

Once she got back to her apartment, Claire just fell down on the bed.

“Boring bed. If only Jim was here.”  They did plenty of stuff to make the bed exciting, along with the shower, the couch, and once or twice, the floor. But Jim wasn’t here because of the Goddamned accords. Because Ross knew, but nobody knew if he’d be stupid enough to ignore the fact that Jim wasn’t just a twenty-two year old warrior, but a major political and cultural figure of a society that underlay every nation on the planet, and might not respond well.

And trollish magic could do things like say, trigger the New Madrid Fault. They had been very, very lucky to stop Gunmar, because now that Claire knew everything trolls could do, she wasn’t nearly as confident in Mankind’s ability to defeat them, at least not without a terrible price.

But none of that changed the fact that Claire Nunez and her fiancée were being forced into some very unwelcome celibacy by those damned Accords, save when Claire could portal down.

Speaking of that….

Claire pulled her phone out and called Jim.

Moments later, he answered. “Claire! I thought you’d be studying at the library.”

“So did I. Asshole Ross had other plans.”

“What?”

“Remember that guy I tripped? They wanted to see if I’d used any spooky powers, because otherwise a little thing like me couldn’t possibly beat such a big man.”

“They did…” Jim sounded annoyed. “I still think we should send Angor to talk to them.”

“Jim, I still hold to my opinion. Angor takes offenses against his apprentice like offenses to him. And that means “body count” and “blast radius” might come up in the reports.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Oh, I’m not the only one who is getting a little…”

“Yes!” Jim said.

“How about this. In a week, I have a long weekend, and I can just drive out and port down. Remember that little grotto under Arizona? The one where nobody comes, with the glowing rocks and nice little pool?”

“Yes…”

“I can think of some ways to spend a few days…”

“So can I…” Jim said. “But I’m worried about this. He’s targeting you over the suit.”

“Yah. They were trying to browbeat me into publicly disavowing the lawsuit and signing on. I told them where they could stick it.”

Claire didn’t mention the threat to her family. For all Jim talked about Angor, he also had a temper. “Trust me,” she continued. “Grandpa helped organize migrant workers back in the 1980s. This is minor stuff compared to what he faced.”

“Still don’t like it.”

“No, but we’ll win. Half the people on the lawsuit don’t even know someone with superpowers—they’re just thinking how easy it would be to use the Sokovia accords as a model to go after them.” Claire sighed. “Mom said that’s why the government’s been doing everything they can to delay court cases. They know they’re going to lose, and they were hoping more people would go for it.”

“I’ll leave that to you,” Jim said. “You’re the one with the sharp wit. I just have a big sword.”

“I’m not going to touch the double entendre.”  Claire paused. “You’re blushing.”

“I-no!… Yes.”

“I knew it!” Claire said. “So tell me, how is the gnome revolution going?”

“Slowly…” And the Jim launched  into what was going on under the earth. Claire rolled over on the bed and listened to him. Things were safer down below now… Now if only they could get back to normal here!

I miss you …

Later, after she’d finished talking to Jim and made herself something to eat, Claire debated sitting down and just watching a movie.

Then she looked over at her pile of economics work. Claire knew some of her friends were surprised, but half of Mom’s problems had come because people didn’t understand economics.

Also, she was already doing her “hard science” studies, in the form of learning more about trollish and human magic under Angor Rot’s gentle hands.

“Right. Economics first, Romcom later. That thesis isn’t going to finish itself.”

But before she got to the first page, someone started knocking on her door.

Ross if it ’s one of your goons, I swear I will portal them to South Africa…

“Hello!” Claire said.

“Heya Hamlet-Lass, fell like doing me a favo—“

Claire closed the door in Tony Stark’s face.

Chapter Text

Magery, especially the higher spells, were as dependent on will and mindset as they were on knowledge. Claire held the door closed, shut her eyes and focused on not losing her temper.

Then she pulled the door open, just as Tony Stark was about to knock on it again.

“Tony,” she said. “What is it?”

“Nice apartment…” Tony said, looking around. “Very homey. But… are you sure that’s the best place to keep the staff of scary magic?”

Claire glanced at the umbrella holder with the Skathe-Hrün sitting in it. “If you can see it, you’re not here to steal it. And I moved because my special tutor sometimes drops by.” And Marsha still gets twitchy now and then. Her roommate hadn’t adjusted well to Angor Rot dropping by, especially since Claire had been late and Angor had spent ten minutes trying to make ‘small talk’.

“Nice security measure. You know, if there are more—‘

“They’d be really pissed at me if I told you, Tony, since mages, as far as the Sokovia Accords are concerned are super powered individuals. I’d hate to explain to some kid why his mom who charms houses for good luck just got tossed into the Raft because she stopped a purse-snatcher.”

“It wasn’t intended for that. But if we’re not regulated, then we become the bad guys.”

Claire shook her head. “Then maybe you should have put that into the Accords, because right now, intended or not, that’s what you have.” She walked over to the counter. “Tea? I’m not allowed to drink coffee.”

“Magic?”

“Caffeine binge during last semester’s finals.” She paused. “But if you’re here to ask me to use my powers, I can’t help you. I’m officially retired. And a party to a lawsuit.”

“I…” Tony shook his head. “It didn’t play out like I wanted it to. But it’s for a good cause.”

Half the Avengers on the run, the other half having to listen to Ross… Claire glanced back at Tony and he was getting the same look she had seen on other people’s face. The world wasn’t cooperating, and why wasn’t it?

Tony, you could really have benefited from someone telling you no, now and then.

“Okay, not my powers, and I’m assuming you didn’t have an outbreak of gnomes in your home.”

“Nah, see, I’m thinking I have an acquaintance. He’s a good kid, but maybe… He could use some mentoring.”

“Who?”

“Well, if you saw our little disagreement at the airport, and who hasn’t since the security footage hit the net… Spider-Man.”

“Good kid.” Claire stared at Tony.

“Yeah, I figured that his webbing, you know, a hard counter to Cap and his shield, and it’s non-lethal…”

Claire stared at him. “Tony. How old.”

“He’s… He’s fifteen. Now.”

“Fifteen. Now.” Claire closed her eyes. “Which means he was fourteen when you sent him up against…” For a moment she was at a loss for words. “Tony, what happened to how dare the trolls enlist us in their war?”

“I had a plan,” Tony said. “Like I said, he was a hard counter, bring this thing down fast, and Cap’d go easy on him.”

“What about the Winter Soldier?” Claire said, and Tony winced. “The whole reason for that fiasco was that he was too dangerous for anything but lethal force, so what if your plan ended up with Spider-Man facing him? Or…” She gestured at the TV. “Hell, that… giant man who accidentally smacked him into the pavement. I figured he was just short, but fourteen?”

“I am detecting a certain amount of pot and kettle here,” Tony said, annoyed.

“Well, being that once Jim got the Amulet, there was no choice, you might need to recalibrate your detectors.” Claire sighed and handed Tony the cup of tea. “How’s Rhodey?”

“I’m setting up some new servos for him, but…” Tony shook his head. “Paralysis, and he’ll likely never get the full function of his legs back. He thanked you for the card.”

“Well, when you get a hand with one wanna-be blood cult… That’s another thing, Tony, we only heard about that because people were willing to talk, and now they aren’t. The Accords managed to scare all the wrong people. But what is it you need with Spider-Man?”

“I was thinking like a Big Sister thing. You know, keep a watch on him? Happy’s his contact, but…”

“But Happy has other things to do. How am I going to do this?” Claire asked. Because if it’s a choice between Me, Tony, and Angor Rot, when it comes to talking to a teenager, Tony is number three on that list.

“Oh, I know that you have a public service obligation as a part of attending NYU, but since you’re already a graduate, and after two years, congrats, it shouldn’t just be picking up trash in a park. So, they have an opening for an economics teacher and I took the liberty to confirm that your qualifications match what’s needed for an emergency credential.”

Claire blinked. “Teaching? Tony, I’m about to start defending my thesis!”

“Tell me you can’t do that with one eye closed.”

Claire took a brief, calming sip of tea. I will not sic Angor on him I will not sic Angor on him…

“Fine. Who is he?”

“Nice kid. Peter Parker.”

“Right,” Claire said. “You know I’m public right?”

“A few years ago. Today’s generation, you’re practically ancient and forgotten.”

Claire nodded. “Tony?”

“Yes?”

“I’m serious. I’m on Asshole Ross’s list. If I use a power for law enforcement in any way, shape or form, I could end up on the Raft, and I’m not super rich. Worse, it could hurt the movement against the Accords. So look at me and tell me this isn’t some plan to get Shadowdancer back into action.”

“No. I just want…” Tony paused. “Someone to talk to Peter and maybe help him come up with better plans than breaking up the band and getting his friend crippled.”

Claire nodded. “Fine. Tony?”

“What?”

“You can’t force things to work out. Sometimes you have to listen.”

“I know. I have, but you can’t just let things go.” Tony said.

Claire didn’t push. One thing anyone who knew Tony Stark understood was that pushing him just got him to double down.  “So, let me guess, I start on Monday?”

“Only if you think you’re ready.”

Claire rolled her eyes. Well, at least it’ll take care of the community service requirement…

Chapter Text

Claire had long since learned to sleep when she could. Trolls, mages, and aliens didn’t keep to human schedules, after all. The fact that her mom had seen sleeping in as a cardinal sin didn’t hurt much, either.

So arriving at Midtown School of Science and Technology in time to talk to the principal wasn’t hard. Figuring out what to say…

Right. Tony Stark wants me here to keep watch on the results of yet another choice he made with a fine lack of forethought. Probably not the best thing to say.

It didn’t take long for her to get the visitor’s pass, some students already working at the early labs. Umbrella under one arm, Claire waited until Mr. Morita was ready to see her.

It didn’t take long.

“Ms. Nunez,” he said, holding out a hand. “It’s an honor.”

Claire smiled. “I didn’t think you were that hard up for temporary teachers.”

“Well, there is that, and I’m happy we were able to get such a qualified instructor on such short notice. As I understand it, you’re already getting ready to defend your Doctorate, which is fairly impressive at 22.”

“I have decent time-management skills.”

“Yes. But my Grandfather would hold me remiss if I didn’t say that it is also an honor to meet one of the participants in the Battle of Los Angeles.”

Claire shook her head. “Not much of a battle, honestly. When St—Captain America took out their leadership, the Los Angeles cell was just trying to escape.”

“That’s not what the news reports said—and showed.”

Claire tried not to wince. The fight on the freeway had been a complete mess, especially with the high school buses on the road, and the HYDRA team hadn’t given a damn where their shots had gone. Claire had barely participated in the fight, focusing on portaling buses and bystanders alike to where they weren’t likely to get shot. It had wiped her out for the next three days.

Not that she had needed to fight. Jim had been… Well, nearly as furious as he had been with Gunmar. Jim had worked with some of the men who had proven to be HYDRA members, and he took that betrayal very poorly, along with Toby, who had demonstrated that HYDRA robots lost vs. magic warhammer.

“Well, I don’t see much of that in my future,” Claire said. “I’m retired.”

“Unfortunately,” Morita said. “This hasn’t been the first time America has passed unjust laws in a panic. I had hoped that we would have learned better, but… Nothing to do but hope the courts do their job.”

“Yes.” Claire nodded. “So I’m replacing Mr. Wilkes.  Was he ill?”

“Ah, no, Mr. Wilkes has left to pursue other investment opportunities.” Her superior sighed. “He left by request.”

“Why?”

Principle Morita reached down and pulled a book, really a pamphlet out. “His main instructional material.”

Claire stared at it.

GOLD. THE ONLY TRUE CURRENCY! The cover read.

“…I’m going to have to start from scratch, aren’t I?”

A little while later, Claire was sitting behind the desk as her first class of the day walked in. And there was Peter Parker, with his friend, Ned Leeds.

She waited until they got seated, and then sat on her desk. “Good morning, everyone, I’m Claire Nunez and I’ll be taking over for Mr. Wilkes. He’s… had to leave for personal reasons.”

A hand shot up. “Yes?”

“Is it because of the investment opportunities he helped us with?”

“Did it involve buying gold?” Claire asked.

“Yes.”

“Then that was probably one of the personal reasons he left.” Another hand rose up. “Yes?”

“Do you still have your dinosaur?”

“Oh, yeah! And the Santa Claus outfit!”

Claire didn’t say anything, but reminded herself that dressing the undead raptor up as Santa had been Toby’s idea. It had been funny… until it went viral.

“The raptor is… in a secure area.” Claire nodded. Another hand shot up. “Is this about school, or things you saw on YouTube?”

The hand went down. Claire nodded. “I know things are happening outside the school, from the Battle of Sokovia to the recent issues with the Avengers. But I’m here to teach economics, and most importantly, not use my position to try to influence you. There’s more than enough information out there for you to come to a conclusion for yourself, and since most of you are just two years from being of voting age… coming to your own conclusions is a habit you’d better get into.”  She turned to the whiteboard. “Now, the first thing I want to talk about is why every currency, from paper currency to gold, is, more or less a fiat currency. That’s because, in most cases, currency is dependent on our perception of value.” She looked back and grinned. “Which is why when I was going to junior high, candy bars were a valuable medium of exchange, complete with speculators. Then I graduated to high school, where you could go off campus for lunch, and the bottom fell out of the market…”

When the class ended, Claire looked up. “Mr. Parker, Ms. Toomes, Mr. Leeds, please stay behind for a moment.”

The three approached her, looking confused. Claire looked up. “I’ll be talking to the rest of the Academic Decathlon team, but to be blunt? Mr. Wilkes… went off the rails about a semester ago and since then…”

“His teaching has been…” Ned made a twirling motion around his head.

Claire tried not to smile. “Exactly. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal, since you’re smart, but since you’ll be going up against schools that didn’t have this issue, I’m going to schedule some outside reading for you, if you’re willing and maybe some after school sessions.” While I’m doing my doctoral. Joy. But it wasn’t the kids’ fault Wilkes had gone from decent teacher to la-la land, and Claire had a job to do. A little more, and Ned and Liz left, Peter staying behind at a motion from Claire.

“Yes, Ms. Nunez?”

“You and I have an acquaintance in common,” Claire said, quickly casting a spell to keep anyone from overhearing. “Tony Stark.”

“Oh, yeah, I got a great Internship from—“

“One that saw you getting training from Captain Rodgers and Giant-Man in how to fall.”

Peter gulped. Claire sighed.

“He didn’t mention me, did he?”

“No…”

“Okay, the thing is, you have your contact with Happy, but Happy isn’t here. I’m also here, and if you need to talk, or need help…”

“Are you going to go on patrols?”

“No.” Claire shook her head. “I managed to make an enemy of Secretary Ross, and if I step out of line, bad things might happen. From the viewpoint of heroics, I’m retired. But since I started out being secret, I may be able to give you a hand now and then.” 

Peter looked like he wasn’t certain about that, and Claire decided to not push. “Now, go on and don’t be late for your next class.”

“Right!” With that, Peter fled from the room.

He was polite. Naive. Only seven years younger than Claire and, outside of the airport, fighting people who really didn’t want to hurt him… He’d never actually been in a serious fight.

When did other people start looking so young? It’s not like I’m ancient! Claire sighed and dismissed the spell as the next class came in. This one, she’d been warned, had more than a few clowns in it. She smiled. She’d just have to channel Angor Rot…

Chapter Text

“Happy Hogan,” the voice sounded anything but.  Claire was leaning back in her comfy chair (found at a garage sale, but better for those long writing times than the most expensive chair in NYC), a pile of student work on one side, and her work on the other side, including the ten books she was going to have to read this weekend.

“Happy, It’s Claire Nunez.”

“Oh, Dinogirl.”

Claire winced. “No, graduate student and part-time watcher of a certain friend of ours.”  Claire didn’t trust the phones enough to use Peter’s name.

“Right. The kid,” Happy said. “You know, he’s been clogging my in box. I’ve got… Oh, Churros given to the hero of finding lost puppies, two bikes recovered, one of which hadn’t been stolen, and oh, yes, helping a tourist find her way to downtown.” There was a pause. “You know, for that last one, I thought about calling in Nick Fury and the Helicarrier.”

“Would you rather he look for some real bad guys?” Claire asked.

“No.” Happy paused. “But this move to the upstate facility is taking all my time. Do you know how many times Ross’s friends have come through?  And then we’ve got the state environmental compliance teams, and that doesn’t include all the original Ming China that I—“ Claire heard something that sounded like a crash.

“The original Ming China now minus one.  Hey, can you do that Harry Potter, you know Reparo thing?”

“I…” Claire closed her eyes. “Sort of, but it’s a three-hour ritual. Can’t you just find some glue?”

“Ha. Ha. Look, I know the kid wants to help, but between you me, and the wall? Tony shouldn’t have grabbed him. He’s nice but…”

Claire shook her head as she noted another essay. “Everyone has to start out somewhere, and better this than getting tossed in. Trust me, I know. Look, try to thank him for doing this. Sure, he’s just finding bicycles and giving people directions, but between the Avengers blowing up and Asshole Ross, we could do with some non-threatening help.”

“Yeah…” Happy dropped his voice. “Look, you know I hate going behind Tony’s back, but…”

“Yes?”

“Tony thinks he has Ross under control.”

“And?” There was a pause. Claire waited.

Finally Happy spoke, “Tony thought that Obediah had his back up until he had an ax buried in it. A kid like Peter?  He’s not even a legal adult, and I can just imagine what Ross could do with that, and Tony may not have as much influence as he thinks he does. Tony’s Rich. Ross is the government.”

Claire shook her head. “And Ross blew up half of Harlem. How did he get to be secretary of state?”

“The other two candidates had a problem with cutting off one head, and two more growing.”  Happy sounded annoyed. “And then there was the fact that the last vice president was a traitor…I don’t know how much you keep up with the news, but as bad as Ross is, he wouldn’t piss on a Hydra goon to put him out, and that made him the guy to pick.”

Wonderful. Everyone competent was a bunch of traitors, so we’re left with the loyal idiots. Claire drove her pen with unnecessary force into someone’s comment that gold was innately valuable because the Egyptians used it.

“So I don’t want to make him think he’s some kind of Avenger in training, because then he’s gonna find the kind of trouble he might not be able to get out of.”

You ’re right, Happy, but that ship sailed the moment Tony had Peter get into a fight with Steve.

“Right.” Claire said. “I might try and get him to do some training. Today was just meeting him for the first time and I didn’t want to—“

“Hold on. Phone from our friend.”

Claire waited. Then, Happy was back on. “Can you do that Harry Potter teleport thing?  Because it’s a little confused, but I think he just blew up an ATM and liquor store.”

“What?”

“Hang on, I’m sending you the address.”

Claire looked down at it and nodded. “I’ve got it.” She stood up and reached out her hand, as the  Skathe-Hrün flew into it, and then paused, glancing at the closet. No. No need for armor, not yet. And moments later, the room was empty.

The shadow dimension was strange to many people. It wasn’t the only way to get around, but it was the way that Claire knew best. She carved a portal and walked through, heading in the direction of the address Happy had given her.

Someone who didn’t know what they were doing could spend days, only to find themselves cast out far from their destination. To Claire, miles turned to feet.

And then she was stepping out into a street, into utter chaos. There was a coughing man holding a fat cat, staring at his burning store in disbelief. On the other side of the street, an ATM kiosk was on fire, with several light poles tumbled down it. They hadn’t been knocked down—something had cut through them. Claire looked around, but there wasn’t anyone else. No Spider-Man, no criminals. Everyone had run, but… The fires were still spreading. 

Claire ran to the man with the cat. “Is anyone else in there?”

“No, I was fine, and then there was an explosion, and Spider-Man, he saved me.”

“Right,” Claire said. She glanced at the store. Much more and… She raised the  Skathe-Hrün, and said several short words. Tendrils of shadow rose up and covered the flames, leaving frost covered ash in their wake.

Not vigilantism, at least not technically.

“Okay, you should sit down,” Claire said. She guided him to a bus stop as the first police and fire trucks showed up. She quickly cast a calming spell on the cat, so it wouldn’t run off.

Probably don ’t need to talk to him about it, or why trolls have a spell specifically to calm cats down.

“Are you okay?” she finally said. “I need to see if I can find Spider-Man.”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine… Oh, what is my insurance going to say?”

Claire didn’t say anything, just ran off, waiting until he was out of sight before she called a portal, to a rooftop several blocks away. She pulled out her phone and called Peter.

Pick up, pick up, pick up …

“Ms. Nunez?” Peter’s voice sounded low, like he was whispering. “What are you calling me about?”

“How you destroyed a street?” Claire asked.

There was a pause. “It wasn’t me. It was these crazy guys, with weird guns! I called Happy, but he’s busy and—“

“Calm down. Where are you?”

“Oh, I’m home. Nobody saw—“

“You’re Spider Man!”

Claire paused. “Peter. Did you check to make certain the room was empty before you came into it?”

“Uh… Heh… Ned, say hi to Ms. Nunez.”

Claire closed her eyes and groaned.

Chapter Text

Peter really wasn’t certain what was going to happen the next day. Ms. Nunez had told her that she would talk to him. Happy didn’t return his phone calls.

But Ms. Nunez didn’t look happy at the class.

“Right,” she said. “First of all, no, gold wasn’t valuable because the Egyptians invented gold coins.” Someone giggled. “So we need to talk about the value of things, and why that doesn’t always make a good currency.” She reached up and pulled a ring off of her finger and put it on the desk. Then she reached down and put a can of beans next to it.

“What’s more valuable?”

Liz giggled. “The ring. Is that a wed—“

“Engagement ring,” Ms. Nunez said. “Okay, more valuable. Now, you’re on a desert island, and you haven’t eaten for three days. Now which is more valuable?”

Everyone looked around, until Ned raised his hand. “The beans?”

“Right. But then you eat the beans and what do you have?”

Flash called out. “If you’re Ned? Gas!”  Everyone laughed, even Ned.

Ms. Nunez shook her head and put her ring back on. “Walked right into that one. But yeah. So what’s the problem between beans and gold, even if beans are more useful?”

Peter raised his hand. “You can use beans for something else?”

“Right. So gold, or silver, or in some cases, shells, can’t be used for many other things. Sure you can make jewelry out of them, but you’re not worrying about eating your money, which is one weakness of a barter economy. But here’s where we get one type of inflation. If you need to eat, suddenly the value of this can of beans goes up. So what cost one gold coin, now costs two.  Conversely, a ship comes into the bay and suddenly merchants have so many beans they can’t store them all, and the value shoots down. And this is important, because you can never assign a flat value to the dollar, or the gold coin—it’s going to vary due to a lot of factors, ranging on how much money is in the system, to how rare the items you’re trying to purchase are. So today we’re going to talk about that, and then over the rest of the week, we’ll talk about the other sources of changes in monetary value, such as inflation due to increase in the money supply….”

She’s a super hero, and she sounds like she’s actually interested in this… Peter thought as he started working.

But she said nothing about Spider-man, and Peter started getting nervous. Until the last period of the day when they got a note to meet Ms. Nunez in her office.

The two teens sat there, looking nervous while Ms. Nunez did something to the walls that had purple symbols appearing on them.

“There, nobody’s going to bother us,” she said, then sat down and stared at them. “Ned, I take it you—“

“That Peter’s Spider-Man! Yeah, it’s cool, just wai—“ He fell silent, as Ms. Nunez stared at him.

“Just wait until Secretary Ross sends a team to arrest someone in violation of the Sokovia Accords?”  She asked. “Good news, Spider-Man managed to fight with the Avengers. Bad news, Spider-Man managed to fight with the Avengers. Trust me, that means there are eyes on you, Peter, not all of them friendly.” She glanced over at Ned. “Ned, Tony asked me to drop by and give Peter a hand. I’m not in the business anymore, but… Well, I started at around your age, and now I feel old. But this is serious, Ned. Don’t spread this around, because if the wrong people hear…”

Ned gulped. “I understand.”

“Okay, I need to talk to Peter for a little bit, and I think you have some homework to get started on in what’s left of your study period.”

Moments later, Peter was alone. He felt… Okay, look, I… “They had ray guns!” Peter said.

“Yeah. I saw,” Ms. Nunez quietly said. “Peter… you were there. The deli?”

“Yeah, when they shot at me, I—“

“Right,” Ms. Nunez nodded. “I saw where the energy beam played through the place. I had to stop the fires, but Peter, I want you to ask yourself a question. You saved the owner. But what would have happened if that beam had say, been about three feet lower?”

Peter blinked. “That would have…” He had a vision of the energy, slashing through at waist level where Mr. Delmar…

Where Mr. Delmar would be sitting with Murph. Peter felt the blood drain from his face.

Ms. Nunez didn’t say anything for a moment, then she nodded. “Peter. I’m not going to be a complete hypocrite and tell you to stay home. But understand that most bad guys? They don’t care about collateral damage. Best case, they’re not thinking of it. Worst case, collateral damage is part of the reason they’re here. But people who are trying to protect civilians? We have to think about it. Not just in what we might do, but in how to stop the other side. Because if not, well, people might be just as afraid of us as they are the other guys.”

“I… I had to stop them,” Peter said.

“Why?” Ms. Nunez asked. “They were robbing an ATM. Take a picture of their car, or follow them until they put the weapons down.”

“… I didn’t think of that. I didn’t even know they had those crazy guns. How did they get those crazy guns?”

“I don’t know,” Ms. Nunez said. “Between the Chitarui invasion, the fall  of Shield, and the collapse of HYDRA, all kinds of hardware is out there. I’ll have to contact Tony. But until then, Peter, be careful.  Remember if you run into those guys, or anyone with those weapons again, don’t engage them, especially around civilians. We do not want another Lagos in the middle of Brooklyn.”

Peter swallowed. “Right, Ms. Nunez… I’d better…”

“Peter?” Ms. Nunez called as he got to the door. “How’d your first fight against a bunch of ray-gun toting supervillains feel?”

“Um… Scary? Exciting?”

She smiled. “Good. Just remember ‘fighting supervillains’ isn’t an acceptable excuse for missing class.”

“Yes, Ms. Nunez.”

Claire sat back as Peter left. Should I try and convince him to tell his Aunt?  She shook her head. She’d have to meet May first to gauge her. Not only that, but it’d be hard for Peter to trust her if she went behind his back like that.

And you already hit him with a lot today.

She’d have to call Tony and see if he knew anything about this. But selling guns like this… Not Hydra, or any professional terrorist organization, that was plain. Six ATMs had been hit, the robbers were clearly not looking for a fight or making any statements.

So who the hell decided to start selling alien weapons on the street, and what else are they going to sell?

“Sir?”

Secretary Ross turned at his aide’s comment. “Yes?”

“Something you might want to see.” Moments later, they showed an image of an ATM, caught by several security cameras.

“Spider-Man isn’t a signatory to the Accords.”

“No, but he’s Stark’s project. We’ll wait until he screws up more dramatically than this.”

“Yes sir. But we also have this…”

There was an image of the deli and building, fires burning cheerily. Then suddenly, purplish shadows whipped out and covered them, snuffing the fires out.

“Our intelligence says that color of energy is associated with Shadowdancer.”

“Well, well, well. I wonder what someone who is retired was doing walking around in that part of town…” Ross leaned forward. “Where is she now?”

“Claire Nunez is completing her doctorate in economics, but right now she’s fulfilling her community service obligation by working at a high school.”

Ross paused. “And Spider-Man isn’t an adult. Stark may have kept his name out of our records, but that’s plain. And him working with someone who publicly opposes the Accords and who may be an underground vigilante… this may be the dramatic screw-up we need. Put out a surveillance order.”

“Sir, we’ll need probable cause.”

“Ms. Nunez has publicly spoken out against the Accords. That makes her a person of interest and are all the cause we need. After all, we have free speech, but speech has consequences.”

“Yes, sir.” The man waited until Secretary Ross had left. Then he pulled out his own phone. Moments later, he started talking. “Watchdog. I have a potential target. Better yet, she’s on Ross’s radar, and we can use this to further the cause. Better yet. It might get us Spider-Man and Stark.”

There was no answer, but he knew there wouldn’t be. Moments later, his phone was back in his pocket, and he was busily typing out the probable-cause authorization.

Chapter Text

“They’re cut off,” Adrian Toomes snarled.

“Boss, it was bad luck.”

“Bad luck. Bad luck that brings someone associated with the Avengers in?” Adrian glared at the others in the room. “We survive because people don’t make waves. Those idiots bought a cutter and a tractor unit. You know, go in, slice the vault out and be gone before the cops. They didn’t say anything about frying half the neighborhood. They’re cut off.”

“So what are we gonna do with the extra equipment?”

Adrian frowned. There was always a person wanting to buy, but keeping it on the down low meant that he couldn't risk people like the Kingpin. Big time crooks got big time attention.

More importantly, Adrian had seen it before. You invited one of those types in as a partner, and suddenly, without really knowing how, you were working for them. They didn’t care about people like Adrian or his family.

“Wonder what Spider-Man was doing there,” Mason said from where he was bent over some Ultron components.

“Stopping a bank robbery?” Adrian muttered.

“Yeah, but why just him?” Mason said. “He hangs out with Iron Man, and you can’t tell me those idiots would have been able to get away.”

“I—“ Adrian fell silent. Mason was right. And since his big fight with the Avengers, Spider-Man had just been seen stopping purse snatchers and showing people where to go. And in the evening, by a random ATM… He’s a local. Not part of Stark’s crew, at least not all the time. The thought caused him to relax, some of the tension vanishing.

“Right. So it was accidental. But we keep on the downlow. No big demonstrations. No big fights. And we sell to people who understand to keep things quiet.”

“Boss,” Jackson Brice said. “We don’t sell this stuff to people who wanna be quiet. We sell them to people who are loud and proud!”

“Yeah, and what happens to those loud and proud people when Tony Stark or Damage Control drops by.” Adrian shook his head. “Moron.”

“Yeah, maybe, but I talked to another potential buyer.”

“Really. And you were going to tell me when?”

“I’m telling you now, and they’re willing to go in for a lot. A lot.”

“What do they want?”

“Some of the HYDRA equipment the Avengers scored. You know they were trying to make super—“

“Hey, hey, hey!” Toomes snarled. “Drop that right the fuck now. You know the part I said about low profile? Making the Hulk isn’t low profile. The minute anyone hears about us even thinking about making our own supers, everyone from the Avengers to the Boy Scouts will be landing on us.”

“We’d just be handing them the goods.”

“Wouldn’t save us. Guns are one thing. Powers? Super soldiers? They’ll follow that chain as far as they have to. Drop the client.”

“Bu—“

“Now.” Moron. “What do you have for us?” Adrian asked Mason.

“Well, I got a new anti-gravity gun. Longer ranged and smaller than the ones the other guys lost, and we’ve got enough stuff to build a dozen of ‘em.” He shrugged. “I’m really getting the hang of this.”

“Well, you make ‘em, and I’ll move ‘em,” Adrian said. His phone rang, and he grabbed it. “Liz!” he said. “How are you doing? Yeah, I’m sorry about not seeing you for the last day—lots of stuff at work. I’ll be home tonight for dinner, I promise. What? You’ve got some stuff to tell me?” He chuckled. “What? A new teacher?” He paused. “An ex-hero? Yeah… I’d like to talk about that. Sounds fun. Love you. Bye!”

Adrian turned to Mason. “Pull up everything on the Internet about a girl called Shadowdancer. She’s got a job teaching at their school.”

Brice snorted. “What, they sent a superhero to watch kids and now you’re worried?”

“The same week she shows up, then Spider-Man shows up.” Adrian said. “I’d like to make certain it’s a coincidence.”

“So Parker fried a store,” Tony said. “I told him to just be an Ordinary Neighborhood—“

“He didn’t fry it. The men with guns did.” Claire was curled up in her chair. Behind her the news was running, the story about a rumored sighting of Captain America where a drug kingpin’s fortress had mysteriously exploded and fallen down, right after emailing all of his most juicy secrets to the authorities. “And I seem to recall someone thinking Peter was good enough to go up against the Avengers, or fight alongside them, depending on who’s side you’re on.”

“I knew they would go easy on the kid.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t. And even if he did, that’s not a sign to back off, it’s a sign to work even harder to show that he’s ready for the big time.”

“Kid’s good. He wants to do the right thing. Took me long enough to learn that lesson.”

“He’s good, you’re right, but he idolizes you. Be careful Tony. You can hurt him real bad.” Claire shook her head. “But on the other point—what are a bunch of small-time robbers doing with advanced alien weaponry?”

“No clue, not at this point. I did get an enhanced shot of what the bank cameras picked up and it gets worse.”

“How?”

“That wasn’t just something they’d picked up and used. It was modified. The gravity weapon looked like it included both Chitauri and HYDRA tech.”

“How hard would it be to do?”

“Pretty… okay, presuming you knew what you were doing and had the equipment? Not hard for me, but not something anyone could do, so they’re reasonably skilled. And they’d need the components, which is…” Now Claire heard a sigh. “I did some digging. Some components have gone missing and the lists of what should have been at the sites don’t match with what was given.”

“And you’re just finding that out now?” Claire swung her feet down to the cool wooden floor.

“Yeah. Look, this is sort of on the quiet side, so don’t scream it to the sky, but Hydra had a ton of screw-you measures in SHIELD’s databanks, and then Nathasha put the whole thing out in public, and we weren’t even half-way finished fixing all that when my precocious baby robot nuked the remains. So first of all, we found out that even when you were supposed to have hard copies for everything… Who cares because it’ll be on line, which means some stuff is just gone. Secondly? Between Hydra and Ultron everyone is taking security super seriously, which means super compartmentalized, which means stuff is easier to lose, and harder to get without a stack of permissions. I can’t even tell you if those discrepancies are real or just an artifact of all the lost data. I’ll have to dig down on it, and have some people do… Hard copy reading.”

“I hope you’re not looking for sympathy. The school hasn’t had the budget to digitize half the periodicals in the stacks, so I spend a lot of time reading hard copy.”

“That’s why you need to change majors.”

“Too deep in. So the guns…”

“Yeah, someone is making guns and selling them to randos on the street.”

“Great,” Claire muttered. “I don’t know what scares me more. The idea that someone is building weapons incorporating Alien tech, or the fact that they’re trusting them to the judgment of people who commit federal felonies for a few thousand dollars.”

“Yes. I believe the answer is yes. But keep Parker out of this. He doesn’t need to find out about this end of the business.”

“I’m telling him to watch and report… But Tony, trust me, on this. He sees something, he’ll get involved.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yeah.”

“Right, I’ve got to talk the Sultan, and after that I’ll try to get you some information. But be careful. Remember who you’ve managed to piss off.”

“Well, If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll give him a nervous breakdown.”

“Wait, aren’t you the sweet girl who plays Juliet?”

“Not where Asshole Ross is concerned,” Claire said. “I’ve got some work to finish up, but I’ll let you know if anything happens here.”

“Gotcha.”

A few minutes later, Claire lifted her hand and summoned a book to it. “I really—“

“And in another example of the danger posed to this city, one of our supposed ‘heroes’ the Spider-Thing, nearly destroyed part of a neighborhood!” After this break to talk about our nutritional supplements, we’ll show you exclusive footage from the horror, only available to subscribers of the Daily Bug—“ Claire shut the sound off, and turned back to The Medieval Origins of the Financial Revolution. After all, the world didn’t stop for her convenience…

Chapter Text

“So what are you going to do?” Ned asked. He and Peter were back at Peter’s house. “You said Ms. Nunez wants you to back off.”

“Not back off. She wants me to call the police, or Happy.” Peter was on the ceiling, looking down at Ned. “She didn’t say I couldn’t go out and do my thing! I mean, those guys are running around with rayguns. What if they hurt someone? What if I call the police and they send some guy out to fight someone with rayguns?”

Peter dropped back down to the floor, just before Aunt May opened the door.

“Ned, are you going to be staying for dinner. I’ve got pot roast.”

“Sure thing!” Ned said.

“Good. Just remember, your mom doesn’t want you taking the late bus home,” May said. “So if you stay late, I’ll drive you, but not too late…”

“Right!” Ned called. Moments later, they were alone in the room.

“And besides,” Peter said. “Ms. Nunez may know a lot of stuff, but I checked out her and her friends history. Before the whole HYDRA thing? They found some magic weapons and then helped Mr. Stark. But it’s not like he picked them to go with him to stop Captain America!” Peter looked around. “They’ve done important stuff, like stopping a forest fire, but…”

Peter started walking around the room. “I mean, being a teacher is important, but I want to show Mr. Stark I have what it takes! I mean, I’m not a kid—“

“Technically, you sort of are,” Ned said. “So what do you want to do?”

Peter looked around, like their economics teacher might suddenly appear. “Okay, Ned, you wanna be the guy in the chair?”

“Yeah!” Ned said. “I can be your guy in the chair! But… how does that help us?”

“Okay, those guns, they have to have like crazy big power sources, right?”

“Um, yeah?” Ned said. “But it’s alien, how could you even detect it?”

“I don’t have to!” Peter told Ned. “See, I saw their guns and they had wires and conventional magnets and stuff like that. So wherever they go, wherever they use them, there’s gonna be a spike in energy. And we can detect that!”

“Cool! But how?”

“Remember the drones the school had for that photography project?” Peter asked.

“Yeah, but aren’t they in storage?”

“It’s for a good cause!” Peter replied. “And nobody needs to know. “ He pulled out a pad of paper, showing a number of designs. “I can whip this up in the science lab. Each one measures spikes in EM, and if even two drones pick it up, they can…”

“Triangulate it!” Ned grinned. “But wait, how do you control them?”

“I don’t, you do!” Peter said. “Guy in the chair! You triangulate, and tell me where to go!”

“But how do I know where you are?” Ned asked.

Peter grinned. “The tracker in the suit.”

“What?”

“Mr. Stark’s suits can find him, when he puts them on. Ms. Nunez said she found the store before I told her, and if Mr. Stark asked her to watch…”

“Dude, he put a pet chip on you!” Ned said.

“No,” Peter said, looking annoyed. “It’s just sort of an emergency thing. But…” he held up a USB connection. “If you can get it to talk to your computer, you can send me the info on my HUD.”

“Guy in the chair!” Ned said.

“Guy in the chair!”

It didn’t take long to hook the USB up to the suit, and Ned scrolled down through the files. “Wow, this is like, crazy-advanced stuff. The operating system is like twenty million lines of code! Wait, here’s an index… Oh, wow, want me to disable the tracker, except for us?”

“You can do that?” Peter asked.

“I think so. It’s like… This isn’t really secure, it’s the…” Ned started laughing. “Training Wheels protocol.”

“What? Turn it off!”

“What, really?”

“I’m—I don’t need training wheels!”

Ned frowned. “Guy, this looks… I don’t know what half these things do. Maybe he had a reason for that. Maybe the suit wasn’t fully tested or—“

“Mr. Stark tests everything.” Peter paused. “You know, that’s it! This is a test! Mr. Stark wouldn’t just wear a suit if he didn’t know everything about it! I bet that’s part of the reason he hasn’t been giving me the important jobs! He was waiting for me—us, I mean, to check out the suit and unlock it!”

“I…” Ned stared at Peter.

“Guy in the chair…” Peter said.

“Okay.” Ned touched a button and the suit sparked momentarily. “Training Wheels Protocol disabled and tracker set to me.”

“Great!” Peter said. “I’ve gotta just let Liz know that I can’t be part of the team.”

“What?” Ned asked.

“C’mon, I’m gonna be searching for these guys, I can’t spend time on the Decathlon… Besides I’ve been late for sessions a bunch of times already!” Peter held the suit up. “And this is a job…. For Spider-Man!”

“I think you might get sued for that.”

“The fact that the Fifth Circuit has agreed to hear the ACLU’s challenge against the enforcement of the Sokovia Accords in the US is yet another blow to an Administration already dealing with a shift in popular opinion after Captain America’s widely publicized flight and exile as a fugitive.” The blond was smiling in front of the court. “Today, the last attempt by the government to keep the case from being heard, arguing that the ACLU could not show any standing. In announcing their victory, William Green, lead attorney for the ACLU, had this to say: “A law that can, without any previous notice, expose any US citizen who develops what the authorities claim to be threatening powers, to arbitrary imprisonment without trial, is the platonic ideal of something that all United States citizens and residents face harm from and thus have standing to oppose…”

“Fools.” The masked man shut the TV off. “The sheep always forget. Always!” He turned to another man, also masked. You never knew what kind of unnatural powers those… things might have. So even some of his closest allies remained masked, hidden. “Our man with Toomes?”

“Not our man—he’s just greedy. So is Toomes, but he’s more cautious. He might need to be encouraged.”

The first man turned and looked at a monitor. On it, a file, from the fall of HYDRA. Taken just before Tony Stark’s pet had destroyed their files.

And if there is any proof that God supports our mission, it is that. We found it, just in time for the evidence to be destroyed.

the title read, HYDRA MUTAGENE experiment, and above it, the image of a canister.

“Sir, Hydra was never able to make this work.”

“For their purposes. They could never be certain if someone would die or gain their powers. But they didn’t have the key. We do.”

Hydra was looking in all the wrong places. But Jacob was able to find it in his research. A taint, a flaw in the human genome that the compound would attach to. The difference between death as a human and life as a monster. The first part of the binary compound, to bind to all real humans and protect them, while those who bore the taint would… change.

“You have concerns?”

“Sir, I don’t understand. Why are we making…super—I mean, tainted beings?”

“The sheep forget. They always forget. Less than a year after they saw one of their shining protectors turn on them to protect a murderer and they have forgotten. Yes, this will create some superhumans, and they will act like the monsters—the mistakes they are. And the people will be reminded, again, and again, and again, that they are not humans, they were never humans, and they will understand why even the Accords didn’t go far enough.” He chuckled. “Besides, we are only going to use this on a small part of the world. Enough to warn, not enough to be a danger.”

“I… I see. But we can’t get the primary source. We only have a few samples and…”

“And we need someone with Mr. Toomes' experience.” He chuckled. “And we will have it.”

“How?”

“We have a sample of the compound, enough for a few doses, correct?”

“Yes sir…”

“And I expect Mr. Toomes will do anything for his daughter.”

There was a pause. “But sir, with no opportunity to test her to see if she has the taint, she might—“

“According to the HYDRA files, she’ll live long enough, even if she’s pure, to convince Mr. Toomes that the HYDRA sample will cure her. The binary warhead is ready, and by the time he realizes it will not, it will be too late.”

“But—sir, if she’s pure, she’ll die!”

“That is a sacrifice we must be prepared to make, for a Pure Tomorrow.”

“For a Pure Tomorrow.” The man replied. “I’ll get it done.”

Chapter Text

Peter was nervous. Ms. Nunez wouldn’t know he was here, and he had permission to be in the lab.

But Ms. Nunez… Okay, he didn’t want to tip her off until he could show her and Mr. Stark he was ready.

Putting the monitors together was easy. It was just a simple system to detect high energy fields, giving a direction and field strength, and would interface with the other drones.

Easy.

The next thing Peter had to do was move the drones to the top of the school, but there was a hatch in the ceiling that nobody ever alarmed, because unless you were a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man there was no way you could get up there without making a lot of noise.

By the end of the study period, he was finished and he met Ned in Ms. Nunez’s class.

“Is it done?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Just gotta wait—“  He glanced and lowered his voice as Ms. Nunez came in. “Until night.”

“Think you’ll—“ Peter hushed Ned. Ms. Nunez had finished talking to Flash about his paper, and was getting ready to start her work.

Good news, she was smarter than Mr. Wilkes. Bad news, she assigned a lot more reading than he did. Class was for discussion, and missing the reading was a good way to catch a pop quiz.

And Peter didn’t want to catch Ms. Nunez’s attention.

But class just dragged, and it seemed like he was never going to get away from questions about inflation in 15th century Europe. It wasn’t bor…

Okay, it was totally boring, even if Ms. Nunez made it a little more interesting than it could be.

But now, Peter was gonna have to talk to Liz.

You can do it, Peter. You can ’t be Spider-Man at the same time you’re on the Decathlon team.  And this is more important.

So  when the bell rang, Peter headed for Liz, who was picking up her books.

“Uh, hey, Liz, I need to talk to you.” Peter said.

“I need to go to the copy store to get some stuff for the Decathlon practice,” Liz said. “So we need to hurry.”

“Right, about the Decathlon team… I can’t stay on it.”

“What?” Liz said. “Peter, you’re our best on science!”

“Yeah, but I’m working this internship with Mr. Stark and I just can’t. I’m too busy.”

“I…” Liz looked like she was going to yell at him, but took a deep breath. “Peter, c’mon, we need you.”

“I know but—“

“Look, maybe I can have Ms. Nunez talk to Mr. Stark. She’s taken over Mr. Wilke’s advisor position for—“

“No, no-no-no!” Peter said. “That’s okay, Ms. Nunez doesn’t need to know, it’s not a big—“

“Know what?”

Oh-God, Oh-God!

“Peter’s thinking of—“

“I actually changed my mind!” Peter said. “I was thinking that maybe you know, you needed someone who could give his undivided attention to the team, but you know, I can do it!”

“So you’re not going to quit?” Liz asked.

“Quit?”  Ms. Nunez glanced at Peter. “Why would you want to quit? Peter, this is the kind of thing that colleges look for.”

“Oh, nothing, no reason!” Peter said. “I’d better let Liz go, and we can get ready for the session this evening! Ned wanted something to eat!”

Without waiting, he turned and ran to Ned.

“Hey Peter, did you get—“ Peter just grabbed Ned and headed out of the school.

“We’re not doing it tonight.” He said. “Liz was going to tell Ms. Nunez that I was going to quit the team.”

“But you have your internship—“

“She knows what it really is! What if she calls Mr. Stark?”

“Oh. That’d be bad.”

“Yes!” Peter said. “So we’ll do it tomorrow. Nobody’s going to notice those drones on the roof.”

I hope.

Liz paid for the copies. The school would let you make copies, but it took forever to get permission and Dad let her use his card for that.

Why would Peter do that? Peter could be sweet, but he could also be a flake. But dropping the Decathlon?

Liz shook her head, and gathered her bundle and headed out into the dimming light of afternoon.

Then a guy ran into her, and she barely managed to keep from getting knocked over, even as a sting hit her in the arm.

“Asshole!” She shouted. The guy didn’t even slow down.

“You okay?” another man said, and Liz nodded. “Yeah.”

“People need to watch where they’re going.”

“Yeah.”

Peter tried to pay attention. But right now, he could be out there! Getting the bad guys!

Instead of… “Okay, Peter, why couldn’t anyone replicate Dr. Erskine’s formula?” Liz said.

“Oh, right, um…” Fortunately, Peter had spent a lot of time learning about Dr. Erskine, so it didn’t take him long to give a good answer, and then the three rapid fire questions about chemistry were easy as anything.

Mr. Harrington nodded. “Good!” He looked around. “Now, this weekend, you’ll be doing some optional work with Ms. Nunez for the economics section, but we’re doing pretty good here. I think we’ve got a shot!”

“Good job,” Liz said. She shook her head.

“Something wrong?”  Mr. Harrington asked.

“Just a little hot,” Liz said.

“Yes, you are,” Flash called, and Betty Brant threw a piece of paper at him.

“Nah, I’m just…” Liz shook her head. “Dad said I could take a taxi home, so I better go.”

As she turned, Peter felt a shiver. His… sense. Something was wrong.

“Hey, I’d better go to,” Peter said. “It’s getting late, and the Aunt May wants me home soon.”

“Right,” Mr. Harrington said. “Let’s call it an evening, so that the janitor’s can get to work.”

Peter didn’t hesitate, as he turned the corner of the school.

“We gonna do it now?” Ned asked. “I need to get home to use the computer.”

“No, I wanna keep track of Liz. I… Just in case she’s sick.”

“You’re using the suit to stalk her?” Ned asked, as Peter reached down to grab his bag.

“What? No! I just… It’s like walking her home, only I’ll be swinging along!”

“O….kay…” Ned said.

It didn’t take Peter long to get ready. And then—

“Congratulations on completing the Training Wheels Protocol, Peter Parker.”

“What?”

[hr][/hr]

Liz was hot. But not just that, she was afraid. Something, the car was too right, the walls were closing in. Her skin felt tight and loose at the same time.

“I… I need to get some air…” she said.

“I’ve got the AC on,” the driver said, then looked back and blinked. “You… You don’t look too good. You sick?”

“No… I… I gotta get out, everything’s too tight, everything’s too…”

The driver didn’t say anything for a second. “You hang on, Mercy’s just a few minutes away and they have an ER.”

“No—I gotta, I gotta—“

“HEY!” the driver’s shout was lost as Liz opened the door and flung herself out, hitting the ground and tumbling down the embankment. She heard the tires squeal as the driver pulled the cab to the side, heard people shouting, but they were too loud, too many WORDS and she NEEDED to get out of her SKIN, AND THINGS WERE MOVING INSIDE HER AND THEY WERE HOTANDCOLDANDSHOUTEDANDSHEWASAFRAID—

And then Liz screamed.

Chapter Text

Peter was having problems. He’d started with not having the right web.

“Wait, why is this different—“

“Mr. Stark has programmed 576 possible options for your web shooters, and web composition, Peter.”

“No, just go back to the one I was using.”

“Confirmed, Peter. Incoming communication.”

“Peter, how’s your stalking mission going?”

“I’m not stalking, I’m… guarding! Yeah, Guarding!” Peter said. “I—okay, she was taking a taxi and I—“

“Peter, if you have the identity of the individual, I can search for Cell Phone signals. Would you like a refresher course on the my intelligence gathering abilities?”

“No! I, okay, it’s, Um, Liz Toomes.”

“Scanning. There are four hundred and fifty Liz Toomes with cell phone accounts in the United States. Would you like to localize?”

“Yeah, she, um, just left the school.”

“Localizing. Confirmed. Establishing way point to signal. Standing by to download cell phone informati—“

“Whaoh—no! Not that, just where she is. Um, and don’t copy any of her personal info!”

“Confirmed, Peeping Tom subroutine deactivated.”

“I’m not stalking, I’m not stalking,” Peter said, as he swung off, using the momentum from his swings to rise in the air. Before falling and hitting another light pole.

“Peter, her signal has left the highway.”

“What?” Peter saw the taxi pull to the side. Pulled to the side with the door open and the driver on the phone.

“911? Yeah, I had a girl, she said she was feeling sick, and then she panicked and jumped out of the car? No, I don’t think she was high, I’ve seen junkies—Just send—AIAGH!” He jumped back as Peter landed on the hood.

“Was there a girl here?” Peter asked.

“Yeah, you looking for her? She ran down that way, really freaked, but you’ll need a flashlight!”

“It’s, um, yes, it’s okay, citizen!” Peter whispered. “Do we have night vision?”

“Yes, Peter. Activating tracking protocols.”

Moments later, Peter could see everything like it was daylight, complete with the images marking Liz’s footprints.

She ’s running for the river, why?

“Uh, Ned?”

“Yeah?”

“Call 911. Tell them that Liz was feeling sick at school and that you saw the taxi stop.”

“Okay.”

Gotta find her… Wait a moment, she’ll know my voice. “Uh, can I change my voice.”

“Of course, Peter, voice changer activated.”

And there she was, leaning against a tree, holding her scarf in her hands. Her skin was scratched, and her scarf had blood on it from a nasty cut, but she was breathing hard. Peter landed in front of her.

“Hello Citizen,” the deep voice came from him. Liz screamed and jumped back. She dropped the scarf.

“Who are you?” she shouted.

“Just your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man,” Peter said. Man this voice sounds like… He lifted his hands. “Honestly, I’m just here to help! What’s wrong?”

“Initiating biometric scan,” there was a pause. “Peter, I am reading elevated temperature, brain activity and other factors indicating a panic attack along with… anomalous readings.”

“What kind of—“

“Just get away, I can’t…” Liz was gasping. “Everyone’s after me— the trees, everything’s changing—“

“Peter, further analysis indicates she may be undergoing a severe paranoid episode or a possible psychotic break. Should I notify emergency services?”

“You can do that? Y-yes!” Peter said. “And turn off the voice changer.”  He raised up his hands. “Liz, Liz, it’s okay, we’re getting help!”

“You…” She fell on her back, scrabbling away. “You’re a monster, you, chitin, fangs…”

Peter didn’t think, just reaching up and pulling his hood off. “Liz, it’s Peter! I’m not a monster…”

“Peter…” Liz shook her head. “No, no, you’re not, you’re lying, you’re…”

“Liz, I’m Peter, I’m going to call someone else, but I gotta put the hood back on. Okay?” Liz just whined, and scrabbled back a little further.

“Right, right, he’s here,” Peter paused. “Call Happy!”

“Okay! Now get the rest of the archives down to the loading dock and remember, that’s an original Gutenberg. You can’t pick one up at a B&N if you—“

Happy’s phone rang.

Great, what has the kid discovered now? Happy liked Peter, but honestly, he was like an eager puppy that wanted to show you every—

And then the phone started making a rude blatting sound. Happy looked down and on it, blood red, were the words, “freak out alert.”

The expert systems had recognized severe emotional trauma.

“What the hell—It’s Happy.”

“Happy, Liz is sick and she’s not talking like—“

“Whoah, calm down, who’s Liz?” Happy checked the location.

“She’s my classmate, but she’s not, she’s not recognizing me.”

“You’re in the suit.”

“I took the hood off, and she still doesn’t… Not really… She keeps backing away!”

Drug OD? Happy shook his head. Peter had probably never seen an OD in his life. “Okay, Peter? I want you to back off. If she’s scared, crowding her isn’t going to help.” He paused. “Now is she hurt, bleeding?”

“She’s scratched up a lot.” There was a pause. “I, uh… I think she’s calming down. She looks tired.”

“Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine. You’re near the river. So… cops and medics are on the way. Don’t crowd her unless she looks like she’s going to hurt herself. Okay?”

“Happy, Liz wouldn’t—she doesn’t do any drugs if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I know she doesn’t.” Or you don’t think she does. 

“Happy, the cops are here.”

“Okay, you don’t need to show your face to everyone.” Happy said. “Just take off. They’ve got it.”

“Um…” Okay.

“Right, I’m gonna call Tony, and fill him in. Get back to school, and stay calm.”

Peter stepped back as the police and medics arrived. He’d reset the voice, and that fooled them, although one big cop looked a little… suspicious when he was standing by Peter and looking down at him.

“I saw the young lady, um, in trouble, and I’m just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man…” He said.

“Really. And what’s her name?”

“Liz—“

“Toomes, got her student ID,” another cop said.

“You hang out around high schools, Spider-Man?”

“Um, no, not at all. I’m not even a high school student!” He looked around. “And I need to go help someone!”

“Yeah, don’t forget to get paid in churros," another cop called.

“Um, right, Citizen!”

As he jumped away, Peter sighed. “I guess I fooled them.”

“Should I file that under my humor database, Peter?” the AI asked.

“I’m telling you, we should go big! Everyone wants new stuff—“

“No!” Toomes snarled. “Remember what happened to AIM?  That’s what happens when you get too big for your britches.” He rubbed his chin. “Bad enough those morons attracted Spider-Man’s attention… I—“

“Boss?”

“What?”

“Phone.”

Toomes walked over and grabbed the phone. “Hey Honey, I’m going—Wait a minute. What’s wrong?  Liz is in the Hospital? Which one—“ He snapped his fingers and Mason handed him a paper and pen. “Presbyterian. Gotcha. You get a cab, I’ll meet you there.” He looked over at the others. “Gotta go. Liz’s in trouble.”

“Go,” Mason said. “We’ve got this here. Want me to drive you?”

“I’m good.” Toomes said. But by the time he hit the exit, he was running.

Chapter Text

Peter was back at the school, but there were already cops talking to Mr. Harrington.

“Dude, what happened?” Ned asked.

“Liz was… she was sick,” Peter said. He was holding her scarf and looking at the blood on it. “I never saw anything like it.”

 But then Mr. Harrington had come over to Peter and Ned. “Peter, Ned, I think you need to go home now,” Mr. Harrington looked grim. “And I’d like it if you didn’t talk about this. We don’t know what happened, even if the police think…” He shook his head. “Well, I think they’re wrong, but don’t talk to anyone about this. We don’t want rumors to get started, ‘kay?”

“Right,” Peter said. When Mr. Harrington left, he shook his head. “Ned, we’ll do the scouting tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ned said. “I hope Liz is okay.”

“Mr. Toomes, I know that you may be worried about this, but if you have any thoughts on—“

“My daughter does not do fucking drugs!” Adrian snarled. His wife put her hand on his shoulder. He took a deep breath. “Liz is a straight-A student and she would come to me if she had any problems. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

The doctor sighed. “Very well, Mr. Toomes, but you have to understand, whatever she—whatever substance is in her body is not one we’ve seen before, and it’s causing changes in her chemistry. For now, she’s unconscious and that’s probably for the best, given the state she was in. You can stay here, but if there’s any changes, we’ll let you know right away.”

A few moments later, Adrian and his wife were sitting by Liz.

“She looks so small,” Adrian said.

“She’ll be okay.” Doris patted his shoulder. “She’s a fighter.”

“Yeah,” Adrian said. “And I want to know who did this to her.”

“Who?”

“Liz would never use drugs, so who put them in her…” Adrian stared at his little girl.

But no answers were coming.

Peter hadn’t gotten much sleep that night, and while he didn’t say anything, the school was rife with rumors. In fact, Principal Morita had a quick assembly.

“We do not know what happened to Ms. Toomes,” he’d said, looking at the students. “And because of that, the last thing she needs is an explosion of baseless rumor. Despite statements by the district, we have no idea of the source of her illness, so merely give her your support.”

Peter got an idea what he was talking about when every class felt the need to mention the phone number for the drug awareness program.

That ’s not Liz, I—

“Peter,” Ms. Nunez gestured at him. When they made it to her office, she sat on the corner of her desk. “What happened?”

“I—Liz looked like she wasn’t feeling well, so I followed her. Ned was helping me, and well, she… She didn’t act like she knew me.”

Ms. Nunez frowned. “Like she was sick, or like someone else was in the driver’s seat?”

“What?”

“Like she was possessed?”

“I… no?”

Ms. Nunez sighed. “Good. Did you see anything else. Anyone around?”

“No, I called Happy and he got the police called in.”

“Happy’s proud, Peter,” she said. “He said you handled it like a champ.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“No? If it had just been the taxi driver’s call, the police wouldn’t have known where to find her. You did good.”

“Ms. Nunez… Do people really think she was doing drugs? Liz wouldn’t—“

“And the people at District don’t know Liz. I agree with you, but someone’s deciding better safe than sorry. When she comes around, we’ll fix this.”

Everything was hot. Everything was shifting and Liz couldn’t keep her balance. She felt like there was something in her, trying to push out, trying to, carve its way through her skin.

“Honey?” A woman’s voice, but she didn’t know them. “You’re waking up, we can…”

“No!” Liz looked at the woman. She was dangerous, hostile, she knew it. She pulled the wires from her body, but it didn’t help because she could feel the power just oozing out of the cuts and she needed to—

“Doctor to Room 122! Liz, we need—Jesus Mary and Joseph!”

Liz felt the power just flood out of her body as gleaming orangish light filled the room. She rolled over and tried to run, hitting the window with—no not her hand, something around her hand, something glowing and crystalline, and then it was shattered, the frantic scream of the nurse lost in the rush of the wind as she fell—fell with the street far below her.

Liz screamed and flailed her arms and legs, but she wasn’t flying and the car was coming up and—a flare of orange light appeared and she was covered in some kind of extra skin, and she hit the hood of a car, crushing it, and setting off the horn.

“The fuck!?” a man shouted. But Liz rolled off, not even embarrassed about just being in a hospital gown she was so scared. Everyone was looking at her and there was NOISE AND SHOUTING, AND PEOPLE POINTING… she had to get out.

I gotta go. Gotta hide. Gotta run gotta run gotta run… her thoughts were just going everywhere and she had to run…And so Liz did, running across the street, other cars screeching to a halt and she vanished into an alley.

“Dude, what are we doing here?” Ned asked. “Aren’t we going to visit Liz?”

“Yeah, but first,” Peter glanced at Ned. “I wanna prove that Liz wasn’t doing any drugs.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Peter grinned. “No more training wheels, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, let’s do this.” Peter glanced at the door, but Aunt May wasn’t home.

And they would. But first…

Peter pulled the hood on.

“Hello Peter, how can I help you?”

“I… I need… hey, what’s your name?”

“Mr. Stark left that up to you, Peter. Do you have a preference?”

“Um…” Peter thought for a moment, then nodded. “Karen.”

“Understood, Peter, I’ve logged the name.”

“Good.”

Peter started scraping the dried blood from the scarf, putting it in one of the petri dishes he’d brought. “Karen, can you scan the blood? Something made Liz freak out.”

“Very well, Peter. I am analyzing… Deploying drone.”

“What?” Abruptly the emblem on Peter’s chest change, shifted into a little flying… Spider?”

“That is so cool!” Ned said. The drone dropped down and Peter saw images of blood cells, and something else…”

“What are those?”

“Analyzing. Analysis completed. These are extremis nanites. Non-functional.”

“What?” Ned crowded next to Peter. “The stuff that made people blow up?”

“Confirmed.”

“Oh no, I…”

“Wait.” Karen’s voice stopped. “Detecting anomalous energy readings.”

“Like Extremis?”

“Negative. I’m sorry Peter, you don’t have the right to examine this information without Mr. Stark’s approval. Connecting to Mr. Stark.”

“What, no! No, no…”

“No?” Ned asked.

“Ned, he doesn’t know that we—“

“Hacked the suit?”

Peter swallowed. That had been Mr. Stark’s voice.

Tony Stark wasn’t entirely upset. The priority alert had gotten him out of a party. Half the people wanted to know about his fight with Steve, something that Tony…

Didn’t like talking about.

But now…

“I see you hacked the training wheels…”

“That would be me, sir?”

“And you are?”

“Ned Leeds, I mean, Peter figured it was a test, and it had to be, because it was so easy and I was his guy in the—“

“Hold on. You hacked the suit.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll talk about that later, but it wasn’t a test, at least not that type of test.” Tony muted them for a moment. “Friday?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Shortlist Ned Leeds for a Stark programming internship.”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Now, explain to me what’s going on.”

“We found Extremis,” Peter said, and Tony’s blood went cold. “In Liz’s blood, but why would she have extremis—and then…”

“Friday, dump the information, display it to me.” Moments later, the imagery flared up from his tablet. “And this was in your girlfriend’s blood?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, I mean, yes…”

Tony hissed. There were other types of energy there. “This isn’t good. The Suit AI—“

“Karen.”

“Karen, wouldn’t go any further until you talked to me.”

“Yeah, um, why? I mean, it told us about extremis.”

‘Yeah…” Tony paused. “Extremis is old news. This is older news. The nanites were non-functional, but they still had a certain power signature.”

“What?”

“Something AIM never had access to… The same signature that Loki’s scepter had. This isn’t good. Where is she?”

“Uh…” Peter paused. “I have the hospital room and number.” He read them off.

“Friday, get in contact—“

“Tony, I have information regarding Ms. Toomes. She woke up and fled her hotel room after using… magic, according to the reports.”

“Never rains but it pours. Cancel my appointments. Underoos, you and Hacker-Lad are coming to me. Claire’s going to meet us.”

“Mr. Stark what’s wrong with Liz?”

“Nothing. Nothing other than having the same nanites that caused some people to explode, and the same energy signature that helped make Wanda… and Ultron. You know what? Cancel that. She’s got a lot wrong with her. Friday, tap into the networks, police, fire, medical, you know the drill, and let me know if you hear anything.”

“Right, boss.”

Claire was in her apartment when she got the call. Tony. And a moment later, she was on her feet, her book flying away.

Extremis? The fuck? That had all been locked up. How had… She shook her head. Never mind. She knew why Tony had called her. If Liz had been enhanced, even against her will, that brought her under Ross’ purview, especially if he thought that he might be able to get a super-soldier out of her. Ross had never stopped trying to get super soldiers, no matter how many times it went wrong.

If he got the chance…

Claire held out her hand, and the closet door flew open, streams of purple light playing over her body as it reformed into armor. Her project, forged under Angor Rot’s tutelage. She stretched, feeling it come back to her, conforming to her body, looking like a metallic cyclist’s suit. Another gesture and her staff was in her hand, no longer looking like an umbrella.

Moment’s later, the apartment was empty.

Chapter Text

When Peter and Ned got to the building, not Avenger’s tower but another Stark Property, Ms. Nunez was already there, wearing some kind of armor and holding a metallic staff.

“Thank you,” she told the driver that had picked them up. “Let’s go,” she said to Peter.” Peter looked up at Ms. Nunez. Her voice was clipped, and she ran her fingers through her white strip of hair in a distracted motion. “You have the scarf?”

“Yeah.”

“Ms. Nunez, how’d you—“

“This way,” she gestured, and a purple portal appeared just in front of them. Peter and Ned barely had a chance to react before they were in a lab.

“Must save time on the elevators.” Tony gestured at Claire.

“Given that my building has two, and one is always broken? Yes. Don’t even get me talking about the college.” Claire said.

“Right.  Let me see the scarf,” Tony said. Peter handed it to him. Without hesitating, Tony put the scarf down onto a scanner. 

“Mr. Stark, what’s… Why would this hurt Liz?” Peter asked. Ned was looking around at the hardware.

“Extremis was a system designed to enter the body and provide you with regeneration, super strength, the ability to breathe fire…” Tony said, gesturing at a hologram that appeared. Iron Man suits fighting… Glowing people.

“That’s sick!” Ned said. “But wait, why would Liz—“

“Yeah, bad news. First of all, it tends to cause people to explode. Secondly, and more relevantly, Extremis, even tuned for the individual, caused mental problems.”

“Even if tuned?” Peter asked.

“It rewrites the entire body. As a part of being able to control that, it rewrites the brain, and if you don’t know what you’re doing…” Tony did a twirly motion at one temple. “Even when it was tuned, there’s every sign it led to anger, paranoia, the whole thing.” He shook his head. “Untuned, I have no idea. Friday, how’s the scan coming?”

“I’m confirming the presence of Extremis nanites, as well as residual energy related to Loki’s staff and the stone within.”

“Not good…” Tony said. “Killian never had any contact with HYDRA.  I bet this was something they scored when they were infiltrating SHIELD.”

“But why would Liz get it?” Peter said. “Mr. Stark you gotta understand, Liz wouldn’t take drugs…”

“Don’t worry, I do. Even if she was the type, I doubt this would be something you could get off the street.”

“Tony…” Claire muttered.

“Uh, yeah, right no, Liz would never dream of taking drugs.”

“So why?” Ned asked. “I mean, I don’t know why I’m here, but why would someone give this to Liz with Extremis and Loki-whatever.”

“Great question Hacker-Lad. I don’t know the answer. Yet. Friday, do we have the digitized files of HYDRA’s experiments?”

“Yes, Tony, displaying them now—“

Ned made a disgusted sound, and Peter fought the urge to puke.

“Whups, sorry, Friday, shut down the images, we don’t need that.”

“What was that?” Peter asked. It looked like someone who was…

Melting.

“God, I regret eating lunch,” Ned said.

“If you want to get into the business, get used to those sights,” Claire quietly said.

“HYDRA’s attempts. Out of 450 test subjects they exposed to the scepter, they had two successes, Wanda and Pietro. Better than me, I had one success: Ultron.” Tony tapped his chin. “But… If I was a completely heartless researcher, I might…”

“Combine the Extremis with the energy!” Peter burst out. Everyone looked at him, and he blushed. “Well, I mean, you said Extremis was for regeneration and strength, what if it could… make up for whatever the energies did to the body, or help you channel them?”

“Yeah, that’d be up to HYDRA’s speed, but we got them first, before they could field it, or things would have been a lot worse.” Tony frowned. “I never really understood the gem. Never understood it even when Vision was letting me look  at it.” He shook his head. “At best HYDRA was poking it, like a five year old playing with Netflix, and I wasn’t much better. But given that it had effects that were wildly divergent from what Wanda could do and what Pietro could do…”

“Could you track it?” Claire asked.

“Maybe. Give me a little while, but maybe,” Tony said. “I—“

“But who would give this to Liz?” Peter asked. “I mean, you’re right, Mr. Stark, it isn’t something she could find, but wouldn’t it get people interested in it, if someone found out about it?”

“The ability to make people like Wanda?” Tony shook his head. “You got that, right. But… yeah. Anyone showing this off would get attention from everyone.”

“Especially Ross.” Claire folded her arms.

“Ross isn’t the root of all evil, Ms. Nunez,” Tony replied.

“But he is the root of every attempt to create super soldiers, and you just said it. This might be another shot at his own army  of Hulks.”

“Worse than the Hulk.” Tony frowned. “Friday, I want a full list of all of Liz Toomes’ associates, anything unusual about her and her family.”

“On it, Boss.”

“Um, Mr. Stark? Isn’t that sort of illegal?” Ned asked.

“It’s in a good cause. Now, while we’re waiting, Hacker Lad, I want you to tell me how you bypassed my very-much-not-a-test safeties…”

“Um… Am I in trouble?”

“Don’t know. What would your mom say about a summer job?”

“You let my daughter jump out a window?” Adrian stared at the cringing doctor. He’d never thought he could feel worse than the day that fucking Damage Control waltzed right into his life and destroyed it with a smirk and piece of paper.

Now he realized he could.

“Where is Liz?” Doris asked.

“We don’t know. But we do know that she was physically unharmed. She manifested some kind of energy—“

“That’s enough, Doctor.” The doctor turned to see three men, all with badges, walking up to him. “I’d like to speak with Mr. And Mrs.  Toomes.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Agent Thorne. I’m with Damage Control.”

“Really,” Toomes said. “I thought you were busy ruining small businesses.”

“No, we’re in the job of handling all enhanced individuals. Most importantly, crimes committed by enhanced individuals. Like your daughter.”

“My daughter didn’t do a thing!” Adrien bellowed.

“Really? She just happened to walk down the wrong street and become enhanced? And then, instead of finding help, she jumped out of a window, endangering civilians in the process?”  He stared at them. “Well, maybe that’s the truth, but then she shouldn’t have any problem turning herself in and explaining things.”

“She’s not… The doctor said she was frightened.” Doris was wringing her hands.

“”Thank you for making my second point. Even if she’s pure as the driven snow, she’s clearly dangerous.” He handed a paper to Adrian. “This is the court order for her detainment for her own and others’ safety, until a competent authority can determine that she is both safe to be around and has not violated the Sokovia accords.”

Adrian saw red and moments later, he had Throne by his suit and had slammed him into the wall. “You’re not putting my daughter on the fucking Raft!”

“Drop the agent—“ one of the plug-uglies standing by Thorn now had his piece out, and Adrian dropped the man.

“That’s obviously just a distraught father talking,”  He said. “But if you find your daughter, consider what’s best for her. This will go a lot better if she comes in voluntarily.”

And then without another word, he and his fucking goons turned and walked away.

“Adrian, what are we doing to—“

“Go home, Doris. If Liz calls, tell her… tell her to go to the place I took her for  ice cream.”

“But—“

“You can’t trust them. They’ll make every promise in the book until they have Liz. I… I have to go talk to some people. Maybe they can give us a hand. But go home, stay by the phone.”

Chapter Text

“Maybe I should go and look for Liz,” Peter said. “If she’s scared, I know some of the places she might go to.” He gestured at the screen. “While you work on trying to figure out how to help her…”

“Yeah.” Tony frowned. “May not be able to reset this. All of Hydra’s experiments either died or got powers, and I don’t know if I could remove Extremis, if it’s the only thing keeping her alive—presuming that’s the case. Friday, let’s start some simulations…”

“Peter.” Claire looked at him. “Be careful. Liz may not recognize you.”

“She, um sort of did when I took my mask off.”

Tony shrugged. “Have you ever considered just getting up in front of a crowd and saying ‘I am Spider-Man?’ It made my life a lot easier.”

Peter didn’t really have an answer for that, but then Ms. Nunez put something into his hand. “Peter, this is a beacon crystal. If you need me to open a portal, call me. If you can’t call me, and it’s an emergency, crush the crystal.”

“Right. Um, Ned?”

“I can help—“

“Chair’s over there, Hacker-Lad. Friday, get him up to speed on the C&C utilities.”

“Right Boss.”

Peter paused, looked at Mr. Stark and Ms. Nunez.  “I won’t let you down,” he said.

“Just don’t get yourself killed. Find her, get her back here so we can help her, and no heroics,” Mr. Stark said.  Claire just nodded, and then Peter was heading out of the building, Fortunately, he’d kept his suit on under his clothes, so all he had to do was to pull his hood on.

“Karen?”

“Hello, Peter. How can I help you?”

“Um, Ned’s going to be the guy in the chair.”

“Understood. I’ll keep a line open.”

“Right, Um, Pete, we’re sort of breaking some laws here, I think, unless the NYPD doesn’t care that I’m reading their mail.”

“Anything?”

“Nothing, yet.”

“Okay, I’ll swing by the deli where Liz said she liked to eat. It’s close to the hospital. Then I’ll swing out around it. Karen, people with Extremis were hot, right?”

“Yes, Peter.”

“Okay, flag anyone who is… more than 10 degrees hotter than normal.”

“Understood, Peter. Would you like me to map out a search grid?”

“Yeah!”

Tony kept working on the information he had, which wasn’t a lot. The extremis nanites were dead, and the energy was frustratingly hard to analyze. The kid was right though, it was pretty apparent that extremis was serving as a framework, the energy somehow attached to it, at least if the samples they had were any guide.

“Why didn’t HYDRA use this?” He murmured.

“Came about too late to be used?” Claire asked.

“Yeah… And most of the stuff we got from the last few bases wasn’t put into Hardcopy. We were going to do it, but then…”

“Ultron.”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t put it past the precocious brat to leave us some surprises.”

“We need to talk to the family,” Claire said.

“Isn’t that your thing? Field trips, detentions, accidental supersoldier treatments?”

“Tony, I…” Claire looked at Ned, the teen engrossed in his work, and lowered her voice. “She’s not dying—not yet. But not all of Hydra’s experiments died immediately. The family needs to be spoken to.”

“Boss, I have information on her family. Adrian Toomes has had interactions with Stark Affiliates before.”

“What, party? Autographs?”

“Mr. Toomes was a salvage contractor. In the aftermath of the Chitauri attack, his business was shut down after he failed to pay back several large loans.”

“What? That doesn’t make sense. The whole damned city was being rebuilt. Friday, recheck.”

“I have, Boss. Mr. Toomes was salvaging the central region, where the majority of the alien equipment had fallen. Damage Control took over.”

“But they should have paid him even if he didn’t get the work—“

“They did. City rates, but my analysis indicates that Mr. Toomes heavily indebted himself in the hopes of future work.”

Tony paused, then looked at Claire. “Yeah, maybe you should handle this.”

“Maybe I should but…” Claire frowned. “What is he doing right now?”

“Mr. Toomes is listed as owning a consulting firm.” Friday paused. “Tony, most of its clients are individuals known to Mr. Toomes, but are paying sums larger than…”

Images flickered up, replacing molecule chains with financial data. Claire stared at it. “Okay, this isn’t macroeconomics, but it looks like…”

“He’s laundering money. Clever, if you didn’t have some of the best software around. Huh, he’s even paying taxes on it. Smart man.”

“Very smart. He’s also engaged in something underhanded, which means he might know underhanded people, and his daughter is out there…”  Claire glanced at Tony. “I’m going to talk to them. The last thing we need is to kick over some kind of criminal organization while this is happening.” She turned. “Tony? Remember, Peter’s a kid.”

“You and your friends were kids when I met you.”

“Yeah, but maybe Peter doesn’t have to grow up as fast as we did.”

“Now you’re sounding like me.”

“Well, you’re not always wrong. But just remember, you’re talking to Peter, not an Avenger. Not yet.”

Moments later, there was a purple portal, and Claire just dropped through it.

“I will never get used to that,” Ned said.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Tony said. Now back to seeing if this girl is going to melt into a pile of goo.

Everything was strange. Liz wasn’t as… she knew who she was, but everything was strange. Everyone was looking at her. They were out to get her.

“No… they’re not…” She said. “I…” She took deep breaths. Something was wrong. Something was wrong with her. The woman with the dog that was looking at her wasn’t trying to kill her. She was just staring at a girl in half of a hospital gown—Liz shrieked at that. She had to cover herself up, she had—there was a store  in front of her, a coat in the window. Liz thrust her hands out and orange forms appeared, shattering the window.

“How did I…” Liz blinked as something pulled the coat to her, and she frantically put it on, because maybe if she was dressed she wouldn’t feel like everyone was looking at her. But now the bells were ringing and people were backing away from her.

“I—“ Liz looked at them. “I just wanna go home. Help me, someone, please!”

Then there were sirens. Two police cars pulled up, the officers jumping out and pointing… Guns at her?

“ON THE GROUND!”

But I need help. I’m not a criminal, I’m not!

Liz raised her hands to them and ran forward. “Please, I just—“

“She’s coming at us, FIRE!”

And then they were shooting at her. Shooting at her! Glowing orange planes of something intercepted the shots. But Liz screamed and waved her hands and suddenly she was covered in the glowing panels of energy, and then she desperately pushed the police car…

Only to see it go flying across the road. Then there was a searchlight blazing down on her. 

And there were more sirens as Liz stared at her armor, at the people running away from her, and whimpered.

“Peter!” Ned’s voice sounded worried. “I think I found Liz!”

“Are you sure?”

“Um, yeah…”

“Relaying visual,” Karen said, and projected a transparent overlay, so Peter could see the image while still seeing where he was going.

A road. People running away. And what looked like an eight foot tall glowing… thing. No wait, it was transparent, and…

“That’s Liz!”

“Yeah, and from the reports, she’s kinda in a little trouble. Not just from Cops, from Damage Control. They say she attacked them!”

“I’m on my way.” Why would Liz attack the cops? Peter shook his head. Hopefully he could ask her.

Chapter Text

Peter stared at the scene in disbelief. The police were shooting at Liz and now there were other trucks, Damage Control trucks with more men coming out, some of holding big guns.

“Hit her with the LRADS and gas!” the shout sounded, and then Peter couldn’t hear anything for a moment.

“Sound filters engaged,” Karen said. “Peter, the level of ambient noise could cause permanent damage in unshielded human ears.”

Peter stared. Car windows were shattering, and people who had been watching were staggering away, their faces contorted, and… So was Liz.

“I’m gonna be in so much trouble for this,” he said, swinging down. Web lines connected to the noise makers and moments later, Peter flung them into light poles, the sound dying out in a shower of sparks. His tingle warned him, allowing him to move between what looked like fat grenade rounds and nets.

“What are those?”

“Hi intensity tasers and metal webs, Peter. They are rated for the Hulk, and could cause permanent damage to anyone else.”

“Ya-think?” Peter asked as he saw one taser hit a tree and set it on fire!

He swung down to Liz, staying away from the… whatever it was. Peter pulled a delivery truck over to shield them from the police, who didn’t seem interested in closing with him. But then he looked at Liz, who was just staring at her hands.

“Karen, do you see this?”

“Yes, Peter, it appears to be a number of discrete energy fields of known composition.”

“Spider-Man, they’re shooting at me, I didn’t do anything, they’re shooting at me!”

“I know, look I’m going to try to calm—“

“SPIDER-MAN, COME OUT AND SURRENDER. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR VIOLATION OF THE SOKOVIA ACCORDS AND INTERFERING WITH THE LAWFUL AUTHORITIES! IF YOU AND LIZ TOOMES DO NOT SURRENDER, WE ARE AUTHORIZED TO USE LETHAL FORCE!”

“Uh, Mr. Stark, Claire? I have a problem.”

“I heard it, I’m suiting up, ETA—“

“No!” Claire’s voice. “Tony, we need you, and if you interfere in this, Ross can tie you up long enough that whatever is going on will be over.”

“I don’t think Underoos and prison would get along well.”

“They won’t. Peter, break the crystal. Tony, you’re gonna have to talk to Toomes. Try to be… Okay, maybe Pepper or Happy should talk to them.”

“Oh ye of little faith.”

“I just crushed it.”

“Okay,” Claire said. “Peter, I’m gonna toss you across the town. I can’t send you to my friends, because they can’t get officially involved in this, but I might be able to send you help. Don’t try to contact Tony. He’ll contact you.”

“Um—okay—ack!” Suddenly Claire was just besides them. She raised her hands said a short, sharp word that somehow hurt, and then brought her staff down. Moments later, a globe of purple energy surrounded them.

“Ms. Nunez!” Liz said.

“Hello, Ms. Toomes, you know if you needed an extension, you could have just asked me.”

Liz half-giggled, half-sobbed. “I don’t know, everyone’s—“

“Shhh…” Claire said. “Spider-Man hangs with the Avengers, remember. He’ll keep you safe. Listen to him… But if what he tells you sounds dumb, don’t be afraid to call him on it.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to distract them and get arrested,” Claire said. “I’ll claim self-defense.”

“But the cops—“

“I don’t recognize the right of the government to come after a fifteen year old girl with lethal  force when she’s done absolutely nothing,” Claire said. “And if they want to try me on that, I’ll be happy to oblige them in court. Also, if I went with you, Ross would level the city to get me. We have history. This’ll buy you some time.”

“Um, how are you going to distract them?” Peter asked. “I—yiee!” he said as portals opened up under him and Liz and they vanished.

Claire had to admit that playing the role of the person going through the law had annoyed her. But you had to do it. The Accords would be beaten in the courtroom, both legal and of public opinion.

But there were times when you had to just hoist the black flag and give some people a bigger challenge than a terrified girl might pose to them. Bullies.  All they had to have done would have been to talk to Liz, calm her down.

Well, they couldn’t blame Claire if she showed them that two could play that game. 

Once, it had been all Claire could do to raise one golem. One Spirit. But now…

The city had life in it. A stubborn sense of self, made up of millions of lives, millions of laughs and snarls. Trolls worked stone and jewels and learned to listen to them in a way that few others could.

Claire was one.

She slammed her staff down and at her command, great forms of stone rose up, light poles and metal sticking out of them. The truck that Peter had shielded himself with rose up into a roughly human form. She dropped her field and portaled up onto the building and then called two other portals, both who ended in the East River. Torrents of cold water sprayed cops and Damage Control officers across the street, while the golems marched up and started smashing their cars, destroying the expensive equipment designed to let them track and seize enhanced individuals.

But not one officer was harmed, down to one fellow being picked up from where he’d fallen by a golem and dusted off by its great hands, before it returned to pulling the wheels off of an armored transport.

Five minutes and the rout was over. Claire walked out into the street, the water still running down, and sent the golems back to sleep, returning to the stone from when they’d come, save for the one made from the truck, which froze into a humanoid form.

“Eh, someone will sell it for modern art,” Claire said, and then walked to where the leader of the Damage Control team was spluttering. She knelt down behind him, hearing the rest getting up.

“Just so you understand,” Claire said softly. “If I had wanted all of you dead, that is exactly what you would be. I could have just opened portals under you, and let you appear a thousand feet in the air. I suppose it’s a good thing I have better self control then the organization that is supposed to keep all of us safe, isn’t it?”

And then she raised her hands, and let them grab her.

And this circus will keep the entire city focused on me. And it’ll give Peter and Liz some time to get ready and figure out what is going on…

And I get to make Ross’ life miserable. Because she intended to do just that. Claire remembered a film she and Jim had seen. What was it…

Right, I’m not locked in with you, you’re locked in with me. And while they were worrying about her, Tony and Peter could help Liz.

Chapter Text

Claire leaned back against the hard metal walls of the cell.

"Well, well, well, Ms. Nunez, I thought you were retired."

Ross.

"I was," Clarie said, "Then I saw some thugs attacking a young girl. I had to get involved."

"Those thugs were police and Damage Control."

"I've known police officers. The ones worth the name don't start off with lethal force," Claire glanced over, the paper gown she'd been given rustling. "Or did someone tell the police to start out with lethal force?"

"Ms. Toomes had only to turn herself in."

"Yes, because teens are so given to thinking calmly when their world is turned upside down," Claire sighed in a theatrical manner. "If only there were some adults who could calm them down, work with them instead of trying to shoot them…"

"And you think your display helped?" Ross shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I have you dead to rights, engaging in vigilante action in direct violation of the Accords. Now, you can sign them, and after a few years of working with Damage Control, you can walk out a free woman."

"No." Claire shook her head. "I'm feeling like I've had this conversation before."

"Or you can go to the Raft. Tonight. Before your friend's can get a court to rule on you, and the Raft is under international jurisdiction. No matter what a US court rules, you'll stay there."

"Really?" Claire chuckled.

"Do you find this funny?"

"You promise safety, and you send people to shoot children. You talk about the importance of the laws, and then you brag about having built a prison beyond their reach." Claire walked around the cell, looking up at the solid metal. "This can be electrified—an entire shock cage."

"Try and escape, and you can find out."

Claire shook her head. "You'll lose, you know."

"The court cases aren't completed, and I—"

"Even if you win them, you'll lose." Claire glanced at him. "How well did this work with the Hulk? How well do you think it will work with Thor? Are you prepared to go to war against Asgard?" She laughed, the voice mocking. "The only reason New York still stands is the Avengers, and you've driven half of them into exile."

"The Avengers nearly destroyed the world with Ultron."

"What do you think HYDRA would have done if you'd let them keep the staff?"

"Last chance. You can sign up and help us take Ms. Toomes and Spider-Man into custody. You can also give us his name."

"No. To both." Claire looked at him. "You may be happy with it, but I have no intention to be part of the boot stomping on a human face."

"Spare me your college morality. The world is complex."

"Not all of it. Some questions are very simple." Claire folded her arms. "I believe we're done here."

"The flight to the Raft leaves in three hours. You have that long to make a decision, and remember, unlike your boyfriend, you don't have diplomatic immunity."

"I know, and Jim and Toby will stay out of this, fortunately for you." Claire paused. "Oh, and Secretary Ross?"

"Yes."

"Ms. Toomes is my student. I would be very careful about giving any orders that might lead to her being harmed."

"You're not in any position to make threats."

"I'm not threatening."

Moments later, Claire was alone in the cell.

She sat down and closed her eyes.

He must be desperate. Another enhanced human running around New York, another failure of Damage Control didn't do much to boost his prestige. He'd either get Claire on board or put her on the Raft.

God, my Adviser is going to be pissed. There was no way she was going to keep her schedule for defending her thesis with all of this going on.

But getting sent to the Raft would be inconvenient. Worse, Jim might not do anything, but Angor Rot…

Okay, Angor Rot was a fan of "better to ask for forgiveness while holding your enemy's severed head, than ask for permission." He might decide to visit the raft, and Angor Rot with his soul taken had been deadly, but obsession and pain had dulled some of his skills. Angor Rot now was sneaky with a kind of humor that…

Okay, the people guarding the Raft might be assholes, but siccing Angor Rot on them might be a little excessive.

So I'd better do something about that.

Agent Michael Janks wasn't a fan of everything Damage Control did. He had two teenaged daughters, and hell, why not just ask the kids to come back? The girl stole a jacket, because her ass was hanging out in the wind, which hardly put her in the company of Loki. There were scary ass enhanced out there, like the Winter Soldier, but a bunch of officers just opening up on some kids put a foul taste into his mouth.

He wouldn't say it to his boss, not right now, but maybe the Shadowdancer chick had a point.

As he was walking by the evidence locker, he punched in the combo to check on the things there.

He picked up the staff and a small bundle of armor before he closed and cleared the locker, satisfied that he'd done his job.

A few moments later, he sat them down in a hallway and went back to his office.

An FBI agent on loan to Damage Control walked by, shifting her phone to her other hand as she picked them up and walked to the elevator, putting them down in it, and leaving without a backwards glance.

Ten minutes later, the guard opened the hatch to Claire's cell. "Dinner!" he called. "No inflight snacks to the Raft!"

Claire rolled her eyes. Comedian.

She waited until he closed his end of the airlock style hatch and pulled her meal, her staff, and her armor out. Claire didn't worry about the cameras. The spell was on those looking at the items, and distance made no difference.

It was very hard to separate a sorceress and her tools, after all. 

It would hold until she actually tried to use them—magic was strange like that. The intent to do violence or move against her captors would nullify the invisibility. But that was fine.

If Claire had to leave, she didn't expect anyone would be able to stop her.

Like I said Ross, if you can't handle me, how could you handle the Hulk?

Chapter Text

When Peter and Liz fell into the empty apartment, the smell of new paint on the walls, he looked around for a moment, but his tingle… was gone. There was no danger.

"Omigod!" Liz said. 'They were going to shoot me! They were—Peter?" she stared at him. "I wasn't seeing things. You're Spider-Man?"

"Yes," Peter said, pulling his hood off. "You're going to be okay, I mean, Mr. Stark is working on what happened to you, and we know a little bit—"

"Omigod!" Liz said. "You're Spider-Man—you fought Captain America…I—Mom and Dad are going to go crazy!"

"It's okay!" Peter said. "We're going to—"

"What?" Liz asked. "Peter you flake out an vanish and now it's because you're Spider-Man and I—" she held up her hands and stared at the glowing fields that appeared around them. "I'm some kind of…" She paused, and started breathing fast. "Oh God, am I going to turn into the Hulk?"

"No!" Peter said. "It wasn't anything like that. Mr. Stark said that you've been dosed with some Extremis—"

"I'm going to explode?"

"We've got your little assistant," Ross said. "Where's Spider-Man?"

"I dunno, maybe you should ask Claire." Ross was on the phone, while Tony was focusing on the material they had gotten, trying to ferret out why someone had dosed a high school girl with this… concoction. Most people would be finding the best soldier they could to try and turn into the next Cap.

"Like I said, your little assistant is in prison, waiting for her flight to the Raft. She overestimated her position."

"Really." Tony glanced at the TV. "Seems to me that she went easy on your people. Especially since none of them could fly."

"Always the joker," Ross said. "Well, unless you want her boyfriend to have to look to visiting hours on the Raft, maybe you should tell her to sign."

"You might want to recall who her boyfriend might bring if that happens, and he's her fiancée." Tony paused. "You know, you're not doing well in the media. Everyone's talking about Harlem. You know, the last time you tried to drop the hammer around here."

"Your friend."

"Yeah. You know, maybe you could have just talked to Liz, and then we wouldn't be dealing with this."

"She had her chance. And I'm serious. Spider-Man is now in violation of the Accords."

Tony snorted, glancing over at Ned, who was staring at his phone as if he could will Peter to call. "The Accords were about keeping people like me from just trashing someone else's country without any oversight. What are you going to do, put Spider-Man on the raft for recovering stolen bikes?"

"If I have to. You can bring him in, or I put out the warrant." Ross hung up.

"Friday?"

"Yes Boss?"

"Ross is off my Christmas list."

Peter had managed to get Liz calmed down. Sort of. He'd had to explain Ultron, Wanda and the Mind Stone and how she might have that power running through her, and then she started breathing fast again, but she was sitting on a covered chair now.

"My life is over," she said. "They put Hawkeye in prison—he saved New York, I'm just a kid!"

"It's not that bad," Peter said. "Look, your power is really neat. You can form force fields and shape them, segmented, but yeah you could make tentacles with them and you've got some kind of new sense that lets you know where they all are—"

"Peter!" Liz took a deep breath. "Just stop. There isn't anyway to make me… Just Liz, is there?"

"I… Maybe we could ask Mr. Stark and—"

"Peter, I have an emergency message from Mr. Stark. Can I play it?"

"Yeah!" Peter grinned at Liz. "See, Mr. Stark probably has figured out—"

"Okay, Underoos, I've got good news and bad news. Good news is it looks like your friend isn't going to explode. The Extremis is looking like it moderates the effects of the energy, at least as far as our simulations can tell. Bad news? Ross. I want you and Liz to stay out of sight while I talk to some people, and since I have to be able to say I have no idea where you are, Karen is going off my network under Grad Party in Tijuana protocols. But stay calm and don't get into trouble. Karen has a collection of one-time numbers and addresses you can use to get in touch with me."

"It um… could be wo—" Peter fell silent as Liz put a finger to his lips while she glared at him.

Well, she's not terrified any more.

Chapter Text

Adrian walked into their base, and went directly to Brice, he grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall.

"Boss, what the fu—"

"You talk about enhancing people. You talk about someone you were dealing with, and not a week after I say no, something happened to Liz to give her powers and now she's on the run from fucking Ross!" He dropped him. "My family!"

"Boss, I wouldn't do that," Brice said. "I just told 'em you weren't interested."

"Give me the phone." He turned to Mason. "Get the stuff packed into the vans. We're moving. Now."

"Now? But we've got—"

"Tony Stark is involved. The Avengers may be involved. That robot guy of his… The Vision." Toomes glared at them. "You wanna be certain that every one we've sold to didn't save something they shouldn't on their phones? Also, if you have any phones you've used for the business, any you took with you on the business. Get rid of them. We'll get new phones."

Brice handed his phone and Toomes took it, walking to the far end of the warehouse. His guys were already picking up stuff and moving it.

Good crew. Except for Brice, but there's always an asshole.

"Mr. Brice?"

"It's Toomes."

"Ah, Mr. Toomes, I didn't think you were int—"

"You fucked with my family."

"No… not that I'm aware of. With all the events happening in the city, it's not entirely unlikely that your daughter was harmed by something she came into contact with. Perhaps Ms. Nunez. That woman has been involved…"

Adrian frowned. The man sounded like he loathed Nunez. Adrian hadn't met her, just read the announcement and seen the information in the news. Other than a few events, it didn't seem like she looked for the limelight. Liz liked her.

And you think I'm a fucking moron. Fine. I'll play along and then I'll kill you.

"What do you want?"

"Something of HYDRA's. A tool to moderate and control the powers they were seeking. It might be able to help your daughter. That was, in fact why we—"

"You want it to make your own soldiers."

"Ask me no questions…"

"Where is it?"

"The Damage Control facilities North of DC. They are overloaded due to the need to keep storing material from the Triskalon. This would be the perfect time."

"And Liz?"

"After we get it, we can use the compound on your daughter, and it will hopefully restore her."

Bullshit it will. But it was a choice between this and Ross…and maybe they did have a way to help his daughter, and once Adrian had them in his hands, he would show them he could be very persuasive.

"But help doesn't play the bills," Adrian said. "What am I gonna get paid…" That's right. Think I'm stupid. Think I'm a stupid blue-collar schlub until I have my hands around your neck.

"Okay," Peter said. "I have an idea!"

"Stay here?" Liz asked. They'd explored the building, and it was empty, ready for people to get moved into it. Nobody was really looking at it when they peeked out at the street. It looked like they were somewhere in the Bronx. No sirens.

"No, look, okay, I have an idea." Peter said. "I think we can find out who did this to you."

"What?" Liz stared at Peter. "I barely remember—someone just hit me with something, but I didn't really see them.

"But Karen can. Look, Mr. Stark has the CCTV systems accessible by Karen, we can look for him and then follow him back to his hideout!"

"I—" Liz stared at Peter. "Didn't he tell us to stay put?"

"Yeah, but see, that's just in case Mr. Stark has to say he didn't tell us to do anything."

"Really."

"Yeah, like when I was with the Avengers."

"Mr. Stark said you were part of the Avengers."

"I… Sort of, maybe, you know, like when you're part of something, but you're not part of it, not yet, and so you have to work hard to be part—"

"Peter!" Liz snapped and then shut her mouth as flickers of energy grew around her. "Okay," she said in a quieter voice. "I'm going to go with, 'not an Avenger'." She closed her eyes. "What's the plan?"

"Okay," Peter said. "You'll have to put the mask on."

"The mask you've been wearing." Liz stared as Peter started whipping the mask around in the air.

"You don't have to put it over your mouth! Just to see out of your eyes," he said. "But you can watch the road where you were getting the copies, and then see the guy."

"And what then?"

"Mr. Stark said we shouldn't contact him, so what we can do is follow the guy, if we find him and when we find out where they are, we can call Mr. Stark!" Peter grinned. "And better, that way you can show people that you're helping, you know, like a Friendly Neighborhood….ForceGirl? Glowing Girl, I—"

"I'll come up with the name," Liz said. "Anything else?"

"Um yeah, I was going to ask later, but since you know, would you, um, like to go to the Homecoming Dance with me?"

Liz said nothing, just staring at Peter for a moment. Then she looked at the mask in his hands, and back up to him. "You literally asked that five seconds after telling me to put a mask on my face."

"Um….oops?"

"Boss the last set of simulations is ready."

"I don't understand, we know it's not hurting Liz…"

"Not now. Not hurting her now. Just like the first treatment didn't hurt the soldiers it was tested on until they started exploding," Tony said. He'd called Happy, and he was standing by, but he wanted to keep Hacker-Lad with him. Too many kids were out in the crossfire as it was. "We need to project ahead. I have treatments for Extremis but…"

"Showing results." Tony stared. They were doing their best, but nobody, not even Tony Stark, really undrestood the stone and that meant… "Right, okay, its a binary. The Extremis locks on to the opening Killian learned about, and it provides the substrate for the energy. Without the substrate…" A flare of light blazed.

"What was that?" Ned asked.

"Something very bad. Without the Extremis, too much power comes in, which is why nobody other than Pietro and Wanda survived, but that's not… Friday, show me simulation two-b, Extremis only."

There were flickering images and then Tony hissed.

"Um, what are all the red indicators."

"All the dead people. Most people, the treatment won't take on at all, and it only lasts a few minutes in the open air. But about two, three percent can be impacted by it, only without being specifically tuned… Fourth of July time."

"That's…" Need paused. "But like a million and a half people live in Manhattan, that's…"

"A lot." Tony said. "It would make the death toll the Chitauri pulled off look like a slow day…. But…"

"We don't know whoever did this to Liz wants to do this."

Tony paused. "Trust me, kid, people who make weapons will always find a reason to use them, and this would make a great weapon, whether you want to get super soldiers or just kill a bunch of people. Besides, they started out by going after a kid, and that tells me they don't care about collateral. Right… you're the guy in the chair. I need a Guy in the Chair."

"Okay, um, for what?"

"I have to work on a counteragent, but this type of biology was never completely my thing, and the more people we involve here, the bigger the chance we get interference. You're here, so I'm sending you a list. Get in touch with them, and tell them to expect data."

"Um…won't they hang up? I'm a kid."

"It's on my private line, and it's probably not the weirdest thing they've heard."

"Right." Ned said. Moment's later... "This guy won a Nobel prize!"

Chapter Text

"I can get in the Gyre and be there in fifteen minutes," James Lake said as he stalked around Blinky's library. Toby was on one screen, and he shook his head.

"Thirty minutes. It'll take me fifteen to get there."

"And what then?" Blinky asked.

"We'll go through Ross' rentagoons in about ten seconds and bring Claire back."

Blinky nodded. "As a fugitive. And unlike you, she has no diplomatic immunity, and neither does Tobias."

"Claire's Decision," Arrggghhh rumbled.

"The law isn't going to work," Jim muttered. "Not for something like this. Ross has too much to lose." I know you're trying to calm me down, Mr. Blinky. Problem was, it was working. Claire would kill Jim if he pulled something like that.

"He has already lost," a gravely voice sounded.

Jim looked around. Angor Rot was leaning against the wall, one hand holding a reinforced phone.

And how is it that Angor knows more people on social media than I do? Claire was right. Angor might talk about learning to hunt his prey, but he was just a massive nerd. But on the other hand, he'd been a trader before he'd taken Morganna's deal—well a trader and then a warrior, and given how most trolls stayed at home, it said things about him even befor—

Jim took a deep breath. Held it. Blew it out. "How has he already lost?"

"How many battles can a warrior lose before none fear him?" Angor did something with the phone and suddenly the screen displayed the battle. Claire's golems stalking back and forth, water spraying the street. "A woman, a small woman, and already the news media, well many of them have heard from witnesses that she allowed herself to be captured." The screen changed.

"Yeah, she was doing all this weird stuff!" the man, about the age of Jim, was wearing a Captain America T-shirt. "But you know, she didn't hurt anyone. I saw one of those big rock things pick a guy up and dust him off." I wonder if the interviewer is pro-Cap. The Avengers had a lot of friends in New York.

"Her skills at controlling golems have improved," Angor said. Almost on signal, Jim turned at the clacking sounds as Bony came walking in. The undead Utahraptor, had, according to Angor, an indefinite lifespan.

Especially since they let it hunt, now and then, when rats got into the tunnels. It couldn't eat the rats, but that didn't keep it from trying. It tilted its head and hissed.

How does it do that without lungs? Jim shook his head and just scratched it under its jaw. The skeletal form, ectoplasm adhering to it, wiggled in a way that was both endearing and terrifying. I wonder if Enrique is ever going to convince Claire to let him bring Bony to show and tell?

"And if Ross sends her to the Raft?"

"Then she will return, either by her own power, or when this Court of Supremes hears her plea," Angor gestured at the image, now replaying some of the fight in LA. One scene saw a bus about to go over the side of the freeway, before purple bonds hauled it back into a portal that deposited it far away, the teachers and students running to safety. The next thing had Jim shivering in remembered terror—a Hydra bolt nearly getting Claire, her half formed shield shattering and only her armor saving her. Next thing, Jim was standing over her, his glaives shooting out to bring down a Hydra goon, as Claire got to her feet. "Always, when the people see you, you have stood against those who would harm them, and now Ross pursues a child."

Jim frowned. He'd seen the picture of Liz at some kind of high school function, an Academic award, holding a trophy. I wonder, was that Ross being stupid, or someone sabotaging him? If Jim was trying to convince people that Ms. Toomes was potentially very dangerous, in violation of the Sokovia accords, and probably Gunmar resurrected, he'd at least get a picture that didn't look like the kind of high school student who came home when her parents told her to and said "sir" to the police.

Nope, it's sabotage. The government wasn't united behind Ross's idea, but things were still chaotic. Just last month, a newly elected representative had been forced to resign when some information about his connections with a known Hydra agent came to light. And Hydra had so many people in DC that it's almost impossible to not have run into them at one point or another.

"And you and Tobias cannot risk dragging the trolls into this," Vendel said as he walked in. "You recall the note you received from Steve Rodgers."

"Yeah," Jim said. "Fine, but if it looks like Claire is going to be in serious danger… And what made Ms. Toomes get that power? Tony said she'd just be watching one of his proteges."

"I will be finding that out." Angor put his phone in his pouch. "I am not a representative of the Trolls, not as you are. I will depart for New York, and… discuss matters of import with this Ross."

"Uh…" Jim stared at Angor. "Okay, you may not be like the Trollhunter, but if you kill Ross that—"

Angor's gravelly laugh interrupted him. "Ross does not fear death. Do not let your anger blind you to his few virtues. I would not even dream to try to influence him by that threat."

"Then…" Toby asked from his screen.

"I will reason with him."

Jim looked at his dad. Then he looked at Toby. Then he looked at Vendel.

And he saw what he was thinking on each one of their faces.

Why is Angor promising not to kill someone more disturbing than he is when he's threatening too kill someone?

Chapter Text

Peter was walking back and forth as Karen was letting Liz go through the images of the street. She'd been actually pretty helpful.

"Peter, I am picking up twenty-seven cameras within two blocks of that region. I am filtering out the cameras that are interior cameras. Twelve of those are private, and three are for a business."

"You mean security?"

"No Peter, they are registered to Mistress Malice's Dungeon of Disci—"

"Enough!" Liz shouted. "Don't show me those!"

"Understood. I will run the images from the cameras closest to the copy center. Unfortunately, you were not directly in the view of a Camera when you left the center."

"Right…" Liz said. "So I have to try and remember… Ugh! Why couldn't they just let me call the police!" Then she paused. "Also, is Mr. Stark breaking the law here?"

"While Mr. Stark may have violated some laws, by actively utilizing my services, you and Peter would be the primary defendants."

"Ugh." Liz shook her head, her lips pressed into an angry expression. "Why did this happen to me?" She paused, head moving slightly as she looked at the images. "I—wait! Um, Karen, stop, the… third from the left image! Run it back, ten seconds. The guy in the green shirt! Can you see him?"

"Yes, Liz, I can." Karen paused. "He passed beyond any active cameras after striking you."

"Dammi—"

"Integrating with the cloud. Preparing for search via personal cell phones, police cameras, and orbital assets."

"Orbital…"

"Mr. Stark repurposed some remaining INSIGHT systems as disaster relief and observation systems. Scanning DMV and police records."

Liz didn't say anything for a moment.

Then. "Peter?"

"Um, yeah?"

"Didn't Tony Stark do the PSAs about not spying on people with social media?"

"Um… It's sort of for a good cause?" Peter paused. That didn't even sound good to him.

"I have a match. William Tomelson, four arrests for vandalism, one felony charge dropped due to lack of evidence. Associated with Advanced Idea Mechanics, but terminated before the organization was seized." There was a pause. "Building a tracking database. Mr. Tomelson has an apartment that he rented three weeks ago, but primarily appears in this area. There are no cameras within the complex that I can use."

"Yes!" Peter said. "This is great! Can I have Karen back, and we can call Mr. Stark—"

"Peter, wait!" Liz said. "Karen can't track him there, because there aren't any cameras. What if he's going somewhere else?"

Peter paused. "Well…"

"If we go there, we can find out and…" Liz looked around. "Everyone says I'm a menace now. Like Ross. Even if we tell Mr. Stark, they'll say this didn't change anything. But if we can get there, take pictures, and then call Mr. Stark, than maybe people will realize that…" Liz abruptly hugged herself. "I'm not the villain. I'm not like the chitarui…"

"You're not!" Peter said. "I mean, he said the same thing about me and…"

"Doesn't it scare you?"

"I mean, sort of, but I've been doing it for a while," Peter shook his head. "And… Sometimes you have to do things, because you know, if you've got something nobody else has, and you refuse to help… It sort of makes you the bad guy, like…"

"Like someone who doesn't call when they see a mugging because they just don't want to get involved." Liz got up and started walking around. "I'm scared. I wanna go home and hide under my bed so Mom and Dad can help me, but they can't. I'd just get them in trouble, because… They sent guys with guns… They might have shot me and I haven't done anything wrong!" Peter raised his hands, and Liz clamped her mouth shut. But nobody on the street had heard her. Liz sighed. "And I got my teacher arrested. I haven't had a detention in a year, and I got my teacher arrested!"

"Ms. Nunez didn't seem that upset by it…" Peter asked. "I figure… well, you saw the footage from when she was fighting the robots in the museum, after the darkness went away, or when she fought HYDRA. I don't think she is scared of Ross."

"Good for her. I am. I don't think 'permanently sent to the Raft' helps when you're going to college…" Liz shook her head. "I… I have to do something to try and show…"

"Hey," Peter said. "It's okay, I mean, I can go… Sure, they didn't call me an Avenger, but I have more experience than you do. Do you know how to use your powers, even?"

"Sort of… I mean, it feels… Like…"

Liz held her hands out and slowly, tiny, faceted fields appeared on them, spreading down her body, glowing orange. "They're… it's like they're sort of a part of me. They make me…" She picked up a heavy box and lifted it. "Strong…" then she put it down, but miscalculated and crushed the box."

"Yeah, really strong…" Peter paused. "Um, it took me a little time before I was good at not hurting people by accident, so don't grab anyone."

"Right… It's like a jumpsuit…" Liz stared, closed her eyes, and the fields changed, for a moment looking like plate armor."

"That's so cool!" Peter said. "It looks like your individual fields are slightly malleable—I bet that that's so that if one fails, you don't lose everything…and you can change their form…"

"Yeah…" Liz closed her eyes. "Right… I have an idea. Maybe something I've seen a lot…"

"Okay, yeah," Peter said. "Try it!" This is so cool, we'll be two spider-wait, what?

The energy covered her, looking like an armored uniform, and wait a minute…

"Okay, Liz, you can do this…" she said, looking at her arm as a circular energy field formed on it, looking like a… Shield…

It has a star on it. Part of the energy fields were different. She can control the color and that is so co—wait a minute!

"Liz, that's…"

Liz didn't say anything for a moment. "I um…" She looked to the ceiling, and then to the window, and blushed. Blushed very deeply. "I may have had a… Captain America Pinup in my locker… and some at home… and… Maybe we can just change the subject…"

"Right, yeah. Okay. Not everyone likes spider—"

"What?"

"Nothing!" Peter looked around and pulled his mask over his head, because you know, turning red. "So, you know, if we go there, and we see the guy… we call Mr. Stark. I mean, you've never fought before, so we don't get into a fight. Just go, look, and call."

"Right," Liz said. "We can do that."

"No problem."

"Uh-huh!" Then they both turned and looked at the door. Outside, there was the sound of a police chopper.

"But everyone is looking for us, so how do we get there?" Peter asked, then snapped his fingers. "I know!"

Ned was sitting in his chair, but now that he had everyone on, Mr. Stark was taking over. And Ned didn't really understand a lot of what they were talking about.

"Tony, why can't we just contact Ro—"

"Because Ross is about stopping enhanced people. He's not so good on stopping it from happening, and once he comes in, he'll want to be in charge," Tony said. "Now look at this. We don't have a direct sample of what gave Liz her powers, but it's clearly a form of energy that enhances it's bearer—too much in most cases, which is what the extremis is for. So, we rejigger the extremis I'm making to fill in that gap, and poison the reac—"

"And if it triggers an even greater reaction? You could be causing what you're trying to stop."

"I know, which is why I called you," Tony said. "But I don't think there will be any reaction— HYDRA had goons wandering around with the staff and none of them exploded, so I think that so long as we can plug that gap before…"

Ned's phone buzzed.

He stepped away and took the call.

"Peter? What are you doing?"

"Mr. Stark didn't tell Ross I'm Spider-Man, right?"

"No."

"Okay, Me and Liz, we have a plan, but we need a ride."

"Dude, I can't even drive…"

"But you have your Grandma's Uber Account. I saw you when you used it to pick her up?"

"You're going to fight…" Ned blinked. "You're going to go Uber to fight bad guys."

"No," Peter said. "We're just gonna look at them, and then we can tell Mr. Stark, and he can tell everyone Liz helped save the day so Ross can't do anything!"

"Oh. That, um, sounds… Is Liz okay?"

"Hi, Ned," Liz said. "I'll pay you back."

"Okay," Ned said. "But it has to be before this weekend, or Ross won't HAVE to send me to the Raft."

"Right, we'll get it!" Peter said. "Send the car to…" He listed an address, and Ned nodded. "I just did."

"Thanks!"

"Hacker-Lad!" Tony called. "Being covert doesn't mean being on the phone."

"Oh, um, it was Grandma. I didn't want her to worry!"

"Right, don't worry." Tony raised his voice. "He has responsible adult supervision! Now hang up, and we're going to work on distribution. I'll be working with the brain trust here, so I need you to field any other stuff I need."

"Fighting bad guys?"

"Getting me energy drinks to start. Also, since Pepper and Happy aren't here, fielding any calls that I can't turn FRIDAY lose on."

"Like who?"

"The President."

He's kidding. He's got to be kidding…

Somehow, Ned didn't think he was kidding.

Chapter Text

Getting the Uber was easy. Getting Liz into it… a little harder. Finally, Peter had an idea.

Liz was sneezing, theatrically. Keeping her head down, with the hood up. They hustled into the car.

"So what's wrong with the girl?"

"Her grandmother loves cats. She's allergic," Peter said.

The driver stared at him. "Kid, don't ever try to lie to your parents. That was terrible."

"Um… yes?"

"Never mind, as long as you're not doing anything illegal in my car, the ride's paid for. But Geez kid, this ain't a good part of town to get your V-card punched. Can't you wait until the parents are out for the night?"

Peter wondered for a moment and then…

He sank down into the cushions. So was Liz, as they stared anywhere they could but at each other.

"Right, here you go!" The drive paused. "Look, kid, I wasn't kidding. You sure you don't want me to drive you to downtown, where there are more people?"

"Nah, we got some people to meet," Peter said.

The driver frowned, then shook his head. "Okay, hope you don't regret this."

So do I. And a few moments later, they were waiting as the car drove off and then Peter pulled his mask on.

"Karen?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"We need to get to the place, but…"

"Travel on the rooftops is ill-advised, Peter. There are police helicopters and drones."

"And I can't fly," Liz said. "And no, you're not carrying me. What if you drop me?"

"I'd never drop—I mean, I wouldn't carry you if I—"

"Let's just go through the alleys," Liz finally said.

"Right, Karen…" Peter and Liz vanished into the dark alley.

Moments later, there was a squishing sound and Liz's aggrieved groan rose in to the air. "What is that? Is it a pudd—oh, gross, gross, gross gross!"

"Don't worry, it's safe, right Karen."

"That's right, Peter, so long as you do not expose any open wounds, the biological waste in this—"

"Wait, this isn't just trash—oh, gross, gross gross!"

"You're in, Boss," Adrian nodded.

"Feel like a set up to you?"

"Yeah. Normally they got more guards here, but they all had to be pulled for New York."

Adrien snorted. "The US government has enough postmen to fill a city, and you're telling me they had to pull guards from up here to deal with two kids in New York?"

My daughter. But he bet those assholes who were using him had their own people. But they now had an excuse why they were gone, so their people wouldn't be outed.

Fine with him. Adrien didn't want them doing  time. He wanted them in a grave. "Coming up on the vault. Any active systems?"

"Nah. Looks like the guy was right about one thing. Nobody's had time to go through this."

Toomes nodded. The stuff was racked, but most of it just had tags from when it'd been held at the Triskilon. He'd been given some information about the energy it was putting out and his sensors were beeping—there!"

"Got it," He muttered. The box was heavy, and Toomes wasn't about to open it. Not if whatever was in it was putting out this kind of energy. "I'm heading back."

"And then?"

"We do the exchange." And they had better have a cure for Liz. If they did, he'd probably kill them.

If they didn't, he'd certainly kill them.

One hour, Claire thought. She was sitting, cross-legged on the floor. Not on the chair. Some wondered if she was doing some meditation.

Claire didn't smile at those words. Or at her last meal (a hotdog and some milk) before she was due to be taken to the raft.

Circles didn't have to be visible, at least not to no-mages. That was something you did, so you were certain you didn't screw it up. But if you wanted to, if you had to, you could invisibly scribe a circle, leaving it quiet until you needed to call upon her.

"I see you are prepared, Apprentice." The voice rumbled directly into her ear. Claire glanced up to see a Damage Control officer looking at her with a smirk.

Ah, a chameleon mask.

"I'm hoping he is not…"

"He is merely lost in dreams of his lover. When he returns, he will not inquire as to why none wonder at his tardiness."

"Good."

"After all, killing when you do not need to leaves you with the chore of disposing of the body."

And there's Angor.

"You have been unwise in letting them capture you. A simulacrum would have been wise."

"Not in my skill set, at least not without a lab." Claire didn't shrug, still looking like she was meditating, her words barely audible.

"And if they drug you? Not all humans are this incompetent."

"This was a good way to distract them from my students," Claire said.

"Death provides a somewhat more permanent distraction, but in this case, you are correct. The Court of Supremes has not yet made their decision."

"Hopefully it'll be the right one," Claire murmured.

"As you say. I will leave you. I have some information I desire to learn, and little time to do it." With that Angor turned and walked off.

"Hey Tom, getting a look at our VIP?" A guard asked.

"She don't look so tough," Angor answered in a perfect New Jersey accent. He'd probably spent a little time watching "Tom."

"Got that right, I mean, sure she does magic tricks, but it's not she's gonna get out before we send her to the raft, and I'd love to see her friends try to get past us!" the guard patted his sidearm with a meaningful expression.

Tom laughed. "I'd like to see them try as well. Gotta get back to my post."

"Yeah, don't let Hanks see you. She half-drowned him, and he's taking it out on everyone else."

Claire didn't say a thing, her lips curving into a small smile as the guard cheerfully waved at the back of the ancient assassin.