Avengers, Spider-Man 1. Chapter 1

Finding Spider-Man

Chapter 1

_"…hey, look, I know you're like, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, or something, but you do realize that Gaston __**dies **__at the end, right?"_

_"Shut up you filthy bug!"_

_"Hey hey hey, first of all, spiders are not—"_

It was the rush of dodging the punch, rather than any sort of impact, that jolted Peter from sleep. He remained with his eyes closed for a moment, disoriented. Within seconds, the contents of the dream faded away. There was the bed under him, the comforter over him, the sound of car tires over wet streets. The air smelled damp and humid, the way it smelled when there was ongoing rain.

The room was dark when he opened his eyes. The clock showed 6:45. He lied in bed for about five more minutes, nearly falling asleep again, but he needed about an hour to get to school, and school started at eight.

Rolling out of bed, Peter began his morning ritual: fetching his glasses, staring stupidly at himself in the mirror, brushing his teeth, throwing on some shirt, some sweater, some jeans, socks, going downstairs to grab a breakfast bar. His aunt was still sleeping, while his uncle had already left for work. Peter would never understand how Ben Parker could stand to wake up so early.

About fifteen minutes later, Peter was making his way toward the death trap that was Queens Boulevard, though luckily for him, he did not have to cross it. He saw some unfortunate kids that did, probably heading toward Russell Sage Middle School. They all looked younger than him, short and small with giant backpacks. The cars drove a little slower due to the rain, but they were still aggressive, and he saw one sports car speed down the lane as if it were a highway instead of a local street, though thankfully after one girl already crossed.

_Someone's gonna get ticketed._

A moderate number of people waited on the platform, especially on the side going to Manhattan. Peter recognized some of them as classmates that he occasionally passed by in the halls, but he had never spoken to them and did not know their names. Supposedly there were between eight hundred to nine hundred students in any particular class at Stuyvesant. Peter neither needed nor wanted to know all of them. It was much too early in the morning for anything but a snooze, if he could find a seat. Besides, despite being a school full of nerds, Stuyvesant had its cliques, like any other school. There were the goths, the sort-of-jocks, the popular-and-beautiful, the remorselessly crazy, and there were those like Peter Parker, who got good grades and had different research interests, and did not really see the need to add to those.

Eventually, however, as Peter was taking a nap, one friend he did know got into the same car as him.

"Yo," and a butt squeezed next to his just as the previous one's left.

He looked up. It was a kid named Jason, who shared his homeroom. "Hey!"

"Stupid rain!" Jason was holding his umbrella over his backpack, since there were too many people standing for him to hold it out over the floor. "I wish we had rain days and not just snow days."

"I know," Peter groaned, "I hope it doesn't keep raining when we have to get home."

"I got totally soaked walking two blocks to the subway," Jason pointed at his sweatpants, "because the wind kept blowing the rain under my umbrella. And I think my umbrella is broken now, but I couldn't really check."

"It wasn't raining that hard when _I _left home," Peter blinked.

"Dumb luck…"

They exchanged several questions about the upcoming math test, since Jason had the same teacher even if they did not share the same class. Peter drifted off to sleep again, and did not rouse fully until he sensed everyone get off the train.

"Come on," Jason tugged at his arm before swinging his own backpack over his shoulder. Peter hastily stood. One guy was staring at him; solidly-built, with a leather jacket and a very intense gaze. Peter glared back at him as he swung the backpack on. _Yeah, I have school and I got up before the sun rose. Go off yourself, man._ It was far too early in the morning to deal with jerks.

The rain had lightened to a drizzle when they came out and began the trek towards the school grounds. As they approached, other kids were joining them, and they all flocked indoors. First period started in about three minutes.

"Catch you in homeroom?" Jason waved.

"See you," Peter waved back.

_"…thought Peter Parker was in Midtown High?"_

Peter turned, but saw no one he recognized who could possibly be talking about him.

_Maybe it's another Peter Parker. _He shrugged, and went on his way.

oOo

Every year, eighth graders around the city of New York took a test, known citywide as the specialized science high school entrance exam. The best of the bunch, supposedly, went to Stuyvesant High School, though there were others, like the Bronx High School of Science. Students flocked from Staten Island to Brooklyn to attend these schools if their scores were high enough to be admitted, and it was a way out of the local schools defined by zones, especially in places where the neighborhoods were poor and the schools did not have enough funding for good education.

Back when Peter received his own results, his uncle and aunt were ecstatic. It meant he would be among the top students in one of the largest cities in the world. So many people from Stuyvesant went to the Ivies, to MIT, to Cal-Tech, and getting into Stuyvesant meant that Peter would mingle with the brightest minds of his age. The travel was long, but they all felt it was worth it. Everyone in the city knew what "Stuyvesant" was, and it was a certain relishing pride to be able to say, "My name is Peter Parker. I study at Stuyvesant," though Peter never told anyone else unless they asked.

At Stuy, as the school's name was abbreviated, students were all self-identified as nerds. It was actually a little laughable how little they cared about anything besides studying. None of the jocks even bothered to show off the fact that they were in sports teams, and the popular people needed good grades to be able to afford networking. Studying was a priority, and without that, everything else became minor. Added to the fact that around three quarters of the school were made of Asians, the whole student demographic just did not resemble that of a typical school in the city.

With over three thousand people roaming the halls, there was no such thing as a true loser, since most of the class would not even recognize the name. There was also no such thing as the "most popular" boy or girl, since at least half of the students would not recognize that name either. Every day was a potentially new start, if Peter chose to. He could mix in with the sci-fi geeks or chess club duelists or robotics team any time he wanted, and no one could bias anyone else with prior impressions of him. Stuy was pretty much a city all on its own.

It was nice, this sort of anonymity. He was left alone and he left others alone. There was no bullying, because what could others bully him for? He had none of the deficiencies they would not see in themselves. All of them were already the best of the best, told again and again by their teachers. They had all passed the bar, and had accepted each others as worthy colleagues. Though other teenagers might strive to find a niche they could fit in, Peter could find one almost effortlessly, and if he did not, no one would find this odd either. Plenty of loners roamed the floors just like him. Such was the culture of Stuyvesant. They were all already given the benefit of a doubt, because they all had to take that citywide entrance exam, and had passed with flying colors.

But the same anonymity had its costs. Peter might have been the brightest student in any other high school, but at Stuy he was just the average Joe. It was hard to gauge whether he was excelling or just barely making the mark. There was also a pressure to constantly work, and he often wondered if he would be able to relax and take a breath in another high school. Here, he was constantly racing forward, because there were so many others just like him who were running the same track, and a moment of failure would cost him the lead.

Today was one of those days.

"What did you get?" one of the boys whacked him on the shoulder, and he quickly rolled up his test to hide the big fat "86" written in red. Not a bad score by any means, and people at Stuy have had worse, but students tended to view ninety as a cut-off for their pride. Something that would be viewed as obnoxious anywhere else, but the type of people who got into Stuyvesant were the sort that would be a little obnoxious.

"Oh come on, Pete!"

"I failed."

"Pfft, no you didn't."

Peter genuinely _did _feel like a failure. "No, it's bad. What did _you _get?"

"_I'm _the one that did bad!"

The guy had been crying over his test when he got a ninety-three, which was actually not an uncommon occurrence at Stuy. Peter was not buying it.

"Uncool, man! If you ask, you gotta be willing to give," he pointed out.

"Oh _fine._" He revealed an equally fat "89" on his test, which made Peter want to hit him with his pencil.

The teenagers griped about this useless topic for another minute, before one of the other students interrupted to inquire about a question she got wrong, and they all started comparing answers to make sure the teacher didn't misgrade. The rest of the class was doing the same thing, and soon the room was filled with the din of voices as three quarters of the students discussed their answers. The rest played on their phones or hunched over their desks to nap, because sometimes even Stuy kids stop caring.

Eventually, the teacher called for order, and they went over all the questions people had issues with. Peter spent the remainder of the period calculating what he needed on future exams to get above a ninety.

He was actually pretty safe, as far as course grades went. Feeling a little better, he left the class whistling when the period ended.

The halls were packed, and some idiot freshmen were clogging up the corridors to socialize, which created a ton of traffic. Peter had the strange urge to jump to the ceiling and crawl over them, and he even glanced up to contemplate the deed. _Wouldn't it be awesome to just go upside down over all of them?_

Someone poked him in the back, hard.

"Hey Pete," a boy from his English class, Juan, tucked his notebook under his arm. "Are you gonna show up for hacky sack?"

"Dude…" Peter groaned.

"Oh come _on _man, it's not like you take a _bus_. Stay after and play hacky sack."

"Right, because last time went so well." Peter found the particular activity especially boring, and could not understand why Juan and his friends liked it so much.

"What else do you have to do?"

He blew out a breath. "Dude, it's _gross _out there."

"So? Indoors. Oh, and you're coming to Halo tomorrow."

_That_, Peter actually found more interesting. "I'll try. I got a test this Friday. Pre-calc."

"Boo," but Juan let it go. Tests were always valid excuses for missing events. "Well, hacky sack today, and if you show up today you're excused from Halo."

Peter rolled his eyes, pushing up his glasses.

He did part of his homework during his lunch period in the biology office, since there was no work for him to do. A girl named Eunhwa was with him, studying for her social studies exam.

"No me gusta this thing," she grumbled. "I hate that we have essays _and _exams."

"When is it?"

"Tomorrow. Ew. Spider." She pointed with her pen. It paused on the desk they were sharing, and she cringed back when it approached her notebook.

Peter swatted it away. "Afraid of bugs?"

_Spiders aren't bugs._

"Not my favorite," she admitted.

The rain splattered against the windows.

"Ugh, they should cancel school when the weather sucks so much."

"Yeah," Peter agreed, wondering if how poorly he would fare on the walk from school to the subway later that afternoon. Maybe by the time he was done with hacky sack, the storm would let up. Eunhwa went to the window to watch the downpour.

"Man, you should see this, you can't see anything out there."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Huh. Three guys are just standing outside. No umbrella. Weird."

Peter did not think much of it. There were all sorts of lunatics in the city.

The rest of the day passed normally, until he made his way to the rendezvous where the hacky sack club was meeting. He had his backpack in his hand instead of over his shoulder, and his umbrella tucked under his other arm.

At the doorways separating the halls, Peter stopped. Leaning against the wall was the man Peter had seen in the subway, leather coat and all. He was not alone; there was a man in a suit, who looked a little tired, with dark hair and hunched shoulders. A third man, blonde and tall wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, was on the other side of the door with his arms folded. They both stared at him in that unnerving way that made Peter wonder if he was in trouble for some reason.

"Uh, hi?"

"Peter Parker?" The first man began.

"Yeah?"

He was not the kindest looking man. He actually seemed a little dangerous, though Peter could not put his finger on why. Surely anyone who entered the school should be alright; Stuyvesant was not exactly a terrorist hotspot, and a school was supposed to be…well, a school.

"My name is Clint Barton," said the man, holding out a hand for Peter to shake. Peter did so reluctantly. "We're part of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, also known as SHIELD. We're going to need you to come with us."

"Tony," said the blonde in a voice that was a little louder than necessary and looked down at the ground, "found him."

Peter turned to the tired man who was presumably Tony, but he did not respond to the blonde.

"Uh…" _The feds? Really? Shouldn't these guys be in suits…or something? _"What do you want me for?"

"Kind of an emergency," said Tony, "we'd wait until you were done with school, but we really can't afford to. It's for your own safety."

"Hold them off," said the blonde, "we need more time."

Tony apparently looked alarmed at this.

"Is Tony alright?" he asked.

_Why is he referring to himself in third person? _Peter looked at the blonde and noticed that he had a hand to his ear. _Oh. Earpiece. _

_What is going on here?_

"We need to go," said the blonde, "Tony's not going to hold for much longer."

A hand gripped his arm. Clint Barton had him in a firm hold.

"Sorry about this," he even looked a bit apologetic, and then there was a sharp sting on his arm.

Peter yelled, but even as he opened his mouth, he felt his energy drain, so all that came out was a whisper. His legs folded under him, and he would have smacked his nose on the floor if arms did not grip his waist.

_"He seems younger every time I meet him."_

_"This time he is actually younger than the last time you saw him."_

_"Wonder if going to a different high school's going to change his character…"_

There was suddenly a curse, and something that sounded like gunfire, before the world went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Finding Spider-Man

Chapter 2

_"No! Don't! Don't do this, kid! You don't know the full consequences of this!"_

_"Let's talk about this, okay? Let's talk about this first—"_

_"No. I've made my decision. It's not like I made such a huge impact. I'm not like you guys. I'm not a hero. I was just pretending to be. I never understood why everyone hated me, until now."_

_"Hey hey hey, look, I understand that you're upset—"_

_"I'm not upset. This will fix everything. Why would I be upset?"_

_"Wait, **NO**—!"_

Peter woke to complete darkness. He was on his back, but it took a moment for him to orient which way was up or down. His stomach clenched, and he had a strong urge to vomit. When he tried to roll to his side, however, his wrists caught, as did his ankles. They were pinned down to whatever he was lying on.

Fear flooded him, and he yanked, but there was no give to the cuffs at all. His breath quickened as his heart started to race. He yanked again, but all that served was to hurt himself.

_What is going on?! _He looked about for anything, any sign of where he was, but there was nothing except pitch black. The platform beneath him was hard, like a floor.

He yanked again. "Hey!" he yelled out. "What the hell!"

No sound. He was in an enclosed room, judging from the acoustics.

"Hey!" he yelled again. "Let me out! Let me out of these! What do you want?!"

A door opened, revealing a bright light behind it that was so blinding that Peter had to shut his eyes and look away. He heard footsteps approach, but could not turn his head back around because the bright glare hurt too much.

"So this time you actually took that exam, what's it called, SHSAT?" the man drawled. "Why didn't you take it last time? Though I suppose it doesn't matter. Part of the school's math team, not surprising. What are you in now, tenth grade?"

Peter squinted. Was that Barton? Or one of the other two guys? He could not tell. The voice was unfamiliar, but he was not sure if it had been distorted by his own fear. The man appeared to be wearing some kind of suit, but beyond that, Peter had no idea what he looked like. His features were exactly in the shadows, and he was glancing down at the papers in his hands, sometimes lifting them up where they covered his face from Peter's view from the floor.

"And you're part of the city math team too. Looking into math this time around? I suppose it's hard to say right now."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Hold on," the man replied, shifting his documents. "Stuy's not big on field trips, right? Small wonder, that. And you're still somewhat of a loner, though you have a _ton _of Asian friends." A pause. "Then again, Stuy's filled with Asians, so I suppose that's not surprising."

"Who are you?" Peter gritted his teeth, yanking at the cuffs. "What the hell do you want from me?"

"Nothing, since you're just a boring child," the man tucked the documents behind his back. "I have no interest in you. Don't worry. It's your friends I'm more concerned about."

_Huh? _"What friends?" What on earth would a government agency want with a bunch of teenagers?

The man poked his head out the door, and Peter felt a swell of frustration since he still could not see his face. "Let's move the kid to a better room. He's got none of the powers we were afraid of. Stuyvesant's teachers would be utterly mad if they had to coordinate a trip. They've got upwards of eight hundred students."

Someone from the outside called out, and the man answered, "No, I'm pretty sure. We ran the blood samples and there's no spider DNA."

He looked back before Peter could demand more answers, and at last, Peter could see the lining of the nose, and the fact that the man's eyes were blue. He was a tall Caucasian male, probably in his forties.

"If you're good," he exclaimed, "you might even walk out of here intact. Which would be nice. I don't mind killing children, but it's such sordid business."

He walked out before Peter could have a chance to retort.

* * *

They blindfolded him before uncuffing him and picking him up like a sack of flour. He yelled, kicking and beating down on a broad shoulder that seemed to belong more on a bison than on a man. They threw him onto a mat, which knocked the breath out of him so that when he recovered control over his limbs enough to whip the blindfold off, he was alone in the room, with the doors clanging shut and a lock slipping into place with a metallic _click_.

This room was lit, and while Peter's heart still raced with panic, the fact that he could see gave him some bearing. He was unrestrained, and this prison was furbished with a bed and a table. It was gray and clean, with no windows. A light switch controlled the central lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and the toilet was off to the side in a separate room with a sink.

He raced to the door, banging on it. "Let me out of here! What do you want?"

He reared back when it did not give at all and grabbed at his hair. _Okay, Pete, keep calm. There must be a way out of this._

He should have gone straight home. Hacky sack was boring anyway, why did he ever agree? If he had just gone home this would never have happened. What did the government want with him anyway?

"What do you want?!" he yelled, scanning the ceiling for some kind of camera and hoping someone heard him. "Let me go home! You can't do this! I've done nothing wrong! Neither did my aunt or uncle—what do you want with me anyway?! What do you want with my friends?!"

But there was no answer, and after a while the adrenaline waned and Peter slumped against the wall, knees to his chest. _Okay, okay, take stock Pete. You're alive, you're mostly unhurt. That's a start. They didn't saw your legs off or sell your kidney. _He lifted his shirt to check, but saw no scars on his torso. _Okay, so you're alright. For now. Just trapped, but you can work with this. You're not still drugged, you're awake, you're in a room, now, what do you know?_

Nothing coherent, as it were. The man mentioned something about spider DNA, Stuyvesant and its lack of field trips, and something about Peter taking the entrance exam 'last time', or not taking it, whatever that meant. Peter had a knack for being able to induce bigger concepts from simple details, but that worked better in the school environment than in this. Spider DNA, field trip, Stuyvesant, friends? Did someone he know obtain spider DNA from a field trip hosted at Stuy? When did anyone go on a field trip? How come Peter did not know? Even if the school was huge, a story like that would have traveled down the grapevine.

_And spider DNA? Anyone could just wipe them from the floors of the school! You don't need a field trip for that!_

And why would the government be interested in a high school student? Was one of Peter's friends a terrorist?

Was Juan a terrorist?

_Juan? __He plays a mean hacky sack, but hacky sack is hardly lethal. _Unless terrorism required the skill to balance on one leg and flick the other at awkward angles. _The guy likes Phoenix Wright and chess, sucks at the sciences despite being in a specialized high school and falls asleep in chemistry class._

There was a click at the door. Peter shot to his feet as it swung open. The man in leather, Clint Barton, stood with a bow in his hand. He raised a hand to his ear as soon as he saw Peter.

"You okay?" he asked.

Peter blinked. _Wouldn't he know? _Mind spinning quickly, he retorted, "I thought you were with _them_."

Barton did not respond, but his expression set in a way that confirmed Peter's suspicions. "Come on."

Eager to get out of the room, if only so that he had a chance to run, Peter obeyed. The archer stood out of the way for him to pass, before rounding up behind.

"Tony, which way?" Barton suddenly grabbed Peter as they reached the intersection of the halls, yanking him back. Peter managed not to cry out, but it was a close thing. They pressed against the walls as men in uniform ran past.

"No, Tony, I _don't _think we should collect any USB drives," Barton drawled. "What, Jarvis can't tackle it?"

_"Hey!"_

Barton swore, turning around and notching an arrow. "Go!" he yelled at Peter, "Find a place to hide!"

Peter did not need to be told twice.

It was disorienting to be in these halls. They were low, made for efficiency rather than aesthetics or comfort, and branched off every now and then without clear signs to show the way. He and his classmates use to complain about how Stuyvesant's blueprints made no sense, but at least the school bothered to point to classroom numbers and draw arrows. Here, he was running blind.

He ducked into one of the rooms that was clearly empty and shut the door. It was some kind of computer lab, with chairs still spinning after the people themselves hurriedly left. Some of the monitors were logged out, but there was one that displayed lines of text. Peter glanced at it as he tried to find a place to hide.

_'…after Spider-Man captured Electro, Peter Parker presented photos to the Daily Bugle…"_

Peter looked at the document._ Who is Spider-Man, and what does that have to do with me?_

He eyed the door nervously before rushing to the computer and waving the mouse so it would not log out. Clicking, he dragged the document to the top.

_**#24601-A113**_

_Name: Peter Parker_

_Age at termination: 18_

_Powers and abilities: see #24601-1a .docx_

_Conceived age at mutation: 15_

_Family members: May Parker (aunt)_

_Notes: Prior to the reset, SHIELD agents reported several incidents along the Hudson River. The members of the Avengers were dispatched. At site were members including the Lizard, Electro, Dr. Octavius, and Sandman. The X-men and Fantastic Four arrived after the two sides engaged…_

Peter blinked. None of these things made sense. _Who is Lizard? Who are X-men? Were they a group of radiologists? And Fantastic Four? What kind of cheesy name is that?_

And what was that thing about "age at termination"? Was this group planning on killing him when he turned eighteen?

The door burst open, and Peter sprang out of the seat, nearly falling over. Tall men wearing helmets that obscured their faces raced into the room.

He dove for the other side, but the room only had one exit. When he whirled around, they had guns aimed at him.

There was nowhere to go.

"Steady, boy!" one man called out. "Keep your hands in the air!"

Peter did so, completely bewildered.

One of the men near the door suddenly waved his gun out, firing a shot. The bullet hit metal before a fist swung forward and punched him in the face. A blur of blue dashed forward as the rest of the squad turned. Peter's jaw dropped. This guy was dodging _bullets!_

The man proceeded to tackle the others like they were nothing more than punching bags. Part of Peter knew that he should be trying to find a way to escape while they were all distracted, but he was too shocked to move. The men shot at the masked man, who raised his shield to deflect. One bullet ricocheted too close for comfort, but the rest shattered into the walls and ceiling and floor on the other sides of the room.

Clint Barton rushed in, arrow notched. When he noted how the man dressed in a flag was handling things, he ducked along the sides of the rooms to reach Peter.

"You okay?" he asked.

"What on_ earth _is going on?!"

"We'll tell you once we get out of here. This way." He freed a hand to grab Peter's arm, using his other to hold the bow and the arrow, still notched. American flag threw the last man into the computer Peter had just left. The masked man looked up at them.

"He alright?"

"Yeah. Bruce, Tony—alright." Barton jerked his head to the side. "Halls clear for now, but not much time to lose. You better move it, kid."

Peter allowed himself to be dragged out. He was too bewildered to protest.

* * *

There was an emergency exit that both Flag Costume and Barton somehow knew of; Peter suspected it might have to do with whoever Tony and Bruce were. It opened to a hundred-foot-tall drop. A plane of some sort, silent and sleek and in no way consistent with what Peter knew modern technology should accomplish, was hovering a good distance from the door.

"I got him," said the captain, and before Peter could ask what he meant, the large man looped a huge, muscular arm around Peter's waist and made to jump.

"Wait, what—AHHH!"

He was so scared that even when they landed inside the ship, safe and sound, he thought he might faint.

"Jesus," said a man he had yet to meet, "this time he's _really _just a kid."

"Can it, Tony. You're alright. Hawkeye!"

There was a thump, as Barton also landed.

"Anchors away, Widow," Tony announced with glee. The aircraft swerved, causing Peter to stagger. The captain righted him as the plane leveled.

"Well, that was more excitement than we needed," Tony went on, and Peter got his first good look at him. Man in his late thirties or early forties, a goatee, and a strange, circular glowing light under his shirt.

American Flag ripped off his mask, revealing the blonde man, as the tired man came out from the cockpit.

"Anyone hurt?" asked the tired man.

"I'm fine," said the blonde.

"I'm good," Barton confirmed.

Peter was left, and he could not bring himself to speak.

"Come here," said the tired man, "I'm Bruce Banner, by the way. I know this isn't really the best way to meet people, but…you know. Can't be helped."

"Okay…" Dazed, Peter allowed Banner to look him over. "Who are you, who were they, and what do you guys want with me?"

"Kind of a long story," said Tony, "but the short version is…no, actually, there _is _no short version."

"We're not really sure of the full story ourselves," said the blonde. "The only one who really knows is…well…_you_, but that's the whole problem."

"He's fine," said Banner, "I don't see anything to be worried about for now."

Peter might have kept more to himself if he had his wits about him. "Is this something to do with Spider-Man? Because I don't know who he is, or why people think I have anything to do with him."

An odd silence fell. Tony's lips twitched, but his eyes were serious.

"Yeah," he repeated, "long story."


End file.

Avengers, Spider-Man, Friendship, Suspense