Breaking and Entering
Thanks to one convenient ride from a Sysco truck — Peter swore the driver was speeding the whole way there, to the point where even he worried his sticky fingers wouldn't hold grip on the top of the semi trailer — and Peter swooped down from the sky, sticking to the wall of the nearest building. All the while, his eyes continued to follow the blinking Spider-Man logo on his HUD screen.
“Karen?” he asked, stumbling upon landing on the nearest rooftop. “Where are we?”
The hitch-a-ride made Peter lose track of time, and his surroundings didn't look very familiar. There was far more foliage than there were buildings, and the highway had ended some time ago. All he knew for sure was that the sun had long since set; the moon shined bright overhead from the skies.
"Upstate!?" The eyes of Peter's mask enlarged into white saucers. "You think he’s heading to Canada?”
“Yeah, good point,” Peter muttered, more to himself than anything. “And hey, if he decides to go to Jersey, you can count me out.”
He shot out a web, swinging himself into the air. Latching onto what few buildings remained in his path.
“Uh, nothing," Peter fumbled over his words, wall-hopping and scaling up another building. "It’s just…well, New Yorkers and New Jerseyans don’t really get along, and —”
He paused, coming to a stop on the nearest roof.
“Wait a second…”
His train of thought came to a more sudden halt than the Sysco truck that was parked miles behind him at the nearest gas station. Pieces of the puzzle started to fit together one at a time, and he could feel his mind racing to catch up with all the possible scenarios.
Peter blinked once, and then again.
“Karen, how far are we from the Avengers compound?”
If what he was thinking could be true —
“Oh shit!” Peter cursed — of course, of course that's what this guy was planning.
Of course.
"I think he’s headed there!" With a new found energy, Peter darted up the next building as fast as his arms and legs would take him. "You gotta call Happy, Karen— get Happy on the phone!”
Six folds, ten crinkles, and a ripped corner.
Rhodey had been staring at the scrap piece of paper for a few minutes now, the thing long since embedded into his brain — Tony’s chicken scratch handwriting included. Finally, he folded the note back up into the small square it once was and set it down on the coffee table with a long, loud hum.
“Well, that’s just…”
Tony — who was pacing the room — spun around to face him.
“Inscrutable? Melodramatic?” he asked. “Incomprehensible?”
Rhodey shook his head. “Weird.”
“Strange, actually,” Tony replied, finger wagging. “His name was Strange.”
“His name was — Christ, Tony, do you ever remember living a normal life?” Rhodey rubbed at the edges of his temples, his eyes watching Tony cross the room back and forth like a ping-pong ball.
“Not in the slightest.” Tony lifted his glass to his lips, taking a swig of his drink; ice cubes rattling along the way.
Rhodey eyed him carefully. “Thought you were laying off the alcohol?”
“Hm? This?” he asked, pointing to the mountain glass. “Not alcoholic, can’t decipher cryptic messages from magical wizards when I’m drunk.”
It was true, so Tony could at least say he was being honest with himself. He had become obsessed with figuring out what the message meant since Bruce's arrival earlier in the day, even more so determined to know why it was directed to him.
It always had to be him.
He scrubbed at his eyes, his frustration evident. It seemed in the past decade there was always some global, worldwide threat out to destroy them.
Still, he didn’t know where to start with something so personal. He didn’t want to think about something bad happening, to him, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy — any of the few people he kept close to him.
“What does Bruce think?” Rhodey’s voice cut through his thoughts.
“No clue what to make of it." Tony shook his head, still pacing back and forth. "Don’t blame him, big guy hasn’t been around us for over a year, can’t wrap his head around the Accords —”
“What was the Accords,” Rhodey corrected.
“He’s amazed we’re still a team after that whole ordeal. So am I, to be honest.” Tony swiped his nose with the tip of his thumb, sniffing heavily. “He’s laying low for right now.”
It wasn't until he had given Bruce the cliff-notes of the past year and a half that Tony realized just how much had occurred. It seemed there was no rest to be had; any resemblance of semi-retirement always a distant thought when someone wanted to bring him back into the fight.
Rhodey leaned back into the couch. “Nat know he’s back?”
Tony viciously shook his head.
“No. No, no, no, no. There are relationship issues, and then there’s big-green-guy relationship issues.” Tony took the last swig of his drink, setting the empty glass down on the nearest surface. “I’d like to stay away from both while I can.”
Tony collapsed onto the couch next to Rhodey with a heavy sigh, kicking his legs up onto the coffee table while picking up the folded square piece of notebook paper.
“Banner will make his appearance known in a couple of days.” Absentmindedly, Tony found the note flipping between the empty space of his fingers. “Until then…”
Rhodey crossed his arms, looking over at his friend with a smirk. “Nothing is what it seems?”
Tony could have laughed, had he felt the situation to be more humorous. He settled on a half-cocked smile.
“Gotta love that feeling of impending doom.”
“Dial again, Karen!” Peter’s voice was panicked, his vocal chords squeaking in pitch as he jumped from one rooftop to the next. "Just keep calling him, we gotta warn him about what's gonna happen!”
The phone rang and rang — ring ring followed by ring ring. Peter landed on the top of a storage facility within the Avengers compound property, just as an automated voicemail began to speak.
Peter looked out ahead, the moonlight glistening off the glass windows of the extended, multistory facility — all less than half a mile away. Further out of his sight was the cloud of fog he'd been tracking, coming to a complete stop at the river bank.
As it stopped, so did the tracking device on Peter's HUD.
“Crap.” Peter crouched down low, knees bent as he walked across the rooftop, keeping himself low to the ground. “We gotta get to him before he does anything dangerous.”
Pressing his finger pads to the steel roof of the hangar bay, Peter hummed out loud in thought.
“I mean, I’m not supposed to be here…and he wanted me to stay away from the guy, so, I don’t think…”
The cloud of fog that had originated near the edge of the river bank began to thicken, quickly spreading out. If Peter didn’t know better, he’d pin it on the weather. It almost seemed like natural mist from along the river bank.
But it started to extend over the entire compound, far more than just a pocket of fog.
Even the large A on the building began to disappear within it.
Peter shot up and ran, arms swinging frantically.
“Okay, okay! Call Mr. Stark!”
He bolted down and off the steel roof, his legs pounding against the ground as his heart thumped in his chest.
Karen’s voice started to break up. The static that overlapped her voice was no different than Times Square the other night, right alongside his HUD flickering in and out.
Her voice — and Peter's tech altogether — cut out at once. He shot out a web and pulled himself into the air, soaring high before tumbling onto the ground with a somersault, quickly gathering himself and sprinting forward.
The fog made it too difficult to see anything past his arm, dense and thick, leaving no visibility in front of him. Peter looked all around, desperate for some outline, of anything that would lead him in the right direction.
His instincts kicked in when he saw his reflection looking right back at him.
Crystal clear, like it came from a glass mirror.
“Follow the crystal ball…” Peter muttered to himself.
The reflection, and the man with it, suddenly vanished.
Peter's assumption was proven right when he noticed the bottom window was cracked open. There was just enough space that he could shoot a web onto it and pull it all the way up, letting him sneak inside.
Months of practice sneaking into May's apartment finally came in handy.
The moment he entered the building, Peter knew where he was. The smell alone was familiar enough to recognize.
Palladium.
It was the workshop of the compound — more specifically, Mr. Stark's workshop. He had been here enough times over the winter and spring to map out each turn of the hallways.
“At least I know my way around here…” Peter whispered to himself.
He stuck to the ceiling and followed the fog, watching as it traveled down the hallways and around the corner. It was late at night, so Peter wasn’t surprised to see a lack of personnel wandering around. On the oh-so-awesome times that Mr. Stark would invite him to tinker in his shop, he’d leave late in the evenings when there would only be a ghost crew of security workers roaming around.
Peter wondered if that would change after tonight. He didn't figure SHIELD would take well to an intruder, after all.
The fog disappeared behind the entry door to the main workshop, but a layer of it remained floating in the halls. Karen was still offline, and looking up in the corners of the ceiling, Peter imagined the security cameras watching them weren't working as well. All of them stood still, none tracking his arachnid-like movements.
The workshop was locked, accessed only by security code. Peter looked around him, wondering what his next course of action would be.
If he left now, he could find Mr. Stark in a timely matter and they could catch the guy together.
Or, staring at the ceiling duct ahead, he could sneak inside and capture the guy in the act.
Klaxons suddenly blared from above.
"Crap!"
Peter's decision was made for him when alarms began to sound, and the ceiling lights shut off, leaving only the strobes of red-to-white lighting up his path ahead.
“Now or never!” Peter pushed the vent up and to the side, crawling into the duct with ease.
With a THWIP! of his wrist, he shot out a spider-web, straight out, directly in front of him. Laying on his back, he yanked himself forward and slid across the bottom like a slip-and-slide. Once far enough long, he immediately kicked out the vent below him that accessed the workshop.
Peter landed on the ground with a thud, balancing himself on just his fingerstips.
“Hey there, David Blaine!” Peter stood up and pointed ahead. “B and E stands for more than just bacon and eggs, you know. Breaking and entering is a crime — hey, hold up!”
The fog increased by tenfold and he barely caught himself in the reflection of Mysterio’s helmet, only seeing his spider lenses wide and his fingers frantically shooting out webs.
Peter leaped forward, tackling Mysterio to the ground.
"Don't move — hey — stop!"
Peter was positive that they had knocked something over in their tumble. Subconsciously, he could only hope it wasn’t anything important.
Glass shattered and the sound of metal rolled around on the ground, all accompanied by the immensely bright strobe lights and piercing alarms that blared through the speakers. Peter's heart was beating so fast he could have sworn it was about to jump out of his throat.
Each punch he threw landed on the cement floor below them, and every time he went to grip something — anything of Mysterio’s to latch onto — the man squirmed himself away. His opponents moves were fast and precise, and Peter quickly found himself out of breath.
This was way above the skill set Mysterio seemed to have the other night.
“Hands in the hand — hands in the air!”
The fog began to clear away, a white wool blanket that receded in patches. Peter could see a rush of security guards burst through the gray clouds, straight into the room, all with their guns held high.
“Oh, thank god. I got him you guys, he’s right — aackKKK!” Peter screeched when someone grabbed him from underneath his arms, forcefully yanking him back. He could feel a burning tension as his tendons were pulled in the wrong direction, grunting at the feel of his bones scraping against each other.
“Wrong guy, you got the wrong guy —!" Peter kicked his feet wildly. "Let me go!”
Looking around frantically, Peter was surrounded by formally dressed SHIELD security officers, the dark blue uniforms all blurring together. It made it so when each Avenger cut through into the crowd, they stuck out like a sore thumb.
Natasha was the first, her own gun pointed at him along with the others.
“What happened?” she demanded, her voice steady and firm.
“I caught him breaking in," a loud, bold voice said behind him.
Wait, behind him?
Peter craned his neck around. The strobe lights turned off and the alarms died down. The fog slowly cleared away, giving sight to who held him from behind.
Shit.
Looking down at him with a raging glare that could kill was Captain-friggin-America.
Or more specifically, Steve Rogers, clad only in khakis and a black t-shirt.
Peter bit back a groan. Something told him he had never been fighting Mysterio all along.
“What the hell is going on!?” Sam shouted, storming into the room.
“We got an intruder,” Natasha answered, her gun never wavering.
All of a sudden, every hair on Peter's body stood up straight. His ears began to pick up every sound in the room — all at once — as if his spider-sense had been muted and someone suddenly found the on button. He could hear the radio communication between the guards, the pounding of footsteps down the hallway, someone saying that Tony Stark was on his way—
Oh, well that was just dandy. Peter let out that groan he'd been holding back. He could hear Vision and Wanda come running down the hallway, stopping near the door and talking alongside with the others.
It was almost sensory overload, the muted sensation from the fog leaving him with overly sensitive awareness in its wake. Cap's body wash was suddenly too strong against his nostrils, the lights from above were too bright — it was like Times Square all over again.
“Should we be concerned?” Vision asked, standing towards the back of the room and out of the way of the security guards.
Peter wiggled in Steve’s grasp, uselessly trying to break free.
“I didn’t — it wasn’t — crap, I didn’t do anything!” he insisted, wincing when he pulled his arm in the wrong direction.
“Stay quiet,” Steve demanded, his tone low and serious.
“Who else is with you?” The security guard barked.
Peter blinked, nodding his head behind him. “But he just told me to stay quiet.”
“I said, is anyone else with you!?" the guard repeated, his voice booming over the surrounding commotion.
The grasp on his arms tightened, pulling him back further into Steve’s hold.
Peter could have kicked himself — he never kept his mouth shut when he needed to.
“I know I pay you to do more than stand around and gawk —" Suddenly, a voice came shouting from the hallway. "Now move, all of you!”
Tony pushed through the crowd of guards, bringing with him the sound of whirring armor — the red and yellow Iron Man repulsor was attached to his right arm.
Rhodey followed his tail, weaponless.
“Can someone explain to me how a high-tech, secret government operated, secure facility can be broken into by —”
Having busted through the encompassing security, Tony stopped mid-sentence at the sight that greeted him.
In the middle of the room was Steve, on his knees gripping, in a tight nelson hold, none other than the red-and-blue clad Spider-Man.
Peter blinked twice, the shutter lens of his mask mimicking the movement.
He hoped Mr. Stark knew that meant ‘sorry’.
Somehow he doubted it.
The longer they stared at each other, the redder Tony’s face got.
“We caught him breaking in,” Steve curtly explained.
“What? No!" Peter gaped. "No — no, I didn’t break in — well, I mean I did break in, technically, but it’s not like that!"
“Sir,” a security guard suddenly spoke up. “You’re missing one item. The case is unlabeled — what was it?”
Tony didn’t need to investigate to know what the guard was talking about. Looking up, not far across the room, the employee pointed to the empty glass case. The wires that had kept the item secured and alarmed now dangled loosely inside.
Oddly enough, none were cut or ripped out. It was as if the item was phased directly out of its case.
“What’d you steal, punk?” Steve demanded.
“Punk? Did you —” Peter bit back a laugh, turning to the crowd circling around him. “Did he just call me punk?”
Natasha unlocked the safety to her pistol. “What did you take!?”
The sound of a trigger being released from her gun sent shivers up Peter's spine.
“I didn’t take anything!" Peter shook his head, so fast and panicked that it caused his vision to blur. "I don’t have anything on me — nothing, see!?”
“Yeah, we can see a lot,” Sam scoffed. “The spandex gives it all away.”
It was a good thing Peter had his mask on — his cheeks were turning as red as his suit.
There wasn't long to dwell on the matter; the hairs on the back of his neck stood up straight for what seemed to be the millionth time in the past three minutes alone. He could feel the rush of air behind him as Steve released one of his arms.
It was a swift movement — the tingling of his spider-sense gave him fair warning. Steve released one arm and went to yank off his mask.
And Peter ducked low and twisted around.
Though his other arm was still held tightly, the sudden movement caused Steve to switch grips from his bicep down to his forearm.
Peter tried to run or leap, to dart away as quickly as he could. Steve yanked him right back like a puppy on a leash.
"Do not move!"
"We mean it, we will shoot!The sudden movements created a ruckus between the guards and the Avengers.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Peter apologized, holding his free arm in the air to show his compliance. “It’s just…the mask is there for a reason, ya know?”
Steve shook his head. “Whatever there reason is, it needs to come off. Now.”
“Uh…sorry,” Peter winced, shaking his head. “Can't do that, Cap.”
“It was The Chameleon?” Vision’s monotone voice spoke up, his presence across the room suddenly noticed. They all looked his way, where he examined the empty case with fascination. “The appearance changing device you created. That’s what was taken?”
Tony gave one sharp nod, with his arms folded across his chest and his lips pursed tightly.
"Seems to be that way," he tensely answered.
“Alright, Queens.” Steve stood up, gripping both Peter's hands behind his back. “You’re coming with us.”
“No, no, no — I didn’t take it, I swear!” Peter insisted. “I’m not the bad guy — I was trying to catch the bad guy, really!”
Natasha remained unfazed. “And why should we believe you?”
Not a single person in the room looked anywhere but at Peter. It was enough to make him want to crawl back in the ceiling vents and live there until the day he died. Maybe he could make a nice little family with some rats.
The more the eyes stared at him, the more he thought it was doable.
“You…you guys know me!" Peter poorly reasoned, with a stammer that held all his anxiety. Jesus those guns were close to his head. "I — I’ve fought with you before."
“Against us," Sam huffed, one hand resting firmly on his hip. "You fought against us. With that gunk of yours that nearly broke my wings."
Steve looked over at Tony, his jaw set tight. “You recruited him, right?”
It wasn't necessarily a question that needed an answer. Even Peter could tell that. It was more of a question that held another question beneath it. Peter just wasn't sure he liked the unspoken in Cap's tone.
Still, Tony gave a sharp nod of his head.
“Yep,” he said, the P at the end of his answer making an audible pop.
Peter looked between the two, behind him at Steve and then over at Tony.
“You trust him?” Steve asked — again, something of an unspoken lingering in his tone.
Peter looked behind him at Steve again, only to decided to stick with looking at Mr. Stark. That was easier. That much he could do.
Cap looked pissed. He didn't want to mess with that.
There was a beat of silence, a thick tension quickly filling the room. Peter could hear his own heart beating erratically in his chest — his breathing was suddenly too loud, too heavy, to the point where he wondered if the others could hear it as well. Sweat dripped down his forehead and stuck to the inside of his mask, the angry glares from everyone like dozens of needles pressed against his skin.
Ultimately, Tony sighed, letting his arms drop from his chest and down to his sides.
“Yeah," he said, all in one breath. "Unfortunately, I do.”
At the doorway, Rhodey furrowed his brows with disappointment. “Tony —”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Sam grumbled.
Natasha never lowered her gun. “Yeah, well, I don’t have reason to trust him.”
“I didn’t take anything!” Peter practically begged to be heard. He tried to look at everyone at once. “I don’t have anything on me, I swear!”
Steve's grip on grew tighter. Peter winced — damn, he was strong.
“That might be true,” Steve started to say. "But you just broke into a highly secured facility, while wearing a mask. For all we know, you're not even the real Spider-Man."
“Okay, enough with the dramatics!" Tony had heard enough. "Sheesh, it’s like a soap opera in here.”
He waved his arms to the surrounding guards, gesturing them to leave. “Go — get, do your job. Sweep the compound. God knows this isn’t the only place that could have been broken into.”
The room began to empty out, one person at a time, some personnel speaking their confusion in body language or expressions, others staying silent altogether.
Only one looked directly at Tony, pointing towards the now empty enclosure that had become their crime scene.
“Sir, we need forensic to swab the room —”
“And I need you to give us some damn privacy." Tony spun around, facing the nameless guard head on. "So if you want to keep your nightstick and flashlight, I would advise coming back at a later time.”
The guard kept his mouth shut, the insult prompting him to leave in a hurry. It didn’t take long for the rest of the room to clear out afterward.
Once it did, Tony locked the otherwise automatic doors behind them, leaving only the present Avengers to surround the red-and-blue vigilante.
Natasha began to lower her gun. Steve never let go of his grip on Peter's foreman.
“What’s your story?” Tony turned around from the door and looked straight at the restrained Spider-Man.
The room watched him with interest, awaiting his answer.
Peter took in a deep breath.
And then another deep breath for good measure.
“There’s a man — he came here, and I followed him. Its the guy from Times Square, the weird fish-bowl dude, and he released this fog that I couldn’t see through, and he must have taken the helmet before I could stop him because when I went to tackle him, I guess he wasn’t there anymore and 'cause every time I tried to stop him he moved and I'm actually pretty sure I was fighting Cap now that I'm saying all this out loud, but —”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Rhodey raised his hand in the air, pushing forward as if it could stop the tangent. “Slow down, take a breath. You followed someone here?”
Peter nodded. Mostly to keep his answer concise, mostly because he ran out of air to talk.
“Why follow him?” Sam asked, a line between his eyebrows growing deeper. “Why not alert someone instead of breaking into this place? This isn't Times Square, this isn't a Waffle House. You can't just break in here."
Tony rolled his eyes. “It’s not like our phone number is listed on Google, Wilson. Who would he contact?”
Peter knew that Tony looked at him on purpose when asked the questions. His eyes reflected a rage he hadn’t seen in the man probably ever — not even after the Ferry, not even when he took his suit away. The look said ‘what the hell kid, you have my phone number!'
Mr. Stark didn't need to say that aloud for Peter to get the hint.
In that moment, he found that he was suddenly very aware of the fact he was only fifteen-years-old — a kid, one who snuck into a highly secure superhero facility, surrounded by men and women much much much older than him.
And with guns. Natasha's gun was definitely still pointed at him, even if she'd lowered it a tad bit.
“I...uh, well, I tried —" The self-awareness did nothing for Peter's already dwindling confidence. "Or I thought about, it’s uh…”
“It sounds like he meant well,” Tony interrupted, forcing out a defense the best he could.
Nobody bought it.
“It sounds like he can’t get his story straight." Steve shook his head, firm and hard. "And as long as he’s hiding behind that mask, we have no reason to trust him. Not with that helmet missing.”
“Are you for — Rogers, I recruited him,” Tony snapped. “Have a little bit of faith in me, would you?”
Steve locked eyes on him. “Criminals wear masks, Tony.”
If Tony rolled his eyes any harder, they'd been on the floor.
“You wear a mask. I wear a mask.” His response was as smart-assed as a Stark could get. “Are we criminals?”
Steve cocked his head to the side and pursed his lips right along with it.
“That’s not my point,” he bit back. "We don't know if this is even Spider-Man, especially with your helmet missing —"
“It's him," Tony insisted, frustration leaking into his every word. "And all I’m gathering from this is that Underoo’s wanted to save the day and got caught up in some mess that he should have stayed the hell out of.”
Once again, Peter didn’t miss how Tony directed the words right at him. He began to wonder why the man used such a powerful, dangerous suit like the Iron Man armor when all he had to do was look at someone the way he was looking at Peter now — that look alone could kill.
Death by Tony Stark's admonishment. Not how he figured he'd go out.
Peter yelped as Steve yanked at his arm again — rude.
“You’re missing dangerous technology, and he was here when it happened," Steve pressed, lifting from his knees and hauling Spider-Man off the ground at the same time. "That should be enough cause for concern."
Tony gave a half-hearted smirk. “I guess ‘wrong place, wrong time’ won’t work for ya?”
Peter felt himself getting dizzy looking between the two, their persistent arguing showing no signs of letting up. Eventually, he decided to hang his head low and just stare at the ground instead.
He wondered if this was what it felt like like when parents fought over something. He never really had the chance to experience that for himself, never with his late parents or Uncle Ben and Aunt May.
Listening to the two men practically bicker back and forth — he became silently appreciate of that fact. They were mad.
“You tell me, Tony," Steve remained serious, and his grip on Peter remained firm. "It was your tech that was stolen.”
Tony worked his jaw, noticeably turning away from the others even as they began to stare him down.
“When did Captain goody-two-shoes become a cynical asshole?” he asked, half sarcastic, half dead serious.
Steve leveled him a look. “When I started having reasons not to trust people."
Tony threw his hands in the air, letting out a deep and defeated sigh. Any harder and it would've blown the roof off the compound.
There was a beat, one that made Peter flinch. The brief, yet heavy moment of silence made the tension in his gut twist all the harder.
“Alright kid." Tony never even turned around when he spoke. "Take it off.”
“What!?” Peter's head whipped up fast enough to give them all whiplash, nearly smacking right into Steve's chest along the way. The grip the man had on his arm was definitely serving a serious risk to his web-swinging abilities.
“You heard me.” Tony finally turned to face him, and didn't spare an ounce of his frustration along the way. “Unless you want to spend the night in a prison cell guarded by the good boys of SHIELD, take the mask off.”
Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing. “I—I…I can’t, you know I—”
“Kid," Tony's tone was low and serious — it was a warning. They weren't bargaining. "You either trust us, or you don’t. And until Capsicle sees those brown Bambi eyes of yours, he definitely won’t trust you."
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
Peter looked around at the group, frowning beneath the mask. He could have sworn Mr. Stark had his back on this, that they agreed his identity would be kept secret until he decided to join the team.
Looking at the billionaire now, he realized there were conditions to that promise he never knew existed.
Like not breaking into the Avengers compound, for starters.
Shit just didn't do it justice anymore.
“But…Mr. Stark, I…I...”
Tony quirked an eyebrow, waiting.
Shit times infinity.
Peter dropped his shoulders, defeated. This sucked — there was no argument to be had, he really didn't have any ground to stand on.
And the longer Mr. Stark stared at him, the more he realized the man had come to that conclusion on his own some time ago.
Peter didn’t know which was worse, the internal debate over the decision or the knowledge that the choice was already made for him.
There was no way he was walking out of this with both his identity kept secret and his freedom attached.
For a split second, he considered how bad prison food could be. Nothing could top May's meatloaf, right?
God, this really, really sucked. He screwed up big time.
Peter gripped the back of the mask, bunching it into his palm as he pulled it up and off his head. Brown, curly locks came falling into his eyes, and he had to sweep them away with his free hand when he finally looked up at the team.
“Hi. I’m Peter,” he said, sighing. “Peter Parker.”