Rikers Island Correctional Facility, located on Rikers Island in New York, is New York's most crowded and largest prison. At its peak, it housed over 10,000 inmates. Due to a shortage of rooms, many low-risk prisoners had to share a single room with dozens of others, some rooms having as many as 50 beds. It was said that Kingpin, who announced his surrender yesterday, would soon be incarcerated here—he had served time here before.
But Kingpin's arrival wasn't the reason for the blaring sirens and frantic search by guards at Rikers Island today. They were making such a fuss because a prisoner had escaped, and even worse, per the warden's orders, they couldn't tell the outside world who had broken out of prison.
As they frantically searched, a bald, powerfully built Black man in a prison uniform emerged from the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan, in the Hell's Kitchen area. He looked around, stripped off his uniform, and tossed it into the river. After confirming no surveillance cameras were nearby, he slipped into the chaotic Hell's Kitchen.
He'd had other names before, but those names no longer mattered. From today on, he had only one name.
Luke Cage.
Today was a good day for school. Everything finally seemed to have returned to the simple, monotonous routine from before the semester began—no supervillains, no chaotic incidents. Peter finally relaxed in late September.
Thinking back, in September alone, he'd fought Shocker, Chameleon, Karl Malus, Mysterio, Big Wheel, Rhino, and Scorpion. He'd gone to a parallel world to stop Miles's rise… oh no, to prevent Earth-700's Spider-Man from dying. He then returned to witness the X-Men's reformation, traveled abroad to Madripoor for a major battle with Weapon X, and then thoroughly thrashed Mister Sinister.
What a full and busy September it had been. He hoped things wouldn't be so eventful in the future.
And Cindy's kiss, well, it was probably better not to include that in the summary.
Speaking of which, Peter glanced at Cindy sitting beside him. After yesterday, their relationship was, understandably, a bit awkward. Cindy wasn't talking to him much—though that was strange to say, as Cindy wasn't very talkative to begin with. She was the kind of girl who would hide her face behind a book and shrink away if she noticed she was getting attention.
The main issue was that Peter would occasionally catch Cindy peeking at him, and when he tried to say something, she wouldn't want to talk further.
It was strange, but there was nothing he could do.
He'd never been in a relationship in either of his two lives and didn't know how to handle it. He wondered if he was falling into one of life's three great illusions.
Most importantly, it seemed no one in the entire Avengers team could offer him any advice. Cap's views on romance were quite conservative, stuck in the last century. Tony was a playboy, but he'd become speechless around Pepper. Hank never pursued girls; Janet chased him, and who knew how she managed it. Hulk… well, Banner and Betty still hadn't gotten anywhere. And Black Panther, King T'Challa's love story probably wasn't a good reference either.
As for Thor, Peter had honestly never even met Thor.
"Maybe Thor doesn't exist. Maybe he's just a lie the Avengers made up to deceive aliens."
Cindy heard Peter mumble this completely nonsensical statement, glanced at him again, and then went back to reading her book.
"Hey, guys, good news!"
As the most social member of their trio, Harry ran back to his seat with exciting news and shared it. "Guess what I found?"
"…New comic con news?"
Harry looked at Peter disdainfully. "How old are you, always thinking about playing?" He shook his head mysteriously, then looked at Amadeus. "Guess what good news it is, Amadeus."
"I'm guessing it's not about the school trip to the Arecibo Observatory in November, is it?"
Harry's face instantly fell, because, without a doubt, Amadeus had guessed correctly.
The Arecibo Observatory, currently the world's largest and soon to be the second largest telescope, was one of the world's "Eyes of Heaven"—incidentally, this facility later collapsed in 2020 when a supporting cable for the feeder platform broke, destroying the entire telescope, leaving only one "Eye of Heaven" in East Asia.
But at least for now, this one was unique to the US. And because the Arecibo Observatory was far away on the island of Puerto Rico (US territory), it counted as an overseas trip.
"Isn't that supposed to be an astronomy club activity?" Peter asked curiously, then saw the strange looks from Harry and Amadeus. Only then did he realize that he seemed to be too immersed in his Spider-Man superhero career, to the point that he wasn't aware of things happening at school that he should know about.
That was quite embarrassing.
"No, Peter, it's a… reward. Simply put, the school is planning to organize a student science competition team for research into alien civilizations. After all, New York really was invaded by aliens once." Harry explained to Peter, assuming Peter had been sick and missed the information. "As long as you can participate in their questionnaire and answer the questions, you can join this competition team, and then we can go see the Eye of Heaven!"
"Cool, I should have time. I'll go online and check out the questions when I get home." Peter nodded, and Cindy, after hearing this, asked Harry, "Can anyone who gets a high enough score join the competition group?"
"Of course, otherwise how would us freshmen get to go?"
This little interlude quickly passed. It wasn't until after school that Cindy called out to Peter, though they didn't discuss yesterday's events.
"I think that science competition is a bit off, just like the Baxter Building internship. It might be arranged."
"Perhaps. You can ask S.H.I.E.L.D. to check it out. My spider-sense isn't reacting at all." Peter didn't think there was any problem. If every event in his life was arranged, he'd have to wonder if his transmigration was also planned.
It couldn't be that ridiculous, right?
"Are you going on patrol after school?"
"Not today, uh, I have some things to do."
Mary Jane wanted him to do an interview for J. Jonah Jameson. Cindy and Gwen both knew about this, but Peter felt it was better not to say anything. Saying it would, how should he put it, make his spider-sense buzz.
"Then do you need my help?"
"No, no, thanks." Peter smiled. "All the villains have been defeated. New York should finally be peaceful now, right?"