It was the weekend again and I found myself travelling to the Chikara dojo. Usually I had the weekends off, but it seemed Colleen had other ideas. She'd told me to come in for a special interactive exercise — whatever that meant.
As I approached the now-familiar building I noticed a few of my fellow students standing outside, waiting. I recognised one in particular: Marcus, a Black kid about my age. According to what I knew about this version of the Marvel universe, he would one day join the Hand — but for now, he was just a kid.
"Peter, over here," Marcus called out.
"Hey, Marcus," I nodded. "Hey, all." The others nodded back. "Does anyone know what this is about?"
"Sensei didn't tell you?" asked a girl named Agatha, who went by Agie.
I shrugged. "She just said it would be an interactive training session."
"Okay, so basically," Marcus explained, "we're going to mug her."
I blinked. "Crazy person, say what now?"
The kids laughed as Marcus elaborated. Colleen was teaching them real-world skills. Apparently that included training them to gang up and ambush a trained opponent. They had all been told it was a teamwork exercise. And maybe for them it was. But I could see the exercise for what it really was — a blueprint for coordinated assassination. They were being trained to locate, approach, and overwhelm a target together.
"So where is Sensei?" I asked.
"Sensei Wing is out in the city somewhere. It's our job to find her and get the jump on her. We need to grab her blade and make it back to the dojo before she takes us out. If we do that — we win!"
I could see how this exercise would evolve in the years to come. Hide-and-seek would eventually become locate-and-eliminate. Running back to base would become extracting to a safehouse. Smart. And deeply unsettling.
We waited another hour for more students to arrive before breaking into groups. Since I was still fairly new, Marcus invited me to pair with him, a kid named Brandon, and Agie.
The four of us decided to sweep the surrounding area for clues. Most of the other groups picked random directions and took off. Marcus suggested checking Colleen's known favourite spots in the neighbourhood. Not a bad idea, but it was going to be a long shot — by now she could be anywhere in a several-mile radius.
Then I had an idea. I asked myself: how would Batman track someone? What would he do?
He'd think like the person he was hunting.
So I did. I thought like Colleen. What was her objective? To train her students. That meant she'd stay close — somewhere open enough that her students couldn't approach without being spotted, which would force them to be smart about how they came at her.
A park. Most likely Central Park — not too far from Chinatown, and she'd had enough time to get there easily. But where specifically within Central Park? Somewhere she could see anyone coming with enough distance to defend herself, but open enough that her students couldn't use the terrain to hide effectively. And somewhere that wouldn't alarm the public if things got physical.
I opened my phone and pulled up a map. I searched until I found the right spot.
"Guys," I said. "I think I know where she is."
"What? How?" Agie asked, surprised.
I smiled. "Just a guess."
It took a little convincing, but they followed me. I led them to the south-west gate of Central Park — the section with the fewest crowds at this hour. And within a few minutes we found her, standing by a fountain, eating ice cream. She didn't look up. She didn't look around. She looked completely relaxed.
We held back behind the tree line.
"Alright," Marcus said quietly, "here's the plan. Agie, you and Brandon distract her. Peter and I will sneak in from behind and grab the blade. I'll run it back to the dojo while the three of you hold her off. Got it?"
"No offence," I said, "but that's a terrible plan."
"What?" He raised an eyebrow.
"It's too open. She picked this spot deliberately, Marc," I pointed out. "There's minimal foot traffic here, minimal cover. She'll see Agie and Brandon approaching from fifty feet away and she'll have us clocked just as fast. The moment we move, she knows."
"So what's your idea?"
"We wait. We let her move, or we make her move. Create a distraction for her and everyone nearby — something that draws attention away from us. Then we strike."
"Peter, no — the moment we cause a scene she'll be right on us," Brandon said, shaking his head. "We go with Marc's plan."
"Yeah, I'm with Marc," Agie agreed.
I crossed my arms. "Then good luck doing it without me."
"Peter, this is supposed to be a team exercise!" Marcus hissed. "We need everyone!"
"It's a bad plan, Marc. I'm telling you it won't work. Listen to me — we have to create a distraction first or she'll see us coming a mile away."
"I've heard you out, Peter," Marcus said quietly. "Come on, guys. We can do this." The others nodded and the three of them moved off in formation.
They looked confident. Determined.
I gave them five minutes.
---
Six minutes later:
Colleen walked away from the fountain with three of her students limping behind her. "Did you really think you could rush me like that? Come on."
"We almost had you," Brandon grumbled.
"'Almost' is not the same thing," Colleen smirked. "You needed to be smarter about your approach. You should have created a distraction first — then moved in for the blade."
"Heh," Marcus rubbed his sore shoulder. "Funny. That's exactly what Peter said. Guess we should have listened."
Colleen's brow furrowed. "Wait — Peter was with you? Where is he? Why didn't he join in?"
"He said our plan was stupid and refused," Agie sighed. "Turns out he was right."
"He said it was stupid?" Colleen blinked, walking under a bridge toward the nearest park exit. "Hm. Maybe I should have a word with him later."
"Maybe," Marcus nodded.
As they crossed to the other side of the bridge, Colleen caught the shadow of a figure dropping from above. She stopped in surprise as I landed squarely in front of her, one step back.
I grabbed the strap of the katana around Colleen's body with one hand and drove a kick into her stomach, sending her stumbling backward as I pulled the sword up and over her head.
I looked at the others and winked. "In this scenario — you three were the distraction." I turned and ran.
Marcus's face fell open. "So cool."
Colleen got back to her feet, wincing, her stomach knotted with pain. But seeing me sprinting away with her blade must have snapped her into gear, because she was up and running within seconds. "Peter! Get back here!"
Marcus and the others took off as well, trying their best to slow Colleen down — throwing themselves in her path, grabbing at her arms. She handled them efficiently and kept moving. I grinned. Now this was training.
I broke out of the park and crossed traffic without stopping for the signal. People yelled at me but I ignored them. I spotted a fire escape attached to a building down the alley and aimed for it.
I jumped onto the first landing just as Colleen and the others came sprinting into the alley below. They stopped to watch as I ran up the fire escape stairs all the way to the roof.
"Peter, get back here!" I heard her shout.
"Make me!" I called back.
It took me an hour to get back to Chinatown. A full hour of rooftop running, fire-escape climbing, and narrow alley sprinting. By the time I landed on the roof of the building housing the Chikara dojo and climbed down the side, I was panting hard.
One hour of continuous running across a city. Not bad at all.
I sat on the kerb and waited. Ten minutes later Colleen arrived with the others trailing behind her. They were all soaked in sweat. I stood up, grinning, and held out the sword.
"I win."
Colleen smiled between breaths. "Okay. Yeah. You win... just — let me catch my breath." She and the others collapsed onto the building steps.
"Peter," Marcus managed between gasps, "next time — we do it your way."
I grinned. "Deal."
"You kick like a mule," Colleen groaned, pressing a hand to her stomach. "I swear, it was like you knocked the lunch clean out of me."
"Sorry," I winced. "I may have gone a little overboard."
"Yeah. Just a little."
When all the other groups eventually arrived, Colleen told them my group had won and then went through the exercise in detail with the whole class.
"Honestly, it was Peter's idea," Brandon admitted. "We just followed him."
"He was also the one who jumped Sensei," Agie added. "He also warned us our first plan would fail."
"So, Peter," Colleen said as the whole class looked at me. "Care to explain your reasoning?"
I shrugged and walked them through how I'd thought about it — the way I'd put myself in Colleen's position, identified what her training goal was, figured out what kind of terrain she would choose, and narrowed it to the south-west gate. The kids were all visibly impressed.
As a reward for winning, Colleen bought everyone a cold drink. We sat on the kerb and talked as the summer air cooled around us.
I found real friends in Marcus, Agie, and Brandon that afternoon. Turns out making friends wasn't that hard after all — it was just Peter's reputation at school that made people hesitant. Out here, away from all that baggage, I was simply Peter.
Marcus and I fell into an easy conversation about Chemistry. The kid was struggling badly with it. I offered to help him catch up and he couldn't thank me enough. As it turned out, he also lived in Queens — we were practically neighbours.
We took the train back together and Marcus walked me through his neighbourhood.
As we moved through the streets, I noticed the area was in rough shape. Really rough. These roads were dying — neglected buildings, broken windows, corners left to the elements. I didn't say anything. I just listened as Marcus told me who the players were in this part of Queens.
And then —
"Get that boy, homie!" — and then the crack of a gunshot.
"Get back!" Marcus grabbed my hand and hauled me sharply into an alleyway.
"What's going on?!" I asked. He shushed me and pointed. And then I saw them.
Five thugs in green, guns out, laughing and shouting as they chased another man down the street. None of the shots connected, but they weren't really trying. This was sport.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked, watching them thunder past the alley entrance, Marcus and me crouched low behind a pair of rubbish bins.
"That's the GST," Marcus said quietly. "The Grass Stained Thugs. They run the streets around here — terrorise everyone. The cops can't do anything about them. Half the precinct is on their payroll."
"The police can't touch them?" I asked.
"Hell no," Marcus shook his head. "They basically run this neighbourhood."
I narrowed my eyes.
So. I had just found my first case.
All I needed now was my costume and my gear. Soon. The coast eventually cleared, and Marcus quickly led me the rest of the way to his home. It was a small place — cramped and well-worn, but I genuinely didn't care.
We spent the rest of the day over a chemistry textbook. During the short breaks we took, I pumped Marcus for every piece of information he had on the GST. They operated out of a strip club. They dealt in cocaine and handled money-lending, racketeering, and gang violence. Their reach in this part of Queens was essentially total.
Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me.
---
I went home that evening and began my research. Peter didn't really have the instincts of a hacker, but he knew his way around a computer well enough. That, incidentally, reminded me — I needed to learn how to actually hack. It seemed like an important skill to have.
The leader of the GST was a man named Razor — tall, mean, and connected. He was the primary suspect in four murders in the past year alone, and was known to have a weakness for women. Lots of women. The man was, by all accounts, a predator.
I needed to bring this gang down. Too many people were being hurt because of them. To destroy a gang you had to destroy their credit — their reputation, their resources, their ability to operate. Public embarrassment alone wouldn't be enough. I needed to make sure they could never reform.
I spent the rest of the weekend working on my web shooters and reconsidering the costume problem. Spandex was still a horrible idea. I hadn't changed my mind about that.
---
On Monday, after my session with Colleen, I got home at around seven that evening. I finished my homework, pretended to go to bed, and at around eleven — once May and Ben were asleep — I slipped out wearing dark clothes and a ski mask.
My new web shooters were strapped on and ready for a test drive. Tonight I was beginning reconnaissance.
I went to the bad part of Queens. Marcus's house was only a few blocks from the GST's strip club. I found an air duct on the side of the building and crawled in, working my way through the narrow channel.
It was nothing like the films made it look. It was dirty, cramped, and smelled terrible. I was very glad I wasn't wearing white.
The loud music thumping from downstairs was physically painful at close range, and the names the strippers performed under were genuinely creative in the most absurd way. 'Diamond in the Rough?' Who came up with these?
I worked my way toward the quieter section of the building — the interior rooms with no windows. I peered through the vents. Women in their underwear were packing what appeared to be small bags of cocaine, surrounded by guards with submachine guns. So they handled their drug distribution in-house. Good to know.
I kept crawling and soon came upon a room where a group of men in green sat around smoking, with a tall, broad man sitting on the couch, a gun resting on his thigh.
'Razor,' I thought as I settled in and listened.
"Day by day, Cottonmouth's getting pushier," Razor snorted. "I mean — what the hell does he and his cousin think they're doing? Rebuilding Harlem? Get out of here."
"You said it, Razor. Those two are out of their minds, man," said the first lackey.
"Hey," said a second. "Did you know I was there when that big green guy showed up and wrecked the place? The Hulk?"
"You were there?" Razor looked surprised.
"Yeah, man! Him and this grey-looking guy — they took down a military chopper! And then they started tearing into each other!"
"Don't forget that rope kid!" a third man called out.
"Oh yeah! Sorry, man. So suddenly this little dude appears out of nowhere and saves everyone! Took the big grey guy out in like five seconds — choked him with some kind of sticky string or something and stood over the guy like he owned the street! It was psycho, man."
"Damn," Razor whistled. "Wish we had someone like that."
I rolled my eyes. I didn't do a psycho laugh... well. Not out loud, anyway.
"Alright, enough of this," Razor grumbled, getting up. "That shipment needs to move tonight. Are we ready?"
"Almost, boss. Give us a few more minutes," the first lackey replied.
"Let's see," Razor said, and they filed out together, switching off the light. I quickly reversed through the duct and followed their movement through the passages until the last box was packed and the crew headed downstairs.
I climbed back out onto the roof and dropped into the cool night air. I ran to the roof edge and looked down. A large van was parked behind the building. Razor and his crew loaded the drugs in, got in themselves, and drove off.
I had to follow. I took a running start, leaped off the roof, and fired a web line across the street. The wind howled past my ears. I genuinely didn't understand how the original Peter swung in the cold wearing nothing but spandex. Thermal underwear would have to be added to the shopping list.
I tracked the van across rooftops all the way to the harbour and a warehouse numbered 153. They waited for the doors to roll open, then drove in. I dropped down from above and moved along the wall, keeping to the shadows.
Inside, a man in an expensive suit was waiting — Mexican accent, a briefcase at his side, bodyguards forming a ring around him.
Razor climbed out of the van as his men started unloading. "It's here."
"I'm sure," the suited man replied smoothly, and passed over the briefcase. "Your payment."
Razor opened it and inspected the contents. "We're good."
"The Kingpin would like to extend his gratitude. It was very difficult getting the... medicine into the city, given the current military presence in Manhattan." I almost choked. I followed my first criminal lead and walked straight into a Kingpin deal. Perfect.
I pulled out my camera and began filming.
"Keep the cash coming and I'm happy," Razor grinned. "Anything else?"
"The next shipment?"
"Same time," Razor shrugged. "Oh, and I want double."
The suited man sighed. "Mr. Razor, we are already paying you three times what this product is worth."
"Take it or leave it," Razor said. "Or I sell to Cottonmouth. I hear he's got cash to burn now. Maybe he can help me out."
The man in the suit was quiet for a moment. Then he said, very softly: "I really wished you hadn't said that." He snapped his fingers.
Instantly, his men raised their weapons and fired. In seconds it was over. Razor was dead before he even had time to reach for his gun. Not one of his crew got a hand on a weapon before the steamrolling was complete.
I kept my fingers locked on the camera, fighting the urge to shake. I was shaking, but I made myself hold still. They killed him just like that. Without a word of warning. Without hesitation.
"Next time — don't be greedy," the suited man said, stepping over the body. He looked up at the remaining GST members standing frozen in shock. "Who's in charge now?"
The third lackey stepped forward, visibly trembling. "I am."
"Good. I expect the next shipment on schedule. Any disruptions, and..." He didn't finish the sentence. He walked out with the drugs, leaving the money behind.
The GST scrambled to leave. I moved out right behind them, faster. I crawled across the roof of the warehouse and crouched there, rewatching the footage I'd captured. In cold blood, a man had just been executed. Just like that.
I pulled my ski mask up and was sick over the side of the roof. I could handle a lot of things. A fresh corpse was not yet one of them.
I stayed crouched there for a while, pulling myself together. The Kingpin was more dangerous than I'd fully appreciated — one wrong move from me, and everyone I cared about could wind up hurt. I needed to be careful. Smarter than smart. There could be no mistakes.
I got back home as fast as I could. As I crept through the trees toward the house I noticed Harry talking to MJ in the street. Late as it was, she must have slipped out to meet him.
"I don't understand," Harry growled. "Why won't you just be with me?!"
Mary Jane looked hurt. "I told you, Harry — I don't feel that way about you."
"What does that mean?! Am I not good enough for you?!"
"It's not that, Harry. I just—"
"Is it Peter?" he cut in sharply. Mary Jane stopped. I stopped. My brain ground to a halt. 'Does not compute.'
"Oh my God," Harry said, very quietly. "It is, isn't it? You actually like him more than me."
"Harry — Peter and I are just friends. And honestly, I've realised I haven't been a very good friend to him. I feel bad about that. But he's not the reason I don't want to be with you."
"So you just don't love me. That's what you're saying."
MJ nodded. "I'm sorry, Harry."
'Well,' I thought dryly, 'and back to being a bit of a hypocrite then.' Rolling my eyes at the idea she felt sorry for me.
"So you don't love me?" Harry said again, and this time the quiet had something else underneath it. "Then why?" He looked angry now. "I care about you, MJ. I really do!"
"No you don't."
"Yes I do!" Harry grabbed her arm and pulled. "Please — just give me a chance—"
"No — get off me!" MJ tried to pull away.
"MJ—"
"Harry, maybe you should—"
"Shut up, Flash!" Harry snapped. "Please, MJ, just listen—"
"That's enough," I said, loud enough to carry.
They all turned. Stood frozen.
"Peter?" MJ asked, her voice catching with surprise.
"Parker? What are you doing here?" Flash asked.
"Apparently I'm preventing Osborn from committing assault," I said, walking past Liz and Flash. I reached Harry and pulled his hand firmly off MJ's arm, then turned to her. "You alright?"
"Y-yeah," she nodded.
"What are you doing here?" Liz asked.
I looked her dead in the eyes and smiled. "I had a date."