13

A month and a half had passed by with a relatively good routine. He would wake up, complete any homework he had before going to school -he avidly avoided public transport despite the worsening weather- before meeting Ned and Michelle and going to classes.

Lunch would pass by in a blur and he would go back to lessons before he went on patrol for a few hours, sometimes using Karen as a method of dictation to complete his homework that he could do online. He would return around midnight, only missing his curfew once and for good reason because he had been stopping a robbery -May had seen the footage and he hadn't been grounded- before sleeping as much as he could. Rinse and repeat.

He had cracked down on the alien tech on the streets and had made a decent amount of progress, quickly apprehending the criminals before leaving as the police arrived.

It was almost like a game.

He would take down the criminals, leave them tied up in web-cocoons and leave the guns a few metres away from them as police sirens neared. Then, as the police turned the corner and used their annoying loudspeakers, he would swing away. Sometimes the civilians who hadn't fled the scene would roll their eyes at him, others would stare at him in awe, others would take their phones out and video him, others would cheer as he escaped the law.

He liked most of the attention that came his way.

Grinning as he enjoyed freefalling from the top of the Chrysler building, he guided himself through the air like a skydiver would before shooting a web at a building and pulling himself up.

"Message from Mr Know-It-All," Karen announced as he swung down a street before parkouring over an apartment complex and leaping off of the end and watched as cars blurred beneath his feet.

"What's it say?" He asked, apprehension flooding his system as he waited for Karen to load the message. Aaron hadn't texted him in a while and to finally hear a message, whilst relieving, was also anxiety inducing. What would he need to worry about now?

"'Got a lead for new weapons on the market. Shocker has made sales over the past week and a few are in the area. Watch out.' Would you like me to repeat the message?"

"Nah, thanks Karen. What could the new weapons do…?" He wondered. Chitauri technology had so many uses when it came to melding with weapons that he sometimes entertained himself with the possibilities. Could it morph material from one form to another? The Anti-Gravity gun had been exploited so many times over the past month that he wondered if it was one of the best sellers.

If he didn't need to send the Chitauri cores to the DDOC safehouses for safekeeping he could have experimented with them. Maybe he could have helped Tony develop his armour around the world or used the energy for a clean energy source? Then again, that was practically asking for the energy source to be attacked since they sold for a high price on the black market.

The most dangerous part about the Chitauri cores was how they became bombs when exposed to radiation. It was for the best that he made sure the cores were sent away to the most secure facilities in America – well, supposedly most secure since he had broken out of one within an hour.

He let his brain explore the possibilities and theories surrounding Chitauri technology -he was an inventor at heart- until-

BAM!

Something slammed into him and he yelped as his side screamed in pain and he crashed into a fire escape, barely gathering his bearings as he worked out what had happened.

He had casually been swinging down 5th avenue and taken too long to react to his Spidey-sense screaming in his head and an electric blue blast shot him out of the New York skyline before he slammed straight into a fire escape!

He groaned as his ribs cried out in pain. It was always his ribs!

"Hey, I was swinging!" He shouted once he had regained his breath, turning around to the street that he had been swinging over only to see a man in the middle of the road with raised gauntlets aimed at him. Civilians fled the area with petrified screams as cars honked and tyres screeched as the drivers tried to get away from the obvious threat.

The driver to the side of the man was unable to get away as the man pointed a gauntlet at it, the black paint glistening in the rare November sunlight. So much for a peaceful Tuesday afternoon.

"Spider-Man!" He yelled, pointing one arm at the car to his side and keeping the other aimed at him with such lazy arrogance that alarms bells screeched in his head. "Get down here or else I'll shoot the lady in this car! Wouldn't want her dead, would you?"

"Karen, keep an eye on his gauntlets and analyse them if you can," he murmured as he dropped down to the pavement, his ribs stinging as he breathed shallowly and warily watched as the man kept a gauntlet pointed at him. "Is it any tech already in the database?"

"No, the weapons the unidentified man is wielding are not in the Stark databases. I will keep searching until I find any resemblances," she replied in his ear as he kept one hand close to his side and the other pointed away in case he needed a quick escape route.

All he could do was hope his luck didn't worsen and choose to let the heavens rain upon New York. The gloomy sky promised a despicable storm was on its way and he had a limited amount of time before he would be caught in a torrent of water and look like a drowned rat when he went home.

His best bet would be to distract fake-Shocker and get the lady in the car to safety before he took on the gauntlets. If the blue blasts were any indication, the alien technology at his fingertips would be too destructive for him to tackle in a civilian area. If he managed to lead the guy to the abandoned docks a few blocks away then maybe he could apprehend him safely.

Then again, when had luck ever been on his side?

"Hey man, why don't we take this somewhere else?" He asked, offering a hand out placatingly so not to seem like a threat. The last thing he needed was fake-Shocker firing at one of the office buildings and causing collateral damage and casualties.

"Nah, I'm happy here." The guy cocked his gauntlet, and for the first time since he was blasted out of the sky, he managed to take in the man's appearance. He had curly blonde hair -the permed type, definitely not natural- with vibrant green eyes. They were far too vibrant for it to be normal. Perhaps he was enhanced? He was wearing a black bodysuit made of a sturdy material - he would ask Karen to identify it when he went over the footage.

Thank God for the new protocol he had installed where if Karen identified alien tech she would start recording, even if it was a couple of seconds from an alley for evidence. At least it gave him a way to prove to the police and whatever authority that he wasn't the one who wanted the weapons or whatever absurd theories -and frankly, lies- JJJ and other news anchors made up about him.

"What do you want with me?" He asked. "Because if it's money, I don't have any. I'm as broke as the average man!" Funnily enough, someone had tried to rob him when he was in civilian clothes a couple of days ago and had quickly realised he was wasting his breath when Peter showed his practically empty pockets.

Then someone had tried to rob him as Spider-Man and he had simply gaped in disbelief before crossing his arms in disappointment, because really? Who would try to rob a vigilante with barely any money on him and a reputation for arresting criminals daily? He would have laughed if he hadn't been so shocked.

"Karen, run facial and voice recognition please?" He murmured as fake-Shocker started ranting about how he was going to be the first man to take down Spider-Man and how everyone would respect him. God, what a sad life he must live if he thought he could take down Peter after he managed to remove the gauntlets – well, if he managed to save the woman in the car first.

"I have found a match. His name is Matthew Thomas, commonly known as Shifter on police records. He was arrested for weapons and drugs dealing however was released after the charges were dropped in July."

'That's weird,' he thought. 'No one has charges dropped unless there's no evidence to present to court. Someone must have hacked into the systems and cleared his name or something.'

He supposed letting Shocker escape and going after Toomes on Homecoming night was bound to catch up to him eventually, but he would rather face Shocker and the rest of Toomes's gang escape for a while and face them in his prime than face them all on one night and make mistakes due to fatigue. Not that facing multiple criminals on one night hadn't ended with him arresting them, more so that he was going to make fewer mistakes when he was alert and somewhat arrested.

"…and that is why I'm going to eliminate you here and now!" Matthew -Shifter- exclaimed, raising his gun as his Spidey-sense buzzed in his head and he raised his hand and shot a web at the lady's car door, yanking himself out of the way of the blinding ray of blue light aimed at him.

Making sure to limit his strength so he didn't cost the terrified lady more money in car insurance than necessary, he scrambled to his feet and pulled her out of the car.

"Run, run!" He urged as he pushed her towards the safety of an alleyway -he never thought he would think that but here he was, making sure a civilian wouldn't be hit by rogue gunfire or whatever he could class it as because those shots were fired from gauntlets- before shooting his webs at a bin and throwing it at Shifter.

His heartbeat sped up as the bin soared across the street and a blinding ray of light shot out from the gun Shifter held, practically pulverising the bin into glowing sapphire cubes.

"Holy shit."

Shifter's gauntlets hadn't done that before.

Heart skipping a beat as he realised he could have been transformed into a pile of crushed cubes, he stared at Shifter with wide eyes before the adrenaline coursing through his system grounded him and he started to devise a plan.

In the previous timeline, Shifter had been able to freeze objects with a white rifle-like gun and had skills similar to a sharpshooter. His aim was amazing from what he could tell so he still must have his deceptively good aim, but he had gauntlets instead and he wasn't sure how to handle that. Yanking a gun from his hands was much easier than removing gauntlets because he needed to be up close and potentially in combat. Combat wasn't a great option when the blasts could pulverise him in milliseconds.

He didn't know if the items hit with the ray could be restored to their original form and would have to hope nothing important would dematerialise during the fight. Letting civilians be vulnerable to that was a risk he couldn't take. He would have to lead Shifter to the docks and deal with the consequences of the cubes later.

He didn't know why Shifter's gauntlets could completely tear apart and reorganise an object's molecular structure within milliseconds but the alien technology inside of those gauntlets was too dangerous to remain on the streets, let alone in the weapons market.

"Too afraid to fight?" Shifter jeered, waving a gauntlet menacingly before pointing it at him as an electric blue core pulsed at the centre of the palm.

"Who said I wanted a fight?" He replied, standing to his full height. "But you do, and for you to fight me, you have to get closer."

"Damn." Shifter's eye twitched in irritation. "My employer is going to be pissed if you escape," he muttered, unaware of Peter's enhanced senses.

Employer? Did he have another bounty on his head? Not that it would be surprising considering there were bounties on his head the second he took down Vulture and had a role in sending him to the Raft. Maybe his employer was Scorpion? It wouldn't be out of the questions with how rich the criminal was. He had riches at his fingertips and could afford an assassin easily.

Shifter raised his hand and his Spidey-sense buzzed fiercely as a warning as fired a couple of shots at him.

He threw himself to the ground before dodging the next blast, wincing when it hit a car and the alarm blared for a second before it turned into a glowing cube. He needed to leave before anything else was turned into a cube!

Flinching when something splattered on his forehead, he rolled his eyes when he realised it was rain. Of course it was rain, why wouldn't it start when he decided he needed to swing around?

Jumping onto the side of a building before using the momentum to start swinging, he glanced back to see Shifter sprinting after him, eyebrows raising when the criminal jumped onto a fire escape and parkoured his way to the top of one of the buildings.

Rain had started to pour onto the streets, quickly flowing into streams and down storm drains. The sky had darkened considerable since an hour ago and he wondered how Shifter could parkour in such crappy conditions. Droplets pelted his suit as he swung towards the right and turned into a street that went towards the East River, well aware of a row of abandoned warehouses around the docks.

The warehouses had been declared unfit for use and trade didn't pass through the area often enough for any damages to be significant. Besides, the area was going to be regenerated and it wouldn't hurt the docks any more than before. He was minimising damages in important areas so it all worked out!

His jaw dropped as he watched Shifter leaped over the massive gap between two buildings and rolled on the roof of the one he had jumped onto before continuing to parkour after him. He must have enhancements of some sort otherwise he wouldn't have been physically capable of clearing such a gap!

Yelping as a billboard appeared out of nowhere, he shot a web and pulled himself to the left, running along the side of a building before dropping onto a warehouse roof and rolling to absorb the momentum.

Turning back to see Shifter, he observed as a blinding blast destroyed the billboard and transformed into a glowing cube as he continued sprinting before jumping onto the warehouse roof and slipping, barely steadying himself as he landed.

His eyes widened when a deafening bang echoed around the area only to see the billboard back where it was – except- hadn't it just been a cube? Both of them had seen the billboard disappear but it was back to normal!

"Karen, hack into security cameras where I first encountered Shifter and show it on my HUD," he said as Shifter cursed violently, staring at his gauntlets disbelievingly.

His heart skipped a beat when the security footage showed the bin Shifter had pulverised before his eyes was in the middle of the street as well as the other things he had blasted, all in perfect condition, merely displaced from where they were before. How the fuck did that happen?

Was the cubing (he couldn't think of anything else to call it) temporary? Was it time bound?

"Incoming call from guy in the chair," Karen announced.

"Accept," he murmured.

"Dude, what the hell is the guy your fighting using?" Ned exclaimed. "It's like the alien tech reorganised the atomic structure to the small cube things!"

"How did you-?"

"Your fans on Twitter have spread videos everywhere. Someone hid in a shop and videoed your fight on 5th."

"I- you know what, never mind. Can you hack into the security cameras and see why they turned back to normal?"

"Yeah, sure."

He and Ned had worked out a system for patrols and he was used to him calling and helping him deal with the special villains who had crazier weapons or abilities that defied most of the laws of physics. Shifter had been a difficult case where he hadn't accepted Ned's call and had deeply regretted it afterwards when he had been thrown into so many walls that he couldn't see straight for hours. It was safe to say he was open to help this time around.

"I don't have time for this!" Shifter shouted, raising his hands and shooting more blasts at him. He dodged, throwing himself off of the warehouse roof before shooting a web at a lamppost and swinging further down the docks.

His stomach dropped when his Spidey-sense screamed and one of the electric blue blasts destroyed the web he was swinging from. He yelped as he fell, the breath forcefully evicted from his lungs as he hit concrete.

His ears rang as he staggered into a standing position and took in his surroundings. The East River viciously sloshed against the barriers as rain hailed down on the concrete, quickly forming deep puddles wherever the docks were uneven. Lampposts lined the side closest to the warehouses and dimly lit up the area – not that the light was particularly useful now that the storm had become fiercer. He shivered, realising the chill of November wouldn't help him during this fight. He should have turned on his suit heater earlier!

Grunting as he dodged another onslaught of blasts, he prayed Ned had found out what reversed the effects of Shifter's gauntlets. Glancing to his right, he winced when he saw some cubes in the places of empty containers. At least there weren't any people who could be hit by rogue shots.

"Dude, I don't think the effects of the blasts are time bound. The things that were hit reverted to their original form when it started raining heavily!" Ned exclaimed as he shot some webs at Shifter's feet, frowning when he blasted the webs into cubes and they fell into a puddle and splashed like they were made of glass.

His eyes widened as he watched the cubes turn back to webs a few seconds after they had turned into cubes, noting how they turned simply floated on the surface of the puddle.

"I think you're right," he rushed out as he dodged another blast and searched for something heavy to throw. If the cubes reverted when they were in water then he could try to slow down Shifter as long as the cube transformed into the object it was before.

He shot a web at the cube a few metres away from him and spun around, quickly gaining speed until he let go of the web and steadied himself as Shifter threw himself to the ground. The cube flashed, blinding both of them briefly as a box soared through the air, smashing into the warehouse and splintered to pieces.

Grinning, he did the same thing to the other cubes around him, utilising his newfound strategy.

"Wait, it's like the gun from Megamind!" Ned's voice burst out from his earpiece so suddenly he flinched.

"What?" He questioned as he sprinted towards Shifter and punched him before grabbing his wrist and flipping him over his shoulder. "The dehydration gun?"

"Yeah! His gauntlets basically do the same thing the gun does and the cubes go back to normal in water. It makes sense!"

"If you're telling me Toomes or one of his lackeys created a gun based off of a movie made in 2010? Wouldn't I be able to destroy the gauntlets by throwing him into the river or something?"

He panted as he dodged another blast and kicked Shifter's feet out from under his legs just like Natasha had taught him to -she had trained him on one of her visits to the Compound and it had paid off many times- before webbing one of his gauntlets.

"Isn't throwing him into the river a bit much?"

"Yeah, probably," he admitted, cursing under his breath as Shifter blasted the web into a cube and lunged at him, yanking him to the floor and punching him. His jaw ached as he took the hits and he grabbed Shifter's incoming punch before twisting his fist and bringing his knees up to his chest and kicking the man off.

"Shit, are you okay?" Ned asked. He wasn't going to get an answer though, not when the fight was taking too long and he was shivering because it was too fucking cold for November but he didn't have the breath to ask Karen to turn his suit heater on.

Shooing a web at Shifter's chest, he pulled the man forward before webbing his face up and ignoring his yelp as he yanked one of the gauntlets off of his hands and webbed it to the top of a lamppost. He would retrieve it later and be thankful once the weapons were hopefully destroyed.

Dodging another round of blasts, he overestimated how much distance there was between himself and some boxes almost slammed into a storage container. He winced when he tripped over his feet and crashed to the ground.

He didn't have much time to wallow in the pain as adrenaline shot through his system and he rolled to the side to avoid another blast, squinting as the blinding light dissipated.

"You know what I hate," Shifter shouted as he aimed at him. "When I try to squish a bug and they survive. See ya in hell Spider-Man."

"Right back at you," he shot back, jumping to his feet and kicking Shifter in the ribs, taking advantage of his opponent doubling over and pulling the other gauntlet off of his hand and webbing it to the same lamppost the other gauntlet was on.

He quickly webbed Shifter up to the storage container, wincing as the numbing effects of adrenaline faded away and he registered how many hits he had taken.

"Dude, this isn't what most of your patrols are like right?" Ned asked quietly as he walked up the lamppost and retrieved the gauntlets.

"I don't normally get my ass kicked like that," he sulked. "He didn't have that tech before. Imagine if it hadn't rained! Holy shit, I would've been screwed." Speaking of the rain, he looked around only to see it had lightened to a drizzle instead of raining cats and dogs like it had been a few minutes ago. Small mercies.

"Nah, you would've figured it out even if it took a while. Oh!" Ned clicked his fingers as he remembered something. "I took down another one of the onion servers!"

"Woah, well done dude! How long did it take you this time?" He asked as he waited to hear police sirens in the distance. Karen automatically gave an anonymous tip to the police whenever he finished an arrest and he thanked himself for coding that protocol about a week ago.

Shifter tried to squirm and yell at him from where he was webbed to the container but he ignored the criminal. Normally he would irritate the people he had arrested by saying something ridiculously optimistic but he wasn't going to entertain him with how long that fight had taken.

"It took about a week and a half but I'm getting better. I need more practice and I had a couple of lessons with Doctor Strange so I didn't make as much progress."

"How'd last week's lessons go?"

"I managed to manifest a shield in the last one!" He cheered. "I want to do the cool thing where he manifests two shields or one massive one in a couple of weeks though."

"You reckon you could use it like an umbrella? Oh yeah, Karen, activate the suit heater please."

"Done." He slumped in relief as warmth emanated from the suit's interior. He never managed well in the cold. "Remember to warm up when you get home, your body temperature is slightly lower than normal," Karen replied.

"She acts like a mum," Ned said. "A really cool mum who can access weapons."

"And instant kill mode," he added dryly, glancing at the entrance to the docks when he heard sirens approaching the area. "Whelp, I'll call you when I get home."

"Okay."

He hung up on Ned, waiting until the first police car stopped by the container and an officer stepped out and carefully moved towards Shifter's helpless form.

"These arrests get weirder every time," the officer muttered, glancing in Peter's direction before he did a double take. "Spider-Man?"

"The one and only," he replied as he half-bowed as if it was an honour to meet a police officer. It sure as hell wasn't. Not when half of the police force wanted to arrest him and the other half were warily cooperative. Besides, he had seen police brutality too often for him to be comfortable with them. Some were absolute scumbags and he didn't have the same naïve views of before.

"Stand down," he told his partner who had walked out of the car and whose hand had started moving towards his gun. "He's with us."

"Well, as much as I'd like to entertain small talk, I have places to be. See you around officer…?"

"Davis." Well, at least he was nicer than some of the other officers he had encountered like his partner.

"What the hell Jeff?" The other officer hissed, gesturing to Peter with malice. "He's a vigilante. We can't associate with him!" Did the police have orders not to interact with him or something? God, he hated these people.

Uncle Ben had been one of the few officers remaining with good intentions to help the community and expose some corruption within the system. Others went along with whatever they were told and didn't use their common sense.

Arrest the person who kept the crime in Queens down? Crime rates would go up and the police were already strained with the flu season coming up and he did half of their jobs.

"Do you think it's worth arresting the guy who's arrested someone with alien technology capable of dematerialising objects and potentially humans?" The other officer's silence was an answer in itself.

He shot a web at the corner of a building and swung away, slowly relaxing as his body warmed up and he continued his patrol.