Chapter 18: It's Over

"Hey, it doesn't matter, Peter. Listen, you're not that old now, are you?" Ant-Man continued to inquire about Peter's information. 

But Peter ignored him.

With his keener insight than ordinary people, he noticed that there seemed to be an explosion in the sky in the distance.

A black object was falling diagonally from the sky toward the ground.

There were only four participants in the aerial battlefield. 

One was the Quinjet piloted by Captain America and the Winter Soldier.

The second was Iron Man, the third was War Machine, and the fourth was Falcon.

Who was hit?

After falling from such a high altitude, he...

Peter stared blankly over there.

As soon as Ant-Man finished speaking, he found that Peter didn't respond.

He followed Peter's gaze and looked into the distance, but as an ordinary person, he couldn't see that far away without the help of equipment.

"What's wrong, Peter?"

Peter said, "Someone got hit."

Ant-Man was stunned, and his expression became serious: "Something big happened."

After a while, Peter received a call from Iron Man.

On the phone, Iron Man told him that Rhodes' armor was hit by energy and fell from a thousand-meter height. Now they were rushing Rhodes to the hospital for emergency treatment.

As for Peter's arrangement, he asked Peter to go back to the hotel to find Happy first, and when everything was over, he and Happy would send him back to Queens.

In the meantime, he could also take a walk around Berlin first.

Of course, Ant-Man wasn't so lucky.

As a "war criminal", he and Falcon would be extradited back to the United States to face trial.

Peter still had some affection for this talkative guy, and was worried about his future situation.

On the contrary, Ant-Man himself didn't care.

He said that he was a criminal before anyway, but now, he could participate in superhero battles, and he admitted it when he was tried.

At least the reason for this trial was much nobler than before.

Well, this guy was a born optimist.

Peter returned to the hotel first, took a shower, changed clothes, and then said hello to Happy.

Happy rushed with him to the hospital where Iron Man and the others were.

When they arrived, Rhodes had already entered the emergency room, and Peter only saw Iron Man and Black Widow.

They seemed to have just had an argument.

When Black Widow passed them, Happy greeted her, but Black Widow just glanced at him and left without looking back.

"Mr. Stark, your hand..." Peter asked, walking up to Iron Man.

And Happy was sent back by Iron Man to buy some things. Apparently, there were some things he wanted to say to Peter alone.

Iron Man gestured: "It's okay, just a slight sprain. It will heal soon."

"Then Colonel Rhodes..."

Iron Man glanced at him, and a bitter smile appeared on his face: "The doctor said from the comminuted fracture of the lumbar and sacral vertebrae, the spinal cord was severely torn, and he is likely to be paralyzed in the future."

Peter's face darkened.

"Being what people call a superhero may come at such a price. Are you afraid?" Iron Man looked at Peter and asked.

Peter shook his head: "There is light and darkness in this world. When people live in the light, there are those who want to lurk in the dark."

Iron Man was slightly startled, and his eyes changed when he looked at him.

Then, he laughed loudly and reached out to ruffle Peter's hair into a mess: "You kid, you're so young, how can you have such a heavy sense of responsibility?"

Peter vigorously shook his head and escaped from Iron Man's clutches: "I'm serious!"

"Ha~" Iron Man retracted his hand, leaned on the railing, and looked into the distance, "It's good that you can think like this, but remember, don't let the darkness swallow you up."

Peter nodded and said nothing.

Beep.

A message popped up on the smart watch on Iron Man's hand, which was a video sent by the Berlin police. 

He just glanced at it and covered up the information on the watch, stopping Peter's curiosity.

"Mr. Stark, is there anything you need me to do?"

Iron Man shook his head: "No, you've done enough. You can walk around Berlin. When I finish handling these things, I'll bring you back with me."

"Okay," Peter lowered his head in disappointment.

Iron Man patted him on the shoulder: "Alright, go back and rest up."

After Peter turned around and left, Iron Man looked at his back and murmured: "With old guys like us here, it won't matter if you become the dark walker."

After saying that, he looked at the information on his watch again and said to Friday: "Call me a helicopter, I'm going to Raft Prison."

"Okay, sir."

When Happy came back from shopping, Peter returned to the hotel with him.

However, he didn't go around Berlin to play as Iron Man had said, but instead recalled the battle and learned lessons from it.

Although this time wasn't strictly a real battle, except for the accident that caused War Machine to crash, there was basically no substantial damage to both sides. 

But he still gained a lot of combat experience.

The experience of fighting superheroes had a huge impact on him.

He gained a lot.

And his record wasn't bad, he was barely worthy of the expensive super suit given to him by Iron Man.

However, he felt that there should be some areas for improvement in this suit. Oh no, to be precise, there were some areas that he had not discovered yet.

He was in a hurry and didn't have time to study it. Now that he had time, he was ready to study it carefully.

Soon, he found a switch on the suit.

"Hey, Peter, do you want to start today's training?" A voice suddenly sounded.

"Ah," Peter looked around, "Who are you?"

"I am the artificial intelligence butler of your Spider-Suit. I don't have a name now. Maybe you can pick one for me," the voice said.

"An AI butler! You mean, like Mr. Stark's Jarvis?" Peter said in surprise.

"You can think of it that way," the AI butler said.

"Okay, okay, well, as for a name, how about I call you Karen?" Peter said.

"Okay, you can call me Karen, as long as you're happy," Karen said.

Peter said, "Hey Karen, does this suit have any other functions?"

Karen said, "There is a training protocol in the suit. You can arrange a reasonable training plan for yourself, which can help you master all the functions of this suit as soon as possible."

"Training protocol? Well, I'm actually more curious about what all the specific functions are," Peter said.

"You'll learn them as you train," Karen replied.

"Okay, okay, then I want to learn how to launch spider webs first."

"Got it, the web shooter combination function has been activated for you. There are 576 scientific web combo modes. Which one do you want to learn first?"

"Huh???"

(End of chapter)