Chapter 36

Nina and Spider-Man traveled to the location of the explosion. When they arrived, they saw Electro trying to rob a bank and having an altercation with the police officers.

"Hey Max, any chance you could just turn yourself in this one time? I kinda have other plans today," Spider-Man said. Electro shifted his focus on Spider-Man and launched an electric blast at him. Spider-Man twisted to avoid getting hit.

"I thought I'd ask, " Spider-Man said to Nina.

"You!" Max yelled as he saw Nina hovering next to Spider-Man. "I'll make you pay for what you did to me!"

"Sorry, who are you again? I don't usually bother to remember weak encounters," Nina taunted.

Max screamed as he gathered the electricity near him to launch an offensive attack.

"You got this right?" Nina asked.

"uh…yeah, totally under control,"

Spider-Man attempted to get closer to Max but got instantly repelled. He was slammed to a nearby building. He didn't fall as he used his hands to stick to the wall.

"Is this another one of your 'I'll handle it' moments?" Nina teased. Spider-Man left out a groan in frustration.

"C'mon Max. You're embarrassing me," he whispered loudly.

Nina continued to watch from above and occasionally dodging Electro's blasts. She watched as Spider-Man finally subdued him. He had used the objects around him and hurled them to Electro to daze him long enough to finish the job.

"Took you long enough,"

"Yeah, well I don't want to kill the guy,"

"I wouldn't have killed him. Maybe just inflict enough pain for him not to do it again,"

"Yeah…"

"Anyways, Let's continue this some other time. I have some things to do. I'll notify you when Maya is ready to make a move,"

Spider-Man nodded, and Nina took off to a different part of the city. She wanted to see if she could get any clues on how to track Hydra. Odds of them operating here were extremely high. All Nina had to do was find a trail to follow.

She sat down near the edge of a building. She started to think of a way to get a trail.

She started to think if she were assigned to abduct people. Homeless and orphan individuals were the best targets.

"V, can you look at the police database for missing people's report. Filter by homeless and orphans"

"Certainly," V started to comb through the database for the information Nina had requested. "30 cases found within the last 2 years. 12 were closed as they had found the body. 4 were recently opened and the rest remain cold cases,"

"Any correlation?"

"There is no hard evidence however, the last few cases having been F.E.A.S.T. which stands for Food, Emergency, Aid, Shelter and Training. It helps homeless people in the city by providing aid."

"Who sponsors them?"

"Norman Osborn is the biggest contributor. Along with State funding."

"Interesting…"

Nina traveled to the main branch of FEAST. They had several smaller services spread throughout the city, but the main branch was in Chinatown. Nina found an alley to change to her normal attire.

The building looked relatively new. Compared to the rest of the buildings in the area, you could say it was brand new. Nina entered the building and looked for the receptionist. Along the way, she noticed the number of people inside. The building was big, and it looked like the entire first floor was dedicated to the homeless.

"Hello, I was looking to volunteer and if possible, apply for a position here," Nina said to the receptionist.

"Certainly! We're always looking for more volunteers but at the moment there aren't any open positions. Is that okay?" she responded.

"No problem, I would still like to volunteer,"

"If you could fill out these forms, I'll contact the manager to see if she can see you now," She pulled a few forms from the desk and gave them to Nina.

Nina got a clipboard and began to fill out the forms. The forms were basic and asked for a list of skill sets. Once she was done, Nina got up and turned the forms in.

"Great news! The Operations Manager is able to see you," Nina nodded and waited in the lobby. She noticed an elderly woman come down from the second level stairs and heading to her direction.

"Hi, you must be Nina. I'm May,"

"Pleasure to meet you Ms. May. Thank you for seeing me so quickly,"

"Oh, just May will do. I'm not that old," May shook her hand and looked over the forms. "Why don't we discuss this in my office?"

"Of course," Nina responded politely.

They both went up the stairs and May led the way to her office. Nina quickly took a glance at her office. She had a lot of books and documents around.

"Sorry for the clutter, its been a busy few weeks."

"No need. I know it might be challenging," May started to ask several interview questions before asking her final one.

"So, what made you interested in volunteering? School?"

"No no, I just had some free time and I thought why not do some meaningful work? My current job is…complicated,"

"Well I'm glad to see young people still care about their community. When do you think you think you could start?"

"I'm free now. If that's okay,"

"Ha, I can't say no to that." May got up from her desk and shook hands with Nina. "You can start here. I need help organizing…all this," May motioned around her.

Nina chuckled and began to help her. The paperwork slowly began to be categorized as Nina asked May questions regarding their contents. She would be able to gain more insight on the business and help May with organizing the work. Nina had learned several bits of information regarding the logistics behind the organization but nothing to help her.

By the time she was done, the sun had started to go down.

"Why don't you go stop here and get some rest? Oh! Before I forget, anytime you are free to come here is good. We open at 6am and close at 10pm. We can keep track of your hours in the front desk." Nina looked at the clock and saw that it was close to 10 already.

"Will you be alright alone?" Nina asked as she noticed there weren't that many people here.

"Don't worry, my nephew is going to come and pick me up," Just as she said that, a man walked in.

"Hey aunt May,"

"Peter! We were just talking about you," Nina locked eyes with Peter. There was some sort of familiarity Nina felted from him. The same applied to Peter. He felt she looked familiar but had no idea where he knew her from.

Nina let her eyes wander as she inspected him. She tried her hardest to figure out why she was feeling like this. Was this person dangerous or someone from Genosha? She thought.

Peter took in Nina features. Her straight brown long hair made her light brown irises shine. Same height as him and her body was tone from what he could tell. Her clean complexion made her face incredibly beautiful.

Unknown to both, May was confused when they got quiet. She had look between both of them and quickly understood.

"Actually Peter. I'm going to call a cab today. Ms. Nina here is new here and she would love a tour of the place. We kind of lost track of time and I still need to do some last reports,"

"Oh," Peter looked at May and then back at Nina." Sure, if you don't mind."

"Not at all." Nina had her guard up. She didn't know whether this feeling she had was just random.

Peter had gone downstairs and started to show Nina around. Peter gave the tour with humor which helped with the awkwardness. It helped as Nina had lowered her guard. She thought he was funny but was still ready to defend herself. Nina paid close attention when Peter began to talk about the homeless people who are very particular or should be approached in a certain manner. They all had their quirks, but they were all friendly as she saw Peter interacting with them.

"Well that's about it," Peter said as they came back to the front door.

"Thank you, it was good to see the building and the people,"

"Yeah…they're all good people just having a tough time right now. It's hard to keep a track of all the people coming in sometimes and its harder to maintain the connection if they leave,"

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't know…sometimes I feel like we're seeing less people and never hear from them again," Peter pondered. There were fewer familiar faces here now. If someone was successfully reintegrated with society, they would know but if the person just left to another location, there was no real way of tracking that or ever finding out.

"That's sad to hear. I hope they're okay," Nina automatically said. Internally, she was thinking of a way to find out more information. The fact that Peter had said that meant she was on the right track.

"Hey uh… want to grab a bite to eat? I know a place with the best fries," Nina locked eyes with Peter after he said that. She wasn't expecting him to ask that. Her training kicked in and she thought of why he would ask that. Was he fishing for information? Could he be a spy? Nina internally shook her head and dismissed her thoughts. She caught herself overthinking the situation.

"…maybe next time?" Peter asked as he felt a bit rejected.

"No no. I'm sorry I just thought about something else. Lead the way," Nina quickly corrected and motioned for Peter to start walking.

Peter and Nina continued to make small talk as they walked. It took a couple of minutes, but they finally arrived at the diner Peter had mentioned. It was called Mick's Dinner in the Upper West Side.

"Here it is!" Peter exclaimed as he opened the door for Nina.

It looked like a normal diner as Nina had suspected. Peter took a table without waiting for a waitress. Nina figured he comes here frequently. Peter waved at a waitress and she turned and sighed. Nina could overhear her saying that he is back and to make a fresh batch of fries. He must come here very often, Nina thought.

"So, are you new to the city?" Peter asked.

"Yes, I moved here just a few days ago."

"Well, welcome to the city! Where were you before?"

"Upper New York, I wanted to live in the city at least once,"

"Wow, that's a quite the move."

"What about you?"

"Been here since I could remember,"

"Parents here too?" Peter got quiet for a moment.

"No…they passed away when I was little,"

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean-"

"It's okay, you didn't know. Aunt May and Uncle Ben raised me. My Uncle…he passed away a couple of years ago. Some guy just shot him. It's just been me and Aunt May now," Peter got a bit angry reliving the situation again.

"Wow…Peter…I'm so sorry,"

The waitress came and brought the fries. Peter instantly grabbed one. His mood became brighter tasting the fry. Nina stopped the waitress and asked for coffee and a slice of apple pie. Peter's eyes slightly widen at the cost of the bill. He didn't plan for anything else. In fact, he realized this was all a bad idea. He just lost his job.

"Relax, its on me." Peter tried to speak but got interrupted. "Consider it payment for showing me around," Nina smiled. Peter couldn't help but smile back. Her smile was contagious.

"What about you? Are you parents around?"

"They…are overseas. They've been busy working," She decided to say half-truths.

"Overseas? Whoa. What do they do?"

"They mentor other businesses and provide strategies to deploy to make their business successful," Nina used one of the background stories lie she had been debriefed on.

Peter and Nina continued to talk. Peter asking a lot more questions while Nina politely answered them. A series police vehicles drove by with their sirens on. Peter looked worried and excused himself saying he had to check on his Aunt. She felt something familiar about him but couldn't place it.

Nina thought nothing of it and took this chance to look for more homeless people and see if there was any pattern.

Several weeks passed by and Nina became quite attracted to Peter. She let herself feel this attraction as it would be healthy for her to get in some sort of romantic relationship even if it was just for a while. Peter also became attracted to Nina as they kept on meeting up at the shelter and going out on occasions. It was nothing official, but he was working up on nerve to ask her on an actual date.

Nina continued to patrol areas where homeless people usually hung out and placed tracers on individuals that she didn't recognize from F.E.A.S.T. She continued to trace routes and looked out for anything off.

After finishing one of her patrols, Nina went back to her place and started her nightly routine. Video log and a call to her mom letting her know she was safe. She fell asleep quickly as she gone become tired from all the activity.