Issue 19: Avenger's Initiative Part I

The two landed on top of a rooftop sitting across from the house of Electro's girlfriend.

Peter thought it would be a long stakeout, and as it turned out, he was right. To pass the time, Peter bought a blanket, some food, and their favorite sodas.

While observing the girlfriend's house, the two shared a romantic dinner while waiting for their bad guy to show up.

"Who knew a stakeout could be so fun?" MJ said as she took a bite of her sandwich.

Peter laughed and replied by saying, "Actually, I thought, why make it boring? After all, we have each other to keep company."

Peter was so glad that he wasn't sitting here and stalking Electro's girlfriend all by his lonesome. Having MJ here was really making the time fly, and the two really enjoyed their idle chatter.

However, the Spider Couple didn't manage to catch Electro this day, both Peter and MJ stayed until almost 12 PM, just to make sure he didn't show up and the guy still didn't appear.

Realizing he wouldn't come out today, Peter took out a camera phone and webbed it to the wall across from the girlfriend's windows.

They webbed home and went bed, eager to try again the next day,

The next morning, Peter checked around 8 hours of footage and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

The Spider-Heroes met up at their stakeout point and did observe the girlfriend's house for almost an entire week. When one night, while they were making out on the opposing building, MJ saw Electro's girlfriend sneaking out of her apartment.

MJ sighed as she removed herself from Peter's lap and said, "She going to meet him."

"Are you sure she's not just going out for a pint of milk?" Peter questioned as he nibbled on her neck.

"No one buys milk looking that hyper-aware," MJ said as she webbed out to a nearby building.

Peter sighed and followed behind her. They made sure to stay hidden and a good distance from Electro's girlfriend, so she wouldn't notice them following her.

After tracking a cab she called, the Electro's girlfriend was driven downtown to the Bronx. After she stopped at the bar with no name, Peter and MJ stood on a nearby building and watched her walk inside.

Peter sighed before he said, "This is a villain's hang out and it's better not to just barge in. No telling what they have to defend themselves. Stay back and wait for Sparky to come out, after all, they can't stay in there all day."

MJ nodded her head and the two found a rooftop nearby to perch on, and after waiting a few hours their target finally appeared.

As he walked out of the bar with his hand around his girlfriend's waist, Peter and MJ followed two and watched as he hailed a cab from the street side. After she left and the cab drove away, Electro started heading off towards Oscorp facilities.

Peter frowned, and he decided to stop the villain now. However, MJ's Symbiote was afraid of getting close to Electro.

"It's because of the heat. If Electro were willing to work with us like how Johnny and I fought together, gaining his power would be no problem. However, due to MJ's Symbiote's lack of heat resistance, it would prove a problem for taking his powers away by force," Peter said as he continued to trail Electro.

"According to Spiderling, if he tries to defend against her actions, all it would take is one small spark up, and Spiderling would risk dying," Mary Jane said as she matched swings with Peter.

Peter sighed and responded by saying, "Well, I guess, I'll be taking this one!"

Like a fly that had fallen into his web, Electro was suddenly engulfed by Webster when the two began fighting for control of his body. Panicked by the sudden Symbiote, Electro entered his energy form and blasted down a bolt of lightning on top of himself.

Webster shrieked in pain, but due to its recently gained heat resistance, it managed to survive the attack.

Suddenly Electro felt his power's starting to drain when MJ hopped down beside him with a webbed up fist.

With a graceful pivoting swing, Mary Jane knocked Electro out with a well-placed punch to the jaw.

Because of the Symbiote that was draining the super-serum that Electro was given, his brain returned to solid-matter and shook around his skull like a ping-pong ball in a rolling cage.

As his eyes rolled back, foam spewed from Electro's mouth as he fell down unconscious.

Peter walked up next to the fallen villain and checked his pulse as he said, "Ohh, right in the button. Well done, Spider-Woman."

MJ did a dressless curtsy and said, "Why, thank you."

With the obstruction of Electro's mental capacity gone, Peter's Symbiote kicked it into overdrive and sapped away all of Maxwell's power.

While Webster extracted the formula, Peter found the serum was an artificial recreation of a mutant's X-Gene, and by altering the formula with Webster's help, Peter had once again split it into two and gave half of it to MJ.

Thanks to this her suit gained both an electric and heat resistance and a weaker version of Electro's Electrokinesis.

Peter, on the other hand, gained a powerful Electrokinesis with his Symbiote active, similar to how he could use Johnny's Pryokinesis. However, he discovered that Venom was never weak to electricity in the first place, only the sound and heat produced by the lightning bolt damaged them.

Peter's Symbiote thought it would've died the moment it made contact with Johnny, if not for Peter's regeneration factor helping it survive and the fact that Johnny was a willing host, it would have burnt to a crisp.

"It was a good idea that we didn't separate before absorbing Electro's power, Peter. Even with my heat resistance, if we hadn't been connected during that attack, our connection may have been severed," Webster commented.

Peter smiled and felt that even without Webster. The new serum they gained was allowed them to use a weakened version of Electro's ability, equal to the level of Spider-Man's fire control without the suit.

Peter then webbed up the regular old human Maxwell and placed him on the front steps of the nearest police station with a similar note left with the Rhino attached to his chest.

Except, this time he left a note for Maxwell as well that read, "If you have a woman counting on you, you shouldn't be a crook. Straighten up and do right by her."

Peter didn't know if this would help Electro find some solace, but at least he tried.

After taking care of the problem they realized they only had a week or so until they had to go back to school.

Peter sighed and couldn't wait to find out what Tony had in store for him. As soon as they had their grant money they would apply for early graduation and start going to college. At least that's what he thought would happen.

When he returned home and went to his lab to continue working on the idea he would present to earn that grant.

Peter entered his cellar and got to work. However after looking a few hours of him losing track of time, he entered a state similar to when he web swings, the whole world vanished and the only thing that existed was the work and himself.

It wasn't until a deep voice called out to him that he responded, "Very impressive Mr. Parker, you're tiring to remake Proto Adamantium that Doctor Myron Mac'Clain invented by accident, and from what I've seen you've almost cracked it. Your plans on using the metal to create nanobots are ingenious."

Peter gulped as he turned around and saw a tall well built, bald black man, with an Eyepatch covering his left eye.

Seeing that Peter was speechless, Fury grinned before he asked, "I'm sorry, do you prefer Spider-Man?"

Peter slapped his face and sighed before he said, "How?!"

Fury smiled as he placed his hands behind his back and walked closer to Peter's invention, "Honestly, your expression just now gave it away! You did a pretty good job managing to stay hidden from our surveillance. I didn't have any proof, just a good hunch. But after seeing your work, however..."

Fury pointed to Peter's chest and began explaining, "The Silk-Armor you made impressed me a lot. After S.H.I.E.L.D gave your work some praise, some of the other buyers wanted to scout you out. Even I was thinking of hiring you to one of S.H.I.E.L.D's best Labs. So, we started investigating you and your parent's history. Although I'm not sure how you managed to pull off that double Spider-Man stunt, your activities afterwards left a lot of physical reports that describe a younger person saving them. The inconsistencies were more than enough for me to suspect."

Peter slapped his forehead and thought "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid! I just gave my identity again! This shit ends here, today. Gonna have to be extra careful in the future. From now on the new motto is; deny, deny, deny."

Fury looked to him and found the way Peter punished himself funny before saying, "Kid, you got a lot of skill, and even some good training. But, if you want to do some real good you should consider joining this."

Fury threw out a folder, with the words 'Avenger's Initiative' Peter lifted his eyebrow as he saw the original roster, Ironman, Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and one that wasn't there before, Scarlet Witch."

"Independent yet allies with S.H.I.E.L.D, autonomous action unit against worse case scenarios." Peter was mumbling out parts of the contract and thought

"No wonder Tony agreed. There really aren't any hidden strings in this at all," Peter declared.

Peter then looked up at Fury's one good eye and said, "Okay, but I guess you will be assigning someone to Mary Jane and myself! So, what comes next, training?"

Fury nodded his head and said, "Training."

Peter sighed before thinking, "I'm not really getting a choice here am I?"

"You have a choice, kid." Fury grinned as he peered into Peter's eyes.

"Stop reading my mind! That stuff is personal!" Peter shot back in jest.

Fury responded with a simple tone as he said, "I think you have a great choice, that's why I brought this contract to you. This way you can get the training you need. . ."

"So you can keep an eye on us!" Peter finished his sentence before asking, "Tell me, Fury. Did you put cameras in my house?"

"No, not yet. Like I said before I'd like to take a different approach, first," Fury answered.

Peter rubbed his temples in frustration and sighed before saying, "Okay, but, I have some conditions of my own."

Fury lifted a brow when he asked, "Such as?"

"I'm going on vacation in a week, and I also have my studies to attend to. Not to mention fighting crime as Spider-Man, but all my weekends and vacation time is for me, my family, and my friends. No calling me with work, no training, no build something for me, and no bothering me with world-ending scenarios during my off-time. I already have a busy enough life living as Spidey right now, so, try not to interfere with my life too much! Okay?! Also, no cameras in my house! EVER! And Fury, I get what you're all about, but I'm no killer, at least, I won't kill humans and kindred spirits, but if some evil overlord and robotic alien species wages war on this world or its people, you can count on me to fight."

Fury grinned, "I can agree to that, but you two better get ready for school, something tells me you're going to like what we have in store for Midtown High."

Peter furrowed his brow and shrugged his shoulders as Fury explained what his duties would be as an Avenger.

After a few minutes passed, Peter looked to Fury with a pensive expression and said, "I get it, if it's for teaching us how to be good spies, but I don't know if you have anyone strong enough to teach me anything combat-related."

Fury grinned, "Not even if it's Steve Roger's himself?"

Peter breathed out a breath of fresh air, and thought, "Good he knows I have spider-powers but doesn't know the extent of my abilities."

"Maybe if you add the Hulk to the fight." Peter also thought of Thor but he hadn't joined the Avengers yet.

Fury smirked and said, "Kid trust me, Steve is even stronger than he used to be during the war."

Peter looked up and said, "Ohh, I wonder how much stronger."

Fury then pulled out a card and handed it off to Peter before saying, "Add this to your contacts, you'll receive a place and a location to go for training."

Peter looked down at the card and then back up to see Fury had vanished. "Cloaking tech maybe?" Peter thought as he scratched his head.

"I wonder if he's going to ask MJ next. What's her response gonna be? I should just ask," Peter mumbled to himself.

Just as he was about to give her the head's up, Peter looked at his phone and realized that she texted him, "Avenger's Initiative? Y? N?"

Peter's eyes widened and he sent back a text, "Is a tall black guy with an eye patch there?!"

MJ sent back another lightning fast text, "No, it's Natalie Rushman, Tony's secretary!"

Peter wiped his forehead, and thought, "Good, was beginning to think Fury wasn't human or had clones or something along those lines."

He texted back, "What do you want to do?!"

MJ wrote back, "Sounds fun, the contract seems legit too. If you're in, I'm in!"

Peter laughed before texting, "Then I guess we're in!"

He then wrote her the same list of demands he gave to furry and told her she should try to get something that she likes out of it.

After MJ agreed, she texted, "How did she vanish like that? Is Batman her teacher?!"

Peter laughed and sent back, "You know, I thought the same thing!"

After the two went to sleep the next morning they received their first text from Fury. They were to meet up at an abandoned Parking Structure that was for government employees only.

Suiting up and web-slinging out, the two Spider-Heroes made their way across N.Y, and once they got there, they realized that it was actually an underground base for one of S.H.I.E.L.D's hidden bases.

They entered the elevator as instructed and pressed the buttons in the order described in the text.

"7,4,4,3,5,3, it spells shield. Not very original," Peter commented as the Elevator began moving.

"I think it's kind of funny," MJ said as they watched the elevator floor indicator drop below the lowest basement floor.

The elevator continued to descend a total of 50 floors below the ground's surface and opened up into a rather large facility,

Peter and MJ stepped out of the elevator and looked around in amazement. The underground facility was rather spacious, with high ceilings and metallic walls so clean you could eat off of them. Scientists walked back and forwards carrying technology and discussing rather advanced theories.

Armed agents walked around patrolling or goofing off on their breaks. While they gawked, a few S.H.I.E.L.D agents could be seen staring at them while talking softly to one another.

As one would expect, it didn't take long for word to spread that two Super-Heroes had arrived at their base. Within a few minutes, Fury showed up and greeted them before taking them to a large training room that looked a bit like a boxing ring.

Inside that ring was the one, the only, Captain America!

He was inside the ring fighting and training like there was no tomorrow when Fury called out to him, "Captain."