Chapter 20 - Reunion

Hi, Harry," A group of girls giggled as Harry arrived outside the school on his skateboard, he had fortunately been able to convince his driver to drop him off a few blocks away from the school, giving him the chance to skate for a bit.

"Hey girls," Harry smiled as he stopped, and hopped off his skateboard. He looked at the girls, recognising that most of them were in his year. "You're all looking wonderful today," He said with a smile as he picked up his skateboard.

"Just today?" One of the girls asked challengingly as the others giggled.

"No, today's just the day I decided to point out the obvious," He grinned at her.

"No limo today?" One of them asked disappointedly.

"Sometimes I like to get some fresh air, apparently it's good for you." He gave them a nod before walking off. He heard them talking about him as he left, quite easily with his hearing but he didn't get a chance to focus much on it when Peter appeared beside him and started walking alongside him.

"Dude! You've damn near broken the internet!" Peter said excitedly.

"Shush!" Harry said quickly as he started looking around, thankfully Peter hadn't attracted that much attention.

"Sorry!" Peter quickly apologised. "This is amazing!" He said in a lower voice.

"It's damn near spectacular." Harry chuckled as Peter pulled out his phone and started playing a video recording of Harry stopping a car.

"I still can't get over the fact that you can do this!" Peter whispered.

"Harry!" Gwen quickly popped up next to him. "You're all over the news!" She whispered as she started walking with them.

"How can you tell?" Harry asked in a dry voice.

"Oh, ha ha," Gwen rolled her eyes as she gave him a fake laugh. "Seriously, you're everywhere. If I was you I'd really start picking a name." She suggested.

"A name?" Harry blinked at her.

"Yeah, like 'The Red Spider'," Gwen replied.

"Or 'Arachnid, maybe 'Man-Spider'," Peter suggested. "Or 'Spider-Man'!"

"How about 'Spidey'? Wait, your costume's got red in it so we could call you the 'Scarlet Spider'. Or we could call you..."

"Guys, guys," Harry interrupted them before they could continue. "as tempting as it is, I don't really want or need a name."

"Um...yeah, you do," Gwen replied. "If you don't give yourself a name then somebody else will pick one, imagine if they pick a really horrible one and it sticks."

"I'm not going to go around calling myself a ridiculous name," Harry rolled his eyes.

"Your funeral." Peter shrugged.

"That guy is awesome!" The trio heard someone shout. They glanced to their right and saw Flash along with several other popular kids, including Liz Allen, gathered around and watching a video on Flash's phone. "Look how strong he is!" Flash gasped, obviously watching a video of Harry.

"You got a crush, Flash?" One boy teased.

"Ew!" Harry whispered, not at all pleased with even the mere thought of Flash having a crush on him.

"No!" Flash said quickly. "Don't be childish! Look at him! Tell me you don't wish that you can do that!"

"He's certainly not that bad from the back," Liz commented with a smile. Harry blinked at that and stared at Peter who stared right back at him, the two of them then turned to Gwen who had an airy look on her face like she hadn't also just heard what Liz had said.

"Gwen," Harry spoke up. "Is my back..."

"Yes," Gwen quickly nodded.

"But then that means..."

"Yes."

"But do you really..."

"Yep."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah,"

"Even with..."

"Definitely." Gwen nodded firmly.

"Huh," Harry said in a surprised voice as he looked over his shoulder and down. "You know what, Liz might be right."

"So, how does it work?" Peter asked as the trio joined together in Peter's basement. Gwen and Peter were currently sitting down and facing Harry who was hanging upside down from a web that he had attached to the ceiling.

"Well, I pretty much just go out and fight crime whenever I have time, I guess," Harry shrugged. "It's not like there's a superhero manual just lying around for me." He pointed out.

"What about that 'Devil' guy?" Gwen asked. "Didn't you say that he had actually offered to help you out?"

"Yeah, he sounded like he knew what he was doing," Harry responded in a thoughtful voice. "I kind of don't want to find him just so I can avoid his 'I told you so'. But needs must and all, better to at least give it a try."

"Exactly, so now we just have to find a vigilante that's been able to avoid being captured by not just the entire police force but also every single goon and thug in this damn city," Peter sighed, rubbing his eyes. "You don't half make things difficult, you know?" He added to Harry.

"Oh, like you're a walk in a park?" Harry scoffed. "How many times do I have to drag you out of fights that you shouldn't ever be close to."

"I still think I can take Flash, just saying," Peter grinned.

"Whatever you say, tough guy," Gwen smiled, lightly tapping his knee. "So, should we get to work on tracking down the devil?"

"Sure, first of all, let's rule out down there." Harry pointed down to the ground, which was sort of 'up' for him.

"Noted," Gwen said with the utmost seriousness in her voice.

'This is not my night.' He thought to himself as he forced himself to get back up to his feet.

The man, sometimes called the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, was currently dressed in black combat boots and trousers, the latter of which had several cuts on it. He wore a black full-sleeved shirt along with forearm pads and black gloves. His shirt, gloves and pads all noticeably had blood scattered on top of them while the shirt also had several cuts including one cut that had actually managed to reach the Devil's chest. The rest of the blood on him had thankfully come from other people.

On top of his head, he did not wear a helmet or a full face mask, instead, he wore a black scarf that covered the top part of his face. He could feel the mask against his face, the sweating had made it stick more to him, and the bruise on his right cheek made it hurt, but he couldn't and wouldn't take it off until he had reached the safety of his home, especially with what he was currently facing.

He took a few steps back, managing to avoid stepping on the several unconscious bodies behind him without even looking. A short distance in front of him were five thugs, big and strong and armed with bats, knives and steel pipes.

'Can I take them all?' He wondered, at this point he was tired. This wasn't his first fight tonight, nor was it even his third. This would be his fifth, he didn't count the unconscious bodies around him seeing as they were all part of the same group. He was currently in a warehouse, an empty one, the open space could be both advantageous and horrible, depending on the situation. Right now it was really bad for him since he had nowhere to hide from the group. 'If I lead them outside, I could start taking them out, one by one.' He thought to himself, knowing that if things went really bad then he'd still at least be able to escape.

All of a sudden his head twitched as a sound came into his ear, he listened closely to it, ignoring the threats and insults shooting out from the thugs. After several moments of listening, he suddenly started laughing.

The thugs froze as they stared at the man in front of them, when somebody was battered and bruised and outnumbered while mostly likely going to die soon then the obvious reaction from that person would not be laughter.

"What are you laughing at?!" One of them demanded to know, gripping his knife tightly. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen didn't immediately answer and laughed for another few seconds before his laughter slowly died down. "What's so funny? You're outnumbered, we got men and weapons, what you got?"

"Backup," The Devil of Hell's Kitchen said with a sadistic, toothy grin.

Two seconds later a couple of webs shot out from the shadows and grabbed two of the men from the back before pulling them into the rafters The thugs all turned around and stared up at the rafters, they couldn't see much thanks to the shadows of the night.

"What the fuck?!" One man blurted out before two more webs shot out and grabbed two of them and pulled them up into the air before yanking them into the shadows of the rafters.

"Who the fuck is that?!" The remaining man demanded to know, pulling out his phone and using it to shine a torch at the rafters, the ability to see through the shadows didn't really help the thug's fear. Hanging from the ceiling were his friends, all covered in webs, and right in-between them and sticking to the ceiling was a masked man in a red and black suit with a spider logo. "Y...you're that spider guy?!" The man blurted out, taking a step back.

"Boo," Harry said as threateningly as one could say that word. The thug took another step back and turned around to run, only to end up running into a powerful right hook from none other than the Devil of Hell's kitchen.

"Here I thought that we would never see each other again," Devil said in a casual voice.

"I guess God blessed you with my company," Harry replied.

"Whose to say that it's not the other way around?" He smirked.

"Fair point," Harry dropped from the ceiling and to the ground with the ease of jumping off a final step on a staircase.

"Impressive," Devil whispered quietly as he took a step back. "So, you've been in the news for a while?" He said as he turned and started walking with Harry following after him, both of them not commenting on the unconscious and tied-up thugs that they had left behind.

"Trust me, I know," Harry replied.

"Did you really fight a guy in a bird costume?" Devil asked, sounding part amused and part intrigued.

"Yeah, he wasn't fun," Harry said, shaking his head slightly. "He was a bit of a dick actually, major ego issues."

"I'll take your word for it," Devil said, letting out a heavy breath.

"You skip cardio or something?" Harry asked, noticing how tired he looked.

"Just a bit beat up, I'll be fine," Devil said dismissively.

"Are you sure?" Harry asked in a concerned voice.

"Trust me, I've had worse," Devil responded. "Anyway, how did you find me?" He asked curiously.

"You're becoming a tad bit too predictable," Harry shrugged. "A few minutes of internet research revealed that you only really ever operate within Hell's Kitchen, the latest newspaper article that I could find about you revealed that you are currently having a little spat with the 'Bones and Skull's' gang, which I assume are the guys we just left behind," Harry added as they both exited the warehouse and continued walking.

"Yes, they are," Devil confirmed with a small nod of his masked head whilst also noting the British words that were being used.

"Well, then after that it was more a matter of tracking them down instead of tracking you," Harry continued explaining. "And they were a lot easier to find than you, I have to admit, then I just started looking for them, figured I'd be able to find you and if not then I could at least stop a few of them. I stopped two groups of them tonight, not including the last one we just dealt with."

"Did you just say 'two'?" Devil asked, sounding more than a little interested.

"Yeah, why?"

"Because if you didn't miss any then I think that we just stopped the gang permanently," Devil smiled briefly. "Providing the police don't botch it up."

"Well, from what I've heard, we've got some pretty good policemen in this city," Harry commented. He couldn't help but frown since he felt an almost instinctive need to defend the police on behalf of Gwen when she wasn't here. "Anyway, last time we spoke, you made me an offer, I'd like to take you up on it. You said you'd help me out, I need to know more about this hero gig, you've done it before."

"I don't know if I classify as a hero," Devil softly snorted. "Besides, I haven't been doing it for that long."

"Longer than me," Harry pointed out.

"Fair point," Devil shrugged his shoulders. "Meet me tomorrow at the train tracks where we first met, be there at eleven pm. Got it?"

"Got it," Harry nodded his head. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then, this was a good talk." He smiled under his mask before he leapt into the air and began swinging away.

"Huh," Devil chuckled. "Good talk, kid."