Interlude1: … and Mate

As they stared at the TV in silence, Tony could practically feel the incredulity pouring from his teammates.

Eventually, he broke the silence.

"You got to admit, the kid's got talent," he chuckled.

Steve snapped out of his shock and turned to look at him. "That kid just went over all our heads while we were stuck trying to find a hole in his legal defenses, faced the problem himself, dodged hits from a man said to never miss, and tricked Fisk to confess to everything he did without saying a word."

Steve smiled at the screen. "I'd say it's more than just talent."

Then the smile soured and he frowned. "With that said; I'm not sure I like the idea of a kid gearing up to fight bad guys with the rest of us. He should be doing kid things, not tricking criminal masterminds and beating up card-throwing maniacs."

"The child fights cleverly," Thor chimed in; walking into the room while biting what looked to be a chicken thigh the size of Tony's head. "He is a trickster, like Loki."

"I'm not sure if you're praising him or not." Steve said.

"I'm praising him! Weak and frail as he looks, it's admirable that he found a way to fight without strength!"

"He jumped like three feet in the air, Thor."

"Yes, I suspect sorcery."

Rolling his eyes, Tony went back to inspecting the video. He wondered what the kid was doing now that he succeeded in liberating New York from its would-be tyrant.

/breakline\\\

Jay Jonah Jameson, editor in chief and owner of the Daily Bugle, was seething.

More than usual, that is.

On the table in front of him was a laptop, which was facing his top reporters. The laptop, at the moment, was displaying a video that had been shown throughout the news, over and over.

On it, that smug menace was revealing its scheme to that fat, lying bastard.

Once the video was over, Jonah closed the laptop and gave the room a glare.

"So," he began; his voice chillingly calm. "Can someone tell me why we weren't on top of this story?"

"We talked about it," his top reporter, Ben Urich, replied. He seemed completely unaffected by his boss' tone. "It was on the front page and we talked about it on the evening news."

"Yeah, we did." Jonah smashed a fist onto the table suddenly. "But why the hell aren't we talking about Spider-Man?!"

"What is there to say? We don't know anything about the guy, other than he was smart enough to trick Fisk." Ben shrugged. "A new hero shows up in New York; it's just another Tuesday."

"Right, except he's not a hero! He's a menace!" Jonah gestured at his closed laptop. "He broke into a building, tricked someone into stabbing another person, and had a friend hack into Fisk's security! We spent the last few months worshipping the ground the fat liar walked on, and now he made us look like idiots!"

"So what do you want us to do?" asked Ben, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.

"I want everyone to know what a menace he is! He doesn't spin a web without us knowing, and without us telling everyone about it! I want his every move to be public!" Jonah lit a cigar and bit down on it. "And for god's sake, I want a good picture of him!"

As everyone left the room, with Ben on the back of the group because he wanted to make sure Jonah noticed his disapproving look, Jonah looked out his window and towards the city. And he wondered, worried, where that wall-crawling menace was now.

/breakline\\\

Matt Murdock, in a rare moment of tranquility between cases, took a moment to listen to the radio.

Unsurprisingly, they were still talking about Spider-Man.

Matt leaned back in his chair, and let go of the block he had on his senses. A long time ago, he learned to put a filter, to block the horrible constant sound that came with living in the city.

Whenever he released the filter, he felt a little more like Daredevil and a little less like Matt Murdock.

A part of him, he suspected, would always be Daredevil. Right up until he finally died. It was the part of him that couldn't help but yearn for his suit, so he could run out and help whenever he heard screaming. It was the part of him that made him let go of the filter and listen to the city whenever the night felt too still and he couldn't stop tracing his scars with his fingers.

It was the part of him that stayed in Hell's Kitchen, no matter where he was, and tried to protect it.

Because that was the problem with Hell's Kitchen: it had no guardian angels. The Avengers rarely passed through there unless they were beating up aliens or something along the way.

Or, at least it didn't have guardian angels, until Spider-Man showed up.

Fisk had started his criminal empire on Hell's Kitchen, figuring (correctly) that he wouldn't find much resistance as long as he could provide guns and narcotics.

But then he met resistance in the shape of a skinny guy with a hood and a spider stitched to his chest. Or at least that's how Foggy described him.

A part of Matt was always going to be the Devil of Hell's Kitchen; it was true, but…

A small sound was heard just in the range of Matt's hearing; a tiny little 'thwip' that carried a swinging body.

Maybe Daredevil could relax knowing someone was picking up the slack.

Idly, as he went over to Karen's sleeping body and he woke her up with a kiss, he wondered what Spider-Man was gonna do next.

/breakline\\\

Ben Parker had to admit something. If nothing else, being paralyzed from the waist down had done wonders for his biceps.

He chuckled slightly as he used the T-Rex-shaped reaching stick Peter got him to get a box of cheerios from a tall shelf.

He grabbed a bowl from the shelves that Jake had fixed to be easily accessible (they were slightly crooked, but no one mentioned it except for Jake, who apologized any time he saw someone get something from the shelves).

He got the milk from the fridge, which was put somewhere both could reach by May, even if Ben left it on the top on purpose. She couldn't bend down like she used to (he was suddenly thankful he never commented that in the presence of his sons. They'd both get this faraway look for a second, before they both adopted grossed-out looks. The difference would be that Jake would still chuckle, while Peter would run off to smack his head against the nearest flat surface).

With a wistful smile, Ben stopped in front of the TV and turned it on.

His smile faded into a frown. There, footage of Jake wearing his costume and laughing at Fisk was being played on the background, while a harsh-faced reporter talked about how this was a clear display of villainous tendencies.

Disgusted, Ben turned off the TV.

"I guess it's a good thing Jake never liked the Daily Bugle, huh?" Peter asked, leaning on the back of the couch next to Ben.

"I guess so." He muttered with his hand cupping his chin, as they glared at the black mirror in silence.

After he was paralyzed, Ben was fired from his job. He had been saving for a long time, but the threat of homelessness had been hanging over their head, getting closer every day.

Shortly before Jake put the final phase of his plan in motion, he had run around New York in the middle of the day, making sure he was extremely visible. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the general public's obsession of putting everything they saw on the internet, his popularity rose steadily.

Half an hour after that, Ben rolled in with his wheelchair and got the trademark for the Spider-Man brand. If anyone tried to make anything that involved him; shirts, toys, shoes, bed sheets, toilet seat covers, anything- they'd have to pay Ben Parker for the right.

And wouldn't you know it? Practically overnight, Spider-Man became a celebrity. In no time, Ben would be getting e-mails and calls and visits, begging for a contract to be the first to put out shirts with the Spider-Man symbol and a snarky caption.

Ben was surprised when Jake explained his plan to him, seeing how the boy hated the overly-capitalistic aspects of American culture.

"My feelings on capitalism are secondary," Jake had waved him off. "You're all far more important."

And Ben had been overcome with shame, sadness, and pride.

The shame was aimed at himself, because he had become dependent on a teenager's help to feed his family.

Sadness, because this boy, this child that he had helped raise, was growing up so fast, and was heading down a dangerous path.

And pride, because despite the dangers and the speed with which he was doing it, his boy was growing up, and he was doing a fine job of it.

Ben gave Peter a look and smiled to himself, finishing his bowl and taking it to the sink.

'Well, both my boys are growing up. I'm glad I get to see it.'

That did leave a question, though. What was his other son doing now?

/breakline\\\

A lot of people were asking the same question, in different ways. Throughout the city, people wondered, what was Spider-Man doing now? What was his next move?

As they asked that, Spider-Man was relaxing at home.

He had his sock-clad feet on a table, he was leaning back on his chair, he was pushing cold ramen into his mouth with a fork, and his pants hadn't been worn since he went to sleep.

'I stopped my first super villain,' he'd reasoned to himself. 'I earned a lazy day.'