Three days after the Battle of New York.
Stark Tower (now featuring only a single lonely "A" on the side). Luxury penthouse.
Morning sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows — or rather, through the floor-to-ceiling window frames, since the glass itself still hadn't been replaced. The breeze carried the distant sounds of construction equipment and the faint smell of fresh concrete. New York was rebuilding, one jackhammer at a time.
Jake rubbed his eyes and sat up from the leather sofa that had been serving as his bed for the past seventy-two hours. Between cooperating with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s post-battle debriefings — which he'd navigated by telling approximately forty percent of the truth and bluffing through the rest — and helping Tony rewrite JARVIS's firewall from scratch, he'd been running on caffeine and stubbornness for three days straight.
"Morning, world."
He stretched, vertebrae popping in sequence, and shuffled toward the open kitchen with the autopilot determination of a man who needed milk before he could form complete sentences.
He made it halfway across the living room before a cold, red droplet landed on the tip of his nose.
"Hm?"
Jake touched his nose. Looked at his finger.
Ketchup.
He looked up.
Directly above his head, stuck to the ceiling like a blonde gecko in an oversized T-shirt and hot pants, was a girl. One hand gripped the ceiling with casual, adhesive ease. The other was stuffing an enormous slice of pizza into her mouth. Her short blonde hair hung straight down due to gravity, looking like a golden mop that had developed opinions.
"Mmph? You're up?"
Gwen Stacy, cheeks packed with cold pizza, offered a muffled greeting. "Morning, Mr. Landlord. This pizza's actually decent, even refrigerated. You New Yorkers know what you're doing."
Jake stared at her for two full seconds.
Then he calmly pulled a tissue from the box on the counter and wiped his nose.
"Gwen. We need to establish some house rules."
He pointed at the ceiling. "Rule one: no crumbly food on the ceiling. Gravity makes it everyone else's problem. Rule two: if you insist on sleeping up there, please be aware that your neckline is also subject to Newton's laws."
"Pfft—!"
Gwen choked on pizza, swallowed hard, and executed a graceful backflip off the ceiling, landing barefoot on the carpet. She tugged her collar up with cheeks that were distinctly pinker than they'd been ten seconds ago.
"You can't blame me! It's a Spider thing! Back home, I always find the highest spot in the room — it's an instinct. Elevated positions feel safe."
She padded to the fridge, bare feet silent on the carpet, and grabbed a cola with the proprietary confidence of someone who'd already decided this was her kitchen too.
"And don't act all proper with me. Who was it last night that turned into that palm-sized grey gremlin and crawled under the robot vacuum to fix its chassis?"
"That was scientific maintenance," Jake said with great dignity. "Grey Matter's perspective makes precision repairs extremely convenient."
"Uh-huh. Very dignified. Riding a Roomba at three in the morning."
This was what living together looked like.
It wasn't the romantic tension that a shared apartment between two teenagers might suggest. It was more like... cross-species cultural exchange. With ketchup incidents.
Ding-dong—
The elevator chimed.
Tony Stark strolled in wearing tinted sunglasses, trailed by Happy Hogan, who was carrying several document folders emblazoned with the Midtown High School logo.
"Looks like I'm interrupting." Tony's gaze swept across their pajama-clad forms, and his trademark smirk materialized. "Morning workout? Young people really do have incredible stamina."
"Shut up, Tony." Jake didn't even look up from pouring his milk. "If you're here to deliver a repair bill, the exit is that way."
"I'm here to deliver a gift."
Tony pointed at the folders in Happy's hands. "Miss Gwen Stacy — congratulations. Starting today, you are a proud, legally enrolled transfer student at Midtown High School."
Gwen's cola can buckled slightly in her grip.
"School?" The word came out like a profanity. "Old man, are you kidding? I was in college in my universe! I was the drummer in a band! And you want me to go sit in a classroom learning algebra with a bunch of fourteen-year-olds?"
"It's a cover identity."
Jake took the documents from Happy and flipped through them. The paperwork was immaculate — birth certificate, school transcripts, vaccination records, a complete background that would survive any level of scrutiny. Tony Stark's forgery department was apparently world-class.
"Tony built you a perfect paper trail. A high school student is invisible — nobody asks questions. But an unregistered enhanced individual with no identity and spider powers? S.H.I.E.L.D. would classify you as an illegal interdimensional immigrant by lunch."
"Plus," Tony added helpfully, "Midtown's cafeteria is actually decent. And I may have donated a state-of-the-art chemistry lab to the school where you can work on your web fluid formula. Fully funded. They even offer scholarships."
Gwen wrestled with it for approximately five seconds.
"Fine. For the scholarship." She jabbed a finger at Tony. "But if anyone tries to bully me, I'm webbing them to the flagpole."
"Just don't break the flagpole," Jake said, not looking up from the paperwork.
"One more thing."
Tony's playful expression dropped, replaced by something sharper. He pulled a USB drive from his jacket pocket and tossed it across the room.
Jake caught it without looking and plugged it into the nearest terminal.
"Data from Fury's side. About the scepter."
The screen populated with post-battle recovery reports. During the cleanup after the Battle of New York, the S.H.I.E.L.D. team assigned to transport Loki's Mind Stone scepter to secure storage had experienced an... interruption. The scepter never reached its destination. It had simply vanished in transit.
"Vanished?" Gwen leaned over Jake's shoulder, pizza forgotten. "How do you lose a glowing stick that's three feet long?"
"You don't lose it. You intercept it."
Jake zoomed in on the surveillance footage from the transport convoy. The lead agent — bald, glasses, forgettable face — was directing the handoff with smooth, practiced efficiency. Agent Jasper Sitwell.
Jake knew that face. Knew exactly which organization's payroll it appeared on.
"HYDRA."
"What snake?" Gwen looked confused.
"A Nazi organization that's been growing inside S.H.I.E.L.D. like a parasite for seventy years," Tony said, his expression darkening. He'd clearly been briefed on this — probably by Jake, probably over one of their late-night lab sessions. "Fury thinks he's dealing with garden-variety corruption. He has no idea he's been raising vipers in his own nest since the day the organization was founded."
"So — do we go take it back?" Gwen cracked her knuckles with an eagerness that said I haven't punched anything since yesterday and I'm getting antsy. "I could use some exercise. Haven't had breakfast either."
"No rush."
Jake pulled up the scepter's last tracked coordinates on the map. A red dot pulsed in Eastern Europe.
Sokovia.
He knew what was there. Baron Strucker's fortress. The HYDRA research facility where the scepter's power was being used to experiment on human subjects. And two of those subjects — a pair of twins who'd volunteered out of rage and desperation — were going to emerge from those experiments with abilities that would reshape the Avengers.
Pietro Maximoff. Quicksilver. Speed that made XLR8 look like a leisurely jog.
Wanda Maximoff. Scarlet Witch. Chaos Magic powerful enough to rewrite reality itself.
If Jake moved on the scepter now, he might recover it — but he'd also alert HYDRA, potentially shut down the experiments, and prevent the twins from ever gaining their powers. And in the wars to come — Ultron, Thanos, everything beyond — those powers were going to be essential.
"Let them keep it for a while."
Jake pulled the USB drive and leaned back, a knowing smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
"That scepter is a key. It's going to open a door and release two very interesting people."
"Interesting people?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "Can they transform more times than you?"
"Their kind of power..." Jake thought of Wanda's red light — the ability to bend probability, alter matter, rewrite the rules of what was possible. "In some ways? It's even more unreasonable than mine."
"Alright, if the Consultant says leave it, we leave it." Tony shrugged and headed for the elevator. "I'll be downstairs finishing the Hulkbuster blueprints. Oh — victory party tonight. Don't forget to bring your Spider-Girl."
Tony and Happy disappeared into the elevator.
Quiet settled over the penthouse.
"So..."
Gwen jumped back onto the ceiling — because of course she did — and looked down at Jake while hanging upside down, her blonde hair forming a golden curtain.
"What's the plan today? School? Saving the world? Hunting Nazi snakes?"
"None of the above."
Jake walked to the window and looked out at the city. Cranes dotted the skyline. Construction crews swarmed over damaged buildings. The Leviathan wreckage in the Hudson was being carved up by a fleet of barges. New York was wounded, but it was already healing. Because that's what New York did.
"Today is a day off." He turned around and shook the Omnitrix on his wrist. "I'm going to take you to a place that allegedly has the best hot dogs in all five boroughs. And after that..."
He met her upside-down eyes.
"...I'm going to teach you how to be a proper superhero in this universe."
Gwen's eyes lit up.
She dropped from the ceiling in a move that was half-flip, half-controlled-fall, and landed directly in front of Jake with the kind of casual athleticism that made Spider powers look like the most natural thing in the world.
"You promised! If those hot dogs aren't as good as you say, I'm webbing you to the wall."
"Go ahead. I've got Heatblast — perfect counter to your webs."
"Then I'll bring a fire extinguisher!"
"Then I'll switch to Diamondhead."
"Then I'll—" Gwen paused. "Okay, you have too many forms. This isn't fair."
"Life isn't fair." Jake grabbed his jacket. "But the hot dogs are. Let's go."
They headed for the elevator, bickering the entire way — about web-dissolving temperatures, the structural integrity of flagpoles, and whether Grey Matter counted as a valid chess player since he had two brains.
Outside, New York waited. Damaged, dusty, and defiant.
And somewhere in Sokovia, a glowing blue scepter was about to change two lives forever.
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