Okay, I have to walk to school with Gwen tomorrow. If a bank gets robbed on the way, I'll have to ditch her halfway down the block, and my cover is completely blown.
It was past ten o'clock when Peter slipped out his bedroom window. He fired a web line, tracing a silver arc through the Queens night as he swung toward Manhattan. Avengers Tower stood mostly dark against the skyline, illuminated by only a few scattered interior lights. JARVIS had already unsealed a maintenance hatch for him. Peter landed silently on the gantry, brushing a layer of nonexistent dust off his Mk. 2 suit before stepping inside.
"Good evening, JARVIS. How's the Wakanda op going?"
"Communications with the Quinjet were lost upon entering Wakandan airspace," the AI replied smoothly. "The final data was recorded from within the palace complex."
Peter nodded, stripping off his mask. That wasn't a problem. Wakanda's technological shielding was notorious; a total communications blackout was standard operating procedure. He pushed the Avengers out of his mind and walked over to the primary holographic interface. He had two massive problems to solve: Was the new fake Spider-Man the escaped Chameleon or just Mysterio? And why was Carl King aggressively stalking him?
"Let's do the easy part first, JARVIS. Pull up Carl King, Midtown High freshman. Run a facial recognition match across the NYPD and traffic camera networks. I want to see where he's been."
Within seconds, JARVIS populated the screens. The first hit showed Carl standing at the edge of the police perimeter in Times Square, kicking through the rubble long after the Shocker fight had ended.
Peter tapped the desk. "Nothing crazy there. Cross-reference my own appearances at Midtown High over the last month with any cameras covering the school grounds within a ten-minute window."
The holographic display flickered. A security feed from the school's science wing popped up.
There it was. The night Peter had broken into the chemistry lab to synthesize his upgraded web fluid. Moments after Peter swung away, Carl King crept into the frame, testing the lab door.
Peter leaned back in his chair, exhaling a long breath. Carl had definitely found the dissolving silk residue left on the countertops. Combine that with the fact that Carl had personally dropped the radioactive spider down Peter's shirt at the Oscorp Expo, and the math was doing itself.
Carl wasn't building a supervillain origin story. He was just terrified.
You think I'm coming after you for revenge, Peter realized. You're driving yourself crazy waiting for me to break your legs. I'm not going to touch you, Carl. You're off the hook. He dismissed the footage, completely unaware of the grotesque transformation currently taking place inside Carl King's bedroom.
"Skip Carl," Peter said. "Pull everything you have on the Chameleon."
JARVIS and the NYPD hadn't disappointed—Dmitri Snerdyakov had indeed slipped the net. A corrupt officer had facilitated his escape from the precinct. But the getaway had been messy. Frank Castle—the Punisher—had attempted to assassinate the Chameleon during the breakout, shot the corrupt cop by mistake, and lost his target in the chaos. Dmitri's current whereabouts were unknown.
"Wait, the Punisher?" Peter frowned. "He's actively hunting the Chameleon?"
"According to federal records, Frank Castle has made at least five documented attempts on Dmitri Snerdyakov's life," JARVIS supplied. "All have ended in failure."
"Do we know why?"
"Negative. The motive remains unrecorded."
Peter stared at the floating data streams, the pieces finally locking together. Herman Schultz stole the light-particle projector. The bank robbery was just noisy cover. Now, Mysterio and the Chameleon had teamed up. Their first move was a smear campaign, which meant a mastermind with deep pockets was pulling the strings. Someone who bought bulk Chitauri salvage and repurposed it. Kingpin? Hammerhead? Tombstone? New York had too many crime lords to narrow it down easily.
But the objective was obvious: destroy Spider-Man's reputation, then kill him.
But Castle is shooting at him now, Peter thought, a sharp grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. Chameleon can't run a smear campaign if the Punisher is actively trying to put a bullet in his skull. So he has to act exactly like me. He has to do actual hero work just to survive the shifts.
It was a trap. Whether it was a bomb, a kill squad, or a supervillain waiting at the end of the fake Spider-Man's patrol route, Peter knew stepping into the ring meant walking right into the crosshairs.
So why walk into the trap at all?
"I need to talk to the Punisher," Peter said, turning away from the console. Castle was already surveilling every Spider-Man sighting in the city. "He knows more about the Chameleon than anyone. I just need to find him and say hello... assuming he doesn't open fire the second he sees me."
"I'll start with the conclusion. Spider-Man is a student. Most likely high school."
MacDonald Gargan stood in the center of the dimly lit safe house, his posture strictly professional. As a private investigator, Gargan didn't rely on intimidation; he relied on data. He looked across the coffee table at his two temporary associates, and finally, at Wilson Fisk.
The Kingpin occupied a massive, reinforced armchair, though his sheer size made the furniture look entirely inadequate. He rested his hands on the head of his cane, offering Gargan a slight, terrifyingly gentle smile. "Continue."
"Here is the breakdown of his operational hours," Gargan said, sliding a printed spreadsheet across the glass. "There is a massive discrepancy between his weekday and weekend appearances. More importantly, he almost never surfaces between eight in the morning and three in the afternoon on a weekday. That isn't a work shift. That's a bell schedule. I cross-referenced the operational dead zones with the academic calendars of every school in Manhattan. Seven schools fit the exact parameters."
"Excellent work, Mr. Gargan."
Fisk picked up the single sheet of A4 paper. He let his eyes scan the seven printed names—Midtown High School sitting quietly among them —before handing the document to the Prowler, who stood silently at his right shoulder.
"If he survives our current endeavor, this list will be invaluable," Fisk rumbled, his deep voice vibrating in the quiet room. "But for now, we focus on direct elimination. I have acquired a commercial building currently under construction. It has no paper trail connecting it to the Fisk Group. The interior has been wired with enough explosive material to incinerate any living creature. If the blast somehow fails, the structural collapse will bury Spider-Man under several thousand tons of concrete."
Fisk slowly raised his massive right hand, holding it suspended in the air.
"We simply wait for the right moment. Let him discover our bait, lure him inside..."
Fisk slowly closed his fingers, crushing an invisible spider inside his massive, meaty fist.
"...and we destroy Spider-Man, once and for all."