67: Chapter 67 Hydra's Weapons (1)

Night had fallen, and Spider-Man crouched on the edge of the rooftop, looking down at the alley below.

In the alley, three teenagers wearing red and black sportswear were gang-beating a small group of thugs.

Their masks were sewn crookedly, deliberately mimicking Spider-Man's appearance, with a crooked black spider spray-painted on their chests.

Each of them clutched hard objects in their hands, beating the thugs until they cried for their mothers.

Peter knew that he should jump down immediately to stop them.

But leaning against the shadows, he hesitated and didn't move.

These copycats were growing in number and becoming more reckless day by day.

However, the three right in front of him actually looked like they had some genuine skills.

He quietly watched them knock over the thugs.

The biggest one punched a certain unlucky guy on the jaw, tossed the unconscious fellow into his companion's arms, and roared, "We don't need your kind around here! Spread the word—this turf is covered by the 'Web-Weaving Warriors'!"

The thugs propped up their companion and fled pell-mell.

The three teenagers high-fived and cheered, as if they had won a championship.

Peter sighed; it seemed it was time to show himself.

"What do you guys think you're doing?" he asked while crawling backward down the outer wall of the building.

"Sp-Spider-Man?!" a teenager screamed, and all three of them turned their heads to look at him in unison.

"Oh man, it really is you." The leading big guy stepped forward, his face wearing a dreamlike expression, "Hi—I'm Chad, sir, it's such an honor to meet you."

Peter narrowed his eyes: "Did you just tell me your real name?"

"Uh—yeah, I mean—"

"Shut up." Peter dropped nimbly from the wall and stood still in front of them.

The three of them gasped at the slick movement, but he only stared at Chad, "Never tell anyone your real name. That's the whole point of wearing a mask."

"Yes, sir." Chad nodded hurriedly.

"And stop calling me sir." Peter swept his gaze across each of them, "I saw you guys in action just now... not bad."

"Yeah!" they cheered.

"That's why I'm giving you one chance, stop playing dress-up as me, go home." He warned, "You guys don't want to go down this path, trust me."

"What do you mean? You said we performed great!" Chad protested.

"You want to fight crime, fine." Peter raised his hand and shot a strand of Webbing to stick to the roof, "Just don't do it under my name and wearing my emblem. I don't want your blood on my hands."

"Who do you think—" Chad's voice was full of wounded anger.

"Simple, I'm not wearing hockey pads." After saying that, Peter leaped up, swung away on a strand of Webbing, and disappeared into the night, leaving the group of copycats both angry and confused.

Peter knew he should have ordered them directly to stop doing this, but then he would have been a hypocrite.

At least a few of them looked like adults—capable of making their own choices. He just didn't want them to lose their lives trying to imitate him.

He swung across the city for a while, stopped a few robberies, and intercepted a high-speed car chase near Harlem.

As the night grew late, he was getting ready to head home when he suddenly saw something in the night sky flying straight toward him.

He recognized the armor at a glance, so he flipped down onto a rooftop and waited.

Tony Stark slowly descended, wearing a brand-new, larger, and redder suit of armor.

When the faceplate lifted, that face carried a look of fatigue.

Peter whistled: "Whoa Tony, nice new threads."

"Thanks, took a while to tinker with it." Tony shut off his thrusters and sat down beside him. The two of them looked out together at the glimmering city lights.

"It's pretty quiet tonight." Peter said.

"Can this city ever be quiet?"

"It can," Peter nodded, "You've seen it at its most clamorous, nights like this are just like nothing ever happened."

He turned his head to look at Tony, his nostrils catching a faint scent of fear—not the panic from being attacked, but something more subtle, like the lingering residue of memory.

He weighed his words for a moment before speaking: "Have you been doing okay lately?"

"What do you mean?"

"I can spot PTSD from a mile away, Tony. You can fool Pepper, you can fool everyone else, but you can't fool me."

Peter's tone was a bit direct, but he had to make Tony face the problem.

Tony was silent for a moment, then admitted in a low voice: "I'm... getting better. New ideas keep popping into my head, and tinkering with inventions helps me concentrate."

"That's good." Peter nodded, "If you ever want to talk to someone, I'm always around."

"Isn't that the kind of thing I, the adult, should be saying to you?"

Peter chuckled: "Yeah, sure."

After chatting for a bit, Tony asked about his summer vacation experiences.

"Not bad, fought an alien army, pretty cool. Oh, and I also got my dad's old car, a pile of junk, but I managed to get it running anyway."

Tony raised an eyebrow: "Not bad. My old man never gave me anything, fatherly love is a rare thing."

"You never received any gifts?" Peter was a bit surprised.

"Whether it's birthdays or anything else." Tony shrugged, "He always said I had to earn it myself instead of just holding out my hand."

"Sounds like a pretty complicated man."

"He was just a jerk."

"I think my dad was even more of a jerk." Peter let out a light chuckle.

"How so?"

Peter looked at Tony. He knew many things about this man, but the one thing he was most certain of was that Tony was loyal to the people he cared about down to his bones. He believed he was one of them.

So he took a deep breath and confessed: "My superpowers... are because he experimented on me when I was an infant."

Tony's gaze suddenly turned cold: "What?"

"He was a genius, and his research direction was related to Captain America's Super Soldier Serum. I don't know the details, but he messed with my blood, making it... more special. I don't know what exactly he did to me, but I became like this because of him."

"Fuck." Tony spat out a single word, rage surging across his face, which then turned into deep pity, "Peter, I'm so sorry... that crap actually happened to you."

Peter shrugged: "Forget it, don't take it to heart. It's also because of him that I became a superhero. Consider it a good deed he did."

"He experimented on his own biological child—"

"—Just a guess," Peter interrupted, "I'm not sure."

Tony looked at him intently, and finally sighed: "Then go find out."

Peter was taken aback, then nodded: "Yeah, I think so too." He owed the original Peter the truth. That guy must have wanted to figure out what had happened.

He unzipped his mask, revealing his face: "Can you help me out?"

Tony looked at him: "What do you need?"

"I checked his records with Susan at the Baxter Building, but apart from graduating from college and getting a Dr. degree, I couldn't find anything about what he did after graduation. Absolutely no records, completely blank. I was thinking, if you have some free time—"

"Hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database, use their resources to look up your old man, and make sure Fury or anyone else doesn't find out?" Tony grinned widely, "Of course."