9

Peter sat shivering on a jungle gym at the edge of a playground near the lakeshore. Iron Man hovered nearby, listening as Peter told the story. “And then this flying guy grabbed me—he looked like a monster!” He caught himself, not wanting to seem scared in front of Iron Man. “I mean, I wasn’t scared. I knew he wasn’t a monster.”

A thought occurred to him. He was out in the middle of Queens, and Iron Man just happened to be in the neighborhood? “Wait,” Peter said. “How’d you even find me? Did you put a tracker in my suit?”

“I put everything in your suit,” Iron Man said. “Including this heater.”

Iron Man didn’t move, but Peter felt the suit warm up. Steam rose into the night air as he sighed. “Oooh, that’s good. I was fine, by the way. You didn’t have to come all the way out here—”

“Oh, I’m not there,” Iron Man said. His visor opened and Peter saw the suit of armor that had saved his life was empty.

Eight thousand miles away, Tony Stark took a drink from a passing waiter and strolled across the grounds of a Hindu temple, where he was attending a wedding. “You’re lucky this place has Wi-Fi or you’d be dead right now.” Through augmented-reality lenses in his glasses, Tony watched Peter via the Iron Man armor’s video feed.

“I had a strategy,” Peter protested.

“What, to die and fight him in the afterlife?”

“That guy’s the source of those weapons. I gotta take him down!”

“Take him down?” Tony echoed. “Easy, Crockett. Stay out of it. There are people who handle this sort of thing.”

“Who, the Avengers?”

“Uh, no. This is a little below their pay grade, but trust me. Just drop it.”

“Why?” Peter whined.

Tony didn’t have much experience with teenagers, and in general didn’t have much patience for people arguing with him. “Because I said so!” he snapped. Then he added, “Sorry” to the crowd as he saw people turning to look at him.

“It’s okay,” Peter said, “but—”

“Not you. Look, forget the flying guy.”

Confused, Peter asked, “Are you talking to me now?”

“Yes,” Tony said, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. “Just—stay closer to the ground, in Queens ... build up your game helping the little people. Like that old lady who bought you the churro.”

Peter winced. Why did he have to mention the churro? “But I’m ready for more!”

“No,” Tony said firmly. “You’re not.”

Now Peter was getting frustrated. “That’s not what you thought when I took on Captain America.”

“Kid, if Cap had wanted to lay you out, he would’ve. Believe me.” Tony paused, not wanting Peter to feel bad about himself. “Look,” he went on in a calmer tone. “Just keep it local. Try to be, you know, a ... friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

“For how much longer?” Peter wanted to know. “Don’t say after high school.”

“How about nobody says anything? Ten seconds, no talking: go.” Peter waited. Tony stood in the middle of the wedding festivities, watching people go by and thinking the situation over. Then he walked toward his car.

Back in the park, still sitting on the jungle gym, Peter waited until he’d counted to ten. Then he asked, “Are you still there?” He heard the sound of a car starting. “Wait, are you driving?”

“How about after college?” Tony suggested. “Have you thought about where you want to go?”

“College?!” Peter shouted. “But I—”

“Mr. Stark is no longer connected,” the Iron Man suit said. Its visor closed and the suit jetted away into the sky, leaving Peter alone.

Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, huh? Peter had his sights set a little higher than that. No matter what Tony Stark said, he was going to find out who the guy in the wing suit was. And he was going to stop him. That would prove he was ready to be an Avenger.

The first thing he did was search along the road for the weapon he’d seen fall out of the van. It took a while, but eventually he found it, broken into several pieces. One of them was a housing for a weird glowing, purple ... crystal? Stone? It was hard to tell. But it was definitely not ordinary. Chitauri? Ultron? Or something else? Peter grinned, imagining how he was going to unlock its secrets.

His phone rang. It was Ned. Peter answered. “Ned, don’t worry. I’m coming back to the party.”

“Yeah, I was calling to say maybe you shouldn’t,” Ned said. “Flash has the whole party doing a chant about you.”

Peter could hear the chant in the background, over the music. It was an incredibly unfortunate pun on his name, and everyone there seemed to be shouting it loudly and happily.

Ned said something else, but Peter wasn’t paying attention anymore. That was just the perfect end to this night. icHJkeR535FysQl1qq1ZlS4Zqtd5zbFal9rwAdMJgefnsC0IGiyUIs6HjWh0IswM