Walking the Tightrope 🕷 Peter Parker [2]

twenty four

Peter

He got a call from Mr. Stark in third period. He needed Peter at SI as soon as possible. He wasn't very forthcoming with the details. He didn't want to say anything over the phone, apparently. 

Peter felt like his head was gonna explode as he swung across the Queensboro bridge and into Manhattan. When he finally made it to Stark Industries, he was greeted at the front door by Happy Hogan. "Hey, kid, Boss's waiting for you upstairs," He said. Peter glanced around.

"Is the cleanup already done?" He asked. The building looked like it hadn't even been touched by a bomb.

Happy shrugged. "Doesn't take Tony too long to come up with the most effective way to get stuff cleaned up," He replied. "He said something about tiny clean up robots... I dunno, I hardly understand any of this." Happy sighed.

Tiny clean up robots? That sounded an awful lot like nanotech to Peter, but he didn't really have time to fanboy over that breakthrough.

Peter nodded, thanked Happy and sprinted up the stairs in his Spider-Man suit. When he made it to the lab, he was shocked. Now it definitely looked like a bomb had gone off in here. Or at least a struggle had definitely taken place. "Mr. Stark?" Peter called worriedly.

When he poked his head in the room, Peter sighed with relief. "Kid, there you are," Mr. Stark said as he walked over to him.

"Mr. Stark, what's going on?" Peter asked, tugging his mask off and looking around. "What happened here? It looks like one of your suits malfunctioned or something!"

Mr. Stark scratched the back of his head and then shoved his hands in his pockets. Peter raised an eyebrow at him. Mr. Stark was never this quiet. "Okay, we don't have a lot of time, kid," He said. "So I'm just gonna spit it out—David Cartwright and Immanuel Clements are gone." Peter's jaw dropped.

"What?!"

Mr. Stark sighed and nodded. "I don't know how he did it, but Cartwright hacked into the system. He managed to get control of one of the suits and used it to help him escape. Luckily, I was able to get control of the suit back before either of them could take it with them, but they're gone. We need to find them."

This was insane. Just when Peter thought their troubles with these two were over—

"How are we going to find them?" Peter asked. "They could've gone anywhere, and they probably skipped town to avoid getting in trouble for what they did!"

Mr. Stark placed a hand on Peter's shoulder in an attempt to both comfort him and calm him down. "Pete, calm down," He said. "It's going to be all right, I've already got FRIDAY working on finding them." Peter took several deep breaths and nodded.

Everything was going to be fine, Mr. Stark said so. "Boss, I suggest turning on the news," FRIDAY's voice interrupted the brief silence.

Mr. Stark furrowed his eyebrows, but did what his AI suggested nonetheless. He turned on the TV and sure enough, every local news station was reporting the same story: two men were inside Midtown High School and were holding the students hostage inside the cafeteria.

"Okay so—not great—not—not ideal," Mr. Stark stuttered out. Peter was already pulling his mask on and heading for the door. "Peter, wait! We need to be smart about this!"

Peter turned on his heel and faced him. "Since when are you ever smart about stuff like this?!" He demanded and then immediately regretted it when he saw the look on Mr. Stark's face. "Uh—I take that back—sorry—I'm—" He apologized quickly. "But I'm sorry, I have to go. Right now."