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chapter twelve

     Peter settled down beside Ned, finally have arriving to the lunch table.
     "What took you so long?" The other boy asked through muffled chews.
     "The teacher said I'd been slacking off," Peter shrugged. "Anyways, I have something to tell you that happened this morning!"
     "Ooh, okay," Ned turned to face Peter with sparkling eyes, holding his sandwich in front of him as he waited.
     "Okay so I was on the bus, like every morning, and..." he trailed off, realizing he had never gotten the chance to tell Ned about the HYDRA organization.
"And...?" Ned looked at him expectantly, swallowing a bite.
"Remember when I told you about getting shot? How I was taken to a sketchy place and the men that were there?" Peter asked, fidgeting with his jacket's zipper as he lowered his voice.
"Yeah...?" Ned narrowed his eyes, taking the hint that that Peter hadn't told him everything.
     "Well, uh, they told me they were like a new HYDRA... And they have agents that I keep running into," Peter explained, staring at his hands.
     "What do they want with you?" Ned asked, keeping his voice low too.
     "They said they wanted to recruit me... Also, they know that I'm Spider-Man because when I was escaping I had to use my webs," Peter bit his lip, realizing how bad it all sounded. 'Crap, how would I even go about telling Mr Stark this?'
     "Oh God, okay," Ned mumbled, clearly trying to process a plan.
     "And I ran into two of their agents on the bus this morning. One which I had fought before, and the other which I hadn't," Peter went on, hoping he wasn't overloading Ned with too much information. "Their names are numbers, it's weird. So far I've run into Two, Four, Eight, and now Five."
     "Have you told Mr Stark?" Ned asked suddenly, raising his eyebrows.
     "I... Well, no, but I've been busy!" He said quickly, trying to come up with excuses.
     "Peter," Ned said, training his eyes on him.
     "...Yeah?" Peter squirmed in his seat, trying to avoid his friend's steely gaze. Ned's evil stare was very intimidating. (At least, to Peter it was.)
     "Tell him," he said, taking Peter by the shoulders and playfully shaking him. "Seriously dude."
     "Why?" Peter groaned. "I need to prove to him that I don't need his help!"
     Ned snorted at that, which earned him a frown from Peter.
     "Peter you're just a kid, he's an Avenger! He can help you," Ned reasoned, but Peter didn't budge.
     "I'd just be bothering him if I told him!" He insisted.
     "If these guys are like HYDRA, you need to tell the Avengers!" Ned argued back. "This isn't just The Vulture. This is big."
Peter knew Ned was right, so he just sighed in return.

After a moments of silence, Ned tilted his head.
"Hey, you said their names are numbers, right?" He asked. Peter simply nodded in return. "Do you think their numbers are just random or...?"
"Well, come to think of it, the agents have mentioned that Two is second in command. Maybe... Maybe their number's are their ranking!" Peter's eyes sparked as they began the start of a theory.
"I wonder how many agents there have, if you've met the ones with the highest numbers. That means there can't be too many, right?"
"Maybe only the best assassins are in numbers," Ned suggested. "Maybe the rest of them are... I don't know."
"We need more information to take them down," Peter said, determination in his voice.
"You sure you up to that? They could probably kill you in like... two seconds."
"Gee, thanks Ned," Peter replied, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Ned just shrugged.
"I just wanna make sure you know what we're getting into," Ned said. "They're basically like HYDRA, right? HYDRA Agents were trained to kill without sympathy. Without emotion at all, actually."
"But this seems different! They were talking to me and even talking with each other as a team! The two I saw this morning, Four and Five, looked like they were lovers!" Peter said. Ned frowned as he processed the information.
"I wonder what their motive is. I mean, what kind of organization is run like that? HYDRA was terrible, and yet by the sounds of it, these people seem... Almost normal. Do you think they were even brainwashed?" Ned asked, his questions piling up.
"I don't know. I do know that we need to find out. And as far as I know, there's only one way to do that. Can I trust you to be my guy in the chair?" Peter asked, looking up as the bell rang. The period was over. Ned looked hesitant before nodding, and they shook hands before departing.