Prologue

It was nearing midnight as Peter landed on a rooftop overlooking the city. He knew it was late and remembered the pile of unfinished homework waiting for him in his room. With a sigh he took off his mask and rubbed his eyes. Normally he would stay out much later but his lack of sleep from too many late nights was beginning to catch up with him. A siren went off in the distance and a crash could be heard from somewhere nearby, but Peter was running on empty. He rubbed his eyes again and sat down, looking at the old cemetery across the street. Everything seemed normal, a little quiet for a typical night in the city, but normal.

Peter had dozed off but jolted awake to the sound of screeching tires on the road below him. He threw his mask back on and saw three men unload from a black van as another pulled in next to it. Two more men climbed out of the second van, armed with weapons half the size of their bodies.

"Something isn't right..." he whispered to himself as he listened to the quiet conversation across the street.

"How long are we going to wait for it?"

"Relax, our weapon will be here in due time."

One man stood over the others unarmed as the others readily clutched their weapons, their fingers ready to pull the trigger.

"Karen, call Mr. Stark," Peter whispered. He knew from the beginning that something wasn't right but the feeling in his stomach continued to grow as he watched the men patrol through the cemetery.

He sighed when there was no answer but left a message. "Hey, Mr. Stark. There's some weird stuff going on over here. Um, I think I'm on Walnut, but I'm not too sure. I'm at that old cemetery, you know the one. Just grab my location from Karen. There's five guys- ha five guys- um yeah there's five guys here and-shoot! I think they saw me!"

Peter ducked just in time as a blast shot through the space where he was just standing.

"They definitely saw me! Mr. Stark I gotta go!"

He immediately ended the message and swung across the street to the stone building neighboring the cemetery.

Peter assumed someone had called for backup because as soon as he landed, two more vans arrived and spit out four men, each one armed with a different weapon. He swore under his breath and crouched down to analyze the situation. He heard the leader bark orders in a harsh sounding language and watched as two men pull a large metal crate out of the back of one of the original vans.

"Alright here goes nothing." He braced himself and swung down into the middle of the circle.

"Hey there fellas. Sorry to be the one to tell you the bad news, but the bodybuilding competition was last week. You're late."

Peter mentally chided himself as the men just stood there staring at him, probably out of confusion at how young he sounded. He gulped and decided to break the silence.

"Uh, so if you could get on your way..."

Peters words died out as he noticed the red patch on the arm of one of the men.

"Oh man," he mumbled quietly. In that instant, the men reacted in sync and launched for the superhero. Peter reacted immediately and sprang up into the air to avoid the collision, then flipped behind the group.

Peter lost track of what happened next. There were blurs of punches and kicks. A hit to the head. A kick to the chest. He felt a rope wrap around his left arm and flew backward onto the ground. He kicked the legs of one man and watched as he stumbled backward to regain his balance. Peter took this brief moment to stand again and barely dodge a blast from a gun. He yelped as a man slammed him to the ground and hovered over him. A man somewhere nearby shouted orders in the same foreign language, as Peter struggled to escape the grasp pinning him down.

Peter blinked and the man was gone, instead, a suit of red and gold in his place.

"You good kid?"

"Mr. Stark! I-" Peter was cut short by another blast and the duo leapt into action.

A punch. A kick. A blast. Peter used a tree to swing and kick a man in the chest. The gun fired and hit Peter, knocking him to the ground. He sharply inhaled when he hit the ground.

"Kid!" He heard a voice and then a blast in the distance that he knew belonged to Tony.

"I'm good, I'm good," Peter groaned as he sat up and the inventor appeared in front of him.

"Come on kid, let's get you home."

"But-"

"They're taken care of. All eight of them."

"Nine."

"What?"

"There were nine of them."

Before Tony could speak, an electric current shocked through the suit and paralyzed it, trapping him inside. He could only watch as a man walked out from the shadows toward Peter, pushing him down with a boot on his chest then stopping to face the man in the suit. Tony knew that Peter couldn't move, whether it was out of fear or pain he couldn't tell. It may have been both.

"Thank you for bringing us our weapon, Tony Stark," the man said in his thick accent.

"The suit? Like hell you can have it," Tony spoke through his metal cage.

"Your suit means nothing to us."

"Then what..." His words faded as the man turned to face Peter.

"The spider."

Peter felt the blood drain from his face and was thankful that his mask was still on so that Tony couldn't tell how afraid he was.

"Goodnight Spider." He kicked Peter in the head and it gently lolled to the side.

"Kid!" Tony curiously attempted to break out of his metal prison as the man dragged Peters unconscious form away from his field of view. He heard the vans drive away as he continued to yell for his kid.

Tony didn't know how long he remained trapped until he heard a click and watched as the suit disappeared from around him. He sank to his knees, covering his tear stained face with his hands. The cemetery was empty other than himself. He shakily stood and staggered to where Peter had laid on the ground in front of him.

In the bare space laid a torn red patch. A skull with tentacles stared up at him.