14

Chapter 14: things go from good to bad to worse

Notes:

1) I'm posting this just before I go to sleep so if there's any grammar or formatting errors I'll get to them eventually.

EDIT: GO READ THE SECOND HALF, THERE'S MORE NOW!!

2) Now that we're past Vulture a lot of timeskips will occur. Any major arcs will have brief time mentions but I have to cover the span of almost 2 years somehow, right?

3) Enjoy the chapter and leave a kudos and comment!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"Underoos, care to explain why DUM-E knows how to make a smoothie without motor oil in it?" Tony asked, his eyebrows raised as he swirled the smoothie in his mug. Hey, he had to compromise with something in the lab and he would rather it was a mug than a bowl!

"Well," he said as he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I had to wait for the moderations I'd made to Karen's code to download and then I had to wait for my taser-webs to be implemented into the wrists of my suit so…why not? It benefits everyone!" He smiled.

"How so?"

"We get smoothies, DUM-E learns something new and his feelings aren't hurt."

"Fair. It's a good smoothie, thanks DUM-E," he said, lifting his mug like it was a champagne glass as he thanked the robot, chuckling when DUM-E happily waved its arm.

Saturday morning had been spent training and improving his defence skills – mainly his blocking since he had taken a hit from Shifter that would have been blocked easily if he hadn't been so distracted. Then Tony had ordered Chinese for lunch and he had completed some physics notes whilst he had waited for their order to arrive.

There had been enough food to feed a small army including two bags -the full sized family-pack size, not the small ones he bought in convenience stores- a massive pile of spring rolls, lots of chicken chow mien and some curries with rice.

Tony had asked about his metabolism around the third week of his internship and had run some tests on it before finding out he had a metabolism faster than Captain America's.

In his defence, he didn't know why the spider bite had given him a fast metabolism when spiders generally had a slow metabolism. It probably related to his near-instant healing rate and how much exercise he did, after all, no one went traipsing around as a vigilante and managed to eat less than 3 meals a day.

Not that he ate less on purpose, which is what he had to explain to Tony. He and May couldn't always afford what was needed and he would work to earn extra money for his metabolism, but he didn't have the time. He couldn't help that and he hadn't reached the point of collapsing recently (not that he remembered much considering 2016 was years ago to him.)

A week later and Tony had created a batch of protein bars which accounted for a full meal for him. He would snack on them before or after patrol and he had a box of them in his desk for emergencies, meaning when he was in danger of passing out. Ned and MJ each had one in their schoolbags and he had given Ned a stash in case he ever crashed at his house.

There were often days where he struggled to hold back tears whenever he was around Tony or whenever his mentor did such a meaningful gesture that he was overwhelmed with gratefulness. He hadn't valued what he had at the time, too absorbed with the fact he was lucky enough to get to know Tony as a human, not just Iron Man and what he presented himself as to the press.

He knew how much Tony blamed himself for what happened in Sokovia and the aftermath. He had wanted the Avengers to be held accountable for any damages they caused but hadn't wanted the Avengers to split apart.

He hadn't wanted Steve, Bucky, Wanda, Clint, Sam and Scott to leave and become fugitives. Was Scott even an Avenger at the time? He didn't know.

He didn't blame Tony in the slightest. When he had been recruited -okay, more like blackmailed, but he had forgiven him a long time ago- to bring the other Avengers back, he had been more focused on the fact he would fight alongside Tony Stark, his literal idol, than what the cause was for.

If someone had asked him for his reasons for fighting, he would have flushed in embarrassment before saying his childishness and urge to prove himself made him look past the main reason for fighting.

The Sokovia Accords were a fucking mess and amendments weren't going through fast enough for important issues to rectified in time. Spending some time researching the Accords and the impacts they had on everyone helped him more than he realised.

It would hold the Avengers accountable for any damages they made but forced any enhanced individuals to reveal and register their secret identities to keep their powers regulated.

Yeah, he wasn't on board with that. Tony had taken advantage of his naivety and let him fight but he could see the angle he was coming from. He could also understand why Steve had been against the Act. He wasn't going to reveal his identity and allow himself to be regulated by Ross and whoever else was chasing him -probably Nick Fury- when it endangered himself and everyone he knew.

He hadn't been told what had happened to Tony after Happy had dropped him off at his apartment but it hadn't been good from what he could tell when the actual internship happened. There were moments when his mentor had stared at whatever was in his hands, completely trapped in a memory and struggling to fight his inner demons. That had prompted him to teach DUM-E how to make smoothies.

Offering Tony a smoothie had given him an excuse to get his attention and hopefully keep him in the present, regardless of what was going on in his mind. Even if it was for a few minutes, it grounded Tony and that was all he could do at the time.

He knew there was something to do with Siberia and Steve and Bucky but hadn't been told much else but he hadn't pried. If he'd had more time from before then he would've let Tony open up to him or maybe Happy would have told him if he was that desperate, but it was none of his business and he wanted Tony to trust him if he was going to find out.

"Spider-suit moderations are complete," Karen announced on his phone.

"Ah, so you installed her on your phone," Tony said. "I thought you did that last week?"

"I did," he replied casually as he strolled over to his computer and unplugged the cable connecting it to the suit. "But I had to uninstall her after I realised something went wrong with the interface. There was something wrong with the code – she mentioned someone called Tadashi? I haven't mentioned anything about Big Hero 6 to her so…"

"Tadashi was another one of my AIs. He was coded alongside FRIDAY."

His eyes widened. "Woah, you made another AI? That's awesome! What was Tadashi meant to do?"

"I'm…not completely sure." Tony shrugged. "He was made alongside Vision and FRIDAY but I never uploaded him to the mainframe. He was intended to be a backup AI."

"So he isn't used for anything?"

"Nope."

"Can we use him for something? I- I mean if you want him to be used, of course!" He stammered. "I wouldn't want to use him for something else if you had plans for him already-"

"Kid, it's fine." Tony smiled wryly. "I said he was going to be used as a backup AI but never said anything about keeping him for my use. What did you have in mind?"

"Holy crap, okay, well I thought maybe he could be used for medical care specifically because there's this character in Big Hero 6 with the same name and maybe he could help in the med bay-"

He proceeded to ramble about Tadashi's uses if they coded him specifically for medical needs, mentioning how Doctor Cho could use him to aid her when she carried out her research on skin cell replication and limb regeneration and how Tadashi could help with paralysis if they did things right.

Oh and what if they could use Tadashi to quickly analyse a person's blood and match the best medicines or procedures for use -with approval from doctors because he didn't have a PhD and this was all hypothetical- and programme him to assist in operations.

He paused when he realised Tony had made a list of uses on his computer and had projected it so it looked like a spider diagram. The lights had dimmed and verdant projections outlined the potential uses he had rambled on about for who knows how long.

Flushing in embarrassment when Tony raised a questioning eyebrow, he fumbled with his phone and unintentionally provided himself with a distraction when he dropped it. Ducking down, he gave himself a couple of seconds to calm his rapid heartbeat before standing up.

"You're not embarrassed, are you?" Tony asked.

"I'm not used to someone listening to me go on for that long," he managed to say, curling into himself slightly as his shoulders inched forwards until he forced to straighten. He didn't know why he had become so embarrassed when he was used to Flash humiliating him on a daily basis. He had literally given the guy a thumbs up when he had called him a dickwad in Europe!

Then again, Flash was nowhere near Tony's level of cool and having his idol and father-figure listen to him and acknowledge his ideas after being dead for a year had reduced him to a confused state at times. There were days when he had no idea what to do with himself and had to follow Tony's instructions and other days where he felt confident and enjoyed himself.

"Can't understand why you'd feel like that when you have all these amazing ideas in your head." Tony gestured to the projected spider diagram. "Speaking of ideas, what about food? Fri, what's the time?"

"It's 4 PM boss."

"Perfect. Fancy a snack or are we good to carry on?"

"Uh…" He paused, waiting for his stomach to give an indication of whether it needed something or not. It had sort of become its own entity, often deciding when it wanted something or if it could wait for a while. That was mainly on patrol though. "Nah, I'm good to carry on. Do you have anything you wanna add for Tadashi?"

"I'm working with some nanotechnology for a couple of projects." His heart skipped a beat. Tony was developing the Mark 50 suit! "I'm thinking that when I perfect it for those projects than we can incorporate some of it for Tadashi to use in procedures for accuracy or specific tools that require manoeuvrability."

Rolling from the balls of his feet to his tiptoes as he practically bounced in excitement, he added to the spider diagram as ideas for incorporating nanotechnology, a highly advanced AI and developments in the medical field flew to his mind. By the end of the hour they had added at least a dozen more ideas to the projection.

Mr Know-It-All

Nice job w the onion servers. Most

of the sales have gone down but

Schultz has gone crazy. He has a

ton of crimes planned for jewellery

stores across Midtown and Greenwich.

Sent an anonymous tip to the cops but

you'll want to help w this one. Here's

the ones I know about:

He scanned through the locations and times Aaron had sent him, eyes widening at how many crimes Shocker had planned. The police would be spread thin across a dozen locations in Midtown, all of which were a fifteen minute drive from each other. It was elaborate and incredibly annoying for everyone – undoubtedly Shocker's plan.

He could handle this. He could do it. Yep, he could totally do it.

Why did Shocker have to pick the day school broke up for the Christmas holidays to plan an incredibly detailed heist when all he wanted to do was pass out from the obscene amount of tests his teachers had given him?

Obviously he hadn't revised as much as he had before since he knew what he needed to know but for some dumb reason criminals had decided Christmas was the optimal time to commit as many crimes as possible.

Blinking rapidly to wake himself up, he took a couple of deep breaths before jumping off of the rooftop he was perched on and swung to the first location, thankful the suit heater was on.

One of his moderations had been for it to activate once his body temperature was below a certain level and once it had risen to roughly 36 degrees Celsius then it would switch off. Winter had been particularly cruel in 2016 – he remembered one vicious night when he had collapsed in an alley from lethargy after he had collapsed in a snow bank and his heater had been broken and he hadn't had time to fix it.

It had been a massive mistake but he had been suffering from a mild concussion which he could blame for his lack of coordination when he hadn't moved out of the way of a huge metal sign hanging from a Chinese shop, hence why he fell in the snow bank in the first place.

The navy sky was the last remainder of the twilight that had hazed the city, leaving him at the mercy of various streetlights as he swung above the railway and sprinted along a train before shooting a web at the nearest building and swinging away.

The first jewellery shop was renowned for selling some of the most precious sapphires in the USA and was a popular tourist attraction – a major risk considering it was about to be attacked. He could let the police do their job as long as he kept the civilians away and he didn't know what the police had planned. What if they hadn't done anything? They didn't always act on anonymous tips.

Shocker couldn't go to all of the jewellery shops considering the heists were planned within five minutes of each other. He would probably rob whichever ones he fancied and leave his lackeys to take the rest.

It didn't make sense to him though. Why leave the weapons business and rob stores?

Had Scorpion fired Shocker after Toomes's arrest? Had Shocker gone rogue? Was there a bigger plan that neither him nor Aaron knew about?

The latter was the most likely possibility. Scorpion was a smart man, he wouldn't fire Shocker when he owned some of the most powerful and expensive alien technology on the market. Maybe robbing the stores was a diversion for an even bigger heist? Stretch the police thin then commit a crime halfway across the city that would take too long for anyone to get to.

He sighed as Karen announced he was a couple of minutes away from the first shop. Maybe he was overthinking. He hadn't told Tony any of this, mainly because he was worried he would tell him to leave the police to it. The rational part of his mind told him that wouldn't happen because Tony knew he had made it his job to wrangle all the alien technology into one place since he had been right about Toomes and he wouldn't stand down.

Dropping down to a lamppost, he scanned the area for anyone before a notification pinged up on his HUD saying a police car was nearby. So they had paid attention to the tip!

His heart dropped to his stomach when he realised there were a lot of civilians in the area, all of them wearing some sort of Christmas-themed clothes with shopping bags in hand. There were a couple in the jewellery store and a couple were lingering outside as they looked at the display. He checked the time, letting out a relieved breath when he saw there were a few minutes until the shop was meant to be attacked.

Why hadn't the police secured the area if they knew there was a threat? He could only ponder that when-

Bang!

Shrieks sounded as people scattered away from the jewellery shop, cowering as they raised their hands to cover their heads or protect their children. The couple who had been standing in front of the shop had ducked and were on the floor and the people inside weren't in view -they had probably thrown themselves to the floor- as the front glass shattered and rained on the concrete.

Cursing under his breath, he sprinted to the couple and helped them to their feet before they ran away. Sirens screamed in the distance as another gunshot rang out and the glass on the door splintered.

"Karen, scan the area for people," he ordered as he opened the door and tensed.

A woman and her child were behind one of the counters and a man knelt next to the store owner, his hands shaking and bloody as he stemmed the blood coming from the poor man's shoulder. Crimson stained the cream carpet and there was some splattered on the wooden wall.

"I'm here to help," he said placatingly as the child started to cry, her face reddening as her mother hugged her with a hand protectively on top of the child's head. He turned to face the man stopping the shopkeeper from bleeding out. "Sir, is the bullet in or out?"

"It's- it's out, it's somewhere on the floor," the man stammered. He would probably go into shock later but hopefully the paramedics would be here by then.

He forced himself to ignore the overwhelming wave of shame and guilt from spilling into his mind as he made a makeshift bandage with one of the curtains on the side of the undamaged display, quickly wrapping it around the shopkeeper's shoulder to stem the blood flow as Karen instructed him on what to do. He had to keep going to keep people safe.

"Spider-Man?"

He turned around to see Officer Davis in the doorway with another police officer behind him -not the same asshole from before- before he made sure the bandage was secure.

"Hey man, you'll be fine as long as you don't jostle it too much. Medics are on the way," he assured the shopkeeper, nervously biting his lip as the man paled to the point he looked white. Hopefully he had insurance.

Standing up, he turned to address Officer Davis.

"Is anyone outside injured?" He asked.

"No, all of it is property damage and everyone else fled. There are calls coming from three other locations but only the jewellery has been stolen," Officer Davis replied.

An idea popped into his mind.

"Do you know a man called Herman Schultz?"

"Herman?" The shopkeeper spoke weakly but with a distinctly Italian accent. "Yeah, I've known him since college…why?" He gritted his teeth as the other police officer assisted him as he sat on a chair, resting him on it for support.

"Did you guys ever fall out? Have any bad deals with customers?"

"Uh…there was this one time in 2015, right before he left to go do some shady stuff. Haven't seen him since."

This was bad. If Shocker was going for revenge on a personal level then there would definitely be some casualties if he didn't get to the other locations on time.

The police had covered the three other locations and he had decided he would let them carry on so he could get to the next person in danger. Shocker was out for blood and he would be screwed if he let anyone die because he wasn't fast enough and hadn't prepared any traps or some sort of preventative measure.

He sprinted into a famous jewellers by the sea front, thankful there weren't many tourists around now that the police had taken the tip seriously and were cordoning off places. It was a mad dash between each area as he ignored the police yelling at him with loudspeakers and hoped he could save some lives.

He had asked Karen to find as much background information on Schultz as she could access and all he had learned was that Schultz had a criminal record for theft but had escaped police custody before he could be trialled.

His past relations either weren't available or hidden behind a shedload of firewalls and whatnot that Karen was still hacking through. Why his information was behind a bunch of complex systems, he had no idea, but that must mean he wanted it hidden from prying eyes.

"Hi, excuse me ma'am, but you'll need to hide or run away from here within the next-" he checked his HUD, "-two minutes."

"What? Why?" She demanded, taking off her glasses and leaving them on the side. Martha Atwell, Ivy League graduate who had started one of the best businesses on the coast. He had no clue what relation Schultz had with her but her shop was a target and that was what mattered.

"I can't believe the police haven't been here yet," he muttered. "Your shop is a target for a man called Herman Schultz, you ever heard of him?"

"Herman…" She trailed off, running her hand through her ponytail. "Yeah, I know him! He tried to rob me a few years ago. He's back again?"

"Yeah, but with more lethal tech. I don't have time to explain now but let's go!" He exclaimed, opening the door as Karen scanned the area for him. He didn't want to leave anyone at risk of being shot.

Martha hurriedly followed him as she stashed something in her pocket, quickly closing and locking the door even though that would do nothing against a man with gauntlets that could shatter glass into fragments with one shot.

His Spidey-sense screamed in his head as he turned towards the seafront, his eyes widening when he realised who was in front of him. A man wearing a hoodie with a jacket that looked very similar to denim with yellow sleeves -it looked a bit like a construction worker's jacket- over it and black leather gloves was leaning against the railings.

His vibranium gauntlet gleamed under the lamplight.

Shocker had arrived.

Notes:

Anyone have ideas for crazy alien tech?