A Tangled Mess

"Alright, I have to go to school with Gwen tomorrow. If I don't run into any trouble on the way, and if I have to leave midway because of trouble, then I won't be able to hide my identity from Gwen at all."

It was past ten at night when Peter sneaked out of his house. The web fluid drew silver arcs through the Queens night, and he swung towards Manhattan like a shadow. Avengers Tower stood tall in the darkness, with only a few scattered windows glowing faintly. J.A.R.V.I.S. had opened the door for him in advance. Peter landed lightly, habitually dusting off nonexistent dust from his suit.

"Good evening, J.A.R.V.I.S. How are the Avengers' missions going?"

[All external communications were interrupted after the Quinjet entered Wakandan airspace. The only data transmission record occurred within the Wakandan royal palace.]

That shouldn't be a problem. The Avengers entered the Wakandan royal palace, but due to Wakanda's unique nature, the connection was lost. After Peter roughly understood the intelligence, he stopped paying attention to the Avengers and turned his focus to two other matters: First, whether the new imitator was the escaped Chameleon or just Mysterio, and second, why Carl King was tracking him, and if he had discovered anything.

"Let's do the easy one first, J.A.R.V.I.S., help me cross-reference the profile of Carl King, a freshman at Midtown High School, with all known cameras in New York. I want to see exactly what he knows."

J.A.R.V.I.S. quickly found the first piece of information Peter needed from various media cameras. On the night Spider-Man fought Scarecrow, Carl King appeared at the scene and lingered around the battlefield for a while after the fight ended.

There seemed to be nothing else after that. Peter then had J.A.R.V.I.S. compare the parts of himself that were captured by cameras, using a ten-minute interval from the same camera as a boundary. As expected, all the clips occurred within Midtown High School.

It seemed like there were no issues...

Peter's eyes sharpened, and he found the clip he needed. It was from that night, after he went to the school lab to mix new web fluid, Carl King also entered. He might have found some web fluid that hadn't degraded yet, and since Carl was the one who put that spider on his neck, he started to suspect him.

He wouldn't be that paranoid though.

"Is he worried about my revenge? Alright, Carl, then you'll have to figure out yourself that I won't do anything to you. Until then, please continue to be worried."

Peter, who had never researched the villain "the thousands" at all, bypassed Carl and instead had J.A.R.V.I.S. retrieve information about Chameleon. Both J.A.R.V.I.S. and the NYPD lived up to expectations – Chameleon had indeed escaped again.

It was unclear whose corrupt cops let Chameleon out. Chameleon then escaped, and there were some unusual circumstances along the way: "The Punisher" Frank Castle attempted to kill Chameleon, but he still targeted the wrong person. Chameleon had already slipped away and his whereabouts were currently unknown.

"The Punisher? He's been hunting Chameleon for a long time?"

[According to existing records, Frank Castle has undertaken more than five operations against Dimitri Sneshkov, all of which ended in failure.]

"Can you find out why? No? Alright."

After briefly sorting through the current clues, Peter roughly deduced the situation: First, Chameleon was cooperating with Mysterio, and Mysterio's equipment was stolen by Scarecrow. To cover for Scarecrow's theft, someone organized large-scale bank robberies as a diversion.

Now, Mysterio and Chameleon were cooperating. Initially, they tried to smear him, which indicated that there must be a mastermind behind these people, intending to get rid of Spider-Man. Whether it was direct elimination or discrediting him. As for the reason, after carefully considering all of Spider-Man's actions so far, Peter came to only one conclusion: the other party was the one acquiring that large batch of Chitauri parts in New York and then modifying them into weapons for sale. After all, Spider-Man had been dealing with these smugglers wielding high-tech weapons everywhere for so long.

Who could it be? Kingpin? Hammerhead? Tombstone? There were quite a few big shots in New York's underworld, so it was hard to say who it was specifically for a moment.

But no matter what, Chameleon's objective was very clear: to eliminate Spider-Man.

"But Chameleon is being targeted by The Punisher. If he continues to smear Spider-Man, he'll be recognized as a fake by The Punisher. Because of this, he has to imitate me and do what a superhero should do. This is truly ironic."

And the Chameleon that appeared now was definitely a trap. Although Peter couldn't determine the specifics of the trap yet, such as a group of thugs, a bomb trap, or the mastermind hiring a supervillain skilled in combat. However, if Peter went to the meeting, he would definitely fall into the trap. Even if this trap might not be effective against him, but...

Why did he have to walk into this trap?

Isn't there The Punisher?

"I need to have a chat with The Punisher. He must be closely monitoring any appearances of Spider-Man. I should be able to find him quite easily... if he doesn't open fire on me. He shouldn't be that violent, right?"

Peter was sure that The Punisher, who had been hunting Chameleon for so long, must know a lot about Chameleon. He just needed to confirm whether Chameleon was truly unforgivable, or if, like Herman, he wasn't inherently beyond redemption.

—

"Alright, I'll state my conclusion first. Spider-Man is probably a student. A high school student or a college student, a high school student is more likely."

As a detective, MacDonald Gargan might have had questionable morals, but as a detective, he certainly possessed professional integrity. He compiled his investigation results and looked at his two temporary teammates and Kingpin. Kingpin had brought over a Taishi chair from the East and sat on only half of it, smiling gently and gesturing for MacDonald to continue.

"Okay, this is my summary of his appearance times. You can clearly see the difference between weekdays and holidays, and a significant distinction on weekdays. He rarely appears between 8 AM and 3 PM. This time slot is definitely not for work; it can only be for school. I cross-referenced the class schedules of all schools in the Manhattan area, and seven schools' schedules fit the requirements."

"Very good, Mr. Gargan."

Kingpin took the A4 paper with the names of the seven schools printed on it from MacDonald. After a quick glance, he handed it to Prowler, who was standing beside him, with satisfaction. "If we fail to eliminate Spider-Man for too long, this list might be very useful. However, for now, let's consider how to eliminate Spider-Man directly. I've already made arrangements. An entire building under construction, not under Fisk Industries, has been equipped with enough explosives to kill any living creature. Even if it doesn't kill them, the collapsing debris will be enough to bury Spider-Man."

"Now we just need to find a suitable time to let Spider-Man discover us while he's in action, and we can lure him into our trap."

Kingpin extended his palm, as if holding an invisible spider in his palm. He clenched his fist tightly.

"Then, once and for all, eliminate Spider-Man."