Homecoming Invitation

When Peter headed out, J. Jonah Jameson was still reporting on the list of Hydra members discovered within the government. There were already more than twenty Hydra members in Congress alone, spread across both parties. Coupled with the incident earlier that year, when the former vice president had conspired with Hydra's A.I.M. company to kidnap the president, the entire Matthew Ellis administration's approval ratings had plummeted in less than a year.

President Ellis himself certainly had reason to cry foul. After all, he had not actually done anything. How had he ended up saddled with this mess?

But there was no helping it. Even if you had not done it, in an elected country, whether you had done it was not what mattered. What mattered was when the bomb went off.

JJJ, on the other hand, was having a great time. He had been firing away nonstop these past few days, feeling utterly refreshed. He did not even have time to rant about Spider-Man.

So what was Spider-Man doing? Oh, he was busy heading out to school.

"You didn't take me with you again."

"To be precise, I never took you with me any time, Gwen."

Peter, the last one out, locked the front door and gave her that honest answer. Gwen clearly did not like hearing it. "You should have taken me with you. S.H.I.E.L.D. and the X-Men are going to wipe out Hydra bases elsewhere, but I don't have anything to do. Something this huge happened, and I'm the only one sitting around doing nothing."

"Doesn't that mean you're the only Spider-Man in New York right now? That just proves New York needs you."

Peter finished locking the door as he spoke, but Gwen, walking beside him, was clearly unhappy with his answer. "I'm not ordinary. I have