Chapter Summaries

Chen Mo and the Fantastic Four fought the Administrative Bureau’s aircraft and rescued its captives, while Hydra’s staged attack drew the heroes into a chaotic clash. Chen Mo and Steve secretly agreed to present a united front and investigate Hydra first, but the battle continued as Patriot was knocked into the dirt.

• Chen Mo boarded an Administrative Bureau transport, defeated the fake Black Spider and its soldiers, and helped the Fantastic Four disable the aircraft and repel the attack.
• Chen Mo and the Fantastic Four pursued another helicopter, rescued the prisoners aboard it, and forced it to crash in an empty lot.
• Steve, Falcon, Eli, and other heroes arrived as Doctor Octopus, Vulture, Sandman, and Rhino emerged, and Eli’s charge set off a sprawling fight.
• Chen Mo and Steve secretly discussed Hydra’s infiltration and agreed to stage their fight while investigating Hydra first and avoiding harm to the young heroes.
• Chen Mo and Steve publicly called for their sides to withdraw, but Patriot was kicked into the ground between them.

Chen Mo and Steve staged a fight at the printing plant while a hidden S.H.I.E.L.D. operative used the chaos to portray the Anti-Registration faction as divided. The Administrative Bureau planned a media campaign against Black Spider and the Daily Bugle, leaving the public narrative as its next weapon.

• Chen Mo mocked Patriot and taunted Steve, who struck him with his shield as their staged fight continued.
• Natasha and Matt Murdock detected a concealed Helicarrier hovering above the printing plant.
• A Hydra-marked S.H.I.E.L.D. operative ordered footage edited to show Black Spider fighting Captain America and the factions clashing, while footage of rescued detainees was removed.
• The Administrative Bureau media officer proposed linking Jameson and the Daily Bugle to Black Spider and accusing him of betraying the Anti-Registration faction.
• The operative and media officer agreed to focus their public attacks on Black Spider and portray him as seeking personal control over superheroes.

Jameson published evidence linking the Administrative Bureau’s communications and equipment to Hydra, triggering a public backlash that spread from protests and resignations to political investigations and collapsing contractor shares. As officials fell and public pressure mounted, Smithson avoided the fallout and was given temporary external coordination duties.

• Jameson received files connecting the Administrative Bureau’s equipment and communications systems to Hydra and used them to report on the link.
• The Daily Bugle’s report sold out, and New Yorkers protested as public trust in the Administrative Bureau plunged and officials faced resignations, suspensions, and investigations.
• Chen Mo watched the backlash with Tinkerer and joked that he had merely spilled a truckload of trash.
• Smithson avoided the purge by keeping quiet and following procedure, then received a temporary external coordination assignment.
• Administrative Bureau contractors lost business and share value, and construction of a Bronx support facility was halted.

As Congress tried to redirect attention from the Administrative Bureau’s Hydra scandal by demanding access to Stark Industries’ armor technology, Tony Stark prepared to attend an emergency inquiry. Rhodey also faced a request to open War Machine’s interface, and Tony planned to answer the subpoena by confronting the lawmakers.

• Lawmakers decided to frame the scandal as Superheroes running out of control, while an Administrative Bureau official objected that the public wanted answers about Hydra’s ties to the bureau.
• Tony learned Congress had subpoenaed him and demanded access to Stark Industries’ armor interfaces, and he angrily questioned their judgment.
• Rhodey rejected the Congressional Technical Review Committee’s request for read access to the War Machine armor interface.
• An Administrative Bureau official archived Hydra-related documents under a category blaming Superheroes, as a lawmaker insisted television would shape public attention.
• People outside the Capitol criticized lawmakers for blaming Tony Stark after Hydra infiltrated the government.
• Tony told Rhodey he would attend the inquiry and then joked that he would politely flip the table in the lawmakers’ faces.

Tony Stark faced a congressional hearing demanding access to his Iron Man armor and emergency takeover privileges, and he rejected the authorization while accusing the lawmakers of neglecting Hydra and other threats. He left the hearing denouncing the Registration Faction and the Administrative Bureau and declaring that they had driven their nuclear deterrent to resign.

• Tony Stark mocked the authorization document and challenged the committee over its demand for control of his armor.
• Tony asked the lawmakers how far their investigation into Hydra and the Administrative Bureau had progressed, and accused them of targeting him instead.
• The Speaker demanded Tony submit the Iron Man Armor authorization interface, including emergency takeover privileges.
• Tony confronted the lawmakers over their failures during the Hydra infiltration, the Administrative Bureau warehouse scandal, and the New York crash.
• Tony wrote “Not happening” on the document, refused the committee's demand, and told the cameras that America was safe because of him.
• Tony declared that the lawmakers had driven him to resign and cursed the Registration Faction and the Administrative Bureau.

Tony exposed the Administrative Bureau’s secret weapons procurement at the hearing and withdrew Stark Industries’ support for the registration system, endorsing a revised proposal for hero autonomy. He called Chen Mo to tell him, but Chen was busy helping repair a construction site and had not seen the news.

• Tony used JARVIS to show Congress and the press records linking disguised energy-weapon shipments to an old S.H.I.E.L.D. warehouse and a congressional adviser’s office.
• Tony declared Stark Industries was withdrawing support for the registration enforcement system and called for an end to unilateral government deployment and the collection of heroes’ identities.
• Tony said he would use Black Spider’s draft to create a more comprehensive proposal and acknowledged that Black Spider had been right.
• Chen Mo, Sandman, and Rhino helped workers repair the Administrative Bureau’s construction site in the Bronx.
• Tony called Chen Mo, but Chen was hanging from a crane and struggling to position a steel beam, so he had not heard about Tony’s announcement.

Chen Mo arranged legal construction work for Sandman and Rhino, then rushed to Stark Tower after Tony said he had overturned Congress and rewritten the superhero registration bill. Tony welcomed Chen into the new superhero Self-Made Faction after Alexei confirmed the workers had been paid.

• Tony summoned Chen Mo to Stark Tower, saying he had overturned Congress and was rewriting the registration bill, while Chen finished supervising Sandman and Rhino at a Bronx construction site.
• Chen Mo asked Ben Grimm to take over supervision, then swung away as Ben arrived and received the timesheet.
• Four days earlier, Chen Mo offered the foreman Sandman and Rhino as low-cost workers after a stop-work notice and machinery removals threatened the construction project.
• Chen Mo secured official employment and payroll records for Flint and Alexei, who helped lower steel and level mortar at the site.
• Flint received an hours confirmation and reflected on how Chen Mo had given him a rare chance to work legally.
• At Stark Tower, Tony showed Chen Mo the new draft, and Chen received Alexei's message that the pay had arrived before welcoming Tony to the superhero Self-Made Faction.

Tony and Chen Mo launched the Autonomy Faction’s collaboration system, bringing the superhero factions together while former criminals found construction work. Red Skull planned to exploit that work to reignite conflict and cover Hydra’s evacuation, and the chapter ended with an Administrative Bureau risk notice arriving at the Church.

• Tony set up public, reviewable hero action logs while protecting heroes’ identities, and he accepted Steve’s message agreeing to collaborate under the rules of no government identity records and logged operations.
• Chen Mo forwarded Tinkerer's repair-work application to the construction foreman, while Tony added Alexei and Flint’s work records to the Autonomy Faction’s trial files.
• Red Skull escaped from a detention-center double and told Crossbones that Hydra’s evacuation had lost its cover now that the heroes had stopped fighting.
• Red Skull sent risk notices and other measures meant to push Alexei and Flint out of work, provoke a dispute over the Autonomy Faction protecting them, and draw attention away from Hydra’s retreat.
• The next morning, Flint checked the insurance terms on a Queens warehouse quote before calling about the job, and an Administrative Bureau risk notice printed at the Church.

Chen Mo, Tony, and Matt Murdock challenged the Administrative Bureau’s attempt to detain Flint Marko and Alexei Shostakov using fraudulent notices. The court suspended enforcement, and the Autonomous Alliance announced a supervised rehabilitation-employment program as Flint and Alexei returned to work.

• Flint sent Chen Mo a notice naming him and Alexei Shostakov as high-risk criminals, and Tony found that it had been issued using a decommissioned Administrative Bureau terminal and sent to forty-seven sites at once.
• Matt Murdock advised the construction workers to livestream, preserve their records, and refuse to surrender originals while Tony and Stark Legal challenged the notices and protected the workers’ contracts.
• At the Bronx construction site, the foreman and workers demanded valid court documents, showed the employment records, and kept Alexei and Flint behind the safety line as officials threatened them.
• Tony secured Stark Industries’ involvement, and an emergency court order suspended the detentions and risk notices while sealing the authorization codes.
• Chen Mo and Tony publicly condemned the attempted arrests and announced that the Autonomous Alliance would open a supervised rehabilitation-employment program.
• The Administrative Bureau’s vehicles left, the foreman reopened the gate, and Flint received confirmation that his Queens warehouse contract would proceed.

Chen Mo and Peter helped establish the Autonomous Alliance’s low-risk community rescue missions while New York settled into a tense, more manageable post-Hydra peace. A spacetime anomaly then pulled Chen Mo from Stark Tower and dropped him into the Time Variance Authority.

• Alexei and Flint worked at a Bronx construction site while New York returned to its usual routines.
• Chen Mo, Peter, and Tony added community assistance missions to the Autonomous Alliance’s superhero permissions chart.
• Chen Mo and Peter responded to an overturned truck in Queens, cleared the road, and logged the rescue.
• Tony reviewed the Alliance’s progress and privately saved a log after JARVIS briefly froze and reported an external data delay.
• A spacetime fluctuation began erasing Chen Mo from Stark Tower, and Peter and Tony failed to hold on to him.
• Chen Mo crashed into an office and learned from a uniformed staff member that he was at the Time Variance Authority.

The TVA blamed Chen Mo for a chain of events that ended in global nuclear annihilation and tried to detain him, but an abnormal Spider-Totem response made him impossible to prune. Chen Mo was thrown into a rainy Gotham alley, with his system still silent and the Venom Suit responding.

• Chen Mo learned that the TVA had altered the memories of witnesses to cover his removal from Stark Tower.
• A TVA report blamed Chen Mo for a causal chain from Flint Marko and Alexei Shostakov's rehabilitation to global nuclear annihilation, and officials moved to detain him.
• Chen Mo's Spider-Totem marks activated, disrupting the TVA instruments and preventing the agents from pruning him.
• Chen Mo was hurled from the TVA office and landed in a Gotham alley.
• Chen Mo found no Tony, JARVIS, Peter, or response from his system, while the Venom Suit remained active.

After returning to Gotham, Chen Mo found his old attic ransacked and his dog Bruce missing, but a newspaper photo revealed Bruce was with Bruce Wayne. He decided to find Batman at a press conference, where Hugo Strange planned to assess Batman’s behavior.

• Chen Mo swung through Gotham, stopped a robbery, and took the victim’s sandwich and newspaper as a rescue fee.
• Chen Mo returned to his attic and found it broken into, its contents destroyed, and Bruce and his comic drafts gone.
• Chen Mo spotted Bruce in a newspaper photo with Bruce Wayne and learned he had been away for four months.
• Chen Mo concluded that finding Bruce meant finding Batman and read that Hugo Strange would discuss Batman at the Old Gotham Psychiatric Research Center.
• Chen Mo set off through Gotham’s night to find Batman at Hugo Strange’s press conference.

Hugo Strange used a live broadcast at the Old Gotham Psychiatric Research Center to accuse Batman of escalating violence and being responsible for Spider-Man’s disappearance, while Batman fought Hugo’s test subjects and rescued the people in danger. As Hugo demanded that Batman admit he had gotten a child killed, Spider-Man’s voice came from above and challenged him.

• Hugo Strange presented injuries, crime-scene images, and headlines to portray Batman as increasingly violent and linked Spider-Man’s disappearance to Batman’s influence.
• Batman entered the research center’s basement, found six altered test subjects and three tied-up researchers, and began freeing the hostages while Hugo broadcast the confrontation.
• Hugo released the test subjects toward the press, and Batman fought to protect the crowd while using restraints and sedatives instead of lethal force.
• Hugo showed a photograph of Chen Mo’s old attic and accused Batman of hiding his connection to the missing Spider-Man and failing to protect him.
• Hugo demanded that Batman remove his mask and admit Gotham’s Bat could get children killed, but a strand of spider silk appeared above the gallery and Spider-Man asked who Hugo had called dead.

Chen Mo returned to Gotham and interrupted Hugo Strange’s livestreamed announcement of his supposed death. He reunited with Batman at the psychiatric research center, where Batman’s first question was whether he was hurt.

• Chen Mo arrived at the Old Gotham Psychiatric Research Center and heard Hugo Strange tell the citywide livestream that Spider-Man was dead.
• Chen Mo confronted Hugo from the ceiling, corrected him about being Spider-Man rather than Batman, and mocked his claims.
• Chen Mo silenced a loudspeaker with webbing and warned Hugo against using his words in his research papers.
• Chen Mo landed beside Batman and greeted him, and Batman immediately asked whether he was hurt.

Chen Mo returned to Gotham and exposed Hugo Strange’s staged accusations by protecting the reporters and subduing the test subjects with Batman. After Gordon arrested Hugo, Batman took Chen Mo away in the Batmobile, leaving their reunion to continue on the road.

• Chen Mo faced Hugo Strange on camera and declared that he was alive, then helped Batman restrain the escaped test subjects and prevent anyone from being hurt.
• Hugo tried to activate the console, but Batman disabled it and told him to stop; Gordon arrived with police and arrested Hugo for his crimes.
• Chen Mo told the cameras that he was Spider-Man, not a copy of Batman, and Gordon welcomed him back after his four-month disappearance.
• Batman asked Chen Mo to come with him, and Gordon urged Chen Mo to go, explaining that Batman had spent four months looking for him.
• Chen Mo climbed into the Batmobile, found the energy bars Batman had kept in its small fridge, and rode with him through the rain.

Chen Mo underwent a medical and suit fitting in the Batcave, where Batman’s safety measures exposed how worried he had been after Chen Mo disappeared. Bruce Wayne revealed his identity, leaving Chen Mo mortified when he realized Bruce had read his comic drafts.

• Batman brought Chen Mo to the Batcave, where Alfred welcomed him and Batman examined his health and symbiote.
• The scans showed Chen Mo’s nutritional status had improved and his strength was in the twenty-ton range, while Batman noted his mild residual mental dissociation symptoms.
• Batman offered Chen Mo a tracked, sensor-filled suit, and Chen Mo negotiated to disable its recording module while keeping the tracker under agreed emergency rules.
• Batman showed Chen Mo plans for school, housing, medical follow-up, and a reporter job through Wayne Enterprises.
• Bruce removed his cowl and identified himself as Bruce Wayne, and Chen Mo realized Bruce had read his comic drafts and wanted to flee Gotham.

Chen Mo refused Bruce Wayne’s offer of guardianship and a home at Wayne Manor, though he accepted help with school, training, equipment, and Bruce the puppy. He planned to seek shelter with Barbara Gordon and left the Batcave with a communicator after promising Bruce he would answer his calls.

• Alfred Pennyworth introduced himself, and Chen Mo learned Bruce had read and praised his comic drafts.
• Alfred brought Bruce the puppy down to Chen Mo, who reunited with him and learned Bruce had arranged guardianship and adoption paperwork.
• Chen Mo rejected living at Wayne Manor, explaining he wanted to stay close to Gotham’s neighborhoods and remain independent.
• Chen Mo agreed to accept training and help with school and his reporter job, and said he would ask Barbara Gordon for a place to stay.
• Bruce gave Chen Mo a manual location-tracking communicator, and Chen Mo promised he would answer Bruce’s calls before leaving the Batcave.

After leaving Batman, Chen Mo called Barbara and asked to stay with her family, and Gordon agreed to take him in. The chapter ended with Chen Mo facing a trip to school the next morning to explain his four-month absence.

• Chen Mo left the hidden tunnel and called Barbara from a closed laundromat.
• Chen Mo told Barbara he was Spider-Man and asked if he could stay with her family for a few days.
• Gordon agreed to let Chen Mo stay and warned Batman not to place cameras near his home or Barbara's windows.
• Barbara hid her Batgirl gear and told Chen Mo to come to the house, while Batman learned that Spider-Man was staying with the Gordons.
• Barbara told Chen Mo he had to return to school the next day and explain his four-month absence, and Gordon offered to drive them.

Chen Mo returned to school under Gordon’s supervision, completed the required paperwork, and secured a student reporter pre-internship with Wayne Foundation equipment. Bruce quietly monitored his progress, then learned that Richard Grayson had arrived in Gotham as a temporary visiting student.

• Gordon drove Chen Mo and Barbara to school and provided a police acknowledgment to support Chen Mo’s return-to-school application.
• Chen Mo completed the school’s absence forms and agreed to a four-week observation period, make-up coursework, and a psychological assessment.
• The Wayne Foundation project officer offered Chen Mo a student reporter pre-internship after reviewing his writing sample and records.
• Chen Mo signed the equipment agreement and received a camera with location tracking and other safety features arranged by Bruce.
• Bruce watched Chen Mo’s school status update in the Batcave, where Alfred noted Bruce’s efforts to look after him.
• Bruce saw that Richard Grayson’s temporary visiting student file had been connected after Harry Osborn’s Circus arrived in Gotham.

Chen Mo joined Comprehensive Project Class A, where he met new student Dick Grayson and discovered irregularities in the school’s support-program lists. The clues pointed to a Friday gathering called the Tea Party, and Chen Mo, Barbara, and Dick were left with reason to investigate it.

• Chen Mo entered Comprehensive Project Class A with Barbara and learned that school discipline affected students’ subsidies and program eligibility.
• Dick Grayson arrived as a temporary student from Harry Osborn's Circus, and Chen Mo, Barbara, and Dick exchanged wary introductions.
• Chen Mo found that his reporter trainee position was under observation, then joined Barbara and Dick at the noticeboard during break.
• Chen Mo’s camera identified nine duplicate names across school program lists, each marked with a hat and the letters T.P.
• A student warned Chen Mo, Barbara, and Dick that people marked with a hat were invited to the Tea Party on Friday.