Peter moved.
Before his brain could react, his body had already flipped and sprung forward. He drove a kick straight into the intruder's chest. The man blocked and caught his ankle, but couldn't stop the impact and slammed into the wall. Peter grabbed the stapler off the desk, leaped over, pinned the man by the neck, and pressed the stapler hard against his bald head.
Only then did he get a clear look at the man's face.
A black eyepatch, a bald head, and a face that sent chills down his spine.
Nick Fury. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Fuck.
"Very impressive," Fury actually said with a smile. "Could you loosen your grip? I can't breathe."
Peter slowly eased the pressure, his mind racing. This man was one of the world's top spymasters. A high school student had no reason to recognize him, much less know his name. So he chose to play dumb.
"Who are you? How did you get in?" he asked in a low voice.
"My name is Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."
Peter raised an eyebrow. "You're a spy?"
"That's right."
"If you're a spy, why are you in my bedroom?" He pressed the stapler a little harder.
"Are you really going to threaten me with a stapler?"
"I can put a staple through your eye. Want to try me?"
"No, I don't think you will."
Click.
Cold metal pressed against Peter's ribs.
He looked down and saw a gun. When did he draw that? Damn it. Rookie mistake.
His Spider-Sense hadn't gone off, which meant Fury didn't intend to shoot. But having a gun pressed against him still made his hair stand on end.
"Now, can we talk like civilized people?" Fury asked with a broad smile.
"You break into my house and have the nerve to talk about being civilized?" Peter gritted his teeth, but slowly backed away, his eyes fixed on the muzzle.
Fury put the gun away and made no other moves. He simply stood there, looking Peter up and down appraisingly. "Now, I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative."
Peter kept perfect control of his facial muscles. But fireworks were going off in his head. The Avengers? Me? Is this a joke?
"What's the Avengers?" He put on his most innocent expression.
"A special operations team. Dedicated to dealing with threats beyond the scope of ordinary people and conventional forces."
"So why come to a high school student? Want me to join your secret club?" Peter asked, though he knew the answer.
"Drop the act, Peter. Do we really have to keep pretending you're just an ordinary kid?" Fury raised an eyebrow. He looked really irritating when he did that.
"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't, Peter... or should I say, Spider-Man."
Peter's expression changed abruptly. "You're insane. Get out of my house, or I'm calling the police."
He knew perfectly well it wouldn't work, but he had to keep up the act.
"The police? Then I'll tell them about your ongoing trespassing and unauthorized law enforcement."
"Where's your evidence?"
"We have footage of you changing into your suit, along with high-resolution photos of you lifting a steel beam in an abandoned train yard."
Peter scoffed. "So S.H.I.E.L.D. installed that many cameras in Queens. No, that's not right. You hacked into surveillance systems to steal evidence, didn't you? That kind of evidence wouldn't hold up in court."
Fury smiled. "You're smart. I like that. That's right, we can't actually put you in prison. But if we take you to court, your identity will be exposed to the whole world. Is that something you want to see happen?"
Peter fell silent.
"So that's how it is?" he said, keeping his voice low. "Either I join you, or you strip me bare for the world to see? Blackmail, thy name is Fury."
"You haven't given me many options, kid," Fury said matter-of-factly. "But join us, and you won't regret it. Top-tier training, the best equipment. We'll train you to be stronger, smarter. Make you the Ultimate Spider-Man."
Peter had expected Fury to play this card. He was dealing with Peter Parker, the poor kid with no friends who craved recognition.
But that Peter was gone.
"Tempting offer. I refuse." Peter leaned against the wall and folded his arms. "I already have everything I need."
"Finding a martial arts school in Chinatown to learn how to fight won't do you much good. We can arrange the very best instructors for you. Real experts."
"And in return?"
"In return, you work for us. We'll assign you missions."
"The killing kind?"
"We don't do that sort of thing."
"Then what do you do?"
"Infiltrate drug cartels and terrorist organizations. Identify and contain threats to national security," Fury said.
"Sorry, Fury, but I don't have time to be an international spy. I have a job, a family to look after. And most importantly, I have a city to protect."
"You think you're the only superhero in tights in the world?" Fury narrowed his eye. "New faces pop up every night to fight injustice. This city existed before you came along, and it can keep existing without you."
Peter met his gaze. "What about school? What about my job?"
"We both know your so-called job at the Baxter Building is just a cover. As for school, we can find a way for you to balance both. You won't miss any dances."
Peter stayed silent for a long time. He was testing Fury's limits, trying to see how the man would react when provoked.
Then he spoke.
"Tell me, Fury. Do you have any other child soldiers under your command? Or am I the only one?"
Fury's expression darkened.
A genuine crack finally appeared in that face that had remained so composed. It wasn't anger, but a deeper kind of weariness.
"You think I want to do this?" His voice was very low. "If I had another choice, you wouldn't get anywhere near a battlefield. But you're growing too fast. So fast that people are already noticing you. If you keep going solo like this, someone will set their sights on you. And they won't let up."
He paused.
"I'm giving you a less terrible option. I suggest you take it."
Peter said nothing.
Only after a long time did he speak. "Can you give me some time to think?"
"Yes. One week."
Fury pulled a folder from inside his coat and set it on Peter's desk.
"Everything you need to know is in here. Good night, Peter."
He turned and walked out of the bedroom. Peter strained his ears for a long while, but heard no footsteps. None at all. It was as though the man had vanished into thin air in the hallway.
Only then did he let out a long breath.
Then he quickly scanned the room. No, the whole house could be bugged.
Peter picked up the homemade EMP gun on his desk, lowered its output, connected it to his phone, and switched the electromagnetic pulse to short-range pulse-scanning mode. Starting with his bedroom, he went from room to room, scanning with his phone.
The first room turned up five.
He tuned the pulse spikes to a frequency for precisely burning them out and destroyed them one by one.
Then he scanned upstairs and downstairs, going back and forth three times.
The final tally: twenty-five listening devices.
Peter stuffed them all into a brown paper bag, walked out onto the porch, and tossed it onto the steps. Then he fetched a sticky note from inside, wrote a line on it, and slapped it onto the bag:
Put bugs in my house again, and I'll shove every fucking one of them up your ass, Fury.
He went back inside and upstairs. When he glanced at the porch again, the paper bag was gone.
Peter snorted. Good, as long as you've learned your lesson.
He picked up the folder on his bed and leafed through it. Basic material, densely packed with detailed descriptions and terms, but he was already too tired to take in a single word.
Things were changing too fast, so fast that he no longer had the energy to process it all.
Lying on his bed, Peter closed his eyes. His mind was filled with drone wreckage, the Arc Reactor, Tony's armor, and those words from Fury: You're growing too fast.
He would pick out the most interesting loose threads from this tangled mess and pull on them.
He could guarantee that the days ahead would be an absolutely spectacular adventure.