Living With Secrets

Planning

Peter tinkered with his suit, the bass of his music pumping through the lab's floor. He was trying to get the suit to stop at his leg, seeing as the nanotech kind of made it difficult to move. It was easy enough to add a ring of sensors to the top of his leg, making it so the suit's tech would cut off there.

Wade bounced into the lab texting away. "Hey, Petey."

"Ugh, how is it that of all the nicknames, that one had to stick? Why not Pete, or Spidey? Or just plain Spider-boy!"

The brunet threw his hands up in the air, exasperation heavy in his words. Wade laughed, and Peter couldn't help but laugh along with him.

"Who ya textin'?" Peter let a little sing-songy lilt enter his voice, turning back to his work.

"Your girlfriend."

"Should I be worried that you'll sweep her off her feet, what with the dashingly good looks and the not being able to die thing and the fact you have both your legs?" Peter joked.

"Har-de-har har," the blonde mocked, rolling his eyes. "We're talking about you, actually. She wants to know if we've made any progress."

"Wait, why isn't this in the group chat?" Peter, Wade, MJ, Ned, Shuri, and Wanda had started a little group chat earlier in the week, specifically to discuss the Doc Ock situation.

"Because if it were, you'd run off and do something stupid without letting Wanda get there for backup."

"And you wouldn't?" Peter nearly cracked the space bar on his laptop and threw his head back. "Now I can't even code, I'm getting worked up."

"Hey, I can't die when I go out and do stupid shit. Why are you getting so testy about this, dude?"

Peter sighed heavily. "I'm mad at myself. We haven't gotten any closer to finding that maniac, MJ and Ned's families are pissed they are taking time off school, for me, no less. Morgan is settling into the Tower, but she's still warming up to my parents and every time she has a nightmare, she asks for me. My parents are worried she'll never start to relax around them! And then my Uncle Clint and Aunty Nat are freaking out about a new baby-"

Wade held up his hands to stop his friend's rambling. "Dude, calm down, we have some movement on the Doc Ock thing."

"Really?" Peter nearly tumbled to the ground scrambling to move closer to Wade. "What happened?"

"We just picked up some unusual activity in a lab a few buildings over, someone was caught on a security camera breaking into one of the chemical stores." Peter gestured for more, and Wade pulled up a clip of video on his phone.

There was a man in a dark suit, looking worn out and worse for wear. It was definitely the Doc, he was still wearing the burned up suit from the explosion in the lab, and the remnants of his tentacle pack were still on his back.

The video was grainy and dark, but Peter could make out the general gist of what was happening. The Doc used his elbow to break through the glass on a door, then reached though, unlocked the door, and opened it. The Doc was out of sight for a while, then he returned with a whole bunch of stuff. His arms were overflowing with chemicals, equipment, and beakers. He was mumbling something, but Peter couldn't really make out what it was.

The video ended, and Peter let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"What'd he take?" Peter grabbed a pad of sticky notes off his desk, ready to write down a list.

"We're not sure, Ned and Shuri are working on hacking the full police report."

Peter nodded, setting his stickies back onto the desk. "Send that to the group chat, the real one. That way everyone knows that I know. What's our next move?"

Wade was already typing on his phone, and Peter felt his phone buzz not a second later. "I think our next move is tracking where he goes next. Trying to figure out where we can cut him off. Doing-"

Peter started typing, and Wade cut himself off. "What are you doing?"

"Trying... to... one second... there's a chance that..." Peter never finished any of his thoughts, only continued typing, his hands flying over the keyboard, missing the crack on his space bar by a hair's width each time he hit the space bar.

Wade waited patiently, fully resigned to Peter's working habits by now. After a moment, Peter stopped typing and grabbed his phone. He typed away there, then put his phone back in his pocket, and grabbed his coat.

"Let's go," the younger teen said. The blond jumped up.

"Where are we going?"

"Wanda's room, Ned, NJ, and Shuri are going to meet us there."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ned was the last one to slip through the door, shutting it behind himself tightly. "How the hell did you get his position so fast?"

"We might not know what he stole, but we know what it was," Peter smirked. He looked around, waiting for someone to catch his train of thought, but he got nothing but blank looks. "Eh?"

"Uhm," Wade said slowly, shaking his head with wide eyes. "It was... nerd stuff?"

"Chemicals?"

"Lab stuff?"

"Glass cup thingies?"

Ned, MJ, and Wanda all chimed in. Peter rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to respond before Shuri cut him off.

"Tech. He stole tech. Peter, did something have a chip in it?"

Peter smiled, and everyone caught on pretty quickly. "You tracked the chip?"

"He stole part of a computer in the lab, a very important part of a hard drive. There was already a tracker inside, I just had to get into their systems." Peter shrugged and leaned back into MJ's lap.

"So the police report we were working on was irrelevant?" Ned's voice was laced with frustration.

Wanda rolled her eyes at the other boy, then turned her attention to her brother. "So, Pete, where is he?"

"He's in an abandoned hospital upstate."

"What's the next move, then?" Wade and Peter asked the same question at the same time and everyone chuckled lightly.

MJ was the first one to snap out of it. "I think we send Peter, Wade, and Wanda up there, and Ned, Shuri, and I can stay here on coms. Let's get some schematics of the hospital and make sure we know exactly what we're walking into first." Everyone agreed, and Ned and Shuri headed down to the labs to start hacking into records and looking for the maps they needed.

"I'm gonna go work out, anyone want to join me?" Wanda stood up, stretching and looking between Wade and Peter. Peter shook his head lightly, but Wade jumped up.

MJ headed into the hall, and Peter caught her arm on the way out. "Hey, MJ, can we talk?"

MJ nodded, and the two headed up to Peter's room.

"Why are you being so cool about this? Last time I was in a situation like this, you were pretty freaked out."

"Let's review the last 2 years we've been together," MJ said, sarcasm slipping into her words towards the end of her sentence. "You were almost killed, you were kidnapped and tortured, you continued to patrol the city, sustaining plenty of gunshot and stabbing wounds, as well as broken bones and other injury, and just last week, you were kidnapped again and tortured, and had your leg cut off. I figure I might as well help you be as safe as possible during this whole superhero thing."

Peter didn't have anything else to do but smile. He was the luckiest man in the world, his girlfriend was incredibly understanding. "Have I told you how much I love you today?"

MJ rolled her eyes with a small smile. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Peter's lips. "You just did."