Mary Jane and Felicia had gotten to know each other back when Dinosaur Connors attacked Midtown High.
At the time, both of them had been in danger and desperately trying to find Bant. Later on, they gradually became more familiar with each other, and each of them understood perfectly well what the other was thinking.
But instead of clashing, they got along surprisingly well.
Watching the two girls lower their heads and start chattering away about gossip, Aunt May and Uncle Ben exchanged a glance, both thinking the same thing.
They really could not understand young people these days.
Had the two of them already fallen that far behind the times?
Sitting beside Uncle Ben, Bant turned his head and looked around, then asked in confusion,
"Where's Peter?"
"He said he had something else to do. I think he's probably taking photos for the Daily Bugle," Uncle Ben said.
The Parker family had always supported Peter's little side career. But when it came to the Daily Bugle, Uncle Ben had quite a few complaints.
He felt that the Daily Bugle kept smearing Spider-Man without regard for objective facts, and that was not what a real news outlet ought to do.
If he had the choice, Peter would not want to sell photos to someone who spent all day insulting him either.
But there was no helping it. For all Jameson's attitude, among all the newspapers, he offered the highest price.
The way he cursed while still buying made Bant seriously suspect for a time that Jameson was some kind of Pokemon player.
As the group chatted and watched the Expo, Bant also noticed quite a few familiar faces inside the venue, including several people from S.H.I.E.L.D.
And so, time slowly passed.
Very soon, it was time for the real technology showcase.
Standing on the dazzling stage, Harry introduced Plamos's new future car.
At the same time, over at Hammer Industries' exhibition area, rows upon rows of towering heavy-armored robots were unveiled in perfect formation.
Their bodies had been painted in different colors to represent their various combat branches.
Land, sea, and air were all covered.
Not only that, there was also the modified Iron Patriot armor, personally worn by Colonel Rhodes of the military, drawing cheers from the entire audience.
At this moment, Justin Hammer's earlier promise that "you won't be disappointed" seemed to have become reality.
The media rushed to take pictures, and for a time, flashes went off one after another without pause.
The explosive sight left both Peter and Gwen feeling that they had absolutely come to the right place!
Originally, Gwen had wanted to visit the Plamos pavilion, because she had once worked as an assistant in Connors's lab. Naturally, she knew about Connors's dream, which made her very curious about Plamos, the company that had worked together with Osborn to create the healing serum.
But Peter had already seen Bant's beat-up old-car technology before, so eager to see something new, he had insisted on dragging Gwen to the other exhibits instead.
And right now, aside from Osborn and Plamos, the company with the hottest momentum was obviously Hammer Industries.
"But don't you think Iron Patriot looks a little too much like Iron Man's armor?" Gwen asked.
She felt Hammer Industries was suspiciously close to plagiarism.
But what puzzled her was that Peter, who had been chatting happily with her the whole way here, did not answer this time.
Gwen withdrew her gaze, turned back, and looked at Peter in confusion.
"Peter, what's wrong?"
"N-nothing..."
Peter snapped back to himself, but the spider-sense in his head had not stopped screaming. He realized something was probably about to happen.
At that moment, his only thought was to get Gwen to Bant first, then go see what the hell Hammer Industries was up to.
"Gwen, how about we just..."
Boom!!
Before Peter could finish speaking, a flaming meteor descended from the sky.
Wearing his golden armor, Iron Man landed right in front of Hammer. In an instant, all those flashy robots became nothing more than background pieces, like green leaves existing only to highlight Iron Man's brilliance.
Now the venue became even more chaotic.
"Peter, look, it's Tony Stark!"
Like everyone else, Gwen immediately burst into excited screams. She instinctively reached out to grab Peter's arm, but caught nothing but air.
She turned her head, only to discover that Peter, who had been standing beside her just moments ago, had already vanished.
"Peter?"
On the exhibition floor, Rhodes, wearing the Patriot armor, was also a little flustered and guilty when he saw Tony appear.
It could be said that he had betrayed his best friend.
After all, the armor he was wearing had been taken from Stark and then handed over to the military.
Ever since that fight with Tony at the party, when Rhodey had angrily declared that Tony did not deserve to own the suit, he had not seen Tony again.
On one hand, it was because the armor had to be modified.
On the other hand, it was because he simply could not bring himself to face Tony.
But after all this time, Rhodey had come to understand one thing.
This armor had probably been meant for him from the beginning, otherwise he would never have been able to wear it.
As a friend, Tony had already done everything he could for him.
Yet he had failed to stand firmly at Tony's side. Instead, he had taken Tony's invention and handed it over to Stark Industries' enemy.
Now, seeing Tony storming over so aggressively, Rhodey assumed he had come to settle the score.
"Tony, don't start anything here. There are too many people..."
Rhodey pleaded in a low voice.
But Tony was far more mature than Rhodey had expected.
He landed naturally, walked over to Rhodey's side, draped one hand over Rhodey's shoulder, and raised the other hand warmly to wave at the crowd.
Then he lowered his voice and whispered into Rhodey's ear.
"We've got a huge problem."
"You need to trust me right now."
Hearing that, Rhodey said helplessly, "I tried trusting you before, and I got beaten half to death in your house."
"Hammer is working with Vanko."
Tony's expression turned serious.
"Justin Hammer, where is Vanko?"
Without waiting for Rhodey to answer, Tony started walking forward, exposing his completely defenseless back to Rhodey.
At the same time, in Hammer Industries' control center, Ivan Vanko sneered coldly and remotely seized control of Rhodey's armor.
Click!
The heavy machine gun mounted on Iron Patriot's shoulder instantly activated and aimed straight at Tony's back.
The sound immediately put Tony on alert, and it also made the hundreds of audience members attending the Expo realize that danger had arrived.
"Rhodey, is that you?"
"Not me! It activated on its own!"
Rhodey shouted in panic. Inside the armor, the warning lights made his dark face glow red.
At this point, how could he not realize that someone had tampered with the suit?
"Run! You're locked on! Every system's been taken over!"
The moment his words fell, dozens of robots on the stage raised their arms at the same time, every last one of them locking onto Tony.
Locked onto me? Good. That makes things easier.
"Then let's take this outside!" Tony made the decision instantly, flames bursting from his feet as he shot into the air.
At that moment, every machine opened fire.
The overwhelming barrage instantly shattered the glass ceiling of the exhibition hall!
The broken glass rained down like a storm, crackling as it fell.
Hundreds of spectators had only come to see an Expo. Who could have imagined they would get dragged into actual gunfire? Terrified screams rose one after another, and as the fleeing crowd shoved and trampled each other, quite a few people were knocked to the ground. It was only a matter of time before a disaster broke out.
Fortunately, at that very moment, a red-and-blue figure began swinging through the air.
Spider-Man had arrived!
Today I can only manage five thousand words. I'm really not feeling great. During the day I went back to my old place to clean it out, and the heat left me feeling half-sunstroked. Thankfully, the lease is finally over, and after the agency inspection, the two weeks of torture are finally done. Starting tomorrow, I'll be back to ten thousand words a day.
/-\
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