It was Saturday morning, 6:30 AM.
If anyone had bothered to inspect the primary ventilation shaft above the Fisk Tower server room, they would have found a very cramped teenager in a red and blue spandex suit. Peter had a physical data cable spliced directly from the mainframe into his wrist gauntlet. The low, mechanical hum of the industrial air conditioning unit masked the rapid clatter of his typing on a holographic interface.
There were plenty of villains in New York, but very few had the capital to bankroll mercenaries like the Shocker, the Chameleon, or Quentin Beck. That kind of payroll required deep pockets—the kind belonging to major mob bosses like Hammerhead or Wilson Fisk, rogue tech conglomerates like AIM and Roxxon, or active HYDRA cells.
Since he had a few hours to kill before the Homecoming dance, Peter had decided to follow the money.
"Nothing," he muttered, swiping through lines of code. "Absolutely nothing. Kingpin's database is as sterile as a newly bleached hospital floor. Where are you hiding the real books, Fisk?"
This wasn't Peter's first time breaking into Fisk Tower. He had snooped around before the Carl King incident and found exactly zero evidence back then, too. Wilson Fisk had meticulously scrubbed the building's network, maintaining the facade of a perfectly legitimate, philanthropic businessman.
Except Daredevil had been operating in Hell's Kitchen for three years. Peter knew that if Fisk were truly clean, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen wouldn't still be breathing down his neck.
He tapped his new suit's optical interface, cycling through deep-penetration scanners. The lenses mapped the building's underground architecture, revealing a massive, hollow cavern sitting directly beneath the sub-basement. It was structured like a Cold War nuclear bunker. The primary elevator required a biometric DNA sequence, and the shaft was rigged with overlapping thermal lasers—a security detail far above Peter's current payload.
The upper floors, however, were spotless.
A proxy window popped up on his interface as he hijacked the internal security feeds. Wilson Fisk, flanked by three massive men in tailored suits, stepped into his private elevator. The floor indicator ticked downward, heading straight for the bunker.
Peter disconnected the data cable, kicked the vent grate loose, and scrambled up the internal elevator shaft. He pried open the doors to Fisk's penthouse executive office, dropped onto the plush carpet, and walked straight to the personal terminal.
"Your desktop encryption is weaker than a gym locker," he whispered, bypassing the firewall in under thirty seconds.
He scoured the operational history, but to his absolute disbelief, the hard drive was effectively empty. It contained legitimate shell company tax returns, public philanthropic records, and... a staggering amount of Netflix watch history. The Kingpin of Crime apparently spent four hours a day binge-watching legal dramas.
Fisk didn't actually use this terminal for work.
Peter paced the length of the office, tapping the walls for hollow panels. Nothing. The entire penthouse was a carefully constructed stage play—a decoy. If S.H.I.E.L.D. or the FBI ever managed to secure a warrant, Fisk would simply hand them the keys, point at his spotless records, and offer them a cup of coffee. You'd have to be insane to believe Wilson Fisk was just a misunderstood television enthusiast.
Checking the clock, Peter realized the dance wasn't until tonight. With no other plans, he figured he would crawl back into the ventilation duct, get comfortable, and wait for Fisk to return from the bunker. The man had to slip up eventually.
He popped the vent cover. Then, thick, emerald-green smoke billowed past the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Peter froze. Outside the glass, a hundred-foot-tall illusion of Quentin Beck blotted out the rising sun. His jaw dropped, his hands clamping onto the edge of the desk.
"Are you kidding me?!" he yelled at the empty office. "I have been a high school student for exactly twelve days! Twelve! I've already fought the Shocker, the Chameleon, and a giant swarm of cannibal spiders! It is only Saturday! Can I please get one weekend off?!"
Outside, the massive Mysterio projection delivered a theatrical ultimatum, giving the civilian population ten minutes to clear the streets before the "performance" began.
"You win, Beck," Peter groaned. "You have my full attention."
Peter dove out the shattered ventilation window, firing a web line to a neighboring skyscraper. He swung over the gridlocked traffic, watching as Iron Man rocketed out of Avengers Tower a mile away. Tony Stark broke the sound barrier, flying straight at the giant Mysterio. He punched the illusion, phased right through it, caught a blinding laser to the ribs, and crashed violently into Central Park.
Peter slapped his forehead mid-swing. "I literally left Beck's optical projector in your living room, Tony! I gave JARVIS the tech specs! Why would you just punch it?!"
Before he could formulate a plan, a streak of blinding fire shot up from the Baxter Building. The Human Torch drew a massive, flaming '4' in the sky before banking hard to charge the floating avatar.
He didn't hit it either. Halfway to the target, the Human Torch simply... went out. The flames vanished, and Johnny Storm became a regular guy in a blue jumpsuit, plummeting toward the pavement at terminal velocity.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Peter yelled.
He tucked into a dive, the wind roaring in his ears. He fired a web line, swinging low over the street to snatch Johnny out of the air by his collar. His arm socket popped in protest as they swung up in a hard, parabolic arc. He dumped Johnny unceremoniously onto a flat gravel rooftop.
"Oh, hey," Johnny said, casually brushing gravel off his suit, seemingly unfazed by his near-death experience. "I know you. Reed said you're coming by the Baxter Building for the internship."
"Yeah," Peter said, staring at him. "What just happened to you?"
"I don't know, man." Johnny ran a hand through his blonde hair. "Before I even got close to the guy, my fire just clicked off. Powers totally failed."
Peter stared at the giant Mysterio hovering in the distance. The pieces clicked.
"Your powers didn't fail," Peter said rapidly. "Beck is hijacking optical feeds. He just made you see your flames go out. Your brain registered the visual input, assumed your powers were deactivated, and psychosomatically shut them down."
Johnny stared at him for three seconds, blinking. "Son of a bitch," he whispered.
Without igniting, Johnny crouched, leaped off the edge of the roof, and tried to fly purely on instinct. He immediately slammed face-first into the brick wall of the adjacent building, sliding down the masonry before crumpling back onto the gravel.
"Dude," Peter sighed. "Are you serious?"
"Spider-Man."
The distorted, booming voice didn't come from the sky. It came from directly behind him. Peter whipped around.
The gravel rooftop was gone. The Manhattan skyline had vanished. Johnny Storm was nowhere to be seen. Peter stood in an endless, pitch-black void. A normal-sized Mysterio stepped out of the darkness, his purple cape dragging across the invisible floor. He extended a gloved hand toward the young hero.
"I wanted to speak with you," Beck said smoothly. "Because I believe you are special."