Marvel: A Tale of Shadows

Sunday night at a New York dock yard. A group moved quickly out of a container then snuck past security and made their way to their local safehouse.

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At the warehouse district in a building an old school soldier was marveling at the taste of a cheese burger. The years may have passed him by. But for some things that was a great benefit.

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At the same place in a different building in the area, "boss we have been here for a while what if the guy doesn't come? Maybe he-" The Hydra agent did not get to finish his sentence as a fist connected with his face.

"Can it and keep watching. We don't want to miss the chance to catch these guys who have supposedly collected a treasure trove." Grim Reaper explained. He wasted too much time on this to not get something.

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Monday morning was the start of a seemingly normal day.

Peter Parker was heading into school for the last day of the year. His exams were all already done. He was just heading in to get summer homework and clean out his locker.

Then he would have a totally normal summer…not. He smiled as he walked in with a skip in his step. He was Spider-Man. He would get to go on some awesome adventures. But he also had to remember to participate in that summer science thing that Stark Industries was doing.

What was it called again?

Anyway… he would not be sitting bored this summer. He would be jam packed with activities. But for today he would stay as Peter Parker.

Peter Parker.

He nearly forgot. In addition to being Spider-Man he also had to help MJ on a story while also helping Osborn with finding information about his mother's lover. Which was apparently a thing, he honestly couldn't fathom that nice lady having a lover.

Which was still a weird concept for him since his friend's family always seemed picture perfect.

Either way… he was going to have one packed and busy summer. For now though he would have a completely normal summer.

He walked through the school's door and made his way to his homeroom class, they made them empty their lockers in the morning. He would luckily see Harry and MJ first thing in the morning.

As he walked into the class he saw Harry & MJ whispering where their trio of desks were sitting in the corner. As he walked over Harry stopped talking, "Hey Pete! What are you doing after school today?"

"Nothing? Why?" Peter looked between MJ and Harry as he sat down. "What are you planning?"

"Well…" Harry looked away nervously.

"Harry came up with the brilliant plan to break into his mother's old company to see if there is a lead on his mother's lover. He thinks that he may know more about what happened to his mother and that she or her family kept a record of him." MJ explained while she frowned.

"But I figure it would be safer to wait a week or two to see if we can lose whoever is watching us in secret. Not to mention that doing something like that would catch your father's attention and as far as we know he knows nothing about this." MJ continued on hoping Peter would side with her.

Peter frowned, "MJ's right, if your father does not yet know it would probably be safer for your mother's lover that we don't alert him."

Harry frowned, "fine we will leave it alone for a bit. But I still want to do it sometime this summer."

MJ smiled and nodded, "don't worry Harry we will get to the bottom of this stuff about your mom. In the meantime… can I request your business expertise and Peter's technical expertise in a story I am doing for the school newspaper?"

"I am down. Harry?"

"Sure, what is the story?" Harry begrudgingly asked. More than likely still feeling petty since they would not help him look into her mother's death.

"It is going to be about the dramatic rise in tech companies around New York and the impact it could have on both the business world and the advancement of technology." MJ explained.

Peter leaned back in his chair as he frowned, "huh… well that could certainly be an interesting subject to pursue."

Harry nodded in agreement. "So what are we doing today?"

"Well I figured we might as well go and survey some of the students at the uhh… What is that Stark thing called?" MJ asked.

Peter shrugged, "I forget, I just remembered they changed the name."

"Well anyways, we could go there and interview a bunch of science nerds about what will happen with the rise of tech companies." MJ stated.

"Okay I just have to stop off at home after school, they started searching bags and I don't want to sit there for an hour." Peter stated as the homeroom teacher walked in.

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Their final school day before summer was as boring as he expected. It ended quickly as they broke up to drop their bags off at home before they went to the Stark thingy, still can't remember the name.

As soon as he arrived it appeared the building did not even know its own name because the old sign was removed and there was no new one. He chuckled as he went through security then headed to his schools unit, he would wait there until MJ and Harry showed up.

As he waited he worked on his newest project which were the lenses he would use for his suit. They would have all he would need for stealth and rescue. An option to turn on night vision and heat vision, not to mention all the other aspects of life this could help with.

About an hour into his work he got a text and set his project aside and stepped out of his unit. MJ was waiting and waved at him, "so while we wait do you want to walk around. I am kind of curious about what new inventions replaced the old ones. Speaking of… what are you working on now?"

Peter chuckled as they walked around to another of the units, "I am working on a dual vision enhancement lens. Meaning it could have night vision and heat vision and I will see what else I can add. Maybe a binocular feature or a heads-up-display."

MJ frowned, "that sounds complicated. But useful, I assume you plan to use it for-"

"Yup," Peter confirmed before she could finish her sentence. He would use it for the new suit he was making. He already had the layout but it would take at least a few months to make the technical parts of his suit. The only things that were easy to design and make was the padding for the feet and hands.

Then other things like the suit fabric composition, the suit lens, his web shooters, and lastly a communication piece that would be embedded into the suit headpiece like the lens would be.

"It will be awhile before I complete it." Peter explained as they walked to a display area of one of the units. It was the Visions Academy's unit, they were displaying a hyperoptic laser that would burn through nonmetals when put under a certain frequency.

"You mean the entire thing or the lens?" MJ asked as she partially read through the description of the device.

"The entire thing, I think I will be done with the lens in a week and half. I decided to start off with the things that I will struggle more with." Peter explained, "The only reason I got padding done so quickly is because I could do that at home in a few hours. But I can't use these labs aimlessly."

"So you have to be careful about what you make?" MJ asked. Peter nodded in response.

They continued talking for twenty minutes until Harry arrived and they told him to come to the top floor. Where they were looking at the display for Xavier Academy.

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As Harry hopped into the elevator he was joined by a good looking couple.

"So it was the top floor right?" The black haired beauty asked.

"Yes it was the top floor, do you care who else is on the top floor? It is quite a list of notable schools." The man joining her noted.

"Really? Who?" She asked.

"There is Boardwalk Tech, who recently designed a radar that creates a 3-D image but only underwater. Then there's the Rockefeller Institute who have created a holographic image of a high-rise building. The last one is the Abraham Erksine Pre-College, they actually created a cure for a minor disease." The man explained, obviously listing it off the top of his head.

Harry was impressed, the only person he ever saw someone memorize information like this was Peter and his Uncle. He also seemed familiar like he had seen him before.

As the elevator door opened he frowned at the sight. Inside there was an obvious commotion around one of the unit displays.

"Is that…" The woman started but stopped when the man grunted in response. They walked in just as the discussion was getting more heated. Harry made his way around the group to find his friends who were near the edge of the group.

"Pete, MJ, what's going on?" Harry asked. They looked toward him with annoyed looks.

"The usual bull crap. A student from another school is causing problems for the Xavier Students." MJ explained. When she saw Harry tilt his head she explained further, "the Xavier Students are mutants and the student is claiming that the 'freaks'," she made certain to put on air quotes when she said 'freaks', "were the reason his experiment went wrong and injured several students."

It was an obvious ploy to attack the mutants. Harry looked around and saw that no one was going to stop this group of students when something strange happened. A group of men in black suits walked in out of the stairway.

"Excuse me? We were alerted that a group of mutants were causing trouble here." The balding man in the lead stated as he flashed an FBI badge. Harry frowned, something wasn't feeling right.

"Yeah! These are the bastards!" The student causing trouble quickly stated. But before anyone could do anything there was a scratch of metal as a part of the roof opened and a metal man came descending through it with a ray of sunlight. As the iron suit landed and opened up, Tony Stark himself stepped out of it.

"Typical rich person appearance," Harry could hear MJ mumble. He absentmindedly nodded in agreement. The amount of times his father made a public appearance while not in a spectacle could be counted on one hand.

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Tony Stark was dressed in a gray suit with a blue tie. With his usual goatee and hair in perfect condition.

"Don't bother lying, you lot are not even real Federal agents." Tony exclaimed as he directed his attention towards the mouthy kid. "Andrew Hobleson, Age 17, you have been in and out of juvenile detention facilities. Smart kid, but you go around making others' lives miserable. Of course with this stunt you will more than likely be shunned from the tech world."

Mr. Stark turned his attention back to the fake FBI goons, "now then, I don't know why a group of you did this but…" Tony did not get to finish his sentence as they suddenly drew their guns.

"We just came to kill a bunch of muties but if we can kill the Invincible Iron Man we might as well!" The front man exclaimed as pointed his gun and pulled the trigger, catching Tony off guard. Since usually the bad guys preferred to fight him when he was in the iron man armor.

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As Forge stepped past Tony to stop him he stopped in his tracks. As someone he did not even notice before twisted and lifted the gun so the bullet fired off into the roof.

Then there was a crack and a scream of pain as the shooter's arm was bent in the wrong way in a sickening fashion. While his gun was now under new ownership as the person fired eight shots in quick succession. At the end of it all the five people who were prepared to recklessly kill them went down without much of a fight.

The man in question pulled apart the pistol and tossed its pieces to the side before kneeing the guy with a broken arm into an unconscious state by hitting his head. He looked towards the group and saw that they were each bleeding out of both of their knees. Then Forge remembered they were probably armed.

But a sickening crack caught him off guard as he saw a black haired woman going to each assailant and kicking them upside the head. Which resulted in them being in an unconscious state… hopefully.

"Ummm… who are you two?" Forge asked.

The man turned to him and gave him a smile that oddly made Forge shiver in fear, "we are concerned citizens making a citizen's arrest on behalf of the state of New York. Why do you ask?" The man stated it like it was obvious.

Tony stepped forward, "yeah but that wasn't your usual mugger these guys seemed almost like-"

"TONY!" Stark stopped speaking as he heard a voice scream his name. He turned in the direction to see Pepper bounding toward him in anger. "What were you thinking? taking off your armor like that! You knew they were armed!" Tony seemed stuck between running and making excuses until eventually he just bowed his head in apology.

"Sorry…"

"Yeah well you got lucky," Pepper then turned toward the man and smiled, "Let us talk more privately while Tony sorts this out with the police. You two can go give your statements later.

Pepper pulled the couple and Forge off to the side to talk.

While Tony was stuck cleaning up the mess, which was a first for him. At least for the first time since he hired Pepper.