บท 168: C168 Public Theft

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*Creak*

Seeing the thick metal table bend as Peter lightly grazed it with his finger tips, they both knew for a fact that Peter's strength increased by a large margin.

"Looks like I will be spending the next couple of days learning how to control my strength again." Peter says with an exasperated sigh. "Whatever, it shouldn't be that hard..."

"No fair..." Tony starts whining like a child. "I finally get superpowers and you jump way ahead of me again. It's like nothing changed at all."

One of the main reasons that Tony wanted to get his own powers was because of Peter. On one hand, he wanted to catch up to his friend, and on the other, Tony just wanted to shut him up.

After all, Peter did make a lot of jokes about him being the weakest Avenger, physically.

"Sucks to be you, I guess." Peter smirks as he shrugs his shoulders.

"...Stupid spider b*stard..." Tony grumbled as he paced out of the room and he turned to yell over his shoulder. "I'm going to drink away my pain!"

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For the rest of the week leading up to the meeting with the current Nova Prime, Peter spent most of his time in the Avenger Gym, slowly but surely gaining back control of his immense strength.

After running some tests, Peter found that he was just a little over four times stronger than he was before.

Before the Super Soldier Serum, and through many hours of hard work, Peter was able to increase his strength up to lifting 50,000 pounds, meaning that he could now lift over 200,000 pounds or 100 tons.

'Hehe, I'm the strongest...' The narcissistic part of Peter's brain started acting up as he bench-pressed that exact weight.

"I told you it's unfair..." Tony says to his peers as he and the other Council members watched in shock.

Ever since they received the super soldier serum, each of them started attending the gym more often in order to fully familiarize themselves with their new bodies.

Through the hours spent in the gym, all of them have already learned the boundaries of their strength, which is just a measly 5 Tons or 10,000 pounds.

Of course, that amount wasn't anywhere near measly, but compared to Peter's increase in power they couldn't help but feel like tiny powerless ants.

Though, they could increase their strength with hard work as Peter did.

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One night, while Peter was attending the gym alone, Jarvis made his presence known.

"Sir, I have a list of 27 companies and government facilities that stashed away a portion of Chitauri technology." Jarvis' voice plays in the gym like a disembodied ghost.

"Huh?" Peter stops his current set and racks the enormous weight. "Send the list of locations and any other useful information to my phone."

"Sent, sir." Jarvis says as Peter feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

"Thanks for your hard work, Jarvis." Peter says as he gets up and walks out of the gym.

"It's my pleasure, sir."

...

As Peter ascended the tower and walked out onto the roof, he took out his phone and dialed a number.

"How can I be of service, Black Sky?" Scythes answers in a very respectful tone.

Scythe has been a very loyal and hard-working subordinate. He practically runs the day-to-day operations of the Hand, while sending Peter constant updates and status reports.

Peter makes the big decisions, and Scythe implements them. It's a good relationship in Peter's eyes, as he is already a very busy man.

'Maybe I'll make Scythe the Director of whichever department the Hand ends up becoming in the future?' Peter thought as he returned to the conversation at hand. "How has the Hand been progressing?"

"Smoothly, since my last progress report, we have expanded to another three cities. Wherever the Hand goes, crime rates dip to all-time lows." Scythe answered proudly. "This is the way the Hand should have been all along."

"Well, better late than never." Peter says as he copies the information from Jarvis and texts it to Scythe. "I just sent you a list of locations. The owners decided to go against my words and keep Chitauri technology."

"The Hand will have everything by tomorrow, sir. Would you like us to send a message?" Scythe asks, hinting at spilling some blood.

"If they deserve it." Peter says without care. "Though feel free to steal anything that looks valuable and burn everything else. If you find any misdeeds, feel free to anonymously contact the local authorities as well."

"Yes, sir." Scythe affirms, already sending messages to teams across the world as they spoke.

"Good, talk to you later." Peter says as he hangs up the phone and walks back inside the Tower.

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After days of waiting, the time finally came to attend the meeting on Xander. Days before this, Peter shocked everyone in the tower by opening a portal and dumping tons of Chitauri technology at the at their doorstep.

Just as this was happening, the news was spreading about thefts and arson across multiple companies and government facilities.

The two events were immediately linked as the world remembered Peter's words.

'...anyone caught harboring any of these scraps will be heavily punished. This is a message to everyone, governments, companies, organizations, and citizens alike...'

Things became specially clear after some CEOs admitted to harboring the tech, trying to use that information to attack Spider-Man and make him return 'their property'.

Though no one seemed to care, and even if they did, Peter still wouldn't give anything back.

It wasn't hard to see that the owners of these burned locations didn't listen to Spider-Mans warning, and were now paying the price for their foolish actions.

Many CEOs and high-level government officials were arrested as well, which was like icing on the cake.

On the same day, they were playing the victim with tears in their eyes, these people were swiftly carried off by police on anonymous tips alongside irrefutable evidence to back up the claims.

In a single day, many people were sent to jail and even a few companies went out of business.

Better yet, this all happened while Peter was patrolling New York City, so he had a perfect alibi, though he didn't really need one. Even if everyone knew this was his doing, they couldn't prove a thing.

What made the whole situation funny was the news coverage, which completely took Peter's side and treated the other parties as idiots that picked a fight with Spider-Man.

"Another CEO arrested and found guilty of tax evasion." One newscaster said as he tried his best to hold back a smirk. "I guess we can add him to the list, huh?"

Though that wasn't the best part.

Each company and government spoke out and pretty much disavowed the people that were involved, throwing them completely under the bus while doing all they could to save their own a*ses.

After all, having bad blood with Spider-Man and the Avengers is something that could kill companies and topple governments.

Just a tweet from Peter could start boycotts, protests, and possibly even revolutions, which is why these people were so quickly turned into sacrificial lambs.

Of course, Peter knew that the people putting out these statements were at least privy to what was going on, though he didn't have any dirt on them, so they would get away this time around.

Though one thing came from all of this that Peter expected to happen sooner or later, so he wasn't surprised or worried.

The Avengers have figured out that Peter has some lackeys outside of their group. As Peter was all over the internet last night, saving people all across New York, someone had to be doing the dirty work and it sure wasn't them.

Most people in the Avengers didn't care much, but Fury and Tony were certainly interested in this new information.

"Come on, tell me who it is!" Tony asked for the millionth time as the two waited for the other council members to arrive, so they could head off to Xander for their meeting.

"It's an ancient order of killer zombie ninjas." Peter says truthfully, though he masked it as a joke. "I picked them up in Japan."

"Be serious..." Tony pouted once again. "Aren't I your best friend?"

"Technically, you're one of my best friends, but yeah." Peter says with a shrug.

"Sure, but I'm number one, right?" Tony asks expectantly.

"..." Peter stays quiet and just stared the other direction.

"Right?" Tony asks again, sounding a bit more desperate this time.

Thankfully, before Peter was forced to pick between Tony and Ned, the other council members arrived.

"Are we late?" Charles asks as he walks in followed by Fury and Erik.

"No, Tony was just showing me what clingy and desperate looks like." Peter says, causing Tony to flinch and hold his heart in pain. "Is everyone ready to go?"

"I'm not clingy..."

A/N: 1506 words :)

[DONT FORGET MY STONES! 🙂It may not be my birthday anymore, but that's not an excuse to hold out on me🙃]