•AFTER THE WAR: SPIDER-MAN'S STORY [COMPLETED]•

Chapter 7

Taskmaster.

The name plagued Peter all night, and all the next day. That night, he once again put on his mask and went out into the city. I need to find this guy, find out what he wants, what he's trying to do. However, after an hour of what felt like pointless searching, he returned home, discouraged. There's no way I can do this on my own... that's it! I know what to do now.

Peter grabbed his phone and dialed a number he had thought he would never call again. "Hello? It's me, Peter. You know, the Parker kid?" he lowered his voice. "Spiderman?" There was a pause, then Peter smiled. "Yep that's me! Hey listen, um, I really need your help."

                    ---

Peter landed on the roof the former Avenger's Tower, looking around. This is awesome!

"Great. You made it kid," a man's silhouette stepped towards him into the light, revealing the face of Tony Stark. "I gotta say, you've done a pretty good job so far with the whole 'babysitting New York' thing."

"Well, uh, your suit helped. I mean, my suit. That you made for me," Peter stammered. Yeah, ok, this might have been a bad idea.

Tony chuckled. "Heh. So, what's this about a crazy murderer guy? Uh, Task-somebody."

Peter sighed. "It's Taskmaster, and he's kind of a big problem right now."

"Well, if you came to me, then yeah, I'd say so," Tony remarked.

Peter cringed inwardly. It had been only a few months ago when he and Tony had argued about the Accords. They had somewhat smoothed things over, but he still felt slightly distant from him.

Shaking his head, Peter spoke slowly. "Look, you don't have to help me if you really don't want to. I don't even have anything that useful to go on."

"Kid," Tony suddenly sounded serious, "I'm going to help you whether you want me to or not. Now, what do you have on this guy?"           

Peter sighed, slightly relieved. "Not much. His last known location is an old warehouse on North Road. I don't really have any way of knowing where he is now."

Tony frowned. Then he said, "Did you check with any locals, ask them if they've seen this guy?"

"Yes, but no one has."

"This is gonna be a tough one. Have you tried using your scanners yet?"

Peter was confused. "Scanners? What scanners?"

Tony smacked his forehead. "That's right! I never told you."

"Told me what?" Peter asked impatiently.

"Your web shooters," Tony said, gesturing towards them. "I upgraded them with thermal imaging scanners." He started pacing. "I thought you would've found them by now."

Peter remembered the day he had met Tony. He had taken Peter to Germany to fight against Captain America and his team of fugitives. When he had gotten back home, Peter had found that his web shooters could now project a copy of what he had come to think of as his logo. It was a little Spidey mask with statistics of his suit along the edges of the image. That must be what he's talking about! "I did find it. I just didn't realize it until just now," Peter replied.

Tony grinned. "That's great, kid. Come on, I'll show you how to use them."

                     ---

Peter landed on a sheltered roof as he once again checked the thermal imaging on his web shooters. Ever since Tony had shown him how to use them, he had been selecting parts of the city and searching them each day. Admittedly, this wasn't a very good way of looking for Taskmaster, but it was the only way Peter could use effectively. He now watched the images that the scanners were picking up. Tony had told him that he had programmed enemies to show up as red figures, neutral were yellow, and allies blue.

Just the same as always, yellow, yellow, and more yellow, Peter thought. Exasperated, he switched off the cameras and swung off towards home. However, if he had kept watching, the scanners would have showed a red dot moving stealthily towards his position.