Nightingale | An Avengers Tale

Chapter 2 ~ spider-boy

"Face it Tiger, we just hit the jackpot." I said with a smug grin. I turned around to enjoy my gloating only to come face to face with a boy around my age. "You're not Tiger." I flatly said.

"No I'm not."

I began to analyze him. Brown hair. Sharp eyes. Nice jawline. Tall. Kinda cute. He had beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He bit his lip as he glanced anxiously around. His hoodie had a lame periodic table joke on it. He was either a nerd or had a lame sense of humor. Or both. His jeans were ripped in the knees, but given the amount of fraying, they weren't bought that way. He had a backpack clutched tightly to himself in one hand but his other hand was left free, as if ready to strike.

"So. Who's after you?" I questioned.

"What?" He stammered.

"Please. It's completely obvious." I began to twirl my long red hair.

"It is?" He took another step towards me.

"Yep." I tiredly replied.

"You can't tell anyone you saw me." He pleaded.

"Like that'd be a problem." I sarcastically replied as I rolled my eyes at him.

"Please." He stepped towards me again.

"Ok. News flash." I began to hold up my fingers. "One. I don't think I'm going to have a conversation with anyone about how I met a boy whilst breaking into a building. Two. I don't know who you are so the probability of you coming up in a conversation is completely low." I paused for dramatic effect. "And three, I honestly don't care enough to bother."  I turned to walk away from him, inspecting the building. It was definitely empty other than for nerd-boy.

"You know the police are outside?"

"Yep. That's why I'm inside." Man this kid was thick.

"Well, won't they just follow you inside?"

"That's kinda the plan." I sarcastically muttered.

"Plan?"

"Yeah. They come in here. I go out the window and turn on the security system I made for this place. All the doors will lock and they'll be stuck until someone comes to get them out. And then this building becomes known as haunted and no one ever steps foot near it again." I paused. "Except for me of course." I banged my hand against the wall opening a hidden compartment.

"I have to get out of here." He mumbled.

"Yeah ok." I distractedly replied as I pulled a laptop out of the hole in the wall.

"Why are you helping them catch me?" He frantically questioned.

I glanced up from the glowing screen to see him angrily peering down at me. "I'm not helping anyone catch you."

"You brought the police right here."

"I don't know who you are."

"All of New York. All of the world knows who I am." He panicked. "All I wanted was to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Why can't everyone just let me do that?"

"You're Spider-Man?" I softly questioned.

"Haven't you been listening?" He asked. A hint of annoyance began to creep into his tone. Oh joy this could be fun.

"Not really." I replied with a smile and then glanced back at the laptop. I pressed enter and tossed the laptop back in the secret compartment and then slid the panel shut. I turned around to see Spider-boy was still right behind me. "I thought you were leaving?"

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"With all the racket you made the police are already in the building. I programmed the security system to lock up in what is now 45-seconds. If you don't want to get caught I recommend you start swinging out the window." I flatly replied.

"You're helping me?"

"It's not like I have anything better to do." I paused and bit my lip. "30-seconds."

He slowly nodded at me and swung towards the window.

I quickly followed him and crawled out onto the fire escape just as all the door and windows of the warehouse slammed shut. "Hasta la vista." I muttered. I smirked as I heard panicked voices filling the empty building as they realized they were trapped. With the sound and light effects I had programmed no one would want to visit this old building anytime soon. Let's just say the haunted mansion was about to get very real.

I glanced around to see where arachnid-boy had disappeared to. Seeing him nowhere I shrugged. Well that was a short lived partnership.

Sad. It was really fun and easy to annoy him. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to settle for messing with Silver's stupid boyfriend.

I checked my phone to see if there were any texts from Ava. Weird. She should have been here by now if she hadn't run into any problems. I bit my lip. Silver was going to be furious if there were any complications. But for now, there wasn't anything I could do.

Hearing a scuffling noise, I catapulted myself over the fire escape landing and onto the ground below. I crept towards the noice, hoping that I would find Ava and be able to save her from whatever mess she had landed us in.

Rounding the corner, I found Spider-boy on the ground. In spite of his best web swinging techniques, he was no match for the jolts of electricity from the tasers that were being aimed at him.

For a brief second we made eye contact, his gaze penetrated through me. I involuntarily gulped as I saw him finally collapse to the ground. My gaze focused on the five men that had surrounded him. Instantly, I recognized all of them as mercenaries that would work for the highest bidder around town.

One the men glanced up at me. "Keep moving." He growled at me.

I gritted my teeth as I slowly turned to keep walking. Part of me was super happy that they weren't messing with me, and the other part of me was screaming at myself for leaving Bug-boy back there.

He may be weird, but he definitely wasn't a dangerous criminal, and whatever they wanted with him could not be good. I bit my lip again as I continued to walk away. What the popcorn? I'm not supposed to be a push over like this. All my training taught me to walk away from situations like these.

I glanced back down the alley; the men were grabbing his arms and preparing to drag him away. I bit my lip once again. Don't get involved; just keep going, my brain internally screamed at me.

"Forget training." I angrily muttered. I numbly reached into my backpack and pulled a flat device out.  "You like electrocuting others; let's see how you like it." I muttered.

I whirled around and tossed the device towards the group. I dropped to the ground seconds before the device activated and sent an electric wave radiating towards them. Glancing up, I saw that all of his attackers were now lying motionless on the ground.

I jumped to my feet and ran to the boy's side. What now brilliant? There was no way I could logically carry him to safety, but at the same time it would not exactly be smart to wait around for any of these jokers to wake up. I groaned as I grabbed him by the arm and began dragging him towards the nearest safe house.

"The next time you get yourself knocked out could you please pick a location by a first floor hideout." I huffed as I continued to drag him to safety.