A/N: This will be two chapters, so hang around!

Disclaimer: I don't own Spider-Man. I don't own Marvel. I don't make money from this. I don't even have money.

The wind pushed Peter roughly against the side of the building. The street lights below shone like yellow beacons of light in the dark night.

The man screamed.

Peter jumped from the roof, a strand of web keeping him from falling to a premature doom, and landed deftly behind the assailant. "Next time you choose an alley to mug someone, at least pick one I'm not in spitting distance of!" he ranted, "Alright, drop the money and I'll give you a five second head start."

"Y– you're–Spider-Man!" the attacker stuttered, dropping the money and scurrying out of the alley.

The victim hauled himself up on shaky legs. "Who are you?"

"Really?" Peter asked, "No one seems to grasp the concept of the mask!"

The victim stared in amazement as a line of web from Peter's wrist lodged in the roof of a neighboring building, flinging the spandex-clad youth up, up, and away.

"Thanks!" the man yelled into the once again silent night.

As Peter approached his aunt's house, he put a stop to the web-shooting and landed smoothly on the sidewalk, next to a shed, where he quickly lost the spider-themed get-up.

He then continued on, until he came to the store nearest his home. It took him barely more than six minutes to select the lean cut of meat his aunt had originally sent him for.

"Hey, Aunt Mae!" Peter called, closing the front door behind him.

"Did you get it?" Aunt Mae asked, coming out of the kitchen.

"You mean the eggs?" Peter teased, dumping his dirty sneakers by the front mat and wiggling his now bare toes in the carpet. It felt nice to finally get out of the tight spider-suit.

"If you don't have my beef, I'll whack you upside the head!" Aunt Mae threatened, wooden spoon in hand. She eyed his bare feet with worry. "Weren't your feet cold?" she asked. "No socks– that's dangerous on a night like this. You'll end up with hypothermia or something!"

"Nah, I uh…" Peter rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous habit, "I was just hot this morning, so…"

"Maybe you're sick," she decided, reaching to feel his forehead.

"Aunt Mae!" Peter protested, ducking and batting her hand away. "I just didn't feel like wearing socks!"

It was obvious that Mae didn't buy a word of it, but as she didn't have a reason to believe that Peter would lie about something so small and trivial, let him escape to his room. Teenagers.

"Really dodged a bullet there, didn't ya, Parker?" Peter muttered aloud. He shook his head and flicked the switch that would lock his door.

Socks. Of all the things he'd forgotten, it had to be socks. If the fact that he had forgotten his socks became the reason that his double-life was revealed, Peter was pretty sure he'd simply die of embarrassment. Aunt Mae was far too observant for her own good.

"Dinner'll be ready in twenty!" Aunt Mae called, her voice coming from the kitchen.

"Alright!" Peter yelled back, sinking down into his desk chair. The movement rattled the mouse of the computer sitting in front of him, waking up the screen. This, of course, reminded him of the school work given to him, last Friday… Due tomorrow.

Oops.

-l-l-l-l-l-

Peter awoke the next morning to a frantic beeping noise that was most definitely not his alarm clock.

He groaned.

"We have a 1-2-8-5 in progress, heading South on North Park Avenue. All available units are requested at the scene."

The voice droned on. And on. And on. And on. Was it going to shut up?

Peter lifted his head a fraction of an inch and peered at the device on his nightstand. Of all the times his police-scanner had to go off, 3:16 am. was the time it chose. Of course.

If one of the bad guys didn't kill him, sleep deprivation certainly would. Food for thought.

It wasn't until he had rolled back over, having decided the police could handle this one, and was nearly asleep, that something occurred to him.

He bolted out of bed and into his suit.

Peter was 99.4528% sure that he had memorized all of the NYPD's codes. So why had he never heard of a 1-2-8-5? He could think of only two answers.

Either the NYPD had decided to completely revamp their systems overnight, or this was something so huge, so terrible, that he'd never heard of it before.

His conclusion?

Spider-Man was needed.

Peter yawned.