Someone asked me when I'm going to update The Phantom and the Witch. By the time you're reading this, I would have already gotten started on it. I don't really have a set date on when it will come out, mainly because I feel giving myself a deadline puts even more pressure on me, and my week is stressful enough as it is. Just know that it's coming. Same goes for Hope and Responsibility, I'll try to have the next chapter out soon. I've been writing chapters for both that and this story simultaneously, I just happen to have gotten this done first. With that out of the way, here's the conclusion to the Kingpin arc.

Settling a Score (Part 2)

Fisk Tower, Manhattan, NY

Spider-Man desperately dodges each attack the enforcers throw at him.

"Hey, take it easy guys, I promise I'll beat the snot out of each and every one of you chumps. You just have to wait your turn." He turns to Fancy Dan and webs up his hands, preventing him from firing his guns. "That's enough out of you trigger fingers."

In his head, the spider hero thought, "Okay Spider-Man, you fought Kang the Conqueror. You should be able to handle these guys no problem. Besides, you even brought an Avenger along to help you out, should you get into deep doo-doo…Of course I don't know if HE knows I'm in deep doo-doo but…"

However, Spider-Man's train of thought was interrupted when Ox grabs his leg and slams him into some nearby computer terminals. He then holds the unconscious teenager by the neck like a rubber chicken.

Montana whistles, "Is that a new costume he's wearing. Not gonna lie, I kinda like it. Who's his tailor?"

"Who cares," says Electro. "Let's just fry him and be done with this. I'm getting real tired of this kid."

Suddenly, Montana felt something crawling on his hand. He looks down and sees an ant crawling on it. He looks down even further and sees his entire bottom half being swarmed by the insects.

"AAH, GET THESE VARMENTS OFF ME."

The rest of the Enforcers are now feeling something crawling all over their bodies. They too start to freak out and pat themselves down to get rid of the ants. This gave Spider-Man and opportunity to kick Montana and Fancy Dan and escape Ox's grasp.

After latching onto a nearby wall he asks, "Did you go on a lunch break or something? What took you?"

Ant-Man, who is riding on a queen ant, lands on Spider-Man's left shoulder and says, "Hey, those air vents were like a maze alright?"

Fancy Dan was the first to hear another voice. He then sees Ant-Man on his shoulder and points at him, "Hey, the kid ain't alone."

Ox squints his eyes and sees the small hero too. "Shit," he says with a look of fear. "If Ant-Man's here, then that means…"

"Ya damn right," Spider-Man replies. "Did I forget to mention that I fought Kang the Conqueror…with The Avengers? Which means I'm buddies with them. So unless you want me to call them so they can kick your butts, I suggest you back down now and let me and Ant-Man leave here quietly."

Ant-Man just stands on Spider-Man's shoulders proudly with his arms crossed.

Electro on the other hand wasn't buying the spider hero's bluff. He grins wickedly, "Okay hotshot, if you really are buddies with The Avengers, call em."

Spider-Man and Ant-Man both gulp. They both knew that if the Avengers knew what they were doing, they could get in a lot of trouble.

"Yeah, I thought so," says Electro. "If The Avengers were really here, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't send someone like freaking Ant-Man to back you up."

"Hey, I take great offense to that," says Ant-Man.

"Come on guys, stop cowering like wimps and let's just kill these schmucks."

Electro fires a blast at the two heroes and Spider-Man jumps in one direction while Ant-Man jumps in the other. Spider-Man lands on the ground and his spider sense warns him about another blast from Electro and Ox lunging at him. The wall crawler decides to kill two birds with one stone by leaping out of the way of the oncoming electric bolt and having it hit the large Enforcer instead. Ox screams in pain and falls to his knees.

"Ox, dude, I'm sorry," Electro apologizes.

Spider-Man and Ant-Man, who is back to his regular size, regroup to come up with a game plan.

"Well kid, any bright ideas?" the ex con asks the wall crawler.

"If it's a fight they want, they got it," answers Spider-Man. "You deal with the Enforcers…Electro's mine."

"Are you sure you can handle him? You know he kicked your ass last time."

"Yeah, but I'm ready for him this time."

"Just try not to get fried okay?"

The two heroes go their separate ways. Ant-Man faces off against Montana first.

"You're gonna wish you didn't stick your nose in these neck of the woods," says the southern Enforcer.

He lunges his whip at Ant-Man to which the size changing Avenger dodges it by shrinking down, doing an aerial summersault over the whip and then growing back to his normal height, drop kicking Montana in the face and knocking him unconscious. Ant-Man was about to admire his handiwork, but then he hears the sound of a gun being cocked behind him. He looks over his shoulder and sees Fancy Dan about to fire his gun…he also sees that his hands are still webbed up.

"So long punk," the gun-wielding Enforcer says as he pulls the trigger.

"No, wait…" Ant-Man tries to warn Fancy Dan about his predicament, but it was too late. What followed was Fancy Dan falling to his knees and clutching his now bleeding hand.

"AAH, MOTHER…AUGH."

"I tried to warn you."

Meanwhile Spider-Man lunges towards his target while dodging his electric bolts.

"So Electro, if that is indeed your real name, when it comes down to it, you're kind of a one trick pony huh?"

The spider hero gets close to the electrified criminal and grabs both of his wrists.

"L…Let go of me you little freak or I'll…"

"Yeah, yeah, fry me like an egg, smoke me like a salmon, you got a real food theme going on. You on one of those Oprah diets or something?"

"Grr, hate you!"

Spider-Man and Electro get into a bit of a power struggle, and the wall crawler says, "So, now that we have a moment, I just gotta ask, where did you get your powers?"

"Really kid?" Ant-Man says as he jumps on Spider-Man's left shoulder. "You pick now to have this conversation?"

"It's none of your business," says Electro.

"Come on, I'm just curious," says Spider-Man.

"Drop dead."

"Are you a mutant?"

"Are you?"

"I asked you first."

"Well I'm not."

"Then come on, tell me how you got your powers."

"Why do you care?"

"For once I agree with creepy electric man," Ant-Man cuts in.

"It's just that…I'm a bit of a science geek when it comes to that kind of stuff," Spider-Man explains as he continues to struggle. "I'll tell you how I got mine."

"I will tell you one thing kiddo, after we take care of you and your tiny friend here, we're going to find out who you are, and we're going to find your family…all of them, and then I'll personally fry them too."

"You son of a…" Ant-Man begins to say but Spider-Man interrupts.

"Are you serious?"

"Oh, I'm dead serious."

"Wow, well then you certainly can't blame me for doing this."

The spider hero begins to kick a nearby pipe, breaking it and making water pour out of it.

"ANT-MAN HIT THE DECK," he then says as he throws Electro into the water.

Ant Man jumps off of Spider-Man's shoulders as he does this. The electric criminal begin to short circuit and scream in agony. The rest of the Enforcers were also electrocuted due to the floor being flooded, electrifying it in the process. Moments later, all of the Kingpins goons were lying unconscious. Spider-Man, having clung to the ceiling to avoid getting fried, looks in awe at what he did.

"I…I did it."

Ant-Man hovers over to the masked teenager on a queen ant, "Nice job kid, you beat em. Now let's hurry up and get out of here."

Spider-Man lands on the ground while Ant-Man grows back to his normal size.

The ex-con turned Avenger looks over at the unconscious Electro, walks over to him and kicks him, "That's for threatening my daughter you human lite-brite."

Spider-Man rolls his eyes and waves his hand at Ant-Man to follow him through the exit. But as the two heroes begin to walk out, they hear a groan. They both look over their shoulders and see Ox lying in his back holding his head.

The spider hero turns to Ant-Man and says, "One second."

"We don't have a second," Ant-Man argues. "Fisk will be here at any moment."

"It won't be long I promise." Spider-Man walks up to Ox and says, "Hey, you still with us big guy?"

"Ugh, I don't feel well," Ox groans. "Well you're in pretty bad shape if it makes you feel any better. You got any family? Any kids? A mom?"

"I love my mom."

"Well if you do, then listen. It's over for the Kingpin you hear? O...ver. My little team up with Ant-Man had taught me that even criminals deserve a chance to turn their lives around. You want to do something right for once in your life? March your incredibly stupid butt to the cops, FBI or whatever…and you confess. You tell them everything. Because he's going bye-bye either way."

"Y…Yeah, okay." Ox says with a nod.

Spider-Man rushes through the hallway with Ant-Man on his shoulder.

"There's the exit straight ahead," says the tiny Avenger. "The stairs will take us to the roof. We can finally…"

"I don't know what you think is going to happen," a deep menacing voice booms through the hall. "But you are not leaving here alive."

"Ah shit," Ant-Man says as he and Spider-Man look behind them and see the Kingpin standing just a few feet away.

The crime boss is wearing a simple white dress shirt, with black dress pants and dress shoes.

"Who are you working for?" he asks.

As Spider-Man and the Kingpin have a stare-down, Ant-Man whispers to him, "Easy kid, you'll get your chance with Fisk, but not tonight. We got what we came here for, the exit is right behind us, let's just get the hell out of here while we still can."

"…No," Spider-Man finally replies. "I was actually hoping it would come to this."

The ex-con's eyes grew wide, "What? Are you out of your goddamn…ugh."

The spider hero continues, "You're right Fisk, you don't know me. And I promised myself that if I ever had a moment face to face with you again, that I would tell you. There are a ton of things I wanted to say to you and I was afraid that I would forget to even say them, and I REALLY wanted to remember to say these things to you because they are really important to me."

"Seriously, the exit is literally at arm's length," says Ant-Man. "What is it that you have to say to him that's so important?"

Spider-Man doesn't answer. He just reaches into his backpack and pulls out some cue cards.

Ant-Man facepalms, "Aaand you even wrote it down. Fantastic."

"Okay, here goes," Spider-Man says as he clears his throat. "You are so fat that when you cut yourself shaving, marshmallow fluff comes out."

This grabs Ant-Man's attention, "Wait, what?"

The Kingpin looks at the wall crawler in disbelief.

"No? Okay, how about this one. You are so fat that your high school yearbook was taken from a helicopter."

Ant-Man looks over at the Kingpin who is starting to look absolutely livid.

"Okay kid, if pissing him off was part of your plan, it seems to be working."

"Hold on, I got another one," says Spider-Man. "You are so fat that when you step on a scale it says, "One at a time"."

Kingpin now screams in rage and runs towards the spider hero.

"YOU SON OF A…"

"Wait, wait, I got more. Your belly button makes an echo. If you were a truck you would have a wide load sign. When you back up, we can hear a beeping sound."

As soon as the crime boss got close, Spider-Man immediately jumps out of the way while Ant-Man jumps off of his shoulder.

The spider hero latches onto a wall and continues to speak, "Alright, how about…you are such an arrogant evil guy that you…"

"Wasting my time," Kingpin says as he tries to punch Spider-Man, only to have him leap away and hit a wall instead.

"That you think you can just walk all over everyone in this city. You steal and use people…"

"And I'm going to kill you," Kingpin interrupts as he throws another punch that Spider-Man dodges.

"Yeah, yeah, blah, blah." The masked teenager webs the crime lord's hand to the wall he just punched. "You sell drugs to children and don't give it a thought. CHILDREN!"

Ant-Man watches all of this and was surprised at how the younger hero went from joking around to being serious at the drop of a hat. It was at this point that he decided not to interfere (for now) and let the kid speak his mind and dress the fat crime boss down. Because even he will admit, the bastard deserves it. The Kingpin takes another swing at Spider-Man, only to have his other hand webbed to the wall.

As he is struggling, the wall crawler leaps onto the Kingpins chest and gets in his face, finishing up what he has to say, "But here's the thing, as much as I hate you, as much as you make my skin crawl, I didn't come here to fight you. Any idiot can do that." And with that, Spider-Man covers the Kingpin's face with webbing. "I have something so much better planned."

The Kingpin finally had enough. He begins to break free from the webs holding him against the wall, "AAARGH, KILL YOU! YOU LITTLE SHIT, YOU ARE SO IN OVER YOU HEAD THAT…"

However, as soon as he rips the webbing out of his face, he sees that there is nobody else in the hallway except for him. Spider-Man and Ant-Man were gone.

Moments later…

"Fat jokes? Really?" Ant-Man ask as he and Spider-Man take a breather on a rooftop roughly a few blocks away from Fisk Tower.

Both of them have their mask/helmet off.

"What? I was just saying what was on my mind the moment I first saw him. Now that I finally got it out of my chest, I am deeply satisfied."

Scott shakes his head, "What does Cassie see in you?"

"Says the guy who plays with Ninja Turtles action figures whenever you're home alone."

"She told you that? Oh, she is SO grounded."

Peter reaches into his backpack and pulls out the two discs he took.

Scott also looks at them and asks, "So you got what you wanted?"

"One disc recorded the moment they pulled off my mask, the other is when Fisk murdered Mr. Big."

"Man, I still can't believe he's gone. He helped me out a lot during trivia night at the Bar with No Name. I take it that's the disc you're going to take to the Bugle, and I'm guessing you're going to destroy the other one."

"That's the plan."

Scott turns around and takes a good look at the New York skylight. "I can't believe we managed to pull it off. I thought we were dead for sure, especially when Fisk showed up. But we went in, kicked some ass and then left." He then looks at Peter with a smile. "Not bad for a couple of screw-ups, huh?"

Peter chuckles, "I appreciate you helping me Scott. I don't think I could have done this without you."

"Are you kidding? The way you laid out that electric guy and humiliated Fisk? I was just a spectator at that point. Anyway, since our little heist was a massive success, I guess now we can go home and get some much needed rest. I know you got school tomorrow so I won't keep you out here long. It's been a fun second team-up Spider-Man. You're okay in my book."

With that, Scott puts on his helmet.

As he was about to leave, Peter spoke up, "Hey Ant-Man?"

Ant-Man turns around.

Peter, with a smile says, "You're okay in my book too."

Ant-Man gives a thumbs up and shrinks down to a small enough size that makes him hard to spot.

Peter begins to put on his mask, fires a web line and swings towards Queens.

Ant-Man, who is riding on a queen ant, looks behind him to see the younger hero take off and smiles, "Yeah, you picked a good one Cass."

The Daily Bugle (The next day)

An adult male, with long brown hair and a beard arrives at his work station in the Daily Bugle offices. As soon as he hangs his jacket, he sees a small package laying on his desk, complete with a note that says,

"Enclosed, there are all kinds of goodies you will find on the Kingpin. I have marked a couple of discs that should be really interesting. Please do the right thing. Signed, a friend. P.S. Not for the squeamish."

The man raises an eyebrow at this and then turns around after getting the feeling that someone was watching him (It was Peter making sure he got the package). He then reaches for his phone and dials a number.

"Hey Matt, it's Ben. There's something I need to ask you…"

Meanwhile, roughly five stations down, Peter pulls out his mobile phone and makes a call of his own.

Burdick residence, (Queens, NY)

The sound of the phone ringing can be heard around the house, and Peggy was the first to pick it up.

"Hello?"

"Good evening Mrs. Burdick," Peter greets on the other line.

The blonde woman smiles, "Peter, hi, I take it you want to speak to Cassie. She just got out of the shower, so I'll go get her for you."

Peggy puts the phone down and leaves the living room. Moments later, Cassie, wearing only a red robe and a black towel wrapped around her head, walks into the room and picks up the phone.

"Peter?"

"Hey Cass," Peter responds. "Is this a bad time?"

The blonde smiles, "With you? Never. What's up?"

"Oh nothing much, just thinking about that movie night we were supposed to have that I blew off because I decided to pick a fight with a fat man and his electric bodyguard."

"Peter, it's okay." Cassie looks around the room for any eavesdroppers and lowers her voice. "You were hurt and needed to heal up. You were in no condition to do anything."

"Yeah, but I still felt really bad about it. Which is why, in order to make up to you, maybe we can try again this Saturday? And seeing as you and I are…you know…I guess we can call it a date."

"…Like…a REAL date?"

"Yep, dinner and all…Assuming J.J. pays me good this week."

Cassie giggles, "So…do I still get to pick the movie?"

There was some silence until a sigh was heard, "Fine."

The blonde grins, "You did say you were going to make it up to me. Okay Mr. Parker, I guess I'll see you on Saturday. Just try not to get your ass kicked by any bad guys beforehand, or I'll come over to your house and finish what they started."

Peter chuckles, "Yes ma'am. Ooh, gotta go, J.J.'s yelling at me to get back to work. Talk to you later." The spider hero ends the call.

Cassie also hangs up. She lets out a giggle and goes to her room.

Pym Technologies

Scott is sitting on a chair in the main lab reading the latest edition of the Daily Bugle newspaper with a smile on his face. Peter did exactly what he said he would do and gave the incriminating surveillance disc to the press. Fisk's Kingpin persona has finally been brought to light and there is now a warrant for his arrest. Unfortunately, the crime boss managed to skip town before the authorities could get a hold of him. Being a former criminal himself, Scott can only guess that the Kingpin probably went to some safe house in another country somewhere and is lying low for a bit. While the size-changing Avenger considers this a win, he knows he shouldn't let his guard down. Fisk may be burying his head in the sand now, but no doubt will he try to come after him and Peter in a big way…especially Peter. Scott made a mental note to warn the younger hero about that on a later date, but for now, he is going to let the kid savor his moment of victory. He definitely earned it.

"Strange," Hope says as she walks into the room. "Usually when you read the paper, you always go for the funny pages."

"Hey, I read the actual paper from time to time," Scott defensively responds. "Especially when big, and I mean big, crime bosses finally get their comeuppance after all this time."

This got Hope intrigued and she takes a good look at the front page article that reads, "Wilson Fisk Exposed: by Ben Urich".

"Huh, how about that," the brunette woman comments. "And judging by the smug look on your face when I walked in here, I take it you had something to do with that?"

Scott's eyes grew wide but his face is being covered by the paper, "Uh, nope, Fisk is usually a Defenders problem, and they'll never recruit me after what I pulled on our last team up. Daredevil never answers my calls, Luke and Iron Fist would hang up the moment they hear my voice and Jessica says that if I ever contact her again, she'd step on me the next time she sees me."

Hope gives a convincing nod, "Right." She then leaves her boyfriend to his business, but before she left she speaks again, "Oh, and I overheard your little heart to heart with Peter the other day. It was rather touching. And it was real sweet of you to make sure the kid didn't get himself killed breaking into Fisk Tower."

Scott finally puts the paper down and looks at his girlfriend.

Hope just smiles at him, "Don't worry, I promise I won't tell Tony. I'll just add this to my long laundry list of secrets I have to keep. Oh, and next time you want to take down an entire criminal empire, be sure to invite me. You know how much I hate missing out on the action."

As she leaves the room, the ex-con just sits there in disbelief, and then facepalms. "Man, sometimes it sucks dating someone who is smarter than you."

With the Kingpin's crimes being brought to light, our favorite web slinger can rest easy...for now. More adventures await Spidey and the rest of the Young Avengers, so stay tuned.

Be sure to leave a comment with your thoughts on the story so far. Until next time...