Life Saver

Chapter 21 - The Arrival

Peter's P.O.V

"Hey Peter, you doin' alright?" Mr. Stark asks from the seat in front of me.

"Yeah yeah, sure, yeah, of course. Why would something be wrong?" I ask, realizing how dumb I sound.

"You seem a little tense still." He says, taking a sip of his soda.

"Well... I'm still not used to being this high up and my Spidey Sense is going haywire, trying to get me to jump out of the plane so I can get to the ground." I say nonchalantly.

"Aha... I see... *Ahem* Well then. There's something I gotta talk to you about."

"Shoot." I mumble, staring out the window. The clouds look so fluffy.

"While you've been patroling, has weird things happened? Like, uhh... weird criminals or people talking about missing people?" Mr. Stark asks, leaning on the table between us.

"Actually... Yeah. Something in that direction. There's been these... these weird people with weird mutant like powers. Or... ehh... more like, just super strength. But not human." I explain.

"You remember that man that crashed into the gas station?" Mr. Stark asks, picking up a bag and taking out some papers.

"Y-yeah... hard to forget." I mumble and keeping my glance away from Mr. Stark.

"Right... *Ahem* I know you don't really want to talk about that incident, but I have to ask you some questions. Alright?" I gulp and slowly nod. "Right. So. People have started to disappear around the city, then they've suddenly turned up doing crime. Not everyone has turned up, of course, but people like the man in the car and the men in the bank." Mr. Stark starts. My breathing becomes a little harsh, but I make sure Mr. Stark don't realize something's wrong.

"A-about... umm... about the men in the bank... They said they worked for someone and one of them pleaded for me to kill them since this 'boss' had already sent someone to murder them. When I tried to croak an answer from the guy... they were shot. I looked around the area, but I couldn't find the killer." I explain, looking at the photos, pointing out the men I encountered.

"Peter... Are you sure you're okay? Maybe we should discuss this lat-"

"I'm fine. Let's just get this over with. Okay?" I cut him off.

"... Alright..." he mutters. "Yeah... okay... So, apparently, S.H.I.E.L.D. has reasons to believe these men were either experimented on, like, using some kind of drug, or, they were biological mutants. The thing is. The men you encountered and most of the missing people weren't and aren't mutants to begin with. There are probably some who are missing, that actually are mutants. But for now, we don't know how many." Mr. Stark finishes.

"Woah... S.H.I.E.L.D. is even investigating this? That't so cool! Well... uhh... not the part where people are missing, of course. But, like, the part where I'm involved in a big investigating and... uhh... Actually... I should probably not think this is cool..." I mumble the last bit to myself and Mr. Stark chuckles.

"Don't worry Pete. But yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. is leading this investigation. We have some... reasons to believe the Owner of Oscorp, Norman Osborn, has something to do with these... disappearing. Which is partly the reason we're on this trip to begin with. Oscorp seems to be working on something we hope they'll spoil during this conference and Mr. Osborn himself has a... very interesting past. So while we're there. Keep an eye out, alright?" I nod and Mr. Stark also nods a little to himself.

"Speaking of Oscorp. That reminds me of the trip my class took to Oscorp, like, last year or something. It was actually at Oscorp I got my powers." I say with a cheery voice and not a second later, Mr. Stark looks in my direction, shock visible on his face.