C249 Spider-Man (Patreon)

After the death of Armin Zola, Peter focused his complete attention on helping Charles speed along the screening of every captured agent.

By the time Peter showed up, Charles was done with the first base that he sent them to.

Fury was already leading his cleared Shield subordinates in imprisoning those who failed the screening.

Once the trusted Shield Agents were released and vindicated of any treasonous activity, they were put right back to work under Fury, who thankfully had their full cooperation.

After all, he is their director.

Some agents were skeptical of what was happening, as many of the proven Hydra agents were friends of theirs.

Everything happened far too suddenly, making it hard for them to believe anything just yet.

Especially since they weren’t allowed to see any of the proof against their coworkers.

All they knew was that they were brought into a room one by one, and asked a simple question.

“Are you a member of Hydra?”

Those that came out unrestrained were good and those that didn’t were bad.

Simple as that.

Then they were asked to treat the people they worked with and trusted their backs to like prisoners, which was an odd situation for them.

Thankfully, Shield Agents are trained to follow orders, so the large majority of them stepped in line and didn’t cause any problems.

However, those who did cause trouble were instantly jailed as well.

Of course, they were separated from the Hydra plants, as it would be extremely idiotic to put them in a situation where they can be turned to the other side.

All that it would take is a few comforting words from trusted friends and Hydra could have a few more operatives on their side, or at least some sympathizers, which wouldn’t be good either.

...

By the next morning, Peter watched as Charles cleared the last remaining Shield base, finishing off the long operation, which Peter liked to call ‘Operation Housekeeping’.

“I’m so glad that we’re finally done...” Tony said as he flopped down into a comfy chair.

“Technically we aren’t done.” Peter says as he turns to Fury. “Fury has to change all sorts of protocols, passwords, safe houses, and a million other things.”

“Uh... Don’t make me think about that right now.” Fury groaned as he prepared himself for the nightmare that was to come.

Due to the fact that Hydra had infiltrated Shield to such a crazy degree, Fury now had to change all of the locks, so to speak.

It was like breaking up with a psycho ex. Either you change the locks or they’ll come knocking soon enough.

Or just move altogether if they’re crazy enough and Hydra certainly fits that description.

Who knows how much of Hydra still remains in the shadows, waiting to rebuild once again?

Speaking of the remaining Hydra bases and Agents, Peter then turned to Steve and Peggy.

“We’ll also need people to work with the new Shield and hunt down the remnants of Hydra that are still out there.” Peter says and receives a nod from both of them. “Good, but other than that, yeah we’re done.”

“What about Project Insight?” Erik asks, as he stares out of a nearby window.

On the other side of the window is a huge hangar with one of the giant Helicarriers, which was still being built for the project that started all of this.

“Should we destroy them?” Charles asks tiredly.

After all, he did most of the work near the end of Operation Housekeeping.

“No, that’s a waste of a bada*s airship.” Tony disagreed instantly. “Especially since they all belong to us now.”

“I see no problem with keeping the Helicarriers.” Peter agreed with a shrug. “The only problem is Zola’s algorithm.”

“Shouldn’t we use the algorithm?” Erik speaks his mind.

“No, it’s an extreme invasion of privacy.” Charles swiftly disagreed.

“But we may be able to use it to help locate our people.” Magneto argues. “It might even be able to find children before they fully develop their X-Gene.”

“It could also help locate high-level criminals. Meta-human or otherwise.” Fury says, knowing this could make his job easier. “We could also employ it to find any remaining Hydra Agents.”

“...” instantly, everyone who disagreed in the beginning turned deathly silent.

“If the public were to find out about this, I don’t think they’ll be very happy, even if Spider-Man was involved.” Tony says, knowing how much people like their privacy, especially in the United States of America. “Whether we do it with good intentions or not, we would still be spying on the entire world.”

Thankfully, everyone but the Avengers Council, Steve, and Peggy was privy to this conversation, as everyone else left to get some sleep after a long mission.

After all, this is a conversation that may end up being a heavily kept secret.

“If we were to do this...” Peter starts to speak. “We would have to be extremely careful and make sure that our intentions are always good.”

Instantly, the room descended into ideas and arguments, as everyone had something to say about the current topic.

Meanwhile, Peter remained quiet while listening to everyone speak. He wasn’t exactly for or against using Project insight and would simply let everyone else decide the fate of Zola’s algorithm.

...

After an hour of deliberation, no official decision was made, though it looked like everyone was on board with using the Algorithm against the remnants of Hydra.

Truly, it was poetic justice.

Hydra builds an AI to find and kill their enemies, but their enemies steal it and turn it against them.

Not one person in the room had an argument against that.

Meanwhile, every other idea was still up in the air.

As everyone knew that a decision wouldn’t be made today, all parties went their separate ways, as none of them have slept since the beginning of Operation Housekeeping.

Peter wanted to go home and sleep as well, though he had a friend to look out for before any of that could happen.

-Los Angeles-

Opening a portal, Peter stepped out into a sunny cemetery, filled with well-kept tombstones, freshly mowed grass, and flowers, which were placed at almost every grave in sight.

“Hey...” Peter makes his presence known as he walks up and stood behind Tony, who was staring down at a single large gravestone.

[Howard and Maria Stark]

“You know, the last thing that I told my dad before he died was that I hated him. Really and truly hated him, but that isn’t my worst regret from that day.” Tony spoke, keeping his back turned to Peter. “We fought over something insignificant as always, and my mother did her best to mediate both sides, but I didn’t see it that way. I saw her as taking my father's side yet again and told her to go f*ck herself before storming out of the house.”

Tony wiped a stray tear from his eye, making sure to keep his back turned.

“I never spoke to my mother that way yet those were the last words she heard from her son.” Tony sniffles, though he held himself together. “I’ve never told that to anyone. Not even Jarvis.”

“We all say crazy things when we’re arguing.” Peter says as he reaches out and places a hand on his friend's shoulder. “Especially when it comes to those we love, but we never actually mean them. I’m sure that she knew that.”

“Maybe...” Tony says unconvinced by Peter's words.

“...” Peter opted to simply remain quiet for a while and just be there for his friend.

After a few minutes of silence passed, Tony turned to Peter with a serious look on his face.

“I need to talk to Bucky.” Tony says as his face hardened.

“Why?” Peter asks in confusion.

“He killed my parents and if you don’t want me to kill him too, then we need to settle our problems.” Tony says as his hands gripped into fists. “I know I said that I wouldn’t kill him, but I’ve already come up with 50 ways to get my revenge. One of which is by simply sucking the air from his cell and watching him suffocate like a fish out of water.”

Peter was a bit shocked by Tony’s admission.

“Okay, but maybe you should wait until we fix the brainwashing that was done to him.” Peter reluctantly agrees. “He’s only going to either stay silent or antagonize you right now.”

“Fine, but when he’s all fixed up, I want to meet him in his cell... alone.” Tony says as he stares Peter in the eyes.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea...” Peter knew that wouldn’t turn out well.

“It’s either that, or I plot his death behind your back.” Tony gives Peter an ultimatum. “You may be able to protect him for a while, but sooner or later you’ll miss something. Whether it be a bullet to the head or a drop of poison in his food, Bucky will die unless you give us some alone time to work things out.”

“...Fine.” Peter says after a moment of silent staring. ‘I’ll have to keep a close eye on their conversation...’

A/N 1543 words :)