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Andi was sitting on the stairs in the hotel lobby bored out of her mind. Her classmates around her were more-or-less engaged in their own conversations regarding the incident that took place earlier and the identity behind the man that defeated the water monster. Of course, she was curious about his identity as well, but she was reeling in the relief that no one saw her and Peter, as well as the newfound information that New York's newest spider-person was, in fact, Gwen Stacy. She knew deep down Gwen was the face behind the mask, but actually finding out took a bit of time to truly process.

"Buzzfeed says there's a sailor, Morris Bench, who was exposed to an experimental underwater generator and got hydro powers," Flash's voice could be heard as he walked around the lobby with his eyes plastered to his phone screen. Andi could only roll her eyes at him and take a sip of the water in her hands. In her eyes, he was and always would be a notorious idiot.

"Yeah, you should definitely believe everything you read on the internet," MJ called to him from her spot on the stairs beside Andi.

Flash looked MJ directly in the eye. "Spider-Man could take him."

Andi shook her head at Flash. His admiration for Spider-Man was hilariously ironic given how horrible he treated the boy behind the mask.

"Hey, guys," Gwen greeted her friends. She made her way down the stairs and sat beside MJ with a smile on her face. "What's everyone doing?"

"Trying to figure out who the mystery guy in the square was today," MJ told her.

"He's like Iron Man and Thor rolled into one," Brad said, his attention on the TV.

Flash scoffed beside him. "He's alright, but he's no Spider-Man."

"Why are you so obsessed with Spider-Man?" Andi asked Flash.

"What?" Flash shrugged his shoulders and looked at Andi. "He's just awesome, okay? He protects the neighborhood, and, y'know, he's inspiring. He inspires me to be a better man! That girlfriend of his, Recluse, she's pretty wicked too."

Peter walked up to join the group then, stopping at the stairs beside Andi, MJ, and Gwen. He caught Flash's attention immediately, and a smirk spread across his face.

"What's up, dickwad?" Flash said to Peter, irritating the three girls at his side. "Thought you drowned."

"What happened to Spider-Man inspiring you to be a better man, Flash?" Gwen asked him.

"I'm sure if Spider-Man were here, he'd look at Parker and say the same thing," Flash responded, snorting back his laughter.

"I don't think he would," Andi told him. "But I do think he would teach you a thing or two about not being an intolerable dick."

The remark earned a glare from Flash and several laughs from her classmates, Peter included. He held a fist out to her, which she gladly bumped with her own.

The next few moments were filled with chatter regarding the identity of the mystery man, and Andi still remained locked inside her boredom. There was so much more she believed she could be doing at the moment, such as sitting down to have a much needed chat with Gwen and Peter about their own identities. That wasn't too possible with their classmates surrounding them, and she was sure it wouldn't look too appropriate were the three to head upstairs together. Regardless, she'd grown tired of the discussion.

"So, how much of that did you see, MJ?" Gwen asked her.

"Not much," MJ answered her. "I was kind of running for my life."

"I think we all were," Andi chuckled.

"Is that why you three disappeared?" MJ asked, causing all three of them to look at her. "You were running for your lives together? Because I don't remember seeing any of you except for Ned."

"I mean, we weren't together," Peter answered nervously, scratching the back of his neck.

"Yeah, sometimes people get separated when things like that happen," Andi followed.

MJ narrowed her brown eyes but thought against responding. Instead, she decided to change the subject, much to their relief. "Are you guys excited about Paris tomorrow?" she asked her friends.

"I'm excited about carb-loading on French bread," Andi grinned, taking a sip of her water. "I guess seeing the Eiffel Tower is a plus, too."

"Yeah, I'm really excited about the Eiffel Tower," Peter said. He glanced over to Gwen, who had a knowing smile on her face. Andi followed his gaze to Gwen and frowned, unsure of what their unspoken communication entailed.

"I read somewhere it was secretly built as a mind control antenna to create an army of the insane," MJ spoke nonchalantly.

"Which is exactly why we're going, right?" Gwen said, her tone filled with excitement.

"That's right," MJ said to her, a smile on her face.

After a few more minutes of mindless chatter, quite a few of Andi's classmates had dismissed themselves to their rooms, Ned and Peter included. Andi made her way up the stairs, leaving MJ and Gwen to themselves on the stairs. Andi's phone began to rang in her pocket as she walked to her room, and she pulled it out to see Pepper calling her. She didn't hesitate to answer.

"Hello?"

"Hey!" Pepper's voice came through the speaker. "I hope I'm not calling you too late. I heard about what happened over there today, and I just wanted to call and check on you—make sure you're in one piece."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Andi reassured her.

"How's Italy?"

"Apart from dealing with an enormous sea monster, Italy has been wonderful," Andi answered with a quiet laugh. She reached her hotel room door and walked in, wasting no time at all in heading to her bed.

"You had Spider-Man there to help you, right?" Pepper asked, careful not to use Peter's name.

"Yeah," Andi breathed out. "But not just him."

"Who?" Pepper asked. "That mystery guy in the cape?"

"No." Andi listened for a quick second to make sure no one was coming down the hall within earshot before answering Pepper. "Remember news of the new spider-person in New York?" she asked as quietly as she could while making sure Pepper could still hear her.

"I do."

"Well, she's here and I know who she is," Andi informed her.

"Really?"

"Really."

There was a short silence on the other end of the line until Pepper finally spoke again. Andi figured she was trying to process what she'd just been told. "Who is it?"

"Do you really think I'm going to tell you that over an open phone line?"

"I suppose not," Pepper answered. "We can talk more about it when you get home, okay?"

"Of course, Pep."

"How are you feeling, Andi?" Pepper asked, concern evident in her tone. She'd been worried about Andi since she'd left the states, but for so many different reasons. "Has it helped being around your friends? Around Peter?"

Andi nodded her head, though Pepper couldn't see it. "They've been a good distraction."

"A good distraction from what you have yet to speak to me about, huh?"

"That would be correct," Andi said with a small smile on her face. It felt good to talk to her Aunt Pepper the way she was. She was usually much too busy with work, and when she wasn't, Morgan had majority of her attention. Granted, Morgan was five, and since losing her family, Andi had become a rather secluded individual. The more she thought about it, however, she found she never gave Pepper the chance to truly give a damn about her, though Andi knew she did.

"I hope it stays that way," Pepper said. "I didn't send you on this trip to punish you, you know that, right? I just know things aren't going very well for you right now, and I want nothing more than to help you through it, but this was all I could think to do. I know how much your friends mean to you, even if you don't say it aloud. I know how much Peter means to you."

"I know, Pepper."

"Just have fun, okay?"

"I will."

"I'll call you soon," Pepper told her. "I love you, Andi."

"I love you, too."

Andi hung up the phone after that. She moved to place the device under her pillow, but it vibrated in her hand. There was a text from Peter on the screen telling her she needed to come to his room as soon as possible. She groaned and got up, unsure of what he wanted from her.

Andi exited her room and walked down the hall to Peter and Ned's. She raised her hand to knock but realized the door was slightly ajar. It was unlike Peter or Ned to be so careless, so she felt something wasn't right. She walked in and shut the door behind her before making her way to the back of the room.

"Peter?" she called as she entered through their back room. She noticed Ned fast asleep on the couch with a dart in his neck, and she raised a brow.

"Andi, um—"

Andi turned her head at the sound of Peter's voice, but was stopped by the face of the man sitting in the corner of the room. He was the very last person she'd been expecting to see. In fact, he was the one person she'd spent the better part of two weeks avoiding.

"Spider-Man and Recluse," Nick Fury spoke to the teenagers. "You're two very difficult people to contact."

"You've got to be kidding me," Andi muttered under her breath.

"It's Nick Fury," Peter whispered to Andi.

"Yeah, I know it's Nick Fury, Peter," Andi whispered back, taking a few steps closer to Peter.

"He shot Ned."

"I can see that, too."

"It's just a mild tranquilizer," Fury told them. "He'll be alright. But it's so good to finally meet you two."

Andi narrowed her eyes at the man. "Uh, we've met before."

"At the funeral," Fury said. "But I didn't think that was an appropriate time to exchange numbers."

"Yeah, it would've been really inappropriate," Peter said.

"That's what I just said."

Andi rolled her eyes at his tone of voice. She didn't care that he was Nick Fury. She was not afraid to let him know he was being a dick. "Wanna stop being an ass and tell us why you're here?"

Fury tilted his head at the young girl and chuckled. "Stark sure was right about you, kid."

Andi practically froze at the sound of the name. She never would've imagined Tony talking about her to Nick Fury. She never imagined he had a reason to. She was absolutely unsure of whatever Tony might've said to him, but she wasn't so sure she wanted to know. She wasn't sure she'd be able to handle it.

"But I'm here because you're here," Fury told them. "I tried to bring you here, you avoided me, and now you're here. What a coincidence."

"Wait, was this a coincidence?" Peter asked him.

"I used to know everything," Fury started, annoyance in his tone. "Then I come back five years later and I know nothing. No intel, no team, and I've got two high school students dodging my calls."

"In our defense, you were a bit incessant," Andi said to him. "Just a bit."

Fury shot her a glare. "Here's what I do know, Andrews..." He pulled out a small device and placed it on the table in front of him. It lit up in front of him, grabbing Andi and Peter's attention. "A week ago, a village in Mexico was wiped out by a cyclone. Witnesses say that cyclone had a face. Three days later there was a similar event in Morocco. A village was—"

Fury was cut off by a knock on the door. The startled teens looked over to see Mr. Harrington in the doorway. "Just making the rounds to see if anyone needs any emotional counseling after today's traumatic events."

"No, we're fine," Peter assured Mr. Harrington.

"Not too fine, I hope," Mr. Harrington laughed nervously. "It's getting late, Andi. You know you're not supposed to be in here."

"I know, I was just, y'know, saying goodnight is all," she told him, an innocent smile on her face.

Mr. Harrington nodded his head and glanced to Ned's sleeping figure. "Well, he's knocked out, so I'll get out of your hair. Remember, don't stay too long, Andi."

"You got it, Mr. Harrington."

Mr. Harrington exited the room, and Peter apologized to Fury for the interruption. He attempted to continue but was interrupted once again by Betty, who was looking for Ned.

"He's asleep, Betty!" Peter called out to her.

"Oh, okay."

Betty walked away from the door, but another knock followed shortly, leaving Fury at his wit's end. "If another person touches that door, the three of us are going to attend another funeral," he told the two of them. He stood up and pocketed the device on the table. "Suit up. We've got work to do."

Fury left the room promptly, leaving Peter and Andi to figure out what was going on.

"I really just wanna go to sleep, Peter," Andi grumbled.

"So do I, but, like, we can't just ignore Nick Fury," he said to her.

"We've been ignoring him for two weeks now!"

"There's a difference ignoring someone's phone call and ignoring someone when they're standing in front of you with a dart gun!"

Andi groaned and plopped down in the chair Fury had been occupying. "We still have so much to do, Peter! We have to talk to Gwen about what the hell we now know about her, we have to—"

"Gwen!" Peter interrupted Andi, his eyes bright. "She can come with us!"

"Don't you think if Fury knew about her she would've been in here with us?" Andi asked.

Peter shrugged his shoulders. "She didn't exactly have Tony Stark to vouch for her."

Andi rolled her eyes.

"C'mon." Peter stepped forward and grabbed her hands in his, his brown eyes meeting her own in the dim light. "I know this is frustrating, but let's just do this so we can get it over with and enjoy the rest of our vacation, okay? Go get Gwen, get dressed, and meet me outside. I don't wanna do this anymore than you do, but I know I don't wanna do it without you."

Andi couldn't help the smile pulling at the corners of her lips as she looked at him. She squeezed his hands gently in her own and stepped closer to him. "It's a bit hard to say no to that, Spider-Man."

"So, is that a yes?"

Andi hummed and stepped away from him with a smile still on her face. "I guess we'll find out, won't we, Parker?"

"I guess we will, Andrews."