All of the blood drains out of Greg's face.

"No," he whispers, "He's supposed to be dead. You... he..." Greg trails off and glances down at me, "You can't go through that again..."

Captain America's face radiates worry, concern, and frustration, "What's wrong? Who is it? What can't Spider-Man go through again?"

Greg just stares at them and starts to attempt to calm me down again.

By now I can squeeze out a couple of words between my heaving gasps for air, "He's back.. No... What if he.... What if he gets me.... again.... Can't.... I can't do that again.... no...."

Worry, anger, and sadness coats Greg's face, "I know mister, I know. But you'll have multiple people looking out for you this time. If he ever takes you again, you know that nothing will stop me from getting you back. And that is if he gets you again. You were still pretty new at this when you got captured. You're much better at what you do now than you were back then."

I start to calm down after hearing all of those reassuring words. Once I'm finally completely calm, I am able to stand up on my own.

"You have me now too Peter. I won't let anything like that happen to you ever again if I can help it," FABAE gently says, a hint of anger in her voice.

I stand up with a loud hiss through my teeth as the pain from the bullet lodged in my stomach overwhelms me. My healing has been trying to get the bullet out, but it has just been making it worse. I need it out now.

"What's wrong?" Captain America asks.

"There's a bullet in my stomach," I say calmly, "And it hurts."

"Wait, there's still a bullet in you?" Greg asks.

"Yes. My healing factors trying to push it out, but it's just making it worse. I need it out now or it's going to heal over it."

Greg runs a hand through his hair, "Okay, okay. All of the professional paramedics are still calming people down and tending to their injuries so I'm going to have to cut it out. You know the routine. This is going to hurt. A lot."

"I know. Let's just get this over with," I say through gritted teeth, "And I trust you and have had worse. So this shouldn't be too bad."

All three of the Avengers raise their eyebrows at that sentence. Greg just sighs sadly, "Unfortunately, that's true."

He leads me over to the gurney and sits me down. He takes a scalpel off of a tray and starts to head back towards me. Unwanted memories start to surface at the sight of him advancing on me with a scalpel and my breathing starts to pick up.

Knives. Pain. No, no, no. Stop!

When Greg sees this, he immediately stops walking and holds his hands up in the air, making sure I can see him fully, "Hey buddy. It's okay. I'm not him. We just really need to get the bullet out."

All three Avengers stand there uncomfortably and worried. Captain America starts to step forwards, but Black Widow holds out her arm in front of him, stopping him. I can hear her whisper, "No. You coming closer will make it worse." Captain America nods and thankfully stays where he is.

"Spider-Man," Greg says softly, "I'm going to come towards you now. You're not there okay? You're at the scene of a robbery, where you saved many lives. You're okay."

Reality starts to seep into my brain again. I take a deep breath and nod at him.

"Okay, good. Let me know if it gets to be too much."

"It's... it's okay. Thanks for snapping me out of it. The pain shouldn't be too much, but the... Um... tools you use might bring back bad memories again." I say, embarrassed.

"That's okay. I understand. Now let's get this bad boy out, huh?" Greg humorously says.

I crack a smile, "Yes, lets."

Greg walks over to me and held the scalpel above my bullet wound, "Prepare yourself." He brings it down and cuts into the healing skin, causing my grip on the gurney to tighten a bit. He has to dig around to find the bullet before he can pull it out.

Thankfully, the pain wasn't the worst I've had by a long shot, so I was able to not embarrass myself farther in front of the Avengers.

When Greg finally pulls the bullet out of my stomach, I slump in relief. My healing factor should be kicking in properly soon.

Greg sets the bullet on a metal tray with a little cling before he turns to me and gives me a once-over, "With you, I know you're hiding other injuries. Where are they?"

I chuckle weakly, "You got me. I just have some bruising and two and a half other bullet wounds that passed through so they're nothing serious," I say that whole part in a rush, hoping that Greg couldn't understand most of it.

I then add, "They are already mostly healed and this one will be soon now that the bullet is out."

"Wait, two and a half?!"

Drat. He understood, "Yeesss?" I say hesitantly.

Hawkeye breaks in, "Wait. Where'd the half come from?"

I smile sheepishly, "I may or may not have already been shot when I came here."

Hawkeye looks at me shocked (again).

Greg rolls his eyes at me in frustration and mutters something. Since I am so close to him, I'm the only one who is able to make it out with my super hearing, "Teenagers."

I turn to him, slightly in shock that he figured it out, but also in pride that I have even less I have to keep a secret from him, "Wait, you know?" I whisper back to him, quiet enough that the Avengers won't hear.

"Of course I do. After working with you for so long, why would you think otherwise? I'm surprised you didn't realize that you're like a son to me." Greg whispers back.

My heart fills with happiness, "Thanks. I hope you know that you're like a father to me," I whisper back, my voice choking with emotion.

He winks at me and turns back to the Avengers, "We should give Spider-Man some space."

Greg walks around the mini group of Avengers and walks a sizable distance away. Since he walked around them, he forces them to turn and follow him, leaving their backs turned towards me.

I smile and silently thank him. Now I can slip away unnoticed.

I realize that the Avengers are grilling Greg for answers. I hesitate, deciding if I should listen in or not. I trust Greg enough that I know he won't give away information that I wouldn't want him to, so I don't.

I wait until I am relatively healed and have most of my strength back before I decide that it is time to go. I catch his eye for a brief moment and give him a wave.

With that done, I shoot out a web onto a nearby building and disappear into the night, heading home for a much needed night of sleep.

Natasha's POV:

After Greg and Spider-Man's whispered conversation that I annoyingly can't hear, Greg announces that Spider-Man needs space.

I agree with him. Honestly, I'm seriously impressed with Spider-Man. I wonder what he has gone through to make him act that way, both with the panic attack and the high pain tolerance.

Greg leads us a sizable distance away and we immediately take this advantage and grill Greg to learn anything we can about Spider-Man.

I start, "What made Spider-Man have a panic attack? Who are you guys talking about? And how did you know what happened?"

Greg sighs, "I expected those questions. Not off the bat though," He looks me straight in the eyes and gives me a respectful nod, "I like you. You get to the point and I bet you are honest with those you care about."

The compliment fills me with shock. Usually people are in awe or too scared of me to be so blunt. I rarely ever get compliments from anyone, if at all. The only person who acts normally around me is the pea-brain (If I was honest with myself, I would say that he is the only one with my full respect. He could really get away with nearly anything without me giving into the urge to kill him).

Greg continues, "Spider-Man has a lot of villains that he has taken down. Some are a lot worse than others. And some are just plain scary and possess too much power. About a year ago, one of them got him and did some.... Uh... unspeakable things that nobody should ever do. Basically, he wanted to see how Spider-Man works, and that led to him relishing in Spider-Man's pain."

Disgust and sorrow fill me, and I can see those same emotions reflected on my comrade's faces.

"And how did you know what happened?" I reminded Greg.

"Well, I wasn't very close with Spider-Man back when all of this happened. He was relatively new compared to you guys and I didn't see him around often. When he did show up to the bigger events that I was at, he just came, did his job, and left. When he disappeared, New York was really worried. Well, except for the Daily Bugle," Greg's dislike of the Bugle is obvious in his facial features, "Since he wasn't really close to anyone though, no one really truly went looking for him. So he was stuck experiencing.... Living Hell."

All three of us stay silent, waiting for Greg to continue.

"I still don't know how he made it out of there, but he did. The villain came after him though, hoping to get him back when he was at his weakest. I was there when Spider-Man fought him off. I'm still surprised at the immense strength he showed, even at his weakest. Let me be clear, Spider-Man doesn't kill. He does everything in his power not to. He even hates injuring the villains he has to take down.

But during that battle, an accident happened, leading to the villain getting trapped under a huge pile of debris in the river. There was no way the villain could have survived it. I searched for a long time, but I couldn't find his body. I didn't really question it that much back then because the river current had already swept stuff away.

Spider-Man was devastated, believing it to be his fault his captor for the past month was dead. After talking it out with him, he realized that it wasn't really his fault, but that battle added onto his already countless emotional scars from that month.

After that, circumstances threw us together more and more. We became closer, and Spider-Man ended up sharing with me parts of what happened that month. I don't know all of the details, but what I do know will haunt me forever."

Greg trails off, obviously done with his story. We stand there in a version of shock, not knowing what to say.

Greg briefly glances behind us, and after a short moment, speaks up, "Well, I am needed elsewhere. Hopefully you guys will start coming more often to help, and not because you are trying to capture Spider-Man."

He starts to turn around and walk away, but before he makes it to his second step, he stops and turns back to us, "Oh, and guys, now that you know this I should add something. Spider-Man isn't completely healed. He may not say it out loud, but he's still scared of capture."

He actually walks away this time after giving us that veiled threat.

We turn back around to go get Spider-Man, but are faced with an empty gurney. He had disappeared into the night.