The sly Stark suddenly disengaged his Iron Man armor high in the air, and Peter—caught completely off guard—was dropped straight down.
After falling several meters in a very irritated manner, he flipped midair, reached a hand back to flash a "weak" gesture, and then rolled across the rooftop, bleeding off all the kinetic energy converted from his fall.
The Iron Man armor returned the same "weak" gesture, then whooshed away.
Peter clung to the wall and silently climbed down from the rooftop to his family's floor.He first crept toward Aunt May's room to take a peek.
Good—lights off, and her breathing was steady.Very good.
Relieved, Peter quietly slipped back to his own room, opened the door, and slipped inside.
After taking off his suit, Peter lay on his bed—but sleep wouldn't come at all.
Too much had happened today.
First, he met a Spider-Man in Universe Earth-92131 who was on the verge of losing his powers.Then, upon returning, he suddenly appeared in Betty's room.After that, he teamed up with Iron Man to take down the Venom symbiote.
Plotlines that would take several movies to film…he had lived through all of them in just a few hours of one night.
Since he couldn't sleep anyway, he sat up again, organized the recent events, and began planning what he needed to do next.
First: he absolutely needed to rebuild the Nano Spider Suit.
After getting used to the convenience of the nano-suit—even though the one Tony Stark made for him was far more advanced and comprehensive in technology—Peter still didn't like wearing it much.
Mainly because it was too troublesome.
Every time he used that suit, he had to strip off his clothes, hide them somewhere, and worry about people discovering them.
But the Nano Spider Suit was different.
For that suit, all he needed was a watch.Unless someone already knew his secret, no one would ever guess that a completely ordinary-looking watch on his wrist actually contained a full Spider-Man suit.
Second: this weekend, he needed to get Ned familiar with "the job."
Ned had told him before that he wanted to become "the guy in the chair"—the man behind Spider-Man, his personal hero support team.
Ned would indeed be a great helper.He was skilled with computers, and since Peter didn't have his own personal AI assistant, Ned would be extremely useful.
—Karen was technically his AI assistant, but Karen was really just a subroutine split off from Friday.
If one were to categorize AI assistants by level:Ultron back then would be advanced;JARVIS and Friday mid-level;and Karen would be beginner level.
As for those so-called "AIs" on the consumer market?Naturally, they didn't even qualify for a ranking.
And as a beginner-level artificial intelligence, Karen still relied on Stark Industries' data processing systems to operate.Sometimes, she simply wasn't as useful as a real human assistant like Ned.
After all, human thinking and artificial intelligence thinking were often entirely different.
Having someone to help in certain situations might yield surprising results.
Just yesterday, Ned had finally thought it over and confirmed that he wanted to join Peter's small team—to become the man behind Spider-Man.
So, they decided that this weekend, they would officially assemble their little makeshift squad.
Third: he also needed to tell Betty not to reveal his identity as Spider-Man.
Though Betty didn't seem like the type who would go around blabbing such things anyway.
Probably nothing to worry about.
In fact, Betty herself was a great candidate for the "Spider-Man Support Team."
Betty wasn't a hacker and didn't have Ned's outstanding computer skills—
—but she did have strong writing ability and consistently excelled in her humanities classes.She had said before that she wanted to work for a newspaper or TV station after graduation, pursuing a career in media.
She was already the host of the school's broadcasting club—a sign of her standout talent in that area.
If she joined the Spider-Man squad, she could serve as the "public relations division."
Peter hadn't really thought about that kind of thing before.
But after experiencing several different worlds, he realized just how important public opinion actually was.
In Earth-90214, Noir Spider-Man himself worked in journalism. He would gather information as Spider-Man and hand it to the Daily Bugle to publish, using the media to fight criminal forces.
In Earth-96283, Bully Maguire and the Daily Bugle's boss J. Jonah Jameson were practically locked in a love-hate relationship.JJJ spent half his time relentlessly smearing Spider-Man and the other half defending him, contributing massively to shaping Bully Maguire's public image.
And that wasn't all.
In almost every universe, Spider-Man couldn't escape the Daily Bugle and J. Jonah Jameson.
Peter had searched for the Bugle and Jameson in his own world—and found something.
In this world, the Daily Bugle wasn't as large or influential as in the others; it was just a relatively unknown online news outlet.
Its name had also changed slightly: The Daily Horn.
And J. Jonah Jameson was indeed the owner of The Daily Horn.
Considering the slander that the Bugle and JJJ spread in other worlds, Peter felt he needed to place some "armor" around himself in the realm of public opinion in advance—so he wouldn't be helpless if he ever came under media attack.
The most direct method would be to outright buy a media company and create his own platform.
But that required money and status.
With his current situation, he was far from being able to do something like that.
But he could start small—maybe a mini media setup to maintain Spider-Man's public image.
For example: posting short videos of Spider-Man, writing brief articles about him…
He didn't need to exaggerate Spider-Man as some great hero—just describe things truthfully and establish an image.
In the future, when necessary, this would serve as both a "shield" to protect him and a "sword" to counter any potential enemies.
And Betty was the most suitable person he could think of.
Betty was his girlfriend, interested in this field, and talented.
No one better!
—
Over the next few days, Peter busied himself with these tasks.
Building the new Nano Spider Suit was very easy.
He already had experience making the first one, and the relevant data was still stored in his equipment.
And now he had plenty of funds.
He only needed to adjust the original blueprint with some modifications he'd been considering—and in just half a day, the new Nano Spider Suit was finished.
Most of that time was spent adjusting and calibrating data.
(End of chapter)