As for Eddie, Clark planned to talk to his father about that later tonight.
Today, he had something else in mind.
It was time to let these new heroes get some real practice.
After all, it had been a while now. Apart from that fight with Shocker, everything else had been small-time trouble at best.
That afternoon, at the secret base.
Peter, Gwen, and Cindy stood in a straight line, while Clark stood in front of them like a drill instructor. The three of them looked like recruits waiting for orders.
"You three!" Clark said, hands clasped behind his back, full of authority. "Looking sharp!"
"I'm taking you on your first patrol tonight."
The moment they heard that, all three stood straighter.
Their eyes locked onto Clark, practically glowing with excitement.
"Where are we going, Clark?" Peter asked eagerly. "Manhattan? Or are we going after Kingpin's remaining people?"
He was fired up. He wanted to strike back at Kingpin's criminal network the same way Uncle Ben had, just with webs instead of a pen.
Gwen felt the same. She wanted to help her father. She wanted to carry some of the weight he'd been forced to shoulder.
"No. You're not going to Manhattan tonight. The police have plenty of presence there." Clark stood up and walked to the table where a map of New York was spread out. With a red marker, he drew a large circle around one area.
"You're going here."
"Hell's Kitchen."
Clatter.
Crack!
The name hit them like a thunderclap.
They had all grown up in New York. Who didn't know Hell's Kitchen's reputation? Even with superpowers now, the stories they had heard since childhood still carried weight.
Clark looked at the three of them and began explaining.
"Kingpin's organization has been hit hard by the police, and he's gone into hiding. But that doesn't mean the city is peaceful now. Actually, it's the opposite. When a lion leaves its territory, every hyena and jackal hiding in the dark rushes out to fight over the scraps."
"Hell's Kitchen is a giant power vacuum right now. Russian gangs, Irish mobs, Italian families, those are just the lower-level players. Bigger crews are trying to move in and replace Kingpin, and right now they're probably tearing each other apart over territory. There are drug deals, weapons transfers, and leftover high-tech gear from the Tinkerer's operation that the police never recovered."
He paused, then asked:
"Have you heard of the Hand? A mysterious criminal organization from the East."
Then Clark waved that off almost immediately.
"Of course, they're basically just a bunch of overdramatic thugs. They look mysterious, but put a bullet in them and they still go down. So if you run into them, don't panic."
That was Clark's assessment.
In his eyes, they were all small fry.
"Your mission tonight is to clean up some trash. Remember, your enemies aren't street punks with baseball bats anymore. They're desperate criminals with automatic rifles and even high-tech weapons. I want you to learn how to coordinate in complicated environments. I want you to learn how to protect civilians in the middle of gunfire."
"What about you, Clark?" Gwen asked. "You're not coming with us?"
"I have something else to deal with," Clark said, glancing in the direction of Oscorp Tower. His tone was calm. "And if I'm always following behind you playing babysitter, you'll never grow up. Go on. Don't embarrass me."
The three exchanged glances.
Not having Clark right there made them a little nervous, but that youthful courage of theirs quickly pushed the fear aside.
A second later, all three launched out into the New York dusk on their webs.
Watching the little spider squad swing away, Clark followed behind them from the shadows.
"Of course I'm still the babysitter," Clark muttered to himself as he moved through the dark spaces between buildings. "Just the high-end, off-screen kind."
He had the distinct feeling he was born to be a babysitter.
Worse, he kind of enjoyed it.
Hell's Kitchen.
The dirtiest, ugliest, most chaotic corner of New York. Day or night, it never really changed.
Graffiti covered the walls. Homeless people huddled in doorways. Sirens echoed in the distance like part of the neighborhood's natural soundtrack.
Tonight, Peter and the others' first target was the Russian mob.
Inside a warehouse, two black vans were parked near the loading area.
Seven or eight rough-looking Russian gangsters, their arms covered in Cyrillic tattoos, were cursing as they unloaded heavy wooden crates from the vehicles.
"Move faster! If the cops or those lunatics in tights find us, we're all going to prison! Damn it, the police have completely lost their minds lately!" A bald, broad-shouldered man held a rifle and kept scanning the area.
The NYPD crackdown hadn't ended yet.
They were scared, sure.
But there was still money to be made.
They wanted profit and safety at the same time.
Which meant they deserved what was coming.
Peter looked at the crates. Through the gaps, he could make out the contents.
"Guns," he whispered to the two girls. "Modified ones. These have to be from the Tinkerer's workshops. After Kingpin's network got hit, these guys are trying to sell the leftovers to other gangs."
"There are hostages too," Cindy said. Her eyesight had become terrifyingly sharp. She pointed toward the far corner of the warehouse. "Three girls tied up over there. So they're not just smuggling weapons. They're trafficking people too."
"Those absolute scumbags," Gwen muttered.
As a police captain's daughter, she had a deep, instinctive hatred for this kind of crime.
"We can't let them move those weapons, and we can't let the hostages get hurt." Gwen began laying out the plan. She had picked up more tactical knowledge than most kids her age, partly from her father, and partly because Clark had pushed her to study. "Cindy, seal the roll-up door and their escape routes with webbing. Peter, you're the strongest, so you go in through the skylight, draw their fire, and smash the crates. I'll come in from the side and get the hostages out first. Clear?"
"Clear!" Peter and Cindy answered at once.
"Move."
Gwen gave the order and launched forward.
The old skylight on the warehouse roof shattered under Peter's kick as he dropped from above.
"Surprise, gentlemen!"
The moment Peter landed, he fired two web-lines at the same time, splattering them across the faces of two gangsters carrying crates.
They screamed and stumbled. The crates hit the floor, cracking open and spilling dozens of firearms across the concrete.
"Blyat! Open fire! Open fire! It's the freaks in tights!"
The bald man roared and raised his modified rifle, spraying bullets at Peter.
But Peter was far too fast.
His spider-sense let him read the trajectory of the bullets before they arrived.
He bent backward at an impossible angle, dodging the first burst of gunfire, then kicked off the ground with both legs and launched himself onto the warehouse wall.
"Hey, cue ball! Your aim is awful! Do you usually pull the trigger with your toes?" Peter shouted, crawling across the wall at speed while running his mouth.
That was a new skill he'd discovered.
Talking nonstop helped ease his nerves.
And more importantly, it made his enemies furious enough to lose their heads.