CHAPTER 90 - THE END GOAL

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[Peter Parker POV]

Peter felt conflicted as he looked at his phone, more specifically the app that the man conveniently installed on his phone that increased his crime fighting efficiency in the last two days.

From picking up simple distress calls to trigger alarms that signified robberies or other crimes happening in this part of the city. It also marked the fastest swing route he could take which was weirdly accurate, making him speculate that the man knew more than his name; much more that he knew exactly how fast he could swing, from simple freestyle swings to him pulling out all stops. It was unsettling to say the least.

'It's also making me lose sleep and skip classes. Is this what addiction feels like?' He mused as he munched on a burger.

He wasn't that overly naïve to believe that killing was wrong, he just never entertained the thought, never will. He was just a fourteen year old kid after all.

Maybe the reason for his inner conflict is because the person who died, was killed, was the father of his childhood friend. 'Who just so happened to be a mass murdering psychotic Goblin-themed villain.'

'Should I visit a therapist?'

He was forced to pause his thoughts as he received a notification from his crime fighting pager that was also conveniently spider-themed about a breaking and entering on East and 3rd.

"Aww man, I hate swing-stress-eating." He slipped off the bridge and free-fell till he was a few feet from the river below before spewing a web and swinging his way to the location on his phone.

He arrived at the house in just two minutes, surprisingly at the same time as the robbers were getting on their getaway ride.

"Hey guys! Wait for me!" Peter screamed as if he was part of the robbers which confused them for a second before their face turned ashen.

"It's the bug. Shoot him down!" The driver shouted at his three crewmates in the car.

"Me, a bug? I guess that'll make you guys bug-glers then." He webbed the first gun that peeked out from the car and swerved to the other side to evade the line of gunfire.

"Bad joke? Sorry guys but I think I might be going through one of those 'big decisions' stages in life, you know?"

Hearing the siren sounds of the approaching police cars, he decided to stop the car chase as quickly as possible. He was feeling like engaging in another awkward conversation with the police.

"Floor the gas, man! He's gaining on us!" One of them shouted and tried taking a few shots at the swinging costumed man gaining quickly on them, frustratingly missing every shot he took.

Unfortunately for him, before he could take cover after emptying his rounds, a sticky web latched onto his shirt before he felt a great tug that pulled him out of the car.

Before he could understand what was happening, he found himself securely webbed against a wall.

"Hang on tight for me, yeah?"

'30 seconds before the cops completely catch up to them.'

With that information, he exerted more force in his swing and propelled himself faster and the moment he was in line with the front seat of the car, he changed his direction and stuck two webs to the side of the car and shot himself, leg first, in through the open window and out through the other one, along with the driver who was knocked out and webbed to the ground.

Before the car could go totally out of control, he swung himself towards it and landed on top of it. Before his spider senses could go off, he entered in through the front seat and quickly webbed the two of them in the back seat and finally parked the car.

"Spider-Man, get out of the car with your hands behind your head!"

He sighed and just relaxed in the front seat, humming a tune to himself as two of the officers slowly walked towards the car with guns drawn.

Unfortunately for them, just at that moment a metro bus drove past the car which Peter silently attached a web to, letting the bus freely pull him away, much to the astonishment of the two police officers.

"Catch you later guys!"

He hitched a ride on top of the bus, knowing fully well that the cops wouldn't chase after him, and contemplated his choices. Honestly he would have said yes to joining the Avengers at that very moment had it not been the guy who killed Harry's father that gave him the invitation.

"I mean, I can always check it out, right? I wonder what type of tech they have, and how did that guy even install this on my phone?..." His mind blissfully drifted away from the dreary thoughts as he remembered the type of people on the team.

"I wonder if they have an atom splicer?"

°°°°°°

[Vision POV]

I looked at the ID card that Stark gave me and looked at him with a look that plainly asked if he was joking.

"What is this?"

"Guess all that processing power can't process a government-issued plastic card after all. Huh, who knew?" He said and tapped my shoulder in mock pity before walking past me.

"For the record, I would have figured out the quantum tunneling effect in…" He checked his watch and shrugged, "Give or take 39 hours from now. Unfortunately, Pepper had me tanking government sanctions from 13 different countries."

"And how does that explain this?" I pointed at the ID card in my hand.

"What? Pepper and I picked out the names. I wanted to go with Mathias but she disagreed."

"Not mentioning the fact that I never asked you to get me an identity, what made you think Alexander 'DaVision' Simons was a good name to choose?"

He gave me a confused look, one I could tell was obviously fake, and asked. "You don't like Alexander?"

"I don't like 'DaVision'." I said plainly but the eccentric man just chuckled and waved it off. "Come on, it's a running joke," He said.

"I for one don't like my supposed name being considered a running joke."

I ignored him to focus on the armor in front as he started going through my files.

Despite already cracking Kang's armor and retrieving the few techs he had stored in nano-spaces between each metallic molecule of his suit, what I was having issues with was finding how I could fuse with the energy his armor was using.

The techs he had were so few and weren't all that great, when compared to my expectations, which was understable since he was banished and had to build all what he had from the resource-starved realm he was locked in.

As for his armor, well I'm fusing with it as soon as I find a way to replicate the coefficient of the unknown energy he uses to power it.

It's very hard to scan it that even the energy from the Mind Stone gets disrupted, sometimes completely destroyed – yes destroyed – when it comes in contact with it.

"That's the armor you got from the Kang guy?" Tony made his way to get a closer look at the armor.

The reason he knew about Kang was because I uploaded his information to the Avengers network that I managed, one that all members of the Avengers have access to, excluding the ones we recruit. They would need a level of clearance for that.

I didn't go too deep into Kang's information or the time travel, also the multiversal travel option of it, lest I alert the Council of Kang's of our awareness of the wider multiverse.

"Yes. I'm trying to fuse my energy quotient with that of the armor and see if I can.."

"If you can gain total control of the resulting new energy. That can work since you are an energy being at your core." He said, but suddenly frowned as he looked at the absurd numbers and molecular bonds of the energy powering us Kang's armor. "This will open up a whole new field of science."

"Hey, want me to tag along with you on this." He suddenly asked out of the blue. I guess the reason why he isn't just involving himself is due to some sort of code between fellow researchers.

Rather than answering him, I asked a simple question instead. "Why?"

"You might have the Mind Stone that boosts your processing and learning power to higher levels but don't forget that the basis for all the knowledge you possess is derived from human history."

"And where are you going with this?"

"Even you are prone to making mistakes. And besides, it's me we are talking about."

I scoffed at him but still gave him a reply. "I'm almost done with the energy fusion but I guess there's still a lot of uses it might have. It is energy we're talking about."

That seemed to pacify him and I was about to do a round of testing but his next question stopped me.

"You know, the superhero hub thing you suggested is a really good thing for everyone if it works out as planned but it also made me wonder: if you've already got a blueprint figured out for the superhero side of our world, what do you have planned for the public side?"

I looked at him with renewed surprise and couldn't help but smile. "You really want to know? It's a surprise, you know."

"I hate surprises." He quipped back.

"Trust me, Stark. It's better if you see it as it plays out."

He frowned and spoke solemnly. "You don't know it all, Vision. Thinking you do is sure to bring about another Sokovia effect."

I shook my head at his worries and replied him, "That's where you were wrong, Stark. You thought yourself the only one suitable for the task, I'll be doing the opposite."

"How?"

"The same way I did for the Avengers, but on a more global scale. It's all about connecting everything together. Tell me, if everyone has equal access to everything as long as they can afford it, what do you think will happen?"

He frowned deeply as he thought about it for a split second and came up with the answer. "People will develop greed. It's human nature to want more than the other person."

True, but.. "What if there's no profit to be gained from it? What if it becomes so normal for everyone to have access to?"

This time he was stumped and couldn't come up with an answer. It wasn't that he did not know the answer to my questions, but he did not know what the answer meant to my solution.

"It's simple, Tony Stark. The answer is transparency. The difference between the elite and the normal people is that they have the power to restrict the populace to certain resources and knowledge but what if the line that separates them becomes transparent that anyone can get there as long as they struggle for it?"

His eyes shot up in realization. "The difference between them will become common. So common that no one will care about it. But what about social order? No matter how distasteful it sounds, some people have to be rich and others have to be poor for society to function."

Now it was my turn to laugh because what he said is such a funny thing that no one ever really thinks about it. "People are lazy by nature, Stark. If today everyone in the world starts from zero and receives a million dollars, what do you think will happen? Do you really think that they will all be worth a million dollars before the end of the day?"

I didn't let him answer and just gave it to him straight. "It is human nature to continue wanting but this want differs for every single person. Just the act of them buying something from someone will put that person ahead of them and before long society will fall back to where it is now – a few at the top and the majority at the bottom."

"Know this, equal chance doesn't mean equal outcome. No race has two first place winners… But what I have planned out is nothing so dreary as what I've just said might sound."