After immobilizing the Black Widow and taking both the Tesseract and the scepter containing the Mind Stone, Peter returned to his hideout.
An abandoned military underground bunker that was previously utilized by a villain as his hideout also.
Who was this villain who was able to create a super soldier serum, you must be wondering?
Well, at least some of you with a thinking brain must have already discovered it: super soldier serum modified by adding animal genes—more specifically, lizard genes.
Only one person was able to accomplish such a feat, and that person was Dr. Curt Connors.
We could delve into how or why he created such a serum and what his fate was in the end.
But none of this is important right now and probably never will be.
Now, back to Peter who had just returned to the underground bunker where he had taken his first step toward true strength.
In a corner of this underground shelter that had been turned into a laboratory by Dr. Connors and later modified by Peter, on a metal table were all the spoils that Peter had acquired during the invasion of New York.
Six weapons that fired energy. Three spears that also fired energy... A spear, an almost purely physical weapon, but that also fired like a gun. It was at least strange and counterintuitive.
How did it work in battle? How did its internal circuits not get destroyed when it was used as a physical weapon? Why not just use a weapon that fired energy?
These were Peter's thoughts as he picked them up on the battlefield.
Next to these strange futuristic weapons, there were also some parts of the vehicles utilized by the Chitauri during the invasion.
Seeing those vehicles flying everywhere, Peter couldn't help but be interested in their working mechanisms. How could a vehicle like that fly without any kind of propulsion? He thought.
Was it some kind of antigravity device or were they just using some other mechanism to achieve this same feat?
So he couldn't help but 'kindly' dismantle some of these vehicles so he could research them later.
He wanted to bring an entire vehicle to his base, but that would be impossible—not because he wouldn't be able to carry it back as with his current strength he could easily do it.
But because this would likely attract unwanted attention and almost certainly result in his hiding place being discovered by others.
And beside all of this were the two most important items he had obtained during this battle:
The cosmic cube, the Tesseract containing one of the Infinity Stones, the Space Stone, and a scepter which contained at its tip another of the Infinity Stones, the Mind Stone.
Looking at these two items, a gleam couldn't help but appear in Peter's eyes.
"I can't believe that I already have two of the Infinity Stones in my hands. The range of possibilities that each of them provides is infinite..." he muttered to himself.
But then he let out a sigh.
Sigh~
"If only I could remember where the other stones are... I would be invincible!" he spoke to himself as he imagined what it would be like to possess all the Infinity Stones in the palm of his hand.
Greed couldn't help but appear in his eyes as he imagined.
Unbeknownst to him, the scepter—no, the stone inside it, emitted a faint yellow light, almost invisible to the naked eye, that like a slithering snake wrapped around his body while he dreamed about the immeasurable power of the Infinity Stones.
His spidey senses tingled briefly before stopping, but it was enough for him to stop daydreaming.
"Hmm? What was that?" His eyes narrowed as he looked around the room while trying to find what disturbed him.
But after a few minutes looking, he didn't find anything, even his security measures he had created didn't react.
"Hm... everything seems normal, it must be nothing. Maybe I'm just too tense, after all, I just went through a full-body transformation and went straight to a battlefield..." he pondered while rubbing his chin.
"Maybe this is missile effects, after all my spider senses never reacted like that before"
He thought.
"I'll rest a bit before diving straight into research again."
"Last time I didn't do that, and the results of doing so weren't pretty..." His body shivered while he remembered what he went through when he modified the already modified super soldier serum.
"Let's remove this suit that looks more like a beggar's cloth, hit the shower, and then get some rest before doing something else."
"Oh... right. I also have to create a new suit. There's a lot of things to be done. Oh boy, I will be busy for quite a while."
S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier – Command Deck
On the giant flying strategic structure, everyone that was cheering, commemorating their victory against extraterrestrial forces, was now very busy dealing with the aftermath caused by the invasion.
They were busy dealing with other governments of the world that were trying to get a piece of alien technology and also with their own containment and recovery operations.
It wouldn't be pretty if that alien tech fell into the wrong hands. Even imagining what events could unfold if that tech got into the wrong hands and the extra work that would come with that...
It made them work even faster, sending every agent they had available to New York as fast as they could.
Supervising their every move while also giving them directions on what to do was Nick Fury. While doing so, he was also preparing his speech that he would give to the leaders' board later.
Thinking about what their faces would look like, a smirk couldn't help but appear on his dark face.
But he couldn't let himself be lost daydreaming of what could happen; he had more important matters at hand.
"Someone please put me in contact with the Avengers, I think they already got some time to catch their breath!" he asked one of the agents that was behind a computer.
"Right at it, sir!"
One of the agents that was occupied dealing with something else stopped his work and tried to contact the Avengers.
First, he tried to contact Black Widow—because no matter what situation she was in, they could always contact her.
Even before all those events happened, they could even contact her if she was strapped to a chair.
But after a few seconds of trying to contact her, she didn't respond...
"Sir, we couldn't contact Black Widow. Maybe something happened to her..."
Hearing that, Fury's eyebrows frowned. A situation like that had never happened before... no matter what situation Natasha was in, she always responded to their calls.
"What are you waiting for!? Contact someone else and ask them to check Black Widow's situation right now!" Fury shouted.
"Right at it, sir!"
The agent responded, his hands moving as fast as they could as he hit his keyboard keys trying to contact another of the Avengers team members.
After three seconds, he finally got one of them on the line.
"Fury, what's up? Are you calling me to thank me for saving the wo–" Tony Stark was the first one to respond, but before he could brag about his feats, he was cut short by Fury.
"Now is not the time, Tony! Black Widow is not responding to our calls. Send someone to her right now!"