The Detective Club's admission process was exactly as intense as the president had promised. Besides filling out a standard extracurricular registration form, every prospective member had to solve a meticulously designed locked-room puzzle. The scenario was incredibly detailed, reading more like a professional forensics exam than a high school club application.
Take, for example, the specific deduction problem Peter was handed. Without getting bogged down in the chemistry, the core of the mystery involved a victim whose stomach lining had been completely burned through, but there were no corrosive liquids found at the scene. The solution required realizing the murderer had replaced the victim's medication capsules with pure metallic sodium.
Setting aside the sheer logistical nightmare of handling pure sodium, the fact that a high school club expected freshmen to arrive at that conclusion via process of elimination was borderline psychotic.
"Finished," Peter said, sliding his paper across the folding table.
"Congratulations, Peter Parker. You are officially a member of the Midtown Detective Agency." Jessica smiled, reaching under the table and hauling up a large, battered cardboard box. "Here is your official club souvenir. A genuine deerstalker hat, straight from 221B Baker Street."
There were at least twenty hats piled inside the box, a cloud of dust kicking up into the sunlight as she dropped it on the table. Peter picked one up, flipping it over to check the tag on the brim.
"Made in... oh."
"Hey, trust me," Jessica said dryly. "If you actually buy one at the tourist trap on Baker Street, the tag says the exact same thing."
Peter actually owned a genuine Baker Street deerstalker—the one Gwen had tossed at him yesterday morning. The tag on Gwen's hat proudly stated Made in the UK, but Peter decided not to crush his new club president's dreams. He just smiled and shoved the hat into his backpack.
Amadeus finished his deduction a few moments later, sliding his paper over and claiming his hat. Harry, however, was still staring intensely at his paper, chewing on the end of his pen. Ten minutes passed in silence before Harry suddenly slammed his fist onto the table.
"I got it! The murderer used—"
"Shh!" Jessica hissed, holding up a finger. "Write it down. No spoilers."
Harry sheepishly scribbled his answer and handed it over. Jessica scanned the paper and nodded in approval.
"The quality of the freshmen this year is surprisingly high," she noted, stacking the papers. "You three all got perfect marks. Usually, I just let people in if they get close enough."
"Is the club roster small?" Harry asked, looking around the empty classroom they had claimed as their headquarters. "It feels a bit dead in here."
"Not really. We have about twenty registered members," Jessica explained, leaning back in her chair. "But unless we have an active case, nobody really shows up except whoever is on duty. Usually me. We do take on actual commissions from the student body, though. Missing laptops, tracking down rumors, catching people cheating on tests... those cases don't count for academic credit, though."
The only thing that actually secured the extracurricular credit was participating in the club's official, sanctioned investigations.
"So," Amadeus asked, adjusting his glasses. "What is the official investigation this semester?"
Jessica's eyes gleamed. She picked up a remote from the desk and clicked it at the ceiling. A projector hummed to life, dropping a massive PowerPoint slide onto the whiteboard at the front of the room.
The text was bold, red, and massive:
THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE: UNMASKING SPIDER-MAN.
"What?!" Peter choked.
"Surprised, huh?" Jessica smirked, completely misinterpreting Peter's reaction. "Think about it. Almost every major superhero operates publicly. Iron Man literally held a press conference to announce it. Captain America is in history textbooks. Spider-Man is the only major player hiding his identity. Figuring out who he is under that mask is the ultimate detective exam! I know it's a massive undertaking, but that's the job!"
Peter stared at the screen, his jaw hanging open. He seriously began to question every life choice that had led him to this classroom. For a solid ten seconds, his brain completely flatlined.
Harry was the first to speak. "Wait. If he's wearing a full-face mask, doesn't that imply he wants to keep his identity a secret? If he's hiding it, he's probably going to take steps to protect it."
"And a detective's job is to uncover the truth," Jessica countered smoothly.
"Hold on, doesn't this aggressively violate his privacy?" Peter finally managed to say, trying to sound like a concerned citizen rather than a panicked vigilante.
Jessica hesitated, tapping her pen against her chin. "I mean, technically, yes. But it's not like Spider-Man is going to swing through the window and issue us a cease-and-desist."
Peter's vision swam. He leaned heavily back in his chair, taking a slow, deep breath. He needed to be rational. He needed to steer the investigation into a brick wall.
"Okay, hypothetically," Peter started, crossing his arms. "Even if we wanted to investigate him, what clues do we actually have? The guy swings a hundred feet in the air. He doesn't leave fingerprints. You can't exactly tail him in a Honda Civic."
Jessica just smiled.
"Generally speaking, you'd be right. The only footage of Spider-Man online right now is shaky cell-phone video of him fighting street gangs. It's useless for identification."
"But—?" Harry prompted.
Jessica raised her voice dramatically and clicked the projector remote. "But I have exclusive, primary-source evidence. I have what is currently the earliest recorded footage of Spider-Man in action."
Peter slowly raised his hand. "Can I ask where you got it?"
"I filmed it myself," Jessica said, her bravado dropping for a moment as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "My apartment building got hit hard during the alien invasion. Spider-Man... he saved me. I wanted to figure out who he was so I could properly thank him. When I pitched the investigation to the Student Council as our semester project, they approved it immediately."
I accept your thanks, Jessica, Peter thought desperately. Please just leave my privacy alone.
Peter forced himself to keep his eyes open as Jessica hit play on the video.
The footage started from the perspective of a high-rise apartment window. Outside, the sky was violently torn open. A massive, swirling portal vomited Chitauri chariots into the Manhattan skyline. The camera shook violently. Jessica's panicked voice echoed from behind the lens.
"What is that?! Are those aliens?!"
In the distance, a tiny red-and-gold speck—Iron Man—streaked toward the portal, followed by a series of massive explosions. Peter tried desperately to remember what he had been doing at this exact moment during the Battle of New York, but it was a blur of adrenaline, falling concrete, and screaming. He couldn't remember a specific apartment.
"So," Peter said dryly. "An alien armada drops out of a wormhole, begins glassing the city, and your first instinct is to pull out your phone and start vlogging."
Thankfully, it was only 2012. If this had been a few years later, Jessica probably would have been live-streaming her own near-death experience on Instagram.
Jessica offered an embarrassed grimace. "Spider-Man isn't in this part. Let me skip ahead."
She scrubbed the video forward. The sky outside the window was choked with smoke. A massive, armored Chitauri Leviathan swam past the glass. Suddenly, the camera violently jerked. Several Chitauri foot soldiers smashed through the apartment window.
The camera angle spun wildly as the phone was knocked from Jessica's hands, clattering against the baseboard but remaining propped up against the wall, perfectly framing the center of the living room.
Where was Jessica? Oh, right. In the video, she was already slumped unconscious on the hardwood floor. She had passed out from sheer terror before the aliens even raised their weapons.
A Chitauri soldier leveled its energy rifle at Jessica's unconscious body.
Right before it pulled the trigger, a red-and-blue blur slammed into the frame.
Spider-Man drop-kicked the alien directly in the chest, launching the creature completely out of the camera's view. A second later, the Chitauri soldier was thrown violently back out the shattered window, plummeting thirty stories to the street below.
"He was right there," Jessica whispered, staring at the screen. "Right there when I was helpless."
She was entirely absorbed in the footage, completely missing the look of sheer agony on Peter's face.
On screen, Spider-Man crouched next to Jessica's body. He looked around the ruined apartment, threw his hands up in a gesture of pure, stressed exasperation, and then immediately began administering textbook CPR compressions.
Peter still couldn't remember the exact moment, but he decided to play the role of the analytical detective.
"Okay, look at his form," Peter pointed out. "His compressions are perfectly timed. He clearly has basic medical training."
"But he looks stiff doing it," Harry argued, leaning closer to the screen. "Like he knows the theory but hasn't practiced it much. He's definitely not a paramedic. Wait, look at his wrist. Why is he using a bandage from her first-aid kit instead of just webbing her head?"
"Because the webbing probably isn't sterile," Amadeus noted instantly. "And look at the silver bracers on his wrists. He relies on mechanical shooters to deploy the webbing."
Harry looked at Amadeus, genuinely shocked. "Wait. He doesn't spin his own webs? I thought it came out of his veins or something."
Peter let out a long, exhausted sigh. "Humans don't possess biological spinnerets, Harry. And if they did, the webbing would deploy from the lower abdomen, not the wrists. Which would be incredibly gross."
On screen, the CPR worked. Jessica coughed violently. Spider-Man immediately scooped her up, wrapping one arm tightly around her waist. He fired a web out the window and vaulted into the open air, carrying her to safety.
Amadeus shook his head slowly. "He just... grabbed you with one arm and jumped? From the thirty-third floor?"
"He swung me down to a triage center a few blocks away," Jessica confirmed.
"To carry a human body from that height, factoring in the sudden deceleration curve of a pendulum swing... the sheer tensile strength required in his shoulder joints is absurd," Amadeus calculated, his eyes wide. "His physical strength output easily rivals Captain America's. That's terrifying."
"Okay, guys, focus," Jessica clapped her hands. "We aren't here to marvel at his stats. We're here to find his identity. Does anyone see any actual clues?"
"His shoes," Peter said immediately, taking control of the narrative. "The suit is custom, but the footwear is off-the-rack. They're standard red sneakers. I actually have a pair just like them at home."
It was a brilliant deflection. Peter had spent the entire night sewing matching fabric covers over his sneakers specifically because Gwen had noticed the shoes. It was officially an outdated clue, and it would send the Detective Club down a massive, useless rabbit hole of analyzing shoe brands.
The group spent the next twenty minutes throwing out minor, dead-end observations. Eventually, they reached the exact same conclusion Jessica had started with: the video was ultimately useless for identification.
The bell rang, signaling the end of the extracurricular block. Peter packed his bag, breathing a massive sigh of relief. He had survived day one.
As they walked toward the door, Harry turned back to the president. "By the way, you never gave us your full name. For the club roster."
"Oh, right," she smiled, waving from her desk. "Jessica Miriam Drew. But just call me Jessica."
Peter, who had just taken a swig from his water bottle, inhaled sharply and nearly choked. He coughed violently, his eyes watering.
Harry and Amadeus had no idea why Peter was suddenly dying, but Peter knew exactly what that name meant.
Jessica Drew. In the comic books, she wasn't just a high school detective. She was the original Spider-Woman.