After the Battle of New York, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) creates the Department of Damage Control to clean up after superhuman battles, inadvertly forcing Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) and his salvage crew out of business. Toomes and his men then decide not to surrender the Chitauri technology they have already scavenged and use it to steal weapons and supply them to criminal enterprises.
Years later, after the Battle of Leipzig, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is eager to join the Avengers, but is told by Stark that he's not yet ready. Peter is then forced to return to his old life as a student of Midtown Science and Technology School alongside his friends Ned (Jacob Batalon) and Michelle (Zendaya), his rival Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori) and his longtime crush Liz Allan (Laura Harrier). They're members of the school's academic declathon team, but Peter has recently quit to focus on his "internship" at Stark Industries, a cover for his crimefighting activities, despite Aunt May's (Marisa Tomei) objections.
Spider-Man confronts a group of criminals using Chitauri weapons to rob an ATM, but they escape and Ned accidentally finds out his secret identity. Spider-Man later finds Toomes' associates Herman Shultz (Booken Woodbine) and Jackson Brice (Logan Marshall-Green) selling weapons to gangster Aaron Davis (Donald Glover) and intervenes, but Shultz and Brice escape while Peter is nearly killed by the Vulture and rescued by Stark.