Cindy Moon slowly stood up, the shattered glass of the ESU office window crunching beneath the soles of her tactical boots. She pulled her red silk mask down below her chin. Her dark eyes darted from the adult, bearded Peter Parker to the older, professional Gwen Stacy, taking in their matching white lab coats and bewildered expressions.
It didn't take long for the pieces to snap into place.
"He isn't here," Cindy stated flatly, her voice devoid of any panic.
Teenage Gwen stepped forward, the black symbiote pulling back from her face. "Wait. Are you... can you travel the multiverse too?"
"This isn't a parallel universe, Stacy," Cindy sighed, brushing a shard of glass off her shoulder. "We are currently trapped inside a pocket dimension generated by the Soul Stone. It constructs localized realities based entirely on the deepest thoughts and desires of whoever is trapped inside it."
Thoughts and desires. Gwen's breath hitched. She looked over her shoulder at the older version of herself, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with an adult Peter. A world where they survived. A world where they grew up together, got married, and lived normal, academic lives. Her face flushed a deep, violent shade of crimson.
Cindy didn't seem to care about the romantic implications of the room. She turned her head, her eyes tracking an invisible frequency. "I need to find the real Peter."
"He has to be in here somewhere," Gwen said, quickly trying to change the subject to hide her embarrassment. She gave a mental command, and the black Venom biomass surged upward, wrapping securely over her head to form her jagged white spider mask. She gestured to her suit. "By the way... Peter gave me Venom to protect me from the blast."
Cindy raised an eyebrow.
Gwen's mind raced as she pieced the mechanics of the illusion together. So, the older Peter in this room doesn't have the symbiote... not because he got rid of it, but because this specific pocket universe was built from my desires. I don't want him bonded to an alien parasite. That's why there's no Avengers Tower here. That's why there's no Baxter Building. She paused. Wait. Why didn't Venom get sucked into his own dream world?
[I AM IN A STATE OF ABSOLUTE PERFECTION,] the heavy, rumbling voice echoed against her skull, sounding incredibly smug. [I POSSESS A HOST, UNLIMITED CHOCOLATE, AND AGENCY. I REQUIRE NO ILLUSIONS. I AM ALREADY LIVING MY BEST LIFE.]
"Right. Okay. You can't cast an illusion on a lazy bum who already has everything he wants," Gwen muttered under her breath.
Adult Peter finally recovered from his shock. He reached up, gripping the lapels of his pristine white lab coat, and tore it off. Beneath the academic attire, he wore his classic red-and-blue Spider-Man suit. He cracked his knuckles, rolling his shoulders.
"Sounds like you kids are dealing with a crisis," the older Peter said, a familiar, determined grit in his voice. "When do we leave?"
Cindy just looked at Teenage Gwen.
Gwen swallowed hard. She looked at the adult Peter. She looked at the older, wiser version of herself holding a cold cup of coffee. It was a beautiful dream. It was everything she secretly wanted. But it was completely fake.
Gwen extended her black-gloved hand toward Cindy. "Let's wake up."
Cindy grabbed her forearm.
The entire ESU office, the Manhattan skyline, and the older variants of themselves dissolved into a swirling vortex of golden light. Gravity completely vanished for a split second before their boots hit solid ground.
The harsh fluorescent lighting was replaced by the warm, blinding glow of an alien sun. They stood in the center of an endless, sprawling field of golden grass. Strange, violet-blue flora bloomed around their ankles.
"Whose mental universe is this?" Gwen asked, retracting her mask to breathe in the crisp, floral air.
"The golden alien. Adam Warlock. He's the guardian of the Soul Stone," Cindy said. She stood on her tiptoes, her eyes closed, extending a hand out into the empty air as if physically searching for a radio signal.
Gwen stood to the side, shifting her weight awkwardly from foot to foot. If this stone showed people their deepest desires, she couldn't help but wonder what Cindy had seen.
"Um. Can I ask what happened in your illusion, Moon?" Gwen coughed into her fist. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to..."
"Same as yours," Cindy answered, her tone entirely blunt and unapologetic.
Gwen choked on her own saliva. "Oh."
"I woke up in an apartment. Peter was there," Cindy continued, keeping her eyes closed. "But the moment he spoke, my Silk-Sense completely flatlined. I knew it wasn't him. So I punched him in the jaw and broke the simulation."
Cindy's eyes snapped open. Her dark pupils locked onto a fixed point in the empty golden sky. "Got him. He's anchoring a reality right behind this one."
Cindy reached out with both hands. She grabbed the empty, golden air. Her knuckles turned white. With a violent, tearing motion, she ripped the fabric of the pocket dimension apart like a cheap theater curtain.
The golden field shattered.
The deafening roar of New York City traffic slammed into their eardrums. The smell of exhaust fumes, hot asphalt, and roasted peanuts filled the air. They were standing on a crowded sidewalk in Hell's Kitchen.
"Okay, Manhattan again," Gwen said, looking around at the towering skyscrapers. "But where exactly are we looking?"
Cindy didn't speak. She just pointed up.
Gwen followed her finger. High above the intersection, a massive, holographic billboard glowed against the glass facade of a towering skyscraper.
PARKER INDUSTRIES. Bringing you a better life, boundless innovation, and a brighter tomorrow.
Below the glowing text was a high-resolution photograph of three young men wearing tailored suits, shaking hands: Peter Parker, Harry Osborn, and Amadeus Cho. A scrolling ticker at the bottom of the advertisement read: ALL MEDICAL AND CLEAN-ENERGY PATENTS NOW OPEN-SOURCE TO THE GLOBAL PUBLIC.
"Making billions of dollars in patents completely free to the public, just like Tesla did with alternating current," Gwen smiled softly, her chest tightening. "Yeah. That is exactly what Peter would do if he had the resources."
"Let's go," Cindy said, firing a web-line.
Gwen launched herself into the air, the symbiote shooting thick strands of black webbing. They swung awkwardly side-by-side, navigating the concrete canyons until they landed silently on the brick ledge of an adjacent building, looking down at the sprawling, hyper-modern campus of Parker Industries.
They crept along the parapet, keeping to the shadows. Cindy suddenly threw a hand out, signaling Gwen to stop. She tilted her head, pointing down at the main security booth checking vehicles through the boom gate.
A massive, incredibly muscular man wearing a sharp security uniform was casually chatting with an employee in a sedan. He laughed, a deep, booming sound, and waved the car through the gate.
"That's Aleksei Sytsevich," Cindy whispered.
Gwen squinted down at the giant man. "Who?"
"The Rhino," Cindy clarified. "A Russian mob enforcer who had experimental, high-density polymer skin permanently grafted to his skeleton. Peter nearly broke his own ribs putting him away."
"And here he is... working as a friendly doorman," Gwen murmured.
They didn't linger on the roof. They dropped silently down the side of the building, slipping through an open ventilation shaft. They crawled across the drop-ceiling of the main lobby. Below them, a distracted receptionist was typing on a computer. Two plastic visitor badges and a pair of white intern lab coats rested on the edge of the desk.
Two thin strands of webbing dropped silently from the ceiling panels. They snatched the badges and coats, pulling them up into the darkness.
A minute later, Cindy and Gwen swaggered out of a side stairwell, wearing the oversized white coats and clipping the fake intern badges to their lapels.
"So, where exactly are we going?" Gwen whispered, keeping her head down as they walked through a pristine, glass-walled corridor. "The CEO's office?"
"I don't know," Cindy replied.
Gwen shot her a baffled look. "What do you mean you don't know? I thought your spider-radar thing could pinpoint his exact location?"
"It usually can," Cindy frowned, tapping her temple. "But his signal is fluctuating. It's flickering. He's existing in a state of quantum superposition. Like Schrödinger's cat. He is simultaneously everywhere in this building, and nowhere at all."
"Great. A localized existential crisis," Gwen sighed.
They stepped into an empty elevator, hitting the button for the top floor. The doors were just about to slide shut when a thick, calloused hand shot out, catching the rubber bumper.
The doors slid back open. An African-American man stepped inside. He wore a crisp white researcher's coat, but underneath it, he had the rough, grease-stained hands and heavy work boots of a blue-collar mechanic. He held a clipboard tucked under his arm.
"Morning, interns," Herman Schultz grunted, offering a polite, tired nod.
Gwen froze. She stared at the man's face.
The elevator dinged at the fifteenth floor. Herman stepped out, walking down a hallway filled with advanced acoustic research equipment. The doors slid shut.
"That was Herman Schultz," Cindy said, her voice completely flat.
"The Shocker," Gwen breathed, leaning back against the steel wall of the elevator. She remembered the police reports. He was the very first actual supervillain Peter had ever fought. A cynical, blue-collar engineer who robbed banks with vibro-shock gauntlets.
But here, he was a respected acoustic researcher. Just like Rhino was a security guard.
"I checked the news feeds on my phone while we were swinging over," Cindy said quietly, staring up at the changing floor numbers. "There are superheroes in this world. But there are zero supervillains. The city is completely at peace. Nobody is getting hurt."
"All of his enemies... they just became ordinary people," Gwen whispered, the profound weight of the illusion finally crashing over her. "Herman got a legitimate engineering job. Aleksei got a steady paycheck. They got the normal lives they always wanted."
Gwen looked down at her hands. Her heart physically ached for the boy who had engineered this fantasy.
"This isn't a world where Peter is a billionaire," Gwen said softly. "This is a world where Peter Parker managed to save absolutely everyone. Even the people trying to kill him."
PS: Fun Fact! Parker Industries was actually a massive storyline in the Amazing Spider-Man comics (Vol. 4)! Written by Dan Slott, Peter became a global tech CEO, essentially serving as Marvel's new Tony Stark for a brief period. True to his character, Peter routinely prioritized global philanthropy and open-source life-saving technology over corporate profits—which, predictably, drove his board of directors absolutely insane!
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