Peter paced the length of the Stacy family living room, his sneakers squeaking softly against the hardwood floor. He was running on pure adrenaline and a lingering, toxic headache, but his mind was working at terminal velocity.
He looked between the two Gwens sitting on the couch. They were staring at him like he held the secrets of the universe, which, at the moment, he technically did.
"Okay, let's break it down," Peter said, ticking points off on his fingers. "Gwen—your Gwen, the Earth-65 version—is the only active Spider-Totem in this reality. But she is absolutely not the only person tapping into spider-power."
Earth-65 Gwen blinked, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "What are you talking about? I was the only one bitten."
"True," Peter nodded. "But the radioactive spiders in this specific universe didn't come from an Oscorp genetic cross-species lab. They're actually extraterrestrial parasites. Alien spiders. They bleed this highly toxic, incredibly sticky fluid. Oscorp captured them, reverse-engineered the venom, and weaponized it to create the radiation strain."
Peter stopped pacing, turning to look directly at the punk-rock drummer. "The spider that bit you wasn't the first prototype. The original specimen almost bit a girl named Cindy Moon when she was a teenager. Her parents panicked, rolled up a newspaper, and squashed it flat before it could break her skin."
"Cindy Moon?" 616-Gwen echoed, her eyes narrowing slightly at the familiar name.
"Yeah," Peter continued. "Oscorp's lead scientist, Dr. Curt Connors, eventually pulled Cindy aside and told her the truth—that the spider bite would have either killed her or given her god-level powers. That little revelation completely warped her worldview. Fast forward a few years. A space mission goes wrong. An astronaut named Jesse Drew gets attacked by the original alien parasites in orbit. He comes back to Earth infected by their venom."
Peter leaned against the living room mantelpiece. "Cindy takes that alien blood. She synthesizes an isotope serum capable of granting temporary spider-powers. She tricks Jesse, convincing him he needs daily injections of her serum just to stay alive. She turns him into her personal attack dog, and together, they build a black-ops tech-terrorist syndicate called S.I.L.K. to steal advanced weaponry."
Earth-65 Gwen's jaw practically unhinged. "Wait. You're saying the billionaire CEO of the Moon Institute is a super-villain running a shadow syndicate? And she created the spider that bit me at the science fair?"
"Exactly," Peter said. Then, he paused, his brow furrowing as he did the math. "Wait a minute. If Cindy was a teenager when the first spider was killed, and she's running a massive corporation now... Cindy in this world has to be twenty-six years old. She's ten years older than me."
"What's so great about twenty-six?" 616-Gwen muttered under her breath, crossing her arms tightly over her trench coat. "At least she isn't psychically linked to your exact location right now."
Earth-65 Gwen shot her alternate self a sideways glance, picking up on the heavy, undeniable sourness in her tone. The punk-rocker wisely kept her mouth shut. She had absolutely no context for whatever messy, inter-dimensional teenage romance drama was happening on Earth-616, and she definitely wasn't equipped to offer relationship advice.
Peter wisely ignored the tension, plowing ahead. "And then there's the Connors Equation. The formula Dr. Connors developed to bridge cross-species genetics."
"The Lizard formula," Earth-65 Gwen supplied quietly, her voice dropping to a heavy whisper. She looked down at her hands. "The serum Peter... my Peter... used to turn himself into a monster." She swallowed hard. "But after he died in my arms, the authorities came. His body just... disappeared. I never found out who took him."
"S.I.L.K. probably swept the corpse to harvest the residual mutation data," Peter noted grimly. He tapped the sleek Stark-tech console mounted on his wrist. "First things first. Regardless of why this universe's Web of Fate yanked me over here, I am dragging our Connors back home. I'm pinging the subcutaneous locator we implanted in his tail. Fortunately, Stark's underlying hardware frequencies seem to be a universal constant. I've got his signal."
Peter stood up straight, rolling his stiff shoulders. "Alright. I'm moving out. And Gwen—the local one—just a heads up. Every time I get thrown across the multiverse, I end up dragging a hurricane of trouble directly onto the local Spider-Totem's front porch. Watch your back."
"It's fine," Earth-65 Gwen laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "My life is already a complete, unmitigated disaster. What's one more hurricane?"
Peter checked the holographic coordinates projecting from his wrist, then looked toward the front window. "Leave your frequency open. I'll drop a secure comms-link before I leave the dimension. Oh, and if a heavily armored guy with a spider ring shows up claiming to be from the 'Spider Legion' and offers you a job? Slam the door in his face. It's a classic villain recruitment pitch."
"Wait, you guys are leaving right now?" Earth-65 Gwen asked, standing up quickly.
"Unless you want your dad walking through that front door and finding a living, breathing Peter Parker standing in his living room," Peter pointed out.
Earth-65 Gwen flinched, the reality of the situation hitting her like a physical blow. She didn't argue.
She stood in the center of her living room, watching her long-haired alternate self give her a small, sympathetic nod before slipping out the back window with the dead boy she had been mourning for months. The quiet click of the window shutting felt deafening.
Earth-65 Gwen sank back onto the sofa. She stared blankly at the ceiling. She had genuinely believed that getting bitten by a radioactive spider was the absolute ceiling for absurdity in her life. Now, she had just met a parallel version of herself who looked like a supermodel, and a resurrected Peter Parker who swung around like a seasoned commando.
Headlights swept across the living room wall. The heavy rumble of Captain Stacy's police cruiser pulling into the driveway vibrated through the floorboards.
"Just passing through," Gwen whispered to herself, dragging a hand down her face. "Right. Time to face the music."
High above the suffocating, neon-lit grid of Earth-65's Manhattan, Peter swung blindly through the clouds.
He held 616-Gwen securely against his chest with one arm, while his other arm fired rhythmic, high-tension web-lines into the skyscraper canyons. A thin, vibrating layer of the black symbiote coated them both, bending the ambient light to render them completely invisible to the naked eye.
Peter kept his thermal lenses focused on the blinking red dot on his HUD. He had to admit, Earth-65 was a miserable, aggressively cynical dimension. During his brief multiverse briefings with the Web of Fate, he had learned the broad strokes of this reality. Tony Stark wasn't an Avenger here; he was a ruthless, private military warlord. Matt Murdock didn't fight the Kingpin; he was the Kingpin's personal, bloodthirsty lawyer. Bruce Banner was a sociopathic manipulator. Susan Storm seduced Victor Von Doom, stole his powers, and murdered him. Captain America was a woman named Samantha Wilson, and the Falcon was just her male clone.
It was a dimension entirely populated by walking red flags.
"So, where exactly are we going?" 616-Gwen shouted over the roaring wind, her arms wrapped tightly around Peter's neck.
"Straight to Connors!" Peter yelled back. "But his tracking position is completely illogical! He's ascending altitude way too fast. Unless a giant lizard suddenly sprouted wings, someone dragged him out of the river and airlifted him!"
Peter crested the top of the Chrysler Building, firing a line straight up into the cloud cover.
I will handle the aerodynamics, Venom rumbled in Peter's mind.
Thick black sludge erupted from Peter's back, snapping outward to form massive, rigid glide-wings. At the same time, the symbiote surged over Gwen's face, forming a sleek, breathable membrane to protect her lungs from the freezing, oxygen-deprived air of the upper atmosphere.
They shot upward, leaving the city lights far behind.
At thirty thousand feet, the air was pitch black and completely silent. But Peter's thermal imaging lenses lit up like a Christmas tree. Hovering in the center of an empty cloud bank was a massive, displacement field. The ambient heat exhaust was staggering.
It was a fully cloaked S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.
Peter adjusted his glide angle, banking hard to the left. He bled off his speed, coming in directly over the rear thruster banks. He landed silently on the cold, radar-absorbent hull plating.
He didn't waste time searching for a stealth infiltration route. He walked right up to a massive, reinforced exterior airlock. He dug his fingers into the microscopic seams of the steel, engaged his spider-strength, and violently wrenched the heavy doors apart with a harsh shriek of tearing metal.
Peter stepped into the brightly lit hangar bay, pulling Gwen in behind him, and politely pushed the ruined doors back together.
The hangar was instantly flooded with blinding spotlights.
Clack-clack-clack.
The sound of thirty assault rifles chambering rounds echoed through the cavernous space. A heavily armed S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical strike team formed a perfect half-circle around them, laser sights painting Peter's chest red.
"Hello, friends!" Peter called out cheerfully, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "I am Spider-Man from Earth-616! And this is my lethal associate... uh, Ghost."
To sell the lie, Venom instantly manipulated the membrane over Gwen's face, twisting it into a lumpy, horrific, asymmetric black monster mask. Gwen let out a muffled sound of profound annoyance, glaring at Peter through jagged white eye-slits.
"I know you guys are the defenders of this world," Peter continued, entirely ignoring the laser sights. "And coincidentally, a highly dangerous, chemically enhanced lizard from my world just crash-landed in your river. I'm picking up his signal from directly beneath my feet. I'd love to take him off your hands."
The sea of black-clad tactical agents parted.
A woman stepped forward. She was dressed in a pristine, tailored S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform, her posture radiating absolute, uncompromising authority. A stark black eyepatch covered her left eye, but her remaining eye pinned Peter with a cold, analytical glare.
She raised a single hand. "Stand down. Lower your weapons."
The strike team instantly lowered their rifles, though they didn't safe the safeties.
The one-eyed woman crossed her arms behind her back, studying the teenager in the red and blue suit.
"You claim you're a dimension-hopper," the Director said, her voice smooth and dangerous. "Prove you aren't an enemy, Spider-Man."
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