Director Peggy Carter stood on the command deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, her single eye fixed on the sprawling, neon-drenched grid of Manhattan below. Her mind was running through the tactical variables of their new interdimensional guests.
When the 616-variant of Peter Parker had spoken about Earth-65's Spider-Woman, there had been absolutely no hostility in his voice. He didn't view her as a murderer. Carter had quickly cross-referenced the names in the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. Gwen Stacy. Harry Osborn. Peter Parker.
In this universe, they hadn't just been classmates; they were an inseparable trio. Best friends.
The pieces snapped together. If the masked vigilante currently swinging through Queens was actually George Stacy's daughter, then the death of Peter Parker was never a calculated homicide. It was a tragic, catastrophic accident.
Carter's hand tightened around the steel railing. Her world was a glittering, rotting cesspool. Unlike the supposedly heroic dimension this new Spider-Man hailed from, her world operated entirely on corporate sponsorships and backdoor depravity. The few individuals who manifested superhuman abilities immediately sold them to the highest bidder. They traded their powers for fame, offshore bank accounts, and political favors. S.H.I.E.L.D. was tasked with maintaining global order, yet Carter could barely muster a ten-man roster of enhanced operatives who hadn't already compromised their morals for a paycheck.
Every superhuman willing to bleed for a cause rather than a camera was invaluable.
"Patch the active satellite feed to the Osborn boy," Carter ordered a nearby communications officer, not turning away from the glass. "Let's see what our local Spider-Woman is truly made of."
Down in the cramped, steel-walled barracks, Harry Osborn's encrypted smartphone vibrated violently against the metal desk.
He picked it up, swiping his thumb across the cracked screen. His dark, sleep-deprived eyes narrowed at the notification. He looked up at Peter, who was currently attempting to stretch out a pulled back muscle on the bottom bunk.
"It's from Director Carter," Harry said, his gruff voice scratching in his throat. He tapped the screen, projecting a holographic video feed directly onto the center of the small table. "It's a live drone recording. Spider-Woman is currently engaged in a firefight."
Peter sat up instantly, entirely ignoring the dull ache in his lumbar spine. 616-Gwen leaned over his shoulder, her eyes locked onto the glowing projection.
On the screen, a figure in a black-and-white hooded suit was swinging frantically between the skyscrapers of the Financial District. Pursuing her was a bald man strapped into a massive, heavily weaponized flight harness. Six-foot mechanical wings, glowing with a sickly green anti-gravity exhaust, cleaved through the air.
"Wait, is that the Vulture?" Peter asked, leaning closer to the projection and squinting. "He looks terrible. His tech isn't even half as advanced as the guy in our world."
"Adrian Toomes," Harry confirmed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Former Oscorp aeronautics engineer. He developed a proprietary anti-gravity flight system and went rogue. He can launch the razor-blades from his wing-tips, but that's the extent of his arsenal."
"Huh," Peter noted casually, watching the tiny holographic Toomes dive-bomb the hooded vigilante. "In our universe, you're dating his daughter, Liz."
Harry slowly turned his head to stare at Peter. "I'm dating Liz? Liz Allan? Her last name definitely isn't Toomes here."
"Different universe, different family trees," Peter shrugged, his eyes snapping back to the fight.
Just like Peter had assessed, the Vulture wasn't particularly powerful. He lacked advanced shielding or the sysmbiote. He just flew high and threw sharp metal. But Earth-65 Gwen was severely struggling.
On the projection, Gwen fired a web-line, catching Toomes' ankle. Instead of anchoring herself and slamming him into a building, she held onto the line. The Vulture immediately hit his thrusters, dragging her hundreds of feet into the freezing, high-altitude air. Gwen flailed in the crosswinds. She raised her free hand to fire a secondary web, attempting to blind his exhaust ports, but the violent wind-shear completely threw off her trajectory.
The webbing sailed harmlessly into the night.
Toomes spun violently in mid-air, creating a centrifugal whip effect. Gwen lost her grip on the web-line.
She plummeted.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. drone tracked her rapid descent. She tumbled through the air, entirely out of control, falling straight toward the dark pavement of an industrial alleyway.
"Is the fall going to kill her?" Harry asked, his voice tightening despite his hardened exterior.
"Even when I first started, I never botched a pendulum swing that badly," Peter muttered, wincing as he watched her plummet. "She won't die. The enhanced bone density will save her. But her back is going to be absolutely screaming tomorrow."
Her combat proficiency is atrocious, Venom's dark, mocking voice echoed in the cavern of Peter's skull. She fights like a wounded pigeon.
"Hey, cut her some slack," Peter whispered under his breath, defending her to the symbiote. "She only got bitten nine months ago."
We have been active for fewer months, Venom retorted instantly. We possess the same proportionate strength. Yet we do not allow geriatric bird-men to drop us into dumpsters.
"I had training from my uncle," Peter argued quietly, tapping his temple. "She's entirely self-taught."
She is terrible at cooking, Venom stated, pivoting the insult to an entirely unrelated, yet somehow deeply offensive, metaphor.
Peter let out a heavy sigh, realizing he couldn't win an argument with an alien parasite that demanded tactical perfection. He stood up from the bunk, grabbing his red mask. "Alright. She needs an assist. Let's go scrape her off the pavement."
Harry didn't say a word. He just gave a sharp nod, turning toward a heavy, reinforced duffel bag sitting in the corner of the barracks.
"Oh... God... my back..."
Earth-65 Gwen groaned, her vision swimming with black spots. She hadn't hit the pavement. She had crashed through the fiberglass roof of a parked municipal garbage truck.
The stench hit her nostrils a second later—a suffocating, putrid wave of rotting coffee grounds, sour milk, and wet cardboard. She gagged violently, her Spider-Sense entirely drowned out by the sheer olfactory assault. She scrambled frantically, her gloved hands slipping on slimy trash bags, until she managed to fire a web-line and haul herself out of the crushed roof.
She landed heavily on the edge of the alleyway, her knees shaking.
"Great," Gwen coughed, desperately trying to wipe a smear of unidentified brown sludge off her pristine white hood. "How the hell am I going to explain this smell to Mary Jane at band practice..."
"You probably don't need to explain anything."
Gwen froze. Her Spider-Sense hadn't made a single sound.
She whipped around, dropping into a defensive crouch.
Standing on the rusted fire escape above her was the 616-variant of Peter Parker. But he wasn't alone. Hovering three feet off the ground, standing on a sleek, military-grade flying skateboard, was a heavily armored figure.
The man was clad in dark green Oscorp tactical power armor. An emerald-tinted, reinforced combat mask covered the lower half of his face, but his dark, exhausted eyes were instantly recognizable.
Gwen's breath caught in her throat. "Harry? Are you... wait, are you from the other universe too?"
Harry stepped off the hovering glider. His heavy combat boots hit the asphalt with a dull thud. He reached up, unlatching the green tactical mask and pulling it off. His jaw was covered in dark stubble. He didn't look like an interdimensional traveler; he looked like a soldier who had been fighting a private war.
"I'm not from another universe, Gwen," Harry said, his rough voice echoing off the brick walls. He looked at her, his expression a complicated mix of lingering grief and hardened resolve. "It's me. And we need to have a very long talk about Peter."
Two miles away, inside a damp, abandoned meatpacking warehouse, Adrian Toomes was bleeding on the concrete.
His mechanical wings were shattered, leaking green anti-gravity fluid onto the floor. He scrambled backward, his boots slipping on his own blood, his chest heaving with sheer, unadulterated panic.
"Please!" Toomes begged, raising his trembling hands toward the shadow stepping out from behind a rusted meat-hook. "I really didn't know she was the Kingpin's primary target! I swear to God! I just threw her! I didn't stick around to check the body! She might not even be dead!"
The rhythmic, metallic tap-tap-tap of a blind man's cane echoed through the warehouse.
Matt Murdock stepped into the dim light. He wore a perfectly tailored, charcoal-grey suit. Dark red, circular glasses obscured his unseeing eyes. He moved with a terrifying, liquid grace, completely unhindered by his blindness. He was the Kingpin's personal attorney, and his most lethal assassin.
Murdock tilted his head, listening to the frantic, erratic hammering of Toomes' heartbeat.
"Then I suggest you drag yourself off this floor, Adrian," Murdock said, his voice smooth and cultured. He casually gripped the silver handle of his cane, drawing two inches of a razor-sharp, hidden dagger from the wooden sheath. "And you go fetch her corpse for my employer."
"Alright, Matt. Let's not completely ruin the poor bird."
Murdock paused. He smoothly sheathed the dagger, the blade clicking securely back into the cane. A polite, razor-thin smile spread across his face as he turned toward the warehouse entrance.
Cindy Moon stepped out of the shadows. She wore a pristine, white designer trench coat, her dark hair pulled into a severe, perfect knot. She surveyed the bleeding Vulture with absolute, clinical disgust before locking eyes with the blind lawyer.
"Ms. Moon," Murdock greeted, dipping his head in a mock bow. "To what do we owe the pleasure of Moon Institute CEO?"
"I need this pathetic man, Matt," Cindy said, her high heels clicking sharply against the concrete. "And I am also acquiring your invincible, thick-skulled henchman, Aleksei Sytsevich."
Murdock's smile didn't reach his teeth. "The Rhino is quite expensive."
"Tell Fisk I am willing to compensate him generously," Cindy countered smoothly. "I have the advanced isotope shipments he requested. Furthermore... Spider-Woman is not dead. And she is no longer alone. She brought some very special friends into our city tonight."
Murdock tilted his head again, processing the new variables. His grip relaxed on his cane. "Well. It is bad business to ignore the counsel of our primary weapons supplier. How much cargo are you willing to exchange for my two brutes?"
Cindy stopped a few feet away, her dark eyes entirely devoid of warmth. "A full shipping crate of the alien isotope serum. Undiluted."
The silence in the warehouse stretched for three long seconds. Murdock's heightened senses confirmed she was entirely serious. His smile finally reached his cheeks.
"Deal," Murdock said, stepping aside to let her collect the bleeding Vulture. "Money for goods, Ms. Moon. A pleasure doing business."