"Ah. You're finally back."
Dr. Stephen Strange didn't look up from the massive, leather-bound grimoire resting on his lap. He sat comfortably in a woven wicker chair, a porcelain teacup hovering inches from his right hand. Sunlight poured directly onto him through a massive, jagged hole in the Sanctum Sanctorum's roof. It had been over a month since the Grendel symbiote dragon had torn the roof apart, and Peter noted with mild astonishment that the Sorcerer Supreme still hadn't bothered to call a contractor.
"Do you have any idea that you've been entirely off the grid in another dimension for a full two weeks?" Strange asked, finally turning the parchment page.
Peter froze. The adrenaline from the interdimensional jump completely crashed, replaced by a sudden, icy spike of panic.
"Two weeks?" Peter choked out, his voice cracking. "How is that even possible? I've never... we were barely over there for three days!"
"Time across the multiverse is entirely relative, kid," Strange replied dryly, taking a slow sip from his floating teacup. "You cannot simply assume quantum vibrational frequencies will perfectly synchronize your watch with local Time Zone."
Peter rubbed the lenses of his mask, his mind racing through the sheer number of missed school assignments, unanswered texts from Aunt May, and potential New York City disasters.
"Okay. Wow. Uh, Gwen?" Peter turned to the blonde girl standing next to him. "Can you take Dr. Connors to Avengers Tower for me? Get him settled. Dr. Strange and I clearly have some debriefing to do."
Gwen took one look at the levitating teacup, the ancient relics lining the walls, and the distinctly annoyed wizard in the wicker chair. She didn't argue. "You got it. Come on, Doc. Let's get out of the creepy magic house."
She grabbed Connors by his sleeve, leading the bewildered, one-armed super scientist toward the heavy mahogany front doors.
Once the heavy brass latch clicked shut, the silence in the Sanctum felt suffocating. Peter shifted his weight from one boot to the other, suddenly feeling incredibly guilty.
"So," Peter started, gesturing vaguely toward the golden sparks still fading near the floorboards. "I'm assuming we bypassed the Baxter Building and landed directly in your living room because of... the whole Reality Barrier thing?"
Strange snapped his grimoire shut. The heavy thud echoed in the vast room.
"You initiated a multiversal transit entirely too late, Peter," Strange said, his tone sharpening into a razor edge. "You forcefully punched a hole through the dimensional fabric mere seconds before I managed to seal off that universe. As a result, the Web of Fate overcompensated. It granted you a massive surge of temporal energy, and you subsequently blasted microscopic fractures across the entire Reality Barrier."
"I know, I know!" Peter threw his hands up defensively. "But it was a literal, giant-lizard emergency! I was fighting a super-soldier Lizard!"
Strange stood up. The crimson Cloak of Levitation flared to life, billowing dramatically around his shoulders. "I am not questioning your motives, Spider-Man. I am questioning your collateral damage. With every unauthorized dimensional jump, your strain on the Reality Barrier increases exponentially. And I cannot guarantee I will always have the spare time to sweep up your cosmic glass. The Sorcerer Supreme has a universe to manage."
Strange stepped closer, looking down his nose at the teenager. "You need to learn magic."
Peter blinked. The chaotic hum of his thoughts ground to an absolute halt. "I'm sorry, what?"
"You need to learn fundamental mystic arts," Strange reiterated, his face entirely deadpan. "Specifically, the localized incantations required to patch fractured reality. Moving forward, you are going to clean up your own messes."
Peter stared at the wizard. On one hand, Strange was blatantly trying to outsource his own job. On the other hand, the prospect of actually learning magic—of adding genuine, reality-bending spells to his arsenal—was incredibly enticing.
There was only one glaring logistical nightmare.
"Doc, I don't know if you've looked at my schedule lately," Peter said, crossing his arms. "Between high school, the Avengers, Oscorp, and patrolling Queens, I barely have time to eat. Do I actually have the hours to sit down and study witchcraft?"
"You vanished for fourteen days and the planet didn't instantly combust," Strange pointed out dryly. "The Avengers can hold the line. Your schedule has room."
Strange raised his right hand, his fingers tracing a glowing, geometric mandala in the air. A thick, dusty tome bound in dark blue leather materialized from the ether and dropped heavily into Peter's hands.
"If you truly wish to maximize your time," Strange advised, turning back toward his wicker chair, "I highly recommend you master the Astral Projection technique first. It allows your physical body to sleep and recover, while your astral form separates from your physical tether to remain conscious and study."
Peter stared at the heavy book, reading the gilded English lettering on the spine. He was basically being assigned magical homework while he slept.
"Just remember," Strange warned, tapping his temple. "Mental fatigue does not magically dissipate just because your physical muscles are resting. If you push your astral form too hard, your brain will hemorrhage. You still require actual, unconscious rest."
"Got it. No astral all-nighters," Peter muttered, securing the heavy book under his arm. "Thanks, Strange."
"This isn't purely a custodial endeavor, Peter," Strange added, his tone softening a fraction. "Studying the mystic arts will consciously refine the abilities you already possess. Your so-called 'Spider-Sense,' for instance. It is not merely a heightened biological reflex. It is a localized, precognitive fragment of the future. You are physically reacting to microscopic ripples in the timestream. Because you lack mystical discipline, you only utilize it as a blunt-force warning alarm. Magic will teach you how to properly master it."
Peter's eyes widened behind his white lenses. The tactical implications flooded his brain. "Wait. If I master it... does that mean I can actually see the future?"
"Only fragmented premonitions," Strange corrected. "But... theoretically, yes."
"Can I expand the radius?" Peter asked rapidly, his hands flying as he calculated the physics. "Could I push the sensory net to cover a fifty-kilometer radius across Manhattan, specifically tuning the frequency to detect anyone actively harboring lethal intent toward me?"
Strange stopped walking. He slowly turned his head, staring at the teenager in absolute, baffled silence. He genuinely could not comprehend why this kid's first instinct was to turn his brain into a city-wide, paranoid radar dish.
"I cannot precisely predict how your unique physiology will adapt to the mystic arts," Strange finally sighed, rubbing his goatee. "But... yes. Given enough time, it is plausible."
"Awesome," Peter grinned beneath his mask. "I'm in."
"Very well." Strange nodded, entirely unbothered by the prospect of taking on a part-time apprentice. Wong usually handled the actual teaching at Kamar-Taj anyway. "However, we must establish a foundational rule. You are fundamentally different from the mages of Kamar-Taj. We practice standard white magic. Our power is drawn directly from the Vishanti—the Triune Gods of White Magic. But the multiverse is vast. There are countless extradimensional lords and deities who lend their energies to their specific disciples."
Strange pointed a finger at the spider emblem on Peter's chest. "Your power source is deeply, intrinsically bound to the Spider-Totem. The mystical reservoir of the Spider originates from two distinct deities. The weaker of the two is Anansi, the West African trickster god of stories and weaving. He represents the conceptual, trickster symbolism of the Spider across the multiverse."
"Yeah, I don't really get along with Anansi," Peter muttered, scratching the back of his neck. "I actually beat him up with an alternate-universe Mjolnir a while back."
Strange paused, staring at Peter for a long, heavy second. He decided he simply did not have the patience to unpack that sentence.
"Moving on," Strange said, clearing his throat. "The primary, vastly more powerful deity anchoring your totem is Neith. She is one of two daughters born directly to the Elder Goddess Gaea herself. Eons ago, Gaea desired a celestial map to track the souls of all living beings across the multiverse. Neith built that map. We call it the Web of Life and Destiny."
Peter stopped fidgeting. The cosmic scale of the lore hit him like a physical weight. The Web wasn't just a metaphor; it was a divine, structural blueprint of existence.
"The Spider-Totem is not an accident," Strange explained, his voice dropping into a rhythmic, almost hypnotic cadence. "It is an emissary protocol. Neith created the Totems specifically to maintain the Web. She fractured a fraction of her own divine power and seeded it into the multiverse, evolving the Spider-Totems. Every single one of you is directly connected to her. Right now, I am going to manually bypass your biological limiters and strengthen your conscious connection to that divine frequency. Moving forward, the spells you cast will draw power directly from her."
Translation, Peter thought. I have my own boss. Don't ask the Vishanti for a loan.
Strange didn't warn him to brace himself. The Sorcerer Supreme simply raised both hands, his fingers curling into complex, glowing golden seals. He thrust his palms forward, blasting the intricate magical constructs directly into Peter's chest.
Peter gasped.
The floor of the Sanctum Sanctorum vanished. The wooden bookshelves dissolved into blinding starlight.
Sensory overload hit him like a freight train. Countless, glittering universes flashed before his eyes, spiraling together in a terrifying, beautiful cosmic dance. He saw Earth-616, glowing like a sapphire. He felt the timeline violently reversing, rewinding past the modern age, past the birth of Thor and Hercules, plunging deep into the primordial era of the Elder Gods.
The infinite multiverse compressed. He was looking at a single, ancient universe. A single, newly-formed Earth.
And stretching across the void of space was a massive, shimmering web of pure, crystalline light.
"What do you see?" Strange's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, grounding Peter's consciousness in the cosmic storm.
"I see hands," Peter breathed, his physical body entirely paralyzed in the Sanctum while his mind floated in the void. "I see someone weaving the threads. It's... it's a young woman."
Strange let out a low, echoing chuckle. "That is the true architect of the Web. A being far older and far more qualified than any of those arrogant multiversal variants who currently call themselves 'Spider-Gods.' That is Neith."
The vision shifted, focusing on the cosmic weaver.
"And frankly, Neith is incredibly lazy," Strange added, shattering the mystical reverence with a blunt dose of reality. "Neith's older sister, Shathra the Wasp, had her own answer for Gaea's soul-map: the Great Nest. A perfect hive-mind structure where every soul would be absorbed into a single unified collective, eliminating all conflict by eliminating all free will. Gaea rejected it. She chose Neith's Web instead. Shathra took that rejection as a declaration of war. She tried to destroy the Web and overwrite reality with her Hive. She lost. The resulting battle sealed her true form deep within the threads of the Web she had tried to destroy, where she has been imprisoned ever since." Strange paused. "As for Neith? Once the Web was finished, she realized she had absolutely no desire to actually do the grueling, eternal work of maintaining it."
The golden light flared brightly in Peter's mind.
"So," Strange concluded, as the vision began to pull Peter rapidly back to the present. "She fractured her power. She created the Spider-Totems, scattering them across infinity, so that you would do the heavy lifting of repairing, expanding, and protecting her Web for her."
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