Ten minutes later:
We gathered in the lounge.
Johnny, Sue and Ororo sat along the kitchen counter, keeping their distance from the rest, their eyes still guarded and unwilling. Jean, Felicia and Kathy sat on the loveseat. The other X-Men spread out on the surrounding furniture, Logan remaining on his feet like a sentry. And so did I.
On the couch at the centre of it all, with every pair of eyes in the room locked onto them, sat three very expectant-looking children.
I cleared my throat. "So. What are your names?"
Hope smiled. "You already know mine."
"Mine's Steph!" the youngest called out, then paused for dignity's sake. "Her full name is Stephanie Magda Parker," Hope supplied.
Wanda sat up abruptly. "Magda?" Her voice had gone soft.
"What's wrong?" Jean asked.
"That is my mother's name," Wanda said slowly.
Stephanie grinned. "Yeah! You named me after Grandma. Uncle Pietro calls me Maggie — says it's what Grandpa used to call her."
Evans stared. "Hold on — Wanda is your mom?!"
Steph nodded cheerfully. "Yup!"
"But then..." He pointed at Hope. "Who's her mom?"
Hope smiled. "Jean Grey. Didn't the hair and eyes give it away?"
"But — how — wait—"
"You have two kids from two different mothers?!" Johnny exploded.
My spider-sense tingled. I ducked. A fork sailed over my head.
"You absolute bastard!"
Silver-haired me sighed. "It's like we didn't even go back in time at all. People from our era react the exact same way."
I narrowed my eyes and crossed to the boy. "You," I said. "You're—"
"Benjamin Walter Parker," he said, leaning back with the casual ease of someone who was very deliberately not making this easy. "I expect you can figure out the rest."
I turned to Felicia. The colour had left her face. She stood very still, her eyes moving across the boy's features.
I sighed. "For the record, Kitten — the attitude is entirely from your side of the family."
Felicia stood slowly and walked toward Ben. The boy straightened. His expression, guarded until now, shifted. He smiled — small and uncertain — for the first time.
"H-hey," he said. "Mom."
"How many children do you have?" Kurt asked, aghast.
"A lot," Steph shrugged. "Like ten siblings, at least. I have an older sister, Katherine. The rest are mostly half-siblings — there's May—"
"No!" Hope and I said at the same time.
Steph blinked, startled. I met my daughter's eyes and nodded once. She nodded back. I turned to Steph and exhaled. "I love you dearly, but no — any more details about the future could change things we can't afford to change."
Logan grumbled, "so why are the three of you here? Why steal the stone?"
"Are we just going to ignore the fact that he apparently has ten kids?!" Johnny demanded.
"Johnny," Sue said quietly. "Not now."
Hope clasped her hands. "This is a bad idea."
Ben shrugged. "It's the only move we have." He glanced up, and the easy slouch left his posture entirely. "We're here to destroy the Mind Stone."
"Why?" Ororo asked.
"Because in the future, a warlord uses it — along with five others — to erase half of all life in the universe," Hope said.
I nodded. "Thanos."
All three of them went still.
"How do you know that name?" Steph asked.
"I know about Thanos," I told them. "I know what he did."
Ben's eyes narrowed. "How?"
I turned to Hope. "The second Mind Stone — the shard from the future. Where is it?"
Hope reached into her suit and produced the vibranium lock box, opening it to show both the present-day stone and the broken shard inside.
"What does the shard have to do with it?" Ben asked.
"I think future me used it," I said. At the room's collective confusion, I continued carefully. "When I grabbed the stone and it cut into my hand — I had a vision. Of a possible future." It wasn't the full truth, but it was close enough, and it served its purpose.
"So that's how you knew about Thanos," Hope said, accepting it without question.
"Tricky old man," Ben muttered. "Always with an agenda."
"Hey — that's your father you're talking about," Evans said.
"He might be my father," Ben said, "but that doesn't mean I owe him anything."
I looked at him. "Why do you hate me, Ben?"
He met my gaze without flinching. "Because it's your fault."
The words landed like a blow.
"What?"
"I said it's your fault," he repeated, harder. "Thanos won. Because you were too weak to stop him. We were born into a war we never asked for — a war that didn't have to happen — because you couldn't do what needed to be done when it mattered."
Felicia turned to Hope. "What is he talking about?"
Hope's expression tightened. "It's complicated."
"It really isn't," Ben said.
"Ben," Hope said, the single word carrying a warning. He went quiet.
"Okay, can someone please explain what is going on?!" Johnny demanded. "Who the hell is Thanos? And why is everyone acting like it's Peter's fault?!"
Hope exhaled. "Thanos was a warlord. Mad, driven by a single terrible idea: that the universe's resources are finite, and that if life is left unchecked, it will eventually consume itself. He argued that like a responsible gardener, life needed to be...pruned."
"That's insane," Wanda whispered.
"Yes," Hope said. "But he succeeded."
"How?" Logan asked.
"The Infinity Stones," Ben said. At the room's blank looks, he glanced at me. "You haven't told them about the others?"
"I told them about the Mind Stone," I said. "What it is and why it's dangerous."
"But not the others." Ben shook his head. "Of course not."
"Peter," Felicia said slowly. "What haven't you told us?"
I sighed. "The Infinity Stones are six singularities representing the six fundamental aspects of the universe. Space. Time. Mind. Soul. Reality. Power. If one person possessed all six...they would effectively become a God."
"And Thanos did," Ben said. "You and the Avengers slowed him down at first, but he kept coming. He got all six stones, and he won. With a single snap of his fingers...half of all life in the universe ended."
"What happened after?" Wanda asked quietly.
"The remaining heroes came together," Hope said. "During all of it — the years of fighting Thanos and his armies — Dad found a way to destroy an Infinity Stone."
"How?" I asked.
"By using another one against it," Hope said. "But since Thanos had all six by then, first you had to steal one back from him — which was, as you might imagine, considerably harder than it sounds."
"Did we win?" Jean asked.
"Yeah." Ben's voice was flat. His eyes moved to his would-be mother, then away. "We won. But we lost too much along the way."
I felt it coming before he said it. "No. Not her."
"Mom died saving your life," Ben said. "I still don't understand why. You let Thanos bring the world to its knees. And for some reason she still chose to die for you." He looked at me with cold, open contempt. "It should have been you."
The room was silent.
I couldn't breathe.
I turned, and I left.
"Peter—!" Felicia's voice behind me. I kept walking. Down the hallway, into my lab. The door sealed behind me. I dropped into my chair and looked at nothing.
I focused on breathing.
All those movies — playing on a loop now in the back of my mind. All those faces. All that death. Before, in another life, they had been films. Spectacular, moving, devastating — but at a remove. Entertainment. But now those faces belonged to people I knew. People who laughed at the breakfast table and trained in the rain and looked to me when things went wrong.
Now it was real. Every bit of it.
Knock knock.
I didn't move. "No."
"Dad." Hope's voice, quiet and careful on the other side of the door. "Please. I can help."
I stayed still for a moment. Then: "Open the door, Sexy."
The door slid open. Hope walked in, let it close behind her, and pulled a chair over to sit beside me.
"You can't blame yourself," she began.
"The hell I can't," I replied. "I killed the world, Hope — I mean—"
She smiled gently. "It's fine, Dad. I know I look like Mom. You've told me before."
I looked at her. "Did she...did she ever tell you that?"
Hope went quiet. Slowly, she shook her head. "No. She died not long after I was born. She was protecting everyone — during one of Thanos's invasions, when he came close to seizing the Stones, she channeled something into herself. Something that let her push his armies back. But it cost her everything."
"The Phoenix," I whispered.
Hope looked at me sharply. "How did you know that?"
I hesitated. "I've been studying powerful cosmic entities. For a while now." I looked away, then sighed. I didn't want to lie to her. Not to her. "Because I saw it. In a...vision."
Hope studied me for a moment, then seemed to accept that. "You've always been like that. You find things out and then pretend you figured it out on your own."
I smiled despite myself.
"Who else did I lose?" I asked.
She stiffened. "A lot. Too many." She looked down at her hands. "Mom. Aunt Felicia. Aunt Ororo. Uncle Tony. Uncle Thor. A lot of people, Dad."
I stared at the floor.
"And it's all because I—"
"Don't." Hope's voice came out fierce and sudden. "Don't say that. You fought back. You all did. Taking every loss onto yourself just takes the blame away from the people who actually deserve it — Thanos. Him. Not you."
I looked at her. Her eyes held the same quiet fire Jean's did.
"Your brother doesn't seem to agree," I said.
She sighed. "Ben...Ben's always blamed you for Mom. It's not right, but it's how he processes things. He's always been like that. You two never really got along."
I looked at her. "How did you come back?"
"Time travel," Hope said. "Uncle Strange used a shard of the Time Stone to bring us here."
"A shard," I echoed. "Right — you said the Stones were destroyed in the future. So you came back to change the Mind Stone's function. Not destroy it."
Hope blinked. "Exactly. Dad — we came to hack it. To alter one specific function."
"Which is?"
"Locking its power away inside itself," Hope said, sitting forward, "so that it can never be used in combination with the other Stones. If Thanos assembles all six and tries to use the full Gauntlet, the Mind Stone will fail him. The snap won't work." She paused. "We planned to do it quietly and leave without you noticing. Clearly, that didn't go according to plan."
I looked at her — those green eyes, Jean's shape but something behind them that was purely mine.
I smiled. "Hope. That's an appropriate name, if I ever heard one." I looked up at her, and something settled inside me. A decision made. "What can I do to help?"
She reached into the lock box and held out the shard. "I need you to hold this."
I took it and waited, turning my palm up.
Hope raised the intact Mind Stone above my hand. "This might feel...uncomfortable."
"Do it."
She brought the stone down. The moment the two touched, the room began to vibrate — a deep, rising frequency that built and built, sending waves of crackling energy outward in every direction.
The lab door flew open as the X-Men, Ben and Steph poured in. "Peter!" Felicia cried.
"Stay back!" I shouted through gritted teeth. The shard was pulsing faster now, warmth bleeding out of my hand and flowing into the whole stone.
"Ancient Powers that be — I call upon the omnipotence of the Universe itself! Grant this one the strength to contain the Stone of Mind!" Hope's voice rang out as more than a dozen magical circles blazed to life around us, spiraling inward, binding both versions of the stone together.
And then:
KRACK!
The shard went cold. Hope sagged with exhaustion, wiping sweat from her forehead. The energy died into silence. The stone clicked down into my palm, inert and still.
"Did it work?" Ben asked quickly, stepping forward with Steph at his side.
Hope nodded. "It's done. The Stone has been neutralised. Anyone who tries to use it in concert with the others will find it won't respond."
I looked at the stone in my hand. "So it's over? The threat is gone?"
"Theoretically, yes," Hope said.
"What does that mean — is it a threat or not?" Wanda demanded.
"There's no way to be completely certain," Hope admitted. "As far as we know, yes — it's done. But I wouldn't take chances with it, Dad."
"I won't," I said.
"Then Thanos can never win," Sue said slowly. "So why are the three of you still here? If the timeline has corrected itself, shouldn't you all be..."
Hope shook her head. "Time doesn't work that cleanly. By changing the past, we've created a new timeline — a new dimension. What happened to us won't be undone. But now, at least, you all have a chance at a better future."
"You did this knowing you couldn't save yourselves?" Ororo asked, something breaking quietly in her voice.
Steph grinned so wide it reached her ears. "Of course! That's what heroes do! We might not look it, but we're all Avengers in the future."
"Like our parents," Ben said — and just for a moment, the edge left his voice.
"So what happens now?" I asked. "Are you staying? Or—"
Hope shook her head. "We have to go. The mission is done. Staying would only make things more complicated."
"You can't!" Jean stepped forward, speaking for the first time since learning she would one day have a daughter. "We have questions — I have so many questions. Please, just—"
"Mom." Hope's voice was soft. She looked at Jean and smiled — a real smile, warm and complete. "You're going to be fine. I promise."
Ben raised his hand. His costume shimmered away to reveal a ring on his right middle finger, glowing faintly green.
"The Time Stone?" I asked.
"Just a conduit," Ben said.
"Do we have to go already?" Steph grumbled. "I wanted to talk to Uncle Johnny more. He never smiles at home."
"Sorry, Steph," Hope said, guiding her sister to stand beside Ben. She touched his shoulder and turned back to me one last time.
"Bye, Dad," she said. "It was good to see you."
A wide arc of green energy surged around them. I stood with the X-Men and watched, breathless, as the three of them vanished into a sphere of light, leaving behind nothing but scorch marks and a faint electric charge hanging in the air.
"Again?" I heard myself say.
I looked down at my empty hand. The stone was gone with them.
I stood very still.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, the footage played on — the dust, the silence, the end of half the universe. And somewhere underneath all of it, a quiet, stubborn fire.
Not this time.