I huffed, carefully placing the huge stack of boxes in the middle of the London sanctum's inner chambers.
"Is that the last of it?" Jean called out from upstairs.
"Yeah," I yelled back, closing the portal I had made. "Is everyone finished?"
"Almost! Wanda just finished up — come and see for yourself!" Jean called out.
The London sanctum was nothing like the New York one. For one, it was located in the middle of a very small neighborhood and was incredibly cramped, basically squeezed into two identical buildings with narrow walkways and narrower windows.
It was cozy, to be honest — maybe something a family of five would find comfortable. Which was probably why it had been decorated as though a family was meant to be staying there. Lily-yellow wallpaper and a set of antique furniture, all of which I knew to be magical.
The house itself had three floors. The ground floor had a front door, a kitchen and dining area, and a single room that served as my private lab — which I had to trade Jean and Felicia the master bedroom for.
Pushed up against the back of the ground floor was a hidden panel that opened to a portal to Kamar-Taj. Simple design, really.
The staircase was tucked into one corner, and the cupboard beneath it served as a small closet for cleaning supplies, coats, and a shoe rack.
The first floor held the living quarters. The previous master had used this area for martial arts practice — a small dojo. The moment we moved in, however, we unanimously decided it would be nothing more than a living room to watch TV and veg out.
My room was also on the first floor — a small, confined space just big enough for a single in-wall closet, a queen-sized bed, and a bookshelf. Jean and Felicia took the master bedroom, sharing it. It was three times the size of mine with a single large king-sized bed. They hadn't been here a full day and already had posters up and clothes scattered in every corner.
The second floor had two bedrooms, one empty while Wanda claimed the other. The rest of the space was divided between a smaller — though still impressive — collection of relics and weapons, and a large library.
The third floor was filled with mystical rooms I had yet to fully explore: a set of teleporting cupboards like the ones I'd seen in New York, a few storage rooms, and a telescope that peered at the sky through a giant circular window bearing the seal of Agamotto, like the largest jewel on a crown.
There was also an attic where older, spookier items were kept. I mostly stayed away from that — too much dust, and far too much of a hassle.
I picked up the boxes I was carrying and walked up to the first floor. Jean and Felicia were relaxing on the couch while Wanda sat apart from them, flipping through channels without a second glance at any of them.
"You guys settling in alright?" I asked, setting the stack down before lifting the boxes telekinetically and sending them off — two to the master bedroom, three to mine.
"TV is rubbish," Wanda shrugged. "Shouldn't there be something interesting? Why does London have such terrible programming?"
I rolled my eyes. Wanda was... well, a surprise, to be honest. The Ancient One hadn't asked her to become a guardian of this sanctum, but she had insisted. After a brief argument — which Wanda won — the Ancient One had allowed her to join us. Which was, frankly, odd.
"Well, if you want, I can take a look at the dish later and redirect it to pick up American networks instead," I said. "Shouldn't be a problem." I sighed and lowered myself onto the couch between Felicia and Jean. The girls smiled and curled into my sides.
Wanda glanced over at us and scoffed. "You three planning on bringing Ben and Hope into this world sooner rather than later?"
I blushed. "W-Wanda!"
"If I recall correctly, you also had a time-traveling child, Wanda," Jean teased with a grin. "Or did you forget about Stephen?"
"Jean!"
Wanda shrugged. "The kid was cute. But that doesn't mean I'm joining your polygamous relationship anytime soon. I have standards — and I don't like sharing. Ever."
"Can we please talk about anything else? Weather? Food? It's lunchtime, isn't it?"
"I'm not cooking," Felicia snorted, flipping through a magazine.
I raised an eyebrow. "Thank God. I didn't want to die of food poisoning anyway. And considering my healing abilities, that's really saying something."
"Hey!" Felicia cried out, hitting my arm playfully.
"It's fine," Jean chuckled, getting to her feet. "I'll cook." She stretched her arms above her head, her shirt riding up over her stomach. "So what does everyone want?"
"Anything's fine," I shrugged.
"Pizza!" Felicia cried out.
"Anything edible," Wanda shrugged.
"Pizza it is," Jean grinned as she headed down to the kitchen.
I sighed. "I'm going down to my lab, alright? If anyone needs me, just call." I pressed a gentle kiss to Felicia's head and got up. She smiled as I walked downstairs, opened the door to my lab, and shut it behind me.
The moment I stepped inside, the machinery whirred to life.
"Welcome, Peter," Sexy greeted me as the lab brightened, revealing everything inside.
After we had gotten this place set up, I'd made several trips back to New York to recover my equipment from the Baxter Building piece by piece. It was a risk, but I wasn't about to let half a billion dollars' worth of equipment sit there unused — or worse, get seized by SHIELD.
The room was smaller than I was used to, but workable. Several computer processors lined the back wall with a single terminal to access them. The floor space was divided into sections, each dedicated to a different project, with beakers, chemicals, and tools resting on every available surface.
With this setup, I was making real progress in my research — chasing down the power I would need to stop Thanos.
I decided to work with the materials I already had on hand: Vibranium, the Mind Stone, and the vial of Franklin Richards' blood.
To better understand Vibranium, I had been studying metallurgy at a fundamental level, drawing connections to physics, trying to understand how the metal actually worked. A few days ago, just as we were finishing the move, I finally got it.
All this time I had been treating Vibranium as nothing more than an indestructible material for a suit. I had never once considered the other avenues it could be used in. But my knowledge from the Black Panther film had changed everything.
I remembered the movie I had seen in the Mind Stone clearly. So many varied fields in which the metal could be applied — it could augment plants, animals, even humans. The metal could absorb and redistribute energy in ways I barely understood, and I already knew it behaved that way firsthand.
That was why half my lab was now dedicated to unlocking the mysteries of Vibranium and its unique composition. I had used five canisters out of the hundred I had on hand. And with those five... well, let's just say things had taken a turn for the strange.
The way Vibranium reacted with everything around it was difficult to put simply. It was, in a word, alive — a metal that could adapt to any situation, the most versatile element I had ever encountered.
I had only just begun experimenting, testing what it could do.
The other projects were also progressing well — the Mind Stone chief among them, along with my continued study of the Mystic Arts. But right now, in this moment, they all took a backseat.
As for the vial of Franklin Richards' blood...
"Sexy," I began, typing at my terminal and pulling up my medical record alongside the gene-sequencing tools. "Check my toxicity level." I took a small injector, drew a drop of blood, and fed it into the machine.
"Your blood has returned to normal, Peter, resting at exactly 0.002%. If you're planning on executing the Mutant Spider protocol once more, now would be the ideal time."
I hummed, nodding slowly. "Right... I understand." But if I was going to do something this dangerous, I needed to tell Jean and Felicia first — otherwise I knew for a fact they were going to kill me.
So, with that delayed for a little while, I went back to work. Vibranium.
The material was hard to come by but easy to use once you had it. I already knew that Vibranium infused into soil acted as a kind of fertilizer — whether intentionally or not. I also knew that Wakanda was extraordinarily fertile despite being a modern metropolis, which was itself a paradox.
I had to assume the Wakandans had found a way to use Vibranium to sustain life — which was exactly what I wanted to understand.
I had spent yesterday working the Vibranium into a more usable form: a cake-like mixture of the growth-stimulant serum I had developed and the precious metal. I had bought several empty pots recently and placed them in an incubation chamber in one corner of the lab, burying the mixture in dirt before planting seeds on top.
I approached the chamber today and opened it. Sprouts. I carefully removed the pots and brought them to my biology analysis table, examining them thoroughly. This was a genuine breakthrough in medical and biotechnology.
And the best part? The deterioration rate behaved like any other radioactive element — meaning it had a half-life measured in centuries, according to my calculations.
But as I scanned the Vibranium cake, I noticed something odd. A kind of secondary interference in the system. That didn't make sense. The only active, untreated Vibranium in the room was in my bag of storage, set aside. Other than that, it could only be... the Mind Stone.
I had been putting this off for some time, but with Franklin's blood protocol on hold, I might as well move forward with the other idea I'd had.
I crossed to the other half of my lab, purpose-built for examining the Mind Stone, which I still had suspended inside a Vibranium lock box in an energy field. Even if the box broke, the stone would remain stable — though the odd stray thread of radiation still leaked through now and then. Nearly undetectable, unless you knew what to look for.
I began working on the Stone — trying to understand how to activate and use it. It remained as stubborn as ever. I was getting nowhere fast.
I sighed and leaned back. I stared at the glowing piece of rock before me and turned the problem over in my head. The stray radiation it emitted was intense... but if I channeled it through the Vibranium box... and being an Infinity Stone, the energy would never run dry.
An idea hit me. A brilliant, obvious idea. One I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of before.
I needed to protect the Stone. I had sworn on my future children that I would. I had sworn to my future self. So what better way to protect it than to keep it close to me at all times?
"Sexy, new project." I moved to a clear table and brought up several magnetrons, disabled the field around the Vibranium lock box, and carefully removed the Mind Stone. "Badassium-Vibranium-Mind Core."
"Understood, sir. What do you need from me?"
"Run through the exact calculations the system will require," I replied, already heading for the door. I locked the lab behind me and thought aloud as I moved. "Vibranium has excellent durability, and the Badassium core tends to overheat whatever housing unit it's placed in. So — what's one plus one, Sexy?"
"Infinity," the AI replied.
I smirked as I jogged up to my room. "Exactly." I threw open my closet, grabbed a pair of sweatpants, and rushed back out.
"Hey now, what's the hurry?" Felicia called lazily from the couch.
"Eureka moment, babe!" I called back, already heading downstairs without a glance behind me. I could practically feel Felicia and Wanda rolling their eyes at my back.
I locked myself in the lab again. My clothes melted away as the suit rested on the operating table, and I set to work unlocking the central energy core — something I'd had considerable difficulty with before.
But now I had new inspiration to draw from. Specifically, the Iron Man armor from Infinity War, with its single unified housing unit for nanobots. Before, I had used a more modest design to avoid painting a target on myself. But if I was going to house an Infinity Stone in my chest, I couldn't afford to compromise on the core.
So I began. A new power core, built entirely from Vibranium with a Badassium heart. The energy output was stable — but not yet good enough.
With the disc-shaped core ready, I moved to the next step. I took the Mind Stone and placed it at the center of the arc reactor. The stone's yellowish glow spread outward through the system. The familiar blue light shifted, replaced by an eerie golden radiance, like early morning sun.
Then I turned to the suit itself. Breaking it down was harder than expected — I had layered magic and science so deeply into its construction that taking it apart resisted me at every step, as intended. But I managed. And now came the final phase.
I held up the newly finished core to the light. About four inches in diameter, barely half an inch deep. I began carving storage runes along the edges when a knock came at the door.
"Peter," Jean's voice came through. "Lunch, honey."
"Right, give me a minute!" I called back.
"No — I know that when you say 'a minute' you mean three hours. Get out here before I come in there."
I sighed, set the materials aside, and activated the wards around the lab. I walked out to find Jean standing in the hallway, arms crossed, smiling.
"There. Was that so hard?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, dear," I smiled, reaching out to pull her closer.
"Oh, someone's feeling handsy," Jean smirked. She leaned in and kissed me, biting my lower lip lightly before pulling away. "Come on — I made pepperoni."
"Nice." I followed her into the kitchen, surprised to find everyone already there, working their way through a very large pizza.
"Hey, Tiger," Felicia winked. "Glad you could join us. Working on something interesting?"
"You could say that." I sat down, grabbed a few slices and a plate. "Actually... there's something I need to talk to you all about."
"What is it?" Jean asked, settling into her seat.
"Remember what I did with Logan's blood?" I began. Better to start with something they already knew before getting to the harder part.
"You mean how it gave you accelerated healing?" Jean asked.
Felicia blinked. "Oh — so that's why you needed him."
"Yeah." I nodded. "As some of you might know, my blood adapts to the DNA of others, which lets me absorb their abilities — or their powers, if they have any. That's how I gained Logan's healing factor, and..." I held up my hand and extended my stingers. "These."
"Neat," Wanda whistled.
I retracted them and set my hand back on the table. Jean groaned quietly. "So why are you telling us this? Are you experiencing side effects?"
"No — far from it, actually. I'm telling you because... during one of my travels I visited a parallel Earth."
Wanda snapped her book shut and placed it firmly on the table. Her eyes fixed on me completely. "You have my full attention."
I chuckled. "Right. Well — there I met a mutant with abilities far beyond most others. Ranked beyond Omega level. After we talked and I explained how my powers worked, he entrusted me with a vial of his blood, so that one day — when I was ready, when I had to —"
"— you could use it for a power boost," Felicia finished.
"I didn't want to. All this time I didn't want to. But after Thanos... and Dormammu... I don't want to leave this to chance anymore," I said quietly.
Silence settled over the table. Then Jean spoke. "So why are you telling us?"
I looked at her. "Because if I did this without telling you, you probably would have killed me."
"Got that right," Felicia snorted. She reached over and took my hand in hers. "Peter... whatever you feel you have to do, do it. We're with you all the way. But please — don't put yourself in danger for our sake, okay?"
I smiled and nodded. "Okay. I'll let you all know when I'm going to do it, just in case."
Jean nodded. "That's fair. And if you need our help —"
"— I won't hesitate to ask," I said, meeting her eyes. She sent me a mental image of what she had in mind for tonight, and I very deliberately looked away.
"So," Wanda began, "this other world — did you happen to meet anyone you knew?"
I smirked. "I'll do you one better. I met a future version of myself."
"Shut up. No way."
"Yes way. He had a goatee, though." I hummed. "Not a great look. But I did have a daughter — her name was May-Day. She became Spider-Girl, so that was nice."
"Of course you had another child," Wanda rolled her eyes. "Who was the mother?"
I cleared my throat. "Someone I... think of as a friend."
Felicia narrowed her eyes. "Sue?"
"Felicia —"
"Liz?" Jean guessed.
"Seriously, you two?"
"MJ?" Felicia pressed.
"Dude, stop."
"Oh my God — you and MJ?!" Felicia cried out in shock.
I groaned. "Stan Lee, help me."
After I told them everything that had happened on Earth-982, they finally let me go — though the way Felicia and Jean immediately started whispering to each other had me deeply worried for both mine and that universe's MJ's wellbeing.