Peter and Cindy didn't linger at Avengers Tower. The second they received word that the main team was inbound from Wakanda, they cleared out. Peter spent the afternoon running a quiet patrol over Manhattan, field-testing his new hardware.
He stood on the ledge of a Chrysler Building gargoyle, holding his arm up to the fading sunlight. "Borrowing Stark's lab is great and all," Peter muttered to the wind, "but I really need my own setup. Something that doesn't require dodging the world's greatest heroes."
He tapped the gleaming metal casing on his arm. It was a massive step up. The new web-shooter was the size of a standard watch, sitting completely flush against the inside of his wrist. It was significantly lighter than the old, clunky version. More importantly, he'd integrated three specialized web modes: electric, high-impact, and elastic-rebound. Combined with his new suit, this was his first full-scale technological overhaul since putting on the mask.
Manhattan was unusually dead today. No bank jobs. No car chases. Even the bike thieves were taking a personal day. But the quiet just made his skin itch. Quentin Beck—Mysterio—was out there. He was already operating in the shadows, orchestrating the Chameleon's fake Spider-Man routine.
Beck manipulated light. Peter's infrared lenses had beaten him once, but Beck was a genius. He was absolutely already rebuilding his projection field to account for thermal radiation. Peter needed to treat him as a complete sensory threat. If Beck figured out how to hijack visual, auditory, and tactile inputs simultaneously, Peter would be fighting completely blind.
Unless he didn't use light at all.
Peter sat up straight on the gargoyle. Sonar.
Beck's system manipulated the light spectrum. Sonar operated purely on sound waves. If Peter could build a localized sonar array and feed the topographic data directly into his eyepieces, he could fight with his eyes closed. The only bottleneck was the speed of sound—there would be a fractional delay in the imaging. But his spider-sense could bridge that gap. He developed the entire conceptual countermeasure right there on the ledge.
The sun dipped below the skyline. Peter dropped into a secluded Queens alleyway, stripped off the suit, and shoved it into his backpack. He slouched his shoulders, dialing his posture back to "exhausted high school student," and walked the rest of the way to his block.
Aunt May and Uncle Ben were still out of town. They had extended their trip by another two days, leaving Peter with an empty house.
He turned onto his street and stopped. Gwen Stacy was sitting on his front porch steps.
"Hey," Peter said. He ran a hand through his helmet-flattened hair. "Aren't you supposed to be at band rehearsal?"
Gwen checked her watch. "It's six-thirty, Peter. Rehearsal ended an hour ago." She stood up and brushed the dust off her jeans. "What exactly have you been eating while your aunt is away?"
"I cook," Peter said defensively. "Just don't expect a Michelin star."
"I'm not picky," Gwen said. She followed him up to the door. Her eyes drifted to his backpack. "Is your... gear in there? The suit?"
Peter unlocked the door and tossed his bag onto the living room sofa. "Used to be. But I built a new suit at Avengers Tower. The storage mechanics are a lot easier now."
Gwen stopped in the hallway. "You joined the Avengers?"
"No." Peter shook his head. "Tony and Steve are thinking about it, but they haven't officially offered. Age liability. Right now, they mostly just let me house-sit when they're deployed."
Gwen crossed her arms. "So. Can you actually drink coffee while hanging upside down on the ceiling?"
She wasn't letting this go. It wasn't a hypothetical question anymore.
Gwen held up a finger. "Wait right here." She vanished into the kitchen. The faucet ran. She walked back into the living room holding a glass of water. "I couldn't find your kettle. Tap water okay?"
Peter sighed. He took the glass. He kicked off his sneakers.
He bent his knees and launched himself straight up. His bare feet hit the plaster ceiling. He stuck. He hung completely upside down, the blood rushing to his head. He brought the glass to his lips and, utilizing a very careful manipulation of his throat muscles, swallowed the water without spilling a drop.
He let go of the ceiling, rotated gracefully in mid-air, and landed silently on his feet.
Gwen clapped. "Okay. That's incredibly cool."
"Yeah," Peter muttered, sliding his shoes back on. "It's a great party trick. Like telling people your cat does backflips. I just hope the Queens municipal water supply doesn't give me a parasite."
"If Spider-Man gets taken out by tap water, the New York mob owes the sanitation department a fruit basket." Gwen took the empty glass from his hand. "Seriously, Peter. Are you really not going to take me web-swinging? Just a lap around Queens?"
"You need to maintain deniability, Gwen. If anyone sees you—"
"I'll design my own mask!" Gwen interrupted smoothly. "Something totally different. No one will connect us."
Peter dragged a hand down his face. This was exactly why he hadn't wanted her to know.
"I'm making dinner," Peter announced, pivoting toward the kitchen. "Do you want food or not?"
"Anything is fine, genius. Just don't trigger the smoke alarms."
Peter pulled leftover white rice from the fridge. He threw together a passable fried rice with eggs and sliced sausage. They ate at the kitchen island. For the next thirty minutes, Gwen subjected him to a relentless, rapid-fire interrogation about the physics of wall-crawling, the tensile strength of his webbing, and the exact aerodynamic drag of his suit.
By the time he finally managed to shuffle her out the front door, Peter was exhausted. He locked the deadbolt and exhaled a long breath.
He washed the dishes, plugged his phone into the charger, and booted up the NYPD dispatch scanners. He cleared the kitchen table, pulled out a stack of blank printer paper, and started drafting the schematics for his sonar array. He could have bought commercial acoustic sensors, but they were wildly expensive. Building it himself meant he could seamlessly integrate the data feed into his new suit's eyepieces.
He worked until his eyes burned. The pencil lines started to blur. He didn't even remember walking upstairs to his bedroom.
He just fell.
He sank into a heavy, suffocating sleep. The dream hit him instantly.
He was in a massive, underground collider room. He was fighting people he didn't recognize. The air tasted like ozone and static. He was losing. He crashed into the concrete floor, his ribs shattering.
A mountain of a man in a pristine white suit towered over him. The man raised two massive, boulder-like fists, preparing to deliver a lethal blow.
Then, the world froze.
A spider crawled across the concrete right in front of Peter's face. It was black, with iridescent blue legs. It plucked an invisible, glowing thread in the air—the Web of Fate.
Peter stared at the spider's abdomen. A stark, crimson number was stamped across its back: 42.
A jolt of pure recognition spiked through his sleeping brain. He knew that spider. He knew exactly where it belonged. It was the radioactive spider destined to bite Miles Morales in Universe 1610, but its true origin was Earth-42.
The Web was communicating with him. As the newly designated Patriarch, it was his responsibility to intercept that anomaly. He had to find the 42 spider and return it to its home dimension before the canon-breaking bite could ever happen.
PS: The spider with the "42" stamped on its back is a massive nod to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse! In the film, the radioactive spider that bites Miles Morales was actually pulled through a collider from Earth-42. Because Earth-42's spider was displaced, that dimension never got its own Spider-Man, leaving it completely unprotected and plunging it into chaos! Peter intercepting it here could literally save two entire universes!
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