The setting sun cast a dark red bleed over the rusty steel beam. The cold wind howled through the high-altitude girders, kicking up loose grit.
The older, blond Peter Parker stretched his arms overhead, the fabric of his suit pulling tight. He cracked his knuckles. "Alright, let's do this one last time—" He stopped, tilting his head. "Why does it feel like I've already said that?"
"I think every Spider-Man probably says it eventually," Peter said, crouching on the beam beside him.
They were finally in position. Miguel had officially chosen to join them, which meant they were about to drop into a heavily fortified underground laboratory to face Kingpin and his entire payroll. Norman Osborn as the Green Goblin. Aaron Davis as the Prowler. Lonnie Lincoln as Tombstone. Liv Octavius as Doctor Octopus. MacDonald Gargan as the Scorpion.
Adding Kingpin himself, that made the Sinister Six of Earth 700. Three Spider-Men against six heavy hitters. A clean one-to-two ratio.
"I have a question," Peter said, peering down over the edge of the beam. "Why is your Green Goblin the size of a minivan? He's bigger than the Hulk. He has actual bat wings. He doesn't even have a glider, he just breathes fire." Peter shook his head. "That's a dragon. You should call him the Green Dragon."
A few feet away, Miguel O'Hara was rapidly tapping the holographic interface projected from his gauntlet, recalibrating the theoretical algorithms for the Canon Event. "I am significantly more confused by Doctor Octopus," Miguel said, not looking up. "Excluding realities where the entire global population is gender-flipped, I have never observed a female Octavius."
"I don't know what to tell you guys," the blond Peter shrugged. "I've never been to your universes. I just thought all this was normal. You're the rookie here," he pointed at Peter. "Who have you even fought so far?"
"The Shocker. Chameleon. The Thousand. Mysterio."
The blond Peter frowned. "Who the hell is The Thousand?"
"A kid named Carl King from my school," Peter said deadpan. "He ate the radioactive spider that bit me. It mutated him into a sentient hive-mind swarm of thousands of spiders."
The blond Peter stared at him. Miguel stopped typing.
"Never heard of him," the blond Peter muttered, turning back to the skyline. "And I hope I never do."
"I will take the Green Goblin," Miguel announced, his heavy, synthesized voice cutting through the wind. "I am best equipped to handle him."
"Why? Because your shoulders are as wide as a brick wall?" The blond Peter was still carrying a slight grudge from the night before. Miguel had thanked Aunt May for her hospitality, but he hadn't thanked him. "Because I actually fought a guy named The Wall once. He was literally a brick wall that fell into a radioactive cement mixer. I still have the photos."
Miguel didn't take the bait. "Because I can fly."
Silence fell over the steel beam. Both Peters turned their heads slowly, staring at the massive futuristic Spider-Man.
Miguel blinked behind his crimson lenses. "What?"
"If you can fly," Peter asked slowly, "why are you called Spider-Man?"
"Yeah," the blond Peter agreed. "If you don't swing on webs, you're just a flying guy with a logo. What kind of Spider-Man doesn't swing on webs?"
Miguel crossed his massive arms. "I can swing on webs," he said defensively. "My suit just utilizes bio-electromagnetism to achieve localized flight. Forget it. I'm taking the Goblin."
"I'll take Doc Ock and Kingpin," the blond Peter said. "Honestly, I could take all of them. I've beaten them all before."
"I'll take Scorpion," Peter added. "He looks completely unhinged in this universe."
That left Tombstone and Prowler to divide up in the crossfire.
They fell silent again. Miguel's wrist monitor displayed a flatline frequency. The multiverse collider directly beneath them was still offline. The older Peter's override key required the collider to be fully operational to trigger a cascading internal failure. If they destroyed the machine while it was powered off, Kingpin would just spend another billion dollars to rebuild it. It had to be a complete, unrecoverable structural wipe.
Which meant they had to wait.
The blond Peter shifted his weight, his legs dangling over the massive drop. He looked out over the sprawling lights of Brooklyn. The cocky veteran persona faded, replaced by something quieter.
"I never thought I'd meet another superhero in my entire life," the blond Peter said softly. "Let alone two other versions of me. I've been doing this for ten years. Alone. Every time I swing out, I wonder... if I miss a jump, if I take a hit I can't walk off, who steps up? Does the city just burn?" He looked at Peter, then at Miguel. "It's nice to know I'm not the only one. Thank you."
He cleared his throat, leaning back. "We should actually form a Spider-Alliance. Spiders from different dimensions covering each other's blind spots. Miguel's got the fancy time-travel watch, and the kid here can just rip doors open."
Miguel snapped his head toward the younger Peter. "That reminds me. I used decades of advanced 2099 quantum mechanics to build this transit bracelet. You peeled back the dimensional barrier like cheap wallpaper. How?"
"The Spider Totem," Peter said simply. "I met a woman called Madame Web. She explained that our abilities essentially originate from a higher-dimensional construct—the Web of Fate. The radioactive spider was just a conduit. I guess that direct connection lets me feel the threads."
Miguel went entirely still. He immediately began recalculating his baseline variables. If the powers were totemic rather than purely biological...
A harsh, blaring alarm erupted from Miguel's gauntlet. He stood up instantly.
"The collider is powering on," Miguel ordered, his suit rippling with crimson energy. "The multiverse fabric is tearing."
"I'll lead the way," the blond Peter said. He pulled his mask down over his face and dove headfirst off the steel beam.
Peter snapped his own mask into place. He stepped to the edge and dropped into the howling wind.
Miguel watched them fall into the darkness. He stepped off the beam, bringing up the rear. His eyes constantly scanned the collapsing data-streams for any sign of a reality fracture. If the Canon Event triggered, he was pulling the kid back to Earth-616 immediately, regardless of the consequences.
But for now, he would let them save the world.