Red dust choked the air. The brutal, unforgiving heat of a dead sun baked the cracked earth.
A brightly colored, heavily modified dune buggy tore across the barren desert plains. Behind the wheel sat an old man. His hair was stark white, his eyes milky and sightless. He gripped a half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey in one hand and the steering wheel in the other. A worn composite bow rested on the passenger seat.
The buggy sped past a colossal, decaying skeleton. The bleached bones belonged to a giant, its ribs arching into the sky like the pillars of a ruined cathedral. The skull alone was the size of an office building. It lay spreadeagled across the desert. Pym Falls.
The vision shifted. A dilapidated, rusted shanty town emerged from the heat distortion. In the center of the dust bowl, a massive crater had been carved into the earth. At the bottom rested Mjolnir. The divine Uru metal was stained with dark, rusted blood. Emaciated, hollow-eyed scavengers knelt in the dirt, muttering numb prayers to the hammer of a dead god.
The old man parked his buggy outside a crumbling mechanic's garage. He limped up a flight of wooden stairs, his boots heavy on the rotting planks. He reached for a doorknob. His daughter's room.
Peter Parker bolted upright in bed.
His sheets clung to his sweat-drenched chest. He dragged a trembling hand down his face, his breathing ragged. He had literally just stood in the Baxter Building and told Reed Richards he wasn't doing any multiverse hopping anytime soon. He had jinxed himself. Hard.
But why the Wasteland?
Peter swung his legs over the edge of his bed, his analytical mind already picking the vision apart. The Wasteland universes—realities where villains finally organized, swapped targets, and slaughtered the heroes—were notoriously bleak. But they were also built on foundational logic gaps that drove Peter crazy.
Mysterio casting an illusion to trick Wolverine into butchering the X-Men? How did that even work? Emma Frost was an Omega-level telepath; she could have shut Logan's brain off from three states away before he popped a single claw. Kitty Pryde could phase through adamantium. The tactical inconsistencies were maddening.
Furthermore, the Web of Fate only pulled Peter into timelines where a Spider-Totem was the central fulcrum. In the Wasteland, Peter Parker was long dead. His granddaughter, Ashley Barton, was swinging around as 'Spider-Bitch', but she wasn't exactly the savior of the universe. The story didn't revolve around the spiders. So why was he being called?
The black liquid suddenly oozed out of the collar of Peter's t-shirt. It formed a small, featureless blob on his shoulder before opening a pair of jagged white eyes.
What happened? the heavy voice rumbled in Peter's skull.
Peter shook his head, reaching for his phone on the nightstand. The screen lit up with an encrypted text message.
The Avengers are back.
Twenty minutes later, at Avengers Tower.
Tony Stark paced behind his sleek glass workbench, holding a mug of black coffee.
"Let me get this straight," Tony said, pointing a finger at Peter. "You're telling me we're all dead? And Wolverine killed the X-Men?" Tony took an aggressive sip of coffee. "And how exactly did they put down Thor?"
"Absorbing Man," Peter explained, leaning against the holographic display table. "He absorbed the magical properties of Mjolnir, combined it with Magneto's electromagnetic output, and basically punched him to death."
Tony stopped pacing. He held up a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Thor. The literal God of Thunder. Got dropped by a guy with a magic-infused right hook?"
Tony exhaled a long, sharp breath. When Peter first started explaining these multiversal visions, Tony's mind immediately went to the Chitauri wormhole. His anxiety would spike. Now? His PTSD was perfectly fine, but his blood pressure was skyrocketing at the sheer tactical incompetence of these alternate-universe Avengers.
"Okay, fine," Tony muttered, setting his mug down. "You've got your dark-and-broody symbiote suit. Your alien roommate. But if you're jumping into a Mad Max nightmare, what else do you need from the armory?"
Peter ran a quick threat assessment in his head. Who was left in the Wasteland? Old Man Hulk? He was a radioactive hillbilly who eventually got torn apart by an aging Wolverine. The treacherous Thunderbolts? Venom would tear through them in seconds.
"Chocolate," Peter said deadpan. "A truly ridiculous amount of chocolate. Venom needs the phenylethylamine."
A massive, toothy maw extruded from Peter's shoulder, snapping its jaws. Yes. Vast quantities of chocolate.
Tony didn't even flinch. "Right. I'll have JARVIS load a pallet of Hershey's into the cargo bay. Just make sure your parasite doesn't raid the communal fridge." Tony typed a quick command into his console. "Perfect timing, actually. School's starting, and a kid your age needs a sturdy backpack."
The floor panels slid apart with a hiss of pneumatics. A cylindrical display case rose from the sub-level.
Inside stood a brand-new suit of armor.
It was stunning. The plating was forged in classic hot-rod red, but the chest was dominated by a massive, aggressive golden spider emblem. The gold plating extended down the gauntlets and reinforced the calves. The eye lenses were sharp, angular, and tinted gold. But the true masterpiece lay mounted on the backplate: three folded, razor-sharp mechanical waldo arms, forged from pure gold-titanium alloy.
"I didn't give it a Mark number," Tony said, casually leaning against the glass. "This one's a custom build. The Iron Spider."
"Mr. Stark, this is..." Peter stepped closer, his reflection catching in the gold visor. "This is incredible. Thank you."
It made sense. From the Battle of New York to the Extremis crisis, Tony had built nearly forty suits in less than a year, fueled by pure insomnia. Knocking out a specialized Spider-Armor probably took him an afternoon.
"Cap and I agree on exactly one thing," Tony said, his tone softening slightly. "You're too young to be doing this. Rogers thinks you need more tactical training. I think you need military-grade plating to keep you breathing."
Tony snapped his fingers. The Iron Spider suit whirred. Nano-servos engaged. The armor collapsed inward, folding over itself in a cascade of clicking metal until it formed a sleek, heavy metallic backpack.
Venom did not like being upstaged.
Suddenly, the black symbiote surged over Peter's shoulders. With a wet, tearing sound, three massive, jagged biological tentacles erupted from Peter's back, perfectly mimicking the Iron Spider's mechanical arms. The shadow-claws snapped the air aggressively. Then, the black mass retracted, slithering down Peter's spine and morphing into a completely ordinary, matte-black canvas backpack.
Tony stared in total silence. He reached blindly for a glass of milk on his desk and took a slow sip.
"Take the metal one, kid. It's pocket change anyway," Tony said, shaking his head. "Though I gotta say, the whole black-and-white goth aesthetic? Really not a good look for you."
Peter laughed, grabbing the heavy metal backpack. It weighed at least sixty pounds, but in Peter's grip, it felt like folded laundry.
"Alright, I've got a few days before the Web pulls me under. I'm going to school." Peter paused at the elevator doors. He turned back, a slight smirk playing under his mask. "Oh, Mr. Stark? You might want to check the wall safe in my lab corner. And definitely turn off JARVIS's internal sensors before you open it."
Tony frowned, setting his glass down. He had absolutely no idea that Peter had completely filled the safe with high-tensile spider silk just to prevent JARVIS from scanning the structural patterns of his webbing. Tony just felt a sudden, impending headache.
PS: Notice anything missing from the Iron Spider suit? In the classic Marvel Comics (The Amazing Spider-Man #529 during the Civil War event), Tony Stark's original Iron Spider armor only had three mechanical spider-arms (waldos)! It wasn't until the Marvel Cinematic Universe introduced the suit in Avengers: Infinity War that they bumped the number up to four to make it anatomically correct to an eight-legged spider!