Chapter 203: Garfield-Peter's Friendship Level — Maxed Out
"Hey thank you," Holland-Peter said, still breathing hard, still slightly pale. He was talking to Garfield-Peter. "I almost if you hadn't called that out—"
He didn't finish the sentence, but his face finished it for him.
The physics of it had landed on him properly now. At that height, even a web that caught cleanly would have been lethal. The deceleration force — the sudden stop at the end of the silk — would have snapped right through a human body. He'd nearly killed MJ trying to save her.
He hadn't known that. He'd needed someone else to know it for him.
Garfield-Peter said nothing. He didn't quite trust himself to speak yet either.
He was the only one who knew where that warning had actually come from. He'd passed it along in the moment without thinking — there hadn't been time to think — but now that the adrenaline was fading, the full weight of it was settling in. Ethan had told him this was coming. He'd described the specific danger, the specific solution, and then sent him across universes to a fight none of them had planned for. And it had been exactly right.
How does someone know that?
He'd thought the multiverse was the biggest thing he'd ever have to wrap his head around. And then he'd met Ethan, and the multiverse turned out to be the small part of the picture.
He wanted to learn everything Ethan knew. He didn't understand how that was even a thing a person could want and also know they genuinely couldn't have — not entirely, probably not ever — but he wanted it anyway.
He also had no idea where Ethan was right now. He hadn't spotted him anywhere in this universe.
Not far away, Ethan had watched Garfield-Peter catch Gwen.
He'd been watching the whole thing from the rooftop, and he hadn't been entirely sure how he felt until he saw it happen — the catch, the hold, both of them alive and together — and then he'd known exactly how he felt. Good. Simply, uncomplicated, good.
Different time, different place, different universe. This time he caught the right person.
The system chimed.
「DING!」
「Congratulations, Host! Garfield-Peter Parker's Friendship Level has reached six stars (MAX)!」
「Congratulations, Host! Garfield-Peter Parker has become your Family.」
「Congratulations, Host! Family count: 20/20!」
「Congratulations, Host! Your Exclusive Skill has been upgraded!」
He pulled up the panel.
[ Family Man Lv.5: When at least one Family member is present, Host's combat power +30% (up from +25%), all Family members' combat power +25% (up from +20%). ]
[ On Your Right Lv.3: Host may use this skill from any location to actively select and summon FOUR Family members to Host's right side. Cross-universe. 24-hour cooldown. ]
Cooldown unchanged. But the headcount had gone up again — two more than last time, four total now.
He did the mental math and liked where it was going. He'd get there eventually. One day he'd hit the upgrade that let him pull the whole family through at once.
Something opened behind him.
A gold portal. Strange stepped out.
He surveyed the two of them — Ethan, Tony, both still on the rooftop, both conspicuously not in the middle of the fight — and his expression curdled.
"You two are just watching? Get down there and clean this up."
"I wanted to help," Tony said, pointing at Ethan. "He stopped me."
"My fault entirely," Ethan said, with approximately no sincerity. "I'll go deal with it."
"Damn it!" Electro snarled from the air, watching it unfold below.
He wheeled on Kraven. "Why didn't you stop them? If you'd even held one Spider-Man back for thirty seconds—"
"You interrupted my hunt," Kraven said, with the particular contempt of someone who has genuinely lost interest in the conversation. "Don't talk to me about what I should have been doing."
Electro did a rapid assessment of the situation and didn't like any of the numbers. The Vulture was down. Lizard was cured. The three Spider-Men were intact, and they were now coordinating. He and Kraven were the only ones left standing.
Time to leave.
He didn't spare a second thought for the defeated ones. That was their problem now.
Kraven, meanwhile, had spotted something on the ground — a small box that had fallen out of Ned's pocket. He picked it up and turned it over.
"This looks valuable."
Electro appeared beside him instantly, eyes lighting up.
"Destroy it." His voice had gone fast and urgent. "If we destroy that, more people will keep crossing into this universe — more disruption, more chaos—"
He fired a full discharge straight at the box.
From below, every Spider-Man and bystander saw it happen simultaneously.
"No—" Holland-Peter started.
Ethan was already there.
He caught the discharge with one hand and let the chaos magic handle the rest — a casual, almost lazy deflection that ate the electricity before it could touch the box. Then he turned to Kraven.
One motion. Chaos magic, concentrated.
Kraven dropped.
"This," Ethan said, picking up the box and considering it, "is not something anyone gets to break."
He knew exactly what it contained — the sealed remnants of the failed memory spell, the mechanism that had cracked the multiverse open in the first place. If that got destroyed, the rifts wouldn't just stay open. They'd multiply. Every version of the Strange-spell collapse would cascade outward at once, and the Spider-Society's worst-case scenario would land on their desk simultaneously.
He'd also, incidentally, made a bet with Miguel that his students would handle this. He wasn't losing that bet on a technicality because one overcharged electricity villain had a last-second idea.
He handed the box to Strange.
Then he turned to face Electro.
Electro looked at him — at the ease with which he'd blocked a full-power discharge, at Kraven on the ground — and made the correct assessment. He turned and ran.
He made it about two feet before the arc reactor ripped itself out of his chest.
Tony descended in the armor, arc reactor already in hand, expression somewhere between bored and satisfied.
"How'd you like my hand-me-downs?" he said, looking at Electro.
Without the reactor amplifying him, Electro's power dropped so fast he could barely stay airborne. He raged, but there wasn't anything to direct the rage at anymore. Tony wrapped it up in three moves, landed, and stepped out of the armor.
Holland-Peter was already there.
"Long time no see, Mr. Stark."
He had his head down slightly, braced for something. He'd caused all of this. He knew that. He was waiting for Tony to say it.
Tony didn't say it.
He thought about it for a moment — yes, Peter was too soft about this, yes he should have listened to Strange, yes — and then he thought about how it had turned out, and decided the outcome counted for something.
He put a hand on Holland-Peter's shoulder.
"Not bad. And the school thing — I've already sorted it."
Holland-Peter's head came up. "Wait — you called the board?"
"I donated a building," Tony said, with the particular delivery of someone who considers this a perfectly proportionate response. "And I'm on the board. Have been for years."
Ethan, from a few feet away, watched the exchange and couldn't help himself.
All of this — the Sinister Six, the multiverse crisis, a shattered New York landmark, three Spider-Men fighting for their lives — and the original inciting incident was one kid who just wanted to go to college.
He started laughing, quiet and genuine, in a way he hadn't in a while.
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