"Aaand he is gone…. Again…." The frustration in Tony's voice almost as heavy as the captain's shield.
Tony's gauntlet-clad fingers pressed white crescents into the observation room's steel ledge as Peter—no, *not* Peter, some feral, grief-stricken *thing* wearing Peter's face—collapsed to his knees in the containment cell below. The sound of Peter's raw, wordless scream vibrated through the reinforced glass like a physical blow.
"Jesus," Rogers breathed beside him, his shield hand flexing uselessly at his side. The good captain looked like he'd been gutted—all wide blue eyes and clenched jaw. Tony hated that look. Hated how it perfectly reflected the situation.
"Jesus, indeed" Tony snorted humorlessly "when he is not screaming and punching the walls —doing a fantastic interpretation of Wolverine by the way— he is crying and muttering names"
"Names?" asked the captain turning his attention away from the depressing spectacle that now was spiderman.
Tony nodded "yup! —Friday! Bring up the list please!"
[-Benjy--Marie--May--Anna--Claire--Maybelle--Richard--April--Felicity--Rose--Natalya--Erick--Elaine-]
"Elaine—" Tony Pointed to the camera fee, where a distraught Parker was kneeling and muttering something to himself "—that's seems to be the one he is mourning right now" tony turned his attention back to the captain "keep in mind that there has been a couple of times in which he just babbled the names and the comms were not able to get anything clear.
Steven read and re-read the names a few times, as if trying to find a meaning to them, or at least a reason as to why the distraught spider would bring them up.
Tony tapped the holographic display, making the list rotate slowly between them like some macabre carousel. "You know what I think, Cap?" His voice was lighter than it should've been, given the circumstances "here is a *hint* they are definitely not the names you would give to a pet… —not even a favorite one" Tony added with a brand of Stark deflective humor that meant he was two seconds from either punching a wall or pouring a drink.
Steve squinted at the glowing names, his jaw working silently as he read through them one more time. "They're... loved ones… kids maybe?" The question came out strangled, like he'd swallowed something too large. "Alternate timelines where Peter—" His throat clicked on the rest.
"Where our boy got busy," Tony finished, popping the 'b' with forced levity. He flicked a finger through Benjy's name, scattering the letters momentarily. "Benjy Parker sounds like the kind of kid who'd steal your tools to build a potato cannon." The joke landed like a lead balloon, but Tony kept going because stopping meant acknowledging the way Peter was currently curled in the fetal position in the cell below, whispering to a phantom child's corpse.
Steve's fingers twitched toward the display—stopping just short of touching Maybelle's name. "Some of these... they're family names." His thumb hovered over May, the letters glowing faintly against his calloused skin. "But Felicity? Rose?" His brow furrowed deeper. "Since when does Peter—"
"Since always," Tony interrupted, tapping the side of his head. "Kid's a walking rom-com when he's not being a human disaster. Just ask the list of ex-girlfriends he trauma-bonded with." The joke tasted like ash. Below them, Peter jerked violently, his hands scrabbling at the floor like he was trying to claw through dimensions.
Steve exhaled sharply through his nose. "So what—every name is a life he could've had? A child or a loved one that he—" The word 'lost' died in his throat as Elaine's name pulsed once in the hologram, brighter than the others.
Tony's gauntlet clenched with a hydraulic hiss. "More like lives he *did* have somewhere out there in the multiverse cocktail bar." He flicked the display sideways, sending the names spiraling. "Friday says his brain activity suggests he's experiencing them simultaneously. Every first step. Every scraped knee. Every—" His voice cracked unexpectedly. "Every time he had to bury one."
The silence between them thickened like drying blood. Below, Peter had gone frighteningly still—his forehead pressed to the floor in a grotesque mimicry of prayer, fingers splayed like he was trying to hold five impossible things at once.
Steve swallowed hard. "How do we pull him out?"
"We don't." Tony wiped his face with a grease-stained hand, smearing oil and exhaustion across his cheekbone. "Not until the Stone's effects wear off or Strange shows up again"
Steve's fingers curled into fists at his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking. "And where *is* Strange?" The question came out sharper than intended.
Tony's fingers drummed against the console, the rhythmic *tap-tap-tap* of repulsor coils cooling down. "Strange? Oh, you know our resident wizard—dropped these two in our laps," he jerked a thumb toward the containment cell where Peter was now rocking silently, "then hightailed it back to his spooky library to *meditate*." The word dripped with enough sarcasm to drown a lesser man.
Steve's eyebrow climbed toward his hairline. "Meditate."
"Yep. Full lotus position, third eye wide open, the whole nine mystical yards." Tony's hands sketched vague mandalas in the air. "Apparently when you stare into the abyss of infinite timelines, the abyss stares back with compound interest." His gaze flicked to Peter, who was currently cradling empty air like it was a swaddled infant. "Case in point."
Steve directed his attention back to the monitor fee "and Mordo?" he asked turning back to tony.
Tony flicked his wrist, and a new hologram bloomed into existence between them—a security feed from the compound's secondary containment unit. The image wavered for a moment before resolving into a grim tableau: Baron Mordo strapped to a reinforced medical bed, his gaunt face slack, eyes wide open but seeing nothing. His lips moved silently, forming the same two words over and over.
Steve leaned forward, his brow furrowing. "Is he... praying?"
"Close," Tony said, zooming in on Mordo's twitching fingers. The sorcerer's hands traced the same intricate pattern in the air again and again—a broken record of failed spellwork. "Friday says it's the opening sigil for the Mirror Dimension. He's been stuck in this loop for twelve hours."
The feed's audio crackled to life, and Mordo's whisper-thin voice filled the observation room: *"Too many... too many..."* Each repetition bled into the next like a skipping record. His pupils were blown so wide the irises nearly disappeared, reflecting the containment unit's sterile lights in pinprick flashes.
Steve's stomach turned. "What's he seeing?"
Tony tapped the display, pulling up a secondary readout—neural activity spiking in jagged green peaks. "According to Friday's scans? —Everything and nothing" he turned back to Steve "all at the same time"
Steve's jaw worked silently for a moment before he turned abruptly toward Tony. "We need a telepath," Steve clarified, already moving toward the comms panel. "Someone who can navigate whatever's happening inside Peter's head and pull him out."
Tony's shoulders slumped in a way that had nothing to do with the weight of the armor. "Already thought of that," he muttered "Wanda went in about three hours ago." His voice took on a strange, flat quality. "She lasted forty-seven seconds."
Steve turned sharply, the light catching the deep lines around his eyes. "What happened?"
"She came out crying —not cute quietly womanly crying —but the ugly laud ruined mascara kind of dramatic crying" Tony then tapped the console, flipping the holographic display to show security feed B-14. The screen flickered—then it showed a perfectly ordinary stretch of hallway wall. The kind of bland, institutional grey you'd find in any government building "This is a live fee of a camera located right outside Wanda's room" Tony explained.
Steve blinked. "Where's the door?"
"exactly" Tony pointing an armored finger at the holographic image, started to draw an invisible rectangle "she erased it" Tony snorted humorlessly "she didn't lock it. She didn't block it" he let out and exasperate sight "she erased the door. Just *POOF* and gone"
After an awkward silence he dryly added "I *really* like her —you know? — especially how she doesn't take things too far... Just Like M Day —you know? — such a very *reasonable* gal"
Steve's hand hovered halfway to the comms panel, frozen mid-reach. The observation deck's silence thickened with the weight of what Tony wasn't saying—that Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch who'd faced down Thanos without blinking, had taken one look inside Peter's fractured mind and *broke*.
A portal suddenly opened. And from it and without any fanfare Doctor Steven Strange's haggard figure emerged.
"About damn time," Tony said, but the usual bite in his voice was gone, replaced by something raw. Strange didn't react. His gaze was fixed the live fee, where Peter knelt with his arms wrapped around empty air, rocking slightly as he whispered to a phantom.
"Sorry for the delay"
Stephen Strange's fingers twitched against the console, the Time Stone's residual glow pulsing erratically beneath his skin like a second heartbeat. His gaze flicked between the containment cells—first to Peter's hunched form whispering to ghosts, then to Mordo's catatonic repetition of failed spells. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded like gravel wrapped in velvet. "How long?"
Tony didn't bother looking up from the neural readouts spiraling across his holographic display. "9 hours, thirty-seven minutes." A muscle in his jaw jumped. "Give or take an eternity."
Steve stepped forward, his boots silent against the metal grating. "Strange—what *happened* to them?" His hand gestured sharply toward Peter, who was now tracing invisible patterns on the floor.
Strange exhaled through his nose, the scent of burnt cinnamon and desperation clinging to his robes. "Temporal psychosis," he said, as if that explained anything. When Steve's brow furrowed deeper, Strange pinched the bridge of his nose. "Imagine remembering every possible version of your life simultaneously. Every choice branching into infinite outcomes." His thumb brushed the Eye of Agamotto's empty socket. "Now imagine drowning in them."
"Thanks for confirming. The already confirmed!" Tony exclaimed sarcastically "Now can we turn the page on the script —plot is meant to move forward today"
Below them, Peter suddenly went rigid—his head snapping up toward an empty corner of the cell. "Elly, no!" His voice cracked like dry kindling. "Don't touch the—!" He lunged forward, arms outstretched toward nothing, and the motion was so *precisely* parental that Steve's stomach dropped.
Tony's gauntlet clenched with a hydraulic hiss. "Kid has been reliving moments that never happened. Or—" His voice hitched unexpectedly. "Moments that *did* happen somewhere else. If this continues… he is probably gonna end up losing his mind" he conclude with grim certainty
"The Time Stone's energy acted as a conduit," he murmured. "When Mordo tried to destroy it, the resulting backlash didn't just fracture time—it fractured *perception*." His gaze flicked to the secondary containment feed, where Mordo's lips still formed silent pleas. "They're not just seeing alternate timelines—they're *living* them."
Steve's jaw worked silently as he watched Peter cradle empty air with heartbreaking precision—adjusting imaginary sleeves, tucking phantom hair behind invisible ears. The soldier in him cataloged the details: the slight forward lean of a parent bending to a child's height, the automatic way Peter's fingers checked for a non-existent pulse point at a tiny wrist. "How do we fix this?"
"We don't." At Tony's sharp inhale, Strange continued, "Not until the temporal echoes stabilize. Forcing them out now would be like..." His hands described an exploding gesture. "Pulling a Deep Diver up too fast. The pressure change alone could—"
Steve's fingers curled into fists at his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking like old floorboards. "So we just... wait?" The words tasted like cold coffee and resignation. Below them, Peter had gone unnaturally still— staring blackly at the door of his containment unit
Stranger's cloak billowed without wind. "Not just wait. Prepare." He turned his gaze toward the secondary containment feed where Mordo twitched like a man caught in an electric fence. "When the temporal echoes stabilize, they'll need anchors. Something—" His eyes flicked to Peter, now whispering names like a litany against the steel floor. "*Someone* to emotionally tether them to *this* timeline. To this life"
Tony's gauntlet made a sound like a dying hard drive as he flexed his fingers. "Anchors. Right." He tapped the holographic display, pulling up Peter's vitals—heartrate erratic, cortisol levels spiking. "Because nothing says 'welcome back to reality' like waking up to my beautiful face."
Steve ignored the deflection. "We'll need medical on standby. Trauma specialists." His voice roughened. "People who know how to handle... loss."
The silence stretched like taffy between them, thick with the unspoken weight of Peter's fractured state. Tony finally broke it by clearing his throat—a sound that somehow managed to be both hesitant and brutally pragmatic. "should we loop in the neighborhood watch?" He tapped the console, bringing up a holographic map of Queens.
The holographic map of Queens pulsed between them, casting jagged blue reflections across Steve's jawline. He rubbed at his temple where the light hit hardest. "We should tell them" He said, voice low. "The street-level teams. They'll notice Peter's absence soon enough."
Tony's fingers danced across the console, enlarging a cluster of flashing dots—Fogwell's Gym, the Midtown High perimeter, May's old apartment building. "Tell them *what*, exactly? That one of our friendly spiders is currently having a metaphysical meltdown because he remembers approximately twelve different dead kids?" His thumb flicked a red dot—Jessica Jones' last known location. "That'll go over great at the next support group meeting."
Steve's shoulders tensed beneath his uniform. "They have a right to know. If Peter—" His throat clicked. "*When* Peter comes out of this, he'll need—"
"—emotional support?" Tony cut in, tapping the security feed where Peter's cell had been visible moments before. The screen was now a solid black rectangle... Neither man noticed... "
Steve's fingers twitched. "Daredevil already knows something's wrong," he frowned "He called three times already. —god only knows How he figured out so quick that he is here with us"
*ehem*
Both tony and Steve looked at Strange "that might be because of me. Knowing that you —that is to say— the Avengers, were busy on a mission. I actually tried to reach Daredevil, but as it turns out, he was also busy caught dealing with a different threat. When I mentioned Black Cat's involvement, he immediately advised that I reached for spiderman"
Steve raise and eyebrow "so he knows the kid was with you. Still doesn't explain how he figure that he is with us now.
Strange shrugged "I may have described the situation as an Avengers level threat to try and coax him into helping"
Tony snorted humorlessly "and yet here you are alone, what happened? Did he smell bullshit? Or was he able to hear it?"
Strange sighed rubbing his temples in frustration "He said. and I quote 'if it's an Avengers level threat, then it belongs with the Avengers' and then hung up"
The holographic map flickered as Tony zoomed in on a cluster of street-level hero hotspots—Hell's Kitchen, Harlem, the docks. "Look, Cap, I get the whole 'team transparency' thing," he said, fingers jabbing at Matt Murdock's last known location, "but we're talking about broadcasting Parker's most vulnerable moment to every vigilante with a domino mask and a martyr complex."
Steve didn't immediately respond. His gaze kept drifting to the darkened corner of the security console where Peter's feed had been moments earlier—now just a void rectangle unnoticed by either man.
"You really think people like Jones or Rand would—" Steve began, just as Strange's cloak suddenly stiffened, its collar twisting toward the empty feed.
Steve's hand hovered over the comms panel, fingers twitching like he was physically weighing lives in his palm. "They're his *people*, Tony. The ones who pick him up when he crashes into dumpsters." His voice carried the quiet conviction of a man who'd learned the hard way that no soldier should fall alone.
Tony's gauntlet made an irritated hydraulic hiss as he gestured toward the darkened feed—still unnoticed behind them. "And how many of those 'people' have seen Parker ugly-cry over a burnt grilled cheese? Because let me tell you, kid's got *feelings* about dairy products." The joke fell flat, landing somewhere between deflection and desperation.
Strange's cloak rippled suddenly, its fabric still twisting toward the empty feed with as if trying to draw attention to it. Neither hero noticed.
Steve's fingers hovered over the comms panel, then clenched into a fist midair. "We're missing the obvious," he said abruptly, turning to face Tony fully. "If anyone understands what Peter's going through—multiverse, memory fractures, the whole damn mess—it's the other spider-themed heroes."
Strange, who'd been silently observing Peter's whispered litany of names, finally stirred. His cloak twisted toward Steve like a living thing catching a scent. "Rogers isn't wrong," he conceded, rubbing the bridge of his nose where green energy still crackled under his skin. "Their neural patterns are already entangled across dimensions. If anyone can navigate Peter's fractured psyche..."
Tony's gauntlet made a sound like grinding gears as he clenched his fist. "You wanna throw *more* emotionally stunted arachnids into this nest?" His voice dripped with Stark-brand sarcasm "Last time we had multiple Spiders in one room, they synced up their teenage angst and nearly short-circuited Friday's empathy protocols." Tony's exhaled as he finally threw his hands up. "Fine. Call the spider-collective. But if they start harmonizing about dead uncles, I'm blasting Disney songs through the PA." He jabbed a finger at Strange's chest.
The holographic feed chose that moment to glitch—a single frame of static slicing through Peter's containment cell footage. Steve frowned, reaching to adjust the display. The screen blinked once, twice, then resolved into crisp clarity.
Showing an empty cell.
"Uh." Tony's finger froze mid-jab. "Friday? Run diagnostic on—"
"Camera functional," the AI interrupted. "Biometrics confirm Subject Parker was present four minutes ago." A pause. "He is now... not."
Steve was already moving toward the exit, shield materializing on his arm with a metallic *shink*. Tony kept staring at the blank feed with something between dread and fascination.
"Friday—full lockdown." Tony's voice cracked like a whip, fingers already flying across the holographic display. "Everything. Doors, vents, coffee machines—I want this building sealed tighter than Fury's eyepatch budget."
Red emergency lights bathed the corridor in pulsing crimson as blast doors slammed down with a series of hydraulic hisses. Steve barely cleared the threshold before the reinforced steel crashed shut behind them, severing the observation deck from the rest of the compound.
Strange's cloak fluttered behind him as he strode ahead, tracing glowing sigils in the air that dissolved into the lockdown alarms. "Your containment unit was designed to hold Hulk-level threats," he said over the klaxons. "Spiderman's strength is 'amazing', but still... how?"
"Same way he gets out of everything," Tony muttered, ducking under a descending security grate. "Parker luck." The words tasted bitter. Behind them, ventilation shafts sealed with a sound like grinding teeth.
Tony humorless laugh was almost drown by the sound of alarms "must be a new record" they turned a hallway corner "there we are setting up for the great 'Spider fixing mission'—" a Metal bulk door seals behind them as they finally reached the containment cell" —and we failed before the whole thing before it even started" Tony snorted "we just 'speed-ran' into a game over"
The containment cell smelled like copper and burnt ozone. Steve's boots crunched over shattered glass as they entered, his shield raised instinctively against the flickering emergency lights. The first thing Tony noticed was the blood—not much, but enough to paint the walls in erratic arcs where Peter's fists had connected. The steel plating was dented inward in precise, overlapping circles, like some grotesque abstract art exhibit titled *Grief Makes Monsters of Us All*.
"Friday, playback last five minutes," Tony barked, stepping over a shattered IV drip stand. The silence stretched a beat too long before the AI responded with an uncharacteristic hesitation: "Footage corrupted. Partial reconstruction available." The holographic display fizzled to life, showing fragmented frames—Peter convulsing on the floor, Peter clawing at his own face, Peter suddenly *still*, head cocked like he'd heard a sound none of them could. Then nothing.
Strange's cloak twitched as he knelt, fingers brushing a discarded Spider-Man mask half-buried under debris. The fabric was damp—with sweat or tears, it was impossible to tell. "He left it deliberately," Strange murmured, turning the mask over to reveal the inside lining torn unevenly, as if ripped off in haste.
Steve crouched beside a particularly deep dent in the wall, running gloved fingers along its edges. "These patterns..."
Strange's head snapped up suddenly, his gaze locking onto a seemingly unremarkable section of wall near the cell's corner. With a sharp gesture, he sent a pulse of orange energy rippling across the surface—and the concrete *shivered*, revealing a jagged hole. The edges glowed faintly red , exuding heat and an slight wisp of vapor.
"That can't be Spidey's handywork… right?" Tony said, gauntlet sensors flaring as they scanned the breach. "Unknow signature" Tony kept analyzing the reading "It actually matches 'magical' energy readings… just not anyone's we know"
Strange's fingers hovered over the jagged edges of the hole, the residual energy sparking against his skin like static. His expression darkened—not with recognition, but with something sharper. "This isn't just magic energy" he muttered. "It's *his* magic." The words landed like a gut punch. Tony's gauntlet whined as he clenched his fist. "Bullshit. Peter couldn't cast a fishing line, let alone a—"
Strange's fingers twitched as he traced the scorched edges of the breach, his brow furrowing when the residual energy sparked back in familiar patterns. "Christ," he muttered under his breath, "he's resonating with the Vishanti currents." The words tasted like impossibility—like finding fingerprints on a lightning bolt.
Steve's shield dipped slightly. "English, Strange."
Strange pressed his palm flat against the wall where the concrete still shimmered with afterimages of Peter's passage. The metal wall was riddle with layers of spellwork burned into the molecular structure—precise, practiced glyphs that shouldn't exist outside Kamar-Taj's archives. "He's *remembering* them. Down to muscle memory."
Tony's gauntlet servos hissed as he gestured at the wreckage. "so... now our webhead suddenly developed a magical stage presence?" His voice carried sarcasm reserved for moments when reality insisted on being inconvenient. "Because last I checked, the kid's idea of arcane study would have been using Dr. Doom's spellbooks as coasters."
Strange didn't rise to the bait. His fingers kept moving through the air, sketching out phantom sigils that matched the ones burned into the wall. "Not developed. *Recalled. *" He turned abruptly, cloak flaring. "Friday—pull up Spiderman's neural scans from the last hour. Filter for theta-wave activity in the parietal lobe."
The holographic display flickered to life, casting jagged shadows across the containment cell's ruined interior. Tony squinted at the readout—spiking graphs in places that shouldn't spike, brain regions lighting up that had no business being active. "That's—"
Strange's fingers froze mid-gesture, the air around them shimmering with half-formed glyphs. "Theta spikes in the parietal lobe," he muttered, rotating the holographic scan with a twist of his wrist. The neural pathways bloomed across the display—familiar synaptic patterns. "He's accessing magical engrams. Not learning them. *Retrieving* them."
Tony leaned in, repulsor glow reflecting off the scan. "Like... muscle memory...." whispered going back to Strange's statement.
"Like re-reading a book you forgot you'd written." Strange tapped a cluster of neurons firing in perfect sequence—the exact pattern required to channel dimensional energy. On the ruined wall, the glowing breach pulsed in sympathetic rhythm.
"so…" Tony stared blanckly at the ruined wall "we have a *possibly magical* hysterically feral Spider on the loose" Tony's shoulder sagged now almost as if succumbing to the weight of his own armor.
"Now what?"
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and that's that!
stay tune for the next chapter, in which the rest of the avengers are informed of the whole thing........
Also, Peter might be getting a shotgun.
Bye!