Reed Richards was in absolutely no rush to leave the Wasteland.
Standing inside the newly established, sterile laboratory in the heart of New Vegas, Reed manipulated a glowing blue hologram with his fingertips. He was currently lecturing Peter on a temporal mechanics theory he had just coined: "Sliding Time Coordinates."
"In layman's terms, Peter," Reed said, adjusting a holographic equation. "When a biological entity leaves their native universe and breaches a new one, a temporal anchor point is generated. This coordinate prevents the multiverse from folding in on itself and creating localized paradoxes. Theoretically, if your dimensional tether is perfectly calibrated, you could spend a decade in an alternate reality and return to your own universe the exact second after you left."
Peter leaned against a stainless steel workbench, arms crossed. "So, time travel without the messy 'accidentally becoming my own grandfather' stuff."
"Precisely," Reed nodded. "However, there is a fundamental exception. If two universes actively contain each other's native matter, then their timelines lock into parallel synchronization. Zombie Earth and our Earth are now flowing parallel. But the good news?" Reed tapped the console, shutting off the hologram. "We have no active tether to Earth-Wasteland right now. We can move freely here. In the weeks we've been helping rebuild this Wasteland, only about four or five hours have passed back home."
Peter let out a long, heavy exhale, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. "Well, that's a relief. I'm pretty sure it's still the weekend back in New York."
Peter pushed off the workbench and gestured to the two men standing silently near the lab entrance. "By the way, Doc. Meet the new guys. This is Colonel James Rhodes from the place the Watcher calls Earth-Z. And this is Flint Marko, formerly the Sandman. They are the last two living organisms in their entire universe."
Reed paused. He looked at the battered, scorch-marked War Machine armor, then at Flint. Sandman's body wasn't made of silica; it was composed entirely of microscopic, shifting nanobots that buzzed with a faint, metallic hum.
"I see," Reed said softly, processing the sheer magnitude of their survival. He gave them a respectful nod. "You should take them to King T'Challa, Peter. He handles the assimilation logistics."
"You got it," Peter said. He looked at Sandman, who was staring blankly at the clean, brightly lit ceiling, clearly exhausted down to his marrow. Flint didn't want a fight; he just wanted a place to sleep where the walls weren't covered in teeth.
Rhodey, however, frowned, the servos in his neck whining as he looked at Peter. "Wait. T'Challa? T'Challa is alive in this universe?"
"Uh, no," Peter corrected, leading them out of the lab and into the bustling, sunlit corridors. "The local T'Challa died decades ago. This is the Black Panther from Earth-Zombie. The universe where your zombie infection originally spawned. We managed to evacuate him and a few thousand civilians before blowing the planet to ash."
The arrival of T'Challa and Erik Lehnsherr had been the ultimate saving grace for the Wasteland. The surviving, elderly Avengers were excellent at shooting supervillains, but they were terrible administrators. Governing the reclaimed territories required statesmanship. Magneto and T'Challa provided the exact leadership the broken world desperately needed. Currently, they managed about three-quarters of the former United States.
Why only three-quarters?
Because the Earth-616 Doctor Doom had taken a brief tour of the Wasteland, looked at the local Doctor Doom's empire, and became violently, personally offended. The 616 Doom simply could not fathom how a version of Victor Von Doom had successfully conquered the globe, only to let the infrastructure crumble into a literal desert of irradiated dirt. Disgusted by the administrative incompetence, 616 Doom had marched directly into his counterpart's fortress, executed him on the spot, and annexed a quarter of the country just to prove he could run it better.
Peter led Rhodey and Flint out onto the street. New Vegas was a marvel of rapid engineering. Magneto had used his powers to literally pull skyscrapers out of the earth, bending millions of tons of salvaged steel into pristine towers based entirely on Reed's architectural blueprints.
They entered the central government building, taking the elevator to the administrative floor.
T'Challa sat behind a wide mahogany desk, sorting through a stack of supply manifests. His vibranium prosthetic arm clicked softly as he signed a document. He looked up, his eyes widening slightly when he saw the gray-haired man in the damaged Stark armor.
"Colonel Rhodes?" T'Challa stood up, leaning against his desk. "You survived the villain uprising?"
"Different Rhodes, Your Highness," Peter chimed in, leaning against the doorframe. "This is the War Machine from Earth-Z. He and Flint here spent the last few decades systematically exterminating every single zombie in their reality. Rhodey is older because it took forty years. Flint looks young because he had to pump himself full of aggressive healing factors just to keep his carrion-eating nanobots from devouring his own brain."
T'Challa's expression softened. He stepped around the desk, extending his organic hand. "Welcome to New Vegas, Colonel. Mr. Marko."
"Thanks," Rhodey sighed, gripping the king's forearm.
"I like to think of this place as the ultimate Multiverse Survivor Shelter," Peter smiled under his mask. "You guys get settled. I'm gonna go take five."
Peter gave a two-finger salute and slipped out the door. It felt incredibly strange to just... walk around. There were no immediate threats. No alarms blaring. No ticking clocks. The Wasteland, for the first time in fifty years, was actually peaceful.
Peter found his way to a high balcony overlooking the newly paved streets. He sat on the edge, dangling his legs over the drop.
"You look entirely too bored, kid."
Peter turned his head. Clint Barton—the grizzled, white-haired Hawkeye of the Wasteland—stepped onto the balcony. He was holding two cold cans of beer. Clint had recently undergone a brutal surgical procedure, transplanting the eyes of the deceased assassin Bullseye into his own skull. His gaze was sharp, clear, and unnerving.
Clint held out a can, then stopped, pulling it back with a dry chuckle. "Oh, right. You're a minor. Forget it. No booze for the spider."
"Appreciate the thought, Clint," Peter laughed, resting his hands on his knees.
Clint cracked the tab on his beer, taking a long sip. He leaned against the railing. He looked exhausted, but the hard, bitter edge that had defined him for decades was finally starting to dull. "How are you holding up? Not used to the quiet?"
"I don't know," Peter admitted, staring at the horizon. "Back home, I'm always bouncing from one disaster to the next. School, supervillains, cosmic threats. But here? While Reed was fixing the teleporter, I can basically slept for a solid week. I genuinely don't know what to do with my hands."
"Yeah. Peace takes some getting used to," Clint nodded. "Once the shooting stops, your brain doesn't know how to power down the adrenaline. Ashley's been pacing a hole in the floorboards lately—"
A massive, blinding flash of cosmic light engulfed the balcony.
The air pressure vanished. Clint dropped his beer, reaching instantly for his compound bow. Peter vaulted to his feet, the symbiote surging over his civilian clothes in a heartbeat.
A gigantic, translucent, bald head materialized in the sky directly in front of the balcony. It was Uatu the Watcher.
"Spider-Man," Uatu's voice boomed, vibrating the glass in the surrounding skyscrapers. "I require your immediate intervention."
Peter groaned, dropping his head backward. "You've gotta be kidding me. What now?"
"I require you to halt a multiverse-level catastrophe," Uatu stated, his massive eyes devoid of emotion. "A true, horrific unraveling of existence."
Peter blinked. He looked down at his hands, then up at the cosmic being. "Uh, time out. Are you sure you've got the right guy? I don't have the Captain Universe powers anymore. The glowing guy left. I just have a hammer right now. Can a hammer fix a multiverse-level collapse?" he said as he grip the Wasteland Mjolnir.
"You can do it, Spider-Man," Uatu insisted, leaning closer. "Of that, I am absolutely certain."
Peter let out a long, heavy sigh. He reached back, gripping the leather-wrapped handle of Mjolnir strapped to his spine. "Alright," he muttered. "So much for the weekend."
Earth-12101. The Florida Everglades.
The swamp was choked with a thick, putrid fog. The water was stained black with fresh blood.
Deadpool—the twisted, nihilistic variant known as Dreadpool, who had just successfully slaughtered every single superhero and villain in his native reality—waded through the muck. He was covered head-to-toe in gore.
He had finally done it. He had annihilated all existence. He had severed the strings. And now, he had found the doorway.
Dreadpool stepped over the decapitated, muddy corpse of Taskmaster—the final mercenary who had tried to stop his crusade. A few yards away lay a burning, smoldering pile of vegetation. It was the remains of the Man-Thing, the eternal guardian of the Nexus of All Realities.
With the guardian dead, the Nexus was wide open. A glowing, swirling dimensional rift pulsed in the center of the swamp. It was the gateway to the "real" world. The world of the writers. The world of the clowns who drew the panels and thought his endless suffering was funny.
He was going to cross over, and he was going to kill them all.
Dreadpool raised his blood-stained katanas, stepping toward the glowing portal. "Now," he whispered, his voice a jagged rasp. "Who the hell is left to stop me?"
Before his boot could cross the threshold, the portal rippled.
A figure stepped out from the other side, blocking the entrance.
"Another swamp?" Peter Parker grumbled, swatting a massive mosquito away from his white lens. The symbiote suit rippled against the thick, suffocating humidity. I hate the humidity, Venom hissed in his mind. It makes the suit chafe. "Seriously, can we stop associating spiders with damp, gross places? Also, what kind of Spider-Man needs a swamp?"
Dreadpool froze. He stared at the newcomer.
Peter looked down at the decapitated body of Taskmaster, then at the burning remains of the Man-Thing. He slowly raised his gaze to meet Dreadpool's white lenses.
Peter casually unhooked Mjolnir from his back. The ancient Uru metal began to spark with violent, jagged blue bio-electricity.
"So," Peter said, his voice dropping an octave, losing all of its usual humor. He leveled the crackling hammer at the murderous mercenary. "I hear you're the guy trying to cancel Marvel comic book."
PS:
This crossover takes us right into the climax of the infamous Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe storyline! In that comic, a broken, nihilistic version of Deadpool slaughters everyone in his reality, eventually tracking down the Taskmaster and the Man-Thing in the Florida Everglades. The Man-Thing is actually the guardian of the "Nexus of All Realities"—a literal doorway to the multiverse that exists in the swamp. Dreadpool uses it to cross over into the "real world" to kill the Marvel writers. Looks like our Spidey just stepped out of the writers' room to block the door!