Carol Danvers hit the tarmac hard enough to crater concrete, her photon blasts flickering like dying stars as she skidded backward through debris. Cyclops' optic blast had clipped her shoulder—a grazing shot, but enough to send her spinning like a discarded action figure. She spat blood onto the cracked pavement, her teeth gleaming in the fiery light of the compound's burning west wing. "You fucking hypocrites," she snarled, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "After everything you have done—"
Storm's lightning split the sky before she could finish, the bolt shearing through the space where Carol's head had been milliseconds earlier. The thunderclap sent Iron Man's repulsors sputtering as his targeting systems rebooted. "We are not here for debate, Captain Marvel," Storm called from her perch atop a wrecked quinjet, her white hair whipping in the ionized wind.
Tony Stark's faceplate retracted with a hydraulic hiss, his expression raw beneath the arc reactor's glow. "You turned our living room into a war zone!" His repulsors whined as they realigned, targeting locks blinking red across Storm's silhouette. "Also—Jean Grey? Really? You brought the Omega-level telepath to a witch hunt?"
A blur of red and black launched itself from the smoke—Wolverine's claws gleamed as he arced toward Tony, only to be intercepted mid-air by Thor's hammer. The impact sent Logan cartwheeling through a shattered window with the sound of splintering bone. "Nay, metal-clad one!" Thor bellowed, Mjolnir crackling with unspent lightning. "This quarrel is not thine to settle with blades!"
Blade's sword rang against Nightcrawler's tail as the mutant teleported behind him, the vampire hunter pivoting with preternatural speed to parry. "Oh, now this is rich," Blade growled, his sunglasses reflecting the X-Men's advancing formation. "Mutants playing morality police while their precious island shelters monsters like Magneto."
A concussive blast rocked the compound's north tower—She-Hulk's emerald fist meeting Colossus' armored jaw in a shockwave that cracked the pavement beneath them. "Jen!" Tony shouted, his repulsors flaring as he launched toward the fray. "Fall back to the—"
The compound's west wing groaned under another optic blast, its structural beams twisting like taffy.
---
meanwhile inside the compound
Captain America's shield rebounded off Jean Grey's telekinetic barrier with a sound like a cathedral bell cracking. The force sent him skidding backward, his boots carving trenches through the compound's shattered pavement. Natasha rolled under the ricochet, her Widow's Bites sparking against the psychic dome in useless arcs of blue electricity.
"Jean," Steve gasped, shaking out his numb forearm. "This doesn't have to—"
"You locked her in like an animal!" Jean's voice wasn't entirely her own—it layered three octaves at once, the lowest vibrating the fillings in Steve's teeth. The air around her warped like asphalt in July heat as psychic static made Natasha's nose bleed.
Natasha wiped her face with her sleeve, never breaking eye contact. "You think we wanted to? She erased her own door, Jean. Sealed herself in with enough chaos energy to fold a city into origami."
A telekinetic shove sent her crashing through what remained of the west wing's drywall—powdered gypsum exploding around her in a chalky cloud. Black Widow twisted midair, rolling into the impact with the grace of a woman who'd been thrown through more walls than she could count. Her Widow's Bites sparked uselessly against the reinforced concrete floor as she skidded to a stop.
Jean Grey hovered three feet above the debris-strewn carpet, eyes blazing with white-hot fury. The air around her shimmered like desert heat, warping the flickering emergency lights into surreal streaks. "Move," she commanded, the word vibrating with enough psychic force to make Steve's tactical earpiece emit a high-pitched whine.
Steve planted his shield into the cracked concrete like a grounding rod, the vibranium humming against the psychic storm. he raised his hands in a disarming gesture "Jean, you don't have to do this. Nobody has to die tonight"
Jean Grey's fingers flexed at her sides, sending fractures through the compound walls without touching them. "I don't want her dead, Rogers," she said through gritted teeth, the air around her warping with suppressed power. Behind her, outside, Cyclops' visor flared ruby through the smoke as he barked orders to the advancing X-Men. "I want to stop this before Scott turns her into a crater."
Natasha rolled to her feet, brushing drywall dust from her tactical suit with deliberate slowness. "Forgive me if that's not the impression your boyfriend's giving with the omega-level orbital strike team." She nodded toward the shattered wall, through it, they could see Storm outside gathering lightning in her palms.
The telekinetic pressure spiked momentarily before Jean reined it in. "Scott's being... Scott," she admitted, her gaze flicking toward the battlefield where Wolverine's claws gleamed against Thor's hammer. "I tried talking him down. Got nowhere. That's why I broke formation." Her eyes locked onto the scarred wall where Wanda's door had been. "She's screaming trough the astral plane. Can't you hear it?"
"No" Black Widow states bluntly with a deadpan stare, while keeping up her guard.
"Also…" Jean's glare could have melted adamantium as her fingers twitched at her sides. "...You've got thirty seconds to explain why Krakoa's sensors picked up a mutant being held against their will in this compound," she hissed, the air around her warping with barely-contained power.
Steve's shield arm twitched—not in threat, but in exhausted resignation—as he exchanged a glance with Natasha. "He wasn't a prisoner," he admitted, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. His jaw worked for a moment before adding, "It's... complicated."
"Complicated." Jean repeated the word like it was a foreign curse, her telekinetic aura flaring hot enough to make Natasha's Widow's Bites spark erratically. The psychic static between them thickened until—
Another scream tore through the astral plane, this one so strong it made the fluorescent lights above them explode in a shower of glass. The wall to Wanda's room disintegrated outward in slow motion, debris hanging suspended in Jean's telekinetic field as chaos magic lashed out like a dying star's final eruption.
"Stand back," Jean ordered, already floating toward the gaping maw of the ruined doorway. Her her powers made the air ripple like a desert mirage. "If she's this far gone, even your vibranium won't save you from the backlash."
Natasha caught Steve's elbow as Jean crossed the threshold, her voice barely above a whisper. "You really trust her with this?"
Through the dust, they watched Jean extend a trembling hand toward the swirling vortex of energy where Wanda knelt—hair whipping in an unfelt wind, fingers clawing at her own face as scarlet tendrils of power arced wildly around her. Steve exhaled sharply. "I trust her more than I trust Cyclops." He jerked his chin toward the battlefield visible through shattered windows, where Thor's lightning illuminated the advancing X-Men formation. "Come on. The others need backup before this turns into an international incident."
Inside the maelstrom, Jean's boots crunched on fragments of what had once been a bedframe. "Wanda," she called, pitching her voice beneath the psychic astral wail reverberating through the room. "I know you can hear me." A chair leg hurtled toward her face—Jean caught it midair without blinking, dissolving it to sawdust with a thought.
then a realization hit Jean. "You're not screaming at me. You're screaming for someone." she tried to approach Wanda gently "Who are you calling?"
Wanda's scream tore through the astral plane like a bullet through glass—a sound visceral, it took the air out of Jean's lungs. The telepath recoiled as fragmented memories flooded her synapses: obsidian claws shearing through adamantium, skeletal spider legs scissoring through smoke, and worst of all—the twins. Small bodies curled in ash. A feral Peter howling over their corpses with Wanda's chaos magic spiraling out of control in the background.
*"Peter,"* Wanda gasped through bloodied lips, her scarlet energy lashing out blindly. The name came out mangled—half-sob, half-snarl—as her fingers clawed at the psychic residue of the memory of their dead children. "Love... *where are you!!!?*—they took them!!! *our babies!!!*—"
Jean staggered back as the memory of Peter's mutant signature flared bright in her mind's eye—an X-gene wrapped in chaotic runes and temporal fractures. The realization hit like a psionic hammer: *This* was the mutant they had come to *rescue* from the Avengers. Not some anonymous omega-level threat, but a broken spider tangled in his own multidimensional grief.
"Wanda, listen—" she reached out, only for a whip of chaos magic to graze her forearm. The contact burned like dry ice, flooding her senses with another fragmented memory: Peter's hands cradling Wanda's face as their children's nursery burned behind them. The image shattered as Wanda lashed out again, her power eroding the concrete floor into swirling fractal patterns.
Jean Grey gasped as another psychic backlash hit her—this one carrying the scent of burning flesh and ozone. The memory unfolded behind her eyelids with cruel clarity: Feral Peter's obsidian claws retracting as he threw himself between Wanda and a searing beam of golden light. The cosmic weapon punched clean through his chest, leaving a smoldering hole where his heart should've been. In the memory, Wanda's scream wasn't sound—it was a thing, a physical force that cracked reality like an eggshell as Peter's skeletal spider legs spasmed in her lap.
"No no no stay with me—" Memory-Wanda's voice fractured into static as she clutched his face, her thumbs smearing ash across his cheekbones. The feral spider—because this wasn't Peter, not really—gurgled something wet and hissing before going still. Jean recoiled as the sensation of vanishing cells ghosted across her own skin.
Back in the present, Wanda's chaos magic detonated outward in a shockwave of scarlet energy. Jean barely had time to reinforce her telekinetic shield—concrete vaporized inches from her face as the compound's west wing groaned under the strain.
Just as abruptly as the chaos storm had begun, it stopped. Wanda stood perfectly still midst the floating debris, her face blank as a porcelain doll's. The sudden silence rang louder than the screams had. Jean hesitated—her telekinetic shield still raised—as every instinct screamed that this stillness was worse than the hurricane of power.
"Wanda?" Jean took a careful step forward, hands outstretched like approaching a wounded animal. "It's okay. Everything's going to be—"
"Of course it will be fine." Wanda's voice was disturbingly cheerful as she tilted her head to an unnatural angle. Glass shards tinkled from her hair as she moved. Jean's stomach lurched at the smile stretching Wanda's lips—too wide, too many teeth. "I felt him, Jean. Out there in the city." Her fingers twitched at her sides, scarlet energy crackling between them.
"My spider is coming home."
Jean's mouth went dry. She'd seen this particular brand of madness before—in the mirror after the Phoenix, in Scott's eyes after Dark Beast's experiments. The kind of calm that only comes after the storm has already destroyed everything worth saving. "Wanda, listen to me—those memories aren't yours. Peter's temporal psychosis—"
"Are you saying my pain isn't real?" Wanda's laugh was a broken chime, the sound making the floating debris vibrate. Jean watched in horror as cracks through a suspended chunk of concrete without Wanda moving a muscle.
"No! The pain is real, it's just—" Jean swallowed hard, tasting copper from where she'd bitten her cheek. "It belongs to another Wanda. From another timeline. The Time Stone—"
Wanda's hand snapped up, fingers splaying. Jean's words died as the psychic link between them flared to life, flooding her senses with texture: the smell of charred flesh, the wet sound of claws sinking into flesh, the way Peter's teeth had gleamed in the firelight as he tore out some unseen enemy's throat. Most horrifying was the rightness of it all, the way this alternate Wanda had watched her feral lover eviscerate their children's killers with something akin to religious awe.
The vision cut off abruptly as Wanda clenched her fist, the psychic link snapping like a rubber band. "Was that real enough for you?" she hissed, her voice layered with echoes of the feral Peter's growls. Scarlet energy crackled along her fingertips, warping the air like heat rising from pavement.
Jean swallowed hard, tasting copper. "I'm not saying the pain isn't real," she repeated, raising her hands slowly. The telekinetic shield between them pulsed with strain. "It's just not your pain, Wanda. That life—those children—they belonged to another version of you."
Wanda froze. For one terrible, hopeful moment, Jean thought she'd gotten through. Then the Scarlet Witch's head tilted at an angle no human neck should achieve. "You're right," she murmured, almost thoughtfully.
Jean's breath caught—until Wanda's smile split into something jagged and wrong.
"I'll make you see your pain then." The words dripped like honey laced with arsenic. Wanda's fingers twitched, and suddenly Jean's world fractured—not outward, but inward, peeling back the layers of her mind like an overripe fruit. The last thing she saw before the memories swallowed her whole was Wanda's Cheshire grin splitting her face too wide, her whisper curling through the psychic static: "You... —no— Everyone will understand."
Scarlet tendrils exploded outward from Wanda's fingertips, lashing through the compound faster than synaptic fire. She-Hulk's emerald fist froze mid-swing against Colossus—her pupils dilating as foreign memories flooded her synapses: Peter's calloused hands cradling her face, Elaine's laughter echoing through a sunlit kitchen. The world tilted violently, and suddenly Jen Walters stood in a living room that smelled of lemon polish and baby powder, watching a gap-toothed green little girl —Elaine— twirl in a Spider-Man pajama set two sizes too big.
Natasha's Widow's Bites sparked uselessly as the world warped around her. One heartbeat she was bracing against Cyclops' optic blast—the next, a child's voice pierced through the gunfire like a knife through smoke. "Momma?" The word sent a visceral jolt down her spine. Spinning, Natasha found herself standing in a suburban kitchen, sunlight streaming through checkered curtains onto a highchair where a dark-haired toddler smeared applesauce across her cheeks. The girl—Rose, her mind supplied traitorously—grinned up at her with Peter's crooked smile and her own piercing green eyes.
Outside, the battlefield froze in grotesque tableaus. Thor's hammer hovered inches from Wolverine's temple, both men rigid as statues—Logan's claws retracted halfway as his mind drowned in the scent of charred flesh and the weight of a dead child in his arms. Storm's wind started to grow erratic as her throat worked around a silent scream, rain pelting her face morphing at she stared into a medical IV drips from a hospital that existed only in another woman's grief.
The moment Wanda's fingers twitched, Jean's world inverted—not like a flipped hourglass, but like a vivisection. One heartbeat she was staring at Wanda's fractured smile, the next she was remembering the Phoenix Force consuming her from the inside out, the way her own skin had blackened and peeled like burning paper while Scott watched with empty eye sockets. The pain was so vivid she could taste her own charred tongue swelling in her mouth.
Tony's HUD flickered with static as the psychic wave hit—just enough interference to make his targeting systems stutter before the armor's neural dampeners kicked in. Around him, the battlefield had frozen into grotesque tableaus: Natasha's Widow's Bites sparked uselessly against empty air as she stared at something only she could see, her lips forming a word that looked suspiciously like "Rose." Thor's hammer hit the ground, crackling with unspent lightning while the god himself kneeled rigid beside it—his pupils dilated wide enough to show the storm clouds gathering in his irises.
"Friday," Tony muttered, his repulsors humming as he pivoted toward Steve. "Why am I the only one not playing statue?"
The AI's response came a half-second too slow—uncharacteristic hesitation. "Neural dampeners in Mark LXVII armor include patented psychic shielding based on—"
"Yeah, yeah, anti-telepathy tin foil hat, got it." Tony's boots hit the pavement just as Steve's knees buckled—the super-soldier's shield arm trembling like he was holding back an invisible weight. His pupils were blown wide, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he mouthed something that looked like "Peggy."
Tony grabbed Steve's shoulder. "Hey. Cap. Snap out of—"
Steve recoiled violently, his fist connecting with Tony's faceplate hard enough to spiderweb the reinforced glass. The impact sent Tony stumbling back into a scene from a nightmare: Thor knelt in the cracked pavement, Mjolnir abandoned beside him as lightning arced wildly between his fingers—not in attack, but in spastic, uncontrolled bursts that made the hair on Tony's neck stand up. Above them, Storm's weather manipulation had gone feral—tornadoes forming and dissipating in the span of breaths as she clawed at her own face, her screams lost in the gale.
"Analysis complete," Friday cut in. "Scarlet Witch is projecting amplified traumatic memories derived from Parker's temporal psychosis. Neural patterns match his earlier episodes in the containment unit."
Tony's HUD lit up with damage reports as another psychic wave rolled through the compound—this one visible as a ripple of scarlet energy distorting the air. She-Hulk's emerald skin flickered like a dying monitor as she cradled her head, her massive frame shaking with what looked like silent sobs. Nearby, Blade was laughing—actually laughing—while methodically slashing at empty air with his sword, the blade carving into nothingness.
"Christ," Tony muttered. "So what, they're all having Peter's bad trip now?" His repulsors flared as he launched toward Natasha—only to jerk sideways when a lightning bolt nearly clipped his boot. Thor's uncontrolled storm was turning the battlefield into a deadly obstacle course.
Natasha wasn't just frozen—she was trembling. Tony had seen the Black Widow take bullets without flinching, but now her fingers twitched toward an empty space at waist-height like she was brushing hair from a child's forehead. The motion was so precise, so habitual, it sent a chill down Tony's spine.
The sky split apart—lightning forking so violently Tony could taste ozone through his armor's filters. Friday's alert flashed crimson across his HUD: EXTREME METEOROLOGICAL ACTIVITY DETECTED. MULTIPLE CATEGORY 5 TORNADOES FORMING NEAR MANHATTAN.
"Fuck," Tony hissed, watching real-time satellite feeds overlay his vision. One twister was already chewing through Queensborough Bridge supports. Another spun toward Midtown like God's drill bit. And Storm—Christ, Storm—was the cause of them, arms outstretched as rain lashed her face in horizontal sheets. Her eyes were white, lightning dancing between her fingers in spasmodic jerks.
Tony rocketed toward Thor first. The god knelt in a crater of his own making, Mjolnir abandoned beside him as uncontrolled lightning arced from his fingertips. Tony grabbed his shoulders—"Point Break! Snap out of—" A billion volts seared through his armor's insulation. Systems blared warnings as he crashed backward into a burning Humvee.
"Neural activity suggests complete dissociation," Friday reported as Tony's HUD flickered. "Physical intervention ineffective."
Storm was next. Tony's targeting system painted a dozen non-lethal weak points across her silhouette—temple, brachial plexus, lumbar region. His repulsors whined to full charge. Then he hesitated. What if knocking her out just trapped her deeper in whatever nightmare Wanda had cooked up? His finger hovered over the trigger. unconsciousness might make her weather abilities even more unstable. He then got live fee of one of her The tornadoes lifting an entire parking garage like it was Styrofoam.
"Fuck!" Tony spun toward the compound's ruined west wing where scarlet energy pulsed like a dying star. If he couldn't reach Storm or Thor he would have to try going to the source of the problem: Wanda
He'd barely cleared the debris field when an invisible force slammed into him—not Wanda's chaos magic, but something sharper, more controlled. The impact sent him pinwheeling through the air before Friday stabilized his thrusters.
"Analysis indicates telekinetic turbulence consistent with Grey's Telekinetic patterns," Friday announced. Through the shimmering distortion, Tony glimpsed Jean floating inside the maelstrom, her face contorted in silent agony. Her own power had turned against her, creating a feedback loop of psychic and meteorological havoc.
Tony's gauntlets sparked against the telekinetic storm's outer edge. "Friday, scan for Strange. Where's our damn wizard when—"
"Doctor Strange's last known position was the assembly hall prior to X-Men incursion. Current location: unknown. Energy signature suggests teleportation."
Another lightning bolt sheared through a nearby water tower, the explosion raining debris onto paralyzed Avengers below. Thor remained catatonic on his knees, rainwater pooling around him as lightning danced along his fingertips in erratic bursts. The storm clouds above swirled into a vortex that made Tony's altimeter scream warnings.
He pivoted toward the city skyline—just in time to see the nascent tornado touch down near Central Park, uprooting century-old oaks like matchsticks. Friday's damage projection overlay turned his HUD crimson. "I get the feeling I'll footing the bill for this..."
-------------------
Peter's fingers moved with surgical precision as he twisted the final gene-sequence modulator into place, the Genetic Stunt Bomb's casing humming faintly with unstable energy. The SHIELD bunker's flickering fluorescents reflected off his sweat-slicked forehead as news footage played on a cracked monitor—Thor kneeling midst debris and lightning orbiting him like a grotesque halo.
A portal tore open beside him. Peter didn't flinch, just smoothly pivoted the shotgun already leveled at Strange's forehead before recognizing the sorcerer's goatee. "Christ, Strange," Peter muttered, lowering the weapon. "Knock next time." He returned to calibrating the GSB's mortar attachment, fingers dancing across the touchscreen interface. "Shouldn't you be playing magical paramedic out there?"
Strange's cloak bristled as he stepped through the lingering sparks of the portal. "Wanda isn't screaming at the chaos," he said, eyes tracking Peter's hands. "She's screaming for something. Or someone." The way his gaze lingered made Peter's spider-sense prickle.
Outside, the bunker's reinforced walls trembled with distant thunder. Peter glanced at the shaky news feed showing Storm's tornadoes devouring Queensborough Bridge. "Me. Doc. she is calling for me… or at least part of me..." He slammed the GSB's casing shut with a metallic clunk.
The sorcerer's eyebrow climbed toward his hairline. "What is—"
"Genetic Stunt Bomb(GSB). Knocks out the powers of mutants and stunts them for about four minutes." Peter hoisted the mortar tube onto his shoulder with practiced ease. "Enough to cover the compound. Enough to make Storm stop playing God."
The news feed flickered violently as Thor's lightning-laced silhouette collapsed to his knees on screen, rain sheeting off his armor like liquid silver. Peter didn't glance up from adjusting the mortar's trajectory calculator. "Portal, under Thor" he said, fingers spinning the elevation dial. "Teleport him somewhere quiet. Alaska, maybe."
"What about Wanda?" Strange stared at the GSB skeptically "Will that be enough to stop Wanda?"
Peter's laugh was a dry rasp as he slammed the GSB into the mortar tube. "This'll knock out most mutants for four minutes. Storm's going down like a bad prom date." He jerked his chin toward the trembling monitor where Storm's tornadoes shredded skyscrapers. "But Wanda? She'll just get groggy."
From his jacket, Peter produced a bullet the size of a lipstick tube—obsidian casing pulsing with eerie green light. Strange's eyebrow climbed toward his hairline. "You're going to kill her?"
"Please. This is a concentrated GSB payload." Peter rolled the cartridge between his fingers, the light refracting oddly across his stubble. Peter motions at the GSB mortar "First wave weakens her and turns off the other mutants—" and then waves the bullet, and points at a Barrett M95 on a table "direct hit knocks her out cold. Problem is—" He jerked his chin toward the static-laced footage where scarlet energy swirled around the compound's ruins. "Need a clean shot."
Strange's fingers traced glowing sigils in the air. "Then come with me. I'll teleport us directly—"
Peter's hand snapped up faster than Strange could blink. "Negative. you're the only one capable of resisting Wanda influence right now— You get me within fifty feet of Wanda right now, and Fangs takes the wheel—" His pupils dilated unnaturally as something primal rippled beneath his skin. The shotgun slung across his back trembled. "I also might be a mutant too so... GSB is lights out for me as well…" he added.
"Fangs?" Strange's gaze dropped to Peter's wrists where obsidian claws threatened to erupt.
"Trust me, Strange," Peter said, his fingers tightening around the obsidian bullet. "Fangs is not the playdate you're hoping for." He slid the cartridge into the Barrett M95's chamber with a decisive click, then glanced up at the sorcerer's furrowed brow. "Plan stays simple— shoot Wanda from afar, knock her out before she rewrites reality again. Easy."
"Easy," Strange repeated repeated dryly.
Peter ignored him, rummaging through the armory shelves until his fingers closed around a dusty radio. He tossed it at Strange, who fumbled the catch. "radio me when you get Thor out"
He snorted at Strange's pinched expression. "Here's the rundown—you portal back, yank Thor out before he fries Manhattan. I'll pop the mortar GSB, Storm drops like a bad habit, you catch her before she pancakes on the pavement..." Peter motions to the live Images showing the catastrophic weather on the security monitors "...with those two out of the picture the skies should clear"
Outside, the bunker's walls shuddered as another lightning strike hit nearby. Strange's gaze flicked to the ceiling. "And Wanda?"
Peter's fingers tightened around the Barrett's stock. "Get her outside" he paused and then glared at strange "don't do something stupid, like trying to fight her" he turns his attention back to the rifle "Tell her..." His jaw tighten for a moment. "Tell her Erik and Natalya are outside waiting."
Strange's brow furrowed. "Who—"
"Doesn't matter." Peter racked the bolt with more force than necessary. "Just say the names. She'll come." He jerked his chin toward the shuddering monitor where Thor's lightning was carving molten trenches through downtown. "Go. Thor's lightshow's compromising half of Manhattan's structural integrity."
"What aren't you telling me, Parker?" He hesitated—just long enough for Peter's spider-sense to prickle.
His fingers froze mid-adjustment on the Barrett's scope. The bunker's flickering lights cast jagged shadows across Strange's furrowed brow as the sorcerer stepped closer. "We still need to discuss the visions," Strange said quietly. "The Time Stone's effects—"
"Temporal psychosis." Peter didn't glance up, twisting a calibration dial with unnecessary force. "Yeah. I know."
"How—"
"How do you think I found this SHIELD mausoleum?" Peter snorted, waving at the dust-coated armory shelves. "Or whipped up GSBs like I've got a degree in mutant biogenetics?" A humorless smirk twisted his lips. "Turns out getting flash-fried by an infinity stone comes with perks. Good memories..." His voice hitched slightly as his fingers brushed the Vietnam jacket's frayed sleeve. "Bad ones too...
"...Too many goddamn bad ones."
Steven stepped closer—close enough for Peter to see the minute tremor in his hands. "Peter, I'm sorry. had I shielded you from the time stone, this—"
Peter shook his head, his fingers tightening around the Barrett's stock until the material groaned. "Not your fault, Doc," he said, voice low but firm. "And this?" He jerked his chin toward the monitor where Storm's tornadoes devoured entire city blocks. "Not the time for martyrdom. Right now, we make sure NYC doesn't collapse before breakfast."
With his free hand, he tugged open the Vietnam jacket just enough to reveal the faded red and blue of his spiderman suit. A smirk twisted his lips—half humor, half something darker. "Still clocked in as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Can't let the city collapse on my last night shift, can I?"
Strange's eyes narrowed. "Last—"
A lightning strike hit the bunker's exterior with a concussive crack, the fluorescents flickering violently. Both men flinched—Peter's spider-sense had given him a half-second warning, but his body still reacted instinctively, shoulders tensing. "Go!" Peter barked, already turning back to the mortar. His fingers adjusted the trajectory calculator with practiced ease.
Strange's cloak billowed as he stepped closer. "Let me teleport you close to the compound at least—"
"Nope" Peter didn't look up from the mortar's elevation dial. "like I said before, getting within fifty feet of Wanda right now, is a bad idea" His pupils dilated unnaturally as something beneath his skin rippled—a fleeting glimpse of obsidian claws threatening to erupt from his wrists. "I'll swing into position"
"Peter—"
"Now!" Peter's voice cracked like a whip. knuckles whitening beneath frayed gloves of his spider suit. Another deafening thunderclap shook the bunker. Dust rained from the ceiling as the monitor flickered violently—showing Storm's tornadoes carving trenches through downtown. The sorcerer's jaw tightened. His cloak snapped as he tore open a shimmering portal with a gesture.
Peter didn't watch him leave.
Alone in the flickering gloom, Peter exhaled through clenched teeth. His spider-sense prickled at the distant thunder—not from Storm's chaos, but from the storm inside him. Fangs coiled beneath his skin like a second spine, whispering memories of charred nurseries and Wanda's broken laughter. He slammed the Vietnam jacket's frayed cuff against the mortar tube's loading mechanism. Click. The Genetic Stunt Bomb locked into place with a sound like a bone snapping.
Outside, Manhattan was coming apart at the seams. The monitor's grainy feed showed Storm's twisters lifting entire subway cars skyward while Thor's lightning turned skyscrapers into jagged silhouettes. Peter stood in the flickering half-light of the SHIELD bunker, the Barrett's metal pressing into his shoulder. On his hands The mortar tube. It smelled like gun oil —familiar, grounding. His fingers flexed around the firing mechanism.
A stray memory made him pause, and brought up a random detail from his other life— the one he shared with Wanda. A memory triggered by the similarity between the mortar's mechanism and one of the things, —that— Peter and Wanda and their children seemed to like the most.
"We liked fireworks"
--------------------------------------------
Done.
-Things to address-
-Ghost rider?
I completely forgot that he was even there... just imagine that he is in the background fighting another X-men
-What comes next?
Next chapter is the last one before a time skip of a year. Peter will leave NYC and move to an small town in Colorado.
He is content, happy, and at peace...
So, of course... something will try to disturb him and drag him back into interacting with heroes again.