The portal spat Strange onto the cracked pavement of the Avengers compound Just as Wanda's psychic tendrils lashed toward his mind.
He barely had time to erect a shimmering barrier—her chaos magic recoiled with a hiss like scalded oil. The air smelled of ozone and scorched metal. Around him, Earth's mightiest heroes stood frozen: Natasha's fingers twitched toward an invisible child's cheek, Thor's lightning arced erratically from his fingertips while he knelt in a crater of his own making, and Cyclops was firing optic blasts at phantoms only he could see.
Strange's boots crunched on broken concrete as he moved toward Thor. Above them, Storm's silhouette flickered within the eye of a hurricane, her arms outstretched as tornadoes chewed through the Manhattan skyline. He'd taken three steps when Cyclops' visor flared crimson—Strange barely twisted aside as the optic blast sheared through the space where his head had been. The second blast came faster, aimed at his knees this time—
A repulsor beam intercepted it midair. Iron Man's armor flared in the stormlight as he landed between them. "About damn time, Merlin," Tony snapped, gauntlets humming. "Where the hell were you?"
Strange didn't glance up from the shimmering portal forming at his fingertips. "No time. I need to extract Thor before—"
A burst of static crackled through Tony's helmet comms. "Tony." Peter's voice was all business, the radio distortion doing nothing to mask the tension beneath. "You need to get Strange to Thor. Now."
they didnt need to see Tony's face under the faceplate to imagine his surprised expression "Spidey? Where the—"
"Move now, Tony," Peter's voice crackled through the comms with uncharacteristic urgency. "Thor's frying Manhattan's circuits like a toaster in a bathtub and I can't pop the GSB with his lightning scrambling an EM field —You see Storm doing her Katrina impression up there? Don't like it? Me neither —Then get Strange to Thor"
Iron man's confusion could almost be seen trough his faceplate. "Wait, what? kid, what the hell is a GSB—"
"Read the previous chapter, Tin Man," Peter deadpanned.
"What does that even mean?!"
Peter ignored him entirely. "NYC's falling apart faster than your last marriage. Get Strange to Thor now—before the god of thunder turns Wall Street into a goddamn Tesla coil."
The sorcerer was already moving, golden shields flickering around his hands like ethereal brass knuckles. "I can insulate against Thor's stray lightning," he called over his shoulder, "but I need you to keep Cyclops occupied."
Tony hesitated—just long enough to watch Cyclops obliterate a tree with a visor blast, screaming about Sentinels. The man was clearly seeing things that weren't there. "Christ. Fine." his repulsors flared and then he took off.
Cyclops whirled toward the sound of thrusters, visor flaring crimson. "SENTINEL!" The first optic blast sheared through the space where Tony's head had been milliseconds earlier.
"Wrong Saga, Slim!" Tony barrel-rolled upward, deliberately drawing Cyclops' fire away from Strange. The sorcerer was already crouch-running toward Thor's kneeling form, golden shields deflecting stray lightning like a living Faraday cage.
Thor's fingers clawed at his own face, Mjolnir forgotten beside him as storm winds howled. Strange didn't hesitate—he slammed both hands onto the pavement. A shimmering portal yawned open beneath the thunder god just as another lightning bolt arced downward. Thor dropped through the glowing circle with a startled grunt, vanishing milliseconds before the lightning could strike. The portal snapped shut like a camera's aperture.
Static crackled in Tony's ear. "Thor's gone," Strange reported tersely.
Over the comms, Peter's voice was all military precision: "Deploying wide-range GSB."
Tony saw nothing—no mortar flash, no telltale whistle—just the sudden burst of emerald light above Storm's swirling form. The Genetic Stunt Bomb detonated silently within the tornado's vortex, its payload dispersing through the storm cell like ink in water. Storm's arms jerked spasmodically. Then, as if someone had cut her strings, she dropped from the sky like a marionette.
"Strange, catch her!" Peter barked trough the comms.
Iron man's thrusters flared before the sorcerer could react. "Got her!" He swooped beneath Storm's limp form, repulsors compensating for her dead weight. The woman who'd nearly leveled Manhattan now lay unconscious in his arms, rain streaking her face like tears. He lowered her gently onto the ground.
All around them, mutants collapsed. Cyclops faceplanted mid-visor-charge. Wolverine's claws retracted with a wet shink as he crumpled. Even Jean Grey, inside the compound, folded at the knees, her crimson hair fanning across the floor. Tony looked around bewildered "What the hell was—"
"Mutant naptime in Krakoa," Peter's voice crackled through the comms, drier than a desert wind.
Tony scowled at the unconscious X-Men. "Cute. But our guys are still—" He gestured at Natasha murmuring phantom names, Steve clawing at invisible wounds.
Static hissed. "Wanda's still up," Peter cut in. "GSB just made her groggy."
Strange's cloak snapped as he pivoted toward the compound's ruined entrance. "Tony, we need to get her outside."
"Exactly" Peter interjected, the radio picking up the metallic click of a rifle bolt. "Hurry—four-minute window's already ticking."
Tony's boots crunched on debris as he moved toward the compound. "And how exactly—"
"Tell her that Erik and Natalya are waiting outside," Peter interrupted, voice tight. "Say the names. She'll come."
Inside the ruined compound, Wanda's scarlet aura pulsed erratically like a failing heart monitor. She knelt amidst floating debris, fingers clawing at her temples as phantom whispers spilled from her lips—names Tony didn't recognize, conversations with ghosts. The air smelled of burnt wiring and copper.
Strange's boots scuffed the floor as he edged closer, golden shields flaring. "Wanda," he called, careful to keep his voice low. "Erik's outside and so is Natalya."
The effect was instantaneous. Wanda's head jerked up, pupils dilating until the scarlet irises nearly vanished. "Erick?—Natalya?" Her voice cracked like broken porcelain. A bookshelf disintegrated midair, pages scattering like frightened birds. He extended a hand, keeping his movements slow. "They're waiting, Wanda. Outside."
She floated upright without bending her knees, scarlet tendrils lashing at the rubble around her. For a heart-stopping moment, Tony thought she'd attack—then her gaze snapped toward the shattered exit. "My... My babies?" The childlike tremor in her voice didn't match the devastation swirling around her.
Strange's cloak twitched. "Yes." He took a careful step back. "Go to them"
Tony watched a steel beam disintegrate midair as Wanda drifted forward. Her bare feet never touched the ground. "That's not creepy at all," he muttered.
Outside, the wind had died to a whisper. No lightning. No tornadoes. Just the eerie calm of a storm's eye. Wanda emerged like a sleepwalker, fingers twitching toward phantom hands only she could see.
Meanwhile from a far rooftop
The Barrett's scope pressed cold against Peter's cheekbone as he exhaled through his nose, watching Wanda drift through the compound's ruined entrance like a sleepwalker. Her scarlet aura pulsed erratically, casting jagged shadows across the debris—shadows that twitched and coiled too independently of the light. His finger hovered over the trigger guard.
Mate. The voice in his skull wasn't words so much as a visceral growl, vibrating through his marrow like a second heartbeat. Protect Mate.
Peter's jaw clenched hard enough to crack a molar. "That's not your mate," he muttered through gritted teeth, adjusting the scope's parallax. The crosshairs settled on Wanda's trembling lower lip. "Just a poor confused woman who got tangled in our web."
Fangssurged against his synapses like a rabid dog against its chain. Images flooded his vision—not memories, but sense-memory: the weight of twin infants in his arms, the smell of Wanda's hair when she'd pressed her forehead against his between battles, the exact pitch of her laugh when he'd—
"Christ." Peter blinked sweat from his eyes. His finger hovered millimeters from the trigger. The rifle's stock smelled like gun oil and his own sour fear. "You're worse than Parker's Luck."
Mate needs us. Fangs' presence swelled behind his sternum, pressing against his ribs like an expanding shadow. Peter could feel obsidian claws threatening to erupt from his wrists, the phantom weight of skeletal spider limbs twitching against his spine.
He exhaled sharply through his nose. "Yeah? Well the world needs her unconscious." The scope's reticle trembled slightly—not from nerves, but from the war beneath his skin. "So shut the hell up before I—"
Wanda's head snapped toward his general location. Even through the scope, Peter saw the moment her pupils dilated—scarlet irises swallowing the whites entirely. Her lips parted around a soundless syllable that might've been his name.
The scope's crosshairs blurred as tears welled in Peter's eyes. His finger trembled against the trigger—not from hesitation, but from the war raging beneath his skin. Fangs thrashed against his ribs like a caged beast, howling memories of nursery rhymes and midnight feedings. The taste of copper flooded his mouth where he'd bitten through his cheek.
Mate!
Peter exhaled. Squeezed.
The Barrett roared.
Through the wet scope, he watched, almost in slow motion, as the GSB bullet carves a silver line through the sulfur-scented air—straight toward Wanda's sternum. At the last possible millisecond, her eyes met his. Not in fear. Recognition. Her lips formed his name just as the bullet detonated six inches from her chest in a silent bloom of emerald light.
Wanda dropped like a marionette with severed strings.
"Wanda's down," Peter rasped into the radio. His throat felt lined with broken glass.
Peter didn't lower the rifle. His cheek stayed welded to the stock, watching through salt-blurred crosshairs as Tony and Strange sprinted toward her crumpled form. Scarlet energy dying down around Wanda's fingertips, her limbs were completely slack.
he saw Strange kneel beside her, golden mandalas spinning above his palms as he performed some diagnostic spell. Tony's faceplate retracted, revealing an expression caught between relief and confusion.
Peter's knees hit the rooftop ledge with all the grace of a marionette with cut strings. He slumped against the rusted railing, Barrett clattering to the concrete beside him as he dragged both hands down his face. The Vietnam jacket's frayed cuffs smelled of cordite and old blood—his own, mostly. Somewhere beneath the adrenaline crash, his ribs throbbed where Fangs had tried to force their way out.
Across the wreckage-strewn compound exterior, the Avengers stirred like sleepwalkers roused from fever dreams. Captain Marvel jerked upright with a gasp, fingers clawing at her throat where no noose had been. Steve rolled onto his side and vomited bile onto the cracked pavement. Only Blade seemed unaffected, already on his feet and scanning the perimeter with predatory focus.
Tony's faceplate snapped open as he barked orders. "Friday, deploy Mk.23 sedation drones—keep her under until Strange clears her neural pathways." A swarm of sleek black drones descended like mechanical vultures, their needle-tipped appendages glinting in the stormlight as they lifted Wanda's limp form.
Natasha's fingers trembled against Rose's fading cheek, the phantom warmth of her daughter's laughter still ringing in ears that now heard only the hollow rush of wind through ruined buildings. She blinked—once, twice—the motion sending twin tears cutting through the grime on her face. The weight in her arms dissipated like smoke, leaving her clutching at empty air where a child's shoulders should have been. Somewhere to her left, Jennifer Walters let out a sound no human throat could make—half roar, half sob—as Elaine's tiny hands dissolved into golden motes between her fingers.
"You okay, Widow?" Blade's voice cut through the psychic residue like a scalpel. His sword remained unsheathed, eyes scanning not for physical threats but for the way Wanda's chaos magic still clung to the air in visible scarlet tendrils.
Natasha opened her mouth. Closed it. Her standard quip about surviving worse died on her tongue when she realized the lie would taste like Rose's shampoo—that faint strawberry scent she'd insisted on using even at age seven. Instead, she pressed her palm flat against the cracked pavement, feeling the grit bite into skin as she pushed herself upright with military precision. "Define okay," she managed, voice stripped raw.
Jennifer wasn't faring better. The She-Hulk's emerald skin paled to mint as she stared at her empty hands, massive fingers twitching where they'd cradled Elaine's imaginary weight seconds earlier. "She felt... Christ, she felt *real.*" The words came out mangled, her usual courtroom eloquence shattered. "I could smell her—Johnson's baby shampoo and those damn grape lollipops she—" Jennifer's fist hit the pavement hard enough to spiderweb concrete.
Blade's nostrils flared—not at the destruction, but at the scent of salt in the air. Tears. He took an instinctive step back, giving them space to grieve memories with the same visceral intensity as real corpses.
Natasha's fingers found a faint scar on her ribs—the one Rose had traced with tiny fingers during thunderstorms when nightmares drove her to crawl into bed with "Agent Mommy". She pressed until pain overrode memory.
Back on a far off rooftop Peter wiped his nose with the back of his hand, the rough fabric of his jacket sleeve scraping against raw skin. The rooftop gravel dug into his knees through his suit pants—real pain, grounding pain—as he focused on drowning out Fangs' keening in his skull. That wasn't his Wanda. That wasn't his anything. Just collateral damage from a timeline that should've stayed buried.
The air three feet to his left rippled like heat distortion over asphalt before splitting open in a silent bloom of orange sparks. Strange stepped through, his cloak billowing without wind. Peter didn't look up from where his hands gripped the rooftop ledge hard enough to bend steel.
Repulsors whined as Iron Man landed with a metallic clang beside the portal, faceplate already retracting. Tony's boots crunched on broken tar as he strode forward—then froze mid-step. "Jesus Christ, Parker."
Peter finally glanced up, catching his reflection in Tony's widened pupils: sweat-streaked grime, bloodshot eyes, and the unmistakable red sheen creeping up his forearms where Fangs had nearly surfaced. He exhaled through his nose, watching the way Tony's gaze tracked the subtle twitch of his wrists—and then settled on his jacket. "Relax, Stark. Not turning into Spider-Rambo today."
Tony's mouth opened. Closed. Then, with perfect comedic timing: "...I was gonna make a Taxi Driver reference, actually."
Strange stepped forward. "The temporal psychosis will pass," he said carefully, hands raised in a placating gesture. Gold-tipped mandalas flickered at his fingertips—subtle, but Peter caught them. "But you need to come with us. So we can ensure you don't—"
"Hurt myself? Or anybody else?" Peter snorted, rubbing his wrist where the obsidian claws had threatened to emerge. The skin was raw, reddened like a sunburn. "Bit late for that. Might've already bruised a few vigilante egos." He gestured vaguely toward the city. "Oh, and disintegrated two dimensional vampires. —That too."
"Wait, you*what*—"
Peter waved him off. "Long story. Not important." He flexed his fingers, watching the way Strange's eyes tracked the movement—the sorcerer wasn't stupid. He'd seen the glyphs Peter had modified on his shotgun. "Point is, I'm fine. Relatively speaking."
Strange took a measured tone and tried to insist. "Peter, temporal psychosis isn't something you just—"
"I know what it is." Peter's voice went sharp. The jacket's collar chafed against his neck as he turned his head. "Better than you do, Stephen. Ever read *The Mystical Effects of Chrono-Displacement* by Yao? No? —Page forty-three recommends removing the afflicted from locations that may trigger alternate memories." He tapped his temple. "NYC is nothing but a landmine field for me. —full of memories… mine and from the others"
Tony's boots clanked against the rooftop gravel as he stepped between them. "Okay, let's pump the brakes—we can send you to Boston, Chicago, wherever. Still got that Queens charm, just... swing in a different neighborhood."
His laugh was abrupt, humorless. Peter reached down to pick up the discarded Barrett, running a thumb over the stock. "Not swinging anywhere, Tony." The shotgun materialized against his back with a whisper of displaced air—one moment nothing, the next the familiar weight of cold steel. "And *you're* not sending me anywhere."
Strange's cloak snapped as he stepped forward. "Peter—"
"Don't." Peter's hand came up, palm out, calluses and scars clearly visible. "I'm not debating this— That's not..." He swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing. "That wasn't just Wanda calling for me back there. That was *other* Peter's baggage, bleeding through. And every second I stay in New York, I risk becoming him or any of the others."
Tony opened his mouth—probably to deliver some quip about dramatic rooftop exits—but Peter cut him off with a raised hand. The sunrise painted the skyline in bloody hues, casting long shadows across Tony's face as Peter turned toward the light. "Save the pep talk, Shellhead. What I need isn't a change of scenery." His fingers brushed the faded spider emblem on his chest, the black fabric worn thin from years of friction. "It's a change of career."
The city sprawled around them, its skyline jagged like broken teeth. Somewhere, emergency sirens wailed towards the wreckage left by one of the many tornadoes made by Storm. Peter exhaled sharply through his nose. "The Time Stone didn't just show me alternate futures, Tony. It made me *live* them." He flexed his hands, watching dawn light catch on the web-shooter's metal plating. "Turns out the *with great power...* speech, works great when you're sixteen and stupid. Less so when you've got thirty dead Peters in your head screaming that restraint gets children incinerated."
Strange again tried to approach him, his cloak curling like a living thing. "Peter, no one's asking you to—"
"To what? Die smiling?" Peter's laugh sounded like gravel in a tin can. He tapped his temple. "I've got front-row seats to every version of me who played by Uncle Ben's rules. Know what they have in common?" He gestured at the smoking ruins near Central Park. "They're all fertilizer."
Tony tried to support strange "Kid, listen—"
"Not a kid." Peter's voice dropped an octave, something feral threading through the words. "Not *her* Spider either." He jerked his chin toward the compound in clear reference to Wanda. "Just the guy who's finally smart enough to walk away before the next Gwen hits pavement."
He peeled off one glove with his teeth, fingers brushing the faded black spider emblem on his chest. The fabric was frayed at the edges. "Regret's a luxury," he said, rolling the glove between his fingers before letting it drop to the rooftop. It landed with a sound like dead leaves. "And I'm fresh out." He tapped the spider logo twice. "Funny thing—used to look at this and see *me*. Now?" His laugh was a dry rasp.
His fingers traced the black spider emblem one last time, the pads of his fingers catching on loose threads. "You know what I realized?" he said, not looking up. "Peter Parker wants to be himself twenty-four seven. And there's no room for spiders in that equation." The rising sun caught golden in his hair "This?" He plucked at the suit's fabric. "is not me anymore... now is just a worn-out costume a hero once wore." fingers lingered on the frayed edge of his collar, tracing the seams. The morning light bled across the fabric, turning the webbed pattern into something weird—like veins under too-thin skin.
"You're looking at a relic," he said, voice rough as gravel. "Last time this suit saves the city."
Tony's face did something complicated. "Pete—"
Peter turned to face them as the sun crested the horizon, painting his silhouette in gold and rust. "You know," he said, voice rough with exhaustion and something softer, "despite everything...it was a good ride." His thumb brushed absently over the frayed edge of his sleeve. "Did alright with the whole spider gig, all things considered."
The silence stretched between them, thick with the weight of emergency sirens wailing three blocks east. Tony just stared, dark circles under eyes that studied Peter with uncharacteristic stillness. For once, the genius billionaire had no quip, no deflection—just a slow exhale that fogged in the dawn chill. When he finally spoke, his voice was stripped raw. "Kid...you were the best Spider."
"He's right," Strange admitted, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "New York won't be the same without that damn red and blue nuisance swinging through traffic." A ghost of his old smirk flickered. "Who's going to web up my cloak now?"
Peter huffed a laugh that didn't quite reach his eyes. He tilted his face toward the rising sun, letting the warmth seep into skin still too pale. The shotgun's weight against his back was a familiar anchor—one that had nothing to do with spiders and everything to do with survival. "Gonna miss the view," he murmured, more to himself than to them.
The dawn wind carried the scent of burnt metal and ozone between them, ruffling Peter's unkempt hair as the three men stood in weighted silence. Tony finally broke it with a quiet click of his tongue. "So. You got a plan, kid? Or are we just supposed to watch you ride off into the sunrise like some damn cowboy?"
Peter's grin flashed sudden and bright, startling in its authenticity. "That's the fun part, Tony," he said, bouncing lightly on his toes with resurrected energy. "I have absolutely no idea what's next." His eyes sparkled with something dangerously close to joy. "Isn't that exciting?"
Strange pinched the bridge of his nose, cloak twitching irritably. "Christ, you sound like Wong after three sake bombs." He leveled a stare at Peter. "You're not actually planning to wander the earth like Kane from Kung Fu with untreated temporal psychosis, are you?"
Peter shrugged, the motion making his shotgun shift against his back. "Most of my triggers are here—MJ's old apartment, the damn coffee shop where Gwen—" His throat worked briefly before he waved a hand. "Point is, geography's cheaper than therapy." He flicked a glance toward the city's smoldering wreckage. "And frankly, New York's seen enough of my messes."
Strange's fingers flickered with golden sparks before parting the air like a curtain, revealing the crumpled red mask floating in the space between them. The fabric caught the morning light, its once-vibrant color faded from too many late-night patrols and hasty laundry cycles. "You left this in the containment cell" he said, voice uncharacteristically soft. The mask rotated slowly, lenses staring at nothing. "Thought you might want it back."
Peter didn't touch it. His fingers twitched at his sides—not reaching, just remembering the weight of the fabric against his face, the way the world sharpened when he pulled it down. "Keep it," he said, turning his face toward the sunrise. "Museum piece now."
Tony's gauntlet retracted with a series of mechanical clicks as he reached for the mask. His thumb brushed over it, tracing the frayed stitching. "You sure, kid? This thing's seen better days, but—"
"—But it's an original, from the original" Peter finished. "Put it on display. Let the tourists take selfies with it." His lips quirked, the ghost of his old Queens charm flickering to life. "Just don't let Miles near it—kid will try to frame it or something."
Tony turned the mask over in his hands, the fabric catching the morning light in a way that made the lenses look almost alive. "The other spiders—Miles, Gwen, the whole web-slinging brigade. They know you're..." He gestured vaguely at Peter.
Peter's mouth twitched. "We had a goodbye dance."
Tony blinked. "A what now?"
"On a rooftop." Peter rolled his shoulders, the shotgun's strap creaking. "Didn't play 'Time to Say Goodbye' or anything. More of a... interpretive thing." His fingers twitched in a series of fluid gestures—part combat stance, part ballet move. "Anya cried. Ben flipped me off. Cindy and I had dance off."
Tony's gauntlet whirred as he tapped the mask against his palm, the rhythmic motion betraying uncharacteristic hesitation. "And Miles?" The question hung between them.
Peter didn't look at him "Passed out" he kept adjusting his jacket's collar. "Had to sent him home in a *taxi*." The words came out humorous but clipped, final.
He clapped his hands together once—a sharp, decisive sound that cut through the morning air like a gunshot. "Alright, show's over," he said, rolling his shoulders as if shedding an invisible weight. He turned toward the rooftop's edge, but paused mid-step, glancing back at Tony with the ghost of his old smirk. "Oh, and Stark? When Wanda wakes up—and she will, soon—she's gonna want to leave. Don't stop her."
Tony's gauntlet whirred as he crossed his arms. "We've got containment cells that—"
"Don't." Peter's voice carried the same quiet finality as a shotgun being racked. "If you try to cage her, she'll revert back to I'll-erase-your-existence Wanda. And trust me, you don't want that encore."
"You're seriously suggesting we just let her go? After all this?" Stephen's eyebrows twitched in disbelief.
He nodded, rubbing his thumb along the shotgun's strap where it dug into his shoulder. "She'll go somewhere she feels safe," he said, eyes tracking the distant speck of drones flying around the compound. "Could be a Norwegian fjord or a Siberian tundra." His lips quirked without humor. "Point is, it'll be deserted. Isolated. Somewhere chaos magic won't level a city block if she wakes up screaming."
Tony's gauntlet whirred as he tapped a holographic display into existence, it showed an unconscious Wanda. "And we're just supposed to—what? Trust your variant's marital intuition on this?"
"Trust the math." Peter's fingers twitched in a series of precise gestures—mapping trajectories only he could see. "48 to 72 hours. That's how long it will take for the *phantom pain* of losing timeline-children to fade." His voice casual, but not completely detached. "She'll come back meek as a church mouse, won't mention the twins, won't look any of you in the eye for a month." He adjusted his jacket collar with a sharp jerk. "Classic Maximoff trauma response."
"You're describing her like a malfunctioning appliance." Tony closed the holographic display.
His laugh was a dry rasp. "No, Tony. I'm describing her like someone who just had her soul sandblasted by temporal radiation." He tilted his head toward the rising sun, letting dawn light catch the exhaustion etched into his features. "You ever had your mind peeled open like a rotten orange? Seen your own corpse in six different timelines? Held your daughter's ashes in a reality that never existed?" His fingers twitched toward his temple before aborting the motion. "Didn't think so."
suddenly Peter's silhouette shimmered like heat distortion over asphalt—one moment solid, the next dissolving into nothingness. Peter's voice lingered in the air, disembodied but clear: "There's a man named Jim Buchanan." The words hung between them. "His daughter Jenny has leukemia. I'd appreciate if you looked into their situation, Tony."
Strange's fingers twitched toward a spellcasting stance before aborting the motion. Even his cloak seemed unsettled, its edges flickering like agitated water.
Tony spun on his heel, scanning the rooftop, looking for Peter, there was nothing but indentations in the gravel where he stood before. "Damn it, Peter," he muttered, gauntlets whirring as he tapped into Friday's tracking systems. The HUD flashed red—no thermal signatures, no radar pings. Just empty air where a spider should've been.
"Good luck," Peter's voice whisper one last time, coming from behind them and then fading like a radio signal losing frequency.
Then silence.
Strange exhaled through his nose, the sound sharp in the sudden stillness. "Well. That's that, I suppose." His cloak settled around his shoulders with finality, its usual dramatic flare subdued.
Iron man's gauntlets clanked softly as he lowered his hands to his sides, the HUD display flickering out. He stared at the empty space where Peter had stood moments before—just gravel and morning light now—then exhaled a slow, ragged breath. The sunrise painted his face in oranges and reds, highlighting the new lines around his eyes.
"Ladies and gentlemen..." he muttered to the skyline, voice rough with something between amusement and grief.
"Spider-Man has left the building."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
done!
Time skip after this
-Things to address-
Aunt May?
I had planned to have Peter talk to Aunt May, I even had plans for him to talk with Madame Webb too.
I changed my mind...
I did write part of the conversations and I might add them later as flashbacks
the conversation with May boils down to:
Peter: I'm leaving --- May: I know --- Peter: I'm Spiderman --- May: I know --- Peter: I'm afraid(*Insert Arthur Morgan's sad face here*)
What now?
Peter moves to a town in colorado and starts an electrician repair service.
lives a humble life.
gains some muscle.
gains a beard
mentors a young mutant—Wait WHAT?