New York’s night sky was an angry and accursed thing.

Lightning flared and thunder rumbled

amidst the clouds, but there wasn’t a drop of rain to accompany it. All fury and no grief. Peter
frowned beneath the tattered remnants of his mask. The weather never seemed to echo his
own sentiments.

Or, maybe it did now, and he didn’t want to accept that.

He trudged up the hill, dead grass faltering beneath his footsteps. He’d spent so long on the
ground these days that he tended to lope rather than swing, but though he was among
buildings again the cemetery was too far out of the way. It was an innocuous, and lonely place.
It suited them.

They were the only ones in the world that were as he had left them, now. So, he’d come here
first, before he went anywhere else. He could try to figure out the whys of it later.

Benjamin and Maybelle Parker. Precisely as he remembered them, and silent beneath the earth.
Except the dates on their headstones were wrong, and his heart grew just a little more sick. It
was a shame, he thought, as he hunched before May’s grave and compared his uncle’s and
aunt’s dates with his own memories.

The end of Ben’s life was precisely where it should have been, to a combination of both his
recurring shame and yet temporary relief. He had, at least, not made things worse. Even if he
had never been there to begin with, there was still no-one there who was willing or able to stop
the man who took his uncle’s life. Even if he was never born this time around, his life had at
least not made things worse. The difference…

The difference was that May’s death came so soon after Ben’s. His aunt was sick, he recalled.
Somehow the two of them powered through, and he scraped together the money for the
treatments and the bills. When she passed it was years after that, with a smile on her face and
his daughter’s hand in hers. Without him, she couldn’t have possibly survived that long. Her
friend Anna, next door, could only have helped so much. And May could only have accepted so
much.

But even with this in mind a dark voice, his own voice, still murmured in his head. The dates
were still wrong, and this time around May Parker had passed less than a month after her
husband did.

He gave a weak and ghostly smile, because it wouldn’t do to sob. “You hung on that long, just
for me?” he asked. He was still sane enough to not expect an answer.

“It’s as if every time I see you, you’re a bit more amazing. A bit more spectacular,” he whispered.
He cleared his throat as he stood straighter, his voice ringing more clearly in the empty
graveyard. His own private moment. “I’ve… been away for a while,” he began, hesitantly. “Or
maybe, I think it’s more likely that I was never here to begin with.”

“Where I come from, Ben’s brother Richard had a son with his wife Mary. And… that would have
been me. Peter Benjamin Parker. After Richard and Mary passed, I’d have been raised by the
both of you.” If the graves had anything to say, they remained silent on the matter. Flickers of
white lightning blazed in the sky.

“In his darker moments… one of many… Nick Fury once confided in me that if it weren’t for the
two of you, and then MJ, and then the kids… that I’d really be a terror. That if I wasn’t so
burdened by a combination of guilt and sentiment, I’d end up as some sort of monster.” Peter
sighed, as thunder crashed.

He trembled, but with what? Sorrow? Anger? Was there any difference between those two
feelings for him anymore? “And now, here I am. Unfettered, apparently. Unleashed. There’s
nobody left anymore, there’s no more me anymore, and now I’m a bullet loosed.” He knelt and
gripped the twin tombstones, as if he were gripping their shoulders.

“But no,” he said, smiling a little again. “Nothing’s changed at all. That’s how precious the two of
you were to me. Even if you never had those moments, I still did. So, I’ll keep doing right by you
both, even if I’m a stranger now.” He stood up. That was enough time for a bit of self-pity and
catharsis.

“It was nice meeting you both. And goodbye.” He gathered the remnants of his costume and a
tattered overcoat over himself, while the rains permitted themselves to fall. New York’s skyline
still glittered through the murk, and it had been too long since he’d seen it.

---

It must not have been that long, Peter surmised. It must have only felt like forever, with how
quickly he was returning to himself. His web-shooters were improvised and jury-rigged things
these days, and the last pair had broken down before he could replace them. But his agility and
his clinginess remained, as he indulged in one of the few unambiguous perks of being Spider-
Man. He simply ran sideways along a high-rise, only a flickering shadow amidst Times Square. It
was time to shake the rust off and get his bearings again.

Avengers Tower and the Baxter Building had returned, which made welcome sights despite
himself. But he halted when he saw Fisk Tower, still proudly bearing the Kingpin’s name. But it
was only years ago, as Peter remembered it, when Matt Murdock had been pushed too far and
did the unthinkable. In his memories Wilson Fisk was buried and the building became another
arm of Roxxon, and then Hammer Industries, and then finally Stark. So what year was this? It
couldn’t possibly have been the same one he’d left behind.
It'd been too long since he’d fed himself, again. The hunger pains were practically background
noise for him, and he’d lost weight. But compared to the wasteland that he’d somehow
departed, New York was a smorgasbord of wasted food, leftovers, and discarded newspapers.

By now he’d eaten far worse than the discarded but still fresh hot-dog in his hands, and it
seemed that one of his less utilized spider-powers was a far stronger stomach. Whatever slurry
of meats that comprised his meal, he didn’t need to catch and cook it himself, and now it came
with condiments besides. Things were already looking up.

He leafed through the various detritus he was able to gather on his reunion with the city. He
casually flung aside discarded copies of the Times and the Globe back to the streets below
before getting his sticky fingers on an old favorite. The Daily Bugle, once again. Though he
couldn’t tell how recent the issue was, at the very least it was reassuring that all of them were
dated well before 2025.

He might have more time to work with than he’d hoped.

For once, he was not a front-page topic. Unsurprising, given the circumstances. Instead… there
was an article by Fredrick Foswell? Foswell was still alive? And Chief Editor J Jonah Jameson,
who could never possibly die. It was a typical tirade for the Bugle, but the subject matter was
different.

“The Slingers, Hapless Misfits or Teenage Terrors?” Peter mused to himself. These were new, yet
very familiar, faces.

“Well, there goes a potential plan of calling myself something other than Spider-Man this time
around. You kids are lucky that I can’t sue people behind a mask,” he thought to himself, his
mind wandering to strange places again. “No, claiming intellectual property theft from an
alternate timeline wouldn’t work either.”

The rest of his brain was turning in a much more serious direction. He’d made four other
identities over the years, as part of a convoluted quadruple bluff after being framed for
murder… by Norman Osborn… who was also likely to be alive doing who-knows-what…

‘One thing at a time. Don’t rush.’

The four identities were retired when he was able to clear his name. But then there was a group
of four that appropriated the identities and reputations he’d discarded to fight crime. And
apparently, they still existed in this timeline even though he was never around to create those
identities in the first place. They were a mystery to him even the first time around, but at the
time simply something he chose not to investigate further.

‘Curioser and curioser.’

They were, at least, making more of a name for themselves this time around. To the extent that
the Bugle could be objective, they were at least giving the likes of Boomerang and Stilt-Man a
hard time. Which was worthwhile, and inherently funny besides.

‘Focus.’

The faces that were absent were more important than the ones that were present. He needed
to run the list and see who was missing.

The Fantastic Four and the Avengers were as he remembered them, which was both a relief and
a shame. He’d at least have liked to have Thor or Captain America to lean on.

Daredevil was still around, and apparently hadn’t snapped. “I need to watch for him-,” he
muttered before he shook his head. “I need to watch OUT for him. I’ve got to make Fisk a higher
priority, make sure he’s sorted out before he drives Matt insane this time.”

‘Sort him out how, Peter?’ a dark voice, his own voice, asked him.

He crushed that thought mercilessly. He’d already been forced to do worse than several of the
plans that ran through his head to deal with Fisk. And all those potential plans agreed that the
first thing Peter needed to do was to get on Fisk’s radar and make him angrier at Spider-Man
than he ever was at Daredevil.

‘Good. Proceed.’

---

He was on foot now, pulling off his mask and tightening his overcoat over his costume, vaguely
wondering why he was suddenly starting to worry about his secret identity again, when even
Peter Parker was now an enigma.

‘Because it’s familiar, you’re feeling nostalgic, and you’re sort of an idiot.’

He tendency to self-deprecate was also returning to him, like a welcome old friend. From the
frowns and grimaces of the pedestrians nearby he looked every bit as homeless as he felt and
smelled like it besides.

‘Water was very hard to come by for a while, people,’ Peter thought, defensively.

His enhanced senses were already able to point him to enough loose change to pay his way to a
few hours in an internet café. Compared to what he was dealing with before, being homeless in
New York City was a walk in the park for Spider-Man.

‘To think you used to dread eviction.’

“Awh come on, guy, not tonight,” said the greasy looking kid at the reception. “At least come
back during someone else’s shift…” he pleaded. At this time, it was always better to be polite
than confrontational.

He looked him in the eye, making best use of a fatherly tone of voice that he’d never gotten to
use since—

‘Don’t get distracted.’

“Sorry son. It’s just e-mail and a few job applications tonight, I promise,” he said, in a tone that
was smoother and more articulate than most of NYC’s most hopeless cases.

The kid’s face set into a line. “It’s not porn, right? We’ve got all those sites blocked, and I’m
gonna call the cops if you-”

Peter tried not to grin as he imagined what sort of insanity someone running an internet café
this late in the night would have to deal with. There was always someone worse off than him, at
least. “I promise.”

“Hokay.” The kid seemed to relax, at least a little. Peter guessed that he didn’t seem to be all
that shady, as far as a homeless person went. “I’ve got some coffee ready, if—”

“I won’t be able to pay,” Peter said quickly.

“Yes, obviously,” the kid said testily. “But I’m making more than I need anyways. So.”

“Sounds good,” Peter said, shoving the loose change into the kid’s hands. “You never say no to
anything free in my line of work,” Peter said wryly.

“I’m this close to giving the hobo life a try,” the kid chuckled back. This time it was Peter’s turn
to smile. He was enjoying this. He was finally having a casual conversation with someone that
wasn’t some life-or-death matter. Somehow, he was homeless, forgotten, alone… and yet,
absolutely thrilled. Life was, in the tiniest way, starting to look up again.

It seemed to show on his face, as the kid, Gregory (he looked just like how a Gregory would,
Peter thought), continued to engage him in casual conversation even though Peter was a
reeking mess. The stench of homelessness paled before Peter’s genuine and unfaked interest in
a kid named Gregory.

“So, how’d you get to this point, Pete?” Gregory asked, as he handed him a cup of coffee.
“A long series of bad decisions and worse luck. And none of them were even drug related,”
Peter said, as he absently fed all the names, he could remember into several search engines and
scanned as much as he could.

“That’s alarmingly vague,” the kid said… mostly for humor, but Peter could pick up traces of
unease. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Hobo or not, it was late at night and Peter was still
strange. And every night the news reported on another death caused by one mutate or another,
costumed or not.

He let some seriousness enter his voice, as he told at least a partial truth. “I used to be a CEO for
a while.”

“Ah…” Gregory said sagely, accepting that as an explanation Peter would rather not elaborate
on.

In truth, Peter would happily joke about the rise and fall of Parker Industries. It was other things
that he would rather not get into. “You like superheroes, Greg?” They were already good
enough friends that they could call one another Pete and Greg.

“Nnnnot when you’re one of the ones caught up in it, y’know? I’m not a paranoiac who reads
the Bugle, but I’d say that I usually see them as a sign to run like hell.” Greg said with a shrug.
His was a common and, to be fair, entirely rational sentiment.

‘You’re a little scared of yourself too now, aren’t you?’

“Same,” Peter admitted. “But they’re still fun to talk about. Better than celebrity drama.”

“You’re not looking up the right drama then, man! Hear what happened with Mary-Jane
Watson?” It felt like a knife had rammed itself into Peter’s heart. He wasn’t ready for this, so
suddenly.

“Let’s not talk about celebrities right now, okay?” Peter said, trying to keep his voice sounding
more bored and indifferent rather than cold.

Greg shrugged. “Okay, yeah. It’s the just the same old stuff with her anyways. How about-”

“She’s doing okay though, right? MJ Watson?” Peter said, suddenly finding himself searching
her name. The knife in his heart was now twisting, he was definitely ready for this now, he
decided. He desperately needed to know everything.

“Uh…” Greg seemed weirded out before he took another sip of coffee. Peter wracked his brain,
deciding he’d rather not lose out on more conversation right now.
“I used to know her…” Peter confided, in a whisper. “CEO, right? I was a much bigger deal than I
used to be now.”

“Oh, shit. For real? Did you and her…?” A slightly suggestive note entire in Greg’s voice. What
was his previously dead wife up to these days, Peter wondered.

‘When had I become Cyclops?’

Peter wasn’t sure how to answer the question. A sequence of phonemes vaguely like “Ye- ugh,
um, nnngghhh…” before he noncommittally waved his hand side to side.

Not even he was sure how he was supposed to answer that now.

“Sounds pretty complicated…” says a bemused Greg.

“She lived nearby, we dated for a while,” Peter said, finally electing for another half-truth. “I…
when it ended, it wasn’t the best time,” he finished, lamely. All technically true. “It’s part of why
I’ve hit rock bottom right now.”

“Whatever the story is behind that, I think you could sell it to the Bugle,” Greg finally said.

“Right, so, back to interesting things about Mary-Jane and away from me.” Peter said, desperate
to move on.

Feeling pressured, Greg blurted it out. “She broke things off with the Human Torch, and he
burnt her apartment down!”

“What?” Peter changed his mind. This was a much worse hell than the one he left behind.

“W-well, the Fantastic Four’s press release says it was the Wizard, and her press release says
that she broke things off after Torch burnt the place down fighting the Wizard, but the Globe
says…”

Peter let Greg’s voice fade into background noise as he ran through the articles. Mary-Jane’s
place burnt down and that’s bad, and she was dating Johnny Storm at the time, which was
arguably worse. But at the very least, that seemed to all end in the sort of catastrophe where
nobody died or tweeted something completely insane online. There were pictures of the
Wizard, Bentley Whittman, getting dragged off in cuffs.

“Well, better the Wizard than Doctor Doom,” Peter muttered absently.

“Doctor who?” Gregory asked.

“No, that’s a TV show.” Peter said, his mouth once again moving faster than his brain.
His brain was too busy thinking ‘uh oh.’

A quick search for Doctor Doom or Victor von Doom or even Latveria itself turned up next to
nothing, which was a far cry from a man that was far more likely to one day start a nuclear war
than Kim Jong Un. All he could find were searches related to Latveria, an obscure Balkan polity
that was folded into Socialist Yugoslavia before getting split between Romania and Symkaria
after the wars and various ethnic cleansings in the 90’s.

Victor von Doom had also returned with him from hell, and therefore he also no longer existed
in this timeline. And neither did Latveria.

But that also meant that Doctor Doom was also out there, and likely not coping well.

“Thanks Greg!” Peter said abruptly. The smile he gave the kid was still more sincere than fake.
As starved for human connection as he was, he genuinely appreciated the help and the chance
to talk to someone. “You here again tomorrow?”

“Yeah…?” Greg said.

“That’s good. I’ve still got a lot to catch up on, and I’d rather have someone willing to share
coffee with me than not.” Greg smiled at that, despite himself.

‘He has poor self-esteem,’ Peter thought. ‘He doesn’t think people would want him around. He’s
grateful that the weird homeless man liked him.’

That, while sad, was nothing to hold against him. Peter was the weird homeless man who chose
to like him, after all.

“If I’m ever on my feet again, I’ll pay you back for the coffee,” Peter said, with a smile and a
wave. He’d meant it, even if Greg didn’t think he did.

Now though, he thought as he exited the building, he somehow had to reuite himself with
Doctor Doom. And with no Latverian castle to hole up in, there were only a handful of places
that the misanthropic shut-in could be reliably found. Especially if he also woke up in New York.

---

New York was still a hellhole, but it was also still his hellhole. He still needed a pair of web-
shooters for quicker traversal but could easily leap from roof to roof with sheer muscle-power
amidst the rain. It was a familiar feeling for him, something he’d often needed to resort to after
over-extending himself and running out of web-fluid in his younger years, before revisions in his
formula and his improved accuracy made that mostly a thing of the past. It was a sweet feeling,
one that evoked a sense of nostalgia and lost youth.
Then it was shattered by someone’s scream.

Hesitation had been flensed from him a long time ago. The same thing happened to fear and
panicked impulsivity. He simply homed in on the cries, quickened the pace, and set his mind and
body to work. He was a machine again, running on a routine he’d practiced hundreds of times. A
surgeon with a scalpel.

‘First. Get vertical and get a visual.’

He crested the top of a building and leapt as high as he could, while quickly homing in on the
source of the screaming. As he plummeted during his descent, he had a better visual on the
figures below. Three figures were below him. Even his vision was bad in this much rain but there
was clearly one woman being advanced on by two men.

‘Assess.’

He couldn’t make out whether any of the involved parties were armed at this time. As he
couldn’t rule out whether guns were in play, he needed to assume that potentially everyone
was. Which meant he needed to intervene as quickly as possible rather than wait and assess
further.

‘Interpose and interrupt.’

No one engaged in a fight ever expected a third party to suddenly fall out of the sky and leap
into the middle of a situation. Even a professional gunman would hesitate for a couple of crucial
seconds as their brain tried to make sense of a sudden and surprising development. And most
of New York’s armed and dangerous were anything but professional, or even remotely accurate.
True to form, the two men reeled back.

‘Check hands, then faces.’

The two men in front of him were armed with knives, not guns, while the woman was at best
brandishing a purse as a shield while stumbling back. He’d identified the aggressors and the
civilian, and now that he’d pegged the civilian as a minimal threat at best he focused on the
aggressors. They were unmasked, wide-eyed, and clearly taken aback.

‘Disarm.’

He’d been stabbed enough times to not take even kitchen utensils lightly. In the brief window of
time where their autonomic nervous systems were just starting to process a new threat, both of
Peter’s hands simply encircled and then crushed their wrists. Their knives—

‘Switchblades.’
Their switchblades clattered to the ground, as he both felt and heard their wrists fracture
amidst their howls of agony.

‘Given grip strength and bone density, the average expected recovery time is eight weeks.’

He squeezed a little harder.

‘The average expected recovery time is now twelve weeks.’

Good enough. Unless you were on SHIELD’s payroll or an Avenger, it was hard for a man in a
costume to ever make an arrest stick. In his younger years, he felt that if nobody died, then he’d
have done his job.

‘But now you always make sure to break a bone, you old pro!’

Putting these men in cells long-term was next to impossible, even if there wasn’t a masked man
with superpowers muddying the waters further. Getting them off the streets for at least three
months while they rethought their lives was the best that he could manage. A mere concussion
would take a little over a weak to recover from. Thus the most veteran vigilantes, who therefore
were also the most cynical vigilantes, always emphasized limb dislocation.

Or else they’d long since lost their minds and cut loose in the style of Punisher or Wolverine.

‘Reassess and clear the scene.’

The fight had left the two men, whose faces carried a combination of agony and terror. They
fled out into the streets, leaving their weapons behind them. He didn’t let his guard down and
focused on the woman. He’d had enough scared victims take swings at him over the years that
he couldn’t assume he was in the clear just yet.

“T-thank you,” the woman said. A clear a sign as any that the situation had deescalated, and his
Spider-Sense was at ease.

‘The time to resolution was roughly ten seconds, rounding up...’

That was good if he was operating on a normal person’s scale, but sloppy for someone with
enhanced reflexes like his. He needed to shake the rust off. If the weather were clear and he still
had web shooters, he could’ve resolved everything in less than half the time.

‘Lastly, reassure.’

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you need help getting home?”
It takes a while for the woman’s mouth to form the right words. She was somewhat on the
younger side, in her twenties to early thirties. She hardly looked wealthy, which meant that she
was likely local to this part of the city.

“No, I-I’m fine. What do I do? Do I call the cops?” She was confused, disoriented, and uneasy.

“Just get home.” Nobody was going to care about an aborted mugging in Mott Haven, least of all
NYPD.

She nodded her head, looking both relieved and exhausted before she rushed off into the rain.
“Thank you, Ricochet!” she called back, one last time.

Peter blinked, beneath his mask “A-actually it’s Spider—” but she’d already left, “—Man.”

It was stupid for him to feel even a little bit bothered by that.

---

“YOU DARED TO FORGET!? THEN DOOM SHALL REMIND YOU!” Doctor Victor von Doom, the
closest thing Peter still had to a friend in this world besides Greg at the internet café, was
ranting madly at the top of his lungs across the street from the Baxter Building. He was exactly
where Peter expected to find him, and the self-proclaimed Sorcerer, Scientist, and Sovereign
Supreme didn’t cut nearly as imposing a figure as he did in his heyday. Armageddon had taken
its toll on Peter and Victor both.

‘At least the rain stopped.’

The man stood in a ragged green cloak, while his metal armor was rusted, cracked, and
occasionally sparking ominously. Portions of Doom’s hideously scarred face, long hidden behind
his iron mask, were now partially exposed and only reinforced his image of desperate vagrancy.

That and the psychotic ranting.

“THE UNIVERSE NEED ONLY RECALL THE TERROR IT SO DESPERATELY SOUGHT TO FORSAKE! SO
SHALL I SCAR MY NAME ONCE AGAIN UPON THE FACE OF HISTORY ITSELF! UPON REALITY
ITSELF! DO YOU HEAR ME, YOU PRETENDERS!? DO YOU HEAR ME, RICHARDS!?” Doom certainly
retained the charisma, at least. Judging by how many had their phones out, the man’s
delusional ranting would crack at least five-digit figures on YouTube views.

Peter watched mutely from a rooftop above. He really should stop this, but he wasn’t
completely certain as to whether Victor would attempt to kill him or not if he dared to
intervene.

‘Just bide your time, Peter. Watch the show and wait for your cue.’
“DOOM DEFIES YOU!” he cried out again, with Doom’s badly damaged armor practically
creaking as he pointed a gauntleted finger at the giant number four outside the Baxter Building.
And then a burst of flame simply flew from his hands and struck the side of the building for
negligible damage, at best. A bit of soot, and Peter knew for a fact that Johnny had managed to
do more damage to the place by accident.

But since Doom threw the equivalent of the first punch the doors to the Baxter building swung
open, like curtains pulling back, and a handful of security guards shuffled out while staring
fixedly at the ground beneath them. They were a decidedly high-tech bunch, dressed up in light-
weight ceramics that almost resembled an inferior version of Doom’s own gear… albeit in good
working order, with little number fours on their lapels. But they looked embarrassed to even
come out of the building. It was the opening of a farce.

‘That means it’s definitely your cue, stupid.’

He simply took a step off the side of the roof and walked down its side at a ninety-degree angle
from the ground. Nobody noticed the bizarre sight, because as always Dr. Doom stole the show.
His feet were firmly on the ground by the time Peter was close enough to hear. Close enough to
intervene.

“Sir. Uh, sir, you really need to leave. You’re disturbing the people inside the building, and—”

‘That sort of attitude is only going to annoy Doom further.’

Doom’s usual tone of voice was not quite like ice, Peter reflected. It was more bombastic and
booming, like a glacier cracking. But the tone of Victor was adopting now was more dangerous.
Like acid, beginning to bubble.

“You will unhand Doom now, lackey,” he said, in a voice that left even Peter a bit disquieted.

Peter crouched, still hidden amidst the crowd. He needed Doom as an ally… but he couldn’t
tolerate an ally starting a massacre, either. That thought of his took him aback a bit. His logic
was sound, and sane. But it was awfully cold for the likes of him.

‘You’re all heart these days, aren’t you Peter?’

Peter shook his head, deciding to keep his faith in what remained of Victor von Doom’s sanity.
Peter had ended up trusting Doom, at least a little, after surviving the end of the world as
reluctant allies. He knew that for all of Victor’s many faults, he wasn’t impulsive. He wouldn’t fly
into a murderous rage just because his ego was briefly bruised.

But the man could nurse one hell of a grudge for a long, long time.
“Sir, you’re going to have to leave, or we’ll call the police. We are authorized to use force in a
security context—” the security guard said, more for the benefit of the people recording them
than the man they were escorting out. He gripped Doom by the arm, only to find out that even
in an unpowered suit of armor, the man was immovable.

Dr. Doom’s armor began to glow ominously, as runes flickered to life around his gear. “You WILL
unhand Doom now, wretch,” he warned, only for the glow around his armor to abruptly die,
leaving even Doom briefly taken aback.

“Power surge neutralized!” a second guard cried out, holding up a device of his own, which
seemed to leech away all the accumulated energies Doom’s armor was amassing.

“You dare?” Victor said, his voice sounding genuinely appalled. “YOU DARE!?” he demanded
again, and Peter could practically hear the interrobang at the end of the man’s sentence. A sure
sign that Dr. Doom was about to lose his composure.

Peter rushed into action… or at least, he tried to, as he found himself repelled. It was as if the
air itself had hardened around Doom and the security guards, slowing his progress down
considerably. A further wrinkle was that the crowd itself was beginning to grow disquieted,
easily able to sense the increase in tension as Victor von Doom brought forth the barest
smatterings of his sorcery.

“Kneel! KNEEL BEFORE DOOM!” the warlord cried out, and the security guards found
themselves forced to their knees as the gravity around them was amplified while the barrier
around them all hardened even further. Even Peter felt shocked to find himself pushed back a
step.

‘Even at his lowest, the guy was always a weight class above yours. Do you really think you can
get this narcissist to work with you?’

He was about to cry out to Victor, before the doors of the Baxter building suddenly swung open
again.

“Oh fer the love of—” Ben Grimm marched out, a rocky golem who was the color of a rotten
orange, wearing his wildly contrasting blue leotard. He appeared to be the same stand-up guy
Peter remembered. Brusque, gruff, and introverted. No matter the context or the situation, he
always seemed like someone who was too tired to deal with this crap.

Only the bad guys ever felt wholly comfortable with calling him ‘The Thing.’

“The Thing!” Doom shouted, half with rage and half with glee. “So, Richards sends a higher tier
of thug! Come at me if you dare, Benjamin!”
“That’s enough outta you, jackass,” Grimm’s voice rumbled. Peter could feel Doom attempt to
bring his A-game to bear, as purple waves of energy emanated from Doom’s gauntlets. A few of
the crowd behind him were suddenly thrown off their feet… but Ben Grimm was only weighed
down minutely before he gave Doom a single solid punch to the gut. And just like that, it was
over, Doom on the ground clutching his abdomen.

---

It was just earlier in the day that the Wizard burnt down the apartment of Johnny Storm’s latest
little girlfriend, who’d had enough and decided that she was now his ex-girlfriend. The Thing
grimaced. Johnny must have had a dozen failed relationships by now, and if the celebrity rags
were any indication Mary-Jane Watson had about twice as many at that point. But because it
was the Wizard and because the other three of the Frightful Four were vowing revenge over yet
another petty spat, Ben Grimm had to play security guard for everyone else’s sake. Again.

This guy, this Man in the Iron Mask guy, he was just another lunatic in a city full of them. Not
even remotely on Ben’s radar, someone either completely new to the costumed life or else
never amounted to anything more than D-list at best. A hobo, but with few cheap superpowers
besides. It was quite a light show, but it was nothing to write home about. Judging by the state
of the man’s face beneath the armor, he seemed like yet another poor dumb shmuck who
ended up as a lab experiment or yet another janitor who rolled around in toxic waste and lost
his goddamn mind.

‘Brother, I can relate,’ Grimm thought, as he readied another punch, this time to the guy’s head.
It was a love tap, practically, but the poor bastard could end up with a concussion if the Thing
wasn’t careful.

‘Then again, it’s been a real shitty week, and his armor looks solid enough.’

Ben lifted him up by the scruff of the man’s tattered green cloak and readied a hammer blow
before suddenly finding that something had stopped his fist mid-air.

Well, okay.

Maybe this was more dangerous than he first assumed.

Yet while someone with super-strength had managed to halt his blow mid-air, the man didn’t
follow up with another punch. “Hey!” a smaller guy called out, more as a hello than as a
reproach. He was a skinny fellow in a tattered red mask, but the muscles in his arms were the
real deal, as Ben had yet to break his grip even after getting a bit more serious. And like the
other guy Ben was grabbing, he smelled like he hadn’t had a bath in weeks.
“He’s down, man. You don’t need to hit someone who’s already down,” the guy reproached
gently. Ben grunted, before relaxing his fist and gently letting it fall to his side. It honestly
sounded like something he would say to Johnny. Whatever this was, this wasn’t an ambush.

“There’s a trade union for a bunch of superpowered hobos now?” said Ben Grimm, raising an
eyebrow. Well, not a literal eyebrow per se, but one thing to say for his ugly mug is that it was
surprisingly expressive and good at disarming people.

He thought he could see the cheekbones adjust beneath the tattered mask. A bit of a smile. Bit
just a bit. “The two of us, we aren’t friends… but we’ve been through a lot.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed as he recalled a few rumors. “Did Wilson Fisk do this to you?”

The man’s reaction was surprised. But was it surprise that Ben picked up on it quickly, or was he
just shock that suspected Fisk’s involvement? There were always ‘rumors’ about Fisk, with the
biggest and most open secret in New York being that he was the city’s Kingpin. But other, more
sinister rumors trailed along behind the fat man too. Illegal mob experiments using synthetic
drugs with Mutant Growth Hormone…

“Why do you think he did something to me?” the man’s voice was low. A little angry, but Ben
could hardly tell from what place that was coming from.

“Lissen,” Ben said, reaching into a pocket in his leotard, “whoever’s science experiment you and
him are, whether it’s Kingpin or HYDRA or freakin’ Oscorp, you just give us a ring if you need
help, okay? Whoever it was must’ve fried your buddy’s brains real bad,” he says, motioning to
the more belligerent one in green.

“No he was… he was always like that,” the red masked guy said, sounding very tired.

“Sounds like he’s been through a lot of crap too,” Ben said, his voice rumbling sympathetically.
The guy had a face that well, only Ben could love. “We ain’t exactly a shelter but uh, there’s a
few places. FEAST is good.”

“FEAST is good…” red mask agreed, as he gingerly picked up the green cloak. “Thanks man.”

Ben tried not to roll his eyes. Everyone seem so surprised whenever he tried to be nice, even
before he got turned into a whatever-the-hell-he-was now. “Fer the record, keep your buddy
away from us, fer his own good. If the hothead were here—”

“Speak of the devil?” came a somewhat playful voice from right behind Ben.

Now Ben rolled his eyes.

---
Doom was only half conscious when Peter picked him up off the ground. Peter had no idea
whether Victor would happy or angry to see him, once he came back to himself. In their time
together Peter knew that there was never any telling with the man, which never failed to keep
Peter exasperated.

‘Speaking of the exasperating…’ Peter thought, perhaps uncharitably, as he saw the Human
Torch descend, going from a blindingly iridescent fireball to a nearly as blindingly iridescent
blonde.

“Everything all right, Bennie? Is this a serious thing, or just something like a Yancy Street thing?”
Johnny had, for better or worse, also not changed in the slightest. He was all smiles, in a way
that most would think was condescending, but Peter realized ago was merely a friendly sort of
obliviousness.

“Yancy Street hobos that have superpowers,” Ben grumbled.

Johnny blinked. “So, does that mean this a big thing or a small thing?”

“A small thing! Hopefully even after you showed up!” Ben groused.

“Hey, no biggie then. All right Ben, keep up the good work!” Johnny then proceeded to do
finger-guns at Ben Grimm.

Peter found himself glaring at the Human Torch from underneath his mask. And for the life of
him, he couldn’t figure out why. This was Johnny Storm, one of his oldest friends, seemingly
back from the dead. So why was he-

It took a moment before Peter remembered that Johnny was dating Mary-Jane and had burnt
her apartment down.

By accident.

Supposedly.

“Hey, Lucha Libre! Kid Ricochet! You all right in there?” Johnny noticed Peter was staring at him,
and in response Johnny was waving his goddamned hands right in front of Peter’s face.

Peter briefly imagined himself sucker-punching Johnny before engaging in his own Doom-like
rant. ‘You DARE date the BRIDE of SPIDER-MAN, you insipid CANDLE-FLAME???’ he thought.

The thought itself was enough to ease the anger, and make Peter realize he was being stupid.
He never existed in this new timeline, Mary-Jane was bound to find someone else, and—
And he didn’t want to shatter himself all over again just by watching her die alongside their
children. Peter Parker was gone now, and everyone else was better off without him adding to
their problems.

For all that he mulled over the years on one day giving up on being Spider-Man to be Peter
Parker, or else giving up on being Peter Parker to be Spider-Man, the moment was bittersweet.

“Take care of yourself, Johnny,” Peter said gently to the Torch, before leaving with Doom over his
shoulder. He was once again grateful for the mask, and simply didn’t look back again as he
departed with Doom.

‘No more looking back, Peter.’

---

With a show over, the crowd shuffled away and the security guards collected themselves. The
Thing and the Human Torch shuffled into the Baxter Building. “Was that a threat or something?”
Johnny whispered to Ben, still his usual clueless self. Ben gave him a dumbfounded look.

“Generally, Johnny, people don’t sound like they’ve just had their dog shot when delivering a
threat! No, I think that was sincere advice. He a friend of yours?” Ben asked.

“No, I uh, don’t recall. Just, he seemed really mad at me before all that,” Johnny said,
defensively.

“Everyone’s really mad at you most of the time, Johnny. That don’t mean they still don’t love
you,” Ben mused.

Johnny smiled. “Aww, you’re great too, Ben. Maybe he was a fan, then?”

Ben chuckled. “How does someone as self-centered as you get so many girls, kid?”

Johnny’s face grew uncharacteristically serious. “By having just as many breakups,” he said, in a
wooden, somewhat bitter tone of voice.

The Thing sighed. “You and MJ both knew it wasn’t a serious thing. It was a career fling. You get
seen, you get some buzz on social media, and then you get a messy breakup. I know this
because you told me this a month ago, in those words!”

“A month is a lifetime ago, Ben.” Johnny said ruefully… but the playful undercurrent was
returning. Good, Ben thought. A depressed Johnny Storm would get everyone down.
“You’re just mad she broke up with you first,” Ben ribbed, only for Johnny to shake his head in a
defensive gesture.

“Not mad! I’m not mad. It was just… you know, weird. She hardly cared about the superhero
thing when we were just trying things out. But suddenly, Whately of all people storms into her
place—”

“And her apartment was collateral damage—” Ben added, only Johnny to wave his hands aside.

“She’s A-list, she’s got two more just like it. They’re like extra pairs of shoes for her, she ignores
them aside from the lease and getting them cleaned once a month. Anyway, my point is that
she was her usual bubbly self-right up until I suggested we make this a regular thing instead of
just an on again and off again thing. The moment I sounded like I wanted to get serious, that’s
when she got cold, man. She’s got problems.”

Ben could only vaguely wonder on why Johnny was giving him a play-by-play on his relationship
drama, before shrugging. “I always liked her better than that agent of hers.”

Johnny winced. “God, yeah. Did you know that she had me sign a contract before I started
dating MJ? She’s got more issues than the both of us, and probably you too.”

“Her nickname for me was Igor, and I’m never letting that one go,” Ben said sourly. He got
sensitive whenever the insults were novel.

“Anyways,” said Johnny, clearly desperate to change the subject away from Mary-Jane’s
psychotic agent, “what was the deal with the two super-hobos?”

Ben grunted. “There’s been rumors that the Kingpin is playing Mengele on the homeless is true.
And I think they’re part of the fallout.”

“So, you just let them go?” Johnny said, eyes bulging.

Ben waved him away. “Why not? I’m not gonna shove them into OUR lab and say, ‘trust us, it’s
fer yer own good this time!’ Poor bastards. Nah, this sort of thing needs to be cut off at the
source.”

“Easy for you to say. ‘Take out the Kingpin and you’ll just let in someone worse,’ is the sermon
we keep getting, isn’t it? That and ‘he’s the devil we know,’” Johnny said, doing his best
impression of Daredevil’s voice.

“It’s what we tell ourselves to sleep at night, kid. Just saying, if we can get to the bottom of this
and out Fisk for running honest-to-god unsanctioned superpower experiments? On freakin’ US
soil in the middle of New York? He’ll go from super-criminal to domestic terrorist overnight as
far as SHIELD is concerned. He’ll be on a one-way trip to the Negative Zone no matter how much
his fancy lawyers bitch and moan.” Ben was getting into this.

Everyone and their mother were well and truly sick of Wilson Fisk.

“All I’m saying is, whatever we did to make the Tin Man back there mad, I doubt he’ll let it go.
And once we deal with that, we need to make sure his friendlier little pal, Kid Ricochet or
whoever, helps us get to the bottom of what Fisk is up to,” Ben Grimm said, his face now firmly
set and stoic.

“Pretty sure Fisk’s biggest bottom is his fat ass,” Johnny said with a smile. Ben chuckled, despite
himself.

---

They were standing on yet another nondescript New York rooftop. It didn’t take long for Dr.
Doom to regain consciousness. And it didn’t take long for Dr. Doom to surprise Peter yet again,
for that matter. The literal tinpot dictator of Latveria simply extended his hand towards Spider-
Man, as if he insisted that Peter take it.

“Comrades once more then, Peter?” said Doom, chuckling. Despite the expressionless death
mask that Doom never removed, the man’s grim visage somehow still seemed bemused.

‘I’ve got to ask him how he does that, someday,’ Peter thought, before affirming yet another ill-
thought Faustian bargain and taking Doom’s hand.

“Comrades again,” Peter affirmed. Though Peter’s grip was hard, and this time Doom’s failing
armor couldn’t project nearly as much strength for this handshake. In the end it was Doom who
gave a little cough before Peter relaxed his grip.

“It is good that you survived as well, Arachnid. Have you taken stock? What are we to make of
all this?” Almost all of Doom’s questions were rhetorical. He just wanted to judge Peter’s
comprehension of the situation and ‘correct’ any misconceptions that might have developed. It
was one tiresome trait out of many for Victor von Doom, but Peter had been so starved for
allies at this point that he had long since gotten used to accommodating Doom’s massive ego.

But things were different now. Before, there wasn’t any point in being Doom’s enemy. There
was simply nothing left for the likes of Doom to ruin, and all grand ambitions and ideology gave
way to what was simply termed their Science of Survival. But now? Now there was something
worth saving, and Doom’s stunt with the Fantastic Four proved that even if Peter was willing to
make a clean break with his past, Doom had not nearly made as much progress with his issues.
‘But don’t burn bridges yet. The fact that he knows what you know is invaluable. The fact that
he wants to survive what’s coming, and wants his grand ambitions to survive it, is invaluable
too.’

He couldn’t forsake this Faustian bargain, just yet.

“To summarize: we don’t exist anymore. During that… lengthy… window of time between when
the world ended then and when it was remade just now, we didn’t die. Whatever cycle this
process was a part of, we’ve somehow cut ourselves out of it. For all practical purposes we’ve
seemingly been transported to an alternate timeline where neither of us ever existed, but that
isn’t quite the case. We’re exactly as we were, it’s everything else that changed abruptly,” Peter
said, with stern finality.

“Very good. This was a revelation that Doom found… difficult to process, at first,” von Doom said
diplomatically. Peter coughed. “But nevertheless, it seems that my Latveria is gone. My past is
gone. It is all gone. Worse, what Doom had desperately hoped to reclaim, or at least rebuild,
now never was.”

Peter shook his head. “Any dashed optimism was on us and our flawed expectations. We’re still
in a much better position than we were just a little while ago. Resources are far more plentiful
and thus far easier to obtain. The world is… still mostly as we knew it. Compared to that
hellscape, we’ve now got a world that’s worth saving.”

“Your logic remains sound, if stark and bleak,” Doom conceded. “We are seemingly at a far
earlier point in time compared to when the end of the world began in our original cycle, giving
us hope that if such an event were to again recur, we would now be in a position to prevent it.
And the soul of Cynthia von Doom, she who would have been mother to Victor von Doom, yet
unfairly languishes in Hell. Yes, we do have goals in mind. And scores to settle.”

Peter pulled off his mask, exposing his scarred and ragged face, his hard and cold eyes, to better
glare at his only remaining friend. “Leave your grudge with the Fantastic Four behind, Doom.”

Doom didn’t balk, even with that display. “Against the Fantastic Four? Certainly. But my
animosity towards Richards will last beyond worlds, Peter. Beyond lifetimes. That I cannot
forsake, even for the sake of peace between us.”

“Then just let it wait!” Peter said, his voice scornful, before softening. “We’ve got all the time in
the world to settle scores. We can last a bit longer before we’re all enemies again.”

“So be it,” Doom said, enunciating every syllable. “Though let it be known that you now bear
responsibility for the innocents victimized by madness of Reed Richards, Peter. In the end you
will realize that you have only heaped more guilt upon your ragged conscience.”
It was rapidly becoming clear to Peter that Doom was hopelessly insane, especially where Reed
was concerned. Peter was rapidly coming to realize that the seeming revival of their Earth only
made Doom harder to deal with, not easier. Reed and the rest of the Fantastic Four had the bad
luck of dying early on when everything ended, leaving Doom seemingly directionless… and far
more open to considering changes in direction.

‘Now he’s back at square one. You’ve got to placate him, Peter. Somehow.’

“We’re still comrades, Victor. I’ll help you get your mother’s soul out of Mephisto’s realm,
however I can,” Peter vowed.

Doom nodded magnanimously, only somewhat placated. But he was, nevertheless, satisfied
with Peter’s response. “So, what is our next step? What does your Science of Survival dictate,
Arachnid?”

“Food and shelter, then followed by sufficient resources to go on offensive while we consider
our approach to the problem,” Peter decided.

“Resources, yes… as you can see, Doom is not as he was. Even in the deplorable state of affairs
we were in just before things… changed… Doom’s sorcery was not so diminished. It appears that
things have changed, Peter, not merely spatially but also temporally. Not since my childhood has
Doom’s magic ever been so… flaccid,” Doom muttered from beneath his mask.

“My powers are working just fine,” Peter said, contemplatively. He was stronger than he was
when he was younger, and more experienced besides. He’d lost quite a bit of muscle due to
malnutrition, but before everything went to hell he was at his best. A training regimen put
together by Captain America and Iron Fist proved that he had far more untapped potential than
just what the radioactive spider-bite gave him. Mary-Jane had seemed thrilled by the
improvement as well.

He shook off the memories, growing a little frustrated with how much they kept on dogging
him. How much they kept on haunting him. That sort of sentimentality was useless to him when
he now had to be better than he ever was before.

‘A Superior Spider-Man?’ Peter thought to himself… before shuddering inwardly and brushing
off a few more painful memories as he tried to pay attention to Doom.

“Your powers are… an intrinsic matter, Arachnid. Much of Doom’s abilities were either wrested
from others or negotiated for. The pacts and bargains that Doom had struck with the universe’s
higher powers are apparently not valid as of this new universe. Even as the world changed to an
approximation of its original state, Doom’s strength was wrested away from him.” There was
anger, buried underneath Doom’s laconic drawl. The universe would be paying for that,
apparently.
Peter crossed his arms. “So, you’re hardly Sorcerer Supreme right now.”

“The consequences of being a self-made man, rather than a pawn of destiny,” Doom said
evenly. “And without the resources of Latveria to call upon, Doom’s scientific genius remains
purely within the realm of the theoretical.”

Peter asserted himself then. “If you’re not much of a magician or a scientist now, what good are
you to me? Why don’t I just figure out how to go to Dr. Strange or even Mr. Fantastic for help?”
If he said something like that to any other person, it would have been cruel, or even petty. But
even more than having his pride pandered to, Peter realized that Doom appreciated blunt,
remorseless, and sensible logic.

‘At least, the kind of logic that someone as bizarre as Doom would consider sensible.’

And as predicted, Doom gave a slight bow, as if he were acknowledging a fencer who struck a
good blow. “Doom is willing to curb his… eccentricities for the sake of partnership, Arachnid.
You have proven capable and trustworthy. Consider, Peter, that as I am the closest thing you
have to a friend, you are also now the closest thing Doom has to a peer. You alone, in the
entirety of this new world, are the only one who can come close to comprehending Doom and
the depths of his grief. For Victor von Doom has lost a nation and a people, and Peter Parker has
lost a world and a family.” Doom let his words trail into a meaningful, ponderous silence.

Doom gave Peter only a moment to contemplate the man’s words, before Doom hung his head
low. It was a surprising display of vulnerability. “No man is an island, Peter. If you were to be
lost, so too would I lose the only being that remains who yet comprehends Victor von Doom.”

What was more poignant was what Doom left unsaid, and what Peter picked up on. ‘And the
same goes for you too, doesn’t it, Peter. He’s the only one in the world right now besides you
who remembers Mayday, and Annie, and Benjy… and your Mary-Jane, the real Mary-Jane, not
whatever ghost is now filling your dead wife’s shoes.’

It wasn’t petty narcissism on Doom’s part this time, Peter realized. It was something more
intrinsic, more desperately needed by the two of them. A simple desire to be understood by
someone, and to have them know that you’re still sane.

God damn it. He was finding Doom far too relatable these days. He wasn’t a monster, or a
sociopath. Just utterly and completely insane.

‘But you don’t have room to talk, do you?’ asked a dark voice. His own voice.

“Like I said. We’re comrades again,” Peter affirmed. That was, apparently, all he needed to say.

“Do you still have Hercules’s—” Doom began, before Peter cut him off.
‘And yet Doom accepted being cut off. You’re probably the only person in the world who could
get away with something like that right now too.’ Peter didn’t finish the thought, his mouth
moving faster than his brain again.

“—It doesn’t work. Hercules was on the wrong track, before the end.” Peter finished.

“If you are certain…” Doom said civilly… but also somewhat mockingly.

“Let’s not dwell on my past failures, please,” Peter pleaded. Hercules’s last moments were just
one more sore subject out of thousands, but it was much more recent, and the wound there
was just a little bit more fresh. His last proclamation to Peter, and his final bequeathment was
an even more bitter thing besides. “Is it just you and me? Who else made it out of there?”

“There was one of us whose survival was virtually guaranteed, Peter. Think on it,” Doom said,
defaulting to quizzing Peter on conclusions that he had already made.

Peter tried not to feel annoyed, and just took confidence in the fact that he was sharp enough
to grasp whatever Doom was getting at quickly. The person who was guaranteed to not die…
was a person who couldn’t die… which could only mean… oh no.

Peter sighed. “We’re going to have to find the Hulk and somehow get him on board.”

Doom chuckled. “Yes. And we are still enshrouded in the depths of night. That means one of
his… darker personalities are in play. I hope you have a strong stomach Peter, for whatever
horror we have in store.”

In silent anticipation, and tense dread… the two reluctant allies by circumstance stalked off into
the night, ready for just about anything.

---

Nothing could have prepared them for this.

“SING US A SONG, YOU’RE THE PIANO MAN!” sang a brightly grinning Joe Fixit, the Gray Hulk, as
he played Piano Man on a comically too-small-for-his-size player piano. And he did it with far, far
less solemnity than Billy Joel would have done it, while a bunch of bar patrons raucously sang
along with him.

“Ah,” Dr. Doom simply said, clearly just as taken aback as Peter.