By the time the car approached Queens, the city lights had already softened into a familiar glow.
The streets outside the window looked ordinary, almost painfully peaceful, as if the chaos in Berlin had belonged to another world entirely.
Peter Parker sat in the back seat, still wearing the exhaustion of the airport battle on his face, while Tony Stark leaned beside him with the calm confidence of a man who could lie to the world and make it sound like an official government statement.
Before they reached Aunt May’s apartment, Tony suddenly raised his phone.
“Alright, kid.
We need evidence.”
Peter blinked.
“Evidence?”
“Your alibi.” Tony angled the camera.
“Something sweet, harmless, and believable enough to keep your aunt from calling every hospital in Europe.”
Peter immediately understood.
Aunt May.
Compared to Captain America, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, and even a collapsing War Machine, Aunt May’s worried stare might actually be the scariest thing he had faced all week.
So Peter played along.
Tony recorded a short video, making it look like Peter had spent the entire trip doing something boring, safe, and completely unrelated to an international superhero clash.
Peter smiled awkwardly, waved at the camera, and tried his best not to look like someone who had recently been thrown across an airport by people strong enough to bend steel.
When the recording ended, Tony checked it once and nodded with satisfaction.
“Good enough.
She’ll buy it.”
Peter wasn’t so sure.
Aunt May had a terrifying ability to detect lies from tiny details, but at this point, “good enough” was the best he could hope for.
A few minutes later, the car slowed near his building.
Before Peter got out, Tony glanced at him and said, “Happy will be your point of contact from now on.
If something comes up, he’ll reach you.”
Peter’s eyes brightened.
“So… that means I’m officially on standby?”
Tony narrowed his eyes.
“That means you go to school, do your homework, and don’t make me regret giving you a suit.”
Peter nodded quickly, though his mind was already running in another direction.
Official contact.
Possible missions.
A real suit.
That sounded very close to being a temporary Avenger.
Maybe not a full Avenger.
Maybe not even an intern.
But definitely something.
Tony seemed to sense the dangerous excitement forming behind Peter’s eyes.
Just as Peter opened the door, Tony spoke again.
“Remember something.”
Peter turned back.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t do what I would do.”
Peter nodded slowly.
“And don’t do what I wouldn’t do.”
Peter frowned.
“So… I don’t do anything?”
Tony pointed at him.
“No.
There’s a little gray area between those two things.
That’s where you operate.”
Peter stared at him.
Tony stared back.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Then Peter’s face slowly lit up.
“Oh.”
Gray area.
That was permission.
Not clear permission, maybe.
Not written permission.
Not something Tony would admit later if questioned under oath.
But still permission.
And if even Tony Stark couldn’t explain exactly how wide that gray area was, then Peter certainly wasn’t going to limit it too much.
A beautiful future unfolded in his imagination.
Spider-Man, protector of Queens.
Spider-Man, part-time student, part-time hero.
Spider-Man, provisional Avenger.
Maybe he needed a badge.
Tony suddenly leaned toward him.
Peter stiffened.
Was this it?
A hug?
A touching farewell between mentor and young hero?
Tony reached past him and opened the car door.
“I wasn’t going for a hug,” Tony said flatly.
“We’re not there yet.”
Peter froze.
Then quietly climbed out of the car.
Behind him, Tony’s expression softened just a little, but the door closed before Peter could see it.
The car pulled away, leaving Peter standing beneath the Queens streetlights with a secret too heavy for any normal teenager to carry.
When Peter entered the apartment, Aunt May still had not returned from work.
That was lucky.
Very lucky.
He rushed into his room, shut the door, and immediately pulled out the upgraded web-shooter from the suit.
The device looked small, but after everything Karen had shown him, Peter now understood that it was practically a miniature laboratory strapped to his wrist.
If not for the time, he would have gone straight back outside to test it.
But dinner was close, Aunt May could return any minute, and sneaking out too early would only create trouble.
So he forced himself to stay in his room, adjusting settings, checking cartridge compatibility, and studying the firing mechanisms.
The more he worked, the harder it became to suppress his excitement.
This wasn’t just a better web-shooter.
This was an entire new fighting style.
Rapid-fire webs could overwhelm multiple enemies.
Ricochet webs could strike targets behind cover.
Web grenades could stop speeding vehicles or catch people falling from high places.
Electric webs could disable equipment without seriously injuring someone.
Every function opened another possibility.
Every possibility made Spider-Man stronger.
Peter could already imagine it.
Once he mastered every mode and fully understood the technology hidden inside the suit, he wouldn’t just be swinging around Queens reacting to danger.
He would be ready for it.
Click.
The bedroom door opened.
Peter’s entire body jolted.
Aunt May stepped inside.
“Peter, you—”
Her sentence stopped halfway.
Peter’s brain moved faster than his body.
His right hand, still wearing the web-shooter, dropped instantly behind his side.
Aunt May’s expression changed immediately.
“What happened to you?”
Peter swallowed.
“Nothing.”
Her eyes sharpened.
That was the wrong answer.
Peter corrected himself quickly.
“I mean… I got into a fight.”
Aunt May stepped closer.
“A fight?
Who hit you?”
Peter’s mind scrambled through the list of people who had hit, grabbed, slammed, or otherwise tried to stop him in Berlin.
“Some guys.”
“What guys?”
“Uh… Steve.
Scott.
Sam.
A few others.”
Aunt May’s face tightened.
“Steve?
Do you mean Steve from 12C?
The one with the teeth?
I heard that kid causes trouble.”
Peter nearly choked.
“No!
No, not him.”
“And Scott and Sam are his friends?”
“No, no, no.
Different Steve.
Brooklyn Steve.”
“Brooklyn Steve?”
“Yes.”
Aunt May stared at him.
Peter tried to look innocent.
It did not work.
She left the room and returned with a damp towel.
Her worry was obvious now, softer than her suspicion but much harder to face.
She handed it to him and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I hope you hit back.”
Peter pressed the towel over the faint bruise before she could inspect it properly.
“Oh, definitely.
Several times.”
Aunt May’s mouth twitched, caught between concern and reluctant amusement.
“Several times?”
“Yeah.
But his friends were big.
Really big.”
That part was completely true.
One of them had wings.
One of them could shrink.
One of them was Captain America.
Aunt May reached out and gently smoothed his hair.
Peter’s nervousness must have been written all over his face because, after a moment, she stopped trying to pull the towel away.
Instead, she sighed.
“What do you want for dinner, my little tough guy?”
Peter instantly relaxed.
“Risotto.”
Aunt May gave him a look.
“Of course.”
“It’s your best dish.”
“That’s only because you ask for it every time you’re hiding something.”
Peter froze.
Aunt May stood and walked toward the kitchen before he could respond.
“Close the door, please,” Peter called after her.
The door shut.
Peter let out a long breath.
That had been close.
Too close.
After dinner, Peter returned to his room and continued working on the web-shooter.
By ten o’clock, the apartment had gone quiet.
Aunt May was asleep, the hallway lights were off, and Queens outside the window looked calm.
Too calm.
Peter changed into the suit and slipped out into the night.
At first, he expected trouble.
A robbery.
A car chase.
A mugging.
At the very least, someone doing something stupid enough to justify Spider-Man swinging in with a dramatic entrance.
But nothing happened.
Queens was peaceful.
Painfully peaceful.
Peter swung from building to building, crawled along walls, perched on rooftops, and waited.
Nothing.
No screams.
No sirens nearby.
No suspicious vans.
No masked criminals.
Not even a bike thief.
Technically, this was good.
A quiet night meant people were safe.
But for someone carrying a new suit, upgraded web-shooters, and five hundred seventy-six possible web combinations, it felt like being handed the world’s greatest toy and told the batteries were missing.
By one in the morning, Peter finally gave up.
He slipped back into his room, removed the suit, and collapsed onto his bed.
Then he remembered something.
The web.
Not the physical webbing.
The other one.
The strange glowing web inside his consciousness.
Peter closed his eyes and focused.
The darkness behind his eyelids shifted.
There it was.
The mysterious web stretching through the void.
The light that represented Spider-Man Noir had dimmed after his previous experience, resting quietly like a star that had already given him what it could.
But now another light had appeared nearby.
Bright. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Alive.
Calling to him.
Peter’s heartbeat quickened.
This meant he could transmigrate again.
Another Spider-Man.
Another world.
Another life.
Another chance to grow.
He opened one eye and checked the time.
1:13 a.m.
If he returned before seven, Aunt May wouldn’t notice anything.
That gave him almost six hours.
Six hours in another Spider-Man’s world.
Peter took a deep breath, closed his eyes again, and reached toward the glowing point with the strand of the Web of Destiny inside his mind.
The thread extended slowly.
Closer.
Closer.
Then—
Pop.
The moment it touched the light, Peter felt himself fall.
Not physically.
Deeper.
Through darkness.
Through memory.
Through something vast and alive.
Then his eyes opened.
Cold night air hit his face.
He was crouched on the edge of a building.
Below him, traffic moved like streams of light through the city streets.
The wind tugged at his clothes.
He looked down and immediately noticed something strange.
He wasn’t wearing his Spider-Man suit.
He had on a teal hoodie, jeans, sneakers, and a backpack.
Peter stared at himself.
“What is this outfit?”
He tugged at the hoodie.
“Friendly neighborhood big brother?”
Before he could complain further, memories surged into his mind.
This world’s Peter Parker.
Seventeen years old.
A little older than him.
Also bitten by a spider.
Also gifted with impossible abilities.
Also reckless enough to build his own web-shooters.
Peter absorbed the memories carefully.
This version of him had not been Spider-Man for very long either.
He was still learning, still making mistakes, still trying to understand what kind of hero he was supposed to become.
But there was one major difference.
Gwen Stacy.
This Peter had a girlfriend.
The memories sharpened.
Dinner at Gwen’s house.
Warm lights.
Awkward conversation.
A family table.
And Gwen’s father.
Captain George Stacy of the NYPD.
During dinner, Captain Stacy had mentioned Spider-Man.
His opinion had not been kind.
To him, Spider-Man was not a hero.
He was a masked nuisance.
A reckless vigilante.
A boy chasing criminals as if he had a personal grudge against them.
Peter had felt attacked.
He had defended Spider-Man.
The argument had grown tense.
The dinner had been ruined.
But after that, something important had happened.
Gwen had confronted him.
She had sensed the truth, or at least enough of it, and this world’s Peter had chosen honesty.
He revealed his identity to her.
He trusted her.
And because of that, the misunderstanding between them had begun to clear.
Still, one thing Captain Stacy said had remained lodged in Peter’s mind like a splinter.
“That guy wears a mask like a criminal.
And the people he catches all look connected, like he’s not protecting the city.
Like he’s looking for revenge.”
Peter crouched silently on the rooftop as those words echoed through him.
Revenge.
That was the difference.
This Spider-Man was not only saving people.
He was hunting someone.
A criminal connected to his past.
A shadow tied to Uncle Ben’s death.
Peter’s fingers tightened against the concrete ledge.
He understood that pain.
He understood it far too well.
For a moment, the two Peters seemed to overlap.
Different worlds.
Different lives.
Same wound.
The city stretched beneath him, bright and dangerous.
Somewhere out there, this world’s answers were waiting.
Somewhere out there, another Spider-Man’s fate was already moving toward him.
Peter slowly stood on the edge of the building.
The wind pulled at his hoodie.
His backpack shifted against his shoulder.
His spider-sense whispered faintly at the back of his skull.
Then, from somewhere in the distance, a scream cut through the night.
Peter turned.
His eyes sharpened.
The second transmigration had begun.
And this time, he was stepping into a Spider-Man’s life before the real tragedy arrived.
Multiverse arc was waiting!!