The first rule of infiltrating a time fortress is: Don't.
The second rule, Peter Parker was discovering, is: If you must, bring a mercenary who thinks time is a snack.
"Do you think Kang's headquarters has a gift shop?" Deadpool asked, tapping at his smartwatch, which was clearly just a repurposed Tamagotchi with a goat drawn on it in Sharpie. "I could really go for a fridge magnet that says 'I Messed Up the Timeline and All I Got Was This Lousy Multiversal Collapse.'"
Peter gripped the edge of the time rift with his webs, peering into the swirling corridor of raw potential. The portal shimmered between frames, occasionally blinking out to show ads for streaming services in languages that hadn't been invented yet.
"This is a terrible idea," Peter muttered.
"Yup," Wade chirped. "We're basically breaking into the narrative control panel of the multiverse. What could go wrong?"
As it turned out: everything.
The Fortress of Chronos Kang
Not a metaphor.
It was literally called that. Carved into the floating obsidian rock above the time river. Lettering in 4D runes that made Peter feel like someone was whispering spoilers for his future into his brain.
They landed inside what looked like the Pentagon fused with a Bond villain's Pinterest board: gravity-defying platforms, gears made of starlight, walls lined with weapons labeled "FOR EVENTUAL USE."
Deadpool immediately pressed a glowing red button labeled "DO NOT PRESS."
A trapdoor opened.
A vending machine emerged.
It offered only Reese's Pieces and Minor Paradoxes.
"Want a snack?" Wade asked.
Peter webbed his hand away. "Focus. We're here to find Kang."
"Oh, he's watching."
Peter froze.
The voice was smooth. Calm. The kind of voice that belonged to a man who had explained evil monologues to interns.
From the upper tier, descending a spiral staircase made of floating projections of moments-yet-to-come, came the man himself.
Kang the Conqueror.
Wearing a purple cloak that shimmered like a galaxy had been compacted into it. His face was unscarred — too perfect — the kind of face that had been overwritten a hundred times until it was efficiently iconic.
"Spider-Man," he said, smiling like he knew the ending already. "And… Deadpool."
Wade saluted. "Present and self-aware."
Kang walked past a display case containing moments in time — literal memory bubbles — frozen in motion. One showed Peter during the ferry incident. Another showed him vanishing in the Snap.
Kang tapped one bubble.
It flickered.
"You are the anomaly," he said to Peter. "The universe has moved on. Forgotten you. Corrected you. And yet… here you are."
Peter stood tall. "I'm not a glitch."
Kang smiled. "That's exactly what a glitch would say."
Wade leaned over. "He's monologuing. Classic villain behavior. Should I stab him or wait until the commercial break?"
Peter whispered, "Let's hear what he wants first."
Kang turned. "I don't want, Spider-Man. I curate. I am not here to destroy the story — I maintain it. You, however, keep rewriting yourself into relevance."
Peter frowned. "You're the one triggering narrative breaches. The cube. The Gwen glitch. Oscorp reappearing. That's you, isn't it?"
Kang chuckled. "The cube was a tool. A test. But it failed. You resisted its offer. Unfortunate. I had such plans for a 'Sympathetic Hero Reboot.'"
Deadpool gasped. "Is that like when Batman gets sad and gritty for the third time in a decade?"
"Yes," Kang said. "But less brooding. More merchandise-friendly."
Peter took a step forward. "Why me?"
Kang finally stopped pacing.
"You are a story that refuses to end. The world forgot you. That should've been enough. But your narrative… persisted. Others drift out. Lose relevance. Fade. But you—" he pointed, "—you adapt. Too resilient. Too marketable. You keep swinging."
Peter narrowed his eyes. "You think I'm just a brand."
Kang nodded. "A brand with plot armor thicker than Captain America's skull."
Deadpool raised a finger. "He's not wrong."
Peter flexed his fists. "Then you're not fixing the timeline. You're curating a franchise."
Kang's smile faltered. "Now you're getting it."
The room darkened.
Lights flickered.
Reality shifted — slightly, like the world was holding its breath.
Peter's spider-sense screamed.
Kang lifted a device from his cloak: a prism of light and steel — part tech, part myth.
The Continuity Spike.
With a flick, he slammed it into the floor.
The world glitched.
Peter staggered.
Suddenly he was on the bridge where MJ had fallen.
Then on Titan, facing Thanos again.
Then in a warehouse with Uncle Ben bleeding out.
Each shift was a stab of memory. Too fast. Too raw.
Kang watched with amusement.
"You see, Peter — I don't need to erase you. I just need to overwhelm your canon."
Peter fell to one knee.
Too many timelines.
Too many losses.
Wade tried to leap forward — got caught in a time loop, repeating the phrase, "Let me help, I have knives!" over and over in a comedy echo that should've been funny, but wasn't.
Peter gritted his teeth.
"Stop…"
Kang raised the Spike higher. "No, Spider-Man. You don't get to exist outside the script. Not anymore."
But something clicked inside Peter.
A memory.
Not of pain.
Of stubbornness.
Of every time he'd stood up when he shouldn't have.
Of the reason he kept swinging.
And it wasn't branding. Or revenge. Or even redemption.
It was responsibility.
He stood.
The world wobbled.
Peter anchored himself.
"Here's the thing, Kang," he said, voice ragged. "You can throw every version of me at me. You can hit me with my own grief. You can turn my story into a punching bag."
He stepped forward.
"But I'm not your story to tell."
And then he punched the Spike.
Bare-handed.
The Continuity Spike cracked.
A web of light shot out, threading across timelines.
Deadpool finally broke free from his loop, mid-somersault, and yelled, "YES! PLOT TWIST PUNCH!"
The time fortress buckled.
Kang staggered.
Peter ripped the Spike from the floor and hurled it into the collapsing timeline projection.
Energy howled.
Kang roared. "You FOOL! You'll collapse the—"
The world went white.
Peter blinked.
He was in an alley.
Back in New York.
No tower. No Kang. No Spike.
Just… silence.
Deadpool landed beside him, smoking slightly. "I think we won?"
Peter looked around. "We… reset the breach. Severed Kang from the narrative thread."
Wade nodded. "And you punched a literal metaphor. That was rad."
Peter didn't smile.
"Kang will come back. People like him always do."
"Yeah," Wade said. "But not today."
Peter nodded.
Then paused.
"Where's the goat?"
Deadpool pulled out a map.
It was drawn in crayon.
Marked: "GOAT'S JOURNEY – DO NOT INTERFERE"
Peter stared. "Do you even know where this goes?"
"Nope," Wade said. "But it involves Atlantis, a mariachi band, and possibly Howard the Duck."
Peter groaned.
Deadpool added, "Also, I found this in the rubble."
He handed Peter a metal card.
On it:
SPIDER-MAN STATUS: RECOGNIZED
STORYLINE: ACTIVE
REWRITE: LOCKED
Peter felt a lump in his throat.
He looked up at the sky.
And just once, it didn't flicker.