The Quinjet's rear hatch whined open, flooding the cabin with the freezing howl of the Pacific slipstream. A streak of gold and red plummeted from the sky, hitting the deck with a heavy metallic thud. The ramp sealed shut. The pressure equalized. Iron Man's faceplate snapped up, revealing Tony Stark's signature smirk.
"Did anyone miss me?"
Janet van Dyne didn't even look up from her StarkPad, casually brushing a wind-blown strand of hair out of her face. "The kid started working the second your thrusters cleared the New York skyline, Tony. I've never seen a teenager so desperate to do unpaid labor."
Tony smirked at the team's wind-messed hair. Hank Pym was entirely absorbed in a scrolling holographic breakdown of vibranium atomic structures. Bruce Banner sat strapped into a jump seat, eyes closed, over-ear noise-canceling headphones leaking the faint sound of Tibetan singing bowls. In the pilot's seat, Steve Rogers stared out the reinforced cockpit windshield, his jaw tight.
Thor, as usual, was off-world.
Tony dropped into the co-pilot seat and flicked aimlessly at a navigational display. "See? This is why I gave him the keys. Can't leave the Tower empty."
Steve didn't look at him. "The kid can handle New York just fine. I'm thinking about our welcoming committee. I fought alongside King T'Challa's grandfather. Every generation of the Black Panther is a warrior. But marching an American paramilitary strike team into Wakanda to grab Ulysses Klaue... that's a geopolitical nightmare. We aren't the US government. The politics are going to be worse than the gunfire."
Tony scoffed. "Politics? Steve, I've managed Capitol Hill hearings while hungover. It's an isolated African monarchy. I can handle it."
Three hours later, a Wakandan vibranium-tipped anti-aircraft round would punch a hole through the Quinjet's port engine, sending them crashing into a dense jungle canopy and stranding Earth's mightiest heroes offline for a month.
But Peter Parker didn't know that.
Peter dumped his backpack on a gleaming stainless-steel workbench. He pulled out the shredded, duct-taped remnants of his suit and shoved them aside. He placed his uncle's vintage Canon film camera on a scanning tray. "JARVIS, can you digitize and develop this film roll?"
"Right away, Mr. Parker," the crisp voice echoed from the ceiling.
"Okay, let's get to work." Peter pulled up a holographic projection of his suit. He paced around it, snapping his fingers as he built a mental checklist. "J-man, keep an ear out on the NYPD frequencies. If anything big hits, let me know. Also, I need the surveillance footage from the Oscorp Expo on March 12th. Do you have that?"
"Mr. Stark archived the relevant data files last week."
"Perfect." Peter expanded the interface with a flick of his wrist. "Now, pull up the full manifest of everything Herman Schultz stole over the last month."
A scrolling list materialized in the air.
Peter leaned over the suit hologram. "What material is Captain America's uniform made of?"
"A proprietary Stark Industries high-flex composite ballistic fiber."
"Give me that. Base layer." Peter tapped the air, applying the texture. "Increase the red webbing spacing by twenty percent." He pinched the original narrow, aggressive black eye lenses and deleted them. He sketched out a pair of wide, round, white lenses, linking them to a mechanical shutter system. "Make these mechanically expressive. They need to widen and narrow based on my facial muscle movements."
"A rather significant aesthetic shift, Mr. Parker," JARVIS noted.
"Yeah, well, the old ones made me look like I was going to eat someone's soul. These look friendlier. Saves time if people can tell when I'm confused."
Twenty minutes and a high-speed Stark 3D-polymer printing cycle later, Peter stepped out of the fabrication lab's changing room.
The Mk. 2 suit was a massive upgrade. The red and blue colors popped, bright and intentional. The composite fabric gripped his frame, infinitely more durable than spandex but completely unrestrictive. He lifted his arms, testing the new web-line glide panels—wingsuit geometry tucked neatly from his ribs to his triceps. He blinked hard. The white mechanical lenses whirred, narrowing to a squint and then snapping wide open.
He'd shrunk the chest spider, making the logo sharp and angular. The back spider was different—a thicker, circular red design. He reached over his shoulder and tapped it. With a soft mechanical click, the entire suit released, collapsing down into a palm-sized, easily concealable disc.
He had ditched the bulky external utility belt for hidden, flush waist pockets. A high-lumen, spider-shaped flashlight sat flush against his belt buckle, angled down for sewer navigation. Inside the lenses, a crisp tactical HUD blinked to life, feeding him real-time comms, environmental data, and a direct link to the Avengers' satellite network.
He fabricated two identical sets. Just in case.
"Alright, JARVIS, I'm uploading the keyword-monitoring algorithm I built from memory," Peter said, sitting back at the console. "Can we integrate this with the Avengers network and the NYPD dispatch system? You guys have official clearance for that, right?"
"I have successfully hacked the NYPD and FDNY secure dispatch mainframes," JARVIS replied smoothly.
Peter froze. His hands hovered over the keyboard. "Wait, hacked? You guys don't have a warrant for that?"
"Mr. Stark prefers efficiency over bureaucracy, Mr. Parker."
Peter swallowed hard. "Okay. Cool. Cool, cool. Just... integrate my program. Filter for key terms: armed robbery, hostage, structural collapse. Filter out the noise the cops can handle themselves. Give me the high-priority alerts straight to my HUD."
Peter tapped the desk. "Load up the Osborn Expo footage. Full 3D volumetric reconstruction."
The lab dissolved into a matrix of gold light, rebuilding the convention center floor around him. Peter grabbed a glass of water and walked slowly through the frozen memory. He saw himself, laughing with Gwen. He watched the glass containment unit shatter. He watched Carl King scoop up the glowing spider and press it to his neck.
"JARVIS, what broke the glass?"
"There is no registered cause of failure in the Oscorp database."
Peter took a sip of water. He walked around to the far side of the hologram. He watched his past self swat at the spider. Then he saw it. Crouched in the periphery, right near the shattered case, was a jagged, pixelated blur. A human silhouette, digitally scrubbed from the recording.
"Who is that? Can you clean up the image?"
"Negative. The data has been heavily encrypted and externally tampered with. The erasure was executed via military-grade scrubbing algorithms."
HYDRA? S.H.I.E.L.D.? Peter noted it and filed it away. He swiped his hand through the hologram, killing the playback.
He pulled up Herman's stolen loot manifest. Exoskeleton spinal nerve connectors. Extreme environment survival suits.
Light particle projectors.
Peter pulled up the schematic. It looked like a fish tank. "What is this?"
"A Horizon Labs prototype. It manipulates light particle reflection to generate photorealistic, three-dimensional projection fields."
"It's a hologram generator," Peter muttered. "But it's a prototype. Unfinished. Herman stole the hardware, and his boss would need someone who actually knows how to make it work. Someone who understands visual trickery and lighting."
Peter leaned forward, resting his hands on the console. "JARVIS, search for missing persons. Cross-reference researchers in light particle physics."
"Zero matches."
"Okay, pivot. Check Hollywood. Search for high-end practical effects and visual effects artists reported missing in the last two months."
JARVIS paused. The servers hummed. "I have one match. Quentin Beck. Regarded as an industry-leading practical effects supervisor. Reported missing exactly one month ago."
Peter stared at the mugshot that populated on the screen. He tapped the glass.
"Got you, Mysterio."