The echo of bootsteps followed Alex and Deadpool as they walked away from Avengers Tower, the air thick with that special kind of disappointment you feel when your "in" turns out to be a dead end.
Behind them, at the gate, Bucky Barnes stepped out of the shadows. His long coat swayed in the wind as he approached the guards.
"Who were they?" His voice was calm, steady—like a blade pressed against the throat without drawing blood.
The lead guard straightened. "No idea, sir. They didn't give names. But…" He hesitated, then added, "They had this."
The guard held up the scan log. Stark's authentication.
Bucky's eyes narrowed. "That card was Stark's. He only gave it to people he trusted."
The other guard nodded quickly. "Exactly, sir. We didn't let them in because they had no clearance with the New Avengers. But if Stark trusted them—"
Bucky cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand. His eyes lingered on the city beyond the barricade, where Alex and Deadpool were now swallowed by the crowd.
"Keep your eyes open," he muttered. "If Stark trusted them, then they're more important than you think."
Meanwhile, on the other side of Manhattan, Alex and Deadpool drifted aimlessly down the streets.
The city was still alive—blinking neon, roaring traffic, that same restless heartbeat—but something about it felt… detached. Alex caught himself staring at little things. Storefronts that had changed. Ads plastered over walls that didn't exist two years ago. Even the air felt different, as though New York had kept moving forward without them.
Deadpool, meanwhile, was locked in a heated debate with a hotdog vendor about whether adding pineapple to a frank should be considered a war crime.
"See, Alex," he announced proudly, ketchup dripping down his glove, "this city still understands me. Judge me all you want, but pineapple adds complexity to the bite. Texture. Sweetness. An ironic twist—like your face every time I open my mouth."
Alex rolled his eyes and kept walking. That's when they both froze at the sight of a giant screen mounted above Times Square.
A familiar face.
J. Jonah Jameson, blustering, red-faced, and pointing a finger into the lens like it personally owed him money.
"Spider-Menace!" he bellowed. "For years, I've said it—for YEARS—that so-called 'hero' has endangered this city more than he's ever saved it! Swinging around rooftops, breaking property, attracting psychos in colorful suits—he's nothing but a walking disaster!"
Deadpool threw his hands up. "Oh my god, this guy's still alive? This man has been yelling about Spider-Man since Bush was in office. Can somebody just get him a hobby?"
But then Jameson's tone shifted. His eyes darted downward for the briefest second before he cleared his throat and continued, voice edged with something he didn't want to show.
"However…" He coughed. "For the past month… Spider-Man has been missing. Vanished. No one knows where he is. No sightings. No appearances. Nothing."
The screen flickered with grainy clips of Spider-Man in action—old footage, grainy rooftop chases, still shots of him saving civilians. Each one a ghost of someone who, suddenly, felt gone.
Jameson leaned closer to the camera. "And I'll say this, folks—whether you liked him or not, you've got to admit… the city feels… different without him." His voice trailed, softer than usual. "Maybe too different."
The feed cut to commercial.
Alex and Deadpool stood there, caught in the buzzing silence of the street.
Deadpool muttered, "Well. That's… ominous. And not the fun kind of ominous where a clown car pulls up and forty guys with machetes hop out. Nope. That's the 'uh-oh, plot incoming' kind of ominous."
Alex said nothing. But his stomach twisted.