"So we're supposed to just steal the watch from him?" Pietro asked incredulously, pointing at himself for emphasis.
"Excuse me—who just got comprehensively defeated and beaten into unconsciousness? That would be us! All of us!"
"But if he doesn't actively transform, he's functionally just an ordinary person," Harry observed pragmatically. "If this were our Ben facing us, I'd concede the situation was hopeless. But..."
But could a mere zombie—even one possessing the Omnitrix—genuinely stump these elite Plumber operatives?
"Yeah, we've got a white-haired, non-mainstream edgelord speedster and a dinosaur kid with transformation issues," Tony Stark interjected.
He'd regained consciousness at some point during the tactical discussion. His body remained twisted into a pretzel configuration—recovery wouldn't be simple or rapid. Excessive medication doses could cause newly regenerated tissue to develop incorrectly, creating permanent deformities.
Therefore, nearly every bone required careful reshaping before accelerated healing could commence safely.
The pain was absolutely excruciating. No need to elaborate on that particular agony.
"Not only that, we also have canned processed meat," Pietro immediately retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "How about we leave you there as bait to attract their attention?"
He simply despised the ridiculous nickname Tony had assigned him.
"Are you actively trying to get me killed?" Tony asked with mock hurt.
Then his expression shifted to genuine seriousness, and his body began moving within the nutrient solution—pressing against the reinforced glass container with evident urgency.
"Actually, I've been conscious and listening to this entire conversation for quite some time now."
"Just now?" Pietro raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"From when you started reminiscing about wonderful childhood memories," Tony clarified. At least he possessed sufficient social awareness for that.
"Guys—isn't there anyone else here who, after hearing that complete story, thinks the zombie kid didn't actually do anything wrong?"
The question hung in the air like a physical weight.
Peter and the others maintained uncomfortable silence.
Standard zombie movie narrative structure dictated that situations spiraled catastrophically out of control specifically because the first infected individual wasn't immediately eliminated—sentimental attachment overriding survival pragmatism.
"But what if YOUR family members transformed into zombies?" Gwen asked, her voice cracking with barely controlled emotion.
She looked like she wanted to physically reach into the nutrient tank and drag Tony out just to strangle him.
"Could you simply stand by and watch them die without attempting intervention?"
"Could you bring yourself to execute them personally?"
"Haven't you ever considered the possibility—however remote—that there might eventually be a cure? That mercy might not be weakness?"
Tony slammed his fist against the glass, the impact reverberating through the solution. "I'm trying to prevent the scenario where that choice becomes necessary! Steal that zombie's watch, and then what?!"
"You've spent nearly twenty years researching an antidote with zero progress! Are you genuinely expecting some miraculous breakthrough in the next few hours?!"
"Listen—I'm not claiming I'm entirely on their side philosophically. After all, that particular madman is planning to drag two entire universes into mutual extinction. My pragmatic suggestion is: this universe is objectively beyond salvation. Let Otto simply detonate the antimatter annihilation weapon and destroy this contaminated planet."
Gwen fell silent, unable to formulate counterarguments.
She actually knew Tony was correct on a tactical level. She harbored desperate hope—a beautiful dream. But she couldn't justify dragging another clean universe into apocalypse just to preserve that dream of saving Ben.
"I know locations of some survivor camps," Gwen finally said, her voice hollow with defeat. "I'll mark their coordinates on your navigation systems. We have six hours remaining before collision. Please... help them evacuate before the end."
She slumped against the cave wall as though accepting inevitable fate. The belief—or perhaps more accurately, the lie—that had sustained her survival all these years had been exposed as futile delusion.
What remained within her body wasn't even despair anymore. Just exhaustion. Numbness. The emotional equivalent of empty calories.
But Tony's next declaration reignited her anger with explosive force.
"Survivors?" His tone carried disturbing finality.
"There ARE no survivors. Not in any meaningful sense."
His gaze swept methodically across everyone present, making deliberate eye contact.
"Nobody—including us—is permitted to leave this Earth alive."
"Stark, have you lost your mind?!" Wanda glared at him with genuine fury, chaos magic flickering involuntarily around her clenched fists.
She felt Tony hadn't been beaten nearly enough earlier.
Previously, Tony had found making eye contact with Wanda extremely difficult—guilt over Sokovia always interfering.
This time proved different. He didn't retreat or deflect at all, maintaining steady eye contact while speaking with absolute conviction: "Who can definitively guarantee those survivors aren't infected with dormant virus? Even assuming they're genuinely clean, who can confirm they won't carry the pathogen asymptomatically?"
"We face identical risks! I will never allow something capable of destroying entire universes to be transported back to our reality!"
"You want us all to die here?!" Pietro stared at Tony with profound disbelief, struggling to process what he was hearing.
"Mr. Stark, aren't you taking this philosophy a bit too far?" Peter asked carefully, his voice carrying hurt confusion.
Is it extreme?
Tony countered immediately: "The fact that this virus contaminated an entire universe demonstrates exactly how catastrophically dangerous it is!"
If only Earth had been infected, destroying a single planet would suffice. But Ben Tennyson's stated goal was annihilating the entire universe through collision mechanics—which proved the viral spread had reached literally unimaginable scale.
If this universe couldn't be defended, Tony possessed zero confidence about successfully protecting their home reality.
He'd be completely straightforward about his reasoning.
Tony's expression softened fractionally, becoming almost kind: "Pepper is pregnant."
That revelation hung in the air—the missing context that explained everything.
"Then you especially shouldn't advocate suicide missions," Harry said quietly. "I heard Howard Stark died when you were young. You understand better than anyone the profound impact of absent fathers on childhood development."
"I know," Tony nodded, his voice carrying absolute certainty despite the pain. "But that's still infinitely preferable to my daughter being born into a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland."
"Listen carefully. I've done tremendous numbers of terrible things throughout my life. Most of the time, the mistakes stemmed from arrogance—thinking 'it's acceptable to do this,' or 'the situation isn't that serious,' or 'I can handle whatever consequences emerge'... and what were the results?"
"Repeated catastrophic failures."
"We absolutely cannot assume survivors are harmless just because they appear uninfected. If all infected individuals mutate after being bitten, then where did Patient Zero originate? How did primary transmission occur?"
"But how can we justify violence against genuinely innocent people?" Peter found the entire proposition almost impossible to accept.
He'd been designated the team's "conscience"—and while he wasn't quite as rigid as other Spider-Men under Ben's influence, being asked to execute potentially innocent survivors who weren't infected represented a moral bridge too far.
Perhaps those people were persevering through unimaginable suffering specifically because they believed hope might eventually return. That rescue might arrive.
But what they'd receive instead wasn't salvation. Just executioners from another universe preemptively murdering them to prevent theoretical contamination.
"Don't misunderstand my position, Peter," Tony said carefully. "Saving them isn't our duty or obligation. It's simply the last vestige of moral conscience within our hearts demanding we try. But if that 'justice' conflicts directly with protecting our home universe's safety, I will not hesitate to prioritize our people. Every single time."
"Perhaps you're correct on a philosophical level, Mr. Stark," Peter replied, his voice gaining strength. "But at minimum, we cannot reach definitive conclusions without actually trying to help first."
"Twenty years represents just twenty years for Dr. Animo and Gwen specifically. But there are considerably more of us available! Wanda and E.U.N.I.C.E. possess knowledge of mystical systems Dr. Animo never studied. You yourself—even Ben acknowledges you're a genuine genius. He says you're 'a person cursed by knowledge.' But right now, you won't even attempt the challenge."
"Six hours? Who definitively says we cannot engineer a miracle in that timeframe? Or has the famous Tony Stark lost even this much confidence in his abilities?"
Tony was considerably more emotionally mature than his younger self. "A transparent provocation tactic. Don't assume I'll fall for such obvious manipulation."
"There's genuinely no harm in attempting, Tony," E.U.N.I.C.E. interjected pragmatically. "Even if we fail to develop a cure, we can still activate the Annihilation Weapon as originally planned. The outcome remains identical."
They were all prepared to sacrifice themselves in this doomed universe if necessary.
Understanding that profound commitment, even Gwen—who'd initially harbored resentment toward these dimensional outsiders—couldn't formulate protests.
They weren't ruthlessly destroying this universe's final hope. Instead, they were paying the ultimate price for their decision with their own lives, voluntarily sharing this reality's fate.
"And perhaps Ben Parker can develop solutions faster than we can," Peter added with cautious optimism.
Hydra's Universe
The situation on Ben's side wasn't proceeding any better than the zombie universe crisis.
Inside a massive SHIELD helicarrier—though the insignia had been comprehensively altered—Steve Rogers stood before Ben and his dimensional travelers.
Except this Steve wore the Hydra emblem prominently embroidered across his chest, the octopus-skull symbol replacing the star.
Captain Hydra.
Ben felt profoundly numb, his brain struggling to process the cognitive dissonance.
Before departing on this mission, he'd never imagined arriving in a universe where Hydra ruled openly—where their fascist ideology had apparently won.
Moreover, the supreme leader of this victorious Hydra was Steve Rogers himself.
Ben would bet significant money that if their universe's Steve knew about this particular alternate reality, he'd frantically pull out ten-dollar bills and stuff them into collection plates at every church in New York.
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