A few minutes earlier.
Peter pushed the woman in her wheelchair down the hospital corridor toward her ward.
"May I know your name?" she asked.
"Peter Parker."
He glanced down at the elderly woman in the chair. "I thought you were really some kind of fortune-teller—that you'd divine my name yourself."
"Of course I could," she replied with a faint smile. "But tell me, are you certain that's your name?"
Peter blinked, then answered evenly, "That's my name."
"Mm. Perhaps names mean little, after all. Maybe I shouldn't dwell on such things."
She rested her hands lightly on the armrests.
"Tell me, Mr. Parker—do you think I'm a fortune-teller?"
"Aren't you?"
Peter's tone was flat. "Tarot cards, palmistry—I've even met people who read tea leaves. Like, if the leaves float upright in a cup, they say it means a guest will arrive."
"You're amusing, Mr. Parker."
The woman smiled again. As they passed through a sunlit stretch of corridor, she pulled a pair of dark glasses from her pocket and slipped them on.
"Forgive me. My eyes are too sensitive to bright light these days."
She explained without being asked, then added:
"You may call me Mrs. Webber. Or Cassandra, if you prefer—that name makes me sound a little younger."
With the glasses on, her words grew more abundant.
"Mr. Parker, I know the practices you mentioned—cards, lines in the palm, omens in teacups. They're pretty trappings, nothing more. In truth…"
She paused, then continued, "The ways of glimpsing destiny are never the same. Some insist there must be rules, some structure, and so they demand that all who peer into fate follow the same laws they believe in."
Peter listened carefully, then asked, "That makes sense. So then—how do you read destiny, Mrs. Webber?"
She motioned for him to stop pushing and step around to face her.
"Would you like to try it for yourself, Mr. Parker?"
"Of course."
He nodded.
Once, in his past life, he had been a staunch atheist—skeptical of all things mystical.
But after crossing into this Marvel world, where magic and impossibility abounded, his beliefs had shifted.
And now, standing before this enigmatic woman, curiosity urged him to see what she might reveal.
"What do I need to do?" he asked.
"Simply give me your hand."
She gestured for his left hand.
Peter hesitated, then placed it into hers.
Behind the tinted lenses, her expression was hidden, but the moment her fingers touched his skin, her demeanor grew solemn.
"How strange…"
Her voice was low, weathered. "Strange indeed. I cannot see the end of your life, nor even your death. It's as though you drift beyond the currents of fate and time, bound by nothing."
Her grip tightened. Veins bulged on the back of her hands, her face twisting in strain as though wrestling with something unseen.
Peter crouched slightly before her, his reflection captured in her black lenses.
The sunglasses seemed like twin vortices, pulling at his consciousness.
The next moment, dizziness swept over him.
The hospital corridor, filled with chatter and footsteps, dissolved.
In its place stretched an endless void.
Above, a dim sky. Below, a city reduced to ruin, burning under ash and smoke.
New York lay in ruins. Dust-choked air blotted out the heavens.
Even the Statue of Liberty had fallen, its pedestal alone engulfed in flames.
Everywhere—desolation, silence, death.
"Boom!"
The ground shook as though struck by rockets. Shockwaves rattled his eardrums.
From the settling haze emerged a lone figure.
A man dropped heavily onto the shattered earth.
It was… himself.
Or rather, Peter Parker, years older, grim and hardened.
He wore a black suit streaked with white, a uniform radiating menace.
Helmetless, his face was bare as he bent to lift something from the rubble.
A glove. Not just any glove.
The Infinity Gauntlet.
Dusty, battered, but unmistakable.
His older self fixed his gaze on the weapon, then slid it onto his right hand.
The moment he did, the ruins trembled.
From every shadow, from every collapsed street, came the roars.
Hordes of alien creatures surged forth—grotesque, varied, endless.
From horizon to horizon they poured, a tide of blackness consuming the land.
Their presence was suffocating, their numbers uncountable.
And then
The vision vanished like receding waves.
The ruins dissolved. The creatures were gone.
The hospital corridor returned.
The noise of human life filled his ears once more.
Peter stood there, pulled back into reality.
Mrs. Webber gasped and released his hand. With a heavy thud she sagged into her chair, panting for breath.
Her face was pale with shock as she looked at him anew.
"That was… that was—"
She broke into violent coughing.
"Impossible. How… how could you—"
With trembling hands, she tore off her sunglasses.
Her clouded eyes widened in disbelief.
Peter's voice was calm, almost too calm.
"Looks like my future isn't very bright. What did you see, Mrs. Webber?"
Though his heart still raced at the memory of what he'd glimpsed, he masked it under cool indifference.
"You…" Her voice shook. "You have a monster living inside you, Peter."
Her composure had shattered. Pressing a hand to her chest, she whispered,
"I saw the end of the world. I heard the footsteps of Death itself. You—you are the hand of Death!"