"A bank heist on the very first day of the new year?" Peter yelled over the rushing wind. "I know 'new year, new you' is a popular resolution, but you didn't have to start a whole new crime spree!"
Down in Manhattan, the Citibank vault had just been ripped wide open by a brand-new supervillain. His name was Bingley Whitman. He called himself the 'Tech Wizard.' He didn't have innate superpowers. He wore a telepathic helmet that controlled a swarm of anti-gravity hover-discs. Naturally, he stood on one to fly.
"Stay back, Spider-Man!" the twenty-something scientist shrieked. "I control the fundamental forces of gravity! Come any closer, and I'll crush you with fifty times the Earth's normal mass!"
"If your supervillain name was 'Graviton' instead of 'Tech Wizard,' I might actually be intimidated!" Peter yelled back.
Peter fired a web-line, aiming squarely for the flight disc under Whitman's boots. Whitman panicked. He banked hard. The disc veered sideways, projecting a sudden, massive gravitational pull that yanked Peter off his swing path.
Peter didn't flinch. As the gravity well pulled him in closer, thick black symbiote tendrils erupted from his wrists. The Venom biomass slammed into the disc, shattering the anti-gravity projector into sparks. Peter immediately fired another web, continuing the chase.
"Seriously, you're obviously a genius!" Peter called out, dodging a flying mailbox the gravity field had ripped off its bolts. "Why not just apply for a research grant at Stark Industries or the Baxter Building? You literally invented functional anti-gravity! Just patent the tech and wait for the venture capital to roll in! Why are you robbing a bank?"
"Oscorp stole my patent!" Whitman screamed.
A massive wave of repulsive force slammed into Peter's chest. The impact launched Spider-Man backward through the air. Peter fired two web-lines instantly, anchoring them to the brick facades of the buildings on either side of the street. He let his backward momentum stretch the silk to its absolute limit. He planted his boots in the air, angled his body, and released the tension. He slingshot himself straight back toward the Tech Wizard at Mach speed, deploying his underarm web-gliders to match the villain's altitude.
"Okay, cool, it's the classic 'Oscorp stole my homework' origin story," Peter quipped. "Let's change the subject. I've been pondering a weird hypothetical lately. If someone enters an alternate dimension where time flows differently, how does their legal age work? Biologically they're older, but socially? Would the DMV let them get a driver's license? Can they buy a lottery ticket?"
"Shut up! Shut up!" Whitman shrieked, his hands tearing at his helmet. "Just shut your mouth!"
"I really wish I could, but it's kind of my whole brand," Peter said.
Peter's ADHD brain was currently running at maximum capacity. He hadn't actually planned to bring up the age question, but seeing Illyana transform from a twelve-year-old girl into a volatile teenager after a short stint in Limbo had him genuinely confused about the legal logistics.
He was also actively worrying about larger threats. The timeline was an absolute mess right now. If his universe overlapped with the MCU, Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) might try to assassinate President Ellis. But A.I.M. was now officially partnered with the Military. They were secretly providing logistical support to the Avengers. Investigating them was going to be a bureaucratic nightmare.
And then there was Kang the Conqueror. The time-traveler was actively rewriting destinies.
But first, Peter had to catch the angry tech-bro and recover the stolen millions.
"So, why don't you put the money back down, and we can discuss your patent dispute?" Peter suggested. "Maybe Oscorp will feel guilty and give your tech back?"
Peter thrust his hands forward. The Venom symbiote surged out, wrapping around three of the defensive gravity discs swarming Whitman. The scientist sneered, instantly dialing the gravity up on those specific discs to crush the tendrils.
It didn't work. The symbiote was a highly adaptable molecular organism. The black biomass simply slithered through the intense pressure, flexed, and violently crushed the metal hardware to dust.
Whitman panicked. He sent his remaining discs swarming in a tight perimeter around Peter. The discs activated simultaneously, locking Peter in a multi-directional gravity well designed to rip him limb from limb.
"Haha! Spider-Man!" Whitman laughed hysterically. "Let's see you survive being torn apart by gravity!"
"First of all," Peter sighed, standing perfectly still in the center of the trap. "This is what, five Gs? That's a mild roller coaster for me. Second of all, I don't actually need to move."
Whitman blinked. He looked down.
"After all," Peter pointed out. "You only have two active discs left. One is keeping you in the air. The other is carrying your stolen cash."
A thick strand of white silk was already plastered to Whitman's primary flight disc.
Whitman didn't even have time to scream. The web-line yanked backward. The flight disc spun out from under his feet. The scientist plummeted out of the sky. A split-second later, a massive net of webbing caught him mid-air and slammed him securely against the side of a glass office building.
Without the flight disc, the secondary disc holding the stolen cash sputtered and died. Tens of millions of dollars in bundled hundred-dollar bills plummeted toward the street.
Peter broke completely out of the gravity well. He dove. He fired rapid-fire bursts of webbing, weaving a massive, suspended net across the intersection. The bundles of cash hit the silk with heavy, lethal thuds.
"People forget how heavy paper actually is," Peter muttered, dropping lightly onto the asphalt. "Hundreds of pounds of cash falling from the sky is a major blunt-force hazard."
Peter looked up. Silk dropped down from a nearby fire escape, landing quietly beside him.
"Nice timing, Cindy," Peter said.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. gave us a light training schedule for the holiday," Silk said, adjusting her red mask. "I saw the chase on the news. Figured you could use a hand."
Up on the wall, the Tech Wizard thrashed against the thick webbing. "You cheated, Spider-Man! If you hadn't used your obnoxious babbling to distract me, you wouldn't have—"
"It's called tactical misdirection, buddy," Peter said. He fired a quick glob of webbing, cleanly sealing the villain's mouth shut.
Sirens wailed down the block. A heavy armored bank transport and several NYPD cruisers swerved into the intersection, their lights flashing against the snow. Captain George Stacy stepped out of the lead car. He slammed the door, looking completely exhausted.
"Thanks for the assist, Spider-Man," Stacy called out, walking over to the webbed cash.
Peter stepped forward. "You look beat, Captain. Something wrong?"
Stacy sighed, resting a hand heavily on his duty belt. "We have a major problem. Missing persons, bomb blasts, and a very strange report. A citizen called in claiming someone dropped off a glowing, supernatural artifact offering them superpowers. When patrol arrived, the apartment was empty. We need your help."
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