"So, to summarize," Tony Stark said, leaning back in his plush leather chair and pinching the bridge of his nose. "The entire Michael Korvac situation was technically resolved peacefully. We didn't lose the planet. But our grand prize is the absolute certainty that a thirty-first-century time-traveling warlord is going to launch a full-scale multiversal invasion against us in the near future."
Back in New York, safely inside the secure upper levels of Avengers Tower, Tony and Reed Richards were holding a grim debriefing.
They had deliberately excluded Steve Rogers from this specific conversation. The Captain was already struggling enough with the culture shock of waking up seventy years in the future. Dropping the impending doom of a thousand-year temporal invasion on the old soldier's shoulders felt unnecessarily cruel. Preparing for the "Kang Dynasty" was a problem strictly meant for the futurists.
Everyone in the room knew that when Kang the Conqueror inevitably returned, he wouldn't be popping out of a portal alone to throw sloppy punches. He was the emperor of a chronal empire. He would bring an armada.
"Yeah. We survived two alien invasions this year, and now we're officially on the clock for a future one," Tony laughed, a dry, helpless sound. "You know what the biggest problem is, Reed? It doesn't matter what countermeasures we build. That guy lives in the future. He can just open a history book and see exactly what we're preparing. We're practically shadowboxing."
"We can't just do nothing, Tony," Reed replied, pacing the length of the lab. "My localized dimensional shuttle is nearly finished. Give me half a month. Once the bridge is stable, we can actively seek out alliances and resources from other parallel universes."
Reed stopped pacing and looked at Tony. "What about the Avengers? What is Hank Pym proposing?"
"Hank thinks the only way to beat a threat that can predict human behavior is to remove the human element entirely," Tony said, a dark shadow crossing his face. "He wants to take the base code for JARVIS or his own Ultron program and upgrade it into a fully autonomous, self-evolving global defense AI."
Reed frowned. The data they had scraped together from their brief stint across the multiverse made Tony deeply uneasy about that exact path.
"What about our space backup?" Tony asked, changing the subject. "Where are the Guardians of the Galaxy?"
"They made it very clear that they handle galactic issues, not Earth's localized temporal disputes," Reed sighed.
In truth, the Guardians had their own immediate baggage to handle. Peter Quill had just discovered that his grandfather was actually still alive back in Missouri and was currently attempting a highly awkward family reunion. Meanwhile, Rocket had finally processed the revelation that he was, in fact, a raccoon, and that the "High Evolutionary" who had tortured and modified him was actually a human scientist. Rocket was currently obsessed with gathering enough heavy ordnance to hunt the man down and blow him to pieces.
It was entirely unrealistic to expect the eccentric space mercenaries to show up on time when Kang's armada finally darkened the sky.
"Right. Fantastic," Tony muttered, taking a sip of his coffee. "Okay, what about the Air Force Colonel? Danvers?"
"Her biology was fundamentally rewritten by Korvac's residual cosmic energy," Reed explained, pulling up a holographic biometric scan. "She has essentially become a living, superhuman battery. She can passively absorb ambient energy to reinforce her cellular structure, granting her immense physical strength, and she can project that energy outward as concussive blasts."
Reed shrugged slightly. "I'm still running the final calculations on her upper limits, but functionally, she shouldn't be too strong."
"Great. Let's hope no more spontaneous superhumans pop up from this mess," Tony sighed, rubbing his temples as a headache began to form. "If a decorated U.S. military officer officially has superpowers, General Ross and the Pentagon are going to throw a parade."
Unfortunately for Tony's headache, the next superpowered individual emerged almost immediately.
Down in Puerto Rico, Peter Parker was enjoying a rare, quiet moment of downtime. He was sitting on a plush sofa in the hotel's middle-floor entertainment lounge, absentmindedly scrolling through his phone as the team prepared for the flight back to New York.
Suddenly, the Spider-Sense at the base of his skull gave a weird, muffled twitch. It wasn't the sharp, icy spike of immediate danger. It felt more like a static glitch—a blind spot forming right behind his head.
Peter's reflexes took over. He reached a hand backward over the sofa and caught a slender wrist mid-air.
He tilted his head back, looking upside down. He blinked in surprise.
"Gwen?" Peter asked, releasing his grip. "I... didn't even hear your footsteps."
Gwen rubbed her wrist, a massive, excited grin spreading across her face as she vaulted over the back of the sofa and plopped down next to him. "See?! Even you need me to get right into your personal space to notice me, right?"
Peter raised an eyebrow, shifting to face her. "...Okay. Did you secretly learn some high-level ninja stealth techniques while I wasn't looking?"
"Not exactly," Gwen said, her eyes practically sparkling with nervous energy. She pointed a finger at the opposite wall. "Turn around. Look away from me for a second."
Peter gave her a skeptical look but did as instructed, turning his body to face the empty lounge. He stared at a potted plant. A second passed. He looked back down at his phone, his thumb hovering over the screen.
Wait. What was I just doing? Peter's brow furrowed. He looked around the empty room, a strange, floaty feeling settling over his brain. Did someone just call my name?
He turned his head back to the right.
Gwen was sitting right there on the sofa, grinning at him.
Peter flinched, his eyes widening in sudden, profound realization. "Wait. Are you... do you have power?!"
"Yes!" Gwen squealed quietly, bouncing in her seat. "I figured it out this morning! If I actively concentrate, anyone who isn't directly looking at me completely forgets that I exist! It's been happening ever since we got out of the Soul Stone. Or, more accurately, since Korvac healed Carol and left."
Peter stared at her, his genius-level brain rapidly calculating the variables. The Cosmic Cube possessed the ultimate power to alter reality.
When Korvac vanished, the residual reality-warping energy hadn't given her radioactive spider-blood. It had given her a completely different conceptual ability.
"If you hadn't turned your head back to look at me just now," Gwen beamed, "Gwen Stacy wouldn't exist in your mind. You wouldn't remember my face, you wouldn't know what I've done, and you wouldn't know I was sitting right next to you."
While Gwen was incredibly excited, Peter was instantly terrified.
"Gwen, is this ability passive?" Peter asked, his voice dead serious. "Or do you have to trigger it manually?"
"It's active," Gwen assured him, waving a hand dismissively. "I have to proactively focus to make it happen. If it was a passive aura, that would be a complete nightmare."
Peter let out a massive, heavy sigh of relief. He had read enough sci-fi and comic books to know exactly how horrific that power could be. He thought of ForgetMeNot from the X-Men—a mutant whose power made everyone instantly forget him the second they looked away, leaving him in a state of perpetual, agonizing isolation. Or the Silence from Doctor Who. If Gwen's power went out of control and the entire world permanently forgot her, it would be a tragedy he couldn't fix.
"So, what do you think my codename should be?" Gwen asked, leaning forward eagerly. "Ghost?"
"There's already a SHIELD Strike team member running around calling herself Ghost, so the name is taken," Peter rejected the idea immediately.
Besides, if Gwen eventually gained real spider-powers on top of this memory-wiping ability, she would literally be a "Ghost-Spider"—a superhero that nobody could ever remember saving them. That sounded incredibly depressing.
"First of all, we need Reed to run a full diagnostic to confirm this ability is strictly residual Cosmic Cube energy and not an activated X-Gene," Peter said, slipping into his serious, protective Spider-Man mode.
Gwen stuck her tongue out playfully, waiting for the lecture she knew was coming.
"Secondly... I really don't think this ability is suited for traditional superhero work," Peter continued, his brow furrowed in thought. "You can't exactly be a symbol of hope if the civilians immediately forget you rescued them. S.H.I.E.L.D. would absolutely kill to recruit you for black-ops espionage, but believe me, you do not want to get tangled up with Nick Fury. So you should probably just... stay out of the vigilante business?"
Peter winced even as he said it. He knew it was a completely futile request. Telling Gwen Stacy not to get involved was like telling gravity to stop pulling.
If she's going to use this for stealth and infiltration, Peter thought privately, maybe I should introduce her to Felicia Hardy. The Black Cat could actually teach her how to sneak around without getting shot.
While Peter was busy racking his brain for a safe training regimen, Gwen suddenly reached out and placed a hand on his arm. Her excited, playful demeanor vanished, replaced by a sudden, heavy seriousness.
"Okay. We can figure out the superpower stuff later," Gwen said softly, looking him dead in the eyes. "Actually, I needed to talk to you about something else. Something really important."
Peter sat up a little straighter, his Spider-Sense giving a faint, non-lethal hum of anxiety. "Okay. What is it?"
Gwen swallowed hard, a faint blush creeping up her neck.
"It's about what I saw inside the Soul Stone," Gwen whispered. "It's about my... perfect world."