Lab 4 occupied the sub-level directly beneath Tony's main workshop—a space that felt less like a laboratory and more like the inside of a high-end observatory. Curved white walls absorbed sound. The ceiling glowed with soft, adjustable daylight simulation. In the center stood the quantum resonance imager: a sleek, ring-shaped apparatus suspended by magnetic rails, its inner surface lined with thousands of microscopic emitters that could map neural activity down to the synaptic level without breaking skin.
Peter stood in the middle of the room wearing nothing but borrowed Stark Industries sweatpants and a plain black T-shirt that smelled faintly of new fabric and ozone. His suit hung in a nearby decontamination locker, still damp. The interface had gone unusually quiet since they'd descended—status panel minimized, quest notifications paused. Almost polite.
Tony circled the imager, tapping commands into a floating holographic interface. "Ground rules," he said without looking up. "We run three passes. Low power, mid, then—if you're still breathing—full spectrum. Each pass lasts ninety seconds. You feel anything off—pain, vertigo, voices in your head that aren't polite text—you say 'stop' and we kill power instantly. No heroics."
Peter nodded. "Got it."
Steve leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, shield propped beside him like a silent sentinel. He hadn't spoken much since the elevator ride down. Just watched.
Tony paused, fingers hovering over the controls. "Last chance to back out, kid. We can chalk tonight up to bad Thai food and collective paranoia."
Peter met his eyes. "I've spent my whole life wondering why me. If this thing knows the answer… I want to hear it."
Tony gave a small, almost approving nod. "Fair enough. FRIDAY—begin baseline scan. No resonance yet. Just vitals and background EM."
The lights dimmed slightly. A faint hum rose from the ring. Peter felt nothing at first—just the cool air on his bare arms and the faint prickle of static electricity.
Then the interface stirred.
**[External Scan Detected]**
**[Source: Stark Industries Quantum Resonance Imager v4.2]**
**[Intent: Non-Invasive Mapping]**
**[Response Protocol: Passive Observation Permitted]**
Peter exhaled slowly. "It knows you're looking."
Tony glanced up sharply. "Talk to me."
"It's… acknowledging the scan. Says passive observation is okay. No countermeasures."
Steve pushed off the wall. "That's either good news or very calculated good news."
"Both," Tony muttered. "FRIDAY—increase to ten percent resonance. Watch for feedback loops."
The hum deepened. Peter felt a gentle pressure behind his eyes—not pain, more like someone resting fingertips against his temples. The interface brightened.
**[Resonance Level: 10%]**
**[Neural Overlay Integrity: 100%]**
**[Data Leakage: 0.004% (within acceptable parameters)]**
Peter relayed it aloud. Tony's expression stayed neutral, but his fingers moved faster.
"Mid-range," Tony said. "Twenty-five percent. Hold if anything changes."
The pressure increased—subtle waves rolling through his skull, like listening to distant thunder from underwater. Images flickered at the edges of his awareness: fragmented memories not entirely his own. A sterile white room. A glass enclosure. Something small and black skittering across a lab table. Then gone.
Peter blinked hard. "I'm seeing things. Flashes. Lab setting. Spider in a container. Not my memories."
Tony froze. "Describe."
"Clinical. White walls. Metal table. The spider… it's bigger than the one that bit me. Enhanced? Modified?"
Steve stepped closer. "Anything else?"
Peter shook his head. "Just glimpses. Then static."
Tony's jaw tightened. "FRIDAY—freeze mid-scan. Isolate neural signature from the overlay."
"Processing," the AI replied. "Anomaly signature isolated. Non-terrestrial quantum entanglement detected. Origin vector: uncharted. Probability of extradimensional source: 73%."
The room went very still.
Peter looked at Tony. "Extradimensional?"
Tony rubbed his face with one hand. "Not Asgard. Not the Quantum Realm exactly. Something… sideways. Parallel adjacency, maybe. The kind of place where physics gets creative and biology gets experimental."
Peter swallowed. "So the spider wasn't from Earth."
"Or it was engineered here using off-world tech," Tony said. "Either way, someone wanted a very specific outcome when it bit you."
The interface pulsed—brighter this time.
**[Scan Depth Increasing]**
**[Warning: Deeper resonance may trigger defensive subroutine]**
**[Recommendation: Terminate external input or risk partial exposure]**
Peter repeated the warning word for word.
Tony's eyes narrowed. "Defensive subroutine. Cute. FRIDAY—pull back to fifteen percent. We're not cracking this egg tonight."
The pressure eased immediately. Peter rolled his shoulders, feeling the tension bleed out of his neck.
Steve spoke quietly. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just… tired. Like I ran a marathon in my head."
Tony shut down the imager with a gesture. The ring powered off with a descending whine. Lights returned to normal.
He turned to Peter. "We got enough for one night. The signature's real. It's old—older than any tech we've cataloged outside of the Tesseract or the Mind Stone. And it's keyed to you specifically."
Peter pulled the borrowed shirt over his head, hiding the shiver that ran down his spine. "What now?"
Tony exchanged a glance with Steve. "Now we don't panic. We don't tell the rest of the team yet—not until we have something concrete. We keep you off the grid as much as possible. Patrols continue, but shorter windows. No solo deep dives into known hot zones."
Peter started to protest—then stopped. The logic was sound. He hated it, but it was sound.
Steve stepped forward. "You've got people counting on you, Peter. May. Your friends. You can't protect them if you're offline because you pushed too hard."
Peter nodded slowly. "I know."
Tony crossed to a workbench, picked up a small black band—sleek, matte, no visible seams. "Here. Temporary dampener. Wear it when you're not swinging. It'll mask your neural signature from passive scans. Won't block the System, but it'll make it harder for whatever's watching to get a clean read."
Peter took the band. It was surprisingly light. He slipped it onto his left wrist. It tightened automatically, then went invisible—blending with his skin tone.
"Stylish," he said dryly.
"Functional," Tony corrected. "And if it starts itching or glowing, get to me fast."
Peter looked between them. "You're really doing this. Helping me. No strings."
Steve's expression softened. "There are always strings, kid. But these ones are the good kind. The kind that hold you up instead of tying you down."
Tony snorted. "He's getting poetic in his old age. Don't encourage it."
Peter managed a small smile—the first real one since the alley.
They rode the elevator back up in silence. When the doors opened onto the main floor, the city lights had shifted—dawn not far off, the sky turning the bruised purple of pre-morning.
Tony paused at the glass doors. "Go home. Sleep. Eat something that didn't come from a bodega. We'll talk tomorrow—properly. Bring coffee if you want bonus points."
Peter nodded. "Thanks. Both of you."
Steve walked him to the private elevator that would take him to street level. Before the doors closed, he spoke once more.
"You're stronger than you think, Peter. Whatever this System wants… it picked you for a reason. Make sure that reason ends up being your strength, not its weapon."
The doors slid shut.
Peter descended alone.
Outside, the city was waking—delivery trucks rumbling, early joggers appearing on sidewalks, the first hints of sunlight cutting between buildings. He pulled his mask back on, webbed to the nearest rooftop, and swung toward Queens.
The interface reappeared—cautious, subdued.
**[External Interference Mitigated]**
**[Trust Baseline with Designated Allies: 91%]**
**[New Intel Fragment Unlocked: Origin Hypothesis]**
**"Arachnid vector engineered via trans-dimensional resonance. Purpose: Catalyst for adaptive evolution. Subject selected for baseline resilience and moral alignment."**
Peter paused mid-swing, clinging to the side of a water tower. He read the fragment twice.
Moral alignment.
The words sat heavy in his chest.
He looked out over the waking city—his city—and felt the familiar weight of responsibility settle back into place. Only this time, it didn't feel quite so solitary.
He released the web, shot a new line, and swung on—faster now, lighter.
Behind him, in the tower, Tony watched the red-and-blue figure disappear into the skyline.
"FRIDAY," he said quietly.
"Yes, boss?"
"Start cross-referencing every known trans-dimensional incursion since the '40s. Look for patterns. Spiders. Evolution. Anything that smells like a long game."
"Already running, sir."
Tony stared at the empty sky a moment longer.
Then he turned back inside.
Because some games, he knew, weren't won in a single move.
They were won by refusing to lose.
To be continued...