Chapter 127 - 127

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….

The young Morales froze. His eyes darted between us in utter bewilderment as he tracked the trajectory of our expectant gazes, executed some rapid, terrifying mental calculations, looked down at his own legs, and then panicked.

"I am not taking off my pants!"

"And I thank you from the very bottom of my heart for that," I replied, radiating a profound, unblemished gratitude.

While Gwen rolled her eyes toward the subterranean ceiling and the boy flushed a spectacular shade of crimson, I allowed my mind to drift into more contemplative, albeit delightfully petty, waters.

An illusory marque branded upon the youth's lower spine, reading: Property of Alchemax. Kingpin was here. Would that be a masterful stroke of comedic genius, or merely overkill? I could anchor the illusion directly to his aura. It would last a solid week, more than enough time for him to discover his new adornment in a bathroom mirror. But was it too much? Yes, perhaps a fraction too far. Bad Loki. Stop attempting to psychologically scar the adolescent. Focus on more constructive endeavors. Like cloning Gwen.

Ah, yes. Now that was a vastly superior train of thought. Precisely what I needed. Heavens, if I simply asked her permission first, I might even manage to clone her with her memories perfectly intact, entirely bypassing the usual developmental headaches of crafting a consciousness from scratch.

"Alrighty," I said, clapping my hands together and snapping back to the damp reality of the tunnel. "The jesting is concluded. I suggest we make our retreat."

Gwen caught the subtle shift in my cadence instantly. The playful teenager vanished, seamlessly replaced by the pragmatic heroine. "We aren't going to the collider?"

"I gave young Peni my solemn vow that we would not commence the festivities without her, and a true gentleman simply cannot lie to a cute anime girl," I assured her, my tone dripping with pious sincerity.

Simultaneously, safely veiled behind the crude limitations of their mortal senses, I wove a thread of magic into being. Layering the construct beneath a heavy cloaking spell, I dispatched my invisible duplicate down the very corridor that, according to Miles, led directly into the belly of the collider chamber. The very epicenter where this universe's Spider-Man had met his untimely demise.

"That sounded…" Gwen trailed off, a teasing lilt in her voice as she fished for a reaction.

"Dirty?" I offered, flashing a blinding, helpful smile.

"Your words, not mine," she smirked.

"Oh, the tragic cynicism of modern humanity! It is your absolute lack of faith that wounds me," I sighed theatrically, leaning my weight onto my adamantium cane. "I am speaking from a place of the purest, unadulterated nineties nostalgia! But alas, a generation raised in an era of polished CGI and over-choreographed action sequences could never possibly comprehend such raw sentiment."

Puffing up with a magnificent display of self-righteous importance, I gave my glowing cane a sharp, elegant twirl and began my march toward the exit.

"You sound like an old man," the blonde deadpanned, falling into step right behind me.

"Oh, you wound me! Right in the heart!" I gasped, clutching my chest with all the Shakespearean agony I could muster. "And after all that, I happen to possess… an eight-pack." I threw a synchronized, deeply suggestive wiggle of my eyebrows over my shoulder for maximum effect.

"I did competitive gymnastics, actually. I've seen better," Gwen returned the volley effortlessly, not missing a single beat.

"The situation turns dire! Are you telling me I have absolutely zero chance?"

"Absolutely zero," the gorgeous blonde confirmed, grinning from ear to ear.

"Look here, kid. She just effortlessly rejected a God," I said, casting a sidelong glance at Morales. "Take notes. That is exactly how cool a proper Spider is supposed to be."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," the boy groaned. He let his shoulders slump like the universe's most tragic victim of cosmic discrimination, dragging his feet as he trailed behind us. "God… how can a being that's over a thousand years old act like… like… like this?!" He shook his head in absolute, spectacular despair.

Honestly. If I had a golden sovereign for every time a mortal asked me that question…

"It is entirely the fault of your Abrahamic model of an Absolute Deity," I lectured breezily, tapping my cane in rhythm with my steps. "You mortals invented this flawless, impossibly benevolent Mary-Sue of an idol, and now you possess the sheer audacity to be outraged when reality fails to match your fanfiction. Gods are, fundamentally, no different from humans. Yes, our capabilities eclipse yours on a scale you cannot fathom, but that does not mean we are incapable of experiencing or understanding the exact same desires and amusements you do. Furthermore, it is the mortal brain that degrades over time, which is precisely why your elderly suffer from apathy and emotional burnout. I, on the other hand, do not possess a frail mortal mind. Therefore, I do not suffer from a lack of imagination."

"So that's your excuse for hitting on girls a thousand years younger than you?" the indignant adolescent pressed, stubbornly refusing to let it go.

"For your information, that was merely light, playful banter. It was not a campaign of sexual harassment with far-reaching matrimonial goals, regardless of what your overly litigious American laws might classify it as. We are all scattering back to our respective universes momentarily anyway, so nothing serious could possibly come of it. But leaving a charming young sweetheart with a few pleasant memories of a handsome deity? I can certainly afford to do that, and I do it with the utmost sincerity. That is point one." I raised a single, elegant finger.

"Point two: I have not heard a single complaint from the lady in question." A second finger joined the first.

"And point three: for your edification, I hail from an utterly atrocious cinematic universe where, across the entire galaxy, there are perhaps threegenuinely attractive women who could even hold a candle to our lovely companion here, and one of them is currently a prepubescent murder-moppet. So, frankly, Gwen's company is a soothing balm to my aesthetically traumatized soul. There. That makes three. Now, let us return to base. Tomorrow, great deeds await us."

"Fine," Gwen sighed, pointedly looking away. She clearly had zero desire to further dissect the complex theological implications of flirting with an ancient Scandinavian deity.

…

We made it out of the facility without further incident, arriving back at the subterranean Spider-Base in one piece. The clock was already pushing three-thirty in the morning, the deep, bruised purple of the night slowly bleeding into the pale gray of early dawn. The children still possessed a solid five or six hours to violently crush their pillows, a biological necessity they eagerly took advantage of.

I, however, remained wide awake.

Left in splendid isolation within the glowing, working sector of this makeshift "Batcave," I dove headfirst into the late Peter Parker's encrypted databases. Multitasking is a divine right, so I simultaneously navigated Kingpin's secret laboratory through the eyes of my cloaked phantom.

Both locations yielded a veritable treasure trove of fascinating information. As I had surmised earlier, this local Parker was no fool. Over his tenure as a masked vigilante, he had unearthed a staggering amount of dirt on a staggering amount of people. He didn't merely hoard dossiers on supervillains and crime lords; Peter had shamelessly archived complete engineering schematics for all sorts of cutting-edge technology.

He had also amassed mountains of brutal kompromat. Unfortunately for Peter, gathering blackmail was more of a hobby than a practical tool. Under the labyrinthine absurdity of the American judicial system, evidence obtained "illegally" falls under the doctrine of the fruit of the poisonous tree, rendering it entirely inadmissible in court. Meaning, if a hero in tights were to break into Fisk's office, steal a black-market firearm coated in the Kingpin's fingerprints, and drop it upon a detective's desk, the authorities wouldn't be able to do a damn thing with it. The only legal route was to submit an anonymous tip, pray a judge signs a warrant, and hope the police discover the contraband during a heavily choreographed official raid.

Needless to say, there wasn't a single prosecutor in New York City suicidal enough to draft a search warrant for Wilson Fisk, let alone a judge deranged enough to sign it. Civil rights. The presumption of innocence. Democracy.

We moss-covered Scandinavian gods simply do not grasp it. For all my intense, enduring dislike of the brutish Vikings, I had to admit that their core judicial philosophy, "bury an axe in the skull of the man who displeases you", truly streamlined the legal process.

But the blackmail was merely a passing curiosity, something to read out of the corner of my eye. I was far more invested in Peter's technical projects. I wouldn't necessarily be able to, or even desire to, replicate all of his work in my own universe, but maybe, just maybe, I could unearth another diamond in the rough. Something on the magnificent, reality-tearing level of the collider itself. There was plenty to sift through.

Meanwhile, miles away, my phantom was casually strolling through Fisk's subterranean stronghold, pondering a very specific question that was beginning to deeply irritate my primary consciousness.

Why in the Nine Realms is there a convenient plug-in port for unauthorized devices on a dimensional supercollider?

Seriously. Why? What possible purpose could it serve? Is there any logical reason at all, or is this merely a mandatory Hollywood movie trope? Does every apocalyptic "Doomsday Machine" come legally required with one tiny, highly accessible, perfectly labeled port so the plucky heroes can trigger a catastrophic meltdown at the eleventh hour?

The question genuinely bothered me. It offended my sensibilities. So, I dug even deeper into Peter's files, commanding my phantom to physically hack into the collider's primary control console.

And, miraculously, I found the answer. For once, in a stunning departure from cinematic universe stupidity, the explanation actually possessed a shred of logic, restoring a tiny fraction of my faith in mortal engineering.

The "service port" was an absolute necessity for dimensional tuning and spatial calibration. They hadn't wired it into the main control desk in order to prevent accidental, catastrophic inputs from clumsy technicians. But they couldn't eliminate it entirely, because the Earth, the Solar System, and the Milky Way Galaxy are constantly hurtling through the void of space. If one wishes to punch a hole into a parallel universe, one must periodically recalibrate the spatial-tear generator to account for the planet's cosmic drift.

A point for practical engineering!

However, the fact that these absolute geniuses decided to use a standard, universal port instead of hardwiring a proprietary interface? That was simply begging for sabotage. Slapping a small, unassuming technical panel fifty meters in the air on the ceiling was clearly an insufficient security measure against anyone with a modicum of agility.

Then again, considering Peter Parker soldered the override key, the "goober", himself, he could have easily just built the connector to match whatever proprietary port Alchemax had installed.

I paused, my fingers hovering over the glowing keys of the Batcave's console.

Although... what if the stolen blueprints didn't specify the exact physical configuration of the receiving port? What if the collider utilized an Apple Lightning port, and Peter, in his infinite wisdom, had wired a USB-C?

Uh oh.

Rolling the sudden, horrifying thought around in my brain, I realized I needed my phantom to inspect that technical panel immediately. Just in case. Because losing this entire universe to a dimensional collapse over a mismatched dongle would be a uniquely, unforgivably embarrassing way to die.

…

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