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Don't even get me started on Doctor Strange and the little nerd back on Earth-199999.
~ Miguel O'Hara
Earth-199999
NEW YORK
Greenwich Village
This place was a necessary pit-stop. Not the least because Peter B. insisted on relieving his lower half entirely. And on account of Parker genetics.
“It's the sympathy toilet, what can I say?” he tried to argue in a room full of arachnid-enhanced super-people who ironically could not give a shit. “Mary Jane is stuck dealing with Mayday. Guess I gotta be stuck dealing with... me.”
“Literally, nobody,” Hobie stated, “in the multiverse asked for this shi—”
“Somebody did, I'm tellin' ya.”
“Quiet.” Gwen surveyed the area. “Remember! Miguel will be on to us. We have to keep our eyes peeled.”
Earth-199999 was a colourful place, it had to be said--superhero by day, blasphemy by night. Especially if said superhero was a certain arachnid-human of red and blue decoration. Peter B. insisted it was all a part of the Spidey torch; no matter which universe it was a curse of the spider to be feared and shunned simply for keeping the bugs out of your home.
(Gwen, though... well, she liked to think there was more to Spider-Man than mass paranoia. It was a sentiment she knew Miles would share. He was just everything good—
Focus!)
Even so, this part of New York was a far cry from anything she had ever experienced. Wealth dripped dripped from every brick of every building, competing with notoriety inscribed on every knock of the door handle of every door. Only the filthy rich of the filthy rich dared darken these doors.
“Wankers,” Hobie proclaimed, guitar slung over his back like a prized cape, “every one.”
Peter B. seemed inclined to agree.
Mayday babbled with great vigour.
“Which house are we looking for?” Spider-Ham asked, trotting alongside a desperate Peter.
“We'll know it when we see it,” she answered. Or, rather, she meant to answer before a glowing circle appeared beneath them all.
“Hey, look," Peni said, "it's the One Ring.”
—and then the ground beneath their feet splintered and they were blanketed by shadows.
Blood roared in Gwen's ears as she fell. Screams for her fallen comrades were snatched from her breath; her lungs struggled to respire. Her spider sense failed her.
Then—her feet smacked onto solid ground. Around her a symphony of surprised cries amid slamming limbs echoed.
“What was that?” Pavitr asked, apparently asking the questions as they came. “Where are we?”
Gwen blinked at the new light. She surveyed their new surroundings.
They were in someone's mansion, she decided, taking note of the winding staircase and the musty smell of old books and more money than any human could reasonably spend in one lifetime. But not an ordinary mansion. No, no, no. This place was different. The place just felt huge. Huge and old. History seeped into every corner.
It was... neat. That's the only word that came to mind. Kinda like one of those old Victorian buildings Charles Dickens had in mind when he wrote A Christmas Carol.
Yeah, she decided, that was it. This was definitely a place for a Scrooge or two.
“I suppose now is the time for introductions,” a voice decreed from the depths of this haunted house.
Gwen whirled around only to come face-to-face with a flying man and a red cape descending from on high. He floated down the staircase like a butterfly, and she instinctively knew he sure as heck could sting like a bee if he wanted to.
(The man: Doctor Strange. The very man they were looking to see.)
Hobie squinted. “You wearing a tunic? This some kind of Legend of Zelda cosplay?”
Strange did not so much as dignify him with a glance.
She cleared her throat.
“Sorry to bother you, Doctor Strange,” Gwen said, the armada of Spider-People at arms behind her, “but I was hoping to speak to your Spider-Man. I hear the two of you wrecked the multiverse once before.”
She smirked, and removed her mask. With a grin full of teeth, she announced with no small amount of joviality, “I was hoping you could do it again.”
This Strange figure said nothing but merely arched a singular brow that, in Gwen's opinion, was a cause of considerable envy among her fellowship.
Miguel claimed: Doctor Strange is a sorcerer of great power and no responsibility. His Spider-Man is no different. They are of equal irresponsibility.
Miguel spat: I would not trust a magician if he gave me a balloon animal with my dead daughter's favourite dog.
Miguel said: Stephen Strange of Earth-199999 is dangerous. Do not engage.
Repeat:
Do. Not. Engage.
Gwen, however... well, looking at him now, she did not see a dangerous irresponsible man recklessly indulging in magic. Instead she saw a tired middle-aged man bravely sporting a goatee in these trying times, defending his home from invaders.
And she knew why Strange felt so strongly about other-worldly visitors. Miguel had told her of Earth-199999's history.
Gwen's sympathy was freely given, but it was in Miles' name she came here for.
Peter B. chose the moment to interrupt. “I’m so sorry, Dumbledore,” he said, hopping from foot to foot, “but may I use your toilet? Something's about to happen, and I gotta be honest: it isn't pretty.”
Strange took a moment to process. Then he gave a sharp nod of his head behind him. “Up the stairs then take the third left. You'll come to a room with five doors. The third on the right is the one you want. Go through it and you'll arrive at a hallway with a set of stairs on the right and the left. Take neither. There's a cupboard under the left stairs. That's where you'll find the restroom.”
Poor Peter was utterly lost. “Like Harry Potter?” he eventually managed to ask.
“Precisely.”
“Thanks,” he said uncertainly once more than a beat of silence had passed. “I mean, uh—where was it again?”
“Noir,” Gwen instructed, he had the best memory, “go with him.”
Noir grumbled, but did as she did. Last she saw of them before they disappeared into the labyrinth was Mayday yanking on Noir's coat as Peter tried to placate her.
Strange waited until they had departed before arming himself with a barrage of questions—including highlights featuring how did you get here and what is your purpose with the multiverse and, her personal favourite: what do you want with Spider-Man?
She did her best to answer each and every one with a little help from her friends.
“Be that as it may,” Strange retorted once they finished his version of twenty questions-and-a-few-hundred-thrown-in-for-good-measure, something akin to dragon-fire lighting his tongue, “you still trespassed on our universe. Your very presence threatens our reality and—”
“We should help them,” came a younger, slightly more familiar voice.
Everyone shifted their head to the room's newest red-and-blue webbed and masked occupant, perched up on the banister on the first floor.
Strange reacted first.
“Absolutely not,” he said with flat affect.
The, uh, little nerd of this place jumped to the ground floor with minimal effort.
“Stephen,” he said, and it was soft and it was steady, “we have to do this.”
Stephen swore; he rebelled, he decried any and all action that threatened the sanctity of Earth-199999.
“What part of ‘absolutely not’ do you fail to comprehend?”
Spidey was undeterred.
He walked forward, grapsed the wizard's hands with such cool dexterity even the Spider Society would envy.
“Please.”
Gwen felt as though she were intruding.
“Trust me,” he said...
—and Strange nodded.