"Are we really going to risk making contact with these people?"
In a cramped apartment three blocks from the evacuation zone, four figures huddled in darkness behind heavy blackout curtains. Only slivers of gray daylight penetrated the edges, casting razor-thin lines across their anxious faces.
"And what the hell is Hydra playing at?" The speaker continued, voice tight with paranoia. "Evacuate Earth? Have they lost their minds? The second they drop that planetary shield, Captain Marvel will come screaming back through the atmosphere and blow their heads clean off their shoulders."
A black-haired Asian teenager adjusted his position, careful not to let his shadow cross the window. Beside him, a green-haired girl with iridescent, almost reptilian skin texture kept watch through a gap in the curtains. In the corner, a figure in a black-and-red spider suit shifted nervously. The fourth member of their group, a Pakistani-American girl who looked no older than sixteen, chewed her thumbnail anxiously.
The apartment itself bore the marks of long-term concealment—furniture pushed against walls to create sightlines to all entrances, emergency supplies stacked in corners, and most tellingly, the faint chemical smell of materials used to fool Hydra's biological scanners.
"I don't want to take the risk either," Miles Morales admitted, his voice muffled slightly by his mask. "But another Spider-Man vouched for them. He said these people are trustworthy."
This Miles wasn't the same one Ben had encountered in the Spider-Verse. That Miles had been younger, still learning, full of self-doubt masked by humor. This Miles carried himself with the hardened wariness of someone who'd spent years fighting a war he couldn't win.
He came from the same universe as the Otto Octavius Superior Spiderman who'd participated in the Spider Wars—though calling it the "same universe" wasn't quite accurate anymore. In reality, his timeline and this Hydra-controlled Earth had merged years ago through some catastrophic multiversal event, which explained why two distinct Spider-Men could exist in a single reality.
Miles hadn't participated in the Spider Wars himself. At that time, Otto Octavius—the Superior Spider-Man, still been aligned with Hydra's Avengers.
But something had changed after those cosmic battles. When Ben Parker had resurrected the fallen Spider-heroes, Otto had been among them. Whether through genuine redemption or simply strategic repositioning, he'd left the Hydra Avengers afterward. He wasn't an ally to the resistance, exactly. But he was no longer their enemy either.
That ambiguous status had made his message all the more confusing.
Their original mission tonight had been straightforward: make contact with an informant inside Hydra's administrative structure. But after arriving in Washington, Miles and his team had received an unexpected message from Otto, suggesting that if they truly wanted to change the status quo, they should try contacting these interdimensional visitors.
The advice seemed sincere. But trusting Otto Octavius—even a reformed one—went against every survival instinct they'd developed.
"Wait." Miles suddenly straightened, his entire body going rigid. "Wait, wait, wait. He's a Spider-Man! I'm getting a reading from my spider-sense!"
The green-haired girl—Vivian Vision, though she went by Vivi—tilted her head with android precision. "That would confirm they're not Hydra operatives, at least. The probability of—"
"Oh my god, he's gorgeous," Kamala Khan breathed, her eyes tracking Ben's group through the window gap.
"What?" Miles turned to stare at her.
"I mean—" Kamala's brown skin darkened with a flush. "He's objectively very handsome. That's just an observable fact."
"This is NOT the time, Kamala!" Miles hissed. "I mean he's found us! The spider-sense connection works both ways—he knows we're here!"
The black-haired teenager—Amadeus Cho, seventh-smartest person on Earth and getting smarter every day—pulled up a holographic display from a jury-rigged tech gauntlet. "That's concerning. I watched them disembark from the Hydra Helicarrier with my own eyes. Are we certain they're not working with Hydra?"
His fingers flew across the display, pulling up the grainy surveillance footage he'd captured. The video clearly showed Ben's group walking down a Hydra landing ramp, apparently on friendly terms with Steve Rogers himself.
"We have to try," Vivi said. Her voice carried an odd quality—synthesized but somehow more genuinely emotional than many humans managed. She was Vision's daughter, though not through Wanda. Her mother was Virginia, another synthetic being. Ever since Hydra's rise to power, Vision had joined their Dark Avengers, forcing Vivi into the agonizing position of fighting against her own father in every resistance operation.
The psychological weight of that betrayal colored everything she did.
"We shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket." Amadeus pulled up a map of the district, marking positions. "There are four of us. Standard two-by-two split. Two make contact with the informant as planned. The other two approach these interdimensional visitors. If anything goes wrong—if either team gets compromised—we immediately signal Ironheart. Riri has an extraction vehicle on standby."
"I'll go to the visitors," Miles volunteered immediately. "I can use the spider-sense connection to guide them to a secure location."
Kamala started to raise her hand, but Vivi spoke first. "I should accompany Miles. My abilities make extraction easier if the situation deteriorates."
Amadeus nodded reluctantly, though his expression remained troubled. "Even though we arranged a specific time and location with our informant, Hydra's sudden global evacuation is going to complicate everything."
He gestured at the holographic displays showing massive troop movements. "This level of mobilization means Hydra's mobile units will be everywhere. Triple the normal patrols. Our informant might get cold feet and abort entirely."
The risk calculations were getting worse by the minute.
At the same moment, three blocks away, Ben Parker's head tilted slightly to one side.
"Interesting," he murmured. "Looks like this universe's Spider-Man wants to talk with us."
Felicia's silver hair caught the dim light as she turned. "Spider-Man? You mean Peter Parker?"
"Can't tell yet." Ben's eyes tracked something the others couldn't perceive—that peculiar sixth-sense tingle that connected Spider-totems across dimensions. "But whoever it is, they're being extremely cautious. Probably resistance fighters opposing Hydra."
T'Challa studied the orderly evacuation continuing around them. "So what do we do? Side with Hydra or with rebels we know nothing about?"
The unspoken question hung heavy: Which side can we trust?
"No need to rush." Ben shook his head. "Meeting them could be valuable. They'll know more about Hydra's true intentions than we do. They can help us determine whether this evacuation is genuine or just another layer of deception."
From what Ben and his team had observed so far, the Hydra Captain appeared to be organizing a legitimate Noah's Ark scenario—gathering his people for salvation before the flood.
But this was Hydra.
Even without specific evidence, the organization's reputation alone made trust nearly impossible.
Ben reached into his jacket and produced several devices the size of shirt buttons, distributing them to his team. "Put these on."
T'Challa examined the device as he attached it to his collar. "What are these?"
"Ghost Plugins." Ben activated his own with a tap. "They create a solid light illusion of us while wrapping our actual bodies in an advanced invisibility field. Hydra's surveillance can watch our decoys while we move freely."
He'd invented the technology himself—an enhanced version of the mimicry device Peter had used during earlier missions. This iteration was far more sophisticated, capable of fooling even advanced scanning systems.
After positioning four convincing phantoms for Hydra's monitors to track, Ben led his team into a narrow alley between crumbling brick buildings. The architecture here predated Hydra's rise, bearing the scars of whatever conflict had allowed them to seize power.
They hadn't gone far when voices echoed from a doorway ahead.
"Are you certain they'll come?" Vivi's synthesized voice carried a note of doubt. "I observed their positions through the window. They haven't moved at all."
Miles frowned inside his mask. "That doesn't make sense. My spider-sense is screaming that they're close. Really close. Like, right..."
"Right here?" Ben suggested pleasantly, pushing open the door.
Five figures materialized out of thin air like ghosts achieving sudden corporeal form.
Miles and Vivi both screamed, the sound strangled off as their training kicked in. Miles's hand shot to his web-shooters. Vivi began phasing, her body becoming translucent.
Then Miles froze, really looking at the person in the doorway.
"Miles Morales?" Ben asked, studying the black-suited figure before him.
Miles slowly removed his mask, revealing a dark-skinned face with broad features. "You... you know me?"
There were subtle differences from the Miles that Ben had met in the Spider-Verse. This one was older, harder. His eyes carried the weight of impossible choices and lost friends.
"I've met you in another universe," Ben said quietly, stepping fully into the room. "Different circumstances, though."
Looma ducked through the doorway behind him, her massive Tetramand frame making the already cramped apartment feel positively claustrophobic. She immediately claimed the sturdiest-looking sofa, which creaked alarmingly under her weight.
"So you really are from another universe?!" Miles and Vivi's expressions transformed from fear to desperate hope in an instant.
If they were from another universe, there was no reason for them to help Hydra. They had no stake in this world's politics.
"Please!" Both teenagers moved forward, bowing deeply in a gesture of desperate supplication. "Please help us! This world—it wasn't always like this! Hydra took over, they changed everything, but it didn't start this way!"
Even as they spoke, both kept glancing nervously at Steve Rogers, as though expecting him to give some signal that would bring Hydra robots crashing through the walls.
T'Challa crossed his arms, his expression sympathetic but firm. "I understand your situation, and I'm sorry for what you've endured. But whatever internal struggles you're facing with Hydra, you'll have to resolve them yourselves. We're only here to warn you about the collision crisis."
He pulled up a holographic countdown. "In less than seven hours, two Earths are going to collide. We intend to destroy one of them to save both universes. Steve Rogers has already agreed to evacuate this Earth. Whatever resistance you're planning, you need to get off-world before that deadline."
But Miles's expression shifted to shock, then bitter understanding.
"Evacuate Earth?" He laughed, the sound harsh and broken. "They can't evacuate Earth. You've been played!"
"Captain Marvel are trapped outside the planetary shield," Vivi added, her synthetic voice carrying absolute certainty. "The moment that shield drops—even for a second—they'll immediately attack Hydra's forces."
Miles stepped closer, urgency radiating from every line of his body. "Don't you see? Hydra isn't planning to leave. They're using the evacuation as cover to mobilize their entire military force. Once everyone's in position, they're going to invade your Earth instead."