"So. Kang is behind all of this."
Tony Stark rubbed his temples. The holographic projection of the time-traveling warlord flickered out, leaving the penthouse lounge in silence. Tony exhaled a long, heavy breath. It was the first time he had actually laid eyes on Kang, and the visual left a deeply unsettling impression.
The metal sphere Norman Osborn had surrendered sat innocuously on the glass coffee table. It was terrifyingly simple. The casing lacked any biometric locks—no DNA scanners, no fingerprint readers. Inside, utilizing highly advanced spatial-compression technology, was a fully functional Goblin glider, a bandolier of pumpkin bombs, and vials of strength-enhancing serum. It was a supervillain starter kit, packaged like a child's toy.
"We need to escalate our timetable," Tony said, pushing himself off the sofa. "If Kang is handing these out, we need to preemptively lock down everyone on our watchlist. Every single civilian whose timeline we altered to prevent them from becoming a villain. We bring them in before they can make a choice."
"No, Tony."
Steve Rogers stepped forward, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. "That is exactly what Kang wants you to do."
Tony stopped, glaring at the super-soldier. "Excuse me?"
"Kang won't distribute this equipment to everyone," Steve explained, his voice calm but firm. "He is targeting specific people. People who have suffered severe trauma or possess a psychological vulnerability to this kind of power. For those individuals, the choice has already been made. They either surrendered to the darkness, or they rejected the sphere."
Steve stepped closer to the table, looking down at the metal ball. "If you start actively intervening—if you kick down their doors and try to forcibly dictate their destinies—you will trigger a panic. The people who rejected the gear will feel cornered. They'll rebel against your authority. In trying to prevent their fate, you will push them directly into it. Those who play with time usually end up being played by it."
Tony scowled. As a futurist, sitting on the sidelines while a threat escalated went against his core programming. "So what? We just sit on our hands? We let them become supervillains? What if they didn't accept the gear, but they didn't turn it in to the police either?"
Steve looked up. "What if they just threw it away?"
Tony froze. His eyes widened slightly as the horrific logistical implication hit him.
"There are no biometric locks," Tony whispered.
"Exactly," Steve nodded grimly.
"If some terrified warehouse worker chucks a Goblin glider into a random dumpster in Hell's Kitchen..." Tony trailed off, his mind racing. "Anyone could find it. Some random street thug. A bored teenager. A desperate junkie."
The criminal underworld would be flooded with untrackable, heavily armed lunatics. The new supervillains wouldn't just be the people on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watchlist. They would be absolute nobodies. A random number generator of superhuman criminals. To track them all, the Avengers would have to implement a dystopian, nationwide surveillance grid—which was impossible.
Tony dropped heavily into his chair, cursing under his breath. Kang hadn't just manipulated the timeline; he had turned the future into absolute chaos. But why? If Kang existed outside the flow of time, why resort to such a messy, chaotic stunt?
While Tony and Steve debated temporal ethics, Peter Parker was conducting a much more direct investigation.
Spider-Man swung through the freezing Manhattan night, his mind running through his encyclopedic knowledge of Goblin variants. Norman and Harry were accounted for. But the other iterations—the Hobgoblin, Jack O'Lantern—were massive blind spots. He didn't know their civilian identities.
Except for one name. Ned Leeds.
In the cinematic universe Peter vaguely remembered from his old life, Ned was Spider-Man's chubby, loyal high school best friend. But here in this universe, Ned Leeds was a thirty-something investigative reporter for the Daily Bugle. Since Peter hadn't taken the internship at the paper, their paths had never crossed.
But Peter knew the comic lore. Ned Leeds had a dark history with the Hobgoblin mantle. If Norman Osborn wasn't throwing the silent pumpkin bombs, the Hobgoblin was the next logical suspect.
Peter clung to the frozen brick wall of an apartment building in Manhattan. He tapped the side of his mask.
"Alright, Ned Leeds," Peter muttered to himself. "Breaking and entering without a warrant is definitely illegal, but I'm officially out of options."
A tiny, mechanical spider-drone crawled out of Peter's web-shooter. It scurried across the brickwork, slipped under the weather-stripping of Ned's window, and dropped silently into the apartment.
Peter watched the live camera feed on his HUD.
The apartment was quiet. The drone crawled past the kitchen trash can. Peter spotted a hollow, plastic shell molded to look like a ribbed pumpkin. It had been meticulously glued together.
Suspicious, but not enough for a conviction, Peter thought. He steered the drone toward the bedroom.
The mechanical spider slipped under the closet door. The night-vision lens clicked on.
Peter's breath caught in his throat.
Sitting on the closet floor was a steel bat-winged glider. Neatly stacked on the shelves were rows of fully armed pumpkin bombs. Hanging on a custom rack was a sleek, grey exoskeleton power suit, a tattered orange cape, and a dozen vials of glowing Green Goblin serum.
It was a complete armory.
But as Peter stared at the feed, his tactical instincts flared. It's too neat. It looked like a staged showroom. They were deliberately waiting for someone to find it.
The comic lore suddenly clicked into place.
"Ned isn't the Hobgoblin," Peter whispered, his eyes widening behind his lenses. "He's a brainwashed fall guy. The real Hobgoblin set him up to take the blame and get killed by the heroes."
If Peter crashed through the window right now, he would just trigger the trap and doom an innocent reporter.
"Okay, change of plans. We play the long game," Peter murmured.
He didn't retreat empty-handed. Peter directed the spider-drone to climb up the grey exoskeleton armor. It found a diagnostic port near the collarbone and jammed its mechanical legs into the circuitry. Peter's suit AI went to work, quietly slicing into the armor's operating system and planting a hidden backdoor tracker. He could now monitor the suit's movements remotely.
Peter recalled the drone. He needed to understand the weaponry before he engaged the Goblin Nation. The silent, concussive-free bomb from the restaurant explosion still bothered him. It defied standard Oscorp engineering.
Peter fired a web-line into the snowy sky.
"Next stop, Oscorp," Peter said, launching himself over the rooftops. "Time to see how a silent pumpkin actually ticks."