Hours later, I'm sitting on the bed of my hotel room, knees pressed against my chest and hair still wet from my shower. It took a lot of scrubbing to get rid of the canal water smell. I used it to help distract myself, but I came right back to where I started—worrying about Peter.

The news footage isn't talking about him, but I know the truth. Peter wouldn't have run from a fight. Especially not when he thought people were in danger. It's a small comfort knowing he had help. "The Man of Mystery" is how the media refers to him, and I have to agree. He is a mystery with a fishbowl for a helmet and vomit green smoke for powers.

I keep going back over the videos. Something isn't right. Between the water monster and new hero happening at the same time feels too coincidental. I sigh and run my finger through my hair in the hopes of untangling the short mess as I try to figure out what's bothering me so much. Maybe it's just my history and training making me paranoid.

Then again, Nat always told me to trust my gut, and right now, it's saying things aren't right. I toss my phone aside since the video won't show me anything I missed. The best I can do is keep an eye out for anything else.

The sensors in the hallway activate, and the feed is automatically displayed across my lenses. All the lights are off, but it doesn't stop me from seeing what caused the disruption in Peter and Ned's room across the hall. In the split second it takes for my brain to process everything, my blood turns to ice in my veins.

Why? Because Nick Fury is here.

I swear I'm gonna puke. Like straight out of a cheap horror movie kind of projectile vomit. The feeling only worsens when the other sensors trip as Peter and Ned walk down the hall. It takes everything in me to stay quiet and tucked away in my room.

All I can do is watch and listen. "What are you gonna do about your water monster?" Ned asks with a panicked look on his face.

"Nothing. It's dead." Peter shrugs with a hint of a smile. "Besides that Mysterio guy's all over it." His words only make my suspicions grow exponentially. "Look, I just wanna enjoy this trip and—and try to find Lia. We're heading to Paris next. I know a bunch of places she loves there, and she always used to say that the best place to hide is plain sight. So what's a better place than a city full of tourists?"

It takes me a second to process everything he said. Peter's looking for me? I thought he—the way he was looking at MJ. My head struggles to find a reasonable explanation. Maybe he really does like her, and he's just looking for me out of worry.

I'm brought back to my thoughts by a lapse in the conversation. Ned is lying on the couch, and I have a feeling he didn't fall asleep mid-sentence.

The theory is proven right when the low, commanding voice of Nick Fury echoes in my ears. "You're a very difficult person to contact, Spiderman."

"You're Nick Fury, and you just shot Ned."

"It's a mild tranquilizer. He'll be all right." I almost scoff at that. Mild doesn't put someone to sleep in two seconds flat. "So good to finally meet you. I saw you at the funeral. I didn't think that was a good time to exchange numbers."

"No, that would've been inappropriate."

"That's what I just said." Poor Peter, if he's not careful, Fury will eat him alive.

"The important thing is you're here. I would have liked to have your girlfriend here is as well, but circumstances won't exactly allow for it." Wait, does he know I'm here? If he did, why is he not over here arresting me or roping me in to whatever he needs Peter for? "I tried to bring you here. You avoided me, and now you're here. What a coincidence."

Please, this trip has been planned for months. Nick Fury is influential, but I doubt today would have gone down like it did if he knew about it that far in advance.

"Wait, was this a coincidence?"

Fury sidesteps the question entirely. "I used to know everything. Then I come back five years later, and I know nothing." Welcome to my life, Nick. "No intel. No team. And a high school kid is dodging my calls.

"Here's what I do know:" There's a pause, and I press my headphones against my ears to pick up every word—mentally scolding myself for not putting a camera in there as well as mics. "A week ago, a village in Mexico was wiped out by a cyclone. Witnesses say that cyclone had a face." Ned snores, which interrupts Fury's speech. "Three days ago a similar event in Morocco. A village was—"

Mr. Harrington approaches the open door, blissfully unaware of the international spy master sitting in the room as he talks to Peter. I take the moment to pull up a map of the events. "ARTI, get me the location of that village in Mexico and put a pin in Morocco."

The door closes with a loud creak, and I thank myself for putting the mics in there. "Sorry, that was my teacher. You were saying?"

Nick continues with his speech. "A village was destroyed by what may well be another world-threatening—" Again, he's interrupted—this time by Betty. I zone out for a second, and that's when it clicks.

"ARTI, can you—can you pull up my gran's diaries? Look for any details that match the events Fury's describing. Don't worry about specifics. Give me all the matches—no matter how small." I give him a second, silently dreading that he'll affirm my fear.

"I found a close match."

"Let me guess, it fits her descriptions of her world ending."

"Mhm."

"You've got to be kidding me." I groan. "Wait, how is it happening here? Gran wrote that it was a natural repercussion of trying to alter the nature of people's gifts, and from what we've seen, the trials aren't even close. Can you find out any other specifics?"

"She never wrote it in her diaries, but I have it in the transcripts from Trish."

"Thank God she offered to help take care of Gran when I had to leave." I really wish I could've thanked her properly. "What does it say?"

"They were attempting to drain and infuse themselves with energy from their universe's infinity stones." ARTI explains. "She said the altering of the stones created an imbalance. To quote her, 'the universe had to fix the mistake. So it defended itself the only way it could. It created beings to reverse the damage by stripping everything back to the foundations.'"

"So why would they be appearing now? There are no infinity stones to mess with. Thanos destroyed all of them after the initial battle, and if there was going to be any reaction to messing with them, it would have been after the Snap or final battle, not years or months later."

"Not to interrupt you're train of thought, but would you like me to patch you in to Karen's system?"

"Yeah, I need eyes on what's going on." I anxiously tap my fingers against my leg as I try to figure out what could be causing all this.

It only takes a minute for ARTI to patch into Karen's system so I see and hear everything that Peter is. From what I can tell, he's on a motor boat with Fury, driving to who knows where. "Stark left these for you." Fury calls as he offers Peter a small wooden case.

"Really?" I feel a pang in my chest. He doesn't know it, but Dad left one for both of us. I've been trying to forget about it. There's too much potential for drastic errors, and I'm not ready to handle that responsibility.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." Fury says as if he knew what I was thinking. Dad left a large whole and a mass of responsibilities to bear when he died. "Stark said you wouldn't get that because it wasn't a Star Wars reference."

Of course, Dad said that. I shake my head with a laugh. It's exactly what he would do.

Fury eventually stops the boat at an entrance to one of the tunnels, which are a popular spook attraction in Venice. There's a whole network of the subterranean tunnels and crypts. I would expect nothing less from the infamous Nick Fury to use them as headquarters.

"You can lose the mask. Everyone here has seen you without it." Fury informs Peter as they walk in. "You'd only be feigning anonymity."

I lose the visual portion of the feed when he pulls his mask off, and it's a struggle to hear everything clearly. Fury goes through a list of introductions to people that I don't know, but my interest is piqued when Peter says one name. "Mysterio?"

"What?" The man asks, and I swear I've heard his voice somewhere before.

"Doesn't matter. It's what my friends have been calling you."

"Well, you can call me Quentin." Mysterio offers, "Quentin Beck."

I tap my lenses to activate ARTI, but before I can even tell him what to do, he's already on it. "Don't worry. I'm running his name through all the systems."

Mysterio keeps talking, complimenting Peter, but it's not until he makes one comment that the pieces start to stack up. "We could use someone like you on my world."

"His world?" I question.

Peter seems to be wondering the same thing, and if the circumstances were any different, I'd melt at the way we still work on the same wavelength. "I'm sorry. Your world?"

Fury interjects, "Mr. Beck is from earth. Just not yours."

'Beck' elaborates, and each word make my blood rise another degree. "There are multiple realities. This is Earth dimension six sixteen. I'm from Earth eight three three."

I can't hold it in this time. My legs can barely support me as I stumble to the sink and empty my stomach. There's no way this is happening. It's not real. Beck is lying; he has to be.

"I'm sorry, you're saying there's a multiverse? 'Cause I thought that was theoretical." Peter excitedly questions, and it makes me hurt that I wasn't the one that got to tell him all about it. We used to talk about all the different scientific theories that can't be proven yet. "That changes how we understand the initial singularity. We're talking about an eternal inflation system. How does that even work with all the quantum—?"

I can't help the tears that stream down my cheeks—both from getting sick and missing my sweet, nerdy boyfriend. "It's insane." He finishes before stuttering out, "S-sorry. It's really cool. I wish that—nevermind."

"Don't ever apologize for being the smartest one in the room." Beck tells him, and I roll my eyes at the charm game he's playing.

"Did you find any information on him yet?"

"Still looking through government systems. It's going to take a minute to narrow the search without knowing where to look."

I tune myself back into the conversation happening wherever Peter is. Beck's voice fills my ears and makes me want to vomit all over again. "They were born in stable orbits within black holes. Creatures formed from the primary elements: air, water, fire, and earth."

"You're missing a few, idiot." I mumble as if he could hear me.

Of course, he continues on because he can't. "The Science Division had a technical name, but we just called them Elementals."

"Versions of them exist across our mythologies." Because the stories echoed from the fallen worlds without anyone realizing it, I think to myself.

"Turns out the myths are real." Beck adds.

"Like Thor." Peter states. "Thor was a myth. Now I study him in my physics class."

Fury rejoins the conversation. "These myths are threats."

"They first materialized on my Earth many years ago." Beck tells. "We mobilized and fought them, but with each battle, they grew stronger. I was part of the last battalion to try to stop them. All we did was delay the inevitable."

Okay, so he has a few details that line up with the stories my Gran told, but I doubt he's telling even a sliver of truth.

"The Elementals are here now, attacking the same coordinates. Our satellites confirm it." The woman, Maria Hill, I think, states.

"So thank Mr. Beck for destroying the other three." Fury calls, which makes me more confused. You can't truly defeat them. 'Beck' even said it in his own speech. You can only delay and push them back, but they always come back stronger until their job is done. "There's only one left."

"Fire, the strongest of them all." Beck adds. "The one that destroyed my Earth. It's the one that took my family."

"I'm sorry." Peter offers, not knowing that it's likely all a lie. Pieces of this are my family's story. They're taken almost word for word from what my Gran has recollected.

"And it will be in Prague in approximately 48 hours."

"We have one mission: kill it." I shake my head wondering how complex Beck's story is and how many things he's gotten wrong. "And you're coming with us."

I halfway listen to the rest of the conversation while I pack my things back up. No matter how much he protests, I know exactly what's going to happen. Peter's going to Prague, but this time, I'm not running from this fight.

"ARTI, plan a route to Prague—again. We're circling back on our tracks."

"I'll get started on that, but I should bring it to your attention that I found a match for Quentin Beck." I immediately stop what I'm doing and wait for him to elaborate. "He's a software engineer, previously based in New York, and former employee of Stark Industries."

"Why would—?" I start to ask, but then it hits me. ARTI pulls up his employee picture, affirming my memory. He was at the MIT demonstration I went to with Dad. I remember it because he got upset when he thought I was a high school intern. He rambled on about how many accomplishments he had and how no on understood his brilliance. "Show me his file."

ARTI goes through his entire file, which paints the picture of an egotistical maniac with a superiority complex and a disdain for authority. He was fired shortly after that demo for destroying one of the labs in a fit of rage.

It all starts to click as the pieces fall into place. He's after revenge. Likely against what's left of my father, and with my identity still a secret and Pepper and Morgan protected at all times, there's only one person left. "No, no, no, no. I have to warn Peter. He needs to know before it's too late."

"How do you plan to do that? He'll be under Fury's watch at all times. If you contact him, you'll be caught."

"Then we're just gonna have to get a little creative." I tell him and shove my things into my bag. "First, I've gotta figure out how Beck came up with his story, and how he's pulling this off."

"And then?"

"I'm going to destroy him for coming after my family."