Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse

A Tangled Web we Weave

Ultimates

Tony Stark drank like a fish, even when they were all sitting in the Ultimates base.

Mind you, it wasn't that shocking. Them man had a brain tumor (thankfully in remission) and was in constant pain. Staying sloshed kept the pain under control.

"We fell down on the job with Wilson Fisk," Tony noted flatly.

Steve Rogers, Captain America, nodded as he said, "We should have ignored SHIELD orders and went in earlier."

Hawkete shook his head, "We didn't know things had gotten to that point. And the local cops would have screamed bloody murder over us taking over."

"We knew they were using supers," Steve pointed out.

"So is every major gang lord, these days," Wasp pointed out mildly. "And using bootleg, knock-off Iron Tech."

Tony grunted in annoyance. While the latest tech for his Irom Man suits was still top secret, some of his earlier designs had leaked. He had (of course) fired the staff that leaked it, but the damage was already done.

"If only the government would let us operate more stateside!" Steve complained.

Bluntly the Ultimates were so powerful, there was a lot of resistance to them acting inside the US. And even though they were no longer directly controlled by SHIELD, they felt a need to respect the President's wishes. It all went back to the second time Hulk rampaged. A depressed Bruce Banner had injected himself with Steve's blood, and had gone bezerk. The Ultimates had stopped him, but the damage had been catastrophic...

So, a ban on operating in the US was put in place. Mind you they bent the rules every now and then... covertly.

"And you have to admit, the guys reported to be active in New York aren't THAT big a threat," Hawkeye added.

"Green Goblin, with how he's mutating bigger and bigger, is a Hulk waiting to happen," Tony pointed out.

"Isn't he dead?" Steve blinked.

"His biology is weird," Wasp noted, drawing on her training as a biologist, "he apparently goes into a death-like state and regenerates."

"Damn," Steve muttered.

"Carol Danvers is keeping a close eye on it," Hawkeye added, knowing the head spook from his SHIELD days. "She knows to call us if the shit hits the fan again."

"Like they did last time?" Tony noted drolly.

No one could really answer that...

To be continued...

Notes: Short update, not feeling well. May fold this into another chapter later.

I have mixed feelings on the Ultimate universe. On one hand, I DO like the whole 'added realism' thing and I find in general it's interesting. On the other hand, MOST of the canon characters are pretty much assholes. So, there's that...