And out of the multiverse…
Disclaimer: Marvel still owns everyone and everything.
And so it came to pass that Peter Parker, (also known as the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, though lately it was more questionable, as to which persona was actually the dominant one in case of this vigilante), came home after realizing that everyone forgot the connection between his two roles, which was depressing, (except for, maybe, Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, but that might've been even more depressing, since the man was quite unreliable, and had many other character flaws, cough), and then he realized that his home was already occupied. Wait, what?
"What?" the redhead in Peter's apartment asked brightly, as she went through Peter's pantry to make some sort of a drink. "Never seen me before, have you?"
"No, I actually have," Peter muttered as he crawled onto the wall for some high ground. "You are, or you were, Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow-"
"No, I'm not," the redhead snapped, as her face – not her facial expression, more like her facial anatomy instead – shifted into something far less human, (and much more lovecraftian, in a disturbing sort of way). "Get this through your fat head, little mammal – I'm the Black Lamprey, and I'm here to stay-"
"…Ok," Peter twitched, "but why here? Why at my place?"
"'Cause you're the Spider-Man, and we're friends," the variant Natasha said airily, as she shifted back into a human shape.
"Friends?" Peter could not keep the scepticism out of his voice, (not that he tried).
"Mmm," the redhead said airily, (in a vocal tone that even Peter could not be fooled by). "We are. Anyways, you are not him-"
"You want to go to talk to Dr. Strange?" Peter felt an overwhelming urge to nip this conversation in the bud.
"No!" the variant Natasha went feral again, (this time physical changes going past her face and onto her neck), "not him! That man is an unreliable-"
"I know-"
"-And I'm reasonably sure that he has destroyed our universe, the-" the variant continued to rant, before Peter threw a lump of webbing into her maw.
There was a pause. "I'm sorry, but he has done what?" Peter sputtered.
"He seemed to have gone one some mythical quest that destroyed our world," 'the Black Lamprey' said matter-of-factly. "I was barely able to get through one of the cracks-"
"And you ended-up here, because you know as to who Spider-Man is," Peter pinched his nose, aware that he was about to get a headache.
"Yes, but, hey, everyone knows that!" the variant Natasha said brightly. "Anyways, since I don't know anyone else-"
"This world had had a Natasha Romanoff before," Peter muttered, at least in part to himself. "She died, but she has family left over – I think that I can introduce you to some of them-"
"Did she look anything like me-?" his interlocutrix countered with her own question.
"Yes, especially when you don't shift-out," Peter didn't back down, "but she might've been a bit older than you are-"
"Then no," the variant Natasha shook her head. "I'm staying here…" she paused. "Um, if that is ok with you-"
"Yes, I guess it is," Peter sighed, "at least until we figure out as to what to do next!"
"Great!" and the variant beamed. Given that her face still did not look very human, Peter was barely able to control a grimace of his own. Clearly, things were only beginning to get more complicated in his life. Again. And Dr. Strange was behind it, once more.
(Somewhere else in the multiverse, the aforementioned Dr. Strange sneezed, to the surprise of Wanda Maximoff – but that was another story).