Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise (and I'm borrowing a couple of things you may not recognise from sources you simply may not be familiar with); be assured I'll identify anything relevant when it comes up.

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: Back to Peter-3's world for the next step in this particular chain of events.

For the record, following the latest Marvel-related cinematic release, I decided to include a reference to Kraven the Hunter. I admit that the film had its flaws, but there are some good moments there; personally, I feel that the main flaw is that they ignored the opportunities to at least explore in more depth at the madness that drove Kraven to become obsessed with Spider-Man and inspired him to begin his Last Hunt in the comics (beyond that drug-induced hallucination of his mother in the asylum).

Scarlet Witch and the Three Spiders

Ever since he had become Spider-Man, Peter had been amazed at all the things he had learnt about his parents when he was just trying to keep people safe. He appreciated that he'd only even been bitten by that spider in the first place because he'd been trying to follow up on a lead regarding his father's work, but he doubted other heroes had to deal with all kinds of freaky revelations about their parents while they were just trying to stop criminals.

He wasn't even sure how he felt about this particular discovery. The idea that he had finally learned who was responsible for his parents' deaths at least took away some of the mystery, and it was good to know that his father had been a good man even if his work had been used for bad things, but he wasn't sure how much it actually solved. He trusted that Captain Stacy would do his best to keep him in the loop on the subsequent trial, but after everything that man had done, Fiers would be charged on a level far beyond anything that a New York police captain had a right to get involved in beyond a certain point, and it would be hard to find a balance between what Peter would have a right to know as a victim and… whatever the term was for what he had done as Spider-Man to help catch the guy.

Add in how Wanda had confirmed most of the facts she'd given him because of her powers, and Peter knew he was in a tricky legal position where Fiers was concerned. He wasn't going to do anything stupid like try to break into prison to beat up an old man who was already going to jail for what he'd done, but there was still a part of him that wanted to know what that had all been for. The idea that his parents had been killed because some lunatic wanted to create an army of super-soldiers… it somehow seemed both cool and tragic, that his parents had been capable of doing something so unique and had tried to go into hiding to stop anyone abusing that knowledge, to the extent that death was the only reason they hadn't come back to help him themselves.

At the same time, it also felt so stupidly pointless that he couldn't help but feel annoyed about it out a lack of a better way to respond to it. Doctor Connors and Harry had at least wanted to save their lives when they changed themselves, Max hadn't wanted to become like that, and most of the Sinister Six at least used tech rather than changing themselves, but the idea of someone wanting to become something other than human… it might have worked out for him, but Peter still recalled an early nightmare or two involving him growing extra arms and spinning himself some kind of cocoon if something had gone wrong…

The sound of an explosion from somewhere nearby drew Peter's attention away from his thoughts, leaving him glad to have something more practical to focus on. Turning around mid-air, he flew off towards the source of the explosion, hoping that whatever was coming up would be tricky enough to engage him without being so dangerous that it put too many people in danger…

Even during the year she had spent as an Avenger, Wanda had never entirely gotten used to some of the wider 'perks' of that particular role. Stark had provided a comfortable stipend for the active team members who didn't have any other actual jobs (she had heard something about how Sam and Rhodey were technically still attached to the military, but she'd never looked into it), but she hadn't often used her own pay for anything more than ordering a few new clothes or other things.

The restaurant where she had agreed to meet with the Fantastic Four for this particular conversation was apparently a well-known one with several positive reviews, which offered a good view of the New York streets around this area as well as good food. At the moment Wanda and the Four were just having drinks and snacks at the restaurant's bar, having booked the whole place for the next couple of hours to ensure privacy, but that wasn't too difficult when the restaurant did its best business in the evenings anyway.

"Look," Reed Richards said, arms folded as he looked at Wanda on the other side of the table, "we appreciate your assistance-"

"I think you will find that it is Peter and I who appreciate your assistance," Wanda countered, indulging in a slight smirk as the stretching man could only glare indignantly at her. She might be a relatively junior Avenger back on her world, but when this world had relatively few public enhanced she would appreciate the authority this gave her to make sure this man listened to what she had to say. "You would not have even been involved if we had not asked you to help us."

"OK, in our defence, we didn't know there was anything that big going on-" Johnny Storm put in.

"But we should have figured something was going on before she and Spider-Man had to tell us," Susan Storm observed, looking bitterly at Reed. "I always go on about my pattern recognition skills, but I haven't actually been looking for anything more than… whatever we decide to look into."

"And when did it become our responsibility to-?" Reed began.

"When we started trying to save the world," the rock-Hulk said, the man who had once been Ben Grimm giving Wanda an approving nod before he looked back at the stretching man. "I get that you want to do all that science stuff to make things better long-term, but what's the point of saving the future if we lose track of the present?"

"Exactly," Susan gave Ben an approving grin before she looked back at Reed. "I agreed with your plan to set up our own think tank outside of government supervision, but if we have these abilities… don't we have a duty to do more with what's unique about ourselves in every way? Other people could be trained to do what we can do, but we're the only ones physically capable of all this; we don't have to be soldiers working for the army to deal with something like rebel insurgents, but we could have been more help against the… what were they again?"

"I am told they called themselves the Sinister Six," Wanda responded, looking at Johnny with a pointed stare that she hoped conveyed her disappointment with him for not remembering that particular detail.

"Seriously?" Johnny Storm shook his head. "OK, I get that they were mercenaries using advanced tech, but am I the only one who thinks that it feels like they were trying too hard…?"

"The name worked," Wanda observed before she looked over at Reed. "The point I am making is that you need to do more than sit around in your fancy compound and invent new things; back in my world, I was part of a team of enhanced who actively worked to protect the world from unconventional threats."

"Really?" Susan looked at Wanda with a curious smile. "It wasn't just you?"

"Peter's counterpart was also part of the team; that is how I ended up asking him for help once I arrived here," Wanda said, considering what else she could tell these people and deciding to focus on the key essentials (she definitely wasn't going to mention what she did to that other team that included the man she was increasingly sure had been Reed's counterpart, for example). "There were at least a dozen other enhanced on my team, as well as a few… well-trained humans."

"And none of us are in your world?" Johnny asked.

"Not as far as I am aware," Wanda shrugged. "Of course, it may be that you simply do not have powers in your world; I know that my counterpart does not-"

"Your counterpart?" Reed looked at her with new intensity. "As in you know that you have a counterpart in this world?"

Wanda was saved from having to explain the complexities of that particular situation when she heard an explosion from outside. Spinning around to look out the window, it wasn't hard to identify the source of the explosion as a fireball burst from somewhere further in the city, accompanied by the faint sound of people screaming in panic.

As much as Wanda had been 'enjoying' the talk with the Fantastic Four, protecting innocent people had to be her priority. Standing up from the table, she gave a brief apology to the others before she marched over to the door leading to the restaurant's patio, stepped outside, and launched herself into the air, flying urgently towards the explosion. Whether the other four chose to follow her or not was something she'd worry about if it became a factor, but right now she had to get there and find out what was going on. If Peter wasn't at least on his way already, she would be very surprised with her new ally…

Wanda wasn't sure if she was actually slower in this world than she was in her home universe, or if it just felt that way because she had to exert more effort here given how her powers had changed, but the end result was that it took a bit longer to reach the source of the explosion than she had expected. By the time she arrived, a part of Wanda wasn't surprised to see that Peter had arrived already, but she was more immediately disturbed to see that he was being attacked by some strange group of figures. A couple of them were essentially dive-bombing him while flying on strange gliders that Wanda compared to giant mechanical bats, but others were pacing around in a manner that put Wanda in mind of wild animals pacing around fallen corpses, waiting for the chance to feed on their prey.

Wanda wasn't sure if this was some new division of the Sinister Six or there was something else going on, but at least anyone attacking Spider-Man was unlikely to be potential allies, which meant that she knew who to hit. Adjusting her flight, Wanda dived down to the ground, gaze fixed on Peter's distinctive red-and-blue form as he leapt back and forth to evade his enemies' attacks, Seizing the opportunity as she descended, Wanda launched telekinetic bursts to damage the wings of two of the gliders; one of the riders looked vaguely feminine while another put Wanda in mind of Azog from the Hobbit films the Avengers had watched back at the compound a few months after Sokovia, but Wanda sent them both flying off into nearby buildings before she hit the ground.

"Wanda?" Peter looked at her, surprise clear even with his mask hiding his face. "What are you-?"

"Big explosion; Avenger," Wanda shrugged, before she turned to look at the figures on the ground around Peter. Waving her hand, Wanda set up a barrier between her and Peter and their attackers, giving her time to take in the strange group. There was one figure in the air who looked a bit like Toomes, but with a slimmer costume and deep red eyes, and another one on the ground that seemed to be wearing a more animalistic version of Mac Gargan's suit.

While they were the most obvious examples, Wanda noted that basically all of the other figures on the ground had something animalistic about them. A couple of them wearing strange fur-edged outfits, although there was another man with a strangely flat head wearing some kind of business suit of all things. However, the most distinctive thing about their appearances was that they all had large metal jaws over their mouths, the metal putting Wanda in mind of bear traps based on what she'd seen in films and TV shoes while giving them all a very feral appearance.

"Who are-?" she began.

"No idea," Peter said, flexing his shoulders as he moved to stand beside her. "I just got here and then everyone started trying to attack me; I'm not even sure who-"

"Is behind it all?" a voice cut in. "That would be me."

Wanda wondered if it was some weird sense of villainous courtesy or just a coincidence that the person who had spoken emerged in a position where she and Peter could see the new arrival clearly. The apparent leader of this group was a woman wearing a black dress with sharply pointed shoulders, hair tied back in a thick bun that put Wanda in mind of trailers she'd seen for some old Dracula adaptation. She had a haughty expression on her face and a confident manner that would have made Wanda think of Natasha if it wasn't for the cold contempt in her eyes as she looked at Peter in particular; even when facing opponents she hated, Natasha had at least accorded them some respect.

"And you are?" Wanda asked, clenching her fists as she maintained the barrier between Peter and her and this woman.

"You can call me Verna," the woman said, waving a hand at the feral-looking people that were gathering around her. "And these are my Hounds."

"Your 'hounds'?" Peter repeated.

"I like the hunt," Verna said nonchalantly. "It made sense to get hounds to let myself enjoy it more thoroughly."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like what you hunt?" Peter observed, as Wanda sent more energy into the shield between her and the now-identified hounds.

"Does a fox enjoy being the subject of the chase?"

"So we're the prey in this scenario?" Wanda asked, gritting her teeth against the increasing pressure on her shield; she wasn't sure if it was the lack of the Darkhold or whatever else was limiting her power in this world, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep this shield up.

"Only the totem, anomaly," Verna said, looking critically at Wanda. "I will admit that your presence here was… unexpected, but if you think you can make a difference alone, you are mistaken."

"I think I'm doing well enough," Wanda countered, refusing to give any sign of the strain she was feeling right now. She couldn't keep this barrier up forever, but so long as she could keep it up for long enough, she and Peter could still think of something else to do…

Her eyes widened as she took in one of the attacking figures more clearly. The lion-skinned sleeveless top was something he never would have worn back in her world, and the lower part of his face had been replaced by the same trap-like artificial jaws, but the upper part of the face…

"Pietro?" she said despite herself, lowering her hands to stare at the face she had long believed she would never see again.

"Pietro?" Peter repeated in confusion.

"My brother," Wanda said, unable to stop herself staring at this familiar stranger. "He was… he died in my first mission with the Avengers-"

The Pietro look-alike suddenly rammed into Wanda's barrier, breaking through the energy barrier and sending Wanda flying backwards before she could get her defences back up.

"WHOA!" Peter called out, firing a web-line to pull Wanda's attacker away before his metal jaws could make contact with Wanda. "Any chance we could talk this out… Pietro, is it?"

"Not even close," the woman in leather said with a mocking shrug. "His name's Sergei; his variants generally has an interesting history with the spiders, but this one was… surprisingly stable for a variant of the Hunter, even if his need for a purpose made him easier to exploit."

"So…" Wanda said, carefully getting back to her feet as she looked at the man who resembled her brother. "He is… this man only looks like my brother?"

"There is no connection to you as far as I know," Verna waved her hand dismissively. "He's dealt with some interesting forces in his world, but frankly he doesn't even fully know who he is-"

Even when aware that she wasn't packing her full power at this point, Wanda had more than enough of this woman's arrogant dismissal towards her and Peter. She might not fully understand who this man was or how Verna had brought in all these other 'Hounds' in the first place, but right now all that mattered was stopping this woman who wanted to 'hunt' Peter for whatever reason. The subsequent blast lacked the scale of some of her previous attacks, but it was enough to knock down the Hounds immediately around them, even if Verna herself was still standing.

"Impressive effort," the woman glared pointedly at Wanda. "But if you believe that will be enough to stop me claiming my prize-"

"But what about this?" another voice called, as a figure in a black suit dived in and struck Verna in the side, knocking her off-balance.

"What the-?" Peter began before the new arrival stood up, revealing that it was a young woman, around Wanda's age, with dark skin and thick black hair in a mass of curls. She wore a skintight black costume with a red spider emblem on the main torso, as well as red-rimmed goggles covering the upper part of her face, but the most distinctive thing about her beyond her costume was four long limbs that emerged from her back, in a manner that clearly resembled giant spider legs.

"Hey there," the woman in black said with a smile. "Call me Spider-Woman; Cassie sent me."

"Cassie?" Peter repeated in confusion before he looked at Wanda. "Hold on; you mentioned-?"

"I did," Wanda nodded, before she looked at the new arrival. "Does that mean that you know what Verna wants?"

"Apart from hunting me, I mean," Peter noted.

"That's a bit more complicated than you'd think-" the self-proclaimed Spider-Woman began before a winged figure dived down to strike the new arrival in the side, sending her flying into a wall as the remaining hounds still on the ground charged towards Peter and Wanda. Lost for better ideas, Wanda reached out to try and reach the mind of the nearest hound to hope that he had some information she could use-