Marvel: Starting with Dumbledore's Template at Kamar-Taj

Natasha walked into the Sanctum training room early the next morning, expecting a meditation cushion and another frustrating attempt at dimensional breathing.

Instead, she found four sleek, matte-black cases resting on the central wooden table.

Ethan walked in a moment later, holding a cup of coffee. He set his mug down and tapped the first case.

"Open it," he said.

Natasha popped the latches. Inside sat a pair of slim, black-and-orange bracers. She picked one up, testing the weight. The metal felt light, but the energy humming beneath the surface was dense.

"Dimensional limiters," Ethan explained. "They won't cast the spells for you, but they cap the amount of ambient energy your body can draw at one time."

Natasha turned the bracer over in her hands. "Training wheels."

"Fire insurance," Ethan corrected.

"He's right," Gwen said, walking into the room with her Spider-suit draped over her arm. "I saw what your fingers looked like after the warehouse."

Natasha didn't argue. She slipped the bracers over her wrists. They hummed, resizing seamlessly to fit snugly against her skin. Natasha closed her eyes and immediately tested the boundaries, pulling hard on the room's ambient magic to see if she could override the limiter.

The bracers flashed orange, locked out the draw, and delivered a sharp, harmless electrical sting to her wrists.

Natasha opened her eyes and glared at the metal.

Ethan smirked. "The System apparently understands your personality."

He slid the second case across the table.

Natasha opened it and stared. Resting in the molded foam was a heavy, aggressively angled sidearm. It looked like a cross between a high-caliber pistol and an energy weapon, finished in matte black with faint glowing accents.

"Plumber multi-mode sidearm," Ethan said. "It has stun, pulse, cutting, and anti-machine settings. It's biometrically locked to you."

Natasha picked it up. Her spy instincts kicked in instantly, pushing aside any outward reaction. She checked the balance, felt the weight of the grip, aligned the sights, and tested the trigger pull. It was a perfectly engineered weapon.

She set it back in the case and finally looked at him. "This isn't a training tool. Why spend so much on me?"

"It's not meant to replace your normal pistols," Ethan said calmly. "It's for the targets bullets can't stop. And I dislike watching my people fight gods with normal ammunition."

Natasha paused at the words my people. She studied Ethan for a moment before giving him a small nod and closing the case.

"I'll test every setting before carrying it outside the Sanctum."

"I expected nothing less," Ethan said.

Ethan pulled the third case toward Gwen.

"Adaptive acoustic dampening mesh," Ethan told her as she opened it. "It fits seamlessly beneath your suit."

Gwen lifted the dark, lightweight fabric.

"Let's be clear on the limits," Ethan warned. "It softens local sonic attacks and Mason's imitation spider-frequencies. It will not defeat a true Inheritor, it won't magically repair a damaged spider-sense, and it doesn't make charging blindly into a trap safe."

Gwen didn't bristle at the warning or pretend she was perfectly fine without it. She accepted the mesh with a nod. "I'll take the upgrade."

"Hold still," Natasha said, stepping around the table.

Gwen held the suit steady while Natasha fitted the mesh around the high collar and wrists, checking each seam before moving to the next.

Once the gear was secured, Ethan tapped the final case—the analyzer he'd bought for himself and Tony—and stepped back. "Let's see if the bracers work."

Natasha sat on the floor, settling into a breathing rhythm. When she pulled on the magic this time, the bracers visibly dimmed around her wrists, choking off the excess power before it could reach her skin.

She isolated a single spark and drew it out. A glowing, orange-red Widow Thread snapped into existence between her hands.

It lasted one second. Then two. Then three.

Keeping her focus, Natasha used the thread to hook a heavy metal training ring on the floor and slowly dragged it across the wooden boards.

Gwen walked over and casually leaned her shoulder against Ethan's side, resting her weight against him just enough to be obvious.

Natasha's focus slipped. The thread trembled and instantly collapsed.

But instead of resetting, Natasha flicked her wrist, using the dying spark of the thread to perfectly hook the microfiber cleaning cloth hanging out of Gwen's pocket, yanking it across the room and into her own hand.

Gwen laughed, immediately raising her wrist and firing a web line that pinned Natasha's meditation cushion securely to the floorboards.

Ethan watched without interfering. Natasha continued pulling webbing from the cushion while Gwen stood beside him with a satisfied smile. They were still competing, but neither woman looked genuinely angry anymore.

*****

Several miles away, inside a cramped basement in Hell's Kitchen, Phineas Mason laid three devices on a metal workbench.

The man standing across from him wore a tailored suit and a look of distinct unimpressed boredom. He was Fisk's representative.

"This is what we have," Mason said, gesturing to the table. "Sonic restraint rounds. A short-range spider-sense disruptor. And a localized receiver grid that maps her repeated patrol sightings."

The representative looked down at the small metal discs. "Mr. Fisk paid you to reproduce what happened to Spider-Woman in that warehouse. These look like toys."

Mason's jaw tightened. "The warehouse machine needed the Vulture core because it was reaching across dimensions. These don't need to do that. The rounds restrain her, the disruptor interferes with her spider-sense, and the grid tracks where she keeps appearing. They work locally."

The representative considered the devices for a moment before buttoning his jacket. "Good. Mr. Fisk does not want another machine shouting into the universe. It attracted Williams, Stark, and S.H.I.E.L.D."

He turned toward the door. "Use the grid. Find out where she goes and give us her name."

Back at the Sanctum, Gwen folded the upgraded Spider-suit over her arm and picked up her repaired mask. Natasha was still trying to peel thick webbing from the meditation cushion.

"Stay on comms tonight," Gwen told her.

Natasha paused, pulling a sticky strand of webbing from her thumb. She looked up, a faint smile crossing her face.

"That sounded almost like a request," Natasha answered.

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