Chapter Text
Peter Parker was having a good day.
Good days had become more and more rare since he had become Spider-Man and almost nonexistent since the aftermath of Thanos. But today? Today was a good day. Peter was adjusting—accepting. He had come to terms with dying and coming back to life, to being five years in the future, in a world that had moved on without him. And he was coping, coping with the devastating losses of Tony, Aunt May, and his identity as a whole. He accepted that he was a ghost now, that the universe had paved over his entire existence, erasing him from everything and everyone he knew. He had been so devastated, so shattered for so long, he wasn’t sure how he even survived. But now, here he was, defiantly resilient, standing tall against the golden skyline and above the bustling streets. For the first time in years, Peter held his head high, and let pride swell in his chest, and a smile form on his face. The warm summer sun soaked into his mask and made him feel like the world was seeing him once again.
Peter wasn’t one to boast, but he felt he deserved a pat on the back for how adaptable he had become. That or, at the very least, a free sandwich. Maybe it was because he had lost his parents and the first sense of stability in life at such a young age that prepared him for when the rug was repeatedly pulled out from under him. Whatever the reason, Peter had finally adapted to his new life, left only with a duffel bag and a backpack of belongings. At first, Peter had slept on the street and scavenged from dumpsters. No one in New York knew that their precious Spider-Man was a homeless 16-year-old kid they blatantly ignored. He quite literally was nothing without his suit. He had no ties to Stark Industries; his trust fund, set up by Tony, had been erased along with his identity, and everything May had went with her to her grave.
However, that was 2 years ago, and Peter was no longer homeless. He made a home for himself in a not-so-legal way. He lived in an abandoned area of Queens, on the outskirts of the city, where the alien invasions had taken their toll. A few other displaced people also lived in the same condemned apartment building, all of them having the same unspoken agreement not to ask questions. Some were old; others were young. There were kids of all ages; some with guardians, most without. Everyone there kept to themselves, knowing their past didn’t matter anymore, not since the blib had uprooted the entire world. Although he wasn’t close to any of them, Peter helped them all connect to the mini arch reactor he built so that everyone could have access to clean energy and warm water.
Peter ironically lived in apartment 404. It wasn’t much, but it felt like home. He had a bed, a couch, and a hell of a security system, making it impossible for anyone to break in and discover he was Spider-Man. Not that anyone would recognize him anymore. He had attempted to find work, but people were too suspicious of a teenager with no proof of his existence anywhere. To earn money, Peter worked as a maintenance man around New York under the table. This sometimes led him into tricky situations, but Peter was Spider-Man, and he could handle it, at least by running away and returning in his suit.
Peter missed his life before the chaos. He missed living without fear, having people know his name, and feeling a sense of belonging. Yet, he continued to move forward. Spider-Man always got back up, and there was always more to do. Even as the world began to stabilize and more superheroes emerged, making Spider-Man less necessary, he still went out every day and gave it his all.
Peter inhaled the thick August air. He was finally 18 years old. If he hadn’t been dusted, he would’ve already been 23. None of that mattered anymore, though, because he no longer had to worry about being picked up by Child Protective Services and placed into another home like Skip’s. Those few months when Aunt May lost custody after Uncle Ben was killed were the worst months of his life. But now Peter didn’t need any supervision at all. Not that he had any to begin with.
He tried not to cringe as he thought back to before the erasure, when he was supposed to be graduating and heading to MIT with his friends. Now, he watched Ned and MJ soar through college, blissfully unaware that their duo was once a trio. It was bittersweet. Peter hated to have to leave school, but he was happy that all his classmates and friends were doing so well. Each of them, even Flash, was becoming a successful young adult dedicated to improving the world through their innovation and activism.
Peter shook away all the thoughts of his old life. Thinking about what could have been brought tears to his eyes. He was tired of feeling that way; sadness had become the only constant in his life. Instead of dwelling on what everyone else was doing, Peter rolled his shoulders and took a running leap off the building. He had been patrolling all day and was nowhere near done for the night.
So far, there hadn’t been anyone for him to confront. The few criminals he encountered had already been stopped by other vigilantes who didn’t need his help. That left Peter itching for action. He wasn’t an Avenger anymore, just the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. As he moved towards a more populated area of Queens, hoping to find some old lady he could help or some kids he could inspire, his spider sense suddenly blared, causing him to crash land into the road.
Looking around, he tried to identify what had triggered his alarm, ignoring the cars and pedestrians nearby. Just as his spider sense began to dwindle, confused by the seemingly false alarm, the ground beneath him split open, revealing a star-shaped portal. Peter leaped up, webbing onto a traffic light above him, in a desperate attempt to avoid getting sucked into the poral. As he flexed his muscles to pull himself up into the air with his webs, he gasped when he found himself suspended, unable to move. Despite using all his strength, he couldn’t escape the gravitational pull of the portal.
He glanced around, quickly noticing that nothing else seemed affected by this strange magic. It didn’t feel like Dr. Strange’s doing—this portal was light blue and intent on pulling him through rather than a simple doorway. Peter tightened his hold on his splintering webs when he felt his atoms being drawn toward the portal, not unlike how he turned to dust.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he fought against the pull and prayed for someone to rescue him, but deep down, he knew no one would come. Despite the thousands of eyes on him, he knew it was only ever up to him to save himself. The first person Spider-Man ever saved was Peter Parker.
The traffic light bent under the influence of the portal, and in a matter of seconds, Peter was sucked through. The portal snapped shut right as he entered, burning the image of the New York sky into his eyes.
A wave of nausea and pain hit Peter as soon as he realized he was falling. Everything around him was painfully overstimulating as he was thrown through a captivatingly horrifying light show. Amidst the lights, he caught fleeting glimpses of other worlds, but he never stayed in any of them; he kept falling through star portals the moment he regained his footing.
After falling through the tenth world, Peter’s body collided with a hard surface, knocking the air out of his lungs. Groaning as he came too, he pulled off the torn mask from his face and forced air into his burning lungs. Immediately, he was met with the thick scent of acidic smog, gun smoke, and a hint of old urine, causing him to start violently coughing until he was dry heaving blood.
A few harrowing moments later, when he wasn’t sure he wasn’t about to drop dead, he leaned back onto his legs and took stock of his new surroundings. The dark alley was a welcome relief from the paralyzing light that was overloading his senses. However, the smell of a dirty city back alley kept him uncomfortable. Peter sat there for a while, catching his breath and waiting for the star portal to return. After a few minutes, a few unbroken lights began to flicker back on as his spider sense began to piece together the world around him. The distant sounds of screams, explosions, and gunfire replaced the deafening ringing in his ears as his super hearing returned. Despite hearing the desperate cries of anguish, Peter found himself unable to stand up and help.
Instead, he moved his attention inward, looking down at his hands, which were covered by the baggy Spider-Man suit that seemingly doubled in size and hung off him awkwardly. Only then did it dawn on him that his Spider-Man suit wasn’t bigger; it was he who was smaller. Much smaller. Even after clicking on his Spider icon on his chest, which was supposed to control the suit and make it smaller, the suit remained uncomfortably too large. It was not built to fit a child.
Peter slowly rose to his feet, trying to ignore what sounded like a world-ending event happening just a few blocks away. Instead, he focused on his surroundings, needing to figure out where he was—and whether he was even still on Earth. He searched for any clues but only found the end of the alley where he had landed.
His frown deepened as the sky opened up, pouring down a bitterly cold rain. The frigid water soaked into his skin, quickly numbing his body, as he could no longer regulate his temperature. However, the rain had one small benefit: it muffled the sounds of the war zone around him.
With a long sigh, Peter’s eyes were drawn to a dirty, crumpled newspaper pressed against the corner of the wall. He walked over to it and flattened it with his foot; New York had taught him never to touch anything with his bare hands ever.
Gotham Times
“Gotham? Where the heck is that?” Peter asked himself. As he read further, he was happy to see it was all in English.
“What, you’re not from here?”
Peter’s eyes snapped wide as he flung himself around. His spider-sense screamed and sprang into action, forcing Peter to take on a defensive pose as he scrambled up the wall on instinct. What was happening? How did he not sense him?!? How long had he been standing there? Peter narrowed in on the lone figure below him, wincing as he realized his mask lay abandoned on the ground between them. Not that it mattered to him now; he was a ghost, a phantom without identity.
The man stood shrouded in a heavy, weather-worn trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low to obscure most of his face tactically. However, Peter could see the details of the man’s scarred face as green eyes met his own brown ones. Peter watched as the man’s eyes widened, a strange flicker of recognition passing over his uncannily regular face. There was a slight upturn of the man’s lips, which called attention to the hidden scars stretched out from each corner, but he remained quiet.
An umbrella, worn and battered, hovered above him, offering the man shelter from the relentless rain. Peter was a little jealous; his flattened curls were uncomfortably stuck to his forehead, making his skin crawl. Everything about the man below him whispered ‘ordinary’, yet Peter felt the prickling sensation of dread creeping into his bones. He was terrified.
His senses, already frayed and overstimulated from his recent encounters with the portal and the chaotic multitude of other worlds, screamed for him to remain vigilant. Peter couldn’t trust them, though, not with how unstable they were at the moment.
“Did I scare you?” the man asked Peter, in a strange yet familiar accent that didn’t belong to New York. His tone sounded slightly amused.
“Um... a little,” Peter whispered, his voice trembling. Peter frowned upon hearing his own voice. It sounded young, scared. Peter was an adult now; he wasn’t a kid anymore.
“I’m sorry, little one,” the man offered, his smile widening, mocking him in the way people spoke to little kids who didn’t quite understand sarcasm.
Peter leveled a glare at the man. This whole situation was pissing him off. One moment, he’s happily swinging through New York, the next, he’s being dragged through a portal and waking up in an active warzone half his size. Peter had done his service; he fought against Thanos and his army—twice. All while being the smallest and the youngest. Whatever wizard dragged him into this fight was going to get a piece of his mind for messing with his size. Peter had already learned his lesson about trusting wizards and magic users; he didn’t need to learn it twice.
“Where am I?” Peter spat towards the man, lacking his usual cheerful tone. He needed to know where he was, why he was brought here, and if the man before him had anything to do with it.
The man took a moment to ponder the question, as if he were debating whether to indulge Peter with an answer at all. His casualness in the face of detonating bombs made Peter nervous.
“You’re in Gotham, sweety.” The man replied as if it were something Peter was supposed to know. “Gotham City, New Jersey.”
“New Jersey?!” Peter gasped out loud. “God, that’s worse than Staten Island.”
“Ha ha ha,” the man laughed, hollow and empty, sending shivers down Peter’s spine. “You’re a New Yorker? Long way from home, little birdie,” the man chuckled as he tilted his head so he could study Peter’s face better. Under his watchful eye, Peter’s spider sense flared up again, warning him of potential danger.
“Interesting, very interesting.” The man mumbled under his breath, but Peter could hear him loud and clear. “You need to get off that wall before anyone sees you.” The man hummed, seemingly realizing that Peter was perched in an impossibly human way. Peter glared down at the man who was making his skin crawl. When he didn’t say anything or make a move, the man continued. “You’re a metahuman. If anyone sees you, you’ll be in trouble with the Bats.”
“Bats?” Peter questioned before he could stop and think. He was never good at being the stoic, mysterious type. When he wanted an answer, his loud mouth would ask a question. His confusion had his audience grinning even more.
“Batman and his Robins. Gotham’s vigilantes? They don’t allow metahumans in their city.”
Peter chewed the inside of his cheek and glanced around, half expecting a horde of potentially unfriendly heroes to swoop in. He was beginning to feel that his presence in this city wasn’t one that was expected. Peter never heard of a city in Jersey named Gotham, but he couldn’t be too surprised. Many things had changed while he was dead. Many people became vigilantes during the blip and Peter’s absence, even more so since Iron Man’s death. He was surprised that the man wasn’t mentioning anything about the obvious Spider-Man suit Peter was wearing. The man already clocked that he was a mutant metahuman?, but perhaps his small stature was working in his favor, not outing him as his hero persona.
“Right,” Peter reluctantly crawled back down the wall, ignoring his instincts telling him to stay high. As he reached the ground, his exhaustion crept up on him, but he tried his best to steel his nerves. “I’m uh... not here to cause any trouble. I’m just... trying to go, um, home.”
“Home? I think you’re exactly where you’re meant to be, birdie,” the man remarked, taking a step towards Peter. Peter shiftened and leaned against the wall, prepared to scale it once more to escape.
“Birdie? I’m a spider. I’m Spider-Man. Can’t you tell?” Peter frowned, gesturing to his torn and battered suit. Peter had never been a good actor, but he had played off his suit as a cosplay a few times, since most people didn’t want to believe that Spider-Man was a teenager. He was hoping that the man would see the small child in front of him and think he was playing dress-up and ignore the oddly sophisticated suit that was sparking from the ruined wiring inside. If Peter could get away with not being identified as the real Spider-Man, he could focus on why he was brought to this city without having to jump into a fight he knew he was too exhausted to win.
“Spider-Man?” the man asked, as if the words were foreign. Peter tried not to be offended. As far as heroes go, Spider-Man was a very public vigilante. He was always taking pictures with fans, pausing to do stunts for cameras. He was a staple for tourists and had a global fan base that followed him on his official Twitter. Peter didn’t shy away from being seen, from being recorded. He even used to sell his own photos to newspapers for some much-needed money. That being said, Peter liked to think he was well known. At least, more known than other cities’ vigilantes, he himself had never heard of.
“You know, Spider-Man. New York’s friendly neighborhood hero? He’s kinda a big deal, would be embarrassing if you didn’t know who he was.” Peter puffed out his chest.
“I could say the same thing to you about Batman.”
Peter’s face flushed red.
“I’m just surprised you’re not dressed as Robin, or maybe even Batsy. I would think they would be your favorite.”
“Yeah, well, can’t be my favorite if I know nothing about them.” Peter spat back, crossing his arms and upturning his nose.
“I can help you with that,” the man responded, his tone dark and sinister.
Peter’s spider sense tingled again with a deep, unsettling feeling of distrust towards the man, sending a shiver down his spine. Just as Peter went to move to escape, his attention was caught by the sound of gunfire on the other side of the wall. Peter flinched as he zeroed in on what was beyond the wall. He smelled blood and could hear a body drop, making his stomach churn. Someone was hurt and pinned against the same wall as Peter. Peter didn’t know what was going on in the city surrounding him, why it was turning into a battlefield, but he was cut off by his spider sense blaring before he could move to help.
He turned towards the direction that was freaking out his spider sense, but it was too late. Two metal prongs embedded themselves in Peter’s torso, followed by an electrical current that made his mind go blank for a moment. Peter could do nothing but stare at the man who was smiling uncomfortably wide as his muscles seized and his knees buckled.
Peter fell over with a thud. Hysterical laughter, too devoid of emotion to sound anything other than insane, echoed through the alley. The umbrella clattered against the ground, discarded carelessly. Peter retraced his movement to find the man amidst his spotty vision.
The man’s skin was falling off ... no, not that. The rain was washing away the makeup. Unnaturally bleached skin and green hair bleed through the disguise.
Fear consumed Peter entirely. The loss of control over his body made him feel completely helpless. Helplessness was the one thing that Peter absolutely despised feeling.
Peter’s instincts, gods bless them, took over, and Peter’s hand moved to rip the darts out. No normal person would have been able to move at all, but Peter was anything but normal.
The taser skidded across the alley, and Peter could finally breathe.
Peace was short-lived as he barely managed to dodge the crowbar aimed at his skull; instead, his collarbone suffered the blow. Peter heard the deafening sound of his bones breaking before the pain fully registered.
Peter tried his best to dodge the onslaught of strikes, but his movements were sluggish, and everything was slick from the rain. The more the man swung the crowbar down at him, the clearer it became that it was not his first time beating someone to death.
A swift hit to the side of his head, and Peter went out like a light.