Chapter Text
“Dude,” someone—a guy—said and nudged Johnny’s leg. “Are you alright?”
Johnny’s head screamed. His eyes were still closed and a warm fog surrounded his mind. His eyelids had never been so heavy; a thought had never been harder to form.
“You were like, on fire.”
Yeah, and? That was his whole thing. His face was on cereal boxes. He had his own cartoon dedicated to that fact. Johnny groaned. He was too sore, too asleep to deal with this.
Something near him rustled and a warm, summer breeze washed over Johnny’s face. That was, finally, when his skin rose into goosebumps.
It had been snowing, last he checked.
Johnny bolted upright. His heart pounded against his ribs and a tight, ill feeling rolled through his gut. He was on a rooftop; a familiar skyline rose out in front of him, but it reached toward a purple sky, the way it only ever looked in early summer when the sunsets lasted hours.
“Oh, good, you’re with me,” the guy said and, when Johnny turned, the sight of a red-masked figure greeted him.
“Who are you?”
The black-mask eyes blinked as the guy turned his head. “Spider-Man.”
“Spider-Man.” Johnny’s mind reeled. He took in the rest of the costume—red and blue with black webbing. At least it was on theme.
The winking lights of New York pulled his attention away. There was the Empire State, and the Chrysler building, and a good many familiar towers. But there were new ones, too. Strange, sleek buildings with spires he’d never seen before.
A lump caught in Johnny’s throat. “Where am I?” The last thing he remembered was making his last goodbye and burning as hot as he could before he jetted through the air. His arm ached where it had connected with Galactus—it came back to him like remembering a forgotten dream—he’d landed the blow. He’d punched a god, and the god had fallen backward through the veil of the portal.
Johnny had gone with him.
He turned toward the costumed man by his side and desperately grasped at him. “Where am I?” he asked again. His already fast-beating heart quickened. Catching a breath felt impossible.
“New York,” the man said carefully. “I think we should really get you some medical attention, though. I pulled you out of the sky—you were falling.”
Johnny let go of the man’s shoulder and sat back. His arm ached horribly. He pushed his hair back and pulled his knees toward his chest. “What about Sue?”
The masked head turned and, again, the eyes blinked. “You were alone when you fell.”
“Yeah, I know that. But Sue, is she okay?”
“I don’t know who Sue is, but if you give me more information, I can try and find—”
“Sue Storm? Ben Grimm? Reed Richard?”
“I don’t know—”
“The Fantastic Four?”
The man said nothing, but his eyes dropped down to the tattered ‘4’ on Johnny’s chest. “Is that a group you’re a part of?”
It was Johnny’s turn to blink. His mind whirled. “You’ve really never heard of us.”
The man—Spider-Man—made a small, concerned noise. “Let’s get you some medical attention, okay? We can call an ambulance.”
Johnny straightened up and experimentally held up his hand. He willed the heat forward and a surge of flames licked up, engulfing his skin. At least that still worked.
The Spider-Man stumbled, but caught himself before he fell backward. “Woah,” he whispered, then shook his head. “So, no ambulance?”
Johnny let the flame curl away to smoke and considered. Post space, Reed had always handled the medical records, but as cosmically wrong as his DNA was, he was still human, anatomically speaking. Even if he did run a few degrees too hot.
The whirling blades of a helicopter echoed over the rooftop they were on, and Spider-Man’s head shot up. “Ambulance or not? You gotta decide now, because I really can’t stick around.”
Johnny’s head and body hurt too much for all this. “What? Are you—are you on the run?”
“Not exactly.”
Johnny truly had no idea what to make of this ‘Spider-Man’. He sounded young and, evidently, he’d saved Johnny from splatting on the ground. But his head screamed and the world was wrong and his stomach turned with nausea at the thought of Sue and Franklin and Ben and Reed out there. And—Galactus.
Slowly, Johnny stood. His legs wobbled underneath him. He took a deep breath; even his lungs hurt. It was as if he’d boxed a match or five with Ben.
“Hey—I really don’t think you should be standing—”
Johnny ignored Spider-Man and gingerly stepped toward the edge of the roof. He braced his arms against the ledge and looked out over the skyline.
The buildings were wrong—that he’d seen clearly. Glass towers interspersed the familiar brick apartments. Strange, moving ads with screens littered the sides of them. On the street, the cars were wrong. Ugly.
This was New York. This wasn’t his New York.
Johnny’s skin went cold, his hands clammy. What was it that Reed had said about black holes? And other universes?
“I’m in the wrong place,” Johnny said to himself as much as anyone. The hum of the helicopter grew louder.
Spider-Man didn’t reply. It hadn’t really been for his benefit, but Johnny still did think that kind of statement warranted a response. When Johnny turned, the strange man was gone. Warm, summer air washed over him once more and rippled his hair as he stood alone on the roof-top, raw with grief and loss.