Chapter Text
Peter liked to think he was a pragmatic person. A freak-out on the inside, get-things-done on the outside, up-by-the-bootstraps kinda guy. After all, spilt milk curdled if left out too long, and there wasn’t much point taking the time to cry over it if he could wipe it up just as quickly and go about his day.
When he was a teen, his aunt liked to regale him with adventures from the happier days of his childhood. How easy it was to care for him, and how she rarely needed to console or coddle him (not that it ever stopped her). But regardless of her wording, the sentiment always remained clear–Peter had been good at staying calm, responsible, and his stubborn attitude meant there wasn’t much that could shake him.
But if that version of himself existed at some point, his current reality was far from it now. Because now Peter panicked–a lot. Left frozen wherever he was, paralysed by a gut-churning sense of doom that made him grip his heart and quicken his breath. On some nights, he was a crier, too. Desperate, wracking sobs that overtook his body made him hiccup and gasp for air. Tears and whimpers that escaped him like a frail child.
It’s how he spent the first few months post reality change–back when he couldn’t accept what his life had become. The wounds left behind by the friends he’d lost still bled frequently. He still missed MJ and Ned too much, mourned the loss of their friendship and the future he shared with them. Hurt that they couldn’t mourn him the same.
It pained him to talk, so he stopped speaking. Stopped moving. Stopped leaving. Days merged into one another behind the curtain of the bedroom he rarely left.
For a year, the world lost Spiderman. But Peter had been dead to himself for much longer than that.
He might’ve continued in this rut had he not decided to begin working more. Applications for his top schools reopened, and between grinding through his undergrad, studying to apply for competitive lab internships, taking part-time shifts at a convenience store, and going out to patrol, Peter found that there was very little time to entertain a spiralling descent into depression. And if his tear-stricken pillow and bloodshot, sullen eyes told you otherwise, it wouldn’t matter anyway because as far as he was concerned, there wasn't even anything to discuss.
And there wasn’t really anyone to tell.
Outside of his friends, Peter’s aunt was dead. His uncle died years ago. His parents weren’t even alive long enough for him to miss them, and as far as the world and his superhero peers were concerned, Peter didn’t even exist. Truth be told, he hardly felt real to himself most days. Like if he didn't bite the inside of his cheek or feel the burn of a particularly harsh pinch, he might forget he was even alive to begin with. Then that sickening sound starts up again–dry, crumbling earth grinding against his ear as his vision escapes him, and he suddenly can’t let go of the air stuck behind the lump in his throat, because all he can smell is acrid metal, sweat, and burnt flesh.
So if he chose to push it all down – to turn away from the next stranger that seemed to look at him and not through him – that was his prerogative.
Relationships couldn’t crumble if he never let them form. Wading through life detached from the warmth of being seen, the fervour of being loved. There was a certain cruelty to it. A hunger that never ceased–but Peter found that it hurt less this way.
So that’s how he lived–slow and painful. He caught more punches than he needed to. Ate what little he could stomach. Studied for long hours until the words grew blurry, and then spent the rest of the time buzzed off cheap beers. Most nights were spent staring at the stippled ceiling of his one-bedroom apartment in Queens’ rougher parts, listening to the city sounds to pass the time long after patrol until he could fall asleep again, briefly (always, briefly). Just to repeat the cycle all over again.
Sometimes he felt himself slipping–his body festering and decaying until the rot bled through him from the inside out.
He should’ve died years ago. He should have died weeks ago.
He should be dead. He thought–when the bullet of light hit him.
In hindsight, he hadn’t been trying to off himself. But when he woke up with a start, gasping for air with harrowed breaths that wracked his ribs, the lack of wounds on his body shocked him.
Because that bullet hit him square in the chest. He felt it tear through his flesh, into his heart, and out the other side. Fast – too fast for his body to even consider healing – and yet as he felt around the area, the skin remained unmarred.
Peter grimaced as he sat up from the cold, damp concrete. His limbs were sore, and his eyes still felt grainy and tired from the restless night he had had before. Something scurried by his splayed fingers and he jerked away, blinking rapidly as the familiar cottony haze of a concussion slowly began to give way to the overwhelming sense that something was wrong. Very wrong.
The air felt frigid and cold, but it sank deeper into his bones. It had rained, but only just, if the dry patch where he lay was anything to go by. Droplets of rain made steady paths down the planes of his face and rested on the tips of his eyelashes, mixing with what could’ve been his own tears. He wasn’t sure.
The alleyway was dimly lit with narrow, graffiti-covered walls crowded with overflowing bins that didn’t resemble the long alley by his apartment that Peter remembered dying in. Well, almost dying in. He rubbed at his chest and let out a shaky breath. He shouldn’t have been able to do that.
He stood up and ran a mental check of himself, cataloguing the bruises and minor cuts. He was still in his civvies with his suit peeking out from beneath his random band t-shirt. His wallet was still with him, and so was his phone, which was a nice surprise. Though a quick few taps to the device let him know that it was sorely out of charge.
A flick through the little card holder in his wallet illuminated the thin lamination on his university card, bank card, and other miscellaneous cards, all in pristine condition. Which made him falter. If nothing was stolen, what had the attacker wanted?
He tried to recall the exchange he had with the man but the memory evaded him, words and sounds slipped away like water through a sieve.
His head throbbed in what he recognised to be the beginnings of a headache as the four bottles he had earlier threatened to climb back up his throat again. Everything felt too much; from the wet denim of his jeans to the squelch of his shoes, down to the tag of his shirt against the nape of his neck. But more than that–he just felt raw and far too aware. Like his senses had gone from 0 to 120 in the time that he had been knocked out, and they were hellbent on picking up on everything, despite the fact that he was relatively alone in the alley.
It should have been a standard robbery. The man pulled a gun on Peter on his route home, and he thought the man would spout demands from the same cliche playbook every criminal used. Peter had been too buzzed to hear him clearly the first time – but meeting a threatening stranger in an alley didn’t exactly inspire creativity – so he mostly just guessed the gist of what the attacker had said and went with it. It was another long night on patrol, and the lack of callbacks from an internship interview earlier that week left him in a surly mood. So he downed a few bottles. He wasn’t hurting anyone! He knew better than to go swinging under the influence (which, even if he could do it reasonably well, Spiderman had a reputation to uphold. So walking it was).
The attacker was… shaky. His hands had trembled over the gun with eyes that kept shifting between the barrel and Peter. There was a distinct look on his face before he shot it too, which made him believe that maybe the man hadn’t initially set out to use it.
It didn't matter now though, did it? Somehow in the few hours he was out, the guy had disappeared–his moldy odour of distress having long faded behind the heavy scent of petrichor. It bothered Peter that he hadn’t taken anything. No, it unnerved him. Greatly. And it didn’t help that he had somehow managed to drag Peter all the way out into a part of the city he wasn’t familiar with either. It was probably why his senses were so frazzled. He’d have to track him down later tomorrow if he could just find a way back and…well - hold on. How far out was he, anyway?
He lifted his head to the sky at the telltale sounds of thunder with a low sigh. This was going to be a long night.
Nothing had stood out to Peter about the unfamiliar nature of his surroundings at first. Yeah the architecture looked a bit too drab and gothic to be Queens, and the air did for some reason smell like it came straight from the dregs of the industrial ages, but despite his native status he hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to explore every crevice of New York, so he initially chalked it up to it just being at the weirder side of a different borough. But the further he walked, the harder it was to shake off the uncanny, tingling sensation that something was amiss.
For one, though the city’s (?) streets weren’t exactly empty, the few groups of people he walked past spoke in harsh accents that he couldn’t quite place. Strange names (aliases?) and references to unfamiliar landmarks floated to him from snippets of conversations of grim passersby.
Questions he asked about the area went unanswered or dodged entirely as he was either met with aggressive ‘Get out of my way’s or passive side steps. Queens wasn’t exactly the epitome of kindness, but no one was ever so consistently suspicious. When he finally did get an answer, it was from an older woman closing down shop across the street.
“Look at this fuckwit,” She jeered, turning to her companion as she stuffed dangling keys into her pocket. Her voice grew low as she glared up at him, “Do I look stupid to you? You think I’m gonna fall for that shit? Get out of here, kid. I’m not dealing with another break-in.”
Her friend put a well-placed hand under his shirt and stared him down with a hard look, and like fuck Peter was not going to get shot twice in one night.
“I don’t mean any trouble, guys, just a little lost and trying to get home.” He replied, raising his hands as he backed away slowly.
The lady scoffed and tapped the man’s chest in a stand-down gesture that she punctuated with an eye roll. “Fucking potheads. Hey look, you’re in the Bowery, kid. Between 6th and 7th street. A little further down and you’re in Crime Alley–so I wouldn’t go running up to people like that unless you want trouble. Now get the hell outta here.”
He dipped his head in thanks and walked ahead, but felt a sinking dread as a million thoughts began to crowd his head.
Where the hell was the Bowery? And Crime Alley? What kind of name was that? It might’ve been a while since he cracked open a map, granted, but as far as he knew, there were no suburbs with those names in New Yo-
Had he been taken out of state?
Peter dismissed the thought immediately. But a nagging feeling drew him to reach for his phone, only to groan as he remembered it was out of charge.
Great. So he was probably in a completely different state, most likely dumped and to be returned to for nefarious reasons (though, once again, why the guy left him with his belongings was a mystery), had no power left on his phone, and was starving and wet from the rain – not to mention cold – with absolutely no means of going anywhere but a 20 dollar note he haphazardly stuffed into his suit a while back that was unlikely to get him very far, let alone across state borders.
He let out a harrowed sigh as he felt his throat begin to grow tight with emotion. He snapped open grainy eyes he hadn’t realised he shut. He was frustrated. Beyond irritated and exhausted, sure–but the last thing he was going to do about it was cry. He blinked back pointless tears as the curdled odour of spilt milk and wasted time drew him into action instead.
Peter walked further down the street, flexing his fingers in his pockets. He recognised how crazy he might’ve looked to anyone on the outside, with his nervous, high-strung trills that chattered into the wind. But Peter couldn’t help how exposed and paranoid he felt in that moment, and his racing thoughts only seemed to exacerbate it. It made him turn into the nearest alleyway in hopes of escaping the hair-raising feeling.
A quick scan around the narrow area proved it to be relatively empty. It might’ve been a different city, but across the board, these sorts of spaces almost always look the same. Dark, grotty, and vaguely creepy, if a little nauseating as well. This alley was no different, though the rain had made it a little wetter than he was used to.
When he was finished with his inspection, Peter finally sighed and dared to look up. The need to take higher ground had been driving him nuts all night, and there was little else to do but to give in.
He lifted his wrist to shoot and gasped at the sight of the thick translucent tendrils that stuck to the flagpole, hanging on the edge of the building. Because almost as quickly as he thought it, the image of his gloves tucked neatly within his bag flashed across his mind.
He didn’t have his bag on him–his hands were completely bare.
Lifting his hand slowly, Peter reached over and tugged the tensile cord with his other hand. It trembled slightly with the action but remained taunt as he felt the movement reverberate back into his wrist. His… spinnerets?
Why the hell did he have spinnerets? No. Things weren’t adding up.
Was this a new development? Did spiders… get new spinnerets after a certain period? No, that wouldn’t make sense. Because he got bitten while he was in the throes of puberty–if it were going to appear, it would’ve kicked in back then. When was the last time he washed his hands? This wasn’t there on his lunch break at what, 3 pm? Or did he just not notice them? No, what the fuck. It’s his body, of course he would notice something like this.
The skin wasn’t tender around the new openings, nor did they give any allusion as to how long they had been there. If Peter didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought they’d been a part of him all along.
The brief conversations he shared with the other Peters he met came to mind –but only the oldest version of him, Peter 2, produced his own webs and as far as details went, he wasn’t entirely sure how his spinnerets worked either; nor did they really have the space to get into the finer intricacies of when exactly he got them with everything else that was going on at the time. Now he kinda wished he had asked.
So was it the gunshot from earlier? But a life-threatening wound couldn't have been a trigger since he got those at least once every three months. Granted, no one had ever cut through his chest like that before, but it still didn’t seem to be the likely cause. No, this was a result of something else, and Peter… honestly, Peter was willing to wait until the morning to figure it all out. For now, he needed to sleep. Or at least to lie down somewhere he wasn’t likely to be found.
Cutting the end of the fibre, he decided to scale the walls instead. The fibres looked pretty steady, sure, but he still needed to test them out against his body weight properly before deciding to use them. Spinal injuries weren’t exactly a breeze to heal, after all.
He reached the top with a flip and landed effortlessly on a tarp mat. There were a few old cigarette butts burnt into the ledge, but otherwise the roof appeared entirely deserted. He did a quick walk around anyway to confirm before setting up camp at the open tarp.
Just as he was about to lift it, he found a small spider crawling across the corner and froze–as it in turn came to a stop a few centimetres before him.
Now, contrary to what most people would think, Peter was not a major bug person, and he maintained that stance even after his bite. He did recognise the baser instincts he often felt to get rid of or kill the ‘competition’ in his way (likely thanks to his other, more compromised set of DNA), but the feels were often weaker if only a suggestion in his mind, and usually, Peter would just leave it up to the spider to decide whether it wanted to fight him. From its stance, this one seemed hesitant as it clicked its pincers softly in a manner too low to be heard by the average human.
‘No fighting.’ Peter trilled.
The spider lifted one leg forward. Then several others. ‘ No fighting.’ It clicked back. The spider scurried off.
He gripped the spot where the spider had been and lifted the tarp. Droplets of water rushed towards either side as he used his new spinnerets to cast cords across the roof where he could hang the tarp and take refuge from the rain. Turning his attention away from his new tent, Peter finally looked across the roof to the vague outline of the city buildings.
If his encounter with that woman earlier didn’t confirm it before, the view of the city's skyline certainly did now. It made his stomach sink.
He was definitely not in Queens anymore.
He sighed at the realisation before turning back to his miserable tarp. In the morning, he would fix this. He would go out and find a map. Maybe somewhere to charge his phone, too, while he could. And a sandwich. God, yes, a sandwich. He could always do with one of those.
Sleep, as it turns out, doesn’t come easy no matter how long you’ve spent dredging through the desolate streets of an unfamiliar city you just got dumped in. Figures .
Peter spent the first few hours falling in and out of consciousness before he resigned himself to just watching the sun rise over the strange city. There were still quite a few odd sounds breaking through the quiet hum of the area, but things didn’t really start to pick up until what he assumed was 7 am.
Streets with barricaded stores the night before now had people milling about –albeit in that same cautious manner he observed earlier. He sat and people watched for the first hour, chewing slowly on a squished, half-eaten granola bar he had abandoned in his back pocket for breakfast.
Now that he had rested (well, tried to), the hysteria from the night before had worn off a little, and his predicament took centre stage once again.
Here were the facts:
- Peter had been on his way home. He called patrol out early because things were slowing down. He’d had a few beers; he chose to walk instead of swinging. This was at 9 pm.
- At 9:15-ish he ran into a mugger who shot him with a gun. The gun emits a bullet, and it shoots him right through the heart. Peter is knocked out and maybe(?) dies.
- Except he’s actually alive because he wakes up again sometime past midnight(?) in some dingy alley in a completely different city with weird districts and hostile residents.
- He has spinnerets now–but no money to get home (which might be some cruel way of the universe asking him to swing home??).
- There actually was a reason he abandoned that granola bar. Apricot filling should be criminalised.
- It may take him several days to get back to his apartment.
- Rent is due in two days.
The last point made him sigh. Money hadn’t exactly come easy when it was just him and Aunt May, but things had been alright for a while when Tony had insisted on covering his school fees and the like. May was too proud to ever let him near the groceries or utilities, but Peter still liked to cover the smaller things like their internet and phone bills. The loss of his mentor, followed shortly by the loss of his Aunt, left him no time to adjust to the financial burden of existing. He managed, though, eventually. Got through college on a full-ride scholarship with a degree in biochemistry and had been interviewing and applying for different internship opportunities, hoping to score a placement before his master’s in biophysics started in August. He had a few interviews here and there, but it would be a while before they got back to him, knowing about a billion other grads probably applied as well.
And what if they called him already? It was a little early in the day, but still possible. God, just the thought was making him feel sick all over again. But he was getting sidetracked. He needed to get home.
Joining his fingers in a stretch above his head, Peter stuffed the granola wrapper in his pocket and ran through a quick warm-up to loosen his muscles.
First, he would need to find the nearest cafe. One of them was bound to have somewhere to charge his phone. And WIFI. Being disconnected for this long without access to endless forms of entertainment was making his brain grow suspiciously reflective… and he was not willing to explore how far down that would take him.
With his mind set, he moved through the fire escape on the opposite side of the building and landed on the ground with a crunch. No one paid mind to him as he weaved through the streets, blowing warm air into his numbing fingers, with a renewed sense of drive.
The first cafe was a miss, but he grabbed a sandwich to go. The manager looked at him warily when he asked to use the bathroom, but handed him the keys anyway, reminding him that if he ‘took something in there’ they would know.
He did his business and washed his hands in the sink, mindful of the new anatomy on either wrist. He spent so long examining the tiny slits under the new lighting that he didn’t initially notice the kid staring back at him in the mirror.
Peter muffled a startled shout behind his hand as he met his reflection with abject horror. He looked young. Too young. At least 5 years too young. What the hell was going on?
He leaned into the mirror and shifted his face from side to side. The kid in the mirror shifted too. His hair was shorter, and he lacked the distinct sleepless bruising under his eyes. His stubble was gone, replaced by baby fat he lost all too quickly That Summer. He looked 16. Maybe 17. Nothing like the 21-year-old man whose eyes he avoided brushing his teeth every morning.
A loud knock came from the other side of the bathroom door as an irritated voice asked him what was taking so long. Peter finished washing up in a frenzy and practically burst out the door, almost running over the guy on the other side.
Murmuring apologies, he made his way over to the counter and took his sandwich, but doubled back at the sight of the barista.
She raised an eyebrow at his reapproaching figure and rested a hand on a jutted hip. “I’m not reheating that bagel if that's what you want.”
Peter shook his head and glanced around quickly to see if he could find a clock. No such luck.
“Hey uh, is there um. Like a calendar around?” He asked, too hurried now to cringe at his own filler words, “Do you know the date? Like the year... please?”
She tilted her head at the question but raised her phone to his face eventually. “11th of August. 2018.”
Her words didn’t register with his brain immediately, but a cold shiver washed down his spine. His heart began to race in the confines of his chest. “And... where are we? What city is this?”
The girl rolled her eyes, “You lost now, Alice?”
A scoff made it past her lips as she stuffed her phone back in her pocket. She picked a towel off a rail and wiped it across the counter before she raised her head at his lack of response. Her sneer dropped as her face seemed to sober a little. She tossed the towel over her shoulder.
“I don’t know what crack-laced stupor you just snapped out of dude, but you're in Gotham.”