Chapter Text
Peter stared off into the distance as Tony and Quill proceeded to bicker about whose plan to use. He had already been dragged in once by his mentor and in all honesty he would rather stay out of the conversation if possible. He’d been distracted ever since they went off world, his spidey sense had been acting up ever since it was initially activated on the bus ride to MOMA. It sat at an uncomfortable hum and has been steadily building up in intensity since. He's snapped out of it when Tony waves his hand in front of his face and he realizes Tony had asked him a question.
“What?” Peter asks.
“I asked if everything was alright, you've been zoned out for a good couple of minutes, you're not gonna leave me to deal with these dunces all by myself are you?” Tony jokes.
“Of course not Mr.Stark my spider sense is just acting up i'm sure it will be fine.” Peter reassures his mentor.
“yeah… just be careful ok, I really don't want to be sending an injured spiderling back to an already worried aunt just because he was daydreaming.” Tony finishes. They both turn to see the glitching wizard that Mantis had asked about in an obviously concerned voice.
~~~~~~~~
They finally had Thanos subdued on Titan. Peter was working on getting the gauntlet off with Tony. Everyone else was keeping the titan still in some way while mantis kept him calm. Peter could hear muffled voices, a few of them; Five of them. He couldn't think about it. He had a job to do, pry the gauntlet from Thanos's hand, even if the voices were whispering about a keeper being chosen. Then he couldn't think about it right now. Quill made that easier.
They fought Thanos, they subdued him, and then lost their hold on him the moment Quill lost his cool. Quill lost it. He couldn't think, not with the knowledge that Gamora was dead and they had Thanos in their hands, in his hands, had Gamora's killer on a silver platter. All it took was a few hits from a raging Quill for them to lose their hold on the titan. Thanos easily regained control after Mantis lost her hold on his mind. He got the stone from Strange to spare Tony’s life and then left Titan. They were just starting to get up and regroup when it happened. Peter didn't know what was wrong yet but when his 6th sense started going off like a nuke was about to be dropped it didn't take long to figure out.
“Something is happening.” mantis said as she turned to dust.
“Quill?” Drax went next. Then quill looked back to Tony.
“Steady Quill,” Tony said softly with a pleading look in his eyes.
“Aw man.” was the last thing Quill said before he too dusted. Tony turned to strange just as he started to say something.
“There was no other way” a beat later and he followed the others, dusting as well.
“Mr.Stark, I don't feel so good.” Peter said as he stumbled a little.
“You're alright.” ‘Please god no’ He commanded somberly.
“I don-I don’t know what's happening. I don't, I don’t, I don't wanna go” white hot pain floods Peter's thoughts and senses leaving little room for anything else. Peter starts collapsing then and falls onto Tony's chest. Tony struggles to hold them both upright while heavily injured. “I don't wanna go, Mr.stark please. Please, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go.'' Peter could feel his atoms being ripped apart atom by atom and futility being stitched back together again by his healing factor but at a too slow rate that just kept dragging out his death instead. Peter stumbles again and both of them are on the ground before Peter speaks again. “I’m sorry.” Peter says then he's gone too.
Tony doesn't know how long he had sat there after Peter was gone; it could have been minutes, it could have been hours. He just stared at the dust on the ground not quite comprehending that that was all that's left of the kid; his kid; his responsibility. What he does know is that his legs have fallen asleep and the blood on his hands has long since dried by the time Nebula was able to drag the both of them back to the ship. The sensation tingling in his legs and the smell of iron over power his senses when he finally snaps out of it and his stomach rolls.
‘I don't have time to think about… what just happened.’ he thinks to himself ‘I need a plan. Step one is figuring out how to get home, step two is trying to stabilize what I can when I get back home, step three is figuring out a way to bring everyone back home. I have a plan, now it's time to work.’ He knows this won't keep him distracted forever but he's Tony Stark and it wouldn't be him if he didn’t try to constantly suppress his emotions.
~~~~~~~~
Peter wakes up disoriented and confused considering he's pretty sure he remembers vividly dieing not two minutes ago on Titan. ‘Maybe I'm in the afterlife?’ he thinks to himself. He throws that idea out the window pretty quickly once he realizes he is quite obviously in an alley on earth if the stench of garbage and sound of passing cars are anything to go by. How did he get back to earth? Now that he's more awake he can hear cars driving and honking, pedestrians talking on the phone and in restaurants, and… someone jumping from rooftop to rooftop a few blocks away? ‘Maybe i’m in hell's kitchen’ he thinks a little scared. He had crossed over into daredevils territory once early into both of their careers as vigilantes before while chasing a criminal and it was not something he wished to do again.
‘I should probably get out of my costume before he finds out I'm here.’ He's thankful for the endless shadows in the alley he appeared in then. He's about to remove his mask when he remembers that he hasn't deactivated the iron spider suit and doesn't know how. He decides to ask Karen, who has been incredibly quiet compared to normal.
“Karen, can you deactivate the iron spider suit?” he asks. There is a pause followed by a glitchy crackle before Karen speaks. “-ter, Pe-, Peter my systems appear to be partially damaged.”
“Ok, tell me what's damaged and what's still operational.”
“Most of the suits' primary functions are still operational such as the web shooters and my main mainframe. However all communication systems, Satellite connections, Internet connections, and GPS appear to be down. I would also recommend not turning on the suits heating or cooling systems until they can be checked for additional damage, failure to do this might cause the suit to overheat and fry the suits circuits as well as you.” Sometimes he forgets how sassy his AI could be when she wanted to be.
“That’s fine, I'll look over your system as soon as I get the chance. For now can you deactivate the iron spider suit so I can remove the suit.” for once he was happy that he hadn't had enough time to change out of his civilian clothes before he had to put on his suit. It would make walking around a lot less awkward and attention grabbing. He's found that most people who don't know who Spiderman is can be a little less than welcoming when they first spot him. He still has to wear his costume's spider boots since he doesn't have his shoes with him. He decides to stuff the mask of his suit into his front pocket for safekeeping, keeps his web shooters on, and uncuffs his jeans, pulling them down as much as possible to hide his boots as much as he can. It's fairly dark luckily so to anyone else it would just look like he's wearing red socks.
He folds up his suit as flat as possible before stuffing part of it into the front of his pants, pulling his shirt over it to keep it in place before zipping up his jacket. He's small enough as it is, especially in his slightly baggy clothes that no one would notice even if they saw him everyday (with the exception of MJ, but I mean it's MJ so…). This isn't the first time he's had to hide his suit like this, he often ended up heading home like this because he got another backpack stolen. Plus it's really cold out and he can't exactly turn on his suit’s heater at the moment.
The whole thing only takes him a couple of minutes to do and just in time as someone walks into the alley he's been hiding in for the last couple of minutes. He would have missed it with her almost completely silent footsteps but her steady heartbeat gave her away. Well that and his spidey sense telling him a very dangerous but currently not a threat person was heading towards him. He thinks about hiding before she sees him but she seems to have already spotted him.
“Hey are you alright?” the woman asks him. She has black shoulder length hair that's been straightened. Her outfit consists of a tight white shirt, leather jacket, and skin tight black pants, topped off with a pearl necklace and small gold earrings. She smells like a bar but she obviously isn’t inebriated or only had one or two drinks since the smell is light and obviously coming from her clothes not from her breath from what he can tell. He responds to her question after he finishes his silent evaluation that he normally used as spiderman before remembering he isn't in costume.
“Yeah I'm fine, just a little lost. Can you by any chance tell me where I am ma’am?” he asks politely just like may taught him.
“Please call me Selina, and you're on Somerset in the bowery in Gotham, New jersey…” she trails off before he realizes she's waiting for his name.
“Peter, my names peter.” he responds, trying to not seem rude.
“Nice to meet you peter. Are you sure you're alright though I can walk you home if you're lost.” she offers. She doesn't know why she feels almost inclined to protect him. Bruce must be rubbing off on her with how many kids he’s been taking in recently.
“No thank you I can get home by myself now that I know where I am.” he lied, where the fuck was gothem city, he’s been all over new york and he’s pretty sure last time he checked gotham city never existed. Ok existential crises later for now he needs to get out of this conversation so he can start to figure out where to go from here.
“I can tell you're not from here, you don’t have the right accent, no one in Gotham ever gets lost, and the city hasn't stolen your light away yet” he’s stunned by her analysis but she continues before he can make up an excuse. “I lived on the streets before, you're obviously some form of a runaway. Word of advice: get out of gotham while you still can. If you can't there are at least two shelters in every main section of gotham, crime alley is the safest for kids since they don't call CPS there but it's too dangerous to walk to at night without a bat and, sorry for making more assumptions kid but I really doubt you could handle a confrontation on your own. In any case if you can keep to yourself your first time in one of the bowery shelters they probably won’t call CPS.” She finishes her rant. He contemplates lying and saying he isn't homeless but decides to go with it, it's too late to swing back home anyways and with his heater out it's too cold as well.
“Thank you.” he finally decides.
“One more thing, try to get to the shelters before it gets too dark out, its first come first serve and extremely dangerous in Gotham at night.” she digs into her back pocket for a minute and pulls out three 50’s. “Here take it and hide it on your person well.” he's shocked from what she has told him so far. Gotham doesn't sound like the nicest place to live or to have the nicest people either and he tries to decline the money.
“I really can't take this from you, it's a lot of money” he hasn't ever had more than twenty on him before.
“You're not taking it from me, I'm giving it to you. And I get paid today so it's fine with me.” She isn't getting paid so much as going to visit a new jewelry exhibit but close enough. Before he can't refuse her offer again she's already shoved the money in his hand and started walking away. “Call me if you need anything, I'll see you soon Peter.” she says with a wave.
“Wha…” He trails off. He didn't get any number. He looks down at the money in his hands and sees a small piece of paper with her number neatly scrawled across it for a beat before deciding to do as she told him to. Once the money is put away with one fifty in each boot and the other tucked into his watch pocket on his jeans he finally decides to scale the building closest to him. He uses the fire escape since he's out of costume and once he makes it to the top he surveys the area around him. The skyline is wrong but also most definity New york. He sees a small vendor below him free maps for tourists and grabs one with a web. It has a map of Gotham and has two other sections labeled the bats and the birds and the rogues and how to deal with them.
“Honey, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.” Peter mumbles to himself as he slowly begins to realize that Gotham definitely doesn't exist back home, but definitely does here. Nausea sets in as Peter begins to realize just how bad his situation really is. He is currently most definitely on another earth (and oh my god the multiverse is real), he has no idea how to get home, and is currently stranded and homeless in what his pamphlet says is the number one most dangerous place to live with the highest crime rate in the world. Well at least he has something to pass the time while he figures out a way to get his sorry butt home. For now he decides to read his pamphlet and learn about the place he's gonna be staying in for the foreseeable future.
What both Peter and Selina had failed to notice was the subtle change in Peter's appearance. Peters normally brown eyes now tinged with a subtle green hue and, lost in his messy curls thanks to the mask hair he currently sported, he now had a streak of white in his once solely brown locks.