Chapter Text
Peter Parker was many things, but a quitter was not one of them.
His sore muscles would have something to say to that. And the baseball bat impact he’d taken to the head, and the surge of bile rising in his throat, and his sweaty palms, (emotional cue incoming). His hands hunted for nothing, his spider-senses screeching to a halt, thoughts stuttering like static, screaming wrong wrong wrong.
And Peter had grown on his instincts alone.
The first thing he registered, as if from a great afar, was that the sun was rising in the east. Wait, why is the sun rising in the east??
“Hey, uh, Karen?” he muttered under his breath, voice trembling. “You seeing this? Something’s not right.” The ai chip was a fervent buzzing under his skin, and he was so grateful there was a little scrap of familiarity in this vast wasteland of wilderness.
“You’re not in Queens anymore, Peter. That much is obvious,” Karen said, her voice a soft hum in his ear. “Sensor readings are… unusual. Also, your stress levels are critical. Exercise caution.”
Karen!
His heart went a beat lighter, but he was standing on the edge.
Faces and smiles and laughter made light out of the shadows, Tony’s smiles like the dawn, Aunt May’s scolding, Ned’s unfunny jokes, his pathetically unassuming first crush on MJ. His dreams caught fire and were gone out in a hush: Dr Strange held the world in folded hands, and Peter stood suspended in air.
NONONONONO—
It was in the air, like a force of extraterrestrial energy had gut-punched the nuclear fusion reactions occurring in the core of the Sun out of New York. And like in every lifetime, Peter Parker was a deserted wanderer doomed to exile. The gaping loneliness made a pit of his stomach.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. So much for being strong.
“Karen?”
The ai chimed softly in his ear.
“Yes, Peter?"
“Tell me the dimensional scanner is picking something up.”
A pause.
Then:
“I am afraid the device sustained damage during the portal displacement.”
Peter groaned quietly, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. It was the Three Peters fiasco all over again.
“Of course it did.”
“And Karen,” he murmured again, rubbing his eyes, “please tell me the multi-versal displacement tracker is done recalibrating.”
He held his breath.
“Not yet, Peter. Current estimate for a stable return-point to New York: still undetermined.”
Peter groaned and tipped his head back against the stone.
“Great. Awesome. Fantastic. Amazing. Love that for me.”
And the memories came back in white-hot flashes, flushing coherent reason out of his mind.
Fighting a losing battle. Smoke and musk flooded his senses. Blinking out the hot tears from his eyes. Sun kissing his skin. New and old threatened to wash over him, take him under. He belonged nowhere. Never would. It’d be better for him to waste away, take out the unyielding pain on himself. Time was a fevered halcyon, nothing and everything, and his existence was fragmented in a vision blurred by tears and wishes like dying stars.
Peter so badly wanted to detonate into nothing.
“Box breathing, Peter. Remember, a situation is only temporary,” Karen helpfully supplied.
“Thanks, Karen,” he bit out.
He forced himself to breathe: in and out in and out in and out in and out.
“Ok,” he muttered to himself. “New plan. Step one: figure out where the hell I am.”
He swung a slow circle, taking in the sight before him. Peter wandered, his feet protesting at the effort and his stomach empty. It was only now that the revelation of this knocked the breath out of him clean; stranded in the middle of nowhere.
He trailed the pungent musk of dead rats and rotting apples, wanting to gag at the foul odour. He was led out like a blind man walking, feet trailing after the sickly odour, stupidly hoping to meet debilitating traffic noise, the screech and honking of cars, and blindingly bright neon lights.
He was met with a skyline perpetually drenched in shadow, high-rise skyscrapers towering in a Gothic style—worlds apart from New York’s futuristic memos—gargoyles perched on rooftops, and an overcast sky heavy with rain. Passersby appeared closed-off and guarded, radiating outright hostility. Sirens screamed in the far distance.
“What,” he deadpanned.
He was sauntering around the place like a service streetlight with nothing but the rucksack on his back, the nervous system of a flat pancake, semi-suicidal, and dressed to the nines in his Spider-Man suit with his mother-figure AI chip.
He dropped down from the rooftop, webbing a lamppost to slow the fall before landing in a narrow alley.
The moment his boots hit the ground, a couple people at the far end of the street noticed him. So much for him feigning blissful ignorance. Surely, a scrawny nineteen year old in a threadbare red-and-blue suit and hanging on spiderwebs was a fruit loop in a world of cheerios.
He stuck out like a sore thumb. It hadn’t been this worse since AP Chemistry.
One of them halted in their steps, whispering to the other.
“…what the hell is that.”
Great, I’ve been objectified now. Peter plastered on his best fake smile, nerves be damned. He’d never been more grateful for the white lenses than now. “Hi! Friendly Neighborhood—”
The first guy spat on the pavement.
Okay, so…
He sidestepped that one, or he was dead meat, but he had to know where in the ever-loving daylights he’d landed in.
The second guy interrupted with a snort.
“Hey, uh, quick question. What city is—”
“Are you serious?”
Peter waited. Yes, yes I am.
“Gotham. Crime capital of America.”
It was a single word, but it packed all the punch of a freight train. Gotham. Peter had grown on rush hour, in a concrete jungle, in the hot minute of the neon seasons of New York. Aunt May. Ton. MJ. Dr Strange. And… Gothic spires of the looming dead and a she-wolf in the flesh; it wasn’t the blindingly bright New York of his nightmare-induced dreams.
He’d never even heard of a Gotham.
The madness was getting to Peter, to his bones, to his mind. To—
His stomach sank.
Crime capital.
Great. Wonderful. Awesome. Fan-fucking-tastic. Love that for him to every multiverse in the history of multiverses.
He slumped uselessly against the brick wall like a ragdoll. Fuck, so he was alone, nineteen, broke, homeless and….the story of his life. Lady Luck didn’t have much on him, for sure, since Peter had never had much certainty in his life; from illusory elemental threats, gauntlet-powered enforcers, tech-savvy aerial thieves and regenerative reptilian menaces. But even that wasn’t unfamiliar.
This wasn’t up his alley.
“Karen?” His voice sounded thin and reedy to his own ears. He’d never felt so much like a little kid, lost and alone, even when he’d been bereft of his own parents, of Uncle Ben, Aunt May’s knitted oversized sweaters, when he was picked by Thompson, when he looked up to Tony Stark as the father he never had with moon eyes, when he was crushing so hard on MJ, late-night movie marathons with Ned—
“Yes, Peter?”
“Please tell me we can go home soon.”
Another pause, this one timed with the harsh pants of his every breath. He could wait it out in the oppressive darkness of his thoughts closing in on him, or he could act on his gut instinct and go. He was once more a deserted wanderer, a little kid bracing for the impact of doomsday.
“I will begin recalibrating the dimensional tracker immediately.”
Peter began nodding slowly, breathing in and out in and out in and out in and out in a progressive rhythm. His mind wasn’t firing from all cylinders, and his phone had no signal. He had to make the most of what there was.
He felt as though he was waking up from a particularly bad nightmare.
Still.
Feeling as though he was walking on colt’s legs, Peter gathered the last of his strength into perusing the area. First things first, he looked like a fright in his Spider-Man suit, especially when no one here had even heard of the superhero Spider-Man. And, judging by the overall atmosphere of the place, Gotham’s natives didn’t take kindly to newcomers. And, Peter…was anything but. It was a tough crowd out here.
He was a nobody.
“Karen,” he murmured under his breath, “this place feels like it has a personal grudge against me.”
“Environmental hostility levels are elevated,” she replied calmly.
Kudos to him.
“Cool, cool, cool.” His voice was a hollow ring in the alley, empty of people.
He pushed himself off the wall and started walking. And since his life happened to so-so depend on it, he needed to not draw undue or unwanted attention in the hornet’s nest. Too many eyes on him. Too much at stake. The sore muscles in Peter’s legs had started protesting an approximate two hours ago, and now they were screaming for reprieve. And he was still stranded in Gotham.
Then—
Brick darkened by years of soot and rain. Light passing unfiltered. Fire escapes slumping uselessly like closet skeletons. Cracked pavements. Kids with knobby knees sitting on stoops. A man smoking on the stub of a cigar. The world in the shadows. The kids whose pleas for help went unheard. Adults barely made it by to feed their children. They were in the bowels of Gotham, and all too often these kids flew under the radar having to land on their own two feet.
He didn’t have any money, let alone food on him to spare.
A dark-haired kid gave him a gummy smile.
Aww, crackers.
And in a lone corner between two crumbling brick structures was a small storefront with low-lying colourful banners, the crumbled sign hanging at an odd angle. The lettering had gone chipped and faded. It was another person’s tale to tell. It was an afterthought.
It was an impossibly possible pocket universe.
And yes, Peter was a sucker for a sob story. There wasn’t a beacon of light to guide the children of Gotham towards hope, where every corner met a dead end, but, there was a glint here of something.
“…huh.”
The old building didn’t radiate outright hostility like the rest of Gotham. Instead it was… a lost, deserted thing out of an old movie montage. Sure, it was a sad little thing indisposed in the heart of the city, but Peter had exhausted all alternatives. There was no else to turn to. Nowhere else to go. His sore muscles were screaming for rest, and his eyes were straining from the grime.
Proceeding with caution, Peter pushed open the door with the heel of his foot, and was welcomed by a toasty aroma engulfing the air, and he could see the memory of what it used to be. Half the burnt-out bulbs in the plastic lighting were skewered, there were tables thickened with the dust of neglect, chairs stacked in the corner, candy jars out of a nursery rhyme that once held sugar packets and stirrers, a cracked chalkboard menu in neat handwriting, and tangled fairy lights hanging on the long wooden counter. The counter was flanked by a two shelves pushed against the back wall, filled with random second-hand books, cookbones, dog-eared novels, comic books and vinyls. The air was heavy with stale coffee grounds and old sandalwood.
It was like someone had walked out on it, but what did you do with an abandoned coffee shop?
It was much of a muchness, intoxicating in its embittered loneliness and a home without a soul. A shattered reflection. It took after Peter’s own heart. He could all too easily envisage college students sitting by the rain-streaked windows on a cold winter’s night, people going over old books
“Structural integrity appears stable.”
He sure thought so. Peter wasn’t the judge of coffee shops, and he wasn’t playing saintly hero, but something here caught his eye. He ran a curious finger along the broken-down espresso machine, coming away with dust.
“…this is an older model,” he murmured, tilting his head. “But the wiring’s not fried.”
The gears turned in his brain. Carousing with people cost an arm and a leg. Finding his way in an unfamiliar city would cost an arm and a leg. His head felt cottony. He was an outsider. He had no one but himself to rely on
Peter looked around, for good this time. No sign of preoccupation. No personal touches. Stripped bare to wood. But the machine itself just needed a good polish, and the engineer in Peter knew what to do with broken parts.
But not quite with himself.
“Karen, pull up the manual.”
“Displaying schematics.”
“Ok. Yeah. We can work with this.”
Hours slipped by beneath his notice and he got down and dirty. Mopping the floors down to the front counter, dust off the espresso machine, sweeping dirt and grime from the windows. Rewiring a few flickering lights until the coffee shop was bathed in a sudsy heat. Jury-rigging spare parts. Rinsing out old containers and porcelain cups. Lining up the books in alphabetical order (it was the OCD in him speaking). Wiping the chalkboard clean. This he could do. It was just him and the oddly soothing motion of his hands lost in rhythm with the old jazz. He scavenged the spare parts of unused, rusty metal, improvising repairs with bits of web fluid casing and spare tech from his suit.
A temporary base of operations. A temporary hideout. It wasn’t much, but it gave Peter something to keep his hands busy whilst juggling several multiversal metaphors.
By the time he took a step back, the espresso machine gave a hopeful little whir, seam hissing in the air.
He grinned stupidly at the espresso machine given to life, looking for all the world a fool.
There was a bottomless pit where the mangled remains of his heart, black as tar, used to be. From Flash’s merciless bullying to his tanking mental health to tackling the legend of Spider-Man and living up to Tony’s sky-high expectations, there was nothing and everything—
A shadow loomed by the door. Luckily for him, he had all the attention span of a spider (pun intended).
A tall, dark-haired man, lithely muscled to the tee—who couldn’t be much older than Peter, really—with a white streak in his hair stalked into the periphery of his vision, armed with a handgun in one of his beltloops. He had to be a Gotham native—from the guarded look in his eyes to his swollen knuckles to the voice like gravel. He didn’t know why he was expecting one of the local kids here to stumble in, much less a man with the frame of a hulking beast but a panther’s grace.
Leather jacket. Combat boots. A nasty bruise gone to purpling on his arm, hanging limp at his side. The newcomer stepped inside slowly, surveying his surroundings like some great panther on the prowl, from beneath what he imagined were eyelashes too thick for his liking, and wore a black domino mask, looking as though he’d dismembered a body. Legs that went on for days. A powdering of freckles dusted over his sun-kissed skin. A beauty mark over his upper lip. He was swollen knuckles, reeked of gunpowder and had avoidant attachment all over him.
Peter wanted to roll his eyes badly. Spoiler alert incoming… every instinct of his shot to attention because he didn’t know what he had on his hands, and a lifetime of walking on seashells had had him always looking over his shoulder.
And the domino mask put him on edge.
What did this guy want? Okay, he had to drop the rough-around-the-edges act: his palms were sweaty and his heart was beating seven hundred miles per hour. So much for staking a temporary hideout in a place he didn’t know left and right.
And blood.
There was so much blood, droplets on it on the rickety tiles.
Peter’s eyes flicked to it immediately.
Then, he sighed.
“If you die in here, I’m gonna gonna charge you for clean up,” he bit out, putting his hands on his hips.
The man raised a brow, but something inscrutable flickered in his eyes, not bothering to give an inch. He made a move for one of the barstools, folding his long legs under him, clearly making himself at home. “…Is that a problem?”
Again, the domino mask, Peter hadn’t the slightest idea what his intentions were because—because he couldn’t even put a finger on his expression.
Because one of his two lifetimes was going to hell, Peter fished out a first aid kit with his best Mary Sue smile and dropped it onto the table with a thunk. Hot Stuff didn’t even blink. “Yes, because I just wiped the floor, and I don’t think you come with a warranty, do you?”
Hot Stuff looked him and down, at the classic novels, the vintage vinyls, the half fixed equipment. And Peter. Science geek galore, paling in comparison to Hot Stuff’s effortless grace. Oh, this was going to do wonders for Peter’s crippling self-esteem.
Then, Hot Stuff did the invincible: he smiled. A godforsaken smile that set fire to Peter’s already nonexistent confidence. “That mouth on you is going to kill you one day, sunshine,” he drawled, rolling his eyes. “Believe me, I don’t think you come with a price tag on either because that tee is cheap.”
Peter looked down at his I Survived My Trip to NYC tee he’d stripped down to under his hoodie, a tale as old as time and as pathetic as an ex. He was fighting a furious blush. “Please, at least I have a lot more going on for me than throwing shade at baristas.”
He regretted the words as soon as they came out, because Hot Stuff grinned. “Yeah, in a run-down coffee shop with serious abandonment issues.”
He was struck speechless for that, so he just gestured to the chair. “Sit.”
Hot Stuff paused, gave him a dirty look from what Peter religiously believed were lashes too thick for Peter’s liking, and sat on the chair. If, whatever there was under the domino mask. “So, now I’m a dog.” He smiled, all fang. “You’re calling the shots here?”
Peter dabbed some antiseptic on a clean napkin, making a poor excuse for pressure dressings, before rinsing out the dried blood so the skin around wouldn’t be infected. All Peter saw was miles and miles of golden skin of a broad, muscled back, littered with black-and-blue bruises, lacerations and cuts skin-deep, looking like ground beef, as he—
“Use the tweezers.”
What? Hot Stuff was fortunate enough he didn’t need stitches when he’d cut so deep, and he was asking for tweezers? Neither of them were normal people, though, and even as Peter was in no place to be making assumptions, he assumed Hot Stuff worked for a criminal organization.
“It might hurt.”
“Then I’ll scream.”
“It’ll hurt a lot.”
“Then I’ll scream very loudly.”
Peter wasn’t doing this with him, so he just kept his mouth shut.
“So,” he said casually, “you gonna tell me how you got stabbed or are we going with the mysterious brooding thing.”
Hot Stuff’s mouth twitched faintly. “You're going down, I’m being emotionally blackmailed here.” He looked at Peter as if he were a new breed of alien. “You’d commit white collar crimes, wouldn’t ya, with your big doe brown eyes and silver-tongue words. Who the hell are you anyway?”
Oh, weather boy, wouldn’t you want to know.
Peter glanced up, waving a hand in the air, feeling painfully awkward. “Oh, me? I’m flattered, my guy, but since I’m a decent human being unlike a certain someone…”
“...the name’s Peter. Peter Parker, if you mind.”
Then, Hot Stuff did one of either two things that set fire to again, Peter’s already fraying nerves. His heart rabbited.
Please don’t say Spider-Man please please please please anything but that— but Hot Stuff’s voice broke on the words, head lolling back: “It is a truth universally acknowledged I am in need of a sedative and a white knight.”
Peter was doomed as his mouth went slack, um, because in the blink of an eye 210 lbs of muscle was down on the floor useless as a ragdoll before Peter’s agile Spider-Man reflexes did a hit-or-miss.
He did not, in fact, make a very good white knight.