Chapter Text
Prologue
“This is the only way.”
Two men stand side by side on the edge of an old apartment rooftop overlooking a city skyline. One stands taller than the other, a red cloak billowing out behind him as though carried by a faint breeze, though the air is still. The other is covered head to toe in gleaming metal armor.
The metal man crosses his arms. “There has to be another way. Something other than putting another kid in danger.”
The caped man heaves a sigh. “As I’ve already explained, there are infinite timelines and possibilities. I could spend a hundred lifetimes analyzing them all, scouring the multiverse to find one in which the invasion never occurs. We do not have the time.”
“And so you’ll sacrifice some kid from a different universe for ours?”
“Stark.”
“Don’t Stark me, Strange.”
The man in metal, Stark, whirls around and combs his hands through his hair, the strands catching at the ends of his fingers. Heaving breaths fill his lungs.
“Stark,” Strange begins again, a hand hovering over Stark’s shoulder. “One life to save billions.”
“A child’s life!” Stark rips his hands from his hair and stabs a finger at the street below them. “How old is he in this world? Sixteen? Fifteen?”
Strange doesn’t answer. His gaze is drawn to the street below them, to the figure frozen in time mid-fall.
The child doesn’t appear as young as they are. It’s impossible to tell much about them from the red and blue spandex suit covering them from head to toe, and perhaps that had been their plan with its design all along. An oversized red sweatshirt swallows any identifying features and a familiar (though more juvenile) mask obscures the time-suspended vigilante’s face from view. But despite this child not being their world’s version of a hero, Strange knows the face behind the mask.
There were differences though. This realities’ version of the spider-themed hero was younger, having come into their powers at the age of ten and beginning their vigilante career just shy of a year later. This child had no living relatives, no guardian or mentor, no one looking out for their wellbeing. Sure, some would notice when the web-slinging hero disappeared from the streets of New York, but the child? The 5’8 (a whole inch taller than their world’s version) child behind the mask would be just another missing runaway in a sea of thousands.
“Spider-Man dies here, in this world,” Strange explains again. “Right here. In the next 2.7 seconds. We are saving their life.”
“By throwing them to the wolves.”
“Well, more like Bats.”
Stark whirls again to stab a finger at Strange. “Don’t. We are discussing the fate of a child, Strange. A CHILD. Who has done nothing to deserve what we’re about to put him through. He’s just a kid. We shouldn’t even be considering this.”
“This child dies, Stark.” Strange stresses again, softer this time. “New heroes rise up to take their place, but this child, this one does not grow up. They do not make friends or ally with the Avengers. They lie unclaimed in a morgue until local authorities petition to have them buried in Queens. By sending this Spider-Man to the other universe, Osborn never comes looking for Peter in ours. There is no tear in the fabric of reality, no war, no invasion, and Osborn does not kill Pete—”
Stark cuts him off. “Spider-Man still dies,” he snaps, “just not our Spider-Man. Just not in our world. You’re sending this child over to another reality like a sacrificial lamb for slaughter.”
“This is the only way,” Strange reiterates. “There is a chance that this Spider-Man survives in the other world. Their fate is not cemented there yet. We cannot know until Spider-Man is placed. But what we do know is that by taking this world’s Spider-Man and placing them in Gotham, it saves our world.”
“It’s wrong.”
“Would you rather I let them fall?” Strange keeps his tone soft as he gestures to the masked child hero still suspended before them, wisps of golden-red magic curled almost protectively around their unconscious frame. “Their fate was to die here. Is it not better to give them a chance? One shot at the possibility of a future, against all odds?”
Stark glares at him for a moment, then returns his gaze to the child suspended before them, his hands flexing at his side. Several deep breaths fill his lungs.
“There has to be another way,” he urges desperately.
A small chime interrupts Stark’s attempt at composure, the soft melodic tone far too gentle for what it signals. Stark’s shoulders stiffen, and the timer chimes again. Twice. Three times, before falling silent.
They’re out of time.
Strange steps closer. This time, when he reaches out a hand, he lets it fall on Stark’s armored shoulder, uncertain if Stark can feel his attempt at comfort beneath all the metal but needing the contact all the same.
Stark runs a hand over his face, the tension in his body bleeding out as he sags in defeat. In a grief-weighted voice, he tilts his head up to the starry night sky, not asking Strange, but the infinite endless universe. “Why’d it have to be a kid?”
Strange doesn’t answer him. He gives Stark’s shoulder another squeeze then lets go, stepping up to the building ledge.
With an elaborate wave of his hands, the movement somehow both mechanical and fluid, the air before them churns. A shimmer of red and golden light sparks to life before them, curving upwards and around until one end weaves with the beginning and a gate, a portal to another universe, falls open before them. Wind gusts through the portal carrying with it the scent of smoke and the distant sounds of sirens. An abandoned street stretches before them, trash littered about the cobbled path and a lone streetlight flickering stubbornly against the ominous shadows threatening to swallow the alley in total darkness.
Stark lets out a shaky breath. “Fuck.”
“I can make sure they are shielded, temporarily, while they recover,” Strange offers. “A simple protection spell. They’ll be hidden from harm for a few days.”
“And then what?” Grief, guilt, and terror for the young hero nearly tear Stark in two. “Then what are they supposed to do?”
“Survive.”
Strange waves his other hand, this time, in a beckoning motion, and Spider-Man begins to float forward as though tugged by an invisible thread, the red-gold tendrils of magic illuminating the darkened streets of Gotham. Slowly, and oh so carefully, the young hero is carried through the portal, a wave of magic rippling out from their body as they pass through the gate from one universe to another, undetected, changing the future for billions of lives across countless worlds.
Strange makes a clawing twisting motion with his hand, fingers curling in towards his palm, and the magic, reluctantly, begins to depart, laying the hero down on their back, head cushioned by the tattered red hoodie, folding their hands across their stomach as their head lists gently to one side.
If someone came across Spider-Man now, it would seem as though the young hero had simply laid down for a nap in the middle of an abandoned alley.
The portal begins to close then, shrinking smaller and smaller, and through the dissolving gate between worlds Strange sees Spider-Man begin to stir, groaning softly as a hand comes up to hold their head, their masked face turning towards the glowing portal before them.
Strange gives one final nod towards the hero once fated to fall. “Good luck, Peter.”
The portal snaps closed.
Chapter One
Peter Parker was having a shitty night long before the flying wizard and red cyborg showed up.
What should have been a routine night patrol rescuing cats from trees and returning stolen bikes had spiraled into thwarting an attempted store robbery. Peter didn’t typically involve himself in crimes like that, not because they weren’t important, but because higher scale crimes had a lot of police attention, and Peter wasn’t exactly BFFs with the NYPD. At least not at the moment.
Besides, usually, the police had bank robberies, car accidents, and the occasional bomb threat handled. It was the little stuff that fell through the cracks. Peter spent his nights trying to help where he could, taking care of the community. Like guiding old man Alan back to his wife after his dementia had taken him on another midnight stroll. Or helping a pair of teens replace a flat tire, once the three of them watched a quick YouTube tutorial of course.
Community stuff. Important, but not important enough for an understaffed police department to allocate resources too.
Still, when an earsplitting screech of tires was quickly followed by the sound of shattered glass and silent (though not silent to him) alarms, Peter couldn’t exactly not swing by and check things out.
Landing on a neighboring building’s fire escape, Peter takes in the scene before him.
A white unmarked utility van idles below with the side sliding door thrown open. Angry black tire marks mar the cracked sidewalk leading up to the van’s backend, while the van’s front is mangled and littered with debris from crashing through the store's entrance.
Masked figures dart in and out of the store with boxes of electronics bundled in their arms. Peter counts three, four, no, five people, three running back and forth between the store and the van’s back, one organizing boxes in the cargo bay, and another sitting in the driver’s seat, their fingers drumming anxiously on the steering wheel.
Peter smirks, then drops down onto the van’s hood with a thump as the driver lets out a startled shriek. “Hey buddy, you can’t park here.”
“FUCK!” The driver roars, slapping a hand over his chest. “Stop doing that!”
“Oh, have we met before?” Peter casts a look over his shoulder. One of the thieves has rocked to a stop, boxes of electronics cascading out of his arms with an expensive sounding crunch as he throws up his arms in surrender. “I’m usually pretty good with faces, but you guys are wearing masks. Aww, are you guys fans? You know the masks are supposed to be red right?”
A third thief pops up from behind Getaway Driver’s seat. “Whoa! Dad, it’s Spider-Man!”
“JA—” Getaway Driver bites back the rest of his yell and hisses through gritted teeth. “Shut up.”
Peter wiggles his fingers at Getaway Driver’s son. “Hi! Jay, is it?”
“Jacob!” The man provides helpfully.
Getaway Driver swears. “For the love of—”
Glass crunches behind him. Without turning, Peter shoots a web over his shoulder. There’s a faint yelp as the web goes taunt, and Peter secures the other end to the van’s hood.
“Jacob! I remember you! You crashed your moped!” Previously known as Dollar Store Macklemore before Peter had read the guy’s ID. “How’s the head? Staples all out?”
“Fully healed,” Jacob replies happily.
Peter points a stern finger at him. “You better be wearing that helmet that I got you. I know it’s sparkly but trust me, cars can see you way better with the sparkles.”
“I like the sparkles,” Jacob assures him.
“And that must make you Billy!” Peter waves at Getaway Driver through the windshield. “Hi Billy!”
Getaway Driver, Billy, buries his face in his hands with a groan. “I’m too old for this shit.”
“You’re only Forty-Two,” Jacob argues.
Peter jumps off the van’s hood and twirls around. Box Guy is still standing right where he left him, staring down at his webbed companion as they try unsuccessfully to inch-worm across the sidewalk. “Dude, you would totally win Red Light Green Light in Squid Game. Inch Worm over here…” Peter and Box Guy both watch Inch Worm scoot a few more times across the pavement without success. “Him… not so much.”
The distant call of police sirens echoes down the alley. Still too far away for the others to hear, but close enough that Peter claps his hands together twice to get everyone’s attention. “Alright boys, it’s been a long time since I’ve watched Dora but I’m pretty sure cinco means five. Where’s the last of ya?”
Crickets. Peter imagines he can hear the chirp chirp chirp in the silence that follows.
Sighing, he flips his wrist, shooting a bit of webbing at the van’s doors to glue them shut.
“Hey!” Billy complains.
Peter ducks around the back and kicks those doors shut too, webbing them closed. “Don’t worry! It’ll wear off in half an hour or so. And the police have web dissolvers too, courtesy of yours truly.”
He swings around front and lands in front of Box Guy and Inch Worm, who has finally given up in their attempts to crawl away, and points a stern finger at Box Guy. “Sit.”
He sits so fast Peter swears he doesn’t even bend his knees, just kicks out his legs and falls.
“Boxy that can’t be good for your tailbone,” he complains.
Boxy box man stays as silent as the grave, brown eyes staring up at Peter as wide as a bodega cat chattering in the window at pigeons.
Peter studies him for a moment longer, then crouches down next to Inch Worm with a hand covering his mouth as he whispers, “yo, what is up with your friend? Why is he looking at me like that?”
Inch Worm rubs his forehead into the cement, rocking his head side to side as though trying to exfoliate his face with some good old fashioned New York concrete until Peter reaches out and stops him with a finger to his cheek.
“He’s scared.”
“Of me? I’m harmless.”
Inch Worm groans. “Of spiders.”
Ah.
Peter peeks up over his hand at Box Guy. He still hasn’t moved, watching Peter like a raccoon blinded by a motion light. He raises an eyebrow. “You know I’m not actually a spider, right?”
Box Guy just blinks.
“I mean, I’m part spider. You know with the webs, sticking to walls, heightened senses. And I can talk to them. They listen to me! Kind of like that scene in Harry Potter where Hagrid’s spider, you know the one, Aragog, he summons all the spiders to chase Harry through the woods. And of course, you know all about the fangs,” Peter holds two fingers up by his mouth. “That’s why I wear a mask, the fangs tend to freak people out. And the venom.”
“Jesus man,” Inch Worm thunks his head against the concrete again.
“But I’m not actually a spider,” Peter stresses again.
Box Guy stares back at him as Peter waits, looking him up and down once, then frowns.
“Breathe,” Peter prompts helpfully.
Box Guy sucks in a breath, wheezing as though his lungs are made of tissue paper.
Satisfied he’s not going anywhere any time soon, or holding his breath ‘til death, Peter straightens up. “Cinco?” He calls out, “Lima? Cinc? Hamesh? Panch? Cinque? I’m trying to be inclusive of a multi-lingual city here but I’m running out of ways I know how to say five.”
The sirens grow closer as Peter ducks into the storefront, bending a jagged edge of rebar safely out of the way. “Listen, I’m mad about stores not honoring release day delivery too, but we’re supposed to work out our frustrations by looting and smashing within the games, not by larping a heist in a knockoff BestBuy.”
Water drips from a busted sprinkler onto a gray carpet floor and Peter suppresses a gag as liquid seeps into his sneakers. Ugh. That was his absolute last pair of dry socks. Nothing like going to the laundry mat to wash three sets of mismatched socks and a patchy red sweatshirt every other night. He seriously needs to figure out how to waterproof this suit.
Peter crawls over a display table, neatly stepping past flickering tablet screens and a smoking laptop. He eases the MacBook closed with the tip of his toe as he passes.
“If you shock me I’m switching to Dell,” Peter threatens, then nudges it off the table and into a puddle.
The laptop spits out one last spark before the smoke sputters out.
Sirens, closer now. Peter chews on the inside of his cheek as he surveys the store before him. Electricity hums through the walls overhead. Silent alarms click and blare with an annoying high frequency beep beep beep that Peter can’t quite drown out, but it’s not the alarms that have him hesitating, or the sirens, or even the damn sprinklers flooding a room full of electronics.
It’s the electronics themselves.
Their hum is so loud, a thousand different devices communicating at varying frequencies weaving into a symphony of artificial noise designed to drive Peter utterly insane. He can ignore it, sure, he’s gotten better at pushing it aside as white noise, but if it ain’t like nails on a chalkboard to his heightened senses.
It also, unfortunately, masks the remaining would-be thief’s heartbeat.
“Heeelllloooo? Olly olly oxen free! Or is it ‘all ye all ye come in free’? I never really knew.”
No answer. Not that Peter was really expecting one. Most people didn’t play along with his taunts anyways. Frowning, Peter twirls around, balancing on the ball of one foot.
Something… something isn’t right.
It’s been a few years since Peter gained his powers. Years of gymnastics had made the webs and swinging through the streets easy enough to master. The strength had been harder. Peter had accidentally torn off his fair share of bathroom doors and knocked down a handful of walls before he had learned to rein it in.
The extra senses though? Not the basic ones like hearing, sight, and smell. But the other ones, the ones Peter affectionately calls his Spider-Senses. Those had taken a bit longer to translate into words.
Bad. Bad. Bad. His senses chant. Goodbye. Away. Hurry.
Peter rubs a hand across the back of his neck as tension coils in his spine. Four out of five thieves captured isn’t horrible. Besides, he can’t have all the fun, right? Gotta leave someone for the police to wrangle.
“Hey your Uber’s here!” Peter jabs a thumb over his shoulder as a cruiser rolls up to the curb, flashing lights and siren blaring.
Cinco doesn’t take the bait.
Damn. He really thought that one would work.
Rocking back onto his heels, Peter casts one last glance into the store, straining his ears to hear over the high pitched chorus of dying electronics. His lips tug down in a grimace and he resists the urge to stuff fingers in his ears like a child. Thank god his new mask will have noise cancellation. It was still a work in progress, but Peter had finally managed to score a pair of unclaimed lost-and-now-Peter’s earbuds, and he was in the process of taking them apart to build into his next mask design and cut down on the overwhelming symphony of audio feedback.
Hurry. Bad. Bad. Bad. Goodbye. Angry.
Angry? Well no shit, Peter kind of has the guy cornered, even if he can’t detect exactly where they’re hiding.
Rolling his shoulders, Peter tries not to act too much like he’s fleeing as he returns to the store entrance, waving at the pair of officers exiting their cruiser. The shorter of the two fixes him with a scowl as he straightens up, salt and pepper hair sticking out from the sides of his cap. He moves his hand to rest on the holster strapped to his side, and Peter clears his throat awkwardly.
He really hates guns.
“Spider-Man,” the second officer, another man, slightly younger but much taller and with dark blond hair, greets him with a nod. “These guys for us?”
“Yup,” Peter makes sure to pop the ‘p’ and gestures around. “Billy and Jacob are in the van stuffed full of laptops, tablets, and the like. Say hi guys!”
Jacob waves enthusiastically from the window. Billy, meanwhile, leans forward with his head in his hands and smacks his face into the steering wheel so hard the horn blares.
Peter gestures to the other men. “Then you have Inch Worm and Boxes here.”
“Seth and Charlie!” Jacob calls helpfully from an inch wide crack in the driver’s side window. “And that’s—” Billy claps a hand over Jacob’s mouth with a desperate, “pleasestoptalking.”
Peter gives them a thumbs up. “Right! And the rest of the Twilight cast is still in the store. I only saw one more. I’m guessing that’s Edward. Or maybe Jasper? I’ve only seen the movies and I’m drawing a blank on the rest of the characters.”
Bad! His senses urge. Goodbye! Hurry! Angry!
“And who would you be?” Salt and Pepper demands.
“Little freaky Resume, of course.”
Salt and Pepper huffs.
A second cruiser pulls up to the curb with a third right behind it, four more officers filing out of their vehicles. Peter watches them approach with growing unease in the pit of his stomach.
Bad! Bad! Bad! Closer! Angry! Behind!
Behind?
The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stand on edge.
BEHIND!
Oh shit.
Peter jumps, shooting a web at the nearest building and yanking himself into the air. He’s nearly fast enough. A fist the size of his entire calf closes around his left leg and suddenly he’s kissing the pavement with a spine rattling crash.
Gunfire explodes to life in a series of deafening pops overhead as the officers begin firing. An inhuman roar shatters windows. Peter rolls over onto his back and finds himself staring face to face with what can only be described as a gigantic mutated Belgian Malinois.
“Nice puppy,” Peter pries the human-like claws from his leg. “Who’s a good five ton freak of nature? You are. Yes you are.”
The beast snarls and bares its teeth, blasting Peter with a smell so foul he holds his breath. Rotting flesh and decay, and the sticky too sweet scent of a chemical Peter can’t place. Drool drips from fangs as long as Peter’s arms and lands with a wet splat beside his head as its jaws open wider and wider until the bottom half of its mouth unhinges like a snake.
Ohmygod I’m going to DIE.
Die! His Spider-Sense chimes helpfully.
Bullets ping off of the side of the mutated dog’s head. Peter yelps as he pries himself free of the creature’s grasp, shooting webs at a nearby streetlight and yanking himself to safety.
“The Twilight quip was meant to be a joke!” He complains. “Not an invitation!”
Clifford the big ugly asshole swipes an arm through the air with another roar, smashing through the rest of the storefront’s remaining walls and sending debris raining down on the still idling van. Peter shoots out a web and yanks the van out of harm's way to the chorus of Jacob and Billy’s terrified screams.
Scuttling over the van’s roof, Peter launches himself back into the fray, flinging web after web at the thing’s legs to try and trip it up.
The creature is unlike anything Peter has ever seen. It’s HUGE, as if a bipedal mangy wolf had a baby with an elephant. Patchy black fur covers humanoid legs and arms, growing thicker across the chest and merging with an entirely animalistic head like something out of Egyptian mythology.
Peter doesn’t remember Anubis being this horrific looking in his Egyptology book.
Dodge! Left! Under! Jump!
Peter allows his instincts to take hold, weaving traps and keeping the dog-thing’s attention on him. A quick punch to the back of one knee has the beast stumbling. Another to the vulnerable skin below one ear is met with a roar. The webs begin to slow it down, gluing one foot to the pavement and Peter shifts his attention to taking care of the creature’s fangs next, winding round and around its jaw until a makeshift muzzle locks the terrifyingly snake-like jaw shut.
“Bad dog!” Peter shouts, swinging away from Anubis’ claws as he swipes at him.
Watching. Strangers. Watching.
Distracted, Peter looks over his shoulder mid-swing and nearly loses his grip.
There, suspended over the top of an apartment building, is a sparkling circle of reddish gold light. Two men stand outlined against the glowing frame, one, dressed head to toe in shining robotic armor, like someone took the concept of an Iron Man cosplay and decided to spray paint it red. ( Everyone knows Iron Man’s suit is blue.) The other man is so opposingly dressed that while Red Metal Knight looks like he stepped out of the 31st century, it’s as if this man stumbled out of the 1st. This man is wrapped in delicately woven robes of expensive looking material, complete with a maroon cape flowing over his shoulders.
Glow. Strangers. Watching. His senses cry. Strangers. Other. Different.
“It’s too early for Halloween,” Peter complains as he redirects his attention to the fight. Now though, his senses are torn between the strange men at his back and the Egyptian god at his front.
He’s forgotten entirely about the police.
Peter nearly has Anubis secured when it all goes to shit. He’s focused on the Comic Con men watching him from the roof and the beast trying to eat him at his front, dodging slashing claws as he secures one of the creature’s arms firmly to its side, when stray police bullets suddenly ricochet off of Anubis’ impenetrable fur.
Metal! Flying! Sharp! His Spider-Sense cries.
He has a fraction of a second to realize the new trajectory of the bullets is on path to hit officer Salt and Pepper right in his poorly seasoned hair.
He has even less time to make the decision to throw his body in front of them.
Fire licks across his ribs and back. Webbing slips from his fingers. Peter hits the ground so hard he sees stars, the breath punched from his lungs.
“CEASE FIRE CEASE FIRE!” Someone cries.
Peter gasps, clawing for air to inflate his lungs.
ROLL!
A fist the size of his torso Whack-a-Mole’s him into the pavement. Pain unlike anything Peter has ever experienced roars through him in a violent wave, ripping his consciousness from the driver’s seat and sending him down, down, down.
MOVE!
But Peter can’t figure out how. Can’t find his arms or legs, or remember how to open his eyes. Knife-sharp claws prick at the edges of his skin and, suddenly, Peter is being thrown, shooting through the air like a star across the night sky.
For a breathless moment, Peter soars over the streets of New York just like any other night on his webs.
Then he falls.
Down down down.
To streets too far below.
Shadows rush up just as fast to steal him away, hiding the pain and terror until Peter feels nothing but the air whistling past him along with his last shreds of consciousness.
Until a web of red and golden light catches his fall.
And everything goes black.