Peter woke early to dawn scarcely more than a trace of warmth on the horizon. The overcast day had extended into the night, turning the sky a sickly yellow-green with light pollution. He'd taken comfort in that: if he ignored the events of yesterday, he could almost fool himself into thinking he'd simply fallen asleep on his own shitty sofa.
He stared at the little patch of night visible from the couch and took stock.
Despite falling asleep early, he was still plagued by the same bone-deep exhaustion he'd been unable to shake since October. Not that it had been an uninterrupted slumber. By his reckoning, Jason had left twice during the night: once, a few hours after Peter had fallen asleep in a post-dinner haze; and a second time in the early hours of the morning. In both instances, Jason's return had woken Peter, though he'd feigned sleep to avoid any conversation.
Peter didn't resent the disruption. At best, Jason had probably only a couple hour's rest himself, meaning the morning hours would be for Peter to do as he pleased.
After Peter had been woken a second time and he could hear light snoring from Jason's bedroom, he'd begun searching for ways to get to New York (connecting to Jason's WiFi had been simple enough: fortunately, things weren't so far off here that he was working with incompatible frequencies). He knew he had to leave. Grim anticipation filled him with purpose, but… he couldn't quite bring himself to sit up.
It hadn't taken long for him to find some veryinteresting things about the place he'd ended up. Jason was right: Gotham was dangerous. None of his findings brought him great comfort — nor did the simmering wariness of his tingle, or the occasional spatter of gunfire through the night (though it had calmed significantly as the evening wore on).
Eventually, Peter had been unable to keep his eyes open and fell back into a doze. Now it was dawn and there was only the hum of a normal city to contend with. He'd be safe out there this time. And he still had his spider-suit on, though he dreaded to think what it smelled like. It would be easy to get up and leave.
He just… had to do it.
His fragmented sleep left him feeling worse than usual, his eyes burning and his pulse shivery. But it was fine. It was a feeling he'd long since accepted was a standard for his existence now. He'd learnt to cope.
"Get to it, Parker!" he whispered to himself.
Still he didn't move.
"C'mon, loser!" he tried again. Slapped his legs for good measure. Peter had Plans™ for today!
With Herculean effort, he flicked off his blanket and then, as though blessed by divine intervention, his senses buzzed. There were a pair of thumps. Then the door to Jason's bedroom swung open and Dog came scrambling out.
Peter bit back a sigh when Jason followed out at a more sedate pace.
No use pretending to be asleep this time. Especially when Dog immediately made a beeline for Peter and shoved her cold, wet nose in his face.
"Don't — crap, sorry. I bet she woke you," Jason huffed. To his credit, he did sound vaguely apologetic to have thwarted Peter's plans to secretly leave.
"It's fine," Peter sighed and sat up. "I was already awake."
"Oh? No early morning escape, then?" There was a pause, and then his face split into a broad grin as he took in Peter's defeated expression. "Or not… Did I beat you to the punch?"
"…."
"And after all my help!" Jason's scandalised tone was definitely an act, but Peter felt mildly guilty regardless.
"Who even wakes up at dawn?" Peter complained to smother the feelings and crashed back onto the couch. He was immediately accosted by Dog licking his face and couldn't help but laugh. "Did you even sleep last night?"
Jason titled his head, mouth curved cautious. "You heard me come in?"
"Yeah. At like, two."
"Ah… Family emergency."
Peter lifted himself up on his elbows. "Are they okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. Just — uh — boy problems."
Peter hummed. "Lame."
"Yeah." Jason flicked on the kitchen light and Peter hissed dramatically. The other man chuckled. "Coffee?"
"Ah. Yes, please."
Dog abandoned her fussing to tail Jason as he clattered around the kitchen with the coffee machine, and Peter shuffled back to prop himself against the arm rest to properly observe. His chest ached to watch the domestic scene. The exasperated grin Jason sent Dog when she tripped him up. The quiet gurgle of the percolator and soft chatter of the radio that was switched on. The practised familiarity to Jason's movements as he shuffled around the kitchen. Peter hadn't experienced anything close to it since Ma—
Since the Erasure.
Certainly, he tried to put on a brave face when he was alone, but his sparse little apartment made it agonisingly difficult to feel at home. There was nothing there to connect Peter to his friends and family. Even his pictures had been brutalised by Stephen's spell: each and every picture that once had him in it now only showed a blurred, concealed or disfigured face.
At first, he'd put them up on the walls anyway, but his absence made him feel trapped in a sense of unbelonging. Like he wasn't real anymore. Like he didn't really exist at all. Like he was just a figment of someone else's imagination that had lived beyond its use-by date—
"So, we going to New York today?"
Jason's question broke the quiet. Peter blinked. There was a mug held expectantly in front of him, and he followed it to callused hand, up muscled arm, to handsome face.
Crap. He'd lost time again.
It needed to stop, but he didn't know how.
The mug wiggled a little and Peter took it before Jason ended up pouring it on him or something equally petty. The heat of the mug burnt painfully, but it cut through the remaining haze in his mind.
"You look like a creamer, one sugar kinda guy," Jason said as he shoved Peter's blankets onto the floor and sat at the other end of the sofa.
"No sugar, actually," Peter said smugly, then winced at the rudeness. "But I don't really mind, thank-you." And then he frowned, finally registering the first thing Jason had said. "Wait. We?"
"Well, you're skint. I'm not. And I could do with a day trip."
Peter shifted with discomfort. "I'm not — you don't have to—"
"Let me be real with you, Pete," Jason interrupted smoothly. He crossed a leg and Peter's attention abruptly zeroed in on his socked foot. The man's toes curled as he re-settled. It was bizarrely disarming. "I don't think you're from New York—" he held up a hand to silence Peter's immediate outcry. "You do a good impression of one, I'll give you that, but at the very least, I don't think you're a present-day New Yorker. Now, I ain't gonna ask questions. Dog's stamp of approval is clear enough for me, but even if it weren't, I'd be following you to New York. Whatever it is you're after is clearly gonna be an adventure, and I want in."
Peter chewed on the inside of his cheek rather than respond. He probably shouldn't be surprised by the conclusion: even a cursory look at the makeup of this new universe showed him it was just as crazy — if not more — as his own. The only thing it was missing was its own Blip, but there'd been plenty of other Armageddons over the years. And it wasn't like Jason was wrong about the time travel. When his phone had finally connected to the WiFi, Peter had been shocked to learn it was only 2016.
So yeah… in a way, he was a time traveller…
It was just that that wasn't all that Peter was.
Staying quiet was probably his best bet. Let Jason draw his own conclusions. Provided, of course, those conclusions wouldn't end up concluding that Peter was a threat. He shuddered to think what kind of damage a man like Jason could manage if he saw Peter as one. Though it had never blared with alarm since their first meeting, his senses remained a dull tingle around Jason, like day old sherbet on the tongue. It was similar to what he'd felt around some of the Avengers that had fought the second battle.
"And if I find what I'm looking for?" he asked eventually.
"Then we part ways and I've got myself an interesting tale."
And if I don't? Peter wasn't brave enough to voice his biggest fear. He could hardly bear to think about the consequences. Although he knew he was smart, he was no Tony Stark. Making himself a machine to let him travel the multi-verse was out of the question. Unless he stumbled across the secrets of the universe or got some serious help, he was screwed.
Of course, he already knew that. A cursory look last night pulled up results for a Doctor Hugo Strange, but no Stephen. It did not bode well …
"So? You up for travelling to New York the — and I want you to know, it pains me to say this — the legal way?"
Peter sighed and hung his head. The strong smell of coffee wafted upwards. Despite his reluctance to rely on the help of a man he barely knew, Peter didn't have much of a choice. He could say no for the sake of his fear and pride and get there the hard way, or he could suck it up and accept the freely given help.
And if Jason ended up being a bad guy? Peter was reasonably certain he could overpower the man. For all that Jason looked like a moderately less beefed-up Captain America, he was pretty sure those were just the muscles of a normal strong man, not an enhanced man. So, unless it was normal here to lift a bus without breaking a sweat, Peter would be fine.
"Yeah," he said against his better judgement. "I'm in."
— + —
Peter didn't understand what Jason thought he meant by travelling 'the legal way', but he was pretty certain that regardless of the change in universes, speeding was still a crime. In fact, if anything, speeding was more harmful than anything Peter might have done to get to New York.
Turned out, the only ride Jason was interested in taking to New York was his motorcycle, an experience that Peter had been jittery about the moment he learnt of it. He was simultaneously nervous and excited, even if it meant that he was forced to ride tandem.
They left shortly after breakfast, but not before Jason had disappeared with Dog to leave her with Jennie — apparently, she lived a block away and was Dog's unofficial babysitter. Peter thought of running off while the man was gone but wasn't convinced Jason wouldn't somehow manage to find him again… he could do without the embarrassment.
So he'd remained, sipping at his forgotten coffee while he waited. The shivery feeling he'd felt on waking had not dispelled as it usually did, but Peter stubbornly ignored it. Upon Jason's return, he had skulled the rest of his now cold coffee, meekly donned one of Jason's spare jackets and helmet, and attempted to listen attentively to the impromptu lesson on how to ride before hopping on behind the man.
"Hold tight," Jason had said, voice coming clear through the linked speaker in the helmet. That was the only warning Peter got before promptly learning that Jason was an absolute maniac on two wheels. He took corners too tight, wove through traffic with reckless abandon and in general was the exact kind of rider that Peter had always thought were just attention seekers.
It was a good thing Peter was sticky. He wasn't completely comfortable being so close to someone after months of isolation, but he felt confident enough in his abilities that he only had to hold onto the sides of Jason's jacket and squeeze his thighs around the bike.
Except of course, when Jason swerved too quickly and the bike tilted in a way that felt entirely alien to Peter. In those all too frequent instances, it took quite a bit of effort to keep himself from squeezing too tight. The last thing he wanted to do was break the man's ribs for turning too fast.
If he thought the wild riding would ease off once they got out of Gotham and onto the highway, Peter was mistaken. Travelling early on a Sunday meant that most of the traffic was trucks. They were easy to move around, and yet Peter found himself becoming increasingly twitchy. He attention narrowed in on every little thing they passed, and he twisted to and fro to try and see them better, heart in his throat the entire time.
Jason seemed to quickly tire of behaviour, because as soon as they came across a gas station, he took the exit and pulled up in the parking bay out front. The man ripped off his helmet and twisted to scowl at Peter.
"You trying to kill us, Pete? Fuckin' sit still or you'll fall off!"
"So-sorry," Peter stuttered and tugged off his own helmet.
The buzzing he'd attributed to the motorbike remained fizzing beneath his skin and it didn't matter how much he regulated his breathing, his pulse remained erratic and rabbity. Now that the roar of the engine and the wind wasn't present, his ears rang like bad tinnitus, and he couldn't shake the twitchiness.
Jason clocked onto his hyperactivity almost immediately. His eyes narrowed and he dismounted to look at Peter properly.
"Your pupils are dilated. Did you take something while I was gone?"
"No—" His attention was abruptly stolen by a woman and toddler that exited the gas station. The child was crying, complaining about something Peter couldn't make out through the ringing—
Jason clicked his fingers and dragged Peter's eyes back on him. "Are you… sensitive to caffeine? I make strong coffee."
It took more effort than it should to keep his focus on Jason. There was so much going on. He struggled to remember what Jason had just asked when there were cars and people and just too much around.
"I… I'm not normally?" he managed. In fact, usually Peter found that his metabolism burnt through caffeine too quickly for him to ever appreciate the stimulant. If this was a caffeine thing, it was new.
"Well, it can't be the food if I'm not affected, and there's nothing in the apartment that could get you like this."
Jason chewed on his thumbnail as he thought. Peter's attention narrowed in on the movement for barely a second before he was twisting around to catch the woman slam the passenger door on her child, the toddler's cries immediately muffled.
Jason cursed lowly and snatched the helmet out of Peter's hands.
"Right. Off you get."
Peter dismounted and immediately stumbled. Jason caught him with a soft grunt before Peter did something wildly embarrassing like fall over.
"Shit, you're heavier than you look. Your limbs made outta lead?"
"I'm a black hole made flesh!" Peter giggled, then giggled harder at Jason's unnerved expression. "Just kidding!"
"Yeah… I figured," Jason said, though he didn't look entirely convinced. He glanced away, searching for something, and then nodded. "Alright, Pete. Let's get you somewhere quiet."
"Okay!"
With hands placed firmly on Peter's shoulders, he was led away from the bike and around the corner of the gas station to stop outside one of two public restrooms. Jason leaned around him to open the door, and Peter flinched at the stink of bleach and urine that seeped out into the open air.
"Pete, I'm gonna need you to camp out in here until you can calm down."
"But it smells bad!"
"Yeah, sorry about that bud, but you're wiggin' out and you need as much sensory deprivation as you can get until you calm down."
"That's the opposite of sensory deprivation! That's — that's sensory… dilation? Cremation? No — conflagration!"
"Fine, here—" something was shoved into his chest and Peter fumbled to catch it. It was a gas mask, similar — if a little sleeker — to the ones that had been on sale in the convenience store. "Put that on. If it can manage to filter out fear toxin, it can hand a Parkway gas station bathroom."
Peter was bundled into the bathroom while he was still trying to fit the mask on, and Jason flipped off the light for him.
"Lock the door when I leave," he ordered. "I'll be back in a few with some water. You'll know it's me 'cause I'll knock like this—" he knocked a brief pattern on the door and Peter nodded. After a moment studying Peter, Jason left and he locked the door.
With the lights out and the gas mask on, Peter was submerged in a pool of black. Rather than fumble around in the dark when he knew he'd only have to get back up, he pressed his back to the door. He wiggled his toes, crossed his arms over his chest to rest his fingertips on his collarbones, thumbs interlocked, and gave butterfly taps to the delicate bones as he breathed deeply[1].
He was in a gas station bathroom. His senses were going haywire. He was alone.
The walls gently vibrated from the hum of a generator — or maybe it was the refrigeration units from the store? The closed door muffled the roar of the parkway. Hot breaths puffed across his lips, trapped by the gas mask. His pulse was still a stressed hammer that left his stomach churning with nausea.
Jason thought it might be because of his coffee. Peter hadn't been affected by caffeine like this before, it was something new. Yet another ridiculous thing to deal with because he was too stupid to leave well enough alone—
No judgement, he reminded himself. That was what the YouTube video had said. Clouds passing by.
He resettled. Possibly, this was a novel, adverse reaction of caffeine. A reaction he had never had before. That was distressing, but it wouldn't stay that way. Sooner rather than later, his metabolism would work through the stimulant. He'd be okay.
By the time Jason returned with the same knock as promised, Peter felt a little more grounded and less likely to literally start climbing the walls. He kept his eyes closed when he opened the door and Jason handed him a bottle of water.
"Come out when you feel ready," Jason gruffed.
Peter thought he was doing a terrible job at pretending not to care. He also didn't know how he was meant to feel about that.
Bottle in tow, Peter edged his way around the room to find the toilet, slowly lowering the lid down so it wouldn't slam. He sat. Clutched the bottle between his legs and resumed the butterfly hug.
Time passed achingly slow, but eventually his pulse returned to something close to normal. The ringing in his ears died down. He dropped his hands to his knees and slouched against the cistern, just taking the time to breathe deep and slow.
Blindly, Peter cracked open the water bottle and downed half of it in one go, then stood and stumbled over to the door. The bathroom wasn't perfectly dark; over time his eyes had acclimated. It didn't take much effort to find the light switch. His eyes stung with the new stimulus and he shlepped over to the basin, shoved up his sleeves, and splashed his face with cold water.
The shock of temperature left him feeling a little more human. His reflection dripped water and Peter stared at the familiar vision. Haggard blueish circles beneath brown eyes, too-thin lips, an awkwardly square jaw and cheekbones that veered into then 'too sharp' territory from one too many missed meals. Pulling back his hair — too long, he'd needed a cut three months ago — revealed the cut on his temple, already almost healed. Six months ago, something so small would have already been nothing more than a pinkish scar by now.
Six months ago, Peter had been properly fed.
Six months ago… Peter was a real boy.
He splashed his face with more water before he could spiral, but something on his wrist caught his attention and he whipped his hand to his face to study it up close.
Beneath his dripping web shooters — disguised as wrist cuffs when not in use — there was a slit in his skin. Not a wound — the skin was healed like it was always meant to be there. It was only visible because he'd shoved up his sleeves and jostled the shooters. Peter rubbed his thumb over the slit and inhaled sharply at the increased sensitivity.
When he pulled his thumb away, it took with it a gossamer thread of silk.
Peter yelped at the feeling and jerked his hand back. The silk snapped.
Nausea filled his mouth with saliva, throat constricting. Wrong wrong wrong! It felt so alien and foreign. The closest he could compare it to was getting stitches that one time he'd been given an appropriate dose of local anaesthetic, after the second battle against Thanos. Not painful, but not comfortable either.
He wrenched back the shooter on his opposite wrist. In the exact same spot was another slit — a spinneret.
A whine escaped his throat as he pressed both wrists together, spinnerets on full display.
Freak, something soft and spiteful sneered. Peter bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.
A sudden caffeine sensitivity.
Spinnerets like Peter Two.
When Peter had landed for that final time, crashing into Jason's living room, he'd been certain he'd been rewritten. The feeling had dispersed by the time he'd had enough time to stop and think… but perhaps he shouldn't have been so certain he'd come back 'normal'.
He sobbed. Just the once, but the sound came straight from the chest and echoed off the unforgiving restroom walls.
It wasn't enough to have been erased? He had to become a stranger to his own body too?
There was a knock at the door.
"Pete? You good?"
His head snapped towards the voice. He'd thought Jason would have wandered off. Had he been there the whole time?
Finding his voice was a perilous task. One wrong move and any sense of composure he'd managed to grasp would crumble. Eventually, he found his voice, thin and reedy as it was.
"Fine! I just — just need a minute!"
Jason's doubt was clear even with a door in the way. "… Take your time. New York ain't going anywhere… Probably."
Peter bit his knuckle and rested his head against the mirror, fighting back unreasonable tears. Some new spinnerets shouldn't leave him so distressed. Under normal circumstances, he would have been fascinated by them.
But today? Peter could only interpret their appearance as an ill omen.
Because… if even Peter Parker One couldn't survive, what chance did he have of finding his way home?
[1] Peter is making use of the butterfly hug technique. He is not an expert, having self-taught himself the action. Much like Peter, I'm not an expert, but from what I can gather it's not necessarily intended as a self-soothing technique, though Peter is leaning on it as one. Learn more here: https://emdrfoundation.org/toolkit/butterfly-hug.pdf