Chapter Text
You know what? Things had been fine. Good. Great, even. Franklin’s nearly two—been Hell on wheels since he got mobile. There’s been not a hint of any Galactus sized problems.
It was even going well with that lady that’s drawing out the coloring book—they’ve been expanding into toddler products recently, Johnny wants everything Franklin owns to have his favorite uncle’s face on it. All the groundwork was laid out with her. 2.28 more encounters and he was gonna finally ask her out.
See? Going great.
Then villains started appearing out of thin air.
And no, not in the metaphorical sense. Like they weren’t paying attention and then AHH, attack of the robots. No, these guys have literally just been… appearing .
Of course, Johnny is a man of science. First time, he figured Oh, the witnesses must be wrong. Being scared can do strange things to the mind. Guy probably climbed up out of the sewers or something, that’s how he snuck up on everyone. Reasonable, just like always. He’s known for that kind of thing.
Then, it happened again. With about triple the witnesses. All of them saying the same thing, no he just poofed into existence. One minute not there, then the next— Like they said. Poof.
Still, Johnny held it together. Everyone around him is always looking to him for his steadfast surety, and his penchant to never overreact to anything ever. Besides, seeing is believing.
Then, Reed picked up some weird energy and they went to the site and yeah. Poof. Nothing one minute—the next, a flying angry guy rippling with electricity. Why not? It’s Wednesday, after all.
Johnny skids against the pavement as he comes to land alongside Reed and Sue. They’ve barely gotten started and he already feels like he’s running on empty. Of course, Sue realized almost instantly that the guy was sucking up electricity from all around him, so then of course Johnny had to fly across the city to tell the public works guys to shut it off. And yeah, it took a while. What, is he just supposed to know where the public works people are off the top of his head? Reed would say yes but his opinion doesn’t matter right now.
“What’s the sitch?” Johnny asks, eyeing their villain.
“Ben’s invulnerable to the attacks, but this Electric Man is able to stay airborne,” Reed analyzes, fiddling with some contraption in his hands. “It’s made getting any counter moves in very difficult.”
“He’s a good distraction though,” Sue appreciates, watching as Ben screams expletives up at Zappy Man and receives a barrage of Zappies for it.
“Okay, so he’s stupid,” Johnny cocks his head.
“Actually, I estimate his intelligence to be parallel with your own,” Reed mutters.
“Hah.” Johnny breathes mirthlessly. “I know where you sleep, Richards.”
“Next to my beautiful wife?”
Said beautiful wife uses her psionics to pick up a car and throw it at Ben. He catches it easily, and tosses it upward at their foe. It’s sliced clean in two before it ever gets close. Johnny is getting really twitchy now.
“Can I torch this guy or what?” Johnny demands.
“Give me just—Ah!” Reed looks up from the… thingy in his hands. “Yes, just as I suspected. There are traces of multiversal energy emanating from that man. Particles from multiple different universes, actually…”
“And I’m sure that has nothing to do with the trans-dimensional portal you’ve been toying with in our basement.” Johnny scathes.
“There is a difference between trans-dimensional and trans-universal. Peering into other dimensions is child’s work. What I’m doing is far more—”
“Johnny!” Sue snaps, and he’s not quite sure why he’s being yelled at, but he flames on anyway.
Should be easy from there. Johnny can blast a little, block a little, fly a little faster. Maybe this guy will vanish like the other two, or maybe they’ll stick around long enough to be apprehended, but either way, Johnny dials back on the heat. It’s an unspoken rule that he’s not allowed to kill anyone unless his big sister says he can.
Unfortunately, the key word in that scenario is should. With that guy’s electric web, it’s impossible to get close. And even with Ben splitting his attention from the ground, Zappy Guy nearly fries his eyebrows off at least three times. Would be more if Sue wasn’t quite so fast with the shields.
And yeah, this is really starting to piss Johnny off. This guy like, isn’t even a real guy. He’s some trans-dimensional, multiverse hopping weirdo. There’s no history here. This is a fourth page story in the paper at best.
Besides, Johnny has his afternoon booked for watching cartoons with Franklin, and this is really cutting into that.
Lowering to the pavement, Johnny zips up next to Sue. “Encase him with all his electricity, then when I get close, drop it and let me at him.”
Sue’s only response is to narrow her gaze at him from the corner of her eye. She’s got that look in her eye she always gets when Johnny tries to give her orders in battle. Well, the look he gets when she secretly knows it’s a good idea. The other is a lot meaner.
Apparently, she’s the nice sister today. She does as suggested, warping the light and air around Zappy to encase him in a little egg. Finally, it allows Johnny to get in close. She drops it at the perfect time, right as he releases a streak of flame and—
It hits his nose first, the acrid tingle of electricity in his nose hairs. Then, every follicle of hair on his body stands on end. His vision preemptively whites out. And then Johnny gets slammed with an ungodly amount of electricity.
Just for a moment, he’s a missile.
He doesn’t remember landing. He doesn’t remember any pain. He doesn’t remember a single feeling.
He’ll always remember the sounds. Thunder cracking in the air as electricity disperses. His sister’s scream somewhere in the distance. Sirens and crying children.
Then, he’s pretty sure he died.
✦
Peter’s been having a shit day. Or maybe week. Or maybe life , he doesn’t know. All he knows is the last person he wants to see right now—or ever— is Doctor Strange.
But that’s who he’s faced with now, flying beside him with his red cloak billowing. Really, Peter thought going to the top of the Empire State Building to eat his lunch was as good a way to get some privacy as any, but apparently he’s wrong. He swallows a sigh, and takes another bite of his partially stale sandwich.
“Spider-Man,” Doctor Strange greets, like they’re simply coworkers, and he didn’t wipe Peter’s entire existence out of the universe. Because of course, to the Doctor, that’s all they are. Sure, they fought Thanos together, but in his mind Peter always kept the mask on.
Peter only grunts in assertion, finishing up the last of his sandwich, and pulling the lower half of his mask back down over his chin. Momentarily, he debates throwing himself from the rooftop to simply lose Strange. He probably could. He’s spent a lot of time just swinging between buildings, trying to go as fast as possible.
He doesn’t know why he stays, but he does.
“Something I can help you with, Doctor?” Peter asks, and winces at how cold his voice is.
But Strange just smiles pleasantly—fake. “As a matter of fact, there is. A multiversal threat is awakening, and you’re the only person who can help.”
Peter’s chest tightens. “Oh, uh… All that multiverse stuff? I don’t really do that, you know. I’m just a… friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I try to stick to the ground. Well, not literally, but I—”
Doctor Strange holds one trembling hand up. “I’m well aware of your stance on non-neighborhood issues. But this is your neighborhood. Just a different version of it.”
Peter still hesitates. Yeah, meeting his alternate selves was cool and all, but the rest of it was… Well, he’d really just rather not mess with any of it. Multiverse has taken more than enough from him already.
But just as he’s inhaling a breath to refuse again, Doctor Strange beats him to the punch.
“Just come to the Sanctum and hear what we have to say. There’s a twenty in it for you.”
And that, stupidly enough, makes Peter pause. Strange must know he’s strapped for cash. Going to the cool wizard mansion to listen to some junk he’s going to refuse, and he gets paid for it? Yeah, he’s done a lot worse for a lot less.
“Throw in a hot meal and it’s a deal,” Peter bargains.
“Done.”
✦
Twenty minutes later, Peter is slurping at some weird looking gruel, wallet a little heavier, and is still finding it just as easy to say no.
“So, there’s a group of villains traveling trans-multiversally,” Peter sums up. “And you want me to stop them.”
“That’s not—” America Chavez winces. “Not entirely it—”
“It’s not a group traveling,” Doctor Strange cuts in. “Not like that incident from a few years ago.”
Peter forces himself to remain very still at the mention. He’s never been sure how much of that Strange remembers. Enough, apparently.
“This is essentially the essence of those villains.” Strange continues. “A conglomeration of parts of them from different universes. The idea of them, if you will.”
“And currently, they’re all manifesting on Earth-828,” America continues. “The heroes there have reached out to the multiverse for help. They’re mighty, but few, and they can’t face this danger alone.”
“I still don’t get why you’re asking me,” Peter admits.
“These are villains you’ve faced before,” Strange explains. “Besides, in the canon of the multiverse, it is statistically proven that if Spider-Man faces these foes, fatalities and structural damage decreases sharply.”
“Okay,” Peter shrugs. “Great. Find another Spider-Man. There are plenty of us running around. Hell, I’ve got two I can personally recommend.”
“It’s not that simple.” Strange narrows his eyes.
“We’re the only universe that has answered the distress call.” America’s voice is small—sad.
That makes Peter pause.
Strange leans forward suddenly, and for the first time, he’s a lot more like Peter remembers him being: very unkind.
“What exactly are you planning to do otherwise, Spider-Man?” Strange demands sharply. “Okay, you refuse. You walk away from a crisis. Then what? Go back to showing up late to Kate Bishop and Clint Barton’s gang busts? Wave from afar as Daredevil takes on Kingpin? Get trampled so the New Avengers can take their most recent photo op of a disaster? Maybe you can head over to Jersey—except, wait no, Ms. Marvel has things covered there too.”
Peter remains very, very still as Strange continues—unwilling to show his growing anger. He won’t rise to the bait. He won’t. Sure, he’s being forced out. He’s not stupid, he knows that. Every three blocks there’s a wannabe hero, and Peter just isn’t fast enough anymore.
“Your friendly neighborhood doesn’t need you anymore.” Strange spits. “This one? It does. People are already dead. Twenty-one killed in an incident with Electro. He hit the hospital. There were kids. Kids, Spider-Man. And it’s only going to get worse. Once they start to stabilize they can take full form, become even more powerful.”
Peter stands up sharply, boiling. “Sounds like that universe’s heroes need to work a little harder.”
With that, he storms out of the Sanctum.
✦
That night, Peter can’t sleep.
All he can think about is those kids. How many has he saved? Pulled from wreckage, or taken bullets for, or swung out of a crisis zone? Those kids in that other universe didn’t have him. Maybe that’s the whole problem.
All because of that asshole Electro. Peter can see why someone would have trouble with him. If he hadn’t had Peter 3’s advice…
Pulling himself from his bed, Peter traverses the few steps of his shoebox apartment and pulls the window open. He scales the wall like he so often has. He’s only been caught climbing onto the roof once, but that guy was so high Peter is sure he thinks he hallucinated it.
There’s no one up there tonight. He sits himself right at the edge of the stone half-wall. Far enough that anymore person would scare. It’s not far enough for Peter. It’s never far enough.
He lets out a deep breath, and he closes his eyes. All his inhibitions fall away, and Peter’s hearing extends to its breaking point. It takes a while before he can parse anything. None of it is very clear, but he gets what he needs. Daredevil and Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Kate Bishop and Yelena Belova. Bucky Barnes and Ava Starr and John Walker. They’re all out there. All fighting. And the scraps left for Peter are… nowhere to be found.
He’s going to get his suit before he can change his mind.
✦
At dawn, Peter thumps against the Sanctum's large, circular window. Inside, heading for the stairs, Doctor Strange only looks mildly surprised to look up and find a man-sized bug. He lowers the papers in his hands.
“How do I get there?” Peter calls through the glass.
✦
Two hours later, after a brief call ahead, America Chavez punches a hole in reality.
With one deep breath, Peter discovers a new world.