Chapter 2
The room was blindingly white. Too clean. Too still.
The walls were smooth and white, the ceiling high with recessed lighting that buzzed softly. Everything felt sterile—quiet and humming, like the inside of a very expensive lab, or a very expensive prison. He couldn’t tell which.
His fingers flexed unconsciously on the armrests. His legs were tensed, not quite ready to run, but itching to. He scanned for exits. The door behind the two men. No windows. One security camera in the corner. Minimal vents. He could work with that.
Peter sat hunched in a sleek metal chair, one leg bouncing with barely-contained tension. The walls were smooth like glass, the kind of clinical nothingness that made your skin itch. There was a thin table between him and the two men who’d led him here—one older, tall, dressed like someone who ran the world. The other, younger, with a friendlier smile and an edge just beneath it.
It didn’t help that he was still in tatters.
Dried blood caked on his chin. One of his eyebrows still stung from a cut. The nanotech suit clung to him like wet fabric, jagged and incomplete, flickering at the seams like a dying star. His knuckles were raw. His back ached. And the pain from Titan still coiled deep inside him—like his atoms remembered crumbling even if he didn’t.
Peter didn’t know who they were, but his mind was screaming: bad guys with money. Or worse, government. Not S.H.I.E.L.D., though—he’d have clocked that branding by now. These guys were something else. Too polished. Too calm.
He hadn’t said a word yet.
The atmosphere felt too polished, too calm. It screamed money. And Peter had dealt with that kind of money before—the kind that wore smiles like weapons.
They hadn’t cuffed him, but he knew better than to assume freedom. The younger guy—he’d introduced himself as Dick—was playing the good cop. Trying to ease the tension. The older one, Bruce, hadn’t said much at all. Just stood there like a storm waiting to break.
“So,” Dick said, leaning on the table a little, “Peter, right?”
Peter’s jaw tensed. “Yeah.”
Peter followed Dick’s gaze down to his own chest. What remained of the Iron Spider suit was practically a crime scene—torn open at the ribs, scorched black in places, bloodied, covered in flakes of ash that still hadn’t shaken loose. The nanotech pulsed weakly along the edges, glowing red and gold in intermittent sparks like dying embers. It looked more like a ghost than a suit.
“That thing you’re wearing,” Dick said, nodding toward him, “what is it?”
Peter had half a mind to say Really? He glanced down again, deadpan. The unmistakable, though cracked, spider symbol was still etched into what was left of the chestplate. Legs splayed out in that now-iconic shape. Sure, it was fractured, a little charred, but still pretty damn visible.
Are these guys idiots or what? That’s literally a spider. Not a bunny or cat. A spider. It’s called branding, ever heard of it?
He held back the sarcasm by sheer force of will and tried to come off casual. “Just something I threw together,” he muttered, shrugging one exposed, bloodied shoulder. The motion made pain ripple up his back, but he didn’t show it.
Bruce stepped in now, sharper, keener. The way he was watching Peter—calculating—reminded him way too much of Aunt May on a terrible day.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” Bruce said. “The material isn’t in any database we have access to. And the symbols on your chest—”
“—aren’t yours to worry about,” Peter snapped back before he could help himself.
The tension in the room ticked up a degree. Dick’s expression flickered with something between surprise and concern, but Bruce? Bruce didn’t even blink.
Peter exhaled slow through his nose, trying not to show how his knees were shaking. The adrenaline was burning off and all he had left was blood, dirt, and sarcasm.
He crossed his arms, glaring as best he could without looking like he’d pass out. Peter’s fingers twitched under the table. If he had to make a break for it—
“Look,” Dick said gently, “no one’s trying to hurt you. You showed up in our home. Covered in blood. Wearing—whatever that is. You can understand why we’re confused.”
Peter stared at them both, eyes darting between expressions. He didn’t trust the calm, didn’t trust how they kept circling questions without giving answers of their own.
“You work for someone?” Peter asked, voice low. “A company? A lab?”
Dick glanced at Bruce.
“We don’t work for anyone,” Bruce said. His voice was rough, like gravel. “We’re trying to help.”
“Right,” Peter said. “Because random billionaires are always just so helpful when strangers just spawn in their mansions.”
Neither of them blinked at the word spawn. That was worrying.
Peter leaned back, looking around the room again. No clear exit, but maybe a vent behind him. Too narrow. His heartbeat picked up.
“So what is this, then?” Peter asked, narrowing his eyes. “Some rich guy’s bunker? Secret villain lair? Gonna experiment on the weird kid who fell out of the sky?”
Dick’s face shifted—just a little. Surprise? Amusement? Peter couldn’t tell.
“We’re not villains,” Bruce said, the calm edge in his tone turning slightly sharper.
Peter didn’t respond.
The silence stretched.
Finally, Dick leaned in a bit and said, “Okay, Peter. If you’re not from here—where are you from?”
Peter’s brain short-circuited. Because that was too on the nose. Too close to the truth.
“Queens,” he said cautiously.
Bruce tilted his head. “Queens… where?”
Peter hesitated. “New York?”
They both exchanged a look.
“We’re in Gotham,” Bruce said slowly, like it should mean something. “You’re not from anywhere near here.”
Gotham?
Peter felt something drop in his chest.
What the hell was a Gotham?
Peter’s brows pulled tight.
“Gotham?” he echoed, blinking like the word had short-circuited something in his brain. “Where the heck even is that? Is that—Canada? Or like… an off-brand Vegas?”
Bruce’s eyes snapped to him, cold and sharp as steel.
“Where’s Damian?”
The sudden change in tone punched the air out of the room. Peter jerked back slightly, startled by the force in Bruce’s voice.
“What?” Peter blinked. “Who’s—?”
“What did you do to him?” Bruce stepped forward, not shouting, but each word landed with brutal precision. “Where is my son?”
Peter’s mouth went dry. Son?
“I didn’t do anything to anyone!” he shot back, voice rising. “I don’t even know who that is!”
Dick stood now too, less aggressive, but still tense. Watching. Blocking the door.
Bruce slammed his hands on the table, hard enough that Peter flinched. “Then how did you get here? Why are you in his place?!”
Peter stood too, chair screeching behind him. “I don’t know! One second I was—” His voice cracked, the weight of everything suddenly flooding his throat. “I was dying, okay? On some rock in the middle of a war and then I blink and I’m in your weird mansion and everyone’s yelling and—God, I don’t even know what the hell is going on!”
The room was too bright. His head was spinning. His hands curled into fists, half expecting webs to shoot out, half praying they wouldn’t.
Bruce’s eyes bored into him, searching, dissecting.
Peter tried to breathe.
“I didn’t take anyone,” Peter said, quieter now. The edge in his voice was fraying, unraveling into something rawer, something more real. “I don’t even know how I got here.”
Another beat of silence. Heavy. Drenched in something unspoken.
Then Dick stepped forward, hands raised in a calming gesture, the exact sort of move Peter’s guidance counselor used whenever a kid looked like they were about to throw a chair.
“Okay,” Dick said, voice soft. “Let’s just… pause. Take a breath.”
Peter stared between them—Bruce still radiating that grim, hyper-controlled fury, and Dick, gentler but still sharp beneath the calm. Both of them were coiled, tense in a way Peter recognized too well.
They were used to violence. Used to situations going sideways.
He didn’t like how familiar that made them feel.
His heart thudded against his ribcage, faster now. Not from fear exactly. But from the pressure—like something big was about to crash over him, and he couldn’t see what yet.
Screw it.
“I know you guys are smart,” Peter said, eyes flicking between the two of them. “So let’s not play games. You’ve already figured it out.”
Bruce’s jaw flexed. Dick tilted his head slightly, confused.
Peter gestured loosely to his ruined suit, the glowing veins of dying nanotech still crawling faintly over his ribs.
“I’m Spider-Man,” he said. “Okay? Surprise. Secret’s out.”
He braced for the fallout.
Instead, Dick blinked. “…Who?”
Peter’s mouth opened, then closed again. “Spider-Man.”
Dick looked at Bruce. Bruce raised a single brow, unreadable.
“You… don’t know who that is?” Peter asked, slowly.
Dick looked genuinely puzzled. “Is that, like, a code name or something?”
Peter stared at them both, disbelief rising like a tide. "Seriously?"
Bruce stepped forward then, voice hard as iron. “Enough. Where is Damian? What did you do to him? What’s your plan?”
And Peter, lips parting to reply, could only think—
Are these guys idiots?
Because he was literally wearing the symbol. Right there. Red and black and cracked and scorched, but still very clearly a spider. Even half-dead, the suit basically screamed superhero.
And yet here they were, acting like he was the villain.
This day was getting worse by the minute.
Peter leaned back slightly in the chair—well, slumped was more accurate—arms crossed over what remained of his chestplate like it was armor against the two strangers across from him.
Neither of them had reacted to the name Spider-Man. Not even a flicker of recognition.
And that… was bad.
Really bad.
He wasn’t on Titan anymore, that much was obvious. But this wasn’t Earth either. Not his Earth. He knew his geography and the city name—Gotham—didn’t ring a single bell. The only Gotham he knew was the neighborhood deli down the block that sold good bagels and maybe illegal fireworks.
But what had really stuck with him—haunted him in the quiet moments between questions—was that moment. The blink.
One second, he was dying.
Not metaphorically. Actually dying. He could feel his cells ripping apart, his skin vanishing into ash, his healing factor trying to stitch him back together and losing the race.
Then... nothing.
No pain. No ash. No Mr. Stark.
Just a blink.
And suddenly he was seated at this obnoxiously fancy dinner table, in a house that probably cost more than Midtown High’s annual budget, with a stranger staring at him like he was supposed to be someone else.
And that was it, wasn’t it?
They’d looked at him expecting someone else.
Damian.
Whoever that was.
The room hadn’t been set for a hostage situation. There’d been food on the table. Silverware. Water glasses with condensation. No panic. No yelling.
It had been domestic.
Normal.
Which meant he wasn’t supposed to be there.
He had taken someone else’s place.
Peter’s brows drew together slightly, gaze flicking between the two men again. The younger one, Dick, was tense but open—watching Peter like someone trying to piece a puzzle together. The older one, Bruce, looked like he could snap a neck with a pinky finger and had already mentally prepared to do so. They were both so sure Peter had done something to this Damian guy.
But Peter had no idea who that was.
Still… maybe that’s what happened. Maybe, whatever was going on with Thano’s plan—maybe instead of dusting completely, he’d glitched through reality. Landed here. In this Damian’s chair. In his life.
Which meant… Damian was dusted? Was Damian back on his reality, where he should’ve been.
Titan.
His stomach turned.
He glanced down at the cracked spider symbol on his chest and swallowed hard.
Wherever here was, he needed to fix this. Fast.