who needs sleep part two
Peter wakes up stiff and cold, curled under a desk like some kind of stray. For a moment, he just lies there, unmoving, listening to the soft, metallic rhythm of rain tapping against the warped windows. His bones ache, his muscles scream, and his breath still clouds in the frigid air.
But the sharp, crushing loneliness that wrapped around him like a vice last night… it’s gone. Not entirely, but faded—like the dying hum of a radio signal. In its place is a distant warmth, a memory of gold light and Mantis’s soft voice pressing into the corners of his consciousness. It wasn’t real. None of it is. But it helped. He’ll take what he can get.
The cold, though? The cold stays.
Peter untucks his limbs and pushes himself into a sitting position, wincing as his joints protest. His makeshift pillow—a faded Black Sabbath shirt—slips from his lap. He picks it up and folds it carefully, fingers lingering a second too long on the fabric.
It still smells like him.
Coffee. Ozone. Motor oil. A hint of singed cotton.
Peter closes his eyes and lets the scent pull him back—back to late nights in Stark Tower, perched like a goblin in the rafters of the lab while Tony muttered about code updates and sipped espresso that definitely wasn’t FDA-approved. He remembers the buzz of the holograms, the sparkle of nanotech mid-assembly, and the sharp snap of a soldering iron sealing a joint. He remembers laughter—real laughter. Webbing himself to the ceiling because he fell asleep in a hammock he made from silk and duct tape while Tony worked under him.
God. He’d give anything to hear that exasperated “Kid!” again.
But Tony isn’t here. None of them are.
His grip tightens around the shirt. Then he forces himself up, rubbing a hand across his eyes and squinting out the broken window. Rain pours steadily now, washing the world in a smeary grey light. But through the haze and the city’s gothic skyline, something moves.
A flash of bright blue and midnight black.
Peter freezes.
Someone’s swinging across the rooftops—not clumsily, not like a rookie. No, this guy is graceful. Like he was born in the air. His movements are sleek, purposeful, like every flip and dive is a part of a silent symphony only he can hear. Peter leans forward, nose almost pressed to the cracked glass, trying to follow him.
He’s wearing a suit—black, skin-tight with blue lines running down the arms and a mask that covers his eyes. The lines are clean, almost bat-like. If the situation was different, Peter would have clasped his webshooters onto his wrists in an instant and thrown himself out the window to try and make his own moves as graceful.
Peter almost forgets himself. Almost forgets how cold he is. How lost.
“Do you throw yourself out of windows regularly?”
Peter yelps and spins around so fast he nearly hits his head on the desk.
That voice. That calm, royal cadence.
Black Panther.
“Wait—what?!” he blurts, eyes wide. “Hi Mr King-Wakanda-Black-Panther-sir!"
“It seems you have a fan, brother.”
Another voice. Younger, brighter. That teasing lilt.
Shuri.
Peter’s eyes dart around again, just in case. A hysterical laugh bubbles in his throat, but he swallows it down.
“Okay,” he whispers to himself. “Cool. Totally normal. Just fanboying over the voices in my head. No big deal.”
“Hush, Shuri.”
It doesn’t matter that it’s not real. Doesn’t matter that his brain is maybe short-circuiting from everything he’s lost. The sound of them—of people who mattered, who fought, who lived—grounds him.
Gives him something to hold onto.
After a long moment, he turns back to the window. The acrobat is gone now, swallowed by the city like a stone tossed into deep water. Peter presses his forehead to the cold glass and exhales slowly.
Okay. He needs a plan. Something normal.
And what do nerds do when they’re lost?
They make lists.
Peter scours the room and, after some digging, finds a half-burnt notebook and a leaky ballpoint pen. He shakes the ink down until it stains his fingers blue and scrawls at the top of a page:
Where
When(you never know)
Food
Info
A solid list. Not revolutionary, but solid.
He starts rummaging through the room again, collecting anything vaguely useful: four pieces of chalk, two ancient notebooks, two scorched circuit boards from a dead computer, a school ID for a ‘Mila Raye,’ and—miracle of miracles—a half-used bottle of isopropyl alcohol.
Peter doesn’t smile often these days. But seeing the circuit boards? It’s almost a smile.
He sets the parts down, tinkering in silence until he gets the ancient PC wheezing to life. It takes far longer than he’d like, but eventually the desktop loads.
He types with trembling fingers, scanning ‘Mila Raye’ first. Her profile confirms it: teacher at Gotham Public School, which burned down in 2004 due to a student-led revolt.
Peter raises an eyebrow. “Jesus.”
Then he stops.
Gotham.
His brows knit together. He knows that name. But not from New York. Not from his New York.
A quick map search tells him what he’s dreading. Gotham is real. Gotham is here. A port city on the edge of New Jersey.
“Jersey?” he chokes. “I ended up in freakin’ Jersey?!”
He keeps searching.
The name ‘Tony Stark’ brings up nothing. No Iron Man. No Stark Industries. No Spider-Man. No Peter Parker. No May. No MJ.
No Ned.
He stares at the screen, throat tight. Hands trembling. He’s not just in another state. He’s in another world.
“Maybe… maybe the Avengers just go by a different name here?” he whispers. “Maybe I just…”
His voice trails off as he types in “Avengers.”
Nothing.
Instead: Justice League. Batman. Superman. Wonder Woman. Flash. Aquaman.
Peter stares at the lineup in stunned silence.
“What are these names?” he mutters. “Did they pull them from a preschool coloring book?”
His fingers hover over the keyboard to keep digging. But then—
A thin whine from inside the tower.
A sudden burning smell.
Peter’s eyes widen. “No, no, no—don’t you dare—”
The screen flickers. Sparks shoot from the back of the monitor. He lunges for the plug—but before he can react—
FLASH.
The world blinks emerald.
His vision goes green for half a second—a sharp, painful brightness slicing through his skull like a scream. Anger blooms in his chest, electric and volcanic, and before he even realizes what he’s doing—
He throws the computer out the window.
The monitor explodes with a satisfying crash against the alley two stories down.
He stands frozen, heart hammering, hands glowing faintly with leftover static. His breath fogs the air. The stone in his pocket grows warm in his fist.
The green recedes. Slowly. But it’s there. Always. Lurking.
“Good job, Parker,” he mutters. “Now how are you gonna figure out anything?”
The silence that follows is thick.
But then a thought—a whisper of an idea—emerges from the fog.
Where do you go when you need information?
Peter’s head snaps up.
A library.
He grabs the backpack, jams in the notebooks and boards, and scribbles into his list:
Where ✅
When ❓
Food ❌
Library 🕮
It’s not much. It’s not a cure. But it’s a lead.
He’s cold. He’s alone. And he’s still scared.
But he’s moving.
Yippee.