I only sink deeper the deeper I think
Peter smiled at the woman awkwardly
“Uh, can I have the login for the computers?”
He asked politely, the woman- Barbara let out a short hum before reaching into her drawer and ruffling through a few different papers
“Of course, do you want a library card as well? We’d just need an email and a form of I.D” Barbara questioned
Peter grimaced slightly “no just the login should be fine- thank you though!” He replied, freezing up for a moment, ever since Stephen ‘erased’ him, he’d also failed to get a viable I.D, since well- He didn’t exist? Well he did, people just didn’t know that, Barbara gave him a once over, and it’s only through peters years of vigilantism that he noticed the glint in her eyes. She was inspecting him.
Hm,
Ignoring that a small piece of paper was gently placed in his hand, he sent the woman another smile “thank you!” He said gratefully before going over to the computers and sitting by one.
It took him a second to understand how the old clunky computers worked, but once he did he turned it on, waiting impatiently as the computer took far too long to load up. He thrummed his finger against the wooden desk repetitively as he waited, He could feel eyes on him, and he barely resisted the urge to look up and meet the librarians eyes.
Eventually the computer let out a high pitched sound, signalling that it was turned on, He clicked onto google chrome and opened up a new tab, the layout was a bit different than what he was used to, with the background being a slightly more greyish colour, and everything being more square than curved.
But honestly he didn’t really care that much about it, he was more focused on getting washed up, he could still feel every bit of grime and dirt sticking to him, Which would have felt terrible for any normal person too, but especially for someone with enhanced senses-
Ugh- he shivered slightly, he needed to get a shower as soon as possible,
He quickly began typing on the keyboard, the loud clacking and clicking of the keys grating his hearing ‘Gyms near me’ He typed into the search bar,
Thousands of websites and directions appeared on his screen, and he slowly began scrolling through them, trying to find the one that looked both the closest and most run down,
After all the worse it looked the easier it would probably be to sneak in. He clicked onto a set of directions to a gym named ‘claw fighters’ he looked at the name with disdain for a few moments before signing and looking at the directions instead.
He was happy to find that it was only a ten minute walk from the library, a small genuine smile making its way onto his face
He thrummed his fingers against the desk one again before pausing, While he was here he may as well do some research right?
He hummed to himself as he though about things he wanted to know before straightening up in his chair. Gotham- he needed to know what Gotham was.
And who the bat guy was- or guy bat? Maybe it was like a massive mutated bat- oh my god he was onto something here! He’ll search that up later, for now he needed to figure out more about where he was. He began typing again and the grating sound of clacking hit his ears once again, he winced slightly, once he got some money he would definitely need to invest in some earplugs.
He hit the search button before hastily adding ‘map’ to the search. When he went into images he can across a map of Gotham, the streets and places you could go. He hit his head on the desk, hastily he added ‘world’ in-front of the word map.
Fucking google
He searched it up and went into images once again, this time it showed the USA map, he looked down and found that Gotham was situated where New Jersey usually would have been, His brows creased as he considered the map “What-“ he couldn’t be that bad at geography, he knew New Jersey existed , they literally taught it in geography.
Okay so now he was freaking out a bit but whatever he would deal with it. Later- along with all the other stuff he didn’t want to deal with right now. He let out a deep breath before deleting the words in the search bar and typing again.
‘Bat person’ He though for a moment before adding ‘Gotham’ afterwards, a bunch of different articles popped up along with pictures and sightings. He ignored those for the time being and instead clicked onto the Wikipedia page, He knew Wikipedia wasn’t usually reliable but whatever, it’s what he had
He looked at the page intently, his eyes squinted as he read.
‘Batman first appeared in the late 1980’s,
No one knows where he came from, or what he is but he has fearlessly been battling the criminal underworld of Gotham for over thirty years now, From what people have seen, he wears a black bat-shaped cape and cowl, some have suspected that they are real bat wings and ears, Many people believe that he came from the shadows, whilst others believe he is some sort of supernatural creature such as a vampire.
He is known to travel around at night with his sidekick ‘robin’ People cannot be entirely sure but many believe that the robins change constantly-‘
Peter stopped reading, leaning back in his chair he placed his head in his hand and barely managed to stifle a scream, He noticed the library lady giving him weird looks once again, but this time they seemed more concerned than anything else. He gently removed his hands from his face before turning back to the computer and slowly typing in
‘New York, Avengers’
He pressed search and nothing came up,
He stared blankly for a few moment before moving to type again
‘Team of superheroes’
A lot showed up this time, but nothing about iron man or captain America or the black widow- No, instead a team called ‘the justice league’ showed up. He clicked onto one of the sites and froze as he read up on the members.
He didn’t recognise a single one, he stilled as he stared at the screen.
Fuck
He chuckled, fuck- what the fuck what- no what is this? He grit his teeth and green began to swarm his vision, he inhaled and exhaled heavily before shakily turning off the computer
Right, he needed to get washed up, he wasn’t in the right condition to deal with- any of this
He stood up abruptly, gripping the paper a bit too tightly before passing it back to the woman still sat at the desk.
She smiled at him and tried to talk but Peter walked out the door before he could hear what she had to say, He knew it was rude, but he was so angry right now, and it kind of scared him, he didn’t know why he was so angry, he never usually was, but here they were.
He didn’t know where he was, or how he got here, the only thing he knew is that he should be dead and he wasn’t, and that he was in some shitty city he’d never heard of before with a superhero group of heroes who didn’t exist.
He didn’t want to deal with this.
He tried to do a breathing exercise his old school councillor taught him, desperate to calm down, he thought back to the directions to the gym and slowly began making his way there. He passed a lot of weird looking buildings on his way there and this time Peter actually paid attention to them, He took in the strange architecture and noted just how different it was to what he was used to, he cursed at himself for not noticing something was seriously off before hand.
Well he noticed some stuff but he didn’t really read into any of it, he clenched his fists tightly once again, he’s been focused on all the wrong things. He didn’t even know what he was planning to do after this, I mean if the avengers didn’t exist then spider-man probably wouldn’t either.
He felt a sharp pang of pain in his chest, because with Peter erased that was still only one half of his identity, he still always had spider-man. But now? Now he had nothing, any sense of self he had has been ripped away, His eyes watered slightly, but by then he had already made it to the old looking gym.
He’d gotten so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t even noticed.
He tensed up slightly as his spider-senses went haywire once again, his neck burned.
But he ignored it as he went into the side alley next to the gym, he let out a deep sigh before slowly crawling up the wall, he broke the lock to the window and climbed in before closing it after himself.
The showers looked dingey and mouldy but beggars can’t be choosers, he took off the too tight clothes and neatly folded them on top of the sink. Peter looked at the showers and then at himself before letting out a disgusted groan,
The amount of sensory overload he was about to get might actually kill him this time.
He got under the shower, grimacing at the feeling of the dirty tile on his feet. He quickly turned the knob to the shower and let it pour over him, there wasn’t any soap or anything so he simply used his hands to scrub at the dirt clinging to his skin and hair,
He almost sighed with relief when he felt the dirt washing off of him, his hair becoming less matted and his skin returning to its natural colour,
He stood under the shower head for a little longer even after he was fully clean, appreciating the warmth it gave him. He quickly turned the shower off once he was gone before just standing, he never really though of how he was going to dry himself after so he instead just stood, staring blankly at the wall.
He scratched at the back of his neck, trying to get rid of the persistent feeling of pain prickling at it before turning his head slightly to look in the mirror, he froze slightly when he saw himself.
He didn’t look..different? There were just a few things that weren’t the same as before.
Like the white streak in the front of his hair,
Or the fact that his eyes were green? He didn’t know what exactly to do with that information other than stare.But as he noticed that he thought ‘What else has changed?’
He slowly began examining himself on the mirror, as he looked closer at himself he noticed how his skin seemed almost translucent.Not enough to be noticed unless you were actively looking, but it was still there.
He looked at his arms turning them over and his eyes widened, at the base of his wrist was a bump, with a small hole in it, the skin covering it was more discoloured, looking slightly like a scar. He looked at it for a moment before hesitantly reaching his arm out, his hands on the same position they would have been if he was wearing his web-shooters, he angled them slightly before forcing a strange sensation in his arm, the feeling of pushing something out of it, he felt it slid past his arm and then a long string of a web shot out
Okay
He paused, okay, so he’s like the other Peter now- Cool, cool cool cool cool-
He cut himself off
Right
Okay he can deal with this- like all the other stuff.
He inspected his hands, his nails sharper than they should be and promptly decided that he was fucking done.