ch. 1 - recruitment
You had that dream again. The one you had been having for several days now. It ended the same way every single time. The screaming, the cries for help.
Buzz. Buzz.
Buzz. Buzz.
“Ugh…”
You groaned loudly, your face shoved into your pillow as you blindly searched for your watch with your arm. Picking up the silver wrist band, you groggily turned on the contraption and saw your surroundings illuminated by shades of orange, purple, and pink.
Rubbing your eyes tiredly, you mumbled out a “...huh?”
Being a part of a society in charge of the multiverse always made it difficult to follow a strict sleep schedule. With time zones and time lines to be in order, it was always hard to tell when you could put things aside to work on missions. Here you were, at 4:22 in the morning, being woken up by your boss screaming into your ear as you tried to fully wake up.
“...-Earth-50101, hurry!”
That was all you heard over your head pounding from your previous nightmare. Stretching dramatically, you nodded sleepily before getting up from bed to get your suit behind your nightstand. “Y-Yeah, I’ll be there…”
Within the next few hours, you had gone from crying in your bedroom to creating a portal to another dimension in an attempt to solve an anomaly in an Earth you didn’t even know existed. You had all of your spider-friends’ universe numbers memorized, but you had never heard of 50101 in your life.
Opening up a portal, you jump into the kaleidiscope patterned hole as you wondered who this mystery person was. Assuming it was probably just another Peter Parker variant, you pushed the thoughts away as you shielded your eyes from the sudden brightness of Earth-50101.
Landing on your feet perfectly on a building, you searched the area quickly in an attempt to find any familiar faces. Eventually, your eyes meet a recognizable girl in a black and white suit and teal pointe shoes.
“Gwen? Where the hell is Miguel!?” You asked, pulling your mask over your head in an irritated manner. This man had so many options on who to call in the middle of the night, and he chose you?
“I don’t know, he just called me saying there was an anomaly here!” Gwen shouted over the loud noise of bustling traffic as the two of you swung around the city, scavenging for any possible thing that wasn’t supposed to be there.
You could feel Gwen’s eyes on you as you looked down on the townspeople. You hated that stare. It seemed like it was the only type of face you had seen from quite literally everyone in your life the past two weeks.
“There.”
You pointed near the end of the highway to see what looked to be a variant of the green monster you knew all too well.
Feeling your breath hitch, you landed next to who you assumed was the Spider-person from 50101, as you could not recognize him for the life of you. He seemed to be your age, with a bulkier build and a big head of black hair peeking out of his suit. Thinking he reminded you of someone, you shook the thoughts out of your head as you faced the anomaly in front of you.
“Hey,” You mumbled to 50101, watching Gwen land on the lane opposite of you before jumping straight into action.
“Who are you!?” The boy asks, a confused look prominent on his mask as he watched you incredulously, seeing you swing swiftly at the anomaly.
“Hey! Introductions later!” you shouted over to him, gesturing to the green monster you currently had wrapped around in a couple of webs.
Nodding hesitantly, the boy joined you and Gwen, tying him up with webs as you played with his flying contraption.
“You seem familiar…” You heard the anomaly speak.
“Yeah, I know you too, jackass.” You muttered, irritated, messing around with the bolts on his hover vehicle with a screwdriver you kept in your jacket pocket. “You’re a lot uglier than my Green Goblin.”
The villain scoffs angrily, “You’re a lot more annoying than my Spider-man!”
Rolling your eyes, you watched 50101 and Gwen web his feet to his hovercraft as you finished toying with the engine, letting out a chuckle whilst you viewed the entertaining sight of him losing control of his flying vehicle.
You quickly jumped off the bottom of the engine before opening up a portal to his home universe, giving him a sly two-finger salute as you saw him get sucked into the bright void of the multiverse web.
“Whoa…” You cocked your head to 50101, staring at you in awe as you managed to give him an awkward wave. His words of amazement had sent shivers down your spine, though you couldn’t grasp why. Shaking off the feelings of deja vu, you had realized that you probably had to give him some sort of explanation to all this.
You leaned into Gwen, whispering to the blonde. “We should take him to headquarters. He’d probably want to meet him.”
She nodded in agreement, swinging off the scene as she shouted to the pair of you. “Come on!”
You and the mystery boy had followed Gwen to the top of one of the buildings, watching as she opened a portal and jumped in. You glanced at the boy, who had a nervous look on his face (uh...mask). You grabbed his arm, pulling him closer to the closing orange entrance. “You’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt…Well, it makes your head spin the first few times but uh…I’ll stop talking.”
With that, you pulled him alongside you as you traveled to headquarters.
Eyes widening, you heard his screams of terror as the two of you traveled rapidly through the tube-like tunnels, your head pounding before slowly slipping your fingers tighter around his arm.
It couldn’t be…
You landed swiftly on your feet once again, letting out a small giggle as you saw the boy land face first onto the elevator floor. Seeing Gwen remove her mask to reveal her asymmetrical hair and pierced eyebrow, you followed suit, trying to regulate your breath as you prepared yourself to turn around.
As expected, you glanced at the boy next to you to see the same pair of big brown eyes and tan skin that brightened your day since you were five years old.
You looked down at his hand, reached out for you to shake it.
“My name’s Pavitr, by the way. Pavitr Prabhakar.”
He even had his accent.
Your body froze as you looked back up at his eyes. His eyes. They were the most beautiful thing you had ever seen.
You took a deep breath, taking his hand in your trembling one as you muttered your name to him quietly. His grin had you weak in the knees, making you want to vomit right then and there.
Your mind swarmed with thoughts. He’s alive. No he isn’t. He’s dead. This isn’t him. Then why is he making me feel so queasy?
You saw Gwen gave you a look of sympathy as your fingers twitched, not wanting to meet the boy’s eyes again.
The doors of the elevator opened, revealing the hallways of headquarters. Your breathing became irregular as the three of you walked the complex labyrinth that was the home base of Earth-2099.
You glanced at Gwen, a guilty look plastered on your face. You couldn’t do this. Not right now.
She gave you a half smile, nodding in understanding.
“I- um…I gotta go. Welcome to HQ, Pav…” You muttered to the boy next to you, not even daring to look into his eyes as you swung away from him and your friend.
The two watched you leave silently, Gwen feeling masses of empathy as you tried to grieve in peace, whilst Pavitr watched, shocked that you called him by his nickname, knowing very well that he didn’t tell you what it was.