inaccessible realms

He goes through a portal and wakes up in a world with him dead, Gwen alive, and a world that knows that underneath Spiderman’s mask is twenty-year-old Peter Parker. He wakes up in his new life sprawled against one of New York’s many alleyways, meets this universe’s version of Spiderman, and watches Nick Fury apologize. Nick Fury. Apologize. But the portal to take him home never appears. So, he stares at Miles Morales (spider boy. Spider kid. Whatever) and Nick Fury as they stare back.

“There was supposed to be another portal,” Fury says.

“I guess I’m stuck here,” Peter sighs. “Do you guys have a J. Jonah Jameson?” He needs a job after all.

They stare at him, and he feels something click inside him, feels the hole that Gwen left fill a little, mend the cracks. He never thought that seeing Fury would make him feel warm inside. It usually ended in explosions and Peter’s special brand of embarrassment, known as utter humiliation.

Somehow, Peter manages to get a job at a café. The owner’s lost her glasses, and her vision is blurry enough that she doesn’t recognize him as Peter Parker, the twenty-something spiderling who died six months ago. God, that will never stop sounding weird. He wears one of those cough masks to work, and blue contacts, and somehow the disguise holds. Peter wants to rip a hole in the time space continuum, so he can tell his Nick Fury that he can, in fact, do incognito.

He can’t get a job with Jameson for obvious reasons, the most problematic being that he’s supposed to be dead and asking his former employer for his old job back is probably going to end in a spectacular disaster. It’s still jarring though, to see that Jonah had called him a good guy. A hero. And all it took was dying.

It really says something that the least weird part of this all is Miles. His legacy. He likes him, all easy smiles and teenage awkwardness. They work together and build him a new suit, something that isn’t Spiderman but is still him. He patrols when he’s not working the café, where Miles will come and order a drink that Peter will inevitably decide is on the house.

M.J. finds him first. She enters the café, where he and Miles both work now because Miles has charmed the owner into giving him a job. He knows she’ll recognize him instantly. So, Peter steps into kitchen and pretends to be taking inventory. He snags Miles by the elbow when he walks by with her order though. He gestures wildly to the cookies he’s holding. They’re little holiday cookies, different flavors according to color.

“M.J like the green ones,” he manages. Miles gives him a grin, then replaces the red cookies.

She finds him for real a week later when he saves her from a mugger. He makes the mistake of asking her if she’s all right. She immediately grabs him by the collar.

“Peter,” she whispers. “Is that you?”

He can’t hide the sharp intake of breath and the flinch. He should have remembered she would recognize him by voice. She tightens her grip. “Peter Benjamin Parker, where have you—”
He cuts her off by wrenching himself out of her grip and swinging away as fast as he possibly can. He can hear her yelling his name, but he doesn’t stop.

Harry is next. It’s again, purely by accident, because apparently the Parker Luck can cross universes. He saves Harry from some jerk in a vulture costume, and wow, he was wrong when he thought his life couldn’t get weirder. The guy (girl? Bird? Creature? Heck if he knows) manages to hook his claws into the fold of his mask and yank it half off. Peter manages to shove it back on while roundhouse kicking the guy through a window, but it’s too late. Harry is already gaping at him.

Peter leaps off the building and tries to get as far away as possible from this disaster waiting to happen. He ends up on the top of some fading motel, with a neon sign that’s missing half its letters. He’s not prepared for a familiar voice to start cursing him out.

Harry is standing there, half illuminated by the sparking pink neon of the sign, panting.
“Oh,” Peter breathes, “Oh. You shouldn’t have followed me.”

“You never make things easy for me,” Harry wheezes. “Do you? So M.J. wasn’t going crazy.”

Harry attempts to stop wheezing and finally gives up, collapsing on him so that Peter’s supporting his weight. His suit jacket had come off at some point, and his dress shirt is clinging to him because of the sweat.

“You bastard,” Harry manages once he has enough breath to breathe, “you bastard.” And then he doesn’t say anything for a while. He’s shifted so that they are shoulder to shoulder, still on the high-rise overlooking New York.

It’s an hour before either of them speak again.

“I have to go,” he manages. “I have to go, Harry.”

Harry sighs. “I know you do. But if you think this is the last time I’m seeing you you’re wrong.” He pushes a slip of paper into Peter’s hands. Peter tucks it into his pocket and jumps of the side of the motel. Later, when he’s at his new apartment, he opens it. It’s Harry’s number, and a little message. I missed you.

He wonders if he’ll find Aunt May. He doesn’t look for her. He never can bring himself to find her.

He does look for Johnny though. He wants to know what the Johnny Storm of this universe is like. Peter watches his television interviews and joins the spectators in the street when the Human Torch battles New York’s supervillains. One night when he’s watching older interviews (six-month-old interviews, and he has just died, and this isn’t strange and wrong at all) and he finds the ones about him.
“He was my pal, you know?” Johnny says on screen, looking defeated. “He was the best. As Peter Parker, or as Spiderman, he is someone I am proud to call my friend.” There’s a pause while Johnny tries to get his voice under control. “I’d like to wish him the very best, wherever he is right now.” A tearful smile to the camera, and then Johnny gets out of the seat and the screen goes dark. Peter rubs at his own tears.

When he’d lost Johnny, he’d been crushed. But his Johnny had come back. A little broken and a little less whole, but still Johnny. This Johnny’s Peter isn’t coming back.

As far as other superheroes go, none of them seem to have recognized him yet. Not that he would expect them to. He’s never been that close with any of them. Black Widow seems to know something’s up though. Natasha follows him once or twice when he’s on patrol. He loses her eventually. Other than that, no one bothers with the new (old) vigilante on the streets.

Gwen finds him last. God, she looks so young, so vibrant, and so alive. More alive than Peter probably looks. He’s been trying to stop the blood flow from his side for an hour, but the webbing isn’t holding anymore. Gwen’s face appears above his. Peter belatedly remembers he took the mask off. He can see the stars, and the worn-out bricks of the alleyway, and a dead girl. He tells her as much.

“You’re dead,” he slurs when she starts crying as she pulls out her phone. “This isn’t right.”

Gwen kneels beside him. Peter barely hears her soft whisper of “You’re dead too.” Then even quieter “Harry was right.” She manages to dial Harry’s number with shaking fingers, and then strokes his hair until he passes out.