Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter B. Parker/ Spider-Man

“Alright let's do this one last time. My name is Taylor Hebert. I was bitten by some bugs and linked to a multidimensional crystal-alien-spider-parasite, and for a full 14 days I was retired. You know how I got here, I thought I saved some kids, fought a flaming lizard, made some good friends, made some enemies, stopped a terrorist, broke my back, made some bad choices, hurt people, I cut ties to the people I cared for to stop the apocalypse, turned myself in, saved a child with a gun, failed to prevent to apocalypse, went insane, saved the world, got some percussive maintenance, become sane enough to recover and got dropped of in a parallel earth to live out peacefully. That didn't work out seeing as I'm here. Oh and I lost an arm.” Taylor gestures to the limb missing anything below the bicep, the jacket sleeve tied in a knot. 

With a *thwip* I pin the lowered gun still in her gesturing hand to the tree behind her. “Jesus Christ stop giving your backstory, YOU SHOT THAT GUY!” 

I keep my eyes off the motionless body behind me to make sure the dark figure on the opposite side of the street doesn't make any moves for the kids. Having another ‘you’re like me, I can trust you, yada yada’ moment was distracting enough to not immediately disarm the weapon. 

I can still make out the weird spikes of paper and text coming off of her head from the moment we all connected. What I can catch is 'My passenger's connection-'  'Queen-' '-or thinker rating, he pinned my gun from 35 f-.' 'A shot that took tracking my bugs-.' '-resets every 4 seconds-' 'Every nerve in my body screamed that they were me. People I could trust. People I had to trust.’. The jumble of pages fade. Nothing immediately stands out as being useful, but it's always best to file that away in case it comes up.

Taylor starts crossing the street to the bus stop we were waiting at. I don't drop my guard, even if she just let me disarm her. Gwen, who I really don't want to think too much about right now, is behind Miles ready to move from her position in the protection hot pocket he’s safely contained in.

“Tombstone. Reanimation brute with pure white skin, I have a variation of him in my world. He'll get better.'' 

Sure enough, almost on cue Tombstone starts groaning in pain and curling up into a ball. Gwen offhandedly webs him to the birch tree he slouched against as he fell. The whiplash smacks his head against the trunk, knocking him back unconscious. 

We look a little ridiculous. Me and Gwen crouched down in combat ready stances, Miles looking like he's caught between preparing a karate chop or a high kick. All this against a single unarmed girl who isn't setting off our spider-sense.

Now that she's nearly crossed the street I can better make her out. 

Her exposed skin is covered in scars and burns, on her forehead is the red starburst of gunshot wounds. God she's just a kid, can't be much older than the other two.

Dark jeans, dark sweatshirt, dark look. She screams ‘bully phase’. God, the teen angst is like a physical aura. Actually? It might really be an aura? Like she has an outline, a seam that when you stop focusing on, blends back into her.

My eyes feel like I'm zoning out reading a book and forgetting that I'm reading words on a page. Only to be brought back to reality when she shifts and moves. Like some 2d paper cut out squeezed into a 3rd dimensional shape.

We shuffle as a team, remaining in our stances, keeping her in our sights as she walks to our side. She just sits at the bench and waits, unbothered by our threat display.

Gwen glances at me and seems to have the same understanding, the same trust in Taylor. "Ok... Guess we're cool then." Gwen mumbles. Simultaneously me and Gwen relax our crouched stance, Miles following a moment after.

She's not a threat. Despite the little ‘startle’, we felt that now familiar connection through our spider-sense. The understanding that she has lived through our experiences, that we are not alone anymore.

I sigh and blow a raspberry, sitting down next to her on the slightly damp bench. Miles joins me. Gwen leans on the bus sign.

She's is first to break the silence, "So I didn't get the chance to count. Anyone see how many of us got spit out of the collider? Ballpark it."

I count them, pointing to everyone and finishing with myself. I answer Gwen. "Four." 

Miles looks at me confused. "Why'd you include me? I live here."

"Three.”

Taylor shakes her head, “I just saw enough of the tinkertech device that brought me here and followed the trail to Alchemax. But I didn't catch anyone.” 

Tinker? Ah yes the whatchamacallit machine. Collider. Is he who made it? You know what? Doesn't matter.

“Everyone caught up on what's happening?”

"I pieced together the gist of the situation, visited a library to get an understanding of our worlds differences and it's cape scene. Figured Alchemax was my best bet of where to go next. But I saw you fleeing at the edge of my range and changed the direction I was walking. You have what we need to stop the device right?” Taylor turns and looks at me, her height means we're at matching eye level.

"Got what we need and we're on our way to make our goober." I pat the computer tower.

"Do you need to carry the whole tower or just the hard drive?"

I pat the computer again. I feel a silent keen form at the back of my throat.

Miles looks down the very long road. “You… walked?” He mimes thwipping.

Taylor is silent for a long second before turning her head down and away, losing the unshakable confidence she's been riding on since she got here. “I don't get your bus system. It made no sense.“

Now that her mask has slipped I can see how she moves like she's unsure how to carry herself. Shown only in her subtle shifting in her seat and her readjustment of her shoulders. She's trying really hard to be honest. Her mask likely unintentional, reflex. It's clear with her body language that she's inexperienced being transparent. A person too experienced for their age trying not to fall back into habits.

She knew how to act confident, nonchalant or relaxed but she didn't know how to express herself when she actually felt it.

My attention is broken by Taylor abruptly standing.

“This is our ride.” Taylor voices before a bus is even visible. From the forest behind us bugs start crawling towards her seemingly under her control. When she said she could see us at range did she mean- 

Hundreds of creepy crawlies start piling into Taylors clothing. Mainly spiders with big fat black abdomen and red hourglass marks on their underside crawling down the front of her sweatshirt. She handles this with the nonplussed expression of a salary man packing up their briefcase.

“What-” Gwen’s shocked expression catches Taylors attention.

“Oh, I didn't have my suit when I fell through the portal.” She pulls down her collar and reveals that under her jacket, this whole time, hundreds of spiders were weaving a costume onto her body with thin tightly packed yellowish web. 

“The bugs are different here, Black widows don't like it this cold but they seem just fine here. A lot more hearty and the rest of the bug population is proportionally smaller. Hell, their venom is barely toxic."

Miles looks between us with wide eyes. "Toxic? Wait like Australia? Are normal spiders different in your worlds?"

I nod slightly dazed, still looking at this man made horror painfully within my comprehension, "Yeah. Spider bites can be pretty dangerous."

Miles looks at me surprised. "But you tried to sleep it off! In your comic!"

I turn my attention to him and rest a fatherly hand on his shoulder. "I didn't have healthcare Miles."

“Not to mention the webs, they are incredibly strong, the tensile strength is absurd here," Taylor keeps going. She holds out a strand of half a dozen drag lines being actively spun at an alarming rate by spiders crawling over her palms. "I could support my weight with this.”

"That issss. Terrifying." I say at the sight of dozens of spiders casually crawling over her palms.

She hides her spiders as the city bus rolls in front of us. Miles pulls his jacket closed, honestly making him stand out more than me and Gwen who step forward. No one cares who you are when you are on public transportation.

Taylor hung behind as we climbed on. It's not spider-sense that makes me hesitate and step off the bus as I follow behind the kids, but the intuition based around a dumb teenage version of me doing something they shouldn't.

I slowly turn around. Taylor is currently midway through tucking one of Tombstone's guns into her pants.

I walk over and hold out my hand. Reluctantly Taylor puts it in my palm. Its broken parts get webbed to another tree.

This is stressing me out. The most important part of being Spider-Man, besides stretching, is a work life balance.

I get on, with Taylor this time, and step into the back of the bus. My back decompresses as I lay down across the stiff seats. I swing an arm over my eyes. "I'm taking a nap. Wake me if you need me."

As the bus starts back down the road, the kids up front end doing something cute and sappy, messing with the broken goober and throw me under the bus. Listen to them smoochy smoochy all over each other, it's almost enough to take my mind off other kid who is surely finding a way to somehow do something morally dubious and or creepy.

Teenagers.

Chapter Text

Peni Parker & SP//dr

I throw my fist up in anticipation. “Saisho wa guu!” 

“Rock,” “Jan-'' My eyes narrow. My opponent's eyes and snout darken.

“Paper,” “-Ken,” Sweat drips from my brow. His hand trembles every time it slams down on his palm.

The world fades away to a colorful background laced with speed lines. Me and Peter Porker clash in a battle of wits, pattern recognition and social deduction, bringing out fists down with a final shout! “Scissors!” “Pon!”

Silence falls on the battlefield as both of us take in each other's move.

“Yes!” I jump up and skate around him on my heelys, doing a little jig of excitement. SP//dr’s display flashes to my score of ‘fifteen’ to ‘two’ right as I roll by them for a high five. 

I giggle. Once you get it down, it's simple really! Porker’s last six moves were ‘guu, choki, choki, guu, choki’ and because he likes to favor choki and he used guu just one turn ago, he would get nervous about using choki again while also wanting to switch up from guu. So he used the first paa in a while. Simple but fun!

He sighs and slowly shakes his head, “No matter how much I fight the world's cruelty, scissors always cuts paper,” Porker shrugs his drooping shoulders at losing another round of Janken Pon. He perks up, “Best out of nineteen?”

I roll to a stop and sit back down right where I started. I give him a big thumbs up, “You got it!” 

To pass the time, Porker and I decided to play ‘Rock Paper Scissors’. Well… this is half to pass the time, and half a way for me to ignore that I should really be using this time to finish the history homework still in my backpack.

He nods with both his eyes and snout closed, “I can win next time for sure. You know what they say, eighteenth times the charm after all.” 

Porker rubs his chin,  “Hmm… Maybe I just need the full ~five fingers~ for that competitive advantage,” he individually curls all four of his fingers one at a time, “Really get my rock some weight to it!” He smacks down the bottom of his fist on his palm with a visible *Thack!*.

Peter Porker turns around to extend a hand towards Other Peter for assistance, “Hey Peter? Can I borrow a hand for rock paper scissors?”

He turns even further away from us, “Not now Peter. I'm contemplating our place in the universe.” A monochrome ribbon held in his hand billowing along with his trenchcoat in the nonexistent breeze.

Peter nods in sad acceptance, “Of course Peter.” 

He nods towards me again and calls out, “Readaay!”

I throw my fist up, ready to bring it down for another point. “Saisho wa guu!”

“Rock!” “Jan-'' The hair on my neck stands on end.

“Paper!” Something is wrong.

My spider-sense is going into overdrive, time seems to slow to a crawl. My eyes flicker around the room looking for the danger that no one else seems to notice.

Something is horribly wrong.

“Sciiiii-” his words trail off. “... Peni?”

The dread building in my bones finds its crescendo, sudden pressure builds behind the eyes. The mental link between me and Sp//dr, an ever present comfort in the back of my mind, is grabbed. An intrusion breaks into the connection between me and SP//dr. My fathers mech goes dark and collapses as Sp//dr’s very autonomy is robbed from them. In the same instance my body locks up.

Porker tries to get my attention but I can barely hear him over the pounding blood in my ears. I can barely speak, no, I can't speak. My mouth won't move, I can’t even scream.

I buck against the force, try to escape through my mental link but nothing is working. No amount of will power shrugs it off. So unable to so much as close my eyes to clear them of distraction, I clear and focus my mind. I reach out through the thing parasitizing on my psychic link, following it back to its source.

Terror is the only thing I know. 

Nothing is ok. Nothing is ever going to be ok again.

Even with an unseen force gripping every muscle of my body stopping any conscious or subconscious movement, millions of years of evolution fail to overcome the base instincts of fear instilled to my earliest ancestors. My stomach lurches, my lungs grow terribly shallow, the nervous beating of my heart rocks into a galloping fever.

And then just as fast as it arrived, it's over.

The intrusion pulls away leaving the vaguest feeling of apology, like something that only knows empathy through a dream is trying to convey emotion through an ocean's worth of water.

It’s one of the worst moments in my life, and it was an accident that couldn't have lasted more than half a second. 

Porker is holding me up from nearly collapsing. Noir throws himself across the room to kneel next to me. I go to stand on my shaking legs, but they both sit me down. 

“You ok kiddo?” 

“You almost collapsed, did’ja glitch again?” Both of them worry over me.

“Orange soda," I mumble.

Porker and Noir glance at each other.

“Uh, say’ again?”

"I- I saw…”

A destroyer has arrived.

“Something entered my link with SP//Ddr. I- I couldn't move. I was scared, so I tried to step back, fall back on my training. To use our psychic link to push through the terror like we were trained to before. I reminded myself that my mind is not alone, my mind is not my brain. Just another organ in the body. Let it experience terror, yet have my mind remain outside of my brain through my link SP//dr.” My voice is monotone, unfeeling. My conscious mind forcing words out of my lips.

Split through by a Web, a spindle of fate. The all encompassing mass of living crystal clings to a thread, a single strand of spider weave piercing through reality, a Web extending throughout everything. They welcome each other.

“But it wasn't like mysterio. It didn't work, I couldn't escape. S- so I met it head on. I followed the link back to the source, and reciprocated the connection.”

I look down and an identical thread runs through where my chest would be if I still possessed a body.

“I was laid bare in a void of endless black, on an ever present plane of crystal red that sat atop a throne created from a dead god so infinitely vast. And it was looking at me. Taking in every single ounce of my being. I am insignificant, nothing but the orange primordial soup we sprung from standing before a timeless stretch of woven story!”

By now I'm panting.

Noir brings me into his chest. I take in a shuddering breath.

“Well $#@&.” Porker says in perfect grawlix.

The leather of Noir’s ensemble creaks from the strain of him holding me even tighter, I can feel his hands balling into fists on my back, “We might not be able to wait any longer. Our eleventh hour is approaching faster than we thought.”

I manage to push away and get my feet under me, brushing through empty air that should be filled with cutesy question marks floating around my head. 

A shiver runs down my spine. Where’s SP//dr.

My eyes feverishly dart around the room, finding them collapsed and unmoving in the center of the lab. I enter a sprint, stumbling from forgetting my heelys are in. Before I get there the blank screen boots up, they shake themselves like a wet dog, morphing their face into a dizzy emoticon. “SP//dr!” They meet me halfway, I press my face against their legs and they hug me back. I get lifted off my feet and spun in the air.

SP//dr helps me pop right back up like nothing happened. He’s fine, I’m fine. Everything is fine.

I back up and make an informed analysis of the situation. 

Everything is ok! I smile widely at them and shrug. It feels hollow and forced but I’m not going to make them worry. “Sorry I think I overreacted a bit! I feel fine!” 

“I believe me and SP//dr made a psychic link with someth- someone else. Kind of terrifying. Don't worry, the psychic presence was obviously not malicious. It let me go! I think it was an accident, really. I’m sure it happens all the time."

I’ve never actually met another psychic before. People like me were rare, ‘superpowers’ are heavily restricted by the government, for good reason. Until I got here I didn't even know of any other mutate beyond Daredevil. Meeting people like me with wildly different power expressions is amazing. Someone probing into my psychic link? Definitely terrifying. But neat. It's not like I’m going to hold a grudge.

"Yep. Everything is ok! Me and SP//dr got through it just fine. I wasn't even in any danger. Nothing is wrong at all." Not even the visions of two gods spiraling into each other. Locked in battle.

I bop myself on the head and 'tee hee' the negative thoughts away.

Again the two Peters slowly glance at each other and lock back at me. “Riiight.”

Noir kneels down next to me, “Listen, sport, you don’t need-”

Me and SP//dr's hair stand on end. This time I can tell they feel it too. The sense is low, no immediate danger. We are being watched.

"Let's go." Noir takes me by my waist and swings up into the metal rafters, SP//dr and Porker on our heels. 

Every one of us is preparing for a fight, Spider-Man cracks his neck and I know if he had both hands open his fists would have done the same. Porker puts on a tin foil hat he pulled out of his pocket, “It's just to be safe. I’m not crazy,” he whispers. Spider-Ham bats away a fly.

SP//dr climbs next to me. An access panel slides open giving me a keyboard to work my magic on. My fingers are a blur as I hack into the base’s systems, overriding their primary company and backdooring the firewall. SP//dr’s display snaps into a CCTV camera outside the house. I'm in.

Audio spills out from the speaker. “-nother earth for six months? How did you avoid glitching?” asks a boy in a cool jacket that, like Aunt May and the other people I've seen who belong to this world, almost blends into the background with how much they don't stick out like we do.

“It wasn't like this at all. That was like stepping through a door, this feels different. The world is weird, the gravity, air density, the very rules of physics feel alien. Not just the bugs and culture,” Responds the girl with a missing arm and this weird look to her, like shes made out of the texture of paper.

A brunette Spider-Man scratches the back of his neck. He’s well into his forties and showing it. “Does it matter? We’re glitching now. Maybe you were still in the same universe just on another earth in the, say, local dimensional bunch.” 

The boy nods, “Like a Soviet nesting doll.”

The last new person tilts her head, “What? Not at all how they work. Have you ever seen a Russian doll?”

He freezes, like he just made the worst mistake in his life. “Right, I knew that! I was just… lying?” He winces at his failed recovery.

The group falls into a collective silence when they approach the door.

“That them?” “I think so?” “Ready to kick their butts?” “I always wanted to beat up a psychic.” “No! They seem nice!”

After a quick introduction they disappear into the door, let in by Aunt May. We pick them back up again in the cameras when they enter the backyard. 

“Oh yeah I got one of these too, a little shed where I keep-” May clicks open the hyper secure two stage biometric lock disguised as an easy to pop off the shelf Maestro Lock. They step past the camera’s view and SP//dr goes dark, the lift above us begins its descent.

Noir and Ham lean back away from where they where crowding over my shoulders.

The blond girl in full costume slings an arm over the boy’s shoulder and points to one of this base's keepsakes to make a joke. The paper girl leans over to the other two, now that the elevator passes us, I can just make out what she says.

"I wanted to get a bug for a moment but I thought it would be a bad idea." She whispers, eyes locked on the red and blue spider themed jeep.

She continues after a moment of silence, "Like the car. Because I control-" For just a fraction of a moment she locks eyes with me as she over explains her joke, with how quickly she darts them away I can tell it was a mistake. Every inch of my hindbrain screams at me that she is what attacked me. That I need to run and hide.

I can't feel the mental feelers, but I know deep in my bones it’s her. She's the thing that grabbed SP//dr and me along with them. 

That's her? Death, Destruction, A Manmade Rapture?

She's not terrifying, or even spooky… She looks kind of dorky actually, like an older classmate.

SP//dr pats my head. I feel my raised hackles relax at the contact. I lightly sigh in relief. I’m just working myself up. She's not going to hurt me, it's just nerves.

The group of spiders, along with Aunt May, step off the lift. They begin snooping around the underground complex.

“Dude! Was yours anything like this?!” The rooms' amazingly dramatic acoustics make themselves known, relaying their conversation up to us on the I-beam.

My attention slides off of him. The psychic girl is kneeling down in the dark corner of the room, she pulls out a plastic tub filled with bottles of dyes from under a workbench, seemingly knowing where they were stashed away. 

I come too when I get fully passed over to robotic hands. I was too focused on her to have caught the conversation until they were all grouped at the conspiracy board. Aunt May comes up from behind them with something in her hands.

“Don’t be so sure,” Aunt May holds out name tags and markers, “You really thought you were the only people who thought to come here? You might need these." 

The girl in black immediately turned her head to look straight at us before the rest caught on, she had to adjust her glasses from the glare of the lights above. Spooky, but still dorky!

I shake my head till I blurr. Focus. I flash a peace sign at Noir and Spider-Ham. This is our cue.

Noir quips with the new people, wind I can't feel blowing his trenchcoat. When the attention turns to me I wave and drop down without too much fanfare, neither me or my companion feeling up for much. I wave and say hello. Spider-Ham lands next to us, he hides his tin foil hat behind his back when he offers a handshake. It goes unreciprocated. 

Then it happens again, the world comes into focus. The moment I had with both Peters beforehand repeats with the group across from us.

The entirety of the uncanny fear I felt towards the girl melts away. She’s like me. They all are.

Ok, quick introduction, "My name is Peni Parker-”

I feel my words land and slide off an excessively long unbound manuscript of printer paper that is disrupting a pile of professionally made artwork.

… What?

My entire existence is a small footnote. My reality was crafted to be supplementary. Do spiders eat webcereal?

I shake my head and push through the last dying embers of psychic interference that gave me an incomprehensible image. I push through the stutter and tell the rest of my story rather dispassionately. Noir notices and rests a hand on my head.

“Ok enough, enough!” New Peter motions for Porker to settle down.

The girl, who looks like she's been ripped out of a paperback light novel and glued to the foreground, glances between us, “Oh our turn? My name is Taylor Hebert. I was bitten by-”

"You too!” New Peter cuts her off.

“We need to get back home.” I say. SP//dr beeps sadly behind me.

“The only way back is through the collider gizmo. But…” Porker finishes Noir’s sentence, “Someone has to stay behind to destroy it.” 

“I’ll do it.” Every spider-person besides the boy speaks in tandem. I say it more out of reflex than anything, I was convinced earlier that I could find a way around it. But they all have this serious look on their faces, like they believe they wouldn't find a way home and would all go along with it anyways. I'm not sure I believe I could figure a way around it anymore. I feel a familiar weight grow heavier on my shoulders. 

Wait, I'm not supposed to lose my childlike optimism yet, I'm still fourteen! 

The boy shakes his head, “No no no no no. You guys don't get it do you?”

There is a beat of silence where the world waits for something to happen. Noir bows his head, “We do kid. Someone’s not going home.” 

Off cue, pain grips me. My feet come out from under me. My vision is washed with harsh contradictory colors, I taste TV static, I feel like I'm being ripped apart at the seam.

All of us are left on the floor, picking ourselves up. The glitch spreading or synchronizing. My mind is buzzing with possibilities of glitches lining up with the quantum tunneling activations or if being in the presence of so many others who are glitching causes a feedback resonance. 

I look up from the bright shoes left standing on the floor to the boy wearing them. All of us glitched, but him.

“It has to be me,” he says, walking around us in a half circle, “I'm the guy who's going to turn it off. All of you are going home.” You can practically hear the music's crescendo.

Noir glances around for a moment from where he’s hunched over. He turns to Taylor, the first person to have picked themselves up, “We really should have done introductions.”

New Peter grits his teeth and whispers-shouts an introduction through his teeth. “Peter, Gwen, Taylor, Miles. Miles’-,” he shakes Mile’s shoulder, “-is going to save the multiverse.” 

“Yeah man.” 

“Look, this kid can turn himself invisible. Watch this!”

I have to turn away, and when Peter doubles down for Miles’ second power I bury my face into the side of my fathers mecha to escape the cringe. This is my weakness, I would rather battle the Lizard again over watching another person's public embarrassment. 

The blond girl, Gwen, steps up to break through the dreadful silence, ”Look, I saw him in action. He’s got… potential.” Potential does not save cities from giant monsters or evil mecha. “I believe in him. He’s getting us home.”

Noir brushes dust off his shoulder as he walks towards Miles, “Ok little fella. Kingpen’s going to send a whole lot of goons after you. And I’m talking hard boys, real biscuit boxers! Can you fight them all off at once?!”

“I haven't actually fought anyone-”

“Surprise attack!” He calls out loud before sweeping Miles' feet.

My shoulders drop, “Can you rewire a mainfrain while being shot at?” I throw a spare motherboard at him, kid stuff, he doesn't even catch it. He isn't exactly showing potential. 

“Can I what-” “Show me Miles.” I demand. I have to be hard on him, the only reason I got as far as I did was everyone doing the same to me.

Noir loudly calls out another attack, his wallop connects. Miles flinches back, butt landing on the floor.

“Can you swing and flip with the grace of a trained dancer?”

“Can you close off your feeling so you don't get crippled by the moral ambiguity of your violent actions!?!"

“Can you be strong?” “Ruthless?!” “Disciplined?”

Every voice piling another expectation he fails to meet onto his shoulder.

We dig into him. He gets back up and we push him down again and again. He’s faltering.

“Come on Miles.” “Get back up Miles.” “You can do this. Come on Miles!”

“Can you fight villains every Saturday morning?!”

"Can you keep getting up? Even when-"

The distinct sound of a gun chambering a round cuts through the chaos of demands. My eyes dart towards Taylor behind me, the sound coming from her belt where she racked the slide of a pistol with her one hand. "Can you operate a firearm? Betray the ones you love most to save them?"

Not dorky!!! Not dorky!!!

Middle aged Peter lurches from Miles’ side to grab the gun from her hand. “WHERE DO YOU KEEP GETTING GUNS?! THAT'S THE THIRD ONE I'VE TAKEN FROM YOU!?!!”

Taylor shrugs like she wasn't holding a loaded gun not even ten seconds ago, “Someone left it on the bus. There are a lot of guns in this world.”

"Woah woah woah buddy, I only use safe means of stopping my villains. Like my anvil, or my piano. Or my pane of glass held up by two of me." Porker so helpfully contributes from off screen- outside my vision.

Old Peter gestures for us to turn away from Miles, “Ok ground rule, no guns. Spider-Man doesn't use guns. And you’re all too hard on the kid.” Noir clears his throat.

Spider-Noir gestures for Peter to hand it over, “I got it son,” he shakes his head when Peter places it in his hand, “Tykes these days.”

With his hands free, Peter immediately fills them with his head. He looks like he's visibly aging with the second. Gwen awkwardly pats his back.

The whispering starts, “If he's not ready someone has to do it for him.” “I know Gwen.”

“I will. I’ve made this choice before, there is a reason I was spared. If it’s this, I'm ok with it. I don't have anyone to go back home to anyways. It's the best option.” 

“No. We’re talking in circles again. All of us-”

The noise fades into the background. My eye twitches. Noir shuffles towards Taylor until their shoulders touch, his hands, and the gun with it, behind his back. He shuffles back away towards me, his hands now free of the pistol. All with Peter completely invested with rethinking his life choices, his head still in his hands as we argue over who gets to sacrifice themselves.

Sp//dr puts their hand to their mouth in shock. I stare a hole into the side of Peter's head.

The intensity must have sparked his spider-sense as Noir notices and leans over to whisper to me, "She handles it very safely. I trust her.”

“Oh ok.” I smile widely at him. Everyone here is insane but me.

Peter jerks his head out of his mid midlife crisis, “Miles?”

The elevator behind us starts its near silent journey up the lair. The platform had no boy in sight.

I fell a small tugs at my lips. It's the first time since I felt that invasion in our connection that my smile is real. It takes a lot to be a hero, but invisibility is certainly a start.