I watched Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse today and it inspired me to write this today. I own neither Spiderman, Sony owns that, or Worm, John McCrae owns that. Thank you for reading.

To be completely honest, I've never been caught playing hooky before. Despite all my, ahem, extra curricular activities, it was never really an issue before. I guess, I should explain a little?

I awoke on top of a run down industrial building in an area that was not an all where I should be. I was supposed to be back in New York, exactly where I had been when the particle collider first grabbed me. I panned my view around, I was still wearing my mask which I tore away.

No, this was not New York at all. I grimaced and swung down into the alley right next to my building. First in the order of things, was to find out where exactly I was. The skyline did not match New York or anywhere that I had been to before. It wasn't that it was somewhere in New York I was unfamiliar with because I had been literally everywhere, especially in the early days of getting my power. Those first few weeks testing my powers carried my all the way across the city and even most of the suburbs as well.

I landed in the classic three point landing, nobody was about though, so it didn't really matter what exactly I did, and the building wasn't very high either, barely two stories. I could have easily jumped it, since I had super strength and all, but I digress.I spotted a soiled newspaper and immediately scooped it up.

"The Brockton Bay Tribune, huh?" I smiled at my good fortune, hopefully this would give me some inkling where I was. I brushed some of my blonde bangs out of my eyes. As much as Miles proved himself in that last fight, I still haven't forgiven him for my hair. Boys and their sticky hands.

The first thing I noticed on the paper was the date, January 2011. What the frick! In reality I didn't even say frick, it was something else that my father would've been very disappointed I said. But I felt I deserved at least a little leeway, after all, most sane people didn't visit alternate worlds or potentially travel back in time.

After I got my breathing back under control, I began to realize that maybe I overreacted. Firstly, this newspaper might be old. I grimaced again, of course the odds of finding an intact newspaper from six, no seven years seemed a little absurd. Secondly, um, actually I couldn't think of a second point.

Then the metaphorical lightbulb went off over my head and I felt like facepalming. After a moment I gave into the urge, I was sooo stupid.

I fished my smartphone out of the little pouch in my suit that I kept it in and tried to unlock it. Of course the people that made these phones, Stark Industries, didn't really take into account people with supersuits. And by supersuits, I really meant super gloves. So fingerprint ID failed and I had to input the code.

A moment later another nail in the coffin confronted me, no signal. I controlled my breathing, it didn't mean anything, maybe I was in a place with no signal? Yeah, that could happen, there was plenty of places without reception. I forced down the tendril of creeping doubt that was even now stoking my anxiety.

I opened my phone's default map app, one made by Stark Industries, of course no signal from that either, since I wasn't even in an area that had reception. I closed my phone and slid it back into my pocket.

I raised my hand to leave when a thought occurred to me. Even if the newspaper was hilariously out of date, what if it wasn't? I picked it up off the ground and skimmed over the articles.

CORNELL BOMBER AT LARGE, worried, I skimmed the article and noted the salient facts. It seemed fairly small time, I might've missed it if it happened six years ago and then they caught this Bakuda shortly afterwards before she had a chance to explode any more people.

The next article was kind of what I was looking for, or more accurately what I hoped against all hope not to see. CANBERRA RESIDENTS BUILD WINDMILL, NEW SIMURGH PLOT? If this was true…I read the article, devouring the words ravenously. I had to stop and reread several times to make sure I hadn't made a mistake. If this was true…I was definitely not in my world.

I would've remembered seeing or hearing about a metahuman with the sheer destructive power mentioned here. This Simurgh completely destroyed the city, not physically, but through mind control. Furthermore, she's attacked many places, Lausanne, Switzerland being the first, in 2002 and I had never heard of her. Even if she had stopped attacking, people would be way more wary of angelic images than I remember.

I shook my head, and spoke resolutely, "I refuse to believe this is true."

Or at least I wanted to speak resolutely, but my voice cracked and wavered, and to my ears I sounded like a little girl on the edge of tears. Which given the way my eyes grew clouded and the tightness wound itself like a vice around my heart, seemed pretty likely.

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and drew in a shuddery breath. I was a hero. No I was a HERO. I wouldn't just stop and wallow, I needed to be sure.

I dropped the newspaper, not even bothering to read more articles, I needed to know what was going on here, where I was, and what this all meant.

Webbing shot away from my arm, which I barely remembered raising, and then I was away, moving up a building and out of the grimy alley. The newspaper swirled in the draft I left behind my sudden departure.

I spotted a taller building, a three story tall one and immediately went for it. As always, my sense of timing, balance, and web spinning, was impeccable and within half a breath I was atop the building.

I replaced my mask and looked around, taking in the city, if it even could be called that. It was a harbor town, I spotted docks and ships. My gaze panned outwards and I blinked, what is that?

An oil rig rested in the middle of the bay, and around it floated what appeared to be forcefields or barring that, energy fields of some kind. All in all it didn't fit, it was a white building unmarred by the salt of the sea, which I could clearly smell from up here, and it seemed an order of magnitude more advanced than the entire rest of the city.

I frowned, beyond the techno oil rig was a tanker, a derelict tanker ship, it almost seemed to be blocking the main route into the harbor. I rubbed my head, why hadn't they moved it? It has evidently sat undisturbed for many years, if the amount of rust and decay was any indication. I quickly took in the rest of the city itself, I was in what looked like a commercial district, composed of short building and tall warehouses. Directly behind me was what appeared to be some kind of train yard. Residential building's eventually encroached upon the commercial district to my far right. Almost directly ahead was what looked like shops and actual stores. A few lone skyscrapers towered above everything else beyond the stores.

I looked down at myself and for the first time allowed myself to acknowledge the chill of winter. It was cold. And my suit was not particularly built for cold conditions. Furthermore, since I needed to find out where I was I would need to blend in, which meant I needed clothes.

Briefly, I considered looking in a dumpster, but you know I still had some standards, and the thought of dumpster diving sent goosebumps up my arms.
"All right," I spoke to myself, "first things first, Gwen, you need a sweater, and then you need to find a book store, internet cafe, or something."

With those goals in mind I started off. My time in transit towards the shops proper allowed me to consider something else. Since arriving here, I had yet to feel any of the stutters associated with Miles' world. I felt a slight tingle of relief flow through me, perhaps I was in the right world after all? A girl can hope. I felt the beginnings of a real smile pull at the edges of my lips.

My spider sense blared and I ducked into a nearby alley, rapidly arresting my forward travel. I stilled for a moment, what was that? I looked around examining the nearby building but found nothing out of the ordinary, all was quiet, a few cars drove passed, but I got the idea that this area of town was not well traveled.
After waiting several long moments I continued my journey with greater caution than before. Thankfully, for my continued stealth, by the time I started my travel again, the sun had began to set, casting long shadows between the buildings, making me just that more harder to see.

I slowed to a stop as I spotted a Goodwill store. I had never been in one before, but if I recalled correctly, they sold clothing, albeit majorly secondhand stuff.
I waited for a moment across the street, on top of another building, I crossed into shops proper a few blocks back, and I was currently on top of a rather seedy looking Korean restaurant. My stomach growled.

Waiting a moment I considered, this would have to do. There was fair amount of traffic, various cars passing along this road, but the Goodwill seemed a little less than busy. I waited a few more moments, for the sun to drop a little more, and then I traveled across the street, my line carrying me across in a heartbeat. I landed and darted inside, after a moment's glance at the various security cameras.

I would be spotted on camera yes, but hopefully no body would have cause to check the recordings. I found what I wanted, a sweater that was almost new, sporting the words Captain's Hill College, within a couple minutes. Ordinarily I wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like this, if Mary Jane could see me now. I suppressed a smile at the pleasant thought.

It was when I headed towards the counters to pay that the first complication occurred. As I approached I spotted a man in grungy clothing, and wearing a tie around his face as if he thought it was a bandana speaking to an extremely pale faced cashier. I caught the end of their exchange.

"Thhhis is Merhcnat territory," The man slurred, "Assn SKidmark saysss you didna pay?"

The cashier tried to protest, "We already payed this-"

"You'rrre lying!" The man accused, reaching into his waistband, withdrawing a rusted pistol. Yeah, that was enough of this, my hand shot forward, a line extending from it and plucked the pistol right out of his very unsteady grip. It clattered to the ground.

BOOM!

It discharged, the guy didn't even put the safety on! I sped into action dodging below a fist he sent at me, it was clearly telegraphed, I almost didn't even need to move and swung into a upwards side kick into his armpit.

He tumbled backwards, eyes wide in shock towards a glass display case. Not on my watch, I thought, shooting a strand of webbing at the same time. It caught him in the chest right before he smashed into the display.

He appeared almost stupefied, and offered no real resistance for the three seconds it took to restrain him with more webbing. Huh, it seems my dad was right and alcohol really does slow reaction times down. Or maybe, I thought to myself with no small amount of pride, I was just that good.
The cashier seemed really afraid, and I offered a few words to calm her down.

"Don't worry Ma'am, he's disabled," in more ways than one, I stifled a snort, "Can you call the police?"

She nodded shakily and reached for the phone, I stepped forward holding out the folded sweater, "Can I buy this?"

"Free, it's free," she gasped out, looking terrified. She looks really scared, I thought to myself, "I'll be off then, tell them it was your friendly neighborhood Spiderwoman that did this, will you?"

She just looked at me like a deer in the headlights. Or I mean how I imagined a deer in the headlights would look since I had never really been hunting in my life. Of course I had seen this look before, usually in burglars that I caught in the act. It wasn't very pleasant to see directed towards me by an innocent person. I left.

A while later I found what appeared to be a mall, if the massive parking lot, and similarly massive complex were any indication. Also, the sign right next to me, that said Brockton Heights Mall, played a small role in my brilliant deduction as well.

Under cover of darkness, I slipped off my mask and pulled back my costumes hood and then slipped the sweater on, at least my costume's bottom looked like it could be yoga pants or something. I left my pointe shoes on, they were distinctive, but it would look even more odd to wear no shoes.

With everything prepped I headed into the mall, a security guard at the door gave me a once over, and a really disproving look towards my hair. I tried to suppress a blush, it was nothing to be ashamed of.

The inside of the mall was brightly lit, and had quite a few people around, mainly teenagers like me. I stepped around a weird body massage seat, that looked a little too well used and consulted a very large map, it stretched up almost to the twenty foot ceiling and covered stores in the surrounding area as well as within the mall itself.

I spotted something I knew, Barnes & Noble, those aren't very common anymore. I swallowed, oriented myself on the map using a nearby lingerie store for reference and walked towards my destination.

I passed a pretty blonde and brunette who gave me a once over, before the blonde spoke to the brunette, "Ames, maybe you'd feel better if you did your hair like that?"

I passed them by quickly, why was my hair such an issue? I walked into the book store and paused, it's been a very long time since I was in a bookstore proper. Almost all my reading is done on my phone these days.

Speaking of phones, I fished mine out as I continued into the store, and started at the corner of the screen, still no signal. I pushed down my growing dread and focused.

"Excuse me," I asked a harried looking young women that was stocking the shelves with a book titled, Rebecca Costa-Brown, Hero of the PRT.
"Yes?" she responded looking up at me.

"Where could I find the non-fic section?"

She pointed over her shoulder to the area right behind her, "From here all the way to Myrrdin's poster."

My brow furrowed, I spotted what looked like a poster of a wizard with a noir detective hat and coat complete with a staff that had glowing orange runes on it.

That poster was in the non fiction section?

"Thanks."

"Are you sure you don't want to look in the fiction section?" The women asked looking me over, "I think you'd find more interesting things there."

My face twitched, and I managed to keep from rolling my eyes, "I'm quite all right. I know what I'm looking for."