Disclaimer: I don't own Spider-Man, or any of the Marvel Comics. or DC Comics characters featured in this story.
Prologue
Earth 616- The Sol System - The Blue Area of Earth's Moon: Uatu's Citadel
"This was the closest that mankind in this Universe has come to extinction, and I as a Watcher was powerless to help them." The enigmatic being known as the Watcher lamented silently to himself with his form hunched over, and his closed fists resting on top of his large control console for the Citadels systems. His white glowing eyes stare out with a pensive gaze towards the Earth, that was recently re-created from two distinctly different Earths.
"The two vastly powerful cosmic beings called the Brothers had discovered each others existence, and pitted combatants from this Earth, and another to battle to see which universe would survive. It ended in a stalemate, with didn't satisfy the Brothers, who fought each other. If not for the efforts of the Living Tribunal, and the entity known as Spectre, both universes would have been destroyed." Uatu continues to look down at the Earth from his viewpoint from the top level of his Citadel, and breathes a sigh of relief when he confirms that everything is as it should be.
"I have a clear memory of the Amalgam Universe that they had created in the process of saving both universes. With the aid of a shard from each universe placed within Captain America, and the other hero known as Batman. The Living Tribunal, Spectre, and the young inter-dimensional hero called Access to separate and restore both universes." Uatu begins to run a series of highly complex sensor scans using his equipment developed by the alien race called the Kree to double check on the status of the Sol system, and the surrounding galaxies.
"This is strange...these reading indicate that there are two Earths, but that is not possible. Unless..." Uatu intoned to himself, and then began to reach out with his powerful cosmic senses in order to determine whether or not it was instrument failure, or something else. What the Watcher sees gives him pause, and shocks him slightly.
"Astonishing! The splitting of the two universes formed a pocket dimension with this solar system. Within it, there is an Earth that is a true co-existence of both worlds, instead of a forced amalgamation. I must catalog this immediately." Uatu added with a small smile of excitement as he starts to observe the activity on this new world.
Chapter 1 - The New Reality
The Watcher begins to catalog, and record his findings on the new planet within the pocket dimension."I am Uatu, also known as the Watcher. It is my duty as a Watcher to observe and mentally record the lives of other races within the known Multiverse. This privilege to watch the younger races evolve over the eons gives me great joy, but also great pain." Uatu stops for a moment to use his cosmic senses to find one specific individual. "I have named this planet's reality, Earth-777A. There is one upon this world that holds my particular interest at this time: The Spectacular Spider-Man! This world's version of Peter Parker's life differs greatly from his many alternate universe counterparts. I will start with observing his past before becoming Spider-Man..." A large sphere appears with a wave of the Watcher's hand, and within the sphere is shown a young Peter Parker as he is about to speak to two young women just outside of Midtown Gotham High School.
Sixteen year old Peter Parker looked nervous as he approached the beautiful blond, and dark haired girls. "H-hi there, Helena and Dinah! W-would either of you like to come with me to the Gotham Exhibit, today? They've got some rare spiders on display, and I heard there's going to be test of a particle accelerator device!" The dark haired girl, Helena stops walking, with her blond friend turning around to look at Peter with some disinterest. Helena turns her head, and stares at Peter with narrowed blue eyes that makes him feel like a bug on a windshield.
"I'm not interested in the slightest, Parker. In you, or your science nerd hobbies. Come on, Dinah! Let get out of here!" Helena starts walking away, and Peter starts stumbling over his words to explain himself.
"I-I wasn't asking you out, I just wanted us to go together..." Peter's voice trails off when he sees that neither of them are stopping, and quicken their pace to get away from him. "...as friends." Peter's head slumps down in sadness, and he puts a hand up to his round glasses to keep them from slipping off his nose.
"Weeelll...that was embarrassing! Better stick to playing with your test tubes, Einstein! Dinah, and Helena are way out of your league!" A chorus of laughter could be heard, and Peter turns his head to see Oliver Queen, Flash Thompson, and Eddie Brock standing on the school steps with smug looks on their faces. Flash Thompson slaps the blond haired Oliver on his left shoulder, and then wipes an imaginary tear away from his eye with his other hand.
"You've got that right, Ollie! Puny Parker couldn't get a date with his own Mom!" Flash laughs along with Eddie, and high five's him with a grin on his face. Peter's hands clench into fists when Flash mentions his mother.
"OOh-Nooo! Look out! Parker's gonna get upset, Flash! He might throw a bunsen burner at us! Ha-ha-ha-ha!" Eddie Brock blurts out between his laughter. Ollie, and Flash clasp him on the shoulder, while grinning down at Peter, who is gritting his teeth in anger.
"I can't give into my anger, that's exactly what these bullies want!" Peter thought to himself, and decided to just walk away from them to head home. He went to grab his books that he left on the sidewalk, only for Oliver to run down the steps to kick them away.
"Oops, my foot must've slipped." Flash, and Eddie joined Ollie as they walked down the sidewalk laughing at Peter's expense. Peter starts to gather up his scattered books with his hazel eyes shadowed over with a grim expression on his face.
Uatu stopped his glimpse into this Peter Parker's past, and shook his large bald head at what he just witnessed. "This is one of the similarities between the Spider-Men throughout the Multiverse. Human beings have an amazing capacity for good, and unfortunately also for cruelty to those they do not understand." Uatu waves his hand in front of the sphere, and the passage of time speeds up to a momentous day in Peter Parker's life. "This was something I was not expecting..." The Watcher gazes into the sphere to see Peter being bitten by not one, but two different irradiated spiders. "...a Huntsman Spider, and a Black Widow." Watcher gasps slightly when Peter immediately drops to the floor after being bitten, and doesn't move a muscle in response. One of the scientists ran over to Peter's prone form, and turned him over to listen to his heart, and his eyes widen.
"Someone call for an ambulance! This young man is hardly breathing!" The scientist states with urgency, and begins to try to resuscitate Peter. "Hang on, kid! Hang on!" The scientist hollers out, and sighs in relief when he hears the ambulance siren close by. The EMT's from the ambulance quickly rush to the scene, and take over for the now out of breath scientist. One EMT places an oxygen mask on Peter's face, while the other sets up the gurney. They both gently lift Peter onto it, and rush him back to the waiting ambulance to send him to Gotham General.
The sphere moves ahead in time with it showing Peter in a hospital bed hooked up to machines to help him breathe, with several IV bags pumping their solutions through the needle in his left arm. A distraught May Parker stares down at her nephew with tears in her eyes, and she's being held in a one armed embrace by Ben Parker. They hear a knock at the hospital room door, and a tall well built man in his forties with short dark hair, and a well trimmed mustache walks in. He is wearing a white doctors coat, and looks up from the medical chart in his hands.
The doctor sends a look of sympathy over to Ben, and May then closes the medical chart in his hands. "Ben, and May Parker? I'm sorry that we have to meet under these circumstances. My name is Dr. Thomas Wayne." Thomas said while holding out his hand to Ben, who shook it in friendly greeting.
"Nice to meet you, Dr. Wayne." Ben said while holding a heartbroken May close to his chest. "Can you tell us what's wrong with our boy?" Thomas looks at Ben, and can tell that he hasn't been getting any sleep, with the dark circles under his eyes. He then stares down at May, who quickly wipes her tears away, and is giving him a hopeful look. "Please tell me my Peter will be okay?"
Thomas frowns slightly, and moves over to Peter's bedside to place a large hand on his right shoulder. Thomas turns back to the Parker's, and sighs lightly. "I'm going to be honest with you. Peter's blood has been irradiated to levels I've never seen before. He was at the Gotham Exhibit where they were doing a test for a device that uses radiation, but the scientist that was interviewed said that Peter would've had to step into the beam itself to be exposed to this level of radiation." Thomas paused to let them process the new information.
"Will he recover from this, Dr. Wayne?" Ben asked with a hitch in his voice, and his eyes widen when Thomas shakes his head.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Parker...Peter's condition is terminal." May put her hands over her mouth, and began sobbing uncontrollably. Ben hugged May tightly to his chest, and gently stroked her white hair. Ben's memories take him back to the day he took Peter to science camp, and how happy he was. Ben can't hold back his tears, and closes his eyes with pain etched on his face. Thomas decides to leave the room to give them their privacy. He stands outside the doorway, and shuts his eyes, with his right hand covering them. "It never gets any easier."
Time-Skip 2:00 A.M. - Gotham General
"May, you need to rest." Ben Parker argued lightly to his frowning wife, and scratched the back of his head when she gave him a look that said *not on your life*. "I know you want to stay by Peter's side, I do too...but we're no good to anyone if we end up collapsing from fatigue, At least come with me to get a coffee, or something to keep you going." May is holding Peter's left hand, and squeezing it softly.
"What if something happens, Ben? I want Peter to know that we're here with him!" Ben nods his head at May, and moves behind the chair she's sitting in, and rubs her shoulders in a soothing manner.
"We will only be gone for a minute or two, May. Have faith in our boy, he's stronger than you think!" May pats Ben's left hand gently, and she sighs in reluctant acceptance.
"Fine, Ben...but only for a few minutes!" Ben kisses May on the top of her head, and smiles down at her.
"Just long enough to get some coffee, and come right back." May nods to Ben, and slowly lets go of Peter's hand, and stands up. Ben takes her by the hand, and they both make their way to the doorway, with May looking back at Peter before fully exiting.
All is quiet now in Peter's hospital room, except for the beeping sounds of his heart rate monitor, and the artifical respirator pumping air into Peter's lungs. Suddenly, Peter's heart rate begins to spike, and his breathing becomes erratic. Meanwhile, his body is undergoing a metamorphosis. Peter's skinny frame becomes more defined with hard muscle. His biceps, and leg muscles grow in size, and he now has six pack abdominal muscles underneath his hospital gown. Peter's body is convulsing now, and his breathing ragged. The heart rate monitor's beeping stops, and flat-lines. Peter stops moving all together, and the room is dead silent.
After an agonizing minute, the heart rate monitor starts beeping slowly, with Peter's eyelids opening quickly as he wakes up in a panic. Peter can feel a mask of some kind on his face, and he removes it. "W-Where am I?! W-What am I...doing here? Hospital...I'm in a hospital? When did..." Peter starts removing the rest of the monitors, and the IV in his arm. While he is removing the IV needle, he moves his two middle fingers into his palm, and a white string-like substance shoots out at a Styrofoam cup located on the small table at the far end of the room.
"W-What was that?!" Peter said in fear, and some amazement. Peter looks down at his wrist, and notices a tiny hole where the substance came out. Peter hears rushed footsteps coming toward his room, and he hid his wrist behind his back in a hurry. Peter watches his Aunt May, and Uncle Ben entering the room with looks of astonishment, and turning into happiness.
"Aunt May...Uncle Ben?" May has tears in her eyes, and moves with quickness belies her age, and gives Peter a heartfelt hug.
"Peter, Oh Peter! You're awake! Ben, get the doctor!" Ben nods with a smile, and leaves to find Dr. Wayne.
"Aunt May...how did I end up here? That last thing I remember was being in the Gotham Exhibit for that particle accelerator experiment." Peter said in a puzzled voice, and scratched the back of his head in confusion.
May wiped her happy tears away with the sleeve of her blouse. "It okay, Peter. The doctor will be here shortly to check on you." As if by summon, Ben and Thomas Wayne enter the room. Thomas is genuinely shocked to see Peter sitting up on his own, and smiling at his Aunt and Uncle.
The next day- Gotham General
"We don't often use this term in the medical profession, but Peter being alive and well IS a bona fide miracle. I've run some tests on Peter, and the results are astounding! Peter's body has fully adapted to the irradiated blood flowing through his system. There are no signs of tissue degeneration at all. Saying that you're healthy right now Peter would be an understatement." Thomas said as he studied the results of the preliminary tests on his chart. May is beaming at the news, and Ben is rustling Peter's hair in a playful manner. "See May? I told you that our boy is stronger that you thought!" Peter is fully dressed in the clothes May brought him, and is sitting down in a wheelchair that Ben wheeled in earlier. Peter groans in embarrassment, but then smiles up at his uncle.
"I'd like to keep Peter here for a little bit longer to run some more extensive tests, if that's okay with you, Mr. and Mrs. Parker?" Thomas said in an assuring tone, and May frowned over at him and then walked over to Peter in his wheelchair. May started hugging the life out of Peter earning another embarrassed groan from the teenager.
"You said that my Peter is fine now...w-we just want to take our boy home, Dr. Wayne." May admitted with a resolute tone of voice. Thomas sighed, and then relented at May Parker's determined look.
"I understand. I'll have one of the nurses get his release papers." Thomas was about to exit the room, when he heard Peter complaining about having to sit in the wheelchair.
"Hospital rules, young man. You're butt will stay in that chair until you're outside of the hospital, is that understood?" Thomas gave Peter a stern look that had him sitting straight up in his chair from a slouching position.
"Sir! Yes, Sir!" Peter said in a panic, and Thomas chuckled as he left the hospital room.
"Still got it."
Ben laughed out loud, and Peter slumped down in the chair and breathed a sigh of relief. Ben patted Peter on the shoulder good-naturedly. "How about we get out of here, and I'll cook us up something good to eat." May, and Peter looked at each other at the same time, and then back at Ben.
"No offense, Uncle Ben...I think I'll pass. I don't want another trip back here after just getting out." Peter quipped, and May snorted in laughter.
May latched onto Ben's arm when he started grumbling. "Peter's right, Dear. Best to leave the cooking to me. I had to throw the pans out when the burnt food wouldn't scrape off." Peter smiled at how his Aunt kissed his Uncle on the cheek silencing his grumbling, and putting a happy grin on his face. Ben wheeled Peter out of the room, and over to the Hospital's front desk where May signed his release papers.
"Freedom awaits, my boy! On we go!" Ben cheered, and May shook her head at his antics with a smile. They all made their way out of Gotham General, and were surprised when everyone on the sidewalk were looking up in the sky.
"Hey, look!" One pedestrian walking his dog said out loud. Ben, May, and Peter looked at the person flying in the skies above Gotham.
"It's a bat!" A lady screamed out at the top of her lungs, and the three Parkers were thinking that she needs glasses.
"It's a plane!" A overweight street cop exclaimed with certainty in his voice. Now the Parker's were thinking they were doing this on purpose.
"No, It's Super-boy!" Peter said, and pointed up at the Boy of Steel like it was the most obvious thing in the world. The Gotham P.D. cop, and the women both shrugged their shoulders at Peter, and then went about their way.
"What do you think it feels like being able to fly like that, Uncle Ben?" Peter asks his Uncle, curious to know his answer.
"Don't know, Peter...but it sure must beat walking any-day! TAXI! TAXI!" Ben shouts to gain the cabbie's attention as he passed, and he slowed down to park on the side of the road.
Peter wheeled his wheelchair back inside the Hospital, and quickly joined Ben, and May Parker inside the cab. The cab sped off shortly afterwards to drive the Parker's back to their home.
Back Inside Gotham General
Thomas Wayne is making the rounds in the hospital, and passes by the room where Peter Parker just left. Thomas *tsked* loudly when he looks in to find the nurse assigned to clean up the room didn't do her job. "I'm going to have a few words with Susan about her dereliction of he duties." Thomas says mostly to himself, and does a quick look around to make sure the Parker's didn't forget anything in their haste. Thomas moves the pillow on the bed when he thinks he sees something behind it.
"What's this?" Thomas takes a ballpoint pen out of his white doctors coat, and lifts a sticky string-like substance up to his eye level with it.
"Webbing?"
Author's Note: Thank you for reading my new story, I hope you like it! :D
Let me know what you thought of the chapter in a review, and I'll see you again in chapter 2 of 'Breach: The Spider's Pack!' :)