Seen You Before

How'd you get so old Peter?

Gwen Stacy hadn't asked that question directly. Partly because it wasn't polite, partly because she feared what the answer would be, partly because he wasn't the only Peter Parker in the vicinity of the spider…people, that were holed up in this abandoned apartment, planning their move on Fisk Tower. A move that would involve them either being sent back to their respective dimensions, or all those dimensions collapsing in some kind of multi-dimensional singularity, obliterating anything, and anyone, that might call those dimensions home.

Like, no pressure right?

Far as pressure was going, they seemed to be doing okay. All the other Spider-People were huddled around a diagram of the tower, lain out over the floor, coupled with her own sketches on the multi-dimensional aspects of the dilemma their realities faced. Basically a timetable of how long they had to undo the damage this universe's version of Wilson Fisk had done to the fabric of reality. Far as she could tell, they had about 24 hours – come 23:00, the eleventh hour of Sunday night, the world would end, provided they didn't save it before then. And to do that, they had to rely on three teenage kids (one of whom had a mech), an anthropomorphic pig, one version of Peter Parker who hadn't taken his mask off and looked like something out of a 30s noir series, and…

Where the heck are you anyway?

The "other Peter" had said he was going out to get some air. That had been ten minutes ago. In those ten minutes, five of them had been dealing with the bad idea to order pizza and explain to Peter Porker that yes, people ate pigs in this universe, and yes, that was terrible, but we really need to focus on the bigger picture. In that time, Peter Porker had looked ready to call it quits, Peter Parker Noir (what else was she going to call him?) looked like he was ready to snap, Peni Parker looked like she always did (like something out of a cartoon), and Miles Morales looked like he wanted it all to end.

Damn it Peter!

She sympathized with Miles. She really did. This was his universe, this was his city, and he was the one who'd covered for them. The one who'd found an abandoned apartment for them to hang out at (a rarity in this city as much as it was in hers), and kept the NYPD (sorry, PDNY) off their backs while focusing on this universe's version of the Green Goblin. He was only a few years younger than her, but in those years, it was the difference between "Spider-Boy," and "Spider-Man." The place she'd been in when she'd started two years ago herself, just skipping the "girl" part.

Alright, that's it.

She needed a break from this – the clock was ticking, her head was spinning, the others looked ready to crack, and if that happened, she didn't want to be at ground zero, especially if Peni got her mech out (seriously, a mech?!) She pulled down her hood and stepped onto the balcony – somewhere out there was Peter Parker. Not her Peter Parker, but the closest thing she was going to get to her version in this God-forsaken multiverse. She got on top of the railing, ready to let fly with her web shooter-

"Hey Gwen."

"Gah!"

And fell off, hurtling down to the streets below. Not that that was an issue however, as in a matter of seconds, she'd used her web shooters to get back up to the balcony. In much less time than that, she found the source of the voice.

"Peter?"

He was laid back against the wall, decked out in his Spider Suit bar the mask, which was stuffed into his suit's belt.

"Hey."

He looked tired, sounded tired, and…son of a…

"Smoking?" Gwen asked.

Peter blew out a puff, letting the ashes drop on the balcony floor. "Yeah."

Gwen blew the smoke away. "That's disgusting."

"Yeah, well, figure being bitten by a radioactive spider gave me some perks, among them a shield against lung cancer." He took another puff.

"Do you have any actual evidence of that?" Gwen asked.

"No."

"So…you're fine with potentially poisoning yourself?"

"Yep." He blew out the smoke. It was hot and dry, and there was no wing to carry it. The result was that it drifted right towards the only other person on this balcony who, spider-bite or no spider-bite, wasn't in the mood to have her body damaged any more than it already was.

Alright, that's it.

Activating her web shooter, she tore the cigarette right out of Peter's hand. She dropped it to the ground, stamping it out, feeling much less satisfied than she thought she would have. Granted, she'd potentially saved Peter Parker from lung cancer, but…

What's with you?

But he hadn't even tried to stop her. He'd stood there and let her do it. And now he was continuing to stand there, leaning back against the wall, acting as if he didn't care. Looking at her with bleary eyes, ringed by darkened skin. He looked tired. He looked…old.

"What happened to you Peter?"

She'd asked it. She might have only twenty-four hours left in this world (or multiverse), so screw it, she was going to ask it.

"You on about now?" Peter stretched and closed his eyes, yawning.

"You. What happened to you?"

"Well, funny story there – it all began twenty years ago when I got bit by a radioactive spider."

"Peter, everyone here's bitten by a radioactive or genetically modified spider-"

"Yeah, so? Don't need me to talk about it then." He opened his eyes and met Gwen's gaze. "Say, shouldn't you be back in there?"

"Shouldn't you?" He nodded towards the interior – behind the glass screen and curtains, Gwen could see that Peter Porker had stolen one of the web shooters of the other Peter Parker, which had left Peni Parker giggling, and Miles trying to restore sanity to a multiverse gone mad.

"They're fine," Gwen said.

Peter snorted. "Sure don't look fine."

"They're fine…" said Gwen, taking a step towards Peter, "because unlike you, I don't need to wonder if they've got their hearts into this."

"Got my heart in this too." Peter knocked his chest, causing him to cough. Quite a bit, actually.

"Come on," Gwen said, crossing her arms. "You owe me an answer."

"Don't owe you nothing." He'd stopped coughing, and for the first time, Gwen could see something new in Peter Parker's eyes. It wasn't so much that the weariness had left them, but that something else had joined them – quiet anger.

Anger that was matched by a light in her own.

"You're pathetic," she said. "Absolutely pathetic."

"Says the person who's dressed in white."

"I…okay, first of all, what does that even mean?" She tagged at her Spider Suit for good measure, taking note (again) of how frayed Peter's looked. "Second of all, me? Pathetic? I'm not the one doing nicotine, or acting like the world might not end in twenty-four hours, or-"

"How long you been in the game?" Peter asked.

Gwen blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"How long you been doing the web slinging?" He stood up straight, removing his back from the wall. "How long you been Spider-Girl?"

"I…two years." She didn't feel like getting into yet another debate about the fact that it was "Woman," not "Girl," thank you very much. "Been on the job for two years."

"Yeah? Well, I've been on it for twenty." He walked past her, about to head back indoors. "So when you've been doing the game long as I have, then you can-"

Gwen shot some web at his hand, which had reached for the handle. He looked at the webbing before returning his gaze to her. "Seriously?"

"Seriously." She leant back against the same wall he had. "You think I'm gonna by that you got like this just because you've been doing it longer than-"

It happened in a second.

One moment, Peter Parker had been looking at her like a dazed drunk. The next, he'd not only ripped his hand free, but opened fire with both his web shooters. Before she could react, her arms and legs were against the wall, bound with so much webbing that she couldn't even move.

"Peter? What the-"

One last webbing hit her mouth.

"Hmm-dhmm!"

"I'm sorry?"

"Hmm! Dhhhm! Hmm!"

"Oh, fine." Peter pulled the webbing off.

"You're a dick!"

He rose an eyebrow. "Seriously? That's what you came up with?"

"You're a selfish, arrogant-"

He shot webbing at her mouth again.

"Dhhmmm!"

Peter sighed. "Listen, I really don't care, but I'm guessing you're, what, eighteen?"

Gwen said nothing.

"Come on, that's a simple question."

Grudgingly, she nodded. She figured that if she got Peter Parker to lower his guard, she could break free and then do something along the lines of breaking half of the bones in his body.

"Right, well, here's the thing," Peter said. "Stuff…happened for me when I was twenty, okay? One moment I'm thinking 'hey, I'm a human-spider, I can make some money off that. Course, that's when I lose my Uncle Ben-"

Ben Parker's dead in your world?

"…and realize that, hey, maybe with all this power, I can make a difference." He smiled – a smile that Gwen could tell was meant to look snarky, but looked…sad. "Great power and great responsibility."

Gwen didn't say anything. Not that she could have said anything anyway, but those words…she didn't know the Ben Parker of her universe that well. After the…incident, she'd stayed clear of the Parker place. But it reminded her of something her father might have said. Even if he was hunting her without even knowing it, his devotion to law and order was what got her to put on the suit each night.

"Here's the thing though," Peter said. "Twenty years. Twenty long years of responsibility. You know how much can change in two decades Gwen?"

She shook her head.

"Lots of things…and a whole lot of nothing. Just…losing the people around you. Gaining more and more people who hate you. Saving a city that constantly needs saving." He sighed. "I'll happen to you Gwen. It'll happen to them as well." He nodded at the other Spider-People, who were now daring Miles to have a cold one (apparently anime girls and talking pigs liked beer – who knew?) "Least I can do is try and make it easy for them. Before they learn that there's always more web."

"Mhmm…"

"Sorry?"

"Mhhm-hmm!"

"Oh, right." He pulled the web off Gwen's mouth. She opened her mouth, but-

"Here's the thing," Peter said, interrupting her. "I get back…so what? Life's pretty much normal. MJ hates me. Aunt May's probably going to join my uncle in the near future. Rent's going up, crime's going up, and I'm still taking pictures of myself for a living." He yanked both pieces of web from Gwen's arms. "So, much as I'd rather the multiverse not collapse in on itself…" He sighed, and yanked off the web binding her legs. "I…" He sighed.

"What?"

"Oh, just thought I'd have something witty to say. Say, you do that too? The whole quip thing when fighting bad guys?"

"Um, yeah?"

"Thought so. Only thing that kept my pants clean when I first started."

"Yeah? You started when you were twenty, not sixteen."

Peter's eyes darkened. "Twenty years on, you might be surprised how young being twenty feels."

Gwen didn't say anything. That wasn't to say that she had nothing that she wanted to say, but it was in the knowledge that anything she did say was coming from a place of ignorance. Two years, she'd been doing this. Year from now, she'd be at college. Ten years from now…well, two years ago she'd imagined a place at Oscorp, and a highly paid, highly regarded place at that, but would she be donning on the cowl at the age of 28? 38? Older still?

"When did it start to change?" she asked eventually. Peter had since gone to lie against the opposite wall.

"Peter?"

"Easy." He looked at her, the fire gone in his eyes, replaced by sadness. "The night you died."

"What?"

"Not you-you, my you-you."

"I…"

"No, it's not a story I feel like sharing right now."

"Why?"

"Because twenty-four hours from now, one way or another, we won't be seeing each other again. And since I haven't seen my Gwen Stacy for over fifteen years, I don't need to go down that road any further than I have to."

She didn't say anything. Now, more than ever, she could feel that this Peter Parker had erected a barrier. One with the flag with the insignia of "no further" flying from its ramparts. She wanted to ask. Wanted to know. But that would lead her down a funnel web of her own. To her Peter Parker. The one who'd died in her arms two years ago…

She looked out at the New York skyline – was the multiverse having some sick joke at their expense? If so…fuck it.

"Listen," Peter said, putting his mask back on. "I'm going to take a swing. Figure it'll be my last chance to see this version of New York, one way or the other."

Gwen nodded. She didn't have anything left to say.

"See you around kid."

Or rather, anything that she felt worthy of uttering. Not when beholding the ravages of time upon someone she'd once cared for. A different version of that someone, true, but for all the differences of the multiverse, some things remained the same. Spider people. Gwen Stacy. Peter Parker…

She watched as Spider-Man swung off into the New York skyline. A red figure, disappearing into the gloom.

After a moment's hesitation, she did the same.

But heading in the opposite direction.

One way or another, come tomorrow, they'd be as far away from each other as possible.

A/N

So, Into the Spider-Verse is looking pretty neat. Course, this is taking huge stabs in the dark, but hey, multiverse...stuff. Go figure.

Update (04/11/18): Per the feedback of "Guest," I've altered the line slightly to account for the fact that yes, Peni has been bitten by a spider. Didn't include Spider-Ham though, as the line would get too clunky otherwise, and...I dunno. Either he didn't tell them about his origin, or it's an AR.