Chapter 2: Now I'm Here
Peter's POV
When Peter opened his eyes, he found himself standing in an unfamiliar alley. When Peter saw Ned standing there, looking just as confused as Peter felt, he smiled, knowing his best friend was safe.
"Ned! Where are we?" Peter asked as Ned turned to look at him.
"I don't know. I don't recognize this part of town." Ned said cautiously as Peter tried to take in his surroundings.
"Let's head back before-" Abruptly, the only light in the alley disappeared. The portal, the high schooler's way back home, was gone.
"Oh man. What are we gonna do now?" Ned looked worried as he said this.
Peter knew that he would have to be the one to find a way back home. He made sure to put on his brave face, no matter how frightened he felt. "Let's just look up our way home," he said, pulling out his phone. When he went to look up where they were, Peter noticed he had no service. "I've got no bars. You?"
Ned pulled out his phone and stared intently at it. "Me neither."
Now Peter was really starting to worry. What if they couldn't find their way back? What would Aunt May do? What would Mr. Stark do?
An idea popped into Peter's mind. "We need to go find a computer. I'm guessing there should be a library somewhere around here."
"Led the way, Spider-Man."
After what felt like hours of wandering around and asking for directions, the duo finally opened the door to the library, where they were welcomed by a gust of warm air. They made their way inside to find a cozy space with rows upon rows of books. Ned was staring at it in admiration. Peter would be too, if the whole place didn't make him feel uneasy.
Since he and Ned had shown up in the alley, he couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't belong. As they wandered farther in the town, the feeling got harder to ignore.
Turning his thoughts to his task, Peter and Ned walked up to the front desk where the librarian was busy checking in a pile of books. When she saw the teens, she immediately put a smile on her face. "Welcome to the Central City library. Can I help you find anything?"
Central City? How far from home were they?
Peter quickly shook off the thought. "Um… Yeah. We were wondering if we could use a computer?"
"Sure. Just head down there and take a left. You should see them." She stated as she pointed down a row of books.
"Thank you," Peter said before grabbing Ned, who was lost in thought, and heading in the direction the librarian had point. "Ned? Are you okay?" he whispered to his best friend.
"We're in Central City? How far from New York is that?" he stammered.
"That's what we're here to find out. "
The two quickly found the computers. Peter quickly got on the internet and started the search for where they were.
"It says here that we are in Central City, in an entirely different state than we were in this afternoon." Peter read off the screen.
"Great," Ned said sarcastically. "Now we're going to have to buy a bus ticket." He started to get up to leave before Peter stopped him.
"Wait. I want to look up one more thing." Something was still nagging at the back of Peter's mind. Something here wasn't right, and he was determined to find out what it was. Cautiously, Peter started typing something new into the search.
"Tony Stark…" Ned read aloud. "Wait, why are you looking that up?"
"Just a feeling," Peter said quietly as he waited for his search to load.
When the results Peter heard Ned gasp slightly behind him but he was too stunned to care. The results were nothing like when Peter had looked up Mr. Stark awhile ago, before he went to Germany.
Absolutely nothing came up.
Slowly, Peter started to type in other names. Captain America. Nothing. Bruce Banner. Nothing. The Avengers. Nothing. Sokovia Accords. Nothing.
Spider-Man. Nothing.
"There's nothing. Nothing about the attack on New York, nothing about Mr. Banner. Not even anything about Mr. Stark!" Peter was now going into full-on panic mode. As a last resort he started typing Superheroes into the search bar.
"Who are 'The Flash' and 'The Green Arrow'?" Ned asked as the resulted popped up.
"I don't know, but I do have an idea," Peter replied slowly.
"And that is…?"
"I don't think we're in the right dimension."
Cliffhanger! I got motivated and finished this chapter a lot sooner than I thought I would. Keep and eye out for the next one!
