A few days had passed as the three Avengers did their best to make their make themselves home in the Rocket Central, passing time with the TV there along with talking with the Squadron members. Peter had decided to go to the training area and was in a tank top and bottoms facing off against Zarda in trunks and a tank top of her own which showed off her muscles. She had a necklace on and he was managing to impress her with his speed and reflexes but he was actually weirded out and a bit disturbed when she had a grin and demanded that he not hold anything back with his punches.
He managed to hit her in the jaw and send her back with blood as he panicked and helped her up with apologies, "It's alright Peter and it's my fault. I get caught up in the moment like I usually do when I am boxing. You see this necklace I have is an artefact from Utopia that dampens my powers and the rush that I get where I could actually feel pain gets to me, I should have known not to go overboard fighting with another Superhuman so sorry about that." Zarda explained to him apologetically.
"Didn't expect you to be a bit of a masochist..." Peter muttered having already been explained to him about Zarda coming from a race of beings descended from humans experimented on by the Kree. "Zarda, you think it will be okay to let me look around the streets please? I kind of want to check around the streets of another Earth." Peter asked her and she thought it over.
"I guess that will be fine and I have a communication device to let you keep in touch." Zarda replied and he grew excited at the thought.
In the main area after Peter and Zarda had gotten changed, Peter said goodbye to Jennifer and Carol as Milton and Zarda used the Rocket's teleportation technology to send him to New York with the monitors allowing them to keep an eye on him. "We were watching your practice session on the footage, I have trouble comprehending the image of Peter being able to punch you out like that Zarda, necklace or not." Milton spoke up with surprise on his voice.
"Hyperion, I know this is hard to get used to but this is not the same shy little shutterbug you know. He's from another Earth with a different history who became a superhero of his own, a cute one who doesn't look too bad in the sparring clothes." Zarda spoke as Milton shook his head and Jennifer and Carol were silent at that. "Sorry ladies, tell me if you want me to back off from your boyfriend." Zarda said as they shook their heads.
"He's not dating us but we are interested and we know he's interested as well." Jennifer replied as Carol sighed at how blunt she was being.
"So you wouldn't like it if I decided to invite him to one of my nights at a bar?" Zarda joked as Jennifer and Carol fought back a laugh.
"Peter's kind of a lightweight; we found that out recently thanks to Tony Stark spiking his drink." Carol said hoping Peter would forgive them for talking about him behind his back about this.
Milton and Zarda batted an eye and Milton asked "so were you at a Starkbucks and was Stark there to spike his drink?" Carol and Jennifer blinked in unison, obviously differences between their Earths.
"Seems that Stark is a different case in your Earth but can I ask if Captain America rings a bell?" Carol asked and they nodded.
"Of course, I teach history at a high school and talking about old Superheroes is how I can best get my students to pay attention." Milton said.
"I knew him when he worked with the Golden Agency when we were helping the Allies in the war effort; we were all at his funeral after he died." Zarda said as Carol and Jennifer shared a look.
"So he died in 1945?" Jennifer asked and confused the two Squadron members nodded. "So are you sure he died and didn't just fall into the ocean and got frozen in ice with his Serum keeping him alive all the time?" Jennifer asked as their looks just looked more confused. Carol and Jennifer shared another look thinking that it might be something to look into.
Peter in the clothes that the Squadron had given him had looked through the streets of New York and couldn't help but think how almost the same they seemed to be. He noticed the Comic Stand comic book store and couldn't help but see the totally different comics that they had there.
There were comics of the Squadron Supreme members and their allies with posters decorating the walls, the list put up of the most successful comics of the month included the main Squadron Supreme book, Nighthawk, Power Princess and Hyperion. Something caught his eye as he saw a trade paperback with a photo of him on the cover saying "AMAZING SHUTTERBUG: THE PETER PARKER MEMORIAL COLLECTION". Looking at the back he saw that it collected stories of his counterpart on this Earth from issues of Squadron Supreme and Hyperion with guest spots in other books.
To think that he was dead in this universe.
He put it back and noticed the store's owner Stan an elderly man with glasses looking at him, "You know you kind of look like the Parker kid." He panicked and did his best to give a normal look on his face.
"You must be mistaken; he looks nothing like me..." Peter tried to claim but Stan wasn't buying it.
"Pal, I know what I am talking about and you sound like him too. He used to come here ever since he was really young with his Uncle Ben..." Stan replied and they heard gunshots coming from outside. They looked out the window and Peter was weirded out to see that a man with a gun and a sack of stolen money running out of a store.
He had long brown hair, a brown goatee, a brown moustache, a dark red western hat, orange western shirt, dark red trousers and brown western boots. It reminded Peter of the lame gimmick D-list costumed crooks that he had to contend with from time to time. "The Rustler, better get somewhere safe..." Stan had told him but Peter went to an alleyway and got out from his bag the spare Spider-Man suit that he had brought with him.
The Advanced suit that he had been working on with white for extra shielding and to help pack a punch, different Earth or not he had a responsibility when his neighbourhood was being threatened. He used his web and shaped it into a lasso and quickly tied up the Rustler. "Looks like the sheriff will have you locked up for quite a long while you varmint..." Peter said with the best cowboy impression that he could make as the PDNY police officers came.
"So who are you supposed to be?" one of the officers asked as a crowd was gathering.
"You can call me Spider-Man." Peter said as he ran and jumped back to the alley and got his bag back with his clothes. He saw the crowd had followed him so he couldn't change back here. "I should have thought this through more..." Peter thought in his head.
"Not bad dealing with the Rustler, don't worry we can send you back now. By the way, nice suit." Zarda told him through his communication device as Peter was teleported away.
The Rustler was a minor villain in one of the issues of Squadron Supreme. The Comic Stand is a location from the Amazing Spider-Man 2 game. Though the 2nd one was definitely not as good, I think the Amazing Spider-Man movie games deserved more credit than they got. Wish the 2nd one could have steered away from the movie's story to be its own thing like the first one did. Plus anyone else notice the similarities the first game had with the PS4 game in the story?