Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, flies over Greenwich Village, New York City at night, on his way to kidnap Mary Jane Watson before he was teleported to this new world. Peter Parker infuriated him by refusing to join his side. Thanks to his dear son Harry, he learned Peter's weakness was a certain young pretty red-head. That was nighttime.
"Whoa!" Osborn yelped, losing his balance. While he was hovering in the sky, the world around him began to change. It reminded him of an earthquake, except the sky was shifting instantaneously. The night became day, the buildings and people below him changed appearances. Two decades passed before his eyes. It is now daytime.
Norman was just hovering near an alleyway above Bleecker Street when he sees an older gentleman with a red cape and…Spider-Man, who was on the ground. The web-slinger stood up and gave the caped man a green cube.
"I don't understand how this happened…the spell didn't even work, everyone still remembers me as Spider-Man."
"We tampered with the stability of space-time," the caped man told the webhead.
"What will happen?" Peter took off his mask. Norman stayed low. This Peter looked much younger and different.
"The multiverse," the man started to explain, "is a concept about which we know frighteningly little."
Osborn was struck with a realization. I'm in an alternate universe…?
"Listen, I stabilized things for now. But somehow the spell caused different universes to collide simultaneously."
The kid "Peter" took a step closer. "What can we do to stop this? Fix this?"
"You're doing nothing. Listen, I will look into this problem in the Sanctum. But I meant it when I said that you're trying to live two different lives. Peter, you need to accept the consequences of being Spider-Man. Otherwise… the longer you do it, the more dangerous it becomes."
Peter hangs his head in shame. The caped man marched into the building behind him with the green cube. Peter puts on his mask and swings away.
Norman smirks. He may be in another universe, but Peter Parker is still the same.
"Be careful what you wish for, Parker."
May and Otto are sitting on the couch, eating some take-out from the Prachya Thai that she and Peter would often order. A bottle of red chardonnay wine, some partially filled glasses, and containers of food sit on the coffee table in front of them. The TV is on, but the volume is pretty low. There was nothing interesting to watch. Otto was just glad to have some human company for a change, in a less stressful moment.
"Mmm," May moans after eating a satisfying bite of Panang curry. "I've been craving this all day."
Otto gulped down some noodles. May reaches over to the container of fried calamari and offers it to him. "Do you want some calamari?"
Otto paused. "No… but thanks." May shrugs and proceeded to lift a piece of calamari with her chopsticks. The tentacles watch her, intrigued.
May noticed the tentacles "watching" her and accidentally dropped her calamari piece on the plate.
Otto put his hand on one of the tentacles. "Do they scare you?" Otto sincerely asked.
May waved her hand to dismiss it. "H-huh? Oh, no!" Crap, I don't wanna offend the poor guy. "It's just not something you see every day."
Otto makes the tentacles rest behind the couch. They continue to eat their dinner. When he was finished, Otto puts down his plate and chopsticks and adjusted himself to relax. May puts her plate down as well and offers to refill Otto's wine glass.
"Yes, thanks." Otto takes a sip.
Otto's eyes then wander around the living room. The framed photos of Peter Parker, mounted on the wall to his right, had caught his eye.
He had seen pictures of Peter on May's phone background and knew he looked different from Peter from his own universe. There were three photos mounted on the wall- one with Peter and May, another with Peter and a black-haired man in a suit and tie, one with Peter and his classmates, and a younger version of Peter with May and another man with salt-and-pepper hair.
"Mr. Stark. Um…Tony Stark." May pointed at the picture of Peter with Tony Stark. "He's Pepper's husband and Happy's boss. He died earlier this year. He was like a father to Peter. For the longest time, I thought Peter was in an internship program with him but turns out they were off being superheroes…"
May pointed at another framed picture. "That's my husband, Ben." She makes a sad, almost quivering sigh. "We lost him six years ago. Carjacking."
"I'm sorry," Otto said almost quietly.
"Yeah," May sniffed and wiped the lone tear in her eye.
Otto turned to look at May. He can see her pain, a feeling he knows all too well.
They were silent for a short while. "Can I ask you something?" Otto's voice is soft.
"Sure."
"How long…" he paused. Tears are welling up. "How long until the pain goes away?" Otto flashes back to the time when Rosie died. He was so focused on making the fusion project work, so her death wasn't in vain, he hadn't had time to process his grief. Even worse, the effort was all a waste in the end. He screwed up, he miscalculated, and it cost him his world. He should've died in that river.
May looks up at Otto and gives him a hopeful smile. She grabs his hand.
"It never does."
Otto looked down and closed his eyes. A tear falls down his cheek.
"But…I tell Peter. If we don't keep smiling when he can't…when our loved ones can't…then we might as well be gone too. So, we try to be happy, for their sake."
Otto sniffs and takes a deep breath, trying to maintain his composure. He nods and wipes his tears, holding May's hand tightly.
"You're right. Thanks, May."
May smiles, then gets up and picks up some of the trash. Otto raised his arm to stop her.
"Let me," he proposed. "It's the least I can do."
"Oh no, you're a guest—" May paused when the tentacles raised above them and Otto pointed at them. "On second thought, I guess I can sit down."
It's not every day that someone gets to clean up with four extra arms, after all.
Otto tosses and turns. He couldn't sleep. Despite the Parker couch being the most comfortable compared to the Pier, he still couldn't get comfortable with the arms fused to his spine.
Plus, he couldn't quite trust the tentacles to take over his body and hurt May in the process.
Oh father, the tentacles mocked. We couldn't possibly harm a hair on that sweet woman.
Giving up, Otto got up and washed his face in the kitchen, drinking water. May sleeping peacefully in her bedroom.
Otto had an idea. If he didn't exist in this world as Doctor Octopus, is it possible that Rosie is alive in this world? Otto's eyes widened. He has to try this hypothesis.
Otto left a note on the refrigerator and put on his trenchcoat and hat. He silently left out the front door.
Meanwhile, Peter Parker landed on his bedroom window and went straight to bed. It was a pretty exhausting day.
Otto sits in the subway train, resting his head on the window. The routes and the city layout are generally the same. If his calculations are correct, his condo should be in the same place, near Central Park. He rests his eyes briefly. The subway even smells the same.
What should I do, his thoughts trailing off. If Rosie is alive?
He's dreaming of a time when he and Rosie took the subway together. He remembers her sitting next to him, reading Robert Burns. Their bag of groceries sitting at their feet, his arm lovingly resting over her shoulders. Otto peering over at her book.
"Ah, A Red, Red Rose," he mused. "I recited that for you once, remember?"
"So nosy," Rosie joked. "And yes, I remember."
"O my Luve is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June," Otto recited, his head against the window. "O my Luve is like the melody that's sweetly played in tune."
Otto wakes up. His train has stopped.
He rubs his eyes while exiting the train. Otto walks out of the station and down a couple of blocks before the red brick condo he and Rosie used to live in. It exists in this world.
Otto motioned for his tentacles to climb up the building. If the building is the same then the bedroom has got to be in the same place…
His heart skipped a beat. He leaned over to the window, his palms on the glass.
It's her! Indeed, there is his beloved Rosie, alive and well. She is asleep in her bed, with another man. It is not him.
One of the tentacles observed him watching quietly.
"Let's go." He silently ordered. He made his tentacles travel over the cityscape, making their way back to Pier 56.
Father are you not going to seek her?
Otto took a deep breath, letting the cool October air cool his face.
I cannot interfere, Otto explained. My Rosie is dead. Because of me. That Rosie is alive. I do not belong here.
He has got to return home. Some way, somehow.
He stands on top of a building near the destroyed Pier 56, staring at the dark waters of the Hudson River.
"I don't belong here…" Otto muttered. "There is got to be a clue on how I can get home…"
"Oh, do I have a clue for you!"
Otto heard a voice cackle behind him. He turned around. A green costumed man hovers above him on a glider. Otto has heard of this figure before, in the news. The Daily Bugle called him the "Green Goblin."
"Green…Goblin…?" Otto clenched his fists.
"Yeah, that's me. The Green Goblin. I might be out of a limb here, but did you ever come across a certain…bug?" Goblin moved closer to Otto, who is still unsure if the Goblin is friend or foe.
"Bug? You mean Spider-Man?" Otto asked.
"Yes, Spider-Man," a middle-aged man in a business suit answered below. Behind him were several other…interesting characters: an African-American man emitting electricity, a giant mechanized Rhino suit, and a humanoid lizard.
"So, what if I have?" Otto replied.
"He is the key, to all of this, to everything." Green Goblin hovers around Otto. He took off his mask.
Otto raised an eyebrow. Norman Osborn?
"He is why we are here." The man in the business suit took out a cigarette and began to light it. "We're all enemies of Spider-Man."
Otto remained silent. He wasn't sure if he could trust this group. "And why should I care? Or trust any of you?" Otto moved to the ground below, closer to the group. Green Goblin followed suit and landed on the ground.
"Because we're your only hope of returning home. Join us," the man in the business suit replied, reaching out a hand. "In my world, I'm known as 'The Gentleman'."
"I'm Electro," the electric generating man raised his fist and clenches it, sparks going off. The rest of the group introduces themselves.
"The Rhino!"
"The Lizard."
"Green Goblin," Norman Osborn cackled, putting his mask back on.
Otto looks at each person. They might be trouble, but they're right. Spider-Man had something to do with him...with them all being in this world. I have to find Peter.
"I'm known as Doctor Octopus."