A/N: Hey y'all! I usually share author's notes at the end, but I wanted to put content warnings at the top! They are: strong language, violence, past nonconsensual medical experimentation and torture, and limes. Is it still cool to use the term 'limes' in 2021, days from 2022?

Thanks to you all for reading, and thanks to Renee for being my constant beta reader!

Upon reappearing in his reality, Peter Parker fell into the Hudson.

He should have anticipated it. When he had appeared in the other New York—which was the only way he would refer to it until he could do some thinking and come up with a better name—he had shown up in the same alley he had been swinging through.

As Peter briefly sank into the most disgusting river like some teen trying to get famous online, he tried to put his thoughts in order.

The multiverse was real.

There were other, cooler Peter Parkers in the multiverse.

The other Norman Osborn had been healed.

Just a normal Thursday, at this point in his life.

Peter surfaced, pulling his mask over his nose and wishing his suit was waterproof—like the cooler younger Peter—because he knew that it would take a week of showers to get rid of the stink. And he only had three suits, so having to take one out of rotation would really fuck up his week.

Worse than a stinking suit, Peter hoped the Hudson wouldn't destroy the vial he had brought back with him. He patted his pocket beneath the waves to check that it hadn't fallen out, and he was instantly more relieved when he confirmed that he had managed to sneak it away without anyone—not the other Peters, not the literal magician, not the universe itself—noticing.

The sun was shining bright over Manhattan. The Statue of Liberty—the blessedly normal looking Statue of Liberty without a dumb-looking shield—was to his left, and Peter could see the Oscorp building in the downtown skyline. Peter could find it anywhere on the island, like there was something about it that always drew his attention back—

"Dad, look! It's Spider-Man!" a child yelled, cutting off Peter's train of thought. Behind him, a boat pulled up with a small child and a gruff-looking man in matching green coats. Peter waved, knowing that (for once) his smile was visible.

"Hey!" he said. "Do you guys mind if I hitch a ride?"

###

Peter managed to scrape together enough money each month to rent a single bedroom apartment in Chinatown. It was further from May than he wanted to be, but he needed space to be Spider-Man without prying eyes.

He had worked through several roommates in his early twenties, and there had been one too many close calls between him climbing out the window and his roommates walking in on the classic Peter-Gives-Himself-Stitches part of the night. Knowing that he wasn't going to reveal himself as Spider-Man to a grad student was worth every penny.

It did get lonely sometimes.

With his suit hanging up to dry over the bathtub, Peter threw himself onto his well-loved secondhand couch. He sighed in relief as he felt his back crack and his body realize, oh shit, we can RELAX.

Sure, there was always someone to help in the city, but after the night Peter had suffered through, he figured he deserved a sick day. A trashy reality show that he and May were watching together was queued up on his TV and there was a steaming bowl of fried rice on his—fairly beat up—coffee table, and Peter was ready for a night of losing himself in whatever couple May was rooting for that week.

Or, he tried to pretend he was. Because once the rice was finished and the second episode was underway, Peter retrieved the stolen vial from where he had stashed it under the couch.

"How are we going to do this?" Peter murmured to himself. The vial itself was small—not bigger than one he could find in the Midtown High chem labs—and the liquid sloshing around was brighter than any green he had seen before.

The older Peter—Peter Two, apparently—hadn't noticed when the remaining Goblin Cure—as Peter One had called it—disappeared from his workbench. It was an impulse, really. Peter Three—no, Peter could not believe he was mentally referring to himself as Peter Three—hadn't meant to steal anything, but an idea had crossed his mind and he had to try.

Peter's phone vibrated on the coffee table, and as he reached for it to text May back and assure her that he wasn't watching ahead of her, he had a thought.

It was a stupid thought. He had plenty of them.

But the scene played in his mind.

Max chasing Peter through the power grid. Max overloading. Max dying.

But that wasn't what happened anymore. Peter had checked earlier, and Max was alive and well and a professor at a college in California. He even had a puppy.

Peter's thumb hovered over the call button under the contact. It was one of the two he could never bear to delete, no matter how much time had passed. Up until the night before, he would say it was because he was sentimental. But he had since understood that he wasn't really over what had happened, not really.

And despite the character growth he had gone through the night before, there was still a small, ridiculous glimmer of hope in his chest.

Peter called Gwen.

He hadn't called her in ten years, and he closed his eyes as he brought the phone to his ear.

We're sorry. You have reached a number that is no longer in service—

Peter quickly ended the call and laid his phone on his chest. He prepared himself for the usual feelings that came from thinking about Gwen—the sadness, the anger, the guilt.

And they never came.

Peter opened his eyes, and everything was fine.

He was fine.

He couldn't remember the last time he had been fine.

In his left hand, the vial called to him.

Everyone had been saved, everyone had been healed—even him.

Everyone except for one person.

###

Normally, getting a visitation slot at Ravencroft was impossible. The institute technically wasn't supposed to exist, but even people who knew where it was and what it was were almost always turned away. There were rumors of the occasional Mother's Day and Rosh Hashanah visits, but the rule was that usually, whoever went in never came out, and whoever wanted in was always kept out.

But the rules could be bent for Spider-Man. He had implicitly understood that Ravencroft's doors were open for him—especially because several bad guys he had fought over the years had ended up there—but he had never wanted to set foot inside. Part of him was worried that if he walked in, some mad scientist would knock him out and try to extract his spider essence… or something equally silly-sounding.

When Peter set foot in the building, he wasn't sure what to expect. His mental image of the place had always been gloomy, bordering on medieval, with screams filling the halls and some high-tech guards lining the walls.

Instead of menacingly flickering fluorescents or unsettlingly stained floors, Peter was met with a clean, brightly lit facility. A friendly doctor in a white coat greeted him at the entrance with a smile too lovely to be genuine.

Peter's Spidey Sense was tingling. There was no way in hell he was going to call it a Peter Tingle.

"Hello, Mister… Spider," the doctor said, her confidence faltering for a moment when she realized, as everyone in New York had over the years, that she didn't know how to address Peter.

"Spider-Man is fine. Maybe Spidey if you can show me the gift shop afterwards," Peter said, thankful that his mask hid his unconvincing smile. He needed to be charming and cool as he walked in, but the whole place was wrong.

At least he felt vindicated over his apprehension about visiting before.

As the doctor led Peter down the hall, she began a well-rehearsed spiel.

"Here at Ravencroft, we aim to balance public safety with research. By containing unique threats, we are able to learn more about everything from human evolution to more… alien topics," the doctor said. The hallway was filled with pictures of smiling doctors in front of bland backgrounds; there were doors leading to conference rooms and offices on each side, but Peter was acutely aware of the lack of people.

"Where is everybody?" Peter asked.

"Our residents are kept in a different building to ensure our visitors' safety," the doctor said, unruffled.

"Are you taking me there?" Peter asked. The doctor laughed, and Peter was seconds away from webbing the fuck out of there.

"As much as we would like to study what makes you so amazing," the doctor said, and it didn't sound as nice as when Peter Two had said it, "you're a guest here, not a prisoner."

He noted the doctor's switch from 'residents' to 'prisoners' and was unsettled.

"That's what the sticker says," Peter said, patting the guest badge on his chest. There was a grainy headshot of him in his suit and the name was MAN, SPIDER and, despite being objectively hilarious, it wasn't nearly enough to make the trip worth it.

"Now, when you get into the visiting area, you'll notice that he's restrained," the doctor said.

"Restrained?" Peter asked, slightly alarmed.

"I assure you, he is secure," the doctor said, sounding like a reassuring parent. "Honestly, he's pretty weak. It's just our policy."

"Why restrain him at all?" Peter asked. "They're already here. Shouldn't that be enough?"

The doctor frowned at him as they turned a corner. If Spider-Man was on better terms with the New York government, he would have already been planning what to say during a meeting to discuss the institute's future. But, alas, he was an unsung hero to anyone who lived outside of the four boroughs—Staten Island didn't count because he was unable to swing over on short notice.

"Normally we have a fifteen minute time limit on these kinds of meetings," the doctor said. "For you, we're lifting the limit. Take as long as you want."

"Are the rooms monitored?"

"Of course. We have cameras recording everything. Ravencroft is an incredibly secure facility."

"Are we at least going to be alone? I didn't want to do this with an audience."

"If you would like. We trust you more than the average visitor."

Peter didn't feel bad about what he was planning. This place sucked.

The doctor stopped in front of a door labeled VISITOR ROOM #31 and scanned a keycard. For a moment, Peter was appalled at the lax security, but he figured that wherever they kept the residents was much more secure.

A keycard would be easy enough to get around.

"He's already inside," the doctor said, opening the door just a crack. "Let us know if you need anything. There's a button next to the door to alert me that you want to leave. Hit it anytime."

"Thanks, Doctor…" Peter said, realizing the doctor had never introduced herself.

"That's confidential," she said, opening the door completely.

"Right, of course. Figures. Top secret facility and all," Peter said, sliding inside. He didn't take his eyes from the doctor until the door was closed completely. There was no window on the door or walls, and Peter thought that the paint color was distinctly doctor's-office looking. If the rest of the building had been the most friendly, normal-looking building in New York, the paint choice in the visitor's room would have sent Peter's Spidey Sense off.

It was wrong. It was all so wrong.

"Well, this is a surprise," a voice drawled from the center of the room. "Spider-Man visiting me? I didn't think the day would come."

Peter could see the outline of a hidden door in the opposite wall, and Peter had the distinct feeling of being trapped. There was a table in the center of the room with two chairs across from each other, and literally nothing else.

And in one of those chairs, hands cuffed to the table and looking like he hadn't seen the sun in years, was Harry Osborne.