How did I - I survived that? What a joke.
It took me longer than I'd have liked to admit to come to the realization that somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary - jumping off an unfinished seven-story building was pretty damning evidence as far as that went - I was, as it turned out, lying on the ground, incredibly not dead.
What happened? Weren't three stories the bare minimum needed for a human to die? Wasn't seven an absolute guarantee? I felt it. The agony was thankfully brief, but there was no pain on Earth that could possibly compare to becoming a broken, bloody splatter on the ground. I died. I knew I died, because my death was exactly what I was aiming for in the first place! How did I survive, then? This was bullshit! This was...
Why? What would it take? What would it take for my suffering to end?!
I wasn't one for anger - not often, anyway, and only ever twice. But the semi-familiar growl of rage stirred in me, and unlike every single time I'd kept it suppressed, I let it take me. I sat up with a snarl, my face locked into a rictus of aimless fury, and reached for the first -
I froze. What?
I blinked, and repeated it, as if that'd refresh my eyesight. My arm, so unnaturally pale I could've been fooled into thinking I was a yellowbone or even white, moved, and moved again with barely any conscious thought or effort on my part. I frowned, making to bring it closer - and it moved as naturally as any other arm in the world. I brought up the other one, staring at my palms, and my fingers, twisting, turning them so. Every movement was instant, as if they were both mine. But that was the thing - my arms were so totally not normally white.
"Did someone replace my arms?" I wondered, and my eyes widened dramatically as I grabbed at my throat. "And my voice?!"
Those very same arms whipped to my face. My nose was different. My beard - for an extremely generous definition thereof but it was my beard shut up - was gone. I had longer, softer, straightened hair. My nose was different. My lips were smaller. I looked at my stomach and feet, clothed, socked, and pulled them out of my way. "This isn't...this isn't my body."
I looked up, finally taking in my surroundings. I was in a small room - a bedroom, from the looks of the twin bed next to me - and I had never been in it before. I never had an alarm clock. Or a bedside table like that one. Or that old CD player. Or that - was that a laptop? Why was it disassembled?
"Where am I?" I wondered, flinching again at the soft tenor and asking myself a question I hadn't since I was fourteen - among others. "What happened to my voice? Why am I white? What the hell is going on?"
This was not anything I ever had been familiar with in my entire lifetime.
But this place, I realized with a closer look, this place was a little bit familiar. In fact, I turned to my right, spying the closet, and leapt onto my feet, making for it as if it had all the secrets of the universe. I opened it, looking at the mirror attached to the...
"...What?"
...Tom Holland's startled, confused face stared back at me.
"What?"
We raised our hands in pitch-perfect synchrony - the timing so exact, like that Cyberpunk 2077 trailer where Johnny mimicked V's movements and cursed - and he frowned as I frowned, looked down to his right hand as I looked down to my left hand, wiggled his fingers in a perfect mirror of my own movements, and we clenched our fists. Exact same timing.
Am I being...what's this...Mastered?
I reached for him, and he reached for me. His breaths harshened in perfect timing with mine, and we both flinched back.
Am I tripping? Is this what it's like?
"What?" we both uttered again, and only one voice spoke. Tom's. But my throat - his throat! - hummed with the words.
I don't remember ingesting any LSD. I don't even know what it looks like.
I reached for him, and he reached for me, again. I encountered cold, solid glass that warmed to our touch.
No...my touch. His touch. I...I...!
I forced myself to breathe, not wanting to lose myself to a panic attack. It went beyond that this body didn't feel like mine.
It wasn't mine. Fact. Mine died.
But I'd deal with that later.
Against my wishes, I was Tom Holland. My - and his - eyes widened in sudden realization, and I gave the clothes in the wardrobe a glance. I grabbed a random T-shirt, black, with the Rage Comics H2O2 assassination meme on it - at least, the version where the other guy actually ordered it the right way and the waiter walked off in frustration. I put the shirt back and took another one. I want gold, it said, but the A is silent.
Oi, oi.
I gave the bedroom another glance, the location finally clicking for me. I was Tom Holland in Peter Parker's room.
Oops, lemme put this shirt back. Don't want the director and everybody getting mad at me and...
Wait, I realized after, so where are the cameras? Where's the crew?
I scanned the room, taking in every possible detail, in a way I never had before and never would again. This was way too realistic, way too lived in. They'd done an incredible job.
"Hello?" I called out. "Anybody here?"
Nothing. Hey, is that a spider?
"And why is it -" I blinked forcefully, another realization snapping in. I'd never known Tom's eyesight was so sharp. Everything was in some incredibly high definition, making my own eyesight look more like a 720p display. Was this what it felt like to be a 20-20? Was he a 20-20? I looked at his hand again. Why am I in this guy's body? Did I Orochimaru his ass when I died? Or is this like The Egg? Is...
"Whoa." I gaped at my hand. As I focused on it, I could see some very small, weird barbs growing out of the tips of his fingers. "This is...!" I hissed. This was exactly like that wall-crawling scene in the first Raimiverse Spider-Man movie!
So that meant...!
I looked up at the ceiling. This is an apartment, right? So...
I jumped, barbed hand leading the way, easier and higher than I ever had in my entire lifetime - this would really have been handy that time I tried out basketball - and my - his - fingers touched the ceiling. I felt a full-body jerk as gravity asserted itself, but my fingers stuck stubbornly to the ceiling, my legs swinging to and fro as they dangled. Hanging off a handhold with one hand had never been easier my entire life. This was crazy, absolutely insane. This was...new. It was...it was exhilarating!
I swung my legs back and then forwards and upwards, my feet catching the ceiling and sticking with laughable ease. Detaching my hand from the ceiling was also surprisingly easy - which kind of made sense, this body had done such plenty of times - and then I was upside down, treating gravity like a suggestion. I pulled myself up and latched my hand on, grinning as I repeated my initial movements, only to follow up by launching myself off the ceiling and onto the wall. I launched myself back to the ceiling without too much effort - this was so easy I almost felt like a Gary Stu - swinging on the ceiling with more gusto and using the momentum of my swing to pull my first proper backflip in two lifetimes.
I laughed as I reached out for the ceiling to complete my little impromptu stunt - and yelled out when I missed the catch and fell. I landed on my feet, and only just, but adapted and rolled backwards like I'd practiced in my high school days. With a pump of my legs, I flipped back on my feet and made for the ceiling again. No fancy tricks this time, I just let myself dangle, legs swinging like a kid in middle school.
Just like jumping bodies and riding a bike. Oh man.
I let out a laugh, heart pumping it up faster. "Ohh, god!" I laughed breathily. "This is so awesome!" I laughed again. "I've always wanted to do that!"
I stuck there for several seconds, just reveling in the sensation. As they say, familiarity kills novelty, and my heart rate crashed with my momentary enjoyment of sticking it to gravity like a Spider. What I was doing really started to sink in - and I finally dropped to the floor, landing on my butt from the sheer shock.
"Oh, crap."
I scrambled up once more to the mirror, where Tom Holland waited.
Except I wasn't Tom Holland. This wasn't a set for Marvel Studios, filming Civil War or Homecoming.
This was a real apartment, somewhere in Forest Hills, Queens. This was New York.
Good Lord. This has to be the most ironic thing that's ever happened to me.
I'm staring at Peter Parker.
No, not even...
I am Peter Parker.
Oh, hell.
"Oh, what the fu -"