I laid in bed, wide awake. I couldn't get to sleep, no matter how hard I tried. It should be easy, I felt exhausted and tired, but my mind was wandering and refused to shut off.

I kept on thinking about home. I missed my friends, my family, I missed having a normal school day, of crawling into my dorm with cuts and scrapes and of stressing about homework and deadlines. But I couldn't have that, not until I got home. Who knew if I even would have the opportunity to live a normal life? People would wonder what happened, how it happened, why I was gone so long and how I got back. They would think I was kidnapped and tortured, or something along those lines. It wasn't far off but I don't think I could stand the codling, the sympathetic looks and the questions… People would ask so many questions that I couldn't answer, and that might be the worst part about all of this. I couldn't answer them all. I might never be able to live a normal life.

I angrily wiped a tear away. It wasn't fair. I would have been just fine if I had never been bitten, if I had kept my powers a secret from Ganke, if I had never put on that Halloween costume. Even then, I wouldn't be in a whole different universe wondering if I would ever get home again if I had just decided to head home an hour earlier that night and sleep.

I sat up, putting my head in my hands. At least I wasn't dead, at least Mum and Dad knew I was alive. If I had died when I was escaping, they would have thought I was missing or had run away, and that was a horrifying thought.

I hoped the Ultimates had collected all of my clones. If they didn't, eventually they would die of old age, or maybe SHIELD would want to get it over with quicker and kill them. It was morbid… but I couldn't live my life with all of them around. They might try and replace me or something. I huffed out a small laugh, maybe they should. They would feel loved for a short period of time, maybe they deserved it more than me.

No, no. I was the original, of course I should live my life as the original. Just because they would pass away with no real love and only my memories of it, didn't mean I should give away my life. Thinking about the clones was depressing but there wasn't much I could do about it. It was pretty much out of my hands.

I also hoped that my New York wouldn't hate me after the whole clone thing. From what the clones had said they were only going for small things, except for maybe those tiny evil me's. Those bastards were the worst.

I laid back down, this wasn't the time to speculate on the fate of my clones or whether or not New York would hate me, this was the time to get sleep and recharge. Otherwise, I would be exhausted tomorrow when I went out to crime fight and that was always bad. Except, I had a strong feeling I wouldn't sleep at all.

I finally gave up, there wasn't a point in trying to sleep when I was this wound up. Maybe I could tire myself out? I mean, I was already tired but maybe a little extra exhaustion would help.

I slowly opened the door, trying to be as quiet as possible. I crept over to the kitchen and looked inside the fridge. Milk, perfect. I'll be as cliché as possible and try hot milk.

I looked around and eventually found a cup and the microwave. I had set it to microwave when I heard a noise. I spun around and found Matt standing there. He had his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the counter.

I was pretty proud of myself for not screaming. I mean, Matt kept on appearing like a bad jump scare in a horror movie, but I guess that I had gotten so desensitised that all I did was stare.

I had learned when I had gotten to Daredevil's house that his real name was Matt Murdock. And that, get this, he's blind. He was keeping me fed, had let me crash on his couch, and shower. Honestly, it was pretty great. Except for the fact that last night I got back from patrol for most of the night and turn a light on and BOOM. They were staring in my direction. It was creepy but I knew it wasn't their fault.

"Uh, I couldn't get to sleep," I explained quickly, rubbing the back of my neck nervously. Maybe I had been desensitised to him sneaking around everywhere but I was definitely not used to being stared at by a blind man.

"That's fine. Do you know what time it is?" he asked.

"No?"

"It's five am, I have to get ready for work," he explained, an almost amused look on his face.

"Well… I have all day to sleep, right?"

Matt approached me. "Keep out of trouble if you can, don't blow up my apartment, and don't die. Have a good day." As he passed, he lightly patted my back and then he was gone.

The microwave beeped and I got the milk out. I had a sip and gagged. The internet had lied to me – this tasted terrible!

To say living in a different universe was weird was a gross understatement.

Buildings that should have been there were gone and old buildings looked newer. People here treated me differently, they were more accepting of me and didn't run screaming if I offered to help them. They had an almost… indifference about me. I mean, there were more heroes in this Universe as I had quickly discovered, so I guess that wasn't a huge surprise.

The Avengers had wanted to meet me (which was cool), street-level heroes saw me and thought that I had to answer all their questions (annoying) and I bumped into so many of them. In my Universe, there was an occasional team up, but here it happened nearly every night, it seemed.

Which was what led me to where I was now. I was getting ready to beat up this guy calling himself 'Paste Pot Pete.' Like, I wasn't even joking. This guy had honestly gone and thought that was some sort of intimidating name.

And maybe even weirder was who I was teaming up with to stop them. I was crouching beside a hero calling themselves Squirrel-Girl. They had this weird tail, and honestly, I kept thinking they were some weird furry super-hero until it moved again.

"So you burst straight through and try and web him to the ground and I'll follow after you and between the two of us they'll be down in ten seconds flat!" Squirrel-Girl explained, a bright smile on her face.

"Or, you distract them while I shut down their weapon of mass destruction. My spider-sense should mean I don't blow us up in the process," I said, crossing my hands over my chest.

"Or, we take them down and then we get them to tell us how to shut it down. Less chance of us blowing up," Squirrel-Girl countered.

"Or, my spider-sense will make sure I don't blow us up."

"Or, you're a big scaredy cat who won't fight Paste Pot Pete."

"Or, it feels kind of embarrassing to fight a guy calling himself Paste Pot Pete!"

"Or, he's going to cover all of New York in a stick substance and none of us will ever be able to move again. We're saving New York! What's so bad about that?" she said, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Or, he called himself Paste Pot Pete and I don't want any of that white sticky stuff on me. Who knows what it's made of?" I said, then shuddered.

"Or, you're definitely a scaredy cat. If you won't save New York, I will!" she shouted, before crashing through the window and attempting to kick Paste-Pot Pete in the face. He began shooting weird gloopy stuff at her and I decided that was my cue.

I jumped through the window, resigning myself to my fate.

Here goes my pride.

It was later that evening that I got a text. Not from the other Spider-Man, but from this universe's Tony Stark. A part of me was very smug about Tony beating that Spider-Man to the punch. In fact, I may have been gleeful, but no one had to know that.

It simply said to meet him at Avengers HQ. Which was really annoying because I had no idea where it was. I replied with that, minus the part about me being annoyed, and waited for a reply.

"Turn around and jump over buildings for one kilometre," a mechanical voice told me. I would be lying if I didn't say I jumped a meter or so. Instead of being a normal person and sending the address, he hacked the device. Of course he did. Any Tony Stark has to outdo everyone, whether big or small it seemed.

I quickly followed its directions and ended up in front of a more or less normal looking building… except for the part where it had a giant A on it.

How did I miss this? I blame it on how big New York is. Yep, that was totally why I hadn't found it before...

I walked in through the doors, and a mechanical voice greeted me. "Hello sir, if you would kindly follow my directions I will take you to master's lab."

"Ah, thanks, voice in the ceiling?" I replied, looking around the room for some sort of camera. This felt weird, I didn't like it, but it was still pretty cool. Was that weird? Yes.

I ended up in a futuristic lab that looked like it belonged more in a sci-fi film than real life, mixed with a chaotic backyard project that went horribly wrong. Everything looked really hi-tech, but scattered around was random coffee-cups and paper. Honestly, I wasn't entirely surprised.

"Ah, there you are black Spider-Man. How are you doing?" Tony Stark asked as he spun around in his wheelie chair. Because of course.

"Fine?"

"Good, well I've got a device so that you'll go straight back home," he said. Holy moly, I expected to be around here longer… This was great. Incredible, even! And he hadn't even asked to experiment on where I had come from. Superior Spider-man isn't so superior after all.

"Really? No side effects? Nothing that could possibly go wrong?" I asked, excitement growing inside of me. This had to be way too good to be true.

"Besides a thirty percent chance you will break into tiny pieces of goo? No. You ready to go?"

"Wait, what?"

"I'll take that as a yes. Bye Spidey!" Something above my head whirred to life and before I could protest it covered me in a blinding flash of light.

And just like that, I was gone. I hadn't even had the chance to thank Matt for helping me, or say goodbye.

I was falling through the sky above New York and I think I found that the worst part about this. Like, seriously? I was falling from higher than all the buildings and how did Tony Stark of that other universe not think this might happen?

I looked below me. I was really high up, enough for panic to set in. How would I survive this? Reigning my thoughts in, I tried to guess where I would go splat. Directly below me was ten to twenty stories high apartment, so it was more than likely that I would land between them.

Alright, how do I survive this? I didn't think normal swinging would help. If I didn't get it right it would be more like a bungy and that would not end well. Even if I did do a proper swing, there would be way too much force and momentum behind me. I would probably snap my hand, if not more. But if I was landing between buildings… I could get a web net to break my fall. Fingers crossed that I wouldn't die.

Wait, maybe I could make a parachute out of my webs? I didn't have any idea how to though and I did not have the time to experiment right now… Web net it is!

I waited until I thought my webs would actually connect to the buildings below me before I began to shoot webs between the buildings. I built it so that it had multiple layers rising from the bottom so even if it did snap I wasn't entirely doomed. I added as many as I could, as I rapidly approached the net. Two seconds before I landed in it I braced myself by tucking into a ball.

I hit the first web too fast and it threatened to snap. All the webs stretched down but it wasn't holding my weight fast enough to slow me down. Before I could even try to do something to help myself, I hit the ground with a 'thunk,' and the force was hard enough for me to be knocked unconscious.

I came around, eyes blinking open to find a night sky filled with stars. I went to sit up and find where I was but as soon as I did my head went woozy and threatened to make me pass out again. I blinked a few times, slowly waiting for the feeling to pass before I began to look around.

I was still in my net of webs so I guessed less than an hour had passed. If it was longer than that I would be on the ground. That was good. I could hear honking cars and some shouting below me, but no one had gotten to me yet. I got to my feet, being careful not to aggravate my head any further and peeked over the edge of the webs. Someone pointed at me and shouted, "Look!"

Then there were at least two dozen people looking at me. I ducked back down, unsure how to react. Should I just go down there and go, 'Hi, sorry for maybe stopping traffic with my webs, really, I just wanted to live another day but I know it's pretty disruptive, sorry.'

Okay, actually people might believe that, so maybe I should do that?

I was about to lower myself to the ground when the web shook under my feet. I turned around to see a superhero I had never seen before. Their costume was mostly white except for their legs and chest, and they had a white hoodie on their head. Their lenses were white and were outlined in pink, and I could just make out that on the inside of the hoodie it was pink. That same colour of pink was also on their biceps.

"Who are you?" she asked, standing up from her crouch.

I stood up too. "Spider-man. Are you a new superhero? Because I've never seen you before."

"I was just about to ask the same thing. I've never seen you on the news, except for today. This net definitely got the media's attention."

I paused, thinking. "What's Captain America like in this world?"

She tilted her head, confused. "Ah, she's fine. Why?"

I groaned, putting my head in my hands. "Damn it, it didn't work!"

"What didn't work?" they asked, taking a cautious step forward.

"Believe it or not, I'm from a different universe and I went from my world to another world where that Tony Stark said he could get me home and instead I'm here, not home. This is just great!" I said in one long breath, pacing on the web with my arms flapping wildly about.

"Oh… that sucks…" they said after a moment. I turned to glare at them.

"No shoot, Sherlock."

"Well, I could take you to the Reed Richards of this world? He's pretty smart."

I paused, thinking. My Reed Richards was smart and dangerous, but if a hero offered it like it was no big deal there was a good chance he wasn't evil. I sighed, turning back to look at them. "What do I have to lose?"