A/N: This chapter is written primarily by Courier999.
"I asked if you were okay."
Spider-Man sat there in silence, stunned by both his concussion and the shock of the six figures standing near him.
"Who…who are you people?" he stammered.
The man in red and blue reached up and pulled off his mask, and Spider-Man's eyes went wide when he saw the man's face. It was Peter Parker.
Not his Peter Parker, obviously; not the one he saw in the mirror every day. This one's face wasn't as thin; his hairline conspicuously lacked a widow's peak; the eyes were blue and softer and devoid of bags; and not a single scar marked the skin. But the nose and lips were identical, and even if the eyes looked less stressed the shape was exactly the same.
It went beyond that, though. The face seemed to exude Peter-ness. Somehow he knew, without being told, that this was a different version of him.
The woman in the red-and-black costume wandered forward, her lithe frame granting her a vaguely otherworldly presence.
"What happened? And who are you people?" she asked.
The man in red and blue turned around.
"I'm Spider-Man." he stated matter-of-factly.
"Who are you really?" the woman asked.
The red and blue Spider-Man shucked his mask.
"My name is Peter Parker. I'm a student at Empire State University. The woman next to me is the Scarlet Spider aka my girlfriend—"
"Mary Jane Watson." the Spider-Man on the floor interrupted.
"How'd you know?" Peter asked.
"Lucky guess."
"Anybody else want to show their face?"
The woman in the red and black costume removed her mask. The chamber's lighting gave her hair a dark purplish color, which contrasted with her light blue eyes.
"My name is Teresa Alovi, but you can call me the Amazing Star-Spider."
The man in the nearly identical costume threw his mask off, revealing the face of a young black man.
"Drake Carter." he proclaimed.
The woman in the yellow and black ensemble stepped forth.
"My name's Mary Jane Watson, but I'm also the Honorable Honeybee."
The little gray girl sprinted over.
"My name's Olivia Ossnick, but you can call me Spyder or Ollie!"
Just then, another violet portal opened up, and another Spider-Man in a red and black costume came tumbling out, followed shortly thereafter by the mortal coil of one of the smaller giant spiders that had only recently vacated the facility premises.
"Oh, it's Johnny-Come-Lately." Teresa snarked.
The newcomer shot Teresa a dirty look from behind his mask.
"Whoever you are, you're among friends. You can ditch the mask." Scarlet Spider announced.
The new Spider-Man took off his mask to reveal yet another Peter Parker.
"Okay then. Let's get out of here." Honeybee piped up.
"What about this universe's Spider-Man?" Teresa asked.
"What about me?"
Honeybee looked at him. "Aren't you going to tell us who you are?"
"…No! Why would I—agh!" He had tried to push himself to his feet, but his leg gave out under him, and he now held that leg and muttered curses. "Um. Guys, I think I need a hand here."
Scarlet Spider took his hand and pulled him onto her back.
"And you can probably guess who he is, too," she pointed out. "My money is on another Peter Parker."
His head gently lowered until his forehead pressed against her neck. "…Dammit."
"Oh we oh! Ohhh! Oh we oh! Ohh!" Spyder sang as she and the others marched through the desolate and forcibly abandoned corridors that were once OsCorp's physics department.
"Guys, I think I lost one of my contacts. Can we hold up?" the battered Spider-Man asked.
Scarlet Spider looked over her shoulder at the badly wounded alternate version of her boyfriend. "Not really. The sooner we get out of here, the better." she replied.
As the octet rounded a corner, a wall-mounted first aid kit caught Spyder's eye. She raised her wrist and shot out a line of electrified webbing, frying the employee ID mechanism and causing it to open.
"What have we got in here?" she asked herself.
At that moment, Teresa saw the opened first aid kit, the webbing, and the gray girl.
"Tell me you di—"
"You want the injured guy to get better or not? Besides, it's not like anybody's going to be down here for a while."
Teresa sighed.
"Fair enough. Let's see what we've got in here."
The kit contained a few canisters labeled "BIOMEDICAL GEL- PROPERTY OF OSCORP", a plastic spatula, and a bottle of ibuprofen. Just then, Spyder noticed something on the floor.
"Does this belong to anyone?" she loudly asked.
Scarlet Spider stopped mid-step and saw the little gray girl holding a dark red backpack.
"That would be mine." the battered Spider-Man groaned. "There's a few specimen vials in the pencil pocket. Could you fill a few of 'em with some of that?"
Spyder gave him a weird look. "Oooor we could just put in the first aid kit," she said, even as she did exactly that.
"Oh come on, I have a first aid kit. A really good one, too. I'm not going to ever use that Biomedical Gel crap. It's only designed for human tissue, and probably mutates the crap out of that too. I just wanna experiment with it."
"Well…now you have a lot of it to experiment with."
Up and up they went, passing the remains of OsCorp employees and spider-like monsters alike before finally reaching street level.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Scarlet Spider exclaimed as the group exited the building.
In front of the OsCorp building stood an angry mob.
"Anyone got any ideas?" Drake asked.
"How about we go around these guys?" Teresa suggested.
Just then, a glass bottle soared past Scarlet Spider's head.
"I don't think we can do that." Drake grumbled as the bottle shattered against the quartz paneling of the door.
Suddenly, a buzzing sound filled the air. Everyone looked up as they saw a swarm of bees circling above the crowd.
"Let's go!" Spyder exclaimed.
The eight slipped off while the mob's attention was fixed on the sudden swarm of bees that was circling them.
Parker Residence, Twenty Minutes Later
"Arrrgh!" Scarlet Spider ignored the attempts to slap her hands away, carefully cleaning the slash across the wounded party's chest. "Stop, stop, stop! I'll do it!"
"Keep still, Specs," Scarlet Spider replied. She pressed a long, folded pad of gauze in place, tacked it there with webbing, and began pressing medical tape over it.
"What—agh—what did you call me?" The sixteen-year-old snatched a pair of tweezers from the bathroom counter and dug them into one of the holes in his leg.
"I called you Specs." MJ pointed at the pair of rimless round glasses lying on the opposite side of the sink. "I mean, those are yours, right? You mentioned that you lost a contact lens, which makes you the only one of us who needs glasses. Please stop doing that, it's really—"
With a slight shlick sound, the newly-christened Specs ripped the tweezers from his leg, taking with them the head of something that resembled a spider, covered in blood.
"—Eew!"
Specs stared at the head, his eyes narrowed as he held it a few inches from his nose. "This is pretty cool. I wonder if the skin and fangs are made of something besides chitin. I'll get to poking at it after we're d—shit."
Just then, the sound of a door rattling was heard. Specs quickly darted to the floor, stopping to clutch his leg for an instant with his eyes squeezed shut before he plucked his remaining contact lens out of his eye and pulled his glasses on. Limping to the door, he clicked the light off and steeled himself.
"Hey!"
"Shh." Spec's silhouette was visible in the doorway, looking back into the bathroom and holding up a finger. Then he turned back and stared at his bedroom door five feet away. For an instant he tensed, and then vanished from the spot.
The bedroom door banged hard against the wall. There was the sound of a few exclamations and hissed orders to shut up.
"Peter?" called someone in the main room—an adult, and one who sounded very much like Specs. He reappeared in his bedroom door, his boots gone and a lab coat covering his torso.
"Wait here," he whispered to Scarlet Spider across the hallway. She nodded, and he turned and walked out of sight.
"Hey, Mom," they all heard, and immediately the two other Peters appeared in the doorway, peering after him. "Hey, Dad."
Richard and Mary Parker looked over at their son from where they stood in the kitchen. Peter had inherited his bone structure from his father, but his eyes and hair from his mother, and now a pair of hazel eyes very similar to his own looked him up and down. Mary set down her beer bottle and strode over to him. Richard still leaned against the kitchen counter; although he looked better than he had when Peter had seen him in OsCorp, he had clearly seen better days.
"Peter, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Mom."
"You look exhausted."
"Well, yeah. It's eleven at night."
"You weren't waiting for us, were you?" Richard asked. His son began to saunter towards him, wincing with every step. "You know you don't have to do that."
"I know, I know. But I was—y'know, I was on to something. Trying to reconfigure MJ's speakers. Are you okay?"
"Are you?" Richard asked, suddenly starting forward, his thumb finding the cut on Peter's face. Peter flinched away from it a little. "Oh my God, Peter, what happened?"
Peter froze for a few seconds, a lie assembling on his tongue. "I…a beaker exploded." He gave a little half-smile. "Accidentally made ammonium nitrate." He pulled his father's hand away gently, in the process revealing the cuts on his fingertips.
Richard leaned back, looking upset. "Peter, gloves and goggles. You know this."
"We're not here as often as we should be," Mary agreed. "We won't be here if you get injured."
"…Speaking of injured, are you two alright? I saw what happened. It was all over the news."
"We're fine," Mary said, her hand on his shoulder. "We managed to get out before things completely went south, but I hear it took out a pretty big chunk of the physicists."
"Yeah," Peter agreed, staring into space for a second. "I know." He paused, mentally counting all the bodies he had seen. "…Does this mean you're off work tomorrow?"
Richard and Mary exchanged a glance.
"Peter," Richard began carefully, "organisms were discovered today, the likes of which have never been seen before. This is a chance to study extraterrestrial life in person, not just in the diagrams we get from the Kymellians."
"And there were traces of an organic compound of some kind," interrupted Mary. "Similar to spider silk, but—"
"—we need to run tests—"
"—probably completely unique—"
"—if we don't move quickly—"
"I understand," said Peter. He did, but the look in his eyes was a little bit damning. He said nothing for a moment, before turning back towards his bedroom. "Goodnight."
"…Goodnight, Peter."
"'Night. Love you."
"Um, Dad?" he said, turning slightly just before his door.
"Yes, Peter?"
"I was wondering if you'd let some friends of mine crash here for a while. It's a long story."
"They can stay, Peter. Just as long as they don't wreck the place."
Peter gave a small smile and a salute as he limped into his bedroom. At some point, Scarlet Spider had slipped inside, and now the entire assembled company stared at him silently. Specs sighed and unbuttoned his coat, revealing the bandaged slash across the chest.
"You have parents?" asked one of the Peters.
"You know, sometimes I'm not sure myself." Specs sighed, removing his glasses and cleaning them on his lab coat. "…We should figure out where everyone's sleeping. The couch has a fold-out bed; you two can have that." He pointed at the Peter and MJ who had come through together. "There's also a recliner. Terry—"
"Teresa."
"Whatever. Who here can make a hammock?"
The third Parker raised his hand. So did Drake.
"You two do that, and somebody make one for the kid. Honeybee can have my bed…I'm leaving someone out. Who am I leaving out?"
"Yourself," Drake said simply. "Where're you gonna sleep?"
"I—" He bit the honest answer off. "…I'll figure something out. G'night, everybody."
As everyone busied themselves getting ready for bed, Specs crossed to his desk, where a half-full cup of coffee sat abandoned. He picked it up and peered inside, dipping a finger into it and finding it cold. Sighing, he checked to make sure nobody was looking. Then he turned on the Bunsen burner on his desk, held the mug over it until it began to steam slightly, and drank it in two gulps.
Earth-61610 Peter Parker was created by Brackets002.
Earth-H Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson were created by Courier999.
Olivia Ossnick was created by Red Witch.
Teresa Alovi was created by venom rules all.
Drake Carter was created by SuperHeroFan3245.
Earth-91115 Mary Jane Watson was created by Ohfortheloveofpete.
Earth-112 Peter Parker was created by Gearbird.