Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials and characters contained herein. They are the rightful property of their creators and/or their associated companies. I do not make any profit from this and it is done strictly for entertainment.
When you lived the life of a superhero, normalcy was a concept that could be elusive even on the best of days. From the moment you donned the mask and slipped on the tights, any hope of leading an ordinary life went right out the window. Peter Parker, better known to the world as The Amazing Spider-Man, understood this fact quite well. In the ten years since he'd first crafted his heroic alter ego, it had been nothing but one disaster after another. Being Spider-Man had interfered with his relationship with family and friends, his schooling, and the various jobs that he had held. Yet, the most frustrating of all was its detrimental effects on his love life. At 24 years old, Peter had yet to master the art of explaining to a girlfriend that the only reason he was late for their date was because the Shocker had decided that tonight was a good night to rob a bank downtown. What did you do when the spontaneous sex you were hoping to have couldn't happen because you were wearing red and blue tights underneath your clothes?
Absolutely nothing, that's what.
You made up excuses, improvised on the spot, and abandoned any hope of ever being able to organize your personal life beyond a couple of days ahead. It was hell on relationships, but it kept your identity safe and, more importantly, kept the people you loved out of harm's way. It wasn't ideal, but it was an okay compromise. And when you were a superhero juggling two jobs, higher education, and a love life; "okay" was actually pretty good.
Which is why Peter Peter couldn't help but find it so abnormally normal for a tear in the fabric of space-time to suddenly manifest in the middle of his battle with Rhino.
Debris from their intense battle, along with various objects, whirled past them, getting sucked into the event horizon of the portal. Peter strained to maintain his grip, his ability to stick to surfaces being pushed to its limit as his body swayed in the air from the suctioning power. Even Rhino's armored bulk failed to anchor him completely. Only the strength of his hands buried deep in the ground, prevented the behemoth from being swallowed by the portal. Things seemed to be in a stalemate, Spider-Man couldn't be detached from the surface unless he wanted to be while the Rhino's formidable strength seemed to counter the pull of the vacuum.
That's when fate intervened as a red F-150 turned the corner only a few dozen yards away. The driver's attention had become split between staying on the road and trying to reach for his fallen cell phone that had just begun to ring. Once he completed the turn the driver shifted his entire focus toward reaching the phone ringing on the floorboard. But by the time he sat upright again, a collision course had already been set in motion.
The driver took quick notice of the peculiar phenomena down the road from him, slamming down on the brakes to keep the vehicle from getting any closer to it. However, despite the wheels ceasing to rotate, the vehicle continued to stubbornly slide forward. The portal had found a new object to feast on and it was not going to let go so easily. Realizing that he would never be able to escape with his truck, the driver swerved the vehicle onto a sidewalk and jumped out into an alleyway. The building acted as a shield keeping the driver safe from the portal's influence and allowing him to run away as quickly as possible.
Barreling toward Peter and Rhino, the driverless vehicle posed an imminent threat and there was nothing either could do to prevent it. Banking on his robust armor and formidable strength, Rhino chose to tank the hit, bracing himself to absorb the impact, confident in the belief that he could weather any damage he received. Peter, determined to avoid doing his own impression of a fly meeting a windshield, chose to leap out of the way at the last moment and fired a web line to anchor himself to the ground once again. Neither men were wrong in their different approaches to survival. However, in the end, both strategies failed.
Under normal circumstances, Rhino could have easily withstood the impact of being struck by the truck. However, due to his current position, he wasn't properly braced to absorb the blow. The truck struck him head-on, dislodging him from the ground and sending him tumbling across the ground and into the portal. Peter's attempt to save himself was thwarted by the laws of physics. His web lines could not shoot out fast enough to secure him in place before the portal's pull seized him, dragging him inexorably inside its ethereal depths
Elsewhere
"Whoever was driving that truck, I swear to god that I'm suing." Peter mumbled as consciousness slowly returned to him. As he slowly opened his eyes, Peter quickly decided that he'd rather be unconscious again. His whole body ached. Even the tips of his hair felt sore. "Oh, son of a bitch." Peter groaned as he rolled over onto his back.
Whatever the source of that portal had been, it had been kind enough to drop him off in a city park. Unfortunately, wherever this park was, it wasn't in HIS city. It looked like New York if New York was fifty years more advanced and cleaner. It was also lacking the familiar skyline Peter had grown familiar with during his decade-long superhero career. Confused and disoriented, Peter struggled to sit up, his senses slowly returning to him.
'Where in the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks am I?' Peter wondered. 'I could see a place like Los Angeles going futuristic like this, but the temperature is too cool for July in southern California.' As Peter tried to gather his bearings, the sound of police sirens reached his ears. All thoughts about his current predicament were pushed to the wayside as he realized that the sirens he was hearing were the familiar wails of a police siren.
"And there goes my overdeveloped sense of responsibility... and sadomasochism." Peter groaned as he started jogging in the direction the sounds were coming from. All too soon, he found the exit to the park and launched a web line at the nearest street light before propelling himself into the air.
From his elevated vantage point, Peter could see two police cars speeding through the city streets as they pursued the heavily armored form of one Aleksei Sytsevich.
"Oh, right! Almost forgot about Horn Head." Peter exclaimed, pushing his web-swinging speed to catch up with the villain.
After awakening from the disorienting experience of his abrupt arrival, Rhino found himself initially confused by the unfamiliar surroundings. Much like with Peter, this city was not a place that he recognized. The lingering discomfort from the portal's passage still throbbed within his body so Aleksei swiftly moved away from the area, seeking a place to hide so he could figure things out. As one would expect, the sight of a giant man thundering down the street in hi-tech armor was a surefire way to attract the attention of law enforcement. When the police arrived at the scene, they attempted to apprehend him, hoping to unravel the reason behind the unfolding situation. However, their attempts to restrain him quickly transformed Rhino's initial confusion into seething anger. With a single powerful swing of his arm, he sent the police cruiser hurtling through the air, crashing it into a nearby building. Bullets from the officers' firearms followed, but they proved futile in halting him as Rhino effortlessly swatted the two cops aside before swiftly making his escape. Now, he was pissed and taking it out on anything in front of him. Anything that got in his way met the same fate: crushed beneath his feet or obliterated by his unstoppable charge.
He had been under a barrage of gunfire for the past few minutes, which is why he failed to notice the impact of two more projectiles striking him in the back. However, he couldn't miss it when Peter descended from above, utilizing the momentum of his zipline and the speed of Rhino's run to slam the animal-themed villain head-first into the ground. The armored foe's face smacked into the asphalt, and his body tumbled down the street for another dozen feet.
Peter landed a short distance away from the fallen adversary, waiting to observe his next move. He'd be less than truthful if he claimed not to feel a tinge of disappointment as he saw the Rhino's armored form starting to rise back to its feet.
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size, Rhino!"
"There ain't no one my size, bug." Rhino his voice laced with irritation as he steadied himself. The impact of Peter's surprise attack had shaken him, but the Rhino's armor provided him with a great deal of protection against such attacks. "Now I'm mad." Aleksei continued, a bloodthirsty gleam in his eye. With a loud bellow, Rhino charged straight at Peter.
"That's probably because you've been enjoying honey buns a little too much lately!" Peter yelled as he twisted out of the way of the Rhino's charging path. He fired a web line, snagging a trashcan nearby, and swung it above his head as Rhino turned around to charge him once more. Peter swung the makeshift weapon as hard as he could, hurling it at Rhino's massive form. The improvised projectile collided with Rhino's armored chest, causing him to stumble backward momentarily. Peter rushed forward and delivered a thunderous uppercut on the huge villain.
Peter realized early on during his first encounter with Aleksei Sytsevich that the key to fighting someone as powerful as the Rhino was speed and agility. In terms of strength, Rhino completely outclassed him. Trying to take the Rhino down by going toe to toe with him was a one-way ticket to getting flattened.
As Rhino stumbled back from the punch, Peter didn't let up. He darted around, his movements a blur, striking Rhino's armor at strategic points, aiming for joints and exposed areas. Each blow weakened the armor's integrity. Their fight was like a dance, a dangerous and fast-paced dance, where Peter relied on his agility and intellect to outmaneuver the behemoth. Blow after blow rained down on Rhino, eventually causing him to drop to a knee fighting. Peter landed a roundhouse kick to his face that snapped Rhino's head to the side, nearly knocking him down. Rhino glared as he recovered and tried to hit Peter with a backhand, but the Queens native was already in motion, flipping over Rhino's arm and landing gracefully on his feet.
"Is that all you got, Rhino?" Peter taunted.
Rhino growled, the frustration in his eyes evident even through the helmet's visor. Peter dashed forward to continue his attack, but Rhino caught the punch before it could land. Gripping Peter's arm tightly, Rhino whipped him into a nearby SUV. The driver-side door crumpled like it was made out of paper under Peter's impact. The force of the collision knocked the air out of his lungs and left him momentarily dazed, stars dancing before his eyes.
'I really need to start learning when to keep my mouth shut.' Peter thought to himself as he crawled out of the wreckage. The world around him started to slowly come back into focus as he spotted the Rhino stomping his way over.
"You're gonna pay for that, bug!" Rhino snarled.
"Spiders aren't bugs, they're arachnids." Peter groaned as he slowly climbed back to his feet.
Rhino didn't bother to respond, he simply grabbed Peter by the neck and lifted him off the ground. All it would take was a little squeeze, and he would finally be rid of the nuisance once and for all. Or at least he would have if Peter hadn't blasted him in the face with a shot of impact webbing. The web projectile exploded in Rhino's face, engulfing his head in the synthetic material. Rhino roared in frustration as his vision was obscured, and he instinctively released his grip on Peter to tear at the webbing blocking his sight.
Gasping for breath, Peter stumbled away from Rhino before firing a web line at Rhino's chest. He ran forward and slid underneath the armored villain, while simultaneously yanking on the web line, using it as leverage to trip Rhino. The massive villain flipped head over heels, crashing heavily onto the pavement with a resounding thud.
Peter wasted no time capitalizing on the opening his attack provided. Leaping up into the air, he fired off two more weblines and used them to yank himself back to the ground, driving Rhino's face into the pavement, just as he was getting back to his feet. The impact sent cracks radiating across the asphalt, Rhino's groan of pain muffled by the webbing covering his face.
"Ooh, that's gotta hurt!" Peter grinned before he jumped in the air and repeated the attack.
With each successive impact, Rhino's struggles became weaker and more desperate. The once-imposing armored suit was now a shattered shell of its former self, and the powerful villain was on the verge of defeat.
As Peter landed his final blow, Rhino's body slumped, and he lay motionless on the ground, defeated and incapacitated. The city around them had fallen into an eerie silence, the sounds of battle replaced by the distant hum of traffic and the wailing of approaching sirens.
Peter fired off several more shots of webbing, binding Rhino's hands and feet together to ensure he didn't cause any more trouble. He then collapsed to his knees, exhausted from the battle.
"Now I just have to wait for the boys in blue to arrive and I can skedaddle out of here." Peter muttered to himself, his breath coming in heavy gasps.
As if on cue, two militarized transports came racing around a nearby corner, several patrol cars following in their wake with flashing lights and blaring sirens. The heavy vehicles screeched to a halt, and heavily-armed police officers wearing advanced combat armor spilled out, forming a perimeter in front of the Rhino and Peter.
These were definitely not any kind of cops that Peter was familiar with as they each carried advanced, and rather nasty-looking, assault rifles. Each member of the tactical team took careful aim, awaiting further orders. Peter held his hands in surrender as he climbed to his feet and took a few steps backward.
"Good guy here!" Peter yelled, keeping his hands in plain view. "See the primary colors I'm wearing!"
"Get down on your knees with your hands behind your head, NOW!" the voice of a woman barked over a megaphone.
'Oh, shit.' Peter thought to himself, instantly regretting his decision not to leave the scene quicker. 'What are you gonna do now, genius? I mean it's not like you can web these guys up!'
"No problem." Peter answered as he put his hands behind his head and lowered himself into a crouch like he was going to comply, before pushing off the ground as hard as he could.
Peter's jump sent him high into the air in an impressive display of agility as he flipped through the air above the heads of the police officers below. Once he cleared the police blockade, he launched a web line at the nearest building and swung out of view.
"Do we give chase?" one of the officers asked as they watched Peter disappear from view.
"Negative." a Caucasian woman said as she walked past her officers and over to the Rhino.
The woman was tall and possessed a commanding presence. Her blonde hair was cut short, just barely grazing her collarbone. She had piercing green eyes that gave the distinct impression that you didn't want her angry with you.
"Officers on the scene said they were in pursuit of a man wearing 'rhino armor'. Pretty sure this guy's our perp." She said, gesturing to the motionless Rhino lying at her feet.
Peter watched from a nearby rooftop as Rhino was fitted with a harness and leg cuffs that prevented him from attacking anyone as he was led into the prisoner transport. Despite how he made it look, Peter hadn't left the area after escaping the police. He'd swung around the block and climbed up the side of the building and onto the roof so he could keep an eye on the situation.
Once the police had Rhino secured in the back of the transport, most of the officers left the area with him. Now that he was done with that problem, he allowed himself to relax as he thought over his other major hassle while trying to figure out what his next move should be.
'I'm lost in a city that I don't even know the name of.' Peter mused as he tried to turn his StarkTech phone on only for nothing to happen. 'My phone isn't working, which means I can't even look up my address book so I could call someone on a landline for help.' Peter pulled out his wallet and counted the money he had before letting out a heavy sigh. 'And I've only got 17 bucks on me. Jesus, take the wheel.' Peter thought before flopping back bonelessly onto the rooftop.
After taking a few minutes to bask in the reality of his situation and wait for the meteor to finally put him out of his misery, a thought popped into his head. He had to fight the impulse to keep from smacking himself in the face for not thinking about it sooner.
In a situation like this, the best approach was to take it back to basics. Being lost in the wilderness and being lost in a city weren't that different from each other. To survive in the wilderness, you needed to find food, water, and shelter. To survive in a city, you needed money to buy food, water, and shelter. In both cases, the number one rule was to hunker down and analyze your surroundings. In the wild, that meant looking around your immediate area. In this case, it meant getting information. So, Peter set off in search of the city's local library.
Twenty Stories Above The City Street
A Few Minutes Later
Washing the windows on a skyscraper took a certain level of mental fortitude. You had to be very comfortable with heights, the knowledge that the platform you were standing on was the only thing keeping you from plummeting to your death. However, for someone like James Harris, it was almost relaxing. He enjoyed the days when he had to work by himself because it gave him peace and quiet while he worked. It wasn't that he didn't like having to work with partners, it was just that sometimes he wanted to be able to just turn off his brain and let his body do his work on autopilot. So when the solitude of being 20 stories up was interrupted by the sound of a man clearing his throat, you can imagine his surprise.
"Excuse me?"
James looked up to see a man wearing red and blue spandex looking down at him from his spot perched against the side of the building.
"Would you be able to point me in the direction of the nearest library?" the man asked politely.
"The Metropolis Public Library is about seven or eight blocks that way." James replied, gesturing in the direction east of their current location. "It's a big building, kind of artsy-fartsy looking. You can't miss it."
The man's head turned in the direction that James had pointed and he assumed the guy was trying to spot the building from where they were. It was possible given the vantage point they were at, but you'd need some sharp peepers to spot it. When the man's head perked up, James could only assume that the strangely garbed man had finally spotted the building.
"Thanks so much for your help." the man said before quickly crawling along the side of the building. Once he reached the edge he launched himself out into the air snagging onto a different building with a white rope that he'd shot from his hand. He fired several more of the white ropes before he dropped out of James' sight.
The only thing James could take away from the strange encounter was that he was really happy he wouldn't be the one responsible for cleaning up whatever those rope things were.
Metropolis Public Library
After a quick change out of sight, facilitated by a conveniently situated clothes donation bin, Spider-Man's iconic red and blue costume was replaced by a somewhat fashionably garbed Peter Parker. A man no one gave a second glance at as he walked inside.
The library was a three-story building, modern in design and architecture, with gray carpeting. Tall brown shelves lined the walls and formed aisles. From his view by the entrance, the second story held more of the same brown shelves. Peter walked over to the help desk where a woman with dark hair was seated.
"Excuse me, ma'am, could you point me in the direction of where your computer stations are?" Peter asked with a friendly smile.
The librarian flashed him a smile of her own before she turned around and pointed up to the second floor. "That corner over there is where all the computer stations are." the woman told him before she asked, "Do you have a library card?"
Peter froze as he forgot about that little detail.
The funny look that his face made caused the woman to giggle in response. "It's okay if you don't have one. You just need credentials to be able to log in to the computers here." the woman explained. She typed something on her computer before the printer next to her started a new print job. The woman handed Peter the paper after it came out of the printer. "This login and password provide one hour of free usage. After that, you'll have to come back here or to the help desk upstairs and pay a dollar to get another hour added to your time."
Nodding his head, Peter made his way toward the staircase and walked upstairs. Only a few of the computer stations were occupied so he had no problem getting one off to himself.
His quest for information started with ascertaining his exact location. That question was quickly revealed to be a city called Metropolis. He'd never heard of a place called Metropolis before, certainly not one that boasted a population size of 11 million people and was just as much of a major US city as New York was. His investigation into Metropolis revealed a host of unfamiliar names and businesses that he'd never come across before like STAR Labs or L-Corp. Being a proud science nerd, Peter knew that he should have heard of these places at least once when he'd started looking for internships to apply for back in high school. From what he could tell L-Corp was a major player in the scene of science and technology, rivaling the likes of Stark Industries or Oscorp, and yet he had no recollection of such a business ever existing.
Confused by the sudden emergence of major players in the business industry, Peter redirected his line of research and started delving into world history and current events. That was when Peter realized that he was truly up shit creek without a paddle.
As far as he could tell, historical details aligned fairly well with what he remembered. In the majority of cases, events unfolded as he remembered, with minor deviations, such as occurrences taking place a few hours earlier or later than what he remembered. The real kicker was when Pete stumbled upon information about individuals referred to as Metahumans. While this world had superheroes and unsurprisingly supervillains, they differed significantly from the figures he was accustomed to. There were no Avengers or Fantastic Four, and the concept of metahumans appeared to be the nearest equivalent to mutants, leaving no room for the X-Men either. In fact, Peter's research failed to uncover any evidence of a superhero team. Instead, he encountered names like 'Batwoman', 'Superwoman', and 'Wonder Woman', which threw his mind for another loop.
From everything he's read so far, it appeared that the majority of the heroes and supervillains in this universe consisted mainly of women. According to the information he unearthed, only females possessed the metagene required for the manifestation of superpowers. Despite numerous studies, the rationale behind this phenomenon remained elusive, though it was broadly acknowledged as truth.
Sitting back in his chair, Peter let out a sigh that seemed to carry the exhaustion of his soul. "I've been transported to a different universe." he finally confessed aloud, feeling the weight of this truth settle heavily on his shoulders as the words escaped his lips. Peter already knew it, of course. The second he started looking up information about this new Earth, Peter had known. But saying it out loud seemed to give it an extra layer of reality. "Okay, Peter. You've got this! You're Spider-Man, you can totally figure out how to survive on an alternate version of Earth… alone… without any identification."
Peter's mention of an ID made another thought pop to the front of his mind.
He sat up straight and typed his name into the search bar. After a couple of seconds, the search results came back. Peter was both upset and relieved to find out that he had a doppelganger on this Earth. The keyword being 'had'.
The version of himself from the world Peter had labeled as Earth-2 was an orphan, just like he was. On this alternate Earth, Peter's parents had met their fate in a tragic car accident rather than the airplane crash that had befallen his own parents. Following the loss of his mother and father, Earth-2 Peter found himself in the care of an orphanage. After a couple of quick searches, Peter discovered that neither Ben Parker nor May Reilly had ever existed on this version of Earth. It explained why his doppelganger had been sent to an orphanage instead of being taken in by his aunt and uncle.
The orphanage's records were far from comprehensive, but they were enough to paint him a picture. From what he could tell, the Peter of this Earth seemed to share his keen intellect. His academic performance had been commendable during elementary school and the initial half of junior high. However, during 8th grade, a pattern began to emerge. Absences from school started to become frequent before eventually transitioning into Earth-2 Peter dropping out entirely. He started missing days of school before he eventually stopped showing up entirely. Peter found reports of his counterpart being associated with a group of teenagers that ranged between the ages of twelve to sixteen. The group was tied to a string of minor thefts and misdemeanors, but Earth-2 Peter's name only sporadically surfaced in connection to these incidents.
For the next few years, references to his alternate self were intermittent and lacked any significant details to what he got up to. Peter did notice an uptick in how often his name appearing on check-in forms for homeless shelters around the city. Financial records for his multiverse counterpart remained elusive, implying that his expenses were managed exclusively through cash transactions. Given that he couldn't find any records of Earth-2 Peter ever having a job, he very much doubted that it was acquired through legal avenues.
The last update that Peter found was a brief mention in a newspaper article detailing the discovery of his alternate self's lifeless body at the age of fifteen. The article recounted how law enforcement officers had stumbled across Earth-2 Peter's remains within an abandoned building that was known to have squatters. The autopsy report attributed his death to an infection resulting from an untreated spider bite. The morbid irony was not lost on Peter when he learned about that particular detail, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
"At least I've got a starting point to build a history off of." Peter murmured to himself as he logged off the computer and got up.
Stepping out of the building, Peter looked up and saw that the once bright daylight had transitioned into the darker oranges of the evening during his search for information. Right now, he needed to find someplace to hunker down for the night. With no particular destination in mind, Peter started walking down the street. Lost in thought, Peter was barely paying attention to his surroundings when two imposing figures, with unfriendly looks and more muscle than brains, emerged from an alleyway, blocking his path.
"Empty out all your pockets and we won't hurt ya. Not too much at least." The thug to his right demanded as his partner on the left moved to the side to try and prevent Peter from attempting to escape.
"Look, fellas, I'm not out here looking for trouble. I've already had a bitch of a day and I'm not interested in adding 'Getting Mugged' to the list of problems I have to deal with." a tired Peter said, arms raised in a non-threatening manner.
"Oh. Well, I'm really sorry to hear that ." The first man said as the second circled behind Peter. "Because see, my buddy and I, we don't have any problem making your day go from bad to excruciating."
Peter sighed before looking up to the heavens. "Why do they never take the easy option?" he asked whatever higher being was watching them right now.
A few minutes later, Peter walked out of the alley whistling cheerfully as he counted out the "donation" his new friends had provided him. In the alley behind him, the two thugs lay unconscious, secured to the alley wall in a web cocoon, awaiting the attention of anyone passing by who might notify the authorities. A note with the words 'Attempted muggers' and 'Courtesy of your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man!' scribbled across it was affixed to the web cocoon.
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