"He said what?" Peter asked as he crouched on the top of the Stark News Network building, looking down at the chaos that was occurring. All of their plans had gone totally off the rails when the Spot had decided to empty Rikers and bring out every villain he could find. They had been prepared for him to do lots of things, based on their fights with him, but calling for backup had been a massive blind spot and now they were all paying for it. Then Spider-Chaos and Corrosion had disappeared and their Avengers had grown enraged, lashing out at the villains… which would have been fine if they were controlled about it. But they weren't and it was making it hard for the Society to help out.

The reveal that Miles' classmates were also heroes… well, Peter should have seen that coming, honestly. He'd met plenty of Franklin Richards. Valerias too. Moon Girls, Totally Awesome Hulks. They weren't anything new to him. But… he hadn't known.

'Maybe, if you'd actually taken time to talk with him?' a voice whispered in his head, one that sounded a lot like Aunt May. 'He would have loved to speak with you. To tell you about his life and to hear about yours. But you were so convinced that Miguel was right, that canon events were real, that you thought he was doomed to suffer through them. And rather than be there for him and help lessen the blow you wanted to just wait there for the damage to occur and then you could swoop in and comfort him. That… that isn't what heroes do.'

"Buy him time!" Gwen called out, breaking Peter from his pity party.

"What?" Peter said, blinking and remembering they had important things to deal with.

"He said to buy him time. He grabbed a dimensional hopper and disappeared."

"He also came by Margo," Peni replied, joining in. "She came on and told me that Miles had a plan and she needed to focus on it."

"Okay, so something with alternate dimensions," Peter muttered to himself, brain racing as he tried to figure out just what the kid was doing. "Maybe getting us more Spiders?"

"I think we have enough of them," Noir replied. There were some grunts and then he continued, "Doesn't seem like getting a few more fists for this dust up are going to help much."

"Maybe it isn't Spiders though," Ham replied. "Could be going to get other back up. I wouldn't mind my Avengers showing up."

Peter considered that. 'It wouldn't be a terrible idea. There are some really powerful players in the multiverse… and ones that would be willing to help out. I remember Beak telling me about how he was able to save the multiverse by recruiting a bunch of Hyperions to help him out.' Still, as he watched as Nathaniel Asgard and Cassie Strange suddenly swooped down on Spider-Cowboy (honestly Peter couldn't keep track of half the names the other Spiders gave themselves) and basically took over his fight with the Jackal he wondered if that would be a smart idea.

"Anyone have eyes on The Spot?" Peni asked. "I lost track of him."

"Miguel and Jessica are currently trying to fight him," Gwen stated. "He zeroed in on them real quickly. We keep trying to move in to help them but the Spot just shunts us away. He's not even attacking us… he just drives us back. He wants to take Miguel on alone and Jessica was lucky to just be close…"

Peter sighed at that. "Alright, well keep an eye on him and if he gets away from Miguel and returns to trying to tear the world apart then act. They might be our best bet for giving Miles the time he needs." With that he looked over at Doc Ock, who was currently working hard on some machinery on the SNN building. "I'm helping Octavia Octavius with something that-"

"You aren't helping," Octavia called out, "you are standing there doing nothing."

"Right."

"And I prefer it that way."

"Right."

"Because you would get in the way."

"Man… change you from a decent looking tall woman to a dumpy frumpy man and you'd be exactly like my Otto."

"Why thank you, Peter," Doc Ock said with utter arrogance dripping from her words. "Now, you continue crouching there like a good attack dog and make sure I'm not interrupted. I'm almost in."

"You know we could have tried and reached out to Stark, see if he would be interested in helping," Peter suggested. "On my world we're actually really good friends. I bet he wouldn't have minded helping me out at all."

"He would mind," the Mary Jane of Miles' world said. "He's not a fan of Spiders."

"Aw, did the perfect Spider-Man make an enemy out of him?" Peter said. Honestly, ever since he'd learned of the guy he'd been annoyed at how… perfect he was. How everything seemed to work out for him (Well, other than villains and Uncle Ben but still…) and finding out there might be a chink in his armor-

"Actually he loved Spider-Man," Mary Jane said. "I mean he's not a fan of Spiders. As in the Society."

"…what?"

"I… might have reached out to him about you guys," Gonk said.

"You WHAT?!" Peter exclaimed.

"It was anonymous!" Gonk cried out, as if that made things better. "And we didn't know what you guys were doing here! All of a sudden that freaky roided up vampire Spider-Man is here with an entire army chasing after Miles again… we assumed you were going to smash his skull a second time."

"We weren't going to smash his skull in again!"

"Whose skull?" Doc Ock asked.

"What?"

"Whose skull were you NOT going to bash in again."

"The kid's."

"…wait, the new Spider? The one that was with you when you attacked me?"

"Well, I wouldn't say we attacked you, I mean-"

Octavia frowned, looking up from the tangle of wires she was currently plugging into a camera she'd set up. "I thought he was your student. Why would you attack him?"

"I didn't attack him, that was Miguel. And he didn't mean to, Miles just-"

"Someone named Miguel attacked your student and you let him?" Doc Ock said.

"I didn't let him! I mean, sure I was there and I saw it happen and I didn't do anything to stop him."

"That is the definition of 'letting it happen'."

"It is… okay, maybe it is but it… Miguel… we thought Miles was risking your world. That he was going to destroy it because he wanted to save his dad."

That made Doc Ock shake her head. "Typical hero… attacking and lashing out at someone who merely wished to help someone they loved."

"I… listen, you don't have the full story-"

"No, I don't," she said, cutting him off. She stood up and flashed him a withering stare. "And I don't need it. I've heard enough."

Peter though glared right back at her. "Don't judge me if you don't know what I've gone through. You have no idea what has happened since we last met. What I've seen. I thought I knew better and yeah I messed up but I'm not going to have you hang that over my head! There is a lot I would change, if I had the chance, but I don't. I messed up. But I can fix it."

"…and how many times did one of your so called "villains" say that to you right before you punched them in the face?"

Peter stared at her in shock.

"No… no this is different."

"It sounds the same to me," she said with a shrug before turning away from him.

"Its not!" Peter said even as the many rants he'd heard his Otto, his Sandman, his Vulture all give played in his head. "I… we…"

"Tell me," Octavia said slowly, it clear she knew what she was about to say was going to gut him and not caring in the slightest, "if the boy had died… would you have made a dimensional portal to try and get a new one?"

Peter felt his heart sink into his toes.

"I'm… I'm not the Kingpin."

It sounded pathetic and whiny to his own ears. Like a child trying to deny that they had painted on a wall even as their hands dripped with red and yellow goo.

Peter knew… he knew he had issues with commitment. With being there for others. Even before he had become Spider-Man he had developed a bad habit of shrugging off the friends and passing on being with them. Harry had always been trying to get him to do more but he… well, he liked to hide in his room, subconscious about his perceived flaws. And after the Spider Bite and after Uncle Ben…

How many times had Aunt May asked him to come by and visit? Or requested his help with something? And sure, he could claim that many times it was a major super villain attack and that if he hadn't blown off setting up tables for the arts and crafts show then the Lizard would have turned everyone into salamanders… but just as often it was because he wanted to take one more swing. One more patrol. One more moment away from everyone.

Peter… Peter would give anything for just five more minutes with her.

Same with Gwen. Same with Mary Jane. He saw now how horrible he'd been to them both. Same with Harry. He wondered what things would have been like if he'd reached out to Eddie. Flash and him were… better… but what if he had reached out sooner to him?

But he was working on it! He was trying to be better! He truly was! He was focusing on Mayday. Making her a priority. He'd warned the Avengers and Daredevil and New York's other heroes that he HAD to step back. And they'd been fine with that! Thrilled! Johnny told him he understood and was thrilled for him. Cap had said he was making the right choice! He was getting better!

'And you abandoned her to fight Miguel,' the voice whispered again. 'Just like you abandoned Miles because some new shiny thing appeared that drew your interest.'

During MJ's pregnancy she'd really gotten into Downton Abbey and Peter had watched with her the entire series multiple times. And while he'd mostly played on his phone during it he'd still absorbed enough of the show to recall some lines.

"Mary can be such a child. She thinks that if you put a toy down, it'll still be sitting there when you want to play with it again."

"Deal with your baggage another time, Parker," Doc Ock snapped, breaking him once more from his thoughts. "We have work to do. Now turn on that camera and watch me help save this world."

Peter nodded and hurried over to the camera, switching it on.

At once every billboard, every monitor, every screen in New York City switched to reveal Octavia's face. People stopped and stares and Peter dimly wondered if they were as used to this as the New Yorkers of his world were; honestly it sometimes felt as if a week didn't go by before Doctor Doom or Magneto took over every billboard in Time Square to proclaim they were taking over the world and this time they were totally going to do it! You just watch!

"Attention, former prisoners of Rikers," Octavia declared. "You know who I am. You know that I am not one to preach restraint when it comes to the meddlesome arachnids that seem to forever harass us all. But we must not allow our quests for righteous vengeance blind us to the true threats!" She waved with her hand and Peter at once knew what she wanted, swinging the camera until he had it on the Spot. It wasn't hard to find him, as the figure was currently surrounded by the most portals out there in New York, Miguel and Jessica trying their best to lay blows on him. But he simply kept redirecting them, causing them to fly about the roof or end up crashing into one another. "Yes, it appears he wants the same thing that we do… but look at what he is doing to the city."

Peter swung the camera again and began capture shots of the railways and buildings that had been destroyed. The flooding down on 5th thanks to the Spot placing a hole in the Hudson, which currently was swirling down, several Spiders working to try and save the boats that were being caught in the vortex; those they couldn't ended up smashing down into the city proper. There was a building that was melting thanks to the molten lava that the Spot had brought forth to hinder them and another that was completely iced over as a hole that must have been placed in the middle of an arctic storm unleashed gale force winds.

"We commit destruction for our own goals!" Octavia declared. "We do it in the name of a grand plan. But the Spot wants to destroy us all. He plans to tear this entire world apart and then move on, ripping apart the entire universe! What good is claiming our revenge against Spider-Man and those like him if we don't get to live to prove our vision of tomorrow as the correct one! Tomorrow will offer us another chance… we've all seen that! How many of us have been imprisoned only to be freed to try again! But if he is allowed to use us as his distraction… we will die. Your families will die. All you care about will die! There is a time and a place to settle our grievances against the meddlesome spiders… now isn't that time."

Peter continued to sweep the camera across the devastation, Octavia growing silent. 'Come on… listen to reason… listen to reason…'

His comm crackled.

"Hello?" he said, pressing his free hand to his ear.

But the voice on the other end ignored him. "This is Wilson Fisk. I am connecting to every communication line. This Spot is now our sole focus. Bring him down… now."

Peter's eyes went wide as suddenly half the fights around him stopped dead and the Riker escapees turned their attention towards the Spot. Those that did keep fighting didn't get to continue doing so for long as the Kingpin's forces quickly moved to get them to wise up, so that only a handful of wildcards were left battling the Spiders.

The rest all turned and began to move towards where the Spot was taking on Miguel and Jessica.

"Com e along, Peter," Octavia said, adjusting her goggles, "let us deal with that wormhole creating dunderhead. Then… we can settle things between us."

"…right," Peter said slowly, firing off a webline and following Octavia as she began to move across the city.