A Normal Spider

[Wolfthunder7]

Is it strange to think that punching someone is an art?

When you threw a punch, it wasn't just a matter of the force applied or the acceleration of the blow, but rather the exact moment when resistance gave way. The sensation of your knuckles colliding with flesh and bone felt strange at first, the impact vibrating all the way up your arm to your shoulder.

Sometimes you'd throw a punch out of anger, other times out of pure survival instinct, but most of the time, violence was resorted to when there was no other option left to protect someone, at least that's what Peter thought.

"Urgh!"

The sound of flesh striking echoed through the deserted street, immediately followed by the sound of a body hitting the asphalt before being enveloped in webs. Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, was knocked out, his villain's costume in tatters, and, most importantly, trapped.

Standing over him, Spider-Man remained motionless for just a few seconds with his fists clenched before bending over slightly, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to take a deep breath and catch his breath. His red and blue suit had seen better days, it was completely torn in several places, scorched, caked with dust and soot, and stained with dark spots of blood. He wasn't even sure anymore if it was his own or someone else's.

He glanced briefly around, taking in the New York City scene that looked like something out of a war movie as he scanned for any other villains.

"What a day…" thought the arachnid, feeling every muscle in his body screaming in protest.

New York looked like a battlefield, with numerous fires illuminating the thick smoke, building debris blocking entire avenues, and the smell of burning permeating the air. All of this happened because several villains had decided to take control of the city and formed an alliance led by the Green Goblin and Dr. Octopus, taking advantage of the fact that the Avengers and the Fantastic Four were unavailable, trapped on an emergency mission in some other reality.

To make matters worse, the X-Men were also unable to attend due to a new violent crisis between Krakoa and humanity.

At that moment, Peter heard the distant sound of sirens approaching, causing the hero to sigh. He quickly leaped away, firing a web at a building before swinging off into the distance.

As he moved away, he saw some heroes catching their breath,such as the city's mayor, Luke Cage, with his wife Jessica Cage, and his best friend, Iron Fist, sitting and catching their breath, while Jessica was on the phone, likely speaking with Doreen to find out how their daughter was doing.

Further ahead, Peter crossed paths with other figures who preferred not to explain themselves to the police. The Punisher, Daredevil, Silk, Black Cat, and, surprisingly, Deadpool were fleeing in opposite directions when their eyes met; they exchanged a brief nod before continuing their escape.

On the other hand, Peter couldn't see where the Moon Knight had gone, but he'd lost sight of him ever since he'd seen him get run over by Rhino, so he wasn't going to worry about it now, Khonshu's schizophrenic herald had a ridiculously good knack for vanishing just as suddenly as he could appear out of nowhere. All that was left was to leave him be, wherever he might be now.

During his escape, a sharp click echoed from his web-shooter, causing Peter's eyes to widen as he realized his web fluid was gone.

Suddenly, Peter plummeted from the sky, crashing violently into the treetops, before using several trees to slow his descent before hitting the ground and rolling across the grass in Central Park. He lay there for a few seconds before groaning as he dragged himself across the ground until he managed to get to his feet. After that, he limped slowly over to a wooden bench.

Once there, he collapsed onto it, lying down to gaze up at the starry sky. In the distance, he heard a distant hoot, an owl… perhaps? He was so tired he couldn't even tell for sure. Peter had spent the last twenty-four hours fighting in a nonstop battle against various villains and criminals.

And as if that weren't bad enough, a few minutes before all this chaos began, he'd run into MJ.

Good old Parker luck.

Once again, Peter felt exhaustion wash over him as his eyes grew heavy.

"Okay… just a few seconds." Peter thought as his consciousness began to slip away. "Just close my eyes for a few seconds, a quick nap… my spider-sense will wake me up if I need to…"

With that, Peter Parker, Spider-Man, closed his eyes for the last time.

---

"Peter, get out of bed! You're going to be late!"

The shrill sound flooded Peter's ears; he squeezed his eyelids shut tightly before sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes with his fingers.

"I'm coming, I'm coming aun… wait, that's not May's voice…!" Peter then truly snapped back to reality as he looked around and realized he shouldn't be in that place. "Where am I?! I clearly remember!"

Peter swallowed his thoughts as he looked more closely at the room and noticed certain similarities he hadn't seen in years. The room's walls were painted yellow, science trophies sat on a shelf above a TV on the wall, and there was another shelf next to his bed with framed photos in random order.

"It's slightly different, but this room is very similar to…" Peter then choked up as he looked at the photos next to his bed, a photo of him with his Uncle Ben at a tech convention when he was just over 12 years old. "I'd lost that photo six years ago during the move to my second apartment…"

Jumping out of bed, Peter opened the dresser and pulled out the top drawer, taking out a hand mirror and staring at his reflection. His face looked far too young; he guessed he was 17, judging by the faint razor cuts along his chin, the result of the first time he'd tried to trim the "beard" he'd believed would grow thicker over time, only to be disappointed by a few stray hairs and have to learn how to use a razor.

Peter stared at his reflection in the mirror for what seemed like an eternity before sighing and sitting down on his bed. Bringing his index fingers together in front of his face, he assumed his pensive pose as he stared into space, trying to make sense of what had happened.

"All right, Peter, you already know what happened, just another temporal mess you somehow ended up getting caught up in." Closing his eyes tightly, stress piled up in his brain. "Now, how do I undo this mess? I don't know who was responsible, let alone whether it was some magical or technological artifact…"

Before he could continue his train of thought, his bedroom door suddenly swung open, causing him to turn toward the doorway.

"Peter, I swear, if you make me late on the first day…" A female voice began as she stepped into the room, her hand on the doorknob and a furrowed brow showing her irritation before she stopped.

Peter also froze in his tracks, staring at the girl with wide eyes and his breath caught in his throat as he recognized her.

She was a girl exactly his age, sharing facial features so similar that they could be considered twins, and she had light brown hair tied back in a practical ponytail with bangs. There was no doubt in Peter's mind that this was Teresa Parker, his sister, whom he certainly hadn't known when he was a teenager.

Teresa blinked a few times as she stared at him, her irritation giving way to a look of disbelief.

"Peter… did he wake up early? Isn't he drooling in bed?" Teresa couldn't help but think in surprise as she stared at him before noticing something else, or rather, a striking difference in her brother. "Is he less lazy? When did my scrawny, nerdy brother start waking up so early?... Is he sick?"

"Te-Teresa?" Peter's murmur was too soft for her to hear clearly, but she brushed it off as if it were still due to his sleepiness, completely unaware of his thoughts.

"But… You… how is she here? At this time, she was still in Europe…"

Teresa tilted her head slightly, blinking as she took in his posture and glassy stare.

"What's with that face, Peter? And what the hell happened to you? Did you start doing push-ups in the middle of the night or something?" Teresa asked, narrowing her eyes before glancing at the watch on her wrist and letting out a dramatic sigh. "Whatever, just get a move on, Mom and Dad are already having breakfast and feeding Peni, all we need is for you to come downstairs so we can leave."

The girl turned to leave, but stopped in front of the door before turning back to him. "Don't make me miss the bus because of you."

Without waiting for a reply, Teresa slammed the bedroom door shut, leaving only the sound of her hurried footsteps echoing down the hallway until they faded down the stairs.

Peter stood frozen in place, his mouth slightly agape as he stared at the closed wooden door. He took advantage of the silence to glance quickly at a calendar in his room, noting that it wasn't even close to the day of the Oscorp field trip, the event that had given him his arachnid powers, but something was wrong: it showed the correct day and month… yet he was certain that hadn't happened in 2020.

Suddenly, Peter bent his knees and did a somersault upward, planting the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands against the plaster ceiling, sticking to it with ease, just as he usually could.

He remained suspended there for a few seconds, upside down, staring at the bedroom floor as he took in the physical sensations of his own body. The powers were still there, seemingly unchanged.

With a slight push, he let go of the ceiling and landed on his feet on the floor without making the slightest sound.

He furrowed his brow as he thought about what he'd managed to pick up from his brief conversation with Teresa.

"Okay, Teresa lives with me, which is good, she definitely should have been part of the family from the start, but… are my parents alive?" A more complex frown formed on his face as he crossed his arms. "And Peni… Wasn't she an alternate version of me from the Spider-Verse? Could she be our little sister here?"

Peter quickly rubbed his face, looking exasperated. "Yeah, this definitely wasn't time travel."

Opening the closet to see what he had to wear, the boy began to wonder if he was really ready to face the most dangerous of his enemies.

"Once again, it's just you and me… High school schedule." Peter stared intently at the calendar stuck to the inside wall of the closet, checking the day's schedule. "It's okay, Pete, no need to panic. You've traveled to other dimensions before… maybe not ones powerful enough to change your age, but you've traveled nonetheless. You can do this!"

Grabbing a blue-and-red sweatshirt and a pair of his old round glasses with large lenses, Peter began to figure out when he might be able to break into one of Tony's or Reed's ultra-secure facilities to try to create a dimensional portal.

"One of Tony's hideouts in the abandoned subway tunnels had a teleporter, maybe I can alter the coordinates to eject myself from this reality…" Muttering under his breath as he descended the stairs, Peter hadn't yet fully grasped the impact of Teresa's words from earlier, but when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was hit with the full force of the reality before him.

"Look at that, you're down… 10 minutes early? Maybe that's a new record?" Richard Parker, with his stubble, greeted his son by raising his coffee mug before turning his attention back to the tablet in his other hand.

"It's nice not having to hit you with a flyswatter to get you out of bed, especially on a Monday. Congratulations, dear." Mary Parker remarked with a brief laugh, sitting next to her husband as she lifted a small plastic spoonful of baby food, trying to feed a little baby, Peni Parker, who was laughing and refusing to eat while swinging a small toy in her hand.

Peter stared at the scene before him with an impassive expression, but the tightness and unease in his chest hit him harder than he could have imagined.

"Calm down, Peter… calm down… calm down!" His eyes trembled and felt heavy with an emotional weight stronger than he could ever have imagined.

"Honey, is everything… okay?" Mary paid closer attention to her son, worried as she watched Peter wipe his eyes with his sleeve. "Why are you crying?"

"It's not… It's no big deal." Peter wiped the dried tears from his eyes while his father and sister focused on him just like his mother. "My eyes are just irritated. Maybe I got too much wind in my eyes while I was sleeping."

"Is it really bad? I remember there was some eye drops in the bathroom cabinet." Richard pointed toward the bathroom door, which was two rooms away.

"Thanks, I'll go get them. I'll be right back." Peter walked out with long strides, but took care not to move too quickly so as not to give himself away.

Upon entering the bathroom, Peter locked the door and rested his arms on the sink while grabbing a box of tissues from the cabinet.

"You can't do this!" Peter screamed inwardly as he breathed in and out slowly, staring at himself in the mirror while trying to regain his composure. "Don't be so emotional, Peter. You know they aren't your parents… you know this world isn't yours. Don't let this get to you."

Suddenly, a wave of unease began to bother Peter, causing the boy to widen his eyes and head toward the toilet; he lifted the lid quickly and stared intently at it, feeling his heart pounding in his chest, just as a huge lump in his throat seemed about to come out.

Minutes passed in that bathroom as Peter tried to muster enough mental strength to leave the room and face his parents again. When he began to feel calmer, Peter took another deep breath as he stepped away from the toilet before leaning against the wall and looking at himself in the mirror. He took a moment to make sure his eyes were no longer red from crying, then decided to leave the bathroom.

He didn't use the eye drops because his eyes had actually dried up from crying. He definitely didn't use them.

"Come on, Peter… You mocked Thanos right to his face, dealt with countless villains and the very embodiment of evil, watched your ex dump you for an interdimensional immigrant, you can handle this, too." Peter muttered, wiping his face.

Splashing water on his face before leaving the bathroom, Peter noticed that Teresa was no longer in the kitchen with the others. Hearing the loud sound of a bus pulling away in front of his house, he looked up just in time to see the school bus pulling away, with his sister sitting inside, listening to music on her headphones.

"Uh… waking up earlier didn't seem to make much of a difference." Peter once again tried to act like someone with a history of being chronically late for school.

"Peter, are you okay?" Mary asked suddenly, surprising Peter, who saw her approaching him as she left Peni in a playpen full of toys. "You look a little pale."

"He's fine; it must have been just as he said, maybe a draft in the early morning." Richard watched his son closely; even though he was a little pale, he didn't seem sick. "But if you want to give him some medicine, I wouldn't complain."

"I think I have enough vitamins that I don't need medicine this early in the morning." Peter put his hand to the side of his neck as he shrugged off their concern. "Okay… I'm not going to be able to handle this, I'm going to start crying again. I have to get out of here."

"Anyway, I'm heading out now. If I hurry a bit, maybe I'll catch the bus on the next block."

"Don't worry about it. I'm already on my way out. Grab your things; I'll wait for you in the car." Richard put his tablet inside his leather briefcase at the foot of the chair and headed toward the garage.

"All right, I'll grab my backpack." Peter ran to the stairs and took a big leap without his parents seeing him, landing right in front of his bedroom door. Grabbing his backpack, along with his laptop and cell phone, he went down the stairs, coming face-to-face with his mother, who was holding a package in her free hand and Peni in the other.

"Here, sweetie. Since you didn't have breakfast, you can eat this later." Placing the package in Peter's hand, Mary cupped his cheek and kissed him on the forehead. "Your turn now."

With that, she brought Peni closer to the boy, and the baby imitated her mother, or at least tried to, since instead of kissing him, she sucked on Peter's cheek. "She's still learning."

Peter could already feel that tightness in his chest again. With a quick "thanks." he ran to the front of the house, his eyes moist.

"That was cowardly, Reality. Really cowardly!" As he walked through the door, Peter saw his father already inside the car; with the garage door already closing behind him, he just didn't like how the gate jammed and kicked up dust in his face when it hit the ground. Peter had a brief fit of sneezing and coughing.

"Yeah, I know. I have to clean and fix the garage door. Remind me about that this weekend. Get in. I don't want you to be late today of all days." Richard chuckled softly as he watched Peter brush the dust off his face.

Peter obeyed, and the car continued on toward school.

---

"So, have you thought about which club you're going to join this time?" Richard used the time at the red light to strike up a conversation with Peter. His expression turned sour when he saw Peter devouring the two sandwiches Mary had made. "Hey, hey! Slow down a bit, Peter, no eating in the car."

"Oh, sorry! It's just that I was hungry and…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Your mom's turkey-and-tuna sandwich is out of this world, but let's try not to make a mess in my car, I just washed it this past Saturday, and I don't want to have to pick out crumbs from it again this month." Richard gave his son a light pat on the shoulder as he hit the brakes when the light turned green. "But what about my question?"

"A club is…" Peter tried to recall his school days when he'd joined a club without stressing out about the people in it. "Nah, I think I'll skip joining one this semester. I'm thinking about taking up some other hobby."

"Another hobby? Like what, for example?" Richard asked as he glanced briefly to both sides of the street before accelerating and turning the car.

"No idea." Peter said bluntly as he felt Richard's gaze fall comically upon him. "Hey, I said I was thinking about it, didn't I?"

"Peter, look, I know things must be tough for you right now, but you're still young, you should at least make some friends." Richard remarked in a concerned tone, causing Peter to stare at him strangely. "I mean, how are things going with that blind kid, the one named… Scott Summers, right? Is he part of any club you could join?"

"Yeah, it seems that even in another reality, my high school is pretty secluded… WAIT, I GO TO SCHOOL WITH SCOTT?! AND HE'S BLIND?!" Peter put on a thoughtful expression to hide the obvious surprise in his mind. "My God, the school here accepts mutants? Aren't they looked down on in this reality?"

"I don't know, maybe the target shooting club?" Peter saw his father frown. "All right, I get it, that joke was out of line."

"Peter…"

"In my defense… he makes way worse ableist jokes than I do!" Peter raised his hands in surrender.

"Getting back to the clubs…" Richard sighed at his son's lack of "seriousness." "There must be something that interests you. Maybe an art club? I remember you were good at drawing."

"I got kicked out of two last year."

"Gardening club?"

"Caught growing marijuana."

"Cooking club?"

"It was disbanded after a student made… 'calming brownies,' so to speak. It was the same guy from the gardening club, actually."

"Track and field?"

"I'm not going to hang out with a group of twenty people running and screaming at the sunset after school."

"Better than the last two you mentioned. I can't even be surprised by this stuff anymore, after everything I've heard at those parent-teacher meetings, I'm surprised you convinced me not to transfer you to another school."

"Okay, the stories from my school still match up with those from this reality… I should be a lot more worried about this one, to tell you the truth."

"Well, one rotten peach doesn't define the quality of the peach tree… right?" Peter raised an eyebrow in doubt.

"In that case, I wish it did." Richard laughed as memories of the meetings flashed through his mind.

…

…

Peter soon took another bite of the sandwich.

"If you're going to eat in my car, share it with me then." Richard said without taking his eyes off the road. A smile flickered and threatened to break out as he saw half a sandwich in front of him before he took a bite himself.

---

As he pulls over, Peter sees a large campus and several other students walking across the lawn and through the gates of Midtown High, a place that, for most of Peter's life, had been a living hell for him, but was also full of incredible memories. It also felt very strange to be going back to school and knowing that his sister and Scott were there.

"The only thing missing is Logan being a teacher too…"

"Well, here's your stop. I'm going to head out now; I have some business to discuss with Dr. Connors." Taking his wallet out of his pocket, Richard pulled out a $20 bill and handed it to his son. "Here, so you can get something to eat, since we ate your breakfast and lunch here in the car."

"Does my dad know Connors?"

Peter took the money somewhat reluctantly; he didn't like taking money from others, but since it was his dad giving it to him for lunch, it was easier to accept. Glancing at the building one last time, Peter turned to his father, and they both got out of the car.

"What do you think about me going to see Dr. Connors with you? I'm pretty sure it'll be better than having to sit through two literature classes in a row."

"Son, as far as I recall, your field trip isn't until a week from now." Richard gave a small, amused smile at Peter's indignant expression. "Go on before you're late, I don't want to have to listen to your principal go on and on about your tardiness in my ear again. See you later."

Peter watched the car drive away as he turned toward the courtyard filled with students. With a defeated sigh, he simply accepted the pain of returning to high school.

"It's okay, Peter. You've already dealt with this for three whole years of your life; you can handle a few more days… or weeks, maybe." Muttering to himself, Peter adjusted his backpack and started walking. "For now, try to come up with some kind of plan to break into the Baxter Building."

As he walked, Peter couldn't help but notice some familiar faces around him, some he hadn't even expected to see there. Remy Lebeau, Bobby Drake, Kitty Pryde, Laura Kinney, Kurt Wagner, Rogue, among others, as well as several students he remembered from his own time as a student.

"Wow… this really is another reality, isn't it?" Peter thought in surprise, looking at some of his mutant friends who didn't appear to have visible mutations. "Is it possible that none of them here are mutants? Or maybe the mutation isn't as physically radical?"

Suddenly, he felt a familiar vibration at the back of his neck, causing his eyes to dart toward a basketball flying rapidly toward him. Without thinking twice, Peter leaned slightly to the side, reaching out his hand to catch the ball firmly before returning to his normal stance, just as he heard a startled cry beside him.

As he turned toward the source of the shout, Peter's eyes narrowed when he didn't recognize the person who had shouted. It was a chubby, brown-skinned boy with short, straight dark hair, wearing dark green shorts and a dark blue sweatshirt.

"Wow, Parker. How'd you do that? Have you been practicing soccer over the break?" the chubby boy asked in surprise.

"Who's this guy? I've never seen him in my reality." Peter turned and began juggling the ball, spinning it between his hands. "Who are you?"

"Hey, Peter. How's it going? Judging by my friend's reaction here, I guess you've done something cool." The voice was impossible not to recognize; even as a teenager, Scott's voice had never changed. Scott was wearing brown pants, paired with a dress shirt and a green, blue, and red wool vest over it, and of course, his unmistakable red sunglasses.

"I didn't do anything special. I just caught a throw that went off course." Peter explained, looking for the ball's owner.

"Hey! Sorry about the ball,Thompson's an idiot with terrible aim! Can you give it back?" Shouting from further away, Peter could swear he heard a snort of laughter escape his own lips. The young man was Black, wearing black jeans with a metal-buckled belt. He had a yellow T-shirt on under a Midtown team sports jacket.

"No way… am I really seeing Luke Cage with an afro?! If only I could snap a pic of this for the Avengers…" Peter adjusted the ball in his hand as he calculated the force needed for the throw.

"No problem, catch this!" Peter took a small hop on the balls of his feet before tossing the ball high toward Luke.

As soon as Luke caught the ball, his eyes widened slightly before he whistled in admiration and looked at Peter.

"Wow, you've got a strong arm there, Parker." Luke remarked, impressed but still in a friendly tone. "I really felt that, it felt like a harder throw than the Flash's. Have you thought about trying out for the team this year?"

"Oh shit." Peter felt a bead of sweat trickle down his neck. He'd forgotten that this wasn't the Luke Cage from his own reality, so he didn't know if he possessed his friend's physical abilities. "If I'd used just a little more strength, I might have hurt him."

"I'll think about it, if I have time to spare, you bet I will!" Peter thought aloud as Luke approached him.

"All right, if you ever want to join, just let me know, I'll talk to the coach on your behalf." Luke assured him, patting Peter on the shoulder before walking away to find the rest of the team. "We'll talk later, Parker."

"Luke Cage with an afro… thank you so much, world, for bringing this ridiculously funny image back into my life. Too bad he was missing the bandana." Peter turned to Scott and the boy with him. "Hey, Red Eye, did you do anything over the holidays? Don't tell me you just won a 'who blinks first' contest."

"…Red Eye?" Scott asked, confused. "I'm not sure if this is a new joke about me being blind or not, but you seem to have had a more interesting vacation, you look like a completely different person."

"…How did I miss that?! I'm supposed to be different here, too!" Peter was indignant at his own ignorance; even after so many Spider-Verse-type incidents, he still forgets the biggest difference among all the variants.

Different personalities.

"We could say it's a little bit of both. And I haven't changed that much, I'm still the same old Peter." Peter shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt, hoping Scott would take the bait. "Now let's see if he describes me in this world… please, psychology, help me out here and make him talk about me."

"You just acted friendly toward someone on the football team, you hate them." Scott remarked, raising an eyebrow. "Actually, you're friendlier than usual, talking way too much and not giving any one-word answers…"

"Did you just describe me as a paranoid condo neighbor with three cats right to my face?" Peter mimicked a twitch of his eyebrow, hoping it would elicit some reaction from Scott, or even from the boy next to him.

"…That's more normal." Scott remarked with a sigh.

"Your consideration for my personality is touching."

"...Are you dating anyone?" Scott asked suddenly, staring at him. "I can only imagine someone calming you down to make that possible."

"Are you jealous now? I didn't know you were part of that crowd."

"No offense, Peter. But I'm very happy with Jean, thank you very much." Scott remarked impassively.

"You're breaking my fragile, sweet little heart."

"...I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable now." This time, the chubby guy spoke up, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"At least some reaction… it wasn't exactly from who I wanted, but I guess it'll do." Peter patted Scott on the shoulder; Scott snorted in response, turning to the third person in the conversation. "And… sorry, but who are you, anyway?

"Oh yeah, sorry about that." The young man quickly extended his free arm with a friendly smile. "I'm Ned Leeds, nice to meet you."

"..." Peter stared at Ned with a frozen smile, as the words sank into his skull. "THIS GUY IS LEEDS?! THE HOBGOBLIN?! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"

"Right… I'm Peter Parker, and I feel like I've seen you somewhere before…" Peter tried to ignore his own thoughts while making sure he could feel all his internal organs; he needed some confirmation that he was actually alive… he really did. "Anyway, wasn't Jean supposed to be with you, One-Eye?"

"She's coming in early, she's this year's student body president. She's giving the welcome speech later, so she has to turn in a copy of the speech to the board." Scott explained with a shrug. "Anyway, I was on my way to meet up with her, and even though your transformation is interesting, I really prefer Jean's company to yours… no offense."

"No hard feelings." Ned smiled friendly before looking at Peter. "Well, you heard him, I'm going to take him to the boardroom now. See you later, Peter."

With that, Ned began to walk away again, with Scott following him, feeling his way along the floor with his cane. Peter watched them walk away with a complex look on his face before sighing.

---

The welcome event was in full swing, with the principal's voice and the students' sporadic applause echoing through the walls. However, not all the students were at the event, something that was fairly normal in some cases, but Peter's situation was exceptional, and even better, it was the perfect distraction.

"I've been to enough high school welcome events for my liking." Peter thought as he quietly entered the library.

However, as soon as he took a step, Peter was forced to stop for a second when he felt a slight tingle from his spider-sense at the base of his skull. He quickly took a step to the right, moving closer to the wall before starting to climb up it, putting himself out of the camera's line of sight.

He soon began moving forward, relying on his spider-sense to guide him through the library, which wasn't very large to begin with.

"I really love my spider-sense." Peter thought with a smile as he crept up to one of the cameras facing the computers before unplugging it from the outlet. "Life is so much easier when my brain has a built-in alarm and radar."

With that, Peter resumed his path toward the computers, choosing the most isolated machine before leaping toward it and landing softly.

Once on the floor, Peter pulled out the chair before sitting down and turning on the machine. The monitor lit up with a low beep, displaying the school's logo and the login screen restricted to students.

Without letting that bother him, Peter began typing; it wasn't the first time he'd had to hack into a computer with a username and password. He quickly managed to bypass Midtown High's student security network, but what surprised him was how easily he'd done it.

"Wow, I don't think I've ever hacked into a computer this fast, it didn't even take a minute." Peter thought in surprise as he opened the browser.

"All right…" he muttered, his gaze intense as he began typing. "Let's see exactly how messed up this world is."

The first name he searched for was obvious: Tony Stark.

Peter hit "Enter." and his eyes scanned the headlines and articles on Forbes, furrowing his brow at what he read. Tony was still a billionaire, still the CEO of Stark Industries, but… that was it. The articles described him as a visionary investor and a pioneer in the cutting-edge technology market, but there wasn't the slightest mention of the Arc Reactor, or his AIs, let alone the suits.

He was, for all intents and purposes, just a Silicon Valley corporate genius with a lot of money. An Elon Musk with more charisma, perhaps, but far from being Iron Man.

"Okay, no super-advanced Stark technology…" Peter muttered before opening another tab. "What about the Fantastic Four?"

Unfortunately, when he searched for the first family of superheroes, all Peter found were jazz bands and string quartets. Deciding to change his search terms, he looked up Reed Richards and the Baxter Building.

The good news was that it existed, the Baxter Building had been inherited by Reed, but… he wasn't Mr. Fantastic, but rather a high-ranking scientist at NASA. He'd recently published a scientific article with his best friend and co-author Ben Grimm, who wasn't a stone monster, but rather an engineer and pilot. Peter scrolled to the bottom of the page, looking for Susan or Johnny Storm, but there wasn't even a footnote about either of them.

A lump began to form in Peter's throat, but he swallowed hard and continued his search, this time for Oscorp.

The homepage was identical to the one he remembered, but it was much simpler, just another giant pharmaceutical company, proud of its new line of asthma and diabetes medications.

For a second, Peter was frozen in place as he looked at it before searching for another villain he knew well: Dr. Doom and Latveria.

However, upon seeing the results, Peter nearly choked on his own saliva. The European country wasn't a sinister dictatorship, but rather a peaceful and prosperous nation. Its ruler, Victor Von Doom, posed in photos wearing a well-tailored suit, with no metal mask on his face. He wasn't Doctor Doom, just an extremely efficient absolutist monarch who, apparently, was loved by the people.

"This… this is surreal…" Peter whispered in disbelief. "If they never became heroes and villains, does that mean Bruce…"

He immediately looked up Bruce Banner, but what he saw made Peter feel terrible. The search results weren't a scientific article, but an old government obituary and declassified files on military tragedies.

The Gamma Bomb experiment did take place, but without the intervention of a miraculous genetic fluke. There was no Hulk to save Bruce; the radiation incinerated everything in an uncontrolled manner. Bruce Banner, Betty Ross, General Thaddeus Ross, and dozens of other military personnel and scientists were burned to death at the test site.

"Damn…" Peter had to step back a bit to calm down. "This is really bad… Maybe Stranger survived?"

He quickly searched for Stephen Strange, but the results didn't show the images of the sorcerer he recognized, instead, they were articles from renowned medical journals, profiles from *Time* magazine, and headlines from *The New York Times*. From what he read, the accident had never happened to him; Stephen had never lost his hands. In fact, his life was much happier, he was married to an elegant woman and had two children. Ironically, the Sanctum Sanctorum still existed, but instead of being a gateway to magic in the city, it was actually Stephen's private clinic, which had been named that way because of the religious connotations of the name.

Hesitation gripped his hand before he typed in the last search term. It was masochism, he knew, but he had to see.

Peter searched for his uncle, Benjamin Parker.

As soon as the page loaded, Peter felt his breath catch; he was alive and well, even younger than he remembered. The biography listed him as a highly decorated former military officer, someone who had served with honor before returning to New York. More than that, the screen displayed posters from a proud political campaign: Benjamin Parker, candidate for mayor of New York City.

It was too much for him; Peter shut down the computer, feeling his breath catch. Uncle Ben was alive; he looked younger, and he was smiling. Peter's eyes began to well up again before he hurried out of the library.

He ran for a while until he finally entered the men's restroom and locked himself in one of the stalls; he promptly sat down and buried his face in his hands. A whirlwind of emotions swept over him in that moment; he was happy, genuinely joyful, that his family was safe and whole. Yet he also felt sad; this was the life he'd wanted, but they weren't his family, that incredible Ben Parker wasn't his Uncle Ben, who had died because of Peter.

His original plan, his hope of knocking on the door of the Baxter Building or Stark Industries to borrow a dimensional portal, had just gone up in smoke.

In this world, people didn't build time machines on weekends or accidentally open rifts in spacetime. The technology here was years, perhaps decades, behind what he needed to get back home.

To the science of this universe, traveling between worlds wasn't a matter of when, but rather science fiction. And so, suddenly, Peter Parker realized he might be stuck there forever…

That he was completely alone.

 

[JustAreader]

...sad af, cuz these are the people he grew up with, nor the people he fought with... and judging by the premise he aint gonna be happy for long for even living a teenage normal life