Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Lost and alone
Doctor Strange (Stephen, Peter corrected himself mentally) had warned him about the consequences of the spell, about how he had just signed up to erase his own existence from the world, making everyone he ever knew and loved forget about it.
He did warn him.
Peter, however, assumed the spell would affect the memory of the people who knew of him, not shift reality itself in the way it seemed to have done.
He sighed and set down the newspaper he had been flipping through. Gotham Gazette, it was called. He had found it close to the place where he had landed, a few heartbeats after he got to tell his last goodbyes. It was soaking in a puddle of filthy water, abandoned. The mud made it hard for him to read anything but the bigger prints.
Gotham Gazette, he read at the top. He had never heard of a town called Gotham before.
After climbing on top of the nearest buildings, he had confirmed his suspicions. The city appeared to be extremely large, perhaps even on the scale of New York itself. Unlike New York, though, there was a sense of unease floating in the air. A tension he was not used to.
Now, Peter was not a slacker. He had spent most of the last year studying for entrance exams and interviews and the map of the United States was something he had memorized in details several times over the year. There was no city of this size named Gotham.
Maybe the newspaper was using an odd name. However, something in him, a slight tingle of a feeling, told him it was not the case.
After all, he had just been through a multiverse convergence, proving once and for all that there were plenty of parallel universes.
He almost felt like cursing, crouching at the top of the dilapidated building. The previous version of the spell had not affected memories, it had affected reality. Of course something that was derived from it would have similar effects.
Now was the real question : Did he get transported to another universe, one where Peter Parker did not exist, or did the spell change the world he already was in in such a severe way that he ended up in a strange, alternate version of New York City?
He could have kept wondering about it for a while but, quickly, the weight of his situation dawned on him. He was alone, in a town he had never been in before, one that made his Spider-sense scream with unease. This was not good.
He bit back the anxiety and the fear, buried it in the same place he buried his grief and his despair, both results of the past few days' events. He needed to focus, to prioritize.
He shivered. He was still wearing his Iron-Spider suit, without its mask. The think was offline, metallic parts uncomfortably heavy against his skin. He had a few cracked ribs from the fight earlier. His head was throbbing.
First thing first, he centered himself. He had to find shelter and food. He needed a lot of energy, ever since he started developing his powers.
Thankfully for his odds of being picked up by child protective services while looking for food, Peter was fully aware of the way his body had changed in the last few years. His face was now a lot more mature, his chest broader, and he was slowly gaining a few inches every couple months.
On top that, he might have only turned seventeen a few months ago, but he had shouldered plenty of responsibility and knew how to act grown enough that he thought he shouldn't have any problems looking like an adult.
At least, he hoped so.
Food and shelter first, he decided, nodding to himself.
He rose to his feet, clenching his fists.
A feeling of unease had not left him since he appeared into the city so he decided to keep his travelling to the roofs. It was a good decision anyways : his heightened senses had detected a good dozen or so gunshots around the area, and no police siren. In broad daylight.
In any other circumstances, he would have put his mask on and went to help out but, in this unknown city, he didn't trust himself to save anyone quite yet.
To be honest, he also was not at the top of his game. His body ached with cuts and bruises and his spirit was completely crushed. The only thing he wanted to do, truly, was lay down and let himself die, but-…
He couldn't do that to Tony. To May.
To M-J.
Not allowing himself to spiral down a well of grief, he shook his head and started walking, then running, on the roof. Overhead, the sun was barely peaking through the heavy clouds that covered the city's sky. Pollution, in a way, but he could also smell salt in the air, a clear indication that the ocean, or at least the sea, was not too far away.
He might truly be in an alternate version of New York.
Reaching the end of the roof, Peter leaped, easily closing the few dozen feet that separated the two housing units. To his surprise, despite their broken down appearance, they looked to be inhabited, with laundry hanging from some windows, and the sound of heartbeats coming from inside their walls.
He could relate to such living situations. May had had to go back to school after Ben's death to be able to support them while still living in New York City. The few years she took getting there had them live in a one bedroom closet of a place, without plumbing or electricity, and, often, without much food.
It had worked out in the end. That was May's philosophy, making it work, no matter what.
Her death hit him again suddenly and he felt his heart twist. He stopped in the middle of his run and lowered his head.
It took him a few minutes to get back on track but, after breathing in and out slowly, he eventually calmed himself enough to be able to keep moving. As he jumped, rolled and climbed, he thought about his options. Anything to avoid remembering what had happened earlier today, anything.
He eventually reached a larger street, after a good thirty minutes of travelling through one of the poorest districts he had seen in a while. It reminded him a bit of New York post invasion, people carrying weapons everywhere they went, burning vehicles and walls marred by signs of fire and gun fights.
No alien influence there, just a very, very dangerous area.
He frowned. At least Stephen dropped him somewhere where, once he got his bearings, he could be of some help. The people here looked downtrodden, lifeless.
He sat above them for a while. It was the afternoon, he thought, but this city was terribly cold. It must be winter, then. The air was heavy and wet, wind wrapping around him, slowly wearing him down.
He needed something to wear that was not his Spider suit. In fact, he probably needed to take a serious look at his suit. Ever since he had been sent to this strange reality, it had been offline, unable to be powered back on.
Peter drew closer to the edge of the building he was on, peering down into the street. The people there looked like humans, regular ones. Various skin tones and body shapes but, when he focused on individual conversations, he could clearly make out an American accent. Not a New York one, though, but still noticeably East Coast.
He threw a glance at the few crumpled up bills he kept in his suit in case he ever felt hungry while on patrol. They were all ones, most of them picked up at the top of buildings, carried by the wind. It couldn't be this easy, right? This was another reality, the bills wouldn't be the same.
But he had been able to identify the accent, maybe the face on the bill wouldn't be so different that they wouldn't recognize it. Washington had stayed on there throughout the years, after all, despite all new Super Hero bills introduced in the recent years.
He would lose nothing attempting it.
He counted out all the money he had. Eleven dollars. He sighed. This was… not going to carry him long.
He needed to find a way to make money. A way that would not require him to provide valid government ID or a work history. Or have him be asked too closely about his age.
Crap, was Spider-Man going to have to turn to a life of crime to makes ends meet?
He chuckled awkwardly. No, there were other ways to make money.
His choice made, he stealthily climbed down from his spot, blending into the shadows of a nearby back alley. People around him did a double take when he joined the larger streets in search of a second hand clothing store but, after a few surprised looks, all of them went their own way.
Spider-Man obviously was not a thing here.
He felt odd, walking around in his vigilante get up, even though he had put on the mask before stepping into the street. He couldn't simply show up to a store naked, after all, and this area of town, where all of the stores where, looked like it had less secluded areas to jump down into.
Still feeling extremely embarrassed, Peter ducked into the first thrift store he saw. His budget was so low he immediately went for the "1$/item" bin. In it, he found an alarmingly large number of bloodstained clothes and also, thankfully, a grey dress shirt that, while too big for him and quite unsightly, looked clean and in good condition.
Alright. Ten dollars left.
He had no budget to buy himself new shoes, so he would have to stick with the spider boots. He did, however, find a pair of shorts that fit him inside of the bin, as well as a ratty scarf and another, large nondescript black shirt.
Not what he would usually choose for winter but he had to work with the tools he was given. The shop keeper sneered at him when he went to pay, evidently taking him for some kind of troublemaker because of his outfit. The state of the bills he handed them probably did not help either.
Peter scampered out and then back into the shadows to change into the black shirt. He should probably be cleaning them but his enhanced sense of smell allowed him to know that at least they had been washed before being brought to the shop. This has not been the case for several of the other items he had looked through back in there.
Gross.
The shorts, scarf and t-shirt at least helped take some of the edge off of the wind and cold weather. He wore it over his suit, of course, not reckless enough to leave the thing out in a new, unknown city.
It still surprised him, that his money had been accepted at the store. The man had looked at it closely, before giving it a pass. Of all things that stayed no matter what side of reality he was in, Dollar bills were apparently part of it. At least the ones.
And now he was left with 9 dollars.
He sighed, already knowing he was about to spend a very, very long night getting settled in this weird city. Since he had left the store, the sun had started going down, and he still hadn't found food or shelter.
Giving up on finding any other way to scavenge for food, Peter resigned himself to spending the rest on his money on a lighter and four cans of food. Half of it was peaches, the other pasta.
He had to eat it cold, with his bare hands, sitting at the top of a large bridge as the night settled. The spot, at least, was beautiful, letting him see most of the city. It had been quite easy, sneaking up there. Most of the police officers he had seen down there had looked troubled. He could hear some of them talking, when the wind carried their voices up enough. Something about a break-out.
He licked his finger clean of peach juice. Keeping his mind busy helped with the seemingly every present emptiness in his chest, he tried his best to keep his thoughts from wandering there. It was hard, though.
Peter felt his stomach twist at the memories that washed over him. His hands were shaking.
No. He reminded himself. He didn't have enough food to waste it by vomiting. His eyes burning with tears that he knew would come out soon enough, he finished the rest of the can. It tasted too sweet, too slimy.
He want to spit it out and scream. He wanted to curl up and let the cold take him.
Instead, he put the rest of the cans in the grey dress shirt, then folded it into a makeshift bag that he tied to his waist. Coming that high up had allowed him to watch the city as he ate, appreciating how big it truly was, but the cold was getting to him quickly.
Peter easily made his way down, sticking to the bottom of the bridge to avoid being spotted. Spider-people were apparently not a thing in this universe, nobody even glanced in his direction as he slid down.
By the time he reached the street and the homeless camps under the bridge, night had fully fallen upon Gotham. Despite not having a place to stay himself, and no money to pay for a room, he could not stay there. He did not have anyone to introduce him to the camp members and, at his age and wearing this kind of oversized clothes, he could be mistaken for a minor.
He sighed when he remembered that, technically, he was indeed a minor.
Fighting universe-ending threats yearly sometimes made him forgot that.
He crawled up what looked like a half finished tower whose construction had been halted for a reason he couldn't figure out. From there, he jumped to another, lived in tower, then down to a smaller, square building.
To his surprise, even the most dilapidated of buildings in this part of town appeared habited, either by full on families or by groups of men and women, most of them wearing weapons, some of them using drugs.
People live in those? He thought, horrified. Once again, he was reminded of the post-invasion crisis. It hit close to home.
Eventually, he found himself a spot to spend the night in, under the roof of yet another broken down housing unit. Only a few humans lived in this one, and they were all on the lower floors. The basement was crawling with rats, he could hear them running around.
Peter laid there, looking at the night sky through the broken window he had climbed through, his head resting on the folded up grey shirt. His three remaining cans of food were lined up neatly next to him, his lighter safely stored in the shorts' pockets.
He closed his eyes.
A face flashed in his mind, he could smell burning, blood.
Slowly, he could feel himself sliding into despair.
He did not realize that he was falling asleep, having chosen to deal with his grief by looking at the few stars visible through the haze of pollution. He did, however, wake up in the morning, feeling as exhausted as he did when he laid down in the first place.
He did not eat, instead packing up his few belongings and making his way to an even higher point. The sun was barely starting to peak out from behind the Gotham skyline, he had not slept long.
He couldn't imagine laying back there again, images of his loved ones haunting his mind. The tiredness he felt was, anyways, deep bone. A few more hours of sleep would not help.
"Today…" he promised himself "I find a job"
That goal in mind, he jumped down, his makeshift bag hitting his hips as he landed in a crouch and sprung back up, latching onto a wall and crawling up it. He had a lot of recon to do.
Surprisingly, it was not hard to find a hiring agency. Considering the looks of the city, or at least the parts he had visited so far, he'd have thoughts those were a far concern for its inhabitants but apparently, no matter how troubled a town was, people still needed to find jobs and pay rent.
This one, Peter noticed, was not one he had heard of before. Probably a product of the reality shift Stephen had caused, he thought.
SOUTH GOTHAM JOB AGENCY
Sponsored by the Wayne Foundation
Peter had never been into a place like this for himself, but he had on occasions accompanied May to some, back before she got her degree. He knew how they worked, vaguely, and hoped that he would not have to provide any paperwork to prove his identity to the agent.
If he did, he had no idea how he would be able to make money legally, his experience of job searching was as blank as he felt emotionally right now.
With a sigh, he pushed the door and stepped in. The place smelled like tobacco and coffee. Despite the nice furniture and the gun-carrying security guard at the entrance, it was completely empty, the only other living being a bored looking employee, sitting alone in the center of the large room.
Whoever or whatever the Wayne Foundation was, it was losing money funding this thing. Obviously not a lot of people used it.
Then, it was barely eight in the morning, the place had opened recently. Maybe he should give them more credit…
Peter stepped forward, shifting uneasily when the employee gave him a dubious look-over, raising an eyebrow at his choice of shoes in particular. He was aware that his suit went up to his neck, and that also earned him an unimpressed glance.
"Looking for work?" The employee asked, looking terribly bored. Her tag read "Mary", her hair was frizzy and dark, she looked exhausted.
Why did everyone in this town look so tired?
"Yes ma'am" He nodded, eager to please. If she liked him, maybe she'd let him get something even if he didn't give her papers.
"I…" she started "… am not even going to ask how old you are. I guess it's our job to keep kids like you away from the gangs."
Peter frowned at that, but didn't say anything. The older woman bent down and retrieved something from one of her desk's bottom drawers, handing it to him.
A sheet of paper, covered in small print writing. Lists of names and phone numbers.
"All of those places will let you work for a commission." She explained. "Won't ask questions. I can't give you a contract without seeing your papers."
Peter grimaced at that, which made her nod, as if she had been expecting all along that he could not provide any identification.
Gratefully, he picked up the sheet, rising up to leave. As he did so, the door jingled and a young woman walked in. He left as she went up to the counter.
Maybe the agency was not a complete waste of money, then.
He stepped out into the morning sun. The clouds had parted today, but Peter was still shivering. The air was so humid that every gust of wind felt like a blast of ice water right onto his face. He grimaced, even without rain, the place made him feel soaked and cold.
After he figured something out for permanent shelter, he would need to get himself new clothes. The air was not freezing enough for January, it must be early December, still into Autumn, then.
As he started walking away, staring at the list in his hands, at the foreign names on it, he was suddenly struck by a deep wave of despair.
This time, he had truly no way home. That was what Stephen had said. They would all forget. No one could remember who he was, back there, no one would be looking for him.
He shook his head. He couldn't think about it for now, he has to focus on survival. Then, when he was settled, maybe then he could…
Maybe then he could think about May and everyone else he had to leave behind.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone