Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ELECTRO
Oh, the place where I worked at,
they were experimenting with
electricity created by living
organisms and then, uh... I fell
into a vat of electric eels.

SANDMAN
You’re kidding. I fell into a
super collider.

ELECTRO
Damn. Gotta be careful where you
fall.

"I'm at work and... two of the people you were looking for are here."

The words of his aunt's phone call played on loop in Peter's head as he raced back to and through New York City to get to FEAST. He had to get there ASAP. All of the new arrivals had been heavy hitters. He'd only been able to beat the electric guy with the sand guy's help, he could barely imagine himself having to handle two at once, much less May and all the other innocents at FEAST doing so. He only hoped that at least one of them would be an ally like the sand one, even if their relationship soured a bit at the end.

As he swung into FEAST and ran through the dining area, he braced for the worst. After an octopus-themed cyborg, a flying green elf, a giant lizard dude, an occasionally blue electric man and a guy made of sand, Peter had no clue what was be next.

The place hadn't been blown to rubble yet which was a good sign. Bursting through the door of the room May was in, he was ready for almost anything. Nevertheless, he was still surprised by the sight he found: three human-looking people having a civil conversation over donuts and coffee.

"Hey, here he is," said May to the two people next to her, "Norman, Gwen, this is my nephew".

In one seat was an older man in what appeared to be a purple hoodie with a dark green coat. In the other was a young, blonde woman about his age. She too had a green coat, albeit a pastel one, and wore a purple shirt and skirt with black boots underneath.

The girl took one look at his face before declaring, "Ok, definitely a different universe."

Peter looked at his aunt, "May did you- wait, Norman? As in Norman Osborn? Aren't you supposed to be... never mind. So are the two of you like a father-daughter crime duo or are the matching outfits just a coincidence?"

The pair looked at him in confusion. Peter indicated at their outfits and their gazes followed.

"Oh!", exclaimed the girl, presumably Gwen. She looked back up at him with a slight smile, "Um, just a coincidence. I've never even met this guy before. I do know of a Norman Osborn back home and am... acquainted with his son, but I think that this version of him and I are from separate universes. He looks different from the pictures I've seen of him in my home... universe. Just like how you and the Peter I know look different. And, I'm not a part of a crime duo or solo or group or anything. I'm just Gwen. Gwen Stacy."

Gwen cocked her head as she stared at Peter, "Do you have or like know a Gwen Stacy or for that matter a Norman Osborn in this universe?"

Peter ran through his memory for a moment, "I don't think so...".

"Well, I guess you have only my word to take for it, but in my universe I know both Spider-man and Peter Parker... quite well. When I saw that he still existed in this uncanny valley of a New York City, I had to follow that lead, even if it was just a billboard advertising this place. I trust Spider-man and I will always trust Spider-man, even one from an alternate universe."

"I also came here because of the billboard," explained Norman. "I thought Spider-Man could help me. I just came to in a world that I don't know, a world with things I don't remember. A world where my company doesn't exist, where someone else is living in my house, where my son doesn't...", he trailed off, a despondent look in his eyes. "And the thing is I have this condition. Sometimes, I'm not myself. I'm... someone else. And, every time he's in control, I can't remember. When I can't remember where I am or what I just did, that's a really bad sign."

Peter and his aunt exchanged a look, silently exchanging the agreed upon fact that they needed to talk together alone.

"Gwen", said May as she quickly turned to the blonde. "Can you watch Norman while Peter and I bring the truck around?"

Gwen had a look on her face like she knew better than to believe that that was all they were going to do, but agreed to and the Parkers left for the parking lot.

Chapter Text

Gwen stared at the building May had dropped them off at. It was a large Greenwich Village multistory with an unusual circular skylight that Gwen knew she must’ve walked past a million times back home, but had never really noticed before.

Peter guided Gwen and Norman into a basement area that led into what looked to be a cavern of sorts.

Within the basement, a boy and girl about her age were huddled around a laptop. They turned as they heard the trio descend down the stairs into the room.

“Guys, this is Mr. Osborn”, explained Peter.

“Hey, it’s ‘Doctor’”, corrected Norman.

“Sorry, Dr. Osborn, and this is Gwen Stacy.” Switching around roles and introducing the audience, he continued on. “These are my friends Ned and MJ.”

“Mary Jane?”, inquired the older man.

“It’s Michelle Jones, actually,” responded the girl.

“Fascinating,” remarked Osborn with an odd look in his eye. He began to wander into the cavern-like area beyond the room. Within it seemed to be containment areas with other people.

Intrigued, Gwen followed his path as she heard the boy, Ned, muse if there were other versions of himself in other universes. As Osborn examined one of the captives, he seemed to recognize him. Just as she was about to listen in to their conversation, Gwen found herself recognized by another.

“Gwen?”, called out a voice she’d heard before.

Gwen turned her head and was greeted with a familiar, scaly face.

“Dr. Connors?”

“Oh, so you know this guy too?”, asked Ned.

“Yeah, I used to intern for him. Though last time I saw him—wait, ‘too’? Who else…”

“That guy,” Ned responded, pointing to a containment cell opposite Connors. In it was a black man in fireman gear.

Turning to him, Gwen could feel his name on the tip of her tongue, but couldn’t fully place him.

“Max Dillion,” supplied her saurian, former boss. “He’s an electrical engineer at Oscorp. You ever run into him?”

Gwen was shocked, he looked so different from when she last saw him or even how he looked before his transformation. Gwen’s astonishment curdled and she begins to feel a little sick to her stomach as she realized that she was looking at the face of a man she just killed (or considering the liveliness of his current state, the face of a man who would soon be killed by her).

“Yeah, only recently. Looked very different though,” said Gwen, still partially on autopilot as she processed the situation.

“Tell me about it,” muttered Connors.

Their exchange abruptly ended as their attention was grabbed by the revelations going on in conversations in the middle of the room.

“You died Norman, years ago,” admitted Osborn’s conversation partner, a man with eight robotic arms.

“You’re insane,” Osborn said with disbelief.

Gwen wasn’t as surprised. Back home, the news of her universe’s Norman Osborn’s death was fresh, but widespread.

“God, I love it here,” remarked Max.

“What are you talking about?” asked Peter, confused. “He’s standing right there, he’s not—”,

“Dead,” interrupted another captive, a man who seemed to be made of sand. “They both died fighting Spider-man. It was all over the news. Green Goblin?”, he indicated at Osborn, “Impaled by the glider he flew around on.”

Gwen supposed this was one of the cases where the universes diverged. Gwen couldn’t remember Peter ever fighting Norman Osborn nor anyone known as “Green Goblin”. It was an undisputed fact there that Mr. Osborn had died in his bed from chronic illness, not on the streets battling Spider-Man. However, the Goblin’s description as an Osborn with a glider and a vendetta against Spider-Man sounded all too familiar. Harry may not have called himself the Green Goblin, but he did declare his old identity as dead, so who knows what he would choose to call himself afterwards, she reasoned.

The sand man continued on, gesturing at the man with the cybernetic arms. “And a couple of years later you, Doc Ock, you drowned in the river with your machine.”

“That’s nonsense,” responded the apparent doctor. “Spider-Man was trying to stop my fusion reactor. So I stopped him. I had him by the throat”. He outstretched his hand like he was reliving the chokehold. Suddenly a look of confusion appeared on his face, “And then, I... and then I was here.”

“Oh please, let me tell you something,” interrupted Max. “I was whooping Spider-Man's ass. He'll tell you, and then he caused an overload. I was stuck in the grid, absorbing data. I was about to turn into pure energy, and then…”, Max’s bravado disappeared, replaced with an expression of realization and horror. “And then... oh, shit. I was about to die.”

Gwen shivered knowing that she was the reason why.

“Max, do you know? Do I die?” asked Connors.

“No, you don’t,” responded Gwen as she regained some nerve. “You got de-lizarded. Last I heard you were in some special prison upstate.” She refused to address Max’s conclusions. She would do it again if the city was at stake, but she wouldn’t look him in the eye and tell him his fate, or even worse, lie and say that everything would be ok.

As the reptilian relaxed at this news, upset at the failure of his plan but relieved at his survival, Gwen couldn’t help but worry. Three-fifths of her fellow travelers confirmed as being killed shortly after returning home were odds Gwen did not like as an abstract statistic. She liked them even less in conjunction with the fact that being “returning home” for Gwen would consist of returning to hanging by a single web at the top of a clock tower.

Gwen tried not to feed her worries. Peter would save her. Peter had always saved her, she had no reason to doubt his abilities all of a sudden.

Before Gwen could ponder any longer, she was distracted by the sudden appearance of a goateed man, seemingly out of thin air.

“Oh great, you caught two more,” he said while making a small wave with his hand.

Peter began to protest, “No, Strange, they’re not dangerous,” but before Gwen could react she was blinded by a wave of orange sparks. When she reopened her eyes she was no longer in the center of the cavern, but in one of the containment cells, a transparent wall blocking her way out.

“It’s okay,” reassured Peter before an odd and old looking box caught his eye. “Um, what is that?”

“It’s an ancient relic,” responded Strange. “The Machinati Codamus. I trapped your corrupted spell inside. Once I’ve finished the proper ritual, it’ll reverse the spell and send these guys back to their universes.”

“And then what?”, spoke up Octavius. “We perish?”

“Nah, no thanks. I’ll pass on that,” said Max, discomfort painted on his face.

“Let me out of here. Peter!” demanded Osborn.

“Peter…”, Gwen said, trying to keep herself calm and her voice steady as her panic began to rise.

“Strange, we can’t send them back,” Peter pleaded. “Not yet.”

Strange turned his head to look Peter in the eye. “Why?”

“Some of these guys are going to die.”

“Parker,” the older man said in an exasperated tone. “It’s their fate.”

“Come on Strange, have a heart.”

“In the grand calculus of the multiverse, their sacrifice means infinitely more than their lives. I’m sorry, kid. If they die, they die.”, declared Strange before he began to move his hands around the box. 

His motions were interrupted by the thwip of a web landing on the box.

“Don’t,” warned Strange, but Peter didn’t listen. He pulled the web back, launching the box into his hands. He threw the goateed man into one of the containment cells and was herded out the door by his friends who quickly took their best attempts at defensive stances.

Even though Peter was being chased by some magical man who could teleport at will, Gwen couldn’t help but smile at Peter’s foolhardy but well-intentioned actions.

It reassured her to know that even in a totally different universe, some things about Peter were trans-dimensional constants.

Chapter Text

“I can help you guys out! Just give me a computer or something and I can do whatever you need me to do to make sure everyone gets home quicker and in one piece,” said Gwen after a couple of minutes, going a little stir crazy.

“We don’t need help. Much less some coming from a supervillain,” responses MJ firmly.

“I’m not a supervillain,” Gwen replied, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. “I know you guys just have my word to go off of, but I swear I’m on your side.”

“Can confirm,” jumped in the Lizard. “Gwen here may have been my head intern, but so far she’s been unfortunately quite against my plans.”

“Gwen? Is that Gwen Stacy!” said Max as he squinted at her. “Yeah she’s a good one,” Gwen died a little inside as she heard him refer to her so warmly.

“She was one of the few who ever showed me a lick of attention before I became like this. And since we never worked on any projects together, it wasn’t mandatory like for Connors over there.”

“Not exactly the most ideal character witnesses, but thanks?” said Gwen, feeling more than a little awkward.

“If you’re not a supervillain, then how do you know Peter’s identity?”, Ned asked. His face suddenly lit up, “Oh, are you your universe’s version of me?”

“I doubt it,” interjected Gwen’s former boss with a scoff. “She’s his girlfriend.”

“Funny,” said MJ, suddenly stiffening. “So am I.”

Oh boy, thought Gwen. She took a breath before starting to speak.

“Look, I didn’t come here to be a trans-dimensional homewrecker. The two of you are in love? That’s great, that’s fine, that’s dandy. I just want to go back to my home and my Peter.”

MJ relaxed slightly. “Look, I can’t give you a computer because I don’t know how to get anything through this,” she indicated at the magical barrier, “but do know that I am tentatively believing your story and am… cautiously trusting you.”

“That sounds good to me. Thank you.”

The two girls give each other a slight smile. Suddenly, a thought passed over MJ’s face.

She leaned in conspiratorially to Gwen, a look of curiosity on her face.

“Does your Peter always like his sandwiches ‘smashed' too?”

A look of confusion flashed across Gwen’s face, quickly followed by one of remembrance. “Yeah! He does. Wait, do you go to Midtown?”

MJ nodded.

“Have you ever had a class with Coach Wilson?”

“Oh! The conspiracy nut? Yeah, I had him as a sub once and it was an… experience.”

Gwen made a mournful noise, “Lucky! I had him as my PE teacher for the whole of sophomore year.”

“Does your universe have Stan’s Coffee?”

The two girls were both sitting on the ground, deep in conversation. The villains tried to eavesdrop at the start, but once it was clear that there was going to be no cat fight, they tuned them out. Ned had returned to toying with his computer.

“Look, the whole MIT thing, it’s not the end of the world. And I don’t mean that in some poo-poo get-over-it-you’ll-eventually-get-older-and-sadder way. MJ, you’re a smart girl. A really smart girl. And someone, somewhere, sometime is going to realize it. Soon. Maybe it’ll be MIT, maybe somebody else. You never know. When I first graduated, I didn’t go to college. I had a pretty good job lined up and no better or affordable offers. So, I waited and worked and eventually, this scholarship for Oxford popped up. It was a long shot, but I applied for it and… I got it!”

“Oh my god! That’s great, what’s it for? What’s it like?”

“It’s for molecular medicine. As for what it’s like, truth be told I have no idea. Yet, at least. When I was transported here, I had a flight to London set in a couple hours.”

At that very moment, a portal appeared in the cavern and Peter jumped out.

MJ and Ned ran over, asking about what had happened.

“I just had a fight with Dr. Strange and I totally won!” exclaimed Peter. “Look, I stole his ring thing.”

Ned took the sling ring from Peter and examined it, fascinated.

“Where is he?” asked MJ.

“He’s trapped, but I’m not sure for how long,” responded Peter.

Doc Ock looked at him with an expression of confusion. “You could’ve just left us to die. Why didn’t you?”

“‘Cause that’s not who he is,” stated MJ.

“I think I can help you guys,” explained Peter. “If I can fix what happened to you, then when you go back, things will be different, and you might not die fighting Spider-Man.”

The villains had a mixed reaction to this, with some open to the idea and others repulsed by the very thought of it.

“I can’t promise you guys anything,” he continued on. “But at least this way you actually get to go home and have a chance, a second chance. I mean, come on. Isn’t that worth trying?”

“Trust me, Peter. When you try to fix people there are always consequences,” warned Connors.

“Look,” said Gwen. “Either you guys can stay here and accept whatever fate you have awaiting you back home, or we can try to change things and get a new opportunity. And considering where some of us were taken from, I’m pretty sure any change will be good.”

The villains reluctantly agreed to hear him out.

“What’s your plan?” asked Electro.

“I have it all under control,” said Peter in a tone Gwen knew meant that he did not have it all under control.

Peter huddled with MJ and Ned as they talked in semi-hushed tones. MJ reluctantly accepted the box Peter handed her.

“Peter, I swear, if I don’t hear from you, I’m pressing the button,” she said before turning to the captives. “And I will do it!”

Peter and Ned affirmed this statement, but her tone alone told the villains that she was not joking.

Peter and Ned said goodbye with their handshake. MJ said her’s with a kiss and a warning to be careful. Before she followed Ned out she turned to Gwen, “Try to make sure he doesn’t do anything too stupid?”

“Can’t make any promises,” responded Gwen.

Once she left, Peter faced the captives.

“So, uh, who’s coming with me?”

Chapter Text

Gwen felt like a kid on Christmas. While she wouldn’t admit it, she had been a bit dubious when this universe’s Peter led them to what seemed to be a random apartment, but as the fabricator was unveiled and booted up, her eyes grew wide and her mind ran wild as she realized the scientific potential of everything they could do with what lay before them

“May I?” she asked Peter, indicating at the device. “I’ve had experience with creating Dr. Connors’s antidote. I just need to plug in the ingredients and then let it cook for 20 minutes.”

“Uh, sure, go ahead,” responded Peter. “It’s going to take me a minute to pull up the data and sync the devices anyway.”

Gwen quickly grasped the controls of the fabricator, having used more limited devices with similar mechanics at Oscorp. She breezed through implementing her instructions into the device, her only bump occurring when she was selecting the reagents and pulled up the periodic table only to be greeted by a version unfamiliar to her.

Noticing her pause, Peter asked her, “Everything alright?”.

“Yeah,” answered Gwen. “It’s just that the periodic table here is a little different. Not so much that it’s unreadable, but just a bunch of little changes here and there. Some have different names, some I’ve never seen before in any form in my universe like… ‘Badassium’?”

A bittersweet smile made its way onto Peter’s face, “Oh yeah, that’s the one Mr. Stark created.”

“Same Stark that created the fabricator?”

“Yeah, he’s gone now, but we were… close.”

After planning out the design, the teenagers worked together printing and assembling the pieces as Norman supervised them. Finally, everything was in its place and the trio took a moment to look at their work with pride, a little amazed at how quickly they finished it.

“Remarkable,” mused Norman. “The technology and you. When all this is over, if you two need a job and you're willing to commute to another universe…”

“I mean I already worked for one version of Oscorp, it would just be like transferring branches right?”, Gwen jokingly responded.

Their attention was diverted when the fabricator made a noise alerting them that the Lizard antidote was complete. Peter and Gwen exchanged a look.

“You implement the chip, I deliver the antidote?”, Gwen proposed.

Peter nodded and they went on their separate ways.

As the elevator descended, Gwen’s anxiety only rose. Still, she kept her nerve, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible. She needed to do this.

Gwen knew that it might have been safer and probably wiser to have this universe’s Peter come help her deliver the antidote, or may even just do it by himself. But she just didn’t want to wait a second longer. Time was of the essence, (especially with four other villains that still needed their issues solved,) and Connors was crafty. It was no question to Gwen that if she waited too long, she would have no guarantee that he’d still be in the truck or, who knows with all the chaos going on, even in this universe.

She was not going to let this chance to save her father slip through her hands.

Now Gwen knew had to approach this carefully. She didn’t have Peter’s super strength, speed, or spidey sense. She only had what she’s always had: her wits.

Gwen climbed on top of the FEAST truck. The rattles and jolts of its inhabitant stopped as he heard her footsteps. On the roof of the truck was a hatch, meant to be used to exit the vehicle if it was turned on its side. She gently knocked on it.

“Sir, it’s Gwen. I know you didn’t want to come up, but I felt bad that you were all alone out here, so I brought down some snacks.”

Gwen opened the hatch a crack. She first threw down a bottle of water. She heard it land on the ground with a thud and followed by the sound of Connors cautiously approaching and examining it. 

Gwen peeked into the truck. Seeing that he had picked up the bottle to look at it closer, she moved on to the next phase of her plan. She prepped the antidote canister for deployment and grabbed a bag of beef jerky she had brought down. She dropped it behind Connors, causing him to turn around.

As soon as she was sure his focus and gaze had completely shifted to the meat, she threw down the canister and closed the hatch, holding it down with her body weight. She heard it hiss as the gas was released. The truck thrashed as the Lizard tried to get out, but despite being whipped around a little, Gwen managed to stay on top by holding the hatch’s handle. Eventually, the movement stopped and after what Gwen felt was a reasonable waiting period, she held her breath and tentatively looked back into the truck.

Gwen exhaled with relief as she was greeted with the sight of her ex-boss in human form, passed out from exhaustion. She took the last thing she brought down for him, a blanket for modesty and warmth, and threw it down to him. Just because he was no longer literally cold-blooded didn’t mean that he would be fine being naked in a truck in the middle of the night.

She closed the hatch and hoped that no one would be nosy enough to peek inside. Having someone discover a naked guy passed out in your truck would not be a good look for May.

As she took the elevator back up, her mind wandered back to what this universe’s Peter had said about his relationship with Mr. Stark. Seeing Connors’s human face for the first time in eons, it reminded her of the mentor he used to be to her.  For such a long time that mentorship had been something so major to her life, but then, it fell apart so quickly. She wondered what could’ve been if he hadn’t gone all in with the whole turn-the-world-into-reptiles evil scheme.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the ding of the elevator as it reached Happy’s floor. She took a deep breath to shake off all remaining ruminations and entered the door.

Her mood instantly brightened. Peter and Doc Ock were shaking hands, which meant that, unless Peter had abruptly decided to switch sides, the chip they had created had worked.

Two down, three to go. Maybe this whole plan wasn’t that impossible.

Chapter Text

“That might work for me,” said Norman as he quickly added a few final changes to a design on the drafting board

She, Peter, and Osborn, now with Otto in tow, reconvened to brainstorm solutions for the remaining villains. The doctor, who had thanked Gwen as well after she stepped out of the elevator, turned out to be a rather nice fellow when not mentally plagued by his arms.

“How about Dillon?” he asked.

“Maybe we could extract the excess electricity out of him somehow?” suggested Peter. “Wait Gwen, you came from his universe, how’d you handle him over there?”

“We never managed to look into a cure, at least not personally,” Gwen admitted. “He was detained for a while and we thought that would be the end of it. When he escaped, there was far too little time and too many lives at stake. He took out the city’s power grid, and I had to reset it, as he was inside it.”

Gwen looked down in shame, missing the odd look that momentarily flashed across Norman’s face.

They were working on the mechanics for Marko’s cure when Peter suddenly paused, becoming rigid still. He got up and began suspiciously looking around the room.

It was strange seeing her boyfriend’s tells on a stranger’s face, but Gwen immediately recognized what was happening: he was sensing something, something bad.

She, Norman, and Octavius followed him as he stepped out into the living room. As he scanned his surroundings, so did Gwen. Peter’s instincts were never wrong, but Gwen was having no more luck than he had at finding what was wrong.

She was surprised to see a web fly over her shoulder, pinning Norman’s hand in place.

“That’s some neat trick. That sense of yours,” said the man, his demeanor completely changed.

“Norman?” asked Otto.

“Norman’s on sabbatical, honey,” he responded with a smirk.

“Goblin,” whispered Peter, verbalizing Gwen’s own realization.

“‘No more darker half? Did you really think that I’d let that happen?” the Green Goblin began to monologue. His eyes trained on Peter, he didn’t notice May slip out of the room and return with a suspiciously heavy bag and a nod towards Peter.

The Goblin turned to his fellow travelers, “They’re hypocrites, all of them. They’re so eager to ‘cure’ us, but are perfectly fine with powered individuals so long as they’re under their thumb. Look at Spider-Man, they don’t have any plans to cure him. That is until he gets a mind of his own. Then they’ll be ‘fixing’ him too, so long as it's convenient for them. If it isn’t, well, then they’ll just put him down.” He focused in on Max, “Just ask Stacy how she handled you in her universe.”

Max’s gaze snapped to her, “Is that true? Did you… kill me?”

“I’m sorry, I had no choice, I–”, Gwen began but was silenced by Max’s look of betrayal. 

“We don’t need you to save us. We don’t need to be ‘fixed’! These are not curses. They’re gifts,” the Goblin continued on.

“Norman, no,” pleaded Octavius.

“Quiet, lapdog,” he fired back.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” stated Peter, his tone careful.

“I’ve watched you from deep behind Norman’s cowardly eyes. Struggling to have everything you want. While the world tries to make you choose. Gods don’t have to choose. We take.”

“May, Gwen… run,” were the only words Peter was able to get out before the room exploded into chaos. The women sprinted out the door just as Electro ripped off the electrical extractor and the Goblin tore through the web restraining him.

As they made it out into the hallway, May headed towards the elevators, only to be pulled in the opposite direction by Gwen.

“The power’s going to go in a second. We’re going to have to take the stairs,” she explained as she hauled open the door to the emergency exit stairs.

They had just made it to the ground floor when, crashing through the roof, came Peter and the Goblin, locked in combat. The Goblin choked Peter against the floor.

Gwen and May exchanged a nod. The latter pulled the prototype of the cure for Norman out of her bag. She ran towards him and jabbed him in the neck with it.

The Goblin cried out in pain, the injector fell to the ground empty, and then… nothing happened.

“It didn’t work,” proclaimed the Goblin. “Norman was right. He got it from you. That pathetic sickness! You tried to fix me, now, I’m gonna fix you.”

May picked up a piece of rubble to use as a makeshift weapon, her eyes trained on the Goblin.

Gwen’s focus however, was outside, where the glider the Goblin had been using earlier hovered just outside the doors. She took one glance at where the Goblin's gaze lay and instantly knew his intentions.

“No!” she yelled, and with a running start tackled May.

With a whir, the glider crashed through the glass door, going straight through where May had been a moment earlier.

Gwen groaned, she just skinned her elbows and probably ruined her coat, but they were alive and relatively okay.

She heard the Goblin call out, “Peter, Peter, Peter... no good deed goes unpunished. You can thank me later.”

She then heard some device activate and Peter grunt. Then she felt a wave of heat, noise, and pain.

Her coat was definitely ruined now.

As the smoke cleared and her ears stopped ringing, she heard Peter call out “May? Gwen? You okay?”

Gwen got off May, wincing as her back protested the movement.

“Yeah, just a couple first-degree burns. May?”

“Well Gwen, I think you might’ve broken my ankle, but I’m pretty sure you saved my life doing it,” the older woman responded. Her face was grimaced but her tone was grateful.

Peter helped both of them get up, though May had to lean on Gwen to stand.

She sighed as she realized they had earlier landed on her bag, “Look’s like the cures weren’t as lucky though.”

Just then Gwen heard a car pull up. A man fought his way through the smoke that surrounded the building into the wrecked lobby. He was unfamiliar to Gwen, but it seemed the Parkers recognized him.

Peter squinted, “Happy?”

He started to wave his hand and the man came running over.

“May, Peter,” the man began before stopping as he looked at Gwen with confusion, wondering if they hadn’t met before or if just really was that bad with faces.

“Gwen,” she supplied her name.

“Gwen,” he continued, “are you all ok?”

“We’re all pretty banged up, but nothing major,” reassured Peter. “May’s having some ankle trouble though.”

“I’ll help her get medical help,” Gwen jumped in. “The two of us can pass for civilians, and with all the damage in this neighborhood, there’s bound to be emergency aid flooding this area soon.”

The men nodded and the women made their way out of a side exit, hoping to avoid the press.

“Oh god, the damage,” said Peter, his head in his hands as Gwen’s words reminded him of just how destructive the fight was. “This is all my fault.”

“Why?” asked Happy who had genuinely no context for the situation.

“I didn’t listen to Strange. I should’ve let him send them back.”

“Well, why didn’t you?”

“Because it would’ve killed them.”

“That’s a good reason not to send them back.”

“But I feel I’ve only made things worse! I should've just let it be.”

“Look kid,” said Happy as he made eye contact with Peter, “you have power, and with great power, there must also come great responsibility. There will be mistakes, but it’s far worse to not try to help in the first place. Think about Tony. God knows he’s had his hiccups as Iron Man, but imagine how much worse the world would be if he never took the mantle up in the first place. You have a unique opportunity to better the world: use it.”

Peter smiled softly at Happy, taking in his words.

Suddenly a new voice cut through, causing both of them to look up.

“All right, Parker. Come out with your hands up! Come out right now, or we will open fire.”

It was the Department of Damage Control SWAT team.

“Peter, you gotta run.”

“I can’t, not with the damage from the explosion. I can only swing right now.”

“Then swing!”

“But then… I’ll be leaving you behind.”

“Look, I’ll just let them arrest me. I can be arrested, you can’t.”

Before the two could discuss it any further, Peter’s tingle went off. He instinctually ducked, right before the SWAT officers followed through with their promised hail of gunfire. As he turned his head to the left, he saw Happy wasn’t as lucky.

Happy was on the ground as well, though not from crouching but collapsing from injury. He had been hit several times and was bleeding. A lot. Far too much to…

“No,” whispered Peter.

Happy used all his remaining strength to yell his final request to Peter.

“Go!”

In shock and fueled by adrenaline, Peter obliged him, swinging out of the building.

And when the Department of Damage Control entered the remains of the lobby, they found one dead man and no Spider-Man.

Chapter Text

Happy always knew on some level that one day, he would die. He was human after all.

When he was younger he thought or at least liked to think that he would die of old age. When he met Tony, he was pretty sure he would die of stress, even more so after Tony decided to start flying around in a metal suit.

Happy’s had plenty of close calls. He almost died in that explosion during the affair with Killian. And again, years later he saw the Stark Industries staffer handing him files dusting right before his eyes at the onset of the Blip.

When Tony got involved with aliens, Happy knew he would definitely not make it to old age. He at least took solace in the fact that his death would probably be an epic one. You know, like dying nobly for the sake of humanity and whatnot, probably by laser canon.

He didn’t expect to die here, gunned down in the wrecked lobby of his apartment building.

There are no aliens, no laser cannons, and no fates of the world at stake. There is just a trio of villains loose in New York City, a trigger-happy bunch of DODC officers, and one scared teen boy who had needed his help.

Gwen and May were in a FEAST medical center when they heard the news. The game show playing on the waiting room TV had been interrupted by a breaking news bulletin.

“We are told that multiple people have been injured. And we can confirm at least one person has been killed. There is a manhunt across the city for these suspects, and they are also looking for Peter Parker…”

Gwen and May’s heads snapped towards each other at hearing that there had been a death.

“We need to go to him,” declared Gwen.

“No,” responded May, “You need to go to him. I can’t move in this state. It’s for the best that I stay here.”

Gwen gave her a dubious look, “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Yes. Besides, you promised you would help me get to medical help and here I am,” she indicated at their surroundings. “Don’t worry, I trust you to take care of him.

“Where do you think he is?”

It was only when he landed on the roof of Midtown High that Peter finally felt he could breathe. He almost collapsed as he sat down, finally feeling he was in a safe enough place to rest and heal up.

He opened his phone to see a mountain of notifications. There were text messages and evacuation alerts and news bulletins, but one stood out to him in particular:

Happy Hogan

New Voicemail

It was dated from a few hours ago, and less than twenty seconds long, but to Peter, it was as precious as gold.

It would be the last time Happy would talk to him, directly. Once he listened through the message, all he would have left would be past recordings he’d already heard.

With an exhale he pressed the play button.

As MJ stared at the two Spider-Men, she wondered if one of them was Gwen’s. She hoped for Gwen’s sake it wasn’t the old one.

Chapter Text

“Uh, yeah, Peter, this is Happy. I accessed my doorbell camera. Who are those guys, huh? Is that a cyborg? Did you bring a cyborg with robot legs into my house? Is one of the guys made of mud? What's going on? Call me back.”

Peter once again played the voice message. He’d long lost track of how many times he had looped it. 

The last remnant of Happy he had. Yet another reminder of his selfish behavior. Not only had he brought the others to Happy’s apartment without asking him, but he had also inadvertently led to the man’s death.

If he hadn’t brought them to the apartment, they wouldn’t have gotten loose there, the DODC wouldn't've been called in and there would’ve been nobody to…

Peter’s anger, both at himself and at the world flared up. Without thinking, he threw his phone into a wall, stopping the message mid-sentence.

Without Happy’s words, there was nothing to distract Peter from his thoughts.

It was just him, the ambiance of the city at night, and the sound of footsteps coming up behind him.

You know it’s a weird day when sneaking into your old high school late at night doesn’t even crack your top ten most notable activities of the last 24 hours.

Gwen was pleased to find that the NYC subway system was, for the most part, a constant between alternate universes. It made getting to Midtown easy, which just left the difficult part of figuring out what to say to Peter.

Following May’s instructions, she headed up to the roof. True to her word, she found Peter sitting there, staring at the New York skyline and looking like he’d seen better days.

She cautiously took a seat next to him.

“Hey.”

Peter stayed silent. His face was despondent.

“May’s doing okay. She was getting care when we heard… about it. What happened?”

Peter took his head in his hands, “Happy’s dead, and it’s all my fault.”

Gwen had only met Happy once, but seemed to be a nice man.

“I’m sorry,” she said with sympathy. “How did it happen?”

“The Department of Damage Control came to arrest me. They told me to come out or they would shoot. I spent too long talking with Happy about what I should do that they did. I managed to duck in time. Happy didn’t.”

“You know,” Gwen looked down at her hands, “My dad died during one of Spider-Man’s fights. It wasn’t his fault, they were fighting Dr. Connors together and he got some pretty good hits in. Still, my Peter blamed himself for his death. So, he pulled away. He didn’t come to the funeral, he stopped talking to me and meeting up with me. It hurt. It really hurt. It hurt me because as I was mourning, I kept wanting to turn to the boy I loved for support and he wasn’t there. It hurt him because he didn’t want to do it, he just did it because he thought he was doing the right thing. And in the end, it was pointless because it didn’t change anything since it didn’t last long term.”

Gwen sighed, “Please, don’t pull away. Don’t see this as some sort of sign and think it’s better to stop… whatever, be it being close to your loved ones or trying to help as Spider-Man.”

She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. They took a moment to stare out at the view, the cold night wind whipping at their faces.

She wished Ned and MJ were here. She wanted to help this Peter, but there was only so much she could do as someone who’s only known him for less than a day.

“I’m going to see if I can find something to eat in this place. After all you’ve been through, you must be starving.”

She got up and had taken a few steps when she heard her name.

“Gwen?” asked Peter softly.

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

Chapter Text

Peter once again heard the sound of footsteps on the rooftop. He turned his head and was enveloped in a hug.

It was Ned and MJ.

For a moment he allowed himself to be lost in their embrace and freely cry, knowing he was safe in their arms.

“Peter?” said MJ softly. “There’s, there’s some people here.”

Hearing his girlfriend’s words, Peter realized that his spidey sense had been quietly going off. It wasn’t the frantic ringing of danger, but something... else. It guided him to turn around and look up.

Backlit by a clouded moon were two uncannily familiar silhouettes. They hopped down. As they drew closer, Peter began to make a sound of protest, but found himself at a loss for words as light from a window illuminated their faces. They were his own but different somehow.

“Sorry, about Happy,” said the older one, his tone gentle.

“Yeah, sorry. We’ve got some understanding of what it—”, the other one began before being cut off by Peter.

“No, no, no,” he interjected. The last thing he needed was to be patronized by himself. “Please don’t tell me that you know what I’m going through. He’s gone and it’s all my fault. He died for nothing. So I’m gonna do what I should have done in the first place.”

He reached for the cube.

“Please,” the older Peter appealed.

“Please, don’t,” Peter responded. “You don’t belong here, either of you. So I’m sending you home. Those other guys are from your worlds, right? So you deal with it. And if they die, if you kill them... that’s on you. What’s done is done. There’s no point in trying to change that. All it’ll cause is people getting caught in the crossfire.”

He once again reached for the Codamus, only to have it gently tugged away by MJ. She looked at him pleadingly to at least hear them out once.

“My uncle Ben was killed. It was my fault,” confessed the older Peter, his face grim.

“I lost…” the taller Peter’s voice trailed off for a moment as he found himself caught in a memory. After a deep breath, he regained his nerve and continued on, though a shakiness haunted his voice. “I lost my girlfriend. I couldn’t save her. I’m never gonna be able to forgive myself for that. But I carried on, tried to, um... try to keep going, try to keep being that ‘Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’ cause I knew that’s what she would have wanted. But at some point, I just stopped pulling my punches. I got rageful. I got bitter. I just don’t want you to end up like... like me.”

The non-suited Peter looked the youngest in the eye. “The night Ben died, I hunted down the man who I thought did it. I wanted him dead. I got what I wanted. It didn’t make it better. It took me a long time to learn to get through that darkness.”

“I’m sorry but I have to send them back now,” Peter responded. “It’s the only way no one else can get hurt. I can still hear Happy’s voice in my head. The last thing he said to me was ‘With great power—”

“Comes great responsibility,” interrupted the older Peter.

“Wait, what? How do you know that?” asked Peter, baffled.

“Uncle Ben said it,” explained one Peter.

“The day he died,” continued the other. “Maybe Happy didn’t die for nothing, Peter.”

For the first time since Goblin reappeared, Peter felt a sense of true hope and renewed purpose. Maybe this wasn’t so impossible after all.

As they walked back into the warmth of the school building, the youngest Peter couldn’t help but ask, “What was your girlfriend’s name?”

The taller Peter looked down. “Gwen,” he said softly, almost whispering it.

The youngest Peter, Ned, and MJ all stopped in their tracks, a look of shock present on each of their faces.

“No,” said MJ firmly.

“No?” the tallest Peter was confused. He had seen many responses to people learning about Gwen over the years. Some more rude, others more polite. Usually, it was just a gentle “I’m sorry for your loss”.

He had never gotten a flat-out “no” before.

“No, that can’t be. Gwen can’t just die. She has her whole life ahead of her. She’s about to start classes at Oxford. She just can’t die!”

“I wish that was true, but it isn’t. Trust me I’ve spent every day of almost the last decade wishing it was.”

“Maybe it’s a different Gwen?” offered Ned. “If there are three different Peters, what’s to say there aren’t two Gwens?”

The tallest Peter was puzzled, “Are you saying there’s some version of Gwen here? In this universe?”

It was at that moment that classroom doors opened.

“Okay, so I checked the cafeteria and it seems school lunches haven’t improved in the decade since I went here. So… other than boxed milk there’s nothing edible there. I did have a little more luck with the vending machines,” Gwen smiled as she lifted her bounty of snacks. She then turned her gaze to the center of the room.

“Oh!”, she exclaimed, only just then realizing that its occupants had expanded from that universe’s Peter. As she took in the new arrivals, one very familiar face instantly stood out to her.

“Peter?”

Gwen blinked and found her Peter’s arms wrapped around her. He held her tightly, not to the point of discomfort, but as if she would slip away if he let go.

“Boy am I glad to see you,” she said with a smile.

“Believe me, the feeling’s mutual,” he responded with almost hysterical relief, his face buried in her neck.

Gwen looked out at the other people in the room, hoping they weren’t too annoyed by their PDA. She was surprised to see their faces weren’t disgusted or irritated, but troubled and slightly horrified, as if they’d just realized that the family dog had not actually gone to a farm upstate.

She pulled back so she could look at her Peter’s face, only to find it was streaming with tears. She knew from the light stubble she had caught a glimpse of a moment earlier that they probably were asynchronous, but it was only now up close that she realized by how much. He looked like it had been years from when she last saw him, and from the mix of exuberant joy and deep sadness in his eyes, it almost seemed like the feeling was mutual.

Unless…

She looked at her Peter, then the others, and back again before she looked down in shock.

“Oh my god,” the words fell out of her mouth, almost a whisper. “I’m dead aren’t I.”

“No—” exclaimed her Peter.

“But you said you lost your girlfriend Gwen?” asked Ned in confusion. “You said you couldn’t save her.”

Gwen looked back at her Peter’s stricken face.

“It was Harry, wasn't it? That whole thing with the clock tower. I don’t make it out, right? I fall and…”

“I couldn’t catch you,” her Peter’s head was downcast, a look of guilt and grief on his face. Something inside of him then shifted. He looked up, determination in his eyes. “But that’s not going to happen this time.”

Chapter Text

Gwen tried to settle back into the groove she had at Happy’s apartment, but things were different. A little more somber with Happy’s still so recent passing weighing over them, but somehow more energized too. Before, creating the cures was a possibility. Now, with the others out on the loose, it was a necessity.

Besides, it was exciting to have all these different Peters. She didn’t know if there had ever been scientific precedence for such an event, in this universe at least. It was kind of weird, like an art class were all tasked with drawing the same subject. The base characteristics were the same, but there were all these little differences. Still, sometimes there were these moments where they would eeriely do or say simultaneously that suddenly reminded all the observers that they were indeed the same person; not brothers or even twins, but the actual same entity, just from the universe next door.

They’d split off into groups. The older Peter worked on something for Norman. This universe’s Peter was hunched over a table with MJ handling Marko’s. Meanwhile, Gwen and her Peter worked on repairing Dillon’s.

“I think the chip’s fine, it's just these power converters need to be replaced,” she said as they examined it together.

Her Peter made a noise of agreement and nodded, but his posture was tense. Gwen turned to get a better look at him. His face was furrowed and his gaze distant.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, “Nothing.”

She reached for his hand, only for him to grimace once contact was made.

“That’s not nothing. What is it?”

He sighed, “I just… Gwen, I love you. And I know you love me too. But you love the version of me you saw yesterday back home. I’m… different. When I grieved, I spiraled. I stopped caring as much and being so careful. I did… a lot of things I regret.”

“And what? That means you don’t deserve this?”

“I don’t know. Kind of? Maybe? Look, I’m just not sure you would love me if you knew everything I’ve done.”

Gwen looked down, “You know, for someone so intelligent you really can be dumb sometimes.”

“Huh?”

She made eye contact. “Peter Parker, I will always love you. No matter what happens or what you do, I always will. Sure I wouldn’t support you if you turned full megalomaniac (which I’m sure you didn’t), but I’d still love you.” She paused, “Just checking, you didn’t start a spider-dictatorship did you?”

Peter shook his head, a small smile finally appearing on his face, “No.”

“Peter, I love and will love every version of you. I love you and,” she gestured at the other Peters, “I love him too. Maybe not in the same way as I love you, but I do. And him as well. Granted, I barely know him, but I do. I love you, remember that.” She smiled softly before turning back to the device, “And I just realized these are size E converters which we don’t have in this lab.”

Peter brought his hand to his face in contemplation. “Hmm, oh! The robotics club is sure to have some.”

“Oh yeah! They met in Ms. Rodriguez’s room right?”

Peter nodded.

“I’ll go run and find where they store their parts while you work on taking out the defunct pieces!”

Peter grinned as he watched Gwen bound off into the hallway. 

He turned back to the device and had just about fully removed the old power converters when the older version of himself came to his lab table.

The taller Peter looked up at him, “You finished already?”

The older Peter responded, “Pretty much. Added all the reactants, now I just need to wait. So… how does it feel seeing her back?”

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was strange to see someone I’ve seen as dead for so long alive and well.” A shy grin broke out on his face, “but to say I’m anything less than overjoyed is an understatement.”

“That’s good to hear. I’m glad you’re happy,” the older Peter said genuinely. “But… be careful. Once this is all over with and we go home… Honestly, this whole dimension travel thing is new to me, to you too probably, but, if we all go back to where we left: she’ll go back to the Peter and the time she came from, and you’ll go back to where you came from. A world without her. You do know that right?”

The taller Peter nodded solemnly.

“I just want you to be ready to brace yourself. So you don’t get blindsided and have to go through losing her all over again.”

“I’ve already lost her. I’ve already gone through the pain, and the tears, and the self-hatred. This isn’t my Gwen to lose. It’s my Gwen to save. If I can save her for another Peter, so he doesn’t have to go through what I did. If I can save her, so that another Gwen can live her life out and follow her dreams, it will be worth it. Even if I don’t get to see it.”

Just then they heard the pitter-patter of footsteps in the hallway. Gwen stepped in, triumphantly brandishing the missing parts.

A machine on the older Peter’s table dinged. “That’s my cue,” he told his younger self before leaving to attend to it.

Gwen watched him go. “Good talk?” she asked her Peter as she dropped the converters on the table.

“Yeah, solid one.”

The plan for how to lure the other travelers had been settled. Now everyone was just wrapping up: preparing for battle, doing final tests, making sure they left no trace (the last thing this universe’s Peter needed on his mind was worries about a lawsuit for trespassing.

The tallest Peter walked over to Gwen who was making sure they all returned the lab supplies to their rightful place.

“Hey,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder.

“Hey you too,” she responded coyly.

“Look, I don’t know how much time we’ll have after the Statue of Liberty, so I’m going to do this now. After I lost you, I spent a lot of time thinking about what could’ve been different, mostly with what I did, but also from other angles. So, when you go back to your home… universe, use this.” He put something in her palm. “You have to use it on your right and as quickly as you can. Try to aim to your side so that you’re sure to hit something that can support you and not just falling debris. And brace for impact because you’re still moving with a lot of momentum, just redirected–”

Gwen cut off his nervous rambling as she examined what he handed her, “Don’t you need this for the battle?”

He waved her off, “I always carry spares. I learned a couple years in that they get broken often enough that it just made sense to have extras.”

She met his eyes, “Thank you.” She paused for a moment before deftly moving and giving him a soft kiss. “Just in case we don’t have time after the battle.”

As her Peter walked back to the other Spider-men, he considered putting the mask back on to hide his schoolboy blush and lovestruck smile. He decided against it. He got this blush from a treasure he thought he’d get to experience again: a Gwen Stacy kiss. He would wear it with pride.

Chapter Text

The three of them stared at the crackling portal to the Statue of Liberty that Ned had summoned with the stolen sling ring.

A feeling of nervousness permeated the air.

Gwen took a breath, “Remember, all we have to do is make sure the cube is safe.”

“Or else the entire multiverse is in danger,” Ned responded, slightly terrified.

“Easy as pie,” MJ joked, trying to stay positive.

“Hey,” Gwen began, her voice taking a sincere tone. “In case we don’t have time afterwards, thank you. For everything. You didn’t have to do all this to help some stranger barging into your universe, but you did. Thank you. You guys have a great life ahead of you.” She faced Ned. “You are going to become such a badass warrior mage whatnot. You will. And you,” she turned to MJ, “you are going to kick so much ass at MIT. I know it. And Peter… well Peter’s probably still gonna have that classic ‘Parker luck’ (I think it’s a universal constant), but with you two by his side you guys can handle anything thrown at you.”

MJ started to get teary-eyed. If all went to plan, then in a couple of hours Gwen would be… ”Stop it. Now you better live. If you die again, I’m gonna kill you, I swear,” she said with a half-smile.

Gwen looked at MJ with a mix of warmth and melancholy, “Will do.”

A flash of yellow light lit up the sky on the other side of the portal.

“Hey guys,” Ned interrupted. “I hate to ruin this great emotional moment, but I think they’re starting to arrive.”

“Okay,” Gwen reassured herself under her breath.

“Alright MJ, heads up!” the youngest Peter announced as he swung by.

The box flew in a soaring arc before landing safely in MJ’s arms.

“Got it! Close it,” she directed to Ned. Ned mimicked what he did before, only for nothing to happen. “Uh, Ned, it’s not closing.”

“Yeah, I know,” he responded.

“Why isn’t it closing?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Gwen interjected. “Ned, just try your best to close it. MJ come over here in case something comes through. Hopefully, this will all be over before that happens.”

Gwen and MJ moved to the side of the classroom behind the portal, but they could still hear the sounds of battle and see the light of Electro’s attacks flash onto the wall.

“You know, maybe if we stay really quiet they won’t even notice us,” Gwen joked to MJ.

A ruckus of noise and light burst through the portal only to be followed by dead silence.

“Seems like Max is down…” Ned hesitantly narrated. His voice abruptly grew quiet and increased in alarm. “But Marko’s just arrived!”

The trio waited with bated breath. They strained their ears trying to decipher how the battle was going from the whoosh of Marko’s sands, the oldest Peter’s pleas to him, and the youngest Peter’s directing commands to the others.

Suddenly a boom rang out.

Ned watched as the sand swirling by on the other side suddenly dissipated.

“Marko’s down!” he declared. “That just leaves…”

“One more,” MJ said with cautious optimism.

“Osborn,” Gwen finished.

Ned nervously looked out of the portal as he continued to try and close it. The Spider-men seemed to be taking a well-deserved breather. He saw something move in the sky in the distance, but wrote it off as a bird or a plane. But then it started moving closer and closer, far more than what would be safe for a bystander.

An unmistakable voice called out “Can the Spider-Man come out to play?”

It was the Green Goblin, zooming in on his glider. He launched a volley of pumpkin bombs at the Spider-men, who leapt to action, but four strays came bouncing Ned’s way.

Ned found himself frozen, unable to move or try to stop them or call out for help. They were headed straight for the lab and Ned still couldn’t get the portal to close. He silently cursed his lack of training. If only…

The bombs were about to enter the portal when something shot out from the side, catching them and throwing them into the waters of New York Harbor, moments before they exploded: four cybernetic arms.

His savior took a few steps and peeked his head into the portal.

“Mr. Leeds, do be more careful next time,” Doctor Octavius warmly teased. “You have to remember you’re thinking with portals now.”

More bombs were launched at the Peters. The sound of them caused the doctor to run off as one of his tentacles gave the still shell-shocked Ned a small salute.

While it was 4v1, the battle was fierce. The Goblin's glider allowed him to duck and weave through his opponents with ease, in addition to allowing him to alternate between (and surprise them with) long-range and short-range attacks.

He swooped down for a stabbing attack before retreating, leaving a discreetly-placed pumpkin bomb in his wake. It rolled innocuously on the ground, unnoticed by the others.

Ned knew this could not end well. He had to help, even if it would risk alerting the Goblin to his presence.

“Guys! Watch out! On the ground!” he yelled out.

They looked down and realized what had happened. In a split-second decision the tallest Peter kicked it, hoping to have it detonate over the water. It was too late, it didn’t quite make it out scaffolding before it blew, creating a hole in its side.

Debris flew out, along with the eldest Peter’s unconscious body.

“Peter!” Otto cried out, lunging for him. For a moment they all held their breath as his tentacles reached out. They wrapped around his body, safely catching him, but the Goblin had already set his eyes on a new target. He made eye contact with Ned and smiled sinisterly.

“Uh, guys…” Ned said nervously.

The two remaining conscious Spider-men looked at him, the Goblin, and each other in rapid succession. They quickly exchanged a series of jerking motions and nods.

Even though the Goblin was zooming at him, full speed ahead, Ned wasn’t scared. He knew the Peters had a plan and he had faith in them.

With a single nod of confirmation, they leapt into action. His Peter shot a web at the Goblin, restraining him, before jumping down to the portal’s side, all the while yelling at Ned to “Get back! Far back!”. Ned happily obliged him. The other Peter stayed back, shooting a web to cover the mouth of the portal.

Arms bound, the Green Goblin helplessly flew straight into the net. He struggled, baring his teeth, but there was no point. Like a fly caught in a web, he was stuck.

The taller Peter threw the cure to the youngest and without a moment’s hesitation he injected it into the Goblin's neck.

He jerked before suddenly freezing. His face softened and he began to look around in confusion and horror.

“Peter?” Norman said. “What have I done?” Behind them, the eldest Peter was walking over with the assistance of Otto: limping, but alive.

It was as if the whole group could finally let out a breath.

“Gwen, MJ, you can come out now,” Ned called out. “It’s finally over.”

A new portal crackled open.

“Not. So. Fast,” Stephen Strange stepped out.

Chapter Text

“Strange!” the youngest Peter exclaimed. “We did it!”

“What?” the aforementioned Strange said in confusion.

“We cured them, all of them.”

The sorcerer looked around at Ned with the sling ring, the still webbed-up Norman, and the multiple Spider-men.

He sighed, “I don’t even want to know. Look, I’ll admit it. I’m impressed that you succeeded. But this has to end. Now.”

“He’s right,” said Gwen, ducking under the webbing covering the portal to enter the scaffold. “It’s time to go home.”

“Can we say goodbye?” the youngest Peter asked.

“Yes but make it quick,” he answered.

The youngest Peter approached Gwen and gave her a hug.

“Good luck,” he said softly.

“You too,” Gwen responded. “Give May my regards.”

She walked the oldest Peter and Otto, “Get well soon, and home safe I guess.” She turned to Norman, “You too.”

She looked at Ned and MJ one last time who were now taking their turn hugging their Peter. She smiled at them, they already knew what she wanted to say to them. MJ caught her eye over her boyfriend’s shoulder and smiled back.

Finally, she faced her Peter. They stared at each other for a moment. There was so much they wanted to say, that they didn't really need to. They just knew.

“You remember what I told you in the lab?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Right side, ASAP, brace for impact.”

“That’s good, that’s good, that’s good,” Peter rambled. He inhaled. “I love you,” he said, a little breathless and a little desperate.

“I love you too.”

“I guess you’ll see me soon. From your perspective at least.” He didn’t want to say goodbye, at least openly.

She looked at him sadly. It hurt to see him hurt. All she wanted to do is hold him and not let go. She settled for the next best thing.
Gwen pulled Peter into a kiss. If this was the last kiss he would ever get from her, she was going to make sure it was one hell of a kiss.
She could feel his reverence, his desire to memorize the moment, arms wrapped around her, knowing she would disappear any moment now.

Her vision didn’t blur this time since her eyes were closed, but she could feel the loss of him: the disappearance of his arm around her waist, the warmth of his body against hers like a blanket, the pressure of his lips against hers, and most importantly, the ground underneath her feet.

She felt the web she’d been holding in her hand reappear and opened her eyes just in time to see it snap.

Chapter Text

The world seemed to slow down as adrenaline flooded through Gwen. Without a second thought, she reached out her hand and activated the web-shooter Peter gave her all the way back in the Midtown High lab. It landed on something with a thunk . Gwen hoped for the best and braced for impact coming from one direction or the other.

A yank.

A thud.

Ow.

Gwen opened her eyes. She was alive. Bruised? Yes. Hanging by a web from a beam? Yes. Just dislocated her arm? Probably yeah.

But she was alive.

She gave a single hysterical half-laugh before she heard Peter swing up to her. The next thing she knew she was in his arms as he whispered a mantra of “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay” into her neck.

She couldn’t help but wince. “Hey, watch the arm,” she said gently.

Peter immediately loosened his with a curt apology and made eye contact with her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a little banged up.”

He looked her up and down to make sure she was being honest. As he finally began to calm down and truly take in the situation, a look of confusion crossed his face. He looked down at his own hands and then at Gwen’s.

“Gwen, why do you have a web-shooter?”

Gwen settled herself in for what would be a long story.

“You would not believe the day I’ve had.”

When Peter opened his eyes, he quickly realized he was clearly not in the Brooklyn alley he’d been taken from. The spell had returned him to a random apartment in, from what could be seen out the window, looked like London.

Well, he supposed the wizard’s spell just said it would return him to his home universe, not home city or continent. He guessed he should be happy he was at least on earth and dry land.

But now he had to try and get himself out of this apartment and back across the pond, ideally without a warrant being put out for a burgling Spider-Man.

He took a look around. The window was street-facing. Exiting that way would be… risky. The door seemed to hold more promise, though he would have to time things to make sure he wouldn’t be seen by any other tenants.

He could try the vents, but that ran the risk of damaging the apartment for what could turn out to be completely pointless. Besides, the couple who lived here (from mantel wedding photos and matching coffee cups he saw peripherally in his initial scan of the room) seemed nice. He didn’t want to trash their place.

So, the front door it was. He began to make his way to the room’s entrance so he could look out the peephole. Just as he approached the door, his spidey-sense… didn’t quite alert him as it gently nudged him.

He paused and stretched out his ears: footsteps, in the hallway, followed by… the sound of a key being inserted into a lock.

Peter looked around in a panic. The living room was fairly open, there was nowhere for someone Peter-sized to hide, except… Without a second thought, Peter tugged on his mask, leapt up, and stuck to the ceiling, pressing himself as flat as possible.

Just in time. The lock clicked and the door swung open.

An older man walked in holding a bag of groceries. His eyes on the receipt in his hand, he walked straight past Peter into the center of the room. He stuffed it into the bag, looked up, and paused. He turned around.

“Peter? What are you doing up there?”

Chapter Text

Peter stared at the face of the late Capt. George Stacy.

The man seemed nonplussed. He cocked his head, “Is everything alright?”

Before Peter could think, the words fell out of his mouth. “You—you should be dead.”

Something seemed to dawn on the captain’s face. He maintained his eye contact with Peter as gingerly pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

“Honey, I think you should come home right now. I think it happened today. You know, it.” He hung up. “So, Peter, can I offer you a seat or something?”

“But you see it was really the goalie who carried the home team.”

Capt. Stacy had managed to slowly lure a still shell-shocked Peter back to the ground with casual small talk. He even gave him a cup of tea, which helped with the nagging headache he had had since returning.

They now sat at the kitchen island, as he told Peter about the most recent “football” game he went to. This, this Peter could do. He could at least understand what happened in the game, even if he didn’t get why he was in London or talking to a dead man who was being far nicer to him now than he ever was in life.

Just then, he heard a most glorious sound: the door opening. He turned his head.

He knew it was a possibility, especially with seeing Capt. Stacy, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up. Not after making peace with her death for the second time. But, there she was, standing in all her glory: Gwen Stacy, in the flesh.

He found himself frozen in place. This time she was the one who ran to and embraced him.

With her warm arms around him, Peter knew that this was no illusion.

As if she read his mind, Gwen smiled and said “Yes, I’m real. And I’m okay. We’re all okay.”

“But—but how?” Peter asked, still baffled.

Gwen took a seat beside them.

“Well, I got magic-ed home, managed to save myself—thank you for that by the way—and explained everything to you, the version of you I was returned to in 2014. Everything was fine and dandy, I returned home with you since I knew I had definitely missed my flight, when I got a call from my dad. My dad who’d been dead for two years. I was freaking out; what was this thing pretending to be him, using his voice? Peter… was not and was confused why I was acting this way when we just saw him yesterday. I realized I did remember that visit yesterday, but I could also clearly remember the two years I spent mourning him. It was only when Peter invited him over and he explained what happened the night I thought he died that I realized what had happened. Dr. Connors came back, detransformed, to a timepoint before he killed my Dad.”

“Wait so…”

“We thought that each person who returned to their universe would create a new, alternate universe deviating from that point of return. But that didn’t happen. You, me, and Dr. Connors all came from the same universe, so we all returned to it, just with the changes the people who already arrived made.”

“I don’t get it,” said Peter, clutching his head. All this logistic talk was only worsening his headache.

“Lie down,” Gwen beckoned to the couch. “It helps. Right now there are two sets of memories in your head: the one that came from the timeline you left and the one from the altered timeline you returned to. Right now they’re sort of fighting for dominance about which one is ‘the truth’. That’s why you have a headache right now, but give it a day and they’ll learn to coexist. Think about what happened the day before yesterday?”

“I was returning home from patrol when I got swallowed up by some spell.”

“Which is true in one set of your memories. And in the other, we spent that day grocery shopping and we had lunch at—“

“Nando’s.” Peter looked down in shock as Capt. Stacy quietly excused himself. He could distinctly remember both going to the restaurant the other day and having never heard of the restaurant before.

Reading his face, Gwen softly chuckled. “Yeah, it’s confusing. Come on, let’s get you to bed. Lying down helps, but sleeping helps more.”

With Gwen’s help Peter got up and headed to their bedroom. One side of him easily knew the way, the other side was freaking out that it was their bedroom. The first side then argued that why wouldn’t they share a bedroom, they’re married after all.

“We’re married?”

Gwen nodded and Peter looked at his hands, only to find no ring.

Gwen followed his gaze and explained “The first year you tried to wear it all the time. It was absolutely adorable, but a bit hazardous for Spider-man. So, you keep it here when you're ‘on duty’.” She helped Peter get situated before reaching over to the bedside table. She opened the drawer and pulled out a gold wedding ring before handing it to Peter. “Here.”

Peter looked at the ring with a sense of wonder. He slipped it on and was about to roll over to sleep when a thought came through.

It was silly, but “You’ll be here when I wake up right?”

Gwen smiled, “Of course.”

“It’s just, the past couple of days have been a constant back and forth between thinking I’ve lost you and found you and lost you and…”

Gwen leaned in and kissed him.

“Not anymore. I’m here this time, for good. Face it Parker, you’re stuck with me.”

Peter grinned, “I think you’re the one stuck with me… Parker.”

As Peter leaned back and closed his eyes, he fell asleep with his arms around Gwen, knowing beyond a doubt she would be there in the morning.

fin.

(I would normally put this stuff in the chapter notes, but I want to save that for end-of-fic-retrospective stuff. Also this much text in the author’s note is just unreadable on mobile, so I guess picture this as the  ending credit “____ went on to do ____” compilation.

I know some of you were interested in what happened to the other Peters, but truth be told I never really planned to go into that since this fic is Gwen/Peter 3 centric and primarily from Gwen’s (third person) perspective but I’ll put what I imagine here.)

Peter 2: Heads back home to his wife. I like to think that all his former villains return alive & well and those that are in a sticky situation can escape with their newfound clarity of mind.

Peter 1: Stays with MJ since no new memory spell forces their breakup. Learns to and comes to terms with living a public life where his identity is known. He, MJ, and Ned all get reconsidered and accepted into MIT.

(I was actually going to put what happened to Connors and Max in this chapter, but then I realized that I wrote myself into a corner by having the whole once-you-think-of-something-you-remember-it which kinda messed with my plan of getting some exposition in through Peter asking Gwen, so I'm putting it here.)

Connors: Returned, detransformed to a point before he killed Capt. Stacy. As a result, he never murdered him. Lower, if any, body count + seemingly spontaneous failure of the lizard serum (makes it seems less effective and him look like less of a threat) + knowledge that, on its current path, his life isn't going great = he took an insanity plea and got a lighter sentence in an institution more lax than Beloit. He's a model prisoner/patient well on his way to parole. He and Gwen reconnected after she returned from her own "trip" and they regularly exchange letters.

Max: Now this is a little complex. In the movie, Max describes the moment he arrives from as he was “stuck in the grid, absorbing data” which means the point he left from in Gwen’s universe was when electricity was flowing through his body. So, if he returns to that point without his powers, he’ll still die, just much quicker. So that’s kind of a lost cause there. However, this is a fix-it fic and I want everyone to have a happy ending, so let’s be a little optimistic. I’ll say the version of Electro we see in NWH is, while very similar to, from a different universe than TASM2 because he says he’s absorbing data, not electricity (and I’m sure Max, as an electrical engineer, knows the difference between the two) which is decidedly less deadly. Gwen knows that he returned to a different universe (since Electro’s body still dissipated in her universe, which wouldn’t happen if he was depowered) and, while she is unsure of his fate, likes to think he was saved (and I’m inclined to believe her).