Wednesday Evening FHT - From Albany to Queens

[sparkinyou]

"He broke this?"

Gwen wasn't buying it. Nope. But Miles just decided to push forward because, hey, why not? He smiled. Clearly at this point it was a joke. "Yeah. He’s actually really embarrassed about it. So, just keep it between us, ok?"

"I know where we can make a new one. And we won’t let him break it this time," She said with a small smile as she tucked what remained of the goober into a small pocket in her uniform.

And then she looked away. Miles remembered what she had said earlier about her Peter. Jesus. What must it be like to be sitting two seats away from the guy that looked like her best friend.

"I’m sorry about your friend," he said hesitantly.

And Gwen looked back. This time her smile was tired and force. "Thanks, Miles."

And then the awkward silence fell in again. This time she broke it.

"I know how hard this is, to have to figure this stuff out on your own," she gave him a glance and a look of sympathy. "It’s kind of nice not being the only Spider person around."

Miles thought about that. True, Peter was a mess. But there was no way Miles would have been able to get through Alchemax alone and get what they needed to shut down a collider. It also spoke volumes that Gwen was able to figure all of this out on her own without any help. Maybe being the only Spider-Person was right for her but still...

"Yeah," he said quietly "Um. So. If you ever decide to do friends again, I could always open up a slot."


Gwen's eyes widened a little as she looked away. "Um. I’ll keep you posted."

It was awkward. Miles smiled and Gwen tried to hide hers. "Cool. So... uh. Where are we going now?"

"Queens," Gwen replied.

"What's in Queens?"



Standing outside the house in Queens, an entire shrine covered the front walk. Candles, pictures, letters and even a small helium balloon. Miles immediately felt the guilt sink into him. I should have done something. Then again if I had would there be a shrine outside my parents apartment building?

Miles wasn't the only one feeling weird. Peter was staring at the house as if his greatest fear sat inside. "We should probably go."

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Peter, we’re literally on the doorstep."

"Bad idea, bad idea, this is a bad idea," Peter starting babbling and tried to walk away and was only stopped by Gwen grabbing his arm.

"Just relax," she said and thwipped out a web which hit the doorbell on the house.

From the street the door began to open and a tired voice came out from behind it. "You guys are all very sweet but no more fans today, please."

The woman with long grey hair stepped out from behind the door. And Peter looked like he was ready to bolt at any second. "I'm not ready for this."





"Peter?"

Miles was pretty sure he had never witnessed someone's heart breaking. The woman that Peter and Gwen had identified as "Aunt May" had a brief look of hope only to replace with hopelessness.

Still. She walked forward to touch the same face that was shared with her dead nephew. Peter was not dealing with this any better. Two people who had lost each other in death only to see a copy from somewhere else. Miles looked over at Gwen who just motioned him to be quiet. Well, duh, Gwen

"Peter..."

Peter finally found his voice."Hey Aunt May," he said swallowing down his emotions. "So this is going to sound crazy... but I’m pretty sure that I’m from an--"

"--an alternate fucking dimension," came another voice from inside the house.

Aunt May turned around and gave the figure a harsh look. "Language."

Miles blinked. Was that?

"Sorry," Barry Ween said stepping out on to the front porch.

"Professor Ween?"

Gwen blinked. "You know that guy?"

"He's my science teacher."

"What?"

Meanwhile Peter and Aunt May were having their own reunion

"You look tired, Peter," she said stroking his cheek.

Peter couldn't help but close his eyes and somehow feel comforted by this. "Well, I am tired."

"And older. And... thicker."

Peter sighed. "Yeah, I’ve heard that already."

"Oh jeez, are those sweatpants?" Aunt May said, looking down.

"Yup," Gwen sighed. "That’s what they are."

"Look. A portal ate my pants, okay?"

As the rest of the group discussed pants that were eaten by portals, Miles was heading straight to his teacher.

"Professor Ween? What are you doing here?"

Barry let out a long sigh. "Yeah, look kid. When something puts a crack in fucking reality? A place like Fandom being a nexus is super fucking sensitive to it. I picked up on this shit when it happened. I was trying to track down someone else and the source of it. Finding you was just by fucking accident."

He paused and gave Miles a sympathetic look. "I heard you had a weird fucking thing at the dorm on Monday. You all right?"

Miles heaved out a sigh. "I don't know. I have powers now and I have no clue what I'm doing."

"Give it time, kid," Barry replied. "You'll get your shit together eventually. No one is asking you to take on the world."

"I don't have a choice!" Miles said forcefully and took another breath; trying to take control of his emotions. "I made a promise. My friends here? They are going to die if they stick around here. They got to go back through the Supercollider and I've got to blow it up."

Barry groaned. "God damn it." Another fucking hero. "You don't have to do this alone, Miles," Barry said carefully. "It's bullshit if you think this is all on you. There are people who can help you."

"If you want to help, then maybe you can fix this," Miles said pulling out the broken USB key. "It's an override key."

Barry took one look at it, turning it over in his fingers. "I take it the shit I need to make it is in there?" he said gesturing to the CPU box Gwen was carrying.

"Yeah."

"Hey, is there a place where I can fix this fucking thing?" Barry called out holding up the USB key.

"Language!"

Barry rolled his eyes. "Right. Same question but without the swearing?" he said waving the key again.

May narrowed her eyes. "A goober... Follow me" she said with grim determination.

Miles and Barry watched with amazement as Aunt May began marching through the house like a woman on a mission.

Barry gave Miles a smile. "You know for a woman over twice my age? She's pretty fucking amazing."

"Tell me about it," Peter said smiling as he followed Aunt May into the house.

Gwen only chuckled and wagged a finger at Barry. "Language."

Barry turned to follow the group. "C'mon Miles. We got a lot to do."

May stormed out of the house, even kicking open the back door to the backyard. From there she started to work on a padlock on the shed in the back corner of the yard.

"Oh yeah, I got one of these too," Peter said happy to find something familiar in this world. "A little shed where I keep my spider-gear..."






Barry smirked at Peter. "Did your shed do that?" he taunted as he followed Miles, Gwen and May into the shed.

Peter rolled his eyes as he followed them in. "I mean, this place is pretentious."








"I don't know about the rest of you but this guy must have been a marketing genius," Barry said when they finally reached to bottom of the Spider-Cave

Miles was in complete awe. "Whoa. Peter, was yours anything like this?"

"Mine was like this, but take away the jeep, the plane... imagine it way smaller. Imagine a futon," Peter said trying to sound dismissive instead of impressed. "I feel sad for this guy."

"Yeah. Right," Barry said sarcastically as he immediately started plugging in the computer from Alchemax and getting ready to access it.

"Hey, look. I don't know who you are but-"

"It's better you don't," Barry replied dryly. "Just let me work."

As Peter and Barry began to bicker, Miles found himself drawn to the multitude of costumes standing in trophy cases against the back wall.





Miles stood there looking at the costume and felt so diminished. Look at what this guy has done? I can barely scale a wall without sticking. How am I going to measure up?

And that's when Miles spotted a certain costume. "Hey. Peter."

"Correct me if I'm wrong... but I think this is a cape."

Peter rolled his eyes in amusement and shook his head. Barry on the other hand had a much stronger opinion.

"Capes fucking suck."

Aunt May let out a long sigh. "Language, Mr. Ween," she said approaching Gwen who was looking at the board outlining Kingpin's organization.



"Peter knew how dangerous the job was," May said with a touch of pride in her voice. "But he figured the only one who could stop this guy was Spider-Man."

"Kingpin knows we’re coming," Miles said trying to hide his concern. "We’re going to be outnumbered."

"Don’t be so sure," Aunt May said pulling out markers and stickers.

"You might need these."

Three sets of eyes appeared in the darkness, looking down from some of the many webs in the cave.

"You think you’re the only people who thought to come here?" Aunt May asked with a wry grin.

Jessica dropped down on a webline coming out of her fingers. She wore a black bodysuit and jacket styled to look a little more like military gear than a normal superhero suit. The only splashes of color were the red hourglass logo on her chest and the red in her hair. Her mask also didn’t cover her mouth, which let her smirk show. This was a Miles world. It was always nice to meet a Miles. “Hey. Always nice to meet some new Web Warriors."

Miguel just jumped down. He shrugged and took off his mask. Wasn't like he needed it here. "Good to know not everyone's a Parker."

"More Parkers? Web Warriors?" Peter said, rubbing his head. "Man. This could literally not get any weirder."

"It can get weirder," said a voice from the darkness... and then out from the shadows out walked a pig. In a Spider-Man uniform.



"I just washed my hands. That's why they're wet. No other reason."

And that's when Miles felt it. The same resonance and goosebumps he felt as his Spider-Sense kicked in.

"You're like me."

And just who are these guys anyway?

My name is Agent Jessica Drew, the Black Widow. I’m the last surviving and only female clone of my world’s Peter Parker. Set adrift on a series of multiversal adventures when my world was destroyed by an Incursion… I now protect a galaxy far, far away as an intelligence agent for my best friend’s space government.

Hi. My name is Captain Tightpants Miguel O'Hara. I am not wearing a name tag. Nothing shocking bit me. I had my DNA rewritten to be part spider. I don't talk about it. I tried saving people, I got unmasked in front of the whole world, I joined a group of dimension-hopping heroes, I halfway-retired to a place called Fandom, I taught science...well, "science"...worked in a diner, and moved in with my girlfriend. Then, because traveling by tallus and gnome-portal isn't weird enough, I was minding my own business when I got sucked up by some stupid-looking bubbly thing. I don't know much about old New York, so I headed to Parker's place.

"My name is Peter Porker" "I was bitten by a radioactive pig." "I’m a photographer for the Daily Beagle. When I’m not pooching around, I’m working like a dog trying to sniff out the latest story. I frolic and I dance and I do this with my pants--"

"Ok! Enough!" Peter said stopping Spider-Ham from... doing whatever he was doing with his pants. "How did you guys get here?"

	"Bus," Miguel said, deadpan. "I keep my wallet in my copious pockets. What do you think? I got sucked up by a bubbly portal, spat out in somewhere rude and dirty, swung here."
	“Portal picked me off from my spaceship. Thankfully I had a co-pilot, who is going to be very confused about this when I get back," Jessica said as she took off her mask. “Nobody here knows who I am, right? Most everyone here looks like someone I’ve at least met in passing, so it doesn’t hurt to check."
	Miguel looked at her and shrugged. "Not a clue beyond 'some sort of Spider-person'."

Barry's voice rang out from his spot in the Spider-Cave. "Judging by the sensor reading I've taken, Most of you have been on Fandom Island at some point," he nodded at Miguel. "I've seen you around town." Then he pointed at Jessica. "And after reading up on the last few years of students I believe Spider-woman over there is a former alumni as well. And you-"

He paused as he tilted his head at Gwen Stacy. "Did you ever get into an explosive argument with a girl named Kathy over porn?"

Gwen blinked in confusion. "What?"

Barry shook his head. "Nevermind. You'd remember a thing like that."

"I'm a student at Fandom now," Miles said looking thoughtful. "That's a coincidence, right?"

"It's not," Barry replied as he continued to work. "Something oriented that collider to Fandom."

“Oh no," Miles groaned. “The gremlin. It jumped into the collider."

“Well that fucking explains a lot," Barry groaned. “Then when Parker got shoved in that collider it pulled in people who were altered by Spider DNA from the closest vibrational frequency. That's why those two got pulled in. And the rest of you just happened to be in universes where the vibrational frequencies were somehow close to this one."

"Yeah. Uh. I was just about to say that," Peter replied.

"Sure you were," Miles smirked.

Barry pulled himself away from the desk for a moment. "I'm assuming all of you have been glitching since you've been pulled through that portal? Painful? Cellular deterioration?"

	"Yeah." Miguel scowled. "Not fun. Guessing it's a reaction to something deficient in the way those portals work, since I've never had it happen before. You called it a collider? Who shoved which Parker in and how do we get back?"
	“Same here. The glitching is new and, frankly, I don’t care for it," Jessica added.

Miles winced. "Green Goblin did it but Fisk is behind it all."

Barry held up the USB device he'd been working on. "Normally I would tell you to hop on Portalicity and get home that way. Whoever made the super-collider ignored some safety protocols. Unfortunately you need to use the same tech to get back and restore your cellular structure. This override key should get you home safe and sound. Only thing is you have to access a port inside the collider to do it.

Immediately everyone raised their hands. "I'll do it,' they said in unison.

"No no no. You don't get it," Miles said shaking his head. "None of you can stay here. If you stay here, you’ll die. I’m the guy who’s going to turn it off and I’m going to get you all home before I do. Look, I made a promise. So I have to keep it."

Spider-Ham took a long look at the kid in the ugly Spider-Man merchandise. He raised his eyebrow in a comically exaggerated fashion before asking: "Who are you again?"

"This is Miles!" Peter said cheerfully. "He's going to save the multi-verse."

"Yeah, man," Miles agreed.

"This kid can turn himself invisible! Watch this, he can do it... now!" Peter said waving his arm like Vanna White spinning a letter.

Miles looked at everyone, closed his eyes tight and tried to force himself invisible. And of course couldn't. "I can't do it on command," he said apologetically.

"He can't do it on command!" Peter said trying to make it sound all right and completely normal. "But it is cool. Do the zappy thing, Miles!"

Miles took a breath and tried to summon forth the... zappy thing. He even grunted. Nope. No dice. "I can’t do it on command," he said again and feeling very foolish.

"He can’t do it on command. But he can do so much more, like what else do you do?"

"Just those two things," Miles admitted sheepishly.

"Just those two things!" Peter said doing his best to try and hype his buddy up.

Barry watched all of this with a skeptical eye. God damn fucking heroes. "You're fucking kidding right? If the kid can't do it on command in a non-dangerous situation how is he going to do it when he's in the middle of a fight?"

	“Probably by getting stressed out and doing it by reflex in a fight," Jessica said “Miles, be sure to get stressed out, okay?"
	Miguel snorted. "Doubt that'll be a problem." Wasn't that sort of the definition of a fight? Still, he wasn't so sure about this. "You been doing this long, kid?"

"Uh. No," Miles admitted and feeling pretty lame. "I got bit two days ago."

"He has... potential," Gwen interjected but even then she had doubt in her voice.

"Look," Peter said, trying to be diplomatic. "Miles is new, sure, but weren't we all at one point?"

Before anyone could answer, Miles felt an explosion of pain on the back of his head. He fell to the ground only to look up and see Spider-Ham standing over him with a giant wooden mallet.

"What the hell, man?"

"SURPRISE ATTACK!" the pig shouted and smacked Miles over the head again.

"Ow!"

"C'mon! Turn invisible!"

	"I'm sure he'll be great one day," Miguel said, "but he's got to live that long first, so maybe not a trial by fire here? Or by mallet?" Seriously, pig?
	“Don’t all of us get trials by fire?" Jessica asked. “A trial by concussion is a different story. If he takes many more of those, he really should sit it out. Medically speaking."

Peter shook his head. "Okay. Sure. He's only had his powers for two days. And he's never been in a fight. And he can't control the two powers that would probably protect him if he wasn't up to the job but-"

Peter tried to go on but couldn't think of anything beyond that "but".

Gwen frowned and pulled Peter close to the group of Spider-People. "Peter, come here. You need to be more honest with yourself about this. He’s not ready. It’s obvious."

Barry came over from the work station he’d been on. "Blondie has a point. The kid just got his powers. Based on the odds if you put him in there right now there's an 88.7% chance he's not going to make it. You want that on your head, heroes?"

Gwen sighed and nodded her head reluctantly. "But if he can’t do this, we have to stay and do it for him."

Miles watched as his teacher, "friends" and other Spider-People he just met debate his ability like he wasn't even there.

And then looking down... he realized he wasn't. Invisible.

So. Yeah. He was invisible. But he couldn't turn it on. He couldn't turn it off.

He turned and headed to the elevator and started to head up. He needed to get out.

Peter turned just in time to see the elevator go up with nothing on it. "Miles? Miles?"

He watched as Miles and the elevator went up. He turned around and gave the rest of a group a sheepish look. "See that? He can turn himself, invisible"

Peter's shoulders slumped. "Okay. We've got a lot to talk about."

[Preplayed with the wonderful craftyladyparts and what_the_shock. NFB & NFI but OOC comments are always welcome.]