Chapter Text
If it were going to be anyone he’d rather it have been him. He was the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man after all. He’d have taken a bullet, or in this case a stabbing for anyone in New York. That’s what he does.
There’s peace with that thought. May’s face as she butchered another home cooked meal. MJ supporting him despite the chaos, despite the world knowing who he was. She had stayed. And Ned had too. He owed them.
All of them, all of New York even. Maybe even the world.
That’s what he thought as his body plummeted from the skyscraper towards the ground. Wind whipping around him, roaring in his ears, as the uncanny Green Goblin mask stared down at him from above.
This was fine. It was for the best.
The world didn’t need Peter Parker.
Not anymore. He closed his eyes, waiting for the impact with the concrete below.
Green. Endless. An ocean of it. He had to push. Onward, upwards, towards the light. Keep going don’t stop.
His arms burned with each propulsion of his body. He had to get out. The green was filling his lungs, forcing it’s way through his mask and into his mouth.
The tips of his fingers breached the cold air above. He launched himself up and out of the pool, gasping desperately to fill his straining lungs with much needed air.
As his body collided with cold concrete he tried to get his bearings. The taste of copper and strange, glowing chemicals burned the back of his throat. Dragging his heavy limbs across the damp stone, Peter collapsed onto his stomach, hacking violently until the glowing green fluid spilled from his lungs onto the concrete floor.
He couldn’t help but stare at it. At the moment, he could admit he didn’t know much about his current predicament, but he at least could fathom that spewing green liquid wasn’t normal. Especially the kind of liquid that glowed.
“Shit, how much of that did I swallow?” He closed his eyes. Trying to remember…anything. Anything at all.
“That’s okay, later. Later.” He reassured himself. What more could he do but that? Peter glanced around the seemingly sewer shaped cavern. There was nothing else in the room except the pool. The liquid inside it casting an eerie, emerald luminescence against the subterranean walls.
He reached a trembling hand up to his face, his fingers catching on torn, wet fabric. His mask was shredded. He pulled it off completely, the damp air hitting his skin and sending a violent shiver through his spine.
His head throbbed with a white-hot, agonizing pulse.
“May?” He called out hesitantly. May yes, there was a May. I was thinking about her. Before…before what?
“MJ? Ned?” They were important too. But why can’t I…?
The names felt like ghosts slipping through his fingers the harder he tried to clutch them. They faded as quickly as they came, as did the brief glimpses of faces now too blurry in his own mind.
He remembered a fall. He remembered the blinding flash of a cosmic snap, a piercing pain in his abdomen from a glider, and then... a terrifying plunge into nothingness. He’d remembered that. The feeling of every bone shattering for that spilt second before it all ended. And it did end.
Yet, the math didn’t add up did it? If he fell to his death, why was he waking up in a glowing pool of green sludge?
Shaking and disoriented, Peter forced his uncooperative legs to stand. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest, a deep, cellular ache that felt entirely foreign. He stumbled forward, navigating the dark tunnels by sheer instinct until he finally found a rusted ladder leading upward.
When he pushed the heavy iron grate aside and stepped out into the open air, the environment hit him like a physical blow.
It was pouring. A torrential, unforgiving thunderstorm washing over a sprawling gothic cityscape. But it wasn't just the rain that made him freeze.
Like the thunder roaring above, his spider-sense didn't just suddenly tingle—it screamed. It was a suffocating, heavy pressure in the back of his skull, but it wasn't warning him of an immediate sniper or a falling brick.
It was responding to the very atmosphere. The air was thick, laden with heavy, oppressive scents that he had never experienced in his life. Amidst the smell of ozone, smog, and wet asphalt, there were complex, terrifyingly distinct biological markers cutting through the rain. Bitter iron, sharp smoke, and suffocating pine. Scents that carried an innate authority that made his inner instinct want to drop to his knees and hide.
Even stranger, a deep, hollow ache was blooming right beneath his sternum. A terrifying, profound wave of isolation crashed over him, so intense it brought tears to his eyes, blending seamlessly with the rain tracking down his face. He felt entirely exposed. Unprotected. Alone.
He needed to hide. He needed to get out of the open before whatever was emitting those suffocating scents found him.
Clutching his bruised ribs, Peter stumbled blindly through the downpour, his boots splashing in the deep puddles of a dark, derelict district. The street signs were faded, but as he staggered past a crumbling brick wall, he could just barely make out the words painted on a rusted sign: Welcome to Park Row Crime Alley.
Every alleyway felt like a predator's jaw waiting to snap shut. His vision blurred, dark spots dancing at the edges of his sight as a feverish heat began to spark deep within his core, clashing violently with the freezing rain. He didn't understand what was happening to his body. His anatomy felt coiled, tense, and fundamentally altered, a terrifying biological clock ticking down to something he couldn't comprehend.
The green pool. It changed him. Somehow at least. But that fact wasn’t more imperative than the ever present need to find shelter.
Up ahead, he spotted a dilapidated, abandoned home. The windows were boarded up, the front door hanging loosely off its hinges. It was dark, cold, and forgotten. The perfect place.
Peter practically threw himself through the door frame, collapsing into the shadows of the foyer. The interior was stripped bare, smelling of old dust and rot, but it shielded him from the heavy, aggressive scents of the city outside.
Shivering uncontrollably, he dragged himself into a tight, cramped corner beneath the skeletal remains of a staircase. He pulled his knees tightly to his chest, trying to wrap his torn suit around himself to retain any semblance of warmth. He wanted his home. He wanted the people whose blurs haunted his mind.
But as the darkness finally pulled him under and he passed out on the cold floor, the only thing echoing in his fading consciousness was the terrifying realization that he was entirely, utterly alone.
