Peter Parker knows he will not get up again. It's an overwhelming knowledge.

For years, he knew that the day would come, he waited for it with resignation. One day he wouldn't be fast enough to dodge a bullet, or his wounds would not close as fast as he needed to, or maybe some villain could finally reach him. Or perhaps, his death would be more heroic, maybe he would die saving a life.

Perhaps, if he were very lucky, his death would not be painful.

In any case, every time Peter put on his mask, he knew there were many chances of dying.

(And maybe he thought about it more times than he should, he imagined all the possible scenarios, what would happen next. Maybe, and just maybe, he thought it wouldn't be so bad not to get up.)

That, however, didn't prepare him for when the time came.

He was tired, so tired, but he didn't want to die. Aunt May, MJ were waiting for him, they were counting on him. The kid needed him. He couldn't die, he had to get up. Spider-Man always gets up.

It was a desperate attempt, but also the wrong one. Peter was anxious, longing for any breach that might mean an opportunity, and the words that came out of his mouth were a mistake, didn't he already know that KingPin was impulsive, and volatile, and violent?, but he couldn't stop now, he couldn't shut up, he needed -...

(He had been wrong, he was wrong, there was no other chance and he was going to die, die, and MJ, and Aunt May, and-)

A spider web sticks to his chest.

The web continues up over their heads, enough so that he doesn't reach to see who is in its end. He can't be hallucinating, because the surprise he feels is reflected in Fisk's face, and uh, will it be that the child ...?

He feels a pull.

There is a moment when he is only in the air, trying to quickly reorient his thoughts of a tragic death and regrets to a possibility of incredulous survival, prepared to let his instincts take over and save his skin once more, and suddenly Peter is unable to move as he wishes, hooked under the arm of ...Spider-Man? What?

"That was close!"

Peter B. Parker does his best work in that little bit of time before everything goes to hell, and this time, he's sure that his work was great.

He swings with the Spider-man of the dimension as sure as he can be under his arm, trying to get away quickly from the threat that Wilson Fisk represents. There is a bellow of fury behind him, and he can hear KingPin send Prowler after him and his burden; he stifles the urge to curse. In other circumstances, the Prowler wouldn't be a problem, but when his highest priority is to avoid unnecessary deaths, it becomes very annoying to deal with him.

The swing takes him straight to the hiding place from which Miles observes the whole situation with surprised and frightened eyes, the kid must be terrified, and that's a thought that he detests. Peter, however, doesn't stop when he reaches the child, but rather collides with him, forcing him to hold on to his neck if he doesn't want to fall; Miles screams, of course he screams, and the grip he has on his neck is painfully strong (and a little stifling!), but he can't focus on it when he still has to worry about the threat behind them.

The subway tunnel is easy to reach, but once there he has no choice but to leave the air and the swing for a escape on foot, he hates it. Peter B. feels slightly vulnerable carrying the child and the dying Spider-Man from the ground, where he can't see all the angles or know everything that is happening.

"Kid, tell me what you see! What is happening back there?" Miles is his only choice, but he doesn't respond, he just takes quick, panting breaths, scared, and Peter can't handle a panic crisis now. He shakes the kid a little, hoping to help him to concentrate. "Kid!"

"He's approaching!" He risks a quick backward glance at Miles's panicked warning. Aaron Davis (is Aaron the Prowler in this universe? Is this universe a copy of the one he left behind or ...?) is skillful enough to be only a few meters behind him even when he makes a great effort to lose him; his claws gleam in the darkness of the tunnel with a promise of what will happen if he reaches them.

He takes a small jump in the air, which uses to give a quick full turn. For a few seconds, he's able to see the Prowler head on, and he takes advantage of that opportunity to shoot a web into one of his hands. For a few moments, the claw of his enemy remains motionless on a wall, providing a precious time used to put more distance between them.

"The subway!"

His gaze immediately returns to the front when he hears the warning of the other Spider-Man and his own spider sense. Sure enough, the subway was approaching at high speed, he wouldn't be able to dodge it while still carrying the other two spiders so..., yes, he could also able to see the station. If he could get there before the subway ...

Peter B. hurries.

Miles screams in his ear, still clinging incredibly strong to his neck. The other Spider-Man is silent, but he also clings to him. The light from the subway blinds him for a moment, the adrenaline rushes through his veins, but he's almost there, almost-

He jumps. His feet touch the floor of the station. Behind him the subway continues its way, Morales lets out an incredulous laugh and feels the other vigilante relax. From there, it's almost too easy to leave the place. Going out into the streets of New York is liberating in many ways; Parker doesn't even waste time before swinging again.

Under his mask, he's smiling.

"I'll be honest: this came out better than I expected."

The night wind and the swing does wonders to calm his body and mind. Peter feels slightly satisfied: he found the spider person he was looking for, with the addition that he himself didn't die, the Spider-Man of the dimension didn't die, Miles didn't die, and for what he's able to observe from above, the Prowler himself didn't either, and that is a great victory according to him. Of course, the KingPin henchman moves away from the subway station with the clear objective of finding him and probably killing him, but that's a problem for another time. The important thing is that he achieved his goal and also saved a couple of spiders.

The roof of a building is his destination. Peter B. Parker lands on it, finally releasing the boy and the beaten hero. He takes off his mask once away from the curious eyes of New York.

("kid, I need you to let me go"; "I, uhm! Sorry, wait a moment! I can't ... Come on, stop sticking, Miles!")

He's careful to leave the other hero on the ground, where he helps him to sit using the roof cornice as a backrest. He's in pain, no doubt, but his healing factor will fix that soon. Meanwhile, now that he has time, Peter gives a curious look at the Spider-Man of this universe, finally appreciating the face of man and, oh.

Oh.

The face that returns his gaze is the same one that he sees every morning in his mirror, only younger and blond. It's a face that Peter has seen before.

Oh, oh no.

Fisk, the Collider, Miles, blond Peter. All the information that he had been noticed since he came to this dimension, and which he had been so determined to ignore, begins to accumulate, to give form to an explanation that he really doesn't like; Gwen hadn't said that she had been thrown into Miles's universe a week before ...?

Don't be an idiot, Parker. How many chances were there that the Fisk's collider had not sent him to a different dimension, but had sent him back in time? Surely, there would be hundreds, if not infinite, universes that were similar and had a Miles, and a blond Peter, and a collider. But again, how many possibilities were there for all those universes to share so many coincidences?

Peter Parker should have died, in the hands of Fisk.

And he had saved him.

Damn, was this another universe or Peter had fucked up the timeline?

"You're like me." Blond Peter watches him with big, surprised eyes, and when his own spider sense confirms what the other said, he can't worry about ruining a timeline if it means saving a life, someone like him.

"Yeah, I guess i'm." He heaves a weary sigh, before smiling at the other spidersona. "I'm Peter B. Parker."

"Peter Parker, and assuming you're not my evil clone or something, since you've saved my life, and I thank you very much for that, I suspect you're not from around here, right?"

"Nah, the Fisk's Collider brought me here. I'm from another dimension."

Miles is one meter away, looking at both of them as if they were the coolest thing he's ever seen in his life and, well, he would lie if he didn't say that it caresses his ego a bit.

"And you, kid?"

"Me? I'm Miles, Miles Morales."

Again, his spider sense vibrates in the presence of another person similar to him. Blond Spider-Man uses that opportunity to ask Miles if he's also originally from another dimension and not from this one as he believed, but the boy is quick to clarify that he's from Brooklyn, that he's in his own universe. Once that is defined, his blonde and younger version explains why he's here, and how his presence is related to the tremors, Fisk, and the huge machine that the villain has sent to manufacture, what he plans to do with it. It's completely unnecessary considering his current situation, but Peter appreciates the effort by not letting him know that; his theory of time travel will stay with him for the time being, it's a bit too crazy, even for Spider-Man.

Suddenly he glitches, hard. The glitch takes him by surprise, he had almost forgotten the problem that came with being in the wrong universe. He realizes, however, that just like he noticed the first days of being in this place, the glitching he experiences here is less violent than it was at the end of his experience in the other place (in the other timeline?), almost as if his situation had been restarted, which increases the reasons to believe in time travel.

"Are you okay?" Parker, the other Parker, doesn't even hesitate to get up even though he should not, to go to his aid. He takes away his worries with a hand gesture, standing up for himself.

"Yeah, yeah, my atoms are very upset to be here."

"You must return to your universe, fast. We will use the goober to take you home." blond Peter observes the kid, so he does the same; the idiot plan of his partner had included giving the goober to Miles, so he must have it and-

"I, uhm, I don't have it."

"What?"

"It had fallen! During the chase! We could not go back, and i'm didn't know what to do, and I didn't want to distract you, and-"

"Uuuugh." Of course the goober fell, of course, things can't be so simple; apparently, they should do everything again.

His stomach growls, he suddenly remembers the restaurant he loves and is still open in this universe; there's no doubt what his next destination will be, after all, he can't save the multiverse (again) on an empty stomach, right?

"Well, who is hungry?"

Notes: thanks for reading! Comments are appreciated!