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Peter. It's okay. You don't have to handle it alone.

You have a family.

[ There is a gentle Thor smile. ]

Can’t handle what? Maybe I can help?

[S.O.S. SEND HELP! Peter is very suddenly on the ceiling, staring down at her with wide, red-rimmed eyes.]

Uh.

[This is awkward. He’s...going to come down now. He hits the floor with a soft thump and rubs the back of his neck.]

Who- How- [Right. Pretty girl. He so cannot talk to pretty girls.

And now she’s seen him cry. And panic.

Great. Awesome. Go Parker Go. WHAT IS THE POINT OF A SECRET IDENTITY WHEN HE JUST LETS EVERYONE KNOW ON ACCIDENT]

I’m not sure you can. It’s -

I’m Peter. [He sticks out his hand to her. Smooth.]

[ If he's expecting some manner of Big Reaction to him suddenly being on the ceiling? Gwen's not really the person for that. Besides, she had that sudden buzz in her head and spine that told her he was like her, so she's really not too surprised by the aerobics. She looks a bit amused, actually. When he's on the ground, introducing himself, she comes thisclose to laughing in amusement. Her hand goes into his and she shakes in return. ]

Peter Parker, by chance? I'm Gwen Stacy, nice to meet you.

[ Man, was it ever difficult to not say "nice to meet another you. That would have made for some wildly awkward moments, she's sure. ]

"Parker. Hey, its okay. I know."

Harley is not doing particularly great, either, and as he comes closer, dressed to the nines still, his face shows the signs of recent crying. Not that he would admit it, mind you. But he knows about Peter. Tony had talked about the kid for the last five years, a lot. And working with Tony, when the man was in the labs, anyway, you could not help but hear Peter's name.

Peter heard him coming, couldn’t help but hear him coming, his body was a live wire senses at 11, and if he strained he could hear Morgan and Happy on the porch and May and Pepper in the kitchen talking in soft voices about what next, what now.

He swipes angrily under his eyes and straightens up from where he’d been hunched over the hologram projector. A single soft blue light blinking in silent commiseration. A message. He’d been left a message. He hadn’t even been alive three days ago and yet Tony had left him a message.

It was-

It still is a lot.

“Have you listened to yours yet?” He blanched. “I-uh-he left you a message too right?”

Three days was not enough time for any of this.

I- [Peter stares at Thor with wide, guilty eyes,] Thanks.

[Now he feels guilty for feeling guilty Thor lost EVERYONE and Peter? All he lost was 5 years and another dad.]

You-you too, you know?

"Yeah." Harley gently moves to Peter and squeezes his shoulder. If he sniffles, it's just because of allergies, right? Right.

"It was... a lot. Tony knows how to... " he waves a hand vaguely around, trying to encompass, for a moment, all of that man that had changed both of their lives.

He shivers, thinking about it, and fingers the holodisk in his pocket. "You were on his mind, a lot, these last five years."

I know. And I am counting on it. I... am not who I was, and I have a lot to relearn.

[ He smiles at Peter, weighing him, and nods. ]

I am hoping you can help me with that, my friend.

Yeah?...Have we met? Because if so, wow, I’m sorry. We haven’t met though, right? I’m usually pretty good at remembering faces and, well lots of things but you, you’re not familiar. Which is fine. You’re fine...

[Yep.]

We've never met. But...I'm not from your universe, and have traveled through enough of them to meet several versions of Peter Parker.

[ She isn't even lying, Peter. That's the weird part, right? ]

And several variations of Spider-Beings.

“So you weren’t...?” Peter snaps his fingers and tries not to flinch at the sound. He was here. Three days later and he still had to dig his nails into his palms to remind himself that he wasn’t crumbling away. He toys with the iron man helmet, setting it on his knees and scooting on the sofa to give Harley room. Peter never met him before...everything. There had been a plan, kind of, to introduce them over the summer but yeah....

Just.

It’s like his brain is still disconnected from the reality. Nothing makes sense.

Harkey shakes his head. "No, I was one of those left behind, stuck trying to make the world work with half it's populace in every situation. We missed you, and the others, but half the time was spent running everywhere trying to put out fires, literally."

He smiles a little wryly.

"You're here, now, Peter. You're going to be... you're going to learn to be okay." Or to fake it, like Harley does.

He reaches over and taps Peter's head.

Peter sinks in on himself as he listens to those words. Words so close to what his uncle had said to him the night his parents died. Words that meant less and less with every person he loved ending up dead. The urge to stand up and barrel out of that room and find May and just hold her until the world ended shot through him like a finely pointed arrow, but his body refused to cooperate. He heard the slight crunch of metal in his hands and dropped the helmet to the floor with a bang.

He shudders, a whine catching in his throat and he gasps through it, against it, against the heavy weight sinking on his chest, pushing him down under water and he can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry, I can’t, I’m sorry,” he babbles, stumbling to his feet.

Are you telling me the multi-verse is real?!?!

[HOLY COW, GWEN STACY, DOES PETER HAVE QUESTIONS FOR YOU]

It's very real, very big, and very weird.

[ There's a Spider-Ham, a spider bitten by a radioactive pig. It's weird. ]

That's just- That's amazing! How does that work? How did you even get here? Wait? Why are you here? Is something- This reality isn't about to collapse is it?

[Please tell him it's not that one. That's basically already happened here once.]

No. It's not going to collapse. That disaster was already prevented in a different universe. As for how I got here? No idea. At all. I blame Thanos and his bullshit.

I'm sorry.

[He's trying to work on the apologizing for things he has no reason to be guilty over, but, like. Here we are. Thanos' bullshit breaking someone else's universe because they were not good enough to stop him the first time. Guilt and Peter are very, very familiar.]

I can assure you that nothing about this was your fault, and don't you dare tell me otherwise, okay?

[ Boy, does she know her Peter Parker's well. ]

For all I know, it still has to do with Kingpin and his collider in my friends universe.

Kingpin?

[Okay. Look. Peter is still HELLA new to this job, okay. He hasn't met like...anyone important yet. Except universe destroying titans and his date's dad. Like...His life has been wild but he doesn't know his villains yet.]

Long story. Big, angry dude named Wilson Fisk. Really, really bad news.

Is it cheating if I Google him?

That's what Google is for, isn't it?

[okay. hi. he might love you a little. Peter grins and whips out his phone and pulls up a web browser and types in the name and instantly hundreds of hits come back including his wedding, his pardon, his 2nd arrest -]

Crap. What was I doing when this was happening?

[parkouring around queens. watching his uncle die. road-tripping to germany. typical spider-man things.]

[ Gwen peeks over to read what he has on his phone and even taps a youtube video. It's bad. It's really...it's just bad. So she closes that out. She wasn't even expecting that much and SHE knows it's bad. ]

Hey, to be fair? He was really, really good at hiding what he was up to.

Gross, right?

I feel like some parts of this city are in completely separate worlds.

[He's certain the guy has been on the news. More than once. Has to have been. There's no way a take down of someone this big was not on the news.]

That's just being mean to bald people.

He's bad news. So if you do end up having to face him? Make sure you have people with you.

Otherwise it could just end badly.