If it wasn't the final day of Spirit Week at Midtown High, Peter would have found it genuinely impossible to believe that his entire life had completely derailed in just days.
Friday morning was completely dead. He swung in a lazy arc over 5th Avenue. The NYPD dispatch scanners were silent, and the FDNY channels were running routine maintenance checks. There were no bank vaults being ripped open and no supervillains throwing cars. He landed silently on a water tower, crouching against the cold wood as he stared out at the Manhattan skyline.
"If only you were actually this peaceful," he muttered to the wind.
His mind kept drifting back to the dream: the shattered collider room, the Kingpin, and the black spider with the iridescent blue legs. The stark red 42 stamped on its abdomen wasn't a Douglas Adams joke; it was a multiverse coordinate.
If Peter's meta-knowledge of this universe held up, that spider was the catalyst for the entire Into the Spider-Verse timeline. It was a stowaway from Earth-42, pulled through Kingpin's collider into Universe 1610, where it was destined to bite a kid named Miles Morales.
Peter didn't know exactly what point in the timeline he was going to land in, but his objective was crystal clear: he had to intercept that spider before the bite ever happened. He didn't have anything against Miles, but he found the so-called "canon event" thesis pushed by a certain futuristic vampire Spider-Man to be utterly stupid. By grabbing the 42 spider early, he could achieve two things: save Universe 1610's Peter Parker from the Kingpin, and return the spider to Earth-42 so that universe could have its own protector instead of devolving into a dystopian nightmare.
He pushed off the water tower and fired a web line, diving back into the concrete canyons. Honestly, the quiet morning was driving him crazy. Two weeks of fighting international assassins, mad locksmith, and giant bugs had permanently rewired his adrenaline receptors; daily life now felt numbingly dull.
Still, he had a secret identity to maintain. He dropped into an alley, shoved his mask into his backpack, and walked the rest of the way to Midtown High.
The Spirit of Midtown
Today was the climax of Spirit Week: Superhero and Supervillain Day. The hallways were a blinding sea of primary colors, cheap spandex, and cardboard armor. Peter kept his head down, wearing his standard flannel and jeans to avoid tempting fate. He sat at his desk in physics class, sketching out the circuitry for his sonar-array eyepieces, when the classroom door opened.
A giant, bumpy red mushroom walked in.
Peter blinked as the mushroom shuffled over to the desk next to his. It was covered in suction cups and featured a fiercely scowling alien face.
"Harry?" Peter asked. "Are you... a Zygon?"
"Yes," Harry's muffled voice echoed from inside the rubber Doctor Who suit.
Peter tapped his pencil against his notebook. Zygons—parasitic shape-shifters that mimic hosts—felt uncomfortably familiar. They were essentially the BBC's budget version of Skrulls. He found himself wondering if Nick Fury realized his entire agency might currently be infested with green, shape-shifting aliens.
"I look ridiculous," Harry groaned, slumping into his seat with a loud squeak of rubber against plastic.
"You look like a very handsome, highly aggressive fungus," Peter offered.
Harry rested his heavy rubber head on the desk. "I didn't even apply for the Baxter Building internship. I knew I wouldn't get in, so I just didn't submit the paperwork."
"You should have tried, man."
"I can't even try to talk to a girl," Harry said, his voice devoid of hope. "I haven't asked anyone to the Homecoming dance."
It took Peter three seconds to process the timeline. "Harry. The dance is literally tomorrow."
"I know!" Harry wailed softly. "I'm not like you. You don't have a date, but you have Gwen. You have a built-in safety net."
Before Peter could correct him on the exact terrifying nature of his "safety net," the door banged open. Amadeus Cho practically skipped into the room. For a guy who usually carried the weight of the academic world on his shoulders, he looked like he was walking on air.
"Guys!" Amadeus slammed his hands down on Peter's desk. "You will never guess what just hit my inbox."
"Baxter Building early acceptance?" Peter asked.
Amadeus froze, his grin widening. "I got it! Wait, did you get it too?"
"Yeah." Peter grinned back. "Looks like we're commuting to Manhattan."
"That is incredible." Amadeus turned to the red rubber mushroom. "Did you hear that, Harry?"
"I didn't apply," Harry muttered. "But congratulations. You guys are awesome."
Amadeus's smile faltered. He looked at Peter, mouthing, What's wrong with him?
"He wants to ask a girl to Homecoming, but he's psyching himself out," Peter translated.
"Ah. Yeah, I get that. Who is it?" Amadeus asked.
"Liz," Harry said to the floor. "Liz Allan. She's a freshman. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."
Peter's brain clicked. "Wait. Gwen mentioned a Liz. They're trying to put together a band."
Harry bolted upright, his suction cups catching on the desk. "Peter! Can you ask Gwen what kind of guys she likes? Find out her type?"
"Harry, no," Peter said, holding up a hand. "First of all, asking her friend for a psychological profile is creepy. Second, the dance is tomorrow. We are way out of time for reconnaissance."
As Harry deflated back into his chair, Peter sighed. "Or, you could just run a blitz. Today is the Homecoming football game. Everyone goes to the bleachers after the final bell. Liz will probably be there. You go up, you introduce yourself, you ask. Amadeus and I will go with you. Wingmen."
At three-thirty, the three of them sat on the freezing aluminum bleachers of the Midtown High athletic field.
Peter was completely bored. He tracked the parabolic arc of the football a few times, calculated the wind resistance, and then lost interest. Amadeus looked equally lost, reading a textbook, while Harry scanned the sea of students for Liz Allan.
Down on the field, the quarterback snapped the ball and handed it off to their star running back. Eugene Thompson lowered his shoulder, shattered through the defensive line, and sprinted fifty yards down the sideline for a touchdown.
The Midtown bleachers erupted. Peter watched him spike the ball. "Man," he murmured over the screaming crowd. "Thompson moves in a flash."
A guy standing in the row directly in front of him whipped around. "Flash," he said, his eyes lighting up. "Hey, that's good!"
The stranger cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed at the field. "YEAH! GO FLASH! FLASH THOMPSON!"
The cheerleader squad picked it up, then the marching band. Within ten seconds, the entire student section was chanting Flash! Flash! Flash! Peter slowly sank down onto the aluminum bench, burying his face in his hands. He had always thought that was just the guy's name.