Chapter Text
Peter wakes up.
He wakes up confused. He wakes up disoriented. He wakes up to the annoying chime of an alarm that he never heard before, the unfamiliarity causing him to wake up unsettled. The impression that something is wrong is flagging immediately in his brain.
He wakes up in a bed that is too soft. The room was too dark, no shitty curtains letting the light through. He wakes up and sees posters and messes everywhere and his body doesn't hurt from sleeping on a lumpy mattress, or from a lack of sleep.
Like he's well-rested.
He's never been well-rested. At least not that he remembers.
So that is weird, strange even.
Turning to put off the alarm he’s met with an actual clock, not his phone beeping from an alarm. No, an actual honest to god, clock. He hits one of the buttons he can see and it stops going off.
The room around him is strange, but then his memories from the previous day rush back and it’s less strange. Less, but still strange.
It feels as disorientating as the one time he got a concussion from someone opening a door when he was walking by and slamming against it.
Good morning PLAYER! Today's daily tasks include going to school, meeting up with NL, HO, and MJ, passing classes and other fun activities!
Oh great, oh great this was just going to be torture wasn't it? School? Fine, he can put up with school. It would probably be a different experience than he's used to but that's fine.
But the initials? Peter's assuming they're initials, that means people. And not anyone he's familiar with, mostly because he doesn't know anything about Spiderman's civilian life and thus the people in it. Heck, which school does he even go to?
A cursory glance around the room doesn't show any poster of a school, there's science fair ribbons, Legos on planks, but nothing that tells him about his school. He checks his phone, hoping there is an app for the school.
He's lucky that the fingerprint scan unlocks the phone, he doesn't know the code either way, and when he tested his own code for his phone it was wrong so it's definitely something else.
Midtown High School blares on an app in the first app cluster he finds. When he opens it it shows his schedule for the day, he digs to find his bag and checks if the books correlate with the classes, they do, and then he zips it up.
Homework? He'll deal with that problem if it comes.
Follow the yellow star when the PLAYER is ready to get to Midtown High School to start the daily missions! PLAYER has 63 minutes to get there!
Right, that solves that issue too. A yellow star flickers in his view, floating to the left of him with 300 metres floating by it.
Peter can walk that easily, it's closer than anything he ever had to walk for school or work himself.
He dresses, grabs the phone that had blessedly been at the charger the whole time and was thus fully charged, shoulders the bag and exits his room.
He hears May in the kitchen, she has set the table for two, so he drops his bag at the table and then goes to the bathroom to clean himself up. There's two brushes, in separate cups with different names on them. One a light pink for May and the other red for him. He's glad the red one in the cup has his name on it because doesn't want to risk using someone else's toothbrush.
Peter tries to use the toothpaste but it immediately makes him gag because of how strong it is, instead he just brushes his teeth without and despairs over it. It just barely made his mouth feel less like something died in it.
When he's finished he's back out and to the table where May already plopped down a toast and some Iced tea.
He grins at her. “Morning,”
She blinks, surprised. “You didn't sleep through your alarm?”
He freezes. He's never slept through an alarm before, too light of a sleeper because of necessity. The thought alone makes him anxious.
May just laughs. “Maybe you're finally growing up and don't need me to shake you awake anymore.”
Peter makes a note to just keep laying in bed after this just to let her have that. A guilty conscience for replacing her actual nephew even though her nephew is Peter Parker and he's Peter Parker.
Everything is fucking confusing.
“Just luck!” He told her. “Couldn't sleep much, that's why.”
It sounds like he's guilty of something to his own ears. She just smiled at him and gestured for him to sit down and eat.
They eat.
He eyes the countdown that flickers at the right top corner of his vision, 48 minutes left.
In no time he's out the door, lunch money pressed into his hands and well wishes for a good day.
He presses down all the complicated feelings he has over this all and walks off. He doesn't have time to unpack all what he feels and he doesn't want to. Maybe he likes the warmth, even if it wasn't his, maybe he wants to cling to it for a bit. Something he never had before makes him so greedy he kind of hates himself for not thinking about what happened to whoever he replaced. Even if this was a game, it sure isn't anymore. Regardless of what the entire game-like interface and system says. It feels too real, and the chance that he's replaced someone is so big he wants to scream.
Instead, he takes the stairs down and leaves the apartment building.
Following the star he crosses the street and weaves between people. He could almost imagine everything was the same, except it wasn't. He could hear so much, every sound amplified. Not only that, his eyes kept tracking every detail, feeling like his vision improved and he couldn't help but trace the grooves of bricks.
Not to mention the smells and taste he got from the air itself made him want to hide and throw up.
He burrows further in the hoodie he's in, his hands in the pocket find tangled wire and when he fishes it out he finds earphones. He connected them to the phone and pressed them in his ears. Immediately a song player app notification comes on and he presses okay to whatever song comes up.
Before he cheats plays, and he wants to laugh. But the beats do help tuning everything out and he feels almost cheerful when he hums with the lyrics.
He finally finds the school, the star blinks out.
PLAYER has fulfilled one of the missions, finding Midtown High School. PLAYER receives [More Web fluid] and [200S points]!
He checks his phone and the school app for the schedule that tells him where he should be. Finding his class should be easy.
Instead, his shoulder gets shoved, forcing his right wired earbuds to fall from his ear.
He glances and meets dark eyes that are curled in a mocking way.
He scowls, the familiar need to defend himself rearing its ugly head. The eyes widen in surprise and then the person gets swept up in the crowd.
He swallows down the easy anger that came to him. He's not who he used to be before he came here, he clearly isn't meant to be. Peter Parker in this Marvel world, wasn't a lonely orphan that raised himself. That got into street fights when needed. That had no one to protect him.
10 minutes left on the clock he jogged and found a floorplan of the building, casually stopping next to it and glancing at him revealed where he had to be, he walked on. Two flights and four turns later he sits in a semi-filled classroom.
“Peter!” A voice happily calls.
He turns to look and in the back a boy with dark hair and dark eyes smiles and waves. He waves back and decides that this must mean something so he walks towards the boy.
PLAYER has met up with ND! Ned Leeds, best friend of the PLAYER.
Oh great, he had a built-in best friend. That knew him.
He smiles at Ned, who doesn't seem to notice anything off. Putting his backpack on the table he sat down and started unloading the things he needed.
“You're early,” a girl who was seated to the left and a row behind him, comments.
Her eyes and hair were also dark and she looked amused.
PLAYER has met up with MJ! Mary-Jane, best friend of the PLAYER.
He shrugs at her, awkwardly. Her eyebrow raises at that but they're interrupted by another voice piping in.
“Miracles must be possible, Peter's on time!” A blond boy crows, seated before him.
PLAYER has met up with HO! Harry Osborn, best friend of the PLAYER.
The boy, Harry, turns and grins. Playful. Ned snorts a laugh from beside him.
“Harry it's a miracle you're on time today too,” Ned says.
MJ snickers behind them as Harry's face fills with mock offence.
Peter.
Peter is confused.
He never had friends, especially not best friends. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, what he was supposed to say. He's playing catch-up with something he's not familiar with.
First May, now this? Three people that look at him with kindness. People who aren't even related to him but seem so ready to leave a space for him. He wants to choke on the agony he's feeling, that would be easier to deal with than this.
“Peter?” Harry asks, looking confused and snapping Peter from his thoughts.
He clears his throat, hoping his voice won't break. “Yeah?”
“You alright?” Ned asks, looking concerned.
He nods, immediately and smiles, it feels awkward on his face. “Yeah, of course. Just didn't sleep well.”
They don't look convinced, and it was a very weak defence either way.
But before they can say anything a teacher rolls in and everyone's forced to be silent and pay attention.
And thus the day begins.
He wonders how he's going to keep up the charade, as if he isn't jealous of the Peter Parker he's supposed to be playing. This part, this role even, felt constricting. He was suffocating in it, choking on the niceness of it all.
Everything he dreamed of and it wasn't even his.