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“So… I opened the wrong portal to the wrong Peter Parker.”
I heard the boy’s voice from a distance as I continued looking around the house. How could this have been actually possible?
“Yeah… I guess you just keep doing it until you find the real one.”
I turned quickly upon hearing that comment. ‘The real one’?
“Ouch,” I sarcastically mumbled, my eyes fixated on that curly-haired girl.
“No offense,” she reproached.
It’s not like I had been truly offended, per say. The magnitude of the situation had me so overwhelmed as to be able to feel anything else. I had travelled through a portal which had led me to a completely different dimension. I didn’t know where, how or if I would ever be able to return home. My head wouldn’t stop formulating questions that I inevitably left unanswered.
“Alright…”
I watched as the boy did an odd gesture with his hands, sort of small circular-like movements. Meanwhile, the girl eyed him expectant. Perhaps that was how they managed to summon me?
However, nothing happened. He repeated it a few times until he left both of his hands falling on each side of his hips, letting out a buff.
“I don’t get it. Why is not working?”
“Last time you said something about being able to see him… Try that.”
I crossed my arms over my chest as I observed them, a visible from on my face. How had he been able to create the portal? He must be some type of sorcerer… In that particular moment I took notice of the ring around his finger. That must have been it.
“Damn it!”
I cautiously approached them, aware of how wary the girl had been about my presence.
“What if… you try saying something that’s also related to Peter Parker? That’s what worked out for me, right?”
They both glanced at each other for a moment, and as if they were communicating to each other through telepathy, they both nodded their heads along at the same instance.
“Alright, let’s try it.”
Another three more attempts passed without any success, the girl was sitting on one of the dining room chairs, her face hidden behind her hands while the other boy kept on trying over and over again.
“So… You can open a portal to any possible dimension? That means that there exists an infinity of parallel universes?” I asked.
“Apparently, yes. Trust me, I’m just as lost as you.”
That remark managed to draw a small on my face and I opted for a gently an encouraging pat to his shoulder.
“We want to see another Peter Park related thing, is it that hard to understand?” he muttered, and in that precise moment appeared right in the middle of the living room a small reddish-orange spark.
The three of us remained immobile for a few seconds. Had it just worked? “Ned, do it again!” her friend rushed to blur out.
Ned cleared his throat and began to move his hands in that circular movement I was starting to familiarize with, “We want to see another Peter Parker related thing…”
Those new sparks showed up again, and what went from being an orange light beam became a perfect circle whose weight almost equalled that of the ceiling. We all fixed our eyes on its inside, it was like a bedroom with white walls decorated with some paints and a calendar. There was a bed with a colourful patterned duvet. But beyond that there was no trace of anyone.
I immediately adopted a defensive position. If they had asked for something related to Peter Parker they could have perfectly summoned some other villain, and I was not willing to take that risk.
“Oh, come on. Why didn’t it work?!” Exclaimed a desperate Ned.
In that precise moment I felt a light tingling inside me, but it was different. It was somehow comforting, that typical electricity sensation which ran through my entire body to my feet was nowhere to be found, instead I felt a heat spread through my chest at an incredibly slow speed. What was happening?
“Hello?” Asked a voice emanating from the inside of the portal.
That voice and timbre… Only one person could they belong to. Gwen. My Gwendolyne Maxime Stacy. But how far-fetched and absurd was that? Gwen had passed away… many years ago. Because of me. Fighting against Harry. That little intradimentional trip must have affected me more than I had thought.
Then, without any prior warning, the owner of that voice appeared.
My whole body froze, completely motionless. I wasn’t even sure whether my heart kept beating. There she was. My Gwen. Alive. Breathing. She was wearing a slightly baggy dark blue sweater and a grey-toned skirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, allowing her blonde bangs free and visible. No… It couldn’t be true. How was that even possible?
“Peter?” she asked, confusion clearly written all over her face. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her lips were slightly parted while her eyes continued fixed on mine.
I blinked my tears away a few times before nodding slowly.
“It’s me, Gwen.” I whispered, unable to contain the small sob that came out camouflaged by a chuckle.
“Hold on, you two…” the curl-haired girl intervened once again, gesticulating from where she was sitting to us two, “know each other?
I found myself too stunned to speak coherently. I babbled in a low voice, but finding the right words was an impossible task. Of course we knew each other, she was my girlfriend… Or she had been until that doomed night.
“Yes,” Gwen briefly answered. “Who are you? What is this?”
“We’re trying to find our friend,” Ned was the one to reply to her question. “But… it’s not really working.”
Gwen’s puzzled expression was enough to realize that answer hadn’t fully satisfied her. Her gace fell on me once again, awaiting.
“Could you…? I would explain it better if you were here. Please, Gwen,” I begged in a soft whisper. I needed to have her in my arms again, I needed ensure that this was nothing more than another twisted wicked dream of those who continued to terment me since the night I lost her.
She seemed to think about it for a moment as the two other present in the room were beginning to get anxious, which was quite understandable. They didn’t comprehend who that girl was, nor why I had reacted that way.
“Please, Gwen,” I gulped.
Gwen nodded slightly, and I reckon I was able to capture a trace of small smile on her lips. Like all those she had gifted me whenever I would tell her anything related to my superpower. It was a special smile reserved only to Spider-Man.
She began to advance towards the portal with small and tentative steps, not knowing whether to lean on its ends for fear of that the sparks were real and could hurt her. Luckily, the other girl, whose name I still hadn’t heard, rushed to her help. She held out her arm so she could hold onto it and jump easily.
“Thank you.”
Once she was in front of me I was unable to help myself, so I pulled her towards me, not applying any force so she could be able to pull away if she desired to.
Fortunately for me she didn’t.
I wrapped my arms around her delicate waist while I allowed myself to bury my face on her neck, breathing in. The rest of the world seemed to stop turning around us. She timidly put her arms around my neck, holding onto me tightly. No sooner did I smell her perfume than tears began to roll down my face followed by a broken sob. As a response, she tightened her grip on me, raising one of her hands to place it on my hair.
How could she be the one comforting me? The many questions which I had had upon arriving to this university grew bigger and bigger. I closed my eyes in an attempt to make them disappear in order to only focus on the girl in my arms.
“You’re here,” I breathed out as my chest rose and fell at a wild rhythm.
“I’m here, bug boy,” she whispered close to my ear and I let out a whisper which I hadn’t been aware of having been holding.
Out of a sudden, we distinguished the sound of the girl clearing her throat, and over Gwen’s shoulder I opened my eyes to see what was happening.
“Guys… I’m really sorry for interrupting, I swear, but we have to keep on searching Peter.”
“But Peter’s right here,” Gwen replied in a small whisper while she slowly pulled away enough to be able to look at her too.
“Yeah… But that’s not the Peter Parker we’re exactly looking for.”
Those words only caused her more confusion. I engulfed her hands in my /still/ shaking ones and I gave them a soft squeeze.
“Why don’t we… go to a quieter place and I’ll explain everything to you?”
She slightly nodded, not budging a single millimetre from me. I offered a small smile to the two friends, quickly mouthing a ‘good luck’ before leading Gwen to what I supposed was the front door of the house.
I remained in absolute silence until we got distanced a bit from that house, choosing to stay at the backyard where we could have the privacy we needed. Once there, I rested both hands on her arms as my eyes tried to engrave every single detail of her face in my memory again. Now that I could take a closer look to her, she did in fact look more mature and older. Those round cheeks were long gone, replaced by some pronounced cheekbones. Her eyes also seemed bigger and bluer, or maybe that was the impression I had after having last seen them dull and without light…
“I don’t understand anything, Pete… Where are we? Who are these people? And what are you doing here? To begin with, I thought you didn’t want to see me ag-” I was not able to let her continue that phrase. It was unimaginable to wish for such thing.
“Alright… Let’s see,” I let out a small sigh. How could I explain it all in a simple, clear and nothing traumatic way? “As for your first question, I don’t know. We’re in some kind of another universe, I think. Those guys were looking for their friend, which apparently is also called Peter Park, and he is also Spider-Man,” I let out a soft giggle at her astonished look and nodded my head along. “I know, it sounds crazy… But the boy has used magic, like a sort of spell… And then, trying to find something else related to Peter you appeared, Gwen… And God, I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Me too,” she confessed. “I genuinely believed you’d come back… I thought you wouldn’t believe to keep that promise you made to my father. Gosh, Pete, how could you be so fucking selfish?”
Her gaze turned cold for an instant, making me shiver. I had found a Gwen belonging to a parallel universe… But how? The possibilities were truly infinite.
“What?” I asked in desbelief. “I wish I’d done it. I wish I’d listen to your father, Gwen… Nothing would have happened then, we would still be together, you’d be here with me, I…”
“What do you mean? I’m right here!”
“No, you’re right here because of a damn whim of destiny, Gwen! It can’t be, you’re dead.”
I was only aware of the words I had blurted out once they escaped my mouth and I froze for a moment. While Gwen attempted to connect our gazes, I hid mine. Then, her mouth parted for a second before taking a deep breath.
“Peter…” she whispered with a trembling voice. “What happened?”
She asked me that question with such a small voice that I was able to comprehend all the fear and uncertainty hidden behind it. It had all been my fault… Maybe I should have let her go, it would have hurt way less than listening to her accusations that I so much deserved.
“Harry happened… He…. Well. We were on the clock tower. I had to finish Electro, and so I did. But, as stubborn as always you had to come. Fuck, Gwen,” I said, feeling as my eyes turned watery again as I remembered that scene. No matter how much time passed, I still remembered it as vividly as at first. “Harry was all changed, he was like a monster. He took you to the top of the tower. I followed right after.”
She eyed me intensely but without articulating a single word, and I was having a hard time trying to read her.
“I had you, Gwen. I had you. But then the web tore off and you started to fall into the void. I quickly launched myself after you. Without giving it a second thought, but you were so close and so far… I was unable to get you in time, it was impossible. We were going so fast… I shot a huge web to catch you, but I didn’t count on the momentum… You didn’t touch the ground, yet the sudden change in speed managed to snap your neck.”
Gwen was horrified at the harshness of my words. One of her hands unconsciously went up to her neck, lightly stroking her skin.
“Gwen… I’m so sorry. You can’t imagine how empty I’ve been without you.”
“Peter…”
“No… You don’t need to say anything. You don’t have to pretend as if nothing had happened. For fuck’s sake, Gwen, you’re dead in my universe! I lost you in my university, both me and your family. In my universe you weren’t able to go to university because of me. I took it all away from you. Your future, your dreams, you had everything planned and you were going to mak-”
Her lips pressed against mine softly, getting me to shut up. I sighed into the kiss as I closed my eyes, allowing myself to grab her by the waist so I could pull her closer.
For so long had I dreamed to kiss her again that I seemed to be still wrapped up in my own imagination.
As we pulled away, Gwen raised her right hand up to my cheek, caressing it sweetly as adorably tilted her head to the side.
“Want to know what happened in my universe?”
I slowly nodded my head. I hoped it wouldn’t be any worse…
“I went to Europe, you know? I left and I never knew anything else about you. It didn’t matter how many messages or calls I left, you had to follow my father’s promise. And… it’s been years, Pete. I tried to forget you, I swear. But it was impossible. Whenever I felt I was getting better then someone would suddenly mention something about Spider-Man and how amazing he was… I saw you in every guy I was with.”
She paused to catch her breath and fixed her gaze on the grass.
“I came to hate you, you know? I couldn’t understand how you could have been so selfish.”
Those words sank into my chest like sharp, pointed needles.
After everything we had been through, the decision that other Peter Parker had taken seemed like the best solution to avoid the fate that awaited her in my reality. If only I had been able to take it…
“Gwen… You’ve now seen how the story ends in my universe, it really was the best for you.”
She let out a loud snort, “you are nobody to decide what’s best for me.”
“Yes, yes I am. I’m the one who saw you die, I am to blame for that. And what’s more, I’m the one who held you trying to get you to wake up. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”
That had been enough to snatch the words from her mouth. She blinked several times before turning her gaze to mine.
“So then what? You’re telling me our relationship is destined to fail? That… That there isn’t another parallel universe in which we are together and can be happy?”
“I don’t know… I don’t know! This is all as new to me as it is for you.”
“Well I refuse to believe that,” she slowly rested her delicate hand on my cheek, caressing my stubble. “We’re here right now for a reason, right? It’s like… if the universe had brought our versions in which we don’t have each other together.”
“Gwen… This has been just a whim of fate,” I repeated my words while I took her hand in mines, the touch being as comforting as it was painful.
“Fine. So what if it is? The important thing is that we’ve been given a second chance to be together. I’ve missed you so much, Peter. And I know you have too. Why can’t we be happy?”
“So what do you intend us to do? To stay here? Gwen, you have a whole life ahead of you… I’m not going to make you give it up again because of me.”
“There’s also crime to fight against in Oxford…”
I let out a small giggle at that occurrence, which I had already considered a long time ago. But in that moment I couldn’t leave my aunt May alone, not after everything. We truly were the only thing left for the other, and after she passed away a few years ago loneliness swallowed me up.
“I think I only have two things clear right now in my life, Gwen,” I whispered. “The first one is the feeling that… that boy they’re looking for needs my help. It’s the tingling. And the second is that I’m not willing to lose you again, in any way. “
She offered me a small smile as she tilted her head slightly to the left.
“You’re my path.”
In that moment I knew that, despite having continued our lives completely apart from the other, despite having made different decisions and despite the fact that our relationship differed from one universe to another, we were only one thing: our essence.
Our lips found each other slowly and sweetly, making that kiss taste like a promise.
We weren’t sure of which one or what it was base done, but we were eager to find out.