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Peter was returned to the rooftop that he had been on with Wade the day before. It was early morning now and there was no sign of Wade. He slipped his mask on and swung the couple blocks back to their apartment. When he got back home he swung into the bedroom as quietly as possible. Rationally he knew it was pointless, his boyfriends were the last people who he was going to sneak up on, but old habits die hard. He got half of his suit peeled off before the door to the bedroom busted open. Suddenly he had two armfuls of superpowered, pissed-off, but concerned boyfriends. “Where were you?”
“You look like shit.” Wade and Matt managed to say at the same time.
“I- what day is it?” Peter asked.
Matt and Wade stared back at him with matching looks of concern. “It’s Sunday. You disappeared on Friday,” Matt explained.
“Awe fuck, I was supposed to make lesson plans and I need to grade all of their lab reports and I needed to make sure I had everyone’s missing work-“ Peter didn’t want to
“Yeah no,” Wade said, unceremoniously scooping up Peter and carrying him to the bathroom. “You’re taking a shower and putting on comfy clothes and we’re going to get you a sub for at least the next two days and then you’re going to eat leftover Chinese from last night and sleep for twelve hours and then tell us where you went and what happened.”
“Okay,” Peter agreed uncharacteristically fast. He was exhausted. The last time he had slept was Thursday night and he couldn’t remember the last time he ate.
Wade looked caught off guard that Peter wasn’t offering up a fight.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Matt asked, holding out a hand for Peter to take. It wasn’t until Peter took it that he realized that he had been shaking like a leaf. He nodded.
Wade left quickly and unusually quietly to deal with getting Peter a sub and finding enough food for him. Matt quickly helped Peter out of the rest of his suit and joined him in their cramped shower. They worked in silence. Matt washed Peter’s face, scrubbed all of the sweat, blood, and dirt off of his body, and lathered up his hair with one of their scentless shampoos. Through all of this Peter just clung to him. There wasn't a moment where there wasn’t any contact. “What happened to you baby?” Matt mumbled almost to himself. He didn’t get an answer and he wasn't expecting one. He just washed the suds from Peter’s hair and held him close, peppering kisses over the younger man’s face. He didn’t let him go until Wade had cracked open the door and set a change of clothes out for two of them on the counter.
“You guys are good to come out whenever,” Wade said softly. “I dug out the electric blanket for Peter and we can eat in bed.”
Matt turned off the shower and softly led Peter out. He dried him off gently and helped him into one of Wade’s too big hoodies, before getting into his own. Wade disappeared to grab their food and with a moment’s thought, Matt picked up Peter and carried him into their bedroom. “You’re too light. We need to fatten you up. What would Aunt May think of us?” Matt said with a frown as he bundled Peter into the electric blanket and turned it on.
“You know my bones are weird,” Peter said with a pout, in between sniffles.
“How’d you make him cry?” Wade handed Peter the plate of leftovers before wrapping himself around Peter’s back. He held onto him so tight that Peter thought that it was possible that he would never let him go.
“Aunt May died where I went,” Peter whispered in between bites. Matt squeezed his hand on Peter’s thigh and Wade tightened his hold. They both waited for Peter to be ready to tell them what had happened. They would have waited forever if he had needed to. Eventually, Peter was done with his plate. Wade took it from him when it seemed like he was about to start panicking, not knowing where to put it. “I don’t know where to start,” Peter said. They had thought it was impossible, but Peter managed to curl in on himself even more.
“Where ever is fine. You have our undivided attention,” Wade assured him.
“Even the boxes?” Peter asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Well, they’re not as patient. As much as they don’t want to admit it they are very fond of you and yellow is lowkey freaking out a little bit. You’re not our normal talkative, if not very stressed out, quippy spidey,” Wade explained. His tone was serious in a way that would have scared Peter if he was in his right mind. Wade only ever got that serious when he was having a very, very, very bad day. The kind of day that usually ended with a red-stained mop and a very sleepless night. Matt seemed to pick up on it and reached out his other hand to hold onto Wade as well.
It felt like it had been hours, but was probably only minutes when Peter took a shaky inhale started to talk. “You know those other Spider-Men that we know?”
Wade and Matt nodded. Wade still popped over to Peter Porker to play poker sometimes and Miles wasn’t an uncommon sight in front of their PlayStation on the weekends.
“I met two more.”
**
Peter had been enjoying his patrol with Wade that night. It was late fall. Thanksgiving was last week and the city was well and truly embracing the Christmas spirit. Even some of the crimes they had stopped recently had been Christmas-themed. The night before the three of them had stopped bank robbers dressed as elves. They had insisted that they were giving the money to charity and that it was insured anyway. Wade was trying to convince the two others to let the mischievous elves go since it was clearly a noble crime when Matt asked them what charity it was for.
“Salvation Army,” one of them blurted out. Peter was convinced that they had just come up with something on the spot. Though it definitely served to anger Wade.
“Okay, I’m gonna call the cops. Peter, please make them as uncomfortable as possible.” Wade angrily punched in 911 while he walked around the corner.
“Was that wrong?” One of the elves asked.
Peter sighed before webbing them more securely to the brick wall of the alley and webbing their mouths shut.
Friday night found him relaxing on a rooftop in the Bronx with Wade and some pizza. It had been a long day and he was exhausted. At work his students had been trying to finish their lab reports—it was not going well—and then the study hall teacher up and quit, so he had to give up his beautiful third block planning and his lunch with Matt in order to watch thirty students who were two seconds away from throwing hands. He did not expect to be suddenly alone. One second he was daydreaming about what they would get up to when Matt got off from work and then next he felt a fuzzy feeling and was suddenly alone.
He knew he was well and truly alone but he still called out Wade’s name regardless. His non-spidey brain sometimes just needed confirmation that what he was experiencing was real. He quickly jumped off of the roof and ducked into the alleyway where he thought he had left his backpack, but it wasn't there. The dumpster he had hidden it behind wasn't even there. He crept towards the front of the alleyway and was confronted with a mural of some green guy with a fishbowl helmet with “Mysterio was right” graffitied below it and then “Spider-Man’s a murderer” right below that. That was not normal. He knew with absolute certainty that that was not exactly accurate information. It at least wasn't information that the public had. He quickly jumped back up and made his way across the city and towards his apartment. It didn’t escape his notice however that he was being watched. It wasn’t unusual but it was more than normal and angrier than normal. He had been trying to convince himself it was fine and was doing an okay job of doing just that. But there was a lot of anti-spider-man graffiti and he was like 99.9% sure that he had seen his actual legal name graffitied right next to the Spider-Man logo. He also refused to address how obsessively he was avoiding Midtown.
He came to a stop outside of his apartment window, took one look inside, and bolted. The apartment was nice. There were no bloodstains, no PlayStation, no trash can overflowing with take-out boxes. The three of them didn’t live there. He caught a glimpse of a young woman pushing the door open with a toddler on her hip before he ran. He knew that other universes, other Earths existed, but he was in denial. He couldn’t be in one. He wasn’t in one. Wade still existed. Matt still existed. Everything would be okay. He couldn't help the tears that came or the fact that his tears and runny nose were fogging up his mask. He managed to swing on instinct though. In the first year of their relationship, Peter had swung this path a thousand times and he thanked whichever deity was responsible that the route was still the same. Peter felt a wave of relief when he dropped down from Matt’s roof access and it was Matt’s apartment. The rational part of his brain knew something was still terribly wrong. Matt had moved in with the two of them years ago, but Peter was terrified and was craving something familiar.
Peter barely got a moment to take off his mask and breathe before the door to the apartment swung open and Matt’s walking cane was launched at Peter’s head. “I can explain,” Peter said catching the cane and setting it gently on the coffee table.
Matt was silent and just threw himself at Peter. Peter should have been expecting it to be honest. He was essentially breaking and entering. The logical part of his brain knew that he had landed himself in an alternate universe New York, but he was trying his hardest to ignore that. Matt got a good punch in before Peter’s instincts kicked in and he jumped onto the ceiling. “Let me explain, my name’s Peter Parker.”
“No, you’re not,” Matt said. He was clearly confused. It didn’t last very long before he was grabbing his cane off of the coffee table and launching at where Peter was clinging to the ceiling.
“Yes, I am, I promise.”
“I’m his lawyer. I might be blind but I’m not stupid.”
“I know you’re not stupid. I know you. Your name’s Matt Murdock you graduated from Columbia University with your friend Foggy Nelson. You then started a law firm with him here in Hell's Kitchen. Your dad was a boxer. The chemical spill that blinded you also made all of your senses enhanced and you fight crime in a weird devil get up cause you secretly have a flair for the dramatics that you try to keep people from seeing because you carry around a lot of Catholic guilt about always needing to be humble. Even though you are a highly talented person, both with practicing law and with crime-fighting and you should be proud of your accomplishments. Anyway, I think I was pulled from my original universe into this one. I don’t know what’s going on,” Peter explained, finally dropping down from the ceiling. “But I know that you are a human lie detector and you know that I’m not lying.”
“How did you know where I lived?” Matt asked.
“I um, I’m dating my version of you,” Peter explained sheepishly.
“Oh.”
“We’re also dating an unkillable mercenary, but our apartment wasn’t- he wasn’t. He’s usually the one who ends up in these weird situations,” Peter tried to explain. He had ended up curling into a ball, trying to keep his hands from shaking and his breathing steady.
“We’re both dating him?”
Peter couldn’t help the snort that escaped him, “Of course, that’s what you focus on. Yes, we’re both dating him. He has an adorable daughter, Ellie, who lives with her mom. She spends every other weekend with us in our spare bedroom and we usually take the weekend off patrolling. Unless someone else calls and really needs our help. But yeah, I’m rambling, but yeah we’re dating Wade Wilson. He’s Spider-Man’s number one fan, so I guess if you’re Peter’s lawyer and you don’t know who he is then he doesn’t exist.”
“Maybe he’s just not in New York,” Matt tried to reason. He caught Peter by surprise when he sat down next to him.
Peter couldn’t bring himself to respond to Matt. He just continued to hold his knees close to his chest and tried to breathe through the mounting panic.
***
“He was really sweet,” Peter told them. “I mean after he stopped trying to hit me.”
Matt smiled into Peter’s hair and they all chose to ignore the sniffling coming from Wade behind them. Peter wanted to keep telling them about what had happened to him, but the comfort of his two boyfriends and the warmth of the heated blanket they had wrapped him in quickly dragged him into a deep sleep.
Peter woke up in the morning to the sound of Golden Girls filtering through the cracked bedroom door and Matt’s arm wrapped around his waist. Matt hummed and stretched up to give him a chaste kiss before rolling out of bed. “We should rescue the kitchen from Wade.”
Peter hummed in agreement but didn’t make any movements to actually get out of bed.
“Peter,” Matt sighed, clearly attempting to be annoyed but no one was fooled.
“Up?” Peter asked, holding out his hands.
Matt sighed, grumbled while still leaning down, and scooping him up. “We should have never started indulging you. I swear if you had your way you’d never walk again.”
“Walking is for losers,” Peter mumbled into Matt’s shoulder.
“Of course, it is,” Matt chuckled while he carried Peter over to where Wade was flipping pancakes in the kitchen.
“Can we cuddle on the couch?” Peter softly asked.
“Absolutely,” Matt smiled, setting Peter down on the couch. Peter didn’t give him a chance to right himself before Peter just dragged him down on top of him. Peter wrapped his limbs around Matt and drifted in and out of sleep while Wade finished up in the kitchen.
Peter loved mornings like this. He tried not to take these slow mornings for granted. Their apartment wasn’t great but with the tv playing, the smell of pancakes, and Wade’s ongoing monologue it was home.
***
This different Matt was absurdly similar to Peter’s own Matt that it was unnerving. Peter kept having to remind himself that he wasn’t his. That he wasn’t just hanging out with one of his boyfriends and his other one was just out on a job. He had sat with Peter while he tried to calm down and do as much processing as possible. He had helped other Spider-Mans get back to their home universes before. There was no reason that he couldn’t do the same for himself. Once he thought he had done the best he could to convince himself that everything was absolutely fine and manageable--no really it was fine--started to make a plan. “So, who’s this other Peter?”
“Why?” Matt asked, seeming slightly surprised that Peter was talking again.
“Well, if I was able to get the Spider-People who wound up in my universe home then maybe this one can help me get home.” Peter was pretty sure he sounded as unconvinced as he felt.
Matt sighed, “Knowing him, he was the one who caused all of this. But I can point you in the right direction.”
***
“I spent most of that night looking for the other Peter only to get snatched up by his friends. Apparently, wizards are a thing there.” Peter tried to explain to Matt and Wade. “Then they found this other Peter, who was older than me, might I add. It felt nice not to be constantly surrounded by children for once.”
Wade snorted as he slid another pancake onto Peter’s plate.
“Anyway, the original Peter had like fractured reality because he and his friends hadn’t gotten into MIT, which is honestly an impressively teenage way to mess up the universe. Like yeah, I can immediately think of about ten of my students who would do that right now.”
“How’d he break it?” Matt asked, finishing off his plate.
“You know how I said there was a wizard? Well he cast this spell that was supposed to make everyone forget about Spider-Man, but he messed it up. So instead we were pulled into it and so were some of the guys that we had all fought against. We eventually managed to get all of them dealt with and he completed the spell and it sent us all back,” Peter shrugged, pushing his food around on his plate. “That’s pretty much it.”
Peter felt weird and of course Matt and Wade could tell. They let him get away with thinking that he was done with telling them about what he had gone through in the past few days, but he could tell that they knew he had more to say. They didn’t push him though. Matt had made sure that he could spend the next couple of days home with the two of them and Peter knew that the two of them were trying to never leave his eyesight for very long. Peter had tried to help with dishes after they had eaten, but Wade was quick to scoop him up and carry him back to their bedroom and practically lay on top of him in an attempt to keep him from trying to help. Peter put up a bit of a fight, but they all knew if he actually wanted to get up he would have no problem overpowering Wade. He quickly gave into the somewhat aggressive cuddles and pulled Wade under the blankets with him.
“What are you thinking about baby boy?” Wade asked, uncharacteristically softly.
“They,” Peter started and then quickly aborted the thought when Matt came back from cleaning up their meal. He knew he probably seemed pathetic but he held out a hand to pull Matt into his little nest of blankets he had created while he was trying to get as comfy as possible with Wade.
“What were you about to say?” Matt asked.
“So, the original Peter. He was trying to help the guys that he had pulled into his universe that we had fought, right? But I don't know. It felt like the only option but it didn’t feel right. I don’t know.”
“What did you guys have to do?” Wade asked.
Peter somehow managed to curl into himself even more. “He had this idea. All of them were brought to his universe right before they would have died. So he had this idea to help them. That maybe if he helped them they would be able to get back to their own universes and survive. Which sounds like a good plan.”
“But,” Wade prompted him to continue after he had fallen silent for too long.
“But they didn’t want the help. Most of them were happy how they were and yeah maybe helping them would mean that they wouldn’t die when they went home. It just didn’t feel right,” Peter sighed and snuggled further into their blankets. “I can practically hear you two thinking. What do you want to say?”
Matt was the first to say anything, “I don't want to be mean, but that other Peter seems like a blissfully ignorant idealist.”
“He’s like a seventeen year old magnet school white boy who was so upset he didn't get into MIT that he broke reality. I think that might be a given.” Peter said with an empty laugh. “I mean if someone had made that choice for him he would have been pissed. But no. He has the right kind of disability. Or maybe he doesn’t have any negative effects to his fun little spider bite,” Peter said bitterly. “He seemed fine.”
“Seeming fine is different from being fine,” Wade reminded him.
“I know,” Peter sighed. “It’s just. Who are you to decide which disabilities are the right kind of disabilities? If people don’t want to change their situation you can’t force them to, even if you think you’re doing right.”
Matt hummed in agreement behind him and pulled him into a hug.
“I wouldn't- I couldn’t- Not to you two,” Peter said. He was shaking. His thoughts were beginning to spiral into hundreds of ‘what if’s.
“We know you wouldn’t,” Wade tried to reassure him.
“But I did.”
“Did you have to?”
“I don’t know.”