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You would think that after Peter’s whole accidentally-breaking-the-multiverse-deal that he would have learned to leave magic alone. Unfortunately, Peter Parker is a self proclaimed scientist and enjoys hands-on learning more than anything. Meaning, that when Dr. Strange had to abruptly leave during Peter’s monthly visit, he took it upon himself to explore the Sanctum Sanctorum that unknowingly (to most of the city’s residents) sits right under New Yorkers’ noses. Besides, it’s not as if Stephen had asked him to leave before he disappeared through one of his trademark sparking rings.
So, Peter slips through the artifact room with curious eyes and twitching fingers, desperately wanting to know what each and every item can do. By the time his gaze lands on several glass orbs glowing in a variety of different colors, he can’t bring himself to resist any longer. The blue and purple globes that he picks up pose no problem, his inherent stickiness allowing them to stay easily in his grip. Him accidentally nudging an orange orb when lifting the other two causes it to roll into another, initiating a domino effect that ends with the red and green globes shattering on the floor. Peter can only watch on in horror as the glass scatters, tiny pieces skittering across the wooden floor panels, and multicolored smoke filling the air.
“Shit,” Peter hisses, the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stands on end. “Dr. Strange is so going to kill me this time.”
The smoke begins to clear only for Peter’s hackles to rise for a different reason. Coughing echoes through the room and it is not coming from him.
“Merlin’s saggy ballsack, that was worse than a portkey.”
“I’m going to murder Damian.”
Two voices speak at the same time, both mumbling to themselves but still easy to hear with Peter’s enhanced hearing. As the red and green mist dissipates, Peter blinks in confusion at the two boys standing upside down before him.
Are they sticky like him? Is that why they can hang from the ceiling like bats? It could be like when he met Peter 2 and Peter 3! They can hang out on the ceiling tog-
It then occurs to him that perhaps the strangers are not the ones hanging upside down.
His face is red as he drops back to the floor, flipping to land on his feet. The other two boys jump, holding up their respective weapons defensively as they realize they are not alone.
“Who are you?” A bow staff is brandished at Peter, a boy with black hair, blue eyes, and designer eyebags standing on the other end of it. He’s dressed in sweats with his hands wrapped, skin glistening with sweat as if he had just come from a work out.
“Uh,” Peter answers eloquently.
“Who are you?” The other mystery boy asks the one with the bow staff. This one also has black hair, though his is much messier, but his eyes are green and framed by a round pair of glasses. He glares at Bow Staff, holding out a much smaller stick, really a twig in comparison, as a weapon.
Bow Staff jumps as Glasses speaks, as if noticing him for the first time. He takes a step back, swinging his staff toward Glasses then back to Peter, as if he can’t decide which one of them is the threat. He finally settles on Glasses - which is honestly a bit offensive. Peter could totally be a threat if he wanted to be!
“How did you get me here?” Bow Staff glares at Glasses as he speaks. Glasses glares right back, so fiercely that his bright green eyes almost seem to glow.
“The hell is that supposed to mean? You two pulled me here! Was winning a bloody war not enough for you people?” Glasses bares his teeth and the end of his stick emits red sparks, so maybe it is actually more of a weapon than a twig. Peter takes note of Glasses' accent this time, the other boy sounding as if he might be English. Which, speaking of accents, Bow Staff sounded awfully close to some from… New Jersey. Ugh.
Bow Staff narrows his eyes, staring hard at Glasses for a moment before lunging forward, staff raised toward Peter.
“Woah!” Peter jumps straight up into the air, avoiding being beaten or skewered by sticking his fingertips to the ceiling. “Wait, can’t we talk about this?”
“So you do know something?” Bow Staff accuses, blue eyes almost slits as they burn into Peter from below.
“How are you up there?” Glasses’ mouth hangs open as he stares up at Peter, his stick held limply at his side as if he’d forgotten his previous anger in his shock.
“Uh.”
The three teens stare at one another for several long moments before Peter drops back to the floor, hands held out in front of him in a gesture of peace. Glasses watches both him and Bow Staff warily but doesn’t raise his weapon again. Bow Staff glares at them suspiciously, but seems to be holding back on active threats for now, at least.
“Maybe we should start with introductions?” Peter suggests, scratching the nape of his neck awkwardly. His mind whirs as he internally tries to decipher what magic he accidentally set off to bring the other boys here. And how he’s going to send them back from whence they came. “I’m Peter.”
The two blink at him before Glasses sighs, reaching up to tug at his unruly black hair, causing it to stick up even more. “You’re American,” Glasses closes his eyes with a frown, tilting his head up toward the ceiling before sighing again. “I’m Harry,” he says, crossing his arms across his chest as he looks between Peter and Bow Staff, unimpressed.
Peter and Harry both turn to look at Bow Staff expectantly, who glares at them both, clutching his staff tightly and shifting as if still debating on swinging at them.
“You got a name or not, mate?” Harry asks.
Bow Staff glares harder for a few more seconds before grumbling to himself. Peter catches something about a ‘Bruce’ and a ‘Damian’ before the boy huffs and puts his staff to the floor, leaning on it like a cane. “Tim.”
“Okay,” Peter drawls out, fidgeting nervously as his gaze flicks to the shattered remains of the glowing orbs Harry and Tim came from. “Now that introductions are done, do you guys know what you were trapped in glass balls?” Fuck. What if Peter just released some sort of magical demon villains that Dr. Strange had trapped for the good of the world? Is this gonna be another Thanos situation? If so, Peter definitely needs to submit his essay for his World History class before his next trip to space. Alien spaceships do not have the bandwidth to submit his college work from foreign planets.
“Glass balls?” Tim looks down at where Peter is staring, seeing the broken pieces of the red and green globes scattered around his and Harry’s feet. He squats down, picking up a shard of each color to examine more closely. “This is how you brought us here?”
“It wasn’t intentional!” Peter defends, crossing his arms. “I didn’t mean to knock them over. Besides, how was I to know that Dr. Strange was keeping you guys inside them?”
Tim gives him a look of displeasure before rolling his eyes. “I don’t think we were inside the… balls.”
Harry snorts but covers it with a cough when Tim throws him a glare. Peter muffles his own chuckle, straightening up. “Can’t say I’ve ever been trapped in glass,” Harry shrugs, using the point of his stick to scratch his scalp absentmindedly. “Been tortured, robbed a bank, and killed a Dark Lord, but not trapped in glass. Was trapped in a dungeon once, though,” he adds as an afterthought.
Peter and Tim exchange a glance, Peter of wide-eyed confusion and Tim of narrow-gazed suspicion, before looking at Harry.
“You robbed a bank?” Peter asks.
“That’s what you’re going to focus on?” Tim whips his head back around to give him an incredulous look. Peter shrugs.
“I’ve gotten around,” Harry shrugs as well. He then gestures to the pieces of glass in Tim’s hands. “Drop those real quick.”
The other boy hesitates, still staring at Harry with an inordinate amount of suspicion, but he sets the glass back on the floor, standing up and stepping a few paces away. Harry lifts his stick before waving it through the air, pointing at the shattered, colorful glass.
“Reparo!”
Peter watches in amazement as the shards of the previously shattered globes zoom together before putting themselves into place like puzzle pieces. Once two fully intact orbs sit in the shards place Harry lowers his stick - his wand, Peter realizes - and bends down to pick them up. He holds them out to Peter.
“Good as new,” the wizard gives him a thin lipped smile.
“You’re a magician,” Tim says in realization, glancing between the once again glowing orbs, Harry, and his wand.
“Prefer wizard, actually.”
“You fixed them!” Peter exclaims in amazement, taking the globes and making sure they stick to his hands. He holds them close to his face, examining them for any sign of cracks or scratches.
“Yeah, but it still didn’t send us back,” Harry sighs with a frown.
“You thought-” Tim cuts himself off from what sounded to be a scathing remark, looking thoughtfully at the glass balls. “Actually, yeah. That would have been a good theory.”
“You’re a wizard like Dr. Strange,” Peter says, moving to place the orbs back where they originally sat. He places them carefully, making sure the line of glowing globes are exactly as they were before this entire incident.
“Dr. who?” Harry asks with furrowed brows.
“No,” Peter grins, slightly giddy at the joke he gets to make. “Dr. Strange.”
Tim and Harry just staring at him, not a flicker of recognition on either of their faces. Peter pouts slightly. Ned so would have found that funny.
“We’re getting off track,” Tim interrupts. “Let me make sure I have this right, you,” he points to Peter, “broke those,” he gestures to the red and green orbs, “and then Harry and I were brought here,” Tim waves his hand between himself and the wizard.
“Yep,” Peter lets out a nervous chuckle, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Seems like you have the whole story.”
Tim frowns and begins to pace, one hand reaching up to tug at his hair. Harry moves to stand beside Peter and they both watch as the other boy walks back and forth for several minutes, not a single word uttered between them. Eventually, Tim stops in front of the line of globes, bending to stare at each one closely. When he finally stands straight, he looks at Peter again.
“Do you know of the Justice League?”
Peter frowns. “Is that a sports team?”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no,’” he then turns to Harry. “What about you?”
Harry shakes his head, twirling his wand between his fingers. “Never heard of ‘em, mate.”
Tim sighs, a long breath exiting through his nose as his eyes shut for a few moments. “I suppose,” he starts, “that it’s safe to say that whatever these,” he gestures to the orbs again, “balls are, they brought Harry and I from different universes to yours.”
Peter feels the blood in his head drain to his feet. Of course he would break the orbs that are connected to the freaking multiverse, it’s not as if messing with other universes has fucked him over before or anything.
“Which means,” Tim continues, “that we now need a way to either transport us back or at least a means to contact our original universes.”
“Great!” Harry laughs, a slightly hysterical tone to his voice. “This is amazing! Exactly what I needed. I get a whole month of a world with Riddle and now I’m in a new world all together,” he laughs again before sinking down to sit crisscrossed on the floor. Harry stares at the floorboards, wand clutched with both of his hands.
Peter opens his mouth to try and comfort the wizard but Tim sets a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s give him a minute,” he tells Peter before tugging him toward the orbs. He picks up the green and red ones and Peter feels the hair on his arms stand on end at the thought of them shattering again. If they break, will they break the multiverse too?
“You broke these and Harry and I appeared.”
Peter nods.
“I think we should break them again.”
Peter stares at the other boy, slackjawed. Then, he lunges, snatching the globes out of Tim’s hands.
“Are you crazy?” He hisses.
Tim rolls his eyes, something he seems to do a lot. “No. Just think about it. Maybe if you break them again, it’ll send Harry and I back to our universes.”
“And what if it just brings more people here instead?!”
Tim tilts his head, staring at the orbs in Peter’s arms with a calculated expression before shrugging. “That’s only two more people.”
“Only two mo-” Peter shifts the balls to one arm so he can smack his own face with his free hand. “You are crazy.”
“Crazy problems need crazy solutions.”
They stare at one another for several moments, Peter glaring indignantly while clutching the orbs to his chest as Tim remains calm, nonchalantly leaning against his bow staff.
“Do it.”
They both turn to see Harry standing and seeming much more put together than a few minutes previous. He looks at them determinedly. “I didn’t save my world just to get stuck in a new one. Break it and pray it sends me back. I’m not sure what I might do otherwise.”
It’s tense for a second before Peter nods, “Yep. Yeah. Okay. We’re breaking them because Dr. Strange will kill me if you’re here saying things like that when he gets back.”
“Dr. who-”
Harry’s question is cut off by the shattering of glass. Just as before, green and red smoke fills the space and Peter’s sixth sense goes a bit crazy. When the smoke clears, though, the wizard and bow staff-carrying-teenager are both gone. Peter release the breath he had been holding and sends a prayer of thanks to Thor. He then stares at the pieces of shattered glass on the floor for several seconds. He sort of wishes Harry and his chore-completing-wand were still here.
Peter goes to find a broom.
“Filthy, slimy… never should have… Wong,” Dr. Strange steps through a portal covered in some sort of gelatinous, yellow substance and mutters to himself. He looks up at Peter after swiping a glob of the yellow slime off of his sleeve, the jello landing on the floor with an audible ‘plop.’ “Mr. Parker, I didn’t realize that you would still be here.”
Peter smiles as innocently as possible as he speaks, “Just wanted to make sure you made it back safely Dr. Strange, sir!”
The wizard gives him a suspicious look, scanning Peter from head to toe as he nods slowly. “Mhm,” Dr. Strange hums, unconvinced, “So you just sat here for several hours, waiting for me to come back.”
“Yep,” Peter draws out the syllable, still grinning widely. He grips the seat under him so tightly that he hears the chair creak, wood threatening to splinter on his enhanced strength.
The two stare at one another for several seconds, seeming as if neither is going to be the first to break. Finally, Dr. Strange sighs, shaking his head and reaching up as if to pinch the bridge of his nose. He diverts his fingers at the last moment, seeming to remember his slime cover appearance. He blinks slowly before narrowing his eyes at Peter and shaking his head again.
“Mr. Parker, I have no desire to know what you got up to while I was gone. As long as the multiverse is still intact and no one is dead, I am going to shower and sleep for at least thirteen hours. Please show yourself out.”
“Absolutely, Dr. Strange, Stephen, sir,” Peter salutes the man, already walking backwards through the artifacts room. “Multiverse is great and no bodies to be seen,” his voice cracks and he laughs nervously in an attempt to cover it. Peter spins on the ball of her foot, jogging for the staircase that will lead him to freedom. “Enjoy your nap!”
Stephen Strange stares after the teenager that has been both a thorn in his side and a surprising delight since the moment they met during their game of Infinity Stone Keep Away with Thanos. Whatever Peter Parker is trying and failing to hide from him can’t be more important than washing the slimy remains of the sentient jello he spent hours trying to de-sentient-fly. So, he ignores the boy’s nervous demeanor and hasty exit.
It’s on his walk to his rooms that his shoes kicked something metallic across the floor. The internal debate of investigating is unfortunately won by the part of him that was once Sorcerer Supreme. He can’t say that he finds any answers to what the teenage vigilante could have possibly been up to when he picks an oddly bat-shaped blade off of the floor. Isn’t Peter’s whole schtick spiders? What’s next, some other wannabe hero roaming around the city at night while dressed as a bat?
Stephen laughs despite himself, setting the weird knife on a side table to return to Peter later, and continues to the shower. As if anyone would be ridiculous enough to call themselves Batman.