Chapter Text
The light streaming through the windows is strangely white. It gives the room an odd, almost ethereal quality, washing the shadows from the corners and painting the world into soft focus.
No, this is her bedroom. Felicia Hardy’s.
Felicia blinks, fighting the heavy pull of sleep, and feels strong arms wrap around her stomach. Someone rests their chin on her shoulder, their stubble scratching delightfully against her skin.
It’s Peter B. Parker. He’s saying something, his lips moving against her neck, but she can’t hear any of it. It feels like watching a movie on mute.
"Peter?" Felicia tries to ask, turning her head to get a better look at him. "Speak up. I can’t hear you."
But her words make no sound. Still, the warmth of him is so real it aches.
Then, Felicia wakes up.
She glances around her messy, distinctly empty bed and groans, burying her face into her silk pillowcase.
Another dream. They’d been happening ever since… well, since Peter got divorced from his wife, Mary-Jane.
Felicia has had feelings for him for a long time, and he certainly knew that. What she wasn’t sure of was whether he knew those feelings had gotten stronger—or perhaps more hopeful—ever since the ink dried on those divorce papers.
She knew it was terrible of her. Peter was definitely not in the best mental state, and swooping in on a grieving, sweatpants-wearing vigilante definitely violated girl-code. Especially since she still occasionally checked up on MJ to make sure she was doing okay, too.
Just… she couldn’t help it. There were a lot of what-ifs haunting her about their relationship.
Like, what if she’d been more mature back then? What if she’d taken Peter’s feelings seriously when they were younger, instead of treating him like a fun distraction?
She rolled over, staring blankly at the ceiling.
This line of thought was pointless. She had no chance now. She’d made her bed years ago, and now she had to sleep in it. Alone.
——————
Meanwhile across town, Peter was in the middle of a patrol, indeed miserable.
He’d been miserable a lot these days.
After helping an old lady cross an intersection—which resulted in him getting whacked with her purse because he’d accidentally startled her—the weirdest thing happened.
The sky tore open. A glitchy portal ripped through the clouds, neon colors bleeding into the blue, and seconds later, something came rocketing out of it at terminal velocity.
CRASH.
The figure slammed into the street. Hard. Car alarms began blaring loudly. Dust and chunks of asphalt billowed into the air around the impact site.
Peter winced behind his mask, instinctively hopping onto the hood of a nearby cab. He stayed crouched low at a calculated distance, running through his mental checklist of assassins, symbiotes, and disgruntled former villains.
After a minute without any murder attempts, he went down, creeping closer and peering cautiously over the edge of the smoking crater.
"Ok," Peter muttered to himself. "Alien invasion? Demon? Please don’t be an alien demon… I haven’t warmed up for that…"
It was… a girl. Well, a teenager.
She was sprawled out in the rubble, wearing a scuffed leather jacket, ripped jeans, and a pair of beat-up boots. Her ash-blonde hair was a tangled mess, sticking up in every direction.
"Ugh, my head…" she groaned, rubbing the back of her head.
She looked surprisingly normal. Harmless, even.
"Hey, kid," Peter called out, offering a hand down into the pit. "You alright? That looked like a nasty fall."
The girl blinked, her sharp brown eyes focusing on him. After registering the offered hand, she took it and allowed him to haul her up onto the sidewalk.
Given that she’d just fallen out of the sky and was now on two feet, Peter figured she had some level of enhanced durability.
Finally, she seemed to recognize him. Not as Spider-Man, the hero of New York, but as…
"Dad?" she gasped, her eyes widening.
Wait, what?
Before he could process the word, she launched herself forward, hugging him with rib-cracking strength that somehow matched his own.
"Oh, thank god you’re here," she breathed, already rambling at a dizzying pace. "Kingpin, he—I was at his underground facility, and the collider started ripping itself apart, and I got sucked into the beam, and—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, time out! T and O!" Peter gently but firmly pried her off, holding her by the shoulders. "Kid, you have the wrong guy. I mean, I'm Spider-Man, but I'm definitely not anyone's dad. My plants barely survive as is. And they’re all cactuses."
The girl stared at him as though he’d suddenly grown a second head. "What are you talking about? You’re definitely my dad. I’m Madelyn Parker. Maddy? Does that ring any bells?"
"I'm Peter B. Parker," he introduced himself automatically, even though he never did that while wearing the mask.
For some reason, Peter felt a cold sweat break across his forehead. A sense of growing dread pooled in his stomach. "And you’re…"
"Madelyn," she repeated patiently. "But you call me May. Short for Madelyn. It’s a whole thing."
Peter stared at her, taking in the disconcertingly familiar brown eyes, ash-blonde hair, and dusty leather jacket. "Okay, May—sorry, Madelyn. I’m going to ask you a very important question, and I need you to be completely honest with me."
"Okay…?"
Peter took a deep breath, steeling his nerves. "Who is your mother?"
Madelyn rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, a gesture so intensely teenage that it made Peter's soul lurch. "Felicia Hardy. Black Cat. You know, your wife? Mom always said you were a little slow on the uptake, but come on."
Oh boy.
Peter’s brain promptly flatlined, zeroing in on the most flabbergasting parts of her explanation.
Felicia Hardy. Wife. Mom.
Which apparently meant this kid was his… biological daughter.
"Right," Peter squeaked, undignified. "Cool. Awesome. Great. Just… gimmie a sec."
He turned around, buried his face into his palms, and let out a long, strangled scream of terror. He could feel Madelyn’s judgmental gaze boring into his back.
It took ten minutes of frantic questioning to get things straightened out.
Apparently, the Kingpin of her Earth had been messing around with a super-collider—because of course he was, nobody learned from their mistakes in any dimension—and the resulting dimensional tear had sucked her in and dumped her here.
Peter wasn’t entirely shocked by the multiverse nonsense. Twenty-two years of being Spider-Man had exposed him to a lot of weirdness.
No, the weird part about it all was the concept of him and Felicia Hardy, in some other universe, actually sorting out their baggage, shacking up, and having a kid.
"So," Peter said, leading her onto the fire escape outside his apartment. He yanked the window open and climbed inside his cramped, cluttered apartment. "Welcome to my humble adobe. Mind the mess. And the smell."
Madelyn followed him inside, taking off her leather jacket and tossing it onto the battered couch. She looked around the tiny apartment with a mixture of pity and horror.
"Dad… why is it so small? Where’s the rest of your stuff?"
"Different universe, kid," Peter sighed, pulling his mask off and carelessly tossing it onto the kitchen counter. "I had to downsize after… the divorce. Not with your mother. We never got together here."
"Yikes," Madelyn said bluntly. "No wonder you look like crap."
"Hey! I am a respected hero in the middle of a mid-life lifestyle pivot," Peter defended weakly. He walked over to the fridge and pulled it open. "I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. You hungry? I think I have something in here that’s edible…"
Before he could react, Madelyn darted past him in a blur of motion. Within a concerningly short amount of time, she’d stripped the fridge bare, devouring the leftover slices of pizza cold, a bag of shredded cheese, all his yogurt cups, and an apple.
When her feeding frenzy was over, she leaned against the counter and let out a satisfied burp.
"Wow. You really are my kid." Peter muttered, eyeing the empty shelves of his fridge.
"So, what’s the plan?" Madelyn asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "How do I get back home? And more importantly, are we gonna go see Mom?"
Peter froze, hand still resting on the fridge door.
Felicia.
His Felicia would probably have some shady contact that could help them out of this mess. A Fisk employee or even a stolen piece of tech, anything.
She was also the one woman who made him feel both inadequate and overwhelmingly seen. Their history was messy, and their current relationship similarly so. After the divorce from MJ, Felicia had been lingering around the edges of his life, a constant presence that he was too scared to actually acknowledge.
Would it be unethical to just… not tell my Felicia about this?
Maybe. Probably. Definitely. But Peter didn’t want to think too hard about a world where he and Felicia somehow made it work when the pain of ruining his marriage with MJ was still fresh.
Besides, Peter could picture the conversation crystal clear:
"Hey Felicia, long time no see! Thanks for coming over. This is Madelyn; she’s our kid from a universe where I didn’t mess everything up and we got married. Anyway, you have any goobers lying around I could borrow?"
Yeah, no way.
Felicia would either punch him into next week or have a nervous breakdown. Neither option sounded particularly appealing to Peter, who was emotionally hanging on by a thread.
"Okay, here's the plan," Peter said slowly, closing the fridge door. "We can figure it out ourselves. Just… give me a night to think. And whatever you do, do not leave this apartment. If the Bugle sees you running around Queens, I’ll never hear the end of it."
"Ourselves?" Madelyn raised an eyebrow. "So, you aren't gonna tell Mom?"
"Your mom isn't my—I mean, my Felicia isn't your mom. She's just... a person I know. Professionally. And unprofessionally. It’s complicated."
"Right. You guys haven't fallen in love with each other here." Madelyn nodded sagely. "Tragic."
"We are not discussing my love life, you are a child!"
"I'm sixteen!"
"Which is basically an infant! Now stay here, don't touch the thermostat, and definitely do not answer the door—"
A loud knock at the door cut him off. A bolt of horror shot down Peter’s spine as he slowly approached the door and peered through the peephole.
Standing on the other side was Felicia, wearing a stylish trench coat and tapping a heeled foot impatiently against the floor.
It was a rare occasion that she actually used the front door. Under normal circumstances, she preferred entering through the window like any civilized cat burglar. Peter would’ve been delighted at the sudden change if the situation weren’t so dire.
"Oh no," Peter whispered. He turned towards Madelyn. "Hide."
"What?"
"Hide! Now!" Peter gestured vigorously toward the bathroom. "Get in the tub and pull the curtain! Do not make a sound!"
Madelyn, sensing the panic in his voice, listened. She darted into the bathroom and slammed the door shut just as Peter scrambled to unlock his own.
"Hey, Felicia! Wow. Hi. What a completely unexpected and totally random surprise." Peter threw open the door and blocked the entrance with his body. "Have I mentioned that you look great today? Not that you don’t always look great. Because you do. Just that today in particular you look—"
Felicia arched an eyebrow, slipping past him into the apartment before he could stop her.
She wrinkled her nose at the smell of depression and misery. "…Peter. You look like you're having a heart attack. Did you look at your bank account, or something?"
"Funny. You should do stand-up," Peter said nervously, wiping his sweaty palms on his thighs. "What brings you to my humble, empty, and completely solitary abode?"
Felicia looked closely at him, her sharp eyes scanning his face. "Empty?"
"Yep. Just me, myself, and I. Sitting alone. In my apartment."
Felicia’s gaze drifted from his flushed face to the still open window. Then to the leather jacket thrown on the couch. Then to the empty containers of yogurt sitting on the counter.
"Peter," Felicia said, her voice dangerously calm. "Is there someone else in here with you?"
Peter’s stomach dropped. "Uh…"
"Who’s jacket is that?" Felicia asked suspiciously.
"Mine! I was just... trying out a new look. You know, for fashion."
Felicia’s eyes narrowed. "You're lying. You don’t have a sense of fashion. And you're sweating." Her gaze sharpened. "Did you bring a woman here? Is that what this is? Because if you did, I can leave—"
"No! I didn't bring a woman here! I swear!"
"Then who’s in your bathroom?" Felicia pointed at the closed door. "I heard it shut before I came in."
"My... plumber!"
"Your plumber came in through the window and wears leather jackets?"
Before Peter could invent another terrible lie, the bathroom door clicked open.
Madelyn stepped out, looking thoroughly unimpressed. She looked between Peter and Felicia, her expression settling somewhere between confusion and secondhand embarrassment.
The silence in the apartment became so thick Peter felt like he could suffocate on it.
Felicia’s jaw dropped as she examined the girl's face. The resemblance was undeniable. It was like looking into a funhouse mirror that aged her backwards by a decade or so. They had the same eyes, cheekbones, even the same smile.
"Peter," Felicia whispered, not breaking eye contact with the teenager. "Why does this child look exactly like me?"
"She's a clone!" Peter blurted out desperately. "Jackal got loose again. Classic Jackal shenanigans."
"I am not a clone," Madelyn snapped, offended. She looked back at Felicia, her demeanor softening just a fraction. "Hi. You look… younger."
Felicia blinked.
Madelyn winced. "Sorry. That sounded better in my head."
Felicia rubbed her temples, hoping that this was some elaborate hallucination brought on by lack of sleep or a questionable fantasy borne of her own hopeless yearning. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"My name is Madelyn Parker-Hardy. I'm not from here." Madelyn pointed a thumb at Peter. "On my Earth, he’s my dad. And you're… my mom."