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chapter twelve
the three peters
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LENA IS DEAD.

That's what she thinks at first. Because how else would she be able to explain how she's floating in a realm of inky blackness, untethered to the corporal world, unbound by the confines of her body? It's different from the shadow realm. There, she could feel the terrifying lawlessness of the void, always hyper-aware that Graham was the only thing anchoring her as they traveled from one location to the next.

No, this is peaceful. She's without form. Barely a stream of consciousness, Lena is unaware of anything beyond this liminal space.

Then she feels movement and becomes conscious of the fact she's back in her body. There is gentle pressure on what must be her face. Slowly, her senses return one by one like puzzle pieces snapping into position, giving her a clear picture of what's happening.

First: her sense of touch. Someone is cradling her face with their hands, their thumbs running along her cheekbones. Her back rests against a warm, hard body. The skin under her nose and around her mouth prickles when her lip twitches, like something is dried there and she'd broken up its smooth layers. She feels so hot to the touch that it's as if she's baking in her suit.

Next: Smell. Though her nostrils burn when she breathes through them, sending stabbing pain through her sinuses, the acrid stench of smoke still registers in Lena's brain. It's nearly overpowering. If her eyes were open, she might have had tears pooling in them from how thoroughly it smothers the air.

Then: Hearing. Something isn't right. All she can discern is the same ringing sound. There's something else, too, like a faint echo barely penetrating the constant noise, but she can't tell what it is.

The ringing slowly subsides over several agonizing seconds. She's finally able to tell what that other sound is.

"Lena, come on. Don't make me lose you like this."

The voice still sounds muffled like she's listening from underwater, forcing her to strain to distinguish the words from each other.

A shallow cough bursts from her lips, not enough to clear her lungs of the toxic smoke clogging them, but she can't go any deeper without a horrific ache blossoming in her ribcage. Her head pulses with agony when she tries to turn it to the side. In fact, now she can tell that her entire body throbs with a pain so deep it feels like every single atom has been shredded. She's forced to stay still, scarcely daring to breathe lest her ribs protest again.

"Lee?" That's Graham's voice— she knows it now. It's thick like he's crying. "Oh, my God."

At first she can see nothing but a smoky, gray haze when she peels her eyes open. Lena releases a pained whimper when she inhales a rattling breath and tries to blink to clear her surroundings.

The dizzying array of blurry shapes eventually sharpens into Graham's face. The black veins under his eyes have been replaced with tears, cutting into the thick layer of dust coating his dark skin. He releases a relieved sigh when they lock gazes and sniffles as he adjusts her limp stance against his shoulder.

Lena weakly cries out in protest, every molecule in her body sparking with misery when she moves. It feels like all her bones are broken. Someone has taken her muscles and stretched them past the point of no return. Even when she's still, her brain is overridden with torment.

"You're okay," Graham assures her. His voice still sounds muffled, like Lena's ears have been stuffed with cotton. "You're okay. I've got you."

The desperate, raw tone he speaks in suggests he's also trying to reassure himself. She has no doubt that, for a few horrible moments, he'd thought she was dead, just as she had.

Her best friend's face comes in and out of focus. Pain throbs in her skull and her vision blurs again for a second.

"Are—" Lena croaks, her voice gravelly, and oh wow, her ribs and face really hurt when she talks — "Are you all right?"

Graham's eyes nearly bug out of his head. "Me? I'm fine, yeah, thanks to you. But Lee, if you could see yourself—"

He's interrupted by a figure emerging from the plumes of dust and small fires that surround them. For a moment, it stops right in her peripheral vision, and Lena waits a second before taking the monumental effort to shift her head toward them.

She finds Peter with a hand pressed to his side. His face shines with sweat and is littered with cuts and bruises. He stands perfectly still for a split second, his face frozen in a crestfallen expression, until he sees Lena move. Then he hobbles closer to them, still appearing distraught but also relieved that Graham isn't cradling Lena's corpse.

As he approaches, Lena notices that he's crying— no, sobbing, his chest heaving with sharp intakes of breath that lead to shaky exhales, his eyes red and raw. Red and blue lights flash onto the side of his scraped face from the distance. She hears the faraway sound of police sirens. It becomes obvious that something had happened, but what, she's not sure; she can't move enough to observe the chaotic scene in its entirety.

Lena barely catches a voice shouting something like, "Run!" and it sounds like Happy Hogan.

"We have to go," Graham tells Peter.

Normally, he would just grab them all and shadow-travel them away without dawdling. But now he's staring at Peter meaningfully, his voice gentle.

Lena's eyes flicker to something behind Peter. It looks like a body amid the rubble. Panic flares in her chest, and suddenly her previously dulled senses become too saturated, the smoke too strong, the heat too intense, every color too bright, but sounds remain frustratingly muffled.

Peter nods in understanding. Graham clasps their hands together. Lena is still staring at the unmoving body when they disappear into the shadows, knowing it could only belong to one person.

They emerge on a rooftop, clearly a halfway point between the destroyed apartment building and their next destination, cold November rain splashing onto their faces. It rolls down Lena's cheeks and creates streaks that cut through the dust caked to her skin. She finds herself grateful for the chill that can cool her down, expecting steam to rise where the droplets land on her.

The trio sits in silence, the rain gradually soaking through their suits, plastering their hair to their scalps. It's a fitting mood for the aftermath of the catastrophic battle— dreary, cold, and hopeless.

Flashes cloud Lena's vision. The Goblin's hand around her throat, squeezing the breath from her lungs. She can still feel his bruising grip on her neck. May standing defiantly with their half-finished tools in her hand, staying strong even if she was the only one in the area without powers. The final words she'd heard from the woman had been a demand. "Put her down."

Her last memory of May Parker was her trying to keep Lena safe.

A fresh ache blossoms in her chest, causing tears to flood her vision, spilling down her cheeks in streams that blend in with the rivulets of rain. She inhales a rattling breath that makes her wince. Then she releases a broken sob, choking on her grief and the agony in her ribs that won't allow her to expel it properly.

May didn't deserve this. She'd always done her best to help them; even before she'd known about Peter's alter ego, she'd been so kind to Lena upon their first meeting. It feels like ages ago when May had given her some of her own clothes to change into after Vulture had dropped her and Peter in the lake. She'd made them hot chocolate. She never judged her nephew for what he could do, instead encouraging him to continue using his abilities for good. She always believed that they could make a difference.

And now she's gone. Ripped away so unfairly and suddenly, caught in the crossfire of a battle she shouldn't have had to fight.

Lena glances at Peter. The billboard in front of the rooftop casts lambent colors onto his distraught face, illuminating the droplets clinging to his eyelashes and cascading down his cheeks. His eyes are distant as he struggles to process what had just happened.

The billboard plasters the Daily Bugle broadcast onto its enormous screen, presenting them with the face of the last person they want to see right now: J. Jonah Jameson.

"Tragedy. What else can I call it? What more need be said? The damage, the destruction... You saw it with your own eyes. When will people wake up and realize that everywhere Spider-Man, Havoc, and Specter go, chaos and calamity ensue? Everything they touch comes to ruin. And we, the innocents, are left to pick up the pieces."

Lena reaches out and touches the inside of Peter's wrist, the material of his metal suit freezing even to her rapidly cooling fingertips. It's the most she can touch him without having to adjust her position against Graham's chest. Even so, she hopes that the physical contact will convey the intended message: I'm here for you. You are not alone. We will get through this. I love you.

The broadcast continues with their strongest critic saying, "J. Jonah Jameson, reporting. Good night. And God help us all."

Those final words ring in Lena's ears, reverberating from eardrum to eardrum, driving home in her heart. The damage and destruction, the chaos and calamity following them everywhere they go... what had they been thinking, bringing people from another dimension who had spent their past lives in their home realms fighting the trio's superhero alter egos, into Happy's home? How could they have been so blindly naïve to assume that nothing would go wrong in the process? That each of the invaders would wait for them to figure out a solution and then go on their merry ways?

It's just like when the Staten Island Ferry had split in two when she and Peter had tried to stop a trade. Tony had arrived in the nick of time to fix their mess, and they'd been left on a rooftop feeling stupid, childish, and slighted, just as they are now. Except Tony isn't able to help them anymore. The weight of this catastrophe lands on their shoulders alone.

Tony. Natasha. Vision. Steve. May. The list of casualties keeps growing, and death hasn't gotten easier to grapple with. Instead of becoming used to the sensation of mourning, it seems like each demise carves a deeper hole into Lena's heart.

"Where..." Graham trails off, his throat thick. "Where do we go?"

Neither of them responds, their brains coming up empty. Peter stands as still as a statue, almost catatonic, his glassy eyes locked onto the billboard. He stares miserably ahead before shrugging. The motion is almost imperceptible at first, so subtle Lena nearly doesn't see it. Then he miserably shakes his head and finally tears his attention from the screen in front of them.

"No idea," he replies, his voice a croak.

They can't return to their apartments— not with the buildings constantly under surveillance by the press, and especially not with a death in their midst. Happy's place had been their secret sanctuary. All of their friends' homes are off-limits.

"There's nowhere to go," Peter continues. It seems to sum up all of their thoughts. "Unless..."

"What is it?" Graham asks.

He swallows. "Where we've gone to escape from everything since the start of the school year."

Graham nods, understanding what he means without him having to name the place. He tightens his grip on Peter's hand — he's been holding it all this time — and releases a deep breath. "Okay. Get ready."

He whisks them into the shadows again, this time for a little bit longer, the darkness consuming them whole until they surface on another rooftop. This one is familiar in comparison to the foreign place they'd arrived at earlier. Lena never thought she would be glad to be back at school, but with her world having just been turned upside down yet again, she welcomes the familiarity with open arms.

Peter sways a bit on his feet when they land. Graham uses his grip on his hand to tug him down until he's level with him and Lena, his legs crossing beneath him. He sits so close to Graham that their knees touch and Lena can feel each shuddering breath he takes. His body's tremors travel through the places the three of them share physical contact, uniting their suffering.

The rain continues to pour down on them, but with Graham and Peter's heads bent close together, creating almost a tent-like structure over Lena, there's this one space that remains warm and dry.

"I'm sorry," Graham says, the words bursting from his lips like he's been holding them back. "If I hadn't been... If Farah hadn't gotten in my head, I could've helped. Maybe she wouldn't have... Maybe things would've been different."

His words hang between them for several long moments. Lena doesn't think she can speak through the silent sobs still causing her to shake, and Peter is quiet, unsure if the thought of things being different makes him feel better or worse.

"It was terrifying." His voice is a whisper now. If they hadn't been so close, she wouldn't have been able to hear it over the downfall. "I was locked in a room in my own brain. I could see everything I was doing, but couldn't stop it. Like I was a puppet and she was pulling my strings."

"It's not your fault," Peter assures him just as quietly. "It's his."

The Green Goblin's.

Lena tries to stifle her cries for his sake as she reaches for him. Peter accepts her touch and allows Graham to carefully transfer her into his arms. The nature of Peter's suit makes him colder to rest against, but she leans into him like close proximity can heal them both. His fingers absentmindedly brush a section of wet hair away from her forehead.

"I thought you were..." Peter's throat gets clogged mid-sentence, forcing him to release an exhale from his mouth before he can swallow and continue. "When I saw Graham holding you, for a moment I thought I'd lost you, too."

Lena shakes her head. "I'm alive... and very painfully so." She grits her teeth and presses a hand against her side. "I think my ribs are bruised. And my throat."

"Your nose is definitely broken," Graham sheepishly tells her. "Sorry."

"Add that to the list, then." She's almost gotten used to the constant pain that has plagued her since her return to consciousness. "Also, uh... you all sound like you're underwater. Still. I don't know if that's normal after an explosion— I haven't experienced many."

Graham moves her hair away from her right ear to examine it. He cringes. "There's a lot of blood. Maybe your eardrum ruptured. It would explain why you can't hear as well as before."

Oh, wonderful. Part of being a superhero is relying on your senses to tell you about your surroundings and any potential threats. Having one half-knocked out of the park means her life just got even more difficult.

"What about you?" Lena asks, looking up at Peter. "You okay? You know, aside from the cuts on your face."

"I think some of my ribs are broken."

The mighty Spider-Man, Havoc, and Specter, all too injured and traumatized to figure out what to do next, only with each other to rely on. Just three kids thrown out to the sea and trying not to drown with each wave that pummels them.

-♕-

It feels like an eternity passes while they're up on that rooftop, utilizing the heaters built into their suits to keep from freezing to death. The rain stops after about an hour. Lena's hair grows frizzy as it dries, still half-caked with blood, soot, and dust. Peter's curls are wild and the cuts marring his face are showing no sign of healing— Lena wonders if they will take longer to mend themselves because they were caused by the Goblin. After all this time, she still isn't certain how quickly his injuries can heal.

The city is soaked all around them, lights from traffic signals painting neon colors on glistening pavement. A hazy glow emits from the few businesses open at this late hour — mostly 24-hour bodegas or bars still thriving despite the poor weather. Even with these signs of life, Lena feels detached from the people involved. It's like the world is still spinning for those individuals, but for the three kids, it has momentarily screeched to a halt, throwing all of them off the rhythm that has kept them steady for so long.

Footsteps cause Lena to turn. She's still held tightly in Peter's arms, so her movements are impeded, but she manages to catch sight of their friends climbing up the metal rungs of the external ladder to the school's roof. Ned comes first, followed by MJ, Cindy, the twins, and Abe. How they had known where to find them, she has no idea, but finds her heart swelling with gratitude nevertheless.

Their friends don't say anything. They simply swoop around the trio, hugging them until they're one giant mass of warmth, love, and comfort, holding the pieces of the broken heroes together. Peter breaks into splintering sobs. Abe's hand is pressing into one of Lena's bruised ribs, but she doesn't ask him to move— the love exuding from the people around her overpowers all of her discomfort.

MJ whispers something too quiet for Lena to catch. She angles her working ear toward her and manages to hear the rest of the sentence. "... some people here... who..."

At that same moment, Lena feels Peter shift. His head raises, eyes slightly wide in the tell-tale sign his senses are telling him something. And all she can think is No, not again, please just give us a break.

A flurry of limbs and hands seizes them and pulls them to their feet. Lena cries out, pain shooting through her ribs and broken nose as soon as she's upright. Her vision blackens for a moment and she teeters to one side. Peter's arm stays firm around her, so she merely stumbles into his chest. Cindy is on her other side, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder.

Once she can see again and the sharp agony lessens to a dull ache when her battered body adjusts to its new position, she looks up. Two shadowy figures are stark against the dark blue of the night sky. They both grip the top of the school's tower.

Lena's heart stutters. Even though her heater is still on, she becomes cold again in trepidation.

The two unknown figures leap from the tower, landing on a second level of the roof with superhuman agility. Lena instinctively flinches back. She throws out a hand to form a force field, but it only holds for a second before flickering out and making her sag into Peter, exhausted to her bones. She can't remember the last time her powers were spent.

"Hey, wait, whoa," Peter warns the two.

It stops them from moving any closer. They both remain in the crouched positions they'd landed in, hands raised in surrender.

"Sorry..." the one on the right begins to say, "... about May."

"Yeah," the other guy adds. He straightens to his full height, and when he moves across one of the streams of light illuminating the rooftop in stripes, Lena catches a flash of red. "Sorry. I got some understanding of—"

"No," Peter interrupts them, his eyes narrowed and distrusting. "Please don't tell me that you know what I'm going through."

The one in red sighs. "Okay."

"She's gone... and it's all my fault. She died for nothing. So I'm gonna do what I should've done in the first place."

He reaches for the Macchina di Kadavus, which is held loosely in MJ's hand, her fingers curled around the crisscrossing lines of the circle in the middle.

Lena squints at the red clothing of the man on the left. It's familiar— not a bright crimson but almost a dark, ruby-toned shade that covers him from neck to toe, accented with lines that blur with the shadows covering him. She blinks a few times. Then she sucks in a gasp of surprise when she realizes why she had recognized it: there is a spider design in the middle of his chest.

Her eyes flicker between him and the older man. She hadn't realized it because the other guy is dressed in civilian clothing, but now she can see it clear as day.

These are the other Peters from the villains' universes.

Octavius. Osborn. Flint. Connors. Dillon. All of them had died fighting these two people in front of her.

"Peter..." Older Peter begins, but her Peter doesn't let him get any further.

"Please, don't. You don't belong here, either of you, so I'm sending you home. Those other guys are from your worlds, right? So you deal with it. If they die, if you kill them... That's on you. It's not my problem. I don't care anymore. I'm done. I'm really sorry that I dragged you into this, but you have to go home now. Good luck."

As he speaks, his breathing becomes increasingly ragged, making his words wobble a bit as they leave his mouth. Lena's face pinches at his utterly distraught expression. It's written on his face that his words are true; he's done, and instead of exhausting himself trying to save the bad guys, he's going to send them to their deaths.

But in doing so... he'll also send these two back. And Keanu, whose whereabouts Lena has no idea of. He could already be dead and she would never know. He could have been mind controlled while they were busy fleeing. The circlet is still on her head; he has no protection against Farah's powers.

Lena looks at Graham, who also appears troubled by Peter's words. She tries to put herself in Peter's place. If it had been Ma or Pa, she would want to burn down the world. She's certain that she would want to send the dangerous multiverse invaders straight back to where they came from. All of these things would cross her mind because she wouldn't be thinking clearly, too overrun with grief to see what she should actually do. And that is exactly what is happening to Peter.

He reaches for the Macchina di Kadavus again. MJ pulls her hand back and moves it away from him. She glances at the other versions of Peter, wordlessly encouraging him to hear them out. After all, who can understand him better than himself?

"My Uncle Ben was killed," the older one says. In the glow of the light he's in, despair flickers across his face, but his voice remains strong like he's had time to work through his sorrow. "It was my fault."

"I lost... I lost Gwen," the third Peter adds, struggling to speak through a lump in his throat. "My, uh... She was my Lena. I couldn't save her. I'm never gonna be able to forgive myself for that. But I carried on, tried to, uh... tried to keep going, tried to keep being the... that friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, because I know that's what she would have wanted. But... at some point, I just... I stopped pulling my punches. I got rageful. I got bitter. I just don't want you to end up like — like me."

"The night Ben died, I hunted down the man who I thought did it. I wanted him dead. I got what I wanted. It didn't make it better. It took me a long time to... learn to get through that darkness."

With her body pressed so close to Peter's, she can feel him trembling. Not with misery, but with rage. Rage so deep it needs to be expelled externally, unsatisfied by his motionless state. It's begging him to lash out, to hurt the person responsible. His muscles are tense with it. Every fiber of him is stiff.

"I wanna kill him," he confesses. It's a bitter, vengeful voice that Lena has never heard before. "I wanna tear him apart. I can still hear her voice in my head..." A sob briefly interrupts him, and she rests her head on his shoulder in an attempt to silently comfort him. "Even after she was hurt, she said to me that we did the right thing. She told me that with great power—"

"—comes great responsibility," the older Peter finishes.

The three Peters share glances, unified by the phrase. The older one glances at the version in the suit, who nods with tear-filled eyes.

Her Peter seems taken aback. "Wait, what? How do you know that?"

"Uncle Ben said it," Suit Peter replies.

"The day he died," Older Peter confirms. His expression is gentle when he continues, "Maybe she didn't die for nothing, Peter."

_________

a/n:

tobey & andrew!peter: we know what you're going through

tom!peter:

tobey!peter: ...comes great responsibility

tom!peter:

man, this chapter was just PAIN. pain to the highest degree. to the fullest extent.

lena's eardrum rupturing will be important for the rest of the story. it's essentially what happened to clint in the mcu (being around so many explosions and loud sounds that it took a toll on his hearing) and she will have to grapple with being half deaf.

i'm excited to write more of the gang's interactions with the other peters!! the next chapter is going to be full of vital conversations and reveals (especially in terms of what happened to lena in tobey!peter's universe.... see chapter 9 if you want a refresher about that).

as always, thank you for reading and i hope you liked this chapter!

—kristyn