Another Spider | reader insert

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"We should hold back," I looked to the two Peters, "just for a bit. Let those two talk to their friend. You never know, they might be all he needs."

The two Peters looked to me and then to MJ and Ned as we approached a high school.

In my world, this place was shut down for health reasons after a battle I had with a walking acid bomb. Its nice to see it functioning somewhere else.

The Peters agreed and we all went our separate ways, me and the Peters swung up to the highest point on the roof while MJ and Ned moved to the Peter Parker of this world.

"So, what's it like being the Spider person of your world?" red suit Peter asked.

"Stressful but my team makes it easier for me so I enjoy it," I replied.

"You have a team?" youth pastor Peter asked.

"Yeah. Don't you?" I asked before looking forward, noticing that the Peter of this world had noticed our presence, "he knows we're here. Let's go down."

We dropped down and landed on a wall just ahead of Peter and his friends.

"Hey! Wait- wait- whoa-!" the Peter nervously put his hand out as if that was going to be enough to stop someone from attacking him.

"Hey, kid, we're the good guys," I told him as we put our hands up.

"Sorry about May," youth pastor Peter spoke to him with sincerity, MJ and Ned had filled us in on this Peter's situation as we walked over here.

"Yeah. Sorry," red suit Peter also apologised.

"It's hard," I gave him a sad look, "I'm sorry too. I know it doesn't mean anything coming from strangers but we are sorry for your loss."

"I've got some understanding of what you've--" red suit Peter began to approach him but the young Peter cut him off.

"No. No, no, please. Don't tell me that you know what I'm going through," he said frustratedly.

"OK," red suit Peter nodded.

"She's gone," younger Peter said, "and it's all my fault."

We all stood in silence, watching the young Peter.

I glanced to red suit Peter to see him watching with almost tearing up eyes.

"She died for nothing," younger Peter continued, "so I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place."

He went to grab the weird cube thing that MJ had been carrying around since we left the house.

"Peter..." youth pastor Peter called for him.

"Please don't," younger Peter cut in, "you don't belong here. None of you. So I'm sending you home. Those other guys are from your worlds, right? So you deal with it."

Well... I was in the middle of dealing with it and then you came through and dragged me here with some kind of voodoo magic spell created by some kind of weird wizard who also happens to have a strange name.

"If they die, if you kill them that's on you," he continued.

"Whoa now-- who said anything about killing?" I asked, "Hartley isn't going to die."

I glanced around to see the other two Peter's with stiff expressions.

"Whoa-- no way. You guys really-?" I stared at them, almost horrified by the thought of the alternate versions of my role in my world being killers.

Even I've never killed anyone and I had to escape an evil science lab with multiple other escapees and blow the place up in order to stop them from working in that area.

Of course that didn't stop them from relocating out to New York but it deterred them long enough for me to rebuild my reputation and career again. Oh, and also set up Team Spider. Aka my team, the team who has my back no matter what.

"It's not my problem either way," young Peter stated, "I don't care anymore. I'm done."

I sighed.

"I'm really sorry that I dragged you into this," he continued, "but you have to go home now. Good luck."

God, this is hard to watch.

MJ pulled the cube away from Peter as he went to grab it.

"My Uncle, Ben, was killed," youth pastor Peter spoke up, "it was my fault."

"I lost... I lost Gwen. My um-- she was my MJ," red suit Peter chimed in, "I couldn't save her."

"I returned home and it got my older sister, Maebelle, and my mother killed," I revealed, "see? We understand. You'll never find anyone who understands just as much as we do."

I looked to red suit Peter as he was tearing up.

"I'm never going to be able to forgive myself for that. But I carried on, tried to keep going, tried to keep being the uh--" he paused for a moment, "the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman because I know that's what she would've wanted. But at some point, I just stopped pulling my punches."

I looked away from him and to youth pastor Peter.

It seems that I wasn't the only one who understood exactly what red suit Peter was talking about.

"I got rageful," red suit Peter said, "I got bitter. I just don't want you to end up like... Like me."

"Like us," I corrected, "my sister died... It was the first night I'd been reunited with her... You know, I'd been locked away by some bad people for years and when I finally got out I went straight to her. She was the person I was closest to."

I paused for a moment.

"When she died, I knew it was because of me. My mother also died that night but it was later and honestly, I didn't feel much from her death," I continued, "but my sister was different. She was the one person I always wanted to see. I loved her a lot, I loved her outtake on life. Uh-- she was important. And when she died because I went to her, I got angry. So angry."

I looked out over the city and let out small laugh at the memory.

"I almost killed a lot of people because I was furious. In that moment, I didn't care that they were people, that some of them had nothing to with my sisters death," I said, "I just-- I wanted them to feel the same pain I was feeling. I was ready to go to the extremes to make people feel that. But I was stopped by people like me who'd lost people close to them because of the bad people I fight."

I looked at the younger Peter.

"You can't get through these things alone," I told him, "you need these bonds to hold you, remind you who you are. Stop you from doing something you'd regret in the future."

It was silent for a moment.

"The night Ben died," youth pastor Peter spoke up, "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 seems like our stories seem to get more extreme as we go through the different worlds. Red suit Peter was just a bit more violent, I was near on causing a mass massacre but this guy, he actually killed someone. Hoo boy.

I'm worried for young Peter if we're the ones guiding him.

We're a mess.

"It took me a long time to learn to get through that darkness," youth pastor Peter continued.

"I want to kill him," young Peter declared, "I want to tear him apart. I can still hear her voice in my head."

He began to cry as he spoke.

"Even after she was hurt, she said to me that we did the right thing," he said, "she told me that with great power-"

Hold up.

I know this.

"Comes great responsibility," both me and youth pastor Peter said in unison.