Chapter Text
Azmuth lay on his bed with his hands folded behind his head, staring up at the faint crack in the ceiling that vaguely resembled Australia if you squinted hard enough.
His dorm room was small, cluttered in that very specific way that only happened when someone lived there just long enough to call it home. Textbooks stacked like they’d lost a war against gravity. A desk lamp held together with tape. And on the wall opposite his bed—slightly crooked, because the tack never quite held—a Spider-Man poster.
The classic suit. Red and blue. Mid-swing, frozen in motion.
Azmuth smiled faintly.
His laptop hummed softly on the desk, speakers playing a [Love Me by JMSN] edit low enough that it felt more like a heartbeat than a sound, but still loud enough to fill the room with a sweet soft melody. The kind of song you listened to late at night when you weren’t sad, just thoughtful and want to feel a bit more emotion.
Tomorrow, he thought.
That word carried a strange weight lately. Tomorrow meant classes. Deadlines. Responsibilities. The slow crawl toward a future that felt both exciting and terrifying in equal measure. It meant more of the same… or maybe something new.
He reached up and nudged the poster with his foot. It fluttered slightly, the tack squeaking in protest before settling back into place. Having his hero watch over him made him feel less likely to fail, made him feel less alone and even in imagination, Spider-Man was saving his life.
“Yeah,” Azmuth murmured to the ceiling. “Tomorrow could be anything. I can still be anything.”
His YouTube shifted tracks, the beat smoothing out as his eyelids grew heavier. He let the glow of the laptop screen wash over the room, shadows stretching long across the walls.
Then—
The lights flickered.
Once. Twice.
Azmuth frowned, lifting his head. “Seriously? I just paid the electric.”
The dorm groaned around him as the power cut out completely. The laptop screen went black. The music died mid-note, leaving behind a ringing silence that felt too loud in its absence.
Something else flickered, as if reality was turned off for a moment as well. Everything just stopped.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A second passed.
Then the lights surged back on.
Only… the room was empty.
The bed was still rumpled. The laptop sat closed and dark. The Spider-Man poster peeled slowly away from the wall, the tack finally giving up as it fluttered to the floor.
Azmuth was gone.
Outside, the campus carried on. Someone laughed down the hall. A door slammed. Somewhere, a vending machine whirred back to life.
And in a quiet dorm room, a life ended,
just as another was about to begin again.
Peter woke up to the sound of something wrong.
Not an alarm. Not shouting. Not even the quiet hum of a dorm radiator. This was… softer. A low, electrical buzz under his skin, like static clinging to the inside of his bones.
He frowned and opened his eyes.
First thing he noticed: the ceiling was unfamiliar.
Up above him an old ceiling fan, blades lazily spinning in uneven circles. The air smelled faintly of toast and over-brewed coffee wafting up from the kitchen. His heart raced before his mind caught up.
Second thing was that it wasn’t cracked like his dorm’s. No peeling paint, no suspicious water stain shaped like Australia. Just a clean, off-white surface with a faint glow reflecting across it.
“…Huh.”
Peter blinked again, more deliberately this time. He turned his head. A small bedroom came into focus—posters, shelves, a desk shoved against the wall. Not his desk. Not his stuff.
“Okay,” he said aloud, his voice smaller than he expected. Different. “That’s… new.”
He shifted, feeling the mattress dip under him, and something rectangular pressed into his palm. Instinctively, he grabbed it and brought it closer to his face.
His phone.
Except—
“…That is not my phone.”
He wasn’t in his apartment. His stuff wasn't here. He wasn’t in college. Had he been kidnapped?
The device was thinner. Sleeker. Metallic edges with a faint, pulsing glow running along the sides like it was quietly alive. The screen lit up on its own, displaying a lock screen he’d never seen before—minimalist, elegant, and stamped subtly in the corner with a familiar logo.
STARK.
“Oh,” Peter breathed.
'So somebody thought they were funny huh? What was this the most confusing LARP in the world, I know Geoff is into that stuff but I don't remember going anywhere with him, and I certainly don't remember changing into these pajamas which is worrying me more and more by the minute'
The moment his thumb brushed the screen, a sharp jolt of static shot up his arm.
“—AH!”
The phone flew from his hand, clattering to the floor with a solid thud that echoed through the room. Peter sat bolt upright, clutching his fingers and staring at the fallen device like it might grow legs and scuttle away.
“…Okay,” he said, slower now. “Rude.”
His heart hammered in his chest as he took stock of himself. His hands were smaller. His arms thinner. Pajama sleeves bunched awkwardly around wrists that definitely didn’t belong to a college student.
“Okay… uh… this is… new.” He looked down at his body and saw a stick of a man, if even, so definitely not kidnapped unless his buddies are preforming acts of God nowadays.
He swung his legs off the bed and froze.
“Those are not my legs either.”
They dangled there, bare feet hovering a little too far above the floor for comfort. Peter stared at them for a long moment, then dragged his gaze over to the mirror across the room.
A kid stared back.
Brown hair sticking up in places it had no business sticking up. Big eyes. Soft face. Familiar in a way that made his stomach flip.
“…I’m a child,” he said flatly.
Now usually Azmuth was one to roll with the punches, Dead Parents - well it was their time to go, Cheating Girlfriend - Guess she just wasn't the one, Car breaks down on way to brunch and you miss seeing Ariane Grande at the restaurant YOU reserved for your friends and none of them even bother getting you an autograph - yeah, still salty about this one but hey that's life, stuff just happens.
But this, Yeah this is new.
Silence answered.
Peter rubbed his face with both hands, pressing his palms into his eyes. “Okay. Okay. Let’s just… walk through this. I went to sleep in my dorm. Power outage. Lights flicker. Then—” He gestured broadly at the room. “—this.”
He looked down at himself again.
“Cosmic kidnapping,” he concluded. “Has to be.”
He paced the room, hands moving as he talked, words spilling out like that was the most natural thing in the world. “Because this is either interdimensional nonsense, or I’ve finally snapped, and honestly? Statistically? Interdimensional nonsense makes more sense.”
He stopped mid-step and frowned.
“…Do I normally talk to myself this much?”
He considered it for a second, then shrugged. “Eh, Doesn’t matter. Priorities.”
He crouched down and carefully picked up the phone, holding it at arm’s length like it might bite him. It stayed quiet this time, screen dark and harmless.
Peter exhaled.
“Alright,” he muttered. “Where am I… and who am I supposed to be now?”
The mirror standing proudly across the room in the corner confirmed what his nerves already suspected: a boy of thirteen, maybe fourteen stared back at him. Brown hair, pale skin, wide eyes that felt both familiar and strange.
"Hello there you, now who could you be?" He looks himself up and down as if the reflection was going to jump out and attack him. He felt his hands go up to his face and physically inspected the new hardware
"Okay, new teeth – that's weird, I feel weird, I mean look at you all sticky uppy, and ughh what's with the hair, just look at it, what did I do to me?". I, personal pronoun, okay, so I still identify this new being as me, even before the situational upheaval.
"And look at this body, there's no anything, no blemishes or scars which is good, but also no heavy muscle or fat, no personality, like God opened a blank PDF of a human being and said, 'Yeah this is enough', terribly fit tho, did I do squats?".
He continued to look himself up and down, noting his lack of pants and overly large boxers with cool chemistry shirt to top that said 'Think Like A Proton and Stay Positive'
"Little cheesy but could be worse to be honest".
Then suddenly a knock vibrated through the room
Not loud. Not urgent. Just a gentle tap-tap against the door, followed by a familiar voice that somehow felt warmer than the room itself.
“Peter?” Aunt May called softly. “Honey… are you okay in there?”
He swallowed.
“I—yeah,” he said automatically, voice cracking halfway through the word. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
There was a pause. The kind that said she didn’t quite believe him, but didn’t want to push.
“You just hadn't come out since you got home yesterday,” May said. “After the Oscorp tour you looked terrible and I just wanted to check in.”
Oscorp.
The word hit him like a freight train.
His vision blurred. The room tilted.
Suddenly it wasn’t just a bedroom anymore—it was glass hallways and white lights, polished floors reflecting people in lab coats. Voices overlapped, stacking on top of one another. Laughter from classmates. The hum of machinery. A scientist droning on about “genetically modified arachnids.”
Then pain.
Sharp. Blinding. Like something digging behind his eyes.
Peter staggered, bracing himself against the desk as his head filled with memories that weren’t new—they were his, suddenly unlocked all at once.
Being fourteen. Queens. Living with Aunt May after his parents died. Being the quiet kid. The smart kid.
The moment he felt sick on the trip.
The heat. The dizziness. The nurse insisting it was just stress.
The spider.
His breath came fast as the flood settled, the pain ebbing just enough for him to think. For the first time since waking up, things made sense. Horrifying, incredible sense.
“I… I think I just overdid it,” he called through the door, forcing calm into his voice. “Long day.”
“Alright,” May replied, relief bleeding through. “Breakfast’ll be ready soon. Try not to fall asleep again, okay?”
Footsteps retreated.
Peter slid down onto the bed, heart pounding.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay, wow. That explains… a lot.”
He stared at his hands. Smaller than Azmuth’s. Younger. But steady.
Real. He was real.
Something tugged at his attention.
On the back of his left hand, just below the knuckle, was a faint mark. Barely visible now. Like an old mosquito bite—except closer inspection told a different story.
Two tiny punctures.
Perfectly spaced.
His stomach flipped.
“…You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
He pressed his thumb against the mark, and something deep inside him clicked—not painfully, but with clarity. Strength coiled beneath his skin. Awareness sharpened. The world felt suddenly… bigger. Louder. Sharper. Like he’d been walking around with the volume turned down his whole life and someone just cranked it up.
Azmuth laughed. Softly. A little breathless.
Wait, no not Azmuth, Peter.
Peter B. Parker.
Fourteen years old.
Bitten by a spider at Oscorp.
He flexed his fingers, feeling power hum quietly beneath the surface.
“…Guess I’m the Amazing Spider-Man now,” he murmured.
From downstairs, Aunt May called that Breakfast was ready.
Peter smiled wider.
“Yeah,” he said, standing up. “Tomorrow’s gonna be interesting.”