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chapter twenty three

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HARPER STOOD UP FROM THE GROUND, PLACING A HAND BEHIND HER NECK.

"Peter?" She called for him, but he wasn't around. "Peter where are you?"

She looked inside her pockets, but her phone wasn't there, maybe fell during the fall. The fall. She was falling to her death. She touched her arms.

She was definitely alive.

She looked around, recognizing the place she was as a... sewer? Why on Earth was she in a sewer? Once second ago, she was in the Oscorp electric tower, and the plan had worked, and she helped defeat Electro. Harry Osborn appeared, and he dropped her... but how did she end up in the sewer.

She began walking around, trying to hold her breath as the rotten smell from the sewer was beginning to give her a headache. Yet, that's when things got real, because when she stopped, she heard some footsteps coming.

"Peter?" She asked, hopeful, although she didn't think that was Peter.

"Miss Harper Cohen..." she heard a hissing behind her, so she turned around, facing someone she presumed dead months ago.

The lizard.

She quickly began walking backwards as Connors approached her with decision. There was nothing for her to defend herself, it was pointless. The fall hadn't killed her but a pissed off seven foot lizard with a strong thirst for vengeance definitely will.

"How is this possible?" She whispered to herself, gulping. "How—"

But the lizard came at her with everything, and if it wasn't for a guy with a red cape, she would've been dead.

"You okay!?" The guy asked her as he contain the reptile with some sort of orange rope that glows, kinda like Wonder Woman's whip. "Hey! You!"

She was struck for a minute, watching as the lizard battle for freedom yet was impossible to free himself from the whip. She noticed how it wasn't an actual rope but some sort of electric lightning manageable only by the man with the cape.

Yet magic wasn't something Miss Science believed possible.

"Yeah!" She said, standing back up and looking at the man. "I'm okay."

That's when the lizard disappeared in thin air thanks to something the guy in the red cape through at him, making her gasp loudly.

"What was that!?" She asked, scared, as the man turned to look at her. "What did you do to him?"

"That was a him?" He pointed at the place where the lizard once was.

Harper nodded. "Yes. I knew him. Well... before he was a lizard." The man looked at her strangely. "What is going on? Who are you?"

"I'm Doctor Stephen Strange, and I should be asking what a teenager like you is doing inside a sewer."

Harper frowned before she let out a laugh. "Doctor Strange? Right, and I'm Misses Honey Pants. Who are you and what's going and where is Pe— Spider-man?"

"You know Spiderman?"

She groaned softly. "Yes, where is he!? He was just here a second ago!"

"Let me ask you something... do you know who Spiderman really is? His identity?"

Harper looked at her. "I won't tell. Who are you?"

"Do you know a Peter Parker?"

Harper's eyes opened wide at the mention of her boyfriend's name, and she nodded quickly.

"I know he is Spiderman... what is your relationship with him? Or any variant of him? How are you two connected?"

She gulped. "He's my boyfriend," she said, and he was taken back. "Where is Peter?"

The guy shoot her with the same glowing light, and she was transported.

To a cell.

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Peter Parker, or at least this variant of him, was having a terrible day.

Not only were his friends and him not accepted into MIT, nor only his identity was revealed, not only did he pissed off Doctor Strange, but now? He was fighting an Octopus man on a bridge.

Now, he got to beat him, but he kept saying something about a machine, about... him not being Peter, and he didn't have time to ask him about anything when another guy decided to show up.

"Norman?" The octopus said, and before he could do anything, he was transported back.

He was in the cave where Strange had made the spell, confused, in pain due to the recent attack, but mostly confused.

"Doctor?"

The lizard startled him, making him turn around quickly.

And also waking Harper up.

But he was again started by Strange, who looked tired as well.

"Be careful with what you wish for, Parker."

Harper stood up, yet Peter was giving her his back. She couldn't see his face, yet a feeling inside of her told her this was the man in who she could trust.

"Let me out of here!" The octopus guy yelled.

"Can you please explain to me what's going on?" Peter asked, and this confused Harper.

That was not Peter's voice.

"That little spell that you botched where you wanted everyone to forget that Peter Parker is Spider-man, it started pulling everyone who knows Peter Parker is Spider-man, from every universe into this one."

"From every universe?"

Harper touched the transparent cage that was keeping her inside before she gulped, just listening to the conversation.

"I think it's better we don't engage with any of them because frankly the multiverse is a concept of which we know frighteningly little," Doctor Strange said.

"The multiverse is real?" Peter asked back.

"This shouldn't even be possible," Strange said, and Harper was getting tired of listening to this.

Because she only wanted to see Peter.

"But I thought you stopped the spell."

"No, I contained it. But apparently some of them squeaked through. After you left, I detected an otherworldly presence, actually two, so I pursued him into the sewers where I found that slimy, green son of a gun... and her."

"Her?"

That's when Peter turned around, finally seeing Harper.

That's definitely not her Peter.

"Peter... meet..." Strange pointed at her.

"Harper," she said. "What is this? A spell? What is going on?"

"What kind of birthday parties do you do?" Octopus asked Strange.

"Watch this," Strange said to Peter before looking back at Harper. "Do you happen to know a Peter Parker who is Spider-man?"

"Yes."

"Is that him?" He pointed at Peter.

"Definitely no," she said, chuckling. "I'm sorry, I'm sure you are a good guy... even though there is the fact that you guys have me locked up in a cage when I'm clearly not a gigantic lizard."

"We don't know that," Doctor Stranger said. "Harper here claims to be... your girlfriend from other universe."

"My what?" Peter asked abruptly.

"Yeah," Strange said, changing the subject. "So, here's the thing, I don't know how many more visitors we have—"

"I saw another one. On the bridge. He was like a... like a flying green elf."

Harper frowned as Strange joined his hands. "Well he sounds jolly. Why don't you start with him? I need you to capture them and bring them here while I figure out a way to get them back before they destroy the fabric of reality, or worse... Wong finds out."

Peter looked back at Harper for a few seconds before looking back at Strange. "Doctor Strange? My friends and I just got a second chance at getting into MIT. If the school sees me fighting these... crazy monsters—"

"Hey watch your mouth!" Octopus said as Harper crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"I'm sorry," Peter apologized, and Harper finally saw some of her Peter in him.

"Are you seriously still talking about college?"

Strange did something to Peter. He extended his arm in his direction and some sort of robotic part of Peter, Harper had no idea how to describe it, went back towards Strange's arm. And he made the whole thing glow with that orange circumference again, making Harper even more curious.

"Hey, what did you just do?" Peter asked Strange.

"This."

And he shot him with the same light that he shot the lizard and Harper, sending Peter into one of the cages. Harper gasped when she saw him teleport, and both her and the Octopus guy turned to look at the Doctor.

"How did you do that?"

"A lot of birthday parties."

He then freed Peter from the cage and passed the golden wrist cover to him.

"One shot, you send them here, and move on. You're welcome. Get to work."

"Sir?"

"What?"

"I know this is my mess, and I'm going to fix it... but I'm going to need some help."