Then he was alone with two unconscious criminals, standing in a dank alleyway without a singular way to connect to anyone.
Connect to anyone…
Connect…
“Hey, Karen? Are you there?” Peter called out, feeling a little stupid in case he was talking to himself, but it wasn’t like anyone was nearby or conscious to judge him.
“Hello, Peter. I see that you have finally woken up.”
“Ha ha,” he deadpanned. “I have a question.”
“How can I be of service?”
“Can you connect to a satellite?” Peter crossed his index and middle fingers on one hand, silently hoping that she could pull something together and that maybe, just maybe, this universe had the internet, making his life so much easier.
“I cannot find any belonging to Stark Industries, nor can I find any associated belonging to Tony Stark for his Iron Man technology.”
Peter sighed. “Yeah, I figured,” he murmured under his breath, “we are supposed to be in a different universe, after all.” He huffed out a breath. “Karen, can you connect to any satellites?”
“Searching…”
He didn’t have to wait but a millisecond for her results to come back.
“There are several satellites floating in this Earth’s atmosphere; however, they all seem to be obsolete. Mr. Stark stopped using models similar to these well over a decade ago, and other tech companies would have stopped using them approximately eight to twelve years ago.”
Peter thought that over. Mr. Stark changed the way most technology was used after his discovery and subsequent usage of arc reactor tech. It was incorporated into almost every aspect of life, making already easy jobs not worth the sweat on his brow and harder jobs mere inconveniences at most.
If the technology they had here was this far behind, either Peter managed to ‘conveniently’ travel through both space and time, like the overachiever he was, or there was no one here who had the capabilities - or the trauma that came from potential life ending scenarios that forced them to open their minds and think drastically outside the box – to create a functioning arc reactor.
“There are several powered by a rare green crystal called ‘kryptonite’ that all appeared to be owned by a company named LexCorp.”
What crystal could power a satellite? When Harley from Aunt May’s soup kitchen decided to talk to him about the cleansing and healing powers of the newest additions to her extensive collection, he was pretty sure she wasn’t talking about this.
Odd.
But not as odd as getting bit by a spider and waking up with superpowers, including the coveted abilities to see without glasses and not needing an inhaler to breath.
Not as odd as getting home from school and seeing his billionaire/superhero idol flirt with his aunt and getting dragged to Germany to fight Captain America.
Oh, yeah. Not as odd as fighting Captain America.
“I’m going to need you to look at that later,” if the crystal had enough power to run fucking satellites, then perhaps that was this universe’s equivalent of the arc reactor – which was super cheap because that meant some rich asshole would have just stumbled upon a bunch of rocks that had the same power as an arc reactor without having to get kidnapped by terrorists like Mr. Stark did.
But defending his dead mentor against people Peter didn’t even know wasn’t important right now.
He had to focus.
The crystals, kryptonite, or whatever. He would need to do more research on those to be sure of the amount of power they can output. “Is there anything else?” Peter asked the AI, looking up at the fire escapes above him for any possible clothing he could – ahem – borrow, so he wasn’t walking around in a partially destroyed Spider-man suit that looked more like a poorly done cosplay than anything.
“Yes. There is a large contraption, almost like a building but similar to a space station, with several life forms aboard.”
There was so much in that answer he wanted to question. There was time for that later. “What kind of life forms?” he asked, because apparently his mouth and brain were on separate pages as to what’s considered important. He crawled up the wall instead of using the rusted steps and rings of the ladders that would most likely need a complete replacement in order to be deemed safe again.
“I am not sure. The majority are human. The others have DNA sequences that I have not encountered before.”
“What do you- doesn’t matter.” Focus Parker, c’mon. He grabbed a shirt and pulled it on over what was left of his suit, grabbing a pair of sweatpants and trying to shove both of his feet in at the same time while maintaining some semblance of balance.
Comment on Do it for the Bit
yall_send_help on Chapter 2 Sun 15 Oct 2023 06:49AM UTC
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