Crossed the Stars - TASM Peter Parker

03

"So, let me get this straight..." Juno had explained the same thing twice and is starting to get really annoyed by this Peter. "You are a witch--"

"Sorceress."

"Right, my excuses." She rolls her eyes. "And you come from a different reality where I am not me but somebody else is?"

"Basically, yeah."

"Do you live around here?"

"Yes, but the apartment building I live in seems to be a bit different than usual so, I'm basically homeless." Juno explains. Saying it out loud just makes it so much worse. She is trying to sound confident but it's hard.

"You have no where else to stay?" She shakes her head. "Come with me."

"Why?"

"I'll take you home." Juno raises her brow. "Listen, I'm not gonna let you live on the streets."

"It's not your job to take care of me, Peter."

"I'm the friendly neighborhood spiderman, it is my job." Juno smiles softly. Her Peter and this Peter have a lot in common. "Follow me." She does as he says without a second thought, deciding to trust him. If he were evil, she would simply take him down.

"So, you live with your aunt, May?"

"Yep, not too far away."

"Your best friend's named Ned?"

"I don't have a best friend and I don't know anyone named Ned."

"Oh, perhaps you have a girlfriend named MJ?" Peter doesn't reply immediately unlike with the other two questions. "Nevermind--"

"Her name was Gwen." Juno can hear that it's something very personal. She decides not to ask, she heard the past tense, must've been a harsh break-up.

"Do you know the avengers?"

"No, what is that?" Peter asks confusedly. "Is that a band?"

"No." Juno replies. "It's a group of superheroes, defenders of Earth and space. I used to be one."

"What happened?"

"A lot." It's enough to shut him up as he too realizes this is a very personal topic. They arrive in a neighborhood with houses instead of apartment buildings and it's now that Juno realizes that this world might be much more different than she had intended.

"Can you fly or jump very high?"

"Do I look like a bird or kangaroo to you?" Peter smiles and shakes his head. "Why?"

"You need to sneak in through my window. Aunt May will freak out if she saw me bringing home a girl at 11 P.M. Juno hums and looks up at the window. "If you don't mind." She looks at him wrapping an arm around her waist before he shoots his web and they fly up. She sneaks inside and watches Peter go back down.

Juno takes this time to look around the room. The bed is against the wall and the sheets are all over the place. There are posters hanging above the desk with a crappy computer on top. One of which is a Star Wars poster. It's a pretty messy room but it shows that he's young, maybe 18-19. The door opens and Peter walks inside before closing it again.

"What is the Little Bean, by the way?" He asks, walking towards his closet. Juno looks down at her uniform and smiles when she sees the letters on her shirt.

"A small coffee shop where I used to work."

"I don't know one."

"That's because it doesn't exist here." Juno replies. "Yet." She whispers to herself. Peter holds a pair of sweatpants and a shirt out to her.

"I bet you don't want to sleep in that." She smiles and takes it from him.

"Thank you."

"You can change in the bathroom, there is an extra mattress around here somewhere, I'll sleep on it."

"Don't worry, it's your house. I'll sleep on the mattress, you take the bed." She heads into the bathroom and changes into his clothes. Once she is done, she braids her hair and looks into the mirror. She still looks the same, that didn't change. She exits the bathroom and sees a mattress on the floor with a blanket and a pillow.

"You sure you still want the mattress?" Peter asks her.

"Oh, yeah." Juno answers confidently. "What's wrong with a mattress?" He chuckles and enters the bathroom, closing the door. Juno sits down and takes her phone out of her pocket. She searches through the apps, there really isn't much on here. After a couple minutes she clicks on the contacts and finds the name Spidey, just how her Peter was called in her universe.

She clicks on it and calls him. The familiar ringtone echoes the room. Peter walks out the bathroom in pajamas and frowns at his phone screen.

"How come you have my phone number?"

"Believe me, no clue." Peter walks to his bed and sits down. "We'll figure this out tomorrow, yeah?"

"There's not much to figure out. I will have to wait for Strange to come get me in two weeks."

"How come you can't bibedi babedi home?"

"I'm not Cinderella." Juno says, laughing. "Besides, I don't have the ring which allows us to create portals so, I'm stuck."

"You can stay here until S-Strange comes." She looks at him.

"I don't want to be a burden."

"You're not." He gives her a dorky smile. "What can your magic do?"

"A lot, why?"

"You could help me fight crime." Juno smirks. "Explain what exactly you can do."

"Well, I'm not as powerful as my mentor but I have skills in martial arts, I can manipulate the elements, I can create great illusions, I have telekinesis, magic, witchcraft and sometimes I can teleport but I was still learning that when my training got cut short."

"I suddenly feel pathetic with my web shooters."

"You have great strength though, and the tingle."

"Tingle? It's a sense."

"It's a tingle, a spider tingle."

"Whatever you say." Peter replies. "Can you use your telekinesis and bring that water bottle over here?" Juno raises her hand and automatically also raises the object from the desk. "Whoa, cool." She brings it over until it's in Peter's hands.

"Right?"

"How did you get them? Your powers, I mean." Juno shrugs.

"I was born with them. You got bit by a radioactive spider?"

"Yes, that was pretty nasty. I thought I was dying."

"I can only imagine what that must've looked like." Juno admits. "So, what's usually the thread around here?"

"Bullies. The real threads like a giant lizard and the electric guy were a one of a kind. Usually it's people like you saw in the streets."

"A giant lizard and an electric guy? Sounds interesting." He shrugs. "And you did that by yourself?"

"Yeah, I am not really a part of a team." It must be dangerous for him to work alone. "We should probably go to sleep."

"Yeah, we should."

"Goodnight, Juno." She smiles to herself.

"Goodnight, Peter."

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Word Count: 1088

Written: 26/12/2022