The Universe's Mixer

Errol stood in front of the house where Peter Parker lived, frowning slightly. He'd seen the scene played in dozens of novels, but having decided to undertake the task of speaking with Beauty's roommate's boyfriend, found himself daunted.

Steeling himself, he walked up the pathway and knocked on the door. All he would be doing was asking Peter his intentions toward that Megan girl. What could truly be so difficult about that?

The city was bright below as Iron Man soared through the late night sky, once more surveying the way the City had shifted and reorganized itself. He was starting to feel like this was an unsolvable problem, at least until new developments arose, and the thought irritated and frustrated him greatly.

This might have been why, when he snagged a random mugging, he grabbed the criminal a little rougher than usual, and when he dropped the man in front of the police station and an officer on his smoke break it was from a little higher than usual. He didn't stop to tell the officer what had happened, simply using a close range hack to text the man'so phone with his details, and didn't bother to watch the man with a newly sprained ankle be taken in.

The brightly colored suit turned and blazed back into the sky, and finally Tony touched down on a rooftop with a good overlook and rested.

"Anything, J?" He grunted.

"Sorry, sir. The sensors are picking up no new data," Jarvis said in his helmet.

"Great."

Megan sat out front of the cottage, a backpack stuffed with camping equipment on the ground next to her and a sleeping bag rolled up and tied on top. She and Peter had discussed this trip: a camping trip for just the two of them. With their powers and her 'porting, there shouldn't be any problems. But she was still nervous.

They'd been dating for a while now, but still. What if the trip was a disaster? What if she did or said something really stupid? What if there was some sort of horrible reality-warping world-smashing incident and they found themselves trapped in alternate dimensions? You really couldn't be too careful.

She tapped her feet as she waited. She'd been convinced to leave her music player at home and enjoy nature while she was out in nature.

Peter's lips formed a wide grin as he sped down one of the less populated side streets on his new motorcycle. The thing was light, moved quickly and turned like a champ. It helped that Peter had had a hand in its construction; having someone with the know how and materials in his corner was not a bad thing at all. Stark was very gracious in letting him stay and work diligently on not only the bike but various other projects.

It was one thing after another at the Tower, one project completed from the list and then on to another with a few moments to spare for work, eating, sleeping and recreation. But for the most part the Spider had been holed up in one of Tony's many labs there constructing the machine he was currently racing down the sidewalk on. It was a bright red and blue color, the wheels a deep ebony. There were built in canisters on the sides that with a push of a button would slip out and fire webbing at an obstacle or a target. The webbing itself was unique, an organic compound base just like his own personal web, however the canisters had to be replaced and only held so much webbing. That was the only down side.

"Excuse me! Coming through!" Peter shouted, slipping adeptly around a group of pedestrians. He giggled and turned a sharp corner, heading back on to the main part of the road. The traffic was easy enough to slip through. The genius was having the thrill of a lifetime riding. He had always loved riding a bike or a motorcycle. It felt so freeing.

And it helped that he had made it. He was proud of it.

Only when he found the place he frequented for pizza did the Spider bring the bike to a halt. He parked it in one of the slots of the parlor and dismounted. His whole body tingled with the sensation of freedom and hard work. There was nothing more exciting than constructing something with your hands and have it be successful. This was a feeling that only few knew, but that he shared with Stark. And maybe the short, brown-haired scientist that liked his privacy more than he wanted to chat.

With an absent shrug of his shoulders, Peter pocketed the keys and strolled in to get a pizza.

Peter hummed softly to himself, excitement flowing through every fiber of his being. He didn't know what really the cause was for such a feeling, it just seemed to come at him quickly and gain momentum with each moment that passed. Maybe it was the beauty of the night. The breeze was warm and inviting, and the way it pushed through the soft strands of his hair and the way it caressed the exposed skin of his face and arms was alluring. Peter had always liked the evening. Things tended to seem more alive and alert. Things happened then. He was grateful for the sun, too, but there was just something about the way the moon shone down on the Earth that made it special. It was better when someone shared it with you, but seeing it alone was good too.

The streets were packed with moving bodies, laughter and merriment. The doors of shops stood open to welcome pedestrians into their places to further inspect their wares. As tempting as it was to cross those thresholds, Peter allowed himself the luxury of window shopping. Delights of all sorts called to him from beyond the glass. Some were encased in glass beyond the windows, special trinkets of lovely designs ready to be plucked from their casings and taking to those whom would adore them as they were meant to be adored.

His blue eyes wandered the items of one shop in particular, a small, independent alcove stacked with carts filled with old books. The carts were parked on the side of the shop itself, an honest gesture for passerbys to peruse the wares that one could hold in their hand. Finally the temptation was too much and Peter stopped at a cart. Fingers browsed the tops of the bundles of worn, aged pages. His eyes ate up the text on the spines and instantly he could feel the love these books had received before being donated by that lover with hopes of them finding another heart to capture. There was nothing more lovable than a good book. At least, that was his opinion.

The humming ceased and Peter took an excited breath before divulging into the stacks of books. He searched for nothing in particular, just perusing the carts slowly so as not to miss anything vital. Not even the scents from the surrounding bakeries and pizza parlors could tug him away just then. No. This was a gem worth excavating.

"What if he doesn't remember how to get here?" Beauty asked, leaving the table for the third time in the last 15 minutes and crossing over to the door. She opened it anxiously and stepped onto the porch, wholly missing what Megan said back to her. It was Friday night at 4:52, and their dates - plus Beauty's special guest and his date - had 8 minutes left to make it here on time. The others - Errol, Peter - she wasn't too worried about. They'd been to the cottage more times than Beauty could quickly count. But Piotr...

Piotr last visited years ago. Yes, it'd been the place she'd insisted he stay - despite the fact that her bed was apparently way too small for the overlarge Russian - but that didn't mean that he really did remember exactly how to get here. It was a long time ago, after all, and so many things had happened since then.

After pacing a bit on the porch, she went back inside and closed the door again.

"Tell me more about this bowling," she asked Megan, to try to distract herself.

( PIZZA! )

( Iron Spiders )

Peter had almost given up. It had been a couple of days already (not that the webslinger was counting the days specifically. Because if he was it was actually more like three or four days, but a couple sounded easier.) and he had heard not a peep from the pixie. Hope was one of the major things Hero's were attributed with, especially the young heros like himself. Hope kept the demons away, it allowed them to see the light at the end of the tunnel when things grew dim and despair tried to force its way in.

But his hope had finally began to wain. He hated himself for it, too.

After waking up on the morning after constructing the web, Peter Parker had found a small press badge laying on his dresser alongside his Nokia. The laminated badge had his smiling photograph on it, as well as the title of Photojournalist and the business of The City Voice. Apparently the City had chosen a place to stick him in which he would make a living. That was alright with him, it's what he did before.

So Peter had dressed, ate his breakfast (a three whopping bowls of Captian Crunch) and set out to face the first day of work. The bullpen had been noisy and he could swear as he sat at his desk that he could hear J. Jonah Jameson shouting something about that menace Spider-Man.

It actually made Peter grin.

The days after that were either filled with working, which took his mind off of the probability that Megan hadn't come here like he did, to waiting on the top of the tallest building in the city where he had strung up part of the massive web. He had even considered taking it down since the gesture was starting to look like a waste.

That particular day, Peter stepped out of the City Voice building, and looked up longingly at the web that hung over the city. He lifted up the camera that hung around his neck, peered through the viewfinder and snapped a couple of pictures of it for memories. Tonight would be the night to take it down. He didn't even want to consider the task because of the level of disappointment. A lift of the camera again, and Peter noticed the web shiver. Shiver?

Shiver. Like something might be caught in it. Which had the webslinger racing down the street as fast as his legs could carry him.

It had been a few days since Peter had arrived in the City, and while the first day was pleasant enough (because honestly who could say anything bad about sharing a pizza with an actual angel?) Peter was ready to get back into the swing of things. He wanted to find Megan. He needed to find her because something was telling him she was there too. Some place. Perhaps it was his sixth-sense, that nagging throb at the back of his brain that often sensed danger or wrongness. He doubted his Spidey Sense could really decipher the mystery of the missing pixie, but it didn't hurt the web-slinger to dream.

What was really freaking him out was not the weird city. It wasn't the fact that he didn't know where his friends were or if he would ever find them. It was the fact that night after night he went to bed in his own bed, in familiar sheets in a familiar room, and woke up in the same place. It was Aunt May's house, and his room at the top of the stairs and to the left. Down the hallway, beyond the door was still familiarity. Aunt May's and Uncle Ben's room was directly across from his. The bathroom was on the right of that door and then another bedroom that stayed vacant for guests was on the left. Down stairs was the neat living room, the way Aunt May liked it, and then the kitchen. Back behind the house was their fenced in back yard, a four-foot chain link fence blocking off their section of dying, wild grass.

Except when Peter looked out of his bedroom window, it wasn't Mary Jane's house he saw, but another place. A different one. So this wasn't his street and it definitely wasn't Manhattan. It took a bit of getting used to, but finally it began to sink in. And that was the point at which Peter decided to use his skills to reach out to Megan.

In the closet of his room hung his Spider suit. The red and blue spandex greeted him each day as he dressed, and usually he ignored it and chose more appropriate attire for taking on the day. However today was different.

Peter pulled on the suit that clung to his body and he felt relief as the mask covered his face. He peered out from behind mesh goggles, and though the boyish grin on his lips was concealed by the red spandex, it was still there and beaming proudly. A breath and Peter ran to the window of the second floor bedroom.

He was out in the City in another moment, swinging through the buildings. He approached the skyline, scaling the top of the tallest skyscraper. It was here Peter would leave his message.

It didn't take him long to fashion a web together, a very large web that one could see from the street below. He worked quickly. And he had to admit he did feel a little bit like Charlotte once it was complete.

Though, instead of the web offering the people below the phrase Some Pig or Wilbur , the web read in all capital letters MEGAN .

It was Peter's way of at least spreading the word and getting her attention. He hoped she would see it and fly to it. And he would wait there for her for a little bit to see if she showed. If that didn't work, Peter opted for renting a billboard next. Who could miss those?

Peter laughed softly.

It was habit more than anything, and he still got amused at the exhilarating rush that swinging through the trees like Tarzan gave him. Be it trees like these, or tall skyscrapers. He didn't imagine he would be seeing any tall concrete buildings in the near future, so trees it was. And he further imagined that Tarzan had never worried about dinosaurs. The scariest thing in that jungle, besides the apes, were the large cats. To be honest, Peter preferred the massive reptiles to the furry kitty types. But of course nobody had asked.

Another laugh and Peter swung easily through the trees. In a pack on his back he had a good amount of Benana's and Megano's, bringing them back to the collective. Or at least that had been his true purpose before becoming side-tracked with playing Ape man. For all of the challenges this world had, including trying to come up with creative ways to take his girlfriend out for a nice dinner, Peter quite enjoyed it. It was exotic, almost like a vacation of sorts. And God knew in New York a vacation was a pipe dream for a young hero.

Peter released the webbing once he had scaled the branch, using his body to swing himself forward. A flip and he closed his eyes for a split second. Of course, in that split second everything changed drastically. Instead of too hot climate, Peter suddenly was able to feel a more temperate climate, and he swore he could smell pizza in the air.

Dino Island didn't have pizza.....

His eyes jerked open and before he could right himself from his flip and state of shock, Peter crashed hard into a tangle of garbage bags and trash cans in an alley way. "Oof!" He breathed hard, the wind knocked out of him. Luckily he landed on his front, saving the strange, exotic fruit from a good squishing.

Not too badly scraped up, Peter managed to get his feet and turned, wandering out of the alley and into the sidewalk. Jaw agape, Peter stared in wonder at the city surroundings. "What the....?"

A turn to the left and there was that pizza place. City Pizza. Strange name for a pie place, but he only shrugged at himself and continued to scan the area. A Pawn shop, a night club, a park....he had to be dreaming. Was he dreaming?

And where was Megan? That hit Peter hard and almost threw him off balance.

Gathering himself, Peter started off in the direction of the pizza place, looking for any signs of the pink-haired pixie, and the love of his life.