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Peter Parker (

tessellations) wrote in

valloic,
@ 2024-07-01 08:18:00

Spider-Marvel

WHAT: Peter Parker and Kamala Khan run into one another. Again.
WHERE: Vallo Skyline
WHEN: This afternoon
WARNINGS: Some worrying over the zombie plague, but nothing much besides
STATUS: Complete

“I thought about you all the time when I was gone. Every day. It’s what kept me going sometimes. Knowing that I had to find my way back to you.”

Peter Parker had only just managed to drift off to sleep when his Spidey Senses started pinging. It was, of course, to be expected, since this is the way things had been going for the last three months, ever since he ended up in a world where most of the Avengers – and a bunch of other people with superpowers he didn’t know – had fallen prey to the zombie virus. It had been luck as much as anything else so far that had prevented him from being turned himself. He managed, narrowly, to do a back somersault before the metal claws came down where he’d just been trying to sleep. He’d thought the abandoned apartment complex would have been safe enough, but apparently, he’d been wrong about that. He didn’t know the man in yellow, with three long, metal claws, and the bottom half of his face rotting away (to be fair, the upper half of his face was also probably rotting away, except that it was hidden by the mask), but he’d seen him around a few times. He was fast and mean, and Peter didn’t love the fact that he was now stuck in a room with him. The man was between him and the window. He managed to dodge another swipe of those claws by jumping back, and up into one of the upper corners of the room, further away from the window now than he had been. Well, he was going to have to get a little reckless, he thought. “Hey, sorry, I’d love to stick around,” Peter said, webbing the zombie’s feet to the ground. It wouldn’t last – Peter hadn’t been able to find the materials he needed for his usual web formula, and this one was weaker and didn’t last nearly as long – but hopefully it would do the job. He sailed over the man’s head, and screamed when the long, metal claw ripped a deep furrow in his shin. “Oh shit, shit shit,” Peter said, staring in horror at it. He didn’t have much more time than that though before the zombie had sliced through the webbing at one of his feet, and then the other one. Peter jumped out of the window, and then yelled, closing his eyes and covering his head with his arms – not that that would have helped much at all – as he realize he’d jumped right toward the waiting arms of a zombie Falcon. Peter Parker hit the ground hard but it took him a moment to realize he shouldn’t have hit the ground – he’d only been inches away from zombie Falcon. And then, he realized, that even if he had hit the ground, several stories below, he should have hit hard, New York concrete and not this soft, grassy earth. He opened his eyes, one at a time. He was in a forest, and for a moment, he was very, very confused. And then the flowers next to him started to sing, and he almost could have joined in with them. Vallo. This had to be Vallo. He looked at the bracelet on his wrist – it must have worked, for the first time in months, and he didn’t hesitate to rip it off his wrist in case it decided that it wanted to work again and send him someplace else. He webbed it up, and tucked it in under his shirt. He got up, and limped toward a tree – the wound was already healing, and he was trying to decide if that was a good sign or not – and then swung up to the upper branches. He wasn’t too far from Wanda’s cabin, and he made his way there. His bedroom was exactly how he’d left it, mostly – a couple of things were missing, he noticed, but it felt like he hadn’t left at all. Wanda wasn’t home, which was a bit of a disappointment, but Peter left a quick note Be home for dinner if I don’t turn into a zombie first. - Peter before he headed out again. By all rights, he probably should have turned himself in to the DOA so he could get them to put him under observation, but he’d spent these last six months thinking of Kamala, and how badly he wanted to see her again, and how much it sucked that if he couldn’t find her again, their daughter would never exist and… and his good-sense was pretty quickly overridden by his need to go see her. Besides, he trusted Kamala to be able to deal with a zombie threat if he did turn into a zombie. The trip to Kamala and Carol’s house wasn’t long, not with the waypoint crystals, and it was less than an hour later when he was scaling up the side of the house up to Kamala’s bedroom window. He raised his fist to tap on the glass, and then froze, mid-motion. The bedroom was empty. Not just of Kamala, but of everything. There was none of her art on the wall. No photos of them pinned to the corkboard. No bed, no computer. He stuck his fingers to the glass and lifted the window up, then hopped inside the house. It didn’t take him long to realize the house itself was empty. He’d been gone for six months – he knew that time had moved the same pace in Vallo as it had for him by the Captain America calendar in Wanda’s kitchen. Maybe Vallo had expelled Kamala like it had him. Kamala and Carol. He made his way back up to Kamala’s bedroom, laid down on the floor, and screamed his frustration out because how was this fair when all he had wanted was to come back to Vallo for her? He pulled out his phone and turned it on – he’d kept it on him all this time, keeping it off for the most part, except when he wanted to look at the photo of Kamala and his other friends that he’d had saved on it, and was happy when he saw he had a signal. He made a quick post on the Net, wondering if Kamala had gone, debated phoning Wanda, and then decided that no, he needed some time to clear his head. So he jumped out Kamala’s window, and began to swing his way through the streets of Vallo. Maybe, he decided, he should head to the DOA after all, and so he began to make his way there. His mind was full enough – of Kamala’s apparent disappearance, of the fact that he might be turning into a zombie, of how happy he was to be home, that he didn’t even notice the other person among the skyline of Vallo until he’d already crashed into them, knocking them off the platform, hovering in midair, that they’d been standing on. “Sorry!” Peter exclaimed, and dove after them. It wasn’t until he’d nearly caught her that he realized who it was, and he smiled widely under his mask when he caught her with one arm around her ribs, holding her against him. “Hey, Mala, fancy running into you here,” he said, cheerily. Kamala, before that collision, would not have known anything happening in the skies right then as she had her headphones, listening to music on her phone. That would have been something she knew Carol would frown upon – always be aware of your settings. Especially because Vallo liked to let random monsters roam the lands. Thankfully, she was high enough in the air that anything in the ground would have some trouble. And if there’s anything that would chase anything away, it would be Kamala singing loudly to her music. “Shinin’ through the city with a little funk and souuuul… So I’m a light. It. Up. Like dynamaaaahh!” Kamala’s light disappeared as she lost her footing and fell back. This was it. The thing that Carol would scold her about because she wasn’t aware of what was going on and she just got attacked in the middle of the sky by either a new mythical creature or… Her arms had gone around him automatically, just for the sake of having something to grab onto before figuring out what she was dealing with. This was totally unexpected. But definitely not unwelcomed. “Peter?” Kamala blinked up at him. This was a good day already, evidenced by her singing and hopping across the sky, and this turn of events was now making her heart soar. “Are you… is it… you remember me!” She laughed and pulled him closer into the tightest hug she could give him.. Peter’s own grip tightened around her – not as tight as he could hug her, since that would likely break her back – but it was nice and firm, and it felt good to be able to hold her like this. He pressed his lips against her temple – or would have, at least, if his mask wasn’t currently covering his lips. “Miss me?” he asked, and swung up onto a rooftop so he could put her down. Holding onto her in an inescapable grip was probably a bad call right now. He took a couple steps away from her. “Though, fair warning, I might be turning into a zombie? So you should probably keep your distance. I was actually just on my way to the DOA.” “You have no freaking idea,” she said, with another laugh. She was ready to reach up for his mask to help remove it so she could give him a proper kiss when he stepped away. The action had her blinking in surprise with just a tiny bit of disappointment and also a little bit of anxiety. “You, uh… what? Wait… what? How did that happen? What the heck did I miss in our world?” This wasn’t the reunion she had pictured in her head. Though truthfully, she had been starting to picture it less and less in general as time went on. “I’m not sure I was in our world,” Peter confessed. He considered, for a moment, having the conversation with the mask on, since it would make it easier to make light of the conversation. But no, he didn’t want to wear a mask around Kamala. He pulled it off, and slipped it into his pocket. He was a little gaunt, and the bags under his eyes were dark, but he couldn’t help but smile when he saw her. “Where I just came from, there’d been a zombie virus outbreak at… some point. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what happened. Most of the Avengers and… everyone else was already a zombie by the time I arrived. One of them scratched me.” He gestured toward his leg, where the wound had already mostly closed – the scar, through the ripped fabric, was still red and shiny, but he suspected that it would be gone entirely by that evening. It was a good sign that it was healing, he thought. None of the zombies seemed to have a healing factor, even people he knew had had one before they’d been turned. “Not with his fingernails. He had like, big knives coming out of his hands? Very creepy. But man, I’m so excited to tell you about the world I was on before that? I stayed with this guy named Pter Ptarker for a while, there. He was a pterodactyl, who swapped bodies with a t-rex and became Spider-Rex, and saves people with his t-rex spider powers? Wild, right?” Kamala found herself blinking in surprise again when he pulled off his mask. That wasn’t how she last remembered him. A sense of anxiety gripped her now because as much as she loved watching zombie movies – like really really loved zombie movies, they were the absolute best! – she didn’t want to necessarily be in one, nor see her loved ones go through that. There weren’t many times Kamala was left speechless for a bit but now she was, her jaw dropping open as she listened to him. Yes, this was all super exciting to hear and she wanted to hear all about it but Peter currently had a whole scratch on his leg. “Holy crap,” she breathed before moving closer to him, because she wanted to be, and she knew if he suddenly went full rage mode like they did on iZombie (definitely a favorite zombie classic), at least her powers would protect her. She reached up, and cupped his cheeks with her hands, clearly still a bit stunned that he was even here. “Peter, I love you and I’m so so damn glad to see you here, but maybe, like… we should really get over to the DOA asap for them to check you out?!” “You do?” Peter asked, and then flushed because that probably shouldn’t be the part of that statement that he was focusing on. “But yeah, you’re right. I was actually on my way over there when I ran into you. You’ll come with me?” Kamala just gaped at him because holy crap, she had really just said that. … and oh my god, she really does! And… damnit, he didn’t say it back. “Yes!” She practically yelled it because the previous anxiety was still there. “DOA, first, and then an actual and proper reunion after that. We’ll grab chili dogs!” “Yes, please,” Peter lamented. “I haven’t had a chili dog since the last time we went for them, and I am starving. Not for flesh! Just for chili cheese dogs.” He began to lift his arm to wrap around her again, and then grimaced. “I would offer to carry you there, but maybe that’s not a good idea until we get the all clear?” Despite the situation, Kamala couldn’t help the smile. She wanted to hug him and kiss him so bad but it would have to wait because freaking zombies. “That’s okay, I got my own transportation anyway!” She did at least reach out to take his hand and give it a squeeze. His were still gloved anyway. “Once we know you’re all cleared, I am going to take you to Loch Laggan where Carol and I moved to… ooor Wanda’s to avoid Carol yelling about leaving the door six inches open.” “Loch Laggan?” Peter asked, twining his fingers with Kamala’s and giving her hand a squeeze. “Is that where you guys went?” He pulled his mask down over his face again, and, with a gesture for Kamala to come along with him, he jumped off the roof to continue on toward the DOA. He and Kamala can talk while they go. “Yeah,” she started, getting herself straightened up before following him on her light. The metaphorical brightness she had on her face dimmed just a bit as she explained. “Emme’s gone. We had a large exodus earlier this year and Carol couldn’t stay anymore so we moved. Natasha is gone too.” “Oh,” Peter said, looking over at her. He knew that she couldn’t see the expression on his face: equal parts sympathy and guilt. He wished he could hug her, though, as he swung across the next block, it was currently impossible. “I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I’m sorry for being one of them, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t here when they started disappearing.” Kamala at least waited till she jumped a few more steps to another high building before she paused. “It’s not your fault,” she said, giving him a reassuring smile because she didn’t have any mask on so he could see her clearly. “It’s just how Vallo works, I guess. Besides Kate disappeared for a bit too and then she came back!” “Wow. Vallo really does seem like it decided to be a real jerk about things for a while there,” Peter said, and, dropped the last ten feet onto the sidewalk in front of the DOA offices. He waited for Kamala to land beside him, but even then he didn’t rush right in. He was, he found, more than a little nervous about this whole zombie thing. He extended his hand toward her, hoping that she’d take it. Kamala gave him a smile and reached out and took it. Telling him that he’d be fine was right at the tip of her tongue but they couldn’t know that for sure she kept it in. “I missed you so much, you know?” Peter squeezed her hand. “I missed you too,” he said. “So much.” But he didn’t want to get into that right now. Not yet. Not until after. And so he stepped inside the building. The tests themselves weren’t so bad. They took some of his blood – only after he ensured that they would give it back to him afterward so he could destroy the sample, and he watched it like a hawk the whole time. Then one of the magic guys did some … magic stuff. And then, after about forty-five minutes, Peter got the all-clear: he was not about to turn into a zombie. When he got the news, he hugged and lifted Kamala, spinning her in a circle. It felt like a physical weight had been lifted from his chest and, for the first time in months, he felt actually, genuinely, happy. “I cannot wait for some chili cheese dogs,” he said once he put her down again, though he didn’t release her. When he pulled her into his arms, Kamala felt her own wariness lift and disappear for the time being. She let a delighted little squeal out as he swung her around. “Chili cheese dogs, Wanda’s cooking, Carol’s cooking, every snack there is in existence here. And maybe a little kissing on the side!” “A lot of kissing on the side, I hope,” Peter said, and leaned forward to do exactly that. “Yes, a whole lot of it.” As if to make a point of it, Kamala craned her neck up to kiss him, making a step with her powers to help with it. When she pulled back, her eyes were lit up, not just from the kiss but the memories of everything that had happened here so far. “Peter, oh my god, I have so much to tell you, by the way. Starting with how I got shrunk into a miniature to play in Mike’s D&D village!” “I want to hear all about it,” Peter told her, and, taking her hand began to walk out of the DOA. It didn’t take them long to get their chili cheese dogs from one of the street vendors, and once Peter had that sweet, sweet heart-attack-in-a-bun in hand, he took Kamala in his arms and swung them up to the top of one of the nearby buildings. He sat down next to her, legs hanging over the side of the building. He still was a little scared of heights, but it was easier by far to deal with the more he did stuff like this. It was hard to tell if it was that fear, or being so close to Kamala again, that made his heart pound so in his chest. “I thought about you all the time when I was gone,” he told her after a moment. “Every day. It’s what kept me going sometimes. Knowing that I had to find my way back to you.” To Kamala, and to the future they’d been promised together. “I had no idea you would even remember this place!” She didn’t think it was an impossibility… after all, Kate came back and didn’t have to be introduced to everything and anything again but she also knew it was always possible that the person who would be back here wouldn’t be the one who was here already. Kamala was afraid of that being the case not just with Peter but with Emmeline. If Peter returning and not knowing her would have hurt her, she imagined Emmeline coming back and not remembering her or Carol would be much more devastating. “I mean… you know, how the theory is that when you leave this place and return, you return to the point in your life at which you left so its like no time had passed there at all.” Because she had newer memories of her life in her world but nowhere in those memories did she also have memories of being in Vallo. Peter nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s what happens with most people, when they leave,” he said, a little awkwardly. He didn’t know for – he was only mildly familiar with inter-dimensional travel back home, and the rules back there seemed to be different than the rules that governed inter-dimensional travel in Vallo. “Like, I think that’s what most people say when they come back? I didn’t go go back home to New York though.” He paused. “Well, not to my New York, at least. “The first place I went was prehistoric. Like, literally? I got to see actual dinosaurs, Kamala. It was pretty cool, you know, minus the whole chilli cheese dog thing. And the lack of you thing. I got to meet some dinosaurs? Dinosaurs I could talk with, even. I got to stay with Pter Ptarker, a pteranodon that had switched bodies with a tyrannosaurus rex when some meteor fell? And he somehow managed to develop spider powers from this body switch, and decided to become Spider-Rex, protector of herbivore dinosaurs.” He shot Kamala a grin. “I think you would’ve loved it there. It was very weird, but kind of fun once you got used to it.” “Shut up,” Kamala exclaimed after she had taken a sip of her soda, that she almost choked on when he mentioned a spider-dinosaur?! “That does sound like a lot of fun but… I had no friggin idea that there was a chance you didn’t go back to your home world. So, like… did you actually travel back in time to dinosaur land or was it a world where dinosaurs never went extinct and thus humans never evolved to existence?” Peter considered for a minute. “There’s been a couple other people who’ve gone elsewhere, I think,” Peter said after a minute. “But as for where I went…” he shrugged. “I don’t know if I could say. I mean, there weren’t any buildings, and all the plants looked just as prehistoric as the dinosaurs. But who’s to say that dinosaurs hadn’t just been roaming the earth for 2.5 million years and never actually went extinct?” “Let’s be real, that was probably the greenest the world ever was, then, if no humans existed at all.” Although it would have been a sad reality for Peter to be in had the dinosaurs not have been able to develop spoken language. “We had several portals open up here. Three times, specifically. People went missing from here and they ended up being in these other worlds. In one of those worlds, we were in space. I have vague memories of it but I’m sure I was in that other world too. Maybe it was something similar to what happened to you?” “I have never smelled air so clean,” Peter confirmed. He frowned a little at the talk of the portals, and considered it. “It could be,” he admitted. “That sounds… I missed a lot.” He bumped Kamala’s shoulder with his own. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t here, Mala.” Kamala bumped it back but then took a hold of his arm as she pulled him toward her again to give him a kiss on his cheek. “It’s okay, it wasn’t your doing. You’re here now!”

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