what if..?

gwen?

"sorry, i hope you don't mind i just came through this porta..." he turned to see the portal was gone.

he was not wearing a spider-man suit and looked as if he were in his late 30s. both if the spider-men they had met were in their late teens.

the man looked at ned, then mj, then peter. he and peter stared at each other for a few seconds. he cocked his head to the side a bit.

suddenly, they shot a few webs at each other and did the same flip. the younger landed on the table, about the shoot a web at the other but the older peter shot first. his web sticking the younger's hand to the table, not allowing him to shoot.

"you're spider-man too?! why didn't you just say that?" ned asked.

the older pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal his suit. "uh, i generally don't normally go around advertising it.." he turned towards ned and mj. "how'd i get here? where are we?"

ned looked at mj, "we don't know how." he shrugged. "we have our. own peter parker and we were trying to find him. but we found you guys instead."

"oh. would you want to try again? we can go look for him if it doesn't work." the older peter suggested.

"sure," ned nodded. he tried to open another portal, he was successful.

the two peters were talking behind ned and mj, the younger was amazed to see another spider-man.

"uh huh. so how did you..." the younger peter's voice trailed off when he looked at the portal. he audibly gasped. he started to lightly cry. the older peter gave him a look of pure confusion.

in the portal, there wasn't a spider-man there, but a woman. she was sitting in the park. she seemed confused. lost. she looked up to see the portal in front of her.

she had blonde, curly hair. light blue-green eyes. she was wearing a white lab coat with a black skirt and tights. "what— peter?" she asked, turning her attention from mj and ned to the younger peter. "what is this..?" she asked as she studied the portal before stepping through.

"hey, gwen." the younger choked out. he walked over and pulled gwen into a tight hug. she was confused but hugged him back. peter stepped back after a few moments.

the older peter put his hand on the younger's shoulder to try and comfort him. he had absolutely no clue why peter was crying but that didn't mean he doesn't care.

gwen put her hand on peter's cheek and placed a light kiss on his lips before turning towards mj and ned. she was asking them questions about the portal. she was more interested than scared.

the older peter took the younger out of the room and into the living room. "what just happened? why are you crying?" he asked. the younger was still crying.

"in my.. world— universe? whatever the hell you want to call it.. gwen, my girlfriend — the blonde that just walked through the portal — is dead."

"oh." the older replied.

"sorr— i'm sorry. i— it's just, she died five years ago and i— never got over it. i didn't think i'd ever see her again... it's stupid."

"i don't know what it is, but it's not 'stupid'." the older replied. "this has never happened to me — hopefully won't — but it's seems it'd be.. confusing. upsetting. i mean, if my girlfriend was dead for five years and she came through a portal into another universe, hell i'd be pretty confused too." the older peter said, trying his best to comfort the younger. that was never really something he was good at.

"are you gonna tell her?"

the younger looked at the ground. "well, i should. all she did was walk through a portal and i broke down in tears. she would never let me get away without a proper explanation." he chuckled a bit at that.