For Autie_The_Almond :) Enjoy!
Very few people know of its existence, but the multiverse is real. There are infinite universes just like yours, stretching out to the end of space and time. You may know that sometimes beings from one universe can temporarily travel to another. You may also have heard that sometimes two universes become unstable and collide. More often than not, this results in both universes being destroyed in terrible, terrible ways.
But sometimes, very, very rarely, if the the conditions are right and the universes are similar enough, instead of destroying each other, the universes simply merge into one entity, and the citizens go on living alongside one another, blissfully ignorant.
This story is about one such case: where three universes living very close together decided to fuse into one. Most of the population continued living their insignificant little lives, oblivious to the cosmic phenomenon they were a part of and unaware of the two other versions of themselves living somewhere on the same planet. A certain few, however, happened to run into their counterparts.
~
Peter Parker was at a small gathering. His Aunt May had died suddenly a month ago from unknown causes, and he needed a roommate. (NB: sometimes for universes to be compatible, certain events must occur for them to be similar enough. Unfortunately, in one of these three universes May was still alive, and that just didn't match up, so sadly she had to go.)
Peter wasn't one to attend parties, but this wasn't a celebration so much as a business meeting - a buffet lunch where people looking for homeshares could find a prospective roommate. Peter had decided this was the best course of action seeing as he couldn't afford his old flat or even a new one all by himself. So far, things were going well. He was stood by the table with the cheesy snacks, chatting to two other boys. They were similar to him in age and build, and not that far off in appearance, either. The three of them had only met ten minutes ago but they had clicked instantly and were getting along like a house on fire. The funniest thing about this situation? Well, they were all called Peter.
Peter being Peter, they all decided it would be an absolute travesty if they didn't get a flat together, which is how Peter ended up with two flatmates he'd only just met. Being Spider-Man would be extra difficult if there were two others to hide it from, but he'd find a way.
The place they chose was small but homey, and each Peter fell in love with it immediately. Each was busy with their own jobs and personal life, so they didn't get to know each other very well but they did give each other nicknames to clear up confusion - there was Shorty, Lanky (the height difference was only an inch but it was enough) and Blondie, who wasn't actually blonde but had slightly paler hair than the other two.
(It went something like: 'can't believe we've all got the same name, wild.' 'I know, right?' 'and we look super similar, too. If you told me you were my long long siblings I'd totally believe you if we weren't the same age.' 'maybe we're clones' 'how dare you! I look nothing like you!' 'oh yeah? how?' 'well for starters, I'm taller' 'you are not!' 'totally am, you're shorter than me by like 2cm, such a shortie' 'like you can talk, you're too tall, look at him towering 3mm over me, such a lanky lad.' 'right!' 'don't think you're getting away unscathed, mr-medium-height.' 'yeah dude your hair is like half a shade lighter, you're such a blondie.' 'these names better not stick.' '...just for that I'm going to make sure they do.')
In case you hadn't guessed by now, all three Peters are Peter Parker. They're also all Spider-Man.
~
Almost a month had passed since Peter had moved into his new shared home. His roommates were pretty chill and they had a good time together, although he didn't see very much of them. Personally, he spent most of his time at work or out Spider-Man-ing. It was a bit stressful trying to hide his secret identity from two new people, but mostly they respected his privacy, so he wasn't too worried about it.
Or at least, he wasn't until now. Lanky had offered him a hot drink, so Shorty wandered into the main room and sat with it in front of the TV, where Blondie was already splayed on the couch. The news was on, showing footage of Spider-Man rescuing some children from a burning building. Nothing unusual, but... Shorty frowned as he tried to remember it. He couldn't place the memory - he was fairly sure he hadn't been to a fire in months. Maybe he was a lot more stressed out than he'd realised, if there were patches in his memory.
Next to him, Lanky was having a similar crisis. Meanwhile, Blondie was listening carefully to the reporter to make sure all the children he'd rescued had gotten home safely.
Lanky was swinging around on patrol that evening, still unable to shake the weird feeling of seeing himself doing something he couldn't recall. "Hey, Karen?"
"Yes, Peter?"
"Have I rescued any children from fires recently?"
"No, I can't find any events like this in my storage from the past year."
When he got home, Lanky locked himself in his room and did research. The fire rescue had been at a point when he was definitely at work. Which meant there was another Spider-Man. An identical hero with a fighting style and powers so similar they could pretend to be him. How long had this been going on for?
Blondie had just fixed himself a coffee and was going back to his room when he heard somebody climbing through the window of Shorty's room. Spreading out his enhanced senses, Blondie noticed the scent of blood and immediately went on alert. Had someone just broken into their flat? Hastily putting down his drink, he jogged across the hall and threw open the door, ready to confront some kind of burglar or see that Shorty had tripped, crashed into the window and gotten a paper cut. What he wasn't expecting was to see Shorty in a Spider-Man costume, mask off, and trying to bandage up a bullet wound.
Blondy's entire mind rewrote itself in the span of ten seconds, then he was making a kind of choking sound. There was another Spider-Man? He was Peter's roommate? Maybe he was a cosplayer who got mistaken for the real thing, Blondie tried to reason with himself. But why would he come home instead of going to the hospital? And how did he get through the window unless he actually had powers?
Shorty finally looked up and noticed Blondie stood motionless in the doorway. He grimaced. "Peter... Would you believe me if I told you this isn't what it looks like?"
"You're Spider-Man?" Blondie said, still processing.
Shorty sighed heavily. "Yeah. Have been since I was 15. You can't tell anyone."
Okay. Okay, Blondie hadn't noticed a whole other Spider-Man who'd been around just as long as he had. That was fine. "You're hurt."
"Um, yeah," he looked down at the wound. "Got shot. Happens more often than you'd think."
"Let me help," Blondie stepped up, moving automatically as he gathered supplies and started cleaning and binding the wound.
"How do you know how to do that?"
Blondie hesitated - he'd gotten so caught up in the moment that he'd forgotten it wasn't normal to regularly treat bullet wounds. "Um..." He could come clean about his own identity - after all, he knew Peter and they both knew the importance of keeping identities secret. But he didn't know Peter well enough. "My aunt used to be a nurse, I guess I picked it up from her. Do you heal fast?"
Blondie and Shorty kept talking until they heard Lanky coming home from wherever he'd been, and Blondie left his roommate's room, to a raised eyebrow from the tallest of them. Ignoring that, Blondie left to 'get groceries' and ended up swinging around various buildings, leaving notes. Maybe he couldn't tell Shorty his identity just yet, but he could at least make him aware that he wasn't the only Spider-Man.
Later, they ate together after Blondie returned with food and were chatting about their days when Lanky made an announcement.
"I think there might be two separate Spider-Men."
Blondie and Shorty exchanged a wide-eyed glance.
"What do you mean?" Asked Blondie, the only one who knew for a fact that this was true. "That's crazy."
"I know it sounds like another wild conspiracy, but hear me out. I was doing research during my free time today, and there are times when Spider-Man sightings have been logged at the same time - on opposite ends of the city. In itself that's not so odd, but there's photographic evidence on a couple of occasions."
"Insane," Blondie muttered a little too apathetically. After all, he already knew this. Shorty sent a warning glare in his direction.
Trying to decide if he'd made the right choice by telling his roommates, Lanky excused himself and went on a patrol to clear his head. When he came to rest on one of his favourite buildings, he noticed a patch of webbing containing a slip of paper that he definitely hadn't put there. Frowning, he pulled it off and read the note:
Spider-Man,
If you find this in time, please come meet me behind the Pepsi-cola sign at sundown tomorrow (the 22nd). We have a lot to talk about.
Love, Spider-Man
Lanky frowned. He'd had a hunch that one of his roommates could be the other Spider-Man, but neither of them could have had a chance to plant this note between him telling them and him getting here. Which meant they weren't the other Spider-Man. He'd have to attend the meeting and figure it out from there.
~
Lanky waited anxiously behind the sign at the time written on the note.
A thwip sounded and an identical spandex-clad figure leapt into view. He regarded Lanky with awe. "So it's true," he (Shorty) said. "I, um, I found your note on the Chrysler Building."
Lanky started. "My note? I didn't write them, I just found one on the Empire State Building. I thought you wrote it."
Shorty shook his head slowly. The two Spider-Men stared at each other, wide-eyed. "So, there are three? Of... us?"
"There must be. How many spider mutants can one city have?"
"Three, apparently," said a third voice, as another Spider-Man landed beside them. "I was expecting one of you, unless I'm still seeing double from that concussion." Blondie tilted his head to the side. "Nope, definitely three."
"So what's the deal? You two copied me?" Shorty asked, not sounding convinced by this.
"Nope, fairly sure I'm the original."
"We can't all have had the same terrible idea to dress up in this costume."
"Apparently we can. So, what's your origin story."
"Oh, you know, got bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip..."
"...got powers and failed to save someone close to me..."
"...and became Spider-Man to do for others what I couldn't do for him," Blondie finished in a whisper.
They glanced at each other, swallowed, then said in unison, "because with great power comes great responsibility."
"Are we the same person?" Lanky asked somewhat existentially.
Meanwhile, Shorty was deep in thought. Finding three Peter Parkers, almost identical, to room with? Pretty weird. Suddenly discovering three Spider-Men with the exact same history? That was a coincidence too far.
"Maybe we sort of are," he muttered, and before he could think better of it, he pulled his mask off. A second later, Lanky and Blondie followed suit. They stared at each other for a moment, then put their masks back, aware this was a fairly public area.
"So this is, what? A glitch in the matrix?"
"We're literally the same person. This is madness."
"I vote we go home and talk this out somewhere more private," Blondie said, and the others agreed. Once they were resituated, Lanky grinned.
"Hey, this is going to make things so much easier for us."
"Already there, brother," Shorty showed them a timetable he'd just sketched. "We can take shifts so the city is always protected."
"And if one of us gets tired or injured in a boss fight we can call for help and switch out," Blondie realised, nodding along.
"And if there's a really hard boss fight, we unleash our secret weapon and go three on one," Lanky continued.
"They'll never know what hit them," Shorty smirked evilly.
"We can also cover for each other," Blondie pointed out.
"Oh yeah!" Lanky pointed at him enthusiastically. "Someone gets suspicious of Shorty? No problem, Spider-Man just swung by in the background so it definitely can't be him."
"Not to mention all the trolling we could do."
"We do have to keep this as secret as possible for any of that to work, though, which means comparing notes regularly to make sure we don't reveal each other. If one of us fights a big villain or something, we need to tell the others what was said. We need to keep on top of this, guys."
Shorty suddenly hugged the other two Peters. "You guys are amazing. We all just get each other."
"Speaking of... I'm not the only one still in shock about having two copies of myself, right?"
"Nope, I'm totally freaking out inside."
"Oh, absolutely terrified, dude."