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First half of chapter 1 under the cut;

Peter looked at me with wide eyes. He was breathing fast, jerkily, and by the time I processed what had happened, he was half-way to a full-blown panic attack. “April,” he gasped, breaths coming out sporadically, “April, what the fuck are we going to do?”

I was staring at my hands, eyes blank. They were flickering in and out of visibility, my mind and body apparently unable to decide if I should hide or not. The alleyway we were in - that we were deposited in - was dark, looming, and before I had realised it, my spider-sense had warned me of the person at the mouth of it. If I hadn’t been so out of it, if Peter hadn’t been occupied with his panic attack, we would’ve heard them long before they got there.

“Hey! Brats! Scram, get out of here! This is my turf and I’m not having you lot stay here!” He looked angry, and drunk, and ironically this is what got me out of my fugue state, what helped Peter calm down a little. Getting dropped into an unrecognisable alleyway had shaken us, but it seemed that drunk, angry people were always around, no matter what dimension you got dropped in.

That thought almost had me disassociating again, before I got a firm grip on myself. Get yourself into a place where you can panic properly first before you have a mental breakdown I thought.

A plan was what I needed, and even the bare bones of what I had calmed me down somewhat. I turned to Peter, who although had snapped out of his panic attack by virtue of the drunk, wasn’t faring well. “Peter. Hey, Pete. We need to move.” Grabbing his hands, I let just the bare bones of my strength leak through, helping to ground him in the moment.

I could imagine what he was thinking - what his mind must have conjured for him to look so broken. I cursed Dr. Strange for the hundredth time in my mind, if only for the fact that the magic that had thrown us here had us feeling like we had dematerialised into ash.

Yeah. I’m sure you know what memory Peter was reliving.  I hauled myself up, and still grabbing his hand, dragged him out of there.

We stumbled out of the alleyway, and into the main road - if you could call it that. It was dark, and the pollution was thick, but it couldn’t hide the gothic architecture or the grimy cityscape. The buildings loomed, dark shadows cast over the street. There were neon signs out every couple of buildings, but they flickered half-heartedly, the light dying intermittently. It was as though even the inanimate objects here were warning us to leave.

Peter was still shaking, his breaths uneven, and when I looked back at him he looked haunted. But I had the brief thought that at least he was moving - at least he wasn’t stuck in that seedy alley. More alert than I was before, my spider-sense tingled at the base of my head, a constant hum that never dimmed - warning me to not let down my guard.

My eyes flickered over the faces of people, their heads down. They walked like they were afraid of getting jumped, wary looks given to me before they hurried away. My thoughts were bitter as person after person looked at me, took a glance at Peter, and lowered their eyes before they walked off.

My faith in humanity died a little at that point.

I tightened my grip on Peter a little, trying to convey some semblance of reassurance. His tight hold on me tightened further, and I flashed him a quick smile when he looked at me. My smile was weak, fleeting, but it seemed to be enough to ground Peter a little more.

We kept walking, aimlessly, it felt but we needed to find somewhere to regroup. To think. It felt like hours, but was maybe only 45 minutes before Peter was tugging at me to stop.

“April, look.” I looked over to what he was pointing at - a small sign that was innocuous and easily passed over. ‘Narrows Shelter’ it read, and I looked over at the building. It looked - clean for a lack of description. It was by no means the Ritz, but it was a far cry better than what I’d seen so far in this depressing city. It wasn’t much but it was something.

I nodded at him, and we hurried over, hoping to find somewhere to sleep for the night. We walked through the doors, and the inside of the lobby matched the outside. The place was clean, and although it looked run-down, I knew that it was our best shot at the moment. Remembering the seedy bars that the neon signs advertised, I shivered a little and prayed that we got something right today.

The Universe owed us.

Wait.

That thought had me spiralling again, the thought that I was in a different dimension. A different UNIVERSE.

By the time I had checked back in, fingernail indents carved into my hands, I could hear the tail end of the conversation that Peter had with the receptionist.

“Room 3B. Keep your heads down and don’t cause trouble.” She sounded brusque, but not unkind.

I could feel a hysterical laugh bubble up at the back of my throat, threatening to come out. Us? Keep out of trouble?

Peter gave me a look, correctly identifying the look in my eye. I swallowed it down, thanked the lady, and we made our way to the back of the shelter. The room was small, with 2 small cots and a window that was so dirty it let in barely any light. But the room was clean, the beds looking not bad. It felt like a sanctuary compared to the streets outside.

Peter sank onto one of the cots, and I followed him, my hand still grasped firmly in his. “We’ll figure this out Pete. We always do.” I laid my head on his shoulder, and felt as he nodded above me.

“Yeah,” he sighed heavily, but I could hear some hesitation in his voice. “April what if we– what if we can’t find a way back?”

I stayed silent, doubt nagging at me. What platitudes could I say when that thought had been running in my mind?

I’d assumed that when I was able to find somewhere to rest – somewhere for my mind to shut down – that I’d have the panic attack I was pushing back. But I just … disassociated. I couldn’t compartmentalise what had happened and my body felt – floaty. I was in a haze, and I didn’t want to go back to the panic-filled haze that my mind had been in before.

I could just – relax. Let everything drop, if only for a minute, and if my hands were trembling, if my glassy eyes held tears, then I didn’t make note of it.

The shelter helped with that. It was quiet, the background sounds muted; footsteps, murmured conversations, the occasional cough. It was a lot louder to me than to the average person – and I think that was what had ultimately grounded me; the fact that my enhanced senses still worked in this hellhole, that I hadn’t lost my powers.

 I refused to think about what I could hear outside the shelter.

“We can think of a plan later, Pete,” I said eventually. I looked up at him, and I could see the exhaustion on him. “Let’s try to go to sleep first.”

He looked down at me, and his eyes softened with an emotion I couldn’t identify. “Ok April,” he said.

We settled into our respective cots, exhaustion laying us down like a heavy blanket. We lay there for a while, and drifted off after a bit. The last thing I could remember before I fell asleep was the dizzying relief I felt in the fact that Peter was with me. That the spell hadn’t careened out of order, and separated us.

Ok. So. If you like my writing in “Phantom and Fent- Wait that’s a Wayne?!”, then I have another story for you …

It’s HEAVILY inspired by Dark Matter by the lovely @mysterycyclone, so it’s a spider-man in gotham thing. BUT. there’s someone with him. “Who?” I hear you ask. Read and find out 🤭.

Here’s the summary for the story:

“So. You're dumped in a dimension where you have no idea who the locals are, only a couple hundred dollars, and no way to get back (yet). That's the exact scope of my situation, and the fact that I've got a vague memory of this city and its nutjobs are only the cherry to this clusterfuck.

Well. I've always wanted to know what Gotham was like anyway...?”

Idk, this story has a special place in my heart, soo… check it out