Peter Parker was restless.

He had already finished his schoolwork for the day; he was tired of watching the same VHS tapes over and over again; he was pretty sure Ms. Rasputin was working the library today (though he couldn't be sure), which eliminated any possibility of him finding something new to read. It felt like everyone he knew had vacated the area, leaving Peter Parker to meander the inn without much to do or anyone to bother.

Finally, he gave up and sunk into one of the lobby's many plush couches. He pulled out a grid-lined notebook he'd mostly been using for math and started to draw.

One of these days he was going to learn how to draw a good spider.

Peter looks up from his notebook, expecting to see a familiar face, even though he was greeted by an unfamiliar voice.

But when he looks up, it's no one he actually knows. Was he another newcomer? But if he was a newcomer, how did he know he was Spider-Man? Even though it was common knowledge that he was Spider-Man now, people typically didn't go sharing that information with others.

Peter set down his notebook on the coffee table in front of him. "Uh... hey," he says, rising to his feet. He dampens his lips.

"Did you just arrive here?" he asks. He extends a hand to Quill. "I'm Peter, by the way. Peter Parker."

"Wait, what?"

Peter's expression shifted from simply puzzled to completely bewildered. Titan? They were trying to kill one another? Killing wasn't even something he'd think about doing to anyone. He wasn't going to let anyone die if he could help it. Not even the bad guys.

And maybe it's too quick for him to jump to any conclusions about the newcomer, but he didn't seem like a bad guy to him.

Peter listens and if he was sitting down still, he'd be on the edge of his seat. Peter mentally establishes the facts as Star-Lord gives him the rundown:

• Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (was that his superhero name?)
• Teaming up to fight a bad guy who wanted to erase half the universe
• Leader (?) of the Guardians of the Galaxy (what a cool team name -- not cool as the Avengers, though)
• He knows Iron Man. He also knows he's Spider-Man.

None of this has happened to Peter Parker. And there's a good chance that maybe the Peter Parker that Quill knows is one of the other Peter Parkers. But right now, Peter wants to believe it's true, because while people have recognized him as Peter Parker before, he never really looked exactly like the other Peter Parkers. Not enough that someone would call him by name without hesitation like Quill did.

Then suddenly, all the puzzle pieces click into place.

"Are you from the future?"

Before Quill can answer, Peter continues. "Other people here who have come from all sort of different times, and I never thought -- I never thought that anyone from my world would come here and would actually know me. That I'd be off fighting some big bad guy with Mr. Stark and the Guardians of the Galaxy."

He's sure that nothing he's saying is making any sense, but Peter is practically vibrating with excitement. He looks up at Quill, trying to contain himself.

"This is the second-coolest thing that's ever happened to me."

"Yeah," Peter says, smiling lightly. "How are you doing, Piotr? Liz and I were just talking about you the other day."

"Great," Peter says. It's the truth, for the most part. Sometimes things were hard, like when Liz came to him and let him know that Tess was pregnant. Or when they argued after Liz came upon him and Xavin.

"I was fighting with Xavin --" Not training, because this was different. "-- and I really think my spidey senses are getting better," he says, grinning. "I'm really excited. I really feel like I'm getting somewhere with all my training."

Peter's still smiling when Piotr mentions the comic book: "I really hope someone makes a comic book about me someday." He assumes that the comic was biographical -- relaying real events about Piotr's alter ego.

"Yeah," Peter says. "That's great, though. Ned and I used to read some manga. Did you actually buy it? Even though you can't read it?"

Peter would.

"Liz!"

Peter's reaction is immediate; maybe it's his spidey senses or his spidey reflexes, but he manages to catch Liz just before she hits the floor.

His brows are furrowed with concern, his lips pulled into a worried frown. He lifts her up easily and sets her down on the sofa where he was sitting just a moment ago, then crouches down beside her.

He dampens his lips.

"Liz, are you okay?"

Peter presses his lips together, then pushes back a strand that Liz missed. He presses the back of his hand to her forehead. She does feel hot.

"Do you want me to get you something to eat or drink?" he asks. "I can take you up to your room, too. If you're feeling that bad, you probably shouldn't walk."

Not if she was basically fainting.

Peter isn't totally convinced that Liz is fine, but he's not going to push it. Instead, he offers her a hand up and slips an arm around her for support.

"Let's go up to your room," he says. "I'll come back down here and grab you some juice later."

For now, he leaves his notebook out on the table. He'll pick it up when he grabs the juice.

Peter tips his head back a little so he can look up at Curnen and smiles. The hair-kiss thing was the sort of thing May did sometimes. He didn't remember how much he missed it until just then.

"Oh," he says, looking down at his notebook. He passes it over to Curnen, just in case she wants to take a closer look. "I'm just --"

All of a sudden, this feels really embarrassing, given that everyone here knows his alter-ego and it feels uncomfortable in a way that Peter can't precisely understand.

"-- trying to draw spiders," he says, ending the sentence more quietly than it started.

Busted.

"You know the Spider-Man costume?" he asks. He's worn it around the Inn a few times now, though the first time he was really overt about it was that time he and Sora made fireworks together back in January.

"I made the first Spider-Man suit," Peter says. "And it wasn't the one I have here. It was actually kind of..."

What is a word to describe it?

"...not cool," he says. He thinks back to the Shocker and what he had said about it then. He called it crappy.

"I took apart some of the suit once," Peter says, and then he quickly clarifies: "The new one, not the old one and." Peter takes a breath. "So much of it went over my head."

He was able to locate the tracker easily enough, but identifying specific parts and removing them was considerably easier than identifying how everything worked together.

"I keep trying to update the formula for my Web Fluid and it's not working out." And hasn't for awhile. The Web Fluid was one of the four things that Mr. Stark had decided to keep when he built Peter's suit, if you included the spider motif -- and the only one he didn't modify and improve. It was the only thing good enough as-is. "I just want to make my own suit again someday. Not an uncool one, but a real one, like the one Mr. Stark built for me."

He looks down at the drawing. "I can't really do anything with the Web Fluid right now, so I thought I'd try --" This is embarrassing. "-- designing instead."

Peter doesn't want to sound unappreciative. "It is mine," he says, even though it was also kinda Mr. Stark's too. "But yeah, sometime. Probably not anytime soon. I don't think I can put all the things Mr. Stark put in my suit with my level of knowledge. I definitely couldn't program an AI."

Peter knew that for sure. He wouldn't ever want to replace Karen, anyway. He'd much rather copy her over. He'd be okay with that part being not his.