I know what you're thinking, here we go again. Let's do this one more time, from the beginning... except this time the story starts at the end.

As the familiar world began to collapse on itself around him, Miguel O'Hara clung to the small girl in his arms as he ran. As the void caught up to him, consuming the small girl with everything else in its path, the man crumbled to the dissipating floor, clenching his fists. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder before a glimpse of orange light surrounded him and the ground became solid beneath him once again.

Okay... maybe we we'll start a bit before the end.

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Obsessed with the multiverse, genius genetics scientist Miguel O'Hara had finally created a stable device that could transport him to different dimensions. With the help of his personal AI, dubbed Lyla, Miguel was able to navigate the multiverse without his body destabilizing at a molecular level, but he could only stay in other dimensions for a short time before the device would overwork itself and implode.

During his exploration of the vast multiverse, Miguel stumbled upon a particular dimension that he grew quite fond of. In this dimension, Miguel O'Hara was a normal human being; one with a happy family and a peaceful life. Jealous of his variant, Miguel would spend as much time as he could in the shadows there, yearning the life he could never have.

These frequent visits from the uninvited stranger did not go unnoticed however, as this dimension's spider sensed something out of place during each of the man's visits. Curious as to what could be alerting her spidey-senses, SilkWeb investigated each time she experienced the tingly sensation. SilkWeb, formally known as Katelyn Summers, is Earth-1042's one and only Spider-Woman. While visiting her younger sister, one of the lead scientists at Alchemax, Katelyn was bitten by a radioactive spider and, well, you know how the rest goes.

The hero was stumped at first when investigating the cause of her spider-sense as no vicious villains appeared in an attempt to conquer New York or ultimately the world. It took her a few times until one day, the laughter of the little girl caught her ear and she turned towards the sound to watch the small girl playing with her parents. It was only then that she noticed the figure in the shadows, watching the family intently. SilkWeb quickly slipped out of sight, using her webs to pull her up to higher ground so that she could keep an eye on the shadowy figure. Once the family had packed up and gone, the man emerges from the shadows and her eyes widen. How could he be the same man that was just playing with the small girl? The tingling of her spider-senses intensifies as the man approaches her position from below and she furrows her eyebrows. She follows him into a dark alleyway from above and watches as the man disappears.

It's not until the mysterious man's next visit that she's able to corner him. Just as he lifts his wrist to tap his strange watch, as he did the last time before disappearing, she shoots a web at the device to stick his wrist to the brick wall beside the man. Her hands and feet stick to the brick wall as she climbs down from the rooftop of the short building.

The man groans as he forcefully pulls his hand off of the brick wall, the exterior of the bricks crumbling slightly as he does so. "I don't have time for this." He states plainly, pulling the silky webs off of his watch.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I had to schedule a meeting." She replies sarcastically as she jumps to her feet, this time using her webs to pull the watch off of the man's wrist and into her hand.

"Hey!" The man shouts as he reaches for the watch, but the woman sticks his hand to his chest with yet another web. He lets out a frustrated huff as he rips his hand free. "That doesn't belong to you. You have no idea what damage you could cause if-" he's cut off by his body magically glitching as if he was a technological projection.

SilkWeb's eyes widen under her mask at the sight and she keeps the watch out of his reach. "Who are you?" She asks, wasting no time in beating around the bush. "What's your business here? Did Enchantress send you?"

"Enchantress? No, I'm like you, I'm Spider-Man." He argues. His suit forms around him, covering his body but leaving his face exposed.

SilkWeb raises an eyebrow as she looks as his suit, noticing the talons protruding from his forearms. "You don't look like Spider-Man." She shoots a web above the fire escape and pulls herself up.

"Yeah, I know, I'm not the Spider-Man but– why am I wasting time explaining any of this to you? You need to give that watch back to me, I have to-" He rants, but is once again interrupted by his body glitching.

"It doesn't look like you're in any position to argue, not Spider-Man, so I suggest you start talking." SilkWeb crosses her arms as she sits on the edge of the fire escape. "I'll ask again, who are you and what's your business here?"

The man sighs, allowing his suit to disappear so that he's in his normal clothing. "My name is Miguel O'Hara. I'm from earth-928. I built that device there to help me travel across the multiverse." He explains, gesturing to the device as the girl looks at it. His body glitches again and he groans. "It's a work-in-progress."

"And do you keep coming back to my dimension?" She asks, clutching the device.

"Look kid, I'd love to stay and chat but–" his body begins glitching more frequently, "I really have to get going so if you wouldn't mind–"

SilkWeb stands to her feet on top of the fire escape. "First of all, I'm not a kid, but I'll take that as a compliment. Second of all, the only place you're going under my watch is the lab." She jumps down from the fire escape to land gracefully on the concrete of the alleyway.

Miguel tries reaching for the watch but glitches again as the woman pulls it away. "What's your deal, man? Could you like, stop doing all that weird glitching?"

"I can't! I need the watch to– it helps stabilize my molecular chemistry so that I don't– if you don't give it back to me I'll disappear from reality." He explains in between glitch-fits.

The woman looks down at the watch in her hand as she processes his words. "So you need this to exist in other dimensions?" She asks, he nods. "What's stopping you from disappearing again if I give this back to you?" She leans on her left leg as she looks at him.

"Nothing, guess you'll have to trust me." Miguel speaks, hiding his smug grin.

The woman considers her options. Is she really going to let this man die? It doesn't sound like he's a bad guy, but can she trust him? She has no idea what he's capable of. As she thinks, Miguel glitches twice again.

"Take your time, sweetheart. We've got all day." He speaks sarcastically, anger laced in his tone.

She sighs in frustration. "Fine! Okay, alright, here." She reluctantly hands the device over.

Miguel quickly slaps it onto his forearm and the band connects around his wrist to hold it in place. A sigh of relief escapes his lips and a smirk appears on his face. "You spider-people and your self-righteous decision-making."

He opens a portal behind him and SilkWeb clenches her jaw. She'd be damned if she let him get away. As Miguel turns toward the portal, she shoots two webs onto the alley walls and uses momentum to propel herself in his direction, almost like a slingshot. She crashes into him just as he steps through the opening and the two of them spiral through the universe wide web.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" Miguel shouts over the commotion of them spinning out of control. He presses something on his watch to open another portal and the two of them shoot out into another dimension, though instead of colliding with the ground the two are free falling among the skyscrapers of another city.

Miguel looks around for anything he can cling to as his suit forms around him. He spots the woman falling above him and watches as her eyes scan the buildings surrounding them. She uses her webs to push herself forward and creates a sort of web trampoline below for them to fall into. SilkWeb lands on her feet while Miguel lands flat out on his back, the webs absorbing the weight of their impact.

She lifts her head to look at the world below her and her eyes widen. "Where are we?"

"Earth-928." Miguel states, pushing himself to his feet. "Welcome to Nueva York." He sighs.

She turns to look at the man and quickly wraps his hands in webs as if they're cuffed.

"Bring us back." She demands, putting her hands on her waist. "Now."

Miguel scoffs. "If I remember correctly, you followed me into the portal of your own free will."

"Miguel, right?" She asks. "If you are who you say you are, then you understand I have an entire city counting on me to protect them. With me gone, they're defenseless." She begins. "So if I don't get back there, right now, whatever happens to those people is on me."

Miguel looks at her masked face through his own mask. He's never met a spider that wanted to stay in their dimension once they knew they could travel the universal wide web. Most of the spider-beings are total science nerds and would kill to experience multiversal travel.

"You want to go back home?" He asks. "So.. you don't want to keep my watch?"

"Why would I want to keep that thing? It looks like it caused you so much pain." She states.

Miguel's mask recedes. "Then why did you take it in that alleyway?"

"Because I thought you might have been a threat. I don't know who you are." She argues.

"I told you who I am, I'm–"

"Yeah, I know, Spider-Man but not actually Spider-Man, which I have to admit is super confusing. You should probably work on that." She points, making Miguel roll his eyes.

Miguel looks down at his watch to see that the battery cell has been damaged. "Well I'm gonna have to fix this thing before we go anywhere." He sighs. "Follow me."

He begins walking across the web trampoline to the connected building and glances back to find the woman not walking with him. "Or you can stay here and wait for the glitching to start."

SilkWeb sighs and follows Miguel. It's not long before they arrive at a small lab above the city, where Miguel quickly gets to work on repairing the device and Kate looks around at all of the tried, and failed, attempts at making the watch.

"So was this like your capstone project or something?" She asks, examining the fried devices.

"No." He states simply, his focus fully on the device in his hands.

"A weird obsession?" She counters.

"No." He responds.

"I'm going to keep asking until you tell me." She states.

Miguel takes a deep breath as he moves his glasses up to the top of his head. "I was desperate." He says, rubbing a hand over his face. Kate turns to face him as he speaks. "I became miserable because of my powers. People fear me instead of love me, even though I do everything that our Spider-Man did–just a little differently." He continues. "I made this watch as a way to travel between dimensions in search of one that I could be happy in, with a family."

"That's why you keep coming back to my dimension." She connects the dots.

Miguel looks down at his hands. "It's pathetic, I know."

"No." She moves closer to him. "Not at all." She cautiously places a hand on his back. "I'm sorry for prying."

Miguel tenses at her touch and quickly sits up, causing Kate to move her hand away. She experiences her first glitch and groans in pain as she clutches the end of metal table.

"I better fix this before you get worse." Miguel clears his throat.

"Yeah." Kate takes a seat across the room as she fiddles with one of the older watches. "Good idea."

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Author's Note

Hello my lovely readers,
thanks for joining me on yet another adventure.

Just a fair warning, this story will only be a few chapters long.
It serves as a prequel to another story that BlackCat2907 is working on with both my OC and her own OC inserted into the Spider-verse.

Love always,
Ash.xx