CHAPTER FOUR: BOYFRIEND? GIRLFRIEND?

"Holy crap!" Brooke screamed at the top of her lungs as Peter swung dangerously close to the traffic below. The blonde gripped the hero tighter to the point that Peter couldn't breathe.

"It's hard not dropping you when your cobra grip is killing me!" Peter gasped.

"I'm sorry!" Brooke loosened her grip but then she wrapped her legs around his waist in a death grip.

"Put me down for a sec!" Brooke pleaded after a second. Peter didn't need to be told twice and landed softly on the roof of a twenty-story building.

He stood on the roof, waiting for Brooke to unwrap herself but she made no attempt to stand on her own. The vigilante waited for a few seconds before he looked down at the girl. Her face was turned towards his shoulder and her hair was tangled so bad that it really did look like a nest.

If he was being honest, it was kind of cute.

"You still alive?" Peter asked her.

"I think so..." Brooke glanced down at the rooftop floor and the proximity of flat ground seemed to calm her down enough for her to peel herself away from Peter. Her legs immediately turned to jelly and landed on her bottom.

Peter held his hands out to steady her but Brooke waved him away. "I'm okay, I'm totally fine."

"You did great for your first try," Peter tried to lift her spirits.

"Be honest," Brooke sighed and turned to look up at the boy. "How do I look?"

As soon as Peter fully saw her face, he found himself at loss for words. Her cheeks were brushed rose from the cold, nipping wind. Her lips were the same color from a nervous habit. Her eyes glowed green from the adrenaline rush. Her big doe eyes were mesmerizing. But her hair was still a mess.

"Are you sure you want the honest answer?" Peter answered truthfully.

"I knew it," Brooke ran her fingers through her hair, but it didn't make a dent.

"Well you look "totally fine" if that helps," Peter joked. Brooke shot him a glare that told him that joke was too soon.

"This mess is your fault. I hope you don't have an emotional connection to your hairbrush because I will be using it and it will be breaking off in my hair."

Brooke got up to face the Spider-Man before her. He gave her a grin that told her that he was fine with that.

"How much longer to your place?" Brooke wrapped her arms around Peter's neck to get ready for takeoff.

"Minus the five seconds it took when we left? I'd say about four minutes and fifty-five seconds," Peter responded. He shot a web that connected to a building on the other side of the bustling metropolitan avenue.

Brooke groaned in annoyance as Peter stepped off the ledge.

-

Two pairs of feet landed on the metal railing of a fire escape. Rain had started to come down halfway through the pair's journey and the watery sheen on the fire escape was a reminder of that.

Brooke slipped when the pair landed and Peter reacted by grabbing her wrist and yanking her upright.

"We'll work on the landing next time," Peter gave the blonde a sly grin.

"There will definitely not be a next time," Brooke glared at the web slinger.

Peter bent down to open the window of his apartment and slipped through the opening gracefully. He cleared the way of trinkets and small gadgets so that Brooke had a clear path.

Her feet went through the window first and she shimmied her way through the opening. Peter pulled her down from the ledge, but when he let her go the force of his strength caused her head to hit the sill.

Brooke's face was one of shock and annoyance and she held the spot where her head throbbed. Peter grimaced and held the back of her head upright. Brooke swatted him away as she stepped down.

"I'm fine, I can handle a little bump on the head." Peter swallowed a lump in his throat when Brooke said those words.

"So this is your place?" Brooke looked around. It wasn't much bigger than her apartment back home.

"Yeah, it's not much but I don't need a lot," Peter shot a web out to a pile of clothing and dispersed it into the hamper.

"I think mine's smaller," Brooke commented.

"Are we comparing sizes?" Peter raised a brow. Brooke blushed at his comment and changed the subject.

"I think the first thing we should look into is Quantum Physics. I know Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne have done a massive amount of research on this topic."

Peter looked like a deer caught in headlights. He was afraid to ask the question, but he thought it would be better to rip the bandaid off.

"Who's Hank Pym?"

Brooke felt her heart plummet to the floor. If there was no Hank Pym in this universe, then that means that the Quantum Realm has gone undiscovered. Or... was there even a Quantum Realm? Who knew what powered this universe?

"You don't know Hank Pym? What about the Pym Particle?" Maybe Peter needed a memory jog. She sometimes forgot the people behind studies.

"What's a Pym Particle?"

Brooke ran a hand through her hair in frustration. She sighed, plopping down on Peter's bed. It was time to tell Peter everything about the Quantum Realm.

"I'd get out of that suit if I were you, I'm going to be talking for a while."

-

"So— " Peter flipped down from the ceiling. "Time travel is possible?"

"Not only is it possible, it's been done multiple times to go to alternate timelines. So, using this logic, I could theoretically travel universes with the use of Pym Particles."

"But we don't have Pym Particles." Peter had changed into his civilian clothes and the sunset created a halo around his head as he crossed the room.

"Not unless you're hiding them in that big, scary Oscorp tower," Brooke pointed to the window in the general direction of Oscorp.

"I doubt it, Oscorp specializes in energy efficiency and biomedical engineering." Peter mumbled. He had his thumb up to his mouth in thought. "Is there a way we can replicate it? Has anyone been able to do that?"

"Only one person did it, Darren Cross. He was a monster, though, and all of his work was destroyed. Besides, it took him over a decade to perfect it from turning others into interdimensional goo."

"Well we don't want that to happen," Peter gave Brooke a smirk.

"Definitely not," Brooke decided to sit up from where she laid on the bed. She turned to the boy across the room who looked deep in thought.

"How can you trust me? I mean, you just met me." The question came out of nowhere and Peter was caught off guard, but he quickly recovered.

"I trust my senses," Peter shrugged. "It never strayed me wrong."

Brooke nodded before Peter asked, "What about you? As far as you know, I could be a villainous imposter."

"You're Peter Parker," Brooke smiled. "You're good by nature."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Peter said under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing, here—" Peter gave Brooke a thick hardcover book. On the cover was a rendering of subatomic particles. "It's a book on Quantum Physics."

"Where's you get this?"

"Amazon."

"You have that here?" Brooke looked up at Peter who was microwaving a mug.

"Thankfully."

"I'll get started. Do you have any scraps? We need to start with an energy core."

"Sure, let me grab everything I have." Peter disappeared into the back room.

"And maybe, while you're at it, a flux capacitor?" Brooke joked. Peter popped his head from the other room with excitement in his eyes.

"Back To the Future?"

"Yeah!" Brooke laughed at the boy. He looked elated that their universes shared that in common.

"That's the best movie ever!"

Brooke made a face. "Eh, not from where I'm from."

"Oh," Peter frowned. "I guess this is the superior universe."

"Totally false," Brooke rolled her eyes and laid the book down on the desk across from her. Peter came from the back room with scrap metal and glue.

"This is all I had." He set the scraps down and took his mug out of the microwave.

Brooke looked at the scrap metal and started to sort it out in groups of which they could be used. She saw a piece of blank notebook paper and grabbed a lone pencil from the desk drawer.

A sketch started to come together on paper. Brooke felt a presence to her left and turned to see Peter leaning over her with a fork in his mug. When he saw she was eyeing him, he titled the mug towards her.

"Mug cake?" He offered. She smiled and shook her head no.

"This is the basic idea," Brooke showed Peter the sketch. "But this is to see if this world even has Pym Particles."

"I hope you find what you're looking for, but I'm going to tell you right now that you'll be disappointed. Oscorp has been looking for alternative energy for decades and they haven't found anything."

Brooke sat back in her chair and set her pencil down in frustration. She sighed and rubbed her eyes from under her glasses.

"Ugh, there's no use. I'm stuck here, aren't I?"

"Hey, don't say that," Peter leaned against the desk as Brooke set her forehead on the desk. "You got here somehow, so there's a way back."

Brooke peered up at the boy next to her with a small smile. "God, you and my Peter are so similar."

"Really?" Peter pushed off against the desk and threw himself on his bed. "How so?"

"Well— " Brooke sat up and swiveled the chair to meet the brunette across from her. "— for starters, you both are nauseatingly optimistic."

Peter laughed at this. "I can be cynical."

"But it's not your nature," Brooke shot back with an eyebrow quirked. Peter looked at her and nodded once.

"That's true."

"Secondly, you both are movie geeks."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

Brooke remembered all of her Peter's t-shirts with a variety of slogans from different movies and TV shows. "Not at all."

"What else?" Peter lifted his arms up and behind his head. His gaze settled on Brooke and her eyes immediately latched onto his slightly exposed V-line before she blinked and looked Peter in the eyes.

"Um..." Brooke looked around the apartment as she thought about more connections between the two Peter's.

"I have one," Peter said suddenly. The blonde nodded for him to go ahead. "We both know you."

"That's true," Brooke smiled. "I never thought I'd meet another Peter. Kinda defeats all those years of me reminding my Peter that he's special."

"I'm sure that he's... a swell guy," Peter looked down and fidgeted with his shirt.

"Swell guy?" Brooke laughed. "He's amazing. Truly blessed to have him in my life."

"He must really mean something to you, huh?"

"Yeah, he's my hero," Brooke smiled. What she really meant was that she had been through his hero journey with him and stood by his side for years. But that didn't translate well to the other Peter.

"So why doesn't he take you swinging? Seems strange."

"I told him not to," Brooke shook her head at the thought of swinging. "He can be immature about it. He's still young though, I don't want him to drop me."

"Well, how old is he?" Peter's interest piqued at the mention of how young the other Peter was.

"He's seventeen now," Brooke answered. Peter's eyes nearly bulged out of his head and he stood up quickly.

"Woah," Peter tried to laugh it off. "That's— that's a little illegal, don't you think?"

"What are you?— oh my God!" Brooke stood up when she made the connection. "Me and Peter aren't— I mean we're— he's like my brother!"

Peter stared at Brooke with a dumbfounded look. "Oh."

"Yeah," Brooke nervously touched her brow.

"So you guys aren't together?"

"No. Never have, never will." Brooke couldn't even look at Peter. The thought of her and her Peter being... together... made her want to hurl.

"That makes so much more sense now," Peter sat back down. Brooke took this as a sign that she could sit down as well.

"I've been his babysitter since he was eight." With that, Brooke sat down and started to tinker with the scraps Peter had given her. She started to assemble the pieces from the groups she had separated them into.

"So... Do you have a boyfriend?" Peter stepped forward to ask the blonde who was clearly in the zone. She stopped what she was doing and gave him a glare.

"No."

"No boyfriend, got it," Peter nodded his head and backed away.

"Girlfr—?" Peter immediately saw the glare once more and stopped mid sentence. "No girlfriend, got it."

It was quiet for a moment, save for the sounds of Brooke welding the metal together to the best of her abilities with Peter's candle lighter. Thankfully, it wasn't thick metal but it took a painfully long time.

Suddenly, Peter's head whipped to the window beside him. Sirens and yelling pulled his attention from Brooke.

The blonde looked up to see why he became so quiet and saw the same far-away look that her Peter for when he sensed something.

"Go," Brooke smiled at the boy. Peter turned to her with questioning eyes.

"How'd you know?" He asked her.

"It's the Peter Tingle," Brooke shrugged. "My Peter has it too."

"You don't call it the Spidey Sense?"

"Nope... Peter Tingle." Brooke laughed as Peter made a face at the name.

"I'm gonna hate that so much," Peter sighed. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Brooke nodded her head towards the window. "Duty calls."

And in a flash, Peter was gone and all that was left was his civilian clothing falling to the ground. Brooke's hair whipped around her face from the wind and she couldn't fight the smile forming on her lips.