Doomed to Be Spider-Man

Last thing Peter remembered was Doom raising his gauntlets, green lightning, and a sound like the universe hiccuping.

Then nothing.

Then—

Peter woke up in a bed the size of a small country.

Silk sheets. Cold room. The kind of cold that seeped into your bones and stayed there. He sat up too fast, his head spinning, and immediately regretted it. The room was dark, lit only by slivers of pale light cutting through heavy curtains.

And the armor.

He was wearing armor. Green metal, cold against his skin, heavy in a way that felt wrong. He looked down at his hands. Gauntleted. Massive. Not his hands. And his brain short-circuited.

The armor smelled like ozone and old stone. Like a thunderstorm trapped in a cathedral.

"What the…"

His voice came out deeper. Resonant. Like it was bouncing off walls that weren't there.

Peter scrambled out of bed, his boots—when did he put on boots?—clanging against the stone floor. He stumbled toward the wall, fumbling for a light switch that didn't exist. His hand brushed against something metal and the room flared to life, torches igniting along the walls with a soft whoosh.

That's when he saw the portrait.

Doom.

Himself.

Himself as Doom.

The painting was enormous, taking up most of the far wall. Doom in full armor, mask gleaming, cape flowing dramatically despite being a painting. The eyes seemed to follow him.

Peter screamed.

It echoed through the room, through the castle, probably through the entire country. He didn't care. He was wearing Doom's face. Doom's body. Doom's everything.

He caught his reflection in a mirror on the far wall.

Green metal. Menacing mask. The whole terrifying package.

"No, no, no, no, no—"

—

In Queens, Victor Von Doom woke up in a bed that was an insult to the concept of sleeping.

Scratchy sheets. A mattress that had given up somewhere in the Obama administration. A poster of some scientist he didn't recognize peeling off the wall.

The apartment smelled like stale pizza and regret.

Doom sat up slowly, his, no, Peter's, body moving with a lightness that felt wrong. Too light. Too fragile. He looked down at his hands.

Small. Unarmored. Vulnerable.

"This is beneath me," he whispered.

His voice was higher. Younger. It lacked the gravitas that came with centuries of accumulated power and a mask that amplified everything to theatrical perfection.

Doom swung his legs out of bed and immediately stubbed his toe on something. He looked down. A sneaker. White, scuffed, laces untied. Next to it was a backpack, a stack of textbooks, and a coffee mug that said "World's Okayest Lab Partner."

He stood up, his new body swaying slightly. The room spun. Doom steadied himself on the wall, his fingers brushing against peeling wallpaper.

There was a mirror on the closet door. He approached it like it might bite him.

Peter Parker's face stared back.

Brown hair, messy from sleep. Brown eyes, wide with an expression Doom immediately schooled into something more appropriate. A face that was too young, too open, too... hopeful.

Doom's lip curled.

"Unacceptable," he said to the reflection.

The reflection did not argue.

—

Back in Latveria, Peter was still panicking.

He'd found a door. He opened it. It led to a hallway. He walked down the hallway. It led to a throne room.

The throne room had a throne.

On the throne sat a robot.

Peter screamed again.

The robot's head snapped toward him. Its eyes glowed red.

"MY LORD DOOM," it said, its voice echoing through the chamber. "YOU HAVE SUMMONED…"

"I didn't summon anything!" Peter yelled. "I sneezed!"

"THE DOOMBOT SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM INTERPRETED THE ACOUSTIC SIGNATURE AS A DISTRESS CALL. WOULD YOU LIKE US TO INITIATE EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS?"

"No! No emergency protocols! No, wait, what even are you?"

"I AM DOOMBOT PRIME. YOU ARE DOOM. WE ARE DOOM."

Peter's brain was not equipped for this conversation.

"Okay, okay, just, stop calling me Doom. Please. Actually, you know what, don't stop, because if I'm not Doom then who am I and where am I and why does this armor smell like a lightning storm died in a cave…"

"MY LORD DOOM. YOU ARE EXPERIENCING DISTRESS. SHALL WE CONTACT THE COUNCIL?"

"No council! No, just, like, give me a minute!"

Peter backed away from the robot, which was apparently one of many, because now there were more of them filing into the throne room, all identical, all staring at him with glowing red eyes.

"WE ARE HERE TO SERVE DOOM," they said in unison.

"Great. Awesome. Perfect. I'm having a panic attack and you're all very supportive."

—

In Queens, Doom was having a different kind of panic attack.

He had found the web-shooters in a drawer. They were crude. Primitive. But functional.

He had also found instructions. Handwritten notes in Peter's messy scrawl. Diagrams. Formulas that were almost elegant, if embarrassingly simplistic.

Doom examined the devices. He could work with this. He was a master of science, of technology, of, well, everything.

He strapped them on.

They fired.

Directly into his own face.

Doom stumbled backward, webbing covering his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He flailed, his new body uncoordinated, unprepared for the sudden loss of vision. He tripped over the sneaker and landed on the bed with an undignified oof.

For a long moment, Doom lay there. Webbing. On his face. In Peter Parker's bedroom.

"This," he said to the ceiling, "is a new circle of hell."

He peeled the webbing off slowly, carefully, trying not to damage the lenses of his–Peter's–glasses, which he only now realized he was wearing.

Doom sat up. He looked at the web-shooters. He looked at his hands. He looked at the poster of the scientist on the wall.

He was trapped.

In a body that was too young, too weak, too... ordinary.

And somewhere in Latveria, his own body was being worn by a fool who had no idea what power he now held.

In a life that was clearly a series of compromises and financial struggles and cafeteria coffee.

In a city that, from what he could see through the window, was adequate at best.

Doom stood up. He walked to the mirror. He looked at Peter Parker's face.

"This is beneath me," he said again.

The face did not argue.

It never would.

—

Peter was still in the throne room. The Doombots had dispersed, apparently satisfied that their lord was not actually dying, just having an existential crisis.

He'd found another mirror. A smaller one. Less dramatic. He stood in front of it, staring at his reflection.

Doom's mask stared back.

"No," Peter said. "No, no, no, no, no!"

He pulled at the mask. It didn't come off. He pulled harder. Nothing. There was probably a mechanism, a release, something, but he couldn't find it, and the more he panicked the more the armor felt like it was closing around him, like it was becoming part of him.

"No, no, no!"

—

Doom was standing in Peter Parker's bathroom now. He'd found the sink. He'd found the mirror. He'd found a toothbrush that said "Property of Peter" on it. There was also a second toothbrush that said "Also Property of Peter" because Peter Parker was the kind of person who labeled his toothbrushes.

He looked at his reflection.

Peter Parker's reflection.

The reflection did not argue.

Three thousand miles apart, Peter Parker and Victor Von Doom stared at reflections that were not their own.

Neither of them knew how to fix it.

Neither of them was ready for what came next.

But the universe didn't care.

The swap was already done.