#while putting my version of Pavitr in modern Kolkata because of his name

[avatarvyakara]

So let’s just say I have some catching up to do…

What happens when the cast of Strands of Webbing meets the cast of Across the Spider-Verse? Take a sneak-peek:

409. Reflect

“So, let me go through this one last time. Your name is Pavitr Prabhakar.”

Spider-Man beams through the mask.

“Right on, new guy!”

“And you were, what, bitten by a radioactive spider? Made the avatar of the spider who protected the Linga of Lord Shiva? Woke up one day to find yourself an enormous bug?”

“I prefer to keep my backstory mysterious, because, you know, it’s cooler that way.”

“And your girlfriend is Gayatri Singh, not Meera Jain?”

“Well, I can’t blame you for being interested, but I don’t think she’d be very interested in you. She’s a wonderful person and very faithful.”

“And you live in Mumbattan?”

“What, like it’s a bad name? Where are you from, anyway?”

“Kolkata,” says Pavitr, in a deadpan that he must have picked up from Other Peni.

“Oh, that explains your old-fashioned accent and antiquated fashion sense!”

“I—” Pavitr looks down at his shirt and pants, and then up at this new fellow. “Dude, you’re glittering like a Bollywood star, I don’t think you’re one to talk!”

“I’ll have you know that Bollywood copied me.”

“What’s Bollywood?” asks Mayday, who’s been tagging along.

“Wasn’t this my universe?” Roshni says out loud. The Web-Weaver looks around the enormous city in bewilderment. “But this isn’t Navayurka, it’s Mumbattan. It’s not Amrika, it’s Bharata. Somehow the events in our histories coincided enough that we managed to create almost identical buildings, but the names are completely different—”

“How long have you even been at this job?”

“Oh, uh, I think maaaaaybe a few months? Not much over a year. It’s been so easy the time kind of rushes by without you really thinking about it, doesn’t it.”

“Easy, what—fighting rakshasas all the time is easy?”

Spider-Man, who as they speak has been gallivanting over the rooftops, settles on a spire with a quick somersault. “What do you mean, rakshasas? No wonder you don’t like my costume, you’ve actually been sold on that whole gimmick? Hah! What, are we going to get a naga invasion too?”

“That happened,” says Pavitr, woodenly.

“Dude, you seriously need to chill. And maybe cut down on your caffeine intake.”

“But then I recognize that building and I recognize that traffic jam and I even recognize that graffiti because it annoys me so much and the sound even shows up in Hindi but there’s no holograms so how does anything actually work around here—”

“I cannot believe you’re supposed to be me!”

“Whoa, whoa, easy, guys,” Spider-Girl interrupts. “Why don’t we just relax a bit, get our bearings before anyone glitches, maybe have some chai tea to calm the nerves?”

Both Pavitrs stare at her.

“Mayday…” Pavitr begins, long-suffering.

But Other Pavitr looks downright horrified. “What did you—chai tea? ‘Chai’ means ‘tea’! You’re just saying ‘tea-tea’!”

“Thank you!”

“It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Would I ask for a coffee-coffee with extra sugar-sugar?”

“Of course not!”

“Foreigners, am I right?”

“Americans.”

“I’m right here, guys.”

“Maybe there’s just some kind of mixup, or is this world the past version of my own? But it’s the same graffiti, did someone just keep redrawing it exactly the same way for seven hundred years? On another continent entirely? Or maybe there was some kind of split where a past version of Navayurka provided a psychic template for Mumbattan somehow? Or is it the other way around? I don’t know what’s reeeeeeal!”

Well, at least the Pavitrs are finally getting along.

“Although why you’re asking for sugar-sugar instead of cream-cream I won’t pretend to understand.”

“You absolute heathen.”

Maybe not.

“At least Baby Mayday only throws up on me from time to time,” mutters Mayday to herself, patting a hyperventilating Roshni on the shoulder.