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“I don’t want to go.”
Peter knew he wouldn’t make it back to Earth alive. He could feel his skin peeling away—but not his skin, exactly. It was his entire being. Suddenly, Strange’s behavior made sense. After viewing all possible timelines, he didn’t look at Peter the same way. Before, on Thanos’s ship, Strange saw him as an annoyance, Peter could tell. But after their encounter with the Mad Titan, something changed in his eyes. Like he almost looked at Peter with sorrow, or something close to it—pity.
A lot of things raced through Peter’s mind as he died. His friends back home, MJ, Ned. Aunt May. Mr. Stark. The rest of the Avengers. How close they had come to stopping Thanos. As his vision started to black out around the edges, Peter’s mind raced to find the perfect last words. When he’d first become the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, the thought occurred to him that he might not be as invincible as his powers made him feel. Sometimes he’d lie awake at night thinking of what would happen if he did. It broke his heart to think about his Aunt May losing someone else, so he tried to steer his thoughts away from that. He fell into a pattern of imagining his last words.
“It was nice knowing you.”
“See you on the other side.”
“Oh, what tangled webs we weave!” (This one was for web-slinging-related accidents).
He’d gotten part of it right, at least—he always pictured Mr. Stark there at the end. He just didn’t know it’d be on an alien planet, so far from the familiar streets of New York.
In the end, Peter was surprised when he went for one of his weirder choices. He hadn’t had time to ask Mr. Stark if he’d heard of this really old show, Doctor Who—but he hoped that he had. Maybe in his last moments, he could make Mr. Stark smile.
When he fully disappeared, Mr. Stark’s heartbroken face seared into his eyes, Peter felt nothing but fear. It was as if his body had been replaced by a mass of pure panic. He tried to move but couldn’t. He had no limbs to move, no brain to command them. Everything was dark, and then everything was light. And then everything was orange.
Orange wasn’t what Peter expected whenever he pictured whatever came after death. He barely had time to contemplate what this might mean before a voice broke the silence that made up his nonexistent body. Somehow, that noise brought him back together, gave him his arms, his legs, his fingers and toes. He couldn’t see any of it yet, but he knew he at least existed. Last to return was his eyesight, revealing a dark smudge in the center of his vision. The sound grew clearer, and just as his vision began to sharpen he was able to tell what it was saying.
“Peter.” Peter distantly recognized this word as his own name.
“Mr. Stark?” Groggily, he could just make out the swoop of his mentor’s hair. He’d be so relieved to know he was okay.
“No, Peter.” The sharpening dark blob disappeared, and Peter grew more aware of something pressing up against his back. Willing every bit of life back into his muscles, Peter turned onto his side. He realized he was laying on the ground and quickly sat up, propping himself up on one arm and looking around. He seemed to be laying in sand, sand that stretched on as far as the young superhero could see. Blocking the horizon was a figure dressed in blue, wearing a torn red cape.
“Mr. Strange?” Peter felt like he was gargling molasses. It took so much energy just to talk at normal volume.
The man didn’t seem to suffer the same problem. In fact, he was hyper-active in comparison, pacing back and forth, retracing his footprints in the pale sand.
“Doctor, actually. And no, I don’t know where your self-destructive father-figure is. I suspect he’s back in the world of the living, for now.” Doctor Strange didn’t look up from his footprints.
“The world of the living? What do you mean, ‘for now’?” Peter thought for a moment. “And what do you mean ‘father-figure’?”
“Mr. Stark is alive, and we are dead.” He sounded like a teacher scolding his student more than a man telling a kid that he’d just died.
“Hey, are you a real doctor?”
“Am I a real—Yes, of course I’m a real doctor.”
“Like, you went to med school and everything?”
Doctor Strange gritted his teeth. “Yes, I went to medical school ‘and everything.’”
“Well, you have a terrible bed-side manner.” Strange turned his head to look at Peter, who shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
A cool breeze blew past Peter’s face, and he looked up at the sky clearly for the first time since his death. It was completely orange, marred only by dark amber lines running across it like a spiderweb.
“Hey, uh, Doc? Can I call you Doc?” Strange didn’t answer. “Where are we?”
“I told you, we’re dead.” He kept pacing.
“Yeah, but, uh, I guess I pictured more… pearly gates and harps? Why is the sky like that?” Peter stood up.
Doctor Strange finally stopped pacing and sighed. “When a life ends in the vicinity of the Soul Stone, it claims the soul for its own. When Thanos killed half of the universe using the Infinity Gauntlet, the Stone captured all of those souls. That’s where we are now.”
Peter just had more questions. “I was killed by that big purple guy? Didn’t we almost wreck him?”
“We almost did, but then we did not, and Thor failed to kill him. And so we ended up in this timeline.”
“Oh man, I missed Thor? He’s so cool, I was really hoping to meet him when Mr. Stark told me I’d be helping the Avengers but I guess he was off doing something else at the time or I mean, whatever. Wait. Did you know this was all gonna happen? When you did your time travel spirit quest thing? What was that like? Did you see Thor? Did I do anything cool? Was there a timeline where I saved the day? Wait, how far into the future did you see? Can you like, tell my future? Like with cards or something?”
“Mr. Parker, we’re dead. There is no future. And I would very much appreciate it if you would allow me to think.” Doctor Strange’s hand twitched in the air, as he was waving his arms around his head now. Nothing was happening.
“I can’t connect to my magic here. Why can’t I connect to my magic here?” Strange grew more and more frustrated with every flick of the wrist.
“Don’t worry Doc, I’m sure Mr. Stark’s put something in this suit that could help us. What do you need?” Peter put his mask back on, but suddenly everything was dark. He immediately yanked it back off. He could see again. Peter slipped the mask on again. “Karen, activate suit display.” No response. “Karen, activate Spider-Vision.” No response.
Strange scoffed. “Karen?”
“Yeah, she’s the voice Mr. Stark put in my suit. Or at least, my old suit. I’m not really used to this one yet, but I’m sure I can figure it out.” Peter kept the mask on, stumbling around blindly. “Spider-suit, activate.” Peter jumped in the air, planting his feet in the sand and throwing one arm out in front of him. “Shoot web! Shoot web!” He felt something moving against his hand, and excitedly took off his mask to see if he’d succeeded.
He was met with Doctor Strange’s disapproving face looking back at him, his fingertips touching the sorcerer’s nose. “It would seem, Mr. Parker, that your suit has lost its power as well.”
Peter took a step back. “Ha ha, sorry, Doc! Didn’t see you there!” Strange just glared and turned back to his pacing and hand-waving, muttering something under his breath.
“What are you trying to do?” Peter asked again, abandoning his last attempt to get the Iron Spider working. He fell into step next to the Doctor, pacing beside him and waving his arms around in sloppy imitation. “How do you do that glowy circle stuff? Do you have to say spells? Is it like Harry Potter? ‘Yer a wizard, Doc?’”
“I am not a wizard, Mr. Parker. This is real life. Real magic isn’t like all that. Now please, I need to concentrate. The fate of the universe rests on us doing everything precisely.” Doctor Strange motioned with his hand for Peter to get out of his way.
“Geez, Doc, where’s your sense of humor? So we’re stuck her. That sucks. But we’re going to get out, right? We’re going to get back. You said that we win.” Peter plopped back into the soft sand, cross-legged.
“We don’t have to be alive to win, Mr. Parker. We just have to protect the Earth.”
“Oh.” Peter sat there for a while, thinking about it. He’d never see his friends again. Or his family. Suddenly anxious, he started humming. The tune sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.”
Peter wasn’t sure he’d heard Strange correctly. “What?”
“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking. The Rolling Stones, 1971.” Strange had stopped walking around.
Peter still didn’t get it.
“The song you were humming, Mr. Parker. The opening riff from Can’t You Hear Me Knocking. 1971.”
“Oh.” Peter remembered where he’d heard the tune before now. It was playing on the bus, that day with Ned, the day he left for space with Mr. Stark. Was it still that day? How long had he been dead? Peter stopped humming, the notes caught in his throat.
Peter heard Strange sigh. To his surprise, the cloaked man sat down next to him.
“Mr. Parker…. Peter. I know this must be difficult. I’m not going to sugar-coat this, I don’t see us getting out of here without magic. Somehow, I’m cut off. I don’t understand it.”
Peter was silent.
“I’ve lived a very long time, Peter. I know you wouldn’t know it from looking at me,” (Peter looked at the Doctor, and he could believe it.) “but I have. I used to be carefree like you. I had a sense of humor. Well, actually, I was a bit of an asshole. But then few years ago, I faced a bigger monster than even Thanos. His name was Dormammu, and he was evil incarnate. A demon who promised his followers unimaginable power. He destroyed Hong Kong, he killed my friends. He almost swallowed the world and our entire plane of existence.”
Peter looked at Strange. “Well, what happened?”
“I trapped us in a stable time loop until he agreed to leave.”
“So you were stuck there?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I’m not really sure. Probably years. Maybe lifetimes. I lost count after a while. But I never stopped thinking of going home. And then I did. I went home.”
The pair were silent for a while. Peter didn’t quite understand everything Strange had told him, but knew he was trying to help.
“What I’m saying, Peter, is. We’re going to be okay.” Doctor Strange looked out at the horizon, where the sunless sky hit the sand. “We’re going to be okay.”
Peter started humming another riff. Strange recognized it immediately.
“1976, Blue Oyster Cult. Don’t Fear the Reaper.”