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Peter jolts awake, heart already racing. The last thing he remembers is a flash of blue and then everything had gone dark.
The room around him is dimly lit, the beginnings of a sunrise peeking out from behind half-closed curtains. He’s lying in a comfortable bed, thick blankets tucked loosely around his body with just enough slack to not feel like he’s suffocating.
He pushes himself up, carefully cataloguing the room.
It’s obviously a bedroom. Probably meant for a teenage boy with the generic décor.
A messy desk, covered in homework and stacked with textbooks and novels. A few mason jars stuffed with pencils and pens. A dresser, a few drawers open with clothes folded inside. The nightstand has a lamp that he flicks on, casting shadows around the room.
It looks like someone’s lived here recently, but Peter’s never seen the room in his life.
And then he sees the framed photo on the desk.
He nearly falls in his rush to get to his desk, collapsing in the chair and picking up the photo.
It’s a picture of him. He looks twelve, maybe thirteen in the picture. He’s grinning from ear to ear, looking happier than ever.
But the weird part is who he’s standing with. His parents, Mary and Richard, stand on either side of him, looking older than when he ever knew them, but they’re their in the photo, arms wrapped around his shoulders.
Mary’s pressing a kiss to his temple and Richard’s looks like he’s laughing. Younger Peter in the middle looks happy, cheeks still chubby and reddened, smile stretching wide over his features, eyes sparkling in the flash of the camera.
The breath is torn from his lungs.
The photo falls from his grip and hits the edge of the desk, shattering on impact.
“Peter?” A woman’s voice calls out gently. She doesn’t sound like May. “You okay in there?”
He stumbles up from the chair, looking around the room for any other signs of something wrong.
Out his window there’s the Golden Gate Bridge. The pages on his desk are all signed with his name. There’s a Tony Stark poster on his wall.
“Peter?” There’s a soft knock on his door and it opens a little bit. “Are you okay?”
He turns quickly, heart racing faster than he thinks is healthy, and his breath hitches.
Mary Parker.
She’s just as beautiful as she was in the pictures Peter saw of her. Her hair’s down to her shoulders, a soft auburn color that brings out some color in her pale face. She’s got a caring smile on her face, worry clouding her brown eyes.
She’s beautiful and alive and standing right across from Peter.
“Mom?” he breathes, taking a slow step towards her. He doesn’t know if this is real. If this is a dream. If this is a trick.
She tips her head to the side, confusion clouding her expression, but her smile doesn’t drop. “Yeah, honey? You alright? You’re looking really pale.”
“Mom,” he says again. The word is almost foreign to his mouth. He hasn’t seen her in over a decade. It’s been years since he lost her and now she’s here and alive and he doesn’t care if this is a trick.
He falls into her arms, hands clutching at her back as he tucks his head against her shoulder, wanting to cry. She’s here. His mom is here. He missed her so much.
She wraps her arms around his back, cradling him gently against her, and she lets out a sigh.
“I’m here, baby. You’re okay. Did you have a nightmare?” she asks against his hair.
He wants to say that the last ten years have been a nightmare and he’s finally waking up. But he pushes it down. He won’t tell her or else it might crumble.
“I’m okay,” he says instead. He closes his eyes, hugging her tighter, breathing in the smell of home. “I just… I just got scared for a second. I’m okay.”
She pulls away a little bit, enough to cradle his face in her calloused palms. She’s smiling at him, expression open and loving, and it takes all of Peter’s willpower to refrain from hugging her for the rest of eternity.
“C’mon, your dad’s making pancakes,” she says, nodding her head towards the door. “If we hurry, we can sneak some chocolate chips into the batter!”
He sits at the kitchen table, trying to act casual and nonchalant, like he’s meant to be there.
There’s a giant glass door leading out to a patio facing the ocean. The Golden Gate Bridge is practically right outside their backdoor.
He’s living with his parents in California.
Holy fuck, he’s living with his parents in California.
“You sure you’re alright?” his dad asks, carrying the stack of pancakes to the table. He looks a little rougher around the edges than Peter can remember from his blurry childhood memories and the stories he was told.
He’s got curly brown hair like Peter’s, messy and unkempt, a pair of glasses askew on his nose, an almost wild look behind his eyes like he’s ready for the next Big Idea. The kind of look he’s seen in Tony’s eyes thousandth of times-
Holy shit, Tony.
“I’ve gotta- Could I call someone? I’ll be quick,” he says, barely catching himself from knocking over his chair in his haste to stand.
His mom (his actual fucking mom-) nods with a pointed look. “Don’t be long or your breakfast will get cold.”
He nods quickly and races back towards where he remembers his bedroom to be. It only takes a few moments of tearing his room apart to find his phone underneath his pillow. It’s not the phone he had before, but it turns on when he opens it and he has Tony’s number memorized.
“This is Stark. You shouldn’t have this number. Don’t call back,” the message tone says, making Peter’s face fall.
How much is different?
He calls again, but to no avail, so he tries the next best thing.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is going to sound crazy, but-”
“Who is this?” Pepper asks, a little bit too unkindly to sound like her. “I don’t have the time for prank calls or-”
His hands are shaking. “This is Peter. Peter Parker, ma’am. And I need to talk to Tony. ASAP. Please, I-”
She sighs softly. “Listen, kid, as much as I’d love to hand you over to the him, neither of us have the time to answer every single phone call from fans. So, please don’t call this number again. You shouldn’t have it in the first place.”
He opens his mouth to argue, but is met with the telltale beeping of an ended phone call. He only has one more option he can think of.
“What do you want?”
“Happy, please-”
The call ends.
*
Breakfast is too long and his leg won’t stop bouncing under the table and his hands shake where they clench the utensils.
He excuses himself to his room as soon as he can manage without sounding suspicious and he immediately hops into researching.
There’s plenty of search results when he types in Tony Stark, but one thing that’s missing entirely is Iron Man.
There’s all of the articles about Tony getting kidnapped, taken to Afghanistan, but apparently, Rhodey was the one who rescued him. No arc reactor, no super suit, no Iron Man.
Obadiah was still found out, but it went down in a humane way. A court case, a trial, and Obadiah went to the prison.
Tony handed the company over to Pepper who transformed it into the reusable energy and environmentally friendly company it is now, with Tony working in the background as the engineer. Apparently, Tony pretty much went MIA after that. No more press conferences, a few paparazzi pictures here and there, but nothing that stands out.
Until last year, when Pepper and Tony got married.
It was all over the press after Pepper flashed an engagement ring at a press conference and then she shared pictures online of their small wedding.
So, Tony and Pepper are married.
A little more digging and he finds out Steve Rogers died in the plane crash, Bucky died when he fell from the train.
Which means, no Iron Man, no Captain America, no Avengers…
There’s nothing on the internet about any of the other Avengers, meaning none of it ever happened. Loki never came to Earth, The Winter Soldier was never created which means Tony’s parents were never killed, they just retired, Ultron was never invented. Nothing.
That’s great and all, Peter’s beyond happy for Tony and how great his life went, but… if there’s no Avengers…
And then, the worst.
He tries to stick to the pencil and it falls from his grip. He tries to bend the chair leg, but it doesn’t give like it would’ve before. He tries to hear anything outside his room, but he can’t strain his ears hard enough.
He’s not Spider-Man.
*
He tries a few more times to call Tony’s phone number, and after a second time calling Happy, Peter’s number is blocked, but, surprisingly, Pepper picks up again.
“Kid, I told you the first time, I’m running a multibillion-dollar company, unfortunately, I don’t have the time-”
“You’re allergic to strawberries,” he blurts. “And you hate the color green, your favourite is purple, like a lavender color. You got the nickname Pepper after you pepper-sprayed someone in the face right before your job interview for Tony, and he thought it was the funniest thing in the world.”
Pepper stays quiet, so Peter forges ahead, “When you were a kid, you were in the foster system and when you turned sixteen, you started living in an apartment with a bunch of girls you hated.
“You went to University to become a school teacher. You wanted to teach second graders, but your prof told you to go into high school teaching, but when you tried to apply for jobs as a high school teacher, you couldn’t get any because you had a criminal record, so you started working as a secretary nearby Tony’s place in Malibu. He saw you at a coffee shop and he knew he needed you to work for him, so you got your job as Tony’s PA.”
“How do you know that?” Pepper asks quietly. “Who are you?”
“I’m Peter Parker,” he repeats, pacing his room anxiously. “I’m seventeen. And I know it sounds really fucking crazy, but I know you and I know Tony, but not here. Not now. I don’t know what’s going on, but everything’s wrong.”
She sighs. “Obviously, you’ve done your research, kid, and I get Tony’s famous and all that, but-”
“You don’t believe me,” he says. He grits his teeth and pushes down the urge to punch something. “Fine, whatever. You know what, it’s fine. Thanks for your time.”
He hangs up the phone and chucks it at his bed, watching it bounce harmlessly onto the pillows. He doesn’t know what to do.
*
He tries his best to act nonchalant throughout the day, playing along with the questions he’s asked and the conversations his parents hold.
It’s nice. He’s happy. He enjoys that they’re here and that they’re alive and he loves all of it. Whatever that magician had done to him earlier, it had granted a wonderful wish. That his parents had never died.
And he sees pictures of May and Ben and a set of twins who he finds out are his cousins. In his real life, he never had cousins. After his parents died, May and Ben wanted to support Peter financially and emotionally, and never really felt they could have other kids. And then Ben had died…
Which means, wherever he is, May and Ben are still alive, they’re happy and they have children and they live nearby in LA where Ben works for the LAPD and May works as a maternity nurse. Their kids are eight-years-old, a girl and boy.
It’s apparently Summer Break, Peter finds out when he snoops through his desk. He’s going to a high-class school and he skipped grade seven. He’s on the Debate Team and he has a bunch of photos with strangers above his desk.
It’s… It’s a dream life.
Even Tony seems happy according to the internet. He never had to go through the sudden loss of both his parents in that car accident. His father died that year, but it was of a stroke. Peacefully. And his mom was able to put him on a decent track by the age of twenty.
The whole Obadiah thing happened and Afghanistan, but Tony doesn’t have nearly as much trauma as he had in the Other Life. No wormholes or open heart surgery or near death experiences or almost losing his loved ones on numerous occasions.
It took him half as many years to marry the love of his life. If he’s right, Morgan might even already be alive, but not to the knowledge of the public. Tony’s happy, just doesn’t know Peter.
It’s a huge price to pay, but Peter’s always been paying prices for other people’s happiness.
To Tony, Peter’s sacrifice will mean nothing.
Peter could just move on. Live here with his family, adjust to life in California. Without Tony, and Tony would never know.
Unless…
Unless this is really all just a trick.
If it is, would he care? Would he give all of this up?
*
He curls up against his Mom’s side, legs over hers and feet tucked underneath his dad’s legs to keep them warm. They’re sharing a quilt across their legs as Star Wars plays on the TV. A bowl of leftover popcorn is on the coffee table along with their empty mugs for hot chocolate.
“Can May and Ben come over?” he asks out of the blue. He wants to meet his cousins. He wants to see Ben, alive and well. He wants to see May without the weight of the world on her shoulders. “We could have a barbecue.”
He doesn’t understand the perplexed look on his dad’s face.
“Why?” he asks slowly. “You know me and Ben don’t talk anymore.”
“You don’t-” He cuts himself off quickly. “Of course, I know. I would know that… Don’t you want to, I don’t know, reconcile? I mean, it’s summer break. Barbecues and swimming and hanging out. It would be fun.”
His mom, gently smoothing his hair out of his face, shakes her head. “Sorry, kiddo, it’s not going to happen. It can’t. We can see about babysitting your cousins for a weekend or something, but it’s not really up to us.”
He drops the subject quickly. He wants that, but he doesn’t know how much leeway he has with rocking the boat. He doesn’t know how stable this hallucination or alternate reality or whatever it may be, is.
As much as he wants to see them, he knows they’re safe and it’s just another price to pay on his part for their happiness.
*
He tries to sleep that night, but he tosses and turns endlessly, until eventually, he gives up.
He pulls on a t-shirt and heads out into the warm night.
San Francisco is bright and loud even in the dead of night, at least the area they live in. Lights are on, cars are driving, people are chattering, music is booming out of someone’s backyard.
It’s homey, even. He’s used to this kind of thing, only maybe a little dirtier out in Queens. He used to walk people home from parties all night back home as Spider-Man.
He wonders, in this life, if any of those people didn’t get home safe because there was never a Spider-Man. He wonders if those muggers, rapists, murderers, criminals, are all still walking the streets because he was never handed the opportunity to stop them.
Just because there were no big threats like Loki or Chitauri or Thanos, doesn’t mean the world was safe.
He tries Pepper’s cell again, despite knowing she lives in the safe timezone and would definitely be asleep long past now, and unsurprisingly, nobody picks up. He hangs up before he can hear her voicemail.
He tries Tony too, again, just in case.
And it rings and rings and rings, and Peter’s ready to give up, when,
“Hello?”
Tony’s voice is crackly and rough like he just woke up, but it’s warm and familiar and it’s all Peter’s been wishing for.
“Mister Stark?” he asks like he hasn’t memorized his voice. “I- I need-”
“Who is this?” Tony asks. He hasn’t hung up which is a good sign, but fuck, the words hit hard.
Peter sits down on a bench at a deserted bus stop, a few blocks from his house. His hands are shaking and he bunches up his sweatpants in his fist to stop the trembling.
“I- I’m Peter, sir, Peter Parker. And I know you don’t know me, but I- I know you. From another life, I guess, and I know I sound crazy, but I-”
Tony cuts him off, “I don’t understand. What? Another life? Listen, it’s one in the morning, you shouldn’t even have this number-”
“Mister Stark, please, I-” He pauses to clear his throat, rubbing his eyes in frustration at the tears that threaten to spill. “I need help. I don’t know what to do and I- I know you don’t understand, but something’s really wrong. And I- I just don’t know what to do. I-”
“Okay, kid, take a deep breath,” Tony says, just as soft as Peter can remember from his Real Life. “I need you to start from scratch, alright? Can you do that for me? If you can go through all the impossible trouble of finding my number, I can try my best to lend you a hand.”
It’s weird how little paranoia Tony has in this place. Without all of the shit that happened to him in the Real Life, Tony’s just a normal person.
“I was fighting a wizard, right? Back in Queens. You were on your way as backup. I called you for once in my life because I couldn’t do it on my own,” Peter explains. “And then I woke up here. In San Francisco, without powers, without you. With my parents who died over a decade ago.”
Tony takes a deep breath.
“Alright,” he says. “Right, okay, I’m not going to pretend I understand what you’re talking about, but how about this, kid, I’ll come visit you in the morning and we can work this out, alright? Whether that means paying for a psychiatrist visit or something bigger.”
“I’m not crazy,” Peter says quickly, sniffling. He hates how childish he sounds, but he’s scared. What if Real Tony is in the Real Life looking for Peter? What if Peter’s dead? What if this is meant to be Peter’s heaven? He doesn’t know.
“No, of course not, kid.”
*
They meet at Starbucks the next morning, Peter telling his parents he’s meeting a friend.
Tony’s wearing the same go to disguise he always wore in the Real Life, baseball cap and sunglasses along with an average outfit.
“Start from scratch,” Tony starts, passing a hot chocolate to Peter. “You know me but I know you, which isn’t that crazy for a famous person.”
“No, like I actually knew you,” Peter says, yawning. He barely slept last night, tossing and turning endlessly.
“Right…” Tony says. “Tell me something only you would know then.”
Peter takes a sip of his drink. “It’s more complicated than that. This, whatever this is, is different than my life. Where I lived, you were a superhero. We both were, that’s why I knew you. But here, that never happened. That’s why I’m- I’m confused.”
“Okay, but find something. There must be something that still happened through both lives. You told my wife a shit ton of stuff nobody’s supposed to be able to access.”
“Alright, um, at MIT with Mister Rhodey, you used to go to his family’s house in Pennsylvania for holidays because you didn’t want to go home. You and your parents were never that close. And Mister Rhodey’s mom may as well have adopted you. She just started expecting you to go,” Peter says.
He pauses, trying to remember the story to the exact. “One Christmas, there was a really shitty snowstorm in Massachusetts and Mister Rhodey had left a few days ahead of you because you had an overdo assignment to submit. You made it halfway there before realizing how bad the roads had gotten so you stopped at a hotel and waited for it to blow over. Mister Rhodey’s mom felt so bad when she found out you couldn’t make it because of the weather, she postponed the entire holiday by three days so you could celebrate it with them.”
Peter looks up from where his eyes had been trained to the table to find Tony watching him with a half-frightened, half-excited expression.
“What do you think, then?” Tony asks, quickly elaborating. “What do you think this place is? Some sort of utopia? Multiverse? What?”
Peter frowns. “I don’t know… It seems too good to be true, you know. You’re happy. My parents and uncle are still alive. I’m happy. That’s about as utopian as you can get.”
Taking a long sip from his drink, it’s hard for Peter to imagine how he could go back. Even if he knew how.
How could he possibly leave this life behind?
His family is here. He has Tony back. There’s no way they could bounce back to strangers after this.
If Peter had to go back… He’d have to say goodbye to his parents, Uncle Ben, blissful peace, and Tony’s happiness.
How he could do that?
Isn’t he allowed to be selfish for once in his life?
“So, I was a superhero?” Tony asks, pulling off his sunglasses. His eyes are practically sparkling with his excitement. “A real-life superhero?”
Peter flinches. He swallows hard, not knowing how to explain it.
“You were… But it wasn’t good,” he says slowly. He doesn’t want to tell this Tony everything that Peter’s Tony went through. “Anyway, what am I supposed to do?”
“And there’s the million dollar question!” Tony exclaims, clapping his hands.
(Tony’s drinking hot chocolate something that seems so small but a huge distinction to the Tony Peter knows. Not this Tony. Peter doesn’t know the man sitting across from him, without a coffee in his hand, wrists watchless, legs unbouncing, fingers still. Not the Tony Peter knows. A happy, carefree version, unriddled with anxiety or PTSD or depression. A stranger but a happy stranger.)
“And the answer?”
Tony grins. “That’s the fun of it. There is no answer.”
*
Peter can’t stay for very much longer, but Tony promises to keep in touch. His advice is just live your life, kid. If you’re happy, you’re happy, right?
Peter hates that advice.
He can’t just live his life in whatever place this is because he doesn’t even know if it’s real.
On his way home, he passes a store where the news is playing on the TV.
“In other news,” the man says, voice crackling over the speakers. “It’s been exactly three years since the deaths of over a dozen elementary students after a major bus crash on their way to school one morning.”
“No,” Peter breathes, shoving his way into the store to get closer to the TV. He stopped that bus crash. He saved every single one of those students. They even made it to school on time. He saved them all.
“As well as those fifteen students, Midtown is commemorating the lives of the eighteen people lost after the building collapse last year,” the news anchor continues.
Peter remembers that one too. He’d almost been too late, but he got everyone out of the building. He ended up trapped under the burning building and he’d called Tony in a panic, begging to be saved. All he could think about was Toomes and getting trapped under the warehouse. Tony had arrived and gotten him out in less than half an hour and Peter only had a mild concussion and a dislocated shoulder.
But if Spider-Man wasn’t there to save any of them…
Everyone’s gone.
Every person that Spider-Man saved, that he saved, they’re all gone.
Peter runs home.
He shoves past people and ignores his aching lungs and the tears that start rushing down his cheeks like a waterfall.
He sprints until he makes it to the safety of his home, shutting the door loudly behind him before collapsing to his knees, sobs and coughs wracking his body.
Cinnamon and Roses indicate the arrival of his mom, hands soothing and warm over his face and shoulders, and gently nudging a rescue inhaler into his mouth, counting breaths for him. The spider bite had cured his asthma.
“What’s wrong, baby?” she asks quietly once he’s stopped coughing and has settled into wheezy sobs. “What happened?”
He shakes his head, collapsing into her awaiting arms. He can’t tell her.
“Oh, honey,” she murmurs, kissing his head. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk. I’ve got you.”
And so they sit, in the front entrance, rescue inhaler abandoned on the floor next to them, teenager’s body wracking with sobs, mother unknowing and in the dark struggling to comfort him.
There’s nothing she can do to soothe his grief.
*
“Why me?” he shouts, voice hoarse after spending the night crying against his mom’s shoulder. He’s standing out on the beach, glaring out at the open sea.
“Why me?” he chucks a rock at the water, angry and grieving. “Why does it have to me? Why do I have to be the one to save everyone? Don’t I deserve to just be a kid?”
“I’m sorry.”
Peter spins around, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste. Doctor Strange stands there, portal glowing orange behind him.
“What- Why-”
“I don’t have much time,” he says. “And at the end, it is your decision, but this isn’t what you believe it to be. You are dying. It will feel like an eternity in your utopia, but in your life, you’ll die in a few days’ time.”
Peter wipes at his tears, wishing he felt strong and brave like a superhero, but the tears keep pouring.
“I don’t understand,” he says, voice breaking.
Strange’s face falls just a fraction. “I don’t have much time, but the wizard did this to you. You are trapped outside of your body. Your body is dying.”
“I’m dying?” he repeats. He feels muddled and dazed. “I don’t-”
“Child, this is the wizard’s doing. You can choose to stay and live forever here, or you can wake yourself up and rejoin your body in your real life,” Strange explains. The portal’s flickering behind him. “I’m running out of time. It’s up to you. I can’t help you.”
“How do I wake up?” He stumbles forward, but even Strange is flickering. “How do I-”
He reaches out to him, but then it’s only air and he falls forward into the sand.
Covering his face with his hands, sprawled in the sand in the middle of the night, feeling more alone than he ever has, he screams.
His scream, agonized and angry and grieving the losses he could’ve prevented, is muffled by his hands and covered up by the loud music playing from a house a little ways down the streets.
He screams and when his breath runs out, he cries, wishing he had more options.
Stay here and live out eternity, leaving behind everyone in his Real Life, or to go home.
There’s no in between, no third choices, no time to make a decision. A few days’ time and he can’t risk spending too long and have the decision made for him. And he doesn’t even know how to get back.
He turns onto his back, waves crashing a few feet away from him and moon smiling down at him mockingly.
“Why me?” he demands, tears running into his hair. “Why does it have to be me? Why can’t I make the selfish decision to stay here? Why am I not allowed to be happy?”
The moon doesn’t reply. Not like he thought it would.
“What? Mom and Dad aren’t allowed to live their life? Uncle Ben isn’t? May and Ben aren’t allowed to have kids and be happy? Tony isn’t allowed to be happy? Why do I have to sacrifice everything? Why do I have to be some kind of hero?!”
*
“I have to go,” Peter says. He’s standing at the front door, hand on the knob. Tony’s waiting out front for him.
“Where are you going, honey?” his mom asks, gently cupping his cheek. “Is everything okay? You know we love you.”
His dad stands beside her, features soft. “We really do love you, kiddo. You can talk to us about anything, okay? Just stay safe out there.”
He pulls them into a hug, holding them as close as he can.
There’s so much he wants to say.
He’s never going to see them again. Ever.
“I love you too.”
His mom kisses his hair and his dad squeezes his shoulder, and they both hold him close, and Peter wishes more than anything that he could stay here for just one more night.
But if he doesn’t leave now, he never will.
So he pulls away, scrubbing at the tears on his face and smiles at them.
“Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad,” he says, trying his best to throw on a brave face.
He doesn’t wait for a response, yanking the door open and refusing to turn back as he walks down the driveway to Tony’s awaiting car.
If he looked back, he’s scared he would’ve ran right back to them and let himself have this. He can’t.
He slides into passenger seat, barely looking at Tony. “LA, please.”
*
Tony doesn’t force much conversation on the drive to LA. It’s meant to take about five hours, but Tony makes it in about three and a half.
If there’s one thing that’s carried through, it’s the ACDC and Led Zeppelin he plays on the drive, turning it up nice and loud in his fancy car. He occasionally asks questions that Peter gives half-assed answers to or tells stories about his life now.
But otherwise, the only noise, is the air conditioner and the engine.
*
Tony stays in the car while Peter knocks on the door.
He needs to say one more goodbye.
The door opens and he’s met with the squinty-eyed stare of a man he hasn’t seen in so long.
“Ben,” he breathes.
“Peter?” his uncle ben says, confusion creasing his face. “It’s six in the morning, what are you doing all the way out here?”
His twin cousins are just inside the house sitting on the couch playing a videogame. They’re both giggling and shoving and teasing. They’re cute and they look more like May than Peter ever did.
“I, uh, I just wanted to see you. I can’t stay long, just wanted to check in while I was around, you know?” he says, trying his best not to cry.
The last time he saw Ben…
(Blood and tears. The gunshot like an explosion. His shaking hands desperately pushing against the room, begging for help but nobody would. The police officers pulling him away, taking him home to May, covered in blood and with the worst news.)
He can hear May in the background, humming along to an old song in the kitchen.
It’s the picture perfect life they always dreamed off.
“In the area?” Ben repeats in confusion. “What-”
“I should really get going. I just- I love you, okay? And I know my dad’s a stubborn man, but he loves you too, and so does my mom. You’re family, you know?” he says quickly, chin wobbling.
Ben’s face falls. “Yeah, of course, Peter. I love you too. You know we all do. And you’re always welcome.”
Peter can’t help himself from pulling Ben into a hug, pushing all of his energy into keeping the tears at bay.
“Goodbye,” he whispers against Ben’s shirt. He pulls away quickly, offering a smile, before turning and heading back to the car.
*
He tells Tony to pull off the road at a beach.
“Stay here,” he says, “Please.”
Tony looks uncertain but he nods and he doesn’t follow Peter when he gets out of the car and heads towards the ocean.
It’s an old wives tale. But Peter’s banking on it working.
He took a knife from his house in San Francisco, he’s going back to his Real Life. Back to his body as Strange put it.
Stopping right at the edge of the water, he slips the knife out of his backpack and faces away from the car.
He needs to do this. As much as he wishes he could live out the rest of his life in this utopia, he can’t. He has to go back home to Tony and May, and the shitty life he leads back there. He needs to be a hero. A selfless hero. He doesn’t have a choice.
He can hear Tony getting out of the car. He can hear the voices of the people he’s leaving filling his head.
(“You could live here forever, my child,” his mother says. “Me, you, and your dad. The life you always wanted. The family you need. All of us together.”
“You’re all alone out there, Peter,” his dad continues. “You don’t have anyone waiting for you. Everyone leaves you, have you noticed? But we won’t. We’ll be here forever. We
won’t leave you.”
“Stay with us here, Peter,” Ben says, a chorus of yeses from the twins. “I’ve got everything I dreamed of having. You killed me in the real world, you made a different choice here. You don’t have to live with that guilt.”
“I’m no longer burdened with you. I’ve got Ben and the twins. I’m happy here, Peter. Isn’t that what you always wanted?” May continues. “Out there, I could finally be happy.”
“Come on, Peter. Stay with us here,” Tony says. He’s right there. Right in front of him. Smiling and offering a hand. “Stay here with us. You don’t need to go home. A lifetime in your utopia. Isn’t that all you could dream of?” )
Peter smiles at his family, the family he always dreamed of, the life he wished to have, and stabs himself in the stomach.
*
He jolts awake, gasping for air, scrambling at his stomach for the stab wound, but his hands are dry. No blood. No wound.
Immediately, there are hands on his face, on his shoulders, May in front of him and Tony at his side, and Peter breaks.
He falls into May’s embrace, grabbing at Tony’s arm like it’s a lifeline, hands tremblingly grasping the fabric of his hoodie, and tears staining May’s shirt.
“I’m sorry- I’m sorry- I-” he tries to say, but he’s crying and his chest feels like it’s splitting open and all he can think is that he almost made the wrong choice.
They’re both trying to reassure him, gently and softly just like they always do, but he misses his mom and his dad and uncle ben.
They soothe him through his tears until he’s too tired to cry anymore, sitting in a hospital bed with the last of his family.
“It was… It was everything,” he tells them. “My parents never died. You weren’t Iron Man. I wasn’t Spider-Man. Ben never died, you had twins. It was- Everyone was so happy. Everything was what it should’ve been, but it- it wasn’t-”
“It wasn’t real,” Tony murmurs, smoothing Peter’s hair back.
“But I wanted to stay,” he whispers. “I wanted to be selfish and stay. It’s just- It’s too much.”
May sighs softly. “You’ve been through a lot, honey, but it’s worth it, isn’t it? You wouldn’t be the person you are today if you hadn’t. And all those people? You’ve saved millions. It’s worth it. And one day, you’ll get your own happy ending.”
“I wanted to stay,” he repeats. “It’s not fair.”
“I don’t know what’s worth, Bambi, but I’m glad you chose this. I’m happy you’re alive. Most people wouldn’t have.”
Peter shrugs, rubbing his eyes. “Well, couldn’t have you two living a peaceful life, could I? What would you do without me giving you heart attacks every week?”
They both smile, smiles that show there will be a long recovery to this. That this can’t just be washed away with bad jokes and repression. That this isn’t something Peter can ignore or move on from immediately.
But that’s okay.
“I love you,” he says. Right now, that’s all that matters. He doesn’t have his mom or his dad or his Uncle Ben, but millions of other people got to go home to their families because of him. He has May and Tony, and right now, he has to hang onto that.
“We love you too.”
They all squish into the hospital bed together and Peter falls asleep feeling heavy with grief, but safe and less alone than he did the whole time he was in that other world.
The other Tony may have had a much more peaceful life and been happy, but this Tony is happy too. Peter can tell he’s happy, carding his fingers through the teenager’s messy curls and pressing a kiss to his temple.
And May’s smiling, tucking the blankets up around them, making sure Peter’s comfy. She might not have gotten the life she expected, but she’s happy.
The job, the superhero gig requires sacrifices.
And Peter made the biggest one he’s ever made. He gave up utopia for this shitty life.
But it’s worth it.
Tucked between Tony and May, he decides it’s worth it.
Ben, Mary, and Richard would be proud of him.
It’s worth it. He made the right choice.