Work Text:
The world was too loud.
It had always been loud-- he lived in New York. Especially after the spider bite, every sense grew tenfold in a cacophony of noise.
Peter Parker heard it differently now.
Instead of the traffic or birds or construction ringing impossibly loud in his ears, he heard the conversations.
A boy laughing with someone who was possibly his mom. Two best friends laughing as they walked. Two people telling each other that they loved each other.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t have conversations. His landlord shouted at him about rent sometimes. People thanked Spiderman a lot. Mr. Delmar even talked with him after he so graciously hired him at his new shop, despite having no memory of Peter Parker.
But it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
Ned never asked him Spiderman questions. MJ didn’t tease him. Flash didn’t make fun of him, nor pretend to be his friend. Happy didn’t ignore his calls. Strange couldn’t help him. Fury couldn’t either, but apparently Fury had never been there at all.
May couldn’t talk to anyone at all.
He knew he couldn’t be upset about it. The spell saved the universe-- maybe all of the universes. It’s what Tony would have done. He couldn’t let their world descend into chaos, even at the cost of his feelings.
That knowledge didn’t mean that he wasn’t upset about it. He didn’t even think upset could be the proper word for it, or if there was a word to describe how he felt at all. He was happy that MJ and Ned and everyone else was okay. They were better than okay, going to MIT and living the lives they always deserved. He just wished that he could be there. That when he walked into the donut shop MJ didn’t greet him as the weird stranger who stared at her too long, or that Ned at least looked his way and acknowledged him. He even wished that Flash would shout an insult to him.
He did what he had to. That was what being a superhero, an Avenger, meant. It was what being a good person meant. No one was hurt by his actions but him. That didn’t mean that he didn’t wish with all of his heart sometimes that he could just live his life.
Not the life of Peter Parker with a GED who never finished high school and barely had good grades without it. Not this life where he had a fake ID, only because the government didn’t know Peter Parker was a person enough to give him any identification.
He wanted his proper life back. With his best friends, and his bright future that the MIT lady from the bridge had promised him. Even when it was hard to juggle being Spiderman and a student, or even just trying to keep up with being a teenager.
He wanted to say he’d do anything to have it back, but that wasn’t true. He’d already done anything to allow Strange to save the multiverse and therefore the people he loved. He would never take that back.
He wanted Aunt May back.
Her death wasn’t something he could hope to undo. It wasn’t for any greater good.
It was just his fault.
It was a different pain from watching everyone he loved go on without him. Because, she was actually gone. He couldn’t see her and know that she was okay. She wasn’t okay; she was dead. The two other Peter’s perspectives hadn’t changed that.
No, what Peter wanted to hear was his best friend's voice directed at him. He wanted to hear MJ laugh at something he said. Happy shouting at him lightheartedly, Flash mocking him, Morgan Stark telling him about her day.
May assuming something embarrassing. Tony embarrassing him.
It wasn’t fair. The spider bite was a good thing. He was still saving lives, and he’d done so much good. Vulture, Mysterio, they both would have done awful things if they’d been allowed to go on freely. Yet, all it had given him was loss and superstrength that wasn’t enough to really save people and keep himself happy.
All that Peter could hear was the voices of strangers on the street.
They flooded his ears, making him curl up on the roof of a school that wasn’t his own. MJ and Ned were gone, off at MIT and no longer walking the sidewalk outside of Midtown.
Peter stood, yanking on his mask and walking to the edge of the building. He may not have webs in his wrists, but he still had his homemade web slingers, just like his homemade suit. He had May to thank for teaching him to sew, even if he always took it for granted.
He had taken so much for granted.
A web fired to the building beside him as he leaped, wind rushing past him and pushing away the voices of everyone who could live their own lives.
The only part of Peter’s life that was the same was Spiderman.
Between his busy days of working as much as possible to afford to live-- he’d always been somewhat broke, but now he was alone and broke-- and being Spiderman, he didn’t give himself much time to think. It was better that way. Swinging through the sky and between familiar buildings, he could almost let himself imagine that he could go home to May’s small apartment and find Ned waiting with a lego set.
Of course, all that awaited him was his new too-small apartment with too-little belongings. He slowly accumulated things, mostly to make suits or web slingers with. Anything he could find, free or cheap or sitting in the back of an alley.
He had a lot of May’s things, but he tucked them into the only closet he had. He couldn’t bear to get rid of them, but he also couldn’t look at them all day. Her sewing machine was a blessing in disguise, but everything else was hidden.
His trashcan was filled with empty coffee cups from the same shop.
He tried to talk to MJ a lot. Really talk to her, not just give his name and order. Then he’d see how happy she was, or distracted with school, or anything else, and realize how much he’d only complicate her and Ned’s life. He promised he’d make them remember, and he intended to keep up with that one day, but he couldn’t bring himself to.
He wanted her to remember. He wanted to talk to her, hug her and never let go, kiss her, tell her that he loved her more than anything, just like she told him to once he got her to remember.
There wasn’t even a clearcut reason as to why he couldn’t. He just wasn’t strong enough to, he supposed.
Perhaps one day he would.
Maybe one day he’d get to act like himself, get his own life back. It was a futile hope-- his decision had been permanent. Even if he could get MJ and Ned to remember, there was no hope for everyone else. Not for his old teachers or the government or identifications he’d need to have his life. Reversing the spell would have awful damages, and he wasn’t worth that.
He couldn’t help but hope. Until he somehow got the will to try to make MJ and Ned remember, all that he had was his hope for it.
He opened a drawer, looking at the EDITH glasses that no one would know why he had.
There was nothing to do but look at them.
There was nothing to do about anything except watch as fragments of his old life lived without him.
He'd lost a lot of people before. His parents, the Uncle he hardly knew. A lot of friends or adult figures disappeared or left him. Tony died. May was dead.
Now, he had lost everything he had ever known. Things were familiar in a hazy way, as if a film had been dropped over the world around him and altered everything he knew.
He wished he could just go back to before it had all happened. It was a nice concept, as unrealistic as it was.
The unfortunate truth was that there was nothing he could do.
It was all still there.
He was just gone.
The changes had left their effect on him just as much as they'd changed the world around him.
He'd finally learned to expect disappointment, but it didn't stop him from being disappointed.