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Peter caught her this time. Not his MJ. Not his Gwen, but he caught her.
The feeling that flashed over him when he saw Peter jump off the scaffolding, hand outstretched towards Michelle as she descended down, down, down—it was a feeling he knew well.
Back at the clock tower those years ago, watching her fall, her eyes glassy, her hand reaching out for his and her faith in him the same it had always been; but he’d been one second too late.
He’d missed her. He’d caught her too late. He’d let her fall.
The feeling he had on the Statue of Liberty, seeing it play out again—
He wouldn’t let it happen again. He wouldn’t let universes repeat themselves. Not after the kid had just lost his aunt, not after he’d been told with great power, comes great responsibility. Because Peter knew exactly how it felt.
It stung, worse than a swim in the middle of the blisteringly cold Atlantic.
It burned, hotter than running into a burning building just to discover that whoever inside had already perished.
The sound of Gwen’s skull cracking still haunted Peter’s dreams. Sometimes, things in his daily life sounded like it, making him jump out of his skin and relive the moment again and again, as if he was still living it.
In a way, he was. He visited her grave daily. Told her about his day. Prayed that she was happy and safe wherever she was now. He knew she would never be angry at him; she’d never blame him for what happened to her. She’d raced into the battlefield alongside him knowing the consequences.
But that didn’t stop Peter feeling an insurmountable type of grief and guilt and hatred for himself. It ate up his insides. It destroyed his lungs daily, smashing him into a mulch of wracking and gut-wrenching sobs in the middle of the night, sometimes.
That’s why he caught her, this time.
He caught her for his counterpart Spider-Man. He caught her because Peter got side-tracked by a different version of the same monster that made Gwen fall.
He caught her to prove to himself that he could have before.
Michelle kept her grip tight around his shoulders, her legs dangling in his arms. Peter smiled at her, his eyes welling suddenly and abruptly as emotions bombarded into his heart. When he looked into Michelle’s eyes, he saw his Gwen.
“Are you okay?” he let out, spluttering over his words slightly. A single tear dropped from his eye.
Michelle looked at him with a mixture of relief and concern. She nodded quickly, her body still in shock. “Yeah,” she breathed out, before shuffling in his arms slightly. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Peter’s heart almost burst. He nodded clumsily, trying to ignore the fact that he was fully crying now. His tears dropped to the floor in a melody that was soft and forgiving. “Yeah,” he croaked out, his throat dry and closing rapidly.
It was a moment that he’d never expected to have again. It was a moment that, perhaps, he’d played out in his head every day since Gwen had fallen.
He’d relived it, except he’d catch her instead and he’d hold her in his arms and that would be that. They moved to England, they lived together, they got married, they had kids—
But that wasn’t real.
It never would be.
Not in his universe.
When Peter returned home, he took his daily walk up to Gwen’s grave. It felt different. Instead of the incessant thoughts, beneath the time and the internal healing, of hatred and anger at himself for what he’d done—it was peaceful.
There was some comfort to be found in knowing that there were multiple universes with multiple Spider-Men; multiple Peter Parker’s; all with their own Aunt May and Uncle Ben; with their own MJ’s and Gwen’s.
It made Peter think about how, somewhere out there, beyond a dimension that he couldn’t traverse, there was a Peter and a Gwen who were happy. He’d caught her. They moved to England. They lived together. They got married. They had kids.
And that made him exceptionally happy.
This was something new he could hold onto.
And by gods, meeting himself from two different universes had been a wild and exciting ride. Like he’d said to them, he’d always wanted brothers—
He had them, now.