Work Text:
When the golden light faded, Peter Parker was glad to find himself in a familiar place. The living room of his apartment was a safe place for him, and although he’d never admit it, he was exhausted from the battle he’d just been through.
While it had of course been an interesting, albeit very strange, experience to meet two alternate versions of himself and fight alongside them, now he was utterly, bone-deep tired.
Not even taking the time to remove his suit, he laid (more like collapsed, but since no one was watching it was alright) onto his couch, a heavy sigh escaping as his body settled into the familiar lumpy surface.
His eyes slid closed and he quietly reminisced on everything that had occurred over the last few hours. God, had it only been a few hours? It felt like it had been years since he’d been suddenly sucked out of his apartment by a shining golden light into a strange new world where there were three of him.
Peter was still struggling to wrap his mind around that part. Three of him?? That was something he’d never even imagined could be possible.
They had made a surprisingly good team, the three of them. Although, came the thought spinning through his head, it makes sense that I’d work well with myself. If you can even count them as me. God this is confusing.
Together, the three of them had managed to achieve one of the things that had haunted him for years. They had saved the people that they had previously failed to save, giving them a second chance at life.
Well. They had saved everyone except for her.
Gwen.
The second her name came to his mind, his body curled into a fetal position, the pain following a moment later. No matter how much time had passed, any thought of her caused a sharp jolt of pain to wrack through his entire body. For weeks after her death, he’d barely been able to move, lying on his floor while the pain wrecked his body over and over again. Never before had he understood the phrase dying of a broken heart. Not until he’d lost her, and then he’d wished for the pain to kill him.
It hadn’t, and he’d learned to deal with it. Sometimes he’d had blessed days of peace where she wouldn’t cross his mind, but then the guilt of forgetting her would hit him just as hard, and he’d be back where he started.
At least the younger Peter wouldn’t have to feel this. He’d saved the kid from this, throwing himself down the Statue of Liberty to catch MJ. Seeing her fall had unlocked something in him, and all he had seen was Gwen.
He’d done it differently this time. Made sure to catch her in his arms, rather than trust his webs to do the job for him, which had been his mistake last time. He’d caught her, and she’d survived, and for just a moment it was almost like he’d caught Gwen. But then he’d looked down at the girl in his arms, seen brown curly hair instead of the soft blonde hair he still saw in his dreams, and he’d been lost to his pain again.
Sometimes he thought he’d never be free of this regret and guilt, and in his darker moments, he welcomed that possibility. He didn’t deserve to forget her, he didn’t deserve to move on or have weeks without the physical pain of losing her driving him to the ground.
He’d failed Gwen Stacy, and he deserved to live with the consequences of his actions, until the day he died.
Peter had hoped against all hope that maybe she was alive in the other universe, but the younger Spiderman had quietly informed him that there was no way that she did. Something about the laws of the universe, he hadn’t listened too closely after the soft “no” he heard from the kid when he’d managed to make himself ask.
Time to return to the here and now. The past can wait until I’ve showered.
He shoved himself up into a sitting position, his feet braced on the floor and his hands in his hair. Maybe he could afford to sit here for just a few more minutes before he made himself get up and function.
—-----------------
He had no idea how long he’d been sitting hunched in that same position before a cold shiver raced down his spine and the hair on the back of his neck raised all at once. Years of this tingle had taught him to pay attention, and he raised his head, waiting for an attack from some direction.
He’d just stood to move through the apartment when a loud knock came from his front door. The sound of it sent another shiver down his spine, and he moved to grab the baseball bat he kept near his sofa.
“Peter, open the door.”
The bat clattered to the ground, his suddenly numb fingers losing their grip.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
It couldn’t be.
He was hallucinating, that had to be it. Or dreaming. Normally he only heard her voice when he was teetering on the edge of sleep. Maybe this trip to another universe had finally, completely broken him, and he was suffering a full psychotic break.
“Peter!”
There it was again. The voice that had haunted his nightmares and dreams and thoughts alike for years. Gwen’s voice.
Something deep inside him cracked and he threw himself at the door, his fingers scrabbling for the lock. Someone was playing a joke on him, using a recording of her voice. That was the only explanation he could accept.
Someone was playing a joke on him, and he was going to rip them apart.
His fingers finally found the deadbolt, unlocking it, and he nearly ripped the door off its hinges in his haste to get a look at his tormentor. Everything in him froze as soon as the door was open, his mind simultaneously running at high speed and screeching to a halt, if such a thing was even possible.
Standing in his doorway, the sunlight casting a golden halo around her body like the angel she was, was Gwen Stacy.
The rational side of his mind quietly determined that he’d definitely simply, finally, gone insane and was fully hallucinating her standing there. The emotional side of his mind wasn’t thinking anything beyond “for the love of god touch her”.
“Gwen?”
It didn’t even sound like his voice; it was so soft and quiet, full of fear and every regret he’d ever had since she’d fallen. She looked so real in front of him, her hair curling over her shoulders in the soft blonde waves he remembered, the sharp emerald green of her eyes fixed on his. If this was what insane looked like, he’d gladly accept it as long as he got to keep looking at her.
“Peter.”
There were tears in her voice, and a second later she’d thrown herself into him, her arms wrapping around his neck in a vice grip. His arms came up to support her, and as soon as he felt the solid weight of her body against him, he broke.
She was real. Somehow, she was real, and she was here, and she was in his arms, and everything was right in the world again.
His knees dropped out from under him, and he twisted to land on his back, still holding her against his chest like she was the most precious thing in the world. And she was. She always had been.
—-------------
He didn’t know how long he’d laid there, on his carpeted floor, holding her against his chest while ragged sobs ripped themselves from his chest. He managed to stand, her arms around his neck, one of his arms around her back and the other positioned so he could stroke her hair.
When she pulled back to look at him, her eyes were bloodshot and tearstained, as he was certain his own were.
“How? How are you… How are you here? Is this real?” It sounded like a prayer, a desperate supplication whispered in the dark. The desperate prayer of a man with nothing else to lose.
“It’s real. I’m right here, Peter. It’s real.” Her answer was as soft as his question, and it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard in his entire life. The world could have burned down around them and all he would have cared about was her.
“I don’t— I don’t understand. How? What’s the last thing you remember?” He was running his hands along her arms and her back as he spoke, constantly reassuring himself that she was really here, warm and solid and alive .
“I don’t really know. It’s odd. I remember the electricity, and that it was coming from Max, I remember falling, and then there was just nothing… but I also remember him differently. Changed, somehow. You helped him. It’s like… a second memory transposed over the first. If I try to focus too hard on the first one, it starts to slip away from me, like it doesn’t belong.”
Her fingers brushed lightly against his temples and the corners of his eyes, an angel’s touch. He leaned into her touch, a shuddering breath escaping him.
“Peter, when was that? How long has it been? You look so tired.” Her concern was clear in her voice, and the sound of it almost drove him to his knees again.
“The worst night of my life? It was ten years ago. Ten years, six days, eight hours, twelve minutes, and about 38 seconds.” He didn’t even need to think about it. He’d kept a continuous running clock in his head, refusing to let himself forget or forgive himself for what he’d done.
“I have all of these other memories in my mind, but they don’t feel completely right. Ten years worth of memories. They feel more like the impression of a life, rather than a life I’ve actually lived. It’s like when someone tells a story about you as a kid, and you can’t tell if you’re remembering the event as it happened or if you’re really just remembering the story as it was told. It makes me think of a psychology course I took in college, but that can’t possibly be real because when did I go to college?”
Two sets of memories. He realized now that he too had memories from the last ten years of his life that he hadn’t previously had. He remembered going to Gwen’s grave every day, but he also remembered following her to England. Both couldn’t possibly be true, but both felt just as real in his mind. What had they done?
This had to be the result of them curing their villains. There was no other explanation, and honestly he didn’t give enough of a damn to try and figure it out. All that mattered was that she was here.
“Gwen, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I failed. I failed you.”
Somehow, she knew that she had died. He could see it in her eyes as she looked up at him. Maybe it was how he’d reacted, maybe it was some multiverse, universe changing shit, he didn’t know. But he could see that she knew, and he waited for her to look at him in disgust for letting her die. He waited for her to yell.
She didn’t.
Instead she leveled him with what he’d always joked was her “Now-You-Listen-Here-Peter-Parker” look, and spoke, her voice clear and confident.
“It’s OK, Peter. I don’t know what the hell happened or why I’m here, but I am. It’s OK. And even if I wasn’t, if I had fallen? It wouldn’t be your fault. You can’t save everyone.”
“I should have saved you.”
She took his hand from behind her and pulled it towards her pulse point at her throat, where he could feel the reassuring and strong beating of her heart.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Peter. I’m here, and we’re together. That’s the only thing that matters now.”
She raised herself up onto her toes and brought her lips to his, and everything settled into place in his mind, body, and soul.
Later, he would figure out how she had been brought back. Later, he would put the puzzle together and find out what had saved her.
Later.
All that mattered right now was that she was in his arms, and for the first time in years, he was at peace. For the first time in years, he wasn’t wracked by guilt. For the first time in years, every breath he took didn’t feel like broken glass in his lungs.
Finally.