Chapter Text
The first thing Stephen does when he gets his memories back is open a portal to Peter Parker. Admittedly, he probably should’ve thought it through a little more, at least given it a second to think of his next move. Preferably before he was standing in the middle of an apartment with said kid staring at him with wide eyes.
“Um.” Peter opens his mouth then shuts it again, clearly at a loss for words.
Which was fair enough. Stephen should probably say something first, he’s the one that invaded the apartment in the first place.
“Peter Parker.” He says. Okay, better openings have been uttered, but it’s been a long week.
Emotions flash across Peter’s face, too quick for Stephen to grasp as it’s carefully replaced by a guarded, cautious look. “Is there something I can help you with Dr. Strange, sir? I’m not sure we’ve met before.”
A complete lie. He wonders briefly if Peter had tried reaching out to people that knew him, and if they’re inability to recognize him had… well. He pushes the thoughts away.
“I remember Peter.” He says, hoping it comes out gently. His bedside manner always could’ve used some work. “I remember everything again. Spider-Man, the fight in space, casting the spell, all of it.”
The guarded look doesn’t disappear, but Peter squints a little. “How is that possible?”
“I– There was a spell, or– no well, there was a threat, and I needed to do this spell, to get my memories back, and in doing so it unlocked all my memories.”
He can see Peter digest the news, and some of the tension seeps away from his bones. Stephen takes a second to glance around the small apartment, noting how it was bare from anything personal.
“Peter–”
“Wait,” Peter interrupts, the guarded look returning. “How do I know that you- How… Prove it.”
Stephen’s heart drops a little, at the amount of mistrust that Peter had grown to have, and he curses himself slightly for forgetting the damage that Mysterio had inflicted, and then the added trauma that the memory spell must have given on top of everything.
“How?”
“Tell me something only you would know.” Peter fires back quickly. A practiced statement, something he’s had to say more than once, and the knowledge only aches more.
“I-” Stephen hesitates. Only he would know? Then it occurs to him. He winces a little, he doesn’t really want to bring it up, cautious of unwanted memories, but it was his best shot. “After the snap, when we came back on the red planet, you were saying something, and I cut you off saying it’s been five years and that we needed to go, and the first thing you asked was if you’d been Captain America’d and then we–”
“Okay!” Peter interrupts, he takes in a shaky breath. “Stop– stop, that’s– okay, that’s– yeah, I believe you.”
Stephen is about to say something, except he’s interrupted again by someone crawling in through the window. It takes him a second to recognize the figure to be Daredevil.
“Is there a problem here?” Daredevil asks.
Peter puts out his hand on Daredevil’s shoulder. “It’s fine, it’s fine. You heard everything right?”
Daredevil tilts his head in a nod. “He was telling the truth,” he informed, voice blank.
Stephen stays silent. He doesn’t ask how he knows, or why the vigilante was there. Not when he saw the way that the words made Peter’s cautious look fade into a more open one, albeit weary.
“It’s okay,” Peter repeats. “The planet and battle just bring back some bad memories, that’s all.”
Stephen does wince at that. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up, but–”
“It’s fine,” Peter shakes his head with a small smile. “We didn’t really have many memories that only you would know besides ones like that. I get it.”
Stephen nods.
The smile fades quickly and the weary look returns. He was too young to seem that tired, Stephen thinks.
“Why are you here Dr. Strange?”
“Call me Stephen.” He says, reflexively. Then clears his throat. “Right, well, I just wanted to let you know, that now that I’ve done this spell… I wanted you to know that I have a way to unlock the memories of you to a select group of people. Whoever you want, it’s up to you. There are certain things we’d have to do, and I can give you all the details I have of how it works before we do it. It’s completely up to you, but if you want some people to remember, I can make that happen.”
“Oh.” Peter blinks. He leans back on his desk heavily. “ Oh .” He licks his lips and looks at Stephen hesitantly. “Are you sure? Will it– it won’t cause more problems would it? If there’s any risk of–”
Stephen shakes his head. “The knowledge of your existence isn’t going to rip up the multiverse. The battle I had, I can’t give too many details, but it’s safe to say that the multiverse is isn’t in danger at the moment, and this won’t change that.”
“You said something about other details?” Peter asks, while Daredevil makes himself comfortable on Peter’s windowsill.
“Right, well, I’ve done some reading up and everything on the spell, and the easiest, and safest, way to do this would essentially be for me to suspend the group of us in a room in the Sanctum and project memories pertaining to you into the room, not all of them, just a sort of highlight reel you could say, because casting the spell that I underwent on others would be… trickier.”
Peter looks at him a little blankly and Stephen tries to rephrase it.
“Basically– you know that saying that people say of seeing their life flash before their eyes before death like a movie?”
“Um, yes,” Peter nods.
“Right, okay, so basically, we’re going to have to gather up the people of your choice, get them into a room at the Sanctum, and have them watch a movie about you. It won’t be the entirety of your life, the spell will deem what moments it sees fit, unfortunately I can’t really predict what that would be, but it’s the best way to do it to counter the runes without putting the others under unnecessary duress. I understand if you’re not comfortable with that idea though.”
“That’s fine,” Peter shakes his head, “just… you’re sure that will work?”
“Positive.” Stephen says.
“The people, how would we get them to the room? They don’t remember me right now, so I doubt I could…” he trails off.
Stephen doesn’t like the distant look in his eyes. “I’ll get them.” He says quickly. “If you give me a list of the people you’d like to be there, I can get them for you. I can be quite persuasive.”
Peter smiles a little. He’s silent for a second, clearly thinking, and after a moment, the battle in his eyes fades into resolve. He takes in a deep breath and nods.
“Okay. I’d like that.” He steps away from the table, turning around and he lifts up a book and moves a stack of papers to pick up a stack of thin envelopes underneath them. He turns around and holds them out to Stephen almost shyly.
“You can ignore the papers inside, but those are the people I want to be there.”
Stephen looks down at the envelope and his breath hitches a little. The envelopes had names on them.
“I’d… written letters to them all.” Peter explains, when Stephen stares at them a beat too long.
“Would you…” Stephen starts slowly, “mind if I gave them these letters too? While I picked them up?”
“As part of your persuasion process?” Peter jokes weakly after a second, “I thought you were convincing enough on your own.”
“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” He reassures immediately.
Peter thinks about it for a second then nods, “It’s okay, you can give it to them. So they have a better idea of what they’re walking into if they agree.”
Stephen nods. “Okay, so I can send you to the room in the Sanctum now for you to wait while I get them, if that’s okay with you. Or we could do it another day if that’s better.”
“Today is fine,” Peter says immediately. “But uh– can Daredevil come?”
Stephen’s eyes flick over to the man and he nods easily. “If you want, sure.” He doesn’t know how they knew each other, but it made sense that Peter would get the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen in his corner. In any case, Stephen was just relieved that Peter hadn’t been completely on his own this entire time.
Stephen opens the portal then and Peter takes a step towards it then hesitates. Then he shakes his head and starts walking again.
“Was there something else Peter?” Stephen asks carefully.
Peter shakes his head. “It’s nothing, I don’t want to keep asking things or anything.”
No doubt he was reminded of when Stephen had cast the memory spell. Truth be told though, that was Stephen’s mistake, not Peter’s. He hadn’t thought to ask Peter what he truly wanted before casting the spell, and he had instead taken out his frustrations on Peter when it had gone wrong. But Stephen wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“It’s really no trouble, I assure you. And it would be easier to handle it now than later,” he says, as gently as possible. There’s an almost approving nod from Daredevil that Stephen tries not to think too much about.
“There’s just one other person,” Peter blurts, “he’s not on the letters, and he– it’s different? I told him about what happened, with everything, and I’d just like him to be there for… moral support I guess,” he ducks his head in embarrassment then looks up at Stephen with pleading eyes, “His name is Harley Keener, I could call him to the Sanctum, he doesn’t live far, you wouldn’t have to pick him up or anything, I just–”
“It’s fine Peter,” Stephen interrupts, only when he starts to ramble. “Having some moral support sounds like a good idea, I think it’ll be good for you. Please do let him know, I’ll have it so the Sanctum guides him to the room upon arrival, don’t worry about it.”
Peter’s shoulders relax and his face brightens up with his first full smile since Stephen had gotten there. “Thanks… Stephen.”
“Of course.” He steps back and opens the portal again, opening to a corridor, right in front of a large door. “Just through that door. Oh and Peter?” He smiles at the young vigilante when he turns to Stephen with a questioning look. “There’s some people in there waiting for you, I think you’ll be pleased to see them.”
And with that he closes the portal in front of the two vigilantes. He knows Peter had gotten close to the other two versions of himself, and the taller Peter, or Peter 3 as they had referred to him as, had told him about the multiverse communication cell that he’d managed to set up. He shakes his head. Peter Parker was a genius in any given universe, that was for certain. He shakes his head, he had a job to do. He looks down at the letters in his hand and shuffles through them slowly.
Ned Leeds
MJ Michelle Jones
Mr. Stark
Happy Hogan
It causes another ache in Stephen’s heart when he realizes that even without the memory spell taking away Peter’s loved ones from him… Peter hardly had a handful of loved ones to begin with. Four people, Stephen thinks. He blinks back a sudden wave of tears. He rolls back his shoulders and tucks the letters away safely. Right. He could hande four people.
***
In the end, it was far easier to convince the four people than Stephen might have thought. Especially once he had given the letters. He didn’t read the contents of course, but he didn’t need to in order to understand why they garnered the response they did. He may not know Peter extremely well, but he knows Peter enough to know that if there was even the slightest essence of Peter Parker in those letters, then these people would already be willing to walk at least half-way to the ends of the earth for him. It was the Peter Parker effect, he thinks to himself.
Which led him to here. He takes stock of the room. There were ten people in the room, and that was including himself and Peter. The kid truly could count the people that he had close to him on both his hands. He pushes the thought away and clears his throat before the air could become even more awkward.
“Right, well, I think it’s best if we get straight to it.” He says briskly.
A boy next to Peter, Harley Keener, Stephen assumes, puts his hand on Peter’s back and Daredevil puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder. The other two Peters stand close to him, one behind him and one in front of him, almost as if guarding him.
“If everyone can take a seat, I’ll proceed.”
In the end, Peter takes a seat one on of the couches with Daredevil and Harley on either side of him, while the other two Peters get comfortable on the floor in front of that couch. Ned and MJ take the loveseat next to that couch, both sharing a look and then looking to Peter in between. MJ looks as though she was going to say something, but then thinks better of it, closing her mouth.
Tony takes a seat on one of the chairs on the other side of Peter’s couch, and Happy follows him to sit on the chair next to Tony.
Stephen takes a seat on the floor in the middle of the room. Right. Showtime.