Chapter Text
Peter jolted awake to the sight of Dr. Strange above him and the relieving realization that he had finally escaped the consequences of his actions.
Dr. Strange squinted down at him, taking a long drag of a Starbucks iced latte. He was wearing jeans and a button-up flannel shirt in combination with his cape, which Peter attributed to his killer headache making him hallucinate.
“Spider-Man,” Dr. Strange announced, like a teacher announcing that he came in late to class again, “Communing with the floor again?”
“We’re just friends,” Peter wheezed. He felt his mask brush against his face, and when he raised his hand he saw that he was still wearing his costume. Despite the headache, achiness, and nausea, he couldn’t repress the bubbling of victory rising in his chest. “Did it work? The world doesn’t look ended.”
It had to have worked. He wouldn’t wake up in an alley if it hadn’t worked. He’d made the sacrifice - that was life sometimes, all sacrifices - and it had paid off. No more Ned, no more MJ, no more home…no more knowing where he was…but it was worth it.
And now he was in an alley! Not even in space. Peter had really been preparing for a space situation. Anything was better than space.
Dr. Strange slurpled at his latte. Peter considered struggling to sit up before he decided it wasn’t worth it. He and Dr. Strange were tight, they could have floor conversations. It was fine.
Finally, he said, “The world is probably fine. You, however, are not. Do you need a hospital?” Peter shook his head and gave Dr. Strange a shaky thumbs up. “I’ll interpret that as you need a hospital but aren’t dying. I have some good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?”
Typical. “Good news,” Peter wheezed. “Give me something to live for.”
“Alright. Well.” Dr. Strange paused a beat. “The world’s fine. No, I already said that. Hold on.” He thought hard before finally offering, “I’m not mugging you.”
Peter squinted at Dr. Strange. “Thanks?”
“No problem.” Dr. Strange seemed a little relieved. “Anyway, onto the bad news. You’re in another dimension.”
Oh.
Peter thought about it. Finally, he said, “Well. Could be worse?”
“Good attitude.” Dr. Strange juggled his latte to his other hand before extending a hand. “Come on. Hurry up, I have a meeting at two and I have to record this in the log.”
The log?
The dimension was a bit weird.
Peter peppered Strange with questions the entire way there, which he mostly refused to answer on the grounds that he didn’t want to overwhelm Peter. Peter was the kind of guy who only felt overwhelmed when he didn’t know what was going on, but he had the feeling that Strange just wanted some peace and quiet to drink his latte. Typical Strange.
Europe had been really cool, but something about it had been just a little off-putting. Europeans weren’t really that different from Americans, and no matter where you were everybody lived basically the same life. Big, bustling cities all had really unique character and feelings, but they were all basically the same. Same corner stores, same panhandlers, same trains.
But there had been little differences. And they weren’t totally noticeable, but when you threw them all together Peter was left in a permanent state of half-strangeness. And that was before the whole Mysterio thing.
That was what alternate dimensions were like. Europe. Peter repeated this to himself over and over again. This was basically Europe.
Strange insisted on giving him a field once-over to make sure he didn’t need a hospital, like some sort of dad or something. Apparently Peter was pretty roughed up, but he already knew that. Strange magicked some clothes from thin air to throw over his suit and then acted all impatient when Peter was left staring at them. Magic denim shirts.
Peter halted over his mask. “Uh. Sorry, do you…”
“I know every secret identity in the tri-state area, Mr. Parker.”
“Cool,” Peter said, shucking the mask. That was one less thing to worry about. Dr. Strange’s eyes widened, his first expression of surprise. “What?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
They took the subway back to the Sanctum Sanctorum, and Strange spent half the trip arguing with people on his phone. Or maybe they were arguing with him - at one point Peter heard him ask if the caller had tried turning the Rainbow Bridge on and off again. He had hung up shortly afterwards, which implied that it had worked. He only got off the phone while they were in the subway, leaving Peter to crane his head and stare around like a tourist. Maybe he was a tourist. In Europe. This was like being a tourist in Europe.
He carefully prodded Strange, who had pulled out his phone and was reading furiously through what looked like a journal article. “What year is it?”
“2020 A.D. Why?”
“No reason.” Just a little in the past. Like Europe. Peter squinted at a cigarette ad featuring a beautiful woman in a swimsuit. She wasn’t as pretty as MJ. “This place just has…’70s vibes. A bit. Maybe ‘80s.”
“That’s fascinating,” Strange said, without looking up from his phone.
Peter wondered if people were racist. Or more racist than usual. He didn’t know how to ask Dr. Strange that, though.
Even the Sanctum Santorum was a little more…classical than Peter was used to. Looked like some Jersey rich guy’s mansion. Peter knew better than to express this, and took refuge in the girls obviously Instagramming their adventures in Chelsea. Even if their hair was teased. Peter really didn’t want to wear denim any longer than he had to, but he knew how to make sacrifices.
“Wong’s at an inter-planar board meeting, which is inconvenient. Don’t touch anything.”
“You’ve told me that a hundred times!”
“I would only say it once if you hadn’t touched anything.”
Peter fell into guilty silence.
Even the inside was a little more old timey. It was still really cool, though - like a cabinet of curiosities, all dark wood and plush velvet. It was way more ‘sorcerer’ than the Sanctum Santorum from his dimension. The walls and shelves were crowded with humming crystals, mysterically whirling bronze implements, and mobiles of the Milky Way that spun endlessly in circles.
“Whoah, Pluto’s still a planet here.”
“What? No, that mobile’s from the ‘90s.” Strange quickly shepherded Peter into what looked like...a waiting room? There were tables and chairs lined up in rows, and a small table with a basket of snacks. There was even one of those wire toys from the doctor's office. It seemed to pulsate slightly. “The house should have automatically put you in here. I need to kick it until the intruder recognition system works again. God forbid we have money for repairs or anything. Sit down.”
Peter cautiously sat down and watched as Strange held out a hand. A few seconds passed before something sailed into the room through the open door, thumping solidly into his palm. It was a first-aid kit, stocked to the brim.
Not to sound ungrateful, but… “Why do you have a first aid kit when you have magic?”
“I went to school for ten years to learn how to heal people with my hands,” Strange said. He gestured Peter into a seat, dumping the kit next to him and cracking it open. “I have trained in magic for five. I have read ten books on mystical healing. I would rather rely on my tremendous skill than some flashy incantations that I understand half as well. Magic should never be the first tool in a sorcerer's toolbox. Let me see your chest.”
They weren’t words Peter had ever expected to hear from Strange. He quietly took off the ugly shirt and undid the top half of the suit, wincing slightly when he saw the motley assortment of bruises and cuts. There was an ugly gash across his rib cage and it was a little difficult to breathe. And he was in an alternate dimension. Why did Peter always have so many problems?
Strange gave him a look, but when Peter steadfastly looked away he dropped it. Partly from curiosity, partly to curtail any further questions, he said, “Really? If you’re a sorcerer, isn’t that your whole thing?” Strange pointedly sprayed antiseptic on the biggest gash, and Peter hissed. “I mean - what is your first tool, then?”
“I find that talking works quite well.” He grabbed more alcohol, starting to clean the wound. “There’s some situations that can be solved through diplomacy and empathy, and there’s others that can only be solved through violence. We’re never as good at judging which situation is which as we think. You still have that ridiculous super healing, right?”
“Uh, yeah. Use the degradable stitches.”
“Remind me to thank Claire for forcing me to pick those up. Now tell me exactly how you got to this dimension and why.”
Strange fixed him up terrifyingly quickly and efficiently, which galvanized Peter into cutting down his usually meandering and incoherent storytelling style into something relatively concise and coherent. Strange had always fallen into the ‘scary and mean but secretly nice’ box of people in his head, but somehow this guy just fell into the ‘nice but doesn’t have time for you’ box. Like his school’s principal, or…the doctor.
He only interrupted at a few parts, despite his clear intention to hold his tongue. “Wait. Stark exploited a fourteen year old into flying to Germany and punching Captain America?”
“It wasn’t exploiting!” Peter protested, shifting forward. Strange gave him the stink eye and he forced himself to hold still. “I knew what I was doing! I take responsibility for the decisions I’ve made as a superhero.” He paused a beat. “It was super irresponsible, but that was Mr. Stark for you.”
Strange snorted. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you be generous towards another person.”
That’s right - there had to be an alternate Peter, wasn’t there? Dr. Strange had known who he was. “Really? Is he mean? What’s he -”
“He has a chronic case of being eighteen, but it’s not terminal. Now hold still.”
He just hummed along with the Snap and the time travel and the un-Snap, which was honestly a little disappointing. Who heard that half the world died and came back to life and was like whatever about it? Maybe this universe was even crazier. That was a terrifying prospect.
“ - and then you - Dr. Strange, I mean - said that he could close out the dimensions, but that the messed up spell had ejected me from my dimension. If I had stayed in my dimension, then the breakdowns would get worse and worse. So I stayed on the other end of the portal.” Peter slumped, somewhat miserably. “I thought I’d end up in one of the other Peter’s universes, but I don’t think I did. Next thing I knew you were there. The end, I guess.”
Strange hummed, straightening and packing everything back up in his first aid kit. Had he been waiting for Peter to finish his story? “Do you believe me about the fact that magic should never be anybody’s first solution to anything?” Familiar shame and guilt flared in Peter’s stomach, and he knew his expression crumpled. Strange sighed. “An elementary schooler asks you to borrow your giant hunting knife to cut his birthday cake. You say why not, you give it to him, and the kid cuts his finger off. The kid was being an idiot, but you are the one who gave him the hunting knife for no reason. You are at fault. That Stephen was a fucking idiot.”
The words hit Peter’s stomach strangely, both offending him and making him want to cry. “I’m not an elementary schooler. I’m eighteen years old. I’m an adult . I’m just as responsible for this mistake.”
Strange snorted. “Please. I wouldn’t trust a college freshman with a scalpel, much less a reality warping spell. If you want me to say it - yes, you do shoulder part of the blame. I can stand here and tell you for an hour every which way you fucked up, which is many. Do you want me to do that? Would that be helpful, necessary, or kind? Would it improve anything, or would it only indulge your need to punish yourself?” Peter didn’t say anything. “Thought so. What’s your universe’s serial number?”
Peter stared at him blankly. “My what.”
“Your Earth’s number.” Strange looked as if he already knew why Peter was confused and he hated it. “You know, Earth-616 or Earth-55 or something. You’re on Earth-1997. Nothing?” Peter shook his head, a little boggled by the idea that there were almost 2000 universes. Probably more. Maybe infinite universes? How did you name them if they were infinite? “Well, that makes this much harder.”
“Sorry?”
“Yet again, not your fault.” Dr. Strange sighed and held out his hand again. Predictably, after a few seconds a chunky electronics case sailed into his hand. He put it on the table and held out his hand again so a lightly dancing clipboard moving at a more sedate pace could flutter into his hand. He dumped that in front of Peter too, clapping his hands. “I’m running late for my next meeting, so if you want more therapy sessions you’ll have to schedule an appointment. Fill out those forms until I call for you. Use the Chromebook to help you fill out the forms. And research or whatever. If you go exploring I will know and I will lock you in the bathroom.”
Yeah, Peter was never going against direct instructions again. At least from Dr. Strange. Maybe especially from this Dr. Strange. “Yes, sir.”
As it turned out, the chunky electronics case held a dinky little Chromebook. If Strange fetched everything by letting it fly around the house, no wonder it was in such a big case. And no wonder why he told everybody not to touch anything.
At least the tech wasn’t 1970s. Peter would have started crying. He did not want to start living that Dr. Who episode.
Maybe it didn’t have to be like Europe. Maybe it could be like…Dr. Who! He had traveled through space (New York City, but the left) and time (five years), he checked all the boxes. When he was in space and terrified he had told himself that it was basically Dr. Who, like, five billion times. He had been really anxious and trying his absolute best to hide it. Bad enough having a seventeen year old tagging along on the most important fight of all time - last thing the Avengers needed was a panicked seventeen year old. He hadn’t even helped. All he did was die.
Peter grabbed the pen attached to the clipboard. It read STARK INDUSTRIES on the side in big letters. It made Peter smile. The more things changed…
The ‘this is just Europe!’ feeling disappeared when he read the form. What ?
INTERDIMENSIONAL REFUGEE INTAKE FORM SPECIES: Human PLANET OF ORIGIN: Earth. PROFESSION: Superhero.
Yeah. This wasn’t Europe. God forbid anything be easy.
Name? (Peter Benjamin Parker). Age, Sex, Gender, place of birth (NYC, NY, USA), place of residence (NYC, NY, USA), last location before dimensional travel (Statue of Liberty, NYC, NY, USA). Do you ID as transgender (No, but he was an ally), check all sexualities that apply to you (Heterosexual Heteromantic - he was always the only cishet white boy in the friend group, it was so embarrassing and everybody always made fun of him). Okay, great.
Dimensional serial number? (Unknown, which was a wild thing to say instead of ‘nonexistent’).
Alter Ego? (Spider-Man). Do you have powers, abilities, or capabilities above that of an average member of your species and time period? (Yes). If yes please describe your powers, abilities, or capabilities below (Spider powers, super strength, super agility, Spider-sense [I can sense danger]). Please select an orientation: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral…(Peter bit his pen before carefully circling ‘Neutral Good’. ACAB.). Team affiliations, past and present (would Avengers be presumptuous? Avengers).
Is this your first time traveling interdimensionally? (Yes). Have you previously, currently, or will time travel (Does it count if the new dimension’s in the past?). How many Earth days per year on average do you spend in space? (Less than one).
The next page was about his health history and any medications he took. The page behind that was…
“There’s an entire page just for Spider-Man?” Peter cried in disbelief. “What the hell?!”
If your name is Peter Parker, go to section 1a. If your name is Miles Morales, go to section 2a. If your name is other, go to section 1c…who the hell was Miles? If you are not a superhero, please ask for a different form?!
Peter continued reading the form, horrified. When and how did your parents die? When and how did Uncle Ben die? Why were all of the methods of death for Ben so violent? He had to write in ‘heart attack’ in the other box. At what age did this happen (thirteen, this was getting invasive)? Was Ben’s death a significant factor in becoming Spider-Man ( maybe?).
There was no section for Aunt May’s death. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much. Huge box for Ben and his parents, so many boxes to check and write-ins…nothing for May. Just a little section at the end - ‘write in any other personally significant family deaths’. May wasn’t even an option.
How many Spider-Men were there? At least 2,000? Was May alive in all of them? Was Peter the only Peter in infinite universes who killed the woman who raised him?
There was an entire box for his spouse’s information and his child or children’s information. What ?
There was a checklist for current and past partners (he had to write in Michelle Jones, which depressed him). There was a checklist of current and past best friends (he had to write in Ned, which also depressed him). Peter had to stop and count how many close civilian friends he had (sad), and how many close superhero friends he had (he struggled deeply before putting in zero - he couldn’t be friends with real adults, that was weird). Where do you work? Unemployed was second down, below the Daily Bugle - why would Peter ever work at a junky news site?
The second page of the Spider-Man form was a screening test for anxiety. That was just rude. Behind that was one for depression and another for PTSD, which was ruder.
Peter was having roughly the worst or second worst day of his life - depending on if you counted dying as traumatic or just an inconvenience - and somehow filling out the form was one of the top three reasons why. He felt exhausted by the end of it. Something about personal forms always made you feel so dissected and lacking, and forms that lined you up among thousands of other Spider-Men and made you feel both ordinary and mediocre were even worse in a surreal kind of way.
He eyed the Chromebook. The Chromebook did not eye him back. Strange’s words echoed in his head. He was feeling pretty overwhelmed already. And he did not want to start crying in Dr. Strange’s house. That was humiliating.
He sat there, staring at the Chromebook, staring at the worst piece of paperwork he had ever filled out in his life. Dr. Strange had said not to go exploring. He hadn’t said not to leave the room. And he should probably get this stuff back to him, right? Speed up the process. It would probably bug him more if Peter didn’t give him the form back than if he left the room.
Peter languished in indecision. He weighed the pros and cons of every choice. He tried convincing himself that he was in Europe and abjectly failed in every way. He gathered up the forms and left the room.
He was two dim hallways lit only by glowing yellow sconces and a right turn into the Sanctum when he realized that he had no idea where he was going. He seriously considered touching something just in case it would help before dismissing the idea. Would opening random doors help? How could he spend ten minutes thinking about something and still not think it through?!
“Hey, uh, Sanctum Sanctorum? Mr…Sanctorum? No, that’s stupid.” Peter looked up at the ceiling, desperately hoping that this was one of those super cool sentient houses like in Encanto. “Where’s Dr. Strange? And if he’s in a Zoom meeting can you tell me so I don’t bother him?”
The building did not answer. Peter did not know what he expected. He kept walking down the hallway anyway, resigning himself to the fact that this technically counted as ‘exploring’ and that Dr. Strange definitely didn’t like him anymore, before he reached a dead end. There was no left or right - just straight.
There was one door at the far wall of the hallway, and Peter cautiously walked towards it. It was the only door in the entire hallway. There really wasn’t anything else to do, no other options to take, and in acquiescence to the usual state of his life Peter grabbed the golden handle to the oak door and cracked it open, poking his head in.
It was Dr. Strange’s office. It shouldn’t have surprised him that Dr. Strange had an office, but for some reason it did. A study, maybe, or a drawing room. Not an office - one with an antique desk and intricate sconces releasing a sputtering yellow light, but an office all the same. The vintage aesthetic of the office seemed inconvenient - there was a regular electric lamp next to the desk, and an extension cord snaked across the room to power the awkwardly placed computer nestled in stacks of paperwork.
“ - an infestation, Strange. We’ve submitted five work orders, why haven’t you done anything yet?”
Peter bit his lip hard to stop a gasp of surprise. Standing in front of Strange’s desk, utterly bitching him out, was a walking pile of magma. They were roughly humanoid and built a little like the Stay Puft Man, if the Stay Puft Man was made out of lava instead of just being a ghost. He had a severe, slumped expression, as if his face had melted a little and cooled that way.
“I assure you, you are…” Strange made a show of checking his computer. “Twentieth on our waiting list. We simply have more urgent problems than an infestation of bamfs. They’re a harmless race.”
“They’re infesting our boilers! One of them chewed through our wiring. Do you have any idea how much those things cost?”
“I can’t profess that -”
“Of course you don’t,” the lava monster continued. “You’re the Sorcerer Supreme. What would you know about a day’s of good, honest work. I bet you’ve never built something with your own hands.”
Strange massaged his brow. “My hands have a very limited range of motion. They aren’t terribly useful. But if my mystical pest control powers aren’t useful to society, then please find somebody else to help you.”
“You aren’t helping me at all!” The lava monster gurgled angrily, clearly somewhat put-out that Strange looked more annoyed than cowed. “I guess anybody could make Sorcerer Supreme these days. Where’s your boss, Strange? I want to talk to your manag - what’s this pipsqueak?”
Busted. Busted and finally noticed. Peter reluctantly swung the door fully open, lingering awkwardly in the doorway. He waved his clipboard around, as if he was warding off evil spirits. Strange buried his face in his hands. “Hi. I’m sorry, I was just - I just wanted to drop off this form. I can come back…”
“It’s fine, give it here.” Strange held out a hand, and Peter reluctantly shuffled forward and passed it to him. He gave the Karen lava monster a wide berth. “Thanks. Go back to the waiting room, I’ll be with you in a minute.”
He looked really tired. Peter’s Dr. Strange frequently looked stressed out, annoyed, and impatient, but he rarely held this kind of persistent, nagging exhaustion - the kind that never quite destroyed you, but never went away. Peter would see it on Aunt May’s face all the time. Working as a nurse was so hard, and she had to work all the time to support them. No matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t make things any better.
Before he could think about it and realize that it was a dumb freaking idea, Peter opened his big mouth. “Uh, Dr. Strange? Do you take care of these pest infestations yourself?”
Strange ticked an eyebrow at him - ‘this isn’t Q&A time, go away’ - but he answered anyway. “This is a two man operation, and Wong handles the administrative and business aspects. So yes, I do.” He gave the lava monster the stink eye, who lava eye’d him back. “I get a species asking me to save them from extinction once a week. I help the fairies and trolls sign peace treaties. And, of course, I help with pest infestations.”
The man was busy. Busy busy. And Peter had the sense that his case wasn’t that high priority. If Strange had to deal with all of these things every day, then when would he get around to returning Peter to his own dimension? Two weeks from now? A month? He knew how overwhelmed nurses got, he couldn’t imagine how bad it was for Sorcerers Supreme. If there was anything Peter could do that would make things move just a little faster…
“Well, can I help?” Peter straightened, forcing himself into Spider-Man confidence. “Since the pest control is so important and all, but you don’t have time to take care of it. I’m sure I can handle it.”
The lava monster huffed, looking Peter up and down. “You? You can beat off a basement full of demon imps, kid?”
“I beat off Thanos,” Peter said pleasantly, “so I guess I can try.”
“ Thanos Thanos? No shit! You mystical types’ll really do anything.” The lava monster looked back at Strange, far calmer. “I guess your Thanos busting assistant’s good enough. Get him to clear out the imps by Friday and we’ll finally get around to chasing the lizard men out of the Hudson.”
Strange straightened, suddenly attentive. “Your chief said that there’s been no time for that.”
“Like you’ve had no time for our pest control?” The lava monster asked pointedly. Strange scowled. “Every day our operations don’t run the New York City energy grid grows weaker. If this boiler problem keeps up then the entire city grid’s going to be out of hot water. It’s not just a pest problem, it’s keeping the city infrastructure running.”
“And the lizardmen have been doing irreparable harm to the native Hudson ecosystem. Such as it is.” Strange made a few notes in his computer, letting a few red sparks jump from the tips of his fingers to the screen. “Fine. I’ll be in contact with you. Contact me through the website portal if you have any more questions.”
“Pleasant as ever, Sorcerer Supreme.”
“Pleasant as ever, Magma Man Jeff.”
Peter watched in mute amazement as Magma Man Jeff sloughed his way out the door, leaving scorch marks behind on the wood as he left. Strange sighed, snapped his fingers, and watched as the floorboards rumbled and rippled and flipped themselves over to reveal shiny and new undersides.
“Why yes, Peter Parker, you can definitely interrupt my meeting,” Strange panned. He leaned back in his chair, massaging his forehead. “Please tell me how to do my job. Yes, you may certainly volunteer to do my job for me. That’s all perfectly fine.”
It should have mortified Peter. He hated inconveniencing people or making their lives hard, especially people who’ve only tried to help him. He wanted to take it all back and apologize. But he didn’t feel embarrassed. And he didn’t want to take it back. The ink had long since dried on the paperwork and May was still dead and Peter wasn’t in Europe. He was so long past embarrassment.
“Do you think I can’t do it?” Peter asked archly, folding his arms. “Because I wasn’t kidding about the Thanos bit.”
Strange gave him a bizarre look, as if the sheer prospect was ridiculous. He wasn’t lying about Thanos! “You’re Spider-Man. Of course you can handle some imps.” What was the ‘of course’ about that? “This is just none of your business.”
“I’m none of your business either and you’re still helping me,” Peter said. “Why can’t I help you?”
Strange sighed, sinking down in his chair. He looked at the ceiling dramatically, kneading his forehead. “You are my business. Who do you think maintains interdimensional integrity? Balances the increasingly fragile planes? Maintains the peace between the mystical societies of New York City?” Peter opened his mouth to ask why he was in charge of the entire universe and specifically NYC. “Because NYC is the most fragile point in our entire dimension. It is tissue paper separating our Earth from five hell dimensions and every day Reed Richards tries to poke holes in it with a pencil.” Who was Reed Richards? Peter was beginning to worry that every second of this dimension was going to be confusing. “You don’t have to try and…help.”
“Are you turning it down?” Peter asked, as smarmily as possible. “If you have more important things to do and you know I can do this smaller thing, why shouldn’t I do it?”
Strange levied him a flat stare. “And you aren’t more focused on going back to your own dimension.”
Peter arched his own eyebrow, trying hard to mimic him. He wasn’t sure if it worked or not. “And won’t you get to my case faster if I clear your workload a little?”
They stared each other down. Peter forced himself to stand his ground. Holding up a building, obnoxiously bothering other people - all the same thing, in his opinion. This wasn’t the hardest thing he’d done today.
In a stunning win for Peter, Strange gave up first. He grunted and picked up Peter’s forms, flipping through them at light speed. He pointed at a chair in front of his desk without looking up, and Peter reluctantly slid into the seat. “I shudder to think of what dimension you’re from. Boring, boring, get treated for your anxiety…I wish I was dealing with Miles, he’s always a good young man.”
“Hey, uh.” Peter had no idea how to ask this. “Does everybody have an entire form recording which version of yourself you are?”
“What? Oh, no. That would be stupid. It’s just you.”
“Oh. Obviously. Of course! Of course it would just be me.” Peter wanted to die. “Hey, quick question. Why would it just be me?”
Strange shrugged, replacing the clipboard on the desk. “You’re Spider-Man.”
As if that was that: he was Spider-Man, so of course. Why? Peter didn’t have dimensional powers. He was barely more than a human. He wasn’t even from space. He wasn’t Dr. Strange or Thor or Star Lord or even Tony Stark. He was a kid from Queens. Was Spider-Man something more than that? What could that possibly be?
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Peter said blankly.
Strange gestured loosely, fingertips sparking red. “Spider-Men are everywhere. Everywhere. I can’t stress enough how…ubiquitous you are. You’re remarkably similar, usually young, frequently impulsive, and you always leave a mark. If a universe is remotely similar to yours or mine then there’s a Spider-Man. And those little ba - jerks are always causing trouble.”
Peter stared at Strange, lost. But that was no surprise.
The other Spider-Men he met seemed really important. There had been something about them, a presence. Especially the older one. He had been so calm and confident and certain. Both Peters had been awkward and weird, but there had been such great purpose in their hearts and bearing. Purpose that Peter didn’t have.
An impact. Spider-Men leave an impact. What impact had Peter left? All he did was cause messes and clean them up. His two big missions with the Avengers had involved being dragged into a stupid political fight and dying. That’s zero for two on mission success.
His thoughts must have been obvious, because Strange sighed and dug in his drawer. He pulled out a little tube, like one of those pneumatic tubes in bank drive throughs, and carefully rolled up the forms and tucked them into the tube. He pressed the tube onto the table, pushing down slowly with his palm, and Peter watched with interest as the table hissed and sucked the tube downwards until it disappeared from view and the table surface smoothed itself back out.
“I’ll get you a diagnosis before the end of the day, but it’ll take a while. The house will show you to the library. Take the computer and go hang out until I’m done. And no more exploring .”
Peter brightened. “Does that mean I can help?”
“I’m not an idiot who turns down free labor.”
“Hell yeah!”
The situation could be worse. The Sorcerer Supreme was working on his reality issues. Even if it wouldn’t be fixed for a few weeks, it would be fixed. And he could help Strange in the meantime and pay him back. No issue. No problem. All he had to do was get acquainted with this weird reality. Maybe it would even be fun.
It could be worse. That was usually the best Peter had.
This dimension was weird in the worst possible way.
It would have been fine if it was China or something. Completely different, like he was on an alien planet. He would have, obviously, preferred America. But it really was Europe - close enough that he constantly sometimes recognized names, but the faces were unfamiliar. He saw familiar teams, composed of people he’d never heard of before. It was so similar on the surface, but the second you applied any scrutiny everything came crashing down. None of the changes were bad, but something about it was…weird. Uncanny valley, as Ned would say.
Awesome, as MJ would say. Peter repeated that to himself firmly and frequently. MJ would think that this was the best thing ever. She was probably super jealous that he was here and experiencing alternate realities. She’d always been fascinated in that type of stuff. She read Plato one time and she wouldn’t stop talking about Atlantis for a week. Peter just thought she was proud of herself for reading Plato. But she would still find this cool. It was cool.
It wasn’t Europe, but it could still be cool. Ned and MJ had thought space was awesome and that was as un-Europe as you could get. Ned would want souvenirs. And he would be back home in no time flat.
The first thing he did was look up some kiddie websites on the history of the world. It was the responsible thing to check. Everybody should know if a place had a World War II. Thankfully, everything there seemed to be in order. Their World War II even involved Captain America and the Howling Commandos, although it also seemed to involve some guys named the Human Torch, Namor, and…Wolverine? Wasn’t that a rodent? Whatever.
There was even 9/11. Everything was as it should be there. Which was good. There was some kind of group of mutants who fought inequality and institutionalized discrimination, which was less good - Peter didn’t know what a mutant was, but he was always disappointed to meet a new -ism.
Peter drummed his fingers on the carved library table. He looked around the towering bookshelves and plush reading chairs. He tapped his finger on the Chromebook. He Googled Tony Stark.
Alive. Alive, of course. Living it up in the tabloids, starring in the news. Iron Man conquers the Ten Rings, Iron Man spotted at a charity event. Peter dived into his Wikipedia page, combing through for anything interestingly weird, and didn’t find much. He almost didn’t recognize the pictures of him - he looked almost completely different, but he was somehow obviously Tony. Not currently on the active Avengers roster. Engaged to a mysteriously red headed Pepper, which was awesome. Long Variety interview about his struggles with alcoholism. No kids. All fine. He was fine. Just fine, without Peter. Why wouldn’t he be.
Peter caved, looked up superheroes, and everything went right to hell.
The Fantastic Four, whoever they were. The X-Men, who were weirdly half teenagers. Alpha Flight, whoever they were. The Inhumans, which just seemed like a rude thing to call people. None of which were recognizable, but that was alright. Maybe that was even good. Less weirdo alterna-versions of his colleagues the better.
The Avengers were weird. Apparently the current roster was lead by the Wasp (the old woman Scott Lang talks about on his podcast, except twenty nine) and composed of She-Hulk (whoever that was), Captain Marvel (not Carol Danvers - Monica Rambeau, whoever that was), and Hawkeye (who, thank god, was just Hawkeye).
“Thank you, Hawkeye,” Peter muttered, never a sentence he thought he’d say.
He typed “Spider-Man” into the search bar. Deleted it. Typed it again. Deleted it.
Lots of people he didn’t know. What about the people he did know?
That was even weirder. He found a dozen think pieces about Steven Rogers’, ex-Captain America, journey across America to find himself. Tony was doing Tony things. Thor was…a woman, although he saw references to her as a guy more than a decade ago. Good for her! Natasha was nowhere, which meant nothing. Hank Pym used to be Ant-Man a few years ago but now went by Yellowjacket, although apparently he didn’t do many superhero things these days. Wanda was still ex-evil, poor Wanda. He saw a passing reference to Quicksilver, which reminded him that Wanda once had a brother who died ages ago. Good for him for the alive thing. And for the living on the moon thing, apparently. Their Dad was the ex-leader of the X-Men? Whatever. This was overwhelming.
He typed “Spider-Man” into the search bar. Deleted it. Closed the laptop.
He picked a mystic tome at random and curled up on an overstuffed armchair underneath a guttering candle to read it, cracking open the crisp and aged pages. He settled in, read three pages, and fell thoroughly asleep.
It felt like a very long and very short period of time before a hand gently shook him awake. He had been drifting, in that particular nap way where you’re convinced you didn’t sleep at all when you’ve been conked out for hours, and he only truly realized he’d been sleeping when the hand jolted him awake. He blearily opened his eyes to see Strange standing in front of him, expression somewhat grim.
The ornate stained glass windows of the library shone only with moonlight, and the sputtering wall sconces were the only bulwark of light against the oppressive darkness. It was too dark for New York City at night, too quiet for New York City at any time in the day. The Sanctum Sanctorum felt like it was nowhere at all, and sitting in its library long after nightfall made it feel like Peter was nowhere at all too.
“I have good news and bad news,” Strange said.
And Peter knew. Intuition, spider sense, logic. The breakdown and fragmentation of denial. The memory of his own Dr. Strange’s face as he said goodbye.
“What’s the good news?” Peter whispered.
Strange obviously hadn’t actually bothered to think of any good news. He stopped short, masking his hesitation by clumsily snapping his fingers and cuing a plush red armchair to zoom across the hardwood to stop in front of Peter. Strange sat down on it, leaning forward with his elbows on his kneecaps and hands clasped. Peter’s night vision was good, and he could see Strange clearly outlined in the dim lamplight.
“You probably slept so long because your healing factor was doing its job. Are you healed up?” Strange eyed Peter carefully, doing his own once-over, but when Peter pressed a hand against his rib cage he felt no pain. He nodded. “That’s good. Great, that’s the good news.”
“And the bad?”
“Right.” Strange paused, tapping his index finger on the back of his hand. “I cross-referenced my files and found your universe of origin. Earth-199999.” Whoah. That was a lot of Earths. “Adventuresome little place. Very robust. Not terribly developed or advanced, but coming along mostly fine. The apocalypse set you back a few years, but nothing insurmountable.”
“Yeah, it was an inconvenience.”
“They always are.” Strange hesitated, certain and uncertain. “Your universe is in a time of great crisis. You said a memory spell split open dimensional barriers, right?” Peter nodded weakly. “Right. Yeah, see, that shouldn’t happen. It’s a freaking memory spell. Universes have…an immune system. Like humans have skin or T-cells, universes have natural barriers preventing infection against other universes. There’s a universal homeostasis that prevents permanent inter-universal bleed over. There are natural forces to prevent outside parties intruding into other universes, and there are internal agents to protect against bad actors. I’m one such internal agent. Generally speaking, universes are stable.”
Peter felt numb, cold and distant. Strange’s words weren’t fully penetrating. “And mine isn’t.”
“Your universe has been through the wringer. Its barriers look like swiss cheese made of tissue paper. Its dimensions are colliding with each other with dangerous frequency. Individual actors within your universe are crumpling it from the inside. The simplest of magic spells are causing fractal recurrences. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.” He paused a beat. “No, it’s a disaster that is probably already beginning. I’m expecting a Multiverse of Madness phenomena any day now. Don’t ask what that is, it’s a highly technical term.”
Peter forced himself to straighten, to sit up straight and cross his legs. He rubbed his eyes, forcing himself into alertness. Everything Strange was saying…it just felt too big. How could he begin to understand weird stuff like this? Only a year ago Mysterio’s hop from another dimension felt like the craziest thing in the world.
“So my universe has, like…global warming? Universal warming?”
Strange clapped his hands. “Yes! Great, I will use that analogy in the future. Like global warming, except if one woman decided to utilize every greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to blow up the East Coast. Or will decide, probably.”
“That’s not good for my universe,” Peter said weakly. “But if it’s so holey and…weak, I guess, then shouldn’t that make it easy to get me home? Just drop me through a gap or something.”
But Strange just sobered. He locked eyes directly with Peter, and Peter felt himself sink. “It is far, far too unstable for that. I felt uncomfortable even checking in on the place. I couldn’t dare risk even sending a warning to your Dr. Strange. Exploiting a whole already open would make it five times worse, and opening up a new one might catastrophically destabilize your entire universe. It’s not safe for you to return, Peter. I can’t help you go back.”
Peter stared at Strange.
“Uh. Good news.” Strange gave him quite possibly the worst smile of all time. “It’s excessively dangerous to stay in your universe, so it’s probably a good thing that you got out while the going was - okay, yes, that’s not good news, you have loved ones, sorry.”
Peter kept staring.
“Honestly, the place is infecting everything else around it. Its TVA is atrocious for the environment and it’s crumpling every offshoot timeline. Truly barbaric means of timeline husbandry. That’s not even bringing up your Kang situation. Wow! Terrible. It’s only a matter of time before it starts infecting the universes around it. Honestly, I appreciate you letting me know ahead of time, so I can metaphorically vaccinate us against the infection. You’ve really done me a favor.”
Peter stared at Strange.
“Do you want ice cream?”
“My aunt died yesterday,” Peter said. He couldn’t even feel sad. It wasn’t in him anymore. It felt like losing her all over again. “I have no family. My identity was busted. Everybody I loved was in jeopardy. Dr. Strange, I didn’t have anything left.”
“So,” Strange said, “is that a yes on the ice cream, or…?”
“Do you have Rocky Road?”
“Let me make a GrubHub order.”
“GrubHub delivers to the Sanctum Santorum?” Peter asked, bafflement temporarily overriding his crippling depression. “How?”
“It does if Ghost Rider is the driver. Come on, I’ll make us some tea.” Strange stood up, looking down at Peter with an inscrutable look. Maybe it was sad in a clinical and distant way. Or maybe Peter was projecting. “You’re not alone, Peter.”
“How am I not alone?” Peter whispered. “I’m a thousand universes away and I can’t go home. What do I still have?”
“You have my help, at least for the time being. And you have Spider-Man.” Strange levied an intent look down at him, as if he was saying something that Peter could possibly understand. “So long as you have Spider-Man, you are never without options or hope. Just remember that.”
“I don’t even know who Spider-Man is anymore.”
Strange quirked an eyebrow. “Then it seems as if you have a great deal of options. Come on, I’ll make you tea.”
Out of lack of anything better to do, anywhere else to go, Peter went. If everything was going to be terrible then it might as well be terrible with tea and ice cream.
Peter slept in late again the next day. When he did wake up he found himself incapable of moving, frozen under the dusty covers staring at the velvet canopy above him.
MJ and Ned would hate and love this, in that particular Spider-Man roller coaster way. Ned would have completely nerded out over the universal intake forms, and he’d be chatting Peter’s ear off a mile a minute about the implications of every possible name and box. He would take the stressful and weird dimensional travel and make it something amazing.
But MJ would focus in on Dr. Strange. She’d be so interested in learning about how to keep balance between the mystical and supernatural factions in NYC. She was always telling Peter about how important public works and public infrastructure was. Whole books had been published about the collapse of public infrastructure after the Snap, and MJ slurped up every one. She would have interrogated Magma Man Jeff for an hour about how his job worked.
What advice would they give him? What would they tell him? They had a talent of saying something Peter had never thought of and making it seem like the most obvious thing in the world. They could take Peter’s vague idea and turn it into a plan. He wasn’t much good without them.
Something was ripping open in his chest, and it ripped open anew every second. Like a broken rib, there was a pulse of pain every time he breathed. Just breathing, just existing, renewed that pain every second.
What would MJ say? What would MJ say that he would never think of, but that would feel so obvious?
She’d tell him to get out of bed.
Peter swapped out his magicked pajamas (to match his magicked toothbrush) for the terrifyingly ‘70s clothing, neatly folding the pajamas and replacing them on the freshly made bed. He took his suit off the back of a wooden chair, checking it over for any damage, before finally biting the bullet and pulling on the mask.
The HUD and technology was still working. The suit was self-powering, so at least he didn’t have to worry about that. If he damaged it or the tech failed he couldn’t exactly ask Pepper to help him manufacture a new one from Tony’s old instructions, so maybe he’d have to take good care of it for once. He could ask this Tony, but…no. Just no.
The HUD couldn’t connect to the internet and it didn’t know the date or time. When he flicked on his communicator and cycled through the different contact comms he received nothing but static. Activating the emergency rescue switch left Peter with nothing but silence.
He put the suit back on anyway, shoving on a grey hoodie over it and leaving off the boots. The bottom half of the suit could pass as leggings pretty easily. Tried and tested.
Peter shut the bedroom door firmly behind him, leaving the mask folded up next to the pajamas. If he was nothing without the suit, then he didn’t deserve it. If he was nothing without Tony, then he didn’t deserve his help and pride. If he was nothing without Ned and MJ and Pepper and May and - then they had deserved a lot better than him. Then Spider-Man was a pretty crappy hero.
“Mr. Sanctorum? No, that’s still stupid - Mx. Sanctorum?” Peter had a friend ages ago who went by Mx., it seemed appropriate. “Mx. Sanctorum, can you show me where Dr. Strange is? I should probably talk.”
With burgeoning faith in the powers of the mansion Peter set off down the hallway, making as many random left and right turns as he wanted. When he found a grandfather clock he stopped and tried to figure out the time, but the face had a celestial calendar instead of numbers. Another grandfather clock three hallways down had a face of ten interlocked rings, with one ring in the center with another ring around the circumference, and another ring around that ring’s circumference. Peter forced himself to move on. He didn’t want to accidentally rewind time or something.
The house eventually spat him into a surprisingly humble dining room, which contained only a long and intricately carved wood table laden with boxes and reference tomes, walls lined with bookshelves and china cabinets containing impenetrable oddities, and Dr. Strange. He was on the phone again, a chunky plastic receiver attached to an old school landline nestled between books as he rattled away at a thankfully modern laptop.
“ - in until next week. Two pm Eastern time’s best for me. Right, so Eastern time my time would be…” Strange punched something into the computer, squinting. “Two days and five hours later for you. So that would be Thursday at seven pm, my time Tuesday at two pm. Great. Alright, I’ll send you the Zoom link after this call. Good, take care.”
He dropped the phone back on the receiver, sighing. Peter drifted forward and looked inside a box, finding only ceramic statues of frogs.
“Don’t touch those, they’re poisonous.” Peter quickly stepped away from the frogs. “You slept a while. Do teenage boys always sleep this much?”
“Interdimensional jetlag,” Peter panned. He should be politer, but - well, he had bigger problems. “Do you really schedule your own appointments?”
“Have you seen a secretary around here?”
Huh. Peter peered inside another box, which seemed to contain demonic mancala boards. He pre-emptively decided not to touch them. “I guess not. You really do everything yourself?”
“Everything that Wong doesn’t do. And trust me, audit season keeps him busy enough.” Strange returned to his laptop, probably scheduling that Zoom meeting. He was dressed in a soft cotton shirt and sweatpants, just like Peter, and his cape was carefully hung on the back of his chair. “Forage for yourself in the kitchen, nothing in there is dangerous but the knives. I’ve finally baby proofed the house, so you are now free to explore so long as you don’t touch anything . Unless it’s urgent I do have to ask that you leave me in peace to work until dinnertime. We can talk then.”
Then he wouldn’t have any opportunity to say this for hours. He had to ask now. “Last night you said that my dimension’s too damaged to put me back. But what if it’s repaired? What if my Dr. Strange and - and whoever manages to stabilize it? If it’s stabilized, then you could drop me off back home. Is that possible?”
Strange looked away from his computer, glancing at Peter for the first time. Almost reluctantly, he said, “Anything is possible. There are far more things in heaven and Earth than you or I could dream of, Peter. I didn’t say that you could never go home.” Something flared to life in Peter’s chest, and he stood up straighter. But Strange just frowned at him. “I didn’t mention it last night because long shot promises are the last thing you need right now.”
“But that means there's hope!” Peter cried. “Just like you said - if there’s a chance, no matter how small, then there’s a hope. I just have to go out and find it. If I work hard, then maybe -”
“And how many years of your life will you waste searching?” Strange asked evenly. “How much of your life will you sacrifice to that?”
“Are you telling me not to even try ?”
Strange’s face looked exceptionally pinched, but Peter was too angry to feel guilty. How could he sit there and tell him to just ignore any chance of going home? Just give up? Peter had never given up on anything in his whole life. It was practically who he was. If Spider-Man was anything then he was that.
Ben and May used to hate it. Whatever he started, he always finished. He’d spend weeks bent over a project on his workbench that no twelve year old could ever complete, and even when he was crying with frustration he would refuse to give up. He would spend every second of his free time holed up in the basement, and Ben and May wouldn’t see him for weeks at a time. He couldn’t ask them for help - even then, his work had been far beyond anything they understood. They hadn’t understood it at all. They only knew that Peter had made himself miserable for no real reason.
But that project had become his web fluid years later. It had been worth it. No matter how hard something was, if it was important enough it was always always worth it. Peter could handle tough stuff. It was practically all he did.
“Sit down, Peter. On the green chair, not the red one.” Ominous, but Peter was growing used to it. He slowly sat down on the chair with the green cushion, two chairs down from Dr. Strange. His phone rang again, but he pressed a button and sent it to voicemail. “Do you know how I got this job?”
“Like, your backstory?” Peter thought about it, even as Strange made a face. “I overheard you talking with Tony about it once. You used to be a surgeon before you got into a car wreck and had to do something else, right? Tony made a joke about texting and driving that pissed you off.”
“Sounds like Stark,” Strange muttered. “Texting and driving, huh. I suppose that’s one way.”
“What do you mean?”
Strange leaned back in his chair. “I was one of the best practicing brain surgeons in America. ‘Fly me to China to operate on the President’s wife’ best. And every second I wasn’t on call or sleeping, I was drinking.” He grimaced. “Everybody knew, but nobody cared. I had no friends or family to worry about me and my colleagues only cared that I didn’t show up to work drunk. My work was my life, and so long as that was intact I was fine. I lived for nobody, not even myself. It’s a miserable way to live. Drink in moderation, Peter.”
“Uh. Yeah, got it.”
“I know having fun in college is important, but binge drinking ruins the brain.”
“No binge drinking, definitely.”
“You can keep up that lifestyle for quite a while, you know. The first and only time I got bitched out by my workplace was when I showed up to an operation drunk. They had to send me home and reschedule the operation. I was pissed off about it, drank another glass of whiskey, and drove home. Never made it.”
Ah. Not texting and driving, then. Strange didn’t look sad or upset about it - just kind of thoughtful, as if it happened to a different person a long time ago whose life was still of interest.
“Don’t famous surgeons become professors or hospital admins or something?” Peter asked. He had a vague idea of how hospitals worked from May. “Even if your hands were messed up, then you could have done something else.”
“I had two things in my life. The alcohol, which I was ashamed of and which had just ruined my life, and my skills as a surgeon. I needed surgery back. Without it I was just another drunk. Nothing else would do.” Strange shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “I wasted years and years and years of my life searching for that far off chance, Peter. I did anything and everything to get surgery back. I had no work, so I just drank. I couldn’t stop chasing this one thing that would make everything okay again. Something that would fix me. Or fix the world so it was finally bearable. Because I’m me and I don’t half-ass anything, I did the impossible and found my longest shot. I went to the edge of the Earth and kept walking. And I ended up here.”
“But you still did it,” Peter said. He leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table. “I get it, you spent years of your life on a far shot instead of accepting your situation - but you got that far shot! You’re the Sorcerer Supreme! You worked hard and didn’t give up and you got what you wanted.”
Strange arched an eyebrow. He held both hands out for Peter to clearly see, palms up. He hadn’t noticed it before, but when Strange showed him it was clear: there was a faint but noticeable tremor in his hands at a resting state, and when Strange tried to bend his fingers the range of motion only extended halfway.
“I don’t get it,” Peter said blankly. “You can astral project and open portals between dimensions. Why can’t you fix your hands?”
“My magic was made to help others. Not myself.” Strange lowered his hands, shaking them out slightly. “The Sorcerer Supreme is a servant to the multiverse above themself. They’re the most powerful magician in their universe, able to tap into streams of reality and primordial forces that no other living being has access to, but their gift exists only to help others. It’s why there will never be an evil and selfish Sorcerer Supreme - because the job is pest control, it is diplomacy, it is tiresome Avengers bothering you all day. Healing a relatively minor injury would be pure vanity. I couldn’t use my magic for that. And even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. This injury - the lessons it taught me and the new life it brought me - is part of me. I don’t want to erase that.”
Peter didn’t say anything. Strange shrugged and went back to his work.
He still thought Strange was projecting. Trying to fix an injury wasn’t comparable at all to wanting to return to your home universe. Just because Strange almost destroyed himself searching for an answer, an answer he never found, didn’t mean that Peter would. He was glad that Strange’s life was better now - actually, his job seemed way worse than being a famous surgeon, he was pretty sure that Strange’s life had gotten worse - but the situation wasn’t the same. It wasn’t. This wasn’t vanity, this was MJ.
Weeks and weeks at a time when he would barely exchange a word with Ben and May. He would do anything for that time back. The prototype web fluid had been important, it had saved his life hundreds of times, but he would never get that time back. He would do anything for two more weeks with them. Travel to the edge of the Earth and beyond.
Spider-Man had been important, but so was Peter. Peter was important, but so was Spider-Man. Peter didn’t know what to do. He still didn’t know the right answer.
He wanted Tony. Tony wouldn’t really know either, but he wouldn’t stop until he figured it out. He wanted May, who would always know who Peter was even when he didn’t. He wanted to know who Spider-Man was, because he had never really known at all. He wanted MJ and Ned, who had never known either - but who would stick by him as he figured it out.
Whatever Spider-Man was, he wasn’t Spider-Man without them.
Somehow, in some sideways way, Peter found himself saying, “You thought your problem was your hands, right? That if you just fixed your hands, you’d have your job back. But - I’m sorry, I really don’t know you, I don’t want to assume anything - but it sounds like what you actually wanted was a life. Work was your life. And you didn’t really fix your hands. But you got what you wanted. So it wasn’t really for nothing.”
For the first time, Strange smiled at him. It didn’t make him seem any less exhausted, but it made him look a little satisfied with the exhaustion. “Like I said. You have options, Peter. Don’t give up on what you want, but don’t limit yourself to your provincial understanding of the multiverse. You have no idea what Peter Parker is capable of.”
Peter stared at him, eyes wide.
“Now please go discover if Peter Parker is capable of going away, I have work.”
“Ah - yes, thank you! Bye!”
Peter bummed around the rest of the day. Strange had told him that he could stay until he was set up, which Peter interpreted to mean that Strange would arrange things so Peter wasn’t homeless and then make him leave as soon as possible. It was fair - he wouldn’t want a high schooler constantly skulking around his magic mansion either. Especially when he seemed to be counting down the minutes until Peter blew something up. That was fair too - so was Peter.
He grabbed a book instead and sat on the balcony railing on the fourth floor, kicking his feet against the grate and watching Chelsea pedestrians filter by. It was Europe: cell phones and boomboxes, cigarette vending machines next to record stores. Older people dressed more normally, if a little ugly, but kids Peter’s age were wearing super loud clothing and chunky jewelry.
Maybe Peter would accept being unfashionable. For the rest of time. Maybe he would simply never be fashionable and that would be alright. No issues here.
Thank god that the technology was still normal. He even checked reddit to see if people were more racist than usual. Everything seemed to be fine, or not unusually bad - but wow, that mutantphobia looked terrible. He felt bad for mutants. Life was hard enough already.
The book on intraplanar geometry was genuinely fascinating, and he didn’t know how many hours passed until he felt his attention jerk out of the book. It wasn’t his spidey sense, but it wasn’t not his spidey sense - it was something different altogether, some sort of fascinated attention. He instinctively looked around before looking down, blinking harshly as he saw a figure close the gate behind him and walk along the cobblestone path to the front door of the Sanctum. The figure stopped short halfway across, and their head snapped up to look at Peter just as Peter’s head snapped down to look at them.
They both stared at each other for what felt like forever, but could only have been a moment. The figure - boy, it was a boy Peter’s age - shook his head and kept walking, knocking on the door of the Sanctum before entering.
Peter closed his book. He wanted to wonder who the boy was, puzzle out why an unknown and unfamiliar sense blared at the sight of an unknown and unfamiliar boy. If he was truly unfamiliar.
But he didn’t have to. The boy looked nothing like him, but he knew him when he saw him.
Peter stepped back inside and quietly took off his shoes, leaving them by the sliding balcony doors. He walked around and thumped down several flights of steps until he came to the wide, curling steps that fed directly into the lobby. He could already tell that Strange liked to meet visitors from the top of the steps and descend dramatically as his cape fluttered. He walked around the steps instead, hopping up onto the ceiling of the side entrance into the parlor and arranging himself in a corner where he could see the two figures talking in the hallway. He should be hidden from view - or enough for plausible deniability. There was no way Strange would miss him, but if he had a problem with Peter eavesdropping then Peter would have to have a problem with him right back.
He peered closely around the corner, watching an impatient Strange holding a tablet talk to the boy. Deeply unfortunately, he was dressed like a lot of the other kids. It could be worse - he was wearing a turtleneck and light blue jeans, with a chunky brown coat overlaid on top. Couldn’t catch Peter dead wearing a turtleneck, but whatever.
“ - wait? I kinda have something going on in an hour.”
“This was the only hour today I had remotely free, but please continue detailing your packed freshman schedule. I’m very fascinated.”
“I’m a Biochem major! You know what it’s like, you know the hustle.” The boy looked around, scratching the back of his neck, and Peter faded back into the shadows. He had a sharper, harsher face than Peter’s own, with more defined cheekbones and a pointier chin. He looked meaner - or maybe life had been meaner towards him. “Look, as much as your friendly neighborhood et-cetera loves dropping by and making house calls, I kinda doubt you want a cup of sugar. So what’s this all about?”
“I needed to ask you a few questions.” The boy opened his mouth. “And I needed you here to run a few spells. Hold still, this might tickle.”
“Oh, I love it when older men invite me to their houses and tell me that -”
A flash of red flared, then a flash of white. The boy made a faint, uncomfortable gagging sound, and a second later Peter felt the same nausea spike in his stomach. He pressed a hand to his mouth to keep from vomiting, and the other boy hissed in pain.
Dr. Strange hummed, scrolling through his tablet. “Alright, that’s good. That’s what I thought. Thank you for your participation, Peter.”
“Do I get course credit?” Peter snarked. He grimaced, sticking out his tongue and rubbing his temples. “Is that why my spider sense has been ringing like MJ’s cell since I walked through the gate? Let me know if you’re going to do it again, because I still have a headache.”
“If my diagnostics are correct -” Strange’s tone implied that they obviously were. “ - then it should go away in a few minutes. Peter, what were you doing at six pm yesterday?”
“Six? I think I was at The Coffee Bean. Hanging out with Liz n’ Harry n’ Gwen n’ MJ. I think I left at - yeah, seven thirty or something, because I was trying to do my homework and they were being annoying and loud. Gwen went with me and we studied together until eight. She left and I did Spider-Man stuff after that. Busy night, I know. Why?”
“Nothing unusual about that night? No bad feelings, no spider senses tingling? Nothing unusual on your patrol? No villains weirder than your usual?”
Other Peter stared at Strange blankly. “Liz got a haircut?”
“Oh, did she? That’s fascinating. Was it more of a bob or did she get it styled?”
“The girls made a big deal about it,” Other Peter said, somewhat defensively. “MJ was going on and on and - look, no, nothing happened. Why? Did something strange happen? Do you need my help?”
“Peter -”
But Other Peter was already drawing out a dinky cell phone, turning on the screen. “I can text Gwen and reschedule our date. My suit’s underneath my clothing, so I’m ready to go. Let me know what you need and I’m on it.”
“If you don’t know anything about it, I assure you it’s nothing you can help with.” Strange’s ‘Peter Parker Is Exhausting Me Voice’ was different between Peters, which was somehow a surprise. Peter optimistically thought he might find Other Peter more annoying. “There’s nothing much anybody can do about the situation.”
“If you’re zapping me and asking me questions then it obviously has something to do with me.” Other Peter frowned at Dr. Strange. “If there’s anything I can do, then I should do something about it. I’ll just cancel and -”
“Don’t!”
He spoke without realizing and moved without thinking. He dropped onto the floor in the hallway, bursting into the lobby as if he had a murder to prevent. He didn’t know what he was trying to prevent, or why for a second it seemed like the most important thing in the multiverse.
Both inhabitants of the lobby stopped mid-sentence. Other Peter stared at him in abject confusion, conveniently missing Dr. Strange kneading his forehead again.
“Who are you supposed to be?” Other Peter asked.
Dr. Strange sighed. “Not how I wanted to introduce you two. Peter, this is -”
It really wasn’t how Peter wanted to introduce himself either. “His assistant!” He straightened, ignoring Strange’s terrifyingly eloquent ‘If you don’t stop making decisions without me I am going to lock you in the bathroom’. “I’m Dr. Strange’s new assistant. Hello! How are you! You’re Spider-Man, right? Always wanted to meet you. Or something.”
Other Peter’s eyes widened, and he pointed at Peter. Peter pointed back for no reason. “You’re the guy on the balcony! You really gave my head a wallop, mister. What are you bugging out for?”
“I’m not - I don’t know what that means.” Peter was never talking to anybody else his own age in this universe again. This had to be how adults felt. “Look, don’t cancel your date. Dr. Strange was right, this really isn’t a big deal. Someone else can handle it. But you’re the only one who can go on your date.”
Other Peter looked at Dr. Strange, who had returned to his default state of wishing for death. “What’s the lowdown on the space cadet? Why did you tell him my ID?”
Dr. Strange still looked pained, but in that sideways ‘Peter’ way instead of the ‘Other Peter’ way. There was a difference, even if it was hard to pinpoint. “I can assure you he already knew. My assistant is right. I’m not doing any more work on this case for today, so there’s no need for you to bother. We can all talk about it later.”
If he was anything like Peter then there was no way Other Peter would just accept that, but he hadn’t expected Other Peter to look so offended. “I’m not going to pass off my responsibilities on somebody else for one date. This is more important. There’s only one Spider-Man.” Peter and Dr. Strange exchanged looks. “What?”
“Are you planning on telling him?” Dr. Strange asked quietly. “It’s your choice.”
His choice. Dr. Strange said it himself - if Peter’s presence wasn’t making Other Peter dissolve into goo or something, then maybe it was none of his business.
They should tell him. Peter would want to know if his other alternate dimension self was running around. He just had his other dimension selves running around. They hadn’t given one thought to their own safety or getting home themselves: they instantly threw everything they had into helping him, into cleaning up his messes and saving his family. No hesitation. It had been their job. They had stopped and helped him and taught him what it meant to be Spider-Man. That he needed to find his own Spider-Man. His own Peter Parker.
But Peter didn’t know who they were. And this world had a Peter Parker.
Who was Peter Parker? Today, right here, it was the boy in front of him - a little confused, a little offended. The boy with the long list of friends and a girlfriend. The boy who ditched the friends to study and who would have ditched the girlfriend so he could do his job as Spider-Man.
Peter Parker was…
“Tell me what?” Other Peter asked, annoyed. “Are you deciding whether or not to tell me why you’re setting off my spidey sense? Because I really don’t know what Dr. Strange’s intern -”
“ Not his intern,” Peter snapped. “Assistant!”
“Take a chill pill, man!”
“Teaching this young man magic would probably blow up New York,” Strange said urgently. “I am not doing that. If that is what you are after, I am not doing that.”
“I don’t want to learn magic!”
“Yeah, magic’s always more trouble than it’s worth,” Other Peter agreed. “I’ve never met a magic spell who liked me. Something about the Parker Luck always turns it all sideways.”
The Parker Luck. Peter had almost forgotten about that. Ben used to make all those jokes about it. Whenever Peter tripped over his shoelaces and busted his nose it was always the Parker Luck. May forgetting her keys everywhere was always Parker Luck. Losing another job, with a shrug and a grin, was always Parker Luck.
What would Uncle Ben think about this? It was almost impossible to tell. Uncle Ben belonged in a simpler time - where bad things happened for no reason, no matter how much you wanted them to be your fault. Where you became Spider-Man just because you were a bit lonely and a little neglected and heavily grieving, and because you had a terminal case of Peter Parker.
Peter stuck out his hand. “My name’s Ben. I’m new in town. Dr. Strange is letting me lend a hand until I get back on my feet.”
Other Peter blinked at the name, but he shook his hand anyway. “Peter Parker, but I guess you somehow knew that. You got a last name and a deal?”
He did not have either of those things. Crud. Last name, right now. Leeds - no, Ned might still exist. What was Aunt May’s maiden name? No, that was too obvious. Name, what was a name that existed, what was a person that existed - Michelle Ryleigh Jones? It had taken months and trickery to get MJ’s middle name out of her. She hated it, said it was suburban. Peter had thought it was cute. She looked like a Ryleigh. MJ had beat him over the head with a pillow in retaliation. That was the name he wrote into a box, scratching an unknown woman into an anonymous form. Michelle Jones - the one and only. His one and only.
“Reilly. Ben Reilly. And my deal is…that’s a long story. I’m not really sure I get it myself.” Peter shrugged, digging his hands in his hoodie pockets. “I guess I’m still figuring it out.”
And, despite everything, Other Peter didn’t hesitate. “How can I help?”
Somehow Peter summoned a smile for him. “Just go on your date. I bet you’ve missed enough dates with her already.”
“No idea what that has to do with you, but alright.” Other Peter checked his phone, squinting at the screen, before he almost dropped it. “Shit, I’m going to be late! Man, oh man, I gotta bounce! If that’s everything, Dr. Strange -”
“No, please leave.”
“Groovy. Beep me if you need me, Dr. Strange.” Other Peter backed up, saluting Peter with two fingers. “Weird meeting you, Ben Reilly!”
Lamely, already regretting saying anything, Peter said, “Tell Michelle I said hi.”
Other Peter pushed open the door, already leaving as he gave him a bizarre look. “Who’s Michelle?”
And there wasn’t much to say to that.
Peter didn’t move for a long minute after Other Peter left. He was still processing what he had just done. The kind of commitment he had just made. That had been a lot of decisions in a very short period of time and Peter wasn’t really famous for his good decisions. He had probably just ruined everything irrevocably. Again. Talent, skill, and a hobby.
He had just given up Peter Parker. Peter Parker was running back home, probably pulling on his mask and swinging through Chelsea so he could hit his mystery date in time, and when he called his best friend to brag about his hot girl he wouldn’t be calling Ned. When he sighed about MJ he wouldn’t be sighing about Michelle Jones. Whatever life Peter could have ever had, he just watched it walk out the door.
“You really don’t want him to know?” Strange said. “Do you not want anyone to know? You’ll be here for a while, Peter.”
But Peter could only shake his head. “You said it. I’m going to be here a while. I can’t borrow Peter Parker and Spider-Man long term. It’s his universe. I need to figure something out on my own. Even if it’s not Spider-Man or Peter Parker.”
Even if it wasn’t the identity Tony had built for him. Even if it wasn’t the identity that his whole world had once known, who had gone to space and worked with the Avengers. Even if it wasn’t an identity so common that it had a form .
Strange didn’t look so convinced. “Spider-men can’t stop themselves from juvenile heroism for five seconds. You aren’t going to hang up your metaphorical cape.”
“Well,” Peter said slowly. “Like you said. I have options, don’t I?”
Dr. Strange looked a little disturbed. Good. “What kinds of options?”
Peter smiled brightly at him, creeping him out even further. “You need an assistant really badly.”
“Not that badly,” Dr. Strange said quickly. “I’ve been doing this alone for three years, I have it handled.”
“You’re exhausted, overworked, and overstressed,” Peter said firmly. This wasn’t any different from taking over household chores from May when she had too many shifts in a row. She had always called him her hero. “You’re the Sorcerer Supreme! You shouldn’t have to be your own secretary. You know I can handle myself in a fight. And you know I have nowhere else to be, or - or to go. Give me room and board and I’ll help you. Even if it’s just until I get back on my feet.”
Strange looked at the ceiling. He looked at his tablet. He kneaded his forehead. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Peter held his breath.
Finally, he exhaled and threw up a hand. “Fine! Fine. Every other Sorcerer Supreme has an apprentice to deal with these things. I, however, have a Spider-Man. That’s fine. I’m doing everything normally and exactly how the manual instructed.”
“Yes!” Peter punched the air, grinning. “You won’t regret this, Dr. Strange!”
“I already am.” He gave Peter a wry look, seeing through his forced grin. “I’m going to check the paper in three months and see a new masked menace swinging through the streets, aren’t I?”
“Menace?” Peter asked, alarmed. “What, is that like a new supervillain?”
“No. The menace is you. The menace is always you.”
“Who’s calling me a menace? That’s rude. I’m practically an Avenger. People generally don’t hate me.” The previous week exempted, but the previous week was exempted from a lot of things. “In the superhero popularity polls I’m number one in the teenage and middle aged women demographics. My popularity polls highest with middle aged women and minors. Tony used to always brag about it.” It had been so embarrassing.
“Well, that’s one difference between you and every other Spider-Man who exists.” Strange rolled his eyes, sticking his tablet under his arm and turning away. “I look forward to seeing how Ben Reilly and his undoubtedly spider themed persona is going to turn out in the future. For now, Ben Reilly just so happens to have an appointment with a demon imp infestation in the boiler room under City Hall. Maybe he’ll complete the work in a timely and nondestructive manner.”
From the way he said it, it really wasn’t what he expected out of a Peter Parker. But Peter had always obsessed over doing things right and doing things well. He was a perfectionist who always fucked up. He spent every second stressed over what other people thought about him and if he was doing the moral thing at every second of the day and if he was making so and so proud. If he was fulfilling every obligation on his plate. If he was earning the suit.
What suit? What Spider-Man? There was nobody to make proud; no legacy to live up to. No expectations, no responsibilities, no obligations to anybody but himself.
Peter wasn’t a number. He wasn’t just another form. He wasn’t Peter Parker and he wasn’t Spider-Man. He could be whoever he wanted. Who did he want to be?
“You know what,” Peter said slowly, “I think Ben Reilly causes problems.”
“You already cause problems.”
“On purpose .”
“You don’t need to cause more problems.”
“I think he’s rude,” Peter said, with a perverse thrill. “I think Ben Reilly curses.”
“The kid who just left is already unbelievably rude, we don’t need two of you.”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to be rude anyway. But I do want to curse.”
“You don’t have to curse.”
“Maybe I do want to be rude.”
Strange rolled his eyes and started walking out of the lobby, leaving Peter to trip along after him. “Yes, now that you’re out from the purview of your grandmother you shall become a scarlet woman.”
“Scarlet woman? What does that mean?”
“It means she’s rude.”
“Then I want to -”
He could make up a better origin story later. It would have to be pretty good, offer some sort of explanation for the spider powers and the ‘doesn’t legally exist’ thing later. He could really come up with whatever he wanted. He would always have people who loved him and the history that made him on the other side, but on this side - in this new future, in this broad and expansive well of endless potential that lay within him - Ben Reilly could be anything and anyone. Maybe he’d say he was a clone or something.
No, that was stupid.