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Peter tenses a moment before the Sanctum’s front door opens. Stephen Strange steps out, dressed in blue jeans and a Columbia sweatshirt. Peter’s heart clenches when the sorcerer’s eyes pass over him and flick away, clearly dismissing him as unimportant, before descending the steps.
Well, now or never. Peter forces himself to keep breathing as he steps towards him.
“Doctor Strange?”
Stephen pauses and turns towards him.
“Yes?”
Peter takes another step forward. “Um. Hi.”
Stephen looks him over, now, assessing. “Do I know you?”
Well, that answers that, Peter thinks. “I’m Peter. Peter Parker.” Nothing. “Peter Benjamin Parker.” Still nothing. No spark of recognition or realization. Wouldn’t he at least recognize the name, even if he doesn’t remember Peter himself?
“I feel like you’re expecting something from me, but I don’t know what,” Stephen says.
“You’re my soulmate.”
This much, Peter is certain of. Stephen’s name is still in the same place it always has been.
“I think you’re mistaken,” Stephen says patiently. “I don’t have a soulmate.”
Peter fights against the tears stinging at his eyes. “Well I do,” he manages. He grabs at his collar and tugs the fabric to the side, displaying the name ‘Stephen Vincent Strange’ in shaky but legible script across his clavicle.
Stephen breathes in sharply, not quite a gasp, as he takes a step back. “That isn’t funny,” he tells Peter, an edge of warning lacing the words.
“It’s not a joke,” Peter answers.
“Look, kid, I don’t know what your plan is here, but I have more important things to do than stand around and entertain it.” Stephen takes another step back.
Peter lets his hands fall, the fabric shifting to cover his soulmark again. “Like protecting our reality, I know.”
Stephen's eyes narrow at this. “And just what would you know about that?”
“A lot, actually. Like how you should be Sorcerer Supreme, but you were blipped for five years so it’s Wong instead. And how when you were blipped, you were on a different planet.” Peter takes Stephen’s incredulous look as a signal to keep going. “How about the part where you gave up the Time Stone to Thanos, insisting ‘it was the only way’? Fourteen million futures and only one where we win?” Not that this feels like winning, he thinks.
“Hold on. The only people on that planet were myself, Tony Stark, and Spiderman,” Stephen says, his voice low.
“We were the only humans, yeah. Except that Quill guy, but he was half alien, so.” He meets Stephen’s glare with his own challenge.
Stephen breaks first, his eyes cutting up and down the street before coming back to Peter. “I think we need to continue this discussion somewhere less public.”
Peter follows as Stephen leads him into the Sanctum. He hasn’t set foot inside for years, not since…not since he stranded Stephen in the mirror dimension and let everyone in the crypt go free. He shivers, even though there’s no blizzard this time.
The door shuts with a sound much louder than Peter thinks necessary, especially with his enhanced hearing. Strange whirls on him, his street clothes magically replaced with his sorcerer’s robes - a trick which Peter will never not find fascinating.
“Tell me how you know about Titan,” he demands.
Peter tamps down the swelling frustration. “I told you, I was there. You, Iron Man, and Spiderman, right?” He flicks his wrist, shooting a web to the second-floor banister and swinging himself to sit upside-down beneath the landing. He looks back at Stephen, who is back to glaring at him. Peter lets go of the ceiling and drops back to the floor, landing easily on his feet.
“Since it seems you must actually be Spiderman, maybe you can tell me how it is that we’ve known each other for years and yet you’ve never said a word about having my name on your skin?” The anger is back, turning Stephen’s eyes to ice.
This, Peter is actually prepared for. “The first time we met I was only seventeen. You told me to come back when I was older.”
“And I have an eidetic memory and have no recollection of this,” Stephen scoffs. “Even if I didn’t, I am quite certain I would remember meeting my soulmate.”
“Why don’t you, then? Are you telling me you didn’t put in some kind of failsafe when you cast that spell?” He knows by now that there isn’t one, that Stephen well and truly forgot who Peter was, along with the rest of the world.
“Spell, what spell?”
It hurts even worse than the decision to let MJ and Ned go; they were teenagers at the time, and it was always likely that they would grow apart from each other. But Stephen is his soulmate. He’d known that for years. Surely he could have made sure to remember?
But he didn’t. Which can only mean Stephen meant to forget him.
“Nevermind. I knew this was a mistake.”
Peter flees the Sanctum before Stephen can respond.
It takes Stephen all of ten minutes to start digging into Peter’s past, and about an hour after that he’s only grown more agitated.
Peter Parker doesn’t seem to exist.
Not the way someone might protect their privacy; Stephen wouldn’t find that upsetting, or all that surprising, even from a teenager. But there are no birth records - or death records, for that matter. No adoption records, no name change records, no school records, not even social media accounts under the name.
Stephen would dismiss it as the prank he initially thought it was, but he can’t. Not when the name Peter Benjamin Parker is emblazoned across his shoulder blade - and wasn’t that a discovery?
He doesn’t remember having a soulmark. This shouldn’t be possible, and yet. But when he thinks back, Stephen also doesn’t remember not having a soulmark; it’s rare enough that not having one would have raised concerns when he was a child, and certainly he would have memories of either hiding or flaunting the fact. But he has neither.
Of course, the spell exists. Stephen knows this, he’s used it before.
But why would he use it to erase his soulmate from the world? What could possibly be a compelling enough reason to erase his own memory of the person the universe paired him with?
The impossibility of it won’t leave him alone.
Peter climbs through the window into his apartment, closing it behind him. He draws the blinds before pulling off his mask and collapsing into the desk chair, exhausted from his patrol. He checks the time and groans; if he showers now and falls asleep in the next thirty minutes, he can manage a full five hours before he has to wake up for his morning shift at the diner.
He showers quickly - made easier when the water temperature never makes it higher than lukewarm - and brushes his teeth, pulling on a pair of sweatpants for pajamas. He feels the pinprick warning sensation a second before he sees the sparks of a portal opening.
Stephen Strange steps into his apartment.
Peter freezes where he stands, his instinct to flee, to protect himself, at war with the hope that maybe, Stephen has recovered his memory.
“I used a tracking spell from tonight’s Spiderman sighting,” Stephen tells him, a hint of guilt in his voice. “It’s not something I make a habit of doing, but I think we need to talk.”
“Oh.” The question of how Stephen found his apartment hasn’t crossed Peter’s mind. The urge to climb out the window crawls up his spine. Historically, conversations with his soulmate have ended badly; either with Peter being rejected, or erased from existence. And yet, Stephen sought him out this time. “Yeah, we can talk.”
Stephen nods and looks around the apartment, discomfort showing as he realizes how sparsely furnished it is. There’s no sofa or even a proper table; not that there’s any room for either. Peter gestures to the desk chair and sits at the end of his bed.
The silence stretches, Peter waiting patiently while Stephen stares at his chest. No, not at his chest; at his soulmark. Wordlessly, Peter stands and retrieves a t-shirt from his dresser, tugging it over his head. When he sits back down, he notes that Stephen is still staring at the spot on his chest where the soulmark rests. Peter fights the urge to rub at it.
“You came here to talk,” he prompts.
Stephen blinks and shakes his head slightly as if to clear it, then meets Peter’s eyes.
“You don’t exist in this world,” he finally says.
Peter rolls his eyes. “Yeah. That was the point, wasn’t it? The Runes of Kof-Kol?”
“What I don’t understand is why I would erase my soulmate from the world. Or why I wouldn’t at least keep my own memory of you.” Stephen looks at him expectantly.
“I’m wondering that, myself.” Peter can’t quite keep the bitterness from seeping through. “Why didn’t you keep that memory? Seems like something you’d want to do, even if I was still a teenager, so it should’ve been in the first spell. But it wasn’t. The only explanation I can come up with is that you really didn’t want me. That it would be better to forget me completely. And that’s…it’s not fine, it actually sucks, but it was your choice, and I’ll respect that.”
His eyes sting. He blinks, trying to dissipate the tears before they fall. It’s late, and he’s tired, and he has to be at the diner in just a few hours, and he’ll be doing it on barely a nap if Stephen leaves right now, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he asks Peter, “What do you mean, ‘the first spell’?”
This is not a conversation Peter can have right now. Maybe back at the Sanctum, he could have; but it’s late and he’s so tired and he can’t relive those events to have his soulmate confirm that he intended to forget him, that it’s Peter’s fault, just like May’s death was his fault, and the universe cracking was his fault, and that window is so tempting right now…he can have it open in two seconds, be through and on the roof in another three, and he might be motivated enough to break his own record tonight.
“Peter?”
Stephen is kneeling in front of him, hands hovering like he wants to touch him, and Peter shuts his eyes and shakes his head silently, hoping Stephen will get the message and just leave.
“Peter, I’m not sure what’s wrong, but I’d like to understand. I’ve made a mistake, I know this much, but unfortunately you’re the only one who can explain what happened. Please tell me, so that I know, so I can fix this.”
Peter risks opening his eyes. Stephen is looking at him, imploring him, and he shakes his head again as his defenses crumble.
“You might not feel that way after I tell you.”
Peter tells him everything. Stephen listens, still kneeling on the floor, too shocked by the events described to even think about moving back to the chair. How could he have done this? Left his soulmate so completely, utterly alone in the world? What could possibly have convinced him that any of it was a good idea in the first place?
“I’m so sorry,” he says. It’s an understatement; sorry can’t even begin to describe the remorse he feels.
Peter only shakes his head, using the hem of his t-shirt to wipe at his eyes.
“I’ll fix this,” Stephen tries again. If there’s a way, he’ll find it. He’s certain of this.
“Don’t,” Peter warns him. “I’ve almost broken the universe twice, we don’t need to do it a third time and completely destroy it.
“I’ve got work in like, three hours, and I really need a nap before then,” he continues. “I won’t bother you again, I shouldn’t have shown up at the Sanctum anyway.”
Stephen opens his mouth to argue, but Peter waves dismissively.
“Good night, Doctor Strange.”
The title, a source of pride for so many years, sounds wrong to Stephen’s ears.
Peter clocks out at the end of his shift and waves to the kitchen staff as he leaves. He’s filled his thermos with coffee, hopefully enough to fuel him through his shift at the pizza parlor this evening. If it isn’t, he’ll just have to deal with being tired. His coworkers are in much the same state most nights, anyway.
His senses go on alert as he steps into the alleyway behind the diner. He reaches for his backpack, ready to pull on his mask, when a portal opens in front of him.
“What are you doing here?” Peter asks, shoulders slumping. Forget the coffee, there’s no way he has the energy for whatever this conversation is.
“We need to talk.”
Peter feels his stomach drop. “As if anything good ever follows those words.” He adjusts his backpack straps and turns to leave the alley.
“Peter, would you please hear me out?”
There’s something in Stephen’s voice that keeps Peter from running, as much as he wants to escape before what’s left of his heart gets torn to shreds. Again. He very much doesn’t want to have this conversation publicly, though.
Turning back, he sees the portal is still open. He nods and steps past Stephen and through the portal, finding himself in what he assumes is the Sanctum, although it’s a room he hasn’t been in before. And it’s empty, besides some furniture, himself, and Stephen.
Peter can’t bring himself to look at Stephen when he asks, “So what did you want to tell me, Doc?”
“I believe I asked you to call me Stephen.”
Peter whirls to look at him, eyes wide like a spooked animal. Stephen fights not to gather him in his arms, knowing that any movement might have Peter bolting.
“You-” Peter pauses to swallow, as though he’s struggling to speak. “You said that to me. Right before you-”
Stephen wants to hang his head, wants to hide from the shame of what he’s done, but he forces himself to hold Peter’s gaze as he finishes the sentence Peter can’t. “Right before I forgot you, along with the rest of the world.
“I don’t think I will ever be able to express how deeply sorry I am for that. You didn’t deserve anything that happened to you because of that spell. You certainly didn’t deserve it from me,” he finishes.
Peter looks down then, and mutters just loud enough to be heard, “I asked you to.”
“That’s really not the point. I knew who you were, to me, and casting that spell at all, let alone not excluding myself, is inexcusable.” Stephen hasn’t stopped berating himself since he recovered his missing memories. It was a combination of arrogance and carelessness, and then growing panic as the spell twisted and the universe started cracking. And at the very end, the desperate attempt to hold onto just a thread of knowledge, something that would let him find his way back. It hadn’t worked, not the way he wanted it to.
“So what happens now?” Peter asks.
Stephen takes a breath before answering, “Ideally, you’ll forgive me for every unconscionable mistake I’ve made when it comes to you, and we move forward. Realistically? That’s up to you.”
Peter nods in response, but says nothing.
Stephen waits, carefully calm on the outside while inside, his emotions churn in a maelstrom of worry, doubt, and fear. If Peter rejects him…well, it’s no less than he deserves, so he’ll accept the answer and all the pain it entails.
But Peter proves himself better than anyone else should have a right to be. His throat works, his smile a bit unsteady before he takes a breath. “My uncle used to say, forgiveness doesn’t change the past, but, um, it does change the future, so maybe…we can see what ours can be like together.”
Stephen exhales, relief nearly choking him. “A future together - I want that, more than anything.”