Chapter Text
Peter can’t help but think he should have expected this. Really, it was only a matter of time before something fucked up his life again, and in this case it really isn’t all that surprising.
Peter had known something was wrong for months. Really, he was stupid for ignoring it. But it was a Peter Parker issue, and lately he found it easier to be Spider-man, than Peter.
He would push his problems away, bury them at the back of his mind and decide he will deal with them later. Later rarely came, if at all. When Peter wasn’t working he was out as Spider-man, and when he wasn’t out as Spider-man he was sleeping, eating or doing literally anything else to distract him from the fact that he was actually Peter Parker.
But really, what did the name Peter Parker even mean anymore? Nothing, really. Peter hasn’t existed anymore for a year now. Not in the way he used to at least. All his documentation now was forged, fake. His original paperwork had disappeared from the world the moment he was erased from everyone's memory.
It has been a year now since Peter was forgotten, since he lost everything.
Some days Peter wakes up and he feels like it has just been yesterday. Like it was mere hours ago that his aunt died in his arms, that it was only minutes before that he had to say good-bye to his best friend, Ned, and his girlfriend, MJ, forever.
And then, some days, it feels like it’s been years, like he accepted it decades ago and doesn’t have to grieve anymore. He doesn’t know which one is worse. So, Peter threw himself into work, into Spider-man.
He thinks it’s idiotic now, really. He hadn’t even bothered to find out exactly what was wrong. As long as his performance as Spider-man wasn’t affected Peter thought he could ignore this. He thought he could just ignore that he was getting sick.
Calling it “getting sick” would be an understatement, really. Peter was slowly dying, and for a year he was too dumb to see it, too caught up in trying to be better, trying to just be Spider-man. His civilian life didn’t mean much to him anymore. It was a stupid mistake, one that could’ve been avoided. So, he ignored the way his bones would burn, how his blood would feel cold in his body, or the way his head felt like it was getting split open for hours at a time. He ignored it completely.
But then again, Peter doesn’t think a doctor could have saved him from his fate. Well, except one. Maybe Dr. Strange would have had an idea. Peter doesn’t have much time to think about it, because he’s dying.
Peter is laying against a wall in an alley, near his shitty one room apartment in New York, and he’s dying again, just like he had back then on Titan.
He feels it, feels the pain the same way he did back then. Only, this time he didn’t have Tony who would catch him when he fell, who would hold him until his healing factor couldn’t keep up anymore and he died.
This time, Peter was dying alone, in a world which didn’t even know him anymore.
Peter felt bamboozled, really. Getting dusted and dying once only to come back five years later was bad enough, getting dusted and dying a second time and coming back in a completely different and foreign city was on a whole different level. Really, the universe just could not give him a break.
He really thought the second time was final, he wasn’t even scared. Truth be told, he was kind of relieved to have died. Other than Spider-man there wasn’t much left for Peter anymore.
But no, the universe had to bring him back again.
When Peter woke up after dying a second time, he didn’t know where he was. He wasn’t in New York, he was sure of that. New York was different. It sounded different, felt different.
When Peter woke up he saw he was laying in a dumpster of all places. He was still wearing his spider-man suit, his mask gripped tightly in his hand.
After a (not so) mild panic attack Peter had managed to put his mask back on and flee to one of the roofs nearby.
,,okay pe- Spider-man, just breath” he mutters to himself as he lays on the roof, staring up at the cloudy sky. Spider-man wasn’t able to identify what time of the day it was, the clouds blocked the sun from view completely. What Spider-man did know was that it was cold, colder than it usually would be around this time. It was only april when he died. It felt like winter, not spring. Spider-man hoped it was just this strange city. He really didn’t want to miss years of his life again. He was barely 18 now, legally at least. If he hadn’t been blipped Spider-man would be 23 by now. Kids that used to go to his classes with him are 23 now. Even now this information was hard for Spider-man to process.
He shakes his head. This was not the time to be thinking about this. Spider-man had to figure out where he was. Because this wasn’t New York, and if it wasn’t New York he was far from home.
Spider-man groans as he tries to gather his thoughts. Of course this had to happen to him, just when he was kinda starting to get his life back together again. He had just gotten his first secure job as a civilian. He no longer had to rely on odd jobs where no questions were asked. He had an actual job. He hoped he would still have it when he came back home, hoped he hadn’t skipped years of his life yet again.
Spider-Man takes a deep breath as he stands up on the roof, looking around the skyline of the foreign city. Nothing seemed familiar to him. It was so different from New York. The architecture was beautiful though. It was gothic, as far as Spider-man was aware. He wasn’t too informed on architecture, but MJ told him about it before. He gulps as he thinks of her.
,,not the time” he tries to remind himself.
He pushes the memories of MJ back into his mind, burrowing them beneath everything else he has pushed away in the past.
Spider-man decides to explore, to search for answers he for sure wasn’t going to find on that apartment roof.