Chapter Text
The sun was sinking below the horizon while Peter swung his legs back and forth, perched on the edge of a rooftop. He had his dirty mask pulled halfway up his face, holding in his right hand what would be the last bite of the most decent meal he’d had in days.
A churro.
A kind lady had given it to him a few hours ago, and Peter had done his absolute best to eat it slowly. He tried to drown out the sudden wave of memory that flooded his mind: the memory of himself, sitting in a similar spot, under a similar sunset, eating a similar churro. He remembered how he had enthusiastically included the story of that churro in his daily report to Happy, only to regret it immediately afterward, cringing at how childish and unnecessary it had been to share.
Years had passed, and though this moment felt almost identical, it was defined by one small, devastating detail: he no longer had anyone to tell that a nice lady had given him a warm churro.
He shook those thoughts from his head, forced down the last bite of cold dough, and stood up. He wasn't going to let his pathetic emotional side make him throw up his only dinner. Adjusting his mask, he leaped off the roof, shooting a web to the adjacent building just a second before hitting the pavement, and vaulted back into the sky.
It had been two months since Doctor Strange cast that spell. Two months since his entire life and existence had been wiped from everyone’s minds, taking Peter's shattered heart right along with them.
But it was his fault, and he knew it. If he hadn't been so stupidly selfish, trying to have the best of both worlds, maybe he would have been allowed to keep at least one. Peter carried that truth so deep in his chest that it ached constantly, heavy with the knowledge that he had lost absolutely everything. And he would just have to live with it.
Now, all he could do was try to patch up the damage. Every death, every tragedy caused by his selfishness. Spider-Man was his only way of paying off his debt, a debt so massive that Peter was sure he could spend his entire life trying to clear it, and it still wouldn't be enough.
It was never enough.
So, this was his life now. He lived in an abandoned apartment in a suburban building that had barely survived a fire. Well, he wasn't sure if "survived" was the right word, but the place gave him (almost) four walls and a roof to shield him from the biting cold. It was the best he could manage. His savings and the money Aunt May had left him were locked away in a bank that had no record, no paper trail, and no memory of a Peter Parker or any relative ever having an account there. And it wasn't like Peter could produce any ID to prove he even existed.
But that was the whole point, wasn't it?
His room in the scorched building consisted of a few charred pieces of furniture, a dirty, half-ruined mattress he’d dragged from the street on a rare day of good luck, and a backpack that always sat in the corner. That backpack held every single one of his worldly possessions, ready to be grabbed in case he had to run. Despite holding his entire life, it wasn't even full. Maybe it was better that way.
Plus, being a burned-out, abandoned structure, there were no conventional entrances or exits. Only someone who could fly or... well, crawl up walls, could actually get inside. That was a crucial safety feature. It was the only place where his spider-sense could finally quiet down, ruling out any human intrusion and only keeping him alert for a potential collapse of the unstable ceiling.
Peter landed silently on another rooftop. The sun had completely vanished, letting the thick darkness of the night wrap around him. He peered over the edge to scan the streets below.
Now that he was practically a ghost with no other responsibilities besides trying to make Queens a little safer to atone for his sins, Peter could patrol all day. And, if the hollow ache of hunger and sheer exhaustion allowed it, all night too. It let him stay sharper, spot trafficking rings sooner, and shut them down faster.
The nocturnal Queens looked like a miniature model of blinking lights and long shadows. Peter adjusted the lenses of his mask, filtering out the roar of the main avenue. He could hear the screech of tires three blocks away, the low murmur of drunks stumbling out of a bar, and the electric hum of the streetlights.
To anyone else, the night was a reminder to go home, lock the door, and have dinner with family. To Peter, the night was the only time the weight of the mask felt slightly less suffocating. Under the cover of darkness, nobody asked to see a face that no longer existed.
Suddenly, a flash of blue static in a narrow alleyway sent a sharp tingle down the back of his neck. Peter snapped his head toward it, recognizing that light instantly. For weeks, he’d been tracking a group—a gang, or a highly organized ring, he wasn't entirely sure yet—involved in high-profile robberies, attacks, and smuggling. This was way beyond street-level drugs and common weapons. Peter could feel the gravity of it in his bones.
It reminded him a bit of the Chitauri weapons he had fought years ago. Just like with the memory of the churro, his stomach twisted painfully at the sudden reminder of how incredibly alone he was now.
Ignoring the tightening in his chest, he slipped off the edge of the roof and plummeted into the void, web-swinging through the damp alleys. He moved like a shadow, weaving through high-voltage cables with the muscle memory of someone who had done this a million times.
He crouched silently on the brick ledge of a building, looking straight down into the alley.
Below, three men in tactical military jackets were unloading heavy crates from the back of an unmarked van. These weren't your average thugs. They moved with military precision, and those crates definitely didn't contain drugs or cash. Peter narrowed his eyes as one of the men fumbled his grip, causing one of the crates to slide open.
Inside, a glowing energy core pulsed with a horribly familiar purple and blue light.
Modified Chitauri tech.
But that wasn't all. As the crate shifted, Peter caught sight of a logo that made his heart drop straight into his stomach.
Stark Industries.
Every time he saw that goddamn logo or that technology circulating on the black market, he felt like he was running out of air. It was as if Tony’s ghost was staring right at him, demanding he clean up the mess his absence had left behind.
"How many times do I have to tell you guys that alien weapons really ruin the Queens aesthetic?" Peter whispered to himself, using that practiced, easygoing sarcasm to mask the tremor in his hands.
He dropped down silently behind the guy holding the crate. Before the man could even inhale to scream, Peter webbed his mouth shut and slammed him against the brick wall with a precise, heavy kick.
The other two men reacted instantly, drawing sidearms that flared with the same blue energy of the core. Peter dodged the first shot with a mid-air flip, feeling the heat of the blast singe the concrete where he’d been standing a millisecond prior. Sticking to the opposite wall, he fired two web-lines at his attackers' weapons and yanked with superhuman force, disarming them in a blink.
"Honestly? You guys should really invest in a better security team. This is getting a little depressing," Peter said, landing hard on the hood of the van and sweeping the legs of the second man, leaving him unconscious on the asphalt.
The last man, terrified and unarmed, scrambled backward toward the end of the alley, where a suspiciously large industrial vent had been modified with an electronic keypad.
"You have no idea what you're getting into, bug," the man spat, hitting a button on the panel before Peter could stop him with a web.
The grate hissed open, and the man threw himself inside. Peter dashed to the opening, his spider-sense starting to scream. Every nerve in his body could feel the massive buildup of electromagnetic energy directly beneath his feet, deep within the New York transit sewers.
Peter looked at the van loaded with Chitauri weapons, then back at the dark shaft leading into the underground.
He didn't have Ned to hack the panel. He didn't have Tony to run a satellite scan or map the area. He didn't have May waiting at home to hug him or help him bandage his wounds. He was entirely on his own. But duty didn't wait for him to have backup.
"Well... so much for a hygienic lifestyle," he muttered, and slid into the dark shaft, having no idea he was about to take a leap of no return.
The ventilation shaft was a seemingly endless slide of cold metal, rust, and accumulated grime. Peter slid blindly through the dark, pressing his palms against the iron walls to control his speed. As he went deeper, the damp, stagnant smell of the Manhattan sewers began to blend with a sharp chemical odor: ozone and industrial coolant.
His spider-sense wouldn't stop buzzing. It was a constant, vibrating ache at the base of his skull, warning him that the air around him was thick with highly dangerous static electricity.
Finally, the shaft cut off. Peter let go just in time, dropping into a crouch on a metal support beam suspended from the ceiling of a massive underground cavern.
He flattened his chest against the beam to melt into the shadows and took in the view.
This was no ordinary sewer. An abandoned 1950s subway station had been completely retrofitted. Reinforced concrete walls, harsh white LED lights flickering violently, and, in the center of the giant vault, a colossal machine that made the ground shake with a deafening, low hum.
The device looked like a giant gyroscope, its metal rings spinning slowly around a spherical core. On the computer monitors surrounding the main console, Peter recognized lines of code that made his stomach turn. If he had eaten anything more than that single churro in the last forty-eight hours, he probably would have thrown up right then and there: they were stolen Stark Industries patents, crudely hacked to force open quantum micro-portals.
"I told you, idiot. The bug followed us," a voice hissed from below.
The man who had escaped through the vent was standing next to four other heavily armed mercenaries. In front of them, a man in a lab coat and safety goggles was typing frantically on the main console, completely ignoring his soldiers' panic.
"It doesn't matter," the scientist replied, his voice completely devoid of sanity. "The generator is already at ninety percent capacity. If that vigilante interferes now, the quantum field fluctuation will vaporize everyone within a three-block radius. Tell him to run along if he values his pathetic life."
Peter sighed behind his mask, flexing his hands in his homemade gloves.
Why couldn't mad scientists ever pick up a normal hobby? Like gardening?
"Hey, everyone!" Peter called out, dropping from the beam with his arms spread wide. "Sorry to crash the illegal quantum physics convention, but I'm pretty sure this underground lab violates several city safety codes. And trust me, I'm a real stickler for the rules."
"Just shoot him, for fuck's sake." the mercenary leader roared.
The room erupted into a chaos of blue and purple light. The Chitauri-modified weapons thundered, firing blasts that melted the metal support beams and punched clean holes through the concrete walls.
Peter moved like a red and blue blur. His spider-sense was running at maximum capacity, letting him predict the trajectory of every single shot a millisecond before it was fired. He flipped through the air, launched himself off a column, and kicked one of the guards hard enough to send him crashing into a pile of supply crates.
"Aim for his legs!" another shouted.
"Great idea, but my legs are actually pretty fast" Peter shot back, firing two web-lines to the ceiling to swing over their heads, dodging a crossfire of plasma.
The fight was a blur of adrenaline and pure exhaustion. Despite his speed, Peter's body was protesting. The dull ache of hunger and the accumulated fatigue of the last two months were finally catching up to him. His reflexes were a millisecond slower than they should have been, and his breathing was growing heavy and ragged under the mask.
One last push, he told himself, gritting his teeth. Just have to destroy the console.
He landed hard on the control desk, narrowly dodging a beam of energy that blew the main monitor to pieces. The scientist stumbled backward in terror as Peter began ripping the cables out of the console with his superhuman strength.
"No, stop!" the scientist screamed. "If you disconnect the flow stabilizers now, the core will collapse! The reactor's gravity will become unstable!"
That... actually made sense. Peter realized, just for a second, that if he’d had more sleep, more food in his system, and... well, a better life in general lately, he probably would have anticipated that. But as he had been proving to himself for months now, he couldn't seem to get involved in anything without completely ruining it.
A deafening, metallic screech echoed through the cavern.
The generator's core, which had been spinning smoothly, ground to a sudden halt. The purple light inside flared into a violent, blinding white. Peter felt every single hair on his body stand on end. The air around him grew incredibly dense and heavy, as if the atmosphere itself was being crushed under a titanic pressure.
And then, gravity failed.
Loose papers, tools, shattered screens, and even the unconscious mercenaries began to drift upward, freed from the Earth's pull. Peter felt his feet lift off the metal floor. He tried to shoot a web to anchor himself to a beam, but the shot bent wildly, sucked into the vortex of white energy tearing open at the center of the generator.
His spider-sense wasn't just warning him anymore; it was emitting a high-pitched, deafening squeal that blocked out all other sound. His very quantum signature—already weakened and fractured by Doctor Strange's spell—began to resonate violently with the unstable reactor. The universe no longer had a firm hold on Peter Parker, and this machine had just unlocked the door.
"Oh..." was all Peter could whisper as the vortex's forcefield expanded toward him.
An immense gravitational pull slammed into his chest, a pressure so crushing he couldn't draw breath. His cells vibrated at an agonizing frequency, making him feel as though he was tearing apart from the inside out. The physical pain was so sharp it stole the remaining air from his lungs.
The last image he had of his universe was the blinding flash of the collapsing reactor and the sound of his own ragged breathing echoing inside his mask.
And then, absolute silence.
No up, no down. Just a freefall through an endless, quiet dark, where the laws of physics slipped through his fingers like sand.