Chapter Text
The great secret about Spider-Man’s identity, was that he was a nobody.
There wasn’t anyone under the mask, no one real, anyway. No one that could ever be remembered. The name of Peter Parker couldn’t even be whispered on the wind. It was worse than an oblivion, for he was still alive to witness his un-existence. It was like his own little It’s a Wonderful Life. Except he couldn’t choose to reverse it or else everyone he’d ever known and loved would die, and every sacrifice, whether by him or others, wouldn’t have mattered.
Even if he took the mask off, no one would know him. So JJJ could suck it.
Peter sat on the roof of Midtown High, still his quiet safe place. His heart ached whenever he came here, expecting his friends to find him, but knowing that that was an impossible dream.
The streetlights were his own version of stars. As cool as space was, he preferred being grounded. And with his identity erased, Beck’s damage had been more or less undone, letting him finally be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man again.
It wasn’t the same.
He’d only been Spider-Man a few months before Tony had found him, and then Ned quickly joined as his “Guy In The Chair.” He hadn’t had to do this alone in . . . so long. It felt wrong. Like he was always screwing up. Everything he touched came to ruin.
Peter slowly breathed out and rubbed his face. He could still do good. That’s what they’d taught him. One final lesson.
“With great power, comes great responsibility.”
This was his responsibility, because he had the power to take that responsibility. The world almost ended because of his selfishness once, that didn’t need to happen again.
He just . . . missed them. He was so exhausted. He wanted his secret handshake with Ned, to kiss MJ, to get a hug from May and listen to her tell him how proud she was.
He’d give anything for that.
Peter sniffed and wiped his nose with a gloved hand. He should get back to work, patrol was almost done. Then he could go back to his apartment and get ready to start all over again. He pulled the mask back on his face and took a running leap off the school, webbing away back into the heart of the city.
“I really hate magic!”
He dodged out of the way of another spell that did who-knew-what. Where was Dr. Strange when you needed him?
“Stay still, bug!”
“Arachnid! Man, they really gotta fix the curriculum for that, I can’t solve a lifetime's worth of misunderstandings all on my own- whoa!!” He ducked, a beam of green shot over his head from the fuming wizard. “Come on, can’t we talk about this? Magic is getting kind of old.”
The wizard growled. An honest to gods growl.
“Please tell me you aren’t part animal, I had to deal with five super humans a couple months ago and I-” A blast threw him into the brick wall behind him. That would be sore for a while. Spider-Man pulled away from the rubble and quickly pulled a turned over car in front of him as a second blast blew a hole through it. “Really??”
Magic Man’s fingers twitched. “The Sanctum Sanctorum. If I can just get the Eye- I can fix everything.”
“Uhhh, hate to tell you this buddy, but the time stone was atomized. Like. A long time ago.”
“Liar!” A magic whip wrapped around the car and pulled it away as the wizard threw a mailbox at his face.
Spider-Man groaned and webbed up to a lamppost, jumping from one to another as each one exploded. JJJ was gonna flame him for this. He should just go get Strange, magic was his territory anyway. Sure, Strange didn’t know him anymore, but surely he’d want to protect the Sanctum.
Right. Good plan.
He shot a web toward a corner building intent on doing just that, before a bright flash cut though his webbing and left him to scramble for a new web.
Magic Man was muttering under his breath. Over and over: “I must go back, I must go back.”
Glowing tendrils raced after Spider-Man, and he dodged as many as he could before one finally managed to snag his ankle and thrash him against the ground hard enough he could feel his head crack.
More tendrils wrapped around him and dragged him down the road to the wizard.
Magic Man grinned manically. “I will go back. With or without the Eye.”
Spider-Man groaned in pain. “Ohh, that doesn’t sound good.”
The tendrils whipped around and tossed him into another building, he crashed through three walls before everything stopped and he could take a second to breathe. “Yeah. That’s not- great.” He was pretty sure he broke a rib. And he didn’t have access to nearly as many calories as he needed for his healing factor. He . . . might have to call out of work tomorrow.
He let out a wheeze as he stood, bits of drywall and brick dust rained off his suit as he walked back to the hole in the wall.
A green light overtook the empty street, a sphere that grew bigger and brighter with every second as Magic Man continued to mutter and wave his hands. No time to call Strange, that wizard was doing something and it made his tingle go haywire. He had to take out Magic Man and hope the spell dissipated. Right.
He popped his back and leapt onto a roof, crawling along the top until he could launch himself down and land square on the wizard’s chest, knocking him to the side. The green orb wobbled and thrummed ominously.
“That’s not going to explode or something, right?”
“NO!” Magic Man screamed. “No- no- no! What have you done?”
“You’re the one casting spells-” Gravity promptly pulled Spider-Man the wrong direction, his body lifted from the asphalt and oriented toward the orb. “Crap- what is this?”
“It’s a time spell you idiot.”
Spider-Man was only half listening, focused on not getting caught up in another spell and causing some other cataclysmic event. He shot a web at the ground, hoping to pull himself out of the spell’s orbit. But then- nothing came out.
His eyes widened and he looked at his web shooters. Empty.
He barely had time to even think of a curse before the green light overtook his vision and it all went black.