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True love’s kiss breaks the spell and reunites the star-crossed lovers.
Maybe Jean got a better look inside his brain than either of them thought. Or maybe it didn’t take a psychic to read the loneliness in every aching muscle and split lip no one cared enough to ask about.
“I don’t love you,” MJ says, and maybe it’s just Peter’s enhanced senses, but the sound of his hopes shattering echoes off the warehouse walls.
He nods. There’s something hollow nesting behind his broken ribs where his heart used to be.
“I’m sorry,” MJ continues, and he can tell she means it. “But I don’t even know you.”
It’s not her fault, but he can’t quite summon the words to say that past the lump lodged in his throat like a grenade. Oh, he’s dreamt of this moment a million times over. He rehearsed what he would say. But this?
All MJ can offer him is pity. Pity for that stupid spell, and the stupid multiverse breaking apart, and for this loner who can’t move on from a girl who no longer exists.
How is he supposed to mourn someone still living? How is he supposed to lose people over and over again and stay standing?
“I should probably go,” MJ says. Peter just nods again.
Would this have gone any differently if he’d told her three years ago? If she’d heard the words from his mouth and not on a crumpled piece of paper?
God, he hates magic.
MJ walks out of the door, and Spider-Man lets her. Peter Parker died with his last prayer, and there’s no one left to visit his headstone.
Getting shot hurts.
He’s been shot before. And stabbed. And had broken ribs, a concussion, and the thousand other things he can self-diagnose just from wriggling around the hospital bed.
Frank’s crying, though, so it must be serious.
For three years, his identity was his biggest secret. Spider-Man could help people. Spider-Man had allies and coworkers. Spider-Man left the house and travelled farther than the deli.
Peter Parker, on the other hand… Well, keeping his identity a secret was a moot point, if he’s being honest with himself. Doctor Strange had always been a thorough man, and so was the spell. Peter Parker had no legal documents, no photos, no digital records, no life. He was nothing. He could web people to lampposts in hoodies and sweats in broad daylight and no one would be able to put a name to his face, because he rarely even spoke it out loud.
Really, he should be freaking out more about being unmasked in the middle of Metro General with several cards, balloons, and a drawing of him in the spider-suit with his mask off propped up on the dresser next to his bed, but he feels nothing.
Either the hospital figured out the dosage of drugs needed for his metabolism, or he’s just comforted by the thought of Frank watching over him.
If there’s one thing he can rely on the Punisher for, it’s threats of bodily violence. And then following through.
Oh, he can’t even be mad about getting shot when he can hold these tears over Frank’s head for the rest of eternity.
“When you’re ready to split, I’ve got a plan,” Frank says, leaning back against the wall.
His smirk is always Peter’s frown.
Walking through the crowd of people outside, he can’t complain about Frank’s shenanigans. He can hear him cheering from inside, and has to resist the urge to throw him a thumbs up right back through the window.
The crowd eats it up, though. And staring up at his own mask, Peter finally sees what the rest of the world sees.
Spider-Man isn’t the next Tony Stark. He isn’t an Avenger, or an agent of SHIELD, or one of the Department of Damage Control’s lackeys.
A very long time ago, a very wise man told him if you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it.
Who is Spider-Man without Peter Parker? Who is Peter Parker without Spider-Man?
Peter Parker waves at the mask, and Spider-Man waves back.
The crowd parts as he pushes his way through. For the past three years, everyone’s eyes have skated over Peter like there’s antimatter where his body should be. But he knows Frank is watching each uneven step towards home, and that’s all he needs. One person to prove he still exists.
The people who love you? We love you—not because you’re special. We love you because you’re you.
Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? Spider-Man buried Peter Parker six feet underground with May because it was the only thing he could think to do. Everything hurt so much. He washed the blood down the drain and let his bones snap back into place, but there was no cure for the gaping maw in his chest.
Some days, he stood on the corner of Bleecker Street and wondered whether Stephen would wipe his memories of all he’d lost. One more spell, to cancel out the one that tore his life to shreds.
But that was his burden to carry. Because who was he, really, without all the people he lost? Without Tony’s guidance and MJ’s determined reassurance and Ned’s unwavering loyalty? Without Ben’s blood on his hands and that soft, fading memory of the last hug from his parents?
Who was he without May’s voice in his ear?
I want you to remember that when it feels like you’re totally alone.
Peter Parker spent three years determined to do everything by himself. But the world doesn’t work like that. It sent him Frank, and Yelena, and DeWolff. It entwined his lives with Ned and MJ, even if they weren’t the people he used to know.
And it sent him Jean, to show him what had been in front of his face the whole time.
Peter Parker had never been truly alone.
That’s your deepest responsibility.
And maybe—just maybe—it’s time Spider-Man finally remembers he has the power to bring Peter Parker back.
A week after New York nearly blows up—again— Peter hovers, caught halfway between the deli checkout and a boy he used to know all grown into a man.
Oh, fuck it. What does he have left to lose?
The thorns dig into his hand. Half of him wishes he’d put them back as soon as he decided to do this, and the other half is just glad he has something to cling to.
“Oh, you’re flower guy? From the party, right?” Ned says, clicking his fingers.
Peter prays he doesn’t remember the stupid fake name he came up with. “I’m Peter.”
Ned holds out his hand. Peter shakes it, hoping he can’t tell that his polite smile is like a dagger straight through the chest.
Stupid. Stupid. What did he think would happen? Ned would recognise his voice? His touch would be enough to break the spell? That he would slowly pull his hand back, fingers outstretched, elbows touching…
They both stare at each other, hands hanging limply in the air.
Muscle memory. It’s just instinct, and instinct isn’t the same as memory. Maybe he uses the same handshake with all his new MIT friends, and now Peter just looks like a stalker, and maybe he should just blurt out that he’s Spider-Man right in the middle of Delmar’s so that Ned doesn’t think he’s—
“Peter?”
“Yeah,” he says, voice croaking. His hope reaches that beautiful, sparkling crescendo—the note hanging from MJ’s fingers, the wave in the donut shop, the unrelenting three year dream that everyone would snap out of it—and then he crashes back down to reality.
Ned doesn’t say anything. By all means, Peter’s just a loner who’s failed another social interaction.
“Right,” he says. He squares his shoulders like he’s about to go into battle and gestures towards the counter with the flowers. A few petals cascade to the floor. “I better go pay for these. I’ll just leave you to it.”
He’s halfway out the door when Ned’s hand lands on his shoulder. Peter flinches. When was the last time someone touched him without meaning harm?
He looks up slowly, following the trail of Ned’s hand up his neck and to the wide-eyed, tear-stained expression on his face.
“Peter,” he says. “How did—how could I ever forget you?”
Ned frogmarches him over to his apartment, clinging onto his elbow like Peter might break away and run for his life. He has the strength to break free, and he thinks about it a few times. But he has too many questions.
“How?” is the main one. Followed by, “How much?” and “Why now?”
Ned doesn’t have any answers, except that he looked up and saw Peter there, and it was like everything clicked into place.
Nothing has ever been that easy in his life. I don’t love you bounces around his skull like a gunshot, and he’s not sure whether the aching in his chest is from the still-healing bullet wound or his heart knitting itself back together one piece at a time.
Oh, if this is a fluke, or a prank, or Jean messing with him again, Peter won’t survive the disappointment.
Ned shoves Peter through the door. He stands in their living room, flowers clutched to his chest, feeling like that scared teenager that lost everything in one night.
MJ walks out of her bedroom with her hands on her hips. “What’s all the noise—oh, Peter, you’re not dead.”
Flat. The kind of care a stranger might offer to a lost kitten, and nothing close to the way his heart stops every time he catches a glimpse of her.
“This is stupid,” he says. He turns and tries to duck past Ned, but he’s having none of it.
“Nuh uh,” Ned says, shoving Peter backwards with enough force he stumbles back a few paces. “I get it. You chickened out of telling us. But I’m not letting you get out of this one so easy, Spider-Man.”
“Oh good,” MJ says. “You told him.”
Ned looks at her, open-mouthed. Then his eyes narrow at Peter.
“I wasn’t gonna tell either of you!” he says, holding his hands up in surrender. “She figured it out, I didn’t—”
“Again?” Ned says. “You have got to get better at this secret identity thing, dude.”
“I don’t… I am good at it,” Peter says. He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince. “Listen, I just think it’s some kind of fluke.”
“What’s a fluke?” MJ asks, leaning on the kitchen counter.
Peter looks down at the flowers. There won’t be any petals left by the time he delivers them to May’s grave. If the universe takes this away from him again, if the spell kicks back in…
“That necklace,” Ned says, pointing at MJ’s chest. Peter hadn’t even noticed the chain around her neck. “You wear it all the time. Where did you get it?”
MJ reaches under her shirt collar and tugs out the broken black dahlia from all those years ago. She turns the shattered glass over in her fingers, like she’s seeing it for the first time. “It’s my favourite. Peter bought it for me, because of the murder…”
Her eyes snap up.
Peter isn’t sure whether he wants to sink through the floor or run into her arms.
“Peter,” she says, rolling the syllables around her mouth like she’s never spoken them before.
“She’s remembering!” Ned crows. “I knew it!”
MJ takes a halting step forward. She tilts her head. And then: “Peter Parker, you lying little—” and punches him in the face.
God, his spidey sense didn’t warn him about that slugger. Peter stumbles backwards, dropping the flowers as his hands fly up to his nose. MJ swings for him again, and this time, he has the wherewithal to duck.
“What are you doing?” Ned shouts.
“I literally just got out of the hospital—” Peter tries.
“You promised,” MJ hisses.
“Woah, woah.” Ned stands in the middle of them, hands outstretched like he’s trying to calm two wild horses. “Chill out, guys.”
“In my defense,” Peter says, tipping his head back so the blood drips down his throat and not onto their white rug, “I did tell you, and it went about as well as I expected.”
MJ falters. “I didn’t—I’m sorry.” Oh god, there’s tears in her eyes. Why has everyone been crying so much over the past few days? “I didn’t remember you. Why do I remember now?”
“I don’t—” Peter starts, but then he really thinks about it. An apartment within a kilometre of the DODC’s secure facility. A powerful psychic who went rummaging about in his mind. “Jean must’ve restored your memories.”
“She better not be your new girlfriend,” MJ says, like she doesn’t have a new boyfriend.
“Or your new best friend,” Ned adds.
Peter just lets out a wet laugh. Whether it’s blood or tears clogging up his throat… Well, he doesn’t care.
“Come here,” MJ says.
“Don’t punch me again.”
Ned’s already grabbing his shoulder, pulling him in. He wraps his arm around his best friend and the love of his life. The sunset glints through the window, winking above the New York skyline, and he thinks of the dawn when he held the two most important people in his life last.
It’ll be as if you never existed, Stephen told him that morning.
Maybe that version of Peter Parker doesn’t exist anymore. But he lives on, nestled inside the body of the boy who had to keep going. Who kept existing, even when no one would’ve noticed if he stopped.
Spider-Man kept Peter Parker alive for the past three years. It’s time he stopped surviving, and started living.
He’d post Jean a thank you card and a gift basket, if he knew where she ran off to.
Well. He did take a bullet for her. Maybe he’ll call it even.
Thank you, he mouths into the sunset. He buries his face in MJ’s shoulder, and burns this moment into his memory.