Chapter Text
Time. Space. Reality. It’s more than a linear path. It’s a prism of endless possibility, where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know.
I am the Watcher.
I am your guide through these vast new realities.
Follow me and ponder the question, ”what if?”.
Earth, 2023. Five years ago, the Avengers lost their climactic battle on the plains and forests of Wakanda, failing to stop Thanos from collecting the six Infinity Stones and wiping out half of all life. Now, the Avengers had come back together, having pulled off a desperate plan, a time heist, to assemble the Stones in a different way, to restore those who had been wiped out, erased from reality.
We know how it plays out. We know that their plan went awry in the year 2014, when Nebula was captured by that version of Thanos, who sent the 2014 version of Nebula back in her place, allowing the 2014 version of Thanos to come forward in time, with the full might of his forces, intent on seizing the Stones for himself. We know that the battle was desperate; that the Avengers Compound was blasted to rubble; that the restored Avengers came together; that Thanos managed to overpower them regardless and seize the Stones; that Tony Stark stole the Stones and used them to disintegrate Thanos and his army, giving his life in the process.
That all happened in this timeline as well. Nothing here changed. Rather, this timeline branched from the main timeline due to the previous actions of Thanos, when he snapped his fingers and wiped out half of all life. We know that the Snap was random, that people disintegrated at random, and we know who Vanished and who remained. But the fact that the Snap was random was also the very fact that created uncountable branching timelines, one of which is this one.
In this one, the Avengers, and the other heroes and villains, and most everyone else, Vanished or remained as in the main timeline. No, in this timeline, the difference was to someone else.
But that happens later.
Peter Parker was no stranger to death. At the age of five, he’d moved in permanently with his uncle and aunt. At age fourteen, he’d watched helplessly as his uncle bled out in front of him. Since he’d put on the mask and strapped on his web-shooters, there were times (thankfully, very few) when he’d been too late to save someone.
It still didn’t prepare him for losing Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark was Iron Man; he’d been a superhero long before Peter had gotten his own powers, and somehow, Peter had expected him to always be there. But that naive belief had cracked, shattered, been burned to ashes, and the reality was that the larger-than-life superhero, a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist, the creator of the arc reactor and how many other inventions, was now lying in the dirt, half his body scorched and ruined, barely conscious and fading fast.
And then he was gone.
Peter didn’t quite remember much of what happened after. Miss Potts (apparently Missus Potts-Stark now) had allowed Peter to help in bringing Mr. Stark’s body to a part of the Compound that was relatively clean, but after that, had quietly let him know that someone would let him know about the funeral details.
As it happened, just at that moment, his suit rang with a phone call.
“Hello?”
“Peter? Oh thank god, Peter,” there was no disguising the shock and relief and tears in his aunt’s voice. “Are you safe? Are you hurt? Are you-”
“May, May, I’m fine, relax, I’m… well, I’m at the Compound-”
“The Compound?” The line was clear enough to hear her alarm. “Reports say that there’s some kind of battle there, are you sure-”
“May, it’s fine, it’s over, and no, no, I’m not really hurt,” Peter reassured his aunt. “Hey, where are you, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m at F.E.A.S.T. It’s been bedlam, with everyone returning and all, and I’m just glad you’re back,” she replied, then paused. “Wait. If you’re at the Compound… how did you get there, anyway? Is there any way you can get back? Are you sure you’re safe?”
“Yeah, the fight’s done, and I’m fine. Yeah, I, uhm, I…”
“What’s wrong?”
“May… Mr. Stark…” Peter found himself unable to say more, as his grief came up through his chest and seized him by the throat.
“Oh… Peter,” May replied, and in the back of his mind, Peter could hear a mix of emotions in her voice. Granted that Mr. Stark was not May’s favorite person, but that didn’t quite account for the way she was talking. But it wasn’t too important right now. “I… well. I… guess I’m sorry, to hear about that.”
“Yeah,” Peter mumbled, not wanting to prod, and suddenly tired. “Hey, uh, can you send me the address? I’ll meet you there.”
“Of course, of course. I’ll see you soon, yes?”
“See you, May. Love you.”
“Love you too. Take care. See you soon, or you’re grounded for the rest of time.”
It wasn’t easy getting from the ruins of the Compound, which was located in upstate New York, to New York City proper, considering the lack of tall buildings to swing from. Still, the Black Panther himself had noticed Peter’s dilemma, and had very kindly instructed one of the Wakandan flyers to bring him to the city, and soon enough, Peter was web-swinging from the buildings, looking down with greater and greater dismay at the signs of neglect and hardship that had apparently struck the city while he had been gone. Five years was a long time, and he wondered just how May had been.
And then he wondered; had May been dusted, too? Or had she remained while he had been, for all intents and purposes, dead and gone? All alone? It hadn’t occurred to Peter to wonder just before then, and he almost dialed her number again, but chose not to; if he dialed her out of the blue while she knew that he was heading her way, all he would do would be to cause her to panic for a moment. Still, wouldn’t it be better if she could hear him?
In the end, he decided against calling her again; he wasn’t that far from the address she’d sent him, and in a few moments, he was in sight of the building.
Which had a large crowd in front, which crowd was growing even as he watched, from where he’d perched on the side of a building. Even as he watched, though, and scanned the crowd, first one, than another person, noticed him, and started spreading the word. In what seemed to be the blink of an eye, the crowd was cheering, welcoming him back.
Peter guessed that that answered the question of whether the city had missed him while he was gone, but even as he waved, he scanned the crowd, looking.
And then he saw her, rushing out of the doors, and even from as far away as he was, he could see the way her shoulders slumped in relief, just for a while, before she pulled herself together and pretended that Spider-Man wasn’t also her nephew.
Grinning under his mask, unable to help himself, Peter dropped down. Still and all, though, he couldn’t just rush up to May and hug her in front of the crowd, so with a heaping dose of regret, he started talking to the crowd, getting their stories, listening, getting them settled down so that the organizers could help.
It took some time, but eventually, as the crowd thinned and settled down into organized lines and clumps, May (who, as it turned out, was now the Director of F.E.A.S.T.) managed to find time to thank Spider-Man, and invite him into her office for a snack and a coffee, and of course, Spider-Man graciously thanked her and accepted the invite.
The door had barely closed behind them when she was hugging him tight enough to feel even through his armor, and weeping tears of joy and relief, and he was hugging her back in return and crying.
And she was telling him of what had happened, over the past five years. How half the world had Vanished, and the other half had been left to pick up the pieces. How she, along with others, had stepped up, to try and make things a little better, wherever and however they could.
“I’m sorry, May,” Peter looked down, remembering the fight on Titan, on having the gauntlet within his grasp and Thanos yanking it away. “I… if we had been-”
“No,” she cut him off, holding his face firmly in her hands, “it’s not on you. You did your best, and it shouldn’t ever have been up to you, anyway. I’m just glad that you’re back.”
He smiled at her. “Yeah, and I’m here to stay. It’s just me and you.”
Her eyes changed slightly, almost imperceptibly, as she released his face. “Actually, that reminds me. Wanna get out of here?”
“Uh, okay?”
Sneaking away and finding a place to remove the Iron Spider, and then coming back in civilian clothes, wasn’t easy; in the end, the solution he came up with was to simply walk back out the door as Spider-Man, web-swing away, find a secluded place to change, and then walk to the sidewalk and wait as May pulled up in…
“Uh, May? Since when do we have a SUV? And what happened to your old Volvo?” Peter goggled at his aunt’s grinning face.
“Hop in, kiddo,” she replied, chuckling, and he obeyed. As he closed the door and put on the seatbelt, she put the car in gear and set off. “Well, it was a bribe from Stark, but one I eventually accepted. Oh, don’t give me that. To be fair to him, he was apologetic and guilty for getting you killed up there, and, well, I know, intellectually, that he means well, but it comes off as, well, totally extra, you know what I mean,” she half-explained, and Peter nodded, knowing exactly what his aunt meant. “In any case, I still have the Volvo, but I use this more often now. Better mileage, and, well.”
“Huh, and next you’re going to tell me, Mr. Stark gave you a new apartment,” Peter nodded, joking, then pausing at the look on his aunt’s face. “May.”
She shrugged, looking a combination of sheepish and smug. “I didn’t want anything to do with him at first, but he eventually wore me down, and well, one thing led to another, and,” she shrugged.
“May!” Despite himself, Peter was grinning.
The rest of the ride passed in companionable silence, and soon enough, they were pulling up into an underground garage of a fairly upscale apartment building. As they walked to the elevator, though, and as they rode the elevator up to the penthouse (!), Peter noticed his aunt’s shoulders tightening in tension, causing him to reach out and gently grasp hold of her arm as they paused in front of the door. “May? Everything all right?”
“Well, there’s something I haven’t told you yet,” May admitted, unlocking and opening the door and ushering them in. Inside, the apartment was larger than any place they’d ever lived in before, but with the touch of home that had the signature of May Parker all over it. Pictures and books on the shelves, the smell of Thai, the laundry basket off to the side, a neat stack of papers on the coffee table in front of the couch beside an open schoolbag…
Wait.
Why would there be an open schoolbag?
“Uh, May? Is there someone…” Peter’s voice trailed off, as soft, light footsteps presaged the appearance of a red-headed girl, about ten or eleven, looking at him with wary politeness. “Oh. Hi. Hello. I, uhm, I’m Peter, Parker, Peter Parker. Uhm. What’s your name?”
May moved around Peter to crouch down beside the girl’s side and place a comforting hand on her shoulder, and quietly say “hey, remember what I said, earlier? That’s not changing, alright? Go on.”
The girl nodded and firmed her lips, then waved to Peter, a little shy still, a little wary perhaps, maybe even a little tense, but well-mannered and polite. “Hi Peter, I’m Jean.”
May smiled at Peter, sheepish, but with the tension leaving her shoulders. “Peter, meet your new, well, not so much legally, but maybe it’s better you think of her as your new sister.”
In this timeline, May Parker wasn’t Blipped together with her nephew. Someone else was; it’s not important who. What is important is the fact that May remained while Peter was gone.
And one other thing.
The Blip had people vanish in the middle of daily life. Some were at home, some at school or work, some doing chores, some commuting.
The person who vanished in May’s place was one of the latter, and when they Vanished, it didn’t mean that the vehicle that they were driving did.
Which meant that Jean and Sara never had the chance to experience a parent who turned against them because they had special abilities. Nor, in fact, would Sara ever have the chance to even develop those abilities in the first place, or teach Jean about hers.
What was more important, for this timeline, was that Jean Grey was a child, and was suddenly an orphan, and May Parker was there, having lost her own nephew at the time. And that even in the midst of her own grief, May Parker was not a woman who could ever turn away a child who needed help.
And so Jean lost her older sister, only to gain an older brother a few years down the road, and Peter gained a younger sister. And this monumental change would cause far more changes down the timeline; a cascade of them, in fact.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves.