Chapter Text
His derelict studio apartment was so cold when Peter woke up that the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the mist of his own breath. He had barely been able to scrape together the money for his rent last week and had ended up having to make the choice between food or heating for the rest of the month. It was a bitterly cold February in New York City, and the apartment was old and poorly maintained, with cracks in the plaster and holes in the floorboards that let cruel draughts into the sparsely furnished space, but Peter had a superpowered metabolism that required significantly more caloric intake than the average person. The choice hadn't been that hard to make. Peter shivered as he got up, the single bed creaking as he stood, and wrapped the still-warm(ish) patchwork quilt around his shoulders.
The quilt was one of the few things Peter had managed to salvage from the ruins of Happy's condo, along with some helpful pieces of broken tech that Peter hoped he would be able to fix eventually. The quilt had already been old and well-loved before the explosion, but it now had several large scorch marks and holes in it. To the untrained eye, the quilt probably looked like it belonged in the trash but to Peter it was the most beautiful thing in his small apartment.
It had been made by his Aunt May when Peter was still small and used to reside on the back of the couch in the apartment they shared until Peter's whole life had been upended at the hands of Quentin Beck. Peter and May had only taken a few small boxes of possessions with them when they moved into Happy's place, thinking the relocation would only be temporary while they sorted out the identity-reveal mess. Most of the stuff in the building had been beyond saving, including all of Peter's clothes and most of his Spider-Man tech (other than the suit he had been wearing during the explosion). Peter had only managed to sneak past the security perimeter of Damage Control agents and police officers that surrounded the ruined apartment complex once, and he had fallen to his knees in the rubble and broken down in great, heaving sobs when he had unearthed the frayed fabric of May's quilt.
Because the spell that Doctor Strange had had to use to reverse the multiversal damage from Peter's first attempt at magical problem solving had required that the world forget Peter Parker entirely, legally speaking, Peter no longer existed. He couldn't go back to the apartment that he used to share with May, because as far as the government was concerned, he had never lived there. He couldn't even make a claim to the rest of their stuff, let alone May's will. The damaged quilt and his own memories were the only remnants of his life with his aunt that Peter had left.
Peter tried to shake himself out of his morose thoughts as he carefully placed the quilt back on his bed and got dressed, squeezing into the fabric of his new hand-made Spider-Man suit. He might be freezing, hungry (the money he was saving on heating only went so far), and entirely alone in the universe, but he couldn't waste time wallowing in self-pity. The world may not remember Peter Parker, but it still needed Spider-Man. As his aunt had made sure he would always remember, his special abilities came with a responsibility that he had to shoulder, no matter what.
It wasn't all bad; Peter managed a quick breakfast of home-brand protein flakes with milk that only smelled a little off and the bitter dregs of yesterday's coffee before the jury-rigged police scanner he had set up went off, something that only happened on good days. Usually, the criminals of New York weren't polite enough to allow Peter time to eat before they started on their dastardly plans. Most of the time they didn't even let him sleep, but last night he had managed a whole four-and-a-half hours between crawling in the window, nursing a bruised rib and a strained shoulder, and waking up this morning to his cold apartment. He'd even gotten enough sleep that his injuries were at least 80% healed! Today, Peter decided as he pulled his mask on and climbed out of his window onto the fire escape below, was going to be a good day.
Peter reached out, shooting a web onto the nearest building and swung across the street, smiling slightly behind the fabric that obscured his identity, as he felt the wind woosh past his ears. It was a little quiet inside his suit these days, since he could no longer access the Stark Industries tech that had provided Karen, the AI that had lived in his old suits. Peter had never relied on Karen the same way that he knew Mr. Stark had relied on JARVIS and FRIDAY, but he had gotten used to having her around to chat to on patrol and he missed the comforting sound of her artificial voice. Peter hoped that maybe, when he got around to fixing up the tech remnants he had found at Happy's, he would be able to create his own AI. It would be nice to have someone to talk to again.
It didn't take long for Peter to reach the bodega that his police scanner had alerted him was being robbed by several armed men. He arrived at the scene, perching on a streetlight across the road, and quickly took stock of the situation. Through the slightly fogged-up window, Peter could see three men in ski masks gathered around the cashier, two of them gesticulating angrily with guns in their hands, the third standing with his arms crossed in what Peter supposed was an intimidating stance. There were five customers that had gotten caught up in the robbery who were sitting together on the floor, huddled by the front counter.
Taking a moment to formulate a plan, Peter did a couple of stretches before he swung off the streetlight and pushed his way through the front door. The robbers had tried to barricade the door by shoving a metal shelf full of cereal boxes and Twinkies in front of it, but Peter barely noticed the extra weight. The usually friendly tinkle of the bell above the door was lost a little amongst the screeching of metal on linoleum as Peter easily pushed the shelf aside.
One of the captive customers screamed, and the robbers turned towards Peter in unison. The cashier, a sweet looking older lady, took the reprieve from the masked men's attention to quickly duck under the counter. Peter could hear sirens several blocks away, which meant the police weren't too far off – that was nice, thought Peter, he might even get to hand these assholes over personally. Normally the cops were much slower than him, and Peter usually ended up just webbing the criminals up and would be well on his way to the next incident before the police arrived on the scene. Peter hoped that new police captain – DeWolff, he thinks her name is – would be one of the responders. She liked him more than most police officers.
"Get out of here, Spider-Man," growled the unarmed robber.
"Woah, woah, woah, can't a guy just have a craving for Twinkies?" said Peter, picking up a package of the processed cakes and holding it up innocently.
"We warned you," said the tallest robber, pulling back the trigger on his gun.
The guy was a terrible shot; Peter barely blinked as he easily dodged the bullet. It went straight through a can of Spaghetti-O's before lodging in the wall, sending a small explosion of sauce at Peter. He dodged most of it, but a few pieces landed on his mask, right over his goggles. Peter wrinkled his nose – gross. He wiped his face with the back of one hand and used the other to throw the pack of Twinkies at the robber that fired the shot. Peter's aim was true; the gun went flying, and Peter quickly webbed it out of the air and stuck it to the ceiling.
"Man, it's like taking candy from a baby," Peter said, as he easily webbed the other gun from the second masked man, attaching it to the first gun.
The robbers were starting to look a lot less confident, now. The one who had been unarmed from the start decided to make a break for it, trying to rush out the door, but Peter did a rolling jump the floor, kicked off the ceiling and landed in front of the man before he'd even managed three paces.
"Going somewhere?" said Peter in a friendly voice, shooting two webs in a row at the man, sticking his arms to his sides and causing him to topple over.
"Get fu-," Peter cut the robber off with a quick web to the mouth.
"Dude, didn't your mother ever teach you not to swear in front of ladies?" said Peter, shaking his head in mock disappointment.
By this point, the two remaining robbers seemed to have realized the sticky situation they were in and had both put their hands in the air in surrender.
"Aw thanks, guys! It's always so much easier when you don't put up such a fuss," said Peter, webbing the two men together and pushing them down to sit next to their accomplice.
"You're an ass-," one of them started, before Peter shut his mouth for him.
"Honestly, the lip on criminals these days," said Peter, turning to the captive customers. "Everyone okay?"
They all nodded shakily, starting to help each other up from the floor. Peter offered his hand to an older gentleman and patted a young woman on the shoulder. The cashier stood up from behind the counter and came around it to shake Peter's hand and offer him thanks. She tried to offer him free snacks, but before Peter could reply, the cops finally arrived.
"We've got it from here, Spider-Man," said a uniformed officer, somewhat ungratefully Peter thought, as she entered the small shop.
"You're welcome for doing your job for you," Peter called over his shoulder, gesturing at the webbed criminals who were squirming as though still trying to swear at him, as he stepped over them and walked back out the doors.
Captain DeWolff was with the squad that had arrived and was waiting for Peter as he exited the bodega. She was wearing her usual brown trench coat and had a steaming cup of coffee in hand.
"Is that for me?" Peter asked, eyeing the coffee hopefully.
"You know, my guys can handle this sort of thing on their own," said DeWolff, politely ignoring Peter's question.
"I was in the neighborhood," said Peter, shrugging.
DeWolff raised an eyebrow. "It's not even 9am, and I know for a fact you were dealing with Scorpion until at least 4am last night. Don't you ever sleep?"
"Spiders don't need sleep?" Peter said, questioningly.
"I can tell from your voice that even you don't believe that one. Go take a nap, kid," DeWolff said over her shoulder as she entered the crime scene.
"Aye-aye, captain," said Peter with a flippant salute, before he swung himself away from the scene and onto a nearby rooftop.
Peter took a moment to wipe the rest of the Spaghetti-O slime from his mask and take stock of his body. That had been a ridiculously easy bust, and he hadn't even had to twist at a funny angle to avoid the single shot that was fired. His ribs were still a tiny bit sore after last night, but he hadn't picked up any new injuries. Even though it hadn't been very long since he had breakfast, his stomach rumbled, and Peter wished he had been able to take the nice cashier up on her offer of free snacks, but with the police swarming around now it would be too embarrassing to go back in and ask for them. Hopefully today would continue to go to plan, Peter thought, and he would be able to stop back at his apartment for a snack before something else required his assistance.
Just as this thought occurred to him, of course, a glowing portal like the kind Doctor Strange could conjure appeared in the alleyway between buildings that Peter was looking down into. The portal glowed for a moment and sort of pulsed before spitting out a man, who stumbled briefly before quickly righting himself. The man was tall and muscular, with black hair that curled gently over his forehead, and he was wearing a blue bodysuit with red trunks, red boots, a yellow belt and a red cape. There was a logo on his chest that sort of looked like a shield with an angular S shape inside of it.
Peter had seen and experienced a lot of strange things in his short life. He had been bitten by a radioactive spider and woken up with superpowers. He had fought Captain America and then fought alongside him and the other Avengers. He had been to space and fought an actual giant, purple alien. He had met alternate versions of himself from different universes. He had died and come back to life 5 years later. But he had never seen anything like this.
Unless Peter was finally going crazy, the man that had stepped out of the portal was none other than legendary comic book character and the original hero himself – Superman.