Chapter Text
A shadowy figure stood just a few feet away from Lamine.
He knew that it probably would've been smarter to turn around and walk the other way, but a faint whisper in the back of his mind told him to approach the strange figure.
Something about them felt so familiar to Lamine, despite not being able to even see their face or any defining features.
"Hello?" His voice echoed through the seemingly infinite space.
No response.
Lamine decided to get closer and see if he could make out who exactly the figure was.
"Who are you?" He placed a hesitant hand on the figure's shoulder and slowly turned them around.
There was only one feature that he could make out for certain as everything began quickly fading into complete darkness.
Eyes.
Bright green eyes.
"You're not supposed to remember me." The figure finally spoke, their voice sounding completely distorted and almost inhuman.
"What-" Lamine looked right into those green eyes and felt a strange spark course through his entire body. But before he could finish his sentence—
Lamine shot up from his bed with a loud gasp, eyes quickly darting around in a panic before realizing that he was back in his room.
He ran a shaky hand through his curls as he tried to catch his breath.
"Lamine?" Lamine's head shot up towards his door to see his roommate, Gavi, standing in the doorframe with a worried look in his eyes. "What happened? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Lamine let out a deep breath, "Just a bad dream again."
"Again?" Gavi frowned before walking over and sitting at the foot of Lamine's bed. "Was it worse this time?"
"It was the same as usual. But—"
"But?"
"But this time, I saw something." He looked out the window and at the bright full moon now illuminating his room. "I saw their eyes, I've never seen anything other than the black shadow before."
"What were they like?" Gavi gently stroked Lamine's calf with his thumb.
"Beautiful," Lamine finally looked back at Gavi, his eyes now glassy with tears. "They were the prettiest eyes I've ever seen, Gavi."
—
Being Spider-Man meant that Pau Cubarsí never really had an easy day.
His life had been so hectic lately that the thing that brought him the most joy these days was getting to eat undercooked cup ramen in his absolute shoebox of an apartment.
It hadn't always been like that though.
Just four years ago, Pau was living with his sister, applying for universities, and planning for his future with his boyfriend and best friend.
He was happy.
Not to say that there weren't moments where Pau was happy nowadays.
Don't get him wrong, he felt all warm and fuzzy inside whenever he saw kids at the park wearing some form of Spider-Man merchandise as they pretended they were swinging from the monkey bars with webs.
He smiled when people applauded him whenever he apprehended yet another criminal. He laughed when excited teenagers stopped him in the street to show him how they learned how to do a backflip because of him.
Being Spider-Man had an infinite number of positives, and he was more than grateful that he had the responsibility of donning the mask and being someone that people turned to for help and protection.
But, that didn't mean that he didn't mourn all of the things he had lost and missed out on due to his double life as Spider-Man.
Over the past four years, he had come to terms with the life altering decision that he made back then. He knew that he had to do what he did to save the people who he loved and for the sake of quite literally everyone around him.
At the end of the day, it was his fault that he even had to resort to telling Dr. Strange to wipe him from everyone's memory in the first place. Which ultimately meant that he had to deal with the consequences of his actions, no matter how much it all still hurt him.
The first year and a half after everything had been the worst time of Pau's entire life.
He had truly never felt so alone. He cried practically every single night in his new apartment, which was completely desolate of any life, including his own.
Pau remembers the first time he held his mask after doing everything in his power to avoid even thinking about it. He just stared at it before breaking down in tears and throwing the mask somewhere.
Nowadays, he was doing a lot better, and even though it took him a while, he was able to go back to being everyone's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
He worked pretty closely with the NYPD now too, well somewhat. It was more like he had just become decently close to one particular member of the NYPD, Detective Pedro González López, or Pedri as he usually preferred.
It was nice, having someone with an official title trusting him enough to turn to him for assistance with things like helping the NYPD in arrests and even some detective work when Pedri was in a good mood.
Ever since Pedri had started working with him, he felt like a void in his life had been filled.
He really missed working with people.
"Goddamn it, Webs, move!"
Well, maybe not that person.
Pau was in the middle of the hot pursuit of a giant tank causing endless chaos and destruction throughout the streets of New York City.
And if that wasn't already a complete headache, a certain Marc Bernal decided that he had to make Pau's life impossibly more difficult.
Marc Bernal, better known as the Punisher, since he wanted to be all intimidating and cool or whatever (Pau's words, not Marc's), was a vigilante just like Pau. Hell, they were even the same age. But that was pretty much where the similarities ended between the two.
Despite also being 22 years old, Marc had a less than happy-go-lucky view on how he believed crime and criminals in particular should be taken care of.
Which was the exact reason why the two bickered pretty much every single time that they came into contact with each other.
Just like they were right now.
"Marc! Why are you even here right now?" Pau groaned loudly at the other man.
"I can't help stop crime in my own city?" Marc quickly shot back as he grabbed a comically large rifle sat in the passenger seat of his battle van. "Y'know, you should be way more grateful that I'm even helping you, Webs."
Pau dropped from his webs right onto the hood of Marc's van, "I don't want your help if it means you're just going to shoot everyone!" He rapidly motioned towards Marc's gun. "I'm pretty sure that I've made it very clear where I stand on that."
Marc, ever the drama king, just rolled his eyes at Pau. "You have and I'm also pretty sure that I've made it very clear that I don't care." He cocked his gun before aiming it at the tank in front of them.
"Jeez, you just never listen." He rolled his eyes right back at Marc from under his mask before breaking his windshield and grabbing the gun away from Marc, who did nothing short of loudly protesting.
"Hey, what the hell!"
"This is for everyone's own good, including your own!" Pau shouted as webbed the gun so that it couldn't be shot, throwing it back at Marc and swinging away.
As he swung through the air, he felt his senses tingle and knew exactly why.
He quickly turned around and webbed the second gun that Marc had pulled out, chuckling to himself when he saw how pissed off the man was at that.
"You're such a mother-"
Pau shot a web square over Marc's mouth before he could finish his sentence.
"Keep it PG, man!" He dangled from one of his webs. "And go home, Marc!"
He heard Marc grumble some muffled curses from behind the web and couldn't hold back his laughter at the sight as he finally went back to following the large tank.
Pau had absolutely no idea who was driving the tank, but whoever it was, they seemed like they had a clear destination that they were more than determined to get to by any means necessary.
And it was up to him to stop the tank from getting there.
As he continued to swing across the city from above, a call came through his mask.
"Hey, do you plan on stopping this tank any time soon?" Pedri's voice echoed in his ears.
"I'm trying here! This is a lot harder than it looks," Pau explained in exasperation as he rounded a sharp corner. "Don't you have any idea where this thing is headed? You're the detective here!"
"Remember who the one with the actual badge is here, Spider-Man." Pedri warned sternly. "But as a matter of fact, that's exactly why I called you. We have all reason to believe that it's heading towards the Department of Damage Control Detention Center."
"Detention Center? Why would it be headed there?"
"We aren't entirely sure, but I have a hunch that it might have something to do with who's scheduled to be transferred out today."
"Scorpion." Pau uttered out.
"Exactly."
"But what would they want with him? I mean, do we even know who's driving the tank?"
"Unfortunately, we haven't made any breakthroughs on that." Pedri admitted reluctantly. "But what we do know is that we need you to stop that tank as soon as possible before it reaches the detention center."
"On it. I'll handle it, don't worry, Detective."
When the line ended, Pau leapt onto the top of the tank with a loud bang and tried prying the hatch open, but to no avail.
He was about to try somehow flinging it open with his webs when he suddenly heard a crowd of screams nearby. Pau looked over to see that the tank was about to crash right into a bus full of passengers.
"Shoot, shoot, shoot!" He shouted in a panic as the tank got even closer to the bus.
Okay, he had to really think fast here if he wanted to cause any less destruction than he already had.
Webs shot from the web-shooters connected to his wrists with a loud twip, one immediately sticking to the side of the bus, and the other sticking to the tank. Pau held onto the webs and put all of his strength into steering the tank away from both the bus and from any civilians around.
What he didn't account for though, was how much force that all of that was actually going to take and that his body, unfortunately, couldn't take that type of force.
While he successfully steered the tank away, he also ended up flying off of the tank and crashed right into the bus before sliding across its windows unceremoniously as the web attached to the tank dragged him along.
I'm going to have so many bruises after all of this.
As he dreaded taking off his suit later to what had to be dozens of bruises littered across his body, Pau's eyes widened comically as the Detention Center quickly came into view.
His eyes quickly darted around, trying to find any way to deter the tank again, but the tank in question suddenly started speeding up, and Pau knew that he wouldn't be fast enough to stop it completely.
"Okay, change of plans." He muttered to himself before shooting a web at a nearby building and swinging himself closer towards the Detention Center.
There were several guards all scattered around the area who seemed completely unaware of the imminent danger that was about to crash right into them, literally.
Pau landed in the center of the entrance area of the Detention Center and quickly yelled, "Everyone needs to evacuate the area immediately! It's not safe here!"
All of the guards looked at each other before they all, thankfully, listened to Pau and started evacuating in a hurried panic.
He felt his senses tingle again and immediately ran towards two guards, tackling them down to the ground before the tank smashed right through the security gates and into the main wall of the Detention Center.
"Are you guys okay?" Pau stood up and offered both of his hands to the guards.
"I don't think I've ever been more okay in my life." One of the guards replied dreamily as she grabbed Pau's hand.
"I'm in love with you." The other slowly blinked while Pau pulled him up.
"Uh, okay." Pau rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Good to hear. I'm, uh, going to go check on that then."
He quickly jogged over to the tank and was relieved to see Pedri and a small group of cops already standing there.
"Pedri, hey!" The detective was in the middle of talking with a couple of his colleagues, most likely trying to figure out where they should go with the situation.
"Spider-Man, I see that you couldn't stop the tank,"
"Uh, no. I really tried, but there's something different about this tank." Pedri raised an eyebrow at him. "It felt weirdly stronger than it should've been."
"Huh. I guess I'll let my guys know about that then," He clicked his tongue. "They're getting it open right now, actually."
Pau glanced over to the tank, now flipped onto its side and smoking. Just like Pedri had said, there was a handful of cops, and even some of the Detention Center guards, currently prying at the hatch.
Luckily for them, the hatch was already a bit damaged from the impact of the collision, so it didn't seem like it took as much effort to open it now.
The hatch eventually snapped off and all of the personnel nearby drew their guns, Pedri included.
"Whoever's in there, you need to come out with your hands raised behind your head, don't make this difficult for anyone!" Pedri yelled as he slowly stepped closer to the tank, Pau making sure to stay close and alert.
After a few beats of silence, someone finally stepped outside the tank.
But, Pau was pretty sure that absolutely none of them could've possibly guessed who was about to walk out of the tank.
A woman who looked like she had to be in her mid-sixties slowly stepped into the light with her hands raised behind her head and a stark look of confusion written all over her face.
"I'm so sorry, but I have no idea where I am or how I even got here." She said, almost as if she had just awoken from some sort of surreal dream. "What have I done?" The woman looked around the now destroyed Detention Center.
"Ma'am, I'm going to need to take you down to the station for questioning," Pedri explained as he walked over to the confused woman.
As Pedri and a couple of cops handled the situation with the woman, Pau glanced around, trying to figure out how on earth the woman could've possibly driven the tank if she didn't even know how she had gotten in there in the first place.
Just then, he felt something incredibly wrong in the air.
Pau couldn't quite pinpoint what exactly it was, but he knew where it was when his eyes landed on one of the seemingly innocent staff members running up the stairs.
He flung himself up onto the second floor and chased after the staff member, not really sure why exactly he was following them, other than the fact that he sensed something eerily wrong about them.
Suddenly, the weird aura he was feeling shifted to another person, then another, until Pau felt the strange sensation somewhere on the rooftop.
The rooftop.
Where the helicopter that was supposed to transfer Scorpion was currently waiting.
Oh, no.
He was about to shoot another web to swing himself onto the roof when he suddenly felt an excruciating pain shoot through his head. He froze before tightly clutching his head and groaning in pain as the feeling somehow got even stronger.
"What's happening to me?" He gritted through his teeth.
Obviously, he got headaches more than the average person, probably because he wasn't the average person. But, he'd never had a headache that felt like something was literally clawing at his brain from the very inside.
He wanted to scream out in pain.
He wanted it to stop.
He wanted peach tea.
The pain finally subsided after what felt like an actual eternity and Pau wasted absolutely no time racing up to the rooftop.
But when he got there, there was no helicopter, no Scorpion.
He scanned the perimeter before landing on a security guard and Pau immediately felt the strange aura coming off of him.
"Who are you?" He yelled. "What have you done?"
"Oh, so you can see me?" The man asked slyly, something about his tone feeling unsettlingly unnatural. "You're quite the anomaly, Spider-Man. But, I don't think that'll be enough to stop me."
And just like that, the unnerving aura was completely gone.
What was that?
A soft groan took Pau out of his thoughts and he turned back to the security guard.
After looking at him and not being able to sense anything off, Pau figured that it was safe to say that whatever had just taken him over, was now definitely gone.
"Spider-Man?" Just like the woman in the tank, this man looked like he had absolutely no clue as to where he was, or even who he was for a moment. "What…happened?"
Pau was sure that this was the start of something terrible.
—
Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup had become somewhat of a comfort meal for Pau over the past four years, especially since it was quite literally the only thing that he could really stomach the first few weeks of being all alone.
That was one of the reasons why he frequented the bodega that he found himself at basically every other day and night.
That, and they had the prettiest flowers.
After Pau finished his meal, he shuffled through the couple of small buckets of flowers by the door, as he tried to decide which ones were the perfect ones.
He eventually landed on a medium sized bouquet of pink roses and went to pay for them.
Pau thanked the teenage cashier who looked like they just wanted go home and grabbed the bouquet before walking away from the counter.
He stared down at the pink roses and couldn't help but think about why he has subconsciously picked that specific color.
Because pink roses had always been Lamine's favorite.
It's not like the flowers were for Lamine, they were for his late sister, Irene.
Ever since her tragic passing, Pau made sure to get the nicest flowers for her whenever he could. He had always done that, even when she was still alive, and he just never really wanted to let go of the tradition.
It helped him feel like she was still there sometimes.
While pink roses had always been Lamine's favorite type of flowers, Irene had also loved them. Funnily enough, it was one of the things that had sparked the two's close relationship.
Pau remembers when his sister had first found out about him and Lamine.
He had been trying to sneak out of their shared apartment to pick Lamine up for their date when Irene had, unfortunately, caught him and immediately cornered him when she saw the giant bouquet of pink roses poorly hidden behind his back.
She insisted that anyone whose favorite flowers were pink roses was instantly on her good side and demanded to meet Lamine that night once their date was finished.
So after their date, Pau invited Lamine over to finally meet Irene and the rest was history.
It still felt strange, mourning two of the people who he loved most in his life.
But, only one was truly gone.
Somewhere out there, Lamine was still very much alive and living out his life to the fullest.
Which was good, it's exactly what Pau wanted him to be doing after everything he'd been through.
He wanted Lamine to be able to have a good life, to live out his dreams, to be happy. That's all Pau wanted for him, even though he still loved—
"Lamine!"
Pau felt his heart rate spike up when he instantly recognized that voice.
"I know you said that we already had enough snacks at home, but they have those weird BBQ chips that I know you like,"
He turned around and standing just a few feet from him was Gavi.
The one who had come over to his apartment to build the Lego Deathstar with him when they were 15.
The first to find out that he was Spider-Man.
His best friend.
His best friend who didn't even remember him anymore.
Pau was pretty sure that the last time he'd seen Gavi was when Pau was in that really depressive stage of his life where all he did was lay on the dusty ground of his apartment and scroll through Gavi and Lamine's Instagram accounts.
He stopped doing that after he realized how much worse he was making himself feel.
Gavi had definitely changed a lot since then.
For starters, his hair was pink.
Not just pink, a radioactive shade of pink.
I wonder what the story behind that could possibly be.
"Yeah, yeah. I know!" Gavi chuckled into his phone. "I'll be back in like five minutes, I don't know what you keep fussing about. I mean, the party seemed to be doing pretty good when I left."
Party?
"Alright, just hold it down until I get back. See you, Lamine."
Pau never liked to consider himself an eavesdropper. One, because it sounded creepy and two, because he really wasn't.
Well, maybe just this once.
But to be fair, there were only three people in the bodega, one of them being himself. So, it wasn't like it was super hard to hear what Gavi had been saying.
Gavi eventually walked up to the front counter and paid for his things before leaving the bodega.
Pau knew that it was probably against some moral code, but he couldn't stop himself from stealthily following Gavi to what Pau assumed to be his apartment building.
When he walked into Gavi's apartment, there were dozens of people talking, drinking, dancing, you name it.
He didn't recognize anyone, so he assumed these were all people from Gavi's university or something along those lines.
"Hey man! Here, take this, you look bored." Someone handed him a red solo cup before going to join a group of people in the living room.
He never really liked to drink, but he figured that he probably would've looked out of place if he didn't at least take a sip.
As he weaved through the crowds of people, he finally found an empty room and heaved a deep sigh.
I hate parties.
Pau assumed that the room he was in was most likely some type of office area. There was a desk with a pretty fancy looking monitor, he guessed that it was probably Gavi's.
He glanced around the room some more before his gaze caught on a bulletin board entirely covered in photos of—
Him?
Well, Spider-Man, technically.
There were several photos of him in action, clippings from newspapers, and even printed screenshots from videos of him, all pinned up and connected with a red string.
What was even more bizarre was that whoever had put this up had clearly been hypothesizing about Spider-Man's secret identity, that wasn't the bizarre part though. No, the bizarre part was who was being hypothesized to be Spider-Man.
Mr. Lewandowski? Our old science teacher? Really? Pau couldn't help but chuckle to himself at the mere thought.
Just then, he heard a rustle behind him and spun around.
It took everything in him not to overreact when he came face to face with Gavi, who was holding a large bowl of nachos.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." He apologized with a crooked grin. "Oh, I see you've found my Spider-Man wall. Listen, I swear that I'm not a stalker or anything like that, I'm just really fascinated by the guy." Gavi walked over to Pau.
"Oh, it's okay. I don't think it's weird, it's pretty cool actually."
"Really?" Gavi asked in surprise as he set down the bowl on his desk. "I'm taking it that you're interested in him too then?"
"Who isn't? He's probably one of the most famous people in New York right now," Pau awkwardly chuckled. There was nothing weirder than talking about himself in the third person, especially to his old best friend of all people.
"Exactly! You get me!" Gavi had no idea. "See, I've been studying his movement throughout the state to see if there was any frequent overlap between him and anyone who might seem suspicious."
Gavi excitedly motioned Pau closer to the "Spider-Man Wall" and continued to ramble on.
"I really think that it's this guy, Mr. Lewandowski, he was my old science teacher in high school." Gavi laughed when he heard Pau poorly hide a snort at that. "I know that it sounds crazy, but there was something about him, man!"
"No, I get what you mean." Pau's shoulders shook with laughter as he imagined Mr. Lewandowski swinging through the air. "He's got that vibe."
"Don't encourage Gavi on that,"
If Pau's heart rate had spiked up when he first heard Gavi's voice in the bodega, then his heart must've gone into complete overdrive when he heard the voice of who had just walked in.
"Oh, come on, Lamine! Just because you don't get it doesn't mean no one else can." Gavi sulked.
For the first time in four years, Pau looked at Lamine.
Not through a phone screen or in his dreams.
In real life.
And god, he looked even more beautiful than the last time Pau had gazed into those deep brown eyes that he had fallen in love with over and over again.
He had grown a bit taller, his curls were ever so slightly longer and the blonde highlights in his hair were a bit darker now, he had even gotten his braces off.
Time staggered on for Pau for those four years that he'd wandered the streets of New York City pretty much all alone.
So much had changed since he was 18 years old.
But there were two things that hadn't changed at all.
Lamine Yamal was still the most beautiful person he'd ever seen.
And Pau Cubarsí was still so painfully in love with him.
He'd probably love him until the imminent end of time.
No spell could change that.
But a spell could definitely change how Lamine felt about him.
A spell had changed how he felt about Pau.
He didn't even know who Pau was anymore.
And it was all Pau's fault.
"Are those for me?" Lamine suddenly asked Pau as he pointed to the bouquet in his hand. "Well, the apartment warming, I guess."
Pau gazed at Lamine. It had been so long since he had given Lamine flowers, but he could still vividly remember the last time like it was yesterday. "Uh, yeah. Thought they'd be a nice touch to the apartment." He handed the flowers to Lamine, who softly smiled.
"They're pretty, pink roses are actually my favorite flowers, so this is a pretty nice gift."
I know, Pau thought to himself quietly. I still remember everything about you.
"How do you know Gavi exactly?" Lamine asked as he absentmindedly fiddled with one of the rose petals.
"Wait, you don't know him?" Gavi tilted his head in confusion. "I thought you invited him,"
"Not that I remember,"
"I'm just a next door neighbor actually," Pau lied, hoping that it was a believable enough lie.
"Friendly neighbor," Pau immediately regretted taking a sip of whatever concoction he had been handed when he choked at those two words.
Gavi and Lamine looked at him in concern before he awkwardly gasped out that he was fine and that he just couldn't handle alcohol very well, which wasn't a complete lie.
"What did you say your name was?" Lamine gazed at him with those devastating brown eyes and Pau felt his mind go absolutely blank, so he just blurted out the first name that he could think of.
"Fermín," Really? Fermín?
"Huh, nice to meet you then, Fermín." Lamine turned around, seemingly to head back to the party. "Thanks for the flowers, I'm sure they'll really make this place a home."
"No problem, uh-"
"Lamine,"
"Right. Don't mention it, Lamine."
Pau couldn't remember the last time that he'd even uttered Lamine's name out loud, the syllables feeling almost foreign on his tongue.
Gavi soon excused himself after Lamine left the room and Pau took that as his cue to start steadily leaving the apartment, already feeling like he'd invaded way more than he was comfortable with.
Just as he was trying to leave, he noticed the pink roses that he'd given to Lamine, now in a small vase sitting on top of the kitchen island.
Standing behind the kitchen island were Lamine and Gavi laughing with a couple of their friends.
He looked so happy.
They both looked so happy.
Without him.
Pau forced himself to rip his eyes away from the sight and quickly made it out of there.
He didn't understand what was wrong with him.
For the past four years, he knew that they were probably better off without him.
As Pau swung across the dark night sky, he couldn't stop the dull and aching pit in his heart.
He knew that it was better for them if he never came back into their lives.
That was why he hadn't read that stupid letter that he wrote out to Lamine that snowy evening in December and just left the cafe as soon as Lamine handed him the warm coffee that he'd ordered.
Pau knew that he had made a promise, a promise that he would come and find them both and explain everything that had happened and the life they all had together before the moment of the spell.
He had done his handshake with Gavi one last time before tightly embracing him, Gavi's tears somehow soaking through the nanotech of his suit as he mumbled, "You better come find us as soon as this is all over, Pau."
He had kissed Lamine one last time.
“Promise me that you’ll find me and tell me everything.” Lamine whispered against Pau's lips.
“I promise.” Pau cupped Lamine’s face, wiping the stray tears rolling down his soft cheeks. “I’ll find you and help you remember everything, help you remember me.”
That was the first promise to Lamine Yamal that Pau Cubarsí ever broke.