Chapter Text
Peter never had a problem with Twenty One Pilots. In fact, he loved their music, often playing it when he was studying with Ned or MJ, or cleaning the apartment with May. They were one of the few newer artists May didn’t mind him playing.
But, after the Green Goblin and Strange’s spell, well, he didn’t have to study with Ned and MJ anymore. Or clean an apartment with May, anymore.
Because he had, oh yes that’s right, no one.
Peter knows grief well. He’d tasted it as a child, as a teen. But isolated grief was … new.
May is dead. That is grief he has experienced before, with Ben. Entirely preventable. Or rather, preventable by him. But he didn’t prevent them from dying - in fact, it had been his selfishness that resulted in both of them dying when they did. Let’s just add that to the big, Santa-sacked sized weight of guilt he was shouldering, shall we?
Tony is also dead. But Tony’s death takes with it the memories he and Peter shared. Happy isn’t going to remember Peter quarantining the facility when he accidentally got drunk and high. Pepper isn’t going to remember that Peter had picked out the venue for her and Tony’s wedding. Hell, his own AI doesn’t even remember him.
And then there’s Ned and MJ. Well, they’re not dead, Peter thinks, so that’s an entirely different type of grief he gets to feel. Because they’re not dead - far from it. They get to finish and graduate from Midtown, they get to go to MIT together, to build lives, to make memories.
And I, Peter thinks, I get to watch from the outside.
And that’s not to say he didn’t try to fix things. He tried when he walked into that coffee shop with a piece of lined notebook paper and the hope that maybe, just maybe, Ned and MJ would remember him.
But it was pretty obvious when MJ gave him a blank stare after passing his coffee to him, and Ned didn’t even look up from his phone where he was looking at rentals for himself and MJ at MIT.
So Peter did what he was supposed to do when he gave Strange that order - he left. And months passed.
It would be nice to say that time heals everything. But it doesn’t. This kind of grief, there’s nowhere to put it.
Because everyone is still here, but Peter Parker can’t be part of their lives anymore. And the kicker is that they don’t even know Peter Parker was even there to begin with.
So when Peter is sitting on the floor of his shithole apartment, in his shitbag building, in a pair of shorts and a tank top that he stole from one of his neighbours’ laundry cycle, sewing up the latest cut the Hand has dealt him, he doesn’t think about what’s next on his Twenty One Pilots playlist.
When I see the devil's eyes
I'll look away and smile wide
You found me
Peter looks up. He’s not smiling. He shoots a web over to his phone on his desk, pulling it into his outstretched hand.
Then I'll know you're also there
'Cause proof is in the adversaire
You found me
He takes a sharp intake of breath, one that had nothing to do with the needle going in and out through his skin mechanically, but rather to do with the one piercing him emotionally.
A drag path etched in the surface
As evidence I left there on purpose
A sad sap laying on the surface
Can you find me?
His hand hovers over the stop button on his phone. But why, why, is he not pressing it?
When I see the devil's eyes
A current travels down my spine
You found me
And now, despite his thumb hovering over the stop button, Peter’s letting the song play - and there’s the first mistake. Because the thing about being Spider-Man is that Peter is really good at recognizing danger. A car coming too fast down an icy street. A gun being drawn from a belt. A shift in someone’s posture before they throw a punch. But it doesn’t warn Peter about memories. And, oh no, now he’s thinking of May.
A drag path etched in the surface
As evidence I left there on purpose
A sad sap laying on the surface
Can you find me?
May would’ve found me, Peter thinks savagely. She found me once before, before Spiderman, before everything. She’d have known something was up in a second. She’d have pieced things together and figured out a whole ass person was missing from her life. That there was a Peter-shaped hole there.
I dug my heels into the gravel
As evidence for you to unravel
A drag path etched in the surface
Can you find me?
And there’s his old friend - panic attack - knocking at his ribs, as Peter thinks about Tony. Peter tries to calm himself down, but it’s not working and the music is picking up and oh, here we fucking go.
Can you, can you, can you, can you?
A drag path etched in the surface
As evidence I left there on purpose
A sad sap laying on the surface
(Can you, can you find me?) Can you find me?
Tony’s the one that found me, found Spiderman. Took a kid from Queens and helped him live up to his purpose, his responsibility. And now he doesn’t remember me. There’s no Tony and I in the lab. No Tony and I on the ferry. NoTony and I in the motherfucking space donut. No Tony and I on - on Titan. And then coming back and him being there, and then, oh, he’s gone. Permanently.
I dug my heels into the gravel
As evidence for you to unravel
A drag path etched in the surface
And then Peter’s mind drifts to the one thing, the one thing, he promised he wouldn’t: Ned and MJ. He was so close. He almost made himself not think about them for an entire hour. He hears his own voice echoing: “I’m gonna come and find you, and I’ll explain everything. I’ll make you remember me. It’ll be like none of this ever happened, okay?” God he was so sure of himself.
Can you find me?
His mind immediately flickers back to MJ’s face, she was so scared. “But what if that doesn't work? What if that doesn't work, what if we can't remember you? I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that.”
“I promise I’ll fix this.” I’m a liar.
Can you find me? (Can you find me?)
“There's gotta be something we can do. We can't come up with, like, a plan or something? There's gotta be something we can do,” MJ , panicking and crying.
Can you find me? (Can you find me?)
I wave my hand. “There's nothing we can do. But we'll be okay.”
Can you find me? (Can you find me?)
“You promise?” Ned asks, crying.
“Yeah, I promise. I'll come find you. Okay?” I assure them.
Can you find me? (Can you find me?)
“You better,” MJ says, wiping her face with a sleeve. “If you don’t, I’m just gonna figure it out. I’ve done it before, I can do it again,” she adds, so sure of herself.
And then it’s like Peter’s head’s come out of being submerged in water, and he’s pulled himself out of the memories. “SHUT THE GODDAMN MUSIC OFF EV,” Peter screams, his voice cracking. The AI complies.
It’s silent for a moment.
“EV - never play that song again,” Peter gasps, hand on his chest, heaving. He can feel the 3 edamame beans he had for dinner threatening to make a reappearance. He stands abruptly, nauseous, lips pressed thin as his mouth fills with saliva.
“Of course, Peter. It has been removed and blocked from all playlists and your library,” the AI says dutifully.
Peter groans, and stumbling, heads over to his kitchen. Rummaging around in one of the cabinets he finds what he’s looking for - a bottle of cheap vodka he’d confiscated from a drunken asshole who was scaring some kids.
“Looks like it's going to be a medically induced sleep for me tonight,” Peter said, drinking heavily.
He stumbles into his bed an hour later, humming under his breath.
“I dug my, - hiccup - heels into the surface as evidence, for you to unravel, a drag path etched in the surface…” Peter rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling, a collage of pictures of Ned, MJ, May, Ben and Tony looking back at him. “Can you find me?” he mumbles, eyes rolling back as he finally passes out.