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Peter has gotten pretty good at pretending his life is normal. He wakes up, he goes about his day, he fights crime, he goes to bed, and he repeats.
While it's true that going through the motions doesn't really inspire too much motivation to find purpose beyond being friendly neighborhood spiderman, it's better than the alternative. He still has some sense of purpose. Just not as Peter.
So he continues putting one step in front of the other, and doing the things he has to in order to get by. Buys grocieres. Tinkers with tech he finds in dumpsters. Patrols.
Sometimes, when he's lucky, he even forgets about all that haunts him for a second. That's usally around the time doom scrolling lands Mj and Ned on his feed.
A picture from college, another from the balcony of their shared apartment. Cleary taken at some stupid party he should've been there for.
Peter scrolls past it just to scroll back up two seconds later to watch their demeanors and stuff.They look content enough, but he honestly has no idea what they think about their lives. He's lost access to that inside knowledge. He thought the hurt would dull over the years, but if anything it becomes sharper the more he watches their lives through a screen.
He tells himself he's happy for them. And he is, of course he is. It's just hard sometimes, watching the life they were supposed to have together happen without him.
His apartment is quiet when he gets home. Too quiet.
Peter drops his keys onto the table and stares at the screen still glowing in his hand.
Four years. Four entire fucking years.
He wonders how much longer he can keep telling himself that this is enough.
Enough to keep waking up every morning. To keep the lights on, a roof over his head. Enough to give him a reason to keep putting the mask back on. Keep moving, keep going.
He should be grateful, he's still here. That's more than he can say for… for all the ones he failed.
He is grateful, in a way. There's a lot of people who would do or give anything to have what he has. A roof over his head, at least some food in the fridge every week. A city with people that look up to him and count on him and even admire him. The smiles and squeals of delight from the children warm even the most cold parts of his heart. He's got a life that, on the outside, looks pretty damn good.
So why does it feel like he's drowning?
Peter sets the phone down. He doesn't reach to pick it back up again, tells himself that's progress. It's really not.
He wanders into the kitchen and opens the fridge without really looking at anything inside. There's half a carton of milk, some leftovers he forgot about, and a bottle of water.
He closes it.
He really isn't even hungry. He hasn't been hungry much lately. He eats to satiate his metabolism and nothing more.
And it's not because he's sad. At least, that's what he tells himself.
He just forgets sometimes.
He forgets to eat. Forgets to sleep. Forgets that being Spider-Man doesn't mean he has to spend every waking second doing something useful.
Except if he stops being useful, what exactly is left?
Peter leans against the counter. That's a dangerous question.
He pushes away from it and starts moving again. There. That's better. Moving is easy, thinking is harder.
He thinsk about the first time he saw MJ again, over in the coffee shop when she looked right through him. He understand when Dr. Stran- No. Steven. He told him he could call him Steven again. Anyway he understood when the spell was made that this was the outcome, but knowing it would happen and seeing her look at him like he really was nothing more than a customer are two extrememly different things.
He remembers every second of it.
The way she'd smiled at Ned. The way she'd been happy, the way they both had been happy. The way he'd wanted to tell her everything and knew, even then, that he couldn't.
He'd made the choice.
He was the one who decided they were better off without him. So he really doesn't get to be angry that they moved on. He doesn't get to be sad that they forgot. He definitely doesn't get to wish things had gone differently.
Peter knows better than anyone that wishing doesn't change anything.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, then walks back toward the living room and catches sight of his mask on the table.
Spider-Man.
At least Spider-Man knows what he's supposed to do.
Someone needs help? Go help.
Someone's in danger? Already on my way.
Someone needs saving? Use every ounce of effort and then some.I t's simple.
Peter doesn't have to wonder whether Spider-Man is wanted.
Even when they hate him, The city always needs Spider-Man. He knows Jameson and his followers have their own opinion regardless of if they forgot who is behind the mask. But Spiderman also knows the old ladies he helps across the street who call him a sweetheart. Spiderman knows the young women who took a wrong turn on a night out and ran into some unsavory people. Spiderman knows he is needed.
Peter isn't so sure anyone needs him anymore.
He sits down on the edge of the couch. For a moment, he lets himself imagine what would happen if Spider-Man died today.
It's not difficult. He's imagined it before, Probably more times than he should admit.
Because here's the thing, Peter was never actively suicidal. No matter how bad life got through his teen years he's never considred purposley ending his own life.
But after the world turned upside down and you die just to come back five years later, it gets you thinking a little more about death. About all the things you accomplished and didn't.
Dying was honestly easy, it's living that has been so hard for him.
When he died, he didn't miss everyone so desperately. He didn't need to get food and groceries or worry about rent or figure out what he was supposed to do with the rest of his life. He wasn't sitting around thinking about all the things he hadn't accomplished yet because, as far as he knew, there weren't any more things to accomplish.
He'd worked hard to do good, and to save the world. And then he failed, simple as that. He was here and then he wasn't.
There was something almost comforting about that kind of finality. He'd done what he could, and then it was over. No more decisions. No more wondering if he was doing enough. No more waking up every morning and trying to figure out what came next. He even went at the same time as May and Ned and Mj.
Then he came back. Lost Tony, Lost May, Lost Ned, Lost Mj. His mentor, his everything, his longest friend and his first and only love.
So yeah he thinks about death a lot now. He's lived more years without Tony than he lived with him and one day the same thing might be true about May.
He wonders sometimes where he'd rather die.
As Spider-Man, maybe. That would make sense.
Eventually somebody is going to catch up with him. That's how this works, the life he stumbled into. He's already made peace with the fact that one day he'll be too slow, or too tired, or he'll make one stupid fatal mistake and someone will finally manage to put him in the ground.
And then they'll find out who he is under the mask, dig into Peter Parker. Not that they'd find anything interesting.
That was the thing he had always used to be afraid of. Not dying and being found out exactly, but what would happen when people dug into his life outside of being Spiderman. What happens to everyone else if the wrong person figures out who he is and takes it out on the people he loves.
That's why he'd wanted to stop. That's why he made that first wish and made everyone forget that Peter Parker and Spiderman were one and the same, to get the best of both worlds. So he could protect them from the dangers of Spiderman while still getting to exist as Peter Parker.
That was before he was faced with the fact that he really can't have both. He can't be someone with a normal life and someone who didn't have to worry about whether the next villain would come looking for the people he loved most.
So really, where would he rather die? As Spiderman, as a hero like the ones he looked up to? Giving his life for the little guy and being apart of something so much bigger than himself, reaching out to make a real difference in the world?
Or as Peter Parker? The real person who had relationships with the people he loved, the people who made a real difference in his world.
Peter stares at the mask sitting across the room.
The answer should be easy.
Except he's already done both. He died as Spider-Man and he died as Peter Parker all in one go.
He died fighting aliens in outer space with the people who knew him, loved him, and knew exactly who he was. He had no idea how much more there was to lose. As far as he knew, that was it. He'd done what he could. He'd died trying to save the world, and then came back just to die in a different way.
Sometimes he's jealous of that version of himself. Not because he wants to die, not really.
He just wishes he could go back to being the kid who didn't know how much more it was going to hurt.
Because that Peter had May. He had Tony. He had Ned and MJ. He had people who knew him, really knew him, and still wanted him around.
Peter doesn't have that anymore.
And God, he feels selfish even thinking about wanting it back. Especially when he was the one who let them go.
He was the one who decided they were better off without him. He knew what could happen if the wrong person connected Peter Parker to Spider-Man. He knew what it could cost them.
So he made the choice and he stayed behind. He stayed behind so that Ned and MJ could move forward. Be regular college kids not tied to controversial vigilantism. Get a shared apartment where they have stupid parties and take stupid pictures that Peter has to watch through a stupid screen because he isn't anyone to them anymore.
And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be.
Peter was never going to get the nice things. Not really. Not with the life he'd chosen.
So at least they should.
He tells himself that a lot. He tells himself that they're happy and safe and better off without him. That they don't need him. That he knew it would be worth it when he made his wish.
Sometimes he even manages to believe it.
But there are times when he wakes up in the middle of the night and, before he's even fully awake, they're the first people he thinks about.
And that's the part he hates.
Because what kind of person wishes he could have them back when he knows exactly what having them back would mean?
They'd be dragged into his life again, just to be pinned down by it the way he is.
They'd be isolated from the rest of the world right alongside him, never knowing when the next person would come looking for Spider-Man.
It's better that he manages his shipwreck of a life on his own, leaving them to live the lives they were meant to.
Everything he thought he'd have is scattered somewhere behind him, and he's left trying to make something out of whatever pieces he can find.
The unforgiving waves washed him up exactly where he was doomed to be from the beginning.
Alone.
In the end, it was his decision, so why does it feel like he didn't have a choice?
Peter looks back at the mask. Maybe that's the part he's stuck on. He doesn't really want to be Spider-Man without Peter Parker. But he also doesn't want to be Peter Parker without the people who made Peter Parker matter.
And so the question doesn't really matter anymore.
Because the only real answer is back in 2018, before he gained more than he could ever imagine just to lose it. Before he knew what it felt like to have everything and then watch it disappear.
But it's not like he can't go back.
So forward it is.