Chapter Text
The sky was tearing apart.
High on the scaffolding around the Statue of Liberty, Peter watched the cracks spread above them, jagged and glowing, like someone had taken a hammer to the world.
"What if everyone forgets who I am?"
Dr. Strange looked at him, and the silence that followed told Peter everything he needed to know. It could work.
"This happened because everyone knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man, right? If everyone forgets who I am, everything could be fixed."
It had to be fixed.
When he looked up, purple clouds had swallowed the sky, and silhouettes were slowly emerging behind them.
"Peter" Strange moved his hands, still struggling to hold together the very universe that was breaking apart in front of them "You need to understand what you're proposing, you'd be alone, there wouldn't be a single person who remembers you, not a single record that you ever existed"
An orange glow began to surround him as the sorcerer's magic slowly wrapped around him.
"But would it work?"
More silhouettes were appearing in the sky, and in the distance, the city was starting to fill with the sounds of chaos.
MJ… Ned…
His friends were just below them. He needed to get them somewhere safe.
"I-in theory, yes. But this particular spell can be volatile, what it understands as erasing someone from existence could vary depending on factors beyond our comprehension"
"Do it"
Peter didn't think it twice, he needed to save the people he still had left.
Strange held his gaze for a long moment. There was sorrow in his eyes, and guilt, but no hesitation. They both knew there was no other choice.
"Go say your goodbyes, kid. We don't have much time."
A faint orange glow began to gather around Peter's body, the sorcerer's magic already wrapping around him, slow and warm.
"Thank you, Dr. Strange"
All Peter could do was smile, trying to ease the sorcerer's mind, after all, none of this was Stephen's fault. It was his.
"Call me Stephen"
"Thank you, Stephen"
He swung down without looking back, he didn't know how much time "not much time" meant, but he had to be quick.
"PETER!"
MJ ran to hug him, careful of the wounds that covered his body.
"What's going on? What are those things? Why the hell are you glowing?"
All three of them looked up at the horrible sight in the sky, which was growing worse by the second.
"Everyone's going to forget who I am"
He needed to explain things fast, he didn't want to leave without saying goodbye.
"What?" MJ held on tighter, as if she were afraid he would disappear the moment she let go.
She wasn't wrong.
"This is happening because everyone knows who Peter Parker is, who I am, what I am, if everyone forgets me, everything will go back to the way it's supposed to be"
Peter pulled back from MJ just enough to look at the only two people he had left in the world.
"There's no other way?" Ned, always looking for solutions. His guy in the chair.
Peter just shook his head. He stepped toward Ned and held out his arm, and his friend answered immediately with their secret handshake. Then he turned back to MJ, his girlfriend, the girl who had once again put her life on the line for him.
"I'll find you, this doesn't have to be forever."
He leaned in, and all he had time for was a small kiss on her lips.
"I love you, sweetheart."
That was when the glow flared, blinding.
"PETER!"
He stepped away from them quickly. He didn't know if being close to them could hurt them.
Little by little, the light swallowed him whole, and he could see his body fading away, piece by piece.
Not again… please, don't let it hurt this time.
"YOU BETTER FIND US!"
"DON'T FORGET US, PETER!"
The last thing he saw was MJ and Ned, reaching for him through the light.
Ow.
That was the first thing his brain managed to process as he came to: pain. If he didn't know any better, he'd say Hulk had run him over. Twice.
Without getting up, he began to examine his wounds. His ribs throbbed with every breath, his left shoulder burned, and something warm and sticky had dried along the side of his face. Everything ached in that deep, bone tired way that meant he'd pushed his body way past its limits.
I'm alive.
That's good, at least for the moment. The first thing he did was sit up and look at his hands. Whole. No trace of dust. They looked… smaller, somehow, but that was probably just the blood loss talking.
Where am I?
When he looked around, he realized he was on the rooftop of a building. He was alone, and it was night, the air was cold and damp, and it smelled like rain, smoke, and something metallic he didn't want to think about too hard.
Slowly, he got to his feet, wincing as his ribs protested. A metal door stood a few feet away, covered in peeling paint and at least three different padlocks. A faded sign was taped to it: GOTHAM ACADEMY – ROOF ACCESS. DOOR MUST REMAIN LOCKED AT ALL TIMES.
Three locks for a school roof? What kind of place is this?
And then, a second later Wait. Where the heck is Gotham?
He limped to the edge of the roof and looked out at the city.
It was wrong. All of it.
The skyline stretched out in front of him, dark and jagged, full of towers with sharp spires and stone gargoyles perched on their ledges like they were keeping watch. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, then another set, then another. A thick layer of clouds hid every single star. He searched for something, anything familiar, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler, even the stupid Stark Tower.
Nothing.
And underneath it all, his spider sense hummed, low and constant, like the whole city was a threat.
Okay. A school. I can work with this.
He checked his wrists. Both web shooters were still there, scratched and dented but intact. That was something.
It seemed the spell had teleported him somewhere he didn't recognize, though it didn't really matter. Wherever he was now, no one would know him.
Either way, Peter had to get back to Queens. Nobody might know Peter Parker anymore, but that didn't mean he couldn't be Spider-Man, or that the city wouldn't need him, crime hadn't gone anywhere.
He needed a plan.
First things first, medical supplies and clothes. Walking around with open wounds and a torn suit would definitely draw way too much attention, maybe he could find a change of clothes somewhere inside the school, maybe even some food.
After that, he'd figure out where he was and find a way back home.
Or find somewhere to live. He doubted his apartment was an option anymore.
May
He stopped dead in his tracks.
He hadn't had time to think about May, not since…
Her face flashed behind his eyes. Her hand on his cheek. Her voice, soft and steady, even at the very end. With great power, there must also come great responsibility.
His throat closed up, for a second, the rooftop tilted under his feet.
Not now. You can't do this now.
He shoved it down, deep down, somewhere he could deal with it later. Later, when he wasn't bleeding on a rooftop in a city he'd never even heard of. He took a breath that made his ribs scream, and then another.
Okay. Step one: get inside.
He eyed the door again. Three padlocks. Of course.
He could break them, but that would make noise, and he had a feeling this city wasn't the kind of place where people ignored noise. So he went to the edge, crouched, and swung his legs over the side.
His fingers found the wall easily enough, that, at least, still worked, but something felt off.
The suit was loose. It bunched up around his wrists and pooled at his ankles, and the fabric shifted against his skin in ways it never had before. When he stretched his arm out to reach the next ledge, it fell short by a couple of inches. He had to scoot down and try again.
Weird.
He kept climbing down, slower now, paying attention. His body felt lighter. His hands, pressed flat against the stone, looked smaller than they should.
"Come on, come on."
He froze. Was that my voice?
Blood loss. Definitely the blood loss.
Three floors down, he finally found it, a window left slightly open, the faint glow of an emergency light spilling out from inside.
He reached the window and peered inside, scanning for any sign of life, any wire or sensor that might set off an alarm if he pushed it open further. Nothing. Just shadows and the soft white glow of an emergency light.
He slipped inside as quietly as he could.
A library. Rows and rows of tall wooden bookshelves stretched into the dark, and in the center of the room sat a cluster of study tables, a few of them with computers on top, it smelled like old paper and floor polish, and for one ridiculous second, it almost felt like home.
Okay. Information. Figure out where you are first.
He moved further into the room, slow and careful, testing every step.
Danger.
Watching.
His spider sense stopped him cold.
Cameras. He hadn't noticed them from the window, but now he could see them now, small, dark lenses tucked into the corners of the ceiling, one above the main entrance, another angled toward the study tables. If he wanted to get to a computer, he'd need a blind spot.
He looked up.
Nobody ever checks the ceiling.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his ribs, he climbed the nearest bookshelf and pressed himself flat against the ceiling, moving upside down between the cameras' blind spots. Inch by inch, he froze every time the familiar buzz crawled up the back of his neck. Left. Wait. Move. Wait. It felt like a game of red light, green light, except the stakes were a lot higher.
Finally, he found it, a single computer tucked away in the far corner of the room, half-hidden behind a tall shelf and an old armchair that blocked the cameras' line of sight.
He dropped down as softly as his battered body would allow.
Perfect.
He sat down in front of the computer and pressed the power button, the machine whirred to life almost instantly, the school's crest flashing across the screen.
He went straight for the search engine, except the only one he could find was something called Seeker. No StarkNet. No Google, even.
Okay, that's weird.
He didn't know a single school in the country that didn't use the search engine Mr. Stark had launched years ago, it was practically a law at this point.
With no other choice, he clicked on it and typed in the only lead he had.
Gotham.
The results loaded in seconds. Gotham City, New Jersey. A major port city on the East Coast, known for its gothic architecture, its high crime rate, and as the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises.
Peter stared at the screen.
New Jersey? I've literally been in New Jersey.
It was right there, across the river from home, and he'd never heard of it. Not once. Not in school, not on the news, not anywhere.
He swallowed and typed again.
Peter Parker.
Nothing. Not a single result. Which, okay, was expected. That was the whole point.
Tony Stark.
A handful of social media profiles popped up. A Tony Stark who sold insurance in Ohio. A Tony Starks with a fantasy football page. A retired mailman in Florida, smiling at the camera with a fish in his hands.
None of them had a goatee. None of them were him.
Peter's chest tightened. He scrolled anyway, all the way to the bottom of the page, just in case.
Stark Industries.
A family-owned plumbing company in Kansas. A furniture store that had gone out of business in 2009.
That was it.
The Avengers.
An old British spy show from the sixties. A few local news articles about some gang in the East End calling themselves "Avengers."
Okay. Okay, okay, okay.
His fingers were shaking now. He typed the last one slowly.
Spider-Man.
Did you mean: Superman?
Peter let out a breathless, slightly hysterical laugh. Superman. Seriously? Who calls themselves Superman?
The laugh died in his throat almost as fast as it came.
Peter leaned back in the chair, his heart pounding against his bruised ribs.
Something's wrong. Something's really, really wrong.
The spell was supposed to make him disappear. The world was supposed to forget him. Peter Parker was supposed to stop existing. Not everything else.
The screen blurred in front of him. It took him a second to realize it was because his eyes were filling with tears. His chest felt too tight, his breaths too short and too fast, each one catching painfully against his broken ribs. In the silence of the library, he could hear himself gasping.
He pressed his hands against his face. It felt wrong under his palms, softer, rounder somehow, but he couldn't hold onto that thought long enough to make sense of it.
Breathe, baby. In and out. Just like we practiced.
May's voice. Soft and patient, the way she used to sound when he woke up from nightmares as a kid.
He tried. In. Out. In. Out.
Slowly, the world stopped spinning.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stared at the screen until the letters stopped swimming.
Okay. Think. Treat it like a problem. Just a really, really big science problem.
He made himself list it out, one fact at a time.
Fact one: there's a city called Gotham in New Jersey, and I've never heard of it.
Fact two: no StarkNet. No Stark Industries. No Tony. Nothing about him.
Fact three: no Avengers. No Spider-Man. But apparently there's a Superman.
None of it made sense, not if the spell had only made people forget him, forgetting Peter Parker shouldn't have wiped out Tony Stark, it shouldn't have erased the Avengers, or written a whole new city onto the map.
Unless it hadn't erased anything at all.
And in the quiet, another voice surfaced in his memory.
What it understands as erasing someone from existence could vary depending on factors beyond our comprehension.
Peter's breath caught.
Not long ago, he'd been standing on that scaffolding with two other versions of himself. He'd fought villains who had been pulled in from other worlds, worlds where things had gone differently, where people he knew didn't exist and people he didn't know did.
The multiverse.
The spell hadn't erased him from the world.
It erased me from my world.
He wasn't in New York anymore. He wasn't even in his universe.