Chapter Text
Peter was pretty sure he was drowning.
He had to be, right? He couldn’t breathe, everything was thick and cold, and he was suffocating. He had to be drowning.
(He’d almost drowned before. This wasn’t it.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(But it was easy to think of it that way.)
He felt like the laughing stock of the universe. Like his whole life was just entertainment for it, just a game, something to play around with and throw away when it got bored. There was no other explanation for why nothing ever went right for him.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
He wasn’t able to get into May’s funeral when it happened. There were too many people that she had helped, and he wasn’t anyone special—not anymore.
(He wasn’t anyone, anymore.)
There was no spot left behind for him at the front. There was no place for him to give a speech, to talk about all she had done for him. There was no time set aside for May Parker’s nephew, the boy she had raised for the majority of his life, the boy who she had always given her all for.
(The boy who had gotten her killed.)
He’d sat outside of the funeral, of course, listening in with his enhanced hearing, but that didn’t matter. Not much.
(Just a boy hiding in a bush, muffling his sobs in his hand, unable to breathe, with no one around to remember that someone might need to be comforted.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
He saw Happy, sometimes. Peter tried to visit May’s grave every day, at first. He didn’t have anyone else, so he sat down in front of her name, carved into the stone, and talked to her for as long as he dared. His Spider-Sense—he couldn’t call it his Peter-Tingle anymore, not when it hurt too much to think about where the name came from in the first place—would flare at him when someone was approaching. It was almost always Happy. It was odd knowing that, once upon a time, Happy would never have set off the Sense. Now, though, Happy didn’t know Peter. Now, Happy could be a threat.
The Sense knew that, and it warned him in kind.
(Peter tried to ignore how much that hurt.)
Happy would talk to him, sometimes, or they’d sit in silence, both standing there, staring at May’s grave. Peter always spent too much money on the flowers that he left there.
(It was okay if he skipped meals, though. Those flowers were for May.)
One day, Happy asked him why he came there so often.
“It’s just that I’ve never seen you around with her before,” he said, and Peter’s heart pounded so loudly that he wondered if Happy could hear it. “And I don’t think she ever mentioned a Peter.”
Peter swallowed and let out a forced laugh. “She helped a lot of people. I guess I just credit a lot of the things in my life that went right to her, you know? I feel like I need to thank her for that, somehow.”
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Happy nodded. Peter walked away, and never visited May’s grave again.
(If he stays away, then no one can get hurt.)
He didn’t visit the shop that MJ worked at often, either. He couldn’t. He was fine just being that one weird customer that came in, sometimes.
(He must not have been weird enough to remember, though. She forgot his name until he told her again on his fourth visit, a month-and-a-half after everything fell apart.)
“Here you are, Peter Parker,” MJ said, and the tease in her voice wasn’t the one he was used to. It was distant, guarded. She didn’t know him.
(He knew her.)
“Thanks,” he said, and he left the shop without looking at Ned in the corner.
(If he did, he would start crying, and he wouldn’t be able to stop.)
Peter walked down the street with the cup of coffee, and he threw it out once it grew cold in his hands.
(He never took a sip.)
His eyes trailed it as he dropped it into the garbage. It disappeared into the shadows. He wouldn’t be able to find it again.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
It was surprisingly hard getting an apartment when you weren’t legally a person. He didn’t have a birth certificate, or a social security number. He didn’t have school records, or a scholarship, or a way to enroll anywhere. He didn’t have an ID. He didn’t exist anymore.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
The apartment he did get was shitty, to put it nicely. He focused on rent first, food second. Or rather he tried to, but it was hard when less food meant that his enhanced metabolism got angry and started affecting his work as Spider-Man.
He went out as Spider-Man. Christmas came and went and Peter was alone for it all. The ball dropped for the New Year, and for the first time in years, Peter didn’t have anyone there to hold him, to rub his back while he cried because the screams of people in the streets were so loud that they almost made his ears bleed.
The new suit was made of thin cloth. Was it spandex? He was pretty sure it was, but he didn’t really know fabrics. It was rather uncomfortable, provided little more protection than his first suit, but he couldn’t use the other suit. The nanobots didn’t recognize him anymore. Karen didn’t know who he was.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(He would never get in the original Stark suit again, anyway. The stains on it still smelled like blood.)
Eating less in order to try and pay rent became a thing he had to learn to contend with. Adrenaline was often able to push him through saving someone.
Adrenaline didn’t help his failing healing factor. His enhanced metabolism was able to fuel his healing factor, but when he was nearly starving, the healing decided to kick the bucket in order to try and keep the rest of his body still functioning.
(At least his asthma didn’t come back. He didn’t have an inhaler—nor could he afford one. Nor could he get one if he could afford one. He wasn’t a person, after all.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Sitting alone in a dingy apartment, pressing his hand against a cut on his side to try and stifle the bleeding while his other hand fumbled with the bandages, Peter wished that his healing just came back, made this cut stop hurting, and let the rest of his body die on its own.
It didn’t, though. There was no Ned or MJ to pull him into a side-hug and try to give him stitches with shaky hands. There was no Aunt May to wipe away at his tears, patch his cuts, and kiss his bruises while lecturing him on being more careful.
There was no Mr. Stark to freak out when he found out Peter had a stab wound, to rush him to the medbay and then invite him to the lab to work on even more upgrades to his suit to try and ensure that nothing like that happened again.
There was no one to wipe the tears from his cheek, no one to hold his shoulder as he muffled the cries of pain that came from the rubbing alcohol being poured over the wound, no one to tell him that he would be okay, to worry and reassure all in one breath.
There was no one to hold him close and keep him safe, to pick him up when he fell, to whisper to him “you’re my kid, and nothing is allowed to hurt my kid.”
There was no one to help Peter but himself.
That had never worked out well.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Two-and-a-half months after everything fell apart, two months after first entering the apartment, he was evicted for not paying the rent. The landlord made it clear that he wouldn’t be welcomed back. Peter had two days to gather all of his things and leave.
He brought everything he owned to the rooftop of a rundown building. He knew for a fact that the top two floors of the building weren’t used. They’d been burned in a fire years ago, but the rest of the building had been fine, so no one ever bothered to get them fixed up.
It worked out for Peter, now.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
The apartment looked even more bare than when he’d first come there. Maybe that was the oppressive air that clouded his mind and muddled his thoughts. He wasn’t sure.
Peter was doing a final check before bringing the last box to his new home when he ended up in the bathroom. He checked around and grabbed a tube of toothpaste he’d left behind. He tossed it into the box sitting in the doorway behind him and turned back. His eyes landed on himself in the mirror, and he paused for a moment.
His hair was matted because he tried not to shower too much—water bills were so expensive. His cheeks were slightly sunken in—food was so expensive. His clothes were torn and patched by his own hand—new clothes were so expensive. Cuts and bruises dotted his body—medical supplies were so expensive. His eyes were dull and lifeless—happiness was so expensive.
(Maybe it was only expensive, though, when no one knew who you were.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Tears stung at his eyes in the same way that cuts stung all over his body. They pricked at his eyes, and his gaze fell to the watch on his hand. Karen had shut herself down once realizing that she didn’t recognize him, and Peter had broken the tracker out of the watch as soon as he could so that no one would come for him for owning tech stolen from the Late, Great Tony Stark: Savior of the Universe.
The watch was the last thing that he owned from that part of his life—at least the last thing that mattered. It was one of the gifts that Mr. Stark had given to him. He took as much care of it as possible, and he never took it off.
He looked up at himself in the mirror and pulled the wrist with the watch up to his chest. His fist was clenched, and he thought that if he focused on the watch, then he could maybe pretend that he was looking at the old version of himself.
(The unbroken, unbounded, unabashed version of him.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Abruptly, he realized that the watch face was cracked.
Something within his chest bubbled up, hot and angry and painful, and a sob ripped from his throat as his fist flew forward before he could even think. It slammed into the mirror, and the mirror shattered. It probably would have even without his strength.
Peter stood there for a moment, frozen in time. The sound of breaking glass echoed in his ears, bounced around the room. The shards fell to the ground in slow motion. His hand was hovering in the air in front of him. Pieces of the mirror still hung to the frame, and he could see the tears pouring down his reflection’s face.
His face.
(The beaten, battered, broken version of him.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Bright red caught his eye in the dimmed light.
His hand was bleeding. There were fragments of glass lodged in his skin.
His hand hurt when he moved it. The blood trickled down his arm, curling around it before falling to the floor in a steady drip-drip-drip.
Peter’s breaths were more like gasps. A moment passed, and then he sobbed.
The fingertips had the most nerves on the skin throughout the body, and he had never felt that more than he did at that moment. Pain shot up through his body, and it was hard enough to pull nearly-imperceptible bits of glass from his hand without his eyes being blurred by tears.
(One time, Peter got a handful of glass bits lodged in his flesh because of an unfortunate interaction with a window while chasing a criminal. Mr. Stark had been there within ten minutes, and he’d been in the medbay soon after that, painkillers coursing through his body and numbing the feeling as a doctor pulled the glass from his skin in one hand and Tony held his other, grounding him, letting him know that he wasn’t alone.)
(Now, Mr. Stark was dead.)
(And Peter was alone.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
The bandages that he kept in his bag were wrapped sloppily around his sluggishly-bleeding hand, and Peter slumped against the wall for a moment to catch his breath in the empty apartment. He took a deep breath, grabbed the last box, and headed downstairs. He gave the key to the man at the front desk.
“Sorry about the mirror,” Peter said. The man furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth to respond, but Peter was already gone.
(It wasn’t like the man could make him pay for the damages.)
(Peter Parker didn’t exist, afterall.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Mrs. Stark was a loss that Peter hadn’t expected to feel as profoundly as he did. Out of anyone, it felt like she was one of the only people who truly understood what it felt like to lose Mr. Stark.
(That was dumb of him, he told himself. Pepper had lost her husband. Morgan had lost her father. Peter had just lost a mentor.)
Still, Pepper would ask him to visit the lake house at least once a month, and he did, even throughout the craziness of the world discovering who he was. In fact, it was almost like a haven. Spending a weekend away from everything, pretending to almost be normal, was nice.
He didn’t have that anymore.
The security system wouldn’t recognize him if he approached. Mrs. Stark would point a repulsor at him and demand to know who he was, why he was there. Morgan would look at him, and she wouldn’t see him, she would see a stranger, the kind of person she had been told time and time again to stay away from.
His things in the cabin would be gone. He didn’t know what would’ve happened to them, but they wouldn’t be there, that was for sure. He had seen MJ’s lock screen while in the coffee shop, once. It was a picture he recognized, one of him and her and Ned. Now, though, it was just MJ and Ned. Peter was nowhere to be seen.
(Doctor Strange’s spell was nothing if not thorough.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
There were no more pictures of Peter anywhere. They were gone off of his phone, too, but at least anyone who wasn’t him remained in them. That was a solace. He could still take his phone out, look at his friends, his family.
People who were dead. People who didn’t know him. People who were gone.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Spider-Man didn’t use his right hand as much as his left hand for a week while he let the cuts heal.
Peter had never hated that radioactive spider more than he did now. If he didn’t have these powers, then it wouldn’t be his responsibility to help people. Ned and MJ wouldn’t have gotten hurt. May wouldn’t have gotten killed.
He wouldn’t be dealing with feeling like he’s starving even after he eats because his metabolism is so fast. He wouldn’t be dealing with the bloodied hand. He wouldn’t be sleeping in a burned-out floor of an apartment building, shivering in the threadbare coat he owns because it’s winter and spiders can’t thermo-regulate.
If Peter had never gotten bit by that spider, he would never have had to tell Doctor Strange to erase him from existence. None of this would have happened.
Now, he had nothing.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
There was no one who loved him.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
There was no one who knew him.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
There was no one who remembered him.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
He was Peter Benjamin Parker, and he existed.
It seemed that was all he would ever do.
It was early morning when Peter was patrolling and abruptly had the world fall out from under him.
He let out a hiss when he fell onto the laminated floor that had appeared beneath him.
His bruised body let out screams of pain in protest, and Peter bit his tongue as he pushed himself up and reoriented himself.
“Hello there, Spider-Man.”
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Peter’s head shot up, and he felt something in his chest run cold. Doctor Strange was there, staring down at him with a raised eyebrow.
Peter scrambled to his feet and cleared his throat. “Uh, hey, Mister Doctor Strange, sir.” He couldn’t call him Stephen. After everything, Peter couldn’t even think of him like that. “You need help with something?”
Doctor Strange huffed, half-amused and half-exasperated. “Always trying to help, aren’t you?” It sounded like he was talking more to himself than to Peter.
Peter puffed out his chest a bit. He wasn’t useful for anything but Spider-Man anymore. If Doctor Strange was coming to him, there had to be something wrong with the world. Saving the world? That was something Peter could do.
That was all that he could do, anymore.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
“Sir?” He prompted. Doctor Strange blinked, snapping from his thoughts and focusing on Peter.
“Do you know why the multiverse almost collapsed back in November?” Doctor Strange asked.
Peter swallowed, his throat aching a bit. “What d’you mean?”
“You were there, you helped for a bit. Do you know why it happened?” Doctor Strange’s frown deepened. “No matter what I do, I can’t seem to remember. I was hoping you did.”
A moment of hesitation. Peter nodded.
“That’s what I thought.” A blink, and they were somewhere else. Peter recognized it as the room where the first memory spell had been performed.
(Almost performed.)
(Before he broke it. Ruined it.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
“This is where it all began,” Doctor Strange said. “I attempted to perform a spell here, and something went wrong, breaking the multiverse open and allowing it to seep into our world.” Doctor Strange looked up at him. “The residue of a separate, stronger version of that spell can be found all over the universe. I remember performing that spell, though I do not know what it was for.” He paused. “The only one who has not been affected by that spell is you. There is clearly a reason why it was performed, but I cannot remember.”
Peter let out a shaky breath. “You want me to tell you why.”
“I need you to tell me why,” Doctor Strange corrected.
“Why?” Peter asked, and his heart was pounding in his chest. “Can you undo it?”
Doctor Strange shook his head slowly. “No. That spell is currently the only thing keeping the multiverse from collapsing in on itself. No, I need to know because I need to do more.”
Peter almost choked. “More?” Doctor Strange nodded.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
His vision tunneled. That roaring that was always in his mind increased, flooding his thoughts. His hand, still stained with blood because the cuts kept reopening before they fully healed, stung with pain. His stomach ached from being empty. The fabric of his homemade suit was itchy against his skin. His heart hurt from everything weighing down on him, from the endless loss and loss and loss.
(He missed Ned.)
(He missed MJ.)
(He missed Happy.)
(He missed Aunt May.)
(He missed Mr. Stark.)
(He missed having people who remembered him.)
(He missed having people who cared about him.)
(He missed having people who loved him.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
“Why?” Peter breathed. Through the sounds of himself drowning, he was sure he could hear Doctor Strange ask what he meant. Peter didn’t care. He looked upward, toward the sky shining through the window at the top of the Sanctum. “Why? Wasn’t this enough? What more do you want?”
A hand landed on his shoulder, and Peter jerked away, so unused to touch from anyone but himself unless it was touch that would cause harm.
Doctor Strange frowned. “Spider-Man. What happened?”
Peter swallowed. He was Spider-Man, and Spider-Man helped people. He had to help. If Doctor Strange knowing about how badly Peter had failed meant that the world would continue to be safe, then so be it.
“I messed up,” Peter said. “Back at the beginning of November. Well, actually, I messed up back over the summer, but the main thing was in November. I asked you to help me fix it, and you were going to use a spell, but I messed that up, too. That’s when all those bad guys started coming into our world from other worlds. It was because, in other worlds, they knew me.” His throat ached. Doctor Strange stayed silent.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
“We got all of them here, but we found out they would die when we sent them back. You and I fought because I wanted to help them, and I locked you in that mirror place.” Peter’s hand throbbed. “I went to help them, and I almost did, but something went wrong.” He took a breath in, his eyes stinging. “They killed my aunt, and probably a lot of other people. I got some help from two other Spider-Men who came from other universes, and we worked together to help all of the bad guys. You escaped from the mirror place and went to finish the spell, but a bomb got in the spell box and the spell broke out and opened the multiverse again.”
Peter wet his lips, though Doctor Strange couldn’t see it behind the mask. “I, uh, I almost killed the last bad guy, but another me stopped me. We cured the bad guy, and then you said that you couldn’t fix the spell anymore, because people from the other multiverses were starting to come into our world.” Peter’s breathing was shaky, and he was trying to ignore the way his voice cracked. “I—I told you to cast a new spell, instead. It wouldn’t erase the memory of who Spider-Man’s identity was, cause that's what I wanted you to fix in the first place, but instead it would erase me.”
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
“What—What do you mean by that?” Doctor Strange asked.
“You, uh… You didn’t want to, but I had you basically erase me from existence. No one would remember me, I wouldn’t really… be a person , but, uh… the multiverse stopped collapsing, so it worked? Except you’re here now, so I guess it didn’t, and I guess I’m just… mad about that.”
(Not even mad. Just tired.)
(So, so tired.)
“Erased you from existence,” Doctor Strange mumbled. “Documents? Photos?”
Peter shook his head. “Erased out of all of them. I don’t have a birth certificate. Or a social security number. Or school records.” He laughed, but it was weak. “It’s really hard to live when you don’t legally exist, believe it or not.”
“Gods,” Doctor Strange breathed. “I’m… sorry about that, Spider-Man. And I’m sorry about this. I’m sorry that that wasn’t a one-and-done kind of thing.”
Peter shrugged. His heart was heavy. His hand was stinging. “It’s… It’s fine. That’s what I do, right? Help people? That’s what my thing is. Everyone I loved always got hurt, anyway. No one… No one is missing me.”
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Doctor Strange was silent. Peter awkwardly said, “So, what did you need help with? Was it just story-time?”
Doctor Strange shook his head. “No, no. There is more.” He paused. “As I said before, the multiverse is collapsing once more. That spell helped, but it seems what is truly causing the collapse is, well…”
His heart sank. It wasn’t really in sorrow, though, but more acceptance. He should’ve known that nothing would ever be easy.
(Fucking Parker Luck.)
“Me,” Peter said, finishing Doctor Strange’s statement for him.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(For now.)
Doctor Strange nodded. “Indeed.”
“Okay,” Peter shrugged. “So, kill me. That’ll fix it, right? If I’m not here anymore?”
“It’s not that simple,” Doctor Strange said. “The collapse is being caused by multiversal entities being drawn to your presence in this universe. Your presence is still there, even after you die. You remember how everyone came back from Thanos’s Snap, do you not?” Peter hummed in confirmation. “Their souls remain, as all souls do, in one capacity or another. The only thing that is powerful enough to release a soul is them being destroyed by the direct power of one of the Infinity Stones of any individual universe. And, well, we don’t really have access to those anymore.”
“So, even if I died, my soul being in our universe would still draw the other bad guys here?”
Doctor Strange nodded.
“Oh.”
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Peter squeezed his hands and did his best through the gloves of the suit to dig his nails into his palms, ignoring the pain that shot up his right arm as he did. “So, what do we do?” Blood was soaking through the glove’s fabric. He ignored it.
“The best solution is to send you to another universe,” Doctor Strange said. It was casual, as if he wasn’t saying that Peter needed to be removed from everything he’d ever known.
“What?”
Doctor Strange’s frown shifted a bit, turning sadder. There was a glimmer of pity in his eye. Peter hated it.
(This was his fault, wasn’t it? He didn’t deserve pity.)
“How long?” Peter asked.
“It would be permanent,” Doctor Strange replied. “Additionally, it would need to be one that does not have your presence already there.”
“What does that mean?”
“There cannot be a version of you already present,” Doctor Strange said. “Living or dead, if there is already a version of your soul in whatever universe you are sent to, then further collapse could occur.”
There was blood rushing in his ears. His heart was going to beat right out of his chest. His hand, previously stinging, was numb.
Peter didn’t have much of a response. How could he? How was he meant to react when he just learned that he was the reason that the entire multiverse was in danger of falling apart once more?
(It was always Peter’s fault in the end. He messed up everything he touched. He hurt everyone. The only time the people he cared about weren’t hurt by him was when Mr. Stark was still around to help him protect them.)
(But Mr. Stark wasn’t around anymore.)
(And the people he cared about were hurt. Or gone.)
(Because of Peter.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
“Spider-Man?”
Peter was crying, the tears soaking the inside of the mask, but he ignored it. “Yeah?”
“I understand that this is a lot to handle. Are you willing to help?”
Peter forced down a sob. He nodded. “Of course.”
Doctor Strange’s relief was clear on his face. It became abruptly obvious how tense he had been. “ Thank you .” He brushed down the front of his tunic. “All right. I am going to need your full name. It will make it easier for me to find a universe without you in it.” He looked at Peter. “I am going to try to find the closest universe to our own without your presence within it.”
“Will it be safe?”
“As safe as I can ensure,” Doctor Strange said. “You’ve given up a lot to save the multiverse, and are now giving up even more. If anything, you deserve somewhere safe, Spider-Man.”
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Peter’s hand hurt even more now. A drop of blood had seeped through the seams in the spandex and dripped onto the floor.
Doctor Strange’s gaze flicked to it. “What is that?”
“Just a bit of blood,” Peter said. “I, uh, I accidentally ran into a mirror. Got a hand stuffed full of glass.”
“And you’re still bleeding from cuts like that? I thought your healing factor was incredible.”
Peter shifted, thoughts of his empty stomach in the forefront of his mind as he said, “My, uh, my healing calmed down when I started eating less. I think it’s trying to make sure my metabolism doesn’t have to power it and can focus on the rest of my body instead.”
Doctor Strange frowned again. He seemed to do that a lot.
“What—” Peter hesitated. “What’s gonna happen to New York without me here?”
Doctor Strange gave a vague roll of his shoulders. “I don’t know. Continue as it always did, I suppose.”
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
“I just— I help so many people,” Peter said. “I can’t— People will get hurt if I’m not here. If I leave, and people get hurt, then them getting hurt is my fault.”
“Spider-Man,” Doctor Strange said—it was the same tone that he once used to say Peter. “I don’t think you fully understand what I am saying here.” He paused. “If you continue to stay in this universe, the entire multiverse will collapse. It will be worse than the Chitauri, worse than Ultron, worse than Thanos. It will be worse than anything any world has ever seen before. It won’t matter if you’re stopping crime in this city, because the city won’t be standing for much longer.”
Peter’s head hurt. His heart hurt. His hand hurt. Everything hurt. “All of that because of me?”
Doctor Strange nodded, and offered no comfort.
(He didn’t know Spider-Man. He didn’t need to offer comfort.)
(He’d known Peter, once.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
“The best thing you can do to protect this city is to leave,” Doctor Strange said.
It felt less real every time he said it.
“When do I— When is this happening?”
“As soon as I find a suitable universe,” Doctor Strange said. He paused. “You probably have a few days. There are a lot of universes to sort through.”
Peter nodded, and it felt like he was underwater.
(He was drowning.)
“My name is Peter Parker. Peter Benjamin Parker.”
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
Doctor Strange nodded. “All right, Peter Parker. I’m going to get to work.”
Peter nodded.
“I’ll bring you back here when it’s time,” Doctor Strange said. A portal appeared, swept over Peter, and the Sanctum was gone. He was back on the roof he had been on before he’d been taken just a little bit ago.
Now, he looked out on his city and realized it was one of the last days he would ever see it.
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
I’m going to try and find the closest universe to our own.
Did that mean that there would still be New York? Probably. That was consistent with Peter-Two and Peter-Three and their worlds had been very different from his own, from the sound of it.
Still, it wouldn’t be his New York. It could be the exact same, and it wouldn’t be his New York. It would be wrong in some way. The sun wouldn’t hit the streets the same way. The sandwiches at Delmar’s would be slightly different. The shade of blue for Midtown would be a bit off.
(No one would know who Peter Parker was.)
(That would stay the same.)
(I am Peter Benjamin Parker, and I exist.)
A scream pierced his ears from down the street.
Peter took a breath, stuck out his left arm, and shot a web to the building across the road, ignoring the occasional drop of blood that leaked from the suit’s seam and splattered on the pavement below.