Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It feels wrong. This universe, that is.  

Peter doesn’t really know what it is, what’s not right, but he can feel it in an alarming way that reminds him of those first few days after he was bitten. It feels like an itch under his skin that he can’t quite scratch. A pressure in his ears that doesn’t go away no matter how much he rubs or taps or shakes his head. 

There’s a wrongness that sits over every sense and every movement that screams at him: you don’t belong here. Here, of course, being this universe. 

It’s been five days since Peter got ripped from his world. 

Five days since he failed to be sent back.

They’re all just kind of avoiding it. Obsessing over it without ever actually talking about it out loud. Peter 1-- this universe’s Peter--had dragged them back to his apartment after-- after, and Peter 3 had done his best five-minute-patch-job for the stab wound in Peter’s side before they’d all crashed and slept for nearly 14 hours straight.

Peter had been the first one to swim back to consciousness, peeling himself out of his suit and pulling on the first t-shirt he could find. It said something about surviving NYC--the irony was not lost on him in the slightest--and Peter 1 had nearly cried at the sight of it. 

Eventually, they’d found themselves sitting at a table, Peter 3 eyeing the hole in the window with barely-held curiosity, and just sort of- stared. At each other. At the floor. At this universe that had no business holding on to three Peter Parkers. 

What was there to say? There was no one in this world anymore who even knew who Peter Parker was. No one to go to for help. And none of them had a single clue had to open up a portal to another universe.

What was there to do except- try to move on. Try to figure it out. Try to pretend like the very cells in Peter’s body weren’t protesting his mere existence on this planet.

In the four days since then, they’d simply been trying to survive. 

The spell went wrong, that went without saying. Peters 2 and 3 should not be here. They’ve barely said two sentences on the subject, but it consumes their minds regardless. They need to go back. They need to fix this. They need- they need a job.

The three men might be superheroes, but they’re just people right now. Peter 1 is thankfully 18, and the spell might’ve erased people’s memories, but he still has a social security number and a legal identity and--their current saving grace--a bank account.

Granted, it doesn’t really have much money in it, but it was at least enough to get them a tiny, shitty apartment to call their own with a landlord who doesn’t ask too many questions. New York City is apparently stupidly expensive in every universe, and Peter’s pretty sure there are college dorm rooms bigger than this, but it’s got four walls, a roof, and running water, which is at least better than another night camping out on a rooftop.

Now, their biggest problem is rent. But Peter can’t get a job in a universe he doesn’t exist in, and as much as he wants to help Peter 1, there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to either. Because something about getting a job, establishing an identity, becoming a part of this world, feels like giving up.

It’s been less than a week. 

It’s been five days too many.

Peter tries his hardest to keep it together. To stay calm and focused, filling the apartment walls with equations and theories and possible explanations. Peter 1 is out job searching, and Peter 3 spends much of his time on the roof. Peter gets it, the four walls of their tiny apartment feel like a cage sometimes, trapping both Peters in a place they don’t belong.

The wrongness sits under his skin, easier to push aside with every day that passes, but Peter clings to the sensation like a child with a safety blanket, certain that letting go of it will mean everything he’s ever loved will be lost.

Because Peter loves his world. Loves New York City. Loves his aunt and his friends and-- MJ. His MJ. God, Peter tries so hard not to think of her sometimes because it makes that wrongness, that itch, feel like needles digging their way under his skin and towards his heart. He misses her more with every day that passes.

In the meantime, though, there’s Peter.

He gives up on calling them 1 and 3 by day eight. Over a week has passed, and Peter has stopped pretending like being here, in this universe, is going away any time soon. Peter 1 has already tried the wizard guy and got left at the door. They’d sat on the floor of a furniture-less apartment that night, and Peter had been forced to accept that he was officially stuck here. Maybe for weeks. For months. For years if they didn’t find a way to reverse it.

Peter might never go home.

So Peter 1 becomes Petey, mostly by virtue of how it makes him blush and roll his eyes and protest that “I’m not a little kid!” when the other two call him that. The nickname sticks, and Peter gets to know Petey, this younger version of himself that is equal parts like looking at a time machine and like looking at a stranger.

Petey is drowning. Drowning in a depth of grief and sorrow that Peter can both understand perfectly and also hope never to understand. He knows what it’s like to lose someone, but Petey has lost his entire world and it’s killing him, just a little.

What’s worse, is how he just seems to accept it. How he seems to think the world, his friends, his MJ , are better off forgetting who he is. Peter can’t convince him to tell them the truth. The teen is determined, and stubbornness seems to be a trait they all share.

But Peter knows it wears on him. Can hear it in the way he bursts awake gasping at night, can see it in the way he stares at the city with tears in his eyes, can feel it in the tremors that rack his body whenever he brings up his aunt or Ned or MJ or some guy named Tony Stark.

Petey is drowning, and Peter has no idea how to keep him afloat. 

And then there’s Peter 3. They settled on Peter B.--because of course they’d all have the same middle name, what else did they expect--and it took Petey all of three hours before it got shortened to just-- Bee. It’s one letter away from being Ben, but the way they’d both flinched when Petey brought it up makes it clear that one won’t work.

Besides, it rhymes with three. Peter’s pretty sure there are worse nicknames in the universe.

Bee finds the nickname hilarious, actually, especially when Petey comes home with a stuffed cartoon bumblebee for him the very next day. The way he’d smiled made him look ten years younger, the ever-present tension in his shoulders fading just a little. 

Peter thinks it suits him. Bee has a sort of frantic buzzing energy to him. He flits between the apartment and the roof, hanging from the ceiling or tucked above the cabinets. Pretty much anywhere that isn’t the single couch they’d dragged out of a dumpster or the lawn chairs around a Home Depot bucket that currently acts as their table.

It’s not a good energy. Peter B. buzzes with a kind of near-panic that Peter can practically taste it’s so obvious. He can’t sit still, he can barely keep food down, he doesn’t sleep. He spends most of his days either swinging through the city, perched on the roof, or obsessing over notes and theories that Peter himself can barely keep up with.

He takes over for Petey’s patrol. The city has no way of knowing that it’s a different Spiderman swooping in to save them these days. Petey is busy trying to get a second job, anything to help them pay for rent and food, and Bee had been more than willing.

It worries Peter. Most things about the other two worry him, but this perhaps most of all. Because he remembers the way Bee had spoken on that rooftop, about not pulling his punches. The Spiderman in this universe already has a bit of a bad rep, and the brutal way that Bee is accustomed to taking down criminals is certainly not helping.

But Peter feels reluctant to stop him, and he knows the Petey feels the same. They both see how much Bee needs this. How much it’s killing him to sit in the apartment day after day and realize they have absolutely no fucking clue how to fix this.

Although…sometimes Peter wonders if Bee even wants to fix it. He isn’t like Peter; he doesn’t have an MJ. According to Bee, there’s not really anyone out there for him to miss or to miss him back. His Aunt May, maybe, but apparently they haven’t really been close the last few years. Like Petey, Bee had decided that everyone in his life was just…better off without him.

There’s an ever-present grief and anger to Bee that is entirely different than the kind that consumes Petey. On Petey, that grief and anger is new and fresh. It sits on top of him like a blanket, smothering his optimism and cheerfulness with the weight of it. 

But a blanket can be pulled away. A blanket can be removed. With Bee…with Bee, it’s sunken into his skin. It’s made itself at home. It’s hooked itself into the younger man’s bones, an anchor that pulls on Bee every second of every day. Peter knows grief and he knows anger, but he has long since stopped wearing it like a second skin. 

Bee goes out every night as soon as dusk falls and doesn’t return until the sun peeks back over the horizon in the morning. He’s always covered in some manner of cuts and bruises, stumbling through the window and straight to the shower. They’re lucky Petey managed to find a sewing machine while dumpster diving or Bee’s suit would be in shreds by now. 

Yet neither of them have the heart to tell him to stop. Petey has nightmares, sure. He still grieves and cries and collects coffee cups like they’re precious gems. But Petey also goes to work every day; he says hi to people in the street and he takes walks in Central Park and he brags about getting the alley cat to trust him enough for a few pets. Petey still has a life here, is still trying to make it through every day with his chin up.

Petey has a level of maturity that Peter himself can barely comprehend, but also a youthful energy and optimism that refuses to be broken down. 

Peter B. broke down years ago, and it’s never more obvious than when it’s just the two of them in the apartment together. When Petey is there, Bee is all soft and gooey and sweet. No really, it’s like his typical tough exterior melts away and he’s just another kid who loves science and fluffy dogs and pizza. Just another kid to debate old movies with and laugh over memes. 

With Petey, Bee slips into the role of older brother with ease. When Petey wakes shouting, Bee is there to calm him down with gentle words and even gentler touches. When Petey cries about May or Stark, Bee is there to cheer him up and wipe his tears. 

Even with Peter, who the other two fondly call either Pete or Gramps ( very much against his wishes, he’s not even that old!) Bee tends to be pretty soft. He fusses over Peter’s stab wound the entire six days--longer than usual--it takes to heal. He shoves food Peter’s way when it’s just them at night, babbling about how he’ll eat when he’s out on patrol or that Peter needs it more because he’s, quote “gotta take care of those old bones”. Bee insisted Peter or Petey be the one to take the couch, that they can have the last slice of pizza, that they be given the extra blanket. 

Bee gives and gives and wants nothing for himself in a way that tells Peter that Bee is exactly the kind of person who gives his whole heart to the people he loves…and loses everything when they leave.

And when it’s just the two of them during the day, Petey at work or out studying for his GED tests, it’s readily apparent that Bee is barely hanging in there. Sometimes, he just sits, staring at the floor, his legs folded beneath him and his mask clenched in his fists. Peter doesn’t want to know what he’s thinking. He’s not sure he would know what to do if he knew.

Bee is empty, has nothing left to give, so he doles out punches instead. He’s weighed down by his grief and overcome with old bitterness. And every time he slides through that window with a new bruise to grumble about, Peter wonders how long it takes someone like that till they shatter underneath the weight. 

---

The first month passes, and Peter stops counting the days and starts counting the weeks. 

They’ve settled into a routine of sorts. Petey wakes first, showers and changes and heads out to grab coffee before work. He managed to get a simple busboy job down the street, and on Saturdays, he works at the local comic shop for a little extra cash.

Peter tends to sleep in, although he’s always awake and trying to coax coffee out of their dinged-up Keurig well before Bee opens his eyes. The younger man spends much of his night on patrol or clearing his head, and he never wakes before noon. 

By the time Bee arrives back to the land of the living, Peter will be showered, dressed, caffeinated, and working on theories. Or, hypotheses more like it seeing as they don’t have a scrap of data that actually proves or supports a single thing at this moment in time.

Peter loves science. But he never even imagined that traveling through portals was real let alone possible.

Bee is a little better at it. Mostly because there’s still a level of nerdy, youthful excitement that simmers beneath the surface whenever Bee talks about things like string theory and matter displacement. Sometimes Peter thinks Bee is working on figuring it out just to prove that he can more than because he wants to. 

Or needs to. Like Peter does.

The nights stretch longer the closer they get to winter, and Bee spends more and more hours outside of the apartment. Peter worries. He can’t help it.

Sometimes, the very idea of Peter living with and being friends with alternate versions of himself is enough to leave him lying awake with a headache brewing behind his eyes. There’s something so intangibly wrong about the very concept of what is happening in his life that it makes his brain hurt.

Petey and Bee are not his brothers. They aren’t his friends. They are, quite literally, him.

And yet-- they are so very not. 

It’s been six weeks. Six weeks is surely not long enough to feel this attached to someone. But every time Petey’s voice cracks on a name or Bee jolts awake crying, Peter’s heart feels like it’s being ripped in two. Torn between his love for his own world and his desire to go home…and this growing sense of responsibility that is holding him here.

Petey and Bee need him. 

Peter looks at Petey with a strange mixture of pride and hope and fear. Petey is struggling, but he leans on Peter and Bee and he lets them help him make it through. Petey wakes each day more determined than the last, and he puts in 100% no matter what it is he’s doing. 

Petey is everything Spider-Man has always stood for. Peter can actually see how the weight of May’s--of Ben’s-- words have shaped him and changed him and set him on this path. Petey is human. He struggles, he fails, he cries, and he laughs. But he tries his damn hardest, every single day, to do the right thing.

It scares him sometimes. 

Peter has never seen Petey as a kid because Petey has never been one, not to him. And that makes Peter so so proud every time he sees Petey lift his chin and wipe his tears and smile at New York with such determination.

But it also makes him so overwhelmingly sad.

In the small hours of the evening when Petey has come home from work and Bee hasn’t yet left for patrol, Petey talks. He rambles, more specifically, about anything and everything he needs to get off his chest. And Peter listens.

Tony Stark is not just some guy who owns a tech company. He’s not just a mentor or boss. To Petey, he’s infinitely more than that. He’s a father figure. An idol. A friend. A teammate. He meant the world to Petey; he owes him everything.

And Peter hates his guts.

Peter comes from a world where he’s practically the only superhero in the world. There are no crazy robots or Norse gods or evil time-traveling aliens. 

And there’s certainly no billionaire going around recruiting fourteen-year-old kids. 

Petey was a child. Sure, he was a child with extraordinary abilities, but this Tony Stark had no right to be dragging a child off to Germany to get in the middle of some pissing match between superheroes. 

Peter can tell by the way Bee’s fists clench at his sides and his brow lowers in anger that he’s not the only one that feels how unfair this whole thing is. Petey doesn’t feel like a kid because he never got the chance to really be one. 

Peter thinks that without him and Bee, Petey might’ve crumbled by now. Might’ve given in to the tsunami of grief. Peter thinks that the knowledge--the responsibility--Petey has to help them get back to their own universes is what is carrying Petey through the day.

Perhaps it’s the only thing keeping any of them afloat. Peter tries to remain optimistic. The math will work itself out eventually. Or Petey will make friends with wizard guy again, or some other hero will pop up with an answer, or maybe this universe will simply have had enough of them at some point just send them home. Who knows.

So Peter tries to remain optimistic. He picks up any and every odd neighborhood job he can for some pocket money, uses it to buy groceries and toiletries and to pack little lunches for Petey to take to work. He feeds the alley cat dinner on the fire escape so Petey has something to look forward to in the evenings, and he sews Bee’s suit back together whenever it becomes torn on patrol.

Peter still clings to that feeling of wrongness, determined not to forget his place here, but he lets himself settle just a little. Lets himself take care of these two people who should feel like strangers but who he embraces like brothers.

Peter talks Bee down from a panic attack one night, standing on the roof of some office building, the blue lights of a police car flickering past Bee’s pale face. He’d caught some girl who was falling, and when he’d settled her gently on the ground, she had told him she’d done it on purpose.

Peter had sensed Bee’s despair from three blocks away. He’s not sure how--he’s too damn tired to process that--but he’s climbing out the window and sprinting across the rooftops practically before he even registers the feeling.

Now, he sits on the gravelly rooftop, Bee practically hyperventilating in his lap, and hopes that if he holds on tight enough, maybe he can keep the poor man from breaking.

“S-She wanted to die,” Bee whispers, voice in shambles. Peter nearly cries at the mere sound of it.

“But she didn’t, Bee. Because you saved her. You caught her Peter.” Peter’s arms tighten further, to the point where he thinks it might leave bruises on Bee’s pale skin.

“She didn’t want to be saved,” comes the heartbroken reply.

Peter has no idea what to say to that. He never really knows quite what to say to Bee. 

When Peter looks at Petey he sees a young version of himself. A version who’s faced way more hardship in 18 years than anyone deserves, sure, but a version that he can still recognize. Petey responds to the obstacles in his life not terribly unlike Peter himself might have. And he’s so young, Peter knows there’s time for him to grow and move on and overcome.

Peter knows how to help Petey when the boy comes to him for advice. Peter has no clue how to help Bee.

He takes him home, shoves him towards the shower, and throws his suit in the hamper. He waits till Bee comes stumbling out of the bathroom, thick mop of hair dripping water down his bruised skin, and bundles him up with every blanket they’ve managed to find.

Then he holds him. Because Peter doesn’t know what else to do. Peter has no clue how to even imagine what Bee must feel like. Sometimes, he thinks about what he might do if he lost MJ, but even imagining it is too painful to sustain for long. Bee has been living with this for years.

Petey wakes up at some point. Joins their little huddle on the couch without question, his eyes shining with an understanding too deep for someone so young.

“Have you ever-” Bee’s voice is soft and hoarse, his tongue coming out to lick his lips when it cracks halfway through the sentence. “Have you ever thought about it?”

For a brief moment, Peter has no idea what he’s talking about. But then every muscle in Petey’s body tenses against his side, and he knows.

Bee’s eyes are infinitely sad when he finally looks up from his lap. “I-I haven’t really. Not for real. But sometimes…sometimes when I’m falling, I imagine what it might be like to not catch myself.”

Peter didn’t it was possible for him to feel this helpless and sorrowful. Then Petey went and opened his mouth.

“Yeah, I, I know what you mean.” The youngest of them picks at a thread on the thin blanket wrapped around their shoulders. “I thought I died, once. When Thanos made the Blip happen, and I disappeared. And I didn’t want to then because I knew I was leaving everyone behind. I wasn’t even on Earth; I couldn’t even say goodbye.

(Has Peter mentioned he hates Tony Stark? He really hates him.)

“But now…I don’t know. I mean, Stark is dead. Ma- Aunt May is dead. And MJ and Ned look right through me.” Petey swallows hard, tears clinging to dark eyelashes. “It’s not like anyone would miss me if I left.”

And that- that right there is the sound of Peter’s heart shattering into a million pieces. Because Bee doesn’t do anything more than nod in understanding, and Peter looks at these two boys, broken beyond anything he could imagine, and thinks, not for the first time, that there’s nothing in the world he wouldn’t do to take just a little of their pain away.

Nothing in the world Peter wouldn’t do just to see them smile.

God, Peter hates this universe. He hates that it’s trapped him and Bee here. He hates the way it treats its heroes. He hates the way the city he loves looks at Spider-Man like he’s a menace. He hates the way someone as bright and innocent and pure as Petey could be forced to face such hardships before he even got to graduate high school. 

Peter wants nothing more than to leave. 

.

.

.

So why does it feel like he needs to stay?

Chapter Text

Thanksgiving comes and goes and none of the boys so much as mention its name. Peter tries not to think that it’s because none of them have anything to be thankful for.

They've been closer since that night, the one that Peter also tries so hard not to think about. Something had changed in them come morning, especially between Petey and Bee. An understanding that goes way deeper than a mask and sticky fingers.

Petey still goes to work. Bee still goes on patrol. Peter…Peter does his best just to go forward.

“I figured it out.”

They’re the words Peter has been aching to hear for weeks now, but he knows right away, by the casual resigned tone, by the nearly imperceptible shift of clothing, that they're not quite what he’s been hoping for. So-

“Figured what out?” he asks instead. They’re laying on the rooftop of their apartment building, nothing but the stink of trash and the honk of cars to fill their senses. He’d say they were stargazing, he and Bee, but New York City is never really dark enough for that. Especially not with that damn tree throwing rainbows of light across every building on the block.

“Why we’re still here,” Bee replies. Peter stiffens on instinct, his ears unused to hearing this forbidden topic be talked about out loud. He swallows hard, not risking a glance to the side where he knows the younger man is laying.

“Yeah?” His voice doesn’t crack around the single simple word, and for that, he is disproportionately grateful. 

Bee turns onto his side, propping himself on an elbow that will surely hurt after just a few seconds of digging into the cold hard floor. Peter’s been ignoring the gravel poking at his legs and butt for nearly an hour now.

“Petey explained the spell to me. What he asked of wizard guy,” Bee starts. His eyes are impossibly dark in the dim midnight lighting, his voice too soft for a normal person to hear over the wind and sounds of the city. “It was meant to erase all memory of Peter Parker so that the people who knew who he was would stop trying to come to this universe.”

Peter nods, mostly aware of all this despite Petey never having really said it out loud. “So what does that have to do with us?” he says. He swallows down words like ‘trapped’ or ‘left behind’.

“Well. The spell sent everyone back after they forgot about Peter Parker, right? Because if there’s no Peter Parker, there’s no reason to come to this universe.”

Peter sighs, finally letting his head flop to the side so he’s looking at Bee through the strands of his overgrown hair. “I don’t get it.”

“Everyone was supposed to forget Peter Parker. Except, of course, for Peter Parker. I think, I think we’re still here because the spell sent back everyone who forgot .” Bee meets his eyes for a second before his gaze flits away, staring out over the ledge at the city below. “We can’t forget Peter Parker exists if we’re Peter Parker.”

Oh. Fuck.

It makes sense. Peter hates it, but it makes sense. He throws himself forward into a sitting position, legs sprawled out. His mind is spinning, running this new theory over in his head and digging into it, trying to find any flaws. It snags on a new thought right away.

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait. The spell made everyone forget? Everyone from every universe?” His heart is pounding in his ears, his mouth suddenly drier than sand.

Bee’s eyes are beautiful, Peter has always thought so, but they’re also always so sad. They’re always dimmed with a shadow of grief or depression, never shining to their full potential. Right now though, they are infinitely soft and infinitely broken. 

“That’s, that’s kinda what it sounds like,” he whispers. Peter’s nails dig into his palms as he struggles to breathe, struggles to think . MJ, his brain hisses. What if MJ forgot?

What if Peter puts in all this effort to try and find a way home…and no one is waiting for him when he gets there? 

***

Their first true complication comes less than 48 hours later. 

Up until now, they’d all just kinda been surviving. Making it through each day, not really thinking about the next. They’d been swimming through a murky hazy soup of jumbled theories and grocery bills and bloodied knuckles and nightmares. They’d just been getting by. 

Then Bee falls through the window one morning with his arm cradled to his chest and his whole left side nearly black with bruises. 

Peter’s hands flutter uselessly in the air, not even sure where to grab that he wouldn’t just be causing more damage. Bee is struggling to breathe, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his fingers trembling and his face twisted into a grimace. Petey wakes to Bee biting the skin of his thumb off as he stifles screams of pain into his bloodied skin. 

Between the two of them, they get Bee’s suit off, get him in the shower, and sit him on the couch under a pile of blankets that reminds Peter too much of the last time a patrol had gone wrong. Only then--with Bee gulping down water and expired Advil and Petey curled around him like a particularly lanky lapdog--does Peter ask what went wrong.

“I ran out of webs,” comes the reply. Bee is gently holding his left arm, thumb rubbing over the soft skin on his inner wrist. The only things they’d had for a splint were a pair of chopsticks from the takeout place down the block and a roll of neon orange duck tape.

“I was on my way home, and I just- I ran out.” Bee’s eyes flicker up to meet Peter’s, wide and sad and brown as always, but this time tinged with fear. Peter doesn’t want to imagine Bee falling through the air with nothing to catch him. Their last couch-huddle-conversation still stings like fire ant bites on his fragile broken heart.

Petey speaks up, his voice anxious and fast. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. How did I not think of that?”

“It’s not your fault, Petey. I didn’t think of it either, and I should know better.” Bee’s fingers reach to card gently through Petey’s hair in an attempt at comfort, but Peter doesn’t need super senses to see how his hands are trembling.

This isn’t a problem Peter would’ve ever seen coming, but he’s kicking himself for it all the same. He knew the other two couldn’t make their own webs, and he should’ve known that, eventually, they’d run out. 

“I’ll have to do patrol,” he eventually says. “Petey will run out of webs too at some point.” He blinks, finally looking back down at the bundle on the couch. He’s not sure when he stood up, his knuckles white where he’s clenched them into fists. 

“But-” Petey stops, licks his lips, and lets his gaze dart nervously between the two older men. “But what about when you go back? I need to figure out some way to make more.”

Peter sees Bee tense at the same time he does. They don’t talk about going back. Not out loud, anyway. Petey looks between the two of them before seeming to shrink into himself a little, clearly aware of the rising awkwardness.

It’s…it’s not that Peter has stopped hoping. Wishing. Praying that a solution will come up. It’s that, well, he’s a scientist, right? Sort of. He can tell when something is simply not going to work.

Peter looks down again, at two pairs of wide brown eyes, so different than his own. Petey is fidgeting with the edge of the blanket, tense and silent in the aftermath of his statement. Bee has got one bloody lip tucked under his teeth, an arm wrapped around Petey as though it’s him that needs comfort when Bee’s the one who almost ended up as a sidewalk stain.

They look so young. So terribly young. Peter knows both of them have faced enough hardships for eight lifetimes, that Bee is well into his twenties and not actually a kid, but god if they don’t both look like it. Wrapped in blankets, shrouded in insecurities, still fighting to keep their heads above the waves of grief and guilt. 

He thinks of the way Bee’s battered hands are loosely holding a soft plushie under the blankets, the way he insists the bumblebee protects him at night. He thinks about the casual way Bee had said “on my way home” in reference to the apartment. He thinks about the way Petey’s eyes had lit up when Peter made pancakes for him, or the choked-off scream when Peter woke him from yet another nightmare. 

And Peter can’t leave them. He can’t. He- how could he?

“Petey…” He swallows hard and reaches a hand out to clasp the boy’s shoulder. “Petey, I think it’s time to accept that we aren't going back.”

***

Things don’t… change …necessarily. There’s nothing really to change. But Peter’s words have clearly had an effect on them all nonetheless.

There’s an air of permanence to their presence here that’s been growing steadily but no one had been willing to acknowledge. Peter feels it now, deep in his bones. Or, rather, he doesn’t feel it. That pressure, that itch, that wrongness that had plagued him those first few weeks is nearly imperceptible now. It’s like the universe is accepting them; they’ve carved out their little spot amongst the stars and made themselves at home.

Peter wants to hate it. Truly. He just…he can’t anymore.

Hating something takes way more energy than he has these days anyway.

Winter is upon them, and the closer they get to Christmas, the more obvious it is that some changes need to be made. Peter starts taking over most of the patrol duties, his research pushed to the side as he tires himself out running around New York City all night.

For the time being, Petey and Bee are splitting Petey’s web fluid between them, Petey taking Bee out to practice on nearby buildings. Peter bites back his words of caution when he sees how happy it makes the two to swing together.

There’s discussion to break into Petey’s old school to make more but…well it becomes clearer every day that if they’re going to break the law there are much more important things that they should be stealing. Like, for example, food.

Petey is still the only one with a real paying job, two of them in fact, but he’s barely being paid minimum wage. Peter and Bee have both been picking up any odd job and side hustle they can for quick cash, but they don’t have any phones or computers or anything, and in the tech-centered world of 2024 New York, they’re not exactly prime candidates for hiring. 

Peter’s been doing his best to ration everything and look for deals in the grocery store, but it hurts his heart to see Bee and Peter have to take their suits in a bit more as each week passes. They can’t afford heat either, and they’ve taken to piling up together under the blankets every night in an attempt to stay warm. 

“We can’t go on like this,” Peter brings up one night, the first snow of the season drifting past their window. “We won’t make it through the winter, not with our metabolisms, if something doesn’t change.”

They’re sprawled across the couch, limbs tangled together as they try to stay off the freezing cold floor. Bee is currently tucked between Peter and the back of the couch, huddled under a sweatshirt that Peter nabbed from his old apartment along with their few thicker blankets. 

There’s no denying that health-wise, Bee is the most fragile of the three, and Peter is terrified that he’ll wake one day to the younger man burning with fever. If they can’t afford food, they certainly can’t afford medicine, and Bee can’t be admitted to a hospital when he doesn’t even exist. Speaking of-

“We need to think about creating identities for ourselves. Getting fakes at least.” Not that they can afford to pay someone for that either. “We need jobs. We need food.”

Petey looks up at him with too-big eyes. “I’m trying my best,” he whispers. 

Peter sighs. “I know, Petey. I’m not blaming you. But you’re barely making enough to support one normal human, let alone three enhanced ones. Bee is about to waste away, and you’re not much better.”

“I’m fine,” comes Bee’s predictable reply.

“No, you’re really not,” Peter shoots right back. Bee glares at him from under the hood of his sweatshirt, but Peter’s gotten really good at being immune over the past months. The bottom of the man's jaw is still shadowed with a bruise that normally would've healed within a day.

It's been nearly a week. 

“And how do you suppose we pay for these fakes?” Bee asks, voice unusually sharp. He struggles up from the couch and turns to face Peter head on. “You said it yourself, we can’t even pay for food.”

Peter sighs again, something he seems to be doing a lot of these days. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m just saying we need to start thinking about it. It’s mid-December, we can’t just keep pretending like we’re not all going to freeze to death next month if nothing changes.”

There’s silence after his words, Petey biting at his lower lip and Bee struggling between what looks like frustration and acceptance. “You’re….not wrong,” he eventually concedes. “But what is there to do about it?”

He looks so helplessly lost, and when Peter glances behind him, so does Petey. Both of them, with no idea what to do and looking to Peter for guidance. But Peter doesn’t know either. 

“We-” He cuts himself off, already knowing his words won’t be appreciated. “We could always take some. Food, I mean. Only from places that definitely wouldn’t be hurt by it.”

Petey and Bee both look at each other meaningfully before Petey speaks up, his voice soft and careful. “Isn’t Spider-Man supposed to stop people like that? How can we call ourselves a hero if we’re no better than the criminals we oppose?”

And- he’s right, that’s the worst part. Peter’s stopped countless thieves over the years. But this is different. This has to be different. 

...right?

---

The thing is, being broke is not a new experience for Peter. It’s not a new experience for any of them. They all understand what it’s like to curl up under five blankets because they can’t afford to turn on the heat. What it’s like to go to bed hungry and skip breakfast and steal bits of your friends' food at lunch.

It’s part of what makes them Spider-Man. They protect the little guy because they understand what it feels like to be the little guy. The one no one's looking out for.

But Peter’s grown up, got a solid job and a two-income apartment with a wonderful working wife.

(don’t think about her, don't think about her, don’t think about her)

And even in the worst of times, he always found ways to keep food on the table. Even in the worst of times, he wasn’t in charge of two kids with superhuman metabolisms.

The first time Bee climbs through the window with a pizza box in hand, Peter’s hands curl into fists at his sides. His eyes narrow, his mouth opens on some sharp retort, and then- Bee flips the cardboard open to four slices of uneaten meat lovers and an assortment of crusts.

This isn’t stealing. This is worse.

Peter makes the two kids split the fourth slice, their stomachs all still grumbling but at least they can sleep through the night now. No one says a word about it, but the next day Petey comes home with some scraps the restaurant he works at was going to dump and Peter resigns himself to the reality of it all.

They’re broke. They’re starving. And Peter has no clue how to fix it.

***

Three days later, he's on patrol, the frigid wind making him want nothing more than to head back to the apartment and dive as far beneath the blankets as he could. Spiders weren’t exactly known for their ability to thermoregulate. 

Perhaps it’s because of the mind-numbing cold that he doesn’t realize where he is. How far he’s traveled. Ever since moving from Queens to Manhattan, there’s been a bit of an adjustment period for all three boys. 

Don’t get him wrong- Peter likes Manhattan just fine. Sometimes Petey drags them out to Central Park just to get some fresh air, or Peter and Bee will sit on the rooftops and watch the people in Times Square bustle about their day. 

It’s just- it’s not Queens. Part of what made Spider-Man a ‘friendly neighborhood hero’ was the neighborhood. Peter understood crime, and patrolling came naturally to him no matter the buildings and residents, but he didn’t know Manhattan’s neighborhoods like the back of his hand. Not like Queens.

So maybe that’s how he ended up here, slammed against the wall of an alley with someone’s hand around his throat and the Devil himself staring him down.

Petey had had one rule when he let Peter and Bee take over patrol: don’t go into Hell’s Kitchen. Peter’s pretty sure he just met why.

“I’m not gonna hurt anyone,” he says slowly, raising his hands in the air. “You don’t want those guys hanging around your neighborhood anyway, trust me.”

He’s pretty sure he could break the man’s hold pretty easily. But he also doesn’t think it’s wise to be making an enemy of New York’s other main vigilante. Hopefully, they can just part peacefully and go their separate ways. Peter will stay on his side of the city and the devil will stay on his.

But he’s not expecting what the man says next. “Who are you?”

Huh. Peter thought his voice would be deeper. 

He blinks twice. “What?” Peter glances quite pointedly down at the black spider symbol stretched across his red and blue chest. Yep, still there. “Uh, Spider-Man? Usually the spandex kinda gives it away.”

The devil’s voice lowers. “I’ve met Spider-Man before. You’re not him.”

What the fuck? Peter’s heart races at the implication, and the hand on his throat seems to tighten in response. 

Which one though? Had Bee also had a run in with the vigilante? Or had Petey worked with him before and neglected to mention it? And how in the world could he even tell?!

“Who are you?” Daredevil growls. Peter is so confused.

“I’m Spider-Man!” Was it their suits? Their height? Bee was definitely taller than Peter, but not so much that you could really tell from far away. This guy sounded dead confident.

Daredevil cocks his head to the side. “You’re not lying,” he says. He sounds almost as confused as Peter. “But you’re not the Spider-Man I’ve met.”

How the fuck does he know?!

Peter gasps in a breath as the man lets go, taking a step back and giving Peter room to slump back against the wall. “Thanks,” he grits out, rubbing at his throat. “Look, I didn’t mean to encroach on your territory or whatever. I’ll just stay out of Hell’s Kitchen and out of your hair. Cool?”

But the devil just stares at him, his horned head cocked to one side. God, how does he even see? Peter thinks to himself. The eye holes look pitch black.

“Two Spider-Mans,” the man mumbles. “How’s that work?”

“What?” Peter splutters. No really, who the fuck was this guy?? “No, no, one Spider-Man. Me.” 

“You’re lying.” 

“I’m not.” Peter’s hands clench into fists at his side, eyeing the top of the building as a potential escape route. This conversation was getting tiresome.

Daredevil still has his head cocked to the side, his posture relaxed where Peter is strung with tension. “You are.” The corner of his mouth tilts up in a smirk. “Stay out of Hell’s Kitchen, Spider-Man. And tell the other one that, too.”

Peter is left gaping as the man slinks back into the shadows, surprisingly quick and agile for a baseline human. God, he’s still so fucking confused.

Later, he brings it up with the kids, trying to figure out who the vigilante had met before.

Petey blinks at him with wide wild eyes. “Me,” he says. “Well, barely. I never used to come to Manhattan, but I tried to track him down years ago when I saw him online”

“What? Why?”

Petey blushes. “Well, I figured we could, I dunno, be friends? This was back when I was new to being Spider-Man and kinda had no idea what I was doing.” Ah, that Peter can understand. 

“Wait, this was years ago? As in, pre everyone forgetting about you?” Bee chimes in.

“Well, yeah. But I mean, the spell didn’t erase Spider-Man, just Peter Parker.”

Bee’s wide eyes found Peter’s, and shit, how had they not thought of this before? Maybe because neither he nor Bee had ever had other hero friends. Never been part of a team. But Petey had. He’d told them all about some crazy fight with all sorts of people and aliens.

“Petey, didn’t you say you worked with other heroes? The, uh, the-”

“The Avengers, yeah! Earth’s Mightiest Heroes; they’re awesome.”

“Okay, okay. And would any of them know how to create a fake ID?” A group of glorified vigilantes? At least one of them surely would. Peter doesn't like them, but well, they're getting desperate. 

Petey’s eyes brightened, and he shot off the couch. “Yes! Oh my god, I-” Then he cuts himself off, his eyes dimming as he seems to come to a realization. “They wouldn’t know me. They wouldn’t have any more reason to help me than Strange.”

“But you fought with them, right? They’d remember Spider-Man,” Bee prompted.

“Yeah, but.” Petey sits back down, his gaze on his lap. “Most of them are dead,” he says faintly.

“Stark would know how. Ms. Romanoff, definitely. But I didn’t really get to interact much with anyone else, except this group of space guys. Fury’s the only other one I can think of, but he’s not even on the planet.”

Peter is going to ignore that bit. Apparently, that was a normal thing in this universe.

“Well, surely there’s someone else,” Bee tries, patting Petey on the back. “We’ll find someone. I know it.”

Peter wonders when he lost that sense of optimism himself.

***

Christmas shopping. It's not- well, it certainly shouldn't be a priority. But Peter finds himself eyeing the cheerful displays as he goes on his weekly grocery run, and he thumbs the few crumpled bills in his pocket in question.

This will be Petey's first Christmas without May.

Peter remembers the first Christmas after losing Uncle Ben. He remembers the anger that simmered beneath the surface at every happy smiling family he saw, every Hallmark commercial and Coca-Cola ad. How angry he'd been that they all got to smile and laugh and be merry.

How sad it made him to think he'd gotten to a place where he was angry over other people's happiness.

Petey still stopped by the coffee shop as often as he could. He couldn't afford the drinks anymore, but sometimes he'd bring along his notebook and 'study' in the corner. Peter and Bee don't bring it up, but they know it's hurting him to see his friends celebrating without him.

How could Petey move on, when he sees the people he's lost every day?

The kid had more heart than anyone else Peter had met besides maybe Bee, but that just meant that there was more of it to break. Peter knew what it was like to grieve, but this was different. MJ and Ned hadn't died. They were still here, happy and alive and browsing the MIT course catalog just three tables away.

Peter knew it was killing the boy. But he couldn't stay away. He had to see them, had to check in, had to know they were okay. So Peter started watching him, watching to see if that anger, that bitterness that Peter had felt--that he knew Bee had felt--was creeping into Petey.

He wouldn't let it. He couldn't. 

There was a reason Peter didn't really want Petey sneaking into school to make more web fluid. There was a reason he didn't want him patroling. 

Because Peter remembered their conversation on that rooftop the moment they'd met. He remembered Bee's face half-hidden in the shadows, turned away so they wouldn't see his guilt. He remembered the burning anger in Petey's darkened eyes when Peter had stopped him from killing Green Goblin. 

Peter thought of the way Petey hadn't stopped hitting him, the way he'd seemed so oblivious to the other Peters, to his friends, to anything but killing the man who'd killed his aunt, and he knew that he couldn't let that anger consume the kid.

He saw what it did to people. He saw what it had done to him. And he woke up every day and saw what it had done to Bee.

So. Here was Peter. Christmas shopping. Because the kids deserved something more than a cold room and empty stomachs and crippling bitterness to greet them on Christmas day.

They deserved so much more than Peter felt able to give them.

Because sure, they might've accepted their fate. Accepted their place in this world, this universe. But that didn't stop the nightmares. The panic attacks. The grief and rage and hopelessness. The depression picking at their hearts that even Peter could feel a little more each day.

Petey wasn't making friends. He knew the name of every single one of his co-workers and their pets because that was just the kind of person he was, but he wasn't friends with any of them. He wasn't the same bubbly bright boy that he used to be. He was reserved, only making small talk to be polite but never going out for drinks or exchanging phone numbers. 

Instead, on his off days, Petey would take the three for walks around the city. Their trashcan was full of notes and theories that had been stripped from the walls and their apartment was starting to feel a little too small and a little too trapped these days. So they went walking.

The three would explore the city, tossing stories of patrols and adventures back and forth and remarking about which stores were the same and which were different. They'd linger in buildings and soak up the heat like cats lying in the sun, eyeing the Christmas decorations and carefully not commenting on their own distinct lack of holiday cheer.

It was the most normal Peter had felt in ages. Just the three of them, walking and talking and taking some time to just- be.

They needed more of that. They needed this Christmas. 

Peter ran a fingertip over the edge of a bumblebee keychain and smiled. Bee was still a hot mess, of course. Even without patrols he still escaped some nights, creeping around the city and getting himself into trouble as though the pain of punches was the only thing he was actually capable of feeling. 

This wouldn't be Bee's first Christmas alone. In fact, this was probably the least alone Bee had been in a while. It didn't make Peter feel any better, to imagine how lonely Bee must've been the last several years.

Bee was such a natural with Petey that often Peter forgot that the man was essentially a recluse before coming here. He overlooked how touch-starved Bee truly was. But it was there, in the tiny subtle flinch before Bee sank into a hug like he was startled to feel someone reaching out to him but desperate for the contact all at the same time.

It was there in the way Bee could go hours without saying a word, lounging against the wall and staring at the city like he couldn't possibly imagine being part of the crowd. Bee accepted punches like they were caresses, the bruises denoting physical proof that someone, anyone, had touched Bee. Had seen him. 

To Bee, the fighting and bruises were proof that he was still alive.

So he needed this. He needed what rare moments of normality and humanity they could grab. Bee needed Christmas.

Petey still woke up crying some nights. Bee still struggled to fall asleep at all. Peter couldn't be there for them anymore, out on patrol so often, but he knew it happened. He'd climb through the window in the faint light of morning to find the kids wrapped around each other with salt stuck to their cheeks. 

Some days he just stands there, the morning light skittering across the chipped paint and stained floorboards to settle on the pale, bruised faces of the two men who were currently Peter's whole world. There isn't a scrap of romantic feeling between the three of them, but Peter is sure he's never felt love like this before.

They were everything to him. They'd become more than brothers, more than friends. They were like a part of him now, a missing limb he can no longer live without. 

Peter sighs, glancing left and right before slipping the tiny keychain into his jacket pocket.

Peter can't give them everything they deserve. But he can give them this. 

***

In the end, Bee was right. They did find someone. Then again. He wasn’t exactly being subtle.

“Is that a bow and arrow?”

All three Peters were perched on a rooftop in Rockefeller Center, eyeing the battle below with wide, disbelieving eyes. The screams and chaos could be heard from their apartment, and the fallen tree was pretty much impossible to miss. 

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen an arrow do that before.”

Bee was nearly falling over the side, eagerly tracking the fight between the two archers and the group of….he assumed bad guys? Yeah, definitely bad guys. 

“Oh yeah, Clint’s super cool! He’s got all kinds of trick arrows, and he was an agent of SHIELD,” Petey gushed. 

SHIELD? Wasn’t that like the spy organization? Peter eyed the fight. None of the spiders felt too motivated to step in. Clearly, this Clint guy and his partner had it handled.

“Would Clint know how to make a fake ID?” he questions aloud. He feels Bee tense beside him, clearly following his trail of thought. 

Petey stills, his eyes wide, before he opens his mouth and starts rambling again. “Oh my god, yes! Yeah, yes, totally, he’s like this super kickass spy guy, he would totally know. Mr. Stark said he had like a secret family and everything.”

The boy pauses, a flash of guilt creeping over his face like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Uh, not that, um-- you didn’t hear anything!”

Peter chuckles internally at the idea that Petey thought they would possibly tell anyone. Or that they even had someone to tell. He just gives the boy an “I promise” and lets himself enjoy the way it perks him back up.

“But you said you didn’t fight with any of the other Avengers?” Bee questions. “Do you think he’d even help us?”

“I- I mean I didn’t fight with him. But I did kinda sorta fight against him once.” Aaand they were back to the kid and cookie jar look.

Right, no time for elaboration. The fighting was mostly stopped--he was just talking to some blonde chick now, where did she come from??--and they had a limited time window to talk to this guy.

“Ok, ok. But he’d remember Spider-Man, yeah? The suit and everything? He’d let you talk to him?”

Petey nods sharply. “I can talk to him. I- he might not help us. But he’s a good guy. He might at least hear me out.”

“He’s not gonna, like, shoot you. Is he?” Bee chuckles nervously. Petey pauses a moment too long and Bee’s eyes narrow. “ Is he??”

“No! No, I- I mean, I don’t think so. He shouldn’t. I think.”

“That is not at all comforting.”

“Look, he’s our best shot. And, um, well we kinda don’t have any other options.”

Bee’s shoulders drop, and he makes eye contact with Peter over Petey’s head. The kid’s not wrong. They’re desperate. Peter thumbs the keychain that's still in his pocket and tips his head in a tiny nod.

What have they got to lose?

“Alright. We’ll keep an eye on you the whole time, okay? Don’t get too close, and don’t let your guard down,” Peter instructs.

Petey nods, pulling his mask out of his pocket and slipping it over his head. He creeps further down the rooftop, eyeing the surrounding buildings. He’ll need to trail Clint until the man went somewhere a little more private.

“Petey,” Peter calls. “You trust this guy?”

The mask gives nothing away, but Peter can still feel the sincerity behind Petey’s next words. 

“We haven’t got a choice.”

Spider-Man fades into the darkness, the ‘fwip’ of webs being slung following Petey as he swings down closer to the ground. Bee’s hand lands on Peter’s shoulder and he lets it ground him. His heart is racing and the keychain is digging an indent into his palm. 

Christmas is tomorrow. Just a handful of hours away, really.

As they creep through the shadows behind Petey, Peter thinks of those mornings when he comes home with frozen toes and aching knuckles and sees the kids for the first time in hours. He thinks of the way the dust swirls in the rays of winter light, the way Peter makes tiny snuffles in his sleep, the way Bee's hair is long enough to fall into the corner of his mouth.

He thinks of Christmas. He thinks of bumblebees. He thinks of love.

.

.

.

As they chase after the one lead they've found and the one chance they have, Peter thinks: this is his first Christmas without MJ....and he hadn't even realized.