Chapter Text
Peter watches as the sky continues cracking like glass, looking minutes if not seconds away from shattering entirely. Doctor Strange’s orange magic, sounding like a crackling fireplace and smelling like citrus, loops through the tear in reality, seemingly trying to pull it together like stitches. It’s not enough. It’s like using embroidery thread against an ocean of water and pressure. His spidey sense, which has been practically screaming this entire time, ticks up to another level, doing something he couldn’t remember it doing since vulture dropped a building on him. It spoke to him,
run,
NOT SAFE, GO, RUN, hide, GO
The strength of the panic that began thrumming through his body knocked him breathless for a moment. He didn’t know how he felt about, or if he could even describe the sensation of the spider sense ‘talking’ to him. So he did as he always does, he ignored it, rushing to web himself up towards Doctor Strange.
“What’s happening,” Peter worriedly questioned the wizard, or as he kept insisting ‘sorcerer’.
“They’re starting to come through, and I can’t stop them!” the Dumbledore-wanna be cried panickily.
“There’s gotta be something we can do!” Peter had to shout over the sound of millions of multiversal entities rushing into his home, “Can’t you just cast the spell again? But the original way, before I screwed it up.”
“We’re too late for that. They’re here! They’re here because of you.”
Peter was panicking, there was no other way to put it. He was lamenting about the fact that if he wasn’t so naive, so trusting to hand the one thing Tony had given him to a ‘responsible, trusted’ adult. None of this would've happened if he wasn't here. Uncle Ben and Aunt May would still be alive, the spider should've killed him. If nobody knew him none of this would've happened. If nobody knew him… “What if everyone forgot who I was?”
“What?”
“They’re coming here because of me, right? Because I’m Peter Parker? So cast a new spell, but this time make everyone forget who Peter Parker is. Make everyone forget…” he took a deep breath “...me.”
“No.”
“But it would work, right?”
“Yeah, it would work. But you gotta understand that would mean that everyone who knows and loves you, we…” he breathed in sharply “...We’d have no memory of you. It would be as though you never existed.”
That surprised Peter, he thought Doctor Strange’s main priority would be saving the world. Not Peter’s feelings, it felt kind of nice, even though he couldn’t let him not do the one thing that could save everyone.
“...I know,” He pauses, but firms his resolve, “Do it”
~🕸️–🕸️~
Stephen was thinking. Stephen, even though he’d never admit it, had come to care for the boy. Plus, this miracle of a child is the reason Stark had risked everything, even if he’d never know it. Stark had died so the spider could live, he couldn’t let his sacrifice be in vain. Life was so much harder without the time stone, if he still had it none of this would’ve happened the way it did. This realm has been so unstable since the three snaps, even if he closed the multiversal tear there was a strong chance the realm would collapse anyway. The multiverse is what’s opening, everything is much closer and easier to access than it would be normally. He would send Peter to another realm after erasing memories of his existence, he decided; even if he couldn’t be sure if Peter would survive the trip, he had always been close to the soul stone. Not many others realized it but when they were in the soul world the stone had connected partially to Peter, whether it from the interaction with the gauntlet or if the stone just decided it liked him.
Stephen sighed, knowing what he had to do, “You better go and say your goodbyes. You don’t have long.”
“Thank you, sir.”
This sweet polite kid had been through so much. Stephen messing up the spell, even if Peter was the smallest bit at fault, ruined Peter’s life; he should hate him, yet he still called him sir and treated him with respect. Stephen hoped he didn’t sound as strangled as he thought he did, “Don’t call me sir.”
The spider paused for a second as he prepared his web-shooter, seemingly thinking hard about something. He seemed to decide on something, a smirk teasing his lips. Seemingly perfectly innocent as he simply responded, “Okay Dumbledore.” He was unsure what his face looked like at this moment as he slightly choked, but it caused the spider to cackle as he swung to his variants.
He did the multiversal travel spell as the boy began saying his goodbyes, the spell itself needed interaction with a different spell to actually send him away. As he saw the child– because no matter what his vigilante name is, that’s what he really is– begin to walk away from his friends and initiated the memory spell. Promises made to never be held. He watched as the spider began to swing away once the tear was closed, and when he reached the highest point of his arc, he shot the spell. He watched as the web fell away and the boy began to fall, slowly disintegrating along the way; he knew how painful it was during Thanos for the spider and used the last bit of his power before magical exhaustion to make sure he didn’t even feel a prick. Once the boy was gone, he let out a shaky breath, “I’m so sorry Peter.” He knew he made the right choice as the magic in the realm around them suddenly dropped to nothing, the earth beginning to shake.
It was the end for him, for everybody here, but for Peter? It was only just the beginning.
He sent his soul from his body as he watched the Earth crumble in on itself and die, the destruction spreading out further and further, going until it reached the end of everything as it was known.
Stephen was gone, every living being was gone, Earth was gone, the realm was gone, nothing left,
and there was silence.