On a perfectly average Tuesday night – as far as any night can be called perfectly average anymore nowadays – the sky goes pitch black above Manhattan, a violent storm rattles the roofs, vivid blue and purple lightning bolts illuminate the clouds.

Once it is over, as suddenly as it began, news trickles in of difficult-to-explain phenomena occurring worldwide: The statue of liberty has changed color to a bright pink, an exact replica of the great wall of China has appeared across the Sahara desert, it rains feathers in Copenhagen for several hours, every single stapler on Sumba Island turns into a coat hanger, and Tony Stark wakes up from an impossible-to-wake-up-from coma.

Pepper gets downstairs that morning to discover the salt has moved to the sugar shaker and vice versa, her dead flowers have come back to life and, not least importantly, a llama has appeared in the middle of the kitchen.

Pepper is staring at it when her phone starts buzzing in her pocket.

And, since it’s too early in the morning to be thinking about impossible things, she decides to just answer the phone first. Which doesn’t help, because on the other end of the line is a doctor from St. Nazarius who informs her that Tony has woken up from being braindead. She says it chipperly, as if it’s no more newsworthy than someone’s cast coming off.

The llama has started nibbling on the flowers. Pepper backs away from it into the hallway and closes the door. “But—he’s dead,” she says. After about a month in a coma the doctors had declared Tony braindead only a few days ago. She has been mentally preparing herself to make the journey to New York and be there when they officially pull the plug. “They were going to take out organs to donate.”

“Imagine that disaster, thank goodness we didn’t, yet.”

“Is this a joke?”

“Look, we’ve had an amputee’s legs spontaneously growing back, which was fun, and a pine tree sprouting in the middle of our pharmacy, which was less fun. Did you hear about the Statue of Liberty?”

“What?”

“I suggest you turn on the news. And then come down at your earliest convenience. He isn’t asking for you yet, only his parents. His memories seem a bit scrambled, but he gets better by the hour.”

-

She tells Morgan nothing yet, just drops her off at the neighbor’s house where Freddie, who has been bald for as long as she has known him, has grown an afro overnight. “Should have heard my wife yell her lungs out this morning when she woke up,” he says. “Almost cracked our windows. I predict it’s fun for a week and then I’ll get tired of it and shave it off. Did you hear about the Statue of Liberty?”

“I did,” Pepper says.

-

She arrives at St. Nazarius with her heart in her throat. Through the lobby, with pine needles strewn everywhere, up the stairs to HDU where she reports to the receptionist, who beams at her. “What’s it like to think someone is dead and it turns out they aren’t?”

“Familiar,” Pepper says.

But she doesn’t allow herself to actually feel anything until she steps into Tony’s room. Tony is sitting up in bed, surrounded by three arguing doctors with clipboards. He looks exactly as Tony would in a situation like that: a little amused, a little smug, a little annoyed. He spots her and his face lights up. “Oh,” he breathes. “Pepper.”

The doctors turn as one to look at her. “Interesting.” One clicks his pen and starts taking furious notes. “Seems now he does remember.”

“Everybody get out,” Pepper says, and there must be something in her gaze because the doctors immediately scurry off in three different directions as if ducking for cover.

Pepper crosses the distance to the bed in what feels simultaneously like an eternity and no time at all and then Tony is in her arms. Her eyes burn and all she can say is, “are you real?” over and over again until her voice cracks.

Tony grips her tightly. “I feel pretty real, Pep,” he says. “But what do I know? I had forgotten you even existed until five minutes ago. I can’t read yet. And my fine motor skills leave somewhat to be desired. Other than that, back to normal.”

She leans back, cupping his face and turning it to the light, as if she’d be able to see through his eyes right into his brain. “Are you rebooting? Is that what’s going on?”

“Am I a cyborg?” Tony asks. “Because if yes, I forgot about it.”

Pepper breathes out. She climbs on the mattress and stretches out at Tony’s side, clasping his hand in both of hers, the hand that was burnt black after the battle but now looks perfectly normal. “They were gonna pull the plug. I was already going through the paperwork.”

Tony hums, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

“Thank you,” Pepper says, “for being too stubborn to even die like a normal person.” She sniffles.

“We’re married, right? Am I remembering that right?”

Pepper wriggles closer, leaning a cheek on his shoulder. “You have a daughter.”

“Tell me more.”

“She’s four-and-a-half. She loves duckies. She makes pancake flippers out of Lego.”

“That’s my girl.”

She lifts up his hand. Nothing but faint scarring across the knuckles.

Tony follows her gaze and runs a finger across the thin white lines. “What happened there.”

Pepper smiles, brittle. “Guess.”

“We fought a big dumb alien.”

“And..?”

“I did something stupid.”

“No. You did something brave.” The TV bolted high on the wall shows muted news footage of people walking through an ankle-deep layer of feathers in Copenhagen. “Is this all permanent?” Pepper whispers.

“I don’t think anyone could possibly tell us.”

There might be someone.

Tony squeezes her hand. “Do you think they’d let me walk out of here? They’ll probably want to keep me under observation and poke and prod me.”

“I will sue them into oblivion if they try,” Pepper says. When it comes to Tony’s medical marvels, she already knows your standard doctor isn’t going to cut it. There is a sorcerer in Manhattan she would much rather turn to right now to get answers.

-

She turns the car left towards Brooklyn, towards Rhodey’s place. She shifts gears and taps the screen, trying Strange for the third time.

He finally answers, the car speakers crackle. “Ms. Potts, I’m not sure if you’ve seen the news—"

“Tony came back to life,” she interrupts.

“Hey, ‘sup, doc,” Tony says. “Don’t remember you yet.” He’s in some lost-and-found sweatpants, because Pepper hadn’t had the foresight to actually pack him clothes.

“His brain just fired up again like it was nothing,” she says. “He’s sitting right here in the passenger seat.”

Pepper had expected something like stunned silence, or at least a few questions. But no: “I’m busy,” Strange snaps. “There’s a spell in statis in my Sanctorum that I don’t remember casting, my cloak is behaving oddly and, oh yes, someone cracked open the multiverse and it barfed all over our planet.”

“The multiverse?” Pepper repeats, her heartrate shooting up. “What—Does that mean this Tony could be from another universe?”

“What if I am, what if I woke up in another universe,” Tony says, pressing his finger against the windshield as he points into the distance. “Because in my universe the statue of liberty wasn’t pink, I definitely remember that much.”

Strange tuts impatiently. “In none of the abnormalities have I detected actual traces from another universe. These spontaneous appearances weren’t transported here from somewhere else. It’s more accurate to say our world has experienced echoes of other worlds, apparently including one where being braindead and burnt to a crisp is perfectly curable.”

“So I’m really me?” Tony asks.

“Yes. And your recovery is, in the light of everything else that is happening, entirely mundane. Can I go?”

“Is it permanent?” Pepper asks. But Strange has already hung up.

“Is he a friend?” Tony asks. “Because if so, bad taste.”

-

Rhodey opens the door and staggers. It’s probably his leg braces saving him from buckling at the knees. “Oh my god,” he says. “Oh my god.”

“I—I cannot explain it,” Pepper says.

Rhodey takes in another controlled breath and lifts one hand. “That’s okay. My toilet turned into a cactus overnight. I should have been ready for anything.” He steps forward, arms lifting.

“He doesn’t remember you.”

“Love hugging strangers, though,” Tony says, his tone that strange combination of snide and gentle. The snide has always been there, the gentle came after Morgan’s birth.

“Deal with it,” Rhodey says, and hugs him.

“I can’t bring him home,” Pepper says. “Morgan can’t—As long as I’m not sure this is permanent—"

“Say no more.” Rhodey says without letting go. “Whatever you need.”

“That’s more like it.” Tony pats his back. “Good taste.”

It’s maddening that Pepper has to leave him here, but she doesn’t see a way around it. Morgan needs her, she has to arrange a sleepover for tomorrow so she can come back and—“Is there anything you want me to bring tomorrow?”

“My phone. And some cookies.”

-

Panic brews in her stomach as she drives back, the way it tends to pop up once she is alone. With every mile she puts between herself and New York, this whole morning feels more and more like a dream, like Tony isn’t really there, or maybe he is there but the world will shake it all off, all these unnatural occurrences that knocked it off balance and Tony will just disappear again.

Permanent…

Okay, girl, deep breaths. Clear mind. Is there anyone else who absolutely needs to know? She tries Happy’s number but can’t reach him. She tries the Dzundza family to arrange a sleepover for Morgan tomorrow.

“Oh, sure thing hon,” Larissa says immediately.

”No crises in your family?”

”All of our shoelaces disappeared, which is a bit of a hassle, but it could be worse. I have some zip-up boots. How about you?”

“Nothing major,” Pepper lies. “Just my sugar and salt, and uh…”

It is at this point that she remembers there is still a llama in her kitchen.

-

The man—Rhodey shows him lots of pictures of the two of them together. They feel strangely familiar, as if Tony has been through those moments, but in a dream. Rhodey also tells him about the seven times he apparently saved Tony’s life. That part doesn’t feel so familiar at all.

“Did I make those?” Tony asks, eyeing Rhodey’s leg braces.

Rhodey looks at him closely. “You remember?”

“No. They just seem… expertly made. First-rate craftsmanship. You know. The kind of thing only I could pull off.”

“It’s comforting that your personality hasn’t changed one bit.”

And then they crack open a bottle of beer and watch the news, helicopters hovering over the Sahara wall.

“Do you think it will all disappear again?” Tony asks.

“Did you ask the wizard about it?”

“No. Just if we all came from a different universe. And then he hung up.”

Rhodey hums.

“Do you think we could take a walk?” It’s a cold but clear day. The sun is out. “Because this couch is awful, I can feel a hernia coming.”

Rhodey sighs and chucks the remote aside. “Sure. I think today of all days, no one might even bat an eyelid that Tony Stark has risen from the dead.”

He’s right and he also isn’t: it turns out when a million impossible things happen overnight, people don’t just shrug, make coffee and head to their morning meetings. It seems every single person is outside on their front lawn, some with pajamas, scrolling through their phones and comparing notes with equally bewildered neighbors. A few jog up to Tony and say ‘My God, are you alive?’ and one or two snap a photo, but then very quickly move on to telling him about their weird experiences today.

“That’s people,” Rhodey says when one young lady has drifted on after a detailed description of the pile of medium-rare steaks she found on her couch this morning. “Mostly occupied with their own stuff.”

“Can we get coffee somewhere? Do you think anywhere is going to be open today?”

“I hope so. I need a piss and my toilet is a cactus.”

The brunch café Rhodey leads them to is open. In fact, the owner trudges around, yawning as she takes their order, with the distinct vibe that she has not noticed anything off about today at all.

Tony looks at the menu she hands them, hands it back and says: “I forgot I can’t read yet.”

“Sorry?” she says.

“I was braindead until yesterday. Not every function is back online. But I assume you have coffee.”

“You were braindead?”

“Coffee for me as well, please,” Rhodey says. “Where is your restroom?”

“Follow the signs,” she says, pointing her thumb across her shoulder. “Unless you can’t read either.”

Rhodey leaves the table and Tony leans his chin on his hands, watching the owner shuffle around behind the bar. She reminds him of Roz from ‘Monsters Inc’.

Why the hell can he remember ‘Monsters Inc’, but not his own daughter? Brains are dumb.

He runs his thumb across the scratches someone left in the wooden tabletop. One is just a line, another one a circle with a line. Those are probably letters. They all look really similar, that seems ill-contrived. Once he can read again, he’s going to reinvent the alphabet.

He is pulled out of his thoughts when the table wobbles, Rhodey sags back into his chair, and it is as if a curtain in Tony’s brain is pulled aside; the same feeling that flowed through him when Pepper stepped into his hospital room. “Oh,” he says, gripping the wooden table as memories tumble over each other and then fall into place. “Right. Rhodey.” He shakes his head and points. “You didn’t save my life seven times over at all, you dickhead!”

Rhodey wheezes.

-

They make their way back to Rhodey’s house late that afternoon. They can see from a distance away that someone is on Rhodey’s front lawn, dressed entirely in bright red and blue. Spider-Man — Tony remembers that name instantly.

“That’s weird,” Rhodey says.

“You know him?”

“Know of him. Never seen him turn up outside my house.”

Spider-Man is standing awkwardly, slowly swaying back and forth on his feet, one hand gripping his other elbow. And then he visibly spots them approaching and goes very, very still.

“He’s one of the good guys, right?” Tony verifies.

“Far as I know.”

“Definitely doesn’t look very threatening.”

They cross the street, then head up the walkway to Rhodey’s front door. Spider-Man just keeps watching them, so unmoving that Tony is worried he isn’t breathing under that mask.

“Um. Hi,” Rhodey says.

Spider-Man jolts a little and then sucks in a breath. His head is turned in Tony’s direction. “Someone posted about you on Instagram.” His voice is raspy. “And I had to… I just had to…”

“Did we know each other?” Tony asks. “Because the brain is still partially dead, coming back online, and I don’t remember anyone.”

“Your brain—what?”

“It’s all coming back to me eventually. Hey, is one of your superpowers that you don’t need oxygen? Because the lack of breathing is freaking me out.”

Spider-Man sucks in a breath. “I breathe,” he says. “Yeah. I breathe, very normal human breathing.”

“How did you know where I live?” Rhodey asks

“I was just—uh—Tony told me once. Why… Why are you just walking around, sir? Does Pepper know? Does Morgan?”

“Met my wife, huh?”

“Just… on the battlefield.”

That’s how things are in their line of work. The place to meet new people is on the battlefield. Tony chuckles. “We’re keeping Morgan a bit out-of-the-know. Until we know this is permanent.”

“Permanent…” Spider-Man repeats softly and his chest hitches strangely.

“Hey kid, you want to come in?” Rhodey offers, taking out his keys.

Spider-Man trails after them and then awkwardly stands in the hallway, shoulders hunched.

“Does that come off?” Tony asks, pointing at the mask.

Spider-Man seem to hesitate a moment and then pulls the mask off. Younger, even, than Tony would have guessed. Practically a teenager. Faded bruise on his cheek and an expression like he hasn’t slept since the invention of the printing press.

“Remind me of your name?”

“Peter.” Peter says. He leans back against the railing of the stairs.

“You okay?”

Peter hesitates, then shakes his head. He fidgets, his eyes shine. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“You want a hug?” Tony asks. “I’ve surrendered myself to hugging strangers all—oof.”

Peter has practically collapsed against him, burying his face in Tony’s shoulder. And then there’s actual tears and stuttering breaths.

“Oh geez,” Tony says, wrapping an arm around the kid. “There, there?”

“Are you r-real?” Peter stutters.

“Got the stamp of approval from our sorcerer supreme, so I’d say so.” It’s weird. Not in a bad way, but still weird. From what Tony does remember about his own life, he was never the type to let teenagers into his inner circle. But it’s undeniably true because—“Nice suit,” he says. “Did I make that?”

“Y-yeah.”

“How irresponsible of me.”

Peter wildly shakes his head. “Nu-uh.”

Across Peter’s head, he can spot Rhodey raising an eyebrow at him in his usual forgot-to-tell-me-something?-expression. And Tony thinks it’s quite unfair to be treated to a look like that when he can’t even remember anything about this kid. But it’s telling that Rhodey apparently knew nothing about him.

“Let’s sit down,” he suggests. “Warning: Rhodey has an awful couch, does your back in after about ten minutes. Oh, and the toilet is a cactus.” He herds the kid into the living room.

“Did you come back because of the feather storms and stuff?” Peter asks, and sniffles again, wiping at his face.

“Rhodey, get the kid a tissue, I don’t want him dripping snot all over a Stark suit.”

Peter barks out a very wet laugh and then tears up all over again. “I missed you.”

“Well, I’m back to normal. Sit.”

They sit and Rhodey puts a whole box of tissues in Peter’s lap. “You always got upset when I had a cold,” Peter murmurs. “You wouldn’t stop referencing that one time I sneezed all over your corrosion samples. Said you were going to name your next robot SNEEZ-E.”

“You’ve been inside my workshop?”

Peter nods, a slow, uncertain smile on his face. “Yeah. A few times.” He wipes at his face. “SNEEZ-E,” he mumbles again, seemingly to himself.

“How did you and Tony meet?” Rhodey asks. “I remember seeing you in Germany.”

Peter’s head bobs up and down, his gaze flicking down to Rhodey’s braces and back up. “Yeah, that was how. He turned up in my apartment, said Captain America had gone bonkers. Asked me if I had a passport.”

“And you were… twelve at the time?” Rhodey asks. He is giving Tony that look again.

“Stop that,” Tony tells him, pointing.

“Was it the feather storms?” Peter asks. “Are you real?”

“I’m real.”

Peter sniffs and tugs at the fingers of his gloves. “You made me this suit.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Sorry,” Peter rasps. “It’s… been a weird week. I….” He falters again, chest hitching. “I should go home,” he says, and doesn’t move.

“Are you waiting for the tectonic plate to start moving in the right direction?” Tony asks.

Rhodey swats his shoulder. “Shut up, you.” And he asks Peter, kindly: “Do you want to stay for dinner? You can wear something of mine if you want to get out of that.”

“Stay for dinner,” Peter murmurs. “I don’t think I’m… good company?”

“You can get teary-eyed all you want,” Tony says. “If anything, I’m starting to feel mildly insulted that Rhodey didn’t start sobbing the moment he saw me.”

“I’ve been through this for twenty-odd years,” Rhodey says dryly.

-

Pepper has worked her way through the beginner’s guide for caring for llamas. She took him for a walk this morning, settled him in the shed, and then spent about half an hour tugging up grass from the nearby meadow to leave him as food. “My dead husband came back to life, you know,” she says as she piles the grass up in a corner of the shed, next to the water bucket. “And I have an appointment this morning to discuss the fractured multiverse with a sorcerer supreme. This is ridiculous.” She lets out a slow, controlled breath.

The llama nudges her shoulder.

She called Stephen Strange four times last night. He got increasingly exasperated until Pepper said, “you know the way to get rid of me”, and he finally agreed to meet them at James Rhodes’ house this morning.

She still isn’t telling Morgan anything. She will drop her off at Larissa’s house on her way back to New York.

“Can we keep Gerald?” Morgan asks as they turn onto the dirt road.

“Who is Gerald?”

“The goat.”

“It’s a llama. I think Gerald will probably be happier on a farm, once everyone has calmed down a bit.” She tried calling a petting zoo this morning but people are apparently still preoccupied with silly things like their wallpaper changing color or their tractor turning into a grand piano. Please. If Pepper can get a hold of herself, why can’t everyone else in this idiotic world?

-

Tony yanks the door open, holds up a finger, beaming, and says: “I remember Morgan!” He is still in those sweatpants, barefoot. “Equally important: I also remember Peppa Pig.”

She pecks him on the cheek and puts one hand on the back of his neck. “Remember Happy yet? Because I can’t reach him.”

“I don’t, but with a name like that, I’d like to.”

She hands him a bag of his stuff, then follows him inside, checking her watch. Ten minutes until Stephen Strange should be here. She takes in a bracing breath, worry rising in her chest.

Tony sets the bag on the kitchen table and starts rifling through it. “Peanut butter shortbread, you must really love me.” He makes no comment at all about the new face at the table, a young man, teenager even, sitting there in pajamas with his hair sticking up and his hands clasped around a mug, warily looking up at her.

“Hello?” Pepper says.

Tony waves a hand. “Spider-Man, Pepper. Pepper, Spider-Man.” He takes out his phone and slips it into his own pocket.

”Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Spider-Man says, his shoulders hunched and awkward. “Um. It’s Peter.”

“Remember him?” Tony says, smile flashing up. “From the battlefield?” He says it in that tone of voice like he’s teasing, but Pepper wouldn’t know what about.

“Ah, yes. Vaguely.” No more than a few memories of a red-blue blur in her peripheral vision during the heat of the battle.

“He turned up on the doorstep yesterday like a lonely puppy, and Rhodey has refused to let him leave.”

Peter flushes and tugs nervously at his sleeves. “It’s been a—weird week.” His voice goes rusty.

“Well, it’s nice to properly meet you, Peter,” Pepper says kindly. “Let me say hi to Rhodey.”

She steps into the kitchen where Rhodey is scrubbing a pan with steel wool. She gives him a side hug.

“Sinking in yet?” Rhodey asks.

“Not sure if I want it to. Until I know for certain. Has Tony been behaving?”

“The house is still standing.”

“And the boy?” she adds quietly.

“Behaving splendidly.”

“Not what I meant.”

Rhodey puts the pan aside and looks for a towel. “Has Tony ever talked to you about him? Because Peter seems to know him very well.” He wipes his hands.

“Hm. No, he hasn’t.”

“All right. Tony will remember soon enough.” He flexes his fingers, sighs. “I don’t know. He seems harmless. And a bit lost. I got him to stay the night, he said he didn’t have anyone to call about it. He’s seventeen.” He walks to the coffee maker in the corner and pulls open the top. “Coffee?”

“Thank you, James.”

She goes back to the living room where Peter has taken out his web shooters and is showing them to Tony. “We are absolutely taking these apart right now,” Tony says. “I’m sure Rhodey has a screwdriver. And a microcentrifuge. Perhaps a hemocytometer.”

“Stephen should be here any moment,” Pepper warns.

“Oh. I could go—um, home,” Peter says, stumbling strangely over the word ‘home’. Pepper is beginning to see what Rhodey was seeing.

“Nah, kid,” Tony says, and then accidentally sprays spiderwebs all over Rhodey’s table.

-

Rhodey and Peter are still trying to scrape the stuff off when Stephen Strange steps into the living room through a roaring, flaming portal, cloak billowing. “I was summoned,” he says, rather sourly. “To a pajama party, by the looks of it.” His gaze slides from Pepper in the armchair towards Tony who has stretched out on the couch next to her, one leg up on the armrest.

“Hi doc,” Tony says. “Come in, take off your socks, how’s the world doing?”

The portal closes abruptly, Pepper can feel her ears pop. “The way the world does when faced with insanity,” Strange says dismissively. “People absorb that insanity like it’s apple juice. Gambeya Tours is already organizing the first guided trips to the great Saharan wall, and the US postal service has announced they will start printing new stamps with the Statue of Liberty. Hnng—” He jerks back when his cloak suddenly flaps wildly and tugs hard. It unclasps from around Dr. Strange’s shoulders and shoots across the room, wrapping itself snuggly around Peter, who almost loses his balance.

“Um.” Peter says. His left arm is trapped awkwardly under bunched-up fabric, his right one flails.

Strange’s eyebrows dip low as he turns fully to Peter. “Have we met?”

Peter grabs the back of a chair and steadies himself. “No, sir.” He shuffles slightly to one side, as if he’s attempting to hide behind Rhodey. One tip of Dr. Strange’s cloak lifts up and pats him on the cheek. “Maybe it—likes my shampoo?”

“Curious,” Strange says slowly, eyes narrowing further.

“Stephen,” Pepper says. “My husband came back to life. Perhaps we could discuss the curiosity of that?”

Strange looks at her with a flash or irritation, as if she is the one who hasn’t got her priorities straight. “He isn’t from another universe,” he repeats, flapping his hand in Tony’s direction.

“Yes, thank you,” Pepper says, unable to keep the tension out of her voice. “Now I need to know how we can be certain that all of this is permanent.”

“I can hardly promise permanence, with a man who seems so insistent on putting himself in life-threatening situations.”

“That is a tasteless joke, doctor,” she snaps.

“Oh very well,” he does that pedantic hand wave again and sits in an armchair, crossing his legs. He makes a move as though he wants to flick his cloak back, and then scowls when he remembers he doesn’t have one. “A temporary connection was established across the multiverse for a very brief time. It caused real effects in our world. Once the connection was broken, everything went back to functioning by the laws of our own universe. And by the laws of our universe, it is impossible for a statue to turn from pink to green, or for a wall in the desert to disappear. Meaning, they won’t.”

“What if the connection to the multiverse reappears?”

“Then more anomalies are bound to happen across our world. At random. Which would be highly dangerous, but not aimed specifically at your husband.”

“Hold up,” Tony says. “The multiverse doesn’t revolve around me?”

Rhodey snorts.

“Meaning,” Strange says, “that yes, this is permanent. Back to normal. I, on the other hand, have a spell in statis in my sanctorum that I don’t remember casting, and my cloak is hugging strangers.”

Pepper glances over to Peter, who has managed to sit down at the table. The cloak is still wrapped snuggly around him and one corner is now petting his hair. Peter looks terribly awkward about it.

“Any more questions?” Strange asks.

“Just a few,” Pepper says, and takes out the notepad she had prepared.

-

It is another thirty-five minutes before Pepper allows a very disgruntled Stephen Strange to leave the house. He waves an impatient hand and a portal roars back to life. “Either get over here,” he snaps at his cloak, “or you can fly your own way back.”

The cloak flaps indignantly and then starts attempting to drag Peter towards the portal.

“Um—sir?” Peter squeaks, alarmed. He wildly grasps for the leg of the table, his heels dig into the carpet.

“Don’t be so ridiculous!” Strange barks. He snaps his fingers, a blue spark shoots out. The cloak finally releases Peter and drifts back to Strange, drooped in defeat. Strange snatches it out the air and disappears through the portal with a final huff.

“Oh god,” Tony says, sitting up straighter. “Memories unlocked. I am totally remembering that guy, now. He’s always an asshole.”

Pepper leans in and puts a hand on his knee. “Permanent,” she says.

Tony looks at her, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Permanent.”

She moves to the couch and pulls him close, very tight, and listens to his steady heartbeat.

“Um,” Peter says. “I really should leave now.”

Tony wakes up in Morgan’s bedroom with his daughter wrapped around him like a baby orangutan. Early morning sunlight is streaming in through the windows. There is a weird hooting noise from outside, but he doesn’t want to go see what it is and risk waking Morgan.

He wriggles a bit and slides his phone out of his pocket. Checks the time. Starts scrolling through his contacts. Look at that. He can read again. And most names are ringing a bell, by now.

Happy Hogan. The man who probably did save Tony seven times over. Mostly saving him from himself. Not the kind of man who will believe Tony is alive after one phone call. But you have to start somewhere.

He looks down at Morgan’s face, calm and relaxed, her breathing deep. He taps Happy’s name and lifts the phone to his ear. It rings for about half a minute before he gets to Happy’s voicemail. He ends the call with a sigh. Taps the side of the phone against his chin as he thinks.

Here’s someone else he remembers. He lifts the phone again. “Friday?”

The screen lights up. “It’s good to see you, boss,” she says softly. “Welcome home.”

“Thanks, m’lady. Did you miss me?”

“Every single second I wasn’t enjoying peace and quiet.”

“Sweettalker. Any hints on how the multiverse temporarily cracked open over Manhattan and kick-started my brain?”

She immediately pulls up a few headlines. “Nothing concrete. There are comments on social media about a possible fight between Spider-Man and several other individuals, not out of the ordinary for him. One lady called 911 and claimed to have seen a UFO, but the police report did determine she had consumed eleven units of alcohol.”  

“Hmm. Speaking of Spider-Man. Why is Peter Parker not in my list of contacts?”

“I don’t have that name anywhere in my logs.”

Tony takes a beat. “He must be, he said he’d been in my workshop.”

“Not according to my data.”

“Okay. Then who is Spider-Man according to your data?”

“I have no name attached to him.”

“How did I go to his house to recruit him for Germany?”

“Nothing in my records shows that you did.”

“His suit is Stark Tech.”

She pauses a moment. “I have no data on that,” she repeats.

What. The. Hell.

Morgan stirs next to him. Tony lifts a hand to brush her hair away from her face. Her smile lights up when she sees him, the most beautiful thing.

“Hi, sweety.”

“Can we make waffles?”

“Definitely. Hey. What’s that weird noise from outside?”

“That’s our goat,” Morgan says. “We’re keeping him.”

They head downstairs where he makes Morgan some waffles and then tracks Pepper down, finding her in the barn with an unusually large sheep.

“I’m gonna drive down to Happy’s place,” Tony says. “This is too out of character for him. Do you mind? Morgan seems okay.”

“No, please do,” Pepper says. “I’m worried, too. Keep me updated?”

“I will. What’s, uh… the sheep’s name?”

“He’s a llama.”

-

He scrapes the frost off the windshield and drives back to New York.

Happy lives in a low-rise apartment building where Tony has never been. He parks on a corner. The streets look calmer, today. People are back to their usual routines, commuting, phones in their faces, probably already forgot that the Statue of Liberty was ever anything other than bright pink.

When he approaches the building, he can see the Do-not-cross-tape, and a feeling of unease spreads through him. He shoots Happy another message and then rings the doorbell several times, then notices the door’s crumpled metal frame. He gives it an experimental push. It swings open without resistance.

A team of people with hard hats are clearing rubble in the lobby.

“Sir, this isn’t—” one says, before pausing. “Iron Man?”

“Investigating,” Tony says.

”Oh.” The woman nods. ”Great. Eyewitnesses reported Spider-Man and a green flying leprechaun.”

“Spider-Man, huh? Where are all the residents?”

“Unit 3C has been evacuated, but everywhere else was considered safe. If you’re looking for the guy who stole from you, he’s in custody.”

“The who?”

“Former head of security? Picked up for illegal possession of Stark equipment?” She tips her hard hat back a little. “Weren’t you dead?”

“It didn’t stick. What precinct?”

“No precinct. DODC.”

-

The glass doors hiss open.

“Excuse me sir,” the agent says, rising from behind his desk. “This is a restricted faci—” he falters. “Iron Man?”

“Are you holding Happy Hogan?”

“Weren’t you dead?”

Tony holds out his phone. “I have my wife on speaker for you.”

“Who?”

“Please report your badge number to me, sir,” Pepper says waspishly. “I understand you are holding a man for possession of Stark property, when that property was stored under authorization, for him to keep safe.”

“Safe? With all due respect, a building exploded, ma’am.”

“And that destruction was not caused by Mr. Hogan, but by unregistered superhuman interference — which the DODC is technically responsible for, in accordance with the Sokovia accords, isn’t that right?”

“Um…” the man says.

“As of this moment, Mr. Hogan is under Stark Industries’ legal protection. Any further questioning goes through me. Your badge number, please.”

-

Honestly, Tony has always loved dramatics, particularly when they revolved around him, but people being shocked that you’re back from the dead is getting a little old at this point.

“Oh Jesus,” Happy mutters, face white as a sheet. “Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.”

“I prefer to go by Tony, actually.”

Everyone has cleared out of the interrogation room, though Tony wouldn’t be surprised if they’re crowding behind the two-way mirror. He rounds the table to put his hands on Happy’s shoulders. “What happened?”

“My—girlfriend died.”

“Oh, shit,” Tony says. “What?”

“Are you from another universe? Like that fancy duck that appeared in my jail cell this morning?”

“I’m not. How—When did you get a girlfriend?”

Happy breathes out shakily. “I didn’t tell you, you would have made fun.”

“I would have made fun?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why.”

“What makes a duck ‘fancy’, anyways?”

“Well it, it had a sort of mohawk and purple... It looked like it came from another universe, Tony, how can you be sure you’re not from another universe?”

“We ruled that out pretty thoroughly.”

“My god,” Happy says, and then tips forward, arms wrapping around Tony’s midriff, hugs him so hard Tony can feel his ribs creak.

“Okay, we’re gonna…” Tony pats him on the shoulder. “We’re gonna get out of here.”

-

“Right,” Tony slams the car door shut. “What the hell happened?”

“Some sort of explosion. I—I don’t know, my mind is… I’m not entirely thinking straight. I keep…”

“Don’t you get a phone call in here? Why didn’t you call me? What possible reason could there be not to—”

“You were braindead, Tony!”

“Oh, right.” Tony says. “That’s—a pretty good reason.”

Happy buries his face in his hands and says, muffled: “Can’t believe we’ve come to a point where you coming back from the brink of death is so mundane that you’ve forgotten about it after a day.”

“Well, a lot of shit is currently going down, let’s be honest. Just your average apocalypse Tuesday.”

“There was a fight,” Happy says. “Spider-Man was there, and some green… fucker. How is Morgan?”

“She’s fine. You know little kids, they barely understand death, she was just happy to see me.”

“Jesus, Tony.”

“I talked to Spider-Man yesterday.”

Happy closes his eyes, his throat convulses.

“It was weird, actually. He claimed to know me personally, that he had been in my workshop.”

Happy looks up at him sharply. Tony can already see him slide right back into bodyguard-mode. “What’s his play?”

“I don’t know. He’s pretty young, though. How involved was he in that explosion?”

“I’m not sure, it’s fuzzy. I’ve been…” Happy balls his hands to fists, voice cracking with stress. “My mind is going in every direction right now, it can’t make sense of anything.”

“Lot of that going around at the moment. Did you see the statue of liberty?”

Happy mumbles something inaudible.

“Come to the lake house a few days,” Tony suggests. “You shouldn’t be alone right now. And your apartment is chaos central.”

“The funeral is on Sunday. She didn’t have any other family.”

“So we’ll help you make arrangements and drive back with you. Come on.”

“You need to be with your daughter.”

“I will be with my daughter. And you’ll be there too.”

Happy hesitates a moment longer, then nods.

“Good. I just want to stop by Rhodey’s place, see if he’s heard from that kid again.”

-

“I have not,” Rhodey says. He puts a steaming cup of tea on the table in front of Happy, one hand on his shoulder. “I mean. If he was lying, I hardly think he will come back. What do you figure he was trying to get out of it?”

Tony circles the room idly. “I don’t know if he was lying. He was wearing a Stark suit, I don’t just hand those out.” He pulls a curtain aside to look up and down the street, as if Spider-Man might just appear out of nowhere again.

“He’s just a kid.”

Tony turns away from the window. “Maybe he crashed in from another universe where he did know me.”

“Strange said that’s not possible.”

As if summoned, a fire portal opens right through the couch and Strange barges out, in simple jeans and a sweater, bangs his shins on the coffee table and curses. He straightens himself. “My cloak has been acting out since our last meeting,” he snaps. “Who in the name of Kadavus was that kid, where is he?”

“Excellent questions,” Tony says appreciatively. “Let’s share theories. My working one is that he’s a holographic illusion.”

Strange presses his fingers against his forehead. “For my understanding. You let someone into your house and did not know who he was?”

“I know who he was,” Tony says, offended. “He’s Spider-Man. I just don’t happen to have him on speed dial. Or any other dial.”

“Spider-Man,” Strange repeats, in a voice weird enough that Tony immediately narrows his eyes at him.

“Yes. What? What do you know? Because he said he knows me, but I remember everyone else, even the people I don’t want to, and still don’t remember him.”

Strange closes the portal with a wave and sits on the couch, rubbing his shins. He makes a few abortive attempts to speak, and then says, evenly: “There is a spell in statis in my Sanctorum that I don’t remember casting. I have identified it as the Runes of Kof-kol, which goes some way to explaining why I don’t remember casting it: The spell is used to erase people’s memories. The one in my sanctorum clearly did not go into full effect, but I may have cast the spell again. Because I remember being in Manhattan last night and fighting alongside Spider-Man, but I don’t remember why.”

“Around the time when the multiverse cracked open?” Tony asks dryly.

“More or less, yes,” Strange says, lifting his chin.

“So you’re saying— What are you saying?”

“It appears there is a lot both of us don’t remember about Spider-Man.”

“And, what, your cloak does? Even FRIDAY doesn’t remember him.”

“I cannot explain it.”

“That’s a first,” Tony says, chagrined.

“He was at May’s apartment,” Happy says quietly. “But I can’t remember—When I try to remember, my mind goes foggy.”

“Distorted fragments of conversation?” Strange asks. “And a general feeling like you just can’t seem to remember the next line of a song despite having sung it a hundred times?”

“I… I suppose.”

Strange nods. “That is Kof-Kol.”

“All right,” Tony claps his hands. “I assume this is where we fan out and find the damn kid. You got some kind of magical sniffing bloodhound at your disposal, doc?”

-

The sky above the lake is steel-grey, the cold air feels like impending snow. Pepper sways gently on the porch swing, Morgan bundled up in her lap.

“Listen, I’m sorry,” Tony says.

Pepper smiles, changing the phone to her other hand. “Don’t be. You’re being a good friend. And we have time.” She looks down at Morgan, her breath puffing in little clouds as she sleeps.

This is Morgan’s father, and the man she married. A man who wakes up from a coma and immediately goes on his next mission. This is the path life will continue to lead them down. “I could come down there,” she says. “I want to see you. I want to see Happy.”

“But Morgan—”

“I’ll bring her. We’re not fighting aliens. I’ll help Happy plan a funeral and you’ll help Stephen find a missing kid. We’ll be fine. We’ll be together.”

“I love you, you know.”

“I do know. What do you think Morgan’s superhero name should be?”

“Oh, don’t. She’s going to have a wonderful career as a college professor or a… a dolphin trainer.”

Pepper smiles, gently dragging her feet against the ground to bring the porch swing to a stop. “We will be there in two hours.”

-

On the night that feathers rained down in Copenhagen and every stapler on Sumba Island turned into a coat hanger, something else happened: Peter Parker disappeared from every single photo in the school newspaper, from the contact list of his classmates’ phones. The words  I ♡ PETER PARKER, scribbled onto the toilet door by a nervous freshman with a crush, faded away. His dental mold disappeared from the dentist’s office, his growth charts from the pediatrician’s file. The books he had gotten from the library were now labeled as ‘Presumed lost pending inventory’.

If people had found those changes strange, they would probably have chalked it up to multiverse-shenanigans. But no one found any of it strange, because no one remembered it had ever been anything different.

-

He’s in the apartment lobby, now. Someone left mud on the floor. Peter squeaks his shoe through it, makes a squiggly pattern. Gina was probably pissed. She only started as the building porter few months back. She had a nice smile. Nice smile. He wipes at his face, looks at his sleeve. Pajamas. He’s wearing pajamas. Tony is alive. That was real. Peter saw him yesterday. Or was it this morning? He remembers colonel Rhodes, flicking on a night light, drawing the curtains.

He’s at the front door, now. The key is in his hand, he’s staring down at it. His mind is fog gray. Maybe he is supposed to remember something? No… No one remembers him. That was it. He wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone, but he talked to Tony. That might become a problem. But his body doesn’t feel like his body, and that might be a problem too.

He’s in May’s room, now. And then he is under her blanket, folded up like a pretzel and clutching her pillow. He hums her favorite song and taps his fingers against the palm of his other hand.

He’s Spider-Man. He’s going to deal with the grief, maturely, and then move on. He’s just going to lie here for a little bit and deal with it, give himself—an hour, maybe two, to think about her, remember her, to feel like she might still be here. It’s as if he can hear her key turning in the lock, her footsteps down the hallway.

“What the hell?” Happy says.

“I know, right?” Peter murmurs. And then he glances up and Happy Hogan is actually standing right next to the bed.

“Oh,” Peter says.

Happy looks back at him. “What the hell?” he repeats.

“That’s him,” another voice says, and Ms. Potts’ face swims into view. “Peter Parker.” She is holding Morgan by the hand.

A mixture of worry and relief bubbles up. His fist clutches on the edge of the blanket. “You remember my name?” he asks, his voice cracking.

“We met yesterday morning, honey.”

Oh. Right.

The two of them are still staring at him. Peter pulls the blanket up higher, up to his nose, and peers up at them.

“Do you like apple pie?” Ms. Potts asks.

-

Tony only remembers being in the Sanctum Sanctorum once before, and at the time he was mildly occupied with the imminent destruction of half the universe. This time, he’s taking the touristy route. He points at compass-like device on a shelf. “What’s that?”

“The dial of demise.”

“And that?”

“The eggcup of endless extinction. Try not to drop it, that’s how we lost the dodo.”

“And this?” Tony asks, picking up an average-looking deck of cards.

“That is a deck of cards.”

Tony pops off the elastic band. “Want to see a magic trick?”

“I was going to ask you the same,” Strange says, pushing open another heavy wooden door. Tony follows him into a room that looks like a study: dark mahogany bookshelves, a heavy desk with many drawers. Strange’s cloak is sitting in an armchair next to it, one tip impatiently tapping the floor.

On the desk is a geodesic sphere made of some material that is almost entirely like and yet entirely unlike glass. Inside, a gold light pulses, erratically shooting stray sparks.

“Kof-Kol,” Strange says. “It was extremely volatile. I’ve been dismantling it over the past days. Kof-Kol by itself is a fairly simple spell, but it seems this one was modified several times, until the dwimmer equilibrium was stretched too thin.” Strange scowls at him, then, which Tony thinks is rather unfair.

“What did I do? I was braindead during all this.”

Strange taps the sphere. “Several people were excluded from the spell. I don’t recognize all the signatures, but one seemed familiar, and now that you’re here I can say with certainty: one is yours.”

“So am I supposed to be remembering something everyone else doesn’t?”

And since Strange can’t ever just give straightforward answers, of course he says: “Perhaps, yes, perhaps, no.”

Tony turns a playing card over between his fingers, making sure to sound bored. “The intrigue is killing me.”

“This spell is in stasis, meaning it is no longer in effect. As we have established, I did successfully cast another Runes of Kof-Kol. But whether that spell had the exact same perimeters as this one, I cannot tell.”

“And this all helps us how?”

“I have brought the spell down to a level where I feel it is safe to bring out of statis. And then we’ll see if there is anything you remember that you previously did not.”

“Sounds like you’re making me your guinea pig.”

“It’s not a matter of—”

“I’m in, let’s go.”

-

When you look at yourself in a spoon, everything is upside down. Peter did a presentation on that when he was eight. He didn’t get a very good grade, mostly because the teacher didn’t understand him. It tanked his self-confidence for a while, though.

“Peter?” Ms. Potts asks.

Peter tears his eyes away from the spoon and looks across the table at her. She gives him a gentle, patient smile. Next to her, Morgan is using a paper straw to scoop whipped cream into her mouth. On her other side, Happy is looking at Peter like he is a clown holding a hand grenade: a confused sort of wariness.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Peter remembers. He’s doing everything wrong, but he’s just feeling so, so tired.

Happy’s scowl grows more pronounced. “Says who?”

Peter ducks his head and smushes a piece of apple pie under his spoon. Says who. That’s a good question. He told Ned and MJ that night he’d find them and tell them everything. But Spider-Man gets people killed, so in the cold light of day, all of that just seemed like a bad idea.

He didn’t know telling Tony would be an option, though.

What to do, what to do, what to do.

Happy and Pepper are murmuring around him as he dissects a piece of apple like it’s a frog in his biology class. He doesn’t make the effort to listen. Maybe they’re dissecting May’s body too, he thinks, and flinches.

“Mr. Parker?” Happy asks.

He drops his spoon to the table and puts his head in his hands, breathing out slowly.

“Mr. Parker.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know how the multiverse got temporarily fractured?”—and that’s a question with a lot of difficult words, Peter has to parse those words, one by one, frowning.

“I don’t think he’s in a state to—” Pepper starts.

“Yes. I know,” Peter says. And goes back to smushing his pie. May loved apple pie. Loved baking them, too. She burnt them to a crisp without fail, every single time, so she’d always serve it upside down and they’d have to eat it from the bottom up, picking through the charred bits. It still tasted pretty good, usually.

He knows Happy has been served that apple pie too. Several times. If Peter described it in detail, Happy might believe him. One of those ‘tell me something only you would know’-things.

“Mr. Parker,” Happy says, irritably. “Then perhaps—” but he cuts himself off abruptly, followed by the clatter of a fork hitting the table. Peter looks up to see that the man’s face has gone slack with shock. “Oh fu—udge,” Happy says. “Peter.”

Across the city at Bleecker street, Strange watches as the unleashed Runes of Kof-Kol bounces gently and dreamily along the ceiling before fading away entirely, and remembers a foolish teenager yelling at him basically everyone that knew I was Spider-Man before should still know before the incantation took a jigsaw to the fabric of their reality.

Tony has landed flat on his back on the carpet, the cloak hovers over him, looking as concerned as a cloak can look. Memories float to the surface of his brain, practically in sepia colors, the way Peter would walk into his workshop with a crooked grin and a half-baked plan to break the laws of physics. The way he never, ever went looking for trouble and yet constantly found himself knee-deep in it. The way his ideas could go from normal to completely unhinged within a single sentence. Walking into the kitchen to find Peter leaning over the kitchen sink with a knife in his shoulder, and Peter saying, defensively: “It was like that when I got here!”

“Oh fuck,” he says. “Peter.”

-

Strange portals him to the apple-pie-place where the kid is already in Happy’s arms, in a massive hug that he almost disappears in. Tony squirms his way past Pepper to find himself a spot on Peter’s other side, tucking an arm around his waist, resting his chin on Peter’s trembling shoulder. The cloak flutters happily through the air before wrapping itself around all three of them.

They sit there for what feels like hours and no one disturbs them. It is universally acknowledged that crying over apple pie is normal.

-

They drive down forest-edged roads, yellow dashes of the center line pass by steadily until Happy turns off the freeway onto smaller roads. Peter sleeps in the passenger seat, curled up under a scruffy blanket Rhodey lent them, only a few tufts of hair sticking out. Happy is driving, mostly out of habit. Pepper’s hand is tucked firmly into Tony’s, she rests her thumb against his pulse point, Morgan is tucked up between them with her Rubik’s pyramid.

Pepper has learned by now how impossible it is to know what direction life is going to take. One day you’re a widowed single mother, the next you have your husband back, a teenager to take under your wing, and even…

“That’s new,” Peter says hoarsely as Happy pulls up at the end of the winding forest path. Pepper glances between the front seats to see Geralt grazing near the shed.

Tony nods. “Meet Morgan’s pet sheep.”

“Goat!” Morgan says. She clambers over Pepper and presses her nose to the window, leaving a tiny foggy circle on the glass.

“It’s a llama,” Pepper corrects.

“That,” Peter says, “is an alpaca.”

…Even an alpaca, apparently.

-

Coffee for Happy, another blanket for Peter. As the two of them sit on the couch and chat quietly about May, she whips up some pancakes, lights the fireplace, salvages what is left of her flowers. She sits and attentively pours the salt back into the sugar shaker and vice versa.

This has always been her job, to be the anchor point of normalcy for other people to return to. Even when it rains feathers and staplers turn into coat hangers. Even when you lose a loved one and your existence is erased from the world.

-

In Copenhagen, all feathers are gathered up by municipal workers with snow shovels, and donated to a pillow manufacturer in Sokovia, so they can make pillows for orphanages. UNESCO adds the Saharan wall to their list of world heritage sites. St. Nazarius hangs Christmas decorations in their pine tree and decides to act like it’s always been there. The hospital chaplain begins holding Sunday services beneath it.

When Morgan turns five, Pepper deems her old enough to climb the Statue of Liberty. They make a day of it, pack lunch, lots of cookies. Tony wanted to come along, even grew out his beard for the occasion, with the sunglasses and the hat he looks like an ancient hipster. Morgan brings no less than three stuffed animals. She explains all their backstories to Peter on the drive down. The unicorn fell down from a rainbow after a lightning storm hit her wing. The panda bear sailed across the ocean for three years and ended up in their lake. “And the rabbit?” Peter asks.

“Came from the market.”

 “No big adventures?”

“No. Her adventures are still coming.”

Pepper watches in the rearview mirror how Peter slowly runs his fingers along the fluffy ears, soft smile on his face. It will be his first time back in New York in three months but he insisted on coming along.

They have to stand in line for the ferry for about half an hour. Pepper assumed that Tony, who has never stood in line for anything in his life, would be insufferable about it. But he is pretty mellow, Morgan’s hand tucked in his, his other arm draped over Peter’s shoulders as they snake towards the ferry gate. Two kids who almost lost him and here he is, the world’s daddest dad. Pepper takes about a hundred pictures whenever they aren’t looking.

The ferry horn sounds and the deck vibrates under their feet as the engines start up. They slowly drift away from the shore. The statue grows larger ahead.

“It’s, like, really pink, isn’t it?” Peter comments, craning his neck.

“Sparkly,” Morgan says. “Pretty.”

Tony wraps his arm more tightly around Peter and drops a kiss in his hair. “It is very pretty, kid, nicely done.”

“Shush.” Peter leans back against him. “I like that it looks different. Makes everything feel a bit… further away, you know?”

Spider-Man hasn’t been active in a few months — there aren’t that many bike thieves to chase around the lake house — but after summer, when Peter moves to MIT with his friends, he is planning to suit up again.

They climb up to the crown. Morgan does really well, doesn’t complain once. Inside Lady Liberty’s head it’s surprisingly small, the ceiling arches low. The Manhattan skyline, the East River and the shorelines are stretching out on all sides.

“This is nice,” Peter says. “Thanks, you guys.” He looks up at the sky, his eyes bright, Pepper can see the emotions right beneath the surface. And then his smile slowly brightens. “All right,” he says. “What’s next? Times Square, Central Park, the Metropolitan?”

“Look at us,” Pepper says. “Just some average tourists.”

“I predict,” Tony says, “the rest of our life is going to be very normal.”