Peter was crying. In front of Doctor Strange which was, like, the most embarrassing way this whole thing could’ve gone.
In hindsight, this situation would’ve been completely avoidable had Peter just shut his mouth and stopped complaining. Really, he could’ve handled it by himself. It wasn’t like he’d never had a mental breakdown before, this time he just happened to have it in the company of a guy he was still very intimidated by.
“This is– god, this is embarrassing– I’m sorry,” Peter stuttered out.
It had become sort of a routine for Peter to stop by and bother Strange whenever he didn’t have anything else to do. Normally, it was Tony Stark who was subjected to his ramblings but that… well, they all knew what happened.
They’d been in the Sanctum that day, making whatever small talk that Avengers could make when everything hit him.
“Deep breaths, Peter,” Doctor Strange instructed, looking deeply out of his element.
“This is so stupid!” Peter groaned, pulling at his hair as his heart rate continued to speed up. “Everything’s messed up so I should just get over it, right? Right?! ‘Cause if there was any way to fix it you probably would’ve figured it out…”
Doctor Strange sighed, his eyes worried.
“Peter,” he began, “there is only one reality where the Blip is fixed. You know that, right?”
Peter’s lips tightened into a line. “Yeah… yeah, of course I do! But… what– what if–”
‘If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive.’
Strange rubbed his eyes and shook his head. He sat down on the floor of the Sanctum and motioned for Peter to do the same. The cold tile floor did nothing to ease Peter’s growing anxiety attack.
“I’m going to show you what I saw when we were up against Thanos. The other realities.”
“The other– Mr. Doctor Strange I don’t–”
“Stephen. My name is Stephen. Now take my hands when you’re ready.”
Doctor Strange closed his eyes and held both of his hands out, waiting. Peter stared at him, blinking slowly. He hesitated, waiting for Strange to open his eyes and tell Peter he wasn’t being serious. That moment never came. Peter placed his hands in Strange’s and closed his eyes.
Almost immediately, Peter’s vision was filled with swirling colors.
Then, he was somewhere else. Strange was standing right beside him.
They were observing some alternate universe. They were back at the final battle, only there seemed to be half the people fighting. And it didn’t appear to be going in their favor.
“This is what most of the other realities look like,” Strange explained. “Just a… sad final battle. A futile effort against Thanos.”
Peter cringed as he saw the Hulk get thrown across the battlefield and struggle to get back up.
“What do the others look like?” Peter asked, words caught in his throat. He didn’t want to watch the Avengers get torn apart.
Strange placed his hands on Peter’s shoulders and they were moving again.
This time, they were on a dark spaceship, floating somewhere far away from everything. Peter took a second to gain his bearings before his eyes settled on Tony Stark, barely conscious at the front of the ship.
Doctor Strange spoke, one hand still resting on Peter’s shoulder. “A good handful of the realities end like this. Tony Stark dies before he can get back to Earth and that’s the end of it. The Blip is never undone.”
Peter felt a tear roll down his cheek. He hated this. He hated Strange for showing him this.
“Are there–” his voice cracked. “Are there any happier ones…?”
Doctor Strange thought about it for a moment. He gave Peter a swift nod and placed his hands back on the boy’s shoulders.
This reality took longer to form, Peter was lost in colors for what felt like a full minute before the world finally materialized around him.
They were in a cabin. One Peter vividly recognized as the one he’d visited for Mr. Stark’s funeral. Only, Tony Stark sat in the living room of the cabin looking very alive and almost peaceful. Everything was quiet and still and Peter cautiously waited for it all to start crumbling.
For better or worse, it didn’t.
“Daddy!! I can’t find Peter!” A little girl rushed into the living room, jumping onto Tony’s lap. Morgan. Just slightly younger than she had been when Peter met her.
“Well, kiddo, that’s kind of the point of hide and seek,” Tony quipped, smiling with a fondness that almost made Peter tear up. “Let me help you out.”
Tony stood with an exaggerated groan, lifting Morgan with him. They wandered into a different part of the house.
Peter let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding.
Doctor Strange nudged him, encouraging him to follow the two around the cabin. Peter did, though his legs shook as he caught up.
“I’ve looked everywhere!” Morgan complained.
“Everywhere? That’s an awful lot of places to look,” Tony replied. “Did you look in his room?”
“That’s where I started counting! He’s not in there!”
Tony smiled and walked up a set of stairs. “You’d be surprised.”
Peter followed behind them, still grappling with the fact that Tony was in front of him, alive and happy and acting painfully domestic. He tried to hate Strange for showing him all this even if it was the exact thing he had been hoping to see. If Tony couldn’t be happy in Peter’s life, at least there was somewhere he could be.
Tony set Morgan down on the carpeted upstairs hallway and gently pushed open one of the bedroom doors.
“Do you see him, Morgs?” Tony asked as the little girl poked her head into the room.
Peter crept up behind them, careful not to make contact even though he was pretty sure the physics of Strange’s little memory world wouldn’t let him touch anything.
The interior of the room was almost enough to make Peter vomit. It was so clearly his. There were Star Wars posters surrounding an unmade bed, an entire shelf of complex lego structures on the left wall. There was an obviously homemade desk in the corner covered in papers and books and a fancy looking computer. An MIT jacket hung on the back of his chair, worn and well loved.
Morgan giggled and raced into this Peter’s room, jumping up onto his bed.
“Peter!” She called out. “I’m jumping on your bed! Better come stop me!”
Tony stepped further into the room, leaning on a wall. Peter took his place in the doorway, watching; waiting for it all to fall apart like it was destined to.
Beside him, Tony looked up at the ceiling, holding back a smile.
Peter looked up to see himself– or at least this universe’s version of himself –crawling on the ceiling above Morgan with a wide grin.
This Peter looked so… carefree. He was still dressed in pajamas even though it was early afternoon. There were no harsh bags under his eyes and his smile was happier than Peter could ever believe himself to be.
“Peter!” Morgan continued to shout, oblivious. “Better come get me before I tell Daddy about your Iron Man stuffie!!”
Tony tried to hold back his laughter, failing after half a second. On the ceiling, Peter’s face went bright red.
Morgan reached for Peter’s bedside table.
“No no, Morgan! Wait!” Peter let go of the ceiling, falling onto his bed and grabbing Morgan.
The little girl giggled and tried to squirm out of his arms. They play wrestled until Peter got the upperhand and started tickling Morgan.
“Stop! Stop it!” Morgan said between fits of laughter. “I found you! I win hide and seek!”
“Fineee, you win,” Peter conceded, letting go of Morgan.
The little girl jumped off of Peter’s bed and ran up to Tony, hugging his legs. “Peter was on the ceiling! That’s cheating!”
“He’s just using his resources, kiddo,” Tony defended.
“I still think it’s cheating,” Morgan pouted. “No hiding on the ceiling this time!”
Peter smiled. “Alright alright, no more ceiling for me.”
Morgan cheered and walked away from Tony, pulling herself back up onto Peter’s bed. “You should play with us this time, Daddy!”
“Oh! How about we both search for him?” Peter suggested to Morgan, the girl nodding her head in vehement agreement. “Sound good, Dad?”
Peter, the observer in the doorway, froze. Dad?
He had a feeling there was something about this alternate reality that Doctor Strange had failed to mention.
“I dunno, kiddos, I think you’re underestimating my hiding abilities.”
Peter and Morgan shared a look.
“No, I think we’ve got it, old man,” Peter said confidently.
“Yeah! We’ll take you down!” Morgan agreed, giving Tony a glare that failed to be anything but adorable.
“Alright,” Tony agreed, smiling. “But when I win, you’re both doing the dishes tonight.”
“What?!” Peter protested. “But that’ll turn into just me doing the–”
“Deal!” Morgan interrupted.
Tony laughed and cracked his knuckles. “Good luck.”
The two kids started counting and Tony walked right through the doorway as if Peter wasn’t standing there still, watching the scene with tears rolling down his face.
Peter watched Morgan and the alternate reality version of himself for a few more seconds. He followed Tony around until he heard the two upstairs scream “ready or not here we come!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter whispered. He knew Tony couldn’t hear him, but it didn’t matter. “I’m sorry this never…” he trailed off, voice choking up. Defeated and tired, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Peter wrapped his arms around Tony the best he could and sat there until he heard tiny footsteps coming to find him.
He could hear them fake whispering to each other.
“Agent Morgan, you take the left side of the house and I’ll take the right.”
“Okay! Over and out, Agent Peter.”
Tony chuckled to himself. “These damn kids,” he whispered with a fondness Peter had never heard from him before.
Peter stood and went back to Strange before this reality could upset him further.
“Ready to go?” Strange quietly asked, pointedly ignoring the way Peter rubbed at his tear stained face.
“What happens to this reality?” Peter asked, meeting Strange’s eyes.
“Peter… you don’t–”
“No, I wanna know. Because if I don’t get to know, then there’s nothing to stop me from staying right here.”
Doctor Strange sighed. “This is one of the two realities where you survive the Blip. Tony still figures out time travel and you still both go back to space. It ends the same way it ended for us.”
“What happens in the other one?”
“The same thing. Except…” Strange hesitated.
“Except what?”
“Except you’re the one to put on the gauntlet, Peter.”
Peter shuddered. It hit him that there was no reality where this domestic happy life in the cabin was real; permanent. That’s just how it was meant to be. Peter didn’t belong here. He didn’t belong in the same timeline as a family or happiness.
“Okay. I’m ready to go home now.”