Chapter 1
Noah Gray was an average student at Midtown high, with average grades, average looks, above average speed from years of soccer, but, as you’ve probably guessed, only average strength. All together a pretty average guy, or at least, that’s what everyone, including Noah, thought. What they don’t know is that Noah Gray is a mutant. Not with any amazing or obvious powers. No, his ability is that others abilities don’t work on him, not other mutants or differently gained abilities or even magic. And since no one has ever directly used said abilities on him Noah has no idea about his own ability, understand?
Good.
Now, onto the story.
It starts on a fairly sunny day, with Noah walking along New yorks busy streets in search for somewhere that sells lemon tarts. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he had a craving that needed to be sated. He’s about to peek into another cafe when he sees one of his classmates, Peter Parker a few meters from him.
Now, he doesn’t know Peter that well. They say hi when their paths cross in the hall, have worked on a few projects together and once had a long discussion about if Spider-man has eight eyes under that mask, Noah arguing that he does after the look on peters face, which looking back is even funnier since Peter is in fact Spider-man, but they’re not close. And if Peter didn’t look so dang sad right now, Noah would have pretended he didn’t see him to continue his search for a lemon tart. But Peter looks on the verge of tears and Noah can’t leave him like that, even heroes need a hug sometimes, he’ll, they probably need them more than most!
So with a huff, Noah turns and steps towards him, calling, “Peter!”
He startles slightly, before blinking up at Noah with wide shocked eyes filled with disbelief and hope.
“N-Noah?” he breathes as Noah steps up to him, only just hearing him over the ruckus of New york.
“Hey Pete! You ok? You look a little down,” Noah says with a soft smile, feeling the strange urge to wrap Peter in all the blankets and give him a hot chocolate.
“You remember?” he asks, voice trembling.
“… Remember what?” Noah asks, confused.
“Me.”
“Um… yeah? I know we didn’t talk much, but my memory isn’t that ba-” he chokes on the word as he’s body slammed into a hug, Peter sobbing into his shoulder. “Hey, it’s ok, you’re ok,” he coos wrapping his arms around the trembling figure and rubbing his back. “Do you want me to call someone?”
He only gets a head shake in response.
Ok. Shit. What do you do when your kinda a friend but not really breaks down in your arms? He doesn’t know where he lives so he can’t take him back to his home and there’s no way Peter can tell him in this state. Noah looks around. His apartment is right around the corner… fuck it. Blankets and hot chocolate it is.
“Come on buddy, I have hot chocolate with your name on it.”
Peter follows wordlessly, sniffling, rubbing at his wet cheeks with one hand, his other being held by Noah as he leads him.
A few minutes later Peter’s sitting on the couch in a cocoon of blankets staring down at the hot chocolate in his hands.
“Feeling any better?” Noah asks, voice soft. Peter gives a small nod as he takes a sip from his cup. “You wanna tell me what happened?”
“I…” he goes quiet staring Noah in the eye, he just smile reassuringly back. “I’m…”
“You don’t have to tell me, we can watch Netflix instead if you want? There’s this really funny show abo-”
He’s interrupted when Peter suddenly blurts out, “there was a wizard-or a sorcerer I guess...”
Noah blinks at him, that information not quite processing.
“What?”
Peter leans forward to place his fingertips on a book on the coffee table in front of him, before lifting them, the book following.
“Magic went wrong, the multiverse almost collapsed and now no one remembers Peter Parker.”