Out of Hope
Peter massaged his temples tiredly. He sighed and rested his heads on his hands, looking down at the cool marble of his countertop. His apartment was small and ordinarily would have felt cozy, exactly the sort of thing he would have picked for himself and MJ. But now it was just a reminder to him of everything he had lost, everything that was missing from his life. He missed his friends, he missed Ned and MJ. He missed Happy and May. Goddamn, he even missed Flash.
His vision blurred as tears pooled in his eyes. It had been a month since Stephen had preformed the spell and Peter had given up on trying to reach Ned and MJ. He kept going out each night as Spider-Man, but other than that his life was empty. He had created a fake identity for himself- still under the name Peter Parker- using EDITH and enrolled in his school.
May was dead. His friends were lost to him forever. And the world… just… kept… spinning.
The tears rolled down his cheeks quickly and fell to the countertop, landing in perfectly circular droplets. He sniffed and brushed the tracks from his face, standing and moving to the fridge. It was nearly bear, but he forced himself to dig around until he found something edible. He had just bitten into an apple when there was a knock at his door, light and unsure.
He stood and crossed the room in a few quick strides before pausing, mentally readying himself for whatever was on the other side. After another moment of gathering himself, he unlatched the lock and pulled open the door. On the other side stood a girl he had never seen before. She had blonde hair down to her shoulders and bangs that had grown out to frame her face.
“Are you Peter Parker?” She asked, looking him up and down. He hesitated for a moment before giving a slow nod. “Can I come in?”
He stepped aside and she walked into the apartment, her eyes flicking around, taking everything in. He leaned against his counter and folded his arms over his chest. “So, who are you? And what do you want?”
“My name is Gwen.” She said. Gwen. Gwen. That name rang a bell. “I’m not from this world.”
His head shot up. “What?”
“I was walking through Brooklyn, heading back to my apartment and then suddenly I was here, where everyone was talking about how you were Spider-Man, on the streets and in the news. Then a few days later it all stopped and no one knew who was under the mask. Took me a while to track you down, but here you are.” Gwen explained, pacing around the main area of the apartment.
“In your world… you knew Spider-Man? You knew he’s a Peter Parker?” Peter asked.
Gwen shook her head. “In my world, Peter was never Spider-Man. In my world, I’m Spider-Man, or rather Spider-Woman.” She proved her words by leaping to the ceiling in a graceful motion and sticking to it by her fingertips. “Peter was my boyfriend,” she continued while still hanging from the ceiling, “I got bitten by that spider and the two of us worked together, he helped me figure everything out and then… he died.”
Gwen’s words jogged Peter’s memory. The younger of the other Peter’s had had a girlfriend named Gwen who had died. “But I don’t understand, when everyone forgot about me you should have been sent back to your world.”
She shrugged. “I have no idea what the hell is going on here, so you’re going to have to explain things to me. But my world is a mess, and the people there have declined the help I’ve tried to offer. I don’t want to go back there. Maybe that’s the difference.”
So Peter explained everything that had happened, from the avengers, to Thanos, to Mysterio, to the spell, to the other Peters. She listened to his words with wrapped attention and Peter felt that spark that had long since dimmed beginning to reignite.
“Okay, so we need a way to undo part of that spell, just enough for your friends and the people you care about to remember you.” Gwen said, running a hand through her hair.
Peter looked up at her, surprised. “You want to help me?”
“Of course I do.” She smiled, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “My Peter died three weeks ago, the least I can do is help you get back to your MJ.”