Visitors
“What- no- he couldn’t have… How?” Peter asked. His world had narrowed to nothing besides him and that damned phone. He glared at it as though he could get Fury to unsay the words.
“Strange told Stark that there was only one version of events that would lead to Thanos’s defeat. He indicated to Stark that the version consisted of him sacrificing himself, so Stark did just that.” Fury began. “However since then our multiversal radars have picked up on thousands of worlds in which Thanos was successfully defeated by other means. And that discounts the infinite other realities we haven’t been able to detect yet.”
Peter stumbled back from the phone, towards the door to the hall beyond their apartment. A hand wrapped around his wrist, holding him back from running away. Gwen. He’d forgotten she was even there. “Don’t run away.” She pleaded with him, her eyes boring into him. “This is important.” He relaxed slightly, and stopped trying to pull away from her. To the phone, she asked, “If you come back down to Earth, will the spell affect you? Will it make you forget him?”
“I have no idea.” Fury said, and he seemed angered by his own ignorance. “S.H.I.E.L.D has little intel on magic and sorcery. To be safe, I’ll remain here. It’s not as though I am particularly interested in going back to that mess anytime soon. I’ll send you a package. Might help with your research.”
“Do you need my address?” Peter asked.
“No.”
“But I moved.”
“Parker, I do not need your address.”
The phone beeped, indicating that Fury had ended the call.
Gwen turned to face Peter, a strained smile tugging up the corners of her mouth. “So, that’s good at least. You’re not totally forgotten.”
Peter grunted in response and turned away, eyeing the door. He was contemplating going straight to the Sanctum and killing Strange, but he knew Gwen would stop him. Though he hated to admit it she was physically far stronger than him. “We should talk to Wong.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Gwen said. “He could have been compromised by Strange already, and even if he hasn’t been he won’t remember you.”
Peter sighed, knowing that she was certainly right. “Okay, so we know that the spell had a range on it, it didn’t reach space, we don’t even know if it reached all of earth.” Peter said, scribbling everything down into a notebook he’d started when the spell had first been cast. “We don’t know if Fury returning to earth will make him forget me, nor do we know if taking people affected by the spell into space will make them remember me. The spell rewrote reality so as far as we know, it is permanent. It won’t wear off, it needs to be undone.”
“I’m going to go into the spare room and watch some memories on BARF.” Gwen said. “I’ll let you do some brainstorming in peace.” Without another word, she stood and strode to the hallway before rounding the corner and vanishing from view.
“Alright EDITH, its just you and me.” Peter said as he pushed the glasses up his nose with his middle finger. “Any ideas?”
For the next few hours Peter sat at the table, writing down every single little thing that came into his head. The end product was dozens of pages filled with incoherent scribbles and half baked thoughts. Gwen came into the main area of the apartment and said, “I’m going to go to the library and see if I can find anything that might help us. I might have something, but I’m not sure yet.” Then she was gone. He sighed and began the arduous process of reading through the ideas and trying to get them to make sense.
There was a knock at the door that interrupted Peter’s thoughts. He tensed immediately and rose to answer it. His spider senses had not alerted him to any danger, but that didn’t mean trouble wasn’t on the other side of the door.
He pulled the door open slowly and the moment he did a figure was barreling into him, wrapping him up in a hug. When he pulled back Peter saw that it was Peter 3. Standing just behind him was Peter 2.
Peter grinned at them both and exclaimed, “How are you here?”
“It took a long time, but I figured out how to move between the different realities.” Peter 3 explained excitedly. “First I went to Peter 2 and we decided we were going to figure out how to get your friends to remember you. And then we thought you could use a little extra support… so we brought backup.” He gestured wildly to the other side of the door, past where Peter could see.
He stepped to the side and craned his neck, looking over to where Peter 3 was pointing. Standing there was none other than Tony Stark. Peter’s jaw dropped and he gaped at him for a long moment before he whispered, “Mr. Stark.”
“Hey kid.” Tony said gently.
And then Peter was crying and flinging himself at Tony. And Tony was reaching out and hugging him tightly. After what felt like minutes had pasted Peter stepped back and surveyed Tony, wiping his eyes. “How are you here?” He repeated.
“These two lunatics came to my reality with this crazy story about you needing help and I couldn’t leave you hanging.” Tony explained with a little shrug. Looking at Tony a little closer, Peter could tell that he was older than the Tony that he had watched die after the fight with Thanos.
“How are you alive?” Peter asked. “In this reality you died killing Thanos and his army.”
Tony looked surprised. “That’s how I died? Killing Thanos? Really?”
Peter nodded. “I can show you, if you want… with BARF.”
“Yes, lets do that.” Tony said, and followed Peter into the third bedroom, where the BARF technology was setup and the fabricator and all of the notes and books and plans and ideas were strewn about. His hands shook as he connected his consciousness to the program, realizing what he was going to have to watch.
He squeezed his eyes closed as he let the memory play out. But he couldn’t shut out the sounds, the fighting and the voices.
“I am inevitable.”
“And I… am… iron man.”
“Mr. Stark? Hey Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? It's Peter. Hey. We won, Mr. Stark. We won, Mr. Stark. We won. You did it, sir. You did it. I’m sorry, Tony.”
“Hey, Pep.”
“Tony. Look at me. We’re gonna be okay. You can rest now.”
And then it was over and Peter was brushing more tears from his eyes and cheeks.
Once Peter had recovered Tony said, “In my reality Loki was at that fight. Gamora, Nebula and him teamed up and brought Thanos down, no sacrifice necessary on my part.”
“Loki?” Peter asked. “The god who tried to take over New York eleven years ago?”
“It was seventeen years ago for me, 2012, but yes, the very same.” Tony said.
“Your reality must be six years ahead of ours then, because it was 2012 for us too.” Peter said.
“2029 in my reality right now.” Tony said. “But yes, Loki as it would turn out was being controlled by Thanos during his endeavor to take over New York after several years of torture by Thanos’s hand. He wanted Thanos dead even more than the rest of us, and he got his revenge.”
“Is Natasha alive in your reality too? And Captain America?” Peter asked hopefully.
Tony sighed, looking pained. “No. During the blip Natasha and Steve got really close with one another. When she died… he had no reason to stay anymore, so he went back in time to be with Peggy Carter. He aged until he died.”
“Oh.” Peter sighed. He’d hoped that at least Natasha could have made it through that version of events. He had known her very briefly and in that time she had betrayed Tony in favor of Steve but she had been nice and had been doing what she believed was right. If Peter was being honest with himself, if he had known what the fight was about, he likely would have sided with Steve too.
“But in my reality you’re an adult- twenty-three years old. Mysterio outed you to the public in my reality too and that spell went wrong and everyone forgot you… including me. It took three years for you to work out how to get us to remember you on your own. With all four of us; we could have this whole mess figured out in less than a month.” Tony said, slapping Peter on the back.