Nothing around him was real.
Or was everything real?
Were the hand grabbing him really there? Or the voices yelling his name in far too many dissonances? Or the corpses or the rubble or the rain pounding on his skin?
As Peter sprinted through streets of blood and bone, dodging buildings on fire and stones falling from the sky, he didn’t know. He couldn’t know. The world around him and the world in his mind began to blend into one. He ran, he ran, he ran.
He ran past Thanos’s ship and almost turned to investigate but no, it wasn’t real, it was another one of Beck’s creations, and he knew because he was the one to crash it. But who was to say it hadn’t been repaired? What if it was real, new, and some vengeful Thanos daddy was here to destroy the planet?
He shook his head. He couldn’t be caught up like that. If some big purple freak wanted to kill him, he could deal with it later. Because right now, he had to find Beck. And he had to stop him.
He turned a corner and ran into something he couldn’t see. The buildings were made of screaming, the clouds were made of tears, and the soft flesh he smacked was nothing at all. He reached down and grabbed some part of the person he hit, maybe an arm, and hoisted them to their feet.
He was about to keep going past the invisible person, but no, a cold hand touched his face, and it was so much gentler than the hundreds of fingers clawing at his arms. He stopped and squinted at the empty street in front of him. What was touching him?
”Hey,” a voice whispered to him, or maybe it screamed. “I don’t know what you’re seeing right now, but it’s not real.”
Peter blinked as the red world started to blink in and out of focus, cut between a gray sky and crowds of people watching him in clumps. He shook his head. Which world was real?
”I swear to you, you’re in London, right in front of me, okay?”
Peter blinked, hard. A brown curl drifted into view, then a dark jacket, then puddles of stagnant water. And all of a sudden, he was on a street in London, MJ standing in front of him with wet hair and concerned eyes.
”I promise.”
Warmth bloomed in Peter’s chest and he almost smiled beneath the mask, but suddenly the slim fingers transformed into razor sharp claws digging into his cheek, and he was back in the world of burning buildings and streets coated with blood. MJ was gone, replaced with The Vulture (how did he get out of prison, how was he here), who smiled with teeth like knives and unfurled his gigantic metal wings.
Peter turned on his heel, and he sprinted down the alley of corpses and fires.
He ran, he ran, his heart pounding against his ribcage like it wanted to escape. He thought maybe he was safe, maybe soon he could rest and figure out what Beck had done to destroy this city, but something dark engulfed him. A gigantic winged shadow loomed over him. The Vulture has found him.
He ran faster, chasing the edge of the shadow, chasing the red light, but to no avail. The shadow grew and grew as the Vulture descended upon him, and he tripped as something grabbed his ankle, and what did he fall on something sliced his chest deep and the blood began to flow. He curled into himself, one arm trying to staunch the bleeding he didn’t understand and another shielding his head.
Then the shadow passed. Peter shot up to his feet and stared at the end of the street, where the Vulture flew past him without even a glance back and disappeared the second he hit the building at the end of the road. He stood, slightly hunched and clutching his chest, and stared at the clouds. Why had the Vulture just...left? Peter was on the ground, open prey, why hadn’t he died right then.
The creak of an opening door pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked back to the building at the end of the street, and noticed he was back in London, the road beneath him stone, the houses on either side brick, the world silent and hauntingly empty. The large door of the house directly ahead of him at the end of the alley slowly opened, and someone stepped out. Their head was ducked, their heavy coat hiding their face and figure.
”Sir,” Peter called, “Or—Or Ma’am, I don't know, are you alright?”
They didn’t answer.
”You need to get out of here, there’s a dude with a lot of robots trying to kill people!
They lifted a hand to their hood and left it there.
”...Hello?”
Slowly, the person pulled back their hood to reveal their face. Peter squinted through the soft mist of rain, and stopped breathing.
Because standing hardly fifty feet away from him was a face he barely remembered, one he only saw in pictures. Beneath a thick coat and dampened by cold rain, was his dad.
”W—I mean—how—what?”
His dad nodded, smiled softly in a way Peter had missed so, so much, and it was like he was seven again, short and helpless and alone in his aunt and uncle’s apartment.
“You’re—You’re dead,” he stammered, but took a step forwards all the same. God, he wanted his dad, he wanted to hug him and make his old cookie recipe and learn his favorite song which he discovered at thirteen that he never even knew. “I mean—you’re gone, you never came home, how are you...”
He trailed off, but his dad opened his mouth and answered the question he never asked. “They didn’t find the plane. You buried two empty caskets, right?”
Yes, they did, Peter realized. He nodded, and his dad continued. “It took years for your mother and I to find our way out of the wild. We tried to find you, but HYDRA was after us the whole time. We knew if we so much as looked at you before you were old enough to not be under our protection, they’d kill you. We’ve been here the whole time.”
Peter blinked. “Wait, hold on, there’s no way—“
But the door opened again. And the next person to come out didn’t cover her face, and even if he had no memory of her he would know who she was because he saw her eyes every time he looked in the mirror.
”Hi, Baby,” his mother whispered, and yet Peter could hear it from the other end of the road, like a knife to the stomach.
”No,” he whispered to himself. “No, no, you can’t be—I would have known, I mean—“
”You wouldn’t have,” she interjected, her voice soft and pitying and he felt like he was four again. “We hid from you on purpose. We didn’t want to, and we’re so sorry, but I promise we kept up with you all these years, and the second we found out you were in London, we tried to find you. And we did.” And she smiled so sweetly Peter almost cried but he kept himself together, he couldn’t shatter when there was still so much to do.
”I know you’re not real. You...you can’t be, right?”
”We’re right here. Look!” His mother raised her hands, flexed them, turned around like a model at a fashion show. “Right here, clear as day.” And she was. She was flesh and bone and real as she could be. His mother and father were standing in front of him, smiling, breathing, alive.
“Oh, my God,” Peter said as a tear slipped out of his eye and smudged beneath his mask. “Oh, my God, you’re alive. I have to tell May, I have to show you where I live, I have to...”
Peter trailer off and furrowed his brow. His mother’s smile faltered. “What, Honey? Can’t you just come hug your mother?”
Peter ignored her, even though he felt pulled to her as if she were a magnet. ”But—but how would you know I’m Spider-Man? You died before any of this happened. Or—just how did you know?”
His father laughed. “What do you think we are, stupid? No one would risk their life like our Pete.” God, the nickname hurt. “But please, we want to see your face. It’s been so long. Let us see how much you’ve grown.”
Peter froze. “What?”
“You heard your father,” said his mother, as if she were only asking him to take out the trash. “Take off the mask. We just want to see your face.”
The world flickered. For just a second, his parents were gone, and he was standing in a gigantic clearing in the middle of London, crowds watching from all sides except right in front, where he saw a cliff and a vast ocean where the house was. He heard MJ calling towards him, telling him that he was seeing things. He started to turn for just a moment, caught a glimpse of the scared faces of his classmates.
Then he was back in the empty alley, and as he turned back to the house, he almost collapsed at a third person he hadn’t seen emerge from behind the door.
”Ben,” he whispered like a prayer, like a broken dream.
Ben nodded. “It’s me,” he said, his deep voice resonating in Peter’s chest like the chord of a single cello. “I’m right here, too.”
”But—but how?” He said, his voice rising to something close to a shout. “I watched you die, I saw your body! I—I spread your ashes!”
And then, all at once, it hit him, so hard he could have cried. But no, he laughed. He straightened up, one blood-slick hand still clutching the pulsing wound at his side, let out a single bitter chuckle to the cruel universe. “This was Beck, wasn’t it?” He called out, and his dad tilted his head in a way that looked so real. “He—he made you up to distract me, huh? None of this is real. None of you are real.”
Ben’s lopsided smile faded. “You don’t believe me?” He asked quietly.
Peter almost went back on his words, he felt so guilty, but he reminded himself not to feel bad for a hologram. “No, I don’t. I watched you die. You’re just some fucked up lighting. God, I bet you don’t even know my favorite color—“
”Blue.” Ben cut him off, and Peter’s eyes widened. “You like blue, sky blue, because it’s not a ‘flat color.’ That’s why you hate electric purple, right? It’s too flat. Not enough depth.”
Peter blinked, because he remembered the day he called May’s electric purple nail polish too flat. It was just one color, no layers. How could a hologram know that?
”You like your sandwiches smashed as flat as possible, even when it makes the Mayo come out. You’re scared of sharks because I showed you the movie Jaws and you thought it was a documentary, and you never really got over it. You’ve always enjoyed dance more than any other sport, but could never do it because you didn’t have enough balance ever since your ear infections—“
”Stop,” Peter choked out, his hands coming up to cover his ears but quickly retreating back to his side when the blood began to flow harder. “Please, stop. It hurts.”
”I know, Love,” his mother said. ”I know.”
Peter sniffed. “I missed you so much,” he said softly, like a child. “God, it hurts without you.”
”But it doesn’t have to,” said his father. “If you’ll take off the mask we can make sure it’s you. Until we see your face, we can’t get too attached.”
”I...I don’t...”
Ben took a step towards him, and it took all of Peter’s restraint not to sprint to him and just sob into his chest. “Please, Peter. Let me see your face again. It’s been so long.”
”Yeah,” he said quickly, and grabbed the seam of his mask. “Yeah, okay, sure.”
”Please, don’t!” Yelled MJ, and suddenly he was back on the crowded cliff. He swiveled his head for just a second to see Ned clutching MJ, holding her back from running to him. Behind him we’re Flash, Cindy, and half of his class all recording the ordeal. “Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real! Please, don’t take it off!”
Flash elbowed her. “What the Hell! Don’t you want to find out who he is?”
”No!” She hissed. “Us knowing could ruin his life!”
Peter smiled to the phantoms. “You’re not keeping me from them any longer, Beck,” he said to the man he couldn’t see. He lifted his left hand to the seam of his mask and pulled. As a thousand gasps sounded around him, he was back in the alley, with his family so close yet so achingly far.
Ben smiled. “Good job. I’m so proud of you, Peter.”
”Thank you,” Peter replied, tears dripping down his chin with thoughtless abandon. “Thank you so much.”
”But,” said his father, with no acknowledgment towards Peter’s thanks, “there’s one more person here to see you.”
Peter cocked his head. Who else had he lost (or, thought he lost, he supposed)?
But then the door opened. And he almost collapsed.
”Hey, kid,” Tony said, and Peter broke. He stumbled, but thankfully didn’t fall, because he were so weak he wouldn’t have been able to get back up. His silent tears gave way to full-on heaving sobs, so hard he almost vomited. This couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t, but it was. He was so confused but he didn’t even care, because everyone he had ever missed was standing before him, open-armed and waiting.
He didn’t even ask him how Tony had survived. He didn’t care any more. All that mattered was that he was here, just a ten second sprint away.
“It’s been a while,” Tony said, and Peter just nodded, barely able to see through his tears. “You been doing okay?”
”I’ve been better,” Peter laughed wetly, but his smile faded quickly. “I’m sorry. I—I lost the drones. I let you down.”
”Don’t worry about it. I can always make more.”
”No, but it’s really bad this time. Beck has them, he’s destroying...everything,” Peter said, gesturing to the rubble around him, the pool of blood beneath him. Spots were starting to cloud his vision, he was finding it hard to stand straight.
”That’s alright,” Tony said. “We can fix it together.” He smiled softly and held out his hand.
“...We can?”
”We can,” said his mother, and she held out her hand, as well.
Peter looked to Ben, to his father. Their hands extended too, like an invitation. Four people inviting him to hold them again, and fix the burning world around him.
He took a breath, dragged up his last bits of strength, and started to limp towards those golden smiles.
”Peter, stop!” Yelled Ned. “It’s just a drop, nobody is there!” The house was gone, once again replaced by the cliff side, hardly fifty feet away. Peter screwed his eyes shut, took another step, and opened them.
Mom. Dad. Ben. Tony. There they all stood, and it was their willing hands and waiting arms that made him limp forwards, try and hold together his wound and ignore the blood trickling from his side.
A hand grabbed him, and MJ was there, grasping his arm. Her terrified, tear-stained face almost made him stop. But her quiet, “Please,” reminded him of what he was doing, and as much as it hurt, he threw her off and kept trudging.
He was almost there. He was so close. He stepped over a twisted metal pole and a bone crushed beneath it. Even as his vision began to blur, his family’s faces grew closer, more detailed, and he could see every eyelash, every crease in their skin. Just a few more steps to the house. Just a few more steps to them.
The crowds around him were yelling, screaming, people he didn’t even know begging him to stop. But he knew it wasn’t real because none of them came up to stop him. None but MJ, who he had left in the dirt behind him, and Ned, who he didn’t even look at before pushing past. The edge of the cliff was right there,
the door was right there,
he reached his hand out to nothing, grabbed thin air
reached out to his mother’s waiting arms,
a thousand people screamed as his body dropped and he fell rapidly towards the raging water below
he took the final step up the broken stairs of the house.
He slammed into the dark water.
He grabbed his mother’s hand.