Epilogue
Epilogue
In another universe...
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Mary Jane picked up on the third ring. “Hi, Tony.”
If her greeting carried a little strain, at least it lacked the urgency which in the previous week had brought her to call Tony Stark, of all people, to tell him Peter Parker was missing.
Tony twirled an imaginary cord around one finger. He hadn't used a landline in decades, of course, but it was something his mother used to do and old habits died hard. When he'd told Morgan years earlier that phones used to have tails, she'd lit up at the fairy tale and looked expectantly at his cell phone as if it might grow a pig's spiral. “Mary Jane,” he greeted in return. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but please tell me that was your husband who stole a Degas for eight minutes last night.”
“Actually, it was a new friend of his.”
“Parker doesn't make new friends.”
“I don't think he had a real choice in the matter.”
Though her voice was dry, there was a worryingly terse undertone. Right as he'd spoken Tony realized that he had unthinkingly referred to Peter as her current husband, not her ex, but she must have been too distracted to correct him.
“How did you know?” she asked. Missing, as well, was the slight edge in her voice. Either that was a sign she'd relaxed, or she was concerned about something worse than holding a civil conversation with Tony Stark.
“We've got a security contract with the Met. No, he wasn't caught on tape,” he said before she could ask, “but my cameras were bugged by a familiar-looking virus in a code I could just swear I've seen before.”
“By the way,” MJ said, “you're in the dating simulation business. If anyone happens to mention anything about sentient holograms.”
She was too flippant, in the kind of way that was forced.
“Mary Jane, is Parker home or not?” he asked with a frown.
“No, not yet,” was her reply. “But I—sort of—know where he is.”
Well, that was progress. When MJ had first called him, Tony had been unable to resist visions of Peter, gutted on some rooftop or or sprawled sightless in an alley, blood swirling down a storm drain. “Great. So we know where he is. Do we know how he is?”
MJ was silent for a moment. When she spoke, it was with deliberate composure. “Waiting on that.”
He didn't know what to do with that.
“Listen, Tony...” she sighed. “Thank you for looking for him. I mean it. I know you dusted off Steve Rogers for this too, but...”
“But now you don't need the help.”
She hesitated. “There's nothing either of us can do. I can't reach him right now, but he said he'd come back.”
Tony drummed his fingers in the rhythm of an old Metallica song. He wasn't about to admit he'd hoped he would be the one to find Parker—in one piece, presumably—and bring him home, but he suspected that MJ suspected as much. A search-and-rescue wasn't exactly a substitute for reconciliation, but it was a handy excuse to begin one. Still, what he was hearing did not much encourage a positive outlook on Peter Parker's general well being.
“Is he hurt?” he asked finally.
“He's not well, but it's not an injury so much as... a condition.”
“Are you going to actually tell me what the hell's going on, or do I get twenty questions? Or—” he counted on his fingers— “sixteen now, I guess.”
She was silent and he guessed she was deciding what to tell him. That aggravated him some; hadn't she come to him for help? Now that Parker was no longer in the wind, was she going to kick Tony's foot out from where he'd inched it inside the door?
Finally, Mary Jane said: “Peter, in the most literal sense, fell off the face of the planet. Or universe, rather.”
“Another...universe? Did I hear that right?”
“A parallel dimension.” She said it self-consciously, as though he might laugh.
Tony, naturally, asked for clarification.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, he got it. It occupied that familiar gray area between the fantastic and the just-barely-plausible that he knew well enough to not discredit offhand, and while Otto Octavius breathed no more in this particular dimension Stark still made a mental note to check his basement for Stargates.
MJ seemed torn between an obligation to give him the details, having involved him in the first place, and lingering reserve stemming from the decade-old fallout he'd had with her husband—no, ex-husband, he had to stop forgetting that. It still felt like trying to just forget about some geometric theorem.
It was, he had to admit, a plan most effective for its simplicity. If Parker survived.
He might not, said a sly little voice in the back of his head. And then you'll never get the chance to talk to him. How selfish would your grief be then?
Stark pushed away the thought. MJ ran out of information and a silence stretched over the line.
“So what are you going to do once he's back?” she said suddenly.
“I thought you said my part in this was concluded?” Stark said, not without some bitterness.
Cryptically, MJ replied: “That's up to you. I just said he wasn't missing anymore.”
“I've been trying to reach him,” he reminded her. “He was ghosting me even before he ghosted the rest of this dimension, you know.”
MJ acknowledged this with a vague hmm. Stark felt irritated. What made her think Parker would answer this time? Sure, he could track Parker down in a heartbeat once he graced this dimension again—the man worked at Empire State University, after all, he knew the lunk's office hours for crying out loud—but he'd been respecting Parker's choice or whatever, and hadn't that been one of the catalysts of this fight?
“Can someone at least tell me when he's back?” he asked her, failing to make it sound as arch as he'd intended. It sounded more plaintive, a genuine plea, and he felt slightly embarrassed. Damn it, though, he wanted this.
“Sure,” said MJ, a little more gently.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Stark said suddenly before she could hang up. She held on to the line, and Stark's eyes fell on a small sculpture Pepper had purchased to class up the joint a little in between Black Sabbath posters.
“Yes?” said MJ.
“Did that friend of his just steal the one painting?”
Surprised, MJ replied cautiously: “Yes, I was there... his, ah, friend only had the Degas for a minute. It was just for a distraction. Then he stuck it in the Lost and Found.”
Now that was interesting; MJ had been on the scene? Parker had always been so relentlessly determined to keep her well out of his capers that he'd practically exiled her. Nonetheless, Tony hummed acknowledgment.
“Why do you ask?” MJ said curiously.
“Oh, no reason, really,” said Stark, twirling at the air again. “Just because two paintings got stolen last night, and only one made it back.”
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