Chapter Text
The multiverse spat him out somewhere in Queens.
More exactly, it dumped him unceremoniously on his ass in a gravelly parking lot, jarring his bones something deep and knocking the wind out of him. Argh, thought Peter limply. He groaned, scrubbing at his eyes, which were still seeing multi-coloured psychedelic flashes, and then cracked them open to look up at the night sky above. There were about three visible stars, so light pollution suggested he was still in New York, but was it the right one?
With more protest than he’d like to admit from his joints, he clambered to his feet, shoved on his mask, and surveyed his surroundings warily. One or two beat-up cars, some scrap metal and garbage piled up at the base of a chain-link fence - sure looked like his Queens, he mused, as he stretched his back. Smelled like his Queens too, in a strange and unpleasant way that the Queens in Miles’ universe hadn’t.
Eyes narrowed, he studied his hands, turning them back and forth, and then scanned down the rest of himself. No glitching so far, and wasn’t that a relief. He hadn’t realised how much energy the constant atomic spasming was sapping until he was blissfully rid of it.
Ok, then. He put his hands on his hips and spun in a circle. He could be pretty certain he’d gotten chucked off of the multiverse train at the right stop, and that was step one. Step two, he figured, checking his web-shooters and determining they had enough juice to last him, was getting back to home-sweet-home.
Man, I hope nothing important blew up while I was gone.
Peter was operating on a tired sort of autopilot, about to leap the fence and swing off, when the force of the realisations of the past few days hit him like a bus (and boy, did he know how that felt) and he faltered. Right. His leap of faith. He had told Miles he would try to fix things with MJ, promised himself he would turn his life around. Suddenly, refreshingly, Spider-Man had seemed a little less like a chore and the world had seemed a little brighter. And all thanks to one incredible kid.
The fence clinked where Peter rested a hand against it. One incredible kid who he’d left at the mercy of Kingpin, fighting for his life in a drug trip come to life (although he didn’t actually know what a drug trip would look like. Spider-Man didn’t do drugs. Yet, anyway).
A few hours ago, the thought of leaving Miles to fend for himself would have horrified him beyond belief, but he realised with a rush of clarity that he trusted the kid. He’d proved himself, he’d used Peter’s own move against him. If there was anyone who could take down a hulking crime-lord and blow up an interdimensional collider on their second day on the job, it was him.
Peter scaled the fence in a single bound and balanced with ease at the top, smiling under the mask. Miles had achieved so much in so little time despite Peter’s mentoral unwillingness. He’d never been prouder.
And when Peter fired his web and swung, there was a small burst of joy in his chest, just like the first time he’d ever done it as a pimply sixteen-year-old, just like when he’d swung in tandem with Miles in the Hudson Valley. That bit of joy gave him hope, rising and falling far above the streets of New York City, and hope was something he hadn’t felt in a long while, like putting on an old pair of comfortable shoes.
He took in a deep breath, and he relished it. And then he started to cough from the smog and grimaced.
Maybe Spider-Man’s next venture should be clean energy.
-
His apartment was still a dump, which was comforting in its familiarity as much as it sorta made him hate himself. Thanks to the portal, the stuff which had already been everywhere was now just more everywhere.
Shutting the window behind himself and crouching stiffly on the top of the desk, he gazed wearily at the mess, noting that a lampshade and the TV (crap. That had been expensive) seemed to have become somewhat intimately acquainted in a union involving large amounts of broken glass, and firmly decided that it was tomorrow’s problem.
Peter often gave today’s problems to tomorrow, he reflected, as he decided it would be less life-threatening to just crawl across the room via the ceiling. He was a master of procrastination - one of his many talents, along with French toast (The only thing he could cook that didn’t involve a microwave), photography, and destroying meaningful relationships.
Well, that got depressing quickly.
He dropped from the ceiling and landed with a squelch in a mouldering slice of pizza.
With the extreme lethargy that comes from a combination of nearing forty and a less-than-relaxing interdimensional vacation, he turned his face to the heavens, sighing softly. Another problem for morning Peter, with whom night-time Peter maintained a hate-hate relationship.
He scraped his foot ineffectually on the rug and shoved debris off of his mattress until he could collapse gratefully into bed, still in the suit, then closed his eyes and was out like a light.
-
The morning came far earlier than Peter would have liked, because he’d failed to close the blinds after he’d tumbled through the window, and so his wake-up call was a sunbeam to the face. He rolled over floppily and blearily felt around for his phone to check the time. Nine AM. Amazing. Also, the thing was on 3% (relatable), so he plugged it in.
Well, he thought vaguely, rubbing his eyes and staring up at the ceiling, there was no time like the present to get his life on track, starting with a reasonable circadian rhythm (although given how he tended to spend his nights, he didn’t have high hopes of that one lasting).
He got up, idly kicking junk out the way of his feet (still greasy from the pizza last night. Gross) and began a complicated set of stretches, wincing as his spine protested. He might have utterly failed at keeping in shape in general, but he’d learned the hard way that after breaking his back, the ole’ vertebrae couldn’t be ignored.
Then he looked down and realised that not only was he still in a suit that stunk of sweat, metal, and a weird acrid tang that the collider had been rife with, but that thanks to the crispy fate of his own, this particular suit had belonged to Blonde Peter.
Peter wasn’t quite sure how to deal with the idea that he was wearing clothes that had belonged to a dead version of him, and so he carefully packaged away all the feelings that came with any meaningful investigation of that and stripped out of it, then waded through the mess into the kitchen and fixed himself a healthy breakfast of a cup of instant noodles. Never let it be said he couldn’t take care of himself.
As Peter ate, hunched over on the kitchen counter in his boxers, tapping the end of his fork against his thigh between bites, he contemplated the wreck that was his apartment and thought it looked uncomfortably like a metaphor for his life. If just cleaning the place up seemed like such a daunting task, how the hell was he supposed to manage anything else?
But he imagined saying that to Miles, or to his Aunt May, could picture their unimpressed faces, and resolved determinedly not to talk himself out of it. He was Spider-Man! No task was too great, even if there was broken glass everywhere and he was pretty sure that MJ had gotten the vacuum in the divorce.
Oh, God. MJ.
He missed her so much it hurt, deep in his chest, around his lungs, and he had to close his eyes - seeing her, even a younger version from another universe, had almost killed him. Fork halfway to his mouth, he pulled a face, thinking of the nonsense he’d spouted at the poor lady. She’s just lost her spouse (her perfect, put-together, well-adjusted spouse) gets dragged to a gala with his face plastered on the walls, and then some rando waiter dressed just like him starts waxing poetic about bread.
Note to self: do not mention bread when you talk to her again. That way lies only tears and humiliation.
He took a shower to wash off the sweat and pizza grease, and then shaved, which had been much-needed. Tilting his face this way and that in the mirror afterwards, he thought that if he squinted, he almost looked like a functioning human. So that was an improvement.
He had to see MJ today, though, Peter decided, scrubbing his hands over his newly-smooth jaw (as smooth as he could get it with his lousy razors, anyway), or else he’d chicken out. Leap of faith, and all that. So he rummaged around through the trash until he found the only suit he owned, slung over the radiator where it’d sat since its last joyride (signing the divorce papers. Wow, he did not get out much) and with some trepidation as to whether or not it would fit, pulled it on. It did, thank God. That would be an extra humiliation he wasn’t sure he had the mental capacity for today.
Ok. He’d lived this long. He’d saved the city countless times (literally, countless. So many goddamn times), he’d mentored a kid and the kid hadn’t even gotten screwed up ‘cause of him! What an achievement. He could do this.
This is small-fry for Spider-Man, Peter assured himself, fiddling with his cufflinks and resolutely ignoring the voice that told him it was kind of large-fry for Peter Parker, given his track record.
-
Then he was standing on an all-too-familiar doorstep with a small bouquet of pink flowers in his hands and only a faint memory of the trip there.
Alright. Swallow that lump in your throat, Parker. Here’s your leap, take it.
He webbed the doorbell, for old-time’s sake (and partly because going up and knocking seemed far too intimate) and put his hands on his hips, deflating. Hardest move to make was the first, right?
And then MJ opened the door, made radiant by the warm light from inside shining on her hair - but she would (and did) look radiant in the darkest alleyway, Peter knew - and a glad recognition spilled over her face when she saw him, and he felt himself falling in love all over again.
‘Hey, MJ,’ he said, voice breaking. He found he was suddenly exhausted.
‘Hi,’ she replied, with a kind of astonishment, returning his smile for a glorious moment, and then her face dropped and she said angrily, ‘Where the hell have you been?’
Ah, shit.
‘I’m sorry I never called,’ he fumbled, ‘I- it-’
‘No, Peter!’ One of her hands was braced tightly on the edge of the door, ‘Nobody’s seen Spider-Man for three days! I thought you’d been captured, or injured, or killed - what happened?’
There was an agonising mixture of fury and relief in her features, in those crow’s feet and worry wrinkles he’d watched develop (maybe caused? Perhaps caused), and less than a day ago he’d resigned himself to dying a universe away without ever apologising, and all he could get out was ‘I’m - can I come in? It’s kinda a long story.’
-
The house was pretty much the way he’d remembered from the last time he’d seen it, boxes in hands on the day he’d moved out, and somehow, the thought that she hadn’t moved on reassured him as much as it made him feel guilty. Maybe it was a little cleaner, which made him think about his dumpster-fire of an apartment and wonder briefly if MJ might not be better off without his messes.
The couch and chairs (floral, in a pattern he didn’t love but hadn’t wanted to say anything about because he trusted her interior design tastes far more than his own) hadn’t moved, the room was neat and tidy, and all the pictures they’d had up of the two of them were gone - there wasn’t a trace that Spider-Man or Peter had ever lived here, other than a small scratch by the living room window that they’d never painted over because they couldn’t find a shade that matched the rest of the wall. He’d done that climbing in one night, using the street floor window because he was delirious from blood loss, and he had scraped a hand down the wall hard enough to mark it in a desperate effort to cling on.
Peter deposited the flowers on the coffee table and sat on the edge of an armchair, feeling embarrassingly awkward to be in the house they had once shared together. From the kitchen, MJ called, ‘Still take your coffee black?’
‘Yeah. Thanks,’ he replied, messing with his hair and hoping it wasn’t still damp. He tried sucking in his gut, but gave that up as a lost cause pretty quickly. God, it was weird to speak to her. How many calls had he ended before she could pick up? How many times had he crushed his impulses to check up on her, because it would have been too painful to hear her voice?
Peter had thought he had broken her heart, but by requesting the divorce, he realised he had broken his own as well, and left himself floundering and alone.
MJ removed him from his thoughts by pressing a mug into his hands, which he took with a murmured thanks and grasped like a lifeline as she sat down opposite him. Her sister had given MJ this mug as a thirty-third birthday present, his mind supplied. It had purple flowers on it.
‘So,’ MJ began, sipping her drink, ‘you gonna tell me what happened to Spider-Man for three days? Why you came here after months of radio silence?’
‘Uh,’ Peter worked his jaw, ‘so… remind me if we ever talked about the multiverse?’
She raised a brow at him, and the gesture was so familiar his chest clenched.
‘The multiverse?’
‘Yeah. Surprise! The mad scientists were right, and every choice we make branches off into another alternate reality.’ He waved his free hand animatedly as he spoke and his coffee sloshed a little, ‘Long story short, bad guy from another universe - uh - should probably check up on our version of him, actually - yeah, he decides to kidnap versions of his family that he killed from the dimension next door, ‘cept good ole Spidey - not me, hold on,’ he added, holding up a finger, ‘- gets shoved into the beam and screws up the experiment - probably the only thing he’s ever screwed up, actually - and me and four other spider… uh, people, get dragged into that dimension for a few days before we take control of the collider that brought us there and make our way back home.’
He elected to leave out the part about how he was planning to stay behind. That felt like a conversation for another day (or, preferably, never).
MJ had abandoned her coffee on a side table while he spoke to give him her full, calculating attention.
‘Right,’ she said, and she pursed her lips, leaned back, and folded her arms. He recognised the pose: it was the one she gave interviewers who had just said something they would come to regret.
‘And this has… what, exactly, to do with you suddenly deciding to speak to me again?’
Peter cringed slightly. Her tone was fair enough - he’d almost been a worse ex-husband than husband, with how well he’d done the ‘stay in touch’ thing, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to hear.
Still. She was owed a proper explanation.
He took a gulp of his drink, but that only drew out the awkwardness longer, so he said, ‘There was a Spider-Kid, in that dimension. He’d just got bit, and, uh, I was kinda… the only one available to help him, for a while. So basically, his universe’s New York did not get sucked into a black hole purely because of my phenomenal mentoring skills.’
MJ gave a little snort at that, and he couldn’t help the rush of warmth that hearing her laugh at his jokes again gave him.
‘Yeah. What I’m saying is, this kid - his name was Miles - he might have… he might have made me reconsider a few things. Like… like maybe, I might’ve been kinda hasty on the whole… having children… thing?’
Peter winced at his own words. Emotion had never been something he was great at (see Exhibit A: crying in the shower fully clothed) and he certainly didn’t think he was conveying the impact knowing Miles had had on him with any real depth.
MJ gazed at him for a long time, chewing the inside of her mouth contemplatively, then she sat forward and uncrossed her arms. Thankfully, she seemed to read the sincerity in his eyes, because a softness had crept back onto her face.
‘Really, Pete?’ she said faintly, like his confession was something reverent.
‘Yeah,’ he said, almost brokenly, because MJ looked like she was about to cry, and he suddenly felt as though he might join her. He croaked out, ‘Yeah, and I… I can’t put into words how sorry I am, Mary Jane. Oh, man,’ he sniffed a bit, ‘I didn’t wanna cry in front of you today, I’m sorry-’
‘It’s ok,’ she said wetly, balling her hands in the front of her blouse and gripping at it, ‘Or it will be ok, anyway.’
A few years ago, they would have moved towards each other by now. They would be crying in one another’s arms, but neither of them made the move - it felt too soon, Peter thought. Far too soon. He couldn’t deny that them sitting and crying on their respective chairs was pretty funny, though, and that was almost enough to make him laugh.
‘I’m sorry,’ he tried again, attempting to surreptitiously wipe his nose on his jacket sleeve, ‘that it took the multiverse nearly collapsing for me to pull my head outta my ass.’
MJ giggled in a slightly hysterical way and pressed her palms into her eyes.
‘Yeah, well. You came. That’s more than I thought I was gonna get, Tiger.’
The nickname was enough to still him again. Man. How could he have given up this woman?
‘Ok,’ she said, after a while, ‘This is - this is sorta a lot, Pete.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed, trying and failing to swallow the hope (or was that just anxiety?) that was trying to claw its way up his throat.
‘I think I need some time.’
Peter nodded jerkily, emphatically, ‘Yeah, no! Of course. As long as you need, MJ. I just-’ he cleared his throat, ‘I’m really sorry. I wasn’t there for you, when you needed me -’ He stopped himself, realising he was unconsciously parroting what he’d said to her counterpart. Well… he’d meant what he said then, as idiotic as he’d undoubtedly looked to her.
‘I know I could do better,’ he told MJ, as sincerely as he could manage, tear tracks on his face and snot on his sleeve, ‘If I just had another chance to give you the br- no, dammit, I mean, the… well, the husband… you deserve.’
Scrubbing at her eyes and giving him a rueful smile, MJ said, ‘If I’m honest, I don’t think we can just go right back to husband and wife, Pete. It’s gonna take a while to fix this, I think,’ and she gestured to the space between them.
Aw, man. He’d thought she might say that.
She paused, adjusted her necklace, and then, ‘How about dinner?’ she asked.
‘Yeah!’ he said, shocked by the simplicity of the offer and the tenderness in her face, ‘Dinner sounds perfect, MJ! Thank you for - for giving me another chance.’
‘Yeah, well. You better not blow it, alright?’ she said, but she was smiling at him, just like she had at that first upside-down kiss, like at their wedding, and that hope blossomed again, beautiful and fresh.
‘I won’t,’ he promised, and he meant it.