Chapter Text
The air at the very top of the Statue of Liberty was bitingly cold and unnervingly still. It felt like nature itself had witnessed the chaos below and was now frozen in shock, waiting with bated breath for the final act to play out. The last rays of a blood-red sun, sinking behind the mangled New York skyline, slowly crept across the Lady’s copper gown, dyeing its folds a deep, wound-like crimson. Under his feet, the cold wind played with fragments of shattered stone and glass – the silent, messy confetti from a battle that had just concluded. The silence that followed was a physical weight – no screams, no explosions, just the city’s distant, muffled groan and a lonely, mournful whistle of wind weaving through the statue’s steel bones.
That very wind, sharp and icy, seemed to harmonize with Peter’s own ragged, heavy breathing – the only real sound cutting through the deafening quiet. He was perched on the very edge of the crown, his fingers, stiff and numb, clinging to the copper spikes for dear life, gripping the cold metal until his knuckles turned a stark white. The view from up here was absolutely postcard-worthy – if the postcard was from the “Retro Apocalypse” collection. It was a magnificent, terrible picture of the world’s end (seemingly localized micro-end though), really only missing a glass of champagne to toast it with (non-alcoholic, of course, because his luck just wasn't that good, and also because Aunt May raised him better).
He’d scrambled up here just moments ago, right after the gut-wrenching goodbye. Now, the faces of MJ and Ned, frozen in masks of pure pain and confusion, were seared into the back of his eyelids. He knew they’d be a permanent scar on his memory. Meanwhile, the air around him began to crackle and hum, filling with a strange, ancient power that grew stronger every second – a power that felt capable of rewriting the universe’s source code.
Every single muscle in his body throbbed with a deep, inhuman ache. Every bone echoed with a dull, throbbing pain. It was a familiar sort of feeling, though – the constant, unwelcome companion to his not-so-glamorous superhero life. His powers were undeniably cool and useful, but someone had seriously forgotten to include a decent painkiller in the superhero starter kit. He could physically feel the cut on his shoulder starting to prickle and burn – a sure sign his healing factor was kicking in. His ribs, surely cracked in several places, emitted a dull, aching hum as they prepared to knit themselves back together.
And all he had to do for that was eat. At some point. His body, pushed miles past its limit, felt completely hollowed out.
Though, he wasn’t so sure he’d be able to keep anything down. This sometimes happened. His appetite would just vanish, replaced by a cold, expanding void in his chest. Peter 2 had once mentioned something similar – a mental block where his webs wouldn’t come out and his body just refused to refuel.
Clutched in one white-knuckled fist was the last pathetic shred of his old, severed life – his red mask, easily taken off – upgraded with a shimmering weave of high-tech nanocomposite. It smelled of sweat, acrid battle-dust, and tears – his own. He ran his fingers over its rough, battle-worn texture, tracing every familiar seam as if trying to memorize the last irrefutable proof that a guy named Peter Parker had ever existed.
Soon, even this would be gone. Karen probably wouldn’t remember him either, once the universe finished its big, magical CTRL+ALT+DEL on his existence.
Right now, he didn't even have the strength to put the mask back on his face to say a proper goodbye to his AI friend while he still could. While his face, his voice, his very DNA still registered in her digital brain.
Hovering in the space before him, surrounded by a brilliant nimbus of ancient magical energy, was Doctor Strange. His hands performed a complex, precise dance, tracing blindingly bright golden symbols in the frozen air. Each movement birthed new, increasingly intricate patterns, weaving a hypnotic dance of pure light and unbelievable force. His cloak, the loyal Levitation, fluttered in an anxious, staccato rhythm, like it was feeling its owner’s stress.
A weak, almost invisible smile touched Peter’s lips when a crimson corner of the magical cloth twitched in his direction – a tiny, barely-there gesture. It was either a attempt to comfort him, or a quiet, silent farewell.
The young man gave a tiny nod back, quickly looking away as his vision blurred.
The Sorcerer Supreme’s face, usually a mask of unshakable focus, was now pale and etched with deep lines of fatigue. On his fingers, fading golden mandalas sputtered and smoked, and in his eyes was a heavy, stony resolve – and just a ghost of something that, if Peter had any energy left for hope, he might have mistaken for regret.
Slowly, gritting his teeth, Peter straightened his back. His exhausted body screamed in protest, but he forced himself to stand tall, his eyes locked on the magical storm gathering around them. He no longer saw the destruction below – only the sorcerer and the raw, primordial force concentrating for one final, universe-altering command.
Strange didn’t see or hear him. His consciousness was already surfing layers of reality mere mortals couldn’t access. All his will was focused on one task – find every single thread, every connection, every memory of Peter Parker in every corner of their universe and carefully, permanently, hit delete.
Mesmerized, Peter watched as the sorcerer’s lips soundlessly formed the words of an incantation – ancient, powerful, and heavy with the weight of eternity. Each unspoken word made the air vibrate harder, making space itself shiver. The golden mandalas around his hands spun faster and faster, merging into a solid, shining ring – a dazzling doorway to nowhere.
He closed his eyes.
He prepared to disappear. To dissolve from the memory of everyone he loved. To vanish, and then to simply walk away into a world that had no idea who he was, to find a corner to sleep in where he was a stranger.
He felt Strange’s magic finally condense around him. It was cold and weightless, like a web of fate ready to wrap him in a final cocoon of nothingness.
He prepared to cease to exist.
And in that exact nanosecond, in the fragile seam between “almost” and “too late,” as the spell was born but hadn’t yet reached its full, reality-shattering power…
…the universe at the top of the statue ripped in half.
Peter’s eyes flew open just in time to see a similarly stunned Doctor Strange, whose cloak was now flapping like a panicked bird trying to escape its owner’s shoulders.
The cold, reliable metal under his feet vanished.
In its place was a gaping, absolute emptiness. This wasn’t one of Strange’s neat, orderly portals. This thing seethed, boiled, and twisted in a furious, chaotic whirlpool that immediately began to suck Peter inward.
On pure instinct, trying to keep his balance, Peter took a single, fateful step backward – away from the terrifying, unknown rift. He always did things at the worst possible moment.
Of course, it was a mistake. His leg plunged straight into the shimmering void, yanking the rest of his body with it. The sounds and smells of his world cut off abruptly, replaced by a mind-bending swirl of dazzling gold, madly mixed with every color of the rainbow – including some that surely didn’t have names.
Strange jerked forward, his hand shooting out, fingers splayed – reaching for Peter. But he grabbed only empty air. The final, concluding words of the spell remained forever unspoken.
The rift, with a deafening, soundless roar, violently swallowed the boy whole, not even giving him a chance to scream. In the very last moment, their eyes met – Peter’s, wide with horror and confusion, and Stephen’s, shocked and utterly bewildered.
Then, Peter’s consciousness began to shred. Even in the complete silence of the vacuum around him, something inside his skull screamed, rang, and cracked, tearing him apart from the inside out.
He winced, feeling the last bits of his awareness slip away like grains of sand through his fingers.
The blinding gold began to fade, slowly giving way to a deep, velvety blackness.
As he closed his eyes, Peter’s failing senses just barely registered something bright red, rushing toward him from… everywhere and nowhere at once.
It enveloped him, tangled around his limbs, and softly but firmly wrapped him in a strange, living cocoon.
Parker didn’t even have time to wonder what was happening.
With a sharp, silent clap, the space around him finally collapsed into nothing.
The air wasn't just crackling. It was throwing a full-blown, multi-sensory tantrum. It smelled like a fried power line that had been dunked in rotten eggs and old pennies – the classic signature of reality getting a serious wedgie. Portals were ripping open left and right, vomiting out things with too many teeth and not enough eyes. This whole mess was less of a battle and more of a desperate, cosmic-sized game of whack-a-mole to keep the world from being overrun by the kind of neighbors nobody wants.
And the Justice League was on cleanup duty. A blue and red blur – that was Superman, zapping entire platoons of nasties with his heat vision. Somewhere in the thick of it, Wonder Woman was a whirlwind of righteous fury, making a mockery of the concept of personal space for any monster dumb enough to get near her. High above, Green Lantern was having an argument with the laws of physics, conjuring giant green anvils and flyswatters to squash the darkness.
And then there was John Constantine.
He was leaning against a chunk of some ancient, probably important, now-broken monument, looking for all the world like a man who’d been dragged to a party he absolutely despised. The sheer, unadulterated noise of it all – the heroic speeches, the laser sounds, the monster screeches – was giving him a proper migraine. The thought of actually joining this colorful fracas filled him with a profound sense of existential boredom. Let the capes and the tights handle their own flashy mess. They were the ones who usually attracted this kind of attention anyway.
He was just trying to enjoy a bloody cigarette.
And then it happened. He did not even think of it, for the record. The words just… arrived.
They didn’t come from a book. They weren't some half-remembered incantation from a bender in Cardiff. They bubbled up from the deepest, darkest, and most annoyed part of his soul, as if the universe itself, utterly fed up with his moping, had decided to use his vocal cords without permission. His lips started moving on their own, muttering ancient, guttural syllables. He understood them only on a level that was more instinct than intellect – the part of his brain that knew how to pick a lock or find the cheapest whiskey in any dimension.
"Per foramen in serie rerum. Per aeternum chaos, per ordinis margines…"
His voice, usually a hoarse, cigarette-ravaged instrument of sarcasm, dropped an octave, gaining a weird, resonant weight that didn't belong to him. He was just a passenger in his own body.
"...non arma deorum, non robur gigantum…"
He wasn't even aware he was speaking. This wasn't a spell he was casting; it was a demand he was screaming into the void. A call to the most basic, grimy law of the universe: that sometimes, the smallest, sharpest thing can hold back the biggest tide.
"...sed vulnus antiquum, sed umbram in anima, sed scintillam in abysso…"
The air around him got so thick with tension he could practically taste it, and it wasn't his cheap tobacco. The unplanned, involuntary invocation was complete, and it was now presenting him with a metaphysical bill. He could feel the cost waiting in the wings.
"...ubi maxima est necessitas, ibi defige ancoram…"
And the universe, against its better judgment, answered.
The sky above the battlefield didn't split open with a boom. It just… flinched. It contracted like a heart skipping a beat. A single, silent, universe-sized shockwave rolled out. For one heart-stopping second, all the light, all the sound, all the everything just… winked out. Replaced by a profound, absolute nothing. And right in front of Constantine, a tiny pinprick of light flared into existence – a microscopic singularity of pure, undiluted "maybe" – and then died just as fast.
And then… nothing.
Well, not nothing. The pressure dropped. The magical hum in his teeth vanished. The battlefield was still there. The fight was still going. But absolutely nothing had changed. It was the most anticlimactic apocalypse-prevention ever.
Constantine blinked, shaking his head like he’d just taken a punch. He was back in the driver's seat. He looked at the smoldering fag between his fingers, then back at the ongoing circus of violence.
"Well, that was a right load of good that did," he rasped to nobody in particular, his voice back to its usual cynical drawl. "Where'd all that power piss off to, huh?"
The spell had worked. He felt it in his bones, in the hollow ache that now lived in his chest. The energy was spent. But the result was a big, fat zero. All he got for his trouble was a ringing in his ears and the ever-louder roar of the advancing horde, who seemed entirely unimpressed by his metaphysical efforts.
He took one last, deeply aggrieved drag on his cigarette, flicked the butt into the dirt with utter contempt, and spat on the ground with a theatrical sigh that conveyed a lifetime of resentment.
"Right then, you ugly gits," he muttered, glaring pure hatred at the encroaching darkness. "The faster we mop up this unspeakable bollocks, the faster I can get absolutely bloody hammered."
And with a litany of curses muttered under his breath, John Constantine, magician, cynic, and profoundly unwilling participant, shoved his hands in his trench coat pockets and stalked forward into the chaos, determined to get this over with and find out what the hell his magic had just bought him.
The landing wasn't graceful. It surely wasn't a superhero three-point landing. It was more like the universe had gotten bored and unceremoniously spat him out onto the pavement. Peter hit the ground on all fours, his spider-reflexes and enhanced muscles absorbing the worst of the impact, but doing exactly zero to help the world stop spinning inside his skull.
Everything was a woozy, tilting mess. His head throbbed like a bad bass speaker, and a high-pitched ringing was the only thing in his ears. His stomach did a nauseating flip-flop. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself up on trembling hands, feeling the cold, weirdly sticky asphalt under his palms.
His mask was off. He was clutching it in his white-knuckled fist, the red and blue material a crumpled, familiar comfort. Well, at the very least he didn’t lose it while tripping.
"Karen," he croaked out, his own voice sounding weirdly loud in the creepy, tomb-like silence of this alley. "Run a... run a scan. Where are we? What's the deal?"
A response crackled to life, but it wasn't from the air around him. It was a tiny, distorted voice emanating from the nano-weave in the mask itself, sounding like a radio station barely in range.
"...Atmosphere… breathable. Pollution levels – critical. Reading off-the-charts levels of heavy metals, nitrogen oxides, industrial particulates… Carbon monoxide is… not great. Geolocation… failed. No satellite networks detected. Local wireless signals are present, but the protocols are… outdated by… estimate… 10-15 years… User biometrics indicate shock, disorientation, a seriously elevated heart rate…"
He finally got to his feet, wiping his palms on his thighs. The grime was oily and disgusting. This place was filthy. And his spider-sense – it was going absolutely crazy. It wasn't just pinging; it was screaming a five-alarm fire in his brain. Danger. Filth. Wrong. Despair. This city… it felt alive, but in the worst way. It was a living thing that was deeply, deeply sick, oozing pain, fear, and a low-grade nasty vibe from every brick.
His suit – a bright, almost cheerful splash of blue and red – looked ridiculously out of place in this kingdom of grimy gray, faded black, and brick that had given up and turned a dirty brown. A cold, miserable drizzle started to fall, because of course it did.
And right then, his spider-sense dialed in, sharp and specific – right there. Behind a overturned dumpster that smelled like death warmed over. A sharp shuffle. A choked-off, terrified sob.
Peter’s head snapped around. Deep in the shadows of the alley, a big, burly guy in a soaked jacket had a scrawny kid pinned against the wall, yanking a beat-up backpack out of his hands.
Peter didn't think. There was no "what would a hero do?" moment. It was just pure, automatic reflex. Like it always was.
He crossed the space between them in one blur of motion. He didn't even bother with a web – his hand just shot out and clamped around the thug's wrist. The guy's bones creaked in a nasty way under the pressure. Parker winced at the sound. He really did not apply that much strength, huh. Still, with his other hand, Peter gently but firmly pushed the man away from the kid.
"Hey," Peter's voice came out low, a dangerous growl that had none of his usual quippy lightness. "The kid's not interested. Get lost."
Something in that voice, in the impossible speed, made the thug's blood run cold. He threw one wild, terrified look at Peter – at the weird costume, his probably still a bit beaten up face – mumbled something utterly incoherent, and just bolted, vanishing into the maze of alleys like a roach when the light turns on.
Peter let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He scooped the backpack off the wet ground and turned to the kid, his voice switching back to its normal, friendly neighborhood tone.
"Hey. You okay? He didn't hurt you, did—"
The words died in his throat.
The kid hadn't run. He wasn't screaming. He was just frozen, pressed against the brick wall like he was trying to phase through it. His eyes were wide open, so wide Peter could see the whites all around them, and they were filled with pure, silent, absolute terror. His breath hitched in quick, shallow gasps that whistled in the eerie quiet. Silent tears cut clean tracks through the dirt on his pale cheeks.
Confused, Peter took a single step forward to hand him the backpack. That was all it took.
The boy's eyes rolled back into his head. His knees just gave out and he slumped to the ground without a sound, a boneless ragdoll. He'd completely short-circuited, his brain overloading from the mugging, the fear, and the sudden, terrifying appearance of something he couldn't possibly understand.
Peter froze, his arm still stuck out, the backpack dangling from his fingers. A cold, heavy feeling of dread started to fill his chest, tightening around his throat. He slowly knelt down beside the unconscious boy, his fingers quickly finding the pulse in his neck. It was racing, a frantic flutter against his fingertips.
"Karen, full life scan. Now," he whispered, his voice tight.
"The victim has seemingly lost consciousness due to extreme psychological shock. Vital signs are stable," the AI reported, her emotionless tone a stark contrast to the panic Peter was starting to feel.
Peter didn't say anything. He slowly lifted his head, his gaze tracing the tall, gloomy silhouettes of the skyscrapers that clawed at the dark, rainy sky.
He’d done it. He’d saved the kid from a thief. And his reward for being a hero was literally scaring a child into unconsciousness just by showing up.
Wherever he was… this was definitely not his New York. And here, his strength, his suit, his desire to help… they didn't inspire hope. They only inspired terror.