Chapter Text
Peter Parker hated magic.
He also hated his GED classes.
Not necessarily in that order, at least.
Peter sat in his GED class, staring off into the distance since he already knew most of this stuff anyway. Not like he was that far behind. The lecture hall he was in was big and sparce, barely anybody was in the room but a few older people Peter didn't talk to during class.
Peter didn't even notice that his class was over until he heard his teacher say, "Class dismissed."
Peter gathered his school bag as he made his way to Peter Pan Donut and Pastry Shop for his regular coffee that he got every day at 3:45.
When he walked inside, MJ and Ned, his ex girlfriend and ex best friend, were talking to themselves.
It wasn't that they all had a falling out, but more like they didn't remember that he even existed in the first place.
The shop was decorated for Valentine's Day, red and pink hearts decorating the windows with badly painted Cupids, a picture that MJ undoubtedly painted that had Spider-Man giving everyone a thumbs up under a message that said, Spidey's Favorite Coffee Place underneath. Peter walked up to the front counter, and MJ broke away from her conversation with Ned and said, "Just like clockwork, I tell ya."
Peter studied MJ as she made his regular. She had gotten her hair cut and dyed, it was now a short curly fire engine red bob that stopped at her chin, her hair held back with a blue headband. She was wearing her work uniform, obviously since she was on duty, but she still had on the black dahlia necklace Peter had given her in Europe.
That was a whole other lifetime ago, though. Peter often found himself wondering where MJ thought she got that necklace from now.
As MJ finished making his coffee, she said, "We just ran out of blueberry scones. Do you want a different one, or do you want to skip your daily scone today?"
"You still have chocolate chip?" Peter asked, breaking away from his own thoughts.
"Yes, we do." MJ said, grabbing a paper baggie as she grabbed the final chocolate chip scone and put it in, bringing Peter's items in the bag. As she rung everything up, MJ asked, "So... Where do you take this stuff after you get it? Central Park for people watching?"
Peter hesitated for a moment before he said, "Something like that, sure."
"See anything interesting when you do that?"
"... I always see this one kid who looks like they want to tell the people they care about the truth about everything, but they keep hesitating."
"Well, maybe you should encourage this kid to tell those people everything." MJ said, completely oblivious. "I mean, what could be the harm?"
"You have no idea..." Peter said, handing MJ the money for his vanilla latte and scone. "Have a good day, Michelle."
As Peter walked away, MJ said, "Wait, how did you know that my first name is Michelle? My name tag says MJ."
Peter paused, sensing that he had messed up, as he turned around and shrugged. "I think it was just a lucky guess."
"Pretty damn good guess. Most people usually guess that my name is Mary Jane."
"Something just kinda told me that that name was too plain for you." Peter said, taking a sip of his coffee. "By the way, I like the red hair. It suits you."
MJ smiled as she walked back over to Ned. "Thanks... My boyfriend thinks that it looks good too."
"Yeah, are you flirting with my girlfriend?" Ned asked, almost a bit protective and jealous.
"No... God, no." Peter said, shaking his head. That was going to take some getting used to. "It was just a general compliment."
Peter quickly left the bakery after that, walking down the street until he got to the cemetery. He sat down in front of May Parker's grave, taking out his scone. Peter was silent for a few minutes, taking off his knitted red hat and coat hood, taking a sip of his coffee. The ground under Peter was frozen solid, just like May was below him. Her headstone didn't even say Beloved Aunt on it since nobody knew Peter existed anymore. It was a sad, lonely existence he had been living for the past two months, but Peter had to live with his own mistakes and decisions.
At least this way, nobody would end up like May as long as he kept to himself and kept everyone else at arm's length.
"Hey Aunt May..." Peter said quietly, glancing over at Ben Parker's grave nearby. "And hi to you too, Uncle Ben. Family snack, just like old times."
Peter grabbed the scone out of the bag, taking a bite out of the chocolatey pastry. "They didn't have blueberry today, which I know is you two's favorite, but... Chocolate chip isn't that bad either."
Peter stayed silent for a few minutes as he took another sip of his coffee. "Mr. Jameson said that he's thinking about hiring me as a photographer at The Daily Bugle full time in Spider-Man coverage... Which is a good thing since I just got fired from my job as a pizza delivery boy since I kept leaving to deal with Spider-Man stuff... I know what you both would say, focus on affording to pay for your crappy apartment in the bad part of Queens so you actually have shelter instead of the Spider-Man thing, but I can't let what happened last time happen again. In order for everyone to be safe, I have to sacrifice my own well being. That's the path I've put myself on. That's my bed, so I'm laying in it... No matter how much I want to tell the people in my past about what happened... This is the best decision for everyone, whether you two see it that way or not."
"I thought I'd find you here eventually, Spider-Man." A voice with a slight accent said behind Peter, causing him to jump, some of the hot coffee coming up from the small hole in the lid. Peter turned around and saw a pale woman standing behind him wearing a brown coat and blue denim jeans, the sleeves and bottom of a red sweater poking out from underneath her coat. Her overgrown red hair was tied back in a braid, the roots of her hair a dark brown color. She looked vaguely familiar, but Peter didn't immediately recognize her.
Once Peter collected himself and realized what she had said, Peter responded with, "I... Don't know what you're talking about. I'm not Spider-Man."
The woman rolled her eyes. "Oh please, drop the act. I think I would remember the jumping spider kid who I kept throwing things at at the airport in Leipzig."
That was when Peter remembered who this was. Wanda Maximoff. Last time he saw her was at Tony Stark's funeral... Oh God... The Starks. Peter hadn't even thought about what things were like for Pepper and Morgan. In all technicalities, Peter was kinda the reason Tony died, he had invented time travel so that Peter and the rest of the world could come back. What do they think really happened now?
Peter pushed the thoughts out of his mind, realizing that it seemed like Wanda recognized him. That was impossible. When Stephen Strange casted that spell, he made it so that the entire world forgot about Peter Parker. Wanda couldn't possibly remember him. Peter cautiously said, "You have to be thinking of someone else, ma'am. I promise you, I don't know anything about that airport fight in Germany."
"Well, that's rich." Wanda said, rolling her eyes. "You do realize that you and I are close in age, right Peter? I was seventeen, maybe eighteen when that fight happened. You were what, fourteen?"
Peter's eyes widened as he said, "My name isn't Peter. What are you talking about?"
"Seriously, drop the act. Turns out, because I'm some kind of Nexus being and a constant in all universes, Stephen's spell affected me differently compared to the rest of the world. I remember you, Peter Parker." Wanda said, walking closer to the tombstones to see who Peter was visiting. "And I'm sorry that all this happened. I found out about it last month since I was helping Stephen with a thing and I've been trying to find you ever since. Gotta give Strange credit, you were literally erased from everywhere in this universe. You are a very hard person to find."
"You... You remember me?" Peter asked, a bit surprised. "Were you off world-"
"Oh, God no, I was living on a farm out in the woods dealing with my own problems." Wanda explained. "After that spell Stephen casted to erase your entire existence, our reality started breaking since he not only affected everyone in our universe, but in other universes as well. He asked me for help to fix it, we had to travel through the Multiverse with Wong and this girl named America that I think you would get along well with, and while we were helping Stephen fix his mess, I found out what happened to you. After we were done dealing with that, I decided to try and find you so I could help you."
"Help me? What are you gonna do, read my mind and show me my biggest fears? Rewind time? Oh, I know, you're gonna raise the dead." Peter said, motioning to May's tombstone.
"I'm afraid I can't do that... There are some things in this universe that can't be changed, despite how desperately we want them to change. Trust me, I know that better than anyone." Wanda said, focusing on Peter again. "I think I might be able to give your friends their memories of you back."
Peter looked back over at Wanda, his eyes even more wide. "What? How?"
"It's... Complicated, to put it gently, but I think I can do it." Wanda said, taking a deep breath. "I may not be able to fix my own situation, but I can, at the very least, fix your's."
"As much as I would want th-" Peter started to say, then heard his phone alert him to a bank robbery. Peter sighed, quickly finishing the last of his coffee and scone. "We will talk about this later. You found me once, you can find me again. If you'll excuse me, I have to deal with a bank robbery."
Peter gathered his trash and quickly left the cemetery, leaving Wanda standing at May and Ben's graves. Peter quickly changed into his slightly better homemade suit before swinging towards the bank robbery.
Peter walked right through the front door, awkwardly leaning against the door frame. The civilians in the room saw Peter, and he quickly opened the door a little more and let everyone else outside to meet the police. As soon as everyone but Peter and robbers were out of the building, Peter said, "Hey, you guys want to give some of that money to me? I could really use it!"
The robbers all snapped their heads to Peter, glaring at him as they all started running towards him with guns. Peter ran towards the robbers, fully intending to shoot a web, but then saw one of the robbers get yanked up to the ceiling. The robbers and Peter all stopped, looking around the bank to see the poor robber get electric shocked by something invisible. One of the other three robbers looked over at Peter and asked, "Are you doing that, Spider-Man?"
"Nope, not me!" Peter said, deciding to figure it out later as he kicked one of the robbers in the face, shooting webs in the other two's faces to temporarily blind them. Peter fought them three on one, managing to successfully web them together into a ball. Peter glanced up at the ceiling again to check on the other guy and noticed that he was starting to fall off of the ceiling. Peter quickly shot a web to make a net, then ran over to the other robber. This final robber looked out of it, his eyes rolling into his head. He almost looked dead. Peter nervously said, "Sir, are you okay?"
When the robber didn't answer, Peter nervously added him to the ball with the other four robbers. Peter focused on the spot on the ceiling that the guy had fallen from, seeing someone wearing a homemade Spider-Man suit, black and red instead of Peter's blue and red, crawling around on the ceiling. His eyes widening, Peter yelled, "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
The person crawling around froze, instantly turning invisible as Peter felt them scurry away. Peter calmly walked outside of the building, walking up to a police officer. "Hey, one of the robbers got electrocuted in there. Could you guys get an ambulance here to make sure he's okay?"
"Electrocuted?" The officer asked, raising his hat so he could wipe sweat off of his brow. "How did that happen?"
"To be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure, but you can count on the fact that I'll figure it out." Peter said, saluting the officer as he walked away.
A short woman with tan, almost dark honey, skin and curly brown hair, ran over to Peter. "Spider-Man, did you see a teenage boy in there?"
"Not as far as I know... Why?"
"Dios di mio... My son, Miles, he went to the bathroom before those people-"
"Mom!" A boy, no older than fourteen, with short coily hair and dark skin, almost as dark as the frozen soil in the cemetery, yelled as he ran over to Peter and the woman.
"Miles, mijo, you had me worried!" The woman said as she hugged the boy. As they hugged, Peter's spider sense started firing off, almost like it was reverberating off of this boy. The boy seemed to feel this too, glancing over at Peter with narrowed eyes.
"Kid, remember to stay close to your mother and family, okay?" Peter said, taking a few steps back. "That was a dangerous situation in there. I didn't even know you were in the building. You could have gotten seriously hurt."
"I know, I'm sorry." The boy said. "I had to go to the bathroom when they announced the robbery, and after I got out, some of the bank workers in the back escorted me to the back exit."
"Just keep that in mind next time, okay? You don't know what you have until it's gone." Peter said, slightly bowing to the duo. "Have a good day."
"Thank you Spider-Man!" The woman said, waving goodbye as Peter started swinging back to his apartment, silently wishing he had remembered to bring his camera with him... At least that way, he would have gotten paid for this.