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The world falls apart in her dreams. She sees it happen so many times it becomes strange when it doesn't happen.
The skies - a dark, dreamy black - rip and burst open, pulsing with strange purple energy. A lone wizard floats in the sky screaming in agony and trying to wrench it closed again.
The skies refuse to close.
She watches with bated breath, every night, the figure in front of her. He is red and blue and brown and human but...
But she doesn't know who he is. She doesn't know and her heart wails.
But that figure, he just looks at her, smiles sadly, and turns away.
The wizard in the sky takes one last look at the boy, spreads out his hands, and-
And the world is put together again.
He visits his school in his dreams. It's a weird thing to do because it's not like he loves school. Midtown is… eh.
It feels eh, even with MJ around.
But still, there is something about the school in his dreams that just clicks. He smiles, because it feels not so bad.
He smiles because he sees the figure of a boy blue and red and brown and brilliant. He sees the shining webs of something that connects them even though the boy is a stranger, and his heart grins.
But there is something wrong.
The boy is sad. He knows the boy is sad and there's nothing he can do. He knows-
The room ripples, and suddenly, there is no one there but him and MJ.
The world is fine. It's the same as it always is.
.
.
.
(Is it?)
The world broke. MJ and Ned know that. They also know Dr. Strange put it back together again.
What they don't know is why it ever broke, why he put it back, why the villains knew them, who they even-
They don't know and it hurts so damn much.
They see him in a coffee shop first. He is brown (not red and blue and brown but sad and alone and brown) and he is a stranger.
MJ asks him what he wants.
Ned doesn't even look.
It's a second of their time.
And then it's gone.
That night, MJ dreams of skies ripping and red and blue fading, and Ned dreams of friends becoming enemies.
Neither can look the other in the eye that morning, and MIT just feels sad.
But there is something in them that refuses to let them not go. It isn't their parents or Mr. Harrison. It isn't the MIT seniors or the guidance counselors. In MJ's words, who even cares what they say? No, it's a feeling of red and blue and brown and a spark of a memory they just can't touch. It is their dreams that won't let them go even if they try to forget, try to run.
It's the boy they won't remember.
One day, they come across a gunman. Alright, there are actually two gunmen, but regardless, MJ is surprised it takes that long for them to be targeted. Being as they are, of course, teenagers who don't look like they can defend themselves. And come on, it's not like they have P-
She blinks.
The man points a gun at her head and demands she take out the money.
Inside, she groans out 'If only I had some,' but Ned's there too and he looks pretty pitiful with the gun pointed at him, so she figures she might as well.
She just… doesn't have the energy to argue.
She's about to take out her purse when red and blue (not brown) swings by and pulls the guns out of the men's hands, slamming their faces in the ground.
Spiderman is ruthless today and there's an anger and desperation coming from him that MJ is frankly astonished by though she doesn't know why (how would she know if Spiderman wasn't like that in his daily life?).
And when Ned asks for his autograph (the absolute dork), Spiderman is a mass of red and blue sorrow the size of the ocean.
Geez.
Good news, though - Ned gets his autograph.
Bad news? Spiderman leaves with something of theirs, they're just not sure what. (It's more than admiration, but definitely somewhere less formal than hero worship.)
The second time Ned sees Peter Parker - and this time, really sees him - is at the graveyard.
He is visiting May Parker (Parker, Parker, are the two related???) Who he knows, for some reason. There are black spots in his memory, but he remembers seeing her and hanging out with her when P-
He rubs his eyes.
Anyway, May might have been a weird acquired friend, but she'd been pretty cool, and he needs to visit more.
That was why, one sunny afternoon (ish), he decides to visit the graveyard.
And then he sees Peter.
Peter stands in front of May's gravestone, head bowed, tears streaming. Happy, who Ned also sort of knows but doesn't know how he knows (black spots anyone?), is right next to him, awkwardly patting his back.
Peter doesn't stay long, leaving right before Ned builds up the courage to walk up to him and ask if he's related. Very much without tact, as MJ would later point out, but it didn't happen, so Ned counts it as didn't happen.
What does happen, though, is that the black in his memory starts to grey out.
May did mention Peter, he realizes. Peter was her nephew.
MJ didn't know May. She thinks she met her through Ned, but she didn't know her.
Still, at her one year death anniversary, she is compelled to come.
She stands at the edges, feeling something so bloody sad rising inside her that she wants to punch something to distract herself.
It doesn't take a punch but it certainly takes someone brown and sad and lonely.
Like her, he stands at the edge of the crowd, rapidly blinking and trying to hold back tears (spoiler alert: it isn't working). His hair is badly mussed and his clothes rumpled.
MJ, who tends to leave crying people to their own devices, is weirded out when she walks over because obviously she did not do it by choice.
Peter notices her too late to run away, but the very visible flinch is kind of sad. In the wow-I'm-self-conscious-now-but-okay kind of way.
His "Hello" is pretty broken.
MJ's isn't any better.
Peter Parker bursts into another round of silent tears and she finds herself pulling him into a comfortable(?) hug. He doesn't touch her, even to hug her back, which is both super nice of a guy and somehow annoying because excuse her, but she doesn't say anything, just lets him cry out his heart.
Ned finds his way back to the unlikely duo sometime later while the ceremony dwindles to an end, and Peter's sobs intensify.
He doesn't say anything, either, not ready to tell them (of course not, they were strangers. But they did know May Parker...) but willing to cry with them.
In fact, having Peter cry with them is so much more comfortable and real than thinking that he might be crying without them.
She remembers his crying. She remembers tears running down his face. Ned remembers him losing his?? Ironman??? There are black spots but they remember him crying and the shock jolts through them because that means they know him-
Peter's breath hitches. He stumbles back, eyes wide, and really sees them.
And this time, they know he recognizes them.
He does know them. They know him.
The only question is why don't they remember?
Peter Parker spins on his feet and runs away before they can stop him.
Now that they know there is something they're supposed to know but don't; someone they're suppose to know but don't, everything becomes clearer.
And a thousand times more painful. It's not just their hearts that hurts - though they do - their minds and heads hurt too. They're rebelling against something that has already enslaved their psyche. They're rebelling against something bigger but they don't know what.
Well, MJ kind of has an idea.
They know someone, don't remember them, haven't touched strange technology in a while, hmm what could it be?
Ned laughs. Magic it is.
Suddenly, Dr. Strange seems suspicious.
Not that they hate the guy. Something tells them that the Mysterious Peter Parker of their blacked out memories would be mad at that so they decide to forego the hatred. (MJ kind of keeps it at a backburner though, because she has a feeling she's the one who has to hate stuff for the three of them because the other two certainly never would.)
But they don't forego the suspicion, and one night, they sneak into Strange's workplace-slash-home.
Of course, they're kind of caught right away (thank you Ned says MJ), but it's not like the wizards hates them.
He's just… annoyed.
MJ demands he give them back their memories.
He frowns and asks which ones.
Ned and MJ raise their eyebrows and exchange a look because damn they figured out something before he did, and Peter would be so-
They grab their heads in simultaneous sparking pain.
Strange narrows his eyes and spins on his feet, cape swishing behind him much like Snape's always did in the movies.
MJ managed to surface from her pain long enough to roll her eyes, but then she returns to acheville, where Ned and her seem to now be permanent residents.
Dr. Strange is not quick to return so the two aren't feeling charitable, but seeing his haggard, hurting appearance…
He had tried to remember.
Peter Parker saw the world ripping open at the seams. And now he sees that happen every night.
He saw his best friends forget him, and he continues to see that very day.
Peter Parker cries and there's no one to hold him.
He can't go to Midtown anymore, and he does not have the references to go anywhere else. He doesn't have the paperwork or the internship or anything, really, and it's hard just making ends meet, letting alone going to school or internships or MIT.
He tries not to think about MIT, especially since he knows his friends are better off not knowing him at all.
Because despite seeing them so many times, trying to protect them so many times, he just can't seem to get close enough to tell them he's real. That he's the one person they ought to remember. (Because the question is, do they really? The world is living out without his interference and it's not like Peter Parker is anyone important. Spiderman is and he's still here. Peter Parker…)
So he trudges through the year since the spell and he feels the stress and depression weigh down on him.
He does nothing.
He finds a part time job. It's bad pay, worse timings, but at least he doesn't have to worry about school.
And he? He does nothing.
He jumps from building to building, hurts a few muggers a little too much after they target Ned and MJ, and swings away.
But still, he does nothing.
A year passes and the one year death anniversary of his aunt creeps up on him so suddenly he can't even manage to not come.
So he comes and he stands at the edges, afraid to look at Happy, at his friends, at the gravestone.
His friends come anyway, and he unravels in their arms.
It takes a few minutes for him to gather up enough courage to run away.
It takes a few days of gathering courage to stay away.
But it seems like luck does not favor him (really? His mind whispers. You're saying it doesn't favor you now, after everything that's happened?) because even though he stays away, they don't.
He wakes up one morning not in his home. He can tell because he wakes up in the Sanctum, being watched by the three people he'd seen last before the world wiped him from its collective memory.
Dr. Strange says they don't know him and Peter wants to laugh hysterically because no shit, Sherlock .
Dr. Strange asks him if he knows them.
He swallows because MJ is looking at him with the scrunched up face she uses to make sure he isn't lying.
He can't lie.
So he says nothing.
Ned whoops. Peter Parker, May's nephew, he says.
Peter Parker, Dr. Strange says. Superhero.
MJ doesn't blink. Peter Parker, she begins, a question in her tone. A friend?
Peter can't help it. Peter Parker, he says. A friend.
And then they start to scream.
There is pain and hurt and darkness in their voices and they hold their heads like they're being torn apart.
Peter wants to push forward, comfort them. He wants to call out their names, tell them it's okay.
He wants to fix this.
He can't.
All he knows is, this is because of him, and maybe - just maybe - it might all work out if he leaves.
And so he leaves.
MJ and Ned wake up in midair. MJ falls down instantly, but Ned floats for a while more with a woah and an eek.
Figures. He was a wizard. Now she's the only normal one left in their stupid trio-
MJ inhales sharply and looks up to meet Ned's eyes. His are just as shiny as her's, and just as determined.
Peter Parker. He's Spiderman. He's red and blue and brown. He's the boy in their memories.
And he's their best friend.
The best friend they forgot.
They try not to cry. Peter does that enough for all of them.
Instead, they turn to Dr. Strange, who is already awake (hence their floating in mid air though MJ suspects Strange likes watching people startle and fall down as she had), and ready to fight for Peter.
He is a hero, the wizard says, more complimentary than the two teenagers have ever seen him be. Which isn't much, but still. It seems like it's a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of thing.
We must save him.
But how? How are they to save a superhero? How do they even remember?
Carrying cable voices drift to their level, undoubtedly invited by Dr. Strange. They speak of red and blue and brown and red and suddenly the two are worried.
Go, Strange says. I will fix the spell so we do not lose much more.
Ned and MJ nod. We'll go to Peter.
Because more than the spell, more than everything else that needs to be done, Peter is at the top of the priority list. He is broken and breaking and probably killing himself for (not really) hurting his friends and MJ and Ned need him to understand he didn't. They need him to understand that they're back.
They begin to run, ready to offer him the world (though it isn't ready yet) and more than the world, ready to offer back their friendship - something their personal superhero desperately needs.
They meet on the roof.
Peter returns to that place by habit, and MJ and Ned know him well enough that they can tell he'll be there.
He doesn't move when they come and slip next to him. Doesn't move when they sneak their hands through his arms. Doesn't move when the sky sparkles with stars and light.
It's only minutes later, when they are afraid he won't let them in, that he whispers, still facing forward, I kill whatever I touch.
And that's so damn untrue that MJ wants to cry. Tony and May didn't die because of Peter. They died because the world is shitty and death is a stupid part of life.
But Peter… no, Peter is not the harbinger of death no matter how edgy he wants to be.
But she doesn't want to punch him right now so she doesn't say that. She keeps it tucked away for a later date because obviously she's going to need it.
Instead of saying anything, she snuggles more deeply into Peter's side and lets Ned do the talking. He's often a blatantly confused mass of Ned, but right now he's in full form. He rubs and needles and cries and talks and whiles the night away. Peter listens because there's something soothing in Ned's voice and a friendship in his eyes. There's kindness in their touch and a promise in their hold.
And they will convince Peter once again that they are always to be by his side.