Work Text:
Ben steps into Ronnie’s Diner at 7:30AM sharp. It’s an okay place, kinda dingy and not in the best part of Queens, but not without its charm either. It’s got the old retro booths and tables—that might actually be from the good ole days by the state of them—and a jukebox in the corner. Not many people in at this hour; a few old geezers and some young thirty-somethings in suits getting a meal in before work. Ben chooses a corner booth by the window and just about the moment he sits down is when he spots Peter coming out of the kitchen.
The kid’s balancing five plates on one arm like a pro and he sets them down at a table by the door, pulling utensils out of his waist apron with a smile. He engages in a little light chatter with the table, they thank him, and then he looks up and spots Ben.
There’s that fear, still, in the widening of his eyes and the tight set of his jaw. The haunted dread. But it’s only there for a breath before Peter’s face brightens into a smile.
“Since when do you show up on time?” Peter asks as he walks over.
Ben shrugs. “You think I’d be late to my kid’s first real job? I would have brought my camera, except I don’t have one.”
It’s been less than a week since Ben “spawned,” as Peters One and Three had coined it, and they were taking it slow. Ben had needed some time to get his things together. It was easy enough to track down some old neighbors, set a court date, and get his papers back. Some good news: dying and coming back is apparently a sign of excellent citizenship, so the government provides a small sum of money along with citizen’s documents, which became very helpful when he put down the security deposit in his new apartment. Ben’s been getting settled and Peter’s had work and Spiderman-ing keeping him busy, so today is the first day Ben and Peter had found time to meet up at Peter’s job.
Peter gives him a look, and it’s a very May look. “Do not take pictures. Johnny would never let me hear the end of it.”
Ben raises an eyebrow. “Johnny?”
“He’s the dishwasher.”
“You guys friends?” Hope springs in Ben’s chest.
Peter nods. “Yeah. He’s kind of an ass sometimes, but I don’t think he even realizes he’s being an ass. He comes from money but had a falling-out with his folks and now they’ve cut him off.”
“Mm,” Ben hums. “And now he’s slumming it with us little people.”
Peter quirks a smile. “Basically.” There’s some distant yelling from the kitchen that turns Peter’s head, and then he’s stepping away. “My shift ends in thirty. You want coffee, two eggs over medium, and rye?”
Ben feels the breath stolen out of his chest. “You read my mind, matok,” he says with what he hopes is a warm smile. Peter grins and speeds away.
Sometimes it’s sickening to think about it all. Peter spending four months as the last Parker alive, all those memories flickering in his mind like the last candle in a snowstorm. How he’d soldiered on, completely and totally alone.
He had no one to say the Shema with and no one waiting for him to come home. And the other Peters were here sometimes—and Ben would never, never stop being grateful for them, and everything they’ve done for his kid—but Ben’s understanding is that it still took two months before they figured out multidimensional travel and constructed a means to accomplish it, so that was two months Peter spent entirely alone.
Ben still remembers when he was just a guy with his lover in their first apartment, babysitting his nephew while his brother and sister-in-law finished up at work, making sure there was enough dinner for five.
The sound of a plate clattering down snaps Ben out of…that. Peter is already speeding away to another task.
“Fifteen minutes!” he says as he slips back into the kitchen.
Ben is dipping his toast in the runny egg when his phone rings.
Not his normal phone, which he just recently procured. This phone was gifted by Peter Three and is a Nokia , except the back has obviously suffered some alterations because it’s twice the width of the front and a different metal. We call it the franken-phone, Peter Two said. We’re still working on something a little slimmer. And Ben couldn’t complain, because he wasn’t one to criticize cell phones built to communicate across dimensions.
“This is Ben Parker,” he says. “Formerly known as Dead Ben Parker. How may I help you?”
“Oy vey,” Peter Three groans over the phone. “Leave some morbid jokes for me.”
“I’m practicing my 2025 humor. Seems there’s a lot of doomsday jokes out there.”
“With the shit they’ve been through?” Peter says. “They’ve earned it.”
Ben smiles as he sips his coffee. “Let me first formerly express my joy that you have actually woken up at a reasonable time.”
Peter snorts. “Rookie mistake, you’re assuming I went to sleep in the first place.”
“Peter.”
“Ben.”
Ben rubs the bridge of his nose. “What’s up, then?”
“I have a proposition for you.”
Ben watches Peter lean into the kitchen through the service window. He looks like he’s talking with someone. Someone on the other side, a blond kid, runs up and swipes at his hair, but Peter laughs and jumps away.
“Propose away.”
“I believe you are aware that it is, in fact, April the fifth.”
“I am aware.”
“Then you are also aware that Passover is coming up.”
Ben leans back, sighs. “Yeah,” He says. It had been nagging in the back of his mind. “I’m aware.”
“You don’t sound too excited.”
He shrugs even though Peter Three can’t see it. “I wouldn’t say I’m not excited, just…not sure what to do.”
He doesn’t want Peter to celebrate alone. He’s not actually sure if Peter does celebrate, anymore. Ben couldn’t blame him if he didn’t. May would have celebrated, even though she was Catholic, but she had always been more of a passive participant. Peter and Ben spearheaded the Seder plate, the rituals, the storytelling. Ben wonders: if they did celebrate, did Peter do all the reading himself? Did he sing? Passover was a beautiful and reverent holiday, but Ben can be the first to admit that a lot of that beauty and reverence wasn’t because of the words he said. It was because he got to say them with Peter.
“—only if he wanted to, of course. But Peter Two and I can bring it up, and then it’s less weird.”
Ben blinks. “I’m gonna need you to repeat 95% of that,” he says.
“Man,” Peter Three snorts. “You really are channeling your inner me today. I said, we could celebrate together. May and I don’t really celebrate anymore. I’m not sure if Peter Two celebrates with Mary Jane, but if he doesn’t, we can all come to you.”
Ben hums. “I like it,” he says. “But propose it to Peter One without mentioning me. It can be you three, and then if he wants, I’ll be there.”
“Alright, Ben. Are you guys doing okay?”
Peter, clearing a table across the room, takes that moment to shoot Ben a smile.
“Yeah,” Ben says. “We’re okay.”
Peter’s in the mood for greenery, so they pick up sugary coffees and head to Gantry Park. They wade through the trees and walk along the East River until they find a nice bench right in front of the water. Manhattan stands tall in the distance, reflecting the morning sun.
“So,” Ben says. “Tell me something.”
“Water has a high specific heat capacity.”
Ben musses Pete’s hair up and the kid leans away, snickering with a mouthful of everything bagel.
“Something else, genius, something about the last few years. I must have missed at least a couple cool things.”
Peter puts his thinking face on and stares out at the water. Ben watches as the thoughtful expression fades, giving way to blankness and then to something darker. It’s like there’s a presence, suddenly, tugging his features down, scooping out the sun until Peter is paler and emptier than he had been a moment before.
“Pete?” Ben says hesitantly. He nudges his kid.
Peter blinks and draws himself back up, taking a deep breath. “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to space out.”
Ben tilts his head. “What were you thinking about?” he asks gently.
Peter takes a small nibble from his bagel, which is a very not-Peter thing to do. “Mr. Stark.”
Ben rubs Peter’s shoulder and the kid leans into his side, letting his head fall on Ben. They sit for a moment.
“It wasn’t all bad, or anything,” Peter blurts out. “I…most of it was great. There were a lot of great things about him. I don’t want to clam up and never talk about him just because I…”
“…you miss him,” Ben finishes.
Peter nods, his curls tickling Ben’s neck and chin. “Yeah. But there were so many good things. Like—when we first met he came home before I got there, and chatted with May and actually ate her date loaf. And said it was the best he ever had.”
Ben cackles, lets his head back, and Peter starts to perk up too.
“And when I walked in I was all nervous and freaking out but trying to be cool because Tony freaking Stark was in my living room. And he was talking about this grant that I definitely didn’t apply for but to be honest, I was barely processing what he was saying or what I was saying—“
From then on, Peter is talking a-mile-a-minute. He keeps leaning over until his head is in Ben’s lap, and his hands are waving in the air as he says, and I stole his shield, I jumped out and snatched it like thwip thwip--and it feels good. It feels good to laugh, to eat a g-ddamn bagel in Gantry Park. To see Pete grin wide and with abandon. It feels good.
Ben comes back the next morning. Turns out Peter works a few other odd jobs but spends most of his time at Ronnie’s.
“The owner’s really rich,” Peter explains. He’s scarfing down hashbrowns across from Ben. “He’s a Wall Street guy. His dad ran the restaurant before he died, so this guy pays us to keep the place alive. Pays really well, too, way better than any other diner like this.”
Ben is impressed. “That’s a sweet deal.” Peter nods with a mouth full of potato.
“Hey!” The yell comes from the kitchen. The blond boy—Johnny, Ben knows now—is holding up a half-eaten muffin. “Blueberry. Want it?”
Peter holds up his hands. Johnny hurls it—all the way across the diner—and Pete catches it effortlessly.
“Thanks!” Peter yells. Johnny flips him the bird and ducks back into the kitchen.
Ben snorts. “What’s that about?”
Peter laughs and shakes his head. “That’s just Johnny. Although, we were kind of arguing this morning. He was spewing some shit about atomic transitions that was completely wrong, and I couldn’t let him embarrass himself like that.”
“Huh,” replies Ben. “I didn’t peg him as a science geek.”
Peter nods enthusiastically. “He’s really smart, actually. Loves thermodynamics. But still, he was wrong this morning.” He takes a bite of the muffin, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I was kind of a kolboynick about it. Maybe I should apologize.”
“Nah,” Ben says. “He didn’t seem real upset. Besides, you don’t need to apologize for being the smartest guy in the room. That’s just who you are.” And g-d, he’ll never stop being proud.
Ben notices that Peter’s stopped eating before he notices his paling complexion.
“You good, Pete?” Ben asks. “Looking a little green.”
Peter is staring at him in that strange, haunted way again. “What did you say?” he asks. “Just now. What did you say?”
Ben frowns. “I said you’re looking green.”
“Before that.”
“Um…you don’t need to apologize for being the smartest guy in the room? If you want to apologize, that’s fine, Pete. I’m sure he’d appreciate it. I just meant that he didn’t seem like he needed one.”
Peter’s expression doesn’t change. Those wide, wide eyes are trained on him.
“Ben?” Peter asks.
“Yeah, Pete?”
“Leave.” And he says it timid and soft, like he’s afraid Ben won’t listen.
“Alright.” Ben slips out from the booth and restrains himself from ruffling Peter’s hair as he passes. Peter is still tense like a cat, watching him out of the corner of his eye.
“It’s okay, Peter,” Ben says as he goes, and then he’s out the door. It’s a cold April day.
His phone—the normal one, this time—wakes him up at 2:07AM.
Ben blindly slaps it until it answers.
“Ben?” Peter’s voice is shaking and Ben is suddenly, entirely awake.
“Yeah,” Ben flicks on the lamp and pushes himself up to sitting. “What’s up Pete? Bad dream?”
Peter doesn’t respond but Ben can hear harsh breathing on the other end of the line.
“The Stark Expo,” Peter grounds out. “What happened.”
Ben sighs. “Another time that I shit my pants. We got tickets for your birthday, and you had this adorable little Iron Man costume, with the mask and the little plastic repulsors. And everything was well and dandy, very science, super cool, and then whaddya know? A bunch of evil Iron Men are flying around trying to kill the real Iron Man. And somehow these dumbass robots lock onto you with your stupid plastic helmet on, and May and I lose you in the crowd but we see you, we see you right when Tony Stark blasts a Hammer Drone away from you. And then I grabbed you like a sack of potatoes and we got the hell out of dodge. And you thought it was so cool, because Iron Man talked to you, and you fell asleep before we even got home. And May and I couldn’t sleep a wink, stayed up all night drinking wine on the couch.”
They sat there in shock the whole damn night. Ben kept getting up to check on Peter. May was quiet, and then every thirty minutes or so she would mutter a curse. They turned the TV on and completely ignored it. And then the sky was turning grey, pink, baby blue. May got in the shower and Ben made pancakes and they listened to Peter recount the night in epic detail.
Peter doesn’t speak. But his breaths are getting faster and faster and Ben’s first thought is asthma, which is then quickly corrected to panic.
“Pete?” Ben says. “Focus on my voice, okay? Try to take one deep breath.”
If Peter is listening, he doesn’t acknowledge it. If he wants Ben, he doesn’t ask for it.
“Can I come over, Pete?” Ben asks, because he needs to be there. “I can be there in fifteen.” And he’s already getting out of bed, finding some shoes and his keys.
His hand is on the doorknob when Peter stutters out, “N-no. Stay. Don’t come here.”
Slowly, Ben pries his fingers off the knob. “You don’t want me to come over, Pete?”
“No. Don’t come. Please.”
He speaks clearly, even if he still sounds a half-step away from a panic attack. And Ben promised.
“Okay,” Ben says. “Okay, Pete. I’ll stay here. You want me to keep talking?”
Peter inhales sharply, and then starts to sob.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” He cries, and hangs up.
Fuck.
Ben calls back and gets sent to voicemail. Calls again, same thing. Texts Peters Two and Three: please check on pete. bad nightmare.
Ben’s heart is racing. He sits on the couch. It’s an old leather couch that Peter Two helped him find at a secondhand store. The walls are still bare and he’s only got disposable plates and cups. Lenny helped him get a temp job at the DMV, just to pay rent until he can find a permanent job somewhere else.
His phone buzzes. It’s Peter Two. I’m on the phone with him. He’s okay. And so Ben sets his phone down, leans back. Eventually finds the will to peel himself off the couch, slide back in bed, and not sleep at all.
Two days later, Ben is working at the DMV—mostly passing papers, moving the line, and other menial tasks—when Peter walks in. They had reverted just to texting, after the nightmare. Peter hadn’t outright requested it, but Ben had an inclination that he wanted the space and was too afraid to ask. Now the kid’s got a sheepish expression and brown bag.
“Hey you,” Ben says with a wide grin.
“Hi,” Peter says. He holds out the bag. “I brought some donuts for you. I know you’re working, I don’t want to interrupt—“
“—interrupt? G-d, I think every sad sap in this building would kill for an interruption. Every second that clock ticks, our brains melt even further out our ears.”
Peter smiles small, Ben realizes that the thing tugging at his features is guilt.
“Aw, bud.” Ben wraps him in a tight hug, feels Peter soften in his arms. “You got time?”
“Uh, I’ve got thirty minutes?”
“That’s perfect.”
Ben motions to the manager that he’s headed to lunch, and takes his kid outside. It doesn’t take more than a few blocks for Peter to tense up, turn to Ben like he’s got some big giant secret he’s holding in.
“I’m sorry about the other night.” The words come out in a rush. “I just, I don’t know, I kinda freaked out and got confused again and--“
“—Pete.” Ben gets a firm grip on Peter’s shoulders and gives him a gentle shake. “I told you, you don’t need to apologize. I understand. Maybe I don’t know every detail of the last few years, but I don’t need to.” He lays a hand on Peter’s cheek. “You’re mishpocheh. You’re trying. I don’t need to know anything else until you’re ready for me to.”
“Ben.” Peter’s next inhale is shaky, and he tucks himself into Ben’s arms before Ben can even hold them out.
“It’s okay,” Ben says, rubbing his back. “You’re okay.”
Eventually they start walking again.
“It wasn’t that—that I didn’t want to see you,” Peter explains. “I mean, I’m not sure if I did. Not because you—I mean, of course--you didn’t do anything.”
“I know, Pete.”
“I just, my first thought when you said you were gonna come was oh my g-d, I can’t let Ben walk here.”
Ben snorts. “It’s only a few blocks, Pete. I’d walk a hell of a lot farther than that for you.”
“It’s not—it’s not the distance,” Peter shrugs. “It’s just…I mean, it was late. And there could be bad people around.”
Oh.
Oh.
“And you were afraid history was going to repeat itself.” Ben realizes.
Peter nods, jaw tight. Ben wordlessly tucks him against his side.
Later, long after Peter has to run, Ben finds himself in a secondhand store. It’s one of the more popular ones, and Ben is on the hunt for dish-ware, a lamp, and even some wall decor if he’s feeling fancy.
He finds a small lamp and the perfect bedside table to join it. Then he finds the perfect plates. They’re pale blue and a little chipped, and there’s four of them.
One father duck, three spider children.
He’s headed down the aisle with cups when he spots it. Nestled near the back of the shelf, it stands out to Ben like Venus in the summer night sky. He steps towards it, cart of coveted plates abandoned, and thinks, this is what they mean when they say time slows down. He picks the mug up and cradles it in his hands.
It’s a bright, candy red. Little white flowers engraved on it and the tiniest chip on the top.
[“Merda!” May yells, taking the mug back out of the sink.
“I chipped it. Not that big, though.”
She hands Ben the mug and he inspects it. “Hm,” Ben murmurs. “Chipping your Valentine’s Day mug. This is a pretty great offense, you know. I’m offensed.”
“Uhuh?” May grins and sidles up next to him. “How shall I atone for my offenses? Buy you a pizza? Wash your stinky socks?” She steps real close and Ben holds his breath. “A night alone?”
“Y-yes,” Ben stammers, and then he clears his throat and tries to sound firm. “Yes.”
“To which one?”
“Yes.” ]
Ben holds the mug close to his chest, in the middle of the secondhand store, and cries.
Some days, they spend hours together. Hours, in the sense that Peter works at Ronnie’s and Ben watches him, gets to chat with him in the lull time. Other days they find time to meet and it’s only a couple minutes before Peter gets that look, and Ben knows what he’s going to say before he says it.
It’s okay.
It’s one of the other days today. Ben says something comparing children to “small goblins” and Peter goes stone-faced. So Ben is strolling down the street with his rye toast in hand, wondering where he can go next to inquire about a job. He hasn’t been having as much luck as he expected. He had a stable job at a call center before he died and he’s really hoping to find something else, maybe with more flexible hours, so that he can see more of Peter when the kid’s off work. And be home, waiting, while Peter’s out there saving the city.
It’s another Peter that shakes Ben out of his thoughts. He lifts the franken-phone to his ear.
“Multiverse Zombie Ben Parker speaking, how may I help you?”
“Jesus,” Peter Two laughs. “You sound like Crazy Pete.”
“That’s what he said too, if you’ll believe it,” says Ben. “How are you?”
Ben has been itching to spend more time with Peter Two. Since their late night motel confession, him and Peter Three click together like opposing magnets. Ben really, truly feels like he’s known these boys their entire lives, but still—he wants to know Big Pete better.
“I’m good!” Peter says. “It’s…it’s still so crazy, being here. Things are different but the same. I have the same job, same apartment with MJ. But you wouldn’t have believed my surprise when I got back, sitting in our kitchen trying to sew myself up with Mary Jane when my dead best friend barges in, yelling at me for disappearing on him.”
“Wow.” Ben stops, right there, in the middle of the sidewalk and gets cursed at by passerby in true New York style. “Have we—Jesus, Peter. Have we never talked about this?”
Peter Three had laid it all out for Ben in the motel. The fateful night with Electro, Harry, Gwen. The small, small hope he had harbored when he got back to his universe knowing things would be different, only to find out they weren’t really. Max was alive, Dr. Conners was alive. Gwen wasn’t. It was with a tremulous whisper that Peter Three described the pain he felt when he realized. How all that grief that he had been harboring, stamping down with bitterness, had risen back up with a vengeance. How it took May four days to get him out of bed.
“Oh, well I don’t know,” Peter Two replies. “I think I mentioned some of it, maybe, that first night at the diner? I can’t remember. So much was happening right then. We didn’t all have time to tell you our life stories.”
“Peter Three’s multiversal changes weren’t very…life-altering, for him,” Ben says. “I guess I just assumed the same with you. I’m sorry for that.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Ben,” Peter says shyly. “I can tell you now, if you like?”
“Hm.” Maybe he’s just an old grump, but Ben has always had a preference for face-to-face. “Do you have a Gioachino’s in your Queens?”
“No. Italian?”
“Pizza. Wanna come over and get your socks knocked off?”
“I like wearing socks.”
“Peter.”
“Yes, I wanna come.” And Ben can hear his sly grin. “Does tonight work? MJ has a late rehearsal.”
“Believe it or not, kid, I’ve got no plans.”
Ben eats more pizza than is probably recommended for a man of his age and Peter eats more than any normal human could conceivably ingest. They laugh a lot more than Ben had with Peter Three, but that's because Peter Two’s recent experiences have been, undeniably, more positive.
Peter Two’s life had been rife with trauma and tragedy like it seems to be for every Peter Parker in the multiverse, but after the events that occurred roughly five months ago, he’s gotten back a little bit of what he’d lost. Harry is alive. Norman is alive and semi-retired. And Peter is a new professor for a university, working on research with Dr. Otto Octavius.
They talk all night until Peter checks the time and swears, revealing that he was supposed to pick up MJ from the theatre.
“At this point, Harry’s probably done it,” Peter says. “Now they’re both going to yell at me. The first time they yelled at me together I actually cried, if you can believe it. I was just…so happy.”
And after Peter’s run out the door, Ben takes to cleaning up the kitchen. He wonders where his Peter is, if he’s in his apartment a few blocks down or working, or jumping off skyscrapers to rescue New York citizens like the selfless meshuggener he is. He thinks of Peter Two, how far he’s come after everything, and he thinks to himself:
We’re gonna be okay.
It’s 8:24AM and Ben is in that half-awake doze when his phone rings. He checks, and it’s Peter.
“Mornin’,” Ben mumbles into the phone.
“Geez, are you still in bed?” Peter asks, voice bright and loud enough that Ben has to hold the phone away from his ear. “You need to seize the day, Ben. Carpe the diem.”
Ben smiles. “Someone’s in a chipper mood.”
“I’ve got bagels. What’s your address?”
It’s been well over a week since Ben found Peter and only a few days from Passover, but they had been keeping their meet-ups strictly out of their apartments. It was Peter Two’s idea. This way, he won’t feel trapped, he had said.
Ben rattles off the address and Peter promptly hangs up, which maybe is his polite way of telling Ben to get in the shower and get ready. He obliges, and is just putting a shirt on when he hears a knock on the door.
Peter’s got a big ole grin on his face when Ben swings open the door.
“Hi!” And Ben is being crushed in a hug. “Hi, Ben.”
“Hey, buddy,” Ben rubs Peter’s back and relishes the feeling of his kid in his arms. He’ll never get tired of it. “What’s going on?”
“Bagels first. I’m starving.” Peter pushes past him and sets the bag on the counter. They eat in companionable silence (and maybe a bit of confused silence on Ben’s end), and by the time Peter is halfway through his second bagel, he starts to talk.
“I know where you came from,” he says without prelude.
Ben’s mouth opens. Closes. “Oh,” Ben replies intelligently.
“I was confused at first, because this isn’t your body,” Peter gestures towards him. “Like—okay, background. Peter Three gave me this really cool high-tech scanner that he made like a week ago that allowed me to look and see if there was a body in your coffin.”
Oh?
“And there was one there! And I guess technically you could argue that the body isn’t your body, but the soil hasn’t been disturbed in years, and that would insinuate that someone swapped your body for a fake back before I was even Spiderman, which isn’t likely. Not impossible, I guess, since time travel isn’t entirely off the table, but not likely. So I was really scratching my head, wondering how you were here if you weren’t resurrected from your original body and weren’t an alternative universe Ben. Because then, like, where did your body come from? Conservation of mass, and all that.”
“Right,” Ben says, as if he understands.
“But—then a thing happened. Yesterday. Technically a couple weeks ago, when you first showed up, but I figured it out yesterday, because Johnny took me to help him get a dog.”
“So that’s what that was about,” Ben muses. Yesterday they had gone on another walk in the park and Peter had to run off early. It’s Johnny, Peter had said. He’s insisting I come over and won’t tell me why. He’s a dick like that.
“Yeah,” Peter says. “But I need to give you context. So, on the night you…spawned, Johnny and I were fighting this wizard lady.”
Ben furrows his brow. “Johnny? He’s a superhero?”
Peter blinks. “Ye—yeah—Ben, he’s Johnny Storm. You didn’t recognize him?”
“Gee, Pete, I wonder why I’m not caught up on the news.”
“Oh, well, yeah.” And he turns a little red. “I guess I just assumed you recognized him and weren’t saying anything out of politeness. Anyway, yeah, he’s superhero. He can fly and like, light himself on fire.”
“Hm. Fits him, I guess.”
“It really does. Anyway, we’re fighting this wizard lady. She was trying to do this spell for her sick cat but she mixed up the words and totally messed it up. It ended up creating this really crazy singularity down by the river, growing and like wrecking stuff. And at first we’re fighting the wizard lady because we think she’s doing it on purpose, and then we realize it was an accident and we start all working together. She starts trying to do this counter-spell to shut it down and Johnny and I are mostly trying to make sure all the flying debris doesn’t impale her, or us, or anyone else.”
“Okay.”
“So anyway, the singularity starts…glowing. Which is nuts, because, you know, it’s a singularity, but anyway. It’s glowing, and the wizard lady tells us that we need to clear our minds. We’re not supposed to think about anything, or if we do think about something, it should be destroying the singularity.”
“Not your best skill,” Ben says. “Clearing your mind.”
“And that’s exactly it. And I at least shut my mouth and tried to clear my mind, meanwhile Johnny is still rambling about this dog he wants to get. He says he wants a scrawny sad little mutt from the pound, and he wants to give it a collar with flames on it and name it Pyro. And the wizard lady keeps yelling at him to shut it and clear his mind, but he doesn’t listen.”
“Not surprising.”
“Not at all. Anyway, she ends up closing the singularity, apologizes, and we help her find a good emergency vet before we leave. And then ten days later, you’re at my door.”
Ben blinks. “I’m still a little lost here, Pete.”
“Sorry, I’m not done yet. I didn’t really figure it out until Johnny took me to help him pick a dog. We go to the pound and we’re looking through the cages, and there’s a lot of sad mutts and honestly, the whole place was just smelly and dark and sad, and I think maybe Spiderman can start some kind of fundraising thing for that place? Because the staff are really sweet, the place is just terribly funded and it’s not fair.”
“Focus, Pete.”
“Right. So we’re looking through the cages, and at the very end guess what we find. A scrawny, mangy, little mutt. And he’s got a collar with flames on it, which the staff said was strange because he’s got no microchip and no one’s come to claim him, even though he’s been there for weeks. And he’s got a little dog tag, and guess what’s engraved on it.”
Holy shit. “Pyro.”
“Pyro. Because Johnny was thinking of him. He literally…spawned the dog, out of his mind, and the dog had been running around New York until someone brought him into that pound. And—and Johnny was thinking of a dog, and I was trying to get him to shut up, but in the back of my mind I was thinking about you.”
Ben’s brain is not okay. It is melting.
“I think about you a lot, actually, especially when I’m Spiderman. I’m always thinking, like, how would Ben react if he saw me right now. Always imagining what you would think about me being a—a vigilante—“
“—superhero.”
“—I guess. And I guess part of that is because you never got to see me be Spiderman. May saw me, Mr. Stark saw me, but you didn’t. And I…I always wanted you to. Always wished I could just see you one more time, and have you see me.”
Ben’s vision is blurring. He wipes the tears before they fall. “Jesus, Pete.”
Peter lets out a big exhale, and slouches down a bit. “And so…that’s what happened. That’s why your body is different, because it literally like…spawned out of pure potential energy or whatever it is that’s inside an unstable accidental singularity. And I guess whatever magic we were dealing with was really intelligent, because it wasn’t just the idea of you in my head, but the entire you. Like how you knew I stole that vodka, even though I didn’t know you knew. Or, in Johnny’s case, Pyro has nipples, even though Johnny thought that was only a thing for girl dogs.”
“But…human men have nipples.”
“I tried explaining that to him. It didn’t work.”
Ben sits for a few minutes, lets that sink in.
“Holy shit,” Ben breathes. “I’m the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.”
Peter smiles softly. “You’re the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.” And then he’s lunging forward and squeezing the life out of Ben, and Ben is mushing his face into Peter’s curls, only half-aware that they’re both crying.
“I missed you,” Peter says thickly. “I missed you so much.”
Ben’s hitched breaths abide just enough for him to say, “I missed you too, oytser. So much.” And maybe he doesn’t remember being dead, or even being away, but he feels the longing just the same.
They hug for a long, long time, even after the tears have died down. Then Peter pulls away.
"So,” Peter says. “I notice there is a second bedroom in this establishment.”
“There is,” Ben replies. “And it’s yours if you want it. And if you don’t—completely fine. Absolutely. It can be a guest, or I’ll turn it into a Mets room and it can be our lucky Mets room—“
“—I want it.”
“What?”
“I want it, Ben. I want to live with you.”
“Oh. Wow. Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I feel a lot better now that I actually, pretty sure, know what happened. Especially since I figured it out on my own instead of someone telling it to me. And I can’t promise that I won’t ever have freak out moments, but if that happens here then I can go stay the night with Johnny. He’s got a couch, and Pyro is really cute. He’s our trash puppy.”
And Ben feels like he’s got a million doubts, a million worries, he just wants his kid to be okay and feel safe.
“I feel okay about this Ben, really,” Peter says, reading his mind.
And so Ben lets everything else fall away. “Okay. Let’s go get your stuff. We can pick up your favorite snacks on the way home.”
“And stuff for Passover, right?”
Ben blinks, holds his breath. “You want to?”
“Yeah! Peter Three used to do Passover with his May, like me, but hasn’t done it since Gwen died.” And oh. Peter Three did not say that when he so casually mentioned Passover days ago. “And Peter Two hasn’t done it since his Uncle Ben died. But they want to come here and do it with us, if that’s okay?”
“More than okay. So much more than okay.”
And Ben wonders. Peters Two and Three haven’t celebrated Passover in years. They probably have long since let go of that part of themselves, and maybe regard it with the type of nostalgia that remains firmly rooted in a past they cannot return to. Maybe their sudden enthusiasm for Passover, specifically with three Peters and one Ben, has nothing to do with their history. Maybe it has everything to do with the smallest Peter Parker, everything he’s lost, and this one thing they wanted to give back to him.
Maybe, Ben thinks, I needs to re-think my stance on Parker Luck. I am so, so, g-ddamn lucky.