Chapter Text
Peter practically lived as Spider-man now. With all traces of his identity gone (for better or for worse) Peter Parker was a life left behind. Nothing, not even a birth certificate, could show that he once lived. That the sixteen-year-old boy that was once on the AcaDeca team, that liked to tinker with robotics, that had an awesome girlfriend and best friend, had even existed.
He spent his days looking for odd jobs, and as an ID-less minor, finding any kind of sustainable work that wasn’t out-right illegal was hard. Most he could usually find was manual labor—moving things for developers or just people that didn’t want to pay an entire company to do it and was willing to turn a blind eye for a hundred bucks.
Peter was also in the repair business. He hung up posters around his apartment building advertising such, but calls were few and far between. Pay wasn’t swell either.
But at night? When the sun started to set on Queens, Peter became the only person that seemed to matter to citizens. People waved and stopped him for pictures, one guy even gave him a hotdog once!
Being ‘Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man,’ had its ups and downs, (most of the downs were when wanna-be supervillains decided to rampage in the city—or when he had to dive into burning buildings.) but it was better than being Peter Parker. He had to admit, there were more than a few times where he had gone out as Spider-man instead of trying to make ends meet. The fighting and saving people business didn’t pay one penny, but it always felt better than a tiring day of labor.
Coming home was probably his least favorite part of the day. The silence where Aunt May should’ve been trying to cook a new recipe and failing spectacularly, or where Tony should have been prodding about the newest build was terrifying. He didn’t even have Ned to build legos with. Or MJ to sketch with. The ringing silence of just sitting there, in the emptiness of night, scared him. He asked what it was all for, why he kept going. The fact he had no answer (no plausible answer) kept him rolling at night.
Better to stay out and collapse from exhaustion once back, than to come back unable to rest.
The boy woke groggily, looking at the salvaged calendar hanging on his wall. It had only been a few months since his erasure, but it felt like an eternity.
Finding the will to roll out of his bed, Peter slid out of bed and got dressed; putting on his good coat and wrapped the Spider-man themed scarf around his neck. The winters of New York were never forgiving.
He walked down the street, watching kids giggle and laugh, throwing snowballs at each other as the traffic honked as loud as ever. Peter marched through the snow, to the same coffee shop every day.
Most of the time he just sat there, pretending to work on his janked-up laptop made from salvaged parts, or writing gibberish on a napkin. But really, he was here for MJ and Ned. They met there almost as often as he came, and Peter wouldn’t miss seeing them for the world.
The warmth of the café was met with open arms, compared to the outside. He sat down, watching as MJ tucked a strand of her curly hair away and out of her face.
God, he missed her.
He missed a lot of things these days.
Time passed as he wasted time doing little nothings. Little doodle here, reading a small article there. But it all passed a little too soon as he had to leave for a scheduled job opportunity.
Peter stepped back into the cold streets and tried to figure out where he should go from there. The job wasn’t too far—
Hurry! Danger!
A truck screeched as it tried to brake. A little kid had run into the streets to fetch their sled and was in perfect position for the truck to slam into them. The kid was so small it would surely be fatal.
He dove for the young girl and into the road. Peter grabbed the girl and rolled out of the way, like he has done in the past, more times than he would like.
Once clear of the truck, he let out a sigh of relief and unclenched his hold around the small girl.
“You alright?” He asked, trying to make his tone as soft as possible.
He was simply met with her small face getting even redder as it was and then sobs.
He tried to comfort her, but she couldn’t stop crying. Peter couldn’t exactly blame her—it must’ve been terrifying. Especially for someone so young.
Her mother came running in a panic, “Oh my god! Oh my god! Are you alright, sweetheart? Thank you so much! Thank you!” She herself was on the brink of tears.
The two hugged tightly as if it were the last time they would see each other.
“Thank you so much. How can I repay you?” She asked, still holding her child.
Peter just gave a polite smile and shook his head, “No, I couldn’t ask for anything. Just being a good samaritan and all.”
“Please, what’s your name?” She asked, “I’m a reporter with the Daily Bugle. I can get your name on any paper.”
“Uh, Peter Parker ma’am, but please, don’t. I don’t want my grandmother to get all worried. She has heart issues.” He lied with ease. Nothing good ever came from him being remembered.
“If you ever need anything, anything at all give me a call, Peter.” She said, “I will always remember this day.”
The woman handed him a business card, and gave him a final thank you before returning to her house with her daughter.
He tucked the card away, saving it for the nearest trash can. He was probably never going to meet her again.
Back to work.
He arrived at the site—where he was supposed to be moving around wood planks—to find nobody there. He’d just have to wait. As the minutes ticked by, he felt sicker and sicker. His head roared and his stomach started to ache. Peter’s arms started to feel heavy.
He sat down trying to catch his breath even though he had never been short of it in the first place. It felt like having asthma all over again.
He drew his knees up to his chest, and laid a hand on it, when he noticed some of it was gone. Disintegrated.
It was happening again! He was getting blipped, no, no! That couldn’t happen—Thanos was defeated. Tony died to beat him.
Half of his arm and the beginnings of his torso began to peel away, into the air.
Peter panicked, knowing there was no way to stop it, just as before. He watched in horror as his body was torn away from him without reason.
There was no reason for this to be happening.
But it was.
His body was already half gone, and he waited for the same bliss that he had met before—the same kind that simply felt like eternal sleep.
But as the final particles as his body faded, a bright golden light shimmered before him and a small orange rock was the last thing he saw before completely vanishing.