Chapter 41: the toughest prison to break out of is your mindNotes:
1) I feel like there's a thing called 'a fanfiction writer's' curse where some form of devastation always happens. This update might have been sooner but my parents decided to start getting divorced and well...yeah, it's not a fun time. I'm tired, but hey, at least Peter's NWH trauma is here for me to write out after a whole year!
2) This inadvertently turned into Ned and MJ comforting Peter but honestly he needs all the comfort he can get.
3) Enjoy the chapter and leave a kudos and comment!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
"Dude, I haven't heard from you since…damn, since April in 2018." Aaron grinned. "How've you been since returning?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's been kinda hectic. Catching up on everything has been a bit of a nightmare."
He wasn't even lying. He, Ned and MJ had spent a whole night reading up on articles on the past five years to see if there were any differences to what they knew had happened in their timeline. They couldn't reference something that hadn't happened otherwise it would get them in trouble – most of it stemmed from their paranoia of the Butterfly Effect.
"Surely someone's made a website for that by now," Aaron muttered. "Anyway, I'm assuming you're a busy guy these days. Whaddaya need?"
"Information. There's no way MacGargan didn't capitalise on the massive hole in the police force after the Snap."
Aaron huffed amusedly. "Bullseye. He re-established all of Toomes's network within the first year when the police force had to keep on top of looting and shootings. I gave tips to the police wherever possible but there's an unbreakable system in place. MacGargan distributes tech to four dealers who cover their designated areas in New York, they distribute to lesser known cronies who sell to prospective buyers – you get the idea."
"How's it unbreakable then?" He asked.
"The police can never seem to catch these dudes. They're invisible to all cameras and fly under the radar in police systems no matter how many times they're put back in. I'm tellin' ya, it's absolutely mad."
"They're being completely wiped?" Aaron nodded. "Maybe they have an inside man. Who's the officer you tip off?"
"Officer Watanabe. She's one of the higher-ups now, gained a promotion in 2020 after she took down a major drug ring."
Officer Watanabe? He recognised that name from somewhere…
"I'll look into who MacGargan. You know any of the guys he supplies to?"
Aaron shook his head. "Not personally. The only ones the police know of are called Chameleon and Scorpion."
So MacGargan carried on using Scorpion as his codename – not surprising, just nice to know. Chameleon was a new one though. He hadn't met a weapons dealer with a name like that…maybe he was their 'inside guy' who kept the police from catching them?
"Moving on from those guys, what's Fisk been up to?" He asked.
Aaron chuckled. "Oh man, what hasn't he been up to? He's bought three more complexes in the last year, made an alliance with half the drug dealers in the city and somehow kept himself away from the police. You've gotta be a mile ahead of him if you wanna arrest him, let alone fight him."
"You have that little confidence in me?" He lifted his hand to his chest, pretending to be hurt. "I thought we were friends."
"Nah, I have full confidence in you. All I'm sayin' is that if the FBI have been struggling to get any evidence on him, you're gonna have to work ten times harder than them to get anywhere near arresting him."
He wouldn't lie and say catching Fisk would be an easy task. The man had enough money to keep himself outside of prison or bribe whoever he wanted to. He definitely had people listening out for any inkling of the police trying to arrest him – hell, he probably influenced the police force to some extent.
"I know," he replied, "but that's half of the fun, isn't it?"
He laughed. "You'll have your work cut out for you then. I'll help as much as I can, just carry on patrolling around here, yeah?"
"Of course." He glanced at his HUD, his eyes widening when he realised what the time was. "Damn, I've gotta go. See ya Aaron."
"See ya around Spidey."
He placed the towel he had been using to dry his hair on the radiator, wandering into the living room and flopping onto the sofa next to where MJ sat, crumpling the blanket that had been neatly covering her.
She and Ned had portalled into his living room, prompting a group hug the second they had stepped away from the portal. They hadn't physically seen each other since before the Blip, but there had been an underlying sense of relief.
None of them had accounted for the possibility that one of them wouldn't be turned to dust. They had all banked on surviving or all turning to dust, denying the possibility that everything could go wrong to a worse extent than their previous timeline.
Still, they were lucky enough to be dusted together - okay, realistically that wasn't a good thought. He had lost to Thanos and half the universe had been turned to dust because of it. It had been resolved by Steve sacrificing himself, but how would the ramifications of his decision play out?
Late afternoon sunshine shone through the crack in the new patterned curtains that hung from the railing, the light from their old lamps being their main source of light. Their apartment was susceptible to the mid-October chill because of their thin windows and feeble radiators.
MJ shuffled up the sofa, giving him more space to get comfortable and drape the blanket over himself. Warmth radiated from the part of the blanket she had given him, helping him to relax despite knowing that they had to plan for the next year and there would were bound to be a few issues they would come across.
Ned had settled in the armchair on the opposite side of the table, a mug filled with hot chocolate in one hand and his phone in the other. His sling ring remained comfortably on his fingers on his right hand.
He remembered how Ned had easily created portals during the fight against Ebony Maw and his partner after the doughnut spaceship had arrived outside of the Sanctum. It had been awesome to see Ned fight as well as he did, but it scared him slightly. What would have happened if Ned had been seriously injured? What if he had been beamed up with him and Stephen? Would he have gone with Wong to Kamar-Taj and been there to see Thanos take the Space Stone?
How had Thanos even traced the Space Stone?
MJ gently tapped his arm. "I can practically hear your thoughts," she said. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," he replied, receiving an unbelieving stare in return. "Well, nothing's actively wrong. It's not like the sky's crumbling before our eyes- I know I'm off-topic, you don't need to say it."
"There are still threats out there, aren't there? It's why you're still antsy. Is your Spidey sense going off?" Ned asked. "Mysterio, Fisk, all of them?"
He sighed. "Kind of. Fisk isn't an easy person to take down. Aaron said it himself – we need to be, like, ten steps ahead of him. We need to hit his network hard and get more information on him before we can even think of fighting him."
"Info gathering?" MJ smirked. "That's something we can do." She leaned against him, trying to reassure him. "It's Beck we're worried about for now, right?"
"He doesn't interfere with anything until summer," Ned said. "Tony hasn't given you the EDITH glasses though, has he? You saved him in the battle upstate."
He wouldn't call what he did in the final battle saving Tony. Steve died in Tony's -maybe even Peter's- place, saving the universe in the process. His sacrifice allowed them all to be here because the time he and Stephen had spent trying to prepare for Thanos were all for naught. He needed to ask Stephen what the other chances were of them winning without losing to Thanos in Wakanda.
As for Tony…
Peter had a lot of explaining to do. The adrenaline coursing through him during the final battle had made him forget to limit what he told Tony about the videos -fuck, he still needed to check why his video on time travelling hadn't sent- and he had screwed up. Tony was a genius, he would easily figure out Peter had come from the future.
Maybe it was because he was dealing with the fallout from the final battle, or maybe it was because he hadn't dealt with all of the media trying to harass him over the return of half the population of the universe, but Tony had barely contacted him.
They had set up a date to meet but it had been pushed back until two days from now. Happy was going to pick up him and May from their apartment and he would finally meet Morgan – this time with her dad rather than at his funeral.
He shook his head. "I only received them because it's in his will. He's still alive, so Beck can't try and 'persuade' me to give them away. We should find a way to keep an eye on him though." He sighed. "We have a worse problem on our hands for now…"
"Which is…?" Ned urged, sitting up straighter after placing his mug on the table.
"Tony needs to find out about time travel."
"Shit, you're right."
MJ sighed. "Let's be honest, we all knew this day would come. Y'know, with the videos you sent."
He slightly regretted sending those videos. Yes, they saved people's lives, but he hadn't counted on Thanos winning again. He hadn't counted on not being there to stop the videos from sending.
It seemed there were a lot of things he hadn't counted on.
"So, how do you want to do this?" MJ asked, intertwining their hands beneath the blanket.
"I mean…" he paused, squeezing her hand to comfort himself before continuing. "You two are fine with him knowing, right?"
"I'm fine with it dude," Ned replied. "You're the one who has to deal with most of the impact."
MJ nodded. "Tony would probably work out we were involved somehow anyway. It would've been hard to make it through two years without telling anyone and you probably would've spilled it to Ned at some point."
"It's also a massive coincidence that I turned up to the fight when fake-Squidward arrived and knew how to use magic," Ned pointed out. "I'm surprised he hasn't asked you about any of this since we…since we came back. Has he talked to you at all?"
He shook his head. "I figured he was busy with the media and…" he waved his hand, "all of that." MJ and Ned exchanged a glance, but he decided to not ask about it. "I'll answer everything he wants to know…within reason."
"And that's meant to mean?" MJ asked.
"How do I explain the multiverse to him? We only know it exists because I screwed up Stephen's spell."
"You…you believe that was your fault?" Ned asked, his brow furrowing.
"I- I messed up so badly. I shouldn't have given Beck those glasses – I shouldn't have been trusted with them while I was grieving. There was so much pressure on me and I should've given them back to Pepper until I was ready a-and then there was the whole fuck up with my identity being revealed and the multiverse."
He let go of MJ's hand and buried his face in his hands, trembling as he finally let the weight of his guilt over the past few years hit him. He had spent so many hours forcing himself to stay away from this dangerous, all-consuming line of thought, too afraid to face it with the fear of shattering his concentration.
His goal had been to prevent the Snap from happening.
He had spent so many nights forcing any shameful thoughts from arising and haunting him. Thoughts of how he would have irreparably damaged his friends' chances of getting into their dream school all because he couldn't balance his superhero and civilian lives. All because he hadn't thought of calling the admissions office and explaining their situation.
He had resorted to magic, one of the most volatile solutions he had access to.
Look where it had landed him. Five villains, his last family member dead, his two closest friends had nearly died and he had nearly been forgotten by the entire universe. He had screwed up and had somehow been given the ultimate miracle by the universe and still fucked up-
MJ gently grabbed his wrist, her cold fingers startling him back to the present.
"It wasn't your fault," she said softly.
"How?" He asked, slumping into the cushions piled up behind him. "I was the one who started it all off by giving Beck the EDITH glasses-"
"He manipulated you into giving them to him," MJ stated. "I don't know what façade he presented himself to you as, but I bet he showed himself with admirable qualities that made you think he was better suited for the job than you were."
Ned nodded. "You had so much pressure loaded onto you by everyone and the media wasn't helping, especially with JJJ doing everything he could do ruin your reputation, so he probably had people analyse that and used whatever he could to persuade you to give him them. That part wasn't your fault."
"Okay, what about the other parts then?" He retorted half-heartedly. "The part where I didn't think and went to Stephen instead of calling the admissions office. When I let those villains into Happy's apartment instead of sending them back home." He exhaled tiredly. "Just…all of it."
"What spell did Stephen use again?" Ned asked.
"The runes of Kauf-Kaul."
"The memory spell…" Ned's eyes lit up before his jaw dropped slightly. "Did he clarify all the conditions of the runes?"
"He warned me that everyone would forget who I was. I was naïve and realised too late that you guys, Aunt May, Happy, the Avengers…essentially, everyone I knew, would forget. It's how the spell messed up so badly. I didn't think it through."
He didn't think through many of his decisions back then, did he? He still made the mistake of rushing through ideas like when he tracked down Dmitri a few months preceding the whole Thanos event, but he had become better.
He hoped.
"Didn't he ask you if you wanted all of us to remember you, or at least to be specific about who people were forgetting?" Ned asked, groaning when Peter shook his head. "It's definitely not all your fault despite what your brain is telling you. He was the one who decided to cast the spell and his duty as the spell caster is to tell you the effects of the spell in detail. I'm so tempted to ask him what the hell he was thinking when he offered to cast those runes."
"Is…is the student threatening to tell off the teacher?" MJ asked quietly, the comment catching him off-guard and making him huff amusedly. "Moving back to Ned's point – he's right. I don't know much about magic but it doesn't make sense for Stephen to not give you a while to think on it. You had good intentions but he should've been way clearer about the spell's impact on your life. Imagine if it had worked? What would you have done if May didn't remember you?"
He had wondered about that when he had been on the school's rooftop mourning her. What would he have done if Stephen had cast the spell correctly before he tried making amendments to who remembered him as Spider-Man? Would he have gone to FEAST? Would he have tried to get on his feet, reintroduce himself to his friends and started a new life? Would he have met May again or left her out of his life as Spider-Man forever?
He would never know the answer.
"I might ask Stephen why he cast those runes without telling you everything. It's so hypocritical it almost makes me angry," Ned murmured. "He tells me I can't cast any spells without proper justification, but he casts one of the most unethical spells in existence without telling the person who would've been the most affected-"
He smiled weakly. "Thanks for caring so much but I'm going to see him tomorrow," he said, catching Ned by surprise as he flinched. "I needed to ask him about some other stuff so…I'll ask him then. How come you know so much about magical theory?"
Ned shrugged. "I had to learn it alongside practical magic. Besides, I wanted to know how the spell worked and Stephen was reluctant to teach me about the runes."
Stephen was reluctant? Now that was new.
"Did you know why?" MJ asked, latching onto the same phrase he had.
"I never pushed. I was lucky to get training from him instead of the instructors at Kamar-Taj, although I have a feeling he may have struggled to justify all of it to Wong."
He fiddled with his fingernails as they settled into a comfortable silence, wondering how he made himself keep quiet instead of questioning arguably some of the most stressful months of his life. He would go to Stephen tomorrow and ask him what he needed to before revealing everything he could to Tony. Both conversations were long overdue.
"Hey, if I go and get the popcorn from the kitchen, can we watch a movie?" Ned asked. "I know we ned to talk about more strategy for the next few months, but for a few hours, can we pretend life isn't really fucked up?"
MJ smiled, glancing at Peter for his decision.
"Sure," he replied. He could see what they were trying to do. "Do you want to watch something from Disney or Netflix?"
"I don't mind. MJ?"
"I'm not here for the corporate mouse," she replied. "Netflix still has How To Train Your Dragon, doesn't it?"
"I don't know. I'll look for it," he said as he leaned forward to grab the TV remote.
He let himself get lost in the mundanity of their usual banter and finding a movie to watch, listening to Ned struggling to open the popcorn bag properly before he poured it into bowls and ambled into the living room balancing all three bowls.
He pressed play once they had all settled into comfortable positions, leaning against MJ as he snacked on popcorn. He stopped himself from thinking about the serious conversation they had just had and the more serious ones he needed to have over the next two days, using MJ's warmth to ground himself when necessary.
It loosened the tightness in his chest just that little bit more.