The Good Life, After Death

by Semi-Functional Eraser

Otto Octavius stole the life of Peter Parker. He did him a favor. PeterxMulti. Post Superior.

1. Chapter 1

After reading many stories in other fandoms where the protagonist gets a new lease on life and changes their ways, I asked myself why can't Spider-Man? Thus, this… oddity, began.

Synopsis: Otto Octavius stole the life of Peter Parker. He did him a favor. PeterxMulti, contains a distaste for Superior.

Rated M: For mature themes and language.

---

The last thing I remember about being dead is opening my eyes.

Doctor Strange thought he was doing me a favor, bringing me back. The whole, "You have a life to live, a good life," type deal. "You deserve to have it back."

His words' sincerity was somewhat lost considering how guilty he must have felt. If it was as guilty as he looked, then it was a lot. I don't blame him - he only managed to find out that I wasn't actually me, and I was actually dead… after I'd been killed. Bit slow on the uptake.

But hey, that's life! More accurately, that was the Parker luck, Chuck.

The good Doctor thought he was doing the right thing bringing me back to life and to be honest, it took being dead to realize just how tired I was of being alive. This was due in no small part to to the fact that, what life there was left for me was in ruins now, after having it stolen and destroyed.

My name is Peter Parker, and I miss being dead.

…Wait, that sounds Strange. Sorry, Doctor Strange. Let me reiterate: "My name is Peter Parker, and being dead was the most fun I'd had in a long, long time." That sounds better.

I'm Spider-Man, the love him, hate him, now mostly Hate him with a capital H, run away from him vigilante of New York. Or at least, I had been. For over ten years. Nonstop. If I was a soldier that'd be over a decade of active duty. Maybe then I'd get more respect.

I was Spider-Man, but not anymore. I've hung up the threads a few times in my years, and saying that makes me sound a lot older than twenty six, but it's true. Putting your life on the line for so long does wonders to age you, as it turns out.

This time, though, I meant it… at least for a while. I was done being Spider-Man, and for that matter, done being Peter Parker, too. As far as I was concerned, they both died a year ago, murdered by the man who stole my body, and my life. His name was Otto Octavius.

On his resume, you'd now find 'Asshat of the century!' and 'Held the entire world hostage for his own ego!' Now, those are two pretty impressive accomplishments.

Even Doom only held the 'Jackass of the Week' award, though that was because he extradited the person who put that on his resume. No one denies DOOM the right to be Jackass of the Year.

Anyways, I hope he's doing the Salsa dance with whoever with a pineapple and a pine up where the sun don't shine.

But it occurs to me that I missed my twenty-fifth birthday because of him. Thanks, life! Make that two pines. Then again, I would guess it's pretty difficult receive a prickly fruit enema while in nonexistence.

I kid… but not really. I thought that most of my anger had faded, at the very least at Otto. We had… talked. And by talked, I mean with fists. My fists. Very soothing.

It helps that I know for a fact that he's nowhere pleasant for what he's done. He killed Peter Parker. Not the only person he's killed, but he did wear his body like a suit and ruined his life, so it's only fair that Parker would get an honorable mention, if nothing else.

Peter Parker had gotten his doctorate. Not me. Peter Parker started dating Anna Maria Marconi. Not me, though I continued that with righteous enjoyment.

Peter Parker abandoned Horizon labs. He, the Superior Spider-Man, held the city hostage (some people never change) and lost all trust the Amazing Spider-Man earned from just about everyone in his long career.

He made enemies of the Avengers, caused heroes all over New York to question and distrust Spider-Man along with the city at large. He ostracized the man Parker had come to know as his only living sibling, his brother, just when they were out of the darkness and Kaine Parker was ready to live.

Peter Parker, what a schmuck. That guy was on a roll. But not me. That was 'Peter Parker', the 'Superior' Spider-Man.

Me? I was Peter Parker: dead and loving it.

---

I would say I resigned myself to death, but that is a bad word. It makes it sound like I 'gave up'.

I didn't give up. Ever. I complained and whined, as the years went on, I got cynical, gabby, but I never gave up. I told jokes, but not to mask fear after a while – I'd been at it for over ten years. To say I was jaded and desensitized is akin to saying the sky is blue.

It was pretty hard to get things done when you just gave up. When someone chops off your arms and legs, it's hard to keep moving forward, of course.

So, in that unfortunate scenario, you just sit there and wait for death to catch up. Say you're stuck in the body of a pathetic, decrepit, arrogant old man; if you're unlucky enough to be in that scenario, it won't take long.

Speaking from experience, of course.

Death, I like to think, had been waiting for Octavius for a long time. Considering how many close calls I had up to that point, the same could have been said for me, but… But it didn't show any vehemence when it took me. I think it, she - she, because the personification of Death as a woman, with breasts, will always and forever be one of the more odd things I have seen – knew that I was me, and not Otto.

Though in my final moments, I saw nothing. I didn't see Death coming, but I felt her when I finally closed my eyes. It was cold and tired, like sleeping. Arms wrapping around me, a brisk feeling and then… nothing.

And I thought: It had been a good run. You went down swinging, Parker, like you always wanted. What more can you ask for? Now's not the time to be ungrateful, right?

So, you're trapped in the body of a man who didn't feel as if he deserved his fate, and a lucky enough guy to be on the receiving end of someone who had cheated Death. Fantastic. Shows over, Parker. Time to pack it up, go home.

…Would I be going home? Or not? If I wasn't, then let me tell you that was the sign of a wasted life, or a cheated one.

In the end, I had tried to fight back like I always did – little puny Parker, so outmatched, always the underdog. No one ever expected him to win. But I did. Every. Damn. Time. I was Spider-Man. More than that, I was Peter Parker, the beloved son of not only Richard and Mary, but Ben and May Parker. I held on, I did what Otto himself couldn't do and I used that pathetic, expiring body to the last to try to get my life back.

It wasn't that I wasn't 'good' enough, it was that Otto wasn't, and he had never been. That explains why he wanted my body, my life.

But…God, I was tired.

Octavius's body had been a step away from a corpse. It was only rage, indignation, and tried and true stubbornness, that old friend of mine, to keep me going. I had fought him enough times to have some idea how to work his metal tentacles, but the old body wasn't a match for mine. Otto wanted to live as much as I did, but there was one succinct difference between us: Otto pulled no punches.

If I'm honest with myself, if I really let loose, I can do some damage. The kind that takes only a tap on the head to put someone to sleep. Or crush their skull. Ten tons is no joke, but I know I can lift far more than that. I have in the past. So, when you put a beaten, brittle old man in front of a Spider-Man who is willing to kill in order to live, don't root for the underdog. Save more money on the tickets, and stay home.

Otto Octavius had died that day, unmourned. His deeds were still fresh in the minds of the world whom he had deceived, and no one raised an eyebrow at Spider-Man, who had never killed anyone in cold blood. That they knew of.

He had damned Peter Parker to an ignominious death. Unnoticed, uncared for, and pretty painful too, because he had an axe to grind.

It was alright, though. Because I had tried. Yay. Boy, what a consolation prize that was. It wasn't that I wasn't good enough, it was that Otto wasn't, and that brought a proud, amused smile to his dying face.

Otto Octavius wasn't man enough to face death. Otto Octavius wasn't man enough to defeat Spider-Man again. The last time he had, Spider-Man was a teenager. The last time he tried, he had to have help. He had to brainwash the Avengers to get that job done, and he still failed.

So for what it was worth, I died satisfied. Satisfied that Otto, for all of his ego, had lowered himself to stealing my body and my life to be the better man. Octavius hadn't been man enough to accept that he didn't deserve a second chance. Peter Parker did deserve one, and like a greedy, fat, rotund child stealing someone else's lunch, he snatched that up for himself.

In hindsight, he did me a favor. I'd thank him, but I'd just as soon punt him.

I have two brothers, Ben Reilly Parker, and Kaine Parker. I stopped worrying about the latter's assuming of fratricide's poster boy's identity because he got better. Up to that point, we were on the best terms we had been in… ever.

Ben, of course, was the best of us. All the good, none of the bad. Kaine was the middle child, I suppose, complete with all the problems; like looking up to the eldest, and being protective of the youngest. He had been beat with the ugly stick like you wouldn't believe and shared my luck, only worse, since he went dark side for a time and karma is a fair bitch, but still a bitch.

And me? I was the 'eldest', complete with that stubborn sense of responsibility.

Kaine had had an interesting view of the world. They were both my clones, down to all of their memories, so he got that from me. Ben and Kaine were the little sober and surly angels on my shoulders, and I could perfectly understand the latter. Ben was the youngest brother. You just wanted to see him be happy. You want both to be happy, of course, but when you're miserable, it helps to have company.

Otto did me a favor. As tired as I was, the last thing I saw before I died was family. There was Ben Reilly, holding his hand out.

And wouldn't you know that I took that hand without hesitation?

---

The first thing I remember after dying is Ben clapping me on my shoulder. Not my Uncle Ben, but my brother, Ben. …Who is actually me, my clone. With… blonde hair. It's confusing, but you get used to it.

Even more confusing is that, in death, we didn't share the same… soul, but that was a relief. I hated the thought that, since he was created from me, he'd be either my son or an empty shell. He didn't deserve either. He was just as much me as I was, and better.

Though I was disappointed to see that he still had his had blonde hair. I do not look good with blonde hair.

The first emotion I remember registering was peace. Have you ever walked down a quiet street in the beginning of summer, thousands of leaves rustling loudly, and the air is a temperature just slightly cooler than you, but so fresh? It's quiet enough that you can hear someone's watering their lawn and you can smell the slightest drizzle. The clouds are white and puffy, and the sky is the best type of blue.

It was like that, and it felt good. Then I felt relief, because, hey, my brother was here. I was here.

But where was I? Where were we? Three guesses, first two don't count.

Considering I wasn't being ramshackled by a pineapple topped pitchfork, I was pretty safe in my assumption. But unlike Ben, I was more cynical and held my tongue. Years of increasingly halfhearted optimism taught me to not even try at it, much less speak about it.

Then, like he was picking up on my thoughts, Ben grinned at me. "You're home, Pete."

Our eyes went to the house a few paces in front and to the left. The house I'd only seen in pictures, one I could barely remember from my childhood. My parent's house. My home. The last thing I recalled about it was leaving it before being dropped off at Ben and May's, and I had never come back.

"You're home."

I wasn't tired anymore and thankfully, I hadn't passed on in Otto's body. That old chestnut, 'As in life, so in death', really had me worried. I was me, Peter Parker, for all that was worth.

I was apparently worth enough, considering where I was.

Ben was there, so it must have been heaven. If anyone deserved that, it was Ben Reilly, all of my good with none of the bad. The man who took life's ugly stick over the head and kept going.

No, that's what I did; I kept trucking, kept trudging, kept working, through grimace and rarer grins. No matter how many bad things were said about him, Peter Parker wouldn't quit. Spider-Man, would never give up. You're Spider-Man. Act like it. Not when he was backed into a corner, not when his defeat was damn near assured.

Ben was a whole other monster. Ben kept smiling, he kept thinking positive, and he was better for it. Over the years where I had become jaded and obsessive, with proclamations of No One Dies and so forth, Ben would have lived life by the day, keep his eyes on his goals, and grin as he ran toward them.

I used to be like him, I think. Kaine too. He gets it from me, after all. But somewhere along the way… we got so tired of it that we started hitting back, Kaine especially. He turned to outward aggression and used his fists, while I turned inward, took every hit with a joke while pretending that it was all okay. That's life, Parker, and you earned it, and that was how I went from Spider-Man: Lone Vigilante, to Spider-Man: please shut up.

Ben would accept it and move on. Trade punches and slip out of the way, leaving life feeling like it was an idiot. Ben Reilly... God, it was good to see him again.

"Mom and Dad are going to want to see you, since you'll be, you know, 'staying'," he said conspiratorially. I suppose it was to ease the transition of passing over, and I didn't see any angels float down to do that. Still, it annoyed me a little, which in hindsight was a good thing. The last thing I wanted to do was break down on his shoulder and start crying.

When I saw my parents though, I just about did.

I could barely remember them. Sure, I had seen photos, ingrained their features into my memory. The family you'll never see again. But I didn't remember them. Not how I remembered Uncle Ben.

Uncle Ben, who'd take me to the park and play baseball. Uncle Ben who'd ruffle my head when I tinkered with the electronics, who'd call me a genius with absolute pride when I helped with the wiring around the house. Uncle Ben, who always picked me up when I was down, beaten, or just plain sad.

Who said, "The game ain't over yet, kiddo. Get up and start playing like it means something."

I missed my Uncle Ben. I missed my parents. I missed my brother, the good in life I used to have. I missed it all.

And I think they knew it was coming. The door opened and… there they were. Ben is the exact image of me, but with the odd habit of dyeing his hair. My father, our father, is almost the same, but with that mid twentieth century, handsome agent look, like 007. In the pictures I had seen, he always looked so calm, so confident, with neat, slicked back hair. I had only seen the expression he now wore once. When he was holding me as a child. His smile was uneven, like he was struggling to keep it. His eyes glistened.

God, I broke down and started bawling. I'm Spider-Man, I earned that right.

I couldn't remember my parents and here they were. Thanks God, life sucks and then you die. Then you remember the raspberry scent of you mother's hair, your dad's aftershave that made you scrunch your nose up so tight when you were a kid, when he'd pick you up and twirl you around the room like a sack of flour. The sound of their laughs and the feeling of their hugs and then…

…If you want to beat Spider-Man, you'll have a hard time. I've been in just about every scrap there is to have. Zombies, vampires, assassins, friends, gods, aliens, fish people, clones, other mes, female counter parts, myself, water, sand. Robots, nanites, reptiles, the entire city of New York, entire teams of super heroes and villains.

I'm not the best, the strongest, the most skilled, but I lasted as long as I did for a reason, and I'm pretty damn good all things considered. I've been at this since I was fifteen and I've learned some things. Impressive for a kid who was on his own for nearly every step of the way.

But, if you want to beat Spider-Man, make it easy for yourself. Bring my parents back to life and you'll get to see me break. Down. But, you only get the one chance to see a grown man who beat a Herald of Galactus cry like a little baby, and that's not an everyday experience! Enjoy it, because then it's back to a regularly scheduled web-slinging ass-kicking.

But hey, you get to tell your friends you not only made Spider-Man cry, but that he beat you up too, and thanked you for the experience! Congrats!

My mom rocked me back and forth and my dad tussled my hair like I was a kid, and I felt like one too. I remembered the last time I saw him and he had done just the same. "We'll be back, I promise," he said, but they hadn't, and I became little orphan Parker, the burden on his aunt and Uncle.

No, that wasn't true, Ben and May loved me like their own son. I was their son. I am. And when I saw Ben again, I started crying, again.

I'm Spider-Man. Mind shatteringly weird things are a regular Thursday for me. Over a decade of being me opens doors for you, and it was because of that that I had seen Ben numerous times. Alive, dead, alternate universe versions of him, you name it. Where it mattered though, my Ben was always a ghost. My Ben Parker died, and his death was the only reason Spider-Man existed. Ever.

The places I've been to, where he lived? Don't turn out well. Not for me. In the best of situations I turn into a full-of-himself jackass because it takes death to temper Peter Parker and make him into Spider-Man. What a lucky guy.

No matter what, even in the universe where Ben was a psychopathic evil schmuck that wanted his Peter Parker to absorb my life force to add to his gestalt strength, he was there to tell me how proud he was of me, that I didn't need to blame myself for his death anymore. That I never did.

I must have introduced stubbornness into the family, because that never caught on. But the hugs were always nice; they were enough to make me think, if only for a day or two, "You've done good, Parker." They made me feel eight years old again. No Spider-Man, no death other than my parents. Just me and my Uncle… my father. Still alive.

And then he'd be gone. Wisped away back to Heaven, I was absolutely sure. I'd hear a whisper. "I love you kiddo, and I am so proud of you."

I'd collect myself, because hey, "The game's not over yet, Parker. Get out there and play like it means something!"

I was Spider-Man, and it was time to act like it. Peter Parker and his woes could take the backseat for now. That's life, Parker!

And in death – in the after-life, actually – Benjamin Parker hadn't changed.

If you took him out of my thirteenth birthday's memory, he'd be exactly the same. That's how well I remembered him. The same smile, the same hair, the same brown sweater with the dress shirt underneath. The same voice.

"Good to see you, kiddo."

Even without spider strength, I could have torn through that house like tissue paper just to get to him. Nothing could stop me, not even the Hulk, but that's because he's a good guy. Big softie. He understands.

I damn near did, too, but I felt so weak. My arms felt so slow and sluggish and small.

"Uncle Ben," I wept. This couldn't be a dream. It just couldn't. Not again. I had done too much, earned too much, I deserved this. Just… Please, God, don't let it be a dream, don't let it be a nightmare, please. "Uncle Ben."

His words were like the best song I had ever heard. "So proud of you…" was all I could hear. I was a kid again, down to the small, spindly stature and wide glasses and oversized teeth and buttoned up dress shirt.

It took feeling droplets hitting my head to realize he was sobbing too. "So damn proud of you kid…"

---

In my life, I resigned myself to a few things. My relationships, after the first couple of truly meaningful ones, would not work out. Not when they tended to die because of me. Even as a kid, I admit I blamed myself for my parent's death. As a teenager I blamed myself for Ben's death, though everyone would tell me I was wrong for doing so.

In his own eyes Peter Parker is the nearsighted little punk who got the closest thing he had to a father killed, and that put a shade over how he viewed himself. Couple that with the fact that every single world he'd been to out there only had Peter Parker as Spider-Man because Ben Parker was dead because of him and that shade became a curtain.

Later on, his first girlfriend's brother? Dead.

The only officer to have faith in that 'menacing murderer' Spider-Man? Dead.

The man's daughter that hates that mean ol' Spider who happens to be Parker's girlfriend? Also dead.

Fast forward. Turns out, the girl who he blames himself for her death turned out to cheat on him with his worst enemy, got pregnant with children… That she wanted him to raise. Said children try to kill him.

Further along. Crime fighting Detective of a partner? She's dead. He could not save her. Then, he finds out she was in love with him, he was her hero.

The man who he'd come to know as a brother, who he trusted with not only his life, but everyone's life? Dead.

The girl who he inspired to become a hero? To become Spider-Woman? Dead.

The friend who works to keep extremely dangerous criminals behind bars? Dead, because he didn't kill the unsympathetic, monstrous shell of a man who killed to feel something, anything.

His only living sibling who had a litany of bad deeds behind him, who sacrificed his life so that this guy could live? Dead. But he got better, and then worse, because being a giant tarantula man sucks ass.

Dead, dead, dead.

But hey, Peter Parker is no quitter! Never let that be said!

I'm not a quitter. It really didn't ever stop me from trying to build new relationships… although, my efforts were a series of diminishing returns. Eventually I just… stopped myself from caring too much, unlike Ben who kept on his path down to his last breath. And even then, after a point that had been flipped on its head and I started caring too much.

Honestly, no one dies? What was I thinking? That was neurotic, naïve, and just plain childish, even for me, and it got a good woman killed, I'd later find out. It got children shot. I did.

But not quitting means you work. You work to earn, and in death, Peter Parker had earned every scrap of good he deserved in life, and he got it in spades.

The house was wonderful. Outside and in. It wasn't a mansion, ever endless, it was a home. Filled with family and friends I'd never thought I'd see again because I didn't think I deserved to. Every single bad feeling and doubt I ever had was gone. Every regret melted away. I deserved that, didn't I?

I hadn't even hesitated. Kaine gets his attitude from me, after all.

Yes the hell I did.

---

Time passes differently when you're dead. At least when you're 'upstairs'. You don't need to sleep or eat, but you can if you wish. The choice is yours, but the good times never stop. Emotions, experiences, they never lose their luster. Fresh and new as they always were. You never get tired of your loved ones in the slightest. The same joke over again will make you laugh just as hard.

After breaking down as a child on my parent's doorstep, it was time for the good times to roll and I swear I heard a fat woman sing. Shows over, Parker! The game's done! Good, no, Amazing hustle! Hit the showers and then it's time for the after-party!

And what an after-party it was.

It could have gone on for a thousand days and a thousand nights as far as I was concerned. In every room of the house something different was happening. One room my parents were dancing that old timey romance dance, another Ben was breakdancing on the ceiling and Uncle Ben and my own grandfather, William Fitzpatrick, were in an arm-wrestling match (that I still think Ben let him win). George Stacey was teaching Mattie Franklin how to play cards with Ned Leeds, and little ol' me?

I was lucky enough to be cornered by Silver Sablinova and Jean DeWolfe.

Both were slightly cross with me, in the best way, for keeping a secret like I had. Silver was annoyed at herself for not finding out, and Jean? Detective Jean DeWolfe, who had gone to her grave for never connecting the dots… to say she was 'annoyed' was an understatement.

They kissed me once, twice, three, six, ten times, and even dead I thought I died and went to heaven. I couldn't breathe. I didn't want to. I kissed right back. You had this coming for a while, Parker. Soak it up.

I saw Gwen too, and while any feeling of guilt of her death was long gone, any negative emotion fading away like washed away paint with every passing moment, I now remembered what she had done in life with clear eyes. She had betrayed me in the worst way, and even in death there wasn't any forgiveness, not from me. Acceptance, yes, because resentment would not change what she had done. But neither would forgiveness, and the choice was mine.

We talked, and she looked as young as ever, as beautiful as ever, but the spark just wasn't there, and left me feeling a bit lukewarm. Looking at a woman and seeing Norman Osborn will do that to you. I had no idea how similar he looked to Tommy Lee Jones.

She had left not soon after, and I found myself pinned between two delightful beauties again, barely noticing, and barely caring.

Eventually, the party stops. Time, dilated as it was, still apparently passed as night turned into day, turned into night. The house emptied of everyone that wasn't family, and I bid goodbye to Captain Stacey and Ned Leeds and Mattie Franklin, who had their own places to go, though it took a while to say goodbye to Silver and Jean. A long while.

Normally I'd be concerned with having a threesome in my parents' house. But I was dead. Hell, I was Spider-Man. Was being the operative word in both cases. I was now in a threesome, and it felt good. Jean and Silver left limping.

Felicia was right. I was good. If they were to be believed, I was amazing, but it was hard to understand them since, you know, they could barely speak.

My grandpa Will certainly seemed proud. My mother, fortunately, was absent. Fortunate because that would have ruined the afterglow. No man wants to bask in the afterglow of the best threesome of his after-life with his mom in the same room, no matter how proud she might be.

And as it turns out, my mother took after her father. In a lot of ways, I in turn, took after her. The jokes, the gab, the muted perversity. My intellect was all dad, though, right down to the ingenuity.

Afterward came the long talk about the life I led. Mom was absent still, but I wasn't worried. It wasn't like she could die, and I had not one iota of worry left in me, the world was just that good.

I can sum the conversation up in nine sentences. It went on for about four hours, complete with my grandfather beating me over the head with a pillow and everyone else joining him.

"You take on too much responsibility, son." Dad. "You're too hard on yourself."

"My death was not your fault." Uncle Ben. "It has never been."

"You kicked so much ass!" Grandpa Will. "…Why didn't you get with those two dames sooner?"

"You need to learn to build yourself up more. And why did you always default back to the basic spider-suit?" Ben, and then he chased me outside with the couch. "What's wrong with you?!"

After the chase and we calmed down, grandpa looked at me, suddenly somber. Just looking at him I could tell he was the type of man to take life by the horns and steer it where he wanted it to go, a real partier. But the look on his face now actually made him look like a grandfather, right down to that solemn crease of a smile on his face. "Let's go see your little girls, Pete."

I blinked.

There's a couple of parts of my life I didn't like to remember, but in death, in the after-life, comes a feeling certainty and recall that you cannot ignore. You take stock of your deeds and accept them. My grandfather's words hit me upside the head like Thor himself, and I was faced with the cold truth.

Peter Parker had been a father, once.

When he was young, just over twenty-two, he and his beautiful fiancé Mary Jane Watson, had gotten pregnant. She gave birth to a beautiful little girl… that he never got to see, thanks to Spider-Man. Little Mayday Parker was a stillborn, and Peter Parker kept playing the game like it was his job. And God did he need a way to vent at that time.

Then his brother died.

Things between him and his fiancée fell apart quickly after that. Later, he entertained the thought of being a father again. Mary Jane was long gone, but on good terms, which would change later, and he'd never find out why. He found a little homeless girl in a frozen alleyway, sleeping in a box plastered with Spider-Man photos. She had the sweetest, most innocent voice and he thought, he knew, that he could be a father if it meant saving her. He'd stop being Spider-Man if that's what it took.

She died in a hospital bed not two feet away from him. Her name was Leah.

So please, believe me when I say this: When I heard those tiny voices behind me, my blood froze over.

They appeared as if they'd been signaled. My mother came into the house, shushing, and looked up, the widest, most beautiful smile I had ever seen on her face. The door shut quietly behind her, the shuffling of tiny little feet coming to a stop.

Negative emotions don't exist upstairs, but things like surprise? Reactions like gaping like a fish on the border of crying again? Those are coping mechanisms. Completely allowed.

Release the valves and flush your emotions, Parker! You've seen what happens when you keep it all in, let it all out!

One little girl with chocolate hair and deep hazel eyes and the cutest little button nose was holding a picture of me in one hand. Of Spider-Man. In the other she guided along the most curious looking toddler I'd ever laid eyes on, with emerald eyes just like her mother and chestnut hair like her father. She wore a small set of overalls with a spider plastered on it, and when she bumped into the other child's leg, unseeing, she wobbled, and her eyes immediately centered on me.

Their voices were unified. Curiosity, shock, joy. All things I never thought I'd get to hear with that word, with that pitch of innocence. "Daddy?"

Even if I wasn't dead I would not have fainted. My legs gave way and I hit the ground in a heap. I was bullrushed so fast all I saw were two masses of brunette hair. The party… that would come later. Peter Parker needed some time with his family. As a son, and as a father.

---

While little May's singular tuft of hair was the same shade as mine, she had her mother's eyes. Leah, meanwhile, had a large bushel of frizzy, chocolate hair, and deep, wide chocolate eyes. I decided it was better to brush it sooner rather than later, and with her in my lap, my rocking leg was doing a good job of putting her to sleep.

While I rocked my leg, Mayday climbed on my back like a little monkey, intent on inspecting every bit of my face like I was a science experiment. She poked and prodded, even pinched me, though none of it hurt. By the time Mayday had tired of that, Leah had fallen asleep in my lap, her photo of me falling limply out of her hand and to the floor with a soft thump. She held on to me so tight, like I were a dream about to be whisked away.

Though it felt like I was losing circulation, I didn't care in the slightest. Mayday possessed the same amount of care and just about strangled me as she peppered me with kisses. She's her daddy's little girl, alright. Right down to that spider-strength.

I was unconcerned with the specifics of how, or why. I was dead, living the after-life, which as far as I concerned kicked the crap out of regular life. Leah was family, because she had died as family. I prayed to God, roared that she'd be my daughter if it was the last thing I had done. She'd be family and I'd retire, I'd sell the formula for the web fluid or work for Tony Stark or something, just let her be okay.

I pleaded. I would be the best father ever. What kid wouldn't want Spider-Man as their Dad, right?

She flatlined.

Keep playing, Parker – the game, at that point, turned into a beat-em-up. I wrecked that particular floor of the hospital. Crushed some poor lady's car, even. Caked Jameson's office with eggs and less desirable things, but none of it helped. But I just kept playing, because that was all I could do. I didn't quit.

But enough of that. It's the after-party, Parker! Time to play!

Daddy's home girls, and he's not going anywhere.

---

I think that some elements of… heaven, I'll call it that because that's what it was, for me, don't get introduced until you get there.

My parents, my entire family, everyone, knew about little May and had watched me cradle Leah's body. But they hadn't actually seen them in person, such as they were, until then. If my arrival had elicited a party, Mayday and Leah's appearance had brought… not a lull, but a time of contentment.

And being 'after-alive', that time was really, really long. I wasn't complaining. Never having to worry about them being in danger or leaving them for Spider-Man was a fantastic sedative. I rarely slept in that time, not that I needed to, but when I did it was surrounded by family. In life, it wasn't something I ever got to do.

Leah didn't leave my side, but Mayday was just as curious and adventurous as I was when I was a child. She had gained the habit of crawling on everything and everyone, and Ben took a lot of fun in chasing after her on the ceiling.

Leah had been accepted unanimously into the Parker family, not that there was ever any question. She had a flipbook of Spider-Man, me and Ben both, and would beg us to tell her stories about our careers. All things considered, I had warmed up to the idea. Then again, there was no saying no to that face, and her wide sparkling eyes. So, as I brushed her hair to get all of the frizz out, it seemed to be a perpetual process, I picked an event that occurred not too long after getting my powers.

"So, when I first started out-" I started.

"When we first started out," Ben coughed as he leaned over Uncle Ben's chair, "I did it too," he huffed.

"This is why I never asked for a brother, you know. I don't like to share." Ben pouted and little Mayday, who'd been skulking around the wall, bat him on the head and smiled hopefully at me. "Atta girl," I grinned. She beamed.

"As I was saying…When we first started out," I began, glaring at Ben, "I wasn't too bright."

He was right back at it again. "Too bright is right. All the mistakes I made, whew, it's embarrassing to-" he stopped, looked at me, and began to whistle. Badly. "Carry on."

"Before we're interrupted by your Uncle Ben again," I gave Leah a tight hug and a knowing, proud look to my own Uncle Ben, "I was stupid. And there was this fight with the Vulture. Ben?"

He didn't miss a beat. "So it went like this. Here's this old, decrepit, senile bald chrome dome with wings. I'm Spider-Man, I got this. I can handle it, I lift a truck for breakfast, no problem! I think I have him on the ropes and it looks like he's trying to run away-"

"-But what he was actually doing was baiting me. Dropped low to street level and we thought he had hit the ground. Somehow it was forgotten that he had wings." Ben and I glared at each other as if it was the other's fault, because it technically was. The fault of your weirdly blonde, blue eyed, but with the same brown eyebrows, reflection.

I don't look good with blonde hair.

"He was playing possum," Ben groaned, "And I fell right for it. I followed him down to a nearby roof and wondered, "Gosh, why is my spider-sense was ringing?""

"Back then I thought it was a faulty mechanism at best," I continued.

"Or I was going insane and would start to hear voices next."

"But there it was, going kind of loud, because an old man, wings or no, couldn't be much of a threat."

"Or so we thought."

Leah looked between us with rapt attention, the widest smile on her face, getting a little dizzy from whipping her head back and forth and her hair pelting me in the face. "What happened next?"

Uncle Ben snorted, and little Mayday had found a perch on her grandmother's head, waving and gesticulating wildly. My mother covered her mouth. "I'm afraid to hear the next part. I hate horror stories, you know."

"Mom, the only thing horrifying about it is how stupid I was," Ben rolled his eyes, slumping against our Uncle.

"Anyway, I think that the Vulture has flown the coop, and am feeling pretty good about myself. Big bad hero, that's me. Next thing I know I see a beak nose and a near toothless grin and the Vulture uppercuts me to the next story."

"There I was, big bad hero, getting socked in the face by a fantastic geriatric."

Leah gasped. "No way!" She shouted, thinking "No way could any villain get the best of Spider-Man! There's just no way!"

Except there was, and being here was proof of that. The thought didn't bring any lingering resentment or anger because there wasn't any. Otto had done me a favor, and I was happy for it. After all, I was here, and he was living the hectic life of Spider-Man and Peter Parker both, may he choke on them.

"Unfortunately yes, Leah," Ben said, looking smug, "Your daddy was just that stupid."

"He is not!" Leah argued, puffing her cheeks, absolutely fierce at the prospect of someone insulting me.

Ben shared a look with me and then looked directly in the mirror. "Is too! Just look at that dopey grin and that stupid blonde hair. Why, in his younger days, Peter Parker was a buffo- waitaminute…."

Leah, as if she had gained the upper hand in an epic argument that stretched the borders of the house itself, puffed up her chest and looked down her nose at him. It would have been impressive if he wasn't about three times her size.

Ben started to whistle innocently, looking at anything but his niece, including our parents and Uncle for help. His eyes landed on little May, who made a noise and a cute little face at him. Accurately translated, it meant, 'You're on your own.'

I shrugged. "I think they've got you beat, Ben."

"It's a conspiracy, the lot of it!" Ben pouted.

"With stupid blonde hair like that I can't blame us," Leah snickered. That's my girl.

Looking horrified at the thought, Ben went over to Mayday and picked her up, ignoring her slight wriggles as she recognized him and immediately went for his face. Like with me, she had built the habit of jabbing anything that looked like daddy with her pudgy little fingers. This included her Uncle Ben and grandpa, too.

Ben, with his blue contacts and blonde hair, looked smug at us, even as she groped at his eyes. "She-poke-has-poke-my hair!" He proclaimed, pointing at me, and glared at his niece and started poking baby May's face back. "Let's see how you like it, you little baby-ball."

I stared pointedly at his blonde head, was reminded of Johnny, and made a point to go back to brushing Leah's hair in silence.

"She's a bit too young to dye her hair, sweetie," our mother said. She was sitting on top of our father, in the loveseat. It was an accurate name, too. I almost gagged and Leah, just like her dad, did too.

"She- she could-"Ben sniffed pitifully, "she could learn."

I snickered. "Learning to do stupid things is not something I want my baby to do, Ben."

Ben jostled me, bringing May to my face. I tried to remain stoic as her tiny little fingers wriggled over my face and nipped at them with my lips. Alas, she was too strong. Sensing weakness, she fled to my head and became utterly distracted by trying to figure out where her fingers went as they disappeared in my hair.

"Like Father like brother like daughter, Peter," Ben said sagely. "Uncle Ben, you agree with me, right?"

Uncle Ben was quiet for a long moment, but then looked sadly at Ben. Then, he reached to the side of his chair and pulled out… some brunette hair dye. I had no idea where he got it from, but God bless that man. "This needs to stop, kiddo. It's been going on for too long."

"But-"

"Join us, son," my father and fellow brunette chimed. "It's fun! We have chocolate milk."

"And chocolate cake," my mother opined.

"And matching eyebrows," I said, holding Leah up next to me, and she grinned widely with tiny little teeth. Mayday, as smart as she was, peeked up over my head and gave an adorable smile, patting my head like a bongo drum.

"…" Ben stared his slow trudge upstairs and into the bathroom. When he next exited, Blonde-Man was no more. Now it really was heaven.

---

Between the three of us, myself my father, and Ben, Mayday could scarcely tell the difference. Between my father and I, the difference was the largest, but not by much. He was older, of course, with crow's feet at his eyes and a slight streak of grey, and a perpetually calm smile. Whenever she saw him she'd bat his nose with distinct gibberish that we all came to recognize as either "Grandpa" or "Not Daddy".

Between Ben and myself, my hair was slightly shorter, giving me an older look, and Ben's smile was wider. Our careers as Spider-Man had affected us, and my smile was usually closer to my father's. For the first time in the longest time though my smile was exactly like Ben's, and my eyes felt bright. Watching my daughters play had that effect on me, and not having to worry about Spider-Man was a relief, the biggest weight off my shoulders.

But then, as it usually does, life came a knockin'.

There's a trope out there: "The Call knows where you live." You can't ignore the phone, because it will knock. You can't ignore the door because it will mail, email, and then break your door down and stare you in the face and push your ass out of your house. Personally, I like to call it the Parker luck, but the combined efforts of my gestalt family, assuming one voice of "Lighten up!" has gotten me out of it.

But I can't help myself. I'm usually right when it comes to these feelings. Mostly usually. Sometimes.

Cynicism is a living thing, and as I later found out, I wasn't dead. My history had colored my views and made me more cynical than Ben, I admit, but there's reason for that. It's the Parker luck, Chuck.

The last thing I remember before breathing again, is seeing my family. Then I was alone, and I heard a scream pierce the black, empty void. I won't lie - damn, did it feel good to hear it.

---

I woke up that morning in the same spot on the couch. Mayday was curled up on my chest, clinging to me like a magnet and Leah was no better, holding on to my side and not letting go.

If anyone tells you that the weather is always the same in heaven, always bright and sunny and a white picket fence type thing, slap them in face because they have no idea. A light drizzle had accompanied the dark clouds that day, making everything nice and lazy and relaxed. The perfect day to stay in. Ben was upstairs snoring as loud as a kitten, and I in the same way didn't feel like waking up.

No Spider-Man, no responsibilities. It's Break Time Parker. Enjoy it.

And I was. I looked out the window and at the dark clouds and smiled, and closed my eyes. I hugged my children closer.

My eyes should have stayed shut, just few a few more minutes. I opened them again and that's when I saw him. Doctor Strange.

His face appeared in the ether first, then the rest of his body, as if he were stepping through a wall of water and mist. He hadn't seen me and to be honest, my first instinct was to hide. I knew what was coming, my instincts of an encroaching pain in the ass were heightened far more than my optimistic brother.

But I am Spider-Man, unfortunately, and I can now understand Kaine's distaste for the title. But for my daughters, my family? I'll take on the Hulk if I have to. I've done it in the past, one more off the bucket list. I got this.

That made nothing easier.

Then, as it usually did, life came knocking at my door. More accurately, the living came knocking at it.

Stephen Strange was a tall man. Taller than me, but around the height of Kaine, who I hoped I wouldn't see for a while. Maybe, just maybe he was here to deliver a message? I already had one in mind especially if Kaine had gotten himself into some mystical shenanigan in my stead, and it wasn't just, "Listen to the Doctor."

I wanted my other sibling to live a good life and be as happy as I was in death. If this was just a housecall, if everything was okay with him, then I'd tell, beg Strange to relay a message to him from all of us. He's on the right path, I knew he was, I could feel it. He was doing the right thing. You're a hero, Kaine. We love you, Kaine, we are so proud of you Kaine. Kaine Parker, that's our brother, that's our son, our uncle, our grandson, our friend, and he'll always have a place with us.

After prying myself from my kids, I got up and opened the door. The look on Strange's face was about what I didn't want to expect, for several reasons.

It was one of disbelief and sudden, resigned acceptance. Shame and guilt, and I was tiringly familiar with them all. I inched away from him because those emotions are sickeningly infectious and, after so long without them, they weren't something I missed.

It was with a bemused smile that I greeted him, realizing that no one had figured out Peter Parker, Spider-Man, the real one and only, was dead. Until now, of course. I laughed, but nothing was funny about this. "Take a wrong turn at Albuquerque, Doc? Friendly as it is, I think you're in the wrong neighborhood."

His smile was grim and quickly over taken by a solemn frown. I stepped aside and bid him to come in, and he looked around the house with a shocked and pained look. When he looked at me, that's when I knew. Hello, Parker Luck. Goodbye, good times.

His voice was dry, almost breathless. "My friend, I am so sorry." Here we go.

I waved my hand dismissively, stepping outside and as he followed me, and shut the door behind me. The rain was picking up and I looked at the darkening clouds, trying to keep myself from getting angry. That's when I knew something was wrong. Negative emotions just didn't exist here. They just didn't. So why was I fighting them back?

"Don't be, Doc. Not your fault I'm here," I said quietly. "If you want to do me a favor though? Just leave."

"Peter," He said, looking down. "I can't do that."

"Of course you can." I snapped. "You are the Sorcerer Supreme. Leaving a little spider in the web he's built for himself isn't even a challenge for you."

He flinched at that, and I realized the double meaning of my words. Doctor Strange hadn't been anywhere near me when I died. No one noticed or cared, and what had it been, months? Years? All that time of being left alone from 'responsibility', and now he comes back.

Great.

"Doc… I'm happy. Just, please, if this isn't a house call? Go to someone who needs it, visit Kaine, my brother. About yay-high, looks like me, but really grumpy. My time has come and gone, finally, and I accept that."

"That's why I am here," the regal, salt-and-pepper haired sorcerer said, hardening his voice with determination. He looked tired and bedraggled, which brought me some comfort in a sadistic way. I didn't want him to take pleasure in ripping me from Heaven, after all. "Your time has not come. It should not for a long time."

"Oh, I am not going to like the sound of this, am I? I swear, if you're telling me I'm supposed to be immortal or something-"

"Please, may we talk?"

I wanted to say "No, get away from my home," and toss him through the window, but… the good Doctor and I have been through some things. Out of so many, I trust him. He's more of a understanding conversationalist than Reed Richards, more of a mentor than Tony Stark, more relatable than Steve Rogers, definitely more mature than Johnny Storm, and less worryingly temperamental than Logan while having the same amount of insight.

After all, it was thanks to the Doc him that I got to watch myself die. Cross that off the bucket list and talk about insight.

Wait.

"I've seen myself die already, Doc. I get shot down in a graveyard, framed for murder when I'm an old man," I said, narrowing my eyes. "If that's the life you want me to go back to-"

"That was a future corrupted by Dormammu's interference with the Web," Strange patiently corrected. "Like a mended cloth, it will not come to pass."

I was so close to making a Gandalf joke, but the Doc didn't have the look for it. Instead I surrendered myself to rolling my eyes. Crap. "The Web. …You have got to be kidding me."

"Miss Carpenter, the latest Madame Web, told me of your…"

"Death, Doc. It's okay to say it. Not like I'll drop dead or anything." I rolled my eyes. "A bit too late for that."

"Not death, Peter. You were cheated, stolen from your own body. Death and passing over requires the death of your earthly body, which is still very much alive. You were possessed."

His words were grave, and I get the feeling he expected me to gasp or something. The tired groan that grumbled up from my throat made him blink. "Just another Tuesday," I mumbled to myself. "I bet Captain America doesn't have to deal with this. Does He? I don't think he does."

He chuckled a bit. "No, he does not."

"Called it." I grimaced. "Then why am I here?"

In a moment of startling humor, the Doc tried to smile. It was a guilty one, but I appreciated it. Both the guilt, and the act. It made me feel the tiniest bit better. "You've earned a lengthy vacation," he said with certainty, and I could attest to that.

"…But vacations end. Especially the best ones," I finished. He nodded solemnly. "You know, between you and me Doc, Julia is pretty shitty at her job." Strange's eyes rose at my language, but I ignored him. I was on a roll and could hold back what I said if I wanted to, and I didn't. I could see why Kaine did it so much. It was relieving, emphatic, and helped soothe the growing vein on my forehead.

There's just something about "Gee and gosh, Doctor, Miss Carpenter isn't very swell at her job," made me want to hurl a piece of the sidewalk into orbit.

"How long did it take her to realize I was dead?" I was willing to bet on five years. Shoot for the stars, kid. What would Otto get up to in that time?

"She was in a coma, so quite some time," he replied dryly, obviously getting used to the full Parker after-life experience. Hold on tight Doc, because it's going to get acerbic.

"So much for that clairvoyance of hers. Useless. I died once. Twice. Three times, in fact. The one time I save a little girl's soul from Death and Thanos themselves. The other time I came back and ate the thing that killed me, and before that my gigantic fucking spider corpse gave birth to me, so don't expect me to feel bad for her."

I quieted down, but the damage had been done. My little girls began to stir. Heavy sleepers, just like their father, they are. "For all of her and her predecessor's talk of my importance they have the nasty habit of not being there when the Web's precious 'Center' needed them, needed anyone at all., and it's starting to tick. Me. Off."

"Daddy?"

The door creaked open, and there was Leah with wide doe eyes, holding Mayday's hand, and I could see it at that moment - my two little girls all grown up. Leah would be a guardian, a stalwart protector, and Mayday, as tightly as she hung to her sister's leg, wouldn't be the standoffish, rebellious teen like so many when she grew up - she'd be the most mature, most understanding girl ever, and I would love them both to death, as many times over as it took.

The look of fear in their eyes was the worst punch to the gut I ever felt. It wasn't supposed to exist. Not here, and that is how I knew something was wrong.

That's the funny thing about the after-life – it's the realm of the dead. So when someone who isn't dead, or shouldn't be, ends up there, it throws things for a loop, messes with the reception and pixels out the picture. A real spanner in the works.

I was before them before I even knew it, hugging them. I didn't need eyes in the back of my head to know Strange looked like the worst man to walk the Earth, but I saw it anyway. Good.

No, I soothed the growing feeling of annoyance, though. My problem wasn't with him. Strange was a good man.

I kissed my daughters on their heads. "Daddy's just realizing how good his life really is," I said, smiling at the thought. My after-life is great. Amazing. My life was a jealous bitch, apparently.

I sat down and bid my little girls to do the same. Whatever the Doc had to say, he could say in front of them. I hoped that maybe, just maybe, they'd scare him off.

"Julia has a daughter," I said with a voice that sounded confident. I had to be for my kids. I'm Spider-Man, better act like it. Time to play. "And you know something? She's never had to watch her little girl die. Twice."

Peter Parker's kids are as tough as they come. They don't flinch when they heard mention of their death, but they hugged their daddy because they knew how much it tore him up inside to remember it. Best. Kids. Ever.

"That is true, my friend. She also fully understands the gravity of the situation, the pain. Taking you from your children isn't something we want to do, however..."

"Spit it out Doc."

"You were not supposed to die. Your body lives, and so must you. Your soul was ousted from your mortal coil and forced to the next plane, but as of yet, you do not belong here." He looked at me sadly. "You have a life to live, a good life. You deserve to have it back."

All I heard were deeper and deeper notes on a grand piano, and the feeling in my gut wasn't getting better. The hugs were, and I held on to them like they were the last ones I'd ever feel.

"And what happens if I stay?" I asked, but knew I wouldn't like the answer.

"You will not be forced out," Strange said, trying to be comforting, but I could tell from his tone that he hadn't even dropped the other shoe. "But, if Heaven is behind the gates, you will be forced to wait out of them until your body passes along."

The thought that that's the fate that happens to comatose people hit me with the surprise of a tap dancing dog and a boxing mouse. I wondered if the waiting lobby for heaven had comfortable chairs. "…Can you kill Octavius?"

Oh, I was completely serious. Faced with the prospect of leaving my loved ones and being forced to watch them from afar because Otto was using me like a puppet did wonders to lower my opinion of him.

For what it's worth, the good Doctor looked like he had considered it. He shook his head, eyes closed and mouth pursed. "I cannot," he said, and there went my threat of siccing the Sorcerer Supreme on anyone who fucked with my family.

"How long has it been?" I asked. "Since he did me the best favor ever," I added with only slight sarcasm, and looked at my daughters, who tried to smile.

They had shrunk behind me as if Strange was the scariest thing ever, and in a way, it warmed my heart. Someone had come to take their father away. At the same time, it made me stand tall and shield them. Never underestimate a Father's love for his kids.

I stared at him, hard, and noticed something. Strange didn't glow. My family did, Jean and Silver and Mattie and George Stacey, they all did. My kids were the brightest. They could walk into the dark and light it up, and as a matter of fact no room in my home was dark when they stepped in.

For the first time, I realized that I didn't have that either, not at the same level. Mine was faint, almost non-existent, and I could have sworn it was brighter before. An obvious divide. The possibility hit home like a ball being tossed by the Hulk. I didn't belong here. What if they were staring at Strange because he was so different? I had no idea what Strange looked like to them, maybe a monster or a devilish, uncouth fiend, but I was glad they didn't see me like that.

A soothing feeling came over me. They couldn't, so stop worrying, Parker.

"A little over a year," Strange replied.

I blinked. A lifetime of good times in the space of a year? What a deal. Sign me up for the full package, please.

I smiled ruefully and took a long, meaningful look at my daughters. "Give it to me straight, Doc – how has Otto fucked my corpse over now? Did he try to sleep with May, again?" I asked, and felt Leah blink into my back. This would, in fact, be the reason why became so protective of Mayday later in the after-life, almost as much as me. And part of the reason why she hated anyone named Otto, and loathed octopi.

"Did he take the symbiote and torture it? Did he whizz on my Uncle's grave?"

"It would be better if I showed you." Strange sighed.

The next thing I knew, his finger was touching my head. My spider-sense went haywire. You're not going to like this, it seemed to ring, and it was right.

I had never wanted to strangle someone so much until that day. Hard to do for a not-dead man without a body, in Heaven, but I was Spider-Man, so I was confident I could manage it.

---

"I am going to hurt him," I said quietly, for the fortieth time.

As if sensing my distress, the entirety of my family, my friends, had come running. The memories had passed through everyone's minds. Ben, Dad, Mom, Uncle Ben, my Grandfather, George Stacy, Ned Leeds, Mattie Franklin, Silver Sable, Jean DeWolfe. Hell, I was surprised to see Gwen there. She had taken to peering through the window or peeking past trees to see me.

But there they all were, watching me take a nearby tree and rip it from the ground like tissue and slowly grind it to dust with my bare hands. And it warmed my heart. How many times had I been in a tough spot only to find myself alone? Well, not here. My family and friends were at my back.

And they did not look pleased. Negative emotions are contagious, I told you.

One by one, everyone joined me at the tree and beat at it and kicked it with everything they had, suddenly imbued with spider-strength and imagining the face of one Otto Octavius in the place of the poor tree. Leah and Mayday were right next to me, doing their best.

One big happy pissed off Spider-Family. The thought was as comforting as thinking of Uncle Ben giving a spider-powered kick to Octavius's crotch while my Father held him still and there was a line behind Ben.

I lost it when I saw what Otto did to Felicia. I went into the house tossed Uncle Ben's chair through the wall and into the backyard when I saw how he treated Kaine. I put my foot through the sidewalk like the cheapest drywall when I saw how he treated and dismantled every single accomplishment that Peter Parker ever made, derided and looked down on it, all in the name of being the better Spider-Man. The 'Superior Spider-Man.'

I watched him get haunted by what remained of my mind. My soul was gone, but part of my mind still remained, like ghost files on a computer. I watched him desecrate my Uncle's memory and erase anything that Peter Parker ever was, in the name of his own 'victory'.

I watched him try to have sex with Mary Jane. Did that count as mutual attempted rape?

Hell, I watched him abduct the symbiote, and my estimate of torture wasn't far off. It still felt for me in a way I had never comprehended. Like how I felt for Gwen when I was alive, it yearned for me. That yearning turned into something ugly, something worse than obsession, and created Venom, and as desperate as it was for me, it still recoiled in disgust at finding not Peter Parker, but Otto Octavius in his place.

Otto basically chained it up and used it to further his goals of becoming the Superior Spider-Man and fought the Avengers. It had come close to figuring out what was wrong, I could feel from the memories it knew that its 'first host' was 'wrong', but Otto deliberately used it like a tool, treating it like a thing, an object instead of a living, sentient creature, uncaring of the two way bond between host and symbiote.

Which is how we get to the tree. I stared small, only digging my fingers up and down the trunk as my family watched from the doorway, my old friends watched from the street. The symbiote was like a child, and the knowledge that I had abandoned it after saving it made me angry at myself. It was as if I had abandoned Leah, or left Gwen to die on purpose, uncaring. And seeing how Otto treated it only exacerbated my mood.

I picked up the tree like a paper weight and broke it in half over my knee. Ben was there and took one half and broke that in half, and both he and Uncle Ben lobbed it into the sky, launching it into orbit. The family that gets pissed off together.

I want to say, again, that the look on Strange's face when he found me in the realm of the dead? Priceless. The look on his face when he realized he incited a family of sudden spider-powered individuals from the smallest child to the oldest man to rage? I wish I had my camera, because that picture would have been the background for my computer forever.

Now, Doctor Stephen Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, and aside from a really impressive title, and it allows him some pretty fantastic, you might even say amazing, feats. Chief of which, in my experience, is bringing me from pure nothingness and the void at the end of all things all the way to my death and my beginning simultaneously.

Then dragging me through every single fight I have ever had in my life up to that point. Screw fantastic that is amazing - amazingly painful.

Speaking with the dead is one of these, and though he doesn't do it a lot, he's a good friend to me. My being half in, half out, as it were, made it easier than it should have been.

Strange felt responsible, and I'm the poster boy for what responsibility can do to you. If my family's lectures to me since I arrived taught me anything, it's that too much of a less-than-good thing was very, very bad. Not only shouldn't you do drugs, kids, don't do hard responsibility. Unless you want to die in your twenties and see all of your loved ones at the pearly gates.

So I had wiped that off the table, put an end to it. I echoed Uncle Ben's, everyone's, words repeatedly and in this, I was able to say with conviction that my death was not the Doc's fault. It never was, and though he was far away from my favorite person right then, the fact that he was here to keep me from looking longingly past heavenly gates to see my family meant so much, no matter if I resented him a little for it.

Because if he hadn't, I would have been stuck outside until Otto got me killed. Again. I ironically hoped that would be soon and, as I found out, it could have been sooner that I thought had things played out.

The Superior Spider-Man had gotten himself into a bit of an accident. After seeing how he treated him, I wanted to believe he ran afoul of Kaine's fist. Again. But he had actually collapsed under pressure. The Green Goblin was back, again, somehow, and underminded his entire big brother routine. I happy, not surprised, and in a petty, vindictive, absolutely justified way. Because there's Parker luck, and then there's super-villainy luck that's more akin to a monkey with a wrench

This, coupled with a much too late message from a comatose Julia Carpenter via astral projection, got the good Doctor to see what was up with the not-so-friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, why he had suddenly changed in recent months. I didn't bother to ask what took her so long. That wasn't a headache I was willing to indulge.

When Strange arrived, he found Otto receded into his own mind, and, as it turned out, searching through a destroyed mindscape for little ol' me to stick me with the mess he found himself in. Unfortunately for the tubby bowl haired bastard, it wasn't that easy.

Not only had Otto swapped minds with me, and I mean full on teleported our brains to each other's bodies because he's that smart, bringing out a twisted version of death for Peter Parker as I died in his body, he had also scrapped every last memory of mine. Anything that was a remnant of me that he didn't memorize was gone.

So, when you delete all of the restore points, there's no other time on your computer to restore to, regardless if you backed up certain files onto a flash drive. Otto was stuck as the Superior Spider-Man for good and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

But he didn't realize that. When your computer is so fucked up all you can do is reinstall, Otto was going to use what small fragment of my backed up memories to bring me 'back'. I saw his thoughts. He had a heartfelt speech and everything.

In the words of Kaine, "What the fuck."

Otto's perception of me was such that the remnant would have been guilty, remorseful even, that Otto had to die for Peter Parker to live. Leave it to Octavius to go out like that, thinking of himself as the hero. Even in death he planned to stroke his ego one last time.

It was lucky Strange came along when he did because I shudder to think what would have happened if Otto had given control to a mental fragment of myself that was less me than he was. With only the handful of memories Otto had of Peter Parker's life, and Otto's perception of him, if he had erased his own consciousness, what remained would have been a fucking idiot. Think a computer, without any of the meaningful files to do anything - it sits and bumbles. Considering Otto's state of being at the time to even consider something so stupid, that was saying a lot.

Now in my life I have seen some amazing things. Beautiful women naked. Beautiful women naked on top of me, beautiful women damn near naked while wearing my t-shirt on top of me. In the afterlife, two beautiful women naked and on top of me at the same time. The t-shirt broke,

My Uncle, my parent's smiles. My children take the cake most of all. Al of these things are amazing.

But when Strange strut his mystic stuff, Joy to the World should have been playing, because I'll never forget what happened.

Out of the ether, much in the same way Strange himself had arrived, came the subdued and writhing soul of Otto Octavius. A few dozen feet above our house, which I thought was a nice touch. He dropped like a sack of rocks onto the roof, rolled off and right to my feet.

I grinned viciously. "Doc, you know how to bring a smile to my face. Reed can take a backseat because you're my favorite."

From what I was told, souls are delicate things. Pure or corrupt given the person, with only a few rare situations allowing for certain interactions with them… like taking the soul out of its body, like Strange did to Otto. But that was the kicker: it wasn't his body.

The only way a soul may inhabit a body, therefor, is willingly, like when the body is empty of their own soul, effectively a walking, rapidly decomposing corpse, or if the mind is weak enough or unaware of it being possessed. Forceful possession, therefor, was a big no-no, complete with a capital 'You Fucked Up'.

Octavius had done that in spades.

By forcing my own into limbo, and just about killing me altogether for his own ends, in cold blood no less, his deeds had forfeited any of the soulful protection period, and since he didn't belong in my body, Strange had plucked him out of my body like a short, fat, bowl-haircut having despot with a flair for the grandiose.

I was clean. My family was clean. I was aware of my parent's history, secret agents and SHIELD's top agents at that, and we were all well-groomed and clean looking, the spiritual evidence of lives well lived, good deeds and belief in something other than ourselves. Love.

Being dead came with a resolute certainty; the certainty that your time has come and it's time to move on, that you will see your loved ones once again, that, if you end up in the place upstairs, you've lived a good life, you deserve this, and this is why you do.

It also provides a troubling sense of introspection that allows you to see your strengths and flaws. The fact that I was naïve and lowly in spirit hit me upside the head like a wrecking ball, not just the words of a loving family. Confidence, belief in oneself, is a very important thing and affects you deeply, and I saw with startling clarity how it had affected my life, along with a poisonous affliction of guilt that mutated from an understandable survivor's guilt to something worse.

It was with this in mind that I saw Octavius. Any thoughts I once had that the man was redeemable were definitively gone. His confidence had turned into arrogance. His guilt was near non-existent, drowned out by ludicrous justifications.

Held the world by the short and curlies? He deserved to be remembered and lauded as a hero! His genius had to be remembered!

Damned Spider-Man to a wilting death with no one the wiser? Who cares, Otto Octavius deserved a second chance.

Et cetera.

If being a good person makes you clean and respectably dressed, the opposite made you a bum, a despot, a piece of trash, and Otto was that in spades. This isn't just my opinion of him, he was pathetic looking; his clothes were raggedy and he was dirty all over, skin caked in dirt and with an awful smell about him. This was the man that was willing to kill so many to satiate his ego, a man whose arrogance was comparable to Doom's ego but without the integrity, and whose ego made him scoff at Doom's accomplishments. The man who had held the world hostage and was willing to boil it alive.

And I laughed in his face. Had I just been given the chance to play the after-life equivalent of whack-a-mole? I was certainly eager to find out.

And all of that heartfelt admittance Otto would have given to my fragment? That was gone. Back was his usual spiel, and Doctor Octopus where he belonged, in his pathetic self. I guffawed back as his began his tirade. Just like old times.

"Parker!" He snarled, looking around us. "You're dead! Defeated by my hand, you pathetic excuse for a hero! You should be thanking me that I assumed your life! I am your better, I am the Superior-" and his eyes fell upon Ben, and he sneered at him. "Another clone, an abomination. I remember you… Reilly. Just as much of a pitiful Spider-Man as Kaine tries to be."

He spat at our feet. Ben and I shared a look. This was going be nostalgic.

"It's good you still remember your betters, Otto, it means there's hope for you yet," I said dismissively. Suddenly there I was, clad in my red and blues. I didn't even need to think of what to do next. "In case you've forgotten sarcasm after getting your butt kicked by our brother, that was a grade-A cut. I didn't mean what I said though sweetheart, we shouldn't fight."

"Brother," Octavius scoffed, "Truly your loathsome self runs in your pitiful family," he said, looking at all of us.

Ben was right beside me in his own suit. At the same time we added webbing to his magically entangled form and shot little balls of webbing at his face. "Yeah, you can shut up now. We really shouldn't fight, Squiddy. What will the children think?"

"That we should get the camera, for one," a voice said beside me. I looked to my side and a look of pride bloomed in my heart. There was Mayday and Leah, all grown up. Mayday was clad in Ben's suit, and Leah in a white variation of my stealth suit.

"And upload the video to every single site there is," Leah said with a derisive chuckle, and they pelted him with webbing like one would skip rocks on a lake. A real family gathering.

"Show everyone what happens when you fuck with my Grandson," my grandfather said, outfitted with webshooters. Uncle Ben and my parents, too. My father pulled out a gun. My mother pulled out two, and took aim. I watched as they shot Ben's paralytic stingers out of them like semi-automatic pistols, ripping through the webbing that caked up with the force of a high caliber round. An interesting idea to be sure. Mattie was there, Silver, George Stacy and Gwen, Ned Leeds, everyone.

"Now," I found Jean DeWolfe's arm around my neck, and she lightly kicked Otto in the head. "How bout you show us how a real webslinging ass kicking is done, Spidey? It's been so long since I watched you."

She was a woman after my own heart.

---

"Even in death I can't escape the villainous monologues," I said, choking out a laugh. I looked at my hand and watched the glow flicker. Before me, on Ben, it was as bright as it had ever been.

I was the odd one out and strangely, I was okay with that. Happy. Being with family does that.

"Ugh, tell me about it. I could have gone twenty more years without hearing one of those." Ben agreed.

"I needed that," I said with a sigh, looking at Otto's battered and beaten form webbed up on the ceiling, the result of a maximum spider assault. "Remember the good old days? The simpler times?"

"Whatever happened to those?" Ben laughed.

"I think they went out the door with my teens," I huffed. "Probably sooner. To be honest, though," I smiled, looking at the room around us. Everyone was there. "Sometimes I wouldn't change a thing."

"I heard that." Ben grinned. Unfortunately with his spider-suit his hair had come back, but you can't win them all.

We sat on the wall of the kitchen, still clad in our suits. The room was stuffed to full occupancy with everyone there and Otto dangled in a little cocoon as Grandpa Will pelted him with spit balls. In front of us, little Mayday and Leah had become two young women, and thanks to that after-life certainty, I was positive and beyond a shadow of a doubt that they would have taken up after me. I would have found a way to give Leah powers, she and her sister would have been Spider-Women, and there was no doubt in my mind that they would have been proud to.

And the thought warmed my heart. When I got back, I would be there for them, with them, every step of the way. What kid wouldn't want Spider-Man for a Dad, right?

They hung on two weblines as I had done countless times in the past, and Mayday was munching on a sandwich. "I don't understand how you put up with it, I really don't. I'd web every villain's mouth shut the second I saw them on principle!"

"I think it's funny," Leah said, trying to shrug and finding her body dipping to the ground from it. "You could record them and play their voices back to them. 'Hey, this is how stupid you sound'!"

"You get used to it quick," I said, "But I thought being dead would keep me from dealing with it anymore. It gets really tired."

Mayday started to rub her head, just like her dad. Leah began to whistle, badly, and with a sneaking suspicion I looked around the room and saw everyone not meeting my eyes.

"About that…" Ben began.

"You knew." I said, sighing. "That I wasn't dead. That I didn't belong here."

"You do belong here, sweetie," my mother cooed. "With us."

"Some place you can rest and be happy," my father continued.

Silver looked at me sadly, unable to meet my eyes. "It just isn't your time yet."

"Dad," Mayday said, and I looked into the bright green eyes of my daughter. I never wanted to see her look so hurt, so guilty, so sad. No father does. "We just wanted you to be happy."

"We just wanted our dad, even for a little bit," Leah mumbled.

"Our son," Uncle Ben said, smiling at me serenely.

"Our idol," Mattie whispered.

"Our hero," Jean said.

I looked down at the floor, but couldn't hold my gaze there for long. All eyes were on me and I just couldn't help but smile. "I know. Thanks."

Fun fact about my life: it's… a ride. I became a cynical version of myself thanks to it. Gee, Parker, when will the next drop happen? How far?

But it always seemed like there was someone there to pick me up and say something to just make me think, "God, am I so grateful to have you." It's the only reason I lasted as long as I did. Someone to fight for, someone to see again, someone to look up to, and rarely, someone to pick me up when I fell.

As crucial as the differences between Peter Parker and Ben Reilly are, the same things drive us, and at the end of the day, Peter Parker has had some pretty amazing people in his life. The more things change, I guess, and not much had changed in the after-life.

I swallowed like I had a dumbbell in my throat. My eyes heated up, vision turning blurry. Don't cry Parker, that's the sign of a quitter, a sore loser. The game's still on. They want an encore. "I'm going to miss you. Every. Single. One. Of. You."

Every single face on that room was looking at me. In my nightmares it had been accusing glares. "We're dead because of you." They said.

Here? Nothing but smiles. Nothing but, "Have a good time Dad," or "Give it to em good, Pete," or "Have fun."

I was on the floor before I knew it and going from hug to hug, kiss to kiss like a dream that went by too quickly. Then I was at the door and Uncle Ben walked up to me, still smiling that unbeatable, unbreakable smile. The one that got me out of bed on my worst days. "You know what I'm going to say, kiddo."

"So proud of me," I smiled weakly, eyes glistening.

"Got it in one." He got me in the best hug ever, and wouldn't let go. "Never forget that Peter. Never forget that."

Leah and Mayday walked up, handing me my mask and webshooters. Their smiles were wide and true. I'd see them again. "Go give it to em like only our father can," Leah grinned.

"Like Spider-Man can," Mayday echoed.

"The one and only." Ben smiled guiltily. "More or less. Have fun, brother."

I nodded, and there was Doctor Strange next to me, right by the door. It opened, and outside it was dark. I looked down the road and saw it wet and lit by streetlights, but quiet. "I'll be seeing you again," I whispered, almost unsure. "Right?"

Jean scoffed. "You better."

"Just… not too soon, please," Silver smiled knowingly.

"Have fun, son," my father said, holding my mother.

"Tell our brother how proud of him we are, Pete!" Ben said, smiling softly. "For me."

"And kick some ass!" Grandpa yelled.

"Show them how my baby boy gets it done," my mom said, on the verge of tears.

Doctor Strange looked at me. His expression cleared up and I could tell he no longer looked as torn, but the guilt was still there. That was fine. "Thanks, Doc."

He smiled thinly. "I'd say it was my pleasure, but I do believe that would be in bad form." I snorted, and with a wave of his hand, Otto was ripped from the ceiling and floated to us. We stepped out into the darkness of the street, and the door shut behind us.

It was quiet out. Not too quiet, not silent, but… serene. It was marred by Otto's screams, but they didn't bother me a bit. "So what's going to happen to him?" I asked.

"He will be judged for his deeds, I would assume. And then rewarded accordingly. His mortal coil has expired, and death waits for him," Strange said dryly. I had no objections

. Otto's eyes were wide and terrified, but I reassured him. "Don't worry Doc, Death is nice. Kind of the quiet type, but after dealing with me, you should like that." I wonder why that didn't seem to soothe him any, and he renewed his efforts to escape vigorously.

The smell of rain after a storm, and that smooth, easy breeze on a summer night. I was completely content with taking my time and followed Strange down a long, seemingly never ending road when the door opened and the street lit up from the lights inside.

Uncle Ben jogged up to my side and clapped me on the back. "You didn't really think we'd let you go on your own, did you?" There they all were, right behind me.

"Surprises are nice every once in a while," I laughed, and we started walking again. Some things don't change.

"Let's go, kiddo." He wrapped his arm around me as we walked, on and on, until and the streetlights stopped appearing and it began to get darker. I blinked, and looked around, but there was nothing there but me. Strange and Octavius were gone, and I suddenly felt cold. I was alone.

No, I thought, determined. I wasn't. I wasn't alone. I never was. In the dark I could see their faces, smiling and waving. I could hear Ben's voice. "You did good kid," he said. Then he was gone. Like a wisp. Some things don't change.

I refused to sigh. I smiled, I grinned, and grinned wider when I heard the last scream of Doctor Octopus, and then I put my mask on.

Time to get out there and play like it means something.

I opened my eyes.

---

I reached out, trying to feel them, any of them, but they were gone like a dream. I watched, confused, as an unfamiliar hand was splayed out in front of me and made a fist. Not a dream, just… a reward. I swallowed and got up, squared my shoulders and looked ahead.

What mess did the Amazing Spider-Man have to clean up now? What mess do you have for me this time, Otto?

I had a fair idea, and cracked my neck. Alright.

"My turn."

A/N: I always found it frustrating how Peter's death was just swept under the rug. He passed on, saw Ben and everything, but somehow came back from a fragment of memory, and wasn't perturbed in the slightest at Otto for what he had done.

I hope you enjoyed. This was just something that popped up in my head. It gets lighter. Possibly worse.