Where is she, god damn it? Peter Parker frantically forced his way through the colorful abyss he found himself in, electricity and small particles searing his skin each time he made physical contact with it. Something happened to him, something that ripped him from his family and friends. He was running from the Police when he tried to hide in a shed on top of an apartment building, but he was abushed by Frank freaking Castle.
He was shot six times with tranquilizer bullets, and he could tell the Punisher had no intention of killing him, but he didn't want to be found with a murdering pyschopath like him. So he kept running, he ran until his web shooters didn't work anymore. But then he found himself being followed by an F-18. That was when he knew it was all over- that is, until a blue lightning bolt came crashing down from the sky, and then he saw something- something awful.
Before him was Thanos. Kneeling on one knee before him, one half of his purple skin completely gone- leaving nothing but grey, charred muscle and bone. Steam was billowing off of him him, and his exposed eye looked down to him, "He- help... me..." He choked out, seemingly genuinely terrified, "I... saw..." A rigid and startling blue bolt of energy zipped out from the white nothingness, and pierced right through his chest- "...god."
The mad titan finally fell on his stomach, making the ground rumble as he made impact with the glassy floor. Peter's breathing quickened, his chest heaving and his eyes darting all around him nervously, noticing the white abyss being replaced with streams of what looked like stars, nebulas, and galaxies. As his gaze quickly shifted from galaxy to galaxy, he felt something hot and fine pierce his arm. He jumped at the sudden pain, looking down at the area where he was hit. A blue bolt of electricity slowly faded into the stream.
"What the..." He asked himself, looking down at his arm, only for him to notice his skin was starting to turn grey. Just like Thanos's. His heart rate quickened, as he looked around nervously, realizing what was happening to him. The gravity of each of the streams of space was pulling him in, each attempting to bring them into it's cluster of stars and planets. He couldn't stay here long.
As his skin slowly began to rot, he noticed that the images before him were changing- showing moments in time that looked obscure and random, except that each one showed someone he knew well. Ned, Flash, May, Happy, Tony, Pepper, and even Mr. Harrington. But no MJ. Why no MJ? He looked to Ned and rushed to the window into that moment in time, and through his fist into it, expecting to be met with the same glass-like texture he was standing on.
Instead, however, his fist went right through. There was a searing pain of about a dozen of the bolts of electricity, but he managed to force himself through the portal. Peter was instantly met with rain and wind, with orange energy exploding around him as he collapsed onto a grassy ground. He looked up to see Ned staring down at him, confused and shocked.
Ned was standing on a pathed path in Central Park, in a bright yellow rain jacket and blue jeans, and a smart phone in his hand that slowly fell out of his hand in bewilderment, "Ned!" Peter shouted, wincing in the burning pain of the energy around him, "Ned, take my hand please!"
"Wh- wha-" Ned stuttered, his eyes wide and his mouth on the floor.
"No time to explain, bud, just pull me out!" Peter forcefully stuck out his hand, his breathing heavy and forced. Ned still just stood there, staring at his suit like he'd never seen it before, "Ned! Do you understand me?"
"Wh- who are you?" He asked. Peter did a double take, did he have a mask on? He brought his hand up to feel around his face, but he felt nothing but the same facial features he'd had all his life.
"What do you mean?" Peter replied, his heart beginning to sink, "It's Peter! Peter Parker! Spider-Man!" Ned only stared at him blankly, as his mind went into over drive, this was Ned. He wouldn't be joking at a time like this. His Ned would've pulled him out the second he saw him. Ned wouldn't do this unless... unless... Realization slammed into Peter like a train that had it's breaks disabled, "Ned... do you know who Spider-Man is?"
Ned shook his head, "No." That was it. That was all the confirmation Peter needed.
He could feel the gravity beginning to pull him back, and as he looked at his hands he could see them begin to be lifted from the ground, "Ned, please just pull me through!" His friend- or, former friend tried to grasp his hand, but he phased right through it. "No." Peter whispered in horror, as he looked back at his friend, who looked back at him, as he was pulled back into the colorful abyss.
Peter was flung back onto the glassy surface he started at, and looked down at his body. His armor was beginning to collapse, and the skin under it was charred and grey. He was erased from his timeline somehow. Likely the same way Thanos had done during the Infinity War, as it had been named. He'd have to find someone who remembered him, someone who could pull him back through. And as he looked around, he realized how hard that was going to be.
Elsewhere...
He did it. The bastard actually did it. Adrian forced the messy stacks of paper off the corner of his desk, turning on his television set for the eighth time that day. It had been six years since Nixon and Castro were about to launch weapons of mass destruction at each other, and in the chaos and paranoia of an impending doomsday, Adrian was able to genetically engineer a monster.
He knew that the two countries would never find peace. They would have to be reminded how small and insignificant they were. There was only one way to do accomplish that... genocide. They would have to believe they were under attack from some alien creature from far away, a creature that would only live to destroy. Adrian launched development on this monster with four of the world's brightest minds, knowing that he would have to kill them too in the end.
When his beast was ready, he sent it to New York using an unstable teleportation system that caused anything it was used on to explode instantly. The monster arrived in New York, and caused a massive wave of destruction that killed every living soul in the city, and subsequently warranted the Soviet Union and the United States to put aside their differences to fight this common enemy. Adrian's plan worked. Now the problem was to keep it working.
Daniel Dreiberg, the former vigilante known as Nite Owl, and his crazy partner, Rorschach, arrived at Adrian's base in Antarctica about an hour and half after the incident. Dan was his friend, and he'd hoped that he'd understand. When Adrian told them what he'd done, Dan was shell-shocked, unwilling to accept the truth. Rorschach was quick to recognize the look in Adrian's eyes, something he had become quite good at, and the rage and lust for vengeance began to pool up inside him.
It wasn't until the two people Adrian was most looking forward to seeing arrived that things began to escalate. Laurie Jupiter, the compassionate and level-headed heroine known as Silk Spectre, still had tear tracks in her eyes from when she arrived back in New York minutes earlier. But emotionless as always, yet more intrigued than he'd ever been- was Jon Osterman, or Doctor Manhattan.
Jon was always told what he should be feeling in a given situation by the humans around him, since he had risen above the need for human emotion. He was the only person Adrian was even remotely concerned about, though he was actually the one who understood Adrian's plan first. Adrian remembered Jon's glowing white eyes staring at the television sets that lined the walls, staring at the faces of the people that died, as well as Nixon's address to the nation following the attack, and then he understood.
Jon explained to the others that humanity needed to be exposed to a horrible tragedy before they could recover, that the two opposing nations of the world must be united under one common goal in order for life to continue on Earth. Dan made sense of it quickly, and so did Laurie, but Rorschach... Rorschach was not keen on the idea. He left the facility and walked out into the snow, with the goal of returning to civilization and exposing the world to the truth about what happened.
He never got far. Jon was there to say a final goodbye to him before vaporizing the vigilante into nothing more than a bloody stain on the white snow. Jon visited Adrian in his quarters soon after, telling him that he was leaving their world behind to find new life- a new purpose. Adrian watched him leave, but his final words to him still haunted his dreams. 'Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.' He would only truly understand seven years later, when everything fell apart.
What do they call it? Irony? Yes, that's it. Because in Adrian's stupid belief that he would get the last laugh, he was blind to the true scheme that surpassed even his plan. And it was just as simple as mailing a journal to a journalist. Adrian never got the last laugh. It wasn't Laurie, it wasn't Dan or Jon, it wasn't even the man who called himself the Comedian, for christ's sake. No, it was Rorschach who got the last laugh.
What Adrian never knew about the lunatic in a fedora and trench coat was that he wrote everything he did down in a journal, and along with that, every detail of Adrian's scheme written in the final pages. Rorschach, or Walter Kovacs, sent the journal to his favorite right-wing newspaper, which then published the entirety of the journal in the next issue, and across the next few years, it would begin to become more and more credible.
Now, in December of 1992, seven years after the destruction of New York city, seven years of undisturbed peace, the nukes were being prepped again, and Adrian was hunted. The world once looked up to him, calling him 'Ozymandias, king of kings' and 'the world's smartest man'. Now he was satan incarnate. The world was right back to the way it was before the incident, and there was nothing more to do than pray that god would come back and save them.
And no, they do not mean that metaphorically. Adrian, or Ozymandias, realized very quickly that Doctor Manhattan was the only one who could save the world from it's imminent doomsday, and the clock was ticking very close to midnight. With little time, Adrian gathered the genetic make up of Jon's being, pooling it all together into an energy signature that he could track. Sure enough, he now had an inter-dimensional bread crumb trail to follow back to Jon. Back to god.
He'd modified Dan's Owl-Ship, or Archie, as everyone called it, to be able to travel through space and time, and therefore into other universes. Upon further research, he realized Jon had changed many of the universes he'd visited from their original form, even erased certain individuals from the timeline. There was an insane killer from a universe not unlike their own that had been sent to a universe of space ships and laser swords, a young boy in another that was taken out of existence entirely, a bunch of idiots who were now traveling through time in their own universe, all caused by him. But there was something else Jon was after, something powerful. And he was going to find out what it was. One way or another.
Somewhere in time...
"C'mon, where are you, MJ?" Peter frantically murmured as he wandered aimlessly through the... well, he didn't even know what it was. He could see so many moments in his life around him. The air port, the cargo plane, Titan, the final battle against Thanos, but none of them included MJ. He'd tried everyone but her. Happy, May, Ned, Flash, Doctor Strange, Fury, everyone who could possibly remember him that was still living.
There was something almost haunting about this situation when he thought about it, because this was by no means an accident. He looked down at his arm, which was now nearly entirely gray and faded, and could feel his mortality prod him for the first time since Titan. He felt small and alone. No traces of civilization anywhere around, him nothing familiar, no warmth or comfort of home.
He rushed through time, and finally found something he could use... the decathalon. Yes, that would work. He looked to the table, seeing all the familiar faces. Flash, Cindy, Liz, Ned... wait... and a red head he didn't recognize. He heard them call her Mary Jane, but she corrected them to call her MJ. But it wasn't Michelle. Then it dawned on him... he couldn't find her because there was nothing to find.
She must have been erased too. And he was alone. "No..." Peter mumbled, his breath hitching, his eyes pooling with water, as he crumpled to his knees and sobbed. She was gone. His anchor was gone. "WHY?" He shouted up at nothing, "Why me? God, why?!" His tears fell from his eyes, dripping against the glassy floor, as he clenched his fingers tightly, rising up to his feet one last time.
There was one more person he needed to see.
His chest was beginning to fade now, the flakes of his very existence starting to float off of his shoulders. If I have to go... He thought, At least I get to go with the stars. The Spider-Man hobbled toward a final window, one that he had seen but not been of any use to him. Until now. At the end. He looked inside, seeing iron walls and steel floors to match, the sparks of electricity flying from a man's blow torch, and the familiar sound of repulsors sounding.
He took a deep breath and reached inside, his form crumbling as the orange energy of space began to tear him apart piece by piece, he looked up to the man before him, a small spark of hope lighting in his chest as his head moved upwards, but it was extinguished the moment he saw his face, "Mr. Stark," Peter said, weakly picking himself up as his body began to destroy itself. "I know you don't remember me, and I know you want to, but I need to say some things," He was in the past somewhere, probably a lab in Malibu, "Thank you for everything you've done for me, you gave me my chance to stand up for people who couldn't do it for themselves..."
"I... I..." Tony stuttered, as he watched Peter's form begin to tear itself apart, almost like a pill desintigrating in water.
"Thank you for showing me what it meant to be a hero, and for being there when no one else was." Peter told him as he began to fade into the clutches of time, "I will always remember you." He guessed this was a fitting end. And it was all he could ask for. And he closed his eyes, and welcomed the end.
"PETER?" Peter opened his eyes in shock as he felt an arm grab him, pulling him back into the world of the living, as the searing pain faded away finally, and he hit the ground before him, "Pete? Oh god, how could I ever forget you?" Tony grasped the boy's shoulders tightly, a look of confusion and no small amount of shame.
Peter blinked a few times, "Y- You remembered me?" He felt over his chest, noticing the color had returned to his body, and he was physically whole again. All the times he thought he was going to die, all the times the feeling of despair came over him, and yet a man he'd known only a few years rather than his own Aunt or best friend remembered him.
"I... yeah... it's all coming back to me now..." Tony took his hands off of Peter's shoulders, scratching his beard, "How did I forget you? What was that?"
Peter got to his feet and looked around- this was definitely not Tony's lab. "I don't know," Peter answered plain and simple, "What year is it?" He had expected to be dumped some place in time before the blip, but he wasn't so sure anymore.
"Er, I actually don't know," Tony answered, gesturing to the massive structure they were in, "Listen, I... I don't think this is Earth." Peter looked at Iron Man curiously, clearly he hadn't been killed as he was led to believe. As he observed their surroundings, he noted that they were in a massive open area. The floors were- or rather, clearly once were- a sleek black color with white accents around them, but it was rusted and damaged now. And there were piles and piles of sand everywhere he looked.
The room was massive, at least the size of a football field, and there were slots that lined the walls, as if some kind of air craft was meant to be parked there. It looked a lot like one of those ships from Star Wars. Or, maybe it was... he couldn't make any assumptions right now, "So, I get erased from the time line, and you get transported to another world... this isn't good."
Tony shook his head, "Listen, when we went back in time to get the stones, did we change something? Was it us that wrote you out?"
"No," Peter answered quickly, "No, this was some else. Some one much more powerful than anyone we know of." He told Tony about his encounter with Thanos, and how the titan had said he'd seen "god". "It wasn't you. And I wasn't the only one erased, either. Whoever this was, they did this for a reason, somewhere out there, we're being Watched."
Mama, ooh
Didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on
As if nothing really matters
-Queen
K, I know there has been a long delay between chapters, and I know some of you from my previous story are looking forward to seeing where that goes. Next chapter, I promise. Along with some other stuff too. This is also an original story this time, it's not a reskin of The Killing Joke or anything, and while it will have elements of other stories thrown in, it won't be a direct adaptation. And I am going to try to give each of the fandoms a fair share of time to shine, but there may be some spacing between them, especially since the Watchmen side of things is instrumental to the plot, so you'll see a lot of them.
Leave a review on your way out, it always helps me to know what people think, and will result in quicker uploads. Thanks for reading!
-MB
