Friday

March 21st, 2025

3:25 P.M.

Instead of going to the coffee shop the day after Ned and MJ approached him about his identity, Peter visited May.

(He hadn't visited her in a little over two weeks, but the dull prick of guilt in his belly at that realization disappeared with the first swing of his next patrol).

Around the time school let out on Friday, Peter pulled some less-than-aromatic clothes on over his suit, locked the flimsy door to his apartment as a matter of principle, and then began the familiar trek to the cemetery. He dimly noted the weather was finally warming up as he walked, and though the atmosphere promised rain—the ivory clouds were taking on a tarnished silvery hue in the gaps in the skyline, and the air was thick and sticky despite its persistent chill—it seemed that spring had decided to show its colors after all. It wouldn't be the best weather for web-slinging later this afternoon, but it was better than being slick and icy, so Peter couldn't complain.

He allowed the scope of his thoughts to widen from the weather and his upcoming evening as Spiderman when he passed the block he'd normally turn at to go to the shop. Swallowing the buzz of anxious energy that came with those thoughts, he then cut through a small urban park, dodging green flower shoots just emerging through patches of trampled mud. He didn't think about what he was going to say to May when he got there, like he normally would. He just walked.

(It was nicer that way. Calmer).

In fact, he honestly didn't remember a majority of the walk there, and he was mildly surprised when he finally looked up from the ground to find himself mere feet from the tombstone marking May's grave.

There was a bundle of red flowers lying in front of it, slightly wilted with age.

He hadn't left them there, Peter thought. So, Happy must have brought them. They were so bright and out of place in the grey and brown environment around them.

(They also made him think of blood on his hands, but he didn't follow the vague impulse to bend down and toss them out of sight).

He wasn't sure how long he stood there, staring without blinking at the neatly carved words of her epitaph. He just knew that one moment he felt like he was somewhere far away—looking without really seeing what lay right before his eyes, his other senses muffled and indistinct as if he were underwater—and the next it was like everything snapped into sharp, vibrant focus.

(Like when his soul returned to his body after Dr. Strange knocked it out of him that one time).

(Like his heart was full of blood again instead of the lead it had been pumping ever since he realized Ned and MJ hadn't remembered him—just his name and alter ego).

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, let a few heartbeats pass by, and then gathered up a handful of thoughts. He smiled weakly at May's name.

"Hey. So…I, uh, got a job, May."

The tree behind Peter made a little weary cracking sound as wind rustled above his head.

"It isn't much and…well, okay, it isn't really honest work either, but I think it'll end up being okay. And it pays for Band-Aids! And web fluid. And food—you know, the usual stuff. It's, um, also kind of totally illegal because they pay less than minimum wage and I'm, like, ninety-one percent sure they're a front for a money-laundering operation or something, but hey—"

Peter shrugged.

"I clean and make those gross, slimy deli sandwiches no one likes to eat—but when I get some solid evidence about what really keeps the lights on in Sammy's Stupendous Sandwich Shop, they would have basically just paid me to shut them down. It's kinda cool to be a part of that kind of irony, you know?"

When not even the creaky tree behind him made a noise in response, Peter pulled in a breath through his nose—ignoring the way something in his chest pulled tighter in the silence—and looked up at the sky. A ray of sunlight was trying its best to cut all the way through the thick veil of nebulous storm-clouds that had already enveloped the rest of the sun, and Peter watched it until it slipped behind the veil and was gone.

He looked back down at May's grave. The note of desperation that crept into his voice was noticeable even to him, but he didn't think too long about it. He didn't really know what he would be desperate for at this point. It didn't really matter either.

He was just talking to her, like he usually did.

(Just not about the biggest development in his life lately—not about Ned and MJ and what they knew and how he should feel about that even though didn't feel much of anything).

"I'm also going out into pretty much every part of the city as—as the other guy now. You know, being the friendly citywide Spiderman."

Peter shivered with a sudden chill and then bounced a little on his toes just so he had something to do with the buzz starting up under his skin—the buzz that would usually drive him to suit up to go help people as soon as it appeared.

"I mean, there are a couple of places I don't go…like Hell's Kitchen, for obvious reasons," he added thoughtfully. "Though I did secretly boost the Wi-Fi at the apartment complex, and I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos to work on my hand-to-hand combat skills. There are a bunch of epic compilations of Daredevil doing stuff like that, actually, so I was thinking about maybe trying to go and find him just to see if he'd give me some tips or something. If I could learn to do parkour and martial arts stuff like he does, I could save so much web fluid. And also…"

Peter's lips twitched because he couldn't help it.

"Then maybe I could be…Peter Parkour."

(That sounded like something Ned would have said—or maybe even something he'd said already. Peter swallowed the lingering remnants of his grin and hurried to get through the next couple of thoughts rattling around inside his head).

"Between, uh, between that and the job, I don't have time to study for the GED anymore—sorry—but I'm helping a lot more people right now than I ever would if I were going to college. And I can always pick it back up again later, maybe, when I get some more time and cash."

He let the silence hang there for a few moments—that tightness in his chest growing with every second, like a thick string being tied around and around and around his ribcage—and then he lowered himself into a cross-legged position in front of the tombstone. The smell of damp earth and broken grass mixed deeper with the more familiar, oily scents of the city just outside the cemetery. Peter propped his chin up on one knee and picked at a scraggly patch of clover.

He told May that what he really meant to say was that if she saw him or knew what was going on down here, she didn't have to worry about him. He told her how even though Peter Parker technically didn't exist, his life really had, overall, been going pretty well for the past few weeks. He explained the routine he'd established—the one where he could sometimes go entire days and nights without truly thinking of anything but Spiderman and the people he helped when he was in the suit.

And then, in the same quiet, measured tone, he told her about the confrontation in the coffee shop, as if that were the natural next step in the one-sided conversation he was having. He told her how it sounded really dramatic, but when MJ first told him she and Ned remembered it had felt kind of like when Dr. Strange had knocked his soul out of his body. He told her how even though he had known he was surprised and that physically he was panicking—that his lungs weren't full of oxygen anymore and his heart was so loud in his chest and his entire body was rigid and cold with the implications of what they'd said—he had also felt, on a level that ran deeper than all of that, like he was looking at himself from somewhere else.

(It had felt weird but not…bad, per se).

He told her about how that part of him looking in on the situation slowly realized what Ned and MJ had really remembered, and then he explained how he knew as soon as he saw the expression on MJ's face that he couldn't just full-out lie and tell them he wasn't Spiderman.

"She just gets that look sometimes, May. It's…it's pretty even if it's kind of scary," he said quietly. "When she knows she's one-hundred percent right about something, she makes her lips go all flat and she looks at the world like—like she's daring you and the whole universe to say she's wrong so she can prove exactly why you're the one who's wrong. And I knew if I told her she was wrong, she would only get more suspicious and then Ned and her might start remembering more stuff and then…"

Peter plucked a piece of clover and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

"I didn't want to mess things up anymore. I just needed to tell them enough of the truth that they could stop trying to figure this out move on with their lives. So they could be safe…because I guess they can know who Spiderman is under the mask as long as no one else knows theyknow—"

Peter's fist curled as he frowned at that thought.

"And I'll never let that happen. But if they remembered they were actually close to me and cared about me? If bad guys found that out?"

He shook his head.

"We both know how that turns out. People get hurt."

The back of his eyes burned as he looked at May's name again. Warmth blossomed in his chest and then flared before dying away as an image of the Green Goblin—cowering under the shadow of the glider Peter had been so ready to bring down on him—flashed in Peter's head.

"People die."

A rumble of thunder galloped through the clouds overhead then, deep and low and in a way that made his bones throb like a trail of invisible bruises had been lit up along their length. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and leaned forward slightly. Finally, finally he had reached the part where he said he'd come here to say in the first place.

(What May deserved to hear him say, if she could hear him at all).

(What throbbed like a bruise on his conscience no matter how much he tried to pretend it didn't matter or that it wasn't the only thing that still hurt in any tangible way these days).

"But May? I—I know I shouldn't because it's impossible and selfish for me to keep complaining about when people need my help out there, but…I just want you back," he whispered. "More than anything. I want them back."

A sprinkling of rain wet his face, cool against his cheeks, so light it could have been tears.

"Before the spell took effect, I promised MJ I would come find her and tell her I love her. And I keep thinking about that for some reason," he continued. "I keep thinking I should find a way to keep that promise somehow. But if I really loved her, I would just stay away, right? It's what I should have done from the very beginning, of course, but—"

Peter sighed.

"If they believe what I told them, maybe they won't even want to find out more about me; they did seem angry I messed with their memories. Maybe they'll leave it all alone now. Move on."

Another peal of thunder cut through air, more urgent than the last as it rippled through the sky. Peter unfolded his legs and stood up, loosely clenching a fistful of his own jacket, trembling slightly with the chill or something else.

"I…I messed up by letting the Goblin get to you. And I messed up part of the spell by coming into the shop, but this is kind of a second chance to do things right, at least for them. Even though it feels wrong because they're my friends and—this is what I'm supposed to do, isn't it? Let them believe the lies and make sure they don't ever run into me again?"

The sprinkling of rain became more of a steady drizzle as his questions hung there, lifeless. He wasn't sure what he expected to get by asking them—at this point he wasn't even sure why he'd come here at all. Obviously, he knew May couldn't really answer him—probably couldn't even see or hear him either, but…maybe he was just looking for a sense of peace after having confessed the thing Spiderman had helped him bury so well for these past few weeks.

Maybe he just wanted to feel a sense of renewed energy, a bravery to get up and keep going—a reassurance in feeling if not in words that in the end, everything would be okay.

(Maybe he just wanted to feel like May would agree with him if she could, that she would be proud of him for keeping MJ and Ned safe away from him even now).

"May?" he asked when neither peace nor reassurance came, and his voice was pitifully small because now it didn't even seem like May was there at all, like he usually felt at least a little bit when he came to talk to her. There was just…emptiness.

It wasn't an emptiness like May couldn't answer his question either—he was used to that now—but it was an emptiness like she wouldn't answer it even if she could. Like she knew he already knew the answer to his question.

And maybe he did.

"I just did it to keep them safe," Peter muttered to the empty air.

But this time, that familiar claim felt hollow even to him—an excuse even he didn't believe—and if by some cruel twist of fate he were to run into one of his friends today, he really wasn't sure if he'd have the strength to walk away again.

He was just so tired.

(Of fighting. Of hoping. Of being hungry and not crying and knowing that whatever it was inside him that healed back wrong was going to break again if he wasn't careful).

As much as he tried to reassure himself that it was for everyone's good, he couldn't help but wonder…what if his friends didn't believe what he'd told them? Worse yet, what if he had broken the entire spell and not just part of it—what if his friends remembered everything?

(And what if even after everything, the smallest part of him couldn't help but hope they did?)

A/N: "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, Even though the earth be removed, And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though its waters roar and be troubled, Though the mountains shake with its swelling. Selah." ~Psalm 46:1-3 :)

Thanks so much for reading, as always, and for generally being wonderful and patient with all this as-of-yet unresolved angst. (The rest of MJ's memories are written too, by they way, but they were too long to cram into this chapter) 3