The wizard in the fluttering red cape came flying down. "Do you remember who I am?" he would soon be asking.
His own name was Peter-Three, they told him, or had they? The injured and staggering guy he was helping stay up, he'd say, was Peter-Two. And then there was one more of them. A younger guy right up there with the girl and the boy. Peter-One. They were all numbered, because apparently, they all had the same name. Funny, because they even wore similar-looking tight-fitting red weird clothes.
"I remember who I am," Peter-Two, the oldest Peter, probably said.
"What are we going to do?" the elderly person in the green costume asked. Or will ask. And introduce himself as Norman.
"Harry Osborn," Peter-Two said.
"That's never happened," Michelle Jones would likely comment. "Nothing as such has happened yet."
Reversed
Day Zero
The last cracks in reality had dissolved into the skies.
My name is Stephen Vincent Strange. This is now. This is happening. I am conscious and I'm alive. I saved the universe. I was a neurosurgeon. I know who Spider-Man is. I fought Thanos alongside Spider-Man. I know Peter Parker. Peter Parker is Spider-Man. And there are three of him.
As soon as the words tunneled through his head Strange knew something was utterly, terribly, horribly wrong.
He looked down far past the torch of the Statue of Liberty above which he was levitating and found ten pairs of eyes trained on him. Ten puzzled pairs of eyes that followed every movement of his: three on top of the huge Captain America Shield built for the statue, another three from the base of the island and four more from the shambles that lay spread far and wide; one of them was a naked man with a missing right arm. It wasn't very difficult guessing the confusion from their faces, and at this point he didn't even know why or how confused they were. Result of a "magic" spell, if done wrong, is a difficult thing to predict.
Prediction, as far as his unaffected conscious mind was aware of, was the last thing he wanted to do right now.
As The Cloak of Levitation glided him down towards the ground he looked up just one more time to be sure. It was past dawn now and yes, he had been able to seal the tears that dangerously made their reality accessible to those from others. The last traces of a possible incursion seemed gone, but the outsiders – the seven, foreign-universe outsiders that were already here – were still here.
He still remembered who Peter Parker was even though no one was supposed to and it wasn't a very comforting thought. Which led him to conclude: either the spell didn't work, or he'd messed up real bad. Seeing the lot of them on the ground a new thought emerged: if the spell didn't work, and he was unable to send these guys home, then how much of it did work and what about all those people that showed up in the sky? Did that part of the spell work? Or was he too unfit to even cast that efficiently?
"What just happened?" Octopussy – the guy with the mechanical tentacles (one of them now severed) – asked. He sounded a lot politer than he did when Strange had last witnessed him in the Dungeon but that didn't matter right now.
"He did some sky magic," the Electrician commented. "Like he just sew it back up from all those glitters."
Strange ignored them. He flew towards the island base from where the kids were watching him intently.
"Doctor Strange, Sir, did it happen?" Ned Leeds asked, turning from him to Parker to the girlfriend. "Are we supposed to forget Peter already, or is the magic thing supposed to take its time and happen gradually?"
"Immediately," Doctor Strange replied at once, though a little absent-minded. He watched Peter – his universe's Peter – and moved closer to him. The cloak flew off his back towards the now human, naked dinosaur to offer some insulation from the cold. Parker looked confused. Dazed. "Kid?" he called carefully. "Parker, are you alright?"
The kid looked around himself as if startled and then returned his gaze back to Strange. "It's Spider-Man," he corrected confidently, at first poking a finger at his own chest and then putting a hand across it. "I'm Spider-Man. Who are you? And who's Parker?"
Strange shuddered as realization dawned on him. Wong wasn't going to be very happy about this.
"What are we going to do?" Normal Osborn asked, curiously circling around the three Spider-Men at the island base.
"Why do you stagger?" the middle-aged Parker asked.
"That's because he-" the Electrician said pointing at the kid Parker, "beat the crap out of him-" he pointed at Osborn. "I should say all that beating should have caved his entire head inwards. Like a fishbowl. Surprised you could withstand all of that Gobby."
"Wait, wait," the kid – Kid Parker – said, sounding a little confused. "I don't even know this guy. I don't know any of you. Why should I beat anyone?"
"You remember right?" Strange asked the eldest Peter. God, he had to get names for these guys. That was Peter-Two. The eldest. It was what he said the three of them had decided to call him. What was the middle one? Peter-Three. Okay. And the kid, Peter-One.
"I remember who I am," Peter-Two said, eyes closed and shaking his head, more to himself than to Strange. "I know why I'm here. But then again, if I'm forgetting anything how'd I tell?"
"What was the name of your best friend that tried to kill you?" Ned asked Peter-Two.
"Harry Osborn," he replied at once, and all eyes went to look at Norman.
"What?" Norman Osborn exclaimed. "Why would Harry try to kill you?"
Peter-Two shrugged, putting a hand on his back where he'd been stabbed. "Well it got a little complicated because he thought Spider-Man killed you, and then he found out I was Spider-Man because Doc here delivered me to him and he went all Goblin Junior on me few months later."
"Hold on," the kid – Peter-One – intruded. "Why did you say you are Spider-Man?"
"Because I am, and so are you and he," he said, lifting his chin at a confused Peter-Three.
"Wait," Peter-Three said, making his hold of the injured Peter-Two firmer. "Weren't we all in that dungeon, where the other wizard burst in? I remember the cops were here, shouting at Spider-Man's name that he's arrested."
"What are you even talking about?" Strange asked.
"You were there," said Peter-Three. "Yes. I remember. We were watching the news about some guy dressed in a giant Rhinoceros armor. And you-" he looked at Ned, "Doctor Strange was talking about some diagnosis to you."
"That's never happened," the girlfriend – Jones Watson – said. "Nothing as such has happened yet."
As all eleven of them huddled tighter a distant scream of sirens echoed in the morning air.
"Peter Parker," a voice announced. "Stay where you are. If not, we have lethal forces we can use against you. Do not move. Stay where you are. You are under arrest for the intentional damage to a national monument."
"That's the police," Octopussy – Dr. Octavius – said. "My God he was right."
"But that's not how police talks," said the former Sandman.
Without wasting another second, Strange opened a huge portal and the next thing they knew, the surroundings got darker and they were all in the Sanctum's Undercroft.
"Is there any way to reverse the spell?" Ned Leeds asked. The two of them stood a little away from the rest of the people in the room. "Like, undo it or something?"
Strange shook his head solemnly. "You cannot undo a spell," he said with a sigh. "Once it's done, it's done. The only thing doable is to cast another spell giving the two of them new memories but I can't guarantee that won't have flaws. It's failed significantly twice now, and I don't wanna pull another stunt."
"So the spell is botched?"
"I don't know kid."
"Maybe I should try it," Leeds suggested. "You might be tired with all the other tricks you keep doing, or maybe you are too distracted."
Strange chuckled. "Just because you can manage to open a portal using sling rings doesn't mean you can pull off such a huge spell at once. While I appreciate your enthusiasm, it takes years of practice to master these."
"So what's the diagnosis?" Leeds asked.
"What?"
"I mean, you were a doctor right? So you can clearly tell what kind of memory loss like amnesia or prescribe any required treatment."
Strange shook his head. "Magic has no medical diagnosis. You take him to an MRI or for any other test you won't find anything amiss. Unlike medical illnesses, sorcery – or magic – have no fixed effect."
"Okay, so what's the magical diagnosis?"
With a deep intake of air Strange tried to ignore the boy and walked into the center of the room where the rest of the group was engrossed in watching the news. As Strange tried to take a peek he heard, over the sighs and gasps of the others, the female reporter's voice talking about a huge rhinoceros-shaped robot taking to the streets in Manhattan and wrecking havoc in the neighborhood.
"I told you," the middle-aged Peter – Peter-Three – said, pointing at the television screen. "I told you about that earlier!"
Girlfriend Jones Watson turned to look at Strange and then past him at Leeds, a look of realization hitting her features.
"The diagnosis," Strange concluded at last, "is that one of them has forgotten everything except that he's Spider-Man, and the other doesn't remember anything either but is able to see the near future."
A/N: Another of the sudden ideas I had after watching the movie. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, do leave a review. I wasn't sure of writing this at first but decided instead of letting it go I should write it down. So it was mostly a spur of the moment thing. Wrote it in one sitting. I'll keep updating whenever I can as in the upcoming days I'll be a little busy.