"Where are we? This place is not Kamar-Taj." Peter looked around to see where Stephen's portal had brought them.

They stood in the hallway of an apartment building. Peter recognized it at once.

"No. It's not. There is someone we have to meet before we go there."

"This is where I lived with Aunt May."

"Correct."

"Why are we here?" Peter asked nervously.

"To make sure that she's safe. It's a dangerous world at the moment, and she shouldn't be alone right now." The doctor looked around. "Which apartment is it?"

Slowly Peter walked over to one door and rang the bell.

Stephen gently shoved him out of the way. When the door opened a crack, the face of a middle-aged woman stared from the darkness of the room at him. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"My name is Doctor Stephen Strange. I know what happened yesterday, and I know what happened to Peter."

The door slammed shut before it opened again. A petite woman with long brown hair and a huge baseball bat stepped into the open door and eyed him warily.

"Why should I believe you?" She raised the bat.

"Don't hit him! He's with me!" Peter called beside Stephen, his hand protectively raised in front of him.

Now she looked away from Stephen for the first time and noticed Peter. Within a second the bat clattered to the ground, and Peter found himself in a bone-crushing hug.

"You're alive! Thank God," she murmured into his hair. After a moment she stepped back and looked at him. " Why are you in your costume, without wearing the mask? Someone could see you! You don't want them to know you're Spider-Man!"

"Doesn't everyone know?" Peter asked bewildered.

"No! Only Ned and me. Peter, what happened? Did you hit your head?" She ran her fingers through his hair.

"No, I'm fine, I promise."

Stephen cleared his throat and suggested, "Perhaps it would be wise if we continued this conversation inside your apartment, Mrs. Parker,"

Now she looked at the doctor. "Who exactly are you?"

Stephen wanted to answer, but Peter beat him to it. "That's Stephen. He's my dad."

"Peter… I know you were a small child when your parents died, but you know your father's name was and what he looked like," May said softly.

"Yes, I know that! Stephen adopted me!"

"Why would he adopt you?"

"Because you're dead…" Peter said sheepishly, with tears in his eyes.

Stephen gently put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Peter, maybe it is better when you leave the explanations to me?"

The teenager nodded sadly.

"Mrs. Parker, I promise you, I will explain everything you need to know." He nodded towards the open door. "Inside."

Hesitantly she let them inside. After they had settled down on the sofa, Stephen told her that they came from another universe, about Thanos, the Infinity Stones, and the snap, that turned half the population of the world into dust.

"I'm very sorry. Your nephew was one of those who turned into dust. Tony Stark told me, he was with him…" Stephen concluded his report.

"Tony Stark? I'm going to kill him!" May said grimly.

"To be fair, Peter's fate probably wouldn't have been any different if he had stayed on earth. I guess he would have turned into dust anyway. But we have reason to believe that we might be able to bring them back. All of them, half the population of the universe."

Hopefully, she looked at him. "Really?"

"We'll do anything we can, you have my word." He took her hand and looked her deep in the eyes.

She smiled and put her other hand over his. "Thank you."

"I'm surprised that you are not more skeptical about us being from another universe," he noted.

"You just told me that an angry giant grape turned half the people of the universe into dust. This is not that much more difficult to believe." Then she looked at Peter. "So… how did I die?"

"What? You didn't die! You're alive, I'm talking to you right now," babbled Peter.

"No, I mean the other me. What happened? Was I killed by some supervillain?"

Peter looked down at his hands. "It was just a stupid, everyday accident."

"How?"

"It was a normal day. May came from shopping just around the corner and crossed the street. A driver had a heart attack and ran her over. She died there on the spot. That was half a year after Uncle Ben…"

"Oh, honey. I'm so very sorry." She hugged him, and he started crying.

"I miss you so much…" the boy sobbed.

Stephen sat there and felt like an intruder. Intellectually he knew of course that he was part of this family, but at that moment it didn't feel like it. He got up and walked over to the window, peeking through the drawn curtains.

"What happened after..." She was lost for words.

"The accident?" Stephen helped.

"Yes… What happened after the accident?"

Peter sat up and looked at Stephen. "Tony Stark showed up one day and told me that he wanted to adopt me. He had found my Spider-Man-videos on YouTube and heard what happened."

"Stark?" Questioning, she looked over to Stephen. "And how do you fit into all this?"

"I married Stark," answered he with a smile, gripping the ring through his tunic. "Half a year ago. So, I too adopted Peter."

"Are you happy?" she asked Peter.

He wiped the tears away and nodded.

She hugged him again. "Good."

"That doesn't mean that I don't miss you…"

"I know, I know. I'm just glad you're happy."

Stephen cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but we should go. There is a lot of work to do. Mrs. Parker, please go and pack some clothes and other things you might need. We take you with us to a safe place."

"Where do we go?" Peter wanted to know.

"To Kamar-Taj. Even if Wong isn't there anymore, there are enough sorcerers to protect the place."

"What is a karma-tush?" May asked.

"You'll see," the doctor answered, smiling.

Notes:

I've been looking all over the internet for an official MCU-timeline with the years when the individual movies happened in-universe, but that seems to be an impossible task.

So I decided to make my own timeline up, roughly based on the release dates of the movies. It might not be correct, but for this story, I'm declaring this as the official timeline. ;)

-–-

Summer 2012
Avengers (the battle against the Chitauri in New York)

Winter/Christmas 2012
Iron Man 3

Summer 2015
Avengers: Age of Ultron

Fall/Winter 2015
Doctor Strange (Stephen's accident)

Summer 2016
Captain America: Civil War

Fall 2016
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Doctor Strange (Stephen returns to New York)

Summer 2018
Avengers: Infinity War

-–-

That means for Stephen's and Peter's universe:

Tony and Pepper split sometime around Christmas 2015 (and unlike in the MCU they never got back together again as a couple, but they became close friends later.)

Aunt May died in early 2016, Tony adopted Peter a month later.

Stephen and Tony met for the first time in a cold and foggy fall night in 2016, shortly after Stephen's return to New York.

And they married exactly one year later in 2017.