When Peter woke up the next morning, he seriously considered staying in the attic and not leaving for the entire day. He had done it before, on days when he had wished that his entire life could just fade away and he would never have to wake again. Most of those days had occurred shortly after he had returned from Seftis, when he was still processing all that had happened and coming to terms with the aftermath of his decision.
For the first few months after he had come back, Peter had rollercoastered through the emotions of anger, fear, and despair. One day he would be seething in madness over what had happened, furious with Seftis and the entire world for what he had lost; the next he would be screaming through a covered mouth, trying to keep back the searing grief of what felt like his whole world being ripped apart; he had destroyed more brick walls than he could care to count.
For the briefest moment, he had thought of finding Tony or Captain America or any of the Avengers; he had thought maybe if he sat them down and explained to them, if he tore his fingers through his hair and screamed loud enough that maybe, just maybe, they would be able to figure out a way to turn it all back; that they could wave their hands with the inexplicable magic and good fortune that always seemed to follow them and then maybe, just maybe, he could get his life back; he could wake up and all of this will have turned out to have been just a horrible, terrible, frightening dream.
But the days had passed and nothing had happened. There was no Avenger that dropped out of the sky; there was no Aunt May or Uncle Ben to appear and wrap him in their arms; there was no one to reach down and save him from this horror he now called his life.
And then there was Spider-Man.
For the first few months, Peter had found it difficult to remember that he no longer had his suit or his web-shooters. There was one time when he had heard a cry for help, and Peter had instinctively started to run. He had jumped off of the building and aimed his wrist, his fingers pressing against the empty space that his shooters had once occupied. But by the time he had remembered they were not there it had been too late, and Peter had fallen the ten stories to the ground, landing on the roof of a car and leaving a massive dent in its wake.
He had thought about starting over as Spider-Man. He had thought about trying to find the ingredients to make all of his webbing and shooters from scratch, just as he had at the very beginning. But he didn't exactly have the same access he'd had while living in relative privacy with Aunt May, and being able to snitch the various chemicals from the science room. Besides, even if he was able to get everything that he needed and was somehow physically able to be Spider-Man once again, it was in the end all too risky. He did not want to draw the attention of the people and authorities. Or worse – the Avengers.
In the end, all he really wanted was to be left alone.
The realisation that he had now not only lost his friends, family, and life, but also his ability to be Spider-Man, had hit him unexpectedly hard. It was a final punch to the face from what had been a horrific and hideous beating.
He had spent the next two months drifting through the city, sleeping beside dumpsters and underneath store overhangs, before being shooed roughly away at six in the morning when the staff came to work.
It took him a while, but eventually Peter found some semblance of food that he was able to somewhat regularly find. The first and most common option was, of course, dumpster diving. Most of his food was found there, and, if he were brave enough, in the nearest residential trash bins. He had never imagined that he would dig through other people's garbage bags for their tossed food, but considering it was either that or starve, Peter had chosen the former.
The second option was to steal. Peter had never thought in all his life that he would one day be stealing from stores and food stands in order to eat; he had never thought he would ever steal, period. But a moral compass was hard to follow when his stomach was literally eating itself from hunger.
The last option Peter had found was Julian.
Julian was the co-owner of a small restaurant only three blocks from Peter's attic. He had caught Peter ruffling through his dumpster one morning, having forgotten to throw out the leftover trash from the night before. Peter had thought that Julian would yell, swear, and threaten to call the police like all the others. At first Julian had shouted, telling him to get out of the bin and take off; but when he had finally seen Peter's face the anger had softened, leaving the man with a peculiar expression.
Peter hadn't wanted to stay to figure out what that look was, but when he tried to leave Julian stopped him. He had then taken out a few boxes of leftovers and handed them to him.
Peter tried to say no, that he just wanted to leave, but Julian had insisted and soon Peter found himself with three more boxes of food, and instructions to leave before "the real boss comes and kicks you – and me – in the ass".
Peter tried to leave Julian and his generosity alone, but over the while when dumpsters and bins offered up nothing and he had nowhere else to go, he would find Julian taking out the trash around the same time every evening, and with a little luck the man would see him and take pity, and give him something to eat.
Four months in was when Peter found the attic, and after finding a worn out mattress in a dumpster – seriously, the amount of things people threw out was unreal – life had settled into a small but somewhat stable routine. He found blankets – which he washed for over an hour in the bay – and he was set. Life was nothing as it had been, but at least he was no longer sleeping on the street, cold and starving.
No, life was definitely not what it had been. But this was all the life he had.
Jumping down from the dumpster, Peter uncovered the rest of the bread from the wrapping and took a bite. Chewing carefully he began heading back to the street, idly wondering what he should do for the day.
Old Man Dan would be down in the alley by Main, but whether he had anything good to sell was unlikely. Not to mention the fact that the last time Peter tried to haggle with him he had lost both the watch he'd found, and two bucks. Nah, he'd rather not get screwed over today, thank you.
Peter stopped at the corner of the street, waiting with a dozen other pedestrians for the white man to appear on the crosswalk sign. Though they were somewhat jammed together, Peter could feel the slight distance that they kept between themselves and him; it probably seemed like nothing to anyone looking, but with his heightened senses, the intent was obvious. It was okay though; four, heck – even two years ago, he would have done the exact same thing. Besides, he couldn't blame them; with his stained jacket, tattered jeans, and smell, he didn't exactly appear like the most welcoming of individuals. And he was a teenager – couldn't forget that.
Though sometimes, it was only all too easy.
People began moving and Peter slowly walked with them. Eventually the group dispersed as they arrived on the other side, everyone going their own way as Peter mingled in with a new crowd.
He continued on for another hour, walking aimlessly, only stopping once or twice to nod his head or say hello to one of the guys panhandling on the street corners, or sitting along the edge of the buildings. They would give a brief acknowledgment back, before carrying on as they were.
Peter's stomach suddenly twisted painfully and he stopped. Someone bumped into his back and he heard a snide remark as they passed, but he didn't listen. Looking up, he realised that he was standing outside of a bakery. Its smells wafted through the door as it opened and closed, filling Peter with a familiarity so painful, it was almost worse than the hunger.
Because he could remember. He could remember having biscuits and buns first thing in the morning; he could remember when his parents would take him to the local bakery, and he'd stare at every item on display, his eyes and mouth opened wide, wishing he could have every single one. He remembered when someone else would pop a bagel in the toaster, the smell of it seeping under the door into his room, and when he came out, Aunt May would –
No. No, he wasn't thinking about that. He didn't want to think about that, he didn't need to think about that. Not after the incident a month ago. May had moved on with her life; it was about time he moved on with his.
Staring through the window, Peter watched as a man handed the cashier a couple dollar bills in exchange for a full paper bag, then turned round and left. A mother pulling her young child was next, quickly tapping her card against the machine and handing her son a bagel, before turning and leaving as well. The son – probably only six, at the most – took a bite, gnawing on it for a few moments before his eyes looked up, and he caught Peter's gaze. The boy smiled widely and waved. Surprised, Peter took a moment before raising his own hand, and giving a small wave back.
The motion, however, caught the mother's eye. She looked down at her son then up at Peter, her face growing cold. She roughly pulled her son along, walking him out the door and quickly disappearing down the street.
Peter stared after them for a long moment, before his hand finally fell back to his side and he moved on.
As the hours passed the clear sky began to cloud over, cold permeating the air and the clouds turning grey with the threat of rain.
It was late in the afternoon, after hours of endless walking, when Peter began to take more notice of his surroundings. He had been walking on autopilot, moving as others moved. It was a game he sometimes played, allowing himself to get lost and see which new ways he could find to get back home. This time, however, the roads looked eerily familiar.
Peter frowned, wondering where he was. He had wandered many different streets and wayward roads in the past near-two years, but he didn't think he had walked this one. And yet….
Recognition came to him in a sudden flash and with a start, he realised that his feet had taken him to none other than the outskirts of the district of his old school.
Peter stared down the street for a long moment, unable to move.
…should he?
There were a million reasons why he shouldn't. He needed to get over his past, he needed to forget it, he needed to move on.
… perhaps just a little peek. Just to see who was left. Just to see if anything had changed.
He stayed near the fence as he arrived, not wanting to go onto school property. While he wasn't as bad off as some homeless people, it was still fairly obvious that he wasn't a regular school kid, at least not one at Midtown High.
Looking round, Peter saw a few students walking to and from the main hall, some moving slowly and others clearly in a rush. It was after hours, and everyone still here were in the midst of their extracurricular activities. Peter remembered when he had done those too, back before he was a teenager, back before he had become Spider-Man. Back before this. He had been so involved with his science club, which was where he'd met Ned, and he'd even tried out choir, when one of the teachers had once caught him singing and said he was quite good.
But then he had been bit by the spider, and everything had changed. Science club, choir, grades – none of it had mattered anymore. Because there was something more important to do – he had a greater purpose. A higher purpose. He had been given a gift, an ability – an ability to help others, to save others, to protect others and those he cared about when they could not protect themselves.
He could still remember his uncle's words after he'd gotten in a fight once, so deeply were they ingrained into his memory, like a brand on his skin: "Peter… just because you can beat someone up, doesn't give you the right to. Remember – with great power, comes great responsibility."
He had ignored him, at the time; had sloughed his words off with nothing but a 'yeah, yeah, whatever', before running off to class.
Not long after that he had gotten the bite and then Uncle Ben had died; and he now understood those words more than perhaps he – or even his Uncle Ben – had ever wanted to. Because he'd been right. His uncle had been right and now the consequences of that power, of that responsibility, was weighing on him like Atlas and the world. And like Atlas, Peter knew he had no choice but to bear it. Because if he didn't, it would have all been for noth –
His senses flared at the last second and he made to move, but he had been so distracted and lost in his thoughts that the movement came too late, and something suddenly crashed into his side, sending him tumbling to the ground in a heap. A heavy weight landed on top of him, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
"Oh my goodness, oh my goodness I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to crash into you! I was just – I was just in a rush, I'm late for class, and I just – I just – here, let me help you up." A hand grabbed his arm and tried to lift him up. "My name's Ned – Ned Leeds and I am so, so sorry mister –."
Looking up, Peter could see Ned peering over him, his face twisted into a mesh of guilt and concern at having run Peter over. Ned tried to grab Peter under the arm again and lift him, but the position was too awkward and he simply fell back to the ground. Finally they managed to untangle themselves from each other, and Peter was able to stand back up.
Eye to eye, Ned was still apologising a mile a minute. "I'm so, so sorry! Did I hurt you? Are you hurt? I can – I don't have much money, but if you need to see a doctor, I have ten bucks –."
He stared at Ned for a long moment, not quite able to believe what he was seeing, before realising he ought to speak. Finally finding his voice, Peter said, "No. No, it's – it's okay. I'm fine. You didn't hurt me, I'm… I'm fine." His voice was raspy and dry, the words somehow difficult to speak.
Ned breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh good – because I really need that money for dinner. Besides, I'm not really sure ten bucks would go very far at the hospital, right?" He chuckled, but the laughter died away as Peter remained silent.
Ned looked back at the school, then at Peter, a slight frown turning his lips. Numerous questions followed in rapid succession. "Hey, are you a student? Do you go to this school? Which classes are you in? Do you have Mr. Connors for physics, or –." Ned suddenly gasped, his eyes going wide. "Or are you a – a rival? Are you from Forest Hill? Because if you're here to spy on us, I swear – I am not giving up anything! My lips are completely sealed! You can lock me in a room and torture me if you want, but I'm not telling you when our practices on Saturday afternoon are, or if we're planning on trying for the cup this year, or if that's just what we're saying as a decoy and what we're actually to do is just focus on rebuilding, and –."
Peter grimaced slightly, and Ned immediately stopped.
"Oh man, sorry – was I rambling? I think I'm rambling. I tend to ramble sometimes when I get talking. I just keep going and going and it's sometimes difficult to know when to stop, and –."
"No, don't worry about it," Peter said quickly.
Ned stared for a moment, then cocked his head to the side curiously. "So you don't go to this school?" he asked.
Peter stared at Ned for a moment, then swallowed. "Uh, no," he said quietly. "I don't… I don't go to this school… anymore." The last word was a slip of the tongue - an absent thought, the vestiges of the desire to lay some claim to this school that had once been his, to remind himself that he had once belonged to this school and it to him. Except he should never have said that out loud.
Ned's eyes went wide. "Woah, so you did go to this school? When were you here? I thought we might be the same age, but you must be way older! How old are you? Did you graduate? I'm graduating this year, and –."
"No," Peter interrupted, internally kicking himself. He was such an idiot. "I – I didn't graduate. I went here a long… a long time ago."
Ned blinked. "Oh. Did you move? Are you just coming back to visit? Did you have lots of friends here? Would they be anyone that I know?"
Peter blinked, trying to keep up with Ned's endless stream of words. How had he been able to do this so easily before? "Um, y-yeah," he stuttered. "Yeah, I… I ended up… moving. I was in the area, so I thought… I thought I'd come by and visit."
"Oh," Ned said cheerily. "Well that's cool! Hey, I'd stay and talk, but I have to get to class – I swear, Owens will kill me if I'm late again. But hey! We should hang out sometime! You seem pretty cool! Are you coming by again tomorrow? I'll be out of class by three, so maybe we could get together and play some Star Wars games, or –." A beeping sounded from Ned's watch, and his eyes went wide. "Oh shit! Oh shit, I have to get going." He turned around and started to run, but quickly turned his head back with a wave. "I'll see you later!"
Ned had made it to the gates when he suddenly stopped. "Wait," he said, turning back around. "What's your name?"
But Peter was already gone.
Ned blinked, staring at the vacant spot for a moment before looking round. Where the heck had that guy gone? Wasn't he just….
Confused and a little weirded out, Ned stayed staring at the empty sidewalk a few moments longer, before finally turning back and heading into the school.
He shouldn't have done that. That had been a bad decision. Why was he making so many bad decisions lately? First May, now Ned. He should have just stayed away, should have never allowed himself to wander so far away from downtown. He should have never allowed himself to go back to the school. He had done so well, he'd gotten so far to the point where thinking about Ned and school and the life he'd left behind only hurt like a dull ache in your chest; not like a painful, stinging wound that had just re-opened.
Peter abruptly turned into an alleyway, his arms wrapped tightly around his middle as he tried to disappear and get away from this stupid, stupid world and everything and everyone in it.
Raindrops splashed against his head and a clap of thunder rumbled across the sky. Peter looked up, staring down the road that would lead him back home. There was a nudge, however, an inkling, a tug in the pit of his stomach that wouldn't leave him be. It urged him to continue down the alley, towards who knew where. His senses whispered that he was needed, the back of his neck tingling that someone was in trouble, that someone needed help.
Except he didn't listen to those urges, not anymore. Those urges and inklings and whispers in the back of his mind only ever got him into trouble. They would only ever make his life worse than what it already was.
Though, really, he did well enough doing that on his own.
He stared down the alley in silence for a long, long moment. Finally, he turned round and headed back onto the street.
Rain fell steadily to the ground, splashing onto Peter's feet and against his legs.
He sat huddled underneath the alcove of an old storm drainage pipe, which thankfully had been long blocked up. He hadn't made it back in time to the attic before the rain really started to pour, so it was either walk in the rain for another hour, or find some sort of shelter and wait it out.
He had no where to be, so he'd decided to wait.
Well, Peter thought to himself, it's been nearly two years now, and everything is still the same. Nothing's changed. So… what now? I can't get a real job, not until I turn eighteen. I can't go to the cops and ask for help, they'd just stick me in foster care and call it a day. I really have no choice but to wait until my birthday, I guess. But that's another four months away….
The reason he couldn't go to the authorities or find a real job was because he'd already tried that. He'd gone to the cops two weeks after It happened, thinking they'd help him somehow – wasn't that their job? He didn't know exactly what they would do, but seventeen years of being told they were meant to help you tended to make you think they actually would.
Peter had thought that when Seftis had erased everyone's memories, he had essentially erased his entire existence. He may has well have, for all it was worth. But when he'd walked into that police station and talked to one of the deputies and gave his name, the deputy had, unknown to him, ran a check. And to Peter's surprise, he had actual records.
It had been a great shock, at first, a pounding of the heart as he realised that he hadn't been entirely forgotten, that there was still some trace of him left in the world.
"Peter Parker, you said?" The deputy had asked.
Peter nodded.
The cop – Brian, his tag said – looked back at his computer, a suddenly unreadable expression on his face.
"You wouldn't happen to have any identification on you, would you?"
No, he'd left his student ID and learner's license back in the pile of clothes and backpack that he had left shoved behind a dumpster, before he'd gone to fight Seftis. All he had was an old over-sized t-shirt and pair of pants that he'd taken from a homeless shelter, and the underwear he'd been wearing after he'd woken up alone in the alleyway.
"No," he replied. "I don't… I don't have anything like that. Is that… is that like, super important?"
The deputy gave him a look that clearly said, 'no duh', and Peter shirked back. Maybe he shouldn't have come here after all.
"Having personal identification is important," Brian said, "but it's not unusual for people to lose it. Especially if they've been robbed, or… something like that."
The deputy was giving him a hard stare, which was slowly raising the hairs on the back of Peter's neck, his senses whispering that he was missing something. But what was there to miss?
There was silence for a moment, before Brian continued with a sigh: "So you still say you're Peter Parker?"
Peter frowned, staring at the man in confusion. "Yes," he said slowly. "That's who I am. Peter. I'm Peter Parker. That… that's me." It felt important to say that, for some reason. As though saying it out loud confirmed he was still here, confirmed that he was still around. That he still existed.
The man let our a put-upon sigh and turned back to his computer, giving Peter one last glance. "Take a seat."
So Peter sat.
Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty. The man eventually called over another cop and the two looked at the screen, their whispers easily picked up by Peter's ears:
"Do you think it's really him?"
"Sure looks like it."
"But that's impossible. How many of them come back after that long?"
"Not a lot."
Both men looked up at Peter, and Peter shrunk in his seat. What were they talking about?
The one man slapped a hand on Brian's back and Brian stood up, the two men disappearing into the hallway and into a room, closing the door behind them. Peter stared at the door, his ears twitching as he listened in on every word.
"It's the strangest thing, Jeff! Kid just walks in off the street, obviously homeless, and says he's this Peter Parker guy. He has no ID, no nothing. I go to look him up for the heck of it, and sure enough – there's actual records of him! Database says he was born exactly when and where he said he was, and that he went to school in Queens. Last known records say he was attending Midtown High until the age of fourteen."
"And? Where did he go after that?"
"Well that's just it – the records stop after that. There's nothing else on him. It's like he just disappeared. He literally doesn't show up anywhere in the system after that."
"Did someone file a missing persons report? Is this a missing kid we've just found?"
"No, there's nothing. I searched in databases all across the country. Heck, even Canada. There's nothing. There's no one looking for him."
There was silence for a few moments, before the other cop said, "So this kid just fell off the face of the earth, and now he's back again? That's more than a little strange, Brian. Where are his parents? Who's his guardian?"
"Computer says his parents died ten years ago; his current guardian is a May Parker, says it's his aunt."
"Do you have her number? We'll have to call her, confirm this is her nephew and that he's indeed been missing for the past three years. We'll have to go talk to her, ask her where he's been."
Peter jerked, clenching his teeth.
No, no. There was no way that he was going to do that. He could remember Seftis' voice clear as day, telling him to not try and get involved with anyone he once knew. If he got involved with them, if he got too close, then all of this would have been for nothing. And showing up on Aunt May's doorstep with the cops telling her he's her nephew, would be the exact opposite of that goal.
"And what if she's the one that got rid of him, huh? What if the reason there are no missing persons reports is because she wanted him gone? Wouldn't be the first time, Brian. If that's the case, we'll have to find temporary custody of him until we can get him into the foster system. He'll have no choice, not until he turns eighteen."
And that was definitely a no. Absolutely not. He was not getting May in trouble with the police, he was not getting her interrogated over someone she had no clue even existed, much less who claimed to be her nephew. And he didn't know tons about foster care, but he knew enough to know there was no way in hell he'd want to go anywhere near it. He'd rather take his chances on the street.
Peter could hear the men continue to talk, but he knew they'd eventually come back. It was time to leave. So Peter stood up, went to the door, and left.
"He'll have no choice, not until he turns eighteen."
Those words had gone over and over through Peter's mind for the last twenty months, both a whip on his back and a carrot on a stick. He knew now that if he ever did try to get back into the government's system, whether through a job or trying to start a new life in any way that involved the legal system, they'd refuse to let him move. And, very likely, they'd try and force him under a guardianship he didn't want.
So until he turned eighteen, he was stuck. He was stuck living in an attic and hiding out under drainage pipes, stuck scrounging for food and begging from strangers. He was stuck here, with no way to build a new life, no way to move forward.
But once he turned eighteen… then he'd be free. He could go anywhere he wanted, do anything he wanted, be anything he wanted – and no one could stop him. He had been thinking about it for a while, and he figured that the day his birthday hit, he'd scrounge up all the money he'd managed to find and save, and he'd buy a one-way ticket to somewhere far away. He thought maybe Wisconsin or Washington State, or somewhere in the midwest. Just so long as it was far away from New York; just as long as it was far away from here.
The hours passed and the rain continued to pour. Curling to the side and pressing his head against the grate, Peter closed his eyes and fell asleep.