Chapter 1: Everybody Loves Peter
Greetings! I'm taking a short break from my other longer story to have a bit of fun exploring a more magic AU. Here are a few things to note:
- Everything in Homecoming and the previous Avengers movies happened.
- But the Avengers have already begun setting aside their differences in Civil War. They aren't at full team friendship again yet, but they're working on it.
- Peter is more spidery here than in the MCU.
- Dr. Strange and Kraven make an appearance, but not in the way you expect. You'll see at the end of this chapter.
- The magic/mythology stuff involved will be partially based on canon events as well as headcanon. Depends on what's more logical/interesting. But I will be incorporating certain MCU events into it.
MJ watched Peter and Ned from her spot in the back of the cafeteria. She had chosen to sit far enough away that she wouldn't be able to hear their conversation. She wasn't a stalker, after all. Plus she wanted to work on her body language and lip reading skills.
So far, her efforts at lip reading were either very bad, or Peter and Ned just talked way too fast about things that were way too obscure, because Ned was either saying 'woo wee' or 'Wookie'. MJ was able to make some obvious deductions, but it was frustrating that she couldn't tell by sight alone.
As for body language reading, that was going much better. She was naturally gifted at it, always homing in on the slightest movements. Her favorite part was faces. People tried so hard to control their faces most of the time, but no one was actually skilled enough to achieve that (except Black Widow and a few notable others). Small twitches in the lips or eyes were fast but so informative. Faces were like a visual code of a person's emotions.
And Peter's face was practically an open book with the cipher left as a bookmark.
Most days, his face showed worry, stress, nervousness, regret, and guilt. MJ didn't like seeing those emotions so often, but that was his usual for the past several months. She was pretty sure she knew why this was the case, though that didn't make her feel any better about it.
Today, however, was the three-month anniversary of a major shift in emotion. The tension in his jaw and the crease in his brow were still present, but all the others markers of fear and stress were becoming rarer and rarer. In their place, full smiles could be seen. This wasn't to say that Peter hadn't been smiling before. MJ had seen him smile plenty of times, but she could see what he was really feeling underneath the purposeful curvature of his lips. These smiles were real though. They lasted longer and reached his eyes, rekindling their mischievous gleam.
MJ decided she liked Peter's real smiles. She sketched another one as Peter and Ned laughed about some joke.
Someone threw down their backpack too roughly, clanging some metal keychain thing against the leg of a table. The sound echoed around the cafeteria, causing some students nearby to flinch. Peter, all the way at the other end of the room, also flinched, head whipping around to locate the source of the noise. Ned was either saying 'arugula' or 'are you okay?'. Peter nodded, so MJ figured it was the latter.
MJ flipped through her sketchbook to the section labelled with a question mark and sketched what just happened as a short sort of comic strip. This section was quickly filling up with other mysterious Peter moments. There were images of Peter reacting to sounds and statements that should have been too far away for him to hear, and pictures of him moving in unusual ways, and also a few doodles of things inexplicably stuck to his hands.
At this point, with all those sketches taking up nearly half of her book, MJ was pretty sure she knew what was going on with Peter. Yet every day she continued to watch him from afar, never approaching him about it.
Maybe one day she would. Her curiosity was burning within her. She needed to know if she was right.
But not today, not when Peter looked so happy.
She flipped back through her book until she reached the pages full of his newfound smiles.
May looked up from her cooking when she heard the door open. "Hey, Peter, guess who got out early today!"
Peter peeked his head into the kitchen, smiling surprisedly. "No way, they never let you out early on Fridays!"
"It's all thanks to Gladys. She and her friends are saving up for their next expensive vacation and have stolen all the overtime for the next month."
That made Peter frown a little. He knew all about the Glorified Gladys Gang and their constant cycles of hogging all the overtime followed by weeks' long vacations that forced May and the rest to cover their shifts. "Well, at least you'll have some more time to yourself for a while. And you know, Mr. Stark is paying me for my internship now—"
"And all that is going straight into your college fund and emergency savings."
"But Mr. Stark is like ninety nine percent sure that MIT will give me a full scholarship if I put his internship on my resume."
"There's still plenty of time before college applications are due. Anything can happen in that time, so it's best to be prepared." May knew that from experience.
"I guess . . . but if you ever need anything . . ."
May smiled. She knew Peter would do anything for her, but it was her job to do everything she could for him. "We'll cross that bridge if it comes. Now, I'm making that dish from last week, the one that was actually edible. We can have a homemade dinner tonight so long as I don't burn it."
Peter rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, but I sort of had plans to have dinner at Ned's. I just finished the new suit and he needs to connect his computer to it. But maybe I can go to his place later . . ."
"Oh, that's fine. I'll save some leftovers for you. Goodness knows you need the calories."
"But—"
"I'll be here tomorrow night too, sweetie. We can have our dinner then. And congratulations on finishing the suit!" That suit had taken many nights and weekends away from Peter. May was grateful Stark was now actively contributing to Peter's safety and education, but it was still strange for him to be away for so long at the internship.
"Okay," Peter said. "I'm sorry about tonight. It smells delicious. But maybe it's slightly burning? Try setting the temperature twenty degrees lower."
May looked at the pot of sauce that probably was boiling a bit too fast. "Good catch."
Peter nodded, slowly backing out of the doorway. "No problem. Um, I guess I'll see you later. Or tomorrow if you want to get some extra sleep tonight."
She gasped in mock offense. "I'm not so old that I need to turn in early! I'll wait up for you. Then you can show me the fruits of your labor?" She may not understand all the jargon that went into those suits, but she did want to hear the safety features. And she wanted to make sure Stark had removed the 'instant kill mode' as promised.
"Of course! See ya!" Peter left, heading to his room to grab that new suit.
May leaned against the counter. Dealing with Peter's superhero activities was, quite frankly, stressful. She knew she couldn't outright ban him from helping others. He had already done so much behind her back and Stark's; he was an unstoppable force to be reckoned with. And she was proud of that. That was the confident side of her nephew she always knew existed, even if he acted shy most of the time. Being Spider-Man helped his self-esteem, and it allowed him to work with one of his personal heroes. May couldn't be upset about all these new good things in his life.
But she could be worried. Worried for his health and safety. Worried for how fast he was growing up.
Peter popped back into the kitchen with a small grin. "Um, if you pull the pot off the heat now, you can maybe avoid the sauce tasting burnt."
May's eyes widened as she remembered. She grabbed the pot handle, forgetting the potholder and nearly burning herself. She held back a curse as she went to run her hand under some cool water.
"Are you okay?" Peter was by her side in an instant. "Do you need burn cream?"
She chuckled. "I'm fine, Pete. I didn't hold it long enough to burn the skin. It just hurt a little."
Peter stared at her hand, probably deciding for himself if she needed full medical care. "Are you sure?"
"Yes I'm sure. Go on, get to Ned's. I'm sure he's excited to see your work."
"Well . . ." He stared at her hand a moment longer, still looking a little worried. "Okay." He gave her a peck on the cheek. "See you later."
May watched him leave, wondering how she had managed to raise such a wonderful kid.
Ned squealed as he held the latest version of the Spider Suit. It was one that Stark had made with Peter's direct help. As in, Peter and Stark had met almost daily over the past month, and this beautiful piece of technology was the result! And Ned had sort of been a consultant with the coding!
And now Ned got to hold the physical result as it synced up with his computer. Because Ned was officially Spider-Man's Guy in the Chair now. He had full permission to access the suit's cameras and features remotely without resorting to hacking it! Because Stark wanted Peter to have backup without being overbearing, and he trusted Ned to be that backup!
There was an option now, a new one set in the middle of Ned's desktop, that required a password and multiple biometrics, that could immediately call an Iron Man suit on auto pilot to come to Peter's aid.
And Tony Stark trusted Ned with this power!
Needless to say, Ned stared at the option every single morning as a sort of confidence boosting meditation.
"Do you think it looks okay?" Peter asked, breaking Ned out of his awed daze.
"Are you seriously asking me if your totally awesome suit codesigned by Tony Stark himself looks okay?" Ned replied rhetorically.
"Well, yeah, you're my best friend and superhero expert. I want to know your opinion."
"Dude, it's literally perfect."
Peter fidgeted. "Thanks, but it's totally okay if you have any criticisms at all. Because Mr. Stark let me use his special armor creator and it was my first time and—
"You got to use his special armor printer?!"
"Yes."
Ned finally put down the suit and twirled his chair around so he could look up at where Peter was crouched on the ceiling. "Dude . . . dude . . . There are no words for how awesome your life is right now."
Peter huffed but smiled as he replaced another small web. "I guess you're right."
Peter had confided to Ned shortly after the whole Vulture fiasco that putting up webs in his safe places made Peter feel extra safe. Ned had been so honored that he gave full permission to let his entire room become Web City. Alas, Ned's grandmother was very adamant that her house be clean at all times, so Peter could only put up small webs up high where brooms couldn't reach well. He even replaced them every week so they wouldn't collect much dust.
This was the third time he replaced them this week.
"Pete, you know I'm right. What's eating you? You've been way happier since Stark started trusting you more and you told May the truth. But lately you're looking nervous at night. What's up?"
"Oh, um . . ." Peter added the last few lines of silk and dropped down to sit on Ned's bed. "I don't know, maybe I'm just worried about some other things that happened. It's been three months since I ruined Liz's life. You already know I've been scared that her dad will tell people my identity."
Ned knew that was a terrifying possibility. The trouble was, Peter knew that too and had started using it as a scapegoat whenever he didn't want to admit to smaller fears and worries. "I get that, dude, I really do. But it has been three months. If Toomes was going to do anything with that information, I think he would have done it by now."
"I guess you're right . . ."
"Is anything else bothering you?" Ned asked gently.
"It's kind of silly."
"And our friendship was built on silliness. You can tell me."
Peter bit lip. "You know the one-year anniversary of me having these powers is coming up, right?"
"Yeah, of course. I've got a surprise for you and everything!"
"Well, I know we're both used to my powers by now, so they seem normal, but sometimes I wonder if there's more that I don't know about. More than just being strong and making webs."
Ned leaned forward. "Things like what? Have you noticed anything new?"
"Sort of . . ." Peter rubbed his shoulder. "I wanted to give Aunt May a small silk bandage today when she got a minor burn. I know a bandage wasn't necessary, but it just seemed like the nice thing to do, you know? And although I've given people silk bandages before, this felt different. Like, it wasn't me trying to find a good substitute in an emergency. It was me immediately wanting to help her, but specifically with my silk."
"Hm . . ." Ned wasn't sure what to make of that honestly. Given how much time Peter spent as Spider-Man, it made sense that a silk bandage would be his first instinct. But what if he was right that it was a different kind of instinct? "Did you give her the bandage?"
"No, it was really minor, she didn't want any help."
"Then how do you feel about not giving it to her?"
Peter looked away. "I kind of feel like I should have. But maybe that's just because I care about her?"
That was true. Peter and his aunt were tight. "Has there been anything else you've noticed?"
Peter shrugged. "Sometimes I feel like I should be doing . . . something. I don't know what. It's not hunger or web-making or my spider sense. I literally have no idea."
"Well that's a pain." Ned thought about it for a moment. "Maybe we could look up what spiders do and give those things a shot."
"But which spiders? They're all so different. And I've tried looking up the one that bit me, but I can't identify it for the life of me."
"Maybe Stark can run a DNA test?"
"That'll take up a lot of computing power to sequence my whole genome."
"Friday is literally an AI. I'm sure she can handle it."
"But it's diagnostics time for her. Mr. Stark needs her to run security protocols so they don't get hacked."
"She's still the best AI."
Peter bit his lip. "Maybe I could just ask . . ."
Ned nodded. "Knowing will help you feel better. You already have webs up in all your safe spaces and sit on the ceiling most of the time when you can. If there's anything else you can do to ease your anxiety, we should figure it out."
Finally, Peter smiled. "Okay, thanks, Ned. I'll ask Mr. Stark when I go to the Compound this weekend."
Now Ned had to try really hard not to grin too wide, because little did Peter know that Ned had arranged for a small 'it's been one year since a random spider bit you and gave you powers' party. It was a secret partially because Peter's face would be priceless when he realized Tony Stark had agreed to hang out at the Parker household for the evening, and also because there was no denying that Spider-Man deserved a celebration.
The Amulet of M'cu was cold against his chest. It was always cold despite him never taking it off. It had something to do with both magic and physics, some inherent inability to absorb energy from the different universes as it truly existed outside of them, but that was unimportant, so he didn't dwell on it.
What was important was that this universe's Spider was young and not yet at his full potential. And, since footage showed him making many references to Queens and Star Wars, he was probably a Peter Parker. A mere fifteen-year-old boy here.
Finally, an easy universe close enough to the Center to perform the summoning.
He pulled open his satchel, searching for the vials. The blood of the many Spiders he had faced. He would need plenty if he was to perform a serious summoning ritual this time. Yes, the vials were all full. Excellent.
But he still needed the blood of this universe's Spider. That was the only way to summon the Weaver here and not just to any mortal plane in the multiverse.
Well, if this Spider really was another Peter Parker, then he knew exactly where to begin his hunt.
Holding his arms out, he rotated one around the other, channeling energy from the Sling Ring. And then Dr. Stephen Kravinoff floated through the portal into Queens.