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In an instant, Peter Parker’s world gets turned upside down - because, of course it does.
Parker Luck, he likes to call it, never fails to strike him when he’s down. Or maybe it strikes him when he’s up - he thinks that’s the right way to describe it. Just when things are finally looking good, just a little good in his constant stream of bad bad bad, Parker Luck has it’s way of getting in the way, slicing it’s large metallic wings through the pillars that are steadily holding up Peter’s happiness, and watching it crumble down on top of him, pinning him down underneath concrete wreckage of bad, awful, agonizing, painful-
Ha. Trauma.
It starts with his parents. He loves his parents, and they love him. They begin to raise him into the respectful, kind, smart young man they know he will be. Good. Then, he loses them young, without truly understanding the weight of it all. Bad.
Aunt May and Uncle Ben take him in, and continue the process. He grows with them, laughs with them, and feels the unconditional love from them that he knows, somewhere out there, his late parents are showering down on him through his new found family. Good. Then, Uncle Ben gets killed, and he can’t stop it. Bad.
In a strange twist of fate and a run-in with a peculiar little eight-legged bug, Peter wakes up with both a new set of DNA and a new responsibility. Tony Stark takes him under his wing. He gets a new suit, he kicks some Avenger ass, and proves himself worthy of being a web-slinging superhero. Good. Then, Tony Stark takes it all away from him for trying his fucking best, trying to communicate with the most qualified superhero on the planet to handle something like this that something very awful is happening, only to be left to fend for himself in a sweater and an old pair of goggles. Bad.
He gets a Homecoming date with a girl. Good. The girl’s father tries to crush his fifteen-year-old body (FIFTEEN! YEARS! OLD!) under an entire fucking building - which he hasn’t forgot about, by the way, hence the graphic Parker Luck metaphor - bad. He ends up saving the day. Good. He loses the girl. Bad.
He goes to space to help Stark save some wizard, and gets to try and save the world alongside the Avengers in the process. Good. Then, he dies. He dies and he doesn’t know he’s dying, his hands beginning to flake away from him, his spider-senses agonizingly loud as his healing factor tries so desperately to hold every one of his cells together as it is turning to dust and floating away from him, and he falls right into Tony Stark’s arms and cries in both fear and crippling pain as his body disintegrates and fades away into nothing.
Bad.
Miraculously, he lives, good, and Tony Stark dies to save the universe, to save him. Tony Stark dies to make sure no one else turns back into that same ash that Peter slowly, distressingly crumbled into. Bad.
Tony leaves him these super cool, important glasses. He gives them to Quentin Beck, Mysterio, the unexpected hero who Peter comes to trust in his time of need, when all of his other father figures have left him behind (no fault of their own, of course), and the pressure of being ‘the next Iron Man’ has become too much for him to handle alone. Good. Mysterio turns out to be a villain - of course he fucking does - and tries to destroy countless cities for his own, distorted version of ‘saving the world’, ruining Peter and his grasp on reality, and trying to kill him and his loved ones in the process. He dies at the hands of his own machines, right in front of Peter, as Peter grips tightly onto Mysterio’s wrist, gun that was previously aimed directly at Peter’s brain now held just out of range of his curls. Bad.
Bad, bad, bad.
Finally, Peter thinks that Parker Luck has taken a step back, and given him some time to breathe. Surely, it has come to realize that he’s been through so much, and he’s a teenager, a teenage boy, who just needs a bit of a break.
His friends are safe, his family is safe. He gets the girl. May is happy, funnily enough, with Happy, who Peter trusts. They’re good for each other. He gets to go home, he gets to have a somewhat normal life with two parental influences in his life, a girlfriend who he really likes, his best friend by his side, and his senior year starting up in a few weeks. Finally, Peter can rest; take some time to really process everything in his life that he had to set aside to, humbly, save the fucking world a few times, and get the proper sleep he’s been missing out on.
Good. It’s all so good.
Parker Luck strikes at the best of times, doesn’t it?
Just then, when Peter has finally caught a break, Quentin Beck ruins his life all over again. He strikes one final blow, and exposes to the world that Peter is Spider-Man, and frames him for his murder, right before burying himself into his own fucking grave.
Of course, the world believes Mysterio. If Peter didn’t know any better, he’d believe Beck too. After all, the drones that killed him belonged to Stark Industries; who was at the scene of the crime, who stayed by Tony Stark’s side to help him protect the world time and time again, even when he shouldn’t have? Who was covered head-to-toe in Stark technology as he swung alongside Stark and the rest of the Avengers in the brutal fight to save the universe? Who else could have possibly had access to this kind of machinery, if it wasn’t Mysterio himself?
Spider-Man, who just so happens to be a seventeen-year-old high school student from Queens named Peter Parker.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
It all goes downhill from there.
Peter loses every last drop of privacy he has left to his name. News helicopters, police, and angry New Yorkers surround his and May’s apartment like a swarm of wasps. Him and his loved ones are taken into custody for a crime he didn’t even commit, let alone his family and friends. They shouldn’t be a part of this. This was Spider-Man’s problem, not Peter’s problem (and people wonder why he kept himself hidden for so long), and even then, this should not be Spider-Man’s problem in the first place.
Thankfully, the charges are dropped, but that doesn’t stop New York - and the rest of the world - from hating who was once known as the Friendly, Neighbourhood Spider-Man. A brick is thrown through their apartment window (which his lawyer, Mr. Murdock, catches blindly - literally - how the fuck did he do that?), the Daily Bugle is ripping him to shreds on live television, there are posters around the city protesting against Peter’s right to walk free, he’s called a murderer on his own high school grounds, and most importantly, his family is no longer safe, and it’s all Quentin Beck’s fault.
Peter, Ned and MJ are rejected from MIT due to ‘recent controversy,’ and that’s Peter’s final straw. He understands his rejection, although it’s quite unfair, but his friends have nothing to do with this entire situation. Just by knowing him, their futures are ruined. He has to fix this, not for himself, but for his friends. His family.
—
Now, Peter stands in a dark, stone room in the basement of a mansion, across from Stephen Strange; the man he saved from a donut-shaped ship, and the man who saved him from the fiery red-orange skies of Titan (kind of - not without help from Mr. Stark and the other Avengers, of course).
He explains the situation to Dr. Strange, and asks him if there’s any way to make everyone forget that he is Spider-Man. He agrees - not without discouragement from Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme - deciding that Peter has gone through enough. Peter briefly wonders if Strange knows more about Peter than just his time in the battle against Thanos, about his time before the Snap.
Peter is growing impatient, when Stephen doesn’t start the spell right away.
“Before we begin,” Stephen starts. “I want to be clear with you about the spell’s terms.”
Peter furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “Terms? How is there - everyone forgets that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Is it not that simple?”
Stephen lets out a breath of annoyance, like Peter is missing something. “Exactly. That means everyone. Every single person on earth, and beyond,” he explains. Peter is still staring at him expectantly with a small nod, and Strange pinches his nose. “I can’t believe I have to spell this out for you - is there anyone in your life that you want to still know that you’re Spider-Man?”
Oh. Peter feels pretty dumb.
“I didn’t even-“
“Think about that, I know.” Strange grumbles.
“Okay, well - how many people..?” Peter trails off.
“Just- don’t make it too many. It’ll complicate things.” Strange states firmly.
Peter takes a second to think. Of course, he’d want MJ to know. He doesn’t want to have to keep his second life from her again, especially since the timing of him admitting it to her caused her to be in total danger. Ned also has to know. He’s Peter’s ‘guy in the chair,’ he can’t lose that. Plus, it would complicate things if MJ knew and Ned didn’t. Then, of course, is Aunt May. He cannot go through her finding out again. He doesn’t want to scare the shit out of her like that twice. Happy. Happy needs to know. Happy’s sort of the lead of Spider-Man operations, and he’s in love with his Aunt; he’s an important part of both of Peter’s lives.
His list continues, but he tries to narrow it down. Strange looks like he’s about to call the spell off if Peter continues brainstorming for another 30 seconds.
“Okay, okay. Let me know when to stop, or…” Peter trails off, looking up at Stephen. Stephen nods at him to continue. “My girlfriend, MJ, my best friend, Ned, Aunt May, Happy…”
Stephen raises his eyebrows, noticing Peter hesitating. He sighs. “How many more?”
“And… you. If you.. you know. Want to include yourself.” Peter finishes, swallowing roughly and avoiding eye contact. The stone walls of the Undercroft are suddenly much more interesting than anything else going on.
It’s silent for a moment, and Peter’s heart races. Strange is about to call the whole thing off. He’s listed too many people, he’s been too greedy and Stephen has decided he really doesn’t need to be wasting all this energy on someone who’s trying to make, like, half the world forget while the other half remembers-
“Okay,” Strange says.
“Okay?” Peter whips his head towards the sorcerer, and Stephen gives him a small nod with a sympathetic smile to match.
“I’m trying to help you, Peter, not ruin your life more,” Stephen states, and Peter feels a sense of relief wash over him as Stephen begins the spell, orange relics and lights fading into existence around the two of them.
Peter watches in amazement as the magic begins to twirl and spark around him. Anxiety rises in his gut, however - what if this doesn’t work? What if Strange messes up the spell, and causes something catastrophic? Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he imagines the spell going awry, ripping apart the cave-like basement of the Sanctum Sanctorum and making Peter the centre of something he cannot fix.
Parker Luck is going to get him again, and he knows it. It’s waiting for the right moment to attack, because things have been so bad, and this seems so good. Too good. Any moment, now, and the weight of the world is going to fall on Peter’s shoulders once again, like concrete of an old, abandoned warehouse, and this time he won’t be able to Spider-Man himself out of it.
Then, Strange raises his hands upwards, and the relics expand, disappearing into the walls of the Undercroft.
“It’s done,” Strange says simply, and Peter can’t wrap his mind around it. He stands in silence, for a moment, wondering when the building is going to collapse.
“That’s it?” Peter asks, baffled. “It’s-it’s done? Just like that?”
Stephen scoffs. “Yeah, ‘just like that,’ not like I just altered the universe beyond human comprehension for a fifteen-year-old.”
Peter doesn’t know what to say. He wants to thank Dr. Strange, but he’s still so in denial that the problem has been fixed so easily. Instead, before he could stop himself, he blurts out, “I-I’m seventeen, sir.”
Strange’s face hardens, glares over peter for a moment, then softens with an exasperated laugh. “Of course you are, Parker.” He shakes his head. “A seventeen-year-old who doesn’t know how to say thank you. Weren’t you raised to show your elders a little respect?” He’s joking, Peter knows he is.
Peter hesitates as Stephen begins to lead him back upstairs. “You…” his breath catches in his throat, worried that Parker Luck has taken over because this is too good to be true. “You’re sure it worked?”
“What, you don’t think I’m capable enough for my own job?” Strange throws back. A small smirk on his lips flashes for a moment before his face hardens once more. “Go home to your family, Peter.”
Peter lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a bright smile breaking out onto his face. “Thank you, sir. Really.”
“I told you, call me Stephen.”
Peter hugs the man before he could stop himself. Strange stands still, frozen in place, before awkwardly patting the teenager on the back.
“Thank you, Stephen, really. I owe you one.”
“Please - again, we saved half the world together, didn’t we? And you’re just a kid. You needed this more than I did.”
Peter laughs at that, and after another grateful string of ‘thank you, so much, I owe you my life,’ (“Seriously kid, cut back on the drama before I regret my decision.”) he is on his way.
He’s cautious, at first. He steps out onto the streets and slowly begins his descent into the world, a new world where no one knows he’s Spider-Man. At least, that’s what Dr. Strange has told him. Parker Luck, however, may not be on his side. He keeps his guard up as he walks through the city, in fear that someone will threaten him, scream at him, push him, anything.
Nothing comes.
Parker Luck has missed the pillars today, and Peter’s sanity stays perfectly intact above him.
To celebrate, Peter grabs three sandwiches from Sub Haven; one for Ned, one for MJ, and one for himself. While he’s waiting for the sandwiches, he tunes in to the television playing over the counter.
Of course, it’s the Daily Bugle.
Peter pales, waits to be named on live television, waits for the man behind the counter to throw half-made sandwiches at him and call him a murderer.
J. Jonah Jameson rambles on about how Spider-Man killed one of earth’s mightiest heroes, and calls him a coward for not revealing his true identity.
Peter almost screams in pure relief.
“Twenty dollars for those, sir,” a voice breaks him from his silent celebration, and Peter flinches and looks up at the man behind the counter. Peter must have looked like a kicked puppy from the look he received back. “Look, kid, if you don’t have the cash, you’re not gettin’ these sandwi-“
“No, no, I got it. Sorry.” Peter lets out a breathy chuckle, digging into his wallet for a twenty dollar bill. He hands it over to the man and quickly gathers his food, rushing out with a small ‘thank you.’
Peter would swing across buildings in delight, if he had his web-shooters on him. He also wasn’t going to ruin his second chance.
His excitement comes to a halt as he stands in front of Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, the familiar anxiety creeping into his stomach. This is where Parker Luck is going to get him. He’s been too oblivious to it all - everyone has forgotten, including Ned and MJ. He’s gonna walk in, twenty dollar sandwiches in hand (which is a total rip off, by the way - Delmar’s was five dollars a sandwich!) and his best friend and girlfriend won’t even look in his direction. He could imagine it - MJ putting on her customer service voice, asking for a name for his order, while Ned sits at a table, face buried in his laptop.
This has to be it, because this was too close to being good, and Peter knows it’s going to be bad.
He takes in a shaky breath, and pushes the door open.
“Hey, loser,” MJ calls, when she looks up and sees her boyfriend enter. Her curls are pulled into a ponytail, and she has that half-smile on her face that Peter just can’t get out of his head. That smile drops quickly, however, and Peter thinks it’s over.
“Peter, are you good?” Ned asks, looking up in concern.
It worked. The spell worked, and Peter could kiss Dr. Strange on the cheek right now.
“Yeah,” Peter breathes out, rushing towards his two friends and hugging them tighter than humanly possible, until MJ complains that she’s going to lose a lung.
“What, did you think we forgot you existed? You’ve been gone for like, three hours.” MJ snorts. Peter just smiles.
“Yeah, something like that,” he shakes his head, holding up the small paper bag in his hands. “sandwich?”
—
After a few strongly-worded emails between Happy and the MIT Admissions Officer, along the lines of ‘you’ve got the wrong kid’ and ‘Peter and his friends have no connection to Spider-Man’ and ‘have we mentioned Peter’s super-smart-high-tech-internship with Stark Industries?’ Peter, Ned and MJ get into MIT.
They open their letters in the safety of Peter and May’s apartment after settling back in from their temporary stay at Happy’s, and Peter cries in pure relief. Everyone in the room cries, actually - even Happy, who denies his glassy eyes and smile full of pride.
Once the Daily Bugle moves on from the Mysterio case and Jameson is back on to rambling about Spider-Man being a normal, friendly neighbourhood menace, the city opens back up to Spider-Man and allows him to continue watching over the city. Every once in a while, he gets assistance with some crime-stopping in Hell’s Kitchen from another man in a red suit, who always seems to know when Peter’s in for some trouble.
Flash goes back to picking on Peter, despite pretending for the press that they were best friends only a few months ago. Standing in front of his locker, he’ll receive a smack to the head, along with a nickname like Penis Parker, and Peter can’t help but smile until his cheeks hurt.
Over the coming months, Peter’s anxieties get the best of him sometimes, and he wonders if Parker Luck is lurking in the shadows, waiting to cut through the pillars and drop Peter’s life directly on top of him. Everything had been so good, and he was waiting, almost desperately, for something to go wrong, for things to turn out so inevitably bad.
Sure, there are ups and downs; Peter will get a few bruised ribs out on patrol. He’ll take a few hits, he’ll miss a few deadlines, and he’ll lose a few hours of sleep. But his family is there to pick him up and help him back to his feet, to hold on to those pillars and make sure his life stays fully above him, not crushing his lungs under its’ weight.
Parker Luck powers down, stays to the side, and allows Peter to smile, really smile, for the first time in what feels like years.
—
MJ stirs awake in the middle of the night, as the credits begin to roll at the end of a movie. The first thing she feels is a hand against her back, limp, but protective in its’ nature. Then, she feels the gentle, even rising and falling of Peter’s chest under her cheek. When she opens her eyes to the dark living room, she realizes that her and Peter must have dozed off in the middle of watching a movie. She was tired of Christmas movies, anyway - how had Peter convinced her to watch so many? She’s sure they’ve watched every Christmas movie ever made in the span of the last 25 days.
She moves, carefully, to look down at her boyfriend, sleeping peacefully underneath her. Peter is laid out on his back, wearing his ‘I survived my trip to NYC’ T-Shirt and Iron Man pyjama bottoms, one arm underneath his head and the other wrapped delicately around MJ’s back. She takes in the relaxation in his face, lips slightly parted as he breathed in and out rhythmically, head lulled towards the back of the couch. His curls are tousled lazily against the pillow, mused with sleep. A fond smile stretches across her lips.
She doesn’t want to disturb the boy, since it isn’t often he slept so soundly. Although Peter can finally take the time to catch up on his sleep, he’s plagued with the occasional nightmare; memories of Adrian Toomes, Titan, and Mysterio resurface on particularly long patrol nights, so she keeps her ringer on in case he calls in the middle of the night, voice shaky and wet with tears. However, right now, Peter is asleep, and relaxed, and she doesn’t want to take that away from him.
However, they fell asleep on the couch, and she will never hear the end of it from him in the morning when his back is tense from not being asleep in his bed.
“Peter,” she whispers softly, grazing her fingertips against Peter’s cheek. When he doesn’t respond, she tries again. “Hey, dork. You’re not gonna ignore your girlfriend on Christmas Day, are you?”
That seems to get his attention. Peter’s eyebrows furrow and he draws in a deep breath, opening his eyes to a squint. He catches sight of MJ, face relaxing into a small smile as he lets his eyes flutter closed again. “Hey, baby.”
MJ makes a face. “Gross.”
“You love it.”
“I have a reputation to keep, here.”
Peter stretches out his arms and slowly moves so he’s propped up by his elbows, groggily taking in his surroundings. “Did I miss Elf?”
“Like you haven’t seen it before,” MJ whispers. Peter can hear the scoff in her voice.
“S’a good one though,” Peter mumbles, rubbing his eye with one hand before leaning forward and pressing a gentle kiss to MJ’s lips.
“We should head to your room, to save you the back problems when you’re 40.” MJ informs, and Peter nods in agreement, sitting up more and shifting so that the two were now sitting next to each other, thighs pressed together. He stares at her for a moment with a small, sleepy smile. “What?”
“You’re just pretty.” Peter sighs, and MJ’s cheeks burn hotter than May’s traditional hot chocolate. He leans in for another kiss. “I mean that, y’know.”
“Shut up.”
“Merry Christmas, beautiful.”
They’re woken up later, in bed, to the smell of chocolate chip pancakes and the sound of May and Happy singing along to some obnoxious Christmas song in the kitchen. Ned and his Lola come over for lunch. Ned and Peter gift each other the exact same Star Wars lego set, and laugh about it for hours. May gets Peter a new suitcase, saying that it’s for his move to MIT. Happy gets him a Spider-Man themed backpack - much to Peter’s dismay - and inside the backpack are two, brand new, improved web-shooters. No wonder Happy was allowing him to mess with someone of the suit-building tech over the last month.
MJ gets Peter a map of Boston, with all of the top-reviewed Sandwich shops highlighted and colour-coded from best to worst, along with an incredible drawing of the two of them.
Peter, along with May’s help, gets MJ a ring, sporting a beautiful Black Dahlia along the band to match her necklace. He tells her he loves her, for the first time. She says it back, and Peter kisses her about it.
For a moment, Peter imagines spending Christmas alone, without his beautiful, found family surrounding him. He immediately shoves it away. Why dwell on something that isn’t real? MJ’s hand is in his, and he’s sipping May’s incredible hot chocolate (which she gets right every time, without accident).
Parker Luck doesn’t even cross his mind.
—
Peter watches his life fall apart in front of his eyes. Stephen Strange begins to cast his spell, and everything is going good. Then, Peter remembers all of the people in his life he wants to remember that he’s Spider-Man, and changes the spell five times mid-casting. The spell becomes unattainable, ripping the universe apart until Stephen pushes it back together, and things become really, really bad.
Villains from other universes begin to escape through those cracks, trying to attack and kill Peter for things he didn’t do. When Strange says to send them back, Peter realizes that these people will die if he does. With May’s help, they search for a cure, and things become good again.
Then, May dies at the hands of the Green Goblin, and it’s his fault, because he brought these villains to her, not knowing what they were or how strong they could be. He begs for her to stay, cries over her lifeless body in the middle of an explosion, and leaves her lifeless body behind before he gets framed for her murder and is taken to jail. Bad. Bad. Bad.
Two alternate, older, wiser versions of himself join the initiative, offering support to Peter in his grief. Good. They help to cure the villains, but it’s no use. The universe is ripping apart again, and his world is about to crumble around him. He tries to kill Norman Osborn, the man who took May from him, but the other two Peter’s convince him that this wasn’t what Spider-Man does. Setting aside his anger for grief, Peter spares the man, even though everything inside of him is telling him to rip his head off.
Large, metal wings have smashed through the pillars holding up Peter’s life, and it’s crumbling down on him. He can’t hold it up much longer. He’s going to die, his newfound brothers are going to die, his girlfriend’s going to die, his best friend is going to die, and his aunt is already dead.
Bad.
Parker Luck strikes at the best of times, doesn’t it?
Peter makes Strange cast a new spell, making everyone forget he exists; not only do they forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but the world forgets Peter Parker. It closes the rips into the multiverse, and Peter saves the world again, this time from his own selfish disaster. Good.
MJ and Ned forget him. He swears he’ll come back and tell them everything, but he can’t let them hurt anymore. They get accepted into MIT without him, and Peter can’t bring himself to force his way back into their lives. He knows that he’d only cause them more pain and suffering, and he wants them to be happy, even if that means they’re happy without him. Bad. Bad. Bad.
Peter gets a new apartment. He can’t stay in May’s, they don’t know who he is anymore and May is dead. It’s all his fault that May is dead. He visits her grave, and Happy doesn’t know him.
Everything is so, so bad.
Parker Luck has taken its’ final blow. Peter is crushed under the concrete weight of the pain he has caused, and this time, he deserves it. He doesn’t push against the wreckage, he doesn’t cry out for help, he doesn’t try and let himself free. Instead, he lays there, chest to the ground, feeling every single bone in his body crack, waiting for his lungs to collapse, waiting for blackness to consume him, because he lost everything, and it’s all his fault.
Nothing could ever be good, for Peter Parker. Not for long. Everything always ends with an agonizing, horrible, world-shattering bad.
“Peter.”
He can’t make out the voice. It can’t be May, he killed her. It can’t be MJ, she’s moved on. They’re both gone from his life, free from the pain he caused them.
“Peter, babe. Hey.”
His eyes open.
He’s breathing heavily, eyes blinking back tears as he tries to take in his surroundings. His lungs are on fire.
“Woah, woah, hey. Breathe. I’m here, we’re here. We’re safe.”
Peter takes in his bedroom. His new bedroom, in his new apartment, in Boston. Finally, he locks eyes with MJ, and feels himself relax a bit as he tries to contain his fearful sobs. She steadies his breathing, wipes the tears from his cheeks, and presses her lips to his forehead.
Finally, when he recollects himself, she speaks. “Bad dream?”
Peter dwells on it for a moment. He can still see it; the sparkling purple hue of the multiverse ripping apart. The faces of his counterparts, his brothers. The cut over MJ’s eyebrow when he sees her for the first time after the spell had been cast. The old, broken down apartment he’s forced to move into. The new, homemade spider suit after the Stark technology fails to recognize him.
“I don’t want to talk about it, yet,” he whispers weakly.
MJ nods in response, laying back down against her boyfriend’s chest, one hand resting against his heart and the other carding comfortingly through his curls. Peter finds himself relaxing completely under her touch. She’s here, and she knows him and she loves him. Aunt May is alive, Ned is just down the hall, in his bedroom in their shared apartment in Boston. Happy is on speed dial, waiting to hear about his new patrolling activities as Spider-Man wins over Boston’s hearts and keeps the city safe.
“Whenever you do, I’m here.” She whispers.
As he relaxes underneath MJ and his foggy mind begs for more rest, he remembers that’s he’s happy. He remembers that, through all the bad he went through, all the pain, the death, the suffering, the grief, the sorrow, he’s finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. He’s finally reached the good.
Peter decides, as he’s drifting off into a much more peaceful sleep, that Parker Luck is a myth.