Chapter Text
As he comes back to consciousness, Peter finds every cell of his body aching. He feels as if he’s gone two rounds with Vulture and had another building dropped on him. He feels his face pull into a scowl at the memory of that particular night. With a groan, he rolls from his stomach onto his back and forces himself into a sitting position. He thinks that his actual soul hurts.
Peeling his eyelids open, he blinks a few times to focus his dry eyes. Even once his vision clears, he’s not sure what to make of his surroundings. He seems to be in some, most likely abandoned, bakery(?), at least that’s what he assumes based on the broken chairs and tables, dusty display cases, and boarded up windows. A glance around shows that the place is absolutely filthy, everything in the building but himself and the unconscious child beside him is covered in a thick layer of dust. He freezes, gaze snaking back to the small body sprawled out on the floor beside him.
The kid is small, maybe four or five, and is laid with their back to him, legs pulled up to their chest and face buried in a bookbag that has probably seen better days. They have long black hair spread around them, sporting a good amount of mats and knots. The kid is scrawny, reminding Peter of himself as a child, before the spider bite, and the holey jeans and shirt with some cartoon princesses printed on it do nothing to hide what he is pretty sure is malnourishment. The sneakers they wear may have once been pink but are practically brown from the grime packed onto them, a hole in the right one giving him a glimpse of their sockless foot.
What the fuck?
What happened? Where is he? Why does he feel as if he just lost to Thanos again? Who is this child? Why are they sleeping on the floor of a building that should probably be condemned? Where’s May or Ned or Teresa? Wasn’t he doing something with Dr. Strange?
That’s the question that gives him whiplash, as if thinking the wizard’s name breaks a dam within his mind. Memories come rushing back. Him and his friends being rejected from MIT, Teresa not making it into NYU, going to Dr. Strange for a solution, a spell to magically fix everything. Distracting the wizard and screwing up his spellwork, sending cracks through his universe until the multiverse itself begins to break. Villains from other worlds appearing in his own, hunting him. Trying to find a way to save those villains, to keep them from having to die. Other Peters coming through the multiversal portals. Aunt May paying the price for his mistakes. The final fight at the Statue of Liberty. MJ almost falling to her death if not for Peter 3, Ned and Teresa barely escaping from a similar fate. Coming to the decision that he should have made to begin with. It’s not Spider-Man who needed to disappear. No, New York still needed a friendly, neighborhood hero, but they didn’t need Peter Parker. No one else needed to be exposed to or remember Peter Parker and his magnet for trouble, for death. His parents, Ben, May, they had all paid the price. Watching his friends and sister almost die because of him had been the final push he needed to have Dr. Strange cast the spell. Ned, MJ, and Teresa would be safe with him out of the picture.
He remembers saying goodbye. He and Ned had done their secret handshake one last time and hugged each other harder than ever before. MJ had kissed him so deeply that he can almost still feel her in his arms. She loved him. She wouldn’t let him say it back. She had made him promise, made him lie to her, that he would find her and make her remember. He had known, even then, that he wouldn’t bring her into danger again. Teresa had hugged him and cried and refused to let go. Had asked him how she could be a twin without having him with her. He hadn’t answered, hadn’t had the chance. Dr. Strange had finished the spell with Peter and his twin sister still holding each other tightly. It seemed fitting at the time that Peter Parker disappeared from the world the same way he came into it, with Teresa Parker at his side. He had been satisfied in the knowledge that Teresa wouldn’t be another Parker to die from his rotten luck, that Ned and MJ would be able to live their lives without the danger of knowing Spider-Man. It had all gone black after that.
These memories hit Peter with the force of a freight train, settling into his mind with the painful reminders of his mistakes and his grief. These aren’t the only memories he receives, though.
As his life as Peter Parker ends, as he’s forgotten in his universe, the life of Peter Fitzpatrick plays in his mind’s eye as if on a slideshow. Suddenly, he knows exactly why he’s lying on the dirt-caked floor of a deteriorating bakery and who the child, the girl, beside him is.
Peter John Fitzpatrick, the only son of Mary Fitzpatrick and twin brother of Teresa Marie Fitzpatrick, is a six year old runaway, hiding on the streets of a crime riddled city with his sister. He and Teresa laid claim to the bakery two months ago after running from their last foster home. They had been told they would be moving homes again, but Peter’s enhanced hearing had allowed him to overhear their social worker tell their foster parents that they would have to be separated, that there hadn’t been a home able to take them both at the time. The twin’s mother had only died six months before, they weren’t ready to lose each other too. It had been an easy choice to sneak out of the window in the middle of the night with all of their belongings packed into their school bags, it’s not like they were able to bring many belongings between foster homes anyway. Now, two months later, they’ve settled into a routine, one mostly revolving around avoiding child protective services.
These memories, too, explode across his consciousness before settling as if they have always been there. Suddenly, Peter is both a Parker and a Fitzpatrick. He is simultaneously seventeen and six. He is a teenage vigilante and a prepubescent, mutant runaway. No, not mutant, he’s a meta. That’s what this universe refers to people like him. Peter Fitzpatrick was bit by a radio active spider while visiting his mom’s work. He is not a wannabe superhero, he’s just a boy trying to hide the fact that he’s not normal.
Peter has never been more confused. He’s fought aliens, died and come back to life, and met alternate versions of himself. Despite all of this, he feels that maybe having two versions of himself merge together should still be far, far out of the realm of possibility. And yet, he knows for a fact that he was once Peter Benjamin Parker, the friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. He is equally sure that he is now Peter John Fitzpatrick, a little boy with unnaturally sharp teeth, sticky hands, and more strength than any regular human being should have. His soul definitely hurts and he’s almost positive that it is from two of the damn things being shoved into one pint-sized body.
A soft moan drags him out of his internal panic attack. The sound of his own ragged breaths and blood pounding in his ears lets him know that it may not have been as internal as he thought. He shoves the fear and confusion away to turn his attention to the kid, his sister, beside him.
Teresa rolls over onto her back, hands rubbing her eyelids with enough force to make Peter wince. She lets out a yawn and stretches before a whimper leaves her lips and she pulls her limbs back to curl around herself in a way that reminds him of a cat. Blue eyes squint up at him as a pout pulls at her lips.
“Reesie?” Peter’s voice comes out in a whisper. The girl in question just watches him silently, head tilting at her eyes rove over his face. She seems as if she’s trying to figure out exactly who he is. His heart stutters in his chest, remembering Dr. Strange’s final spell once again. Maybe Teresa doesn’t know who he is. He opens and shuts his mouth a few times before asking, “Teresa, do you know who I am?”
She stares a few seconds more before slowly nodding, then frowns and shakes her head, then frowns even more before nodding again. Her pout morphs into an irritated scowl as she sits up, crossing short arms across her chest. “I’m confused.”
“You and me both,” Peter mutters, scrubbing a frustrated hand through his hair. He runs through his memories, focusing more on those that belong to Fitzpatrick rather than Parker for a moment. He and Teresa are six. Their mom died eight months ago. She was murdered during a break in at their apartment in New York. Teresa was injured. Peter had been staying the night with Harry Osborn, the best friend of Peter Fitzpatrick. The twins had been through three separate foster homes in the six months between their mother’s death and them running away. The last one had led them to Gotham, New Jersey, the city they're now hiding in.
Peter backtracks a few thoughts. Teresa was injured in the break in. She sustained a head injury. She’s had problems with memory recall for months, waking up in the hospital with total amnesia and having memories come back periodically since. She knows who Peter is though, she has since everything was explained in the hospital. Most of her recovered memories are of him. She definitely knew him when they went to sleep last night.
He watches this six year old version of his sister for a silent moment. He watches the way her gaze flickers between familiarity and utter confusion. How she fidgets with the ends of her hair in a way that matches his memories of Teresa Fitzpatrick to a tee. The expression that crosses her face though, the confusion and frustration leading her to chewing her lip and scrunching her nose just as Teresa Parker did. His stomach flips at the thought. That can’t be right. Teresa Parker is back in a universe that doesn’t remember her brother, blissfully living her life, safe from harm and hopefully preparing to attend NYU next school year.
The twitch of her nose and the furrow of her brows says otherwise.
Peter takes a deep breath, attempting to slow his increasing heat rate. “Reesie…How old are you?”
Teresa opens her mouth to answer, but stays frozen for a moment, uncertainty flashing in her eyes. She hesitates, then, “Six? No, no, not six. I’m sevente-,” she cuts herself off, biting her lip again as she stares hard him before looking down at herself. “What’s happened?” There’s a slight panic to her tone now. “Petey! I-I’m confused. I’m six but I’m not. You’re Petey, but you’re-you’re not. I don’t know-,” she takes a stuttering breath, looking up at him again. “Who are you? You’re Petey and you’re six, too. But you’re somebody else and I don’t know who! I’m-I’m scared.”
Teresa scoots back a few inches before moving forward twice the amount, reaching out as if to hug Peter but aborts the movement at the last second. The fear and confusion is clear on her face and it puts a lump in Peter’s throat. He reaches out slowly, trying not to cause her anymore distress. He takes her hand gently in his own. When she doesn’t attempt to pull away, he squeezes her fingers, but makes sure not to put too much pressure. He may be enhanced in each of his universes, but Teresa is a regular human in both. If he accidentally breaks her fingers, she’ll have to splint them and wait weeks for them to heal instead of the hours it would take his own.
“Reesie, I am Peter and I am six and I am your brother,” he squeezes her hand again, watching her nod slowly along to his words. He gives them both a moment to breathe and then continues, “but, I’m another Peter, too. And I’m pretty sure you’re another Teresa. Peter Fitzpatrick is six and he’s your brother. That’s me, I promise. But…I’m Peter Parker, too. I’m seventeen and I’m your twin brother.”
Teresa stares at him blankly. She blinks a few times, glances down at their joined hands more than once, then finally frowns deeply before speaking, “I know I’m six and so are you. I know I’m Teresa Fitzpatrick and you’re Peter. I know I’m seventeen, too, but I don’t know who that Teresa is past that,” panic begins to grow with those words. Peter can tell from the way he can hear her heart pick up pace in her chest and feel her hand tremble slightly in his. She blinks rapidly. “I-I can’t remember. I can’t ‘member like when I was in the hospital. I can’t remember and I hurt. I hurt inside and I don’t know who I am and-and I know somebody died! Somebody died like Mommy died and I can’t remember!” Peter’s heart feels as if it’s tearing in two at the lost expression and the tone of terror. He uses his grip on his sister to pull her across the space between them and then clings to her. Teresa grips him just as tight, fully shaking now as she buries her face into his shoulder, choking on the sobs beginning to wrack her body. Her words are muffled now as she repeats, “I can’t remember!” over and over.
They stay like that for a long time, or it feels that way to Peter at least. He feels his own tears spilling down his face as his thoughts race. It’s not just him that Teresa can’t remember, it’s everything, all of it. She knows something’s wrong, that she can’t remember something important, and it’s all his fault. It’s always all his fault. Why can’t he ever just fix his mistakes? Teresa is supposed to be safe and oblivious to his very existence. She’s supposed to be preparing for college and hanging out with her friends. She’s supposed to be Teresa Parker .
But, she’s not. She’s not Teresa Parker. Peter made the decision to erase his existence and something obviously went wrong. Again .
Peter Parker is gone. Teresa doesn’t remember being a Parker.
Peter can feel the blood draining from his face as he somehow holds his sister even tighter. The spell couldn’t have worked that way. Teresa is her own person, separate from Peter. She should have forgotten and moved on with the rest of their universe. And yet .
Peter and Teresa are twins. They entered the world only a breath apart. They have never existed without each other. When the world, the universe, forgot Peter Parker, did they forget her too? When Peter had himself erased, did he erase her too? He looks down at the child-sized Teresa clinging to his torso and is somehow certain that he had to have done exactly that. If it had been reversed, if Teresa had been forgotten instead, Peter can only imagine that his existence would have ended with hers. What memories would he have if she was erased from his mind? Teresa has been a part of his life from its very conception, there’s no possible way for one of them to exist without the other. Peter had Dr. Strange erase him from the universe’s memory and sentenced his sister to the fate of being an amnesiac. Part of him isn’t even surprised. Even in his last ditch effort to save the multiverse, he couldn’t leave the last family member he had left unscathed. Teresa may be alive, but the parts that made her a Parker may as well be dead.
Finally, Peter pulls back and pushes Teresa far enough away from him to look her in the eyes. The tearful blue eyes staring up at him on such a young face make his heart clench painfully. He made this mess, now he has to fix it. Or at least find out how to move forward.
“You’re Teresa and I’m Peter. That’s all that matters,” He squeezes her shoulders, stating the words with as much certainty as he can muster. “You’re my sister, I’m your brother, and we’re in this together.”
Teresa’s breaths are still shaky but she at least has a glint in her eye that’s familiar to both Peter Fitzpatrick and Peter Parker. Determination. She nods once, twice, three times and then gives him a small smile.
“Together.”
“Together,” Peter repeats, offering her a smile of his own.
They might be six. They might be homeless. They might even have two souls shoved into both of their bodies. But, they’re together. They’re together and Peter will be damned if he lets anything change that.
Together .