Chapter Text
CH1 start.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Aunt May’s final words ring through Peter’s head like—a mantra, a blessing, a curse.
He can’t decide.
Knelt on the gritty metal of the statue below him, Peter’s torso coils into itself wretchedly, fingers twitching uncomfortably, curling to dig his cracked nails into his palms in a weak attempt to ground himself.
Peter laughs hoarsely. Bile burns down the back of his throat.
Good, he thinks. Let it burn.
In an endless blur, formulas, possible solutions, and various outcomes all play through Peter’s head on repeat like the bad ending of a movie.
A bad ending.
It seems bizarre to put such a childish label on what’s turning out to be the worst moment of Peter’s life, but it’s the simplest comparison that springs up in his fatigued mind.
Doctor Strange is chanting something somewhere to Peter’s left, the sorcerer’s brows furrowed intensely, cape billowing behind him in time with magic that flares an acrid amber. Chanting some kind of a spell, trying to contain the cosmic rifts that are ripping open the sky in an attempt to fix all of this.
To fix what Peter caused with his selfishness.
Peter’s never been religious. Not with the whole Big Three—aliens, androids, and wizards—constantly ravaging the world. Less so since Uncle Ben passed.
Still, now he prays to every God he can think of—even Thor—who he knows for a fact won’t answer, to let this be a dream he can wake up from come morning.
Despite his best attempts to focus, Peter’s gaze only weakly slides over the forefront of his vision to observe the sorcerer’s vague silhouette, Doctor Strange’s incensed words floating over the strange haze that has taken over his mind.
And yet—Peter needs to listen. Doctor Strange must be saying something important.
He must be.
Peter needs to listen. There’s nothing to do but to shake himself out of it—whatever it is—and get it together.
But he can’t.
He can’t bring himself to move, or speak—or even think.
In fact, he can barely process anything past the jackrabbit-paced drum of his own heartbeat. It slams through his entire body rhythmically, boulders beating down in a landslide. Peter swears he can almost feel it vibrating through his clenched jaw like a physical thing.
It’s distracting. Too distracting.
And isn’t that odd?
Peter is supposed to be Spider-man: one of the very few people with the sufficient intelligence to be capable of calculating the sheer amount of equations required to swing above the skyline and sync with the backdrop. By all human definitions, he should no longer be limited by trivial concepts like gravity, having innately overcome his humanity in ways many others can only dream of in order to blend with the shadows of night, glow with the light of dawn, and slide along concrete and tempered steel like a gale of wind.
It’s something Peter had been proud of—the way that with webs of his own creation, he’d managed to master the art of gliding along as Spider-man, morphing into a natural entity that belongs in the backdrop of the city.
That’s all meaningless now.
What does gravity matter when the fabric of reality is coming apart above him?
When May died in his arms.
All because he wanted to go to college.
It seems like such a stupid problem now. So—insignificant.
Such a non-issue compared to the chaos now surging in his surroundings.
Above Peter, foggy clouds drift overhead to cover the remnants of a blazing sun, monstrous rays seething angrily, casting down punishing waves of fire that gradually heat the glossy copper he stands on. Shying away from the stormy downpour, the few clouds that withstood the violent assault turn to mist in violent bursts of precipitation, stretching across the sky in an ashen gray fog that wafts over the cityscape. Rain cascades down with the precise fury of a waterfall, ice-cold droplets dribbling across Peter’s suit, aching to soak through, instead pebbling between the dull sheen of nanotech seams.
He can barely feel the chill.
Now, see—Peter is not an idiot.
At least, not when it comes to formulas, and especially not when it comes to solving equations.
And that’s all this really is, isn’t it? Take this whole situation, break it down, and you find an equation, in its simplest form.
Parker luck is a constant variable, always ensuring that something has to go wrong–it doesn’t matter how small or how large. The only important thing is that a Parker has to screw up. The only difference is that now, this pre-determined equation has expanded exponentially. If he’d just listened to Doctor Strange and sent the interdimensionally displaced travelers back to their dimensions—if he’d just let the stupid villains meet their ends and die like they were supposed to, maybe May would still be alive. May wouldn’t have liked it, of course—would have disapproved with a tut and a pointed stare, and tried to guide him right back along this path, but at least she would still be here with him.
Alive.
Waiting for Peter at home, back at Happy’s stupidly-nice high-rise condo.
And yet, she’s not. She never will be again—and he can’t take back his actions, no matter how he aches with the desire to do so.
“Every good deed has a consequence.”
Peter knows he shouldn’t be thinking of Norman. It’s not smart—not what he’s supposed to do—especially when he can already feel himself spiralling. He knows that he shouldn’t even be considering words spewed among insults aimed at him by the Green Goblin of all people—by May’s murderer—but he really can’t help it.
Everything seems bent out of proportion, and the end behaviors are pointed toward positive-infinity in both directions. There’s no escaping this situation. No matter what Peter does from this point—no matter how he reacts, no matter how many equations he plays through in his head—all paths lead to destruction.
Only consequences await him, and his path is set in stone.
This isn’t the mirror dimension. Peter can’t just mess around and magically geometry his way out of this.
It’s hopeless. He’s hopeless, trying to stall at a time like this.
Fat droplets weep along his temple to catch on his eyelashes, blurring his vision in a mockery of tears. In one hand, Peter clutches his mask, half-crushing it in his closed fist.
He can’t tell if he’s really crying or not.
He could be—but he can’t tell.
What a cruel joke.
With a great howling clash that is immediately lost to the wind, the stratosphere tears open in a frenzy, tiny cracks lengthening into deep, bleeding cuts of incandescent indigo that howl with vengeance. The customary pale blue harshly implodes to make space for the intruding gateways that will doom Peter’s universe against its will. Around him, the atmosphere shatters like tempered glass, gales of panicked wind gushing from each direction in a wild whirl, unable to retaliate under the superior astral force penetrating it. The scent of sulfur disperses, as if the world itself pauses with bated breath. Within these unshapely crevices, opponents of unimaginable proportion lay in wait, bringing promises of danger past human comprehension.
Vibrating with the violent tremble of the universe, his spidey-sense blares with warning in a high, resonant ring, caught in an overload of sensation. Vision narrowing to the ghastly slits in the sky, a bone-deep dread settles uneasily in the very root of his veins. No matter how desperately his panicked brain wills the scene to stop, even just for a moment—wills it to be an illusion, a mere trick on his mind, the universe continues its tortured writhe, the cracked expanse above flickering like ritualistic candlelight.
Shrouded faces peer out through the gateways with elongated, unshapely limbs extending from inhuman figures. With combined vigor, they tear at the existing cracks, gouging into the bleeding wounds to enlarge the rifts with vengeful fervor, uncaring of how the world wails under their torment. In spite of the tangible cosmic power seeping through the rifts, it is overshadowed by a deep, sorrowful anger emanating from each separate entity.
It doesn’t take much to figure out who exactly they might carry such a deep grudge against.
They’re here because of him, after all.
Peter watches the scene with a morbid, resigned fascination: an ant realizing how puny its existence really is faced with the unyielding fist of an unbeatable tyrant, moments before being crushed flat.
A loud, bitter part of himself just wants to let them take him. To just—give up.
But—Peter can’t do that. Not to May, not to the world. He promised her he would fix this.
Peter senses Doctor Strange long before the wizened sorcerer re-enters his peripheral vision, just a miniscule ping on his radar. Still, the sudden appearance of another human being actually within his line of sight jars him back to reality, slicing through the constant whirring of his spidey-sense. Peter tries to lick his lips to moisten the growing cracks, but his tongue is gummy and heavy like a rubber prosthetic. It sticks to the roof of his mouth as he turns to face the sorcerer, the previous fog abruptly clearing from his mind, transforming into a manic clarity as he begins to tremble.
“Peter.”
Agitated, red-rimmed eyes snap up to Doctor Strange’s own sympathetic blue. They’re too-blue—the pure kind of charming babyblue you only really see in documentaries about glaciers and icecaps. Usually when they’re melting. Doctor Strange really might be trying to melt Peter, because his stare is laced with so much understanding that it physically hurts.
He kind of feels like he’s melting.
It’s not pity either. Peter can tell. It doesn’t make it any better. It might make it worse, actually.
“Peter,” Doctor Strange repeats. There’s weight to the word. Peter thinks he might have said it more than a few times, actually. It's the type of weight that makes doubt and insecurity rise in a wave of nausea, bubbling into an unbearable hesitance at the base of Peter's mouth, like he’s twelve and May asked him if he was being bullied at school for the first time.
It’s stupid. He’s being stupid.
He also probably needs to respond, Peter realizes belatedly. Seconds drag by, in which he swallows dryly, the sound bassboosted to echo through his cheekbones.
“Sir?” Peter whispers, wincing at how his voice cracks halfway through.
The sorcerer looks different in this lighting. Within the shroud of lilac blanketing their known world, the man’s grey-streaked sideburns look all the more prominent. Curled in close to his chest, Doctor Strange’s shoulders sag with exhaustion, temples creasing with stress, forehead wrinkled with the weight of the world. Draped across his back, even the Cloak of Levitation appears rumpled, its edges furling and unfurling in a mirror image of its bearer’s twitching fingers, the vibrant ruby red darkened to a greyed-out garnet.
“I don’t—” Peter cuts off abruptly, squeezing his mask tighter in his fist, clinging to the sensation of microscopic fibers creaking under the pads of his fingers.
Tears prick in his eyes, and he rocks dangerously on his feet—back and forth—watching residue leftover from Flint’s final transformation skitter over the ledge. Four and a half seconds pass before the first pebble hits base-ground in a dull twing, practically the clashing of a gong to Peter’s sensitive hearing. Beneath him, the Statue of Liberty groans under the weight of Peter’s rocking, rustic copper creaking as he begins to curl into himself once more, his own weight feeling like it might be crushing him.
Distantly, he wonders if it was too disrespectful to destroy the re-vamped statue in this fight. He’s dishonoring his mentors, one way or another, in both his incompetence and his penchant for destruction.
Peter can’t cry here—not again. He doesn’t have the right. Not when he’s the one who caused all of this.
“I don’t know what to do, sir,” he says blankly.
Chin tucking into his chest, Peter’s soaked bangs curl into his eyes, teasing him as droplets finally drip from his eyelashes to traverse flatter plains along the bridge of his nose and the cusps of his cheeks. There’s a moment of heavy, loaded silence between them, where neither of them can bear to say a word, and then Doctor Strange is closing the distance between them, barely hesitating to lay a hand on Peter’s shoulder and squeeze. Peter suppresses a lurch, limbs shuddering with the effort even as he melts into the touch. For an ordinary human, it would likely be a tight, restrictive grip— meant to ground—but to Peter’s superpowered biology, it instead serves to soothe him more than it does anything else.
At least, it tries to soothe him. Emphasis on the ‘tries’. It doesn’t really work.
Doctor Strange’s eyes squint shut, forehead wrinkling further with a familiar burden. The sorcerer clears his throat, watching with trepidation as Peter’s wide, glossy eyes snap to attention immediately. Taking a few moments to take stock of Peter—his unruly, dark-brown hair, the blood streaked down the entirety of his face, the still-healing cut down the side of his cheekbone, the devastated pinch to his lips—something akin to solemn resignation passes through Strange’s face.
“The fabric of this universe is torn,” Doctor Strange begins solemnly, grip growing heavier as if Peter will physically jerk away from the revelation. “Those people up there—they’re coming here for you, and I can’t stop them. The Macchina di Kadavus is destroyed.”
Peter’s shaking his head, inviting the fog back into his brain to take his thoughts away—but a sharp thwack stings against his cheek. Doctor Strange’s expression is up close, now, and far more stern than Peter has ever seen the sorcerer.
“No, I need you to listen to me, kid. At this stage, it’s uncontainable, and unless we can think of something quickly, our universe won’t survive the fallout of an attack of this scale.” When he finishes, Doctor Strange releases a sharp, annoyed sigh.
Body shuddering with anxiety, Peter begins to pant raggedly. Doctor Strange’s words reverberate through his mind in a high, ringing keen. He’s helpless against it—can’t think, can’t breathe as he chokes on his guilt. Hands snapping up to dig brutally through his hair, Peter’s eyelids shutter as he tugs at the strands hysterically. He feels tiny—a pathetic bug of a person—like he’s six years old again, clinging to Uncle Ben’s leg because a bully punched him. But Uncle Ben’s been dead for longer than Peter can remember, and there’s no one to hide behind this time—no one that will come to save him.
This is his fault. No one else’s but his own.
Doctor Strange reaches out again, the scowl dropping off his face, replaced by a grimace. “Stop that,” he murmurs, beginning to detangle Peter’s coiled fingers from their grip on his roots. Though he could easily resist, Peter allows himself to be guided along, hands falling limp to his sides instead, scalp aching mildly.
The pain helps.
Peter can feel his desperation growing in the irregular beating of his heart—the way his breath hitches periodically.
“Isn’t there a way to reverse it, sir? Can’t we just, just—” Peter stammers, searching for words that refuse to come smoothly, “—just continue the original spell?”
Doctor Strange’s face twists, jaw steeling like he’s about to shut Peter down, but Peter lunges forward at the first sign of hesitation, knocking the man’s hand off his shoulder to instead clamp on the sorcerer’s wrist like a steel cuff.
Peter continues, pupils constricting into half-feral pinpricks, “They’re coming because of me,” Doctor Strange’s expression only grows more wary. “So they need to forget me, right? Forget I’m Spider-Man. Like the original spell was supposed to do. Before I screwed it all up.”
Doctor Strange tries to pull his hands back, face unreadable. Of course, his hands don't budge in Peter’s super-human grip, and after another testing tug that has Peter vibrating with agitated energy, the sorcerer groans and then begins to elaborate once more, wary of Peter’s unblinking stare. Doctor Strange lowers his voice, like he’s soothing a cornered animal.
“Peter, you don’t understand,” Doctor Strange says testily. “Circumstances have changed since then. Even now, as we speak, all nearby multiverses are colliding with ours. What you’re proposing might have worked if it was just our universe involved. But with the involvement of others—well.” The sorcerer shakes his head. “The multiverse is infinite. There's no telling how many consecutive universes are involved now.” He pauses to let Peter digest, watching the boy process the information flooding his brain in real time—watching his brain strain through the new knowledge and come up with no new solutions—and then continues, softer this time, “I hate to say it, but it won’t be enough for our universe to forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man. We’re at the end of the line, kid.”
Thick and overwhelming, anxiety gnaws at Peter, a nastier kind of fog than the appealing numbness of before. He has to pace back a few steps to ground himself once more, releasing Doctor Strange’s wrist to creep to the edge of the makeshift platform lining the statue, barely acknowledging the deafening groan the copper makes as he stops short in front of the ledge, dropping into a crouch, head tilted down—away from the rapture above. Away from the sorcerer across from him.
“Is there really nothing that can be done?” Peter muses hollowly, more to himself than to Doctor Strange, a not-so-silent plea.
For an idea. For a way out.
There has to be something.
This can’t just be game over—the universe can’t just die because of Peter’s stupidity. New York, Queens—the people he’s tried to protect for so long—already hate him. He can’t be the reason this world—his world is destroyed.
Peter wouldn’t be able to bear it.
An idea finally passes over his constantly computing mind—sudden, sharp and painful, making his gears grind to a halt.
Even as he runs it through his head a few more times, as he sounds it out phonetically—does the math, plugs every variable into the correct spot—it sounds stupid and sacrificial. Peter’s never wanted to be a martyr—not once, not even when the world pushed him to be the next Iron-man. Not even when Mysterio framed him. But, well—it’s not exactly a choice anymore. Even as the rational part of him shoved deep down shrieks resentfully, Peter can already feel the weight of the decision long before it solidifies properly in his mind.
Decisively, Peter springs back up to his feet—startling Doctor Strange as the sorcerer abruptly has a face full of spider-teenager uncoiled and in his face—taking multiple quick-steps forward until he and Doctor Strange are nearly chest to chest, uncomfortably close. At some point during this march, his mask flies out of his hand, taken by the wind.
Doctor Strange doesn’t pay it any mind past a cursory glance.
“Cast a new spell,” Peter orders breathlessly. Even as he says it, an instinctual primordial terror dredges on the edge of his mind, his spidey-sense buzzing at him in forewarning, but he forces himself to keep talking. “One that’ll make them all forget me. All of those—weird goons coming through the cracks. If everyone forgets Peter Parker—if the entire multiverse forgets Peter Parker, then none of them will know to come here, right? If you cast a new spell, it can do that, can’t it?” He pauses, taking a shaky breath, combing his fingers through his hair like he’s about to take hold once more. “A new spell could reverse all of this, right?”
It’s a good idea. It makes sense, to Peter, so if the sorcerer can just—
“I will not,” Doctor Strange snaps after a moment’s hesitation. But a moment’s hesitation is still hesitation so Peter goes to surge forward again. The sorcerer flings himself out of the way like Peter’s some kind of a disgruntled feral cat in heat instead of a hero asking him to literally save the world—
“But, sir—come on—if you can just listen to me,” Peter protests, fingers curled into menacing claws as he tries to reach out as if to grip onto the wizard again despite his resistance—to try to force him to listen.
“No, Peter, you will listen to me now!” Doctor Strange barks out, his eyes crinkled with furious worry. It has the very-effective effect of causing Peter to freeze. When Peter is silent once more, Doctor Strange continues, “there’s no telling the consequences that casting a new spell could incur. You have to acknowledge that magic is finicky. Even the Sorcerer Supreme can never truly understand the possible outcome of every spell, especially not with regard to the cosmos.”
Doctor Strange scoffs, throwing his head up to the sky, his posture strained with volatility. Wringing his hands, the sorcerer seems to be gathering his wits—finding the right words, lost in a way that startles Peter into taking a few skittish steps back, his nanotech solidifying across his abdomen in a reaction to his mental state—as if it could form a physical barrier between Peter and the unavoidable path he’s driving himself down.
“What you’re asking me to do,” Doctor Strange warns, eyes hardening, molars audibly grinding together as he steels himself against the inevitably, unclenching his jaw. “There’s no set precedent. The Runes of Kof-Kol are considered simple for one sole reason—because of how vague they are. Do you understand what that means?”
Now fully bared open to the cosmos, the sky stretches impossibly further with its anguish—the figures appearing much closer now, scraping their way through the fabric binding Peter’s universe together. Their features are starting to become clearer, and it’s not a comforting image. They are every bit as monstrous—as powerful, as dangerous—as their forms had made them seem from afar.
Amethyst shards have begun to crumble from the sky, tumbling into the harbor. If Peter strains hard enough, past the rain, past the crashing thunder—past the wailing of his spidey-sense intensifying like a timer reaching its end—he can hear guttural screams in the city, panicked voices calling for loved ones, children crying, the thick scent of tangy liquid metal and pennies—not just from the statue below him, but further into the city, where buildings have begun to crumble—car alarms blaring, honking frantically as civilians try to escape the inescapable. The scene makes Peter recall his final moments on Titan pre-Blip, fading into ash. Had he crumbled to pieces the same way his universe does now?
Doctor Strange runs a hand through his rain-soaked hair, his eyes locked onto Peter’s dazed form. It makes the wizard look rugged, far from the put-together, clinical atmosphere he typically maintains.
It makes Peter itchy.
Sighing heavily, his voice lowers to a gentler intonation, recognizing Peter's lost, distressed expression. “Do you understand what you’re asking of me, Peter? Do you really understand what you’re asking me to do to you?”
He’s not sure he does, not really, not sure that he wants to understand, but—
There’s a long pause in which Doctor Strange just stares at Peter, trying to melt him again.
Peter lets himself melt.
“Would it work?” he whispers. It’s soft—more vulnerable than he wants it to be.
Peter needs to know.
Wind snarls past him with intense fury, whistling with warning, dragging his bangs out of his face to whip against his forehead, drying the blood that cakes his cheeks.
The sorcerer sighs. “In theory—it would work,” Doctor Strange murmurs. It seems to pain him to confirm it. Before Peter can get too giddy—too erratic, the sorcerer continues. “But are you ready for what will follow? Do you really think you’re ready for what you might be condemning yourself to?”
Even as Peter rolls the idea around in his head once more, his hands shake and his palms slick with sweat, threatening to break him. If Peter’s right—if he understands—then essentially he would become a hollow shell of a person. There would be nothing binding him to this world and no proof of his existence. No proof of the joy or grief he has experienced, nor any signs of laughter and tears. Just a blank space that no one will even know is supposed to be filled. It’s a punishment in and of itself—one he whole-heartedly deserves.
For May’s death.
For ruining Ned and MJ’s futures.
For himself—for always managing to be so naive. So easily manipulated. So stupid. First with Mysterio, and then with the interdimensional travellers. What was he thinking? Sure, they’d been saved, but at what cost? His world is ending. May is dead—because Peter was too soft to let four complete strangers return to their worlds and face death.
J. Jonah Jameson’s speech flickers through the forefront of his mind—that repeated live broadcast—like a fucked up omen, echoing in his mind—the reporter’s spitting voice deep and hateful.
“Everything Spider-Man touches comes to ruin…
…And we, the innocents, are left to pick up the pieces.”
And despite himself—Peter’s defenses crumble. The words carve themselves into his heart, self-loathing rooting itself deeper into the center of his being to join the words he’ll never get to say to his friends and family—the joy he’ll never get to experience again.
The world is far better off without Peter Parker. Without Spider-Man. This spell will be how he finally atones.
Doctor Strange’s gaze is heavy and seeking, and Peter can’t bring himself to look directly at it, lest the wizard see right through him—to see his reluctance: the despair overtaking his greater functions.
Peter has already melted. He doesn’t want to know what comes after that.
When Peter next speaks, his voice does not fail him. “I am ready. If it’ll work—it needs to happen.”
Doctor Strange’s head lifts to look at the ruined landscape surrounding them. “I wish there was another way,” he says. “A better way. You don’t deserve this, kid.”
I do, Peter has to bite back the urge to say, pricking his canines into his bottom lip. Instead, he stretches out with falso bravado. “Let’s get started.”
If Doctor Strange notices his newly bleeding lip, the man blissfully doesn’t mention it.
Doctor Strange is choosing the many, choosing the world over a single life, and so instead the man bites his tongue, and doesn't call out Peter's unstable, manic decision-making. The sorcerer mentally prepares himself, drawing his shoulders back, sensing the shift in mood—the finality in Peter’s stiff posture. Both of them know the situation is a necessary evil—can both feel the joint helplessness coursing through them—both burdened with the knowledge that whatever comes next is a product of the inevitable.
After a few moments, Doctor Strange murmurs a final offering—a quiet, “Go make your goodbyes.”
“No.” The word slips from Peter’s lips almost without any thought.
“. . .No?” Doctor Strange questions.
“No. I don’t have any.” And he doesn’t. It sounds hollow, even to him.
Peter’s fairly sure that if he went now, he’d just end up getting cold feet, or disassociating somewhere. He’s been on the verge of it for the past few hours—even before the final fight. Since May. Ned and MJ don’t deserve to see him like this. He doesn’t want them to see him like this—broken and tattered. On a deeper level, Peter knows they would never judge him, but he just can’t.
He doesn’t deserve to see them.
Still—Peter selfishly wishes he could bring himself to go find them. Maybe just to wrap them in a tight hug—to feel their warmth before he has to leave it all behind for the prospect of the unknown. Even if it's only to press a single, chaste kiss to MJ’s chapped lips, just to wet them with his own one final time. But, well—the pain of seeing them feels like it might outweigh the pain of completing this new mission. If there’s nothing else he can do, he can at least see this through without backing out, and give them a second chance to live their lives the way they truly deserve to, without him constantly messing everything up.
Doctor Strange lets Peter’s response take form in the atmosphere between them, looking exhausted, for once appearing to be just an old middle-aged man, far from a magical, larger-than-life figurehead. The sorcerer’s eyes narrow, ice-blue frosting over with resignation. The man seems to struggle internally for a moment, like he desperately wants to say something—and then his mouth clicks shut, jaw locking into a grimace. Turning away with finality, Doctor Strange averts his gaze with resignation, as if he can already sense the path of grief Peter has gone down—the extent to which the young vigilante is spiraling.
Voice tinged with a familiar pain—the kind Peter heard from Tony mere seconds before the Blip, Doctor Strange replies with a resigned, “If that’s what you’ve decided, kid. We must move quickly. Prepare yourself.”
Doctor Strange begins to levitate once more, flicking his fingers up and out sluggishly—as if the very movement pains him—to mimic a circular, swooshing motion. Form reflected in the deep, arcane amber, the sorcerer watches the Runes of Kof-Kol reform in fiery simmering ember-fire symbols that whirl erratically.
Even through his own conflicting thoughts, Peter can see the pain and indecision deepening the wrinkles on Doctor Strange’s aged face. Picking at the edges of his suit, Peter peers up under his lashes, reluctantly watching for the man’s reaction as he mumbles, “Thank you, sir.”
He expects another grimace. Maybe a sigh, not—
“Call me Stephen.”
Peter cringes, despite himself. “What? But earlier you said—” He cuts off, feeling a little silly. “That’s wrong,” he emphasizes instead.
Rapidly blinking to re-orient himself, Peter’s gaze flicks from the swirling mass of runes back to the sorcerer. In the vast expanse surrounding them, intricate ciphers continuously form in bursts of citrine-gold that fade into a phosphorescent brass, gradually overlapping, growing more gargantuan with each new embellishing wave of Doctor Strange’s hands, thrumming with pure magical power.
The wizard huffs. “I know what I said. Call me Stephen, kid.”
It feels unique, somehow. Ominous, perhaps. Not like the false-casual or the larger-than-thou fury Doctor Strange had tried for before.
“Stephen, then.” Peter whispers tentatively, “Thank you, Stephen.”
Stephen wrinkles his nose in distaste, trying for light-hearted humor as he grunts, “Nope, still sounds weird.” The sorcerer allows himself an inaudible chuckle, rolling his shoulders back with an audible sharp pop. “You ready, kid?”
“I am.” Peter replies simply. There’s nothing else to say. Nothing he really thinks he can say without completely shattering. And then where would they be? With another unfinished spell.
Peter hopes he’s ready.
It’s a decision of his own making, yet it’s not the expected defeat, but instead the cruel taste of relief that flicks over his dry tongue like the aftermirage of an oasis in a desert.
“For the record, I’m sorry it had to be this way,” Stephen says, his movements growing more compact now, as the new spell’s creation draws to a finish. Peter’s not sure what to make of the way it sounds like he’s grieving in advance—grieving now because he won’t be able to remember to do it later. The sorcerer’s eyes find him for the final time. “You’re a good kid, Peter. Never forget that.”
Peter never gets a chance to respond.
Nigh immediately, the spell tumbles into motion, a leak finally bursting through solid concrete to break through a dam. The world explodes into an amalgamation of amber and lilac violently clashing against one another, like two tsunamis of freshwater and saltwater colliding with equal fervor. Not unlike threads, they intermix in their own separate waves, the shimmering arcane inscriptions outweighing the radiant filaments of the cosmos, weaving the rifts together in geometric, artificial stitches.
In an ideal world, this would have been all. In an ideal world, Peter returns to his life in New York, the world having forgotten him entirely, no trace of his existence to be found. There he will be overcome with the threat of possibility.
Here, however, that is not the case.
This world is not that ideal.
In this world, it is more than just the people that forget him.
With the final rift nearly braided shut, the memory of Peter slips from the grasp of his own universe in a violent shudder, and it rebels against the sudden, unfamiliar intrusion.
Instead of the spell dissipating, having restored the universe’s order, the runes redirect to lunge for Peter. There is no chance for reaction, or for instinct. Leaving no possibility for escape, the runes imbed themselves deep into his bones, and then impale impossibly further, chaining him down as raw magic seeps into his veins, lava-like heat branding him with its intensity, scathing through his organs.
For a mere millisecond, there is blissful icy relief as it adjusts its hold—and then it's tearing him across the cosmos, into the final slice of rift that has yet to close. Harsh, iridescent rays of astral energy threaten to shatter his being, searing through his physical form as shackles of ciphers wrench him into the in-betweens of the multiverse—past the rifts, past the gateways.
Into the void.
The screaming of his spidey-sense fills his mind with baseless static, an unfiltered terror completely separate to his own. It senses the inevitability of the end, scraping against his mind in a reflection of his own internal torment, a kind of combined anguish cascading through them, Peter’s ability to scream brutally torn from him as agony unlike anything he’s ever experienced rips across him—too fast, too sudden for his advanced healing to even begin to locate the source.
All at once, the oxygen is stolen from his lungs, collapsing inwards to constrict uselessly, merciless pressure hurtling through the depths of his body. With his mind keening, spidey-sense wailing with the squeal of a dying predator, his consciousness allows a final spike of terror to flood his senses.
Then, his physical form atomizes under the cosmic implosion of the rifts, the chromatic glyphs of the final act of the Runes of Kof-Kol intertwining with his very being as the final rift seals shut.
From one moment to the next, he is whole—and then he is nothing.
The Soul is created.
CH1 end.