๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ซ๐ญ ๐จ๐ ๐๐๐ฆ๐๐ฆ๐๐๐ซ๐ข๐ง๐ ยฐโโ.เณเฟ*:๏ฝฅ
Peter Parker x telepath!reader
wc: 5k
summary: the mind is more fragile than anyone could imagine. And yet, love proves to be the most powerful force of all.
masterlist
Part one Part two
During sleep, the mind lowers its guard in a way it would never allow while awake. Thoughts cease to obey a precise order, memory reorganizes fragments of the past, and emotions travel paths that consciousness keeps closed while we are awake. Perhaps that is why there are memories that can only be found with closed eyes.
That night, exhaustion finally overcame you with unusual ease. As soon as your breathing found a constant rhythm, you felt how the silence of your own mind began to expand. It was a deceptive calm, because beneath it there was something else, a presence you already knew all too well. It was the familiar sensation of another consciousness brushing against yours from somewhere impossible to point out.
Little by little, that presence stopped feeling distant. The connection with Peter strengthened as if sleep had eliminated the last barrier that still separated them. You stopped perceiving where your own thoughts ended and where his began. There was no resistance, nor time to prepare yourself. It simply happened. An invisible force finished pulling you toward his memory, and before you could cling to your own consciousness, everything disappeared.
The images began to rush over you in no apparent order, as if an old film reel had been cut into hundreds of fragments and someone was projecting them at random. There was no transition between one scene and the next; only flashes of a life that did not belong to you and that, even so, you felt with an unbearable intensity.
You saw him vanish, turning to dust in the arms of Tony Stark, unable to comprehend what was happening while the universe unraveled around him. An instant later, he returned five years later to fight the greatest battle of his life and watch, helpless, the sacrifice of someone who had been much more than a mentor to him. Next appeared the smiling face of a brown-haired woman, his Aunt May, and, almost without giving you time to recognize her, you saw her collapse in his arms while he tried to convince her that everything would be okay. You felt the weight of her body, the desperate trembling of his hands, and the unbearable emptiness left behind when he realized he would never hear her voice again.
The scenes changed again and again. You saw him swinging between the skyscrapers of New York with a freedom that only existed when he wore the mask. You saw him stopping robberies, rescuing strangers, and returning home completely exhausted, hiding wounds under his clothes so that no one would ask about them. You also saw entire nights without sleep, sitting in front of an improvised sewing machine while mending a suit that seemed to tear as fast as he managed to repair it.
Then other faces appeared. A girl with a warm gaze smiling from a coffee shop. A curly-haired boy who wouldn't stop talking. Dozens of classmates crowding the school hallways. It took only a second to understand how much they meant to him and another to feel the devastating blow when his identity was revealed to the entire world. You heard accusations, insults, and threats. You saw cameras chasing him through the streets, journalists invading his privacy, and everyone he loved paying the consequences of a truth they had never asked to know. Guilt consumed him with a violence you could barely endure.
Without warning, the New York sky began to tear open. Luminous cracks crossed the firmament while impossible creatures emerged from everywhere and the very fabric of reality seemed to crumble. You saw him fight to the limit of his strength, lose time and again, and, finally, decide that no boy his age should ever have been forced to make.
ยซMake everyone forget meยป
The plea echoed with terrifying clarity.
You felt the spell spread like a silent wave wrapping around the entire world. Millions of memories disappeared at the same time. You saw how the faces of those who had shared his life emptied of recognition, how the bonds built over years unraveled in an instant, and how Peter stood motionless, watching the price of his own decision.
Then you understood something that made the air leave your lungs.
You had never forgotten him.
You had believed that the void inhabiting your memory was the consequence of your own actions, of the sacrifice you made years ago by erasing the memories Peter had of you. But that was different. The entire world had lost Peter Parker. Everyone had awakened convinced that that boy had never been a part of their lives.
Except you.
And, even so, he had moved forward completely alone.
Loneliness was the invisible thread connecting all those memories. It didn't matter if he was surrounded by people or swinging between the buildings of Manhattan. In every image there was an absence that weighed more than any enemy he had faced. It was the story of a young man who had saved the world again and again and who, in the end, had had to accept that no one would ever remember who he truly was.
You heard him call your name in your sleep. But it was no longer the young boy from early high school, but the present one. The sad, abandoned man he had become.
You opened your eyes startled, disoriented, unable for an instant to distinguish where memories ended and where reality began. Breath caught in your throat as you tried to focus your vision. In front of you was Peter. His hands held your shoulders firmly and he pronounced your name again and again, though the buzzing that still echoed in your head had swallowed his voice almost completely.
You blinked several times, trying to catch your breath.
It was then that you heard it.
A sharp thud shook the apartment, followed by another and another. Books, glasses, cushions, and even the small lamp in the living room fell to the floor almost at the same time, as if an invisible force had suddenly stopped holding them. The echo of the impacts bounced off the walls, and the silence that followed proved even more unsettling.
You turned your head slowly. Your heart stopped for an instant.
During your sleep, you had levitated a good portion of the room. Objects were still swaying slightly above the floor, silent witnesses to a power that had overflowed while you remained unconscious.
You looked back at Peter.
His expression wasn't exactly one of fear. Worry was still present in his eyes, but it had been displaced by something much harder to interpret: bewilderment. He observed you as if trying to reconcile the woman who had shared dinner with him just a few minutes ago with the impossible scene he had just witnessed.
His hands remained on your shoulders, motionless.
โWhat... what was all that?โ he asked in a low voice.
Peter seemed unable to find any explanation for what he was witnessing. And you didn't know if you were capable of giving him one.
You whispered his name, trying to reassure him, as one of your hands slowly rose to the level of his injured arm. However, as soon as your fingers brushed his skin, the buzzing inside your mind returned with an intensity far greater than before.
Both of you pulled away immediately, as if the contact had been an electric shock. Peter lost his balance and nearly fell to the floor.
You couldn't see how his expression changed second by second; the pain shooting through your head was too intense to allow you to focus on anything else. But, if you had been able to, you would have understood that the connection between you had just triggered that which you had tried to avoid from the moment you arrived.
The memories didn't ask permission to be awakened. They burst into his mind with a familiar brutality, striking him with the same violence with which they had shattered you.
Your pain subsided a second later, and when you managed to look at him again, Peter was watching you from his spot in the same way you had observed him at the coffee shop.
You knew it immediately.
โWho are you?โ he sobbed.
His voice barely managed to come out, broken by tears.
โWhat did you just do to me?โ
โPeterโฆโ
โIs it real?โ he continued, shaking his head while trying to find an explanation that didn't exist. โAll of thisโฆ is it true?โ
You tried to sit up from the bed to get closer to him, to take him by the arm, to make him understand that you hadn't wanted to hurt him. But Peter pulled away before you could touch him.
The desperation invading him leaked into you without you being able to help it. Suddenly you were feeling everything he couldn't say out loud: the fear, the confusion, the disbelief, and, above all, the rage of having discovered a truth that had been stolen from him for years.
He was hurt. He was upset with you.
โPeter, if you would just let me explainโฆโ
But he wasn't listening. Not because he didn't want to, but because his mind was still trying to process what had just happened. In front of him was not merely a person with powers who had broken into his memories; you were someone who had held a part of his life, a part of himself, and had decided to keep it to yourself.
And now you were giving it back to him all at once, forcing him to face everything he had never been prepared for. Or at least that was how it seemed.
โYou abandoned me,โ he finally stated.
Tears were already streaming down his cheeks, and without realizing it, you began to cry with him. The connection between the two of you made it impossible not to feel his pain.
โYouโฆ simply left,โ he continued, his voice cracking. โYou left me even when I told you not to!โ
You found no response. Because any explanation sounded small in front of the wound that had just opened up.
He took a step backward. He looked at you as if he were still trying to recognize the person in front of him, as if the image he had of you and the one he had just discovered could not exist at the same time.
โI need to leave.โ
โPeterโฆโ
โNo. I can't do this right now.โ
He grabbed his jacket with clumsy movements, still trembling from the shock, and walked toward the door. For an instant you thought about stopping him, about explaining everything to him, about telling him that you never wanted to hurt him. But you knew that any word coming out of your mouth at that moment would only be another thing he would have to endure.
And it was he who left. Without looking back.
You didn't wait even a day to return to the mansion.
You were devastated.
In the morning you tried to talk to Peter, but all you received from inside his apartment was silence. He didn't show up for work either; he had called in sick. You needed no more signs to understand the message he was trying to give you.
For the sake of the people at the pizzeria, you made them forget your existence. After all, there were only a few days left before the cashier returned from his absence, and you didn't want to leave traces of your stay in that place or cause unnecessary questions. You packed your few belongings, abandoned the apartment without even notifying the landlord, and left.
All you wanted was to disappear.
Charles asked no questions when you returned. It wasn't necessary. It was enough to see your swollen eyes, the way you could barely hold yourself up, and the deep desolation that seemed to surround you to understand how things had ended.
Nor did he try to console you. Not because he didn't care, but because he knew there was a part of that which you had to face by yourself. He had warned you about the consequences of your decisions, and now you had to live with them.
Sadness, however, soon transformed into something easier to bear: rage.
You were furious with yourself for having believed that going to Queens could end any other way. Furious with Peter for having made you forget him. And furious because you hadn't chosen to hand over his memories; everything had been the product of an event beyond your control.
The human mind was something far too complex. Unique, fragile, and extraordinarily powerful. You knew it better than anyone. You knew that entering it always involved risks, that even the most noble intention could cause irreparable damage. And even so, you had decided to try.
But in the end, none of that had mattered.
The tension was evident every time you appeared around the mansion. Even your friends began to weigh their words, to avoid conversations with you when the opportunity arose. It was as if you wore the anger you felt toward the entire world written on your face, as if everyone could see it, even if they never mentioned it.
And then you felt like before again: rejected, set aside, reduced to the only thing that for years you had tried not to be.
A mutant.
For days you tried to convince yourself that time would eventually extinguish that rage. It didn't. If anything, it became quieter and harder to ignore. It remained with you upon waking, during meals, and in every hallway of the mansion, feeding on everything you couldn't change. There were too many unanswered questions and an unbearable sense of helplessness that wouldn't stop growing.
In the end you understood that staying still only made things worse. You couldn't force Peter to forgive you, nor undo what had happened, nor regain control over memories that had returned in the worst possible way. But there was something that was still in your hands: understanding what had happened to you. If that connection had been capable of breaking all the rules you thought you knew about telepathy, you needed to discover why. And to do so, there was only one place you could go.
The mansion housed spaces that had not been built to receive visitors, but to contain abilities that, on occasion, proved too dangerous even for those who had learned to master them.
One of those rooms was located in one of the most secluded areas of the building: a completely isolated training room, with reinforced walls and a huge panel of police-grade glass that allowed observation from the outside without interfering in the process. It was the place where telepaths practiced when they needed to explore their abilities without the risk of accidentally invading someone else's mind.
It was also one of the few places where you could allow yourself instability.
You had been inside for several minutes, focusing on keeping various objects suspended around you. At first it had been a simple exercise: controlling the movement, the speed, the precision. But your mind wasn't really there. It was still trapped in the city, in Peter's gaze, in his words, in the way he had walked out of your apartment as if you were someone completely unknown to him.
Frustration began to seep into every movement.
The objects stopped moving calmly. They began to tremble in the air. Your breathing became heavier, and the anger you had tried to contain for days grew inside you again until it occupied every corner of your mind.
You didn't want to feel this way. You didn't want to be angry. But you didn't know how to stop feeling hurt either.
And then something inside you gave way.
The first thud made the glass panes vibrate. Then came another. And another.
The objects floating around you shot off in all directions before shattering against the walls, reduced to fragments while a wave of energy swept through the room.
You stood motionless in the middle of the chaos, breathing with difficulty, observing the remains of everything that just seconds before you had been controlling.
Your name echoed in the room with Charles's characteristic calm, from the speakers around. You closed your eyes, exhausted. Of course, he had seen what happened. He had probably been observing your progress as he so often did during your training sessions.
โI know, I know,โ you answered in desperation, running a hand over your face. โI lost control.โ
You expected a correction, a warning, or for him to agree with you. But Charles said none of that.
โSomeone wants to see you.โ
You frowned.
โWho?โ
You received no answer.
You stepped out of the room still confused, wiping your hands as you walked down the hallway. For a few seconds, your mind tried to find any possible explanation. A student, a visitor, some mansion business.
Until you looked up and felt your heart stop.
Peter was standing in front of you.
For an instant you forgot how to breathe.
You didn't understand what he was doing there. You didn't understand how he had arrived. After all, he barely knew anything about you; he didn't know the mansion, he didn't know where to find you, he had no reason to have made it there.
His gaze was fixed on you, heavy with too many things that neither of you seemed to know how to say.
Next to him was the professor.
โThis young man says he knows you. And he wants to speak with you.โ
Before you could ask him anything else, Charles simply offered them an understanding look and walked away down the hallway, leaving the two of you alone.
You knew that a mutant of his level could probably have crossed that barrier that had been impossible for you. Therefore, he was aware of the situation and knew exactly what Peter had come to tell you.
He took a step forward, and you stepped back out of inertia.
โWhat are you doing here?โ
โYou left,โ he whispered, ignoring your question. โAt the pizzeria, they don't have a single memory of you.โ
โI'm very good at doing that,โ you replied defensively.
Why were you answering him like that? When a week ago the only thing you wished for was for him to be able to remember you. And now that he did, you were scared.
That was it. Not fury, but fear taking control.
You looked him up and down, and something in his face told you he hadn't slept very well. To be honest, neither had you.
Peter took another step toward you, but this time you didn't step back. Not because you were calm, but because your body seemed not to know whether it wanted to get closer to him or protect itself from whatever he might say.
You had imagined this moment too many times. You had thought about what it would be like when he finally knew the truth, when you could stop carrying the weight of what happened alone, when you no longer had to pretend you didn't know him.
But you never imagined that, when it finally happened, you would feel so much fear.
โWhy?โ he asked.
His voice was much lower than last time. There was no longer rage in it, only tiredness. As if he had spent the whole night trying to find an answer that refused to fit.
You looked down.
โI need to understand it,โ he continued. His jaw tightened slightly. โI need to know what happened.โ
You took a breath before answering. Not because you didn't know what to say, but because you knew that no explanation would change what he had felt.
โI didn't know anything.โ
Peter frowned.
โWhat?โ
โI didn't know it was you.โ
Your voice came out lower than you expected. You were terrified.
โI didn't know the boy from the coffee shop was you. I didn't know you still lived in New York, nor did I know that you had lost your memories. I didn't know anything about what had happened after I left.โ
Peter remained silent, processing every word.
โI couldn't enter your mind. You seem to be immune to me. And I don't know if I'm wrong, but that day I even felt like you knew what I was trying to do. I wanted to go talk to you or probe a little to find out why you were blocking me, but then we bumped into each other. And when you touched meโฆ when you took my hand, everything came back to me.โ
You paused, trying to find the right words.
โIt wasn't that I was looking for you. I didn't know where you were, I didn't know what had happened to you after all this time. You simply appeared in front of me and then the memories surfaced.โ
Peter stood motionless, listening to you attentively.
โI heard you, Peter, in my mind. In my dreams. It wasn't even my intention, you justโฆ it was as if you were screaming. Every time.โ
Your lower lip had begun to tremble, as if you were about to cry.
โBefore seeing each other again that day, I could feel your pain. Iโฆ I listened to your worries and suffered the double life you lead, but I didn't know it was about you.โ
You looked down.
โI couldn't understand it.โ
Your voice grew lower.
โAnd when I found you, I only had more questions than answers. That's why I went back to Queens. I wanted to understand what had happened with you and also know who you were after everything you had lived through. I justโฆ wanted to get to know you as you were now.โ
Peter swallowed hard, but didn't look away.
โIt was never my intention for you to remember. It just happened.โ
He seemed to be trying to order each piece of the story, fitting the memories he now had with the person standing in front of him. Then he looked up and finally uttered words:
โSo it's trueโฆโ
His voice came out more fragile than he would have liked.
โEverything we were?โ he continued. โEverything we had?โ
He paused.
โIs it true that we loved each other?โ
You couldn't answer immediately. That was the question you had feared hearing the most, for you knew it would always be asked in the past tense.
You nodded slowly.
His eyes filled with an emotion you couldn't identify. Pain, relief, sadness. Perhaps all at the same time.
โIt was real.โ
For an instant he seemed trapped in those words. As if a part of him had needed to hear them from you to finally believe it hadn't been an illusion.
But then the expression on his face changed.
โWhy did you do it?โ he asked.
His voice was no longer fragile, but sounded wounded.
โWhy did you take something from me that you had no right to take?โ
You said nothing.
โYou took a part of my life from me,โ he took another step toward you. โYou took my memories. You took away my ability to decide what I wanted to do with them.โ
His eyes met yours.
โWhy did you make me forget you?โ
You felt the guilt return, but this time you didn't let it crush you. Because you had spent days punishing yourself for the very same thing. You knew you had been wrong, but now you also knew you weren't the only one who had made decisions.
โAnd did you have the right to do it?โ you asked.
Peter frowned.
โWhat?โ
โDid you have the right to make everyone forget who you were?โ
Silence fell between you both.
โNo,โ your voice remained firm. โYou didn't either.โ
Peter looked away, and his expression hardened.
โIt's not the same.โ
โWhy?โ
โBecause I was trying to prevent a collapse of universes.โ
You nodded slowly, accepting the difference.
โYes. You held the fate of millions of people in your hands.โ
You took a step toward him.
โBut, Peterโฆ I didn't hold the challenge of protecting the world in my hands.โ
You looked at him directly.
โI only wanted to protect my world.โ
His features shifted slightly. The confession hung suspended between the two of you.
โI know I hurt you. But at that momentโฆ all I could see was someone I loved suffering, and I thought that if I could take that pain away from you, even at my own expense, I had to do it.โ
You took another step toward him, as if there were a magnetism pulling you. He himself was what was pulling you in his direction.
But it wasn't the telepathic connection. It was him. It had always been him.
โCan you blame me?โ you whispered, barely a thread of a voice.
โCan you really?โ you continued, searching his eyes. โDidn't you do the same for Michelle?โ
The mention of her name seemed to pause him for an instant.
โWhen you decided to have everyone forget who you were, you didn't do it because you didn't love them. You did it because you loved them too much. Because you believed that carrying the loss was better than watching them suffer.โ
You looked down for a second.
โI did the same thing.โ
Peter remained silent, trapped between the need to contradict you and the inability to deny that he understood that kind of sacrifice.
โThe difference,โ you said softly, โis that you were trying to save everyone.โ
You looked at him again.
โI was just trying to save you.โ
โI missed you.โ
The confession came out of him suddenly, interrupting you before you could continue.
For an instant he seemed surprised by his own words, as if he had spent too much time trying to deny something he could no longer hide. He looked down and took a deep breath, searching for the right way to explain something that even he hadn't known how to comprehend during all that time.
โEven if I didn't know who you wereโฆโ he whispered. โEven if I couldn't remember you, I tried to find you everywhere.โ
His fingers closed slightly at his sides, as if he could still feel that absence that had accompanied him for so long.
โI looked for you in people, in places, in experiences. There were moments when something made me feel like I had already lived through something similar, that there was someone who was supposed to be there with me, but I could never understand what it was.โ
His eyes met yours again.
โThere was always a part of me that felt like I was missing something.โ
Guilt shot through you again, but this time mixed with something harder to bear: realizing that, even without his memories, a part of him had kept searching for you.
โDid you never think about that?โ he asked softly, though his voice still carried the wound of everything that had happened. โDid you never think that it was impossible to make someone forget you completely?โ
He took a small step toward you. The distance between you disappeared until the tip of his nose brushed yours softly. You were so close that you could see every emotion reflected in his eyes, the tears pooling slowly on his eyelashes before slipping down his cheekbones.
โThat maybe memories aren't the only thing left of a person? But that love stays carved in a way that no one can erase?โ
You didn't know what to answer. You limited yourself to observing him from below, completely trapped between everything you wanted to say and the inability to find the right words. Your eyes traveled over his face with an almost desperate attention, as if you needed to memorize every detail of him again: the way his features had changed over the years, the tiredness accumulated in his gaze, the vulnerability he tried to hide and that was now completely exposed before you.
It was him. After all that time, after trying to convince yourself that you had to let him go, Peter was still there, in front of you, real and tangible, as if a part of you had always known you would end up finding each other again.
He didn't seem capable of pulling away either. His hands remained still, fearing that touching you would mean losing you again.
The rage was still there. The guilt was still there. The wounds hadn't vanished completely. But suddenly they seemed much smaller in front of the reality of having him close once more.
Because through all those years, you had missed his presence above any memory. You had missed his voice, his way of looking at you, the safety you felt when you were by his side. And now that he was in front of you, that you could feel his proximity and confirm he was real, it was impossible to keep pretending that the only thing existing between you was pain.
His hand moved slowly up to your face. His fingers slid softly across your cheek, holding it with a delicacy uncharacteristic of the moment. The contact was small, almost imperceptible, but enough to break the last barrier between you.
Peter tilted his face slightly toward you, and you did the same. Neither of the two had to think about it, driven by a need that had survived even when memories had vanished.
The kiss began with caution, but that fragility lasted barely a few seconds. Soon his hands found your waist, and he pulled you closer with an urgency that needed no explanation. You held him with the same strength, clinging to the fabric of his clothes while he seemed unable to keep any space between you. It was a desperate, deep kiss, as if both of you were trying to recover in that instant all the time you had lost.
Peter made you step back until your back met the wall, without letting go of you. His body remained close to yours, protecting you in an almost instinctive way, while his hands traced your face gently.
There was something almost reverent in the way he touched you, as if after spending so much time without you, now there was only one thing he wanted to do: take care of you. His fingers paused on your cheek, wiping away a stray tear without either of you knowing at what exact moment you had begun to cry.
โI'm so sorry,โ you whispered against his lips. You could barely pronounce it before he kissed you again, as if he didn't want to hear any more apologies.
โForgive me, Peter.โ
He closed his eyes for an instant and rested his forehead against yours. His breath trembled slightly before the words left him.
โI was so lonelyโฆโ he admitted softly. โAll this time I felt like I was missing something and I didn't understand what it was. I tried to move on, but there was a part of me that kept looking for you, even when I didn't even know who I was looking for.โ
His fingers remained on your face, tracing your cheek with care, as if he needed to convince himself that you weren't another memory that was going to vanish.
โAnd now you're here.โ
The way he looked at you finished breaking you. You had expected to find pain turned into anger, unanswered questions, the same wound you had carried with you all that time. But there was none of that in his eyes.
There was only Peter. The same one you had lost. The same one who, despite everything, had never stopped looking for you.
His thumb wiped the last tear remaining on your skin, and for an instant, everything seemed to stand in silence. There were no reproaches between you, only the sadness of the years taken from you and the relief of having finally arrived at the same place.
He looked at you as if he still couldn't believe it.
โI found you.โ
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