“the life you forgot”
🕸 peter parker x fem!reader 🕸
hi!! i’m trying something a little different this time 😭 i know i usually only write joe keery, gator or steve, but every single time a new spider-man movie comes out i somehow end up completely obsessed with peter all over again… so here we are. i’ve had this idea stuck in my head for days and finally decided to write it. if you enjoy this and would like to see more spider-man one shots, definitely send me your requests!! i’d love to hear your ideas. 💗
summary: after accidentally finding a box Peter never meant for anyone to open, you discover a letter that reveals a life you don’t remember living. Before the spell, Peter Parker was your best friend, your boyfriend, and the person you loved most. Now he’s your boyfriend again—but only one of you remembers the first time you fell in love.
word count: 8K
warnings: Spider-Man: No Way Home spoilers, Brand New Day post-canon (movie canon only), angst with hopeful ending, memory loss, identity crisis, grief, emotional confrontation, mentions of May Parker’s death, crying, relationship conflict, lots of dialogue, no use of y/n.
The box did not look important.
That was the part you would think about later, after the night had divided itself neatly into before and after, when you would try to remember whether there had been some warning in the way it sat there. Some strange weight in the room. Some invisible thread pulling you toward it.
There had been nothing.
It was only a plain cardboard box pushed too close to the edge of a shelf, partly hidden behind a stack of things Peter had apparently been meaning to sort through for months. You had not even been searching for anything interesting. You had been looking for the small portable charger he insisted he owned, despite never once being able to produce it when either of you actually needed it.
Peter had left less than twenty minutes earlier.
He had received a notification on his phone, stared at it for half a second too long, and then looked up at you with the carefully casual expression he used whenever he was about to lie badly.
“I have to go out for a little while.”
You had been sitting with your legs tucked beneath you, half-watching something neither of you had been paying much attention to. Peter had spent most of it leaning against you, his shoulder warm against yours, occasionally whispering comments too softly for you to hear and then acting offended when you asked him to repeat them.
“At this time?” you had asked.
“Yeah. It’s, um, a work thing.”
“You don’t have work tonight.”
Peter had frozen for the briefest moment, one hand halfway through pulling on his jacket. You watched the lie arrive behind his eyes, watched him consider it, and then watched him decide to use it anyway.
“Different work.”
You had stared at him.
He had stared back.
“Very convincing,” you said eventually.
“I thought so.”
He had kissed your forehead before leaving, lingering for just long enough to make it feel like an apology. You had watched him go with the same familiar unease that always followed his unexplained disappearances, but you had learned not to push too hard. Peter had parts of his life he kept locked away. You had known that almost since you met him.
At the beginning, you had thought he simply did not trust you.
Then, as months passed and friendship became something softer, and that softness turned into the kind of relationship where he automatically reached for your hand while crossing a street and remembered which food you would steal despite insisting you did not want any, you began to understand that it was not exactly distrust.
Peter trusted you with almost everything.
He just seemed convinced that there were certain things nobody should have to carry with him.
You had never known how to tell him that loving somebody meant carrying things anyway.
You found the charger underneath a roll of tape and three tangled cables, but lifting them disturbed the box above. It shifted forward, scraping against the shelf before you caught it awkwardly against your chest.
One of the bottom flaps opened.
Several things slipped through.
A faded movie ticket landed beside your knee. A cheap plastic keychain skidded beneath the table, one side cracked and its metal ring bent almost entirely open. A folded piece of paper fluttered face down near your foot.
You sighed and lowered the box carefully, expecting old receipts or things Peter had been too sentimental, or too disorganized, to throw away. That expectation lasted until you picked up the folded paper.
It was a photograph.
Not of Peter.
Of you.
You looked younger, standing outside Midtown with your school bag pulled high on one shoulder and your face turned slightly away from the camera. MJ stood beside you, watching whoever had taken the picture with her usual unimpressed expression, while Ned appeared caught halfway through saying something.
You remembered the day.
Not every minute, but enough. The heat pressing through your clothes. MJ complaining that the light was terrible. Ned insisting that the three of you wait because someone had gone back inside for something.
You had never remembered who.
Your thumb moved over the empty strip of pavement beside you. The framing was strangely uneven, as though the photograph had once been wider and had been cut down by hand. The edge was rough beneath your skin.
You turned it over.
There were four names written across the back.
MJ, Ned, Peter, and you.
Peter’s name had not been crossed out or added later. It sat naturally between the others in handwriting you recognized immediately as his.
You read the line again.
The memory remained the same. You, MJ and Ned outside the school. Someone missing, perhaps, but not Peter. You had not known Peter then. You had met him years later, after moving into the same building, when a grocery bag had torn near the stairs and sent an orange rolling toward your shoes.
At least, that was what you remembered.
You placed the photograph beside you and reached for the broken keychain. The piece still attached to the ring resembled part of a red-and-blue figure, one plastic arm missing.
A Spider-Man keychain.
There was a strip of old tape wrapped around the back. Beneath it, written in tiny letters, was your name.
Your chest tightened.
The box contained more things, each one ordinary enough to be meaningless on its own and intimate enough to become frightening when placed beside the others.
A receipt from a restaurant you remembered visiting with MJ and Ned during your final year of school. Four meals had been paid for, although you remembered only three people at the table.
A narrow woven bracelet you had made one afternoon and later assumed you had lost.
A school photograph of you with a small heart drawn beside your face.
A damaged page covered in equations, your handwriting filling the margins around someone else’s work. Near the bottom, you had written:
You’re doing the thing where you pretend you understand me so I’ll stop talking.
Underneath it, Peter had replied:
It usually works.
You stared at the exchange until the ink blurred.
For several seconds, you could hear nothing except the pulse beating too quickly in your ears.
You remembered MJ.
You remembered Ned.
You remembered Spider-Man too, more than most people did, although the memories had always been difficult to explain. You remembered fighting beside him, trusting him when trusting almost anyone had felt impossible, and standing with MJ and Ned while the world seemed to break apart around you.
You remembered the Statue of Liberty. You remembered the other Spider-Men. You remembered Doctor Strange. You remembered the villains and the fear and May Parker.
You remembered learning that May had died.
What you did not remember was Peter.
Whenever you tried to imagine the person beneath Spider-Man’s mask, there was only the suit, the voice distorted slightly through fabric, the shape of his body moving through smoke and shattered stone. You remembered caring about him. You remembered the certainty that he mattered to you in a way you could never properly explain afterward.
But there was no face.
There had never been a face.
You sat back on your heels.
The answer arrived before you were ready to accept it, then vanished beneath a rush of denial so immediate that you almost laughed.
No.
The photograph had been mislabeled. The worksheet had to be some strange coincidence. Peter had found these things somehow. Maybe MJ had known him. Maybe Ned had. Maybe Peter had attended Midtown without you remembering his name because not everyone from school remained important.
The explanation was weak, but you held onto it because the alternative was impossible.
Peter could have known you.
You could have forgotten meeting him.
People forgot classmates all the time.
They did not forget entire relationships.
They did not forget best friends.
They did not forget years.
You pulled more things from the box, no longer careful about the order. A folded birthday card with your handwriting inside. A small ticket stub from an event you remembered attending with MJ and Ned. A loose button from an old jacket you had not owned in years. Another note in which you had drawn an arrow toward an incomprehensible equation and written:
nerd
Peter had replied beneath it:
mean
You had added:
still dating me though
Your hand stopped.
The room seemed to tilt without moving.
You reread the line.
still dating me though
It was your handwriting.
Not something similar to it. Not an imitation Peter could have made after studying your notes. The last letter curled inward exactly the way yours did when you wrote quickly. The ink had faded at the same rate as the rest of the page. There was even a smear beside the word dating, where you had apparently dragged the side of your hand across it before it dried.
You touched the smear.
Nothing happened.
No recognition. No memory. No warmth.
Only your own handwriting telling you that you had loved someone your mind insisted had not existed.
Beneath the objects was an envelope.
Your full name was written across the front, carefully enough that you could see where the pen had paused between letters. The paper had yellowed slightly along the edges.
You knew you should stop.
Whatever this was, it belonged to Peter. It had been stored out of sight, and he had never chosen to show it to you. Opening it would be a violation of something, although you could no longer tell whether that something was his privacy or your own past.
You could have returned everything to the box.
You might have, had your handwriting not been scattered across notes Peter had kept for years.
You opened the envelope.
The letter inside had been folded several times. The writing started neatly at the top, but gradually became smaller and less controlled, words crossed out and rewritten in places.
You read.
I don’t know how to start this without making it sound like I’m dying, so I should probably say I’m not. At least I don’t think I am. That was not comforting. Sorry.
By the time you read this, you won’t know who I am.
You stopped.
Your eyes returned to the sentence.
By the time you read this, you won’t know who I am.
The words looked absurd on the page. Dramatic. Impossible. Like the opening of a terrible story Peter had written for some reason you could not yet understand.
You almost put it down.
Instead, you continued.
My name is Peter Parker. We met at school, and you thought I was weird before you liked me. You’re probably going to deny that when I explain everything, but you did. Ned says I acted worse around you because I kept trying to act normal, which apparently made me act less normal.
You, me, MJ and Ned were best friends. It was always the four of us, even when MJ said she hated group activities and then came anyway. You knew I was Spider-Man. You found out because I lied badly, not because I told you properly. You were mad at me for three days, but you still helped clean blood off my face, which I think was when I realized I was completely in love with you.
You lowered the letter.
“No,” you whispered.
Your voice sounded too loud in the room.
You looked toward the door as though Peter might suddenly be standing there, ready to explain why he had written something so cruel and ridiculous.
The door remained closed.
You looked at the broken keychain. At the photograph. At the notes.
Then you read again.
You knew I was Spider-Man.
The statement should have been unbelievable.
Instead, it settled beside years of things you had never been able to explain.
Peter disappearing without warning. Peter arriving with bruises he dismissed too quickly. Peter hearing sirens before you did. Peter catching falling objects with a speed that had made you laugh nervously and accuse him of having “freakishly good reflexes.”
The first time you met him, the grocery bag had torn.
You remembered the orange rolling toward you. You remembered bending to pick it up. You remembered Peter thanking you without looking properly at your face.
Then he had looked.
The carton of eggs had slipped from his hands.
You had always thought he was awkward around you because he found you attractive. He had eventually admitted that he did, his ears turning red while he struggled to make the confession sound casual.
Now the memory altered without changing.
His expression had not been the startled interest of a stranger.
It had been recognition.
You raised the letter again with unsteady hands.
We started dating after you kissed me because I spent almost a month trying to ask you and kept changing the subject. Our first date was terrible. It rained, the place we wanted to go was closed, and I got mustard on my sleeve. You said it was perfect anyway. You were lying, but I appreciated it.
Tonight, Doctor Strange is going to cast a spell that makes everyone forget Peter Parker. People should still remember Spider-Man and the things that happened, but they won’t remember that I was the person underneath the mask. They won’t remember me.
You won’t remember me.
You stopped breathing.
The Statue of Liberty rose inside your mind in fractured pieces. Metal beneath your feet. Wind tearing through your clothes. Ned shouting. MJ’s hand gripping yours. Spider-Man standing in front of you.
You remembered Spider-Man.
You remembered looking at him and feeling terrified in a way that had nothing to do with the fight. You remembered wanting to touch him. You remembered his voice breaking through the mask, telling you something you could no longer recall.
You had assumed the moment was distorted by panic.
Now you tried to place Peter’s face beneath the mask.
Nothing appeared.
Not darkness. Not blur.
Nothing.
It was not like forgetting a name. It was not like an old memory becoming faint around the edges. It felt as though every moment had been carefully edited by someone who knew exactly which frame to remove.
The conversations still happened.
The places still existed.
The emotions remained.
Only the person who should have been standing inside them had been cut away so cleanly that the memories had learned to survive without him.
You closed your eyes and tried harder.
Midtown.
MJ.
Ned.
Spider-Man.
You pictured yourself sitting at lunch with MJ and Ned. The table had always seemed too large for three people. You remembered passing notes during class, although some of the replies did not sound like either of them. You remembered laughing so hard in a school hallway that your stomach hurt, but you could not remember what had been said.
You remembered May allowing you into her apartment.
Why had you been there?
You remembered her pressing food into your hands and asking whether you were sleeping enough. You remembered her affection with complete clarity. What you did not remember was the connection that had brought you into her life.
Peter.
The answer fit every empty space.
Your eyes opened.
“No.”
The denial came louder this time.
You forced yourself to stand, but the sudden movement sent dizziness rushing through your head. You caught the edge of the table and waited for the room to steady.
The letter was a lie.
It had to be.
Peter was lying to you. Peter had somehow collected things that belonged to you and written an elaborate explanation because he was sick, or confused, or hiding something worse. The idea was frightening, but it was still easier to accept than magic removing years from your mind.
Peter lying meant you still understood who you were.
The letter being true meant there had been another version of you living inside your own life, and you had no access to her.
You searched the box again, this time desperately, no longer hoping to understand it. You wanted to find the mistake. A wrong date. A detail Peter could not have known. Something that revealed the entire thing as a fantasy constructed by a person you had trusted too much.
You unfolded the birthday card.
The front was cheap and covered in a joke you did not understand. Inside, MJ had written one short sentence. Ned had filled almost half the available space. Your message began near the bottom.
You know I hate writing serious things in cards because then you keep them and use them against me, but happy birthday. I love you even when you’re being annoying, which is basically always. Also, May said I’m allowed to steal the blue hoodie now, so legally it belongs to me.
The name at the top had been damaged. Not crossed out or erased with ink. The paper itself looked strangely worn, as though something had been taken from it.
Your stomach turned.
You checked the date on the back.
It was from years before you remembered meeting Peter.
You pressed the card flat against the floor and looked through the other objects, faster now. The restaurant receipt. The bracelet. The keychain. The equation page.
Every object told the same story.
You had known Peter.
You had been close to him.
You had loved him.
You simply could not remember doing any of it.
The letter trembled between your fingers as you continued.
I promised I would find you tomorrow and explain.
I’m writing this because I don’t know exactly what the spell will change, or what I’ll be able to prove afterward. I need something written down while you still know me, because right now you’re waiting for me and you made me promise I’d come back.
You read the paragraph again.
Then a third time.
Right now you’re waiting for me.
Somewhere inside your memories, a younger version of you had stood beside MJ and Ned and waited for someone whose name no longer existed.
You tried to remember the waiting.
You saw the end of the battle. You saw Strange preparing the spell. You saw Spider-Man standing in front of you.
You remembered crying.
You remembered telling him something. Making him promise something, perhaps.
Then the memory folded in on itself.
Your hand flew to your mouth.
The grief arrived before the tears did, a vast and disorienting pressure spreading through your chest. You did not miss Peter in those memories because you could not remember him. You did not miss the relationship because your mind contained no version of it to long for.
And yet something in you reacted to the absence.
Your body seemed to understand before your thoughts could.
You stared at the school photograph of yourself. You looked young, distracted, impatient with whoever had taken it. Peter, apparently.
Who had that girl been?
Who had kissed him first?
Who had held his hand after May died?
Who had teased him over equations and stolen his hoodies and made him promise to return?
It had been you.
Except you did not know her.
You were not mourning only a boyfriend. You were mourning yourself.
Somewhere there had been another version of you. A girl who had fallen in love, who had laughed with Peter, who had known May as more than a kind woman connected to Spider-Man’s story. That girl had not died.
She had simply stopped existing.
No one had even noticed she was gone.
Not MJ. Not Ned. Not you.
Only Peter.
The first tear landed on the paper.
You wiped it away quickly, horrified by the small dark mark it left near his handwriting. Then another fell, and another, and suddenly you were pressing the heel of your hand against your mouth to contain a sound you did not recognize.
The grief felt illegitimate.
How could you cry over memories you did not have?
How could you mourn a relationship you had already rebuilt without knowing it had existed?
You looked toward the place where Peter had been sitting less than half an hour earlier. He had leaned against you. He had complained about the movie. He had kissed your forehead before leaving.
Had he done that before too?
Was every affectionate thing between you a repetition for him?
Had he watched you fall in love while remembering the first time?
You felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with the objects on the floor. Every private moment you believed belonged equally to both of you now seemed uneven. You had entered the relationship without information he had possessed from the beginning.
He had known how you laughed.
How you argued.
How you loved.
He had known you had once belonged to each other, and he had let you approach him as a stranger.
You returned to the letter, although the words swam through tears.
You hate when I apologize for things that aren’t completely my fault, but I’m sorry.
I’m sorry you’re going to lose years without knowing you lost them. I’m sorry I won’t be in memories that were mine too. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you enough that being with you made everything less terrifying.
You steal the fries you say you don’t want. You tap your fingers against my wrist when you’re nervous. You pretend not to like the science videos Ned and I send, but you watch all of them. You know when I’m lying before I finish the sentence. You make fun of how I say “actually” when I’m explaining something. You fall asleep during movies and then argue when I tell you that you missed the ending.
You’re my best friend.
You’re my girlfriend.
I love you.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you all of this, and hopefully you’ll think I’m crazy for only a little while.
Peter.
You read the final lines once.
Then again.
Then a third time, because somewhere between You’re my girlfriend and Tomorrow I’ll tell you, the words stopped behaving like language and became shapes on a page.
Peter.
Peter Parker.
Your boyfriend.
No.
That was not right.
Your boyfriend was Peter now.
You knew him now.
You had met him near the stairs. You had become his friend slowly. You had spent weeks wondering whether he liked you. You had kissed him after an evening where he seemed determined to say something and repeatedly lost his nerve.
You had thought it was your first kiss.
Had Peter remembered another?
You looked back at the letter.
We started dating after you kissed me because I spent almost a month trying to ask you and kept changing the subject.
The same thing.
He had done the same thing twice.
Or perhaps you had.
The thought made you feel suddenly ill.
You pushed the box away and stood too quickly. Your knee struck the table, but the pain barely registered. You crossed the room, then stopped because there was nowhere to go. Peter’s things surrounded you. The jacket he had left earlier. The cup he had used. The charger you had been searching for before your life divided itself into two incompatible versions.
You pressed both hands to your face.
Think.
There had to be a way to think through it.
You remembered your life after the spell. You remembered MJ and Ned remaining friends, growing closer over time until everyone around them had stopped pretending not to see what was happening. You remembered joining them occasionally, although something about the three of you had always felt temporary, like a group formed from the remains of something larger.
You remembered Spider-Man disappearing from your life after the Statue of Liberty.
You remembered looking for him in crowds without understanding why.
You remembered dreaming once of someone sitting beside you on a rooftop. You could never see his face. When you woke, you had cried so hard that you blamed it on May.
Peter had been alive.
Peter had been somewhere in the same city.
Had he seen you?
The question arrived with such force that you returned to the box, searching as though the answer might be written beneath the cardboard. There was no second letter. No explanation of what happened the next day.
Only the first promise.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you.
He never had.
The denial fractured.
Not fully. A part of you still wanted Peter to walk through the door and confess that the letter was an elaborate lie. You wanted to be furious at him for inventing something unforgivable because at least then the past would still belong to you.
But you knew.
The knowledge had settled beneath your ribs with the same certainty you felt whenever Peter lied badly.
You knew he was Spider-Man.
You knew the letter was true.
You knew he had found you again years later and pretended not to.
The lock turned.
You did not move.
The door opened, followed by the soft shuffle of someone trying to enter without making noise. Peter stepped inside, closing it behind him while pulling the edge of one sleeve down over his hand.
He had not noticed you yet.
“Hey,” he called quietly. “Sorry that took longer than I thought. Which is what I always say, so I should probably start lying with more variety.”
He turned.
The rest of the sentence disappeared.
Peter stopped so suddenly that his back struck the door. His eyes moved from you to the open box, then to the objects scattered across the floor.
Finally, he saw the letter.
Every trace of colour left his face.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. Peter remained pressed against the door, one hand still partially hidden inside his sleeve. His hair was damp around his forehead, and there was a fresh mark along his jaw that had not been there when he left.
You noticed all of it.
The awareness made everything worse because he did not look like a mysterious stranger or a superhero caught without his mask.
He looked like Peter.
Your Peter.
Except, apparently, he had been yours before.
“You’re Spider-Man,” you said.
The words came out quietly, stripped of the anger and grief that had already torn through you before he arrived.
Peter’s lips parted. His gaze flickered toward the window, the box and the letter before returning to you, as though he hoped the correct answer might be waiting somewhere else in the room.
“Yes.”
The single word entered the silence and remained there.
You stared at him, but the revelation no longer shocked you. It only confirmed everything else. The bruises. The disappearances. The part of your memories where Spider-Man’s face should have been.
“And this is true.”
You lifted the letter.
Peter’s shoulders folded inward.
“Yes.”
You had imagined screaming when he came home. During those final minutes alone, you had pictured yourself demanding answers so quickly that he could not avoid any of them.
Instead, your voice sounded frighteningly calm.
“You knew me before.”
“Yes.”
“I was friends with you.”
“Yes.”
“You were my best friend.”
Peter swallowed.
“Yes.”
“And we were together.”
His eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
The calmness broke.
You laughed once, a small, disbelieving sound that immediately turned into something closer to a sob. You covered your mouth, furious that he was witnessing the reaction he had denied you years ago.
Peter moved instinctively.
One step.
You recoiled.
He stopped immediately.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say that yet.”
Peter closed his mouth.
The silence that followed was thick and painful. He remained near the door, one hand flexing helplessly at his side, as though every instinct told him to come closer and every memory warned him that he had no right.
You looked down at the letter again.
“I read this four times.”
Peter’s face tightened.
“I kept thinking it would change if I read it again. That I’d realize it wasn’t my handwriting on those notes or that the dates were wrong.” Your voice began to shake despite your effort to control it. “I was trying to prove you were lying because that was easier.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
The words came out sharply enough that Peter flinched.
“You don’t know what it feels like to find out there was an entire version of you that you can’t remember. You don’t know what it feels like to look at your own handwriting and have it tell you that you loved someone you think you met years later.”
Peter’s eyes filled, but he said nothing.
“I tried to remember you.”
Your voice cracked on the final word.
“I remembered everything else. I remember MJ and Ned. I remember May. I remember the Statue of Liberty. I remember Spider-Man standing in front of me.” You pressed the letter against your chest, crumpling the edge beneath your fingers. “But there’s nothing under the mask. There’s nothing. It’s like you were cut out of every memory and everything else just closed around the space.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I told you not to say that.”
“I know. I just…” Peter stopped, rubbing one hand over his mouth. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“That’s a problem, considering you’ve had years to think about it.”
The accusation struck him hard enough that his gaze dropped.
You watched him stand there with the same slight hunch you usually found endearing. Tonight it looked like preparation. Peter had spent years imagining your anger, and he already seemed to know how to receive it.
“Did you find me the next day?”
The question changed something in his face.
Peter looked toward the floor.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more than the letter.
You stared at him until he raised his eyes again.
“You had this with you?”
“Yes.”
“You found me, and you had the letter, and you didn’t give it to me.”
Peter’s throat moved.
“No.”
The grief inside you shifted, becoming hotter and easier to hold.
“Why?”
“I went to talk to MJ first.”
You said nothing.
Peter seemed to understand that the answer required more than one sentence. He rubbed his palms against his jeans, leaving faint marks from whatever grime remained on his hands.
“I had this whole speech planned. Not a good one. It was probably twelve different sentences taped together.” His voice moved faster as his nerves took control, words beginning to trip over one another. “I kept practising on the way there, and every time I got to the part about the spell it sounded completely insane, which it was, obviously, but I was still going to try.”
“Peter.”
“Right. Sorry.”
He closed his eyes briefly, collecting himself.
“She was working. Ned was there. They were talking about MIT, and MJ still had the cut from the Statue of Liberty.” His eyes opened again, but he looked somewhere over your shoulder. “She smiled at me because I was a customer. That was all.”
You remembered the coffee shop. You remembered MJ working there, Ned appearing often enough that nobody questioned it, the two of them rebuilding a closeness the spell had never taken from them.
“And you decided not to tell them.”
“Yes.”
“Because they looked happy?”
Peter winced.
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“Then make it complicated.”
He stared at you.
The command seemed to pull something honest from him.
“They were hurt, but they were going somewhere. They had plans. They had each other. I knew their lives weren’t perfect, but every terrible thing that had happened to them lately had happened because they were close to me.” Peter’s jaw tightened as he forced himself to continue. “I thought walking back in and giving them all of it again would be selfish.”
“You thought.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t ask them.”
“No.”
“You didn’t let them decide whether knowing you was worth the danger.”
“No.”
Each answer came quietly, without defence.
You had wanted him to argue. You had wanted him to provide something solid enough for your anger to strike against. Instead, Peter stood there and admitted that every accusation was true.
“And me?”
His breathing changed.
You watched his chest rise and remain still for a fraction too long, as though the question trapped the air inside him.
“What did you do about me?”
“I found you too.”
The admission was barely audible.
The room sharpened around you. The bent metal of the keychain. The uneven edge of the old photograph. The distant sound of traffic outside.
“Where?”
“Outside Midtown.”
You could picture the steps immediately. You remembered sitting there after everything ended, waiting with a strange pressure inside your chest and no understanding of what you expected to happen.
“Was I alone?”
“No. MJ and Ned came out after a while.”
“Did you come close enough for me to see you?”
Peter stared at the floor.
“No.”
“Did you try?”
“I walked toward you.”
The answer stopped you.
“How close?”
“I don’t know. Close enough to hear Ned talking.” He rubbed his injured knuckles, gaze fixed on the movement. “You looked like you hadn’t slept. MJ was leaning against you, and you kept checking the street.”
Your fingers tightened around the letter.
“Why was I checking the street?”
Peter’s face crumpled before he controlled it.
“I think you were waiting for someone.”
The grief returned so sharply that you had to look away.
You remembered waiting.
Not for Peter, because Peter had not existed. But for someone. You had spent hours after the spell with the inexplicable certainty that somebody had promised to come back.
The word did not come easily. He forced it out and remained standing inside the silence it created.
You turned toward the window because looking at him made it harder to hold onto the anger, and you were not ready to lose it. The anger was the only feeling in the room that belonged entirely to your current self. The grief belonged to a relationship you could not remember. The tenderness belonged to a person who had known Peter before the spell.
But the anger was new.
“Did you honestly believe you were protecting me?”
“At first.”
The distinction made you pause.
“At first?”
Peter glanced toward the door and caught himself. You watched him force his body to remain where it was.
“At first I thought that was all it was. Then weeks passed. Then months.” His voice slowed. “After a while, telling you would’ve meant admitting I had already chosen for you. The longer I waited, the worse the explanation became.”
“So you kept waiting because you were scared of what I’d think of you.”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
Not safety.
Not sacrifice.
Fear.
The honesty of it was uglier and more human than the answer you expected.
“You let me believe we were strangers because you were afraid I’d be angry.”
“I was afraid you’d be angry. I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. I was afraid you would believe me and still decide you didn’t want me.” Peter swallowed, his voice dropping. “And I was afraid you would want me back immediately because the person in the letter loved me, even if the person standing in front of me didn’t.”
You stared at him.
Peter did not look away.
“I’m not saying it makes it okay,” he added quickly. “It doesn’t. You asked why. That’s why.”
The explanation did not repair anything. It widened the damage, showing you how many opportunities he had been given to tell the truth and how often he had chosen fear instead.
“What about May?”
Peter became completely still.
You remembered May Parker. You remembered her kindness, her stubbornness, the way she made space for frightened strangers when nobody else would. You remembered learning that she had died.
What you had never understood was why the loss felt personal.
“I remember her,” you said. “I remember what happened. I remember being with MJ and Ned afterward. But I don’t remember why it felt like we were waiting for Spider-Man to fall apart.”
Peter looked as though somebody had struck him.
“You were waiting for me.”
The sentence was quiet, simple and devastating.
You did not recover a memory. There was no sudden image of Peter collapsing into your arms, no magical recognition.
But you understood the shape of the emptiness.
“What did I do?”
Peter looked startled by the question.
“When you came back after May,” you clarified. “What did I do?”
His mouth trembled slightly before he pressed it closed.
“You held my hand.”
“That’s all?”
“No.” A faint, broken expression passed over his face, almost a smile but too painful to become one. “You kept telling me to breathe. I wasn’t doing a great job.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“You got mad because I kept apologizing.”
“I still hate when you do that.”
“I know.”
The response came automatically, soft with familiarity.
For one dangerous second, the room felt normal. Peter was simply Peter again, giving you a tired answer because he knew which habits annoyed you.
Then you remembered that he had known those things before you knew his name.
The familiarity became another wound.
“You let me forget that I was there for you.”
“Sorry.”
A sound escaped you, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Peter looked alarmed, as though even that small reaction had caught him unprepared.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ve been told that before.”
“By me?”
“Mostly.”
The nervous humour vanished almost immediately. Peter rubbed the back of his neck and glanced toward the door again.
“You want to leave.”
“No.”
“You keep looking at the door.”
“I’m trying to figure out whether you want me to.”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“Peter.”
“Right. Sorry. Not okay.”
You wiped beneath your eyes, suddenly exhausted by the effort of standing.
“When we met here, did you know who I was?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you dropped them.”
“Yeah. That’s why I dropped everything.”
The memory rearranged itself again. His shock. The eggs. The way he stared at you like he had seen a ghost.
“You hadn’t spoken to me for almost three years.”
“No.”
The answer carried more sadness than pride.
You lowered yourself onto the couch. Your legs felt unsteady, and standing across from him made the room feel arranged for a confrontation neither of you could survive indefinitely.
Peter remained where he was.
You looked toward the chair opposite you.
He approached cautiously, stepping around the objects before sitting. He leaned forward with his forearms against his knees, hands clasped tightly together.
For several moments, neither of you spoke.
The silence gave your thoughts space to turn against you.
The admission quieted you.
“I liked knowing you were close. Even when we barely talked. I liked hearing you in the hallway. I liked seeing that you were home when I came back.” His voice became rougher. “It was the first time in years that you were part of my life again, even if you didn’t know it.”
The room settled into another painful silence.
The precision of the answer made you look away.
“Maybe I became less annoying.”
“You weren’t annoying.”
“I’m sure I was.”
“You were.” A faint softness entered Peter’s expression despite the tension. “But not because of your laugh.”
You looked down before the almost-smile could form.
“Why didn’t you tell me when we started dating?”
Peter went still.
“Not when we first met again,” you continued. “Not when we became friends. But when I kissed you, or when this became serious, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
“That’s vague.”
“I was scared you’d think none of this was real because I already knew you. I was scared you’d think I made you fall in love with me again on purpose.” His words came quicker, losing the careful restraint he had tried to maintain. “I was scared you’d want the memories back and I wouldn’t know how to give them to you. I was scared you’d hate me for leaving. I was scared you’d forgive me because you felt bad for me. I was scared telling you would put you in danger again.”
“You’re still Spider-Man. Dating you already puts me in danger.”
“I try not to let it.”
“You leave in the middle of the night and come back hurt.”
“I know.”
“You’ve spent our entire relationship lying to me.”
Peter flinched.
“Yes.”
“Did you ever plan to tell me?”
He hesitated.
Your chest tightened.
“Peter.”
“I thought about it all the time.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
The answer was so quiet that you almost missed it.
“You don’t know.”
“I kept thinking there would be a right time. Then every good moment made me not want to ruin it, and every bad moment made it feel cruel to add more.” He looked down at his hands. “The longer I waited, the worse it became.”
“So maybe you never would’ve told me.”
Peter’s face crumpled before he managed to hide it.
“Maybe.”
The truth hurt more than a promise would have.
You stood abruptly, needing distance. Peter rose too, then stopped when you looked at him.
“I’m not leaving,” you said.
“Okay.”
“I just can’t sit there.”
“Right.”
You crossed toward the window. Your reflection looked unfamiliar in the dark glass.
The person staring back at you had loved Peter twice.
You only remembered once.
You narrowed your eyes.
“Not a criticism,” Peter added quickly.
The humour almost reached you, then disappeared beneath the weight of everything else.
He was still Peter.
That might have been the hardest part.
He had not transformed into a stranger after you learned the truth. He still stood with one shoulder slightly lower when he was nervous. Still tried to ease tension with jokes and regretted them immediately. Still watched your face as though he could understand what you needed if he paid enough attention.
You knew him.
You did not know him at all.
Despite yourself, a small breath escaped you.
Peter’s mouth twitched, then immediately flattened when he saw that you were not smiling.
A laugh nearly escaped you. You stopped it before it could become anything warmer.
Peter looked at you with immediate tenderness.
That expression.
You had seen it in the way he watched you during quiet mornings, in the second before he looked away whenever you caught him staring.
Now you understood that it was not only love.
It was recognition.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
Peter’s face fell. “Like what?”
“Like you’ve been waiting years for every little thing I do.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want…” You stopped, frustrated by the impossibility of explaining it. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to know tonight.”
The gentleness in his voice made you angry again.
“You don’t get to be the reasonable one.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
“You’ve had years to process this. I’ve had an hour.”
“I know.”
The room fell quiet.
You looked at the open box. The objects remained spread across the floor like pieces of a life somebody had dismantled and stored away.
Pain crossed his face.
The answer took some of the force from your anger.
You returned to the couch, but Peter remained standing until you gestured toward the chair. He sat across from you again, leaving the distance intact.
“I don’t want to break up tonight,” you said.
Peter went completely still.
Hope appeared on his face so quickly and so openly that you almost regretted the words.
“That doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t mean I’ll feel the same tomorrow.”
“I understand.”
“I might be angrier tomorrow.”
“That’s fair.”
“And I don’t know whether I can trust you.”
Peter nodded, swallowing hard.
“That’s fair too.”
You looked down at the letter.
“I love you.”
His breath caught.
You continued before he could respond.
“And right now I hate that I love you because I don’t know which part of the relationship is mine. I don’t know whether I fell in love with you or whether I was repeating something I had already done.”
“You fell in love with me.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
Peter leaned forward slightly, his voice quiet but steadier.
“Because you weren’t the same person, and neither was I. I didn’t know how to make you love me. I tried to avoid you, then I tried to be your friend without wanting more, and I messed that up too.” He rubbed one hand over his jaw. “You chose every part of this.”
“You knew me.”
“I had to learn you again.”
“And you loved both versions?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Your eyes filled again.
“That isn’t fair.”
“I know.”
Peter’s voice broke.
He looked away quickly, wiping beneath one eye with the heel of his hand as though annoyed with himself.
“You should’ve come back,” you whispered.
Peter closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You should’ve let me decide.”
“Yes.”
“You should’ve told me when we met again.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t get to choose what I can handle.”
“No.”
The agreement no longer felt passive. Each answer sounded like something he had forced himself to understand.
“You were eighteen,” you said after a long silence.
Peter looked at the floor.
“Yes.”
“You lost May, MJ, Ned and me in the same night.”
“Yes.”
“And you were alone.”
He did not answer.
“Were you?”
Peter breathed in slowly.
“Yes.”
You hated that you felt sorry for him.
Not because he did not deserve compassion, but because the sympathy tangled with anger until neither emotion remained clean. You wanted to comfort him. You wanted to demand why he had not trusted you to comfort him years ago.
“You were a kid.”
“Yeah.”
“But then you kept making the same choice after you weren’t eighteen anymore.”
Peter’s expression tightened.
“Yeah.”
You could understand the first decision without forgiving the decisions that followed.
“And Spider-Man?”
His expression tightened.
“You tell me.”
“Everything?”
“No. I don’t know enough to ask for everything.” Your gaze moved toward his bruised knuckles. “But you don’t get to say you’re going to work when you’re going out in a mask.”
Peter nodded.
“If I have to leave, I tell you it’s Spider-Man.”
“And when you come back hurt?”
“I don’t pretend I walked into something.”
You stared until his nervous half-smile disappeared.
“Right. Serious.”
The clock had moved far past midnight without either of you noticing.
The room looked disturbed in a way that felt permanent, as though even after everything was put away you would still know exactly where each object had landed.
“I don’t know what happens now,” you said.
Peter had been watching his hands. At the sound of your voice, he raised his head carefully.
“Okay.”
The answer was so cautious it barely counted.
“I’m not saying I forgive you.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not saying I definitely will.”
Pain moved through his face before he managed to hide it.
“I understand.”
“You say that now.”
“I’m trying to.”
Outside, rain tapped lightly against the window. It was the only steady sound in the room. You wondered whether Peter could hear things beyond it that you could not. Sirens streets away. Somebody calling for help. The city continuing to demand pieces of him while his own life came apart quietly.
“Are you going to leave again?”
Peter looked toward the door instinctively.
The movement sent anger through you.
“I meant tonight.”
“Oh.” His face flushed faintly. “I can. If you want.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.” He drew in a breath and forced himself to meet your eyes. “I don’t want to leave.”
It was the first uncomplicated thing he had said in a while.
You looked at him for a long moment. The mark on his jaw had darkened, and his knuckles still needed cleaning. Earlier that evening you would have crossed the room without thinking. You would have complained while taking care of him, and Peter would have insisted it was nothing until you threatened to make it worse.
Now even kindness felt loaded.
“I don’t want to be alone with this,” you admitted.
Hope moved across Peter’s face before he could stop it.
“That doesn’t mean I want you next to me,” you continued. “Not yet.”
The hope faded, but he nodded.
“I can stay here.”
“You sound like I’m training a dog.”
“I was going to say that, but it felt risky.”
For half a second, his nervous humour almost reached you.
Then the weight of the letter returned.
Peter noticed.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize every time a joke doesn’t work.”
“That would eliminate most of my apologies.”
You closed your eyes briefly.
When you opened them, he was still sitting exactly where you had asked him to, shoulders tense and hands clasped tightly together. He looked exhausted. He also looked frightened, not of Spider-Man’s enemies or magic, but of saying one wrong thing and watching you disappear.
Part of you wanted him to feel that fear.
Another part hated that he already understood it so well.
You picked up the cut photograph.
“Did you cut yourself out of this?”
Peter’s face changed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It was taken before the spell. Afterward, I was still in my copy.” He looked uncomfortable, clearly aware that he was approaching the part of the magic neither of you understood. “I didn’t know what would happen if anyone else found it. I didn’t know if it could affect the spell or just make you think the picture was fake. So I cut that part off.”
“You destroyed the only picture.”
“I kept the part.”
You looked at him sharply.
Peter pointed toward the box but made no move to retrieve it.
“You kept both halves?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s incredibly depressing.”
“I was having a bad year.”
“A year?”
“Several years.”
The admission settled between you.
“I don’t want to see the other half tonight.”
“Okay.”
“But don’t throw it away.”
Peter’s eyes lifted.
“I won’t.”
That was all you could offer him. Not permission to come closer. Not forgiveness. Only an instruction not to destroy another piece before you had decided what it meant.
You stood.
Peter rose immediately, alarm flashing across his face.
“You can stay tonight,” you said.
Peter stared.
“Here,” you clarified. “In the chair, on the couch, wherever. I don’t want you leaving while I’m asleep and deciding it’s noble.”
“I won’t.”
“And tomorrow I might ask you to go.”
His face tightened, but he nodded.
“Okay.”
“I’m not choosing our relationship tonight.”
“I understand.”
“I’m choosing not to end it while I’m still trying to understand what it was.”
Peter looked down. His eyes became bright, but he blinked quickly and prevented the emotion from becoming anything larger.
“That’s more than I expected.”
The answer hurt.
“It shouldn’t be.”
“No,” he agreed. “Probably not.”
You held the letter against your chest.
“Do you regret writing it?”
Peter considered the question.
“No.”
“Do you regret keeping it?”
“No.”
“Do you regret that I found it?”
He was quiet for a long time.
“I regret that you found it without me telling you first,” he said. “But if you’re asking whether I wish you still didn’t know…”
Peter glanced at the box, then back at you.
“No.”
It was not relief exactly, but close enough to make you angry again.
“You don’t get to feel better because the truth came out accidentally.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t get credit for answering honestly after I found proof.”
“I know.”
You waited for him to apologize.
Peter opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it.
The restraint was almost enough to make you smile.
Almost.
You moved toward the doorway, then stopped.
“Peter.”
“Yeah?”
You looked away.
The words were not poetic. Peter delivered them awkwardly, his voice cracking slightly on the final sentence, but that made them harder to dismiss.
“I can’t say it back tonight.”
Pain crossed his face.
“I know.”
This time, you let him say it.
You looked toward the box one final time.
There were years inside it that belonged to you but did not exist in your mind. There were stories Peter could tell you, but his memories would never become yours simply because he described them well enough. You could listen to every detail and still remain separate from the girl who had lived them.
That was the part you did not know how to forgive.
Not Peter.
Not Strange.
Not the spell.
The fact that the past could be explained and still remain unreachable.
You turned toward the bedroom, taking the letter with you. At the doorway, you paused, although you did not look back.
“Don’t leave.”
Peter’s answer came quietly from across the room.
“I won’t.”
There was no promise about tomorrow.
No touch, no forgiveness, and no suggestion that love had made the damage smaller. The box remained open, filled with questions neither of you could answer in a single night. Peter stayed in the chair while you closed the bedroom door most of the way, leaving only a narrow strip of light between you.
It was not reconciliation.
It was barely trust.
But for the first time since the spell, Peter did not make the choice to disappear before you could decide whether he stayed.
thank you so much for reading!! 🥹 if you’re new here, welcome!! just a little reminder that english isn’t my first language, so i’m really sorry if there are any grammar mistakes or awkward sentences. i really hope you enjoyed it anyway. if you liked this one, please consider leaving a like, reblog or comment because they genuinely make my day. and don’t be afraid to send requests if you’d like to see more peter in the future!! <3
(for my tag list!! i won’t be tagging anyone this time because i’m not sure if you only want to be tagged in joe keery posts 😭 if you’re reading this and you’d like to be tagged in my spider-man (or other fandom) fics too, just let me know in the comments!! 💗)
