𝒍𝒊𝒂

When Stephen Strange had abruptly contacted you about a spell gone wrong, you were confused as to why you were the person he decided to go to when the issue was admittedly much bigger than your abilities could handle. You were concerned that he had even thought about you. Any appearance from you was deemed rare after the events of the Blip. And following that, you had resigned your post as an Avenger, deciding that you wanted to be on your own because working in a team had always brought you bad luck.

And it did.

You knew that Strange had a plethora of individuals who could be of better assistance to his situation with the young Peter Parker — such as Wanda Maximoff, who like you, had also been born with unexplainable forces of magic. She was someone you envied, yet looked up to. Someone who was exactly like you, but better in skill. Her magic was stronger, it was refined. She was smarter, older, wiser. Or so you thought. Apparently, Wanda’s whereabouts were unknown and in fact, Strange theorized that she had gone completely rogue. He suggested that you were his second choice, to which you turned down his plea out of pettiness. You had lived in Wanda’s shadow plenty enough. He had offended you, as if you hadn’t harnessed the same chaos magic as your older predecessor. Although you were weaker, and could only recreate half of Wanda’s extensive mythical capabilities, Strange and the young Peter Parker needed you. You couldn’t say no, especially when you and the boy had bonded in your time as an Avenger.

You had no idea what you had gotten yourself into.

There wasn’t just one Peter who needed your help, but three. Three different versions of Spider-Man — of Peter Parker. To make it easier for your bearings, you thought of them as brothers. And out of all the three, the middle brother had caught your attention the most.

His kind and soft brown eyes. His mesmerized gaze. His questions about your magic and questions about you.

An instant connection across universes.

You found yourself in love with a Peter that you knew nothing about. And you found yourself inevitably following Wanda’s cursed footsteps once those brown eyes vanished from your life.

Because who wouldn’t be a fool for love?

You had spent weeks studying Wanda’s magic after hearing rumors about her situation in Westview. You had dug through recovered files of the Scarlet Witch from the Avengers’ compound, studying runes and dead languages while grasping at invisible straws. It felt like you were running in circles, as if you were chasing a ghost. Peter’s ghost, or whatever you knew of him. Every lead you had was a bust, and everytime you felt Peter within your reach, you found yourself straying further away from him. On the nights you wanted to give Peter up, the image of his smile and the texture of his lips had given you reasons not to.

You had doubted your own magic immensely, until you found him again. You couldn’t fathom that your debilitating anguish had shattered through the cosmic barriers of reality — like Peter had been living behind a mirror of your world all along. The universe that you had resided in yesterday was a cloud of smoke that disappeared in front of your eyes, and you found yourself in a different New York belonging to someone you loved.

You couldn’t explain how it happened, but it did. Your heart was always stronger than your mind. And for once, you were thankful that your magic was simply a carbon copy of Wanda Maximoff.

A lone hero.

The ringing in your ears comes to a halt when Peter’s voice pulls you back to him. The flame of the melting candle on the table swishes as you look up from your reflection in the wine glass.

“Y/N,” He chuckles, reaching for your hand across the clothed table. You blink rapidly at your surroundings, remembering that you’re here with Peter and far from there. “I asked if you wanted another glass.” He gestures. “Probably not the best idea given you just… blacked-out in front of me — hey, are you listening?”

“What?” You sigh shakily, pressing your fingers to your temple. Peter’s jaw tenses at the motion; he knowingly squeezes your hand with his. You apologize through stumbling words and Peter merely shakes his head at you.

His voice is quiet, barely above a whisper as if he’s scared that someone is listening to him. His lips are pursed together in worry. “Are you hearing it again?”

“A lot more than usual.” You nod with a gulp, using your free hand to bring the glass of wine to your mouth. You take a generous sip, earning a look from Peter. “I’m sorry. It’s just… sometimes I hear Stephen.”

“Stephen? Like talking to you?” Peter grows concerned and a frown emerges upon him. “I thought he’d left us alone.”

“I thought a lot of people left us alone, Peter.” An uncomfortable silence fills the air. The restaurant feels almost empty, as if you and Peter were the only two who existed. You see the cogs in his brain turn as he looks off into the distance. “Hey.” You squeeze his hand in a similar fashion, assuring him with confidence. “He can’t get to us. Stephen can’t — I’m just stronger, okay?”

“I know you are.” His trusting eyes meet yours, and he plants a chaste kiss to your wrist as he raises it to his lips. “My girlfriend is so strong, not even a cool flying wizard could get her.”

“Well, I’m also a flying wizard.”

“Yeah, but not really.”

You scoff lightly, kicking his shin gently underneath the table. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“You can’t fly.” Peter casually laughs, stabbing at his pasta with a fork.

“I mean, I can — well, I can hover.”

“That’s not the same as flying.” He gestures at you with narrowed eyes. “You know how penguins are birds? And birds are supposed to fly but penguins can’t?” He continues through a mouthful of fettuccine. “You’re like a penguin.”

Your mouth falls open. You lean forward in the chair with feigned offense. “You did not just call me a penguin. I am nothing like a penguin!”

“Yeah, you are.” He chuckles heartily. The sound is prettier than the soft piano in the background. “Little flightless bird.” His eyes meet yours in the dim light as your fingertips trace the cracks of his skin. You flick your wrist slightly, conjuring miniscule gold fireworks in the palm of his hand as he watches it in awe. “So beautiful.”

Peter never could wrap his mind around your magic. He knew that superhuman powers like his had to exist, but yours — yours was on a different other-worldly scale. He found you incredible, human or not. When he first laid eyes on you, he couldn’t help but notice how tragically breathtaking you were. The sadness glazing over your eyes, like an emptiness lingered inside you. He knew that feeling all too well. And he connected with you in minutes — the lightest of touches, the pounding of his heart whenever you were out of sight, the sweltering warmth in his chest as he admitted that he felt something for you; no matter how ridiculous it sounded, he figured that if he’d never see you again, he’d tell you how amazing you were. Maybe it was so easy to fall in love because you knew him somehow (or at least, another version of him in your world), but he soon recognized that you treated the youngest Spider-Man differently. You cared for that version of Peter, but you didn’t look at him with the same longing gaze. And whenever Peter was in trouble, it wasn’t the younger one you seemed to search for.

It was him.

Peter chivalrously holds the door open for you as you exit the restaurant, hurriedly stepping onto the cobblestone walkway as rain begins to sprinkle from the sky. The exchange of youthful laughter between you and Peter echoes through empty streets as an umbrella produces itself in your hand, and you take advantage of the rain to run away from him.

“Y/N!” He shouts, laughing as he chases after you. Web spurts out from the wristwatch underneath his sleeve, and you yelp as the sticky substance pulls you into his arms. You’re flesh against his chest, breathing heavily and wide-eyed as you stare up at him.

“Classic move, tiger.”

“Oh, shut it.” He whispers.

The umbrella disappears into yellow dust in your hand as he pulls you closer, and you smile against Peter’s lips as rain pours over the two of you. He laughs, blinking away the water from his eyes. You put your empty hands to use, slinging your arms behind Peter’s neck as you stand on the tips of your toes. Your hair becomes wet, sticking to your cheeks and your forehead. You feel the coolness of his breath against your mouth, and he licks at his lips as your eyes flicker up to him. The hue of the streetlights dance over his delicate features, highlighting the roughness of his skin and the healing bruises near his jaw.

His thumb runs across your bottom lip, then traces the shape of your cupid’s bow. The same digit travels up your face, running across the blemishes on your cheeks and ghosting around your shut eyelids.

You feel his gentle mouth against yours. He cranes his neck to kiss you, loosening his jaw as your tongue bumps into his. You giggle into him, and Peter takes it as an invitation to deepen the kiss. His hand rubs soothingly across your back, clutching at the fabric of your coat while his other one cradles your face.

Everytime Peter kisses you, he thinks of it as his last. It scares him, as if one day he’ll reach out to touch you and you’ll become nothing but dust.

But your lips on his reminds him that this is real. You are real, just as much as he is to you.

You pull away slightly, letting the button of your nose squish against his cheek before you look shyly at the ground. There’s a honk behind you, and Peter immediately ushers you to the side as a cab passes by.

You both squint through the drops of rain as the taxi disappears into the fog. Peter takes the moment to wrap his arms around you, resting his chin on top of your head. There’s a certain softness to his embrace, and you hum in satisfaction as his body envelops yours.

“You’re all I need, you know that Y/N?” His voice rumbles through his chest and vibrates against you. “Just you.”

His words riddle through your bones.

And you feel him climbing inside your heart.

“I love you, Peter.”

He kisses your temple. “I love you, too.” His grip doesn’t waver, but his hand reaches for yours. “Let’s go home.”

You don’t tell him that the ringing in your head reappears when his fingers intertwine with yours. And you don’t tell him that you hear Strange in the back of your mind calling out your name. You ignore the guilt that looms over your head.

You convince yourself that you aren’t a bad person. How could you be? What is so inherently evil about living in a place that was full of love and life and Peter? What is so bad about abandoning a universe that was nothing but cruel, for a universe that showed you how to live again?

If Strange could risk the world for Peter Parker, then how come you couldn’t either?

Was it so wrong to be consumed by love?

Love. It’s all around you as Peter shuts the door to your home (He always assumed that you had bought the house through compulsion and your magic, meaning your moral compass wasn’t completely perfect. But that also didn’t mean you were any sorts of awful — Peter had been helping you realize that in your time spent together). The home is well-decorated, with picture frames on walls and little trinkets atop of the television console. The coffee table is messy; there’s a few crochet hooks and tangled threads resting in a pile because Peter wanted to take up crocheting after seeing someone wear a really cool hat on the street. In all honesty, he sucked at it since his sticky fingers would always interfere with the looping part. It’s a small one-story house with an open kitchen and a round dining table that you and Peter never really used, oftentimes resorting to cereal or bagels on the brown couch.

Peter busies himself in the kitchen, washing a few dishes before you decide to sit on the counter beside him. You poke at his arm, earning a funny look from your boyfriend. “Look at you, all domestic and shit.” You laugh, bringing your knees up to your chest as you lean your head against the kitchen cabinet. “Itsy bitsy spider.”

“Call me that again and I'll burn you at the stake.” He raises his eyebrows at you, and you chuckle loudly at the inside joke between the pair of you. You rest your chin on your forearms, gazing in fondness as Peter dries his hands with a towel. When he’s done, he holds his arms out, and you wrap yourself around him as he carries you to the living room. “Don’t think I’ll patrol tonight.” He mumbles into your hair, brushing it away from your face as you rest your head in his lap. You look up at him, blissfully purring as he combs through your locks. “Seems quiet today. Think I’ll just spend it with you. My beautiful, beautiful Y/N.”

He pecks your forehead, and you capture his lips into a kiss before he fully pulls away. “You’re sure? If you need to go, then…”

“No, no.” He shushes you. “Spider-Man is the least of my priorities right now.”

You smile, because you’ve never been a priority to anyone except Peter. You lay there, closing your eyes at the feeling of his fingers massaging your scalp. It feels serene in the orange-hue light of the standing lamp, and it’s almost as if you can feel Peter’s heart bursting from his chest as you fall asleep in his lap.

Closing your eyes was a mistake.

The world spins into darkness, and suddenly, you find yourself falling through the ground. It feels neverending, as if you’re being dragged under a tide that won’t stop pulling you with it. The floors are endless, and there’s a drumming in the distance that gets closer and closer as you fall farther down. Before you hit the ground, a yellow cloud of dust swarms you, then you’re trapped inside a room. Everything turns into mirrors and you can only see yourself. With every turn of your head, your reflection only stares back at you – lifeless and unwilling. It’s you, but at the same time it isn’t. This version of you is dressed in your old suit made by the Avengers– the muted yellow leather, the gold decals of your chestplate, the long hooded cloak that would billow dramatically in the wind as it swam over your corset – she was exactly you, but the look on her face was void of emotion. You can’t help but run your hands down your sides and over your neck, wondering which of the two of you are real.

“Where am I?” SIlence. You spin around on your heels. “Where am I?!”

You deliver a blow to the mirror with your fist, thinking that it would crack under impact. Instead, it warbles and distorts the image of you, just for it to reappear and continue to stare back at you with those same empty eyes. She doesn’t answer, but to your surprise, she walks away. You call out into the abyss once more, but your voice never leaves your throat. Then, your reflection dissipates into mist; you see another variation of yourself with your Peter. That version of you feels more familiar. Her clothes are normal, and so is his. Her smile is genuine, and she’s reaching to kiss him. But her lips never meet him and the glass of the mirrors begin to crack audibly. There’s no escape as the shards of glass begin to fly around, and the ringing in your ears is louder than it has ever been. Your skin stings as the sharp ends bite at your cheeks, slicing just above bone.

“Peter!” You can’t hear yourself, but you can feel the shredding of your vocal chords as you let out a shrill scream. “Peter! Where are you?”

You can’t feel him. The room falls apart completely, and you float into the darkness beneath you. It’s pitch black, and there's soft music that plays from a far distance. Your thoughts only race with Peter’s whereabouts. You can’t feel him. Where is he? Your eyes well up with tears, and your vision becomes spotty as the dark room lights up in a blinding orange glow. You fall to your knees, hoping that the abyss would just eat you alive – but you don’t sink, you don’t plummet, and it feels as if gravity has stopped.

There’s a hand on your shoulder, and you whip your head around at the motion.

“Y/N.” Stephen Strange breathes out your name. His eyes are narrowed, and you can’t tell if he’s even real. “I’ve been trying to find you.”

“No.” You rip his hand away from you. And tears prickle at your waterline as you feel the warmth of his skin. “Stephen… come on.”

He’s reaching for you. In his eyes, you see desperation; it was the same look he had when he asked for help before. “This is an abuse of your powers. You – you have no idea what damage this… what you have caused. Y/N, just come home. Please.”

You step back, curling into yourself. He’s real. God, he’s fucking real.

You shake your head frantically at him, baring your palms toward him. Your hands radiate with a luminescent yellow, and tiny sparks begin to emit as you swirl them together in a pattern. Your laugh is bitter, and it sends a chill down Strange’s spine. “I’m not coming with you.”

“You are being fucking irrational.” He spits out. He mirrors you, activating his powers as well. There’s a safe distance between you and him, but the man knows exactly what you’re capable of. He can’t risk it, knowing that you have the possibility of becoming stronger than him. “Enough, Y/N!”

“I am staying…” You grunt through gritted teeth, pressing the heels of your palms together as a ball of fiery light manifests itself in your hands. “... here.” Your eyes glimmer, and your pupils shift into a milky white for a split second as rage overcomes your body. “With Peter. Leave me the fuck alone, Stephen, or so help me God!” A rune casts over his face. “What? You gonna fight me?”

“If I have to. If you go any further with this — with this Peter.” He hisses. “You don’t belong here, Y/N. You can’t stay no matter how much you use your powers. No matter how much you love him—“

“And what do you know about love, Stephen?”

His face hardens with a scowl.

His hands move rapidly as the runes shift into different shapes, and before he can go further, the ball in your grasp expands as you let out an ear-piercing cry, and an explosion shakes the abyss tremendously.

You wake up as a panting mess in your bedroom with Peter. The curtains by the window are shut, but there’s an unmistakable breeze that passes through the room. You clutch the fabric of the sheets close to your chest, letting it rub against your sweaty skin to remember where you are. Breathlessly, you roll onto your back and find Peter. He sleepily stirs at the movement, and his arm reaches out for you in the darkness of the bedroom.

You can feel him now.

“Hmph, you’re still awake?” He murmurs into the pillow, drool falling from his lip.

“No, baby.” You coo, touching his hair with tearful eyes. “Just… just had a bad dream that’s all.”

His eyes open at the statement. “Bad dream?” He sits up against the headboard when he notices that you’ve been crying. “You wanna talk about it?” You search his eyes desperately, and your whole body trembles until you’re breaking down into his arms. Peter is confused, but doesn’t hesitate to comfort you. He can feel the tears seep through his shirt, and shuts his eyes when your hands claw at him. “Was it about me?”

“It was about everything — about you, about me, about Stephen…” You hiccup. “F-fuck, he was there…” Peter wipes at your nose with his shirt. “He was real, Pete. He was so real and he — I think I’ve fucked up.”

He doesn’t answer, hugging you tighter. He knows what you mean, and he doesn’t feel the need to push you even further down this rabbit hole. He rocks you back and forth until you’re sound asleep in his arms, and he remains awake for the rest of the night. Peter’s mind can’t help but linger at the idea of losing you. As selfish as it sounds, he doesn’t want you to go back home. Even though you have friends and family back there, Peter likes you here — in his arms with your head against his chest. He wants to scream a big ‘fuck you!’ to Stephen and everyone who wants to break the two of you apart. There’s a part of him that knows how wrong this is — to keep you here as if you owed him that. Yet he can’t just let you go. He just can’t. Peter has dealt with too much loss, and he knows that he can’t bear to lose you too.

It would fucking kill him.

In this world, you remained a civilian. You and Peter had a strict agreement about your use of magic in public. This wasn’t your world anymore — there were no Avengers, no aliens coming down to invade Earth, no Thanos, no Ultron. It was like playing pretend, and it felt nice knowing that you could be treated normal for once. You weren’t a science experiment to these people nor a beloved heroine that young women looked up to, you were just yourself — not some mascot for the Avengers.

There was no pressure to be perfect. You could be imperfect here, and you’d still have Peter. And that felt amazing.

In this universe and every other universe in between, you and Peter had built a home together.

And you’d be goddamned if someone took that away from you.

The house fills with sounds from the record player in the living room. There’s a police siren that whirs in the distance, driving past the kitchen window as the bread in your toaster pops up.

Domestic.

Peter has been out the whole morning working for the Bugle, leaving you with the entire house to yourself. You make use of the time to finish a couple chores — making sure his Spider-Man mask is tucked away safely from view, changing out the bedsheets and cleaning the jammed webs in his webshooters. The routine brings a smile to your face. You take his suit out of his backpack, holding it out in front of you. There’s a large tear by the shoulder that makes you frown. With a sigh, you take out your sewing kit and sit by the windowsill in the foyer, stitching the material together. The material of his suit feels like silk under your fingertips, and you run your hand over the spider symbol.

It reminds you of the night you met him.

“An Avenger?”

“Yes.” You blinked slowly at him, as if the answer was obvious. The middle Peter doesn’t continue, mirroring your look of confusion. “What, do you guys not have Avengers? You have Spider-Man but not the Avengers?”

“I don’t even know what that is.” He scoffs through a laugh, shrugging on his labcoat on top of his suit. “They sound… cool, I guess.”

“Well, that’s because they had me.” You smirked cockily, leaning over the table. “Y/N.” You extended a hand out to him.

“Peter.”

“I know.”

He blushed at the familiar statement and his head dipped down, hiding the smile that was forcing itself onto his face. You captured his gaze through the motion, and you found yourself glued to his side the entire time. You studied his mannerisms — not because he was undeniably attractive, but because you wanted to see if this Peter was anything like the youngest Peter Parker.

But you couldn’t hide how beautiful you found him to be: the dimple in his cheek, the moles on his neck and the freckles across his nose that reminded you of constellations.

Peter could feel you staring.

“What, do you not have handsome guys in this world?”

The joke made you speechless, and you bashfully touched your hair as Peter observed you with the same fervor.

“We have handsome guys…” You stepped towards him, bravely smoothing down the collar of his white coat. You couldn’t help but look at the symbol on his chest, and it felt like electricity was running through your fingertips as you had a sudden urge to reach for it. His eyes followed your hands, before they flickered up to meet your gaze.

“Yeah?” His pupils were hopeful.

You bit back a smile. “Just not as handsome as you, Spidey.”

The vivid memory plucks at your heartstrings, and you find yourself grinning at the old interaction. You decide to put the Spider-Man suit back into Peter’s backpack, until something falls out of it and clatters to the floor abruptly.

A little black box.

Curiously, you pick it up and open it.

A ring.