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Chapter 2: promise me a place in your house of memoriesNotes:

1) Okay so maybe I can't stick to deadlines whenever a chapter is ready. It'll be posted within 3-7 days of the last chapter depending on if it's completed 😅

2) Things will be picking up very quickly because of where we have arrived in the timeline!

3) Enjoy the chapter and leave a kudos and comment!

Chapter Text

He gaped as Stephen's eyes filled with recognition, the distance between them too close and too far at the same time.

"You remember?" Peter asked apprehensively, unsure how the sorcerer would react. Had the timeline been altered so Stephen would find out there was a time traveller or did he genuinely remember?

"It's very difficult to forget the whole multiverse tearing apart as you watch from the top of the Statue of Liberty," Stephen replied dryly as he beckoned Peter inside, closing the door with a wave of his hand.

The Sanctum without ice was incredibly different, patterned floors contrasting the dark wood that made up the walls. The large window let the morning light cast down onto the grand staircase as Stephen led Peter to a room with a couple of brown leather sofas and red velvet chairs, the crimson curtains tied to the sides with golden rope to let light stream through. A grand chandelier hung from the high ceiling above a dark wood table with a tea set on it, a couple of mugs in the place of teacups.

"Wait, so you remember everything?" Peter asked, sitting down on the sofa opposite Stephen as the sorcerer sat down wearily. "Why did you pretend to not know me then?"

"You'd be surprised how many tourists accidentally end up here instead of where they want to be and I didn't want to risk ruining the timeline by sparking your curiosity. I remember everything, right up to the last second before I cast the spell," Stephen confirmed. "Tea?"

"Oh, yes please." He watched as Stephen poured him tea before realising he needed to ask questions. He needed to meet Ned and help him finish the Lego Death Star to make up for when Ned had dropped it. "What spell did you use? I thought you were using the runes to make everyone forget me."

He placed the tea in front of Peter as an air of fatigue surrounded him – he must have put up a front before Peter confirmed he was from the future.

"I almost did," he replied, offering sugar to Peter and letting him place two teaspoons in before continuing. "But something went wrong with the runes as I cast the spell and I wake up to find I'm in 2016. Meddling with time and space can be complicated when a sorcerer is under pressure." He sighed, sipping his tea as Peter processed the information he'd been given.

Stephen had messed up a spell again, albeit he couldn't blame him considering how bad the situation had been, and they had ended up in the past with knowledge that could change the world. Okay, just a regular Sunday.

"Do you know how many people the spell affected?"

"No. As far as I was concerned, I was the only one who remembered our timeline until you turned up five minutes ago."

"We need to change everything. We can't let Thanos get the Time or Mind stones from Earth," Peter said, half expecting Stephen to challenge him over the unpredictability of the timeline. If they screwed anything up it wasn't like they had a way to go back and fix things, not when time travelling was a lucky mistake.

"I agree but we need to do this carefully. If we change the events preceding Thanos' arrival to Earth, we can stop him creating the Blip and keep some balance. I assume you've planned some things?"

"Uh, yeah." He pulled the paper he'd written on this morning from his pocket, unfolding it and letting Strange read it. "I need to work on Thanos but the first three events I have covered."

"Vulture? As in Adrian Toomes?" Stephen asked, raising a concerned eyebrow.

"Yeah, he trades alien-tech around from 2012 and plans to steal a plane full of Tony's stuff that would be on its way to the Compound," he explained. "But I have it under control so you won't need to worry. I doubt the Avengers will listen to me if I try to tell them that Thanos will turn half the universe to dust but you might have more influence."

"Surely Stark will listen?"

"We aren't that close yet. I get an actual internship after Friday when my aunt finds out I'm Spider-Man."

He winced at the memory of May finding out. The talk had been draining to say the least, with him and Tony fighting to let him be Spider-Man and May rightfully fighting for Peter to act as a normal teenager, but she knew he wouldn't stop after she saw the news and how he stopped Toomes in his homemade suit. He was stubborn as hell and wouldn't stop being Spider-Man, even if it meant defying her and Tony.

"Okay, in terms of Thanos we have a few options. I'm looking into where he gets the Reality stone and I know he gets the Space stone from the Tesseract. He sacrifices Gamora for the Soul stone and I give him the Time stone." They both grimaced at that.

They couldn't end up in a position where Stephen had to trade the Time stone for Tony's life, not when it was the key to letting Thanos turn back time and bringing the Mind stone back into existence.

If they couldn't stop Thanos from sacrificing Gamora, the next option was to stop Peter Quill from waking Thanos up and continuing the fight, albeit would be difficult if they didn't have a proper strategy. He guessed they had a year and a half to two years to prepare for Thanos but nothing could be certain until Stephen confirmed what Thanos was doing.

"We need to get Vision to Wakanda and get them to remove the Mind stone from his head and store it somewhere secure," Peter said, watching Stephen think his suggestion through. "I can't suggest it to Tony without it being suspicious so it would probably be better if you did it."

"Why don't you want Tony to know? It would be better with a certified genius helping us. I'm pretty sure past you would've gone to get his help already." He ignored the sarcastic undertone in Stephen's voice as he replied.

"We can't let more people know without messing up the timeline to the point we can't control it and honestly, if it involves using more magic to make people forget, I'd rather keep everything a secret than screw it all up."

Nothing would change his mind on keeping time travel a secret. The idea of letting Tony know was more stressful than comforting when he thought it through in the early hours of the morning. Even if he was a certified genius, Tony didn't know or trust him enough to let him keep control of the events he knew would happen and would probably alter the timeline so much that he couldn't predict what would happen and everything would spiral out of control.

He needed to earn Tony's trust before he could alter anything to do with the Avengers or Thanos. One step at a time was his mantra.

"Well, it's safe to say you've matured." Stephen nodded approvingly, finishing off his tea. "Are you going to let your friends help?"

"It depends. If they remember then I don't think I would stand a chance at stopping them, but if they don't know then I'll keep them out of it. I'm not going to put them in danger again."

He'd make sure of that.

After a couple of hours of working out what they could and couldn't change in the timeline, Peter had to excuse himself to go to Ned's, aiming to be on time if the notorious lateness of the subway was anything to go by.

He didn't know about any events that hadn't happened on Earth and he was stumped on how Thanos found the Tesseract since he was pretty sure he'd read a report about Thor bringing the Tesseract back to Asgard after the fight with Loki and the Chitauri…unless Loki stole it again. He probably needed to ask Thor about that if he found the chance.

His thoughts had chased each other in circles as he entered Ned's house, wondering if his best friend had time travelled with him and Stephen or if he wouldn't remember and Peter would have to tackle the future without Ned, because wow, he didn't realise how much his moral support meant to him until he realised what he'd have to live without.

He didn't know how he'd survive being Spider-Man without Ned being his guy in the chair and being on call as he patrolled or listening to him after a rough patrol and patching him up if he refused to let Karen help - well, Karen wouldn't be able to help for a week and a bit if she wasn't there.

"Dude, I can't believe I actually dropped the Death Star to the point it actually broke," Ned groaned as they sat down on the floor, crisp packets by the desk and Peter organised the piles that needed constructing.

"I still can't believe how careless I was," Peter replied, emptying a packet of crisps into one of the bowls they had brought up. "I need a better way to enter my room."

"You do. Like, imagine if MJ found out one day. She's suspicious as hell." He wasn't wrong.

MJ had found out and confronted him in Prague after she saw through his flimsy excuses after fighting the Fire Elemental. Looking back, it almost scared Peter how obvious he was. She was a scarily observant person and could tell when he was lying but it made him think of how many enemies could have pieced together Peter's clues and come after his family and friends. He needed to be incredibly careful this time around.

"Nah, she's just observant and we're kind of obvious. We seriously need to stop talking about it in gym class of all the places."

"You're not wrong. We need a better cover than the internship."

"Yeah, I remember that one time when you were explaining that really cool Spider-bot prototype and Flash overheard-"

His heart skipped a beat as he processed Ned's words, his enhanced hearing catching onto the rapid thump thump thump thump of his friend's heart as silence roared between them.

"What?"

Ned knew the internship wasn't completely real and that Peter had lost it a week and a half ago, so how did he know about the Spidey-bot prototype when he hadn't created anything with Tony?

Unless…

"Ned…" He trailed off, watching how his best friend tensed as his slip up. "What do you mean? I know I've told you about ideas for Spidey-bots but I haven't had the chance to make them and Mr Stark and I aren't on speaking terms, heck, I don't call him Tony."

He played the act of innocence to see if Ned would explain himself or if he would try to lie himself out of his slip up, and knowing him, he would fail to lie because they were both shit liars. It was a wonder anyone believed their excuses half the time when they were as ridiculous as they were, but he supposed it was an advantage of being straight A students for the entirety of their academic career.

"Well, I- uh, you've always mentioned Spidey-bots and I must have confused that with a dream because I know it was a really cool one from the other night." Yep, Ned was a horrible liar just like him.

"Dude, you're a really bad liar," he chuckled, forcing down his disbelief. "You came from the future, right?" Ned froze, stumbling over his words until Peter lunged over the Lego pile in front of him and hugged him.

Relief washed over him when Ned nodded as he returned the hug, both of them relaxing in the embrace until Peter's knees started to ache from kneeling on a few Lego pieces. The idea of changing the future without Ned was daunting considering he'd have to make up a lot of excuses and flake out on a lot of things, but he knew he had his friend's help and made it a little easier to breathe.

"I can't believe you didn't call me," he exclaimed after they parted as Ned grinned sheepishly, rubbing his neck.

"How was I supposed to know if you remembered? I thought you wouldn't believe me. How am I meant to explain I travelled back 8 years and need you to stop an alien who won't attack until 2018?"

"I am the last person who wouldn't believe you. I was literally bitten by a spider and given powers and swing around New York in a barely usable costume."

"Ah, right, Mr Stark took the suit away."

"Yeah. I kinda wish we'd landed somewhere before the ferry incident." He hoped he could restore Tony's faith in him after he sorted out Vulture, otherwise he wasn't sure what he could do. He knew he'd get the suit back if he did things right but he really didn't want to get crushed under a warehouse again.

Shivering at the reminder of concrete crushing his chest and leaky pipes dripping onto the dusty floor as his heartbeat roared in his ears, he listened to Ned's question as excitement filled the room.

"Did Doctor Strange's spell send us back?" Ned's eyes widened when Peter nodded.

"It sent him back with us and I'm hoping MJ remembers too, but we can let her find out later if she doesn't. I went to the Sanctum this morning and he doesn't know how many people remember, but he wants to sort out Thanos."

"Oh man, he's right. We need to sort out that old raisin before he turns us to dust," Ned groaned. "I wonder if Doctor Strange will teach me magic if I ask. I want to be able to help on Earth if I do get involved."

"I just hope nothing happens in New York after the doughnut space ship leaves," he muttered. "For now we need to focus on Toomes. Thanos is too far away for us to do anything and Stephen is sorting out the stones."

"Right…"

They spent the next few hours figuring out what to do about Toomes as they built parts of the Lego Death Star and snacking until he knew May wanted him home and he still needed to catch a train to get back for 9. He bid Ned goodbye with their handshake -God, he'd almost done that for the last time less than 24 hours ago- and made his way home.

He forgot how much he missed school when nobody knew he was Spider-Man.

The few months he'd endured in his senior year with the ridiculous amount of media attention had been draining with every student gawking at him and either trying to get an autograph from him or blaming him for Beck's death. He actually preferred being a nobody with Flash bullying him than having everyone's attention on him, especially since it was what kept his vigilante life -he would never be a superhero- separate from his normal life.

Except…keeping his two lives separate was dangerous. Stephen's words echoed in his head: 'you're trying to live two lives at once'. He couldn't continue it without the consequences catching up to him. He supposed he could apply one of Newton's Laws to his life: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As much as he hated Goblin, his words echoed a similar sentiment. No good deed goes unpunished.

Peter could save as many people and stop as many threats as he was capable of, but there would always be repercussions.

Learning to deal with the repercussions in a way that wouldn't affect his normal life would be a challenge, but most of the criminals he would face were low level compared to Thanos and Beck. Well, Thanos was a threat to everyone, but Beck made things personal.

They had considered finding Toomes before he made a move on the plane before realising they had no technology to track him considering Tony had his suit and therefore had Karen, and Ned couldn't track him without a lot of illegal hacking plus the fact they wouldn't be able to track Toomes in time.

Peter fidgeted with his earphones as he made his way to school, anxiety swirling in his stomach as he went over the possibilities of what they could do in time.

He and Ned had decided to ditch Homecoming to deal with Toomes -it also helped him avoid crashing Flash's car- and would make up an excuse to avoid it although it would probably be them catching a stomach bug. If push came to shove, Peter would ditch like he did before and Ned would use his laptop that he planned to store in his locker.

He flinched as a car horn blared next to him, wishing he had the noise-cancelling headphones that Tony gave him -would give him?- to tone down his senses. Luckily, it wasn't one of the days when his senses were dialled up to 11 and he couldn't think straight. If he kept his stress levels down for long enough, he could avoid a sensory overload for the next few months if luck was on his side.

He tucked his earbuds into his sweatshirt when Ned waved at him as he stopped outside the school gates, jogging over to him and walking into school. He'd almost relaxed as he entered the school until his Spidey-sense vibrated dully at the back of his head, prompting him to glance at the floor and see one newly-bought trainer sticking out, practically lying in wait to trip him up and start his day off with misery.

He was tempted to avoid it to keep some part of his sanity intact, but his reputation as 'Peter Parker, the dork and victim of Flash Thompson' that kept him low profile demanded he ruined what little dignity he had. Internally sighing, he let his foot catch on Flash's shoe, tripping and using Ned's shoulder to stabilise himself.

"Watch where you're going Penis Parker," Flash laughed. Ah, yes, he was definitely back in 2016. He ignored Flash, keeping up with Ned until they reached their lockers and Peter pulled out a couple of his books and started putting them in his bag.

"Dude, are you really going to let Flash bully you for the next two years?" Ned asked as he opened his locker.

"Probably." Peter shrugged, shutting his locker and leaning on it as Ned looked at him with wide eyes.

"Really? You can't be a doormat for him to walk over for ages, especially on your bad days. You know what happened last time."

Ned's worry wasn't misplaced. One unfortunate Tuesday after one of the worst evenings spent dealing with a series of planned and linked robberies left Peter sleep deprived and relatively exhausted -a very bad thing considering he'd built up his stamina to a decent point- and his Spidey-sense hadn't alerted him of Flash's outstretched foot, leaving him with a badly twisted ankle and a very concerned Ned.

He hadn't wanted to call May and hassle her with picking up, not when she was pulling double shifts to put enough food on the table for two average metabolisms (not an average metabolism and an enhanced one), so he'd limped through the day as Ned watched over him carefully. His foot had been swollen and bruised by the end of the day and he passed it off as falling down the stairs to May, passing out on his bed the second she stopped questioning him.

Yeah, he didn't want a repeat of that.

"I'll be more careful, don't worry," he said, tensing when the bell went off.

"You don't have any of the sensory stuff, do you?" Ned asked, frowning as Peter tugged the hem of his sweatshirt with shaking fingers.

"I won't get it for a few months."

"It was a miracle you stayed alive the first time around," Ned groaned, gently grabbing Peter's hand and walking with him to physics.

Getting through to lunch would have been a breeze if he had remembered to bring a decent number of snacks, but no, Peter was too nervous about seeing if MJ would remember anything to pack protein bars in his bag when he'd left home. His idiocy would be the end of him and his stomach grumbled in agreement as he sat down with his lunch tray.

Watching as Ned scribbled down some calculations due next period, he scanned the cafeteria for MJ, unable to stop the corners of his mouth tilting upwards when she strolled in with a book in one hand and an empty sandwich box in the other, dumping the rubbish in the bin before sitting down a couple of seats away from Ned.

He and Ned had discussed how to test if MJ remembered anything during their maths lesson, eventually choosing to mention some theories about magic, portals and the multiverse, but neither of them were sure if she would go for the bait. MJ was smart and unless she knew they were talking about something specifically related to the future, she wouldn't mention anything that would be out of the ordinary.

"You know," Ned said. "I'm pretty sure magic is real."

"And how are you sure?" Peter asked, tensing when MJ paused as she turned her page, her breathing stuttering before she composed herself and kept her façade of boredom, but he knew they had caught her attention.

"You know that Doctor Strange dude who lives in that place disguised as an old building?"

"Yeah."

"I'm pretty sure he can make portals, like with the sparks and everything!" He wasn't sure if Ned was actually faking his excitement because he seemed pretty convincing as he waved his hands in the circular motion he had during the final battle on the Statue of Liberty.

"Okay so if it's actually real, where did you see him make a portal?"

"There are videos on YouTube!"

"You reckon he's ever used the portals to get to the Statue of Liberty or the top of the Chrysler building?"

"Dude, that would be so cool! Imagine getting photos up there!"

"What makes you think a powerful sorcerer would portal to the top of the Statue of Liberty for pictures?" MJ asked with a steady voice, but Peter could hear how fast her heartbeat was, the pace too fast for her to be nonchalant. She knew something.

"I don't know, maybe he wanted to sell the pictures for more money," Ned suggested.

"Or maybe he needed to fight someone away from New York to stop casualties," he said, watching as MJ raised an eyebrow.

"Who would he be fighting?"

"I don't know, maybe a dude with electricity powers and another who was made of sand." If that wasn't a clear sign then Peter didn't know what was.

"I can't imagine the science behind that, a lizard man sounds more credible," she replied, warily watching as he and Ned nodded.

"You think Strange could fight all of those and a man on a glider by himself?" Ned asked. "I think he'd need some help."

"Yeah, who from?"

"I think Spider-Man would be a good ally," Peter suggested.

"So you think you're a good ally." He blinked at MJ's bluntness. "You didn't think I'd be brought back in time and forget your identity, did you?"