Chapter Text
Tony 10:12pm:
bad news or weird news
too slow here’s the bad
machine is smashed
like. completely. hulk would be impressed
no fragments large enough to hold data
i mean. we’ll still try. but doesn’t look good
weird news is I scanned for stark chips
human brain is at least 2.5 petabytes
even if he only took Peter’s episodic memories and left the rest - would explain how Peter still know how to swing thru trees - he’d need to store it on a stark chip
but scan showed nothing nada bupkus
so maybe the Random Guy took the chip with him, maybe he has Peter’s brain, maybe he destroyed it, maybe we’re fucked
or Peter took it
MJ:
This is Peter
MJ’s driving to a motel for the night
If I took it, I don’t remember where I put it. I wasn't holding anything when I woke up
Tony:
ok
MJ:
I’m sorry
Tony :
kiddo
i didn’t say this earlier
should have
not your fault. probably. assuming you really are original flavor peter and not a horrible imposter
our fault. we let you get kidnapped. didn’t save you in time. didn’t find you
i’m sorry
get some sleep now, okay?
MJ:
you’re not going to
Tony:
okay no i’m in the lab trying to rebuild the machine
but you two should sleep
MJ:
Ned’s still at the compound, right? Bet he’d love to help you with the machine
Tony:
ooh yes great plan
many hands, two brains, etc
okay i’ll get him on board
we’ll figure the rest out in the morning
we’re going to fix this
that's what we do
MJ:
What if you can’t
What if we never know who the fuck I am
Tony:
…
well. i wonder who the fuck i am on a daily basis
*hourly
so who the fuck am i to judge a little existential crisis
this is different. i know that. what i mean is
oh fuck it
i was going to say something inspiring about how our choices us make us who we are but
look
you know that
you wanted to help MJ
for weird reasons maybe okay
but still
some bit of you is in there
somewhere
probably
unless you’re a horrible fucking murderer imposter in which case i will happily watch the hulk smash you up worse than that machine
little bits of you all over the place. like baby food
MJ:
Your pep talks could use some work
Tony:
…
…
fuck, kiddo
i miss you
MJ 7:24am:
Send us the lab’s location
Please
Tony:
no chip. we looked for chip. NO CHIP
is this peter again?
MJ:
Yeah. MJ’s driving towards the lab. Would help to have an actual address plz
If we go back there, I might be able to find the chip
Tony:
what did i literally just say
LITERALLY
MJ:
Maybe I hid it somewhere
Tony:
thought you don’t remember anything
MJ:
I remembered how to swing through trees to get away from you
maybe I’ll see something. Maybe MJ will. Idk
Need to try
Tony:
ok fine i’ll send coordinates
it’s only like an hour from you guys might as well check it out
no bad guys there - or even random useless nobodies, yes, we checked - so it’s safe to bring a civilian aka mj
but seriously
SERIOUSLY
be careful
can fly to you in a sec
you know that
oh right is this still peter on the line? then i guess not
but still. you knew that.
MJ:
Thanks
Tony 9:47am:
so????????????
MJ:
Nothing
Sorry
This is the real MJ btw Peter’s off having a moment
He even climbed all of the trees around the lab. Like. All of them
No dice
Tony:
fuck
is he ok?
are you?
MJ:
Lol yeah
Tony:
Lol? Yeah? Lol yeah? Seriously? That's what you’ve got here?
MJ:
If I start screaming now I’m not going to stop
So instead i’m going to make jokes and fix this
Tony:
you know you two really have a lot in common
MJ:
Too soon
Tony:
you’re the one who keeps volunteering to spend more time with him
MJ:
…
…
Tony:
actually what you really have in common is an obsession with doing things that hurt you in the name of the greater good
MJ:
Please don’t psychoanalyze me I can’t afford your rates
Tony:
you know
MJ:
I know you’re not going to try to buy me off with a job at SI again
Tony: ofc not i know better by now
MJ:
No you don’t
Tony:
and never will
MJ:
Are you ready to focus on crime solving now or are you still freaking out?
Tony:
i was never freaking out
don’t give me that look
fuck
ok. detective mode reactivated. thoughts?
MJ:
I think the guy who did this must have kept the chip
If we find him, we can figure out what happened
Maybe he’ll confess and tell us who the real Peter is
Tony:
nah he’s not going to know much of anything
maybe instead we could OH FUCK ME i hate this guy you know that??
ok look. come back to the compound. we’ll regroup, look at the evidence again, try to figure out how to catch this guy
MJ:
No
We need you and Ned to focus on rebuilding the brain xerox machine
Tony:
xerox?? seriously?? it’s infinitely more sophisticated than a
yeah ok fine
you’re right
MJ:
I’m always right
Most of the time
Okay Peter’s almost done with feelings-time
Get your shit done. We’ll find the Random Guy. Talk to you when we have a clue
Tony:
Be safe. Please. Both of you
MJ:
…
…
…
Lol
“Okay,” MJ said, setting her sandwich down. They’d pulled off the highway for lunch and ended up the nearly-empty picnic area of a roadside convenience store in the backwoods of Vermont, a few hours from the compound. “Okay. So. Plan B.”
“Yeah,” Peter said.
“You really thought we’d find it,” MJ said.
“Yeah,” Peter said.
“Tony and Ned are working on the machine. Maybe they’ll find an answer there.”
“Maybe someone took the chip,” Peter said. “Like a hiker in the woods or something.”
“Or the person who kidnapped you and took your brain in the first place.”
“But he wouldn’t have— fuck.” Peter pulled at his hair. “Right. God. Thinking about him feels like wrestling a monster made out of goo.”
“You remember that?” MJ lit up. “The Battery Park incident?”
“What? No. Don’t tell me I—no. You’re making this up.”
“Am not,” MJ said.
“Blatant lie.”
“Which one of us still has the memories?”
“I bet you $10 that's not true.”
“You don't have any money,” MJ said.
“Exactly,” Peter said. “No risk. Potential reward. I could use a snack for later.”
MJ pulled out her phone and put Ned on speaker. “Hey.”
“Hey! Find any clues?”
“No dice. Sorry. Hey, you remember that fifty-foot tall slime monster Peter fought in Battery Park?”
“I think it was more like seventy feet,” Ned said. “It stretched out all the way down the docks to the water.”
“Thanks, man,” MJ said, and hung up.
“What is my life?” Peter said.
“Ten bucks,” MJ said. “I’ll put it on your tab.”
“Slime monster,” Peter muttered. “Jesus. No.”
“Sure you want that chip back?” MJ asked. “Lot of unpleasant memories on there. Slime monster won’t even make the top forty highlight reel.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know?”
“Clearly, this isn’t the worst scrape we’ve been through together.” Peter’s gaze was sharp and clear, completely focused on her. “You failed to find the chip that might contain your husband’s brain, you’re sitting here with the man who might have murdered your husband, you volunteered—again—for a comrade-in-arms role that really should have gone to an enhanced superhero, and you’re just calmly eating lunch.”
“Eating lunch, yes,” MJ said. “Calmly?” She looked at Peter.
Peter looked back. She’d missed this, probably, the electric understanding in his eyes, the thrum of recognition in hers.
“You think I should be scared that you’re dead,” MJ said.
“I know you are,” Peter said. “I’m scared too. That I’ll never remember who I am. That I’ll remember and not like what I see. That I’m not even real. Not human. Not alive. Some kind of cosmic error on the universe’s photocopier.”
“Figures that you’d have a particularly acute case of imposter syndrome.”
“Yeah.” Peter mangled the sandwich wrapper into agonized twists. “I get it, I get it, you’re cool-calm-and-collected. You’re a badass. You’ve been through shit before. But it’s—you don’t—you don’t have to be here, if it hurts. You broke up with me, you were done. You’ve already helped so much. It would be okay—it would be reasonable— to break down and go home.”
“Reasonable,” MJ said.
“Which I’m gathering is not a strength for either of us,” Peter said, “but—”
“I’m going to see this through,” MJ said. “I’m going to figure out what happened. I’m going to put the world back where it belongs. And then—”
The pale old wood of the picnic table was warped and cracked, splintering off into fragments, carved with initials, stained with mustard and coffee and bird shit and blood.
Peter’s hand covered hers. The lightest touch, ready to retreat at a moment’s notice. She covered his hand with hers and held on tightly.
Leaves rustled through the overhanging trees. Cars trundled past their rest stop in an endless ocean wave of sound. One family left their picnic table to someone else and walked back to their car, trying in vain to rein in a pair of energetic kids who were chattering delightedly about donuts vs. ice cream. The sound of Peter’s slow breaths, unfettered with pain, unchoked with sorrow, would never grow old. The familiar sound of her own breath, conflicted as always, trapped between choices, scared down to her bones.
Peter gently laid his other hand on top their pile of hands. Warm, solid, calluses, faintly trembling. “We’re going to find him,” he murmured at last.
“How?” MJ’s voice wavered traitorously. “We can’t even think about him.”
“What an insane power.” Peter shook his head. “He could go anywhere. Take anything. No one after him, ever. No consequences.”
“What a horrible power,” MJ said. “To be unrecognizable, unnoticeable, forever?”
“Maybe he can turn it off sometimes,” Peter said.
“No.” MJ pulled her hands from Peter’s and picked at the remains of her sandwich. “If he could, he’d have done that to convince Tony that he should be an Avenger. He can’t turn it off. Which means—” She looked up at Peter in a burst of horror. “If no one can recognize him, ever, then—then even his own family and friends wouldn’t be able to.”
“They’d report him missing,” Peter said, and wow she’d missed those lightning leaps of intelligence.
“But we don’t even know where to search,” MJ said. “He could be from anywhere.”
“The Random Guy targeted Spider-Man,” Peter said quietly. “You said Spider-Man is based in New York. Would the rest of the country care about him?”
“A little, sometimes,” MJ said. “Mostly for your epic fails.” NEED NYC MISSING PERSONS FROM LAST MONTH, she started tapping into her ring.
“Cool,” Peter said. “That's. Great.”
“Want to watch a highlight reel?”
“Um.”
“Maybe later,” MJ said.
“Super great,” Peter said. “So. Your—our—guy in the chair. Ned? Can he find—oh.” His eyes caught on her fingers. “You’re already asking him.”
WHITE MALE 20-60, MJ finished tapping, and nodded. She could have just texted or called, she realized belatedly, since keeping her conversations with Ned a secret from Peter was no longer an issue. But—but there was something deeply grounding about knowing she had a connection to home right in her fingers.
A pause, then: 65 POSSIBLE, Ned replied. MORE DEETS?
N. SRY.
K.
“We need to figure out more about him,” MJ said.
“He’s not the important lead, though,” Peter said. “We should focus on—”
“Peter,” MJ said.
“I am going to punch something. Many things. Starting with myself.” Peter closed his eyes. “We can’t find him, though. We don’t even know his hair color, and his eye color doesn’t matter, and—right. We’re looking for evidence that doesn’t matter.”
“Like your kidnapping.”
“Um, so, that mattered to me—”
“Did it?” MJ looked across the table at him. “Did you even care? You were so worried about who you were, what might have been done to your mind—did you ever bother trying to figure out who kidnapped you? Or how?”
Peter stared at her with wide dark eyes. “No,” he said. “I. I didn’t. Did you?”
“No,” MJ said. “I mean, the Avengers assembled, and all, but—” she started to grin— “they didn’t find any useful leads. We were focused on finding you, not figuring out why we’d lost you in the first place.” She tapped at her ring again.
NEW PLAN. SECURITY FOOTAGE FROM KIDNAP PLZ.
ON IT, Ned replied. A moment later, her phone dinged with an incoming encrypted message.
“Time to watch a high-def video of myself getting brutally kidnapped,” Peter said. “Fun.”