Work Text:
Ned slotted another book back into the shelf. There was something on the tip of his tongue, like a word he knew but couldn’t quite place. He was forgetting something again.
He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, like when he figured something out, he’d turn around with no one’s name on his tongue and an exclamation on his lips that dies as soon as it’s born because there’s nothing there. Or when he greets people (just MJ because he doesn’t have any other friends) with a handshake they don’t know.
In fact, without someone else to do it with him, Ned was no longer sure he knew it anymore either.
The library was empty of anyone else, and it was amazing what kind of privileges a beginner like him could get just because he was scouted by Dr Strange himself. It was a curious thing because he had heard the whispers in the hallways, from both students and masters alike, about how he was the first and only person that the once Sorcerer Supreme had ever brought in.
He didn’t mean to brag, but having people try to treat him nicely rather than like a bug under their shoe felt much nicer than it should’ve had any right to be. (MJ’s voice chose moments like these to ring out in his head, telling him that they were fake and wanted to use him to get closer to the Supreme Sorcerer. She’s right, of course, she always was about these things. So, Ned maintained his distance from them, quiet and earnest in his learning as he hoped they didn’t think he wasbeing stuck up or anything.)
He had nothing to worry about, he realised after the first hour there. Only those desperate enough came to Kamar-Taj of their own accord, and they put no effort into putting other people down when they’re all struggling to deal with their own problems. Ned was not one of them, not someone desperate enough to come running through the doors in hysterics based on a muttered rumour from a back alley, but the doctor had decided that having him dabble in the mystic arts without supervision would have been worse than having someone who didn’t need healing in the ancient place.
(He didn’t need it—healing—did he? But then why else would the fortress accept him? For his talent? As if.)
Ned shook his head, just in time to catch a glimpse of a portal opening for a book to be deposited in an empty slot. And if he wasn’t wrong, it was Dr Strange on the other side who gave that heavy sigh. The orange ring sealed shut, and Ned couldn’t help moving over to the shelf to see what the book that caused such a sigh was.
It wasn’t prying if it was a library book that everyone could access, was it?
Ned crinkled his nose from the dust, eyes tracing the old leather spine. He pulled the book out with a stubby finger, sounding out its name in his mind, mouth moving but voice silent. Arts of Remembrance, it read, and Ned couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to his memory issues than what he had initially deemed a strange brand of déjà vu.
Ned hugged the book to his chest, a sudden feeling of wrongness sweeping across the tiny hairs on his arms. As long as he didn’t practise any forbidden magic, there should be nothing wrong. So, he walked over to the desk, flipped open the cover and began reading.
If you asked Stephen Strange what on Earth possessed him to invite the boy to Kamar-Taj, he’d say it was to educate him properly and not create another megalomaniac hell-bent on destroying the system. Stephen had done his research, and he knew enough about bullying to understand that it could drive someone to more unsavoury acts. There had been a fair share of comments about his humble origins from Nebraska when he’d first started school.
The boy, Ned Leeds, had a gun in his hand, and Stephen was just making sure that he wasn’t firing it at anyone who muttered an insult about his skin colour or his size.
That was what he would answer with, but that wasn’t why. Something in Stephen’s magic sang when it clashed with the boy’s. Somehow, they were already familiar with each other even though he was sure they’d never met before.
(He was forgetting something. But that wasn’t possible. Magic is real, water is wet, Stephen Strange never forgets. Those were all facts of life. And yet, something was missing.)
Stephen’s magic knew, and it knew Ned Leeds wasn’t a threat yet. Someone made him forget something, and Stephen knew better than to question it when it was his own magic that was newly layered across the world. Somehow, being Sorcerer Supreme once upon a time was useful. No other sorcerer who could sense the traces of Arts would question such a wide web of magic, especially when it belonged to him. And if it was something he did himself without leaving any other way to remember, then this was for the best, right?
Stephen sighed from his room in the sanctum, and the Cloak of Levitation patted him on the cheek in comfort. He opened a portal with a dismissive flick of his wrist, sending a book back to the main library. His magic tasted like the aftermath of painful spellcasting, like he had done something that was absolutely necessary, but something he hated, nonetheless.
Ned had never been one for the spotlight. Most hackers usually weren’t, or at least the good ones anyway. One simply didn’t go around announcing that they could break into government servers and take countries down overnight because that was a sure-fire way of getting the wrong people’s interests in you. Like terrorists. If he advertised the fact that he could bypass the firewalls set by Tony Stark himself (not that Ned would know, he’s never tried), he might get kidnapped in the middle of the night and held at gunpoint until he screwed up the stock market from his computer.
Everyone knew that Ned loved building stuff, especially Millennium Falcons from Legos or a calculator app for fun when he didn’t feel like using his brain. Nobody knew how good Ned was though.
That kind of skill translated to a lot of things. Ned may be an idiot half the time because he was shy and somewhat of an outcast, but he graduated from Midtown High and was waiting for his acceptance letter into MIT. Ned refused to let anyone take that away from him.
Magic really wasn’t all that different from programming a function, or math even, though the latter was a bit of a stretch. Symbols and runes represented his variables, strings, or Booleans—his data types essentially. What order he drew those symbols and runes depended on him entirely. Whatever Ned wanted the magic to do, as long as he came up with a clear set of instructions that didn’t clash, it would perform.
Unlike a programme, if he made a mistake, he might end up blowing up the entirety of Kamar-Taj or doing something like ripping apart the space-time continuum and proving the multiverse theory true.
Which led to Ned with his back aching from hunching over the pencil drawing of the spell he was crafting. He really missed having his reclining chair. He was never going to take it for granted again. He sniffed, leaning back as he completed the rune work.
“And done,” he whispered to himself. He looked at his watch. It had only taken him six hours and a backache.
Ned stood, careful not to crumple the paper. Closing the scroll on spell-crafting and the book Dr Strange had left behind, he returned them to their respective shelves and left the library for his room. He still had to run the draft through his computer to make sure it really didn’t end up blowing up in his face.
If nothing went wrong, Ned would remember everything that he’s forgotten within whatever duration he set it to.
And if something did…
Well, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
It was strange, if MJ thought about it—the fact that they were friends, best friends. How had they even met? She couldn’t seem to remember, and when she asked Ned about it, he gained this faraway look while trying to remember. Then he’d chew his lip as if contemplating whether or not to tell her.
At first, he was insistent on her being the one who just sat down at his table without a word when Flash was being an asshole in general, and then they just bonded over being social pariahs. (Except for the part where MJ was always roasting Flash till he couldn’t speak, and Ned would smile sheepishly at her in thanks, and… and…)
She’d wrung it out of him eventually, the same way she always did. But MJ wasn’t sure if she liked his answer. Scratch that, she hated his answer.
The pastry shop was unerringly cold. Or maybe it was just the possibility of MJ forgetting the person that she had grown to love the most. The name Peter Parker didn’t ring a bell at all, but Ned’s voice curled around the name in familiarity and pain and guilt. At that point, even if MJ didn’t know who Peter Parker was, she’d still felt some semblance of pity for him. It would’ve been unnecessarily cruel to have the entire world forget his existence while he was dealing with the loss of his mentor and his aunt. (And she was supposed to be his girlfriend.)
When Ned had come to her, she was sceptical as usual, expecting nothing and not really believing him as he was telling her about his newfound ability to do magic. MJ nodded along with an unimpressed gaze as Ned gestured about it wildly. The both of them knew that they didn’t quite believe each other.
But on the off chance that everything he was saying was true? Then Peter Parker was late, and MJ was about to slap him upside the head for being an idiot.
“Okay, loser, work your magic.”
MJ wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but fiery orange runes sparking to life in a revolving circle around her wasn’t it. Ned looked like he was conducting music, guiding the writing to twist and direct itself. Then, it shrunk and tightened around her neck like a collar, and MJ almost stopped breathing as something snapped into place.
“Oh,” she said. What else was there to say? One Peter Parker-shaped hole was missing in her life. She certainly didn’t know where he was now that Aunt May was gone, and no one else knew him anymore. She wasn’t going to see him at MIT, she didn’t have his number anymore. She really hated magic. (She didn’t hate Ned’s magic, but she’d always hate the magic that made her lose five years of her life and a whole person.)
Ned was calling her name, worry thick in his tone as he waited for her to respond. MJ nodded her head at him, not quite trusting her voice. If she tried to say anything then, she might’ve just started crying, then Ned really wouldn’t know what to do. She reached out, fingers in a vice-grip around his arm as she pulled him forwards into a hug.
It lasted for two seconds longer than it should’ve, and MJ pushed him away just as quickly, not giving him the chance to return the hug. She swiped at her face frantically, brisk walking back behind the counter.
And if MJ gives Ned a free doughnut, well, that’s between them.
A day later, one Peter Parker walked into the pastry shop. MJ’s breath caught in her throat. He looked so scared and hopeful and afraid of disappointment. (She wanted to pull him over the counter into an embrace right there and then, but he’d made her wait for so long as she clung to that promise that she thought it was only right she’d make him do the same.)
MJ had always had a vindictive streak.
And she could see the moment when his eyes caught on her cut, and he made that decision not to say anything with that sorry smile. She wanted to slap him right there, and she knew that Ned was listening from the other half of the room. And Peter just kept staring at the both of them, wishing, wishing, wishing.
And then she let him leave. Watched him run away because maybe it was too much for the both of them. Forgetting one, and letting the other forget? Were they really all that cut out for each other if they were so willing to let each other go for the sake of the world? (She would’ve let the world burn for him. Maybe. But then he’d look at her with those eyes, and everything would be different because everyone would be dead or dying. So maybe she wouldn’t after all. She’d liked to think that he’d thought the same about her. But she knew it wouldn’t be her eyes, it would be Aunt May’s voice living in his head, and MJ knew she had long since forgiven Peter for giving her up for the world.)
(She was selfish. She wanted one person to be hers and hers alone, one person who would put her first, one person who wouldn’t leave her no matter what. But everybody owned a bit of spiderman, so everybody owned a bit of Peter Parker, and sometimes sharing one boy with eight billion others left little room for herself.)
And then Ned slammed his hands down on the table, voice accusing in the way that it never was.
“Who are you and what have you done with MJ?” He’s standing now, and she’s almost gaping at him. “You’re just going to let him walk away? He promised.”
MJ stared a little longer, and something clicked in her head, so loud she nearly believed it was audible. She scrambled around the counter, leaving Ned behind with a panicked, “Watch my shift!” as she barged through the doors after her boyfriend.
She was Michelle-fucking-Jones, and if she wasn’t going to be the one who let Peter Parker think he was alone in the world. She hated New York crowds, but it was easy to spot his hair. (He was hers, and she’d recognise him anywhere). After that, it was just catching up to him.
She collided into him, her arms wrapping around him as tight as a noose.
“You’re an idiot if you think I’m going to let you walk away from me like that.”
“MJ?” He asks, and his voice is so weak, so broken, so hopeful.
“Yeah,” she replies, “It’s me.”
They could’ve stood there for hours in the New York crowd, throngs of people moving around them as Peter leant back into MJ’s touch. He felt so small, and she could feel him trembling in her arms. That moment of tranquil relief in his loose frame was broken by his cracking voice.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep our promise.”
MJ turns him around roughly, never really letting go of him as he faces her.
“You can keep it now, Parker, so shut up and stay.”
He buried his head in the crook of her neck, and his arms came up hesitantly, body shaking around her, like he was afraid that if he touched her, she’d fracture like a dream and a nightmare and disappear all at once. Peter was all lines of hard muscle, but at that moment, he seemed so fragile.
“I love you too,” he choked out in a sob, and MJ just tightened her arms around him.
Bonus #1:
Peter couldn’t deny how much of a relief it was to be able to have MJ look at him with recognition in her eyes. When they’d both calmed down enough to join the sweep of the throngs of people, lacing their hands together had come naturally, their sides practically moulded together.
The shop bell announced their entrance, and MJ pushes Peter forwards, right before his waiting best friend. Ned was grinning something unadulteratedly smug. He stuck out his hand, and Peter’s came up in tandem, their handshake ingrained as muscle memory. Ned pulled him into a hug, and they squeezed the life out of each other.
“And the power of love triumphs all, you’re welcome for coming up with the spell for regaining memories, by the way, you can thank me by getting yourself into MIT with us.”
Peter matches the grin on Ned’s face, and he pulls MJ towards them, his arms slinging around both their shoulders.
“Bet.”
Bonus #2:
“So, you’re telling me, you came up with a spell, just like that, to reverse the one I cast, on a gut feeling.” Ned couldn’t really tell if Dr Strange looked angry or not, but that weird expression on his face felt like some kind of dramatic irony the world had created to serve him some karma.
“Er… Yes.” Ned risked a glance at his best friends behind him. Peter grinned, shooting him a thumbs-up.
“Did you think about the consequences before this? What If you ripped apart the multiverse because it went wrong? What if you ended up forgetting who you were? What if you scrambled your own brains? That information was forgotten for a reason, and by the Vishanti, we don’t just come up with new spells and cast them on a whim! Not on yourself and definitely not on others!”
Ned cringed. “Sorry.”
“There’s a whole testing procedure and application that has to be submitted to the masters…” The doctor continued his lecture, but Ned had already turned back and returned the thumbs-up.
Wong looked almost incredulous at Strange’s lecturing.
“Irony is so strange,” he whispers to himself. “Could’ve sworn it was him who said the warning comes after the spell.”