SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY

They say the hardest part of losing someone isn’t the moment they walk away—it’s waking up every single day knowing they don’t remember you ever existed at all. That is the life I have lived for four long years, ever since Doctor Strange cast that spell to save the multiverse. I made the choice to let everyone forget me so they would be safe, so no villain would ever use the people I love to get to me. I told myself it was the only way, that loving them meant stepping back and letting them live without the danger that always followed Peter Parker. But I never expected how heavy that silence would feel. Ned Leeds, my first and only best friend who knew every secret I ever kept, who helped me build gadgets in my bedroom and covered for me when I snuck out late at night, now passes me on the street like I am just another stranger. He holds doors open for people he knows, laughs at jokes from people he’s close to, and never once glances my way like he recognizes the boy who used to share his fries and his secrets. MJ, the girl who saw every broken part of me and loved me anyway, who knew how I took my coffee and when I was lying about being okay, now walks hand in hand with other people, smiles at strangers like I used to smile at her, and lives a life where I was never part of it at all. I stand on rooftops watching them sometimes, my chest aching worse than any broken bone I have ever healed from. Every dawn I visit Aunt May’s grave, bringing the daisies she loved so much—white ones, just like she kept on her kitchen table—and sit there in the quiet light, telling her about every thief I caught, every scared child I helped down from a ledge, every time I wanted to knock on Ned’s door or wave at MJ across the street but forced myself to turn away. I tell her I am okay, even when I am not. I tell her I made the right choice, even when I wake up gasping from dreams where they still know my name, still call me “Peter,” still look at me like I’m the most important person in the world. Everyone knows Spider-Man—the hero who swings through the rain, who takes the hit so no one else has to, who stays until the streets are safe and the sirens fall quiet. People wave when they see me, cheer when I catch a falling car, thank me like I’m something more than just a kid in a mask. But no one knows Peter Parker. No one knows the boy who carries all this grief alone, who eats cold noodles in a tiny apartment because he can’t bring himself to sit at a restaurant table by himself, who cries into his mask when the city finally falls quiet and he’s left with nothing but his own thoughts. I keep going because I have to—because Uncle Ben taught me that with great power comes great responsibility, because May taught me that kindness is always worth the cost. But some nights, I wonder how much longer I can carry a world that forgot me completely.