Chapter Text
The sum of Peter’s life these days amounts to this: a handmade suit, some lego mini-figures, a GED textbook and test date coming much too soon, a too-many floor walk-up in the sketchiest part of Hell’s Kitchen in New York, and no idea what the future holds.
He has a routine: up with the sun for a morning patrol, stopping a mugging or two, then back home to study for a few hours and scrounge up something for lunch, some chores or errands depending on the day, and more patrols from sun-down until midnight. The police scanner stays on all day and especially all night, listening for a sign that Spider-Man might be needed. He submits job applications and never hears back, because a teenager with no high school diploma, no references, and a tendency to disappear to fight crime, not that they know the reason, doesn’t tend to get a job easily, and doesn’t tend to keep them long when he does. He sells photos of Spider-Man to The Daily Bugle to keep himself afloat and feels cheap and dirty for it.
He visits Aunt May’s grave about once a week, avoiding her other visitors which consist of clients and coworkers and most frequently Happy, who Peter cannot bear to talk to like a stranger. He doesn’t talk to KAREN, or try on the E.D.I.T.H glasses, not wanting to know whether what remains of Tony Stark in his life has forgotten him along with the rest of the known world. He avoids places frequented by other heroes - avoids Hawkeye and his new protege and their drama around Christmas, avoids Stark Tower altogether, and avoids Doctor Strange’s place. He thinks they might remember Spider-Man, because the world still recognizes him as a hero, and he doesn’t want to find out what did and didn’t remain of him in their minds. That no one has even tried tracking him down tells him it's less than he’d like it to be.
Every once in a while, he’ll stop by the coffee shop and see MJ and Ned, who are almost always talking about M.I.T. They start to recognize him, smile when he comes in and sits for a while, but there is no glimmer of their shared history in their eyes. Everytime he sees them, he mental tallies the days he has left until they leave New York, and by extension Peter, behind. MJ still wears the broken Black Dahlia necklace, though he doesn’t know what she thinks of it these days, since she doesn’t remember Peter being the one to give it to her.
Peter spends so much of his time pretending not to remember the things everyone else he used to know forgot, that it's no surprise that some things start to slip his memory for real.
Which is why when he walks into a blind man outside his apartment, it takes him a second to recognize him, and then another to realize he shouldn’t act familiar, because Matt Murdock has also forgotten Peter Parker along with the rest of the world. He’s still not going to be rude though.
“I’m so sorry” Peter rushes out, heart beating over time in his chest and he hesitates for just a second, before grabbing Mr. Murdock’s hand to help pull him to his feet.
“It’s alright” Mr. Murdock reassures him and he’s smiling slightly in good humor at the situation, straightening his jacket and adjusting his cane. Before Peter can say something else, or find a way to rush off, he asks “Are you one of my neighbors?”
“Uh, yeah” Peter says, a little shocked, wondering why a man who was by all accounts a very good lawyer lived in one of the cheapest, and thus worst, parts of Hell’s Kitchen. Though he guesses the giant neon billboard next door wouldn’t bother a blind man very much. Peter’s chest kind of hurts, and Mr. Murdock’s head cocks to the side just a little, like he’s confused or trying to focus on something difficult.
“Are you okay?” Mr. Murdock asks.
“I’m fine” Peter reassures him, though his spidey-sense is freaking out in the back of his mind and he can’t tell what’s setting it off.
“Alright then” Mr. Murdock says, and lets Peter ahead of him into the apartment building, “welcome to the neighborhood” he calls out, as Peter all but runs up the stairs.
Later that night, when Peter is changing into his suit, he finds one of Mr. Murdock’s business cards in his jacket pocket, identical to the one he still had from before. He spares it a thought, wondering why Mr. Murdock would have slipped him a business card if he didn’t even know Peter’s name (not anymore at least), before he’s distracted by his police scanner and ducks out the window.