I Met You in a Dream - Starker

Chapter 2

Looking panicked and delirious, Peter asked the question that he had been struggling to hold in. “How do you know who I am?”

Wanda looked puzzled, cocking her head to the side. “Why does that surprise you? Or Stark for that matter—we’ve met multiple times. The last being at Tony’s funeral. I may not have known your face during our first meeting, but have you forgotten the battle already?” She couldn’t imagine how someone could possibly forget the smell of sulphur that hung heavy in the air; the sound of yelling as a proclamation and as a cry.

Peter sagged forward, his hand grasping at the dresser beside him to keep himself from falling. Tears prickled at his eyes as he stared at the woman in disbelief. “You remember me. Holy shit, you actually remember me.”

“What is going on?” she persisted, uncomfortable with seeing the man in front of her holding back tears for reasons unbeknownst to her. She could not understand why her remembering someone was of such great importance. 

“Dr. Strange—I screwed up. He cast a spell a few years back and things got so bad that he had to cast another spell. And with that spell the whole world forgot who Peter Parker—who I was. It’s—It’s been like that for years. You’re the first person who has ever remembered me—ever.”

Wanda’s heart broke as he saw the look of desperation in the boy’s expression. Despite resembling a typical 23-year-old, she could see that he was just the same as the scared teenager she once knew a lifetime ago.

“How?” Peter repeated. “How is that possible?” While he didn’t understand the exact intricacies of the spell Strange had cast, its effect on his life had been damning and apparent from the very beginning. He had spent years building his new identity, something that had only recent become far easier to cope with now that he once again had the Avengers back in his life.

It took her very little time to deduce the answer to his question. “A spell like that would have no way to penetrate my warding,” she said offhandedly as if it were a perfectly normal thing to say.   It didn’t matter much of the timing of when the spell actually occurred, because the answer was more or less the same. The walls to Westview itself were impenetrable. Even after the fall of Westview, she had been heavily guarded by warding from the Darkhold ever since; impossible for a memory erasing spell to seep through.

Peter’s mind was reeling so drastically that he had to sit down on the bed to compose himself. “I can’t believe it—it’s been so long.”

“But Stark clearly knows you… Is that because he was dead at the time the spell occurred, I assume?” she asked curiously. She had seen the familiarity between the two men, a dynamic that would have taken years to build. The lingering glances, the gentle squeeze Peter gave him before they departed; it had all been in front of her plain as day.

Peter shook his head. “He doesn’t remember. I-I don’t know why, and it’s not like I can ask anyone. When I heard he was resurrected, I needed to know—I thought that maybe he would be the one person who would actually remember me. B-but when I removed my mask—there was nothing. He couldn’t remember me just like everyone else.”

“Have you told Stark the truth? Have you explained to him what happened?”

Peter shook his head again. “I thought about it for a while, but the cons outweighed the pros, like how for starters he would think I was crazy.”

Wanda’s frown deepened, showing discomfort of keeping a truth like that hidden. But she wanted to help the boy.  As thoughts rolled like marbles in her mind, an epiphany struck. “I can give him his memory back.”

He looked startled at the offer and squinted in confusion. “What? How?”

“Nothing is ever truly erased with magic—”