*⁀➷ all too well
【 spider-man 】

book two.

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*ೃ༄ for reading:
times new roman
dark mode , size:
second smallest

forgive me peter, my
lost fearless leader

【 summary 】

▬▬PROMISES are more dangerous and more powerful than choices. Promises are choices that cannot be broken but always are. Promise may simply be another word for a lie, but far more sinister▬because a promise is whispered and believed by the naive, and held onto with a grip far too tight. Promises like where you go, I go, become lost in the wind, and leave behind a string frayed into two; worn and torn apart with no chance of ever reattaching. Promises like I'll come and find you, are weighted like feathers▬light and fragile; they are beautiful, but the meaning they hold is weak, is dainty, is worthless. But everyone wants to believe in a promise. Everyone wants to uphold it, to carry it to the grave, to keep it guarded with their heart▬and they might guard it fiercely, and fight until they are beaten and worn down ... but in the end, the Universe is far too cruel to allow a beautiful, naive promise to be unbreakable.

Grace Avery was naive, she had little experience of the world, though she would never admit it. Ambition was blinding, stubbornness was even more so, but there was no one in the entire world▬the entire Universe▬that would ever be able to tell her she couldn't do anything she put her mind to. If she made a promise, Grace Avery would never, ever break it. If she had her heart set on it, her tight grip would never be able to let go unless she was forced away▬and she would be dragged away, kicking and screaming. And even then, who's to say she wouldn't be able to find another way to grab on once again?

Nothing was truly impossible, not really. The world said the Avengers had lost, and that everyone who had been lost in the Blip would never return, but Grace Avery had lived through those five years. She had felt the misery, and the defeat, and lost all hope, and watched the Avengers bring everyone back▬watched the Avengers defy the impossible anyway, and win. Not all the Avengers had superpowers, but instead the stubbornness and the drive to never break their promises to the people they swore to protect.

Grace Avery was no Avenger, but she refused to let herself be a background character, either. Seeking out investigative journalism as a career was something everyone and anyone always seemed to go out of their way to warn her off from. 'It's a dying career', was their favourite thing to tell her▬as if the world they lived in wasn't filled with mystery. As if the streets of New York weren't still ruled by the inner shadows of organised crime, as if masked superheroes and vigilantes didn't make the headlines of the news every other day. Mystery was thriving, and Grace Avery wanted nothing more than to reveal the truth.

Her ambitions take her to where she was now, pushing through late nights, multiple cups of coffee and eyes straining over pages of readings for a journalism degree at Empire State University in New York. Her good midterm marks in Freshman Year boosted her through the doors of the Daily Bugle with an internship, and now, she was straining her eyes over pages and pages of newspapers, research articles, and scribbles of coffee orders on yellow post-it notes▬but she was happy, because she was where she wanted to be. She was where she needed to be, on her way into the ranks of a career everyone told her she'd never achieve.

But her fingers were itching, her legs were restless▬Grace Avery wanted to keep her steady pathway upwards. She wanted more, she just needed to find her ticket onto the fast train, and from there on, nothing could hold her back.

It was destiny, or just some god damn perfect luck, that Grace Avery found herself outside the news report room that day. That she just happened to be using the photocopier when J. Jonah Jameson announced it for every desperate reporter in his office to hear▬a call to arms for any reporter determined (or stupid) enough to figure out one secret that gnawed at his mind and sent his blood pressure reeling: Who was Spider-Man?

Grace Avery had her chance. The race had begun, and there was no one to suspect a college intern miles and miles behind the starting line would ever make it first place at the finish. But unlike them, Grace Avery was young, she was ambitious, she was naive▬more importantly, she was fuelled by a promise: She will find out Spider-Man's true identity, no matter what it takes.

Truth was, once upon a time, everyone knew Spider-Man's true identity. Once upon a time, the name Peter Parker was whispered upon the lips of every person in New York City, and perhaps even the world. Now, Peter Parker was a ghost. Not even Spider-Man seemed to know who Peter Parker was now, let alone the rest of the world▬and those he cared about.

Back then, Peter Parker had been inquisitive, he had been energetic and he had been optimistic▬he had been hopeful and eager and determined; excited to put on the mask and swing out into the streets of Queens to save the day, help some kid find his bike, get a lost cat down from the trees or even helping an old lady cross the road. The Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man had been an adventure Peter Parker couldn't get enough of. And the experience he had with the people he cared about the most at his side for the entire ride▬to have them make him smile, pull him back up on his feet and refuse to leave him no matter how much he might try to push them away ... Peter Parker had relied on the guidance, the companionship, the help of others for so long. He had relied on their love.

And then, one by one, he lost them all. Peter Parker, too.

And now, Spider-Man had no one.

But in truth, perhaps it was better off that way. No one to hurt, no one to put in danger, no one to watch ... to watch as they died right in his arms because of something he caused.

Spider-Man didn't work in teams. He wasn't an Avenger, and he had no side-kick. He had no partner, no one to confind in, no one to help patch up his wounds with their window open, waiting for him to arrive. Spider-Man was a gig that had to be done solo, otherwise people get hurt. They always get hurt.

But even when no one remembered who Peter Parker was, not even himself, the life of Peter Parker was still cursed. Whoever this stranger was, the name Peter Parker was now showing up on college class registers, he was stumbling late into laboratories, missing lectures and submitting tasks late. Peter Parker was struggling to pay the rent of his dingy, one-room apartment in Hell's Kitchen with a door that didn't even properly open and close without a rough shove. He could never keep a stable job, whether it be delivering pizzas or tutoring, Spider-Man always got in the way. Peter Parker was a struggling nobody, but perhaps that was the one thing that hadn't changed even after everything that happened.

That, and the final promise Peter Parker made.

To her.

Nina Hart still kept her window unlocked sometimes at night. She didn't even truly know why. Spider-Man hadn't shown up in a year. The vigilante had gone from being a staple of her high school life to becoming a ghost▬from someone who meant so much to her, to just the slither of a memory. And of course, it was strange, for how could Nina Hart care so much for someone who was, in reality, a total stranger behind the mask?

Her life was going well. Her first semester in her double degree of biology and chemestry at New York University was going incredibly well, she was starting to become great friends with her roommate, was getting comfortable inside her residential college. She still stayed in touch with Felicia, and MJ and Ned▬and all of their adventures at MIT in Boston▬and she was finding her place as a bustling future academic and scientist inside her university's halls. And if everything went well this semester, she might even finally manage to get the guy she was talking with to finally ask her out on a date. What more could she ask for?

She didn't know. She just had a feeling▬no, she knew. Nina Hart knew that something was missing.

She couldn't quite explain it. She just couldn't. It was like a shift in the wind that didn't feel quite right. It was an itch on her arm that she couldn't quite get rid of. It was a subtle imbalance or variability in her graphs during laboratries she had no idea how to solve. It was the way all of her photographs on her wall seemed to be taken just a bit too crooked, or they were simply just a fracture off-centre. It was the empty space in the corner, or a word that was on the tip of her tongue. Something was not right, and it bugged her, like the feeling she had forgotten something and yet could never remember what it was.

Nina Hart knew that somehow, no, she promised, that whatever this emptyness was she was going to fill it▬whatever this thing was that she was missing, she vowed she will find it.

and it feels like the start
of a movie
i've seen before.

【 cast 】

꒱꒱ GRACE AVERY ▬▬
halle bailey

i was thinking about who you are,
the delicate dawn of you, i was thinking
about you

꒱꒱ SPIDER-MAN ▬▬
tom holland

you said you were gonna grow up,
then you were gonna come
find me

꒱꒱ NINA HART ▬▬
madelyn cline

and i was thinkin' on the drive down,
'any time now he's gonna say it's love,'
you never called it what it was

alongside . . .

jonathan daviss / RANDY ROBERTSON
as described / CARLIE COOPER
sabrina carpenter / FELICIA HARDY, BLACK CAT
zendaya / MICHELLE 'MJ' JONES WATSON
jacob batalon / NED LEEDS
angourice rice / BETTY BRANT
timothée chalamet / HARRY OSBORN, ???
milly alcock / GWEN STACY
donald glover / AARON DAVIS, THE PROWLER
as described / MILES MORALES, ???
joseph quinn / JOHNNY STORM, THE HUMAN TORCH
pedro pascal / REED RICHARDS, MR. FANTASTIC
vanessa kirby / SUE STORM, INVISIBLE WOMAN
as described / INGRID RIVERS, RIPTIDE
ebon moss-bachrach / BEN GRIMM, THE THING
michael mando / MAC GARGAN, ???
michael keaton / ADRIAN TOOMES, THE VULTURE

disclaimer▬▬!
okay as we all know, i do not own spider-man and any of the characters and plots related to the comics, films and/or any adaptions made, they all belong to their respective onwers. but i do own my own interpretation of them and any additional characters/plot lines separate from the comics etc. i most certainly do own nina hart and grace avery so if any one steals them, i will hunt you down.

now, important, we do not have a tom's spider-man sequel movie/series out yet. i do not know when we will, and if we do, i think it's still quite a while away. i'm pretty sure sony and marvel have only just agreed on the terms of the script and storyline last time i checked. i'm pretty sure i can trust my instincts to say that it'll include black cat (*desperately hopes to the point of delusion*). and deep down, i really don't want to see ned or mj because i like the idea of what happening in nwh being consistent, and instead we meet new characters, like gwen, or randy, (or harry - the angst this would cause after nwh *chef kiss*).

so, this means the deja vu series has split off and become an au to the marvel cinematic universe. maybe once the movie comes out, i will rewrite a version of this book that follows the movies, or sort of twist it into my own universe, but as of now, this book follows an alternative universe as if i was writing my own spider-man adaption/trilogy.

also, i'm not even sure if i will like where they will take peter parker in the way the mcu is going currently. i hope this opinion changes, believe me because i love spider-man so much. secret wars is apparently a very well-loved comic run (i haven't gotten up to it yet), but with the storylines the mcu has already done, part of me is worried it won't make sense and some elements seems to have already been explored/done in a different way. so, i'm deciding to do whatever i want. also, i'm worried about what they'll do with miles and peter.

this is why you see additional characters like johnny storm, gwen stacy, randy etc. and before y'all come at me and say adding harry osborn etc into the storyline after no way home creates plot holes and makes no sense LISTEN TO ME when i say i will make it make sense (or i hope so). basically, it works well because in the comics where norman osborn loses his memory, and peter parker has to pretend and lie to harry osborn that his father wasn't actually the green goblin, and act like nothing has happened. i can do a similar storyline in this context (also, if you've played/watched someone play marvel's spider-man 2 ... ifykyk the possible avenue this plot could take and don't spoil). besides, i'm making it as if they have only just recently arrived into new york after norman osborn bought a highrise and is starting to build up OSCORP (you'll see).

second, the fantastic four is obviously being written without a single glimpse of knowledge as to what the mcu is doing with them nor how they could possibly get from 1960 to the present. so, the fantastic four (five, ingrid rivers is a character from my icarus fic, which is based off the early 2000s f4 movies but i wanted to add a version of her in this universe <3) in this book is entirely separate from the mcu storyline but is keeping the same cast because i will defend them with everything i have. also, i want a spideytorch bromance. ps for context and world building, the fantastic four bought avengers tower.

lastly, and this is very important, if ANYONE, and i mean ANYONE comes after grace avery and says mean shit about her just because of nina, your comment WILL be deleted. I will not say if this book will have platonic or romantic relationships between grace and peter, you will have to read and see and get to KNOW avery, and read the plot of this book before you make any form of judgement. and once you do that, i'm sure you will all absolutely love grace.

guys, i love nina too, believe me, but grace has an equal spot in my heart and she deserves the respect and love you gave nina. i will not tell you if nina and peter are endgame. i will not tell you if grace and peter are endgame. honestly, right now, after all that has happened peter needs a friend before a girlfriend. i will tell you nothing, you have to read the book and actually pay attention. and then i can trust that you guys will understand the reason as to whichever way the plot will go (that is to say if i manage to write and explain and make the plot flow well, lol).

i am crazy busy with university, which means this fic won't start updating for a little bit, but i wanted to tease what i've been working on since forever (basically as long as deja vu i've been thinking of a sequel). it's still sorta premature, but getting close to being all ready to go. but because i've been such a slacker with updates because of uni, and to celebrate deja vu hitting 1M reads, this is my present to you guys <3. i love you.

warnings▬▬!
this book is rated mature because of the following:
descriptions of violence, themes of loss and grief, mental struggle, swearing, some dark themes, sexual innuendos and minor sexual themes, mentions of rallies and protest, some gang violence/mentions of organised crime, death (you know, just spider-man stories being actual angst pools). this book does start to take a darker turn than the last series, which i presume the mcu might actually do as well since they've introduced venom and peter will be a young-adult.

there is happiness i promise!