Chapter 92: Time Travel is Confusing
The three heroes, Spider-Man, Silk, and the New Goblin made their way down to the Spider-Cave. It still looked the same as it did when Eren left. Those same metallic, futuristic walls and sterile grey flooring were a bland sight that he missed. It was like his second home afterall.
Upon entering the main room where all of their computers and such were, Lily was seen sitting at Seer's computer, as she was still committed to fulfilling that role now that Harry was on the field.
Her eyes widened upon seeing Eren, compelling her to get up out of her seat and hug him. She wasn't that close to him compared to the other two, but she missed him nonetheless. "I'm glad you're back..." she said quietly as Eren hugged her back.
"Me too." Eren whispered.
"So what happened?" Lily asked, letting go of Eren and looking at him and everyone else.
Cindy and Harry both shrugged, looking to Eren for the answer. Eren said nothing, gesturing for everyone to sit before walking over to a glass dry-erase board. Everyone watched anxiously before Eren grabbed a marker and began writing at the top of the board. He wrote: Time Travel.
Harry clapped once. "I knew it!" he said as he pointed to the board.
"No, you didn't." Both Cindy and Lily told him simultaneously. He never mentioned anything about time travel when discussing his hundreds of theories about Eren having possibly been alive somehow.
"Quiet down. This is going to get complicated really fast. It's a lot so I'll give you the CliffsNotes." Eren began writing once more, this time creating one long line. "This is timeline-1. Just like me, the Eren Parker from this timeline went back in time after our fight against the Green Goblin.
Like me, he traveled back to a random night when my whole family was having dinner together when I was about four or five years old. This Eren, we call him, Eren-1, told my parents about their deaths, thus preventing them from dying.
When he went back to the present, he saw that nothing had changed in the slightest."
His friends looked heartbroken upon hearing the fate of the first Eren Parker. "Why didn't it change?" Cindy asked, prompting Eren to draw a line perpendicular to the first line he drew. "He created a second timeline. Timeline-2. The little boy that Eren-1 met in the past grew up in timeline two and became Eren-2.
I'll reiterate. We have Eren-1 and Eren-2 now. Eren-1, dead parents. Eren-2, living parents thanks to Eren-1 telling them about the future. Eren-2 grew up and lived a perfect life. He got everything that I had ever wanted. However, he never met you guys. He did get married-"
"To who?" Cindy asked. Eren hoped he could gloss over those details but he had no choice at that point.
"Gwen Stacy..." Eren answered, afraid of Cindy's reaction.
"FLASH'S GIRLFRIEND!?" Harry yelled, not making the situation any better for anyone in the room.
"Yes... I'm sorry, Cindy. Listen-" Eren began to apologize, but Cindy stopped him with her own oddly calm words. Perhaps she could sense his embarrassment about the situation rather than any sort of guilt.
"It's fine. It's okay, different timeline, right?"
"Yeah, precisely." Eren was relieved that this was her only reaction, luckily Cindy wasn't the jealous type. 'Thank God and Bast.' he thought to himself before continuing.
"So this Eren, Eren-2, got married and had kids, started his business and everything was perfect. However, when tragedy struck, Spider-Man wasn't there to save everyone. The city fell, then the state, then the country, then the entire world.
He put a team together since he met Eren-1 in the past and knew about time travel, and created a time machine to go back in time and stop Eren-1 from ever changing the past. This, however, did not fix the Eren-2 timeline. Instead..."
Eren began to draw a perpendicular line at the end of timeline-1. "It made timeline-3. Eren-3 grew up with a timeline that was exactly the same as Eren-1's timeline until he too went back in time. This time, he was ready to change the past again, until he was stopped by Eren-2 who, traveled once again, and told him everything I just told you. Eren-3 chose not to save his family and went back to his present.
Then Eren-3, came back to stop Eren-4 from doing the same thing. Now there is an infinite loop of an Eren going back in time and stopping another Eren before telling him about the future and passing down his memories.
So, basically, I have every Eren Parker to ever exist before me's memories in my brain as we speak. All hundreds of them."
Eren didn't want to tell them the truth, he didn't want to let them all know that each Eren sent merely an afterimage of themselves back in time as their dying breath. He didn't want to tell them the many times he had to watch every single person in that room die. He didn't want to tell them about how there was even a chance that they themselves would become a monster.
Cindy could sense Eren's guilt due to her abilities and it worried her. "So everything ends up fine, right?" she asked him, seeing if he would tell her the truth.
"Of course. All we gotta do is beat the bad guys, just like we always do." Eren lied, one that would've been convincing if it weren't for Cindy's abilities.
Cindy knew he was lying, she was certain of it. However, she chose to believe him. She'd just lost him and got him back, she didn't want to think about losing him again. She'd rather lie to herself, give herself false hope, than learn the truth.
"So you basically have a cheat sheet?" Lily asked him. "Since you know everything that'll happen?"
"Well, not exactly. Me having all this knowledge alone already changes everything. I've seen hundreds of timelines going down hundreds of different paths. I can choose one path or combine two or two hundred. It's... it's a lot. I've already done so much differently."
Harry looked confused upon hearing this as all they had done was swing home and have that very discussion. "Already? How? You just got here." he asked.
"Well, for starters, I was the only one who got to speak to my father one last time. I don't know how it happened but I slipped through time and fell in a time right before he died. I was able to interact with him safely since our conversation had no impact on the timeline because he died immediately after." Eren began holding back his own tears before repeating what his father told him. "He told me that with great power, comes great responsibility. He told me not to quit when things get rough and to keep being Spider-Man."
"I see... so just having advice from him has already altered our timeline..." Harry said quietly. "On top of seeing all the past Eren's actions... that's insane."
"Very insane." Eren parroted.
Harry appeared to have a lightbulb going off in his head, snapping his fingers and pointing a finger gun at Eren. "So that means you know where Project V is, right? Where it was taken?"
"Not exactly... remember it's a different timeline, but we'll find it." Eren laughed awkwardly rubbing the back of his head.
He was lying.
He knew exactly where Project V was being held, down to the room it was in and the names on the nametags of almost every employee in the facility.
However, he didn't want anyone involved.
This was his burden to bear.
'I need to find Project V before Norman gets back.' He thought to himself, though these guilty thoughts were being felt by Cindy.
'Why is he hiding things from us...' She thought before finally speaking up.
"Eren." she said his name as if she were a disappointed parent, looking at him very closely as if she were studying him. "Remember when you said that there would be no more secrets? You promised. Do you remember that?" she asked him, still studying everything about him.
His brain.
His eyes.
His body language.
She couldn't read minds, but she could read just about everything else about him.
"I do remember that. We both made that promise, right?" Cindy nodded as he said this, compelling him to smile and continue. "See? I do remember. No more secrets."
"Okay. You better keep that promise or I'll never forgive you." Cindy saying this caused Eren's heart to drop to the lowest depths of his body. If his skin wasn't brown, he would've gone pale at that moment.
He knew that she knew, but he kept the facade going.
For her sake.
"I promise. I'll never hide anything from you again."
He lied.
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