Chapter Text
Peter always wondered if he’d go with a bang. If he’d keep on his feet until he was the only one left standing, turn all cool-like to the other Avengers with a Harrison Ford smile, and just pass out in a graceful way. Like, everyone would probably be like “dang, I really miss Peter because he’s so cool and suave, but that was such a cool death.”. Maybe the Daily Bugle would say something about it. Something less awful than usual, hopefully.
He’d hoped that it wouldn’t hurt.
He’d hoped that he’d die saving people.
It doesn’t hurt, he guesses. And he did save the Guardians from being ejected into space before they kinda crumbled to dust. So if that makes up for not being able to pull off Thanos’s glove, then he’d hit the mark.
But it didn’t feel like it was worth anything. It didn’t feel like anything but terror.
He didn’t want to go.
“I don’t wanna go Mr.Stark, please I don’t wanna go-”
He apologizes.
He goes.
.
..
…
Stark sees his opening. They’d corner the major asshole that was Thanos on some decrepit planet that had fallen to nothing.
“It was Gamora’s planet” the blue girl - Nebula - had said, predicting that that would be where the god would be. The god of bullshit. Going back to the planet of his slaughtered daughter, where he kidnapped her and killed half her people. God of bullshit and asshole-ery.
(He tries not to think of the planet where his…. where Peter was. He wondered where the wind carried him)
They’d found Thanos - sleeping, of all things, and took advantage of the moment. Cap decks him right in the face with all his might, and Thor just swings his axe through his wrist. The gauntlet fall with a clunk, and the big blue bitch is screaming something as he wakes up behind his back, but Tony doesn’t care. He grabs the gauntlet, pulls out the oozing hand, and takes off for the other side of the planet while Cap and Thor pummel the much weaker man to almost nothing. He deserves it.
Banner’s waiting back on their ship.
“This is an awful idea Tony, I mean awful. ”
Tony didn’t give a shit.
When he puts his hand in the gauntlet, he feels like his whole being is ripped to shreds. But he pictures the kid, his kid crying for help as he turned to dust and apologizing for it because this blue Shrek thought that he could play god and massacre half the universe.
He should think of the other half of the universe. He should consider what Cap is feeling, or think of Wanda or Fury or everyone else who was lost or lost someone, but really, he only cared about bringing Peter back.
He wills for the Universe to right itself.
The universe listens.
Not even twenty seconds after he launches back away from the gauntlet, a portal with orange rings opens beside him.
.
..
...
And then suddenly he’s… back.
Dying was weird. In hindsight, if he wasn’t so terrified it wouldn’t be so bad. Turning into dust really didn’t hurt as much as being crushed by that building. It really just kind of tickled, honestly. And after he died, there was nothing. If his brain hadn’t been powdered, he might have had some flashbacks or he’d start dreaming as it happened, but that stuff just doesn’t go down if you don’t have a brain to do it, apparently. Total rip-off. If death had a manager, he’d ask for a refund.
Being dead was…. nothing. There was nothing. He really didn’t have any feeling about that.
But honestly, coming back sucked.
It didn’t happen all at once. He was built back together piece by piece, particle by particle. He felt his skin form first, creating a shell that protected the ashy organs inside. His brain came back first, at least parts of it. He was aware of the muscles twisting back to existence and the organs blooming from nothing. Peter couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move. All he could think of was “ where’s Mr.Stark? where’s Mr.Stark? is he dead? am I dead? I want to go home I want to go home I don’t wanna die, please- ”
And suddenly he can breathe.
He takes in a lungful of stale air with a large gasp, flailing upright as he did so. He coughed up dust and felt like passing out because did he just die? Is he, like, not dead?
And suddenly there are hands on his shoulders, and he think “Tony!” but when he looks up, it’s the other white human dude from before. He looked just as frazzled as Peter felt, but evidently was handling the whole dead thing better than the fifteen year old, because at least he wasn’t having a panic attack and coughing up dust.
“Hey, hey kid it’s me, Peter - oh,shit his name is Peter too, right? Okay, uhhhh.” The man tried, waving his hands like he was trying to figure out what to do “It’s Starlord. You, know, the one that decked Thanos in the face?”
“The one that woke Thanos up from Mantis’ sleep?” the hulking blue man chimed in, looking vaguely indifferent and oh god they were all stuck in purgatory or something-
“Oh, shut up, you did the same thing on Knowhere!” Starlord shouted back, taking a deep breath and turning back to the kid.
“Look, kid, I don’t really know what happened, but we’re back now. You’re the last one to reform for whatever reason, but even that DnD character popped back up. But he, uh, he sorta ditched the second he stood up, so-”
“Where’s Mr.Stark?” Peter interrupts, chest still heaving. Starlord - what a stupid name- made an “uh” sound and looked to the others, who shrugged.
This sucked.
“Well, my guess is that he didn’t get dustified. ‘Cause Thanos only killed half the universe, so I’m guessing him and Nebula made it through the rapture.” the man explains, with nods from the others encouraging him on. “So my guess is that he went after Thanos again, and maybe him and his team were the ones who brought us back.”
Okay, so Tony was probably alive. Which was good, really, really good. And yeah, it was probably the Avengers that fixed everything, so that means that most of them were fine and probably had his back, so double good.
But the kinda awkward silence that fell on Titan was less than good, and he still was stuck in the midst of a panic attack, so that kinda sucked.
“Maybe we should take the boy back to the ship? Being outside is distressing him.” the weird alien girl said - Mantis, that’s her name.
“Oh! Oh, yeah, good plan. Uppsy-daisy, Spider-kid.”
And then Peter was off the hard ground and being carried like a toddler back to their ship.
“Where are we going?” Peter asks, to exhausted to really sound indignant.
“The ship! It’s a cool ship, ‘cause it’s my ship - I’m the captain, by the way - and after that? I’m not really sure. Maybe we’ll run you home, since your wizard ride kind of ditched you back there.” Starlord says as they walk up a metal ramp.
Oh, the ship is cool. If Peter had an ounce of energy left in him, he’d go check out the glowing tubes in the corner.
Starlord sets him down on a bench in the corner, where he slumped and curled up in the corner. Mantis brought over a glass of… water? Whatever, Peter was literally dust ten minutes ago, he’s not being picky right now.
The engines fired up, and Peter felt the ship rumble as they took off towards the dark reaches of space. Peter winced at the shock, his sense feeling overwhelmed in an instant. He felt the glass in his hand crack a little.
“Kinda nice how we came back with our clothes, right?”
Peter looks up at Starlord, who was leaning against the opposite wall a few feet away. When Peter didn’t respond, he continued.
“Like, we could have been dusted without it affecting our clothes and just woken up butt naked on this dirty planet, but like, we have all our cool clothes.” Starlord explains, waving his hands to gesticulate. “It kinda makes un-dying less awful, I guess.”
“It’s like Jake Long.” Peter adds in, voice still quiet. Starlord doesn’t get the reference, and Peter goes on to explain the greatest Disney TV show of all time, and how the character would somehow just transform into a dragon without ripping his clothes to shreds and reappear with them on.
“Maybe he just stores them somewhere inside his dragon form? Like how kangaroos can hold shit in their pouches? That’s my theory.”
The conversation carries through a lot of pop culture references (“I liked Back to the Future, but I wasn’t a fan of the sequels.” “There were sequels ?”) and after a while, Peter didn’t feel like he’d just died anymore. He was still curled up in a corner, still covered in the dumb dust, but the panic in his chest had simmered down. He looked off to his right and saw the planet fade away, blurring until it was a spinning red ball. He died there.
The conversation lulled, and they both looked out at the planet. They’d all died there.
“How long have you been spider-ing?”
It’s asked in a quiet tone, which Peter appreciated. He could still hear the rumblings of the engines, even in space.
“I got my powers when I turned fourteen, and started being Spiderman a month after that so… a little over a year? Almost two, I think.”
Starlord gave a low whistle at that, and Peter turned to him with practiced indignity.
“What?” Peter asked with a defensive tone. But the other man didn’t have that patronizing look that Tony got sometimes, when he wanted to use Peter’s age against him in an argument. He looked kinda… impressed.
“That’s awhile.” Starlord comments, nodding a little bit to emphasize the point. “You’re what, fifteen? So that means you’ve been spider-ing for 1/15th of your life.”
Peter smiled for the first time at that point. What? He’s a sucker for compliments. It was nice to have someone older look at him and go “Sick job, kid” rather than act like he was a baby with a flamethrower.
“I started space-pirating when I was like, ten, so I couldn’t give you grief without being a hypocrite or something.” Starlord adds, with a softer look on his face. “I used to hate that my life got uprooted, but honestly? Being a space pirate is cool, man. Like, if I’d stayed on Earth I’d be, like, an accountant or some shit. But I’ve literally gotten drunk on a moving comet when I was seventeen, so it’s fine.”
Peter almost laughed at the story, ease trickling back into his body. He looked back to the planet, a distant red dot the size a pencil eraser by now.
“I was actually gonna go see a exhibit on comets and meteors the day that Thanos came.” Peter says softly. “I was on a bus going across the Brooklyn Bridge when the space doughnut fell on Washington Park.”
Starlord looked at him for a moment, like he was heavily considering something. Peter focused on the red dot, ignoring the look the best he could. It was kinda creepy, and Peter was reminded that he knew this dude for a culmination of maybe like an hour.
“Hey, kiddo.”Starlord starts slowly, like he’s considering his words. “How would you feel if we took the long way home? Not super long! Just to check out, like, an actual asteroid. To, you know, make up for that field trip that Thanos crashed.”
Peter looks at the other man with wide eyes. Cruising the galaxy in a space ship with space pirates and seeing an actual asteroid ? Jeez, Ned would be freaking out-
Ned. Ned, MJ, and Aunt May. They don’t know that he’s okay. And neither does Tony.
He thinks back to the look on Tony’s face as he crumbled to dust.
He should go back.
“... How much longer will it take?”
He needs to let everyone know that he’s alive.
“I dunno, maybe a week? Probably a week.”
It’s a bad idea to take a vacation when everyone thinks he’s dead.
He thinks of Tony’s face. He doesn’t think he can look at him any time soon, not after doing that to him.
“If it’s a week? I’m in.”
He’s such a dick.
.
..
…
“What do you mean, you forgot the kid?!”
Thanos wasn’t dust, but he was pulverized to essentially nothing at this point. Robo-girl was still stabbing his corpse, which was concerning to say the least, but he was concerned about much more important things.
Like his kid being abandoned on a dirt planet across the galaxy.
Strange, for his part, looks mildly mortified. He was looking off to the side, preferring to watch the corpse stabbing rather than look Tony in the eye. Steve looked like he wanted to just go home, but he was smart enough to keep him yapper shut while Tony tore into Strange.
“Well, when I came back the Time Stone called to me, so I immediately came here.” he explained, tone defensive. “And the boy was still being reformed, but the Guardians were all awake, so-”
“ Still being reformed?” Tony nearly shrieked, making everyone flinch. “He was being reformed and you ditch him with space pirates? We knew them for less than an hour, Jesus fucking Christ-”
“Tony-” Steve tried to intervene, raising a placating hand that Tony was willing to bite off if it came within a foot of him.
“Shut up, Cap! You know that Barnes is gonna be chilling with a fucking margarita in hand when get back, you can’t talk!”
“Strange.” Cap says, completely ignoring Tony’s outburst. Strange is looking back at the man with a look of gratitude which is squashed by the vaguely disappointed look of the bearded man’s face.
“You shouldn’t have left Spiderman on that planet, but can’t you just open up another portal to just get him back?” Strange has a look of revelation on his face, and Tony feels like crying.
“Oh my god, we could’ve done this ten minutes ago-”
“Stark, I came back to life ten minutes ago, you cannot complain-”
“Strange!” Captain shouts, exasperated. “Can you please open a portal back to Titan?”
“Yeah, open a portal to see if the kid is reformed yet-”
“Tony, for the love of God, shut up.”
Strange opens a portal after a moment, and Tony immediately jumps through. His chest is heaving with adrenaline, because this is the place, that’s the rock where Peter turned to dust, oh my god there’s footprints .
“Where’s the kid?” Cap asks, poking his head through the portal. Tony follows the footprints and sees a damn chemtrail going straight up into space.
“Oh my god, my kid got kidnapped by space pirates.” Tony wheezes, and Steve puts a stupid comforting hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sure they’re just bringing him back.” Steve rationalizes, and Tony’s considering blasting a hole through the man’s chest when suddenly a bing appears on his faceplate.
“FRIDAY, what is it?” he asked, temporarily distracted by the fact that he shouldn’t really be able to get any, you know, signal where he was.
“It’s a message from Peter’s suit.” Karen says, as Tony feels his breath catch. “Would you like to hear the message?”
“ Yes, yes, oh my god play the damn message-”
“Hey Mr. Stark!” The kid’s voice chirps through the sound clip. He sounds like he usually does after a really shitty fight. Exhausted, rattled, but covering it with a thin veil of optimism. It makes Tony want to cry. “I’m not sure if this’ll get to you, but I’m hooked up to the Guardian’s telecommunications system, so it should be able to find you? Maybe? I’m not sure how long it’ll take, but I just want to let you know that I’m gonna be gone for a week. I told Peter - uh, Starlord - that I was about to see an exhibit on asteroids, so he thought it might be a good idea to just show me a real one!”
“You better not say what I think you’re going to say” Tony wheezes. “Because if you say it, you’re going to be so grounded that you’ll never see the light of day again.”
“So I, uh, I think I’ll be checking that out before I head back. You know, taking advantage of my opportunities and all.”
Damn it.
Somebody said something in the background that Tony couldn’t pick up on, but it made Peter pause.
“Alright, so we’re about to go into warp drive - this is so cool - so I’m gonna have to end this transmission. But I got up, like, a minuet after Strange left? And we entered orbit like five minutes after that, so if you wanna use that as a place of measurement for how long it took this message to get to wherever you are. But I’ll be back maybe a week from when I send this? I guess we’ll just find out. Sorry I’m not coming back immediately I just - I just need a minute, I guess. But I will be back. Let everyone know, if you can.So, uh, see you later.”
The transmission ended, and Tony felt like he was going to pass out.
“Tony? What was it?” Steve asked, genuinely concerned now.
“We missed him by five minutes.” Tony says through gritted teeth. “Five minutes, and he decided to go play hooky with space pirates.”
He was going to
scream.