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Coming back feels like waking up from a dream. It’s odd— Peter gets the feeling that he’s been gone for a long time, and yet as he tries to think about it, he can’t seem to remember anything about it. He remembers hurting, collapsing into Mr. Stark’s arms and then— then what? He looks around. Titan is desolate, its emptiness stretching far beyond Peter can see. He finds the remains of a machine a few yards away and pulls a loose metal rod from the steel contraption. It’s cool to the touch, and in the dirt he writes hello is anyone out there — when a piece of the metal peels at the end, the plating underneath is white like bone.
As he moves to sit on the machine, the mechanics within its encasement creak. Peter deduces that the shrill screams due to years of improper care, and yet those are the sounds that creep in the back of his mind as he continues to draw in the dust.
When Peter inhales through his nose, he feels a sense of insignificance fill his lungs, and it infuses him with a sense of yearning; perhaps it’s because he misses his computer. Or someone to talk to. God, he misses May. And Ned. And Michelle, and— hell, he even misses Flash. But most of all, Peter misses Mr. Stark. Peter’s heart drops as he thinks about his last interaction with his mentor. What is he supposed to say to Mr. Stark when he picks him up? Peter’s mind begins to race with different things to say to him— now I can cross ‘turning into ash’ off my bucket list — and— so, what’s happened since I’ve been dead? — he writes down as many conversation ideas as he can in the dust before they fly out of his thoughts. Then, he looks out to a dried lake that he can barely make out behind the collapsed remains of the alien civilization. Clouds take refuge over the basin, and Peter can sense an acidic humidity in the air. He remembers hearing from Mr. Stark that acid showers weren’t anything special on Titan, and hopes that the older man picks him up before it comes to that. A dignified blue-gray slips through the corners in the horizon and Peter checks his watch. It’s blinking at 00:00, broken, but Peter assumes that it’s too early for being human; he stands up, setting down the metal rod, and decides to go for a walk.
He can feel the deep murmur of a tremor as the ground below him settles. Peter watches the barren planet slowly wake from its slumber. The barbaric ruin seems to groan as they settle. From beyond the ruin, the wind whistles, and Peter finds himself hypnotized by its alluring howls. He picks up a rock, but as he squeezes it in his hand, it crumbles.
In a way, Peter notes that these experiences are separate from each other. Each sight, sound, touch, is worth remembering, because they are moments that cannot be repeated. And that, Peter feels, is important— a thought that must hold some small, albeit meaningful grain of truth. Maybe that is what he’ll tell Tony on the way home. The wind fusses with his hair and suit, like hands beating away dust.
He approaches the partially-collapsed wall of a building and stares at his reflection in the material. He has these high cheekbones now and a small, pale mouth; his hair has grown since he last saw himself in a mirror. He smiles, and his reflection’s teeth are straight like a cemetery. His eyes, although playfully bright, are also darker now; something indecipherable hides underneath his brown lashes. He shudders and looks away.
He decides to think about Mr. Stark.
Peter wonders if he could have ever mapped out the course of their friendship. Whether, if he could travel in time, he could find a sort of central point from where it all started. Maybe it was when he got bitten by that spider. Or maybe, even earlier, it was when Iron Man saved him at that Stark Industries convention years ago. Or maybe even sooner. The roots of their isolation from the world, the sense of feeling different from the people surrounding them in their everyday lives; the unsettling feeling of having a moral responsibility to put the needs of the world above their own.
Somehow, this shared feeling became the glue that pulled Peter to Iron Man, and in extention, Tony Stark. And little by little, the calls updating Mr. Stark on his patrols after school, to the late night phone calls after an intense nightmare from either party— all of these moments became a regular occurrence to Peter, a part of his everyday routine.
But now, that routine is gone. He wants to reach for his phone and call for Tony, but he thinks that he left it on the bus. Now, there’s silence. His footsteps are unnaturally loud, and yet drowned out by the thundering pulse of blood in his ears. Where is Tony?
Now, as he makes his way back to his spot, everything seems to take on a different shade, realizing the losses they must have endured to bring everyone back. Maybe Tony’s on his way now, Peter thinks, or is doing some important PR conference to ease the nerves of the world, before blasting off to rescue him from this planet. If he closes his eyes, Peter can imagine him soaring through the air, landing an arms reach away from him, and removing his helmet to get a good look at Peter. “Yikes,” Tony would say, probably, because that’s what Peter thought when he saw his own reflection, “you need a haircut. Now, let’s go home.”
He doesn’t want to think about how the world must have continued without him, but as he runs out of things to think of, that concept creeps up on him. All of the troubling, miniscule details of everyday life must have continued to build up and required handling. May must have continued to gone to work, Ned must have finished school. Obviously, the Avengers— his fellow team— must have found a way to defeat Thanos without him.
Perhaps this was divine punishment? He thought as he slumped over the contraption. Now, the foreign sun had began to creep towards the horizon, painting the sky with thoughtful oranges and pinks and purples. It was beautiful, and if this was his divine punishment, Peter thought, in a moment of sleepy weakness, he wished that it never came to an end.
—But it would. It had to. He did not belong here, and he needed Tony to rescue him from this damn planet right now. The lingering sense of wrongness that filled his body like a foreign tumor had registered with the universe at large and Peter wants to go home .
He stretches out his hand towards the sky. Flexes his fingers as if he was trying to take the setting sun in his palm, to stop time where it stands because honestly, he’s scared of what will happen when he rejoins civilization. “Slow down!” He whispers to himself. “Don’t go, stay!” He laughs as his voice cracks due to lack of use, and clears his throat quietly. At long last he lets go, hand falling back to his side.
He feels a rush of air through his hair and he stands. Then, he spots a dark entity flying towards the planet. As it— a ship, Peter realizes at it nears the atmosphere— reveals its landing gear, Peter begins to run towards the ship.
By the time the ship lands, he’s yard away from its hatch. After spending the day in the sun, Peter had grown sleepy, but now he bounces on his heels as he waits for Tony to emerge from the hatch.
The sun is nearing the end of the horizon, whose ruin and rumble juts out at the sky like crooked teeth. The hatch opens and he holds his breath as a silhouette appears.
“Mr. Stark?” He breathes out.
The silhouette steps out, making his way towards Peter. As he is hit by the dying light of the sun, Peter frowns. “Mr. Captain America, sir?”
“Steve,” He calls out simply. “You can call me Steve, Peter.”
Peter nods, but looks behind Steve. “What— where’s Mr. Stark?”
Steve’s jaw hardens, and he stops walking.
“Steve?” Peter tries again. “Sir?”
Steve looks down at the ground.
Peter makes a face, and shakes his head. No. “What?” He says, almost with a laugh. “Where—” he realizes that he’s not laughing, but instead wheezing as air rushes out of his lungs. No, no, no no no— he falls to his knees, shaking his head and trying to register what the FUCK is going on.
He shuts his eyes, but he feels Steve’s footsteps pounding through the soil. He feels Steve’s hand on his shoulder, gripping him too tight as Peter is ushered back to his feet. He wobbles still, and Steve keeps his hand on Peter’s shoulder as he guides him to the ship. As Peter glances out towards the sun, he sees a message in the dirt, but he writes it off as a trick with the light. He does, however, note that Steve’s knuckles are white as he grips Peter’s shoulder. But he does not feel the pain of the hand. He doesn’t feel anything.
Peter manages to keep from crying until he sits down on the ship. The view of the planet is nothing compared to being there and experiencing Titan first-hand. His stomach hurts, he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything all day. And he wants to see Mr. Stark. But he can’t. He can’t and it hurts him and his tears are big and ugly, he feels his face erupting into splotches of red and pink as he sputters helplessly, bringing his hands up and wiping the neverending tears from his cheeks. Silently, Steve takes one of his hands and holds it tight. Laced between Peter’s, Steve’s fingers are warm, despite them being clammy and shaking.
Once Peter’s cries soften (Steve offers him a glass of water before they take off, and a granola bar), Steve steers them home, not without letting go of Peter’s hand. Peter will squeeze it every so often, testing it, making sure he’s not still dreaming, and Steve will squeeze it back, eyes hard and focused on the screens ahead of them.
Peter thinks back to when he first came back. He thought it was like waking up from a dream. But perhaps that was the dream, and perhaps he left paradise and he is now stuck, stranded on this fucked up Odyssey. The sense of wrongness that he felt as he waited for Mr. Stark to save him on Titan is back and stronger than ever.
“Hey—” he hears his voice call out, weak and hushed, “do you think that we were put on this Earth as a blessing or a curse?”
Steve takes a deep breath. The old Peter Parker might smirk, proud of the fact that he has stumped Captain America. But that Peter died ages ago. “I don’t know. Neither—” Steve says honestly. “I think we just are.”
Peter laughs, but it has no mirth in it. He holds Steve’s hand, and in the other he holds his face. It hurts him, to see Steve so broken like this. Normally, Steve has enough fight inside him to fill five world wars. But now, he looks so sad, so broken, so tired .
Thinking back to seeing his reflection on Titan, he now knows what the unreadable glint was he saw in his eyes. He understands it now. That humanity is a switch, and he’s a cog, and that Steve is a cog too. They’re all cogs in the damn mechanism and the last thing they need is another broken machine.
The worst thing is, Peter knows that if he wanted to, he could quit. His time as an Avenger was short lived, but the others would surely understand if he wanted to give up the fire. It a choice between safety, or leaping back into the fire. But he doesn’t want to quit. Part of his mind is screaming at him to make the logical choice, but that part of him is drowned out by a sense of duty to avenge Mr. Stark. Now more than ever, he realizes that his fate was chosen a long, long time ago. When he first made his Spider-Man suit, when he went on his first parol, when he followed Mr. Stark to fight Captain America, and even to fight Thanos. Each of these instances, separate from each other, serve to support the idea that Peter Parker has accepted that he will die as Spider-Man. And so, as his eyes focus on the Earth in the distance, he pulls his mask back on and keeps his heart close to the ground.