Work Text:
Peter remembers dying.
He remembers watching others start to fade first, remembers knowing exactly what was happening but still not understanding. Remembers thinking that this was not the first time he had watched someone die right in front of him and it would likely not be the last. Remembers registering that, despite barely knowing any of these people and having been held at gunpoint by one of them mere minutes ago, it did not hurt any less.
He remembers waiting. He remembers waiting, not for himself to go next, but for yet another parental figure to fade away.
He remembers his spider-sense screaming at him, remembers not being able to make it stop because wherever he looked, something was going wrong. Remembers the moment in which nothing was happening, after what seemed like the last person had gone, when he couldn’t figure out why his senses were still pinging danger danger danger. Remembers the awful, shattering realization that it was not, in fact, over.
He remembers shaking. He remembers hurting. He remembers crying, pleading, begging to be saved. He remembers Tony holding him and telling him he was was alright. He remembers trying to damn hard to believe him.
He remembers his last moments like they happened yesterday. He remembers dying like it’s the only thing he’s ever done.
The first couple weeks are actually okay.
Eleven months after the Snap, everyone who’d disappeared woke up, perfectly unharmed, in whatever spot they most considered to be home. Eleven months after the Snap, Peter came to in his own bed, and the high that came from just being alive took a while to wear off.
But when he crashes, he crashes hard.
Sixteen days, seven hours, and about thirty minutes after the Snap is reversed, Peter finds his first trigger.
He’s sitting on his living room couch, sandwiched between May and Ned, who both cling to him like they're afraid to let go. Some movie or other is playing on the TV in front of them, and Tony’s supposed to come over in time to catch whatever’s on after this. When it goes to commercial break, an advertisement for a throwback movie marathon says the word Footloose and Peter is no longer in his apartment.
(Like in Footloose? The movie?
Exactly like Footloose! Is it still the greatest movie in history?
It never was.)
He’s not in his living room. He’s not in his apartment. He’s not on Earth.
(red red dust Thanos danger danger danger fading shaking stumbling I don’t wanna go pain fear snap Thanos please I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.)
May and Ned do their best, but it takes fifteen minutes for Tony to arrive and another thirty minutes for him to talk Peter down.
Sixteen days, seven hours and thirty minutes. He lasted longer than he thought he would.
The breakdown is the first of many.
The ridiculousness of having his first post-Snap breakdown over an 80s movie is not lost on him. But it’s like a dam breaks, after.
He goes from okay to completely falling apart.
All of a sudden, it’s all he can think about. Dying. Turning to dust in Tony’s arms. Fading away on some cold, unforgiving alien planet.
All of a sudden, it’s so fucking hard.
It’s hard not to stare at his own hands whenever there’s nothing else to focus on and worry that his fingers are going to crumble any minute. It’s hard not to see the rocky surface of Titan every time his gaze catches on anything red. It’s hard not to feel like he’s living on borrowed time, wandering aimlessly in a borrowed body.
It’s hard to think. It’s hard to breathe.
It’s hard to live when the weight that’s been resting on chest ever since he came back to life has gained a million pounds and is pressing directly against his heart.
It’s funny, in this sick, twisted way, that when Aunt May asks him to talk about Titan, he can recount what happened without even stuttering, but the littlest thing can set him off if he’s not prepared.
Once, it’s an advertisement of a kid on a beach with sand slipping through the palms of his hands.
(sand it’s just sand it’s just sand it’s dust it’s always dust he’s turning to dust again.)
Another time, it’s merely someone on the street saying, “God, I don’t wanna go to the store.”
(I don’t wanna go Mr. Stark please I don’t wanna go I’m sorry.)
Many times, it’s not even something that he sees or hears. Many times, the fear washes over him for seemingly no reason other than just…trauma.
He’s dealt with trauma before. He’s been dealing with trauma for basically his whole life.
It feels different this time. Like his brain has been completely rewired and he doesn’t know how to fix the mess in his head.
The thing is, it’s easy to tell who was dusted and who wasn’t.
The people who weren’t have this terribly haunted look about them. They all try their best not to show it, but it’s in their faces. The eleven months in which half the planet was gone show in the vacant looks, in the glazed eyes, in the clingy protectiveness the ones who stayed have for the ones who didn’t.
The ones who dusted don’t remember those eleven months. They remember dying, yes, but for most of them, it was over quick. For most of them, the whole thing was over quick.
Most of them have issues, yes, but minor ones. A place they don’t like being in, a phrase they don’t like hearing.
Because for most of them, the Snap is just this thing that happened once. This thing that caused them panic for a few moments and then, a split second later, stopped affecting them. Most of them disappeared and then reappeared in the space of what, to them, was maybe five seconds.
Most of them don’t have nightmares about it. Most of them don’t have panic attacks over it. Most of them don’t spend every waking moment of every day feeling it.
Peter is the exception, not the rule.
Peter has always been the exception.
Peter goes back to being Spider-Man before he goes back to school. Midtown High doesn’t start back up for another two weeks when he decides he’s tired of not doing anything substantial.
He’ll come to wonder, later, if maybe he just wanted to know if even Spider-Man would make him lose his grip on reality, despite Spider-Man having been the one thing that used to ground him the most.
Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter.
Fifty-one days and two hours after the Snap is reversed, Peter puts on the suit - the old one, of course, because the other one turned to dust and he’s glad of that because he’d never be able to look at it again - and feels better than he has in weeks.
He doesn’t tell May before he leaves. He knows he should, knows that she worries even more than before now, but he needs to do this without other people’s hopes hanging over his head.
This is about him and only him.
Technically, he died as Spider-Man. But in that moment (I don’t wanna go please I don’t wanna go), he’d never felt more like a kid.
Apparently, the death and resurrection of half of the planet didn’t do much for people’s morals, seeing as there’s still plenty of crime to fight. Peter sticks to small-scale issues for his first day back - muggings and street fights and cats in trees. Tosses witty one-liners around just like he used to and feels truly alive for the first time since he came back.
For the next two weeks, he spends as much time as possible being Spider-Man.
Maybe it’s because he needs to feel like he’s helping someone, even if he doesn’t know how the hell to help himself.
Maybe it’s because he’s chasing the high he’d felt for the first sixteen days post-Snap and the closest he can get is saving a girl from a man who’s threatening her behind a bar.
Maybe it’s just because, whether he died as Spider-Man or not, he still feels less vulnerable as Spider-Man. Maybe it’s because Peter Parker is not a superhero, but Spider-Man is, and the superheroes always come out on top somehow.
Most likely, it’s because he’s scared and he always feels less afraid with the suit on.
They’re all worried about him.
May, Ned, Tony. They’re no better at hiding how worried they are about him than he is at hiding how not okay he is. Even the pain in their own eyes isn’t enough to mask their concern.
They don’t push. Probably don’t know how to. But their anxiety hovers around Peter and mixes in with his own until it feels like they’re all sharing one big mutual supply of frayed nerves and hitching breaths.
He doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get why they’re so concerned about him when they’re the ones who actually had to live through those eleven months. All he did was die.
Which is not something he thought he’d ever be able to say.
Even so, it’s not that big of a deal. It was thirty seconds to May and Ned and Tony’s eleven months. Thirty seconds of the worst, most bone-chilling fear he’s ever felt and probably will ever feel in his life, but thirty seconds nonetheless.
It’s so fucking stupid that he can barely get through a day without having a panic attack over something or other when it was just thirty seconds. It’s so fucking stupid that he can’t sleep through a whole night when it was just thirty seconds. It’s so fucking stupid that he still wonders, sometimes, if all of this is even real when it was just thirty seconds.
He can’t let thirty seconds define him for the rest of his goddamn life.
He’ll be fine. It might take a while, but…he’ll be fine.
He has to be fine. He has to be strong for the people he left behind, for the people who really went through hell.
As all things do, Peter’s issues come to a head eventually.
Sixty-five days after the Snap is reversed, Peter goes back to school. It takes hours of convincing to get May and Tony to let him go back when the rest of his class does - they’re doing this weird type of co-parenting thing now, and trying to convince them of anything is like trying to convince a baby to stop crying - but ultimately they let him go.
It’s not their fault that Peter handles it worse than he’s ever handled anything else in all his sixteen and a half years.
Every slam of a locker makes him jump. Every whisper has him constantly looking over his shoulder. Every unexpected touch causes his spider-sense to buzz incessantly at him (danger danger danger).
By the time the sixth period bell rings, he’s shaking so badly that he knocks his notebook and pencils off his desk when he stands. And then he just...stares at them.
He should pick it all up. He should. That’s what he’s supposed to do right now. Knock something down, pick it up. That’s the natural progression.
Except he can’t figure out how to make his hands move. Can’t convince his knees to actually bend so he can reach the floor. Can’t function properly for long enough to even pick up a fucking notebook.
Someone does it for him, offers him a sympathetic smile even as they actually have to turn him around, unzip his backpack, and put his stuff in, since he doesn’t exactly offer a hand to take any of it. They pat him on the shoulder when they turn and go, leaving Peter alone in an empty classroom.
Alone.
Alone.
(he doesn’t want to die alone. he doesn’t want to die at all, but at least he can stumble to Tony and have someone hold him as he goes. he doesn’t want to die. he’s not alone, but he’s still dying.
I don’t wanna go please I don’t wanna go.)
Peter walks on autopilot to the nurse’s office and tells the nurse to call both of his emergency contacts.
May and Tony arrive at the same time. They hang out now, apparently - Peter supposes eleven months of dealing with the loss of the kid you both view as yours, one way or another, will do that.
They sit next to him on the cot the nurse had directed him to. He hasn’t moved since he was left alone again, but now he pulls his feet up onto the cot and rests his forehead on his knees.
“I need help,” he says into his knees. “I - guys, I really need help.”
His parents hold him as he finally cries for the first time in sixty-five days.