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Flash was pretty excited for this trip. Since he came back from the snap, he’s been wanting to stay away from home. It’s been 5 years for his parents and his siblings, and so much has changed without him being there. Right after the snap was reversed, there was chaos. It was kinda like a reverse of a natural disaster, because relief was brought in, and he was able to contact his parents to get home.
The last thing he remembered was being on that bus in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, and watching outside the window at the spaceship leaving New York. Everyone was talking and screaming over each other as they crawled through traffic across the bridge and back into the city. The only person who wasn’t talking was Ned. It had taken the bus driver hours to get back to school, where if there was no spontaneous invasion it would have taken 30 minutes. All that time, Ned hunched over looking at his phone, and by the time the bus parked and their classmates where getting off, Flash had noticed that Parker wasn’t with him. This entire time, somehow he had snuck off the bus. What?
“Hey Ned, where’s Peter-” Flash trailed off at the end, watching the bus driver fall away into dust.
“Oh my god.” The last thing Flash heard was screaming before he also turned into ash.
Then he woke up, his mouth tasted something awful, but he was in the parking lot of the school, and the sun was rising.
Everything they told him about the snap didn’t make sense, how could he have not aged in 5 years, and everyone else did?
But one thing that really just didn’t click for him, the doctors said shock, was that his brother was dead and he wasn’t coming back. His older brother was out and driving when the snap happened, and got into a wreck with a driverless car. He would have lived, Flash’s mom was adamant in between her tears, if there was enough medical staff and emergency staff. His parents lived, and so did his little sister, who was now 3 years older than him. And they were alone for 5 years.
For a period of time that Flash will reveal to nobody, he cried a lot. There was nothing that was the same as he left it. Turns out gas stations down the street you would walk to with your family burned really easily if there were only 50% of firemen. Roads fall apart in 5 years, sure, but entire overpasses just gone? It was being rebuilt, supposedly only fell a couple of months ago, but all the destruction from just people disappearing was a shock to not just Flash, but everyone else. So people tried to get back to normal. School was brought back into session, and half of the faces were people he recognized the other half kids who lived those 5 years, and aged into high school.
He learned that Liz graduated and went on to work at MIT. Her dad didn’t survive the snap and there was a whole thing about having him continue his sentence like 5 years didn’t pass or reducing it. Flash talked to her maybe once as school was being reorganized, but after that they were both too busy.
When he saw Peter Parker hugging Ned in the halls of their new campus, Flash ran to the bathroom and cried a little. Out of all the people he thought would change, Flash had thought it was Peter. But no Parker lived and Flash got to see that doofy smile walk through school one more time. They were happy tears maybe, but grief was weird like that.
Since the whole world wanted to just get back to normal, one thing that Midtown Science Academy did was organize a field trip. The rich benefactors were back now that their kids were back and they wanted something to cheer them up. Flash told the Academic Decathlon team this as if he didn’t know who these benefactors were (his parents). All the time he was gone, they had thrown themselves into their work and had the money to prove it. Now that he was back that energy still went into work, and not towards their resurrected son, and so he got a field trip to Europe instead of family dinners. Maybe they wanted his brother back more than they wanted him. But it doesn’t matter, Flash and his even tinier group of friends were going on vacation, and he was going to have fun for the first time in 4 months (and 5 years).
They all rode together early in the morning to the airport, everyone talking about what they wanted to do outside the itinerary of the trip. They were going to Italy and Spain, and Flash really wanted to go to some Spanish beaches before having to come back home. It was a hours long wait for the plane to be ready for boarding, and they played games in the waiting lounge. But chopsticks got boring fast so they ended up on their phones for the rest of the time. Finally the plane was allowing them to load, and Ned talked to one of the stewardess about an extended belt.
“We have a short load today sir, if you would wait and we may have a whole row empty.”
So they had planned out seats for the cross atlantic trip, Flash got a window seat and Abe was in the isle. But once Ned moved around and got his own seat, Flash ended up with Peter Parker right next to him. Betty was next to Ned, and Abe wanted a window seat so he let Parker take his seat, without telling Flash. Peter had a little book of Italian with him, and smiled a little at Flash.
It was a quiet trip, neither of them talked to the other, Flash trying to sleep over the conversations of his classmates, and Peter was doing a crash course on Italian. But halfway through the trip Flash heard Peter’s book fall and looked over to find him asleep with his head at an awful angle. He was facing away from him, so he couldn’t really see if he was actually asleep, but he didn’t respond when Flash picked up his book and put it in the seat pocket. Parker looked interesting when he was asleep, and Flash winced at how his head was orientated.
Everything was going great, today was just museums and monuments, and Flash loved to take pictures so he was just walking around behind the group taking them. It was going well until he wanted to take some pictures with some ladies in some nice historical dresses and Abe decided he had to get at his balls. God did that hurt. He dropped his phone and selfie stick and almost fell backwards into the water but someone caught onto his shirt and pulled him back. It was Parker, and he had this concerned look on his face. Oh god fuck Abe so much. Flash was doubled over and Peter put his phone back into his hand.
“You want some ice?”
What? Flash couldn’t hear anything over his rolling stomach and blood rushing in his ears. The shadow left by Peter went away for a little while, but then it came back and there was some ice pressed into his hand.
Peter got him so ice. In little plastic bag. He grabbed it, and pushed it tentatively to his crotch, trying to not look at where Peter was still there covering him from prying eyes. He sat next to Flash for a little while, giving him some water, as he tried to reduce his crotch pain. Peter had gotten up when Mr. Harrington came over to help him up.
“Go head and go back with the group Peter, I’ll take Flash back to the hotel.”
Peter gave him another one of those looks, and Flash had to nod before he left them alone.
Flash stewed in his anger as he watched everyone’s Snap stories of their museum visits, as he sat around and tried to take a nap on his back. But Peter kept sending him really funny ones and his anger faded by the time night came.
There was a knock on Peter’s door, and he got out of bed to answer it. Ned left a couple of hours ago to go on a walk with Betty, so he was just sitting there, trying to relax enough to get some sleep. Peter opened it to find Flash, standing in the hallway with a blanket wrapped in his arms.
“Hey Parker,” Flash shuffled the blanket around, not giving Peter eye contact. This was so weird.
“Oh ok, well I’ll just leave.”
Oh crap, Peter said that out loud! “No wait, sorry, come in.”
Flash did, and did a double take at Ned’s empty bed.
“He uh went out for some food.” Flash nodded, and sat down.
“So uh, what’s up, hows uh,” Peter gestured to Flash’s lap.
He flushes a little, and shifts. “It's better, thanks for the ice earlier.”
Peter waved his hand, and moved around to cross his legs on his bed, giving his full attention to Flash.
“So what’s up?”
“Roomy snores, and I’m still pissed at him for earlier, I really cannot be there and not attempt to kill him.”
Peter snorts. “And what are you doing?”
“Um, kinda nothing.” Flash nods.
They sit in silence for a little while, and Peter can hear an Italian ambulance a couple of blocks away. It had different sirens than back home, and it reminded him of the ambulances in Germany. Peter blinked a little to push the angst out of his head, but the thoughts got stuck and he wondered what would have happened if Tony got an ambulance like Mr. Rhodes.
“You alright Parker?” Flash was looking at him, and Peter realized he was breathing really hard. What did May say? Deep breaths, deep breaths, and Peter tried to relax. It didn’t work.
“Dude what’s wrong?” Peter was crying quietly, and Flash got up from Ned’s bed to sit next to Peter, his big blanket covering Peter’s left arm. Peter didn’t really respond so they just sat there, Peter trying to breathe quietly and Flash a warm constant at his elbow.
“You remember my internship at Stark Industries?”
“Oh man, I’m so sorry.” Everyone knew about Tony Stark’s sacrifice as Iron Man. How he and the Avengers brought everyone back and killed Thanos again. Flash really felt for Peter there, coming back to find that his boss died for him, for everyone. He shuffled a little closer, and wrapped one blanket covered arm around Peter. He wasn’t expecting Peter to lean into him, and breathe into his neck, to wrap his other arm around to make Flash’s half-assed hug into a full one.
There was one thing that Flash tried to do now that he had a second chance was be friends with Peter Parker. He always thought he was funny, and he was earnest and nice, it was hard to not like him. And yet since middle school that’s exactly what he attempted to do, hate Peter. But now, after everything, that childish behavior just didn’t feel as appealing as being friends. He’s glad for it to, getting to here, hugging and sharing Peter’s grief. Maybe he wanted to push his head up and kiss him, but right here was fine for now.
“I- um, my brother didn’t make it either. When everyone first disappeared he got into a wreck, and there was nobody to help him, not enough nurses and doctors so he-uh.” Peter hugged him tighter, and Flash shivered, not from the cold.
“I’m sorry too,” Peter mumbled, leaning up and wiping his eyes. He brought a hand up and wiped down Flash’s cheek as well.
“Thanks.” He snorted a little, and Peter gave him a confused look.
“Oh nothing, just like, is ‘thanks’ the only thing you can say when someone says they're sorry you lost someone, because I’ve heard ‘sorry’ so much recently and the only response I can think of is ‘thanks’, and that just sucks right?”
Flash was babbling, but Parker was looking at him with his full attention, nodding.
“Yeah it's weird right? Because we’re not thankful that they’re dead, hell barely thankful for someone else bringing it up.”
“Oh yeah! Man I had the worst encounter with my aunt from Pennsylvania, she came over to meet me a couple of months ago, and everyone was looking at me to say ‘thanks’ which, no!”
“Yeah no!” Peter was smiling at him, a little tiny one but the fact that Flash put that on his face made him smile back.
He woke up with the sun in his face, and feeling really hot. Flash shifted a little and touched someone’s very warm arm. He jerked up, and looked down at a still asleep Peter Parker. They had fallen asleep at some point, wrapped up in Flash’s blanket and Peter’s. Peter’s face was so relaxed when he slept. He could see it much more up close here in this hot cocoon than on the airplane. His hair was all over the place on the pillow, and Flash could make out where he slept as well. That close to Peter’s face, who had his mouth open a little was quietly snoring. Flash kept focusing on his lips, and tried not to, but his attention kept coming back to them. Yeah it was time to get up, he really did not want to do anything stupid.
“Hey Parker, hey,” Flash shook him awake, “We got a couple of hours till we meet at the canals, come on get up.”
They detangled from each other and the blankets, and Flash looked over to see Peter yawn and raise his arms. A little bit of his stomach showed and Flash poked it. Peter looked so offended that he had to laugh.