Chapter Text
They had been fighting with everything they had. Peter was totally not freaking out about being on an alien planet as he swung from rock formation to rock formation, dodging Thanos’ attacks and pulling as many alien guys as possible out of the line of fire. Tony went toe-to-toe with the villain with the help of Dr. Strange, and Peter was doing his very best to be helpful without getting in the way. Even though Tony had unofficially appointed him to the Avengers earlier, Peter knew that this was way out of his league.
“I’ve got your back,” he called to the large, muscled alien, who was fending off a swarm of rock monsters that Thanos had brought to life.
“No, I have my back. You have nothing but strange strings and very tight armor.”
“I meant,” said Peter, as he punched through the head of a rock monster, “that I would help you.”
“I do not need help,” the alien said. And actually, he was doing a pretty good job on his own. Peter paused for a second, watching as the alien used a sturdy-looking knife to take a monster apart. He shook his head and took off toward the girl alien.
“I see,” Thanos’ voice carried across the battlefield. “I can bring you to your knees in a moment, Stark.”
Peter’s whole body erupted in goosebumps. He felt such a strong sense of foreboding that he stopped in his tracks for a second. Thanos was staring right at him. Peter saw, as if in slow motion, the way Tony followed the titan’s gaze. They made eye contact across the battlefield, and all the other noise dropped away for just a second.
“No,” Tony mouthed. Peter had never seen that look in his eyes before.
“NO!” Tony shouted again as Thanos pointed the gauntlet at Peter and shot out an orange beam of light. Peter tried to dodge, but the light followed him like a heat-seeking missile until it found its target.
For a moment, or maybe a year, time didn’t exist. Peter might have screamed. He might have writhed and struggled as the orange enveloped him. He might have called out for someone to save him. He tried not to think about how May would react, but he failed. He didn’t want to imagine her at his funeral, an empty casket lowering into the ground while she sobbed beside it. She would wear the same black dress she’d worn to Ben’s funeral years before, and to his parents’ years before that. He didn’t want to know if Happy would be there, gruffly comforting his Aunt. He didn’t want Ned to lose him, or to have to move on and get a new best friend. He wanted to tell MJ that he might maybe have a tiny crush on her, and watch her laugh in response. He wanted to invent with Tony and burn dinner with May and build Lego and get into MIT next year and get hired by Stark Industries and maybe get married and have kids one day in the vague, happy place that was the future.
Tony screamed. Peter’s heart cried.
Everything went black.
----------------------------------
Peter rose to consciousness slowly. His brain swam up through layers and layers of fog until he finally broke through the surface. He scrunched up his face and stretched, blinking until the world came into focus.
That was when he remembered everything: the fight, the attack, Tony’s screams…
And now Peter was lying on the ground in an orange world. He could see nothing but orange sky and flat orange ground and a few pillars ahead of him. Lounging on the stone steps beneath them was a woman with green skin and long black hair. She was fingering a double-sided dagger and staring into the distance.
Peter stumbled to his feet. “Hello? Um… Miss? Please don’t stab me with that knife, it looks super dangerous and, uh, intimidating, but where are we? Who are you? Can you help me? I have to get back to Mr. Stark and my friends, they were fighting Thanos and…”
He trailed off. The woman hadn’t moved or acknowledged him at all. She simply sat and fluidly flipped the dagger around and around in her hands like a thought she was turning over in her head. Peter cautiously moved closer, ready to run at any moment if she attacked. “Hello?”
“There is no escape from this place,” she said, still looking out into the distance. “There is nowhere to go. We’re trapped in the soul stone.”
“The what?”
Finally, she turned to face him. Her eyes were so piercing that Peter almost wished she’d look away again. “The soul stone. It’s one of the six infinity stones, which control the universe when brought together. The only thing that might possibly get us out of here is if someone else controls the soul stone, or several of the others.”
Peter slowly settled down next to her. She didn’t kill him, so he figured it was fine. “How did you get in here then?”
She smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “Thanos adopted me when I was a child. I have been fighting against him for years, but he managed to catch me using the reality stone. In order to get the soul stone he had to trade a soul that he loved. I think I was the only one who could have worked.”
Peter nodded slowly. The woman gave him chills, but she didn’t seem particularly malicious. “What’s your name?”
“I am Gamora.”
“I’m Peter Parker. Nice to meet you, Ms. Gamora.” He cracked a grin, as scared and confused as he was. “Does this make us soulmates?”
Gamora looked at him, expressionless, for a long time. Peter withdrew his hand and his smile dropped. “I mean, uh, it’s a joke because on earth…”
A tiny smile quirked over Gamora’s lips. “Yes,” she said. “It is nice to meet you, too, Peter Parker.”
They sat together for some time. Peter wasn’t sure how long it was, but he wished he had some music or something to do. He was getting antsy and he wanted to know if the team had managed to defeat Thanos. Gamora seemed perfectly content just fingering her dagger, and Peter was a little too nervous around that to break the silence again. Instead he sat and looked around. The ground was like one giant puddle, with water a few inches deep as far as the eye could see. It reflected the orange sky above, which had lighter and darker spots as if he and Gamora were actually sealed inside a giant crystal. It was peaceful, though incredibly boring and terrifying if he thought about it for too long.
Suddenly, Peter’s breath hitched and he felt the impact like a punch to the gut. He leapt to his feat. Something was coming. Gamora spared him a glance, but she didn’t seem to think anything was wrong. Her dagger continued to spin end over end between her slim fingers. Peter took one step forward, and then another. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and his heart began to beat faster. It sounded louder than normal in the silent space, and he wondered if Gamora could hear it.
There was a loud snapping sound that seemed to shake the ground, and Gamora stirred as Peter whirled around, searching. He didn’t have to look far. Giant holes ripped into the air like millions of Dr. Strange’s portals. The edges glittered with all the colors of the rainbow as the portals expanded, hundreds and thousands of them, each one dropping someone new into the world. Peter saw people and aliens alike in all colors and sizes, from fat and knee-high to huge and bearded. There were colors he’d never thought about for skin and tentacles in weird places. He shouted as someone almost landed on top of him, and gasped a second later when he realized that the alien girl from before was lying there on the ground. Nearby, the rest of their team landed as well, and Gamora ran to them.
“Peter,” she said, but she wasn’t talking to him.
“Gamora?” Star Lord blinked slowly. “Gamora! You were dead!”
“No. But now we’re all trapped.”
Peter felt a little tingle every time a new portal opened, and a sudden idea occurred to him. This was not how he’d entered, he was pretty sure. These things must be caused by all the stones together, which Gamora seemed to think would be strong enough to overpower the soul stone by itself.
“Please,” he whispered, and the next time he felt a tingle he flung himself to the left, directly into a newly opening portal.
His vision went white. Peter screamed. It felt like his whole body was tearing apart and rearranging for just a second before the pain disappeared and he was floating. He heard no sound, but there was a question all the same.
“I just want to see that they’re okay,” he said. “I can’t leave them.”
He didn’t know if that was the right answer, but it was the true one.
He remained floating in the nothingness for a second longer before being plunged back into chaos and color and whirling winds tearing at him from every direction. He closed his eyes and braced himself, holding on for dear life until the wind was gone and all that remained was stillness.
Someone was crying.
Peter inched one eyelid open, then let both widen as he looked around at the planet he had been taken from. It was empty now, except for several swirling piles of dust. He began to pick his way through the rubble to the crying sound.
“Mr. Stark!” he called, when he saw the dark, shaking form. “Mr. Stark, what happened? I’m back, it’s okay. Where did Thanos go?”
The man didn’t answer. He was staring at a particular pile of dust as if it had killed his puppy.
“Mr. Stark?”
“Peter,” Tony said.
“Yes, I’m here! What happened?” said Peter. But Tony kept talking as if he couldn't hear him at all.
“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I--I-- everything I touch, it just--” he broke off in what might have been a sob from any other man. Peter’s heart sank.
“Mr. Stark, this is so, 100% not your fault.” He tried to touch him, but though Tony felt solid beneath his hand, the man didn’t acknowledge Peter’s presence. Peter was getting a terrible idea of where this was going.
“Seriously,” Peter said when it became clear that Tony had no more words. “Do not beat yourself up for this. It is all Thanos’ fault, and I’m assuming he won based on the fact that you’re alone and injured here and all those people were entering the soul stone when I escaped.” He rested his hands on Tony’s shoulders and wished he’d had the courage to do something like this when he knew Tony would feel it.
“Stark! We have to get out of here.” Peter whipped around at the sound of a woman’s voice, though Tony barely twitched. She was a bright cobalt blue, with mechanical parts apparently attached to her body. The weapons she carried screamed dangerous! but Peter sort of remembered her from the battle before. He didn’t think she would hurt Tony.
“You should go with her, Mr. Stark,” he said. “She looks like she means business, and trust me, if May ever looked at me like that I would get off my butt, and fast, or I would be facing imminent death.”
Tony didn’t respond.
Peter hovered worriedly as the blue lady heaved Tony to his feet and dragged him into a beat up spaceship. He grabbed Tony’s arm and held on when they took off, and talked at Tony whenever he could muster up something to say. Even if Tony couldn’t hear him, Peter hoped some of his feelings would get through. The man was still trembling.
They ran out of food after a few days. The blue lady, apparently Nebula, gave Tony the last of it.
“Thank you,” Peter told her. “He won’t admit it, but he’s not doing great.” Nebula simply watched Tony with huge black eyes as he choked down the dry space food. Peter wondered what she was thinking. She and Tony had said very little to each other outside of fixing up the ship.
Tony’s messages in the Iron Man helmet nearly broke Peter’s heart. Tony couldn’t die, not like this!
“Pep, if I don’t make it back, you gotta let May Parker know that her nephew is gone.”
“I’m not gone,” said Peter, offended. “It’s not my fault you can’t see me, Mr. Stark, maybe you should go get your eyes checked instead of blaming me.”
But Peter’s indignation switched quickly to worry when the oxygen began to run out and Tony seemed to lose all energy. It just didn’t seem like the Mr. Stark he knew when he limply laid on the ground and closed his eyes as if he never expected to open them. Nebula silently picked him up and set him in a captain’s chair. As soon as she turned around Peter hopped over to Tony and settled himself on his lap.
Tony was warm. His breath tickled Peter’s face. Peter wished with all his might that Tony’s arms would wrap around him and just give him one real hug unimpeded by embarrassment or fear of death, but Tony stayed limp in the chair, heart slowing.
Peter might have cried when Captain Marvel showed up to get them back home. He definitely cried when Tony hugged Pepper.
“I lost the kid,” Tony told her and Colonel Rhodes.
“You did not!” Peter jumped up on Tony’s shoulders for a ride. “Why do you keep saying that? I’m not lost and it’s not your fault.”
But Tony was slumped over like the invisible weight of the world was on his shoulders instead of just the invisible ghost of Spider-Man. “I’m really not that heavy,” Peter said, but he got off anyway. No need to weigh Tony down anymore than he already was.
He didn’t really understand all the beef that Tony and Captain America clearly had to work out, but he stuck by Tony and tried to catch him when he fell. Luckily, Colonel Rhodes was there to help too.
“You need to heal first,” Peter berated the unconscious man. “You can fight with Captain America any old day of the year, but now you have to get better so you can fix all this.”
Tony didn’t even twitch.
Pepper was there with them when Tony woke up again a few hours later.
“You’re here,” Tony whispered.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was wet but strong. “Tony, I saw your messages.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” She cleared her throat. “You should know that May Parker is gone. There’s no one else to tell.”
Peter gasped. “Aunt May was disappeared too?” What was he supposed to do? He’d wanted to stay with both of them, but Tony was here and May was there and Peter didn’t know how he could do anything anyway when he was just a ghost. He didn’t even know how he’d gotten here.
Tony’s eyes were empty. “Pep… Pepper, what now? There’s nothing.”
Their eyes met and Peter felt like he should leave the room, but he also wanted to know what she was going to say. There was no one else to go to, but… “There’s never nothing,” he said. “Please don’t let him think like that.”
Pepper shook her head. “You are going to gain weight and shave and shower, but not in that order. Then we are going to go home. We are going to find a nice place away from the city and you are going to help me decorate a room and paint it yellow and learn to do your own actual vacuuming…” she broke off, and Peter watched a few tears fall down the face of the iron Pepper Potts. It was historic, but all he felt was sad and confused. “You are going to pull it together, Tony, because I’m pregnant.”
There was precisely one second of silence.
“What?” Peter whooped in delight. “A baby! Mr. Stark, you’re going to be a great dad! This is awesome, can I be the big brother? I can teach them to dumpster dive and do a backflip and make them plebeian food like grilled cheese sandwiches!”
Tony was staring at Pepper with almost no expression on his face. “You’re… what?”
“I’m going to have a baby, Tony,” she said with a sad little smile. “I think we should name it Morgan, after my crazy uncle. What do you think?”
Tony seemed to be stuck processing.
“Tony?” she took his hand.
“Yes!” said Tony suddenly. “Yes, that, that’s great, Pep. But can I… I think I need some serious therapy before… everything.”
“Well it must be bad if you’re admitting it,” she said. But her smile grew. For the first time since the alien planet, Tony had a smile on his face.
Tony and Peter stayed in the medbay for days. The Avengers left, and returned with the news that Thanos was dead, but the stones were already gone. The titan had gotten rid of them before the Avengers arrived. Peter felt a stab of grief and fear for the people trapped inside: Gamora, half the Avengers, Aunt May. But he could do nothing but cry and hold onto Tony for all he was worth. They couldn’t be gone now… right?
He tried not to think about it. Instead, he badgered Tony with ideas for the baby. But though Peter talked and talked, he’d never seen Tony so silent and still.
Peter didn’t like that one bit.