Chapter Text
For nearly a year after the Vulture incident, Peter's life returned to normal. Well, his new version of normal, at least, where his aunt knew he was moonlighting as a vigilante and Mr. Stark invited him over for training and lab time twice a week. There were muggings and armed robberies and car crashes for Spider-Man and decathlon meets and exams for Peter, but no more super villains or alien weapons dealers reared their heads. For nearly a year, there weren't even any alien attacks or Hydra insurgencies or any form of threat big enough to warrant the Avengers' intervention...which was convenient, given that the Accords were still in the works and that the Avengers had only just been un-exiled for a few months, but still. The point was that, at least for a while, everything was good.
Which meant that it was high time for the universe to realize that it had forgotten to screw with Peter Parker.
Quantum-- that was what the guy called himself, at least-- was struggling against Spider-Man's webbing to no avail, shouting threats at the vigilante as though Peter would be intimidated. The guy's weapon had been pretty impressive-- the gun wasn't all that unlike the weapons Toomes had been pedaling way back when, clearly home-made but packing a helluva punch. It had a blast area large enough to completely disintegrate a--blessedly empty-- bus. Literally reduce it to nothing, not even a pile of ash. The guy was a wannabe super villain who'd started monologuing at Peter the moment he swung onto the scene, ranting about collapsing time streams and destabilizing reality. He swore that the gun sent objects back through time via quantum time reversal--hence the villain name-- but as far as Peter and Karen could tell, it was utter bullshit.
At least, Peter really hoped it was. He'd watched too many movies about time travel and the butterfly effect to not know that sending a whole bus into the past could change, like, everything about the future. Maybe the bus caused a crash that killed the guy who was going to bring about world peace in a few years or something.
Yeah, that was ridiculous.
Luckily, the gun had an inconveniently long recharge time, and the Quantum guy hadn't had enough foresight to bring any sort of back-up weapon, so Spidey had him webbed to the wall in an instant. The gun was laying on the sidewalk a few feet away. The seams of the weapon were glowing a pale blue-white color now that it had recharged. It reminded him of Tony's arc reactor-- something powerful enough to power Iron Man would definitely be enough to fuel the blasts the gun fired out.
Peter could hear sirens just a few blocks away and resolved to take the gun with him. He wanted Mr. Stark to take a look at it, especially if it was possible that there was another arms dealer out there selling high-tech weapons like the Vulture had been. The gun was about as heavy as it looked and hot even through the insulated gloves of his suit, and Peter turned it around and around, hoping to find some sort of safety on it.
"Hey," he spun back around to face Quantum, holding the gun up slightly, "Where's the safety on this thing?"
He hadn't really been expecting an answer, so it surprised him when the man grinned at him and grunted out, "Right here!"
Quantum managed to pull one of his hands free from the webbing, pressing his thumb down on a button along the side of his glove, similar to how that Ant-Man guy had controlled his size in Germany.
Quantum didn't shrink, though. Instead, the gun Peter still had carefully cradled in his arms blew up. The last thing Peter remembered was the gun burning through his suit as the world turned white.
Then, nothing.
Waking up again was a capital-e Experience, and only partly because Peter was very sure that he was dead. But no, he could hear the familiar sounds of traffic and people, feel the rough concrete under his back, and the ache all over his body like he'd been hit by a bus (again). Which, now that he thought about it, was weird. Usually when he woke up after a bad patrol, he'd be in the Compound's medbay, an exhausted and worried Mr. Stark at his side to help coax him back into consciousness. But he was still on the street, alone, and there wasn't even the sound of repulsors in the distance.
Not that he needed Mr. Stark to come save him or anything. It was just sorta nice to not wake up alone, in public, his senses being assaulted by the unfiltered sounds of the city around him.
Peter cracked open his eyes and was grateful for the light-filtering mask lenses-- not to mention the fact that the mask was still on his face. The sun was low enough to be hidden behind the buildings around him, which meant that Peter was out for hours, but the ambient light was still enough to emphasize his pounding headache. He wouldn't be surprised if he had a concussion, what with the way his mask-dimmed vision blurred and the jackhammer beating away at the inside of his skull.
He groaned as he forced himself to sit up, hand coming up to hold his definitely bruised ribs that protested the movement. The blast had apparently knocked him back into an alley, which explained why no one had noticed an unconscious vigilante laying on the busy street for hours, and he used a nearby fire escape to get to the roof without straining himself more than necessary. The suit's HUD was dark and Karen wasn't answering him, so he guessed that the explosion messed up his suit's electronics. He had stopped bringing his phone on patrol after it got crushed for the third time in a four month span, so there was no way for him to call Mr. Stark.
Not that he would have, anyway. He was fine, clearly, and Mr. Stark must have been busy to not notice that Karen went offline and since Peter wasn't currently dying, there was no need to bother the man. Tomorrow was a lab day anyway. Mr. Stark would help him fix whatever's wrong with the suit, and although he was kind of bummed that he had to cut his patrol short, he probably could use the rest. Peter wasn't being dramatic when he said he felt like hell.
Peter stumbled across the roof, exhausted and sore and ready to sleep for twelve hours, and leapt onto the wall of the next building over, climbing up to the higher roof. From there he had a better vantage of the city, and he spun in a slow circle, trying to gain his bearings and remember which way home was.
That's when he saw it.
Avengers Tower.
"What the hell?" He muttered to himself, staring at the building in shock. Unlike the last time Peter had seen the Tower, it was completely lit up, probably the brightest point in the city at the moment. Even stranger was the large 'A' still on the side of it--after the civil war happened and Mr. Stark decided to sell the Tower and move what was left of the Avengers to the compound instead, the letter had come down and the building had gone dark. Sure, the rogues had been pardoned fairly recently, but Mr. Stark had made it clear that he had no intention of taking the Tower off the market. "Oh my god, time gun."
Peter spun around frantically, looking for any other changes to the city he knew like the back of his hand. He saw construction on buildings he knew weren't being renovated, the neon sign of an arcade a few blocks away that had closed down years ago. It was-- insane. Absolutely crazy that he was even considering the idea that he had been literally blasted into the past, and yet...
There was a news stand just down the block, and Peter made his way towards it over the roofs, hoping he wouldn't be seen. If he was right, well, he wasn't sure it'd be the best idea to be seen as Spider-Man. Honestly, it'd be just his luck to accidentally plagiarize himself in the future.
When he was right above the closed stand, he shot a web to snag one of the day's papers, reeling it back up to himself in what was hopefully a stealthy manner. Paper in hand, he closed his eyes and sent out a quick prayer to the universe as a whole that he was wrong and that there was a simpler explanation to this entire situation than time travel.
He opened his eyes, scanning the paper for the date. May 1, 2012.
"Oh my god."
This could not be happening. Tony and May had set some very strict rules for Spider-Man, and he was pretty sure "don't get sent back in time" was one of them. Okay, not really, but still. Mr. Stark was going to be pissed, and May was probably so worried, and oh god what if Peter never found a way back? What if he was stuck in the past for the rest of his life and May and Tony and Ned never even knew what happened to him? Spider-Man, disappeared and left nothing behind, not even closure for his family.
"No no no. No, no. This can't be happening. Oh my god, no," Peter was muttering to himself, hands on his head and breath coming in short, shallow bursts. "Okay, calm down. Gotta calm down, then I can figure out how to get myself back. Because it's definitely possible. It has to be. Relax, Peter, breathe. I'm fine, it's okay, I got this-- I-- oh my god."
By the time Peter actually calmed down-- calm being a very relative term-- he was curled up against the edge of the roof, pressed into a small ball in the corner. Avengers Tower was directly in front of him, shining like a beacon.
Of course. If anyone could help him figure out how to get back to his own time, it was Tony-freaking-Stark. All Peter had to do was figure out how to convince the genius that he was, well, from the future. Tony had seen weirder, right? Surely it couldn't be hard to prove that he was telling the truth?
Not that he had a choice, either way. Peter took a long, shaky breath and got back to his feet, every tense, overworked muscle screaming at him to stay down. The Tower loomed in the distance, tauntingly close yet still so far away, but Peter grit his teeth and shot a web at the building across the street. There was nothing else he could do.