Chapter Text
Nothing could have ever prepared him for the silence. The sheer, desperate emptiness of it, amplified by the vast bleakness of a galaxy that stood eerily still, staring back at him, an endless void. Knowing that thousands of kilometers away, despite the defeat, or in spite of it- life moved on.
Someone was dying down there. Someone was born. Someone was crying and someone was happy. Down there the air, despite the loss, was light and beautiful, not stale, thin, and bitter as it was here, trapped and lost amidst the inky blackness that so many would give their lives away to see.
At first, the way up here, even clinging to the side of that ship, he found it beautiful. Breaking through the stratosphere, soaring past the mesosphere and thermosphere, and sailing in the exosphere, it was a dream come true even with the circumstances of how he got there.
Now, it was cold. Detached.
After staring so long into that void, he couldn’t remember where he began, and space ended. But then again, space never ends, at least, that we know of. Since that is the case, then did he even exist to begin with?
The robot-Nebula. Her name is Nebula. Nebula. She was cold and quiet. At first, they played finger football with a piece of scrap he found. He wanted to make her smile. He wanted to believe that everything was going to be fine.
Then they found out that the life support was damaged. Probably happened on Titan during that battle…Could it even be called that? Something so life-altering as that should have a bigger title, but it didn’t matter. They failed. He failed.
He was going to die up here.
He was already dying…
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“Is this thing on?”
“I guess it is…Well…I don’t know if anyone will get this, but um, it's been 26 days, I think. I kinda lost track of time so…Anyways, it’s been 26 days that we have been floating in space. So, 26 days since Thanos…Since we-I lost. 26 days since I lost.
Nebula, she’s here too, but uh, we are the only ones left from what happened on Titan. We tried to come back, but uh her ship got damaged during the…We ran out of fuel, and parts of the ship started breaking down. I tried to fix what I could and Nebula is great, I’ve learned some stuff from her, but uh I don’t know if I’ll get to use it heh…We’re running out of oxygen, well we’ve been running out, but we’re adjusting, well I am since she doesn’t need it…Maybe, a day or two more before…Well…
Mrs. Potts, if you get this I just-I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I tried. I really, really tried so hard to stop it. I-He vanished, snapped, I don’t know. I’m so sorry.
And May, God… May? I’m so sorry. I-This wasn’t what I meant to happen, not after Ben. I should have stayed on that stupid bus. I wasn’t thinking this, or-God May I’m so sorry. But I don’t want you to worry. I’m okay. Really. I’m just…It…I’ll just fall asleep. That’s it. I’m going to fall asleep and um, well, do you remember that trip we took to the beach? The one where you got so mad at Ben because he threw you into the pool at that crappy hotel we stayed at. And then when we went hunting for seashells and made sandcastles? That’s what I’m going to dream of. That was a good day…
Heh, and well, I know you love to be right, so just know that I’m only telling you this because you were right after all, but umm, will you tell MJ that I really like her? And Ned…Tell him he was the best guy in the chair a spider could ask for…And tell him that I’m sorry too. To both of them…
May…I-I’m sorry I failed. You were always there for me and now I’m…I’m sorry. I love you so much.”
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The kid wasn’t doing good. He spent most of his time asleep if you could even call it that. Exhaustion pooled under his eyes, sunken in like his stomach. She wished she had more to give him, but Quill…Well he is-was, he was a light packer and Drax, the idiot he was, only carried around his Yaro roots on him, and well, she wasn’t thinking in the moment to scrounge through his ashes to see if there was a bag or two there.
Nebula was coming to check on him anyways, and at first when they boarded the ship, the kid could sense when she was coming. As she walked into the cabin, even with her silent steps, he was already facing her with a timid, but genuine small smile. He had explained it as best as he could, a sixth sense. It was something new he said, and that he was still figuring it out.
Over the past couple of days, or… Was it longer than that? How long had they been suspended here? Just floating in a half empty galaxy…
She’d go and check on him periodically, like yesterday she found an old package of crackers, the last of the food, and went to give it to the kid. He was curled up in the blanket she gave him the day before. Bleary eyed staring out of the canopy in the vastness of space. It took her hand on his shoulder, startling him back awake to realize she was there.
He gave her a small thanks, and she left. Not even ten minutes later when she came back to see if the crackers were even edible, he was asleep, curled in on himself trying to conserve some form of heat. The package still unopened in his hand abandoned.
At least now, with her head peaking around the corner, she could see that he had eaten them, not that he noticed her. She wasn’t going to interrupt either. Their return to Earth was dim when they first got back on the ship, but the kid had tried to stay positive. He gave her, in her opinion, undeserved bright smiles and showed her little games, like finger football and MASH with the back of some of Rocket’s weapon schematics and Mantis’s favorite fluffy pen she stole off some guy in Xandar.
He tried to be strong, and he was gentle. Always so disgustingly gentle when he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder when they were looking at the mess that was the main engine. Or when he taught her how to give a high-five and fist-bump. And that time when she was sitting in Gamora’s seat, and he leaned over and wrapped his arms around her…
The kid deserved this, if it gave him peace, because he was right. He was going to die here on this ship.
And it was just going to someone else that Nebula lost. Someone who deserved better but was stuck here with her. Where she, undeservedly and infuriatingly would live when she, of everyone that was gone, deserved to die the most.
The kid was already back to sleep. The helmet abandoned on the floor beside him, here to die along with him.
Even with her steps clacking against the metal floor, he didn’t stir. His face lax, and shallow breaths wheezing blaring like the takeoff of a ship reverberating against the cold walls.
The kid was going to die, and he-of all people she had ever met, didn’t deserve it, but the least she could do for all the kindness he showed her was to be there so he wouldn’t be alone.
Settling beside him, she pushed the brown curls from his face and took a hand in hers, making painfully sure that it was soft. The kid deserved softness, after everything that was the least she could offer him, even if he weren’t aware to appreciate it.
There was another thing the kid had taught her. Praying. Humans prayed to gods. Some thought there was just one guy up there who controlled it all, some powerful all-seeing man that created life and would welcome his ‘children’ back to a better place when it was over. Some believed it was a fat guy who preached self-actualization and nirvana when it was their time.
Some humans didn’t believe in it at all. They just accepted it. Nebula knew, or well, she ‘believed’ that all of it was stupid and naturally not true. The kid laughed and told her there was even a word for it, atheist. When she asked the kid what he thought he just shrugged and told her there was another word for people who didn’t know if they believed it or not, agnostic.
Considering recent events, she could understand that. Maybe she was too, who the hell knew anymore.
Still though, she closed her eyes and prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Willing anyone to listen to her, begging them to do something, anything.
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He had gotten so used to darkness that he forgot what light was.
Immediately, his thoughts, traitorous, disgusting thoughts went to what light was. Swinging around Queens at sunset, feeling the wind hit his face, watching the oranges melt to deep pinks and blues, illuminating the city he loved. Seeing his friends, laughing about some mindless meme they had sent to the group chat, heads titled back, and eyes crinkled shut with joy. Strolling down the sidewalk with May after yet another kitchen nightmare to grab Thai shaking the smoke from their hair and inhaling the city air. Tinkering in the lab with Mr. Stark, staying up too late, arms elbow deep in a project, hands stained with oil, loud music playing in the background, stuffing their faces full of cheap pizza and soda, talking throughout the night…
It was light, in the purest form, cascades of electromagnetic waves bouncing from relentless, joyous charged particles. It was moving at 300,000,000 meters per second, always moving, always running, wild and free without a care in the word.
Then, just as he remembered what it was, it was gone, leaving behind that harrowing, soul-sucking darkness and so, so cold.
His body was the frailest it had ever been. He couldn’t swing his way away from it, the physical aspect of his issues or the mental. Were his friends still alive? Was May? And Mr. Stark…
He was gone.
And it was his fault.
Was he gone to? Was that light, a taste of what Heaven was and his punishment was to feel it one last time before being stripped away to his eternal punishment. Knowing what the light was, being able to feel it on his skin, in his bones, rushing through his veins only to be left with this? Cold, desolate, agonizing nothingness.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve it, but God, had he wished it were anything but it.
He wanted to see them. His friends, May, Ben, his parents, Mr. Stark…
“Kid,” soft, gentle, robotic whirring, “Come on, open your eyes for me.”
He knew that voice, Nebula. Hurt, lonely, lost, sweet Nebula. She didn’t deserve any of this. She deserved someone stronger to be here, someone who knew what to do, who wouldn’t give up like he had. Someone, anyone else, someone she knew, was familiar with to help her.
But she got him. Weak, stupid, useless, dying, or was this just another punishment? Was he dead, and her touch would be gone in a second, leaving behind the soft metal of her hand, the one comfort he could selfishly take in and turn it into a poison.
“Come on, stay with me,” her hand carded through his hair, too soft, too kind, he doesn’t deserve any of it.
Somehow, he urged his eyes to open, at least one more time. If this was real, Nebula deserved that at least.
She was closer than he thought. Her cold nose tickling his own and then, a shift, miniscule, but there. Movement, they were moving.
“Keep your eyes open. You’re going home Peter.”
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Steve Rogers was no stranger to anger.
He was angry when he enlisted in the army, angry at his frail, useless, sickly body. Angry he couldn’t keep up, that he was more of a hinderance than some help to the war. Angry that he was holding back Bucky on living a fuller life, one filled with abled friends and love and life.
He was angry when they gave him the serum and they used him as some show pony to encourage other soldiers to fight and be strong. Angry that Hydra existed, that Bucky died under his watch, that he had to steer that plane into the Artic, that he woke up seventy years later and Peggy and Howard were dead, that Hydra was still in full operation, that Hydra had taken Bucky away from him with years of torture, that the Civil War happened, that Rhodey almost died, that he left Tony for dead in Siberia, that treatment in Wakanda was going so slow, Thanos…
Thanos, who came to Earth, his home, when things, slowly, so agonizingly slow, were starting to get better, and took everything away again. And he had fought, alongside great warriors and friends, family, they had lost good people, and all it took was a snap of fingers to disintegrate everything he had worked for all away.
But the thing that made Steve Rogers angry the most was the man staring back at him in the mirror.
Captain America. What a load of shit that was turning out to be.
He hadn’t even realized his fist was raised, but then it was crashing down against the gray granite of his vanity. A sharp tremor vibrated through the room, a jagged, fault line spilt across the surface. Stone crumbling through the cracks and skittering across the floor.
Broken, in a disgusting heap of anger. Just like him.
He heaved in a deep breath, broken and staggered like trying to swallow liquid fire. How could he call himself a hero, after losing everything that made him one?
Aftershocks rumbled beneath him, his anger coursing through to the very ground he stood on. It trembled again, a deep vibration tingling under the surface, tainting the air, almost electrifying it.
Steve sighed and leaned against the bathroom wall, content to sit and feel how useless his power meant anymore. But then, it grew. A deep, rolling tremor, the booming of ships entering airspace, the feeling of thousands of feet hitting the ground.
It was the sound of war, but it was over. This…It couldn’t be happening again. Steve felt his breath quiver, his hands shaking, aching for his shield. Thanos was gone, he accomplished his goal, half of the population, gone, with a thought and snap of fingers. What more could he want?
The medicine cabinet rattled open, his meager items, a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, clattering onto the broken counter and slapping the floor. The bathroom door slammed against the wall, but not from soldiers, but Natasha-barefoot, clad in sweats, her hair wild, and pushed past the exhaustion bruised under her eyes her expression was sharp with urgency.
No words were needed. Steve was already moving, hot on her heels. The hallways blurred past him, and then suddenly, he was outside, the air cold, stinging his skin, but he rushed forward where Rhodey and Bruce were already waiting, eyes locked on the dark sky above. Pepper met them in between, her face drawn tight, a mix of disbelief, fear, and relief swirling in her eyes.
Steve followed their gazes upward and his stomach dropped.
There, in the sky, an enormous ship descending upon them carried by a blinding ball of light. He brought a hand up to his eyes and pushed forward. Whatever this was, whoever was inside, he’d protect what he had left. He owed it to them all. He couldn’t fail, not again.
The ship landed without much fanfare amidst the green field, and the light dimmed until a woman came forward. With cropped blonde hair and a red and blue suit, her face was set in stone as she marched up to Steve.
“Fury called,” she said with a curt nod, “Captain Marvel, or you can call me Carol, good to finally meet you, Captain.”
He stared down at her hand, taking it in his as his brain whizzed around. Fury was alive. He faked his death again, and damn it, Tony was right, Fury was here, still pulling at the strings in the background, gallivanting through the world out of sight, out of reach leaving the rest of them in the dark.
God, Tony…
Sharp hissing reverberated into the night, and instinctively, he took another step forward, his eyes trained on the opening and metal stairs creaking against themselves unfolding onto the grass.
He stole a glance behind him. Natasha, splitting her focus between the ship and Carol, chewing on her lip, fighting against herself with a hoard of questions she no doubt wanted to ask. Who was she, why did he call her, why hadn’t Fury reached out to them…
Bruce, wide-eyed, staggering in his place eyes, traveling a mile a second canvassing this ship, no doubt his mind spinning through calculations while clenching and unclenching his fists. Muttering softly under his breath, a mantra to stay calm or to be ready to try and summon the Hulk, praying that if it came to it, the big guy would show up this time.
Rhodey, clad in an old, faded MIT sweatshirt and pants, a black brace supporting his weight, while he supported Pepper with a hand intertwined in his own. Eyes wide, searching, fearful, yet so, so strong.
And Pepper…wide-eyed, searching too, hope and fear accelerating her breath. Her heart pounding painfully in her chest. No doubt looking for him, praying to whoever would listen to bring him back to her, to them, to the world.
Steve prayed with her. Tony. They needed Tony.
God, he still needed to apologize. For keeping his parents' murder a secret. For causing the fight. For Rhodey. For Siberia, leaving him for dead in that cold cavernous cave. For hiding away in Wakanda. For not being here when it mattered.
He heard the footsteps before he saw them. Slow, weary, apprehensive. Then it was the breathing. Deep, shaky breaths, interrupted with dry, horse coughs crawling its way up their lungs. A body, deprived of oxygen, trying to suck up every last drop of it now and choking on its richness.
A woman…or well a robotic one, blue and gray, with piercing black eyes, an arm supporting another, smaller body, wrapped up tightly in a green blanket with only a stock of unruly, curly brown hair poking out taking small, agonizingly slow steps. The woman, strong, holding her own, almost carrying the other and the other hand, clenching the handrail, leaving too small handprint indentions in the metal.
They were too small, short, and too strong to be him…
Tony wasn’t there.
And if he wasn’t here then-
Oh God.
Pepper was already pushing past him, Rhodey right behind her. Both of them wrapped their arms around the small frame, curling around themselves, holding themselves together. Behind them, the girl stood sentinel. Cold eyes, dark and unfeeling towards the crowd, daring them to come closer, to try anything.
Steve barely even registered her. He worked his jaw, eyes trained on the boy held up from Pepper and Rhodey. Because that was what he was, a boy, a child. Pale, and malnourished, clinging onto Pepper's shirt and apologizing over and over and over again.
Tony was gone.
He swallowed down the sickness, and without realizing it, he took a step forward. And another, cutting through the heavy air with his socked feet. He hadn’t felt his hand move, but suddenly it was there, ready to land on the kid's shoulder, the blanket was course and matted, and then, the kid was moving. His eyes slung to his and suddenly Steve couldn’t breathe.
Those eyes, blood-shot and hollow stared right through him.
He stumbled back a step. This look wasn’t something that should have ever crossed a child's face. It was something he’d seen back in his Howling Commando days. Men blankly staring at the wall of a tent, seeing something else replaying over and over again. A soldier, like Clint after the battle of New York once regained consciousness. A soldier, like Sam on that plane to Wakanda after the fight in Germany. A soldier, like Natasha, back at the compound sitting in the empty dining room with her peanut butter sandwiches.
The exhaustion, the fear, the regret. Etched deep in the bone, persistent and ugly.
Something clicked in the boy's eyes, and suddenly they were on him, and it wasn’t that of a broken solider, but rage. It transformed his face, all sharp edges, and protruding bones and then he was moving, pushing away from Pepper and shrugging off Rhodey’s hand and shoving a finger hard into Steve’s chest. It was strong, stronger than he could have imagined from such a frail kid, and he stumbled back.
“You,” the kid spat, “You are a piece of shit Captain.”
Steve froze, his mind racing, trying to place the face, the voice, but nothing came. Who was he? And why? Why was he on that ship?
“Son, just-just calm down,” He raised his hands slowly, palms up, steady.
The kid just took another step forward and yanked the blanket off revealing a torn, battle-worn suit.
Metallic red and blue. A black spider adorning his chest.
Spider-Man. The kid that caught his shield. That Steve dropped a semi on.
‘Where are you from kid?’
The boy grunted, adjusting his feet to the weight of the semi he was holding above his head, Queens.’
‘Brooklyn,’ Steve laughed, ‘You got heart kid.’
The kid Tony brought to fight them. Who gave the kid a suit. Who was here now, after Tony went to space, who was here alone…
Oh God.
“This-,” the kid took another unsteady step, his breath rattling in his chest, “This is on you. Tony-His death is on you.”
Steve barely had time to process the words before he had lurched forward towards him. But at the last second, he faltered, his legs giving out and he hit the ground hard. His breathing hitched, stuttering from his chest, and a broken cry strangled its way from his throat.
It was raw, ugly, and broken.
Bodies warmed around them. Pepper, Rhodey, Bruce, and the robot closed in fast, putting themselves between him and the kid.
Steve didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Didn’t help hoist the kid back up to his feet and carry him back inside.
Steve’s fists curled tight, so tight, his knuckles ached under the pressure, but he didn’t loosen them. He couldn’t. Because the kid was right.
This was his fault.
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Pepper Potts’ heart broke when Tony didn’t step out of that spaceship.
It fractured more when she saw the boy Tony had thought of like a son stumble out instead-eyes hollow, hands shaking, looking more broken than any child ever should.
And when she sat beside Peter in the med bay, his fingers cold in her grasp, and felt the faintest flutter of movement in her stomach, her heart didn’t just break.
It shattered.
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He was underweight. When they rolled him in the med bay, Bruce had gotten to work immediately, sticking him with a plethora of needles. He was surrounded by bags of fluids and nutrients, having them changed almost every thirty minutes to make up for everything he had lost. He fixed him up with a non-rebreather mask and only changed it to a nasal cannula after checking his oxygen saturation twenty times and was finally back in the lower ninety percent of oxygen in his blood. Pepper was running around, scrounging up every heated blanket she could find and turning the temperature up in the room.
Even after everything they had done, Bruce had sighed and collapsed in a chair beside him telling him how lucky he was to be alive still.
Peter was too tired and didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t luck. That he wished he were dead instead.
When Bruce left, Peter closed his eyes and soon, once Pepper was convinced, he was sleeping, Rhodey came to join.
“So…” Rhodey sighed collapsing into a chair, “this is him huh. Spider-Man, Peter Parker, the kid.”
Pepper fidgeted, crumbling, and smoothing out the blanket next to his leg, “Yeah…Rhodey-I-“
“I know Pepper. I know.”
“He’s just a kid and he was up there and now Tony-“ She inhaled, and Peter could smell the tears pooling in her eyes. Her voice broke, the infallible Pepper Potts, crying, “I don’t know how to do this.”
Peter decided then that he couldn’t take hearing anything else. Not right now, not when it was all that he could think about. All that he could see.
Tony’s heart beating wildly, arms reaching for Peter, to hold onto him. He could smell the fear could feel the start of his clothes to disintegrate. Could feel his life slipping away and no amount of begging, of pleading for him not to go, not to leave him alone could stop it. And then, he was gone, and Peter was falling holding his ashes. Mr. Stark was gone. Iron Man was gone. Tony was gone.
He opened his eyes and Rhodey got up and went to find Bruce to check on him again.
Peter didn’t sleep or even pretend to be for the rest of the night.
The next day, after haggling with Bruce for almost two hours about whether he was fine, Bruce hooked him up with a rolling IV and said he could leave as long as there was someone else with him. That wasn’t a problem though. Pepper had stayed in her post from the night, right beside Peter, a hand hovering over his shoulder, and ghosting along his back. Following him from the med bay to the entrance to the kitchen and when she got a call, something about investors and lingering stock crashes, Nebula appeared from nowhere and took her place beside him.
She didn’t say anything and for that Peter was thankful.
They stayed in the main foyer, Nebula leaning against the wall, giving him space, but also there if he crashed and him in front of the overarching windows overlooking the green fields and the metal death trap he had been rescued from.
Peter wished he weren’t. Wished he had just gone in his sleep. Wished he were stronger, that he could have helped more, and then maybe...Maybe then it wouldn't have happened. Maybe he’d still be here…
He stayed there until dusk, Pepper and Bruce had come for him to get a new bag and drag him to bed. Nebula wandered off somewhere, and God, how Peter hoped that the tree and raccoon she had said stayed on Earth to help were still alive, someone for her to be with, someone familiar.
It took some fussing on Bruce’s part, but eventually, he left after he checked his vitals for the third time, finally satisfied that he wasn’t about to keel over.
Pepper was out in minutes. Back in the chair beside his bed, laying her head on the mattress beside his legs, adamant that she wasn’t going to leave him here alone no matter how many times he tried to tell her to go sleep in a real bed.
Peter waited and watched the hands of the clock tick by. Thirty minutes, an hour, three hours, and when Pepper was still lying there, her heart beating steadily and breath deep and slow, he moved. Slowly, at first, watching for any minute changes in her breathing, and by the time he was by the door, he let it fade to the background and let his feet lead him.
He ended up in front of the lab doors light-headed and panicked and had to lean against the wall to steady himself, his heart beating wildly in his chest. Coward. That was what he was. A coward. Weak. Alive when he shouldn’t be. He turned around, he couldn’t do this.
The doors hissed open anyway.
And well- he didn’t know if he could make it back to the med bay on his own like this, so he swallowed the lump in his throat and stepped inside.
He didn’t come to the compound often, usually, it was the tower where they would tinker far into the night in the labs, but he knew that he liked it out here. Quiet and removed from the city. Ample space for labs and field testing.
Peter liked it too. Sometimes. But he got anxious when he was out of the city for too long.
A layer of dust had settled over the benches, the tools scattered around in a chaotic form of organization, untouched. It smelt like burnt coffee, grease, and metal. Like Tony.
Like home.
Peter swallowed, leaning heavily against the wall, his knees shaking underneath him. His pulse thrummed in his ears, loud and uneven, but he didn't move.
Couldn’t.
“Hello, Peter.”
F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice came from above, soft, soothing. Almost gentle.
“You haven’t been here for a while. How are you?”
The base of Peter’s skull prickled, and the hair stood up on his arms. His stomach twisted in ugly knots.
His voice was rough and small, weak, “F.R.I.D.A.Y…Can you run a search for May Parker?”
A pause. The soft whirring of machinery running, searching, analyzing. Silence, and something cold washed over Peter.
He knew.
“Of course, Peter.”
Another pause. Too long.
His hands curled into fists. His nails bit into his skin and iron tainting the air. His teeth grinding together, his shoulder trembling, but he couldn’t make himself move.
Then, she spoke. Softly. So humanely sincere.
“May Parker was involved in a car accident during the chaos caused by Thanos’s attack.”
A beat.
“She did not survive.”
Then, even softer- I’m sorry Peter.”
His breath caught, suddenly lodged in his chest. His heartbeat faltered, then roared to life in his ears, rushing over his body like white noise.
Not turned to ash.
Not gone like the others.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There was supposed to be a chance, no matter how slim it was, that he could have saved her.
She was gone.
The room tilted around him.
Then he was falling.
Crashing on the cold metal floor, his body slapping uselessly like a puppet with its strings cut, nothing left to hold it up anymore. The room was too quiet. His pulse roared against his ribs, sharp and relentless.
Peter Parker was an orphan.
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The stones were used three days after Peter Parker returned to Earth.
The surviving Avengers-and some other heroes he didn’t recognize- were cramped into a conference room at the compound. If this had been the Peter Parker, who never set a foot on Titan, who had stayed on that bus-he’d be in awe right now. Cataloging every second, every crumble of details they said, analyzing their suits, putting it all away in his head to gush about to Ned later.
But Ned was gone too. And so was that Peter Parker- gone. He died with them.
He kept his gaze away from the others, away from the holograms displaying every loss. Every person who had turned to dust.
Every person he had lost.
Hollow. That was the word, but even that didn’t hold enough weight to describe the chasm inside him. One second it was there, so tangible, that cold, dark thing clawing its way through his chest and over his skin, and then the next, it was gone. Leaving him empty.
Alone.
“Son, is there anything you can remember that might help us find Thanos?”
Captain America.
Steve Rogers.
The name registered with the voice, and before, just having been acknowledged by his childhood hero could have brought him to tears.
Now? Now he understood why Tony complained about hearing the guy talk. All patriotic, humble, and authoritative.
“Maybe you should check up your ass, Captain.”
The words were out before rational thought could stop them, sharp and bitter, and yet he couldn’t even bring himself to care. Ned would shit himself if he heard Peter say that. MJ would probably laugh.
But they weren’t here anymore.
He kept his gaze on the clock. Ticking away. It wasn’t fair. How even after everything that happened. After everything was ruined and tainted and wrong, that time just kept moving.
Before, he would have been stumbling over his words, trying to make a good impression. Peter didn’t have the energy to do it anymore.
Steve sighed like he was dealing with a difficult child, and he was, wasn’t he? A difficult, cowardly, weak child.
“Peter, I know this is hard, but we need your help. Is there anything-anything at all-you can remember?”
Peter turned his head slowly. The clock still ticking in his head.
One second.
Five seconds.
Twenty.
The sound of a countdown. A bomb about to explode.
The seconds until midnight.
The light leaving the eyes of a dying man.
His rage was something that needed to be controlled. Peter was dangerous when angry. He could easily punch a hole through someone's chest. Could clap his hands on someone's head and watch their head burst like a melon. Could throw someone through ten tons of concrete.
And right now? Right now, he was angry. It was bubbling under his skin, festering, rotting.
Steve Rogers, asking for his help?
Too little, too fucking late.
His grip tightened on the edge of the table, metal groaning beneath his fingers. He released it with a shaky breath, his vision tunneling as he pushed up from his chair and towards Steve. He jabbed a finger in his chest, and a spark of something, lit up in his chest as he watched the man falter back hitting the table.
“There is nothing we can do anymore.”
Steve opened his mouth, finally finding his footing again but Peter cut him off.
“We had our chance. And we almost won. I was holding that gauntlet. It was in my hands. And then that idiot, Quill, fucking lost it. We were so close and then he just lost it, and suddenly it was too late.”
“And you know what’s worse?”
His breath hitched. A sharp humorless laugh broke from his lips. His head felt light.
He could feel their eyes on him. Bruce. Rhodey. Cautious. Tense. Waiting.
Ready to hold him back.
To fight him.
And Peter-God help him-liked it.
Because this? This was something he could control.
Steve’s expression was one of horror. It was good. Good. But not good enough.
“I felt them.”
His voice was steady. Too steady. Detached.
“All of them.”
“Half of the universe, right before they died. I could feel their skin start breaking apart. I could hear them begging for their lives, screaming, and clutching at the people they loved, praying for something-anything to stop it. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it “
Silence.
His hands shook. His brain screaming at him. More. More.
“And then,” his voice wavered, “because of course that wasn’t enough, I watched Tony Stark die. He turned to fucking ash in my hands and no matter what I did brought him back.”
His vision blurred. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.
“He needed you. And where the fuck were you? Off playing house with your criminal war buddy while the real world was on fire.”
The silence was suffocating.
Eyes on him. All of them.
Sad. Horrified. Angry.
It still wasn’t enough.
Peter ripped the wires from his arms. The IV bag crashed to the floor, fluid spilling across it. Bruce shouted his name. Rhodey rushed forward. Natasha shook her head.
Peter didn’t care.
He was done.
His vision swam. Black spots crawling in from the edges. His knees buckled.
He pushed past the haze, forcing himself to match Steve’s gaze.
And he spit at him.
“So yeah,” he rasped, “you can go look up your ass for clues on where Thanos went.”
Darkness swallowed him whole before his head could ever hit the ground.
.
.
.
Bruce Banner was no stranger to grief.
Before the Avengers, while running away from the military, he was a doctor in Kolkata. An unlicensed doctor, but a doctor, nonetheless.
Disease ran rampant among the streets. Mothers crying, bringing their children to him to heal. Children, leading him through the shadows to their shacks to try and revive their fathers. Victims of a stabbing, begging for him to save their lives. Delivering children and holding them until they found a safer place to stay.
Sometimes, Bruce would nurse them back to health and they would be strong. Going back out to live the rest of their lives. And Bruce would feel that ache inside of him slowly starting to chip away.
But like any doctor, he wasn’t God.
There would be times when he was too late. A child leading him to the corpse of their parents. A mother screaming over the body of their dead child. A young man, begging for his life as Bruce sat and watched the life leave his eyes.
He watched them grieve. Grieved himself for all of the ones he couldn’t save.
Then, Natasha showed up. Brought him to New York. The Hulk ran loose again. People died. Loki and the Chitari. The aftermath. The people lining the streets in vigil. The monuments. The death. Grieving children. Grieving Parents. Loved ones.
It was safe to say that in this line of work, or the life that Bruce lived, grief was a part of it.
There wasn’t much that shocked in anymore, either. Not after everything. The Battle of New York. Ultron. And most recently, his time in space. Three years of being a Hulkified-gladiator and going up against Thor’s older, bitchier sister.
Lately, the world seemed determined to prove him wrong.
Just the raw grief he saw in Peter Parker’s eyes made him sick. A kid. Sixteen years old. Sixteen. In space, fighting a Titan. Watching and feeling the people around him disintegrate before his eyes. A kid who went out to fight crime since he was fourteen years old. A fourteen-year-old who just so happened to get bit by a radioactive spider and decided that instead of showing off his powers to be ‘cool,’ or hide them, decided to put his life on the line every single night for two years to ‘look out for the little guy’…
To be a hero.
When Bruce was sixteen his biggest priority had been if he could get his hands on more nuclear physics textbooks.
It wasn’t hard to understand why Tony liked the kid. On top of everything else, Parker was a genius.
The kid lying in the bed now just looked empty.
Tired.
And honestly, Bruce couldn’t blame him.
It was such a sharp contrast to the picture Pepper painted through her stories of the kid. Running around the tower, mouth moving a mile a minute, like the Energizer Bunny, as Tony had dubbed him once. Quick-witted and fearless, always ready to go toe to toe with Tony. Not shy to back down to a challenge. Polite. So polite and sweet. Pepper said that the first time she had met the kid, he had shown up with a beat-up bouquet of lilies, apologized profusely for the damage to them from swinging to the tower and when Tony came in talked about how he would never be stupid enough to give her roses.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. was also more than happy to show clips of them all. Tony and Peter in the lab. Laughing and setting their hair on fire. Peter walking on the ceiling and Tony trying to swat him away with a broom. Peter rambling on about his day and Tony sitting there with the most content smile on his face listening.
The kid had been through hell, yet he still had Tony. Now…
Now he had nothing.
Bruce knew the truth: Peter was alone.
It wasn’t fair, and it didn’t make sense. How could someone, so clearly good have to suffer the most?
Bruce remembered a man in Kolkata telling him once: Sabacēẏē bhālō mānuṣaṭi sarbadā sabacēẏē bēśi kaṣṭa pāẏa.
The best man always suffers the most.
Peter Parker was going to be the best of them all.
.
.
.
The next day, Steve found Pepper and told her they found Thanos.
They were leaving in a few hours.
Pepper told him to be quiet. Peter was always listening, and she didn’t know just how well his hearing was. She went to find Bruce. She told him to give Peter the strongest sedative he could.
There was no doubt in her mind that the second Peter found out they found him, he would try to get on that ship. Peter was crafty. He’d find a way to get aboard that ship.
And in the state, he was in right now…
Peter had been through enough.
She didn’t know what Bruce gave him, but Peter didn’t even have the time to realize what he had done before his eyes were fluttering closed. Whatever it was-it was strong.
The floor shook underneath her feet. Engines roaring to life.
Pepper kept her eyes on Peter.
She ran a hand through his curls. Softening the frizz and tucking it behind his ears. He needed a haircut, but considering how hard it was to convince the kid to shower and change his clothes, it would be a bit until they were there. Maybe it would be easier to convince Peter if she held up to her advice. Since Peter had arrived, she had spent every moment she could by his side, neglecting her hygiene as well.
The infallible Pepper Potts, sitting in the same sweatpants and sweatshirt for three days in a row. She could hear Tony’s gasp, horrified, making some quip about the press finding out. He would’ve swooped her into his arms, dramatically, because dramatic was Tony’s middle name, and then swoop in wrapping her to his chest. Pressing a kiss to her hair, her cheek, her temple.
By the end of the day, he’d have Rhodey and Happy in on it too. Some equally ridiculous interventions put in place.
Tony…
God, she missed him.
Pepper had always seen the traces of Tony in Peter. Beneath the surface, they were practically the same. Stubborn. Headstrong. Self-sacrificial idiots.
Soft.
Caring.
Loyal.
She had seen this grief before.
When Tony came back from Afghanistan, he was different. To the public, they saw him shut down all Stark industry weaponry. Became Iron Man, a hero. Building innovative technology, create clean energy. Make more suits. They saw a man changing for the better.
What they didn’t see were the sleepless nights. The nightmares. The panic attacks.
The grief.
It destroyed him for a long time. Even after Rhodey knocked some sense into his head to see someone. And even then, Tony’s bad days outweighed the good ones.
Then, New York happened.
Then Killian.
Ultron.
Siberia…
Tony was getting better, slowly. Then one day, he found a fourteen-year-old in old pajamas fighting street crime in New York.
And suddenly Tony was-well, he was Tony again.
But now, what she saw in Peter was Tony coming back from Afghanistan all over again.
Pepper wasn’t going to let Peter lose that light he once had though.
He had lost everyone he cared about.
So had she.
The adoption papers in her lap suddenly felt heavier.
She’d met Peter before. Loved him. But she didn’t know him the was Tony did. She wasn’t Tony. Would never be Tony.
But she couldn’t let him be alone again.
And if she was honest with herself, Pepper didn’t want to be alone.
The baby in her stomach took that moment to lightly kick. A reminder.
She sighed.
“Tony would’ve loved you.” She murmured to herself.
Her fingers curled around the papers.
She wanted their child to have a brother.
She wanted Peter to have a family.
And Pepper wanted one too.
.
.
.
Pepper asked Rhodey to talk to Peter.
“He stopped talking and eating. And with his enhanced metabolism, he needs to eat. He hasn’t been sleeping either. I know that he only sleeps when I force Bruce to put a sedative in his water and we sit and watch him drink it. He won't decline it because we ask him to and he’s too polite to say he isn’t thirsty!”
Rhodey placed a firm hand on her shoulder. Grounding her for just a second. That was when she really looked at him.
He had aged ten years in a month.
Rhodey has lost Tony too.
Guilt churned in her stomach. She went to apologize, to take it back, but Rhodey shook his head and gave a small smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“I wanted to get to know the kid anyway,” he said simply.
Pepper let out a slow breath and nodded.
The rest of the day was spent on the couch. Phone calls from partners and investors. Miles of documents. What was SI going to do now that Tony wasn’t here? Was SI still going to fund the Avengers? Were the Avengers still a thing? Stock market trends and predictions. Excel sheet, after Excel sheet of profitable endeavors.
She worked through the day. Bruce had come by and left some food and drink for her. A bottle of water. A decaf coffee. A pre-packaged Caesar salad.
She only stopped when she felt the cushions shift beneath her. She glanced up from her Excel sheets-
And found herself staring at a red-rimmed, hollow-eyes Peter Parker.
He was glaring daggers at the coffee table, jaw clenched tight and, in his hand,-
The adoption papers.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
Pepper swore internally.
She left them out, scatted with Bruce’s records. She had thought-but that was stupid. Peter was smart. Of course, he went digging through the papers.
She would’ve done the same if she was in his shoes.
What now? Just rip the Band-Aid off and come clean about it all?
“I would have said yes you know,” Peter said softly before she could speak. His voice was horse, flat. “It’s not like I have any other options unless I wanna jump around in foster care.”
She turned to look at him fully. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
Did he really think-
“Sorry,” Peter sighed, and rubbed a hand down his face, “That…That was rude. I didn’t mean it like that.”
The fight drained out of him as quickly as it came. He slumped back against the couch, staring vacantly at the ceiling. All the tension he had coiled up over the last few weeks snapped loose, leaving him empty. If Pepper lifted his arm, she was sure it would fall like dead weight the second she let go.
Her heart clenched. Peter was hurting. Hurting so, so much.
She had seen it, but she should’ve done something, said something sooner.
The past few weeks have been a lot. Grief pressing in from all sides. The weight of SI amidst all the confusion. Steve coming back, but nothing changing. Everyone leaving…
Carefully, she scooted closer, lying back beside him in the same position. All thoughts of work gone. She didn’t touch him. She didn’t want to push him too far too fast but wanted Peter to know that she was still here.
Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them away.
She needed to be strong for him.
For the boy who deserved so much more than the hand, he’d been dealt.
“I didn’t say anything,” Pepper admitted, voice barely above a whisper but carrying throughout the living space, “because I was afraid of what you’d say.”
She swallowed hard, “I don’t want you to think I’m trying to replace anyone.”
Tony.
May.
Peter didn’t respond. Didn’t even flinch.
“Peter, you are the best kid I’ve ever met, and I know that sounds crazy because, well, we haven’t been around each other much, but it’s true.” Her voice wavered and she cleared her throat. “And if I'm being totally honest here, I don’t want to be alone. I want to have someone there for us, and I want you to be a part of it.”
Peter turned his head slightly, brow furrowing.
“Us?”
Shit.
This was not how she was planning on telling him.
“Yeah,” she exhaled, shaky, bracing herself, “I’m pregnant.”
Peter let out a breathless, stunned sound and sunk deeper into the couch.
“Shit.”
.
.
.
Peter had exactly one suit.
And God, how he hated it.
It wasn’t just a suit. It was a funeral shroud. A symbol of everything he had lost.
Ben.
May.
Ned.
MJ.
Tony.
It was the heaviest thing he had ever carried.
It laid on his bed for three hours. Peter stood above it, staring at it.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. told him the service was starting in twenty minutes.
Hands trembling, the fabric coarse and tight against his skin, he forced it over his shoulders.
The ride over was a blur and then suddenly he was back. Standing next to Pepper. Happy on his left and Rhodey behind him. He stood; they deserved that. But he was stiff, unmoving. Silent.
It was…nice. As nice as something like this could be.
Ben’s service had only been him and May. It was cheaper to cremate, and May was already struggling to pay the bills. They picked him up in a plastic urn for twenty dollars and brought him home.
This wasn’t extravagant, but it was Tony. He would have liked it. Small and private. Just the people who mattered.
Pepper made sure they played his favorite playlist when he was working in the lab. Albums of AC/DC playing in the background even as they lowered an empty casket into the ground.
Because there was nothing left to bury.
The gathering afterward was lighter, somehow.
He met a kid named Harley, just a year older than him. Harley was someone Tony had taken under his wing once, during the whole Killian fiasco. He apparently helped Tony ‘get off his ass and back to work,’ as Harley lamented. They hit it off immediately like they’d known each other for years. And even though it hurt, Peter smiled. Laughed, even when Harley talked about how Tony crashed in his shed in the middle of nowhere Tennessee.
He could hear him, telling him to relax.
Come on kid, I said you were giving me gray hair and now you’re giving yourself gray hair.
But then, just as quickly, another voice crept in.
You lost because you weren’t strong enough. You don’t deserve to just ‘relax.’
Peter agreed with that second voice more.
Later, Peter escaped to the outskirts of the group. Watching them all, laughing and telling ridiculous stories. Hearing every single one no matter how quiet they whispered in each other's ears.
The moment Steve Rogers broke away from the group, his eyes on Peter, he turned on his heel and walked out. No hesitation.
He couldn’t talk to him. Not right now.
When the crowd began to thin out, Pepper found him and led him to a side door.
Happy was already there waiting for them. Standing beside Tony’s favorite Audi, the door already opened a bouquet of May’s favorite flowers-white lilies- in the seat and beside it-
May’s ashes.
Peter's throat tightened.
Happy didn’t ask any questions. He just said, “Wherever you wanna go kid, we’ll go.”
Peter already knew.
May had told him herself.
.
.
.
Robert Moses State Park.
They took a lot of trips here when Peter was younger. Before his parents died, May and Ben would take him here for weekend trips. He always ended up sunburnt, rubbing the sunscreen off with the salty water and playing in the sand for hours. Ben chasing him around the shoreline. May helping him create the perfect sandcastle.
After they died, they still went. Ben, older, more run-down laying on a towel, dipping his legs into the water. May, keeping a smile on her face, got him ice cream and read in the sunshine.
And then when Ben died, they came here and spread some of his ashes in the water and the sand.
They didn’t come back after that.
Now, the beach was empty.
Peter didn’t know how-if Happy had pulled some strings, or if Pepper had arranged it, or if it was just blind luck. But he was grateful regardless.
He stepped onto the sand, May’s urn clutched tight in his hands and walked to the shoreline. The water nipped at the leather of his shoes. The sun was just beginning to set, dipping towards the horizon in hues of gold and amber.
He sat down, setting the urn beside him.
The tears came silently, but he didn’t wipe them away.
“Peter,” May was in the same black dress she wore for his parent's funeral, except now, it hung looser to her shoulders. Ben’s urn in her hands, her knuckles white, “This is where I want to go too.”
She laughed then, wet, and her shoulders shook, “I’m a free spirit, Peter. You have to scatter me all over the ocean. And it must be at sunset. I love a good sunset.”
She smiled at him, and then pressed a kiss to his head, tugging him closer to her side. Too skinny, he could feel her bones. Could taste the tears pooling in her eyes.
“I want a better sunset than Ben. I have to get a leg up on him to brag about when I see him again. And if it's not good enough, you’ll have to wait for a better one-or else I’ll come back and haunt you.”
The lump in his throat nearly choked him.
Slowly, carefully, Peter lifted the urn, his fingers curled around the lid, but he didn’t twist it.
Not yet.
If he just held on, just a little longer, then she wouldn’t really be gone. Not completely.
Another wave rolled in, washing up the shore and retreating just as quickly as it came. The sun dipped lower.
Peter swallowed around the lump in his throat. His fingers trembled as he exhaled. He loosened his grip. Just barely.
“Promise me, Peter. You’ll help me get him one last time.”
A breath, shaky but steady.
He turned the lid slowly, and let the wind carry May into the sea.
The waves glittered in the fading light. The sky bled into deep blues and purples and pinks and oranges. A perfect, breathtaking blend.
Just like May was.
Peter sank into the sand, biting hard on the inside of his cheek.
“It’s a beautiful sunset May.”
He felt her ashes get carried away by the tide.
“Just like I promised.”