Chapter Text
Dying doesn’t seem too bad, after watching your mentor disappear in front of you. It's actually kind of welcomed after spending three weeks on a spaceship aimlessly drifting through the stars.
Peter is so tired of all this. Losing. At every corner there’s something to lose. There’s always something his sticky fingers can’t hold on to. A backpack in the alley, a sneaky thief, his parents, his uncle, the cute girl in school.
And now, as he’s about to lose the last bit of air too, with no way of winning, and no way of knowing if his last living relative or best friend is a pile of dust or waiting for him at home, he thinks that perhaps, maybe closing his eyes for the last time, losing the absolute last thing, utterly alone, staring at the void he used to seek guidance from, it isn’t so bad after all.
#
He doesn’t close his eyes for the last thing. The bright light and the beautiful woman in front of him makes sure of that. Peter has never been religious, but his brain is scrambling for some kind of logical explanation, and the only thing he can come up with is that she’s an angel. Sent to save him or help him into the land of the dead and forgotten. He doesn’t care which, at this point. As long as she takes him somewhere.
Her name is Carol Danvers, it turns out. From earth. And an accidental freak just like him. Maybe in some other universe they could be friends. But Peter doesn’t want any new friends right now. He’s lost everything he can possibly lose at this point. Adding things he can’t keep in his grasp feels pointless.
May and Ned and MJ are gone. Mr. Stark is gone. Steve Rogers, surprisingly, is back. Like he can just waltz in and claim his old spot now that Mr. Stark isn’t here to fend for it.
Peter would do it, in his honour. But he doesn’t see the point. It’s not like he’s planning to stick around and possibly bump into the guy anyway.
He needs to get home. If he even has a home anymore. He needs a job. He needs to get back to college. He needs many things, butting heads with former avengers is not on that list.
#
Tony Stark left him money. Peter wants to scream and punch the guy. Money won’t fix anything. Asshole . Pepper is too stubborn to allow Peter any moment to return them. Or maybe he just doesn’t have the energy to fight her for it.
He buys an apartment. A two-bedroom brick box with a skylight that wakes him up early enough to get to class on time. It’s not like he has anything else to do with his time anymore. He was never much of a social person before, but he had his usual Lego-building sessions with Ned, facetime appointments with MJ, dinners with May. Lab time with Mr. Stark.
He doesn’t have any of that, now. And taking on the suit to play the hero feels like the world's biggest bluff. So he studies. And reads. And studies some more. He keeps his grades up, stays months ahead of everyone else, and does his best. It’s the least he can do. It’s the only thing he’s confident in doing.
His life isn’t much, but it’s all he’s got. It’s all he deserves.
#
He ignores the incoming calls from the various avengers. He figures they’ll take the hint eventually. He didn’t hang out with them before, didn’t know them, he wasn’t a part of the team. He’s not about to start now.
The calls do stop, after a few months. But then one morning, still half asleep and almost late (because the sun doesn’t feel like getting up in the winter, either), he almost runs into Pepper when he yanks open his front door.
She looks just as strong and beautiful as always. Even hidden away in a winter coat that looks two sizes too big on her slim body.
“Hey Pete. Can I come in?” No . He thinks. I have classes , he wants to say.
He steps aside and she swoops past him in one elegant move.
“Coffee?” is all his not-yet-awake brain can come up with. This woman has absolutely nothing to do in his apartment, and he can't find any good reason for her to show up. They haven’t talked since he came back. Except the almost-not-quite argument about Mr. Starks will.
Pepper wants tea. So, Peter shrugs off his coat and toes off his shoes to make tea.
She wanders around his brick box while he boils the water, but she doesn’t say anything. She picks up a book, pretends to read it, closes it and moves on. Peter doesn’t know what to do with this very important woman who casually walks around in his safe zone. She looks so out of place, and her whole being is screaming that she would rather be anywhere else. She hasn’t even taken off her coat.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Potts?” He places her steaming cup of green tea on the coffee table, intentionally just a little too harsh to get her attention away from the empty wall.
“You don’t have any pictures.” Which – yeah. Not even close to answering his question. He cocks his eyebrow at her, and dumps down in his armchair, tucking his knees to his chest. “How are you?” She tries instead, sitting down politely on the couch, reaching for the cup.
“Fine.” He is fine. Totally. He’s moving forward. Working on his degree and trying really hard not to look back. It’s not working with his mentor’s on again/off again girlfriend sitting in his living room.
“What about you?” She looks good at least. There’s a glow to her that he doesn’t recognize, and she smells different. Sweeter. But she looks healthy.
“I’m fine. Pete...” oh. Oh no. That tone. It’s the worried parent tone Peter is so used to from May. He can’t help it, his senses take over and he strains his ears just to get a whiff of the familiar worried-parent heartbeat.
He does a double take and narrows his eyes at her for a second. Watches as realization washes over her. You can take your coat off. I know .
“Congratulations.” He blurts out, and she looks startled for a second, but then her shoulders relax a little as a small smile tugs on her lips.
“Thank you.” Peter suddenly wants to offer to help. The sweet unfamiliar smell is invading him, making him dizzy, and he doesn’t understand what’s happening. But he won’t offer help. She’s clearly moved on, and probably has someone to take care of her.
It doesn’t explain why she’s in his apartment this early on a Wednesday morning. “It’s Tony’s.” It still doesn’t explain anything. It’s not Peter’s business. It has absolutely nothing to do with him.
“Why are you here, Pepper?”
“People are worried about you. About Spider-Man. He’s been gone since the snap, and the public may think he turned to dust, too, but I know you Pete. You don’t give up. What happened?”
“I’m not a hero. I lost.” He wraps his arms around himself. Just thinking about this is too much. Being forced to talk about it feels like getting his heart ripped out.
Pepper is suddenly standing over him, hands cupping his cheeks, and watery eyes staring at him. “We lost honey,” she says. In that gentle whisper that makes his own locked away feelings burst from their prison like fireworks. It’s all too much, and it all spills over.
She drags him over to the couch and cradles him while he cries. The chanting words of ‘it’s okay’ and ‘you’re gonna be fine’ and ‘you’re enough, honey’ is ringing in his ears the whole time. Her long, manicured fingers are carding through his messy curls and she kisses his forehead.
It’s so overwhelming, and Peter is hit with the longing of that intimacy. He didn’t even know he needed it.
#
Pepper starts showing up every week after that. Sometimes they sit tangled together and cry, other times they order take away and watch movies. They talk about Peter’s studies and Pepper’s concerns about raising the baby alone. It’s easy, and they stay clear of any hurtful themes.
She forces him away from his studies to go shopping for everything the baby may or may not need.
#
The first genuine, happy smile that appears on Peter’s lips is caused by a grainy ultrasound picture. He has never seen something as beautiful as that in his entire life.
#
They still avoid the topic of the lost ones, it’s still too hard to talk about, but Peter can’t help but feel a little grateful about everything that happened when he’s looking down at the beautiful little girl sleeping peacefully in his arms and the exhausted, yet relieved look on his best friend in the medical bed beside him.
He still has problems thinking this is a reality he gets to be a part of. The little girl with chubby hands and dark hair is a spitting image of her father, and Peter thinks there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to make sure she grows up happy. He’ll protect her with his life. It’s the least he can do after failing her dad.
#
Pepper moves to a cabin on the other side of the lake from the avengers compound upstate. Peter never thought he would see Pepper shy, and he can’t help the fond smile that creeps up his face when she asks if he’d like to come with her to help with Morgan. “Of course.”
#
He gets his own room, and Peter thinks maybe rich people have different terminology than the general public. The cabin is more like a small castle. But he gets the room next to Morgan, so he can calm her down in the middle of the night. Pepper needs her sleep. It can’t be easy running a company as big as SI when half the worker has disappeared. And Peter is just a college student. They’re supposed to run on caffeine anyway.
He takes his classes online, and is already way ahead from his first months after everything happened, so he’s got plenty of time to play with the giggly girl, sing songs he only remembers parts of from the few memories he has with his own mom, laugh as he tries to introduce her to solid foods and beam with pride when she crawls under the couch to push her ball further away.
#
Something changes, one night. Morgan is sleeping and Pepper is sitting on the couch between Peter’s legs as he massages out the knots in her shoulders and neck.
It’s not new for them to sit like this with the tv playing in the background, yet something feels very different. Peter can’t quite put words to it, but then Pepper moans as he kneads on a specific spot and oh .
He doesn’t stop. That would just be too suspicious, but he’s suddenly very aware of how good her hair smells and how her skin is shining on her shoulders. When she moans again and shifts a little backwards, he’s also reminded of how close she is to his very responding body. He bites his lip, breathes through his nose and prays she won’t notice.
She notices. She has to. Because she keeps wiggling and moaning and then she turns around, kneeling in front of him and Peter is not made to deal with this kind of stuff.
She’s beautiful. Always has been, but there’s something special about seeing her in an old tank top and pajama shorts. No make up, and her strawberry hair in a loose bun on the top of her head. It’s so different from the public CEO everyone else gets to see, and she looks at Peter like he deserves to see her vulnerable and private like this.
“Pete” the whisper is barely audible, even for Peter’s hearing, and her eyes flicker down to his lips. He doesn’t know what his expression is like, because he can barely get a grip on what the hell is happening.
He doesn’t even notice when she leans in, but is vaguely aware of her cold hand cupping his jaw. Her lips are soft, uncertain, and Peter’s brain goes on lock down. He works purely on instinct when he kisses back. He has close to no experience, and it’s clumsy, but filled with so much emotion and love and gratitude that it hardly matters anyway.
The guilt doesn’t settle until the next morning. When he wakes up in Pepper’s bed, with her sound asleep half on top of him, breathing peacefully, and is very, very naked.
Then Morgan wakes up and the guilt will have to wait.
#
The guilt trip is carefully locked away for much later examination, because Pepper gets up and gives him a good morning kiss. And then a good night kiss. And she doesn’t stop.
#
He moves into her room more permanently, and before he even has a chance to fully catch up, the walls are filled with pictures of Morgan and him, Pepper and Morgan and all three of them together. Peter doesn’t know when half of these pictures are even taken, and he has to think back to when he truly became a family man.
When Morgan calls him dada, he doesn’t want to think too much about it anymore. It doesn’t matter.
The box of guilt is sitting somewhere deep in his soul, and as time passes and Morgan grows, it doesn’t weigh him down as much as it used to.
#
There’s a soft knock on his lab door and Pepper strolls in before he even gets the chance to lift his head.
“Hey honey” the kiss on his cheek sends shivers down his spine just like every other time, and after almost four years, he doesn’t think he’ll ever not get electrocuted by her touch.
“I have a meeting with a potential merger this afternoon, can you pick up Morgan on your way home?” It’s not like he’d ever say no, but he appreciates her asking anyway. It just makes him love her even more. If that’s even possible.
#
It’s said that nothing good lasts forever. Peter would have been foolish to think that nothing would coma and ruin the peaceful life he has built with Pepper and Morgan.
It comes in the form of a spy, a super soldier and a regular guy with an awesome suit to make him small or big at will. They have a chance at getting everyone back. Peter wants to be eager about the idea. He would get to see his aunt again. Ned. MJ. Mr. Stark .
The box of guilt is trying to smother him the next few weeks, as they work on the time machine, because—yeah, time travel is a thing. He invented time travel.
Pepper (bless her ability to read him like the open book he is) tries to reassure him that nothing will change between them. That Tony won’t be able to take her back. She’s moved on. She loves him, and nothing will change that. Morgan will still call him dad, even if Tony comes back and wants to be a part of her life.
Peter still feels like an ass for running off with his mentor’s life. It’s suffocating.
#
Even more foolish than thinking his peaceful life would last, is the thought that time travel won’t have consequences.
Peter is partially prepared. He hasn’t used any form of Spider-Man costume in five years, but he makes sure the newest version, the one he made specifically for this mission, is prepared for anything.
He’s not prepared to lose Natasha. He didn’t know her that well, but she didn’t deserve to lose her life like that.
A determined, raging alien hell bent on being the saviour of the universe, however. He’s prepared for that. Morgan and Pepper are hiding in his old apartment with Happy as security, just to be a little safer about it all. Queens is further away from the Avengers compound than the cabin just across the lake, anyway.
#
Seeing all the portals open behind him is so unreal and huge that Peter has a really hard time believing it. But then Mr. Stark is hugging him like his life depends on it, and reality comes crashing down all at once.
He wasn’t necessarily planning on using the stones himself, but watching them lose all over again is just too much, and when Thanos gets the gauntlet, all he can think is that he has a chance to get it right this time.
He rips the stones from the purple maniac and doesn’t even question himself before snapping his fingers. It hurts. It’s hell times a million. Everything’s on fire, but at least everyone is safe now. They won. They got everyone back. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wonders what May will think of Morgan.
“Pete? Pete!” That sounds familiar. Why is the voice so scared? They won. “Pete, look at me” he wants to, but moving hurts. His eyes are heavy. He just needs to rest for a while. Let his healing kick in.
“Honey?” Pepper? What’s she doing here? “Honey, look at me.” Peter has never been good at defying her, so he forces his eyes open, and is met with teary, blue eyes and a sad smile. He wants to wipe it away. Reassure her that everything is fine. But he can’t move, and he can’t get his voice to work. “You did so good, Pete. You saved everyone. I’m so proud of you.” Thank you . She kisses him, and it’s like everything falls into place. “I love you.” I love you too .