Archive of Our Own ^beta

 

Peter’s body was on fire.

One moment he stood there, helping Mr. Stark up, and in the next one excruciating pain pushed the air out of his lungs. He was burning without flames, swaying as though on a boat. He could barely hear what the others were saying, barely see anything other than silhouettes turning to dust. And that was what happened to him to, wasn’t it? He was dying, he was falling apart at the seams and it just hurt, it hurt so much there was barely anything in this world but pain. Except—

“Mr. Stark?” Peter pressed out, and he could barely see the silhouette belonging to his mentor turn to face him. “I don’t feel so good.” He stumbled because the pain was so strong, his knees almost gave out, staring at the flakes falling from his body. Flakes of the suit, flakes of him.

“You’re alright,” Mr. Stark said calmly, almost too calm, trying to convince himself of the impossible.

“I dunno what’s happening, I dunno what’s happening, I dunno—” Suddenly he couldn’t keep himself upright any longer and stumbled into Mr. Stark’s arms. “Save me!” Tears welled up in his eyes as he clutched to his mentor as though he was a lifeline. It hurt so much, it hurt so much, but he couldn’t just … that couldn’t just be it, right? He’d fought so much to make the world a better place, fought so much to stop Thanos, and this was it?

“I don’t wanna go,” he sobbed. “I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark, please. Please, I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go.” Peter’s head hit the rock hard as Mr. Stark lowered him to the ground, but he didn’t even felt it amidst all the pain as his body tore itself apart. It took all his remaining strength to look at Mr. Stark and whisper, “I’m sorry.”

Then there was nothing.

Dust particles flaked from Peter’s body and got picked up by the wind until they mixed of those from Star-Lord and Mantis and Drax and Doctor Strange. Tony leaned his forehead into Peter’s chest, holding his hands tight, but it wasn’t enough to keep them from dissolving from under his touch. No. No. Nonononononono. Not him, not Peter. They’ve only just started getting close, he couldn’t just lose him like this. Not now, not after everything they’ve gone through together.

Just two years ago, Spider-Man was just a faceless smudge on a screen, a maybe. A maybe he’ll be of use one day, a maybe I’ll recruit him, a maybe I’ll even give him an internship. He hadn’t even seen his face back then, hadn’t known just how damn young he was. Hadn’t known the trouble his puppy eyes would get Tony into, how he’d turn his world upside down and color it brighter than it’s ever been. Only now that he was turning to dust, Tony realized just how much of a son Peter was for him.

And now? Now he was gone, and he didn’t even know how much he meant to Tony because he was too emotionally stunted to notice, let alone tell him.

“That’s weird.”

Tony sat up and turned around to the blue cyborg, the world swimming before his eyes. It should have been her who died, not Peter. Not Peter with his unshakable optimism, who lit up the room as soon as he entered, who laughed at Tony’s stupidest jokes and wore science pun tees almost every day. “What?” he choked out.

“The boy.”

Tony blinked as he realized his hands were still wrapped around Peter’s, cradling them gently as though he were glass and would break at the slightest pressure. He didn’t dare look at him, but he rubbed his wrists with his thumbs, and under the flakes that rained to the ground, he felt the gold-titanium alloy of his suit. That … was strange. The others all dusted with their clothes, right? Why would Peter be any different? Unless—

Tony barely dared to finish the thought, and it took all his courage to look up at Peter’s face. He could only stare at him, his hair dark brown with sweat, tear tracks under his closed eyes.

“What—” Tony breathed. But he couldn’t be too sure. He couldn’t risk it, so he said, “Karen, vitals.”

“Peter is currently unconscious. His body stopped falling apart two minutes ago, and the healing process set in. He will make a full recovery.”

Tony couldn’t suppress the sobs that were bubbling out of his chest as he leaned down and cradled Peter in his arms like a baby. He’d survive. He’d live.

He’d be okay.

Tony didn’t know how much time had passed when the blue cyborg stepped next to him.

“We need to get going,”

Which, yeah, Tony knew they should, but there was nothing he wanted more than to sit with Peter and hold him, feel that he was alive. Maybe it was silly, but he felt like if he walked away, let go of his kid for a moment too long, he would vanish; turn to dust like the others had.

“Look,” the cyborg said when he didn’t respond, “it seems like the boy means a lot to you, so I understand that making sure he’s alive is important to you, but I’d rather you do that once we’re already well on our way back to civilization.”

Tony looked up at her, then sighed. “Fri, tell me if Peter’s condition changes.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. gave an affirmative, then Tony looked at the cyborg. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We need to fix one of the spaceships up and get going,” she explained. “While you were busy looking after the boy—Peter?” she guessed, then continued at his nod, “I had a look at them. I’m not sure whether it was intentional, but Thanos did a number on both of them. The repairs may take weeks, and that is even if we have enough materials to somehow make replacements for the gear that got destroyed.”

“So the goal now is to figure out which ship is the easiest and fastest to repair?” Tony guessed, and the cyborg nodded.

“How well-versed are you in the construction of spaceships?”

Tony grimaced and looked over to where he could see the remnants of Thanos’ ship that he had hit with a moon what felt like a lifetime ago. “I’ve never worked on a spaceship before,” he admitted, “but it can’t be that hard.” He looked back up at the cyborg. “Engineering is my forte, after all.”

“Very well,” the cyborg answered. “Then let’s go take a look, shall we?”

It took a few hours to scout out the situation, assess the damages on both spaceships and decide on a route to take. And it didn’t look good: the damage to both ships was considerable, and it was obvious even after a cursory glance that neither of them was fit for the fifteen-hundred-light-year journey through space. Instead, the cyborg—who introduced herself as Nebula—and Tony had to cobble together a spaceship that was up to the task despite neither of them having any experience in rocket science—or, Tony thought, the kind of rockets that went to space, at least. Because of course that was just his luck.

But they just needed to build something that would carry them to the nearest inhabited planet where they could find people that wouldn’t refuse them for Nebula’s past with Thanos and they could look for better parts and materials if needed—and food, because they definitely needed that. What they had found in the spaceships that hadn’t been destroyed might have been enough to sustain Tony and Nebula for about a month, but it was far from enough with a spiderling with an enhanced metabolism on their hands, especially considering that Peter was still recovering.

So yeah, the situation, while not completely hopeless, was still pretty glum.

Tony sat down on a boulder next to the wreckage of the second spaceship they’d scouted out—that of the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Benatar, as Nebula said—, and had F.R.I.D.A.Y. pull up Peter’s vitals that were not much changed from when he’d checked it last almost an hour ago. His heartrate and breathing were steady and normal for someone unconscious, and his healing had come to a stop at some point since the last check-up. The only concern was that the boy still hadn’t woken up, and Tony wasn’t sure whether that was because his body almost disintegrated itself and that took time to recover, or whether a deeper-seated issue remained, one that Karen wasn’t able to recognize at this stage, and damn, the uncertainty was just killing him.

“How is the boy?”

Tony flinched and looked up. He hadn’t even heard Nebula arrive.

“I guess as well as you could expect considering that he almost died,” Tony said, trying to keep his voice steady and not looking away from Peter because what if he disintegrated for real if he took his eyes off of him? “Apparently he’s all healed up now, but usually he wakes up pretty quickly on the rare occasion that he does faint from his injuries.”

Nebula sat down on a different rock that was maybe five feet away, then there was some clanging before a plastic box appeared in Tony’s peripheral vision. He looked up for a moment, then took it from Nebula before placing it in his lap and opening it. What he found inside looked like some sort of vegetable stew with pieces of unidentifiable meat in it.

“I took some food from the stash that Peter—our Peter, Star-Lord Peter—can eat, since he’s a human like you.” She paused. “Mostly.”

Tony turned his head to look at her. “Mostly?”

Nebula shrugged. “I thought it’s the best bet at finding something you could eat, too, but maybe you should still ask your AI if it’s actually edible for you.”

Tony sighed and looked down at the box. “F.R.I.D.A.Y?”

“There are some traces of elements that are harmful if consumed excessively, but their dosage is low enough that they will not pose any harm to you.” As she talked, a list of the different elements and nutrients popped up on the side of his screen.

That wasn’t too bad, but he needed to make sure. “And if I had to live off of this for, what, a month?”

The numbers on the screen changed. “The resulting concentration of those elements in your blood would cause light poisoning, but after a month it will be at a stage where these effects can be reversed within a few days of treatment.”

Tony breathed a sigh of relief. That was far from optimal, but light poisoning was an acceptable price to pay if it meant getting home, so he grabbed the spoon, opened his faceplate and started eating. The consistency of the stew was similar to stews from Earth, but the taste? The taste was unlike anything he’d ever eaten.

Nebula and him ate in silence for a while, then she asked, “so, you’re the expert on engineering—what’s the plan?”

Peter often thought about what came after death, which probably went hand in hand with the number of people he had already lost in his young life. He wasn’t sure what an afterlife would look like, if there even was one, but the thought that there might be something, that his parents and his uncle might still be out there somewhere, looking down at him from a fluffy cloud or something—it was nice. To think that they were still looking out for him, watching him in what he did and were proud of his achievements, be it in school or as Spider-Man.

He had thought often about an afterlife—and he certainly imagined it on a cloud, as heaven, even though he wasn’t even Christian, but simply because it was such a prevalent image of it; but all the variants he’d imagined had a clear, blue sky, no clouds above those that formed the ground of the afterlife, and, well, a bright shining sun high above. He didn’t even think about the possibility of a night sky above, or bright stars twinkling above and strange, broken metal structures reaching their arms into the sky.

Peter sat up and held his head, and then he took a proper look around. This … this didn’t look like any afterlife he had ever imagined; he was lying on a scratchy mattress on the rocky floor, giant metal constructions that resembled seven-pointed stars and might have been satellites at one point, and there weren’t even his parents or Uncle Ben to welcome him like he always thought. No, he was well and truly alone right now, the world a silence place with … barely any sounds now that he thought about it. This place seemed pretty much deserted, if it weren’t for the distant noise of clanging on metal that suddenly stopped.

What even happened? All Peter could remember was excruciating pain, and then—nothing. And before that? He’d been on a field trip, sitting next to Ned, and then … the spaceship! There was a spaceship, and he told his best friend to cause a distraction and then—then everything came back to him. Thanos, the Infinity Stones, Titan. And then, Thanos must have won because he’d seen several people disintegrating in front of his eyes, and then he himself had started to disintegrate, and Mr. Stark had held him as he was literally falling apart, and—where was Mr. Stark? His arms were the last thing Peter could remember, and now he wasn’t here anymore, and—what if he, too, had died when Thanos succeeded? What if he had just taken a little longer to be affected?

“Peter?”

The boy’s head snapped up, and he stared at Mr. Stark with wide eyes. Mr. Stark, whose expression was full of wonder.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked back, and his voice broke, quiet and hoarse, as though he hadn’t used it in days.

Something fond, something soft and squishy with relief entered Mr. Stark’s eyes. “Bambino,kid” he whispered almost reverently, and they could only stare each other, drinking each other in, eyes alight with awe that the other was alright, alive.

And then Mr. Stark was suddenly next to him, wrapping his arms around him, and Peter froze, his eyes widening in surprise, but he quickly relaxed into the touch. It definitely helped that his ear rested on the man’s chest so he could hear his heartbeat, reassuring him that maybe he wasn’t okay, but at least he was alive and that was a good start.

“You’re alive, figlio,son” Mr. Stark rumbled with a low voice, “Oh, thank God you’re alive.”

Peter couldn’t quite identify the emotions in Mr. Stark’s voice; the nuances were drowned out by relief. He could swear that the man was choking on tears, too, but it was hard to see when Mr. Stark pressed his head to his chest like this.

“What’s that mean?”

Mr. Stark was quiet for a moment, then he said, “It’s ‘kid’ in Italian.”

Peter frowned—he was not a kid anymore—, but he didn’t complain. Instead he asked, “And bambinokidkid?”

“Pretty much the same.” Mr. Stark was much quicker to answer this time.

“You never called me that before,” Peter noted pointedly nonchalant, even though his mind was racing. Yeah, his mentor had called him monikers before, but it had never been in Italian, and Peter knew that he didn’t speak that language often, or at least he’d never spoken it around him, so why the sudden change?

But Mr. Stark didn’t give him an answer, only shrugging. Very helpful.

“How long have I been out?” Peter asked after a stretch of silence, and Mr. Stark shifted with a sigh. He pulled away, but didn’t move from where he sat so close to Peter that their thighs were touching.

“Three days. We should get you something to eat,” Mr. Stark added. “You must be pretty hungry with all that healing you did.”

But he didn’t move, and so Peter didn’t either, and now they were sitting there in silence, and now that Mr. Stark didn’t hug him anymore, he was starting to feel cold, but he didn’t want to admit it either in case that it would just ruin things. Because, well, it would just ruin things, because Peter was just the dumb mentee Mr. Stark was stuck with, no matter how much he wished that there was more, no matter how much Peter felt that Mr. Stark had become a father figure. Because, well, the entire thing was one-sided anyway, he was just an annoying kid to his mentor who’d never see him as a son. There was no need to hope for anything more. And yet, hope he did.

“I hope Aunt May won’t worry too much,” Peter changed the topic.

Mr. Stark hummed. “She’s probably gonna think we’re dead, bambinokidkid,” he admitted. “That we’ve been killed in the snap.”

Peter felt a pang in his heart. May had already lost so much; the thought of losing him too would hurt her so much, it would destroy her. “We’re gonna prove her wrong then,” he declared and looked at Mr. Stark. “And everyone who thinks we’re dead.”

Mr. Stark smiled, but it was a little strained, worried. “That we will, figlioson.”

“Both the spaceship we used to get here as well as the spaceship of our allies are completely trashed,” Mr. Stark informed Peter as he led him past a few rock formation into the direction of the clanging noise. They weren’t the only ones who survived then; though Peter had to strain to remember who of the people they fought Thanos with had survived. The two of them, sure. And … the blue cyborg? At least Peter was pretty sure that they hadn’t died and the rest of them disintegrated.

“Since the, um, Dusting, Nebula and I’ve taken to trying our hand on a spaceship of our own, but it’s been going slow. So far, we used Fri to create a blueprint and located the pieces we’re going to use, and we’re currently in the process of freeing them from the respective spaceships and welding them together, though gathering the parts we need will be a whole lot easier now that you’re awake.”

They turned around a final rock formation and found themselves in a more open space, with several … what only could be described as rooms lying around. Metal, mostly, from the looks of it, and Peter found the cyborg using a makeshift hammer—or maybe it should rather be called a club?—to hammer a small piece of wall back in place, then they used one of Mr. Stark’s gauntlet to create enough heat to weld it shut. Then they looked up at them.

“Hey,” they said and walked over to them. “I’m Nebula.”

“Hey!” Peter replied and held his hand out. “I’m Peter. He/him. What are your pronouns?”

“Sie/hir and ze/zir,” the cyborg responded and took his hand.

“Oh,” Mr. Stark said quietly and looked at Nebula. “I didn’t think to ask and assumed—I’m sorry.”

Peter looked at him. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Mr. Stark knew that he was trans, and he’d never misgendered him where he could hear about it, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth because what if he’d misgendered Peter if he wasn’t there to hear it?

Nebula eyed Mr. Stark up with a frown. “I forgot to tell you,” sie said with realization dawning in hir eyes. “It’s fine. You couldn’t know then.” Ze turned back to Peter. “It’s nice to meet you, Peter. Tony talked a lot about you.”

Peter’s gaze snapped back to Nebula. “He did?”

“I only said that his powers will be useful in getting the spaceship up and running before our food runs out,” Mr. Stark pointed out, and Nebula shook hir head.

“No, it was more about the lines of how amazing you are and how your intellect might help—”

“Okay, I did say that,” Mr. Stark interrupted, and oh, Peter preened under the compliment on his not-father-definitely-mentor.

“—and also,” Nebula added with a sharp look at Mr. Stark, “he moped around about the possibility of you not waking up again.”

“Okay,” Mr. Stark interrupted zir again, “that’s enough, I need to show the kid the blueprints.”

Nebula laughed dryly. “Sure thing, Iron Dad.” And then sie turned on hir heels, walked straight back to where sie came from and picked up hir work again, and Peter could see a smile forming on hir face from how Mr. Stark spluttered how that was not it, ze didn’t know what ze was talking about, and Peter couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Even though he didn’t think that Mr. Stark saw him that way, it was still amusing to see how Nebula teased him with it.

Mr. Stark groaned and put an arm around Peter, pulling him along to a different part of the construction site. “Just ignore he—hir. Ze’s a menace to society.”

Peter grinned. “Ze’s cool.”

“Oh no,” Mr. Stark exclaimed and yelled over his shoulder, “I do not need you putting your stupid ideas in my intern’s head.”

Nebula just threw a middle finger over hir shoulder, which … yeah, Peter would never do that with Mr. Stark, because what the fuck, but also it was funny to see how ze riled him up.

Mr. Stark sighed when he sat down on a rock close and stretched his legs, then held out his left arm and told F.R.I.D.A.Y. to display the blueprints. His gauntlet projected a blue hologram into the air, forming a 3D-model of a space ship that Mr. Stark walked him through. Peter supplied ideas every now and then, most of which Mr. Stark actually implemented—which, he always listened carefully to his ideas in the lab so it shouldn’t be surprising, but on the other hand, Peter didn’t know anything about actual non-fictional spaceships and drew most of his ideas from movies, or at least the kind of technology in them that wasn’t wildly inaccurate. But well, if it was good enough, he’d take it—and he resolved to devour more research about how space shuttles and rockets work in case he’d ever need the knowledge again. And even if he didn’t—he was excited about the topic now, anyway. Maybe he wouldn’t by the time they returned to Earth, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn a bit, just to cover all eventualities.

 

When Harley had watched the news last night, during dinner with his family, he didn’t worry. They worried about the strange, doughnut-shaped spaceship appearing over New York—what if it was like the failed invasion of 2012, except this time the invasion wouldn’t fail because only half the Avengers were left?

Harley was more optimistic than that. He’d met one of the Avengers, and he’d seen how traumatized the ‘12 invasion left him, but also how determined he was to make this world a better place, a safer place, so that something like that wouldn’t happen again. And he succeeded—the spaceship had left after maybe half an hour of Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and the Hulk fighting its passengers. Just like Harley knew they would succeed. That was why, by the time dinner rolled around and they sat together on the couch around their wobbly coffee table with the prior day’s leftovers to watch the news, Harley wasn’t worried anymore. The threat was deterred, the Avengers (or what remained of them) saved the day yet again.

That’s why what happened next hit even harder.

It was one of the first days of Harley’s summer vacation. He slept in, because why wouldn’t he enjoy the freedom of staying awake as long as he wanted and sleeping without his alarm blaring in the morning to the fullest?

By the time he made his way down to the kitchen for breakfast, it was already noon. Abby laid on the living room couch with her sketch pad, drawing something Harley couldn’t see from where he passed her, then he flopped down on one of the chairs next to the kitchen table.

“Look who’s finally awake,” Macy said from where she was scrolling some news app on her phone next to him.

“I’m on break,” Harley complained and buried his face in his arms. He could hear how his ma’s chair pulled back and she rummaged around in the kitchen. He heard the coffee machine, and then the click of a mug set down on the table in front of him. He looked up to find his Iron Man mug, steaming and smelling of coffee. If Tony ever saw it, Harley’d say he bought it ironically. Ha. Ironically, get it?

“Thanks, ma,” he said and pulled himself a bit more upright, then grabbed his cup and took a few sips. Caffeine didn’t always help with waking him up, it didn’t always work like that for him, and most of the time he was still tired even after several cups of coffee, but it often helped enough for him to make it a regular part of his morning.

“There’s still no news of Tony Stark,” Macy said, because she knew of Harley’s obsession with Tony Stark that he’d harboured ever since he was old enough to begin to understand how important he was for the tech world, and that had grown ever so much stronger once he actually met him (though he’d never told Macy about said meeting).

Harley stared into his cup of coffee that he drank black because he liked the taste—and maybe only a little bit because he felt more mature drinking it that way, sue him—and asked, “and the others? Doctor Strange and Spider-Man are missing too, right?”

He didn’t need to look up to see his mother shake her head. “Pepper Potts has confirmed that they aren’t on Earth at the moment, but considering that they were seen on and around the spaceship before it left the atmosphere, that’s not too surprising.”

“That’s what I thought,” Harley said and sighed. If they were off the planet, there was no way to figure out whether they were okay, whether they would even be able to return or were maybe even stranded in space. But it was fine. While Harley didn’t know much about Spider-Man or Doctor Strange, he knew Tony. Only for a day, sure, which probably didn’t count for much, but he knew him. He knew him enough to know that even if he ended up stranded in space, he would find a way to return. Because he cared about this planet and its people, and he would give his all to protect him.

But just when he looked up to tell his ma that, he caught a whiff of dust and sneezed several times. When he opened his eyes again, still a bit lightheaded, Macy was gone.

The next few days passed in a flurry of waking up, eating not enough, and getting to work. There wasn’t much else they could do, stranded on Titan as they were, so they spent most of their waking time trying to make sure they would find home eventually (even though Nebula said sie didn’t know where hirs was, or if sie even had one now) and Peter would be lying if he said he wasn’t glad about the constant work. It gave him less time to overthink, at least, and at the end of the day, he was often so tired out that he would pass out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

It wasn’t just all the work that exhausted Peter though, he knew that. His lightheadedness and brainfog reminded him of the days he failed to eat enough for his enhanced metabolism. He knew that they had to ration their food as long as they could because they couldn’t be sure when their spaceship would be ready for departure, but it was still hard. Especially since Karen all but confirmed that his body was still fighting with the aftereffects of the Dusting.

But it was fine, he’d made it for over half a year with barely eating enough after he got his powers—before Mr. Stark took him in as his mentee and had Dr. Cho make a general medical examination to figure out what they were dealing with regarding his powers and figured out that Peter was starving himself. He would make it for a couple more weeks of not eating enough, too. Even though his rations now were only just enough for the average teenager; but he didn’t dare say anything about it because he knew Mr. Stark would fuss and spend more of their rations on him, which they couldn’t afford because they needed to ration their food carefully, as they couldn’t tell how long they would be stuck here.

But it wouldn’t be for much longer, so it was fine.

Whenever Nebula closed zir eyes, ze saw people turning to dust. Peter—Star-Lord Peter—and Drax and Mantis and the sorcerer Tony told hir was called Doctor Strange were the first and most prominent, considering that sie saw them disintegrate right in front of hir, but they were only four in a long handful of people ze watched die in zir nightmares.

Sie didn’t know for sure who of the people sie knew were dusted, but hir nightmares showed her everyone sie ever cared about. There was Gamora; even though sie knew she probably didn’t find such a merciful end as being turned to dust. There were Groot and Rocket, who along with the rest of the Guardians have started to become family, there were people ze fought with, people ze fought, and people ze thought ze’d long forgotten. Hir nightmares even showed hir hir family—even though sie knew they couldn’t have been dusted, they’d been killed by Thanos when sie was just a child.

While working on a spaceship with Peter—Spider-Man Peter—and Tony was a welcome distraction, challenging enough to stave off the thoughts and nightmares creeping up on zir, it couldn’t keep them at bay completely. When sie stopped for a moment too long, they were right back again, tormenting hir with the images sie’d seen before and those sie didn’t. So ze kept moving.

It was the moments sie couldn’t keep on moving that got to hir, though. Because even as a cyborg who barely needed to eat or sleep or drink, ze did have to rest every now and then. Less than other people, but the rest sie did need was more than enough for hir thoughts to start tormenting hir again. And ze was a fighter, it’s what ze needed to survive as Thanos’ ward, in his army. Fighters didn’t show their emotions. Fighters didn’t cry, and certainly not about something like this. So Nebula kept quiet. Ze locked zir emotions away, and tried to logically sift through the onslaught of the emotions that hit zir.

Sie knew that the deaths of Star-Lord Peter, Mantis and Drax, just as Gamoras could have prevented if she hadn’t worked for Thanos for so long. Same as the death of half the universe, and ze didn’t even know who of the people ze met were dead so ze willed zir vivid imagination to stop assigning them the faces of people ze knew died long before Thanos won, that died a different way, and to stop assigning them the faces of those that sie might perhaps a little started to care about. Not that ze started caring about them enough to call them family or assign an emotional value to them, that would be the exact opposite of a good idea, the opposite of logical, of what ze was supposed to do.

No, the only reason sie might possibly be upset about their possible demise would probably be that sie was the one to aid Thanos for years, and lead him to the Soul Stone—as involuntary as that may have been, it was still hir fault. Ze was the one who allowed him to gain what he needed to slaughter half the universe. Sie should have made sure that the only people who knew the stone’s location—hir and hir sister—wouldn’t be able to relay that information to him, be it voluntary or not. Even if the only way to achieve that would be death.

But no, after ze escaped from Ego along with the Guardians of the Galaxy and realizing that what Thanos did was wrong, ze had allowed zirself to become too comfortable around them, to forget about Thanos’ plan, forget about stopping him. While sie knew that, by the time of her desertion, he was in possession of only the Power Stone, sie shouldn’t have been this complacent. It had taken him mere days to find the other five once he started searching in earnest, and ze should have realized that the more stones he had, the faster he would be able to find the other ones. Nebula should have seen it coming, sie should have made sure to obscure all traces that might lead to the Soul Stone and—

Before ze could finish the thought, there was a thud, and ze looked up to find the boy collapsed on the ground.

Tony and Peter were talking about the progress they were making with the spaceship, while Nebula, as per usual, used zir lunchtime to sit quietly and think. Peter had gotten less excitable and more easily distracted ever since he woke up from almost being dusted, which wasn’t surprising at all considering the fresh trauma he’s gone through, but when the boy got up to get back to work after he finished eating and fainted on the spot, Tony realized that maybe there had been more to it.

He couldn’t do anything but stare for a moment, and Nebula did the same, but then Tony caught himself and found himself on his knees next to the boy, cradling him in his arms while checking him over for any injuries while he ordered Karen to check Peter’s vitals, and she confirmed that he passed out because of too-low blood sugar. Peter was lucky that he didn’t get more than a few scrapes besides that.

“We’ll definitely need to up his food intake,” Tony declared and sat back on his heels.

“He should rest for at least a day,” Nebula suggested. “It might prolong the construction process but it will be safer for him if he takes a break.”

“He’s not gonna like it.” Tony looked down and scanned Peter’s face, the lashes fanned out over his pale cheeks over dark eyebags. He definitely looked like he needed rest, and if it took more food and less work for that to happen, Tony would do his best to keep Peter from any work.

The thing is, Tony was aware that the past few days had been strenuous for sure, what with having too limited supplies and hard physical work. But it should have been fine, even for the kid, because Tony knew that Peter had gone with an average teenager’s eating habits for months even after his enhanced metabolism kicked in. The meals he got weren’t ideal, sure, but Tony had F.R.I.D.A.Y. calculate the lowest safe amount for Peter to eat, and he made sure several times that Peter knew that he could eat more if he ever needed it. But the boy had always insisted that he was fine, and now Tony realized that, despite getting better at it, Peter still couldn’t be trusted with asking for what he needed. And if Peter couldn’t ask for it, that meant Tony had to keep an eye on it and figure out himself when Peter wasn’t fine despite insisting that he was. Like you would a son, a voice at the back of his head whispered, but he shoved it aside because he couldn’t think like that.

He did allow himself to lay Peter down in his makeshift bed and tuck him in, like a father would. But he didn’t do it because he saw Peter as a son, he did it because it would be more comfortable. That was all.

Harley blinked. He knew his ma had been right next to him a moment ago. Her empty coffee mug was still on the table where she left it, and the chair looked like it hadn’t been moved at all, but she must have gotten up and walked out of the kitchen while he was distracted. Which was fine, she mentioned she’d do some cleaning today. What he wanted to tell her wasn’t even that important—he’d tell her if it came up again, which it probably would, but it wouldn’t be a big deal if it wouldn’t, so Harley slumped back over his mug.

It was quiet, almost too quiet, but Harley didn’t mind, not now. He preferred silence, especially when he just woke up, so he wasn’t going to complain. He finished his coffee and then made himself a sandwich to take over the garage because of course he’d have to spend his summer break in his lab—especially since his best friend was on vacation with her parents for the entire week and couldn’t nag him about coming out and ‘enjoying the nice weather’ with her. He knew she meant well, but it also drained him more often than not, and he wanted to spend time in his garage instead of recharging from being out all day until he went to sleep.

Harley, with his sandwich and a glass of water, made his way through the living room, pausing for a moment when he realized that Abby vacated the couch, then shrugged and continued onwards, placing what would essentially be his breakfast on his workbench and dropping himself in his chair. Then he pulled Abby’s headphones that he was trying to repair towards him and started looking over last night’s work to check whether he’d made any mistakes because he was tired, but there was a sense of uneasiness that he couldn’t explain, and it only grew stronger the more time passed.

He got up and caught himself with his hand on the worktable when he got up, blinking the black in his vision away, and went back to the living room when his dizziness subsided. Just to make sure. Even though he wasn’t sure what to make sure.

Harley frowned when he opened the living room door and looked at the couch that hadn’t been this gray last night. Abby’s sketch pad and pencils were still strewn on it and the coffee table, and she’d left her phone and glass. He stepped closer, his eyes still locked on the gray film on the couch that just seemed like it wasn’t supposed to be there and swiped his finger through it. Dust. He thought back to the dust that made him sneeze in the kitchen around the time Macy must have left, and his stomach sank.

He all but dropped on the couch, not caring that he sat on one of Abby’s pencils and that she would yell at him for it if she came down the stairs and into the living room now. He didn’t pay any mind to the dispersed dust either, instead grabbed the remote and turned on the news, not sure what to look for; all he knew was that there had to be something, and suddenly yesterday’s invasion of New York was all too clearly on his mind. Maybe, in directing the spaceship away from earth, Doctor Strange, Tony, and Spider-Man hadn’t succeeded in thwarting the aliens’ plan. Maybe they just left to continue fighting somewhere away from earth.

And, Harley thought when the frantic reporter on TV tried to make sense of why part of her crew just vanished, maybe he had been too quick to believe that the worst part wasn’t yet to come.

Harley wasn’t sure how long he’d sat there and stared at the screen while reality sunk in—that, just like the news crew on TV, his ma and sister were gone now, all of a sudden, turned to dust, as it seemed—but as soon as he caught himself, he made his way back to the garage, picking up the landline from the hallway on his way because he didn’t want to run up into his room for his phone. He rummaged through drawers of blueprints over blueprints and the odd school worksheet until he found the sign he’d come into the garage to not long after Christmas, six years ago. “Potato Gun Mark II,” it said, “Your pal, the Mechanic.” And on the backside, there was a phone number scrawled into the corner. Harley had only found it a few weeks after the sign appeared in his garage, but he’d never quite found the courage to call it. He wasn’t even sure if it was still in use, but he just had to check. If anyone knew what happened, it had to be him.

The phone rang and rang, and then—“This is Tony Stark.”

“Tony,” Harley began, and he’d thought of calling so often and now he didn’t know what to say—but at least he had him on the phone right now, and that had to count for something. “This is Har—” he continued but was cut off by a sigh.

“Leave a message. Or don’t, I don’t care.” Then a beep sounded from the phone, and Harley slumped. Fuck. But he could still leave a voice message for when Tony was back, he should at least try.

“Um, this is Harley Keener,” he attempted again. “The one from Rose Hill, Tennessee. I helped you during the Mandarin incident, remember?” He dropped his forehead into his palm. “You probably don’t, forget that I said that. Um—” He took a deep breath and took a moment to collect his thoughts. “You left your number for me on that sign when you renovated my garage, that’s why I have your number. And I just—you know, I’ve watched the news yesterday, with that spaceship in New York? And I just wanted to ask if you’re okay. Because of, well, you know.” And now he was rambling. Amazing. Harley grimaced.

“That wasn’t the only reason I called,” he added quickly. “I just—ma and my sis just vanished and I just—I turned on the news and it’s not just them and I wanted to know if you knew anything? Like, is it related to the spaceship thing? Are they like … gone-gone or just temporary?” And now his voice was shaking, great. And not just his voice, his hands too. He took a deep breath, then added, “call me back,” before he hung up. Then he dropped the phone and his head into his hands. Fuck, were they really gone now, weren’t they?

Peter needed a moment to reorient himself when he woke up. He found himself in his cot, in what was pretty much more shelf than bed, when the last thing he remembered was eating lunch with Mr. Stark and then—nothing. He sat up (or at least as much as he could in this crammed space) and rubbed the dull pain at the back of his head, then turned to leave his bed before being pushed back with a hand to his chest.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Mr. Stark said sternly and glowered at him.

Peter blinked at him. “What happened?” The last time Mr. Stark had looked that disappointed in him, he took his suit away, please don’t take the suit away.

“You passed out,” Mr. Stark explained, and a laugh escaped Peter.

“Well, if it’s just that …” He turned to leave the bed again but his mentor didn’t let him.

“What do you mean, ‘if it’s just that’?”

Huh. Somehow, Mr. Stark seemed even more mad now.

“Well, I just passed out, I’m fine.”

Mr. Stark frowned. “You see, this is where I don’t follow because that just now? That was a paradox. That you passed out clearly shows that you’re not fine.”

Peter frowned. “It’s fine, it just happens sometimes.”

“Passing out just doesn’t happen without any underlying health issues,” Mr. Stark pressed, “especially not on the regular.”

“It’s a spider thing,” Peter tried to placate him. “It’s nothing to worry about. It’s mostly got to do with temperature. That’s why I installed the heater.”

His mentor frowned. “It’s pretty warm out.”

“And that’s why I said mostly,” Peter responded. “I haven’t quite figured out why it happens when it’s not too cold, the other times were mostly at the beginning tho, so I’m not too worried about it.”

Mr. Stark watched him for a moment, then sighed. “Have you felt dizzy, lightheaded or nauseous lately?”

Peter blinked. “No?” he lied, and Mr. Stark crossed his arms.

“Peter …”

The boy sighed. “Fine, maybe a bit, but nothing bad.”

“Of course it’s bad if you pass out!” Mr. Stark took a deep breath. “When you passed out from non-cold related things at the beginning, was that before homecoming?”

Peter looked away and wracked his head for the answer. He was just so tired, he felt like his brain was put into a box of cotton; like there was fog surrounding it that made it so much harder to parse anything that wasn’t within arm’s reach. But after way too long, he settled on, “I think so? Maybe once or twice after homecoming, within two weeks, I think.”

When he looked back at Mr. Stark, he glowered at him again. So that was not the right answer, apparently.

“I told you the rations don’t matter if you need more food,” he explained and leaned forward and—yeah, that wasn’t what Peter expected. “Your body tried to disintegrate itself, and it only makes sense that you need more food to recover, and I thought you would take more if you need more.”

Peter lifted his shoulders and hid between them like a turtle in its shell. Oops?

“But our rations are limited,” he tried to argue, “and it’s fine—”

“It’s not fine!” Mr. Stark exclaimed and flung his arms out in a gesture. “It’s not fine if you’re starving yourself until you pass out!”

Peter blinked. “You think I passed out because I wasn’t eating enough?”

“Didn’t I make that clear enough?”

Peter examined his face and found concern shining through the anger and exasperation. Oh. Mr. Stark wasn’t angry—or not just angry at least—, he was worried.

“I just … brain fuzzy. Brain slow,” he tried because he didn’t know how else to describe the feeling.

Mr. Stark’s face fell into something softer, and he leaned back with a sigh. “My hypothesis is that your passing out when it’s not cold outside, and maybe some of the times it is, at least during your first winter as Spider-Man, is because you’re not eating enough since it stopped not long after you started your new diet.”

“Huh,” Peter said and slowly dropped his shoulders a bit. “Which means—?”

“We’re gonna up your rations and you’re gonna rest at least for the rest of today to regain your energy,” Mr. Stark said in a tone that didn’t allow any protests.

“Mhhhh,” Peter hummed, not quite an affirmative but mostly because he just thought of something—faraway and fuzzy enough that he couldn’t quite reach it but something related to his passing out and spiders.

“Do you understand?” Mr. Stark asked, and Peter nodded absent-mindedly.

“Eat more, rest for today. Got it.” Then he hummed again. What was that tidbit of information that he knew was there but failed to remember? Something about winter, about several weeks without eating—

“Karen, do spiders hibernate?” he asked. He felt like he should know that but right now his brain wasn’t working the way it should, like it often enough wasn’t, but the pre- and post-passing out periods were even worse.

“Spiders do not hibernate, but they experience diapause, which can be caused by changes in daylight hours, reduced temperatures and inadequate food supply. While spiders generally can go for days at a time without food, especially with enough access to water. When spiders go into diapause, their metabolism often slows down enough for them to survive for months without food.”

Peter raised his eyebrows at Mr. Stark, not sure what his point actually was, but pretty sure the point he was trying to make when he asked Karen that question was in there somewhere.

Mr. Stark eyed him up for a moment, then sighed. “How about I’ll get you some more to eat, and then you go back to sleep and we’ll talk about it tomorrow?”

Peter nodded and waited for Mr. Stark to return, and then his mentor kept him company as he ate; and only when the boy was drifting off to sleep, he heard his footsteps leave.

Harley stared down at the phone lying on the workbench where he dropped it, but he couldn’t quite see it through the curtain of tears blurring his sight. He wasn’t even sure what to do or think. It was a weird thought that his ma and Abbs could turn to dust just like that, in the blink of an eye. Except Harley couldn’t even be completely sure that that was what happened; he was just jumping to conclusions, but given the sudden appearance of dust where his family had been and what he’d seen on the news, what else could have happened? He could search the entire house for them, and their backyard, see if they hadn’t taken the car to the store or to a trip they forgot to mention or that he forgot about, but the feeling in his gut told him that it would be for naught.

He didn’t know for how long he’d sat there like that, on the verge of crying but not quite able to, but the silence was disrupted by the ringing phone. He picked it from the workbench and didn’t even check the caller ID before picking up.

“Yes?” he blurted out, suddenly breathless. The air was almost static with anticipation while he waited for Tony’s voice to ring out, but all hope left him when a too-high voice answered.

“Am I talking to Harley Keener?”

Harley nodded before he realized that the caller wouldn’t be able to see it. “Yeah.” He couldn’t help the disappointment in his voice.

“I’m Pepper Potts, you left a voicemail to my husband just now?”

Harley blinked. Right, there was no way he could reach Tony right now with him probably in outer space or something. He didn’t even think about that. Oops.

“Are you still there?” Mrs. Potts asked, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, sorry, spaced out for a sec,” Harley said quickly.

“Normally I don’t listen to Tony’s voicemails anymore, but when his AI notified me that an old underage friend of him just reached out for help because his legal guardian vanished, I thought I should at least call to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“I think so?” Harley sniffed. “Do you perhaps know what happened?”

Mrs. Potts was silent for a moment, then she said, “You remember the alien invasion of 2012?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the man who lead that attack, Thanos, came back to try and finish the job. Tony found out that he’s trying to gather very powerful stones, I think they’re magical? And with those he was trying to wipe out half the universe. His men captured Doctor Strange who’s … who was in possession of one of those stones, and Tony and Spider-Man followed them to try and protect it from Thanos. But the suit’s connection cut off from the main servers after that and we haven’t heard anything from them since.” Mrs. Potts sighed. “And while I haven’t gotten any news from the Avengers in Wakanda yet, considering the news and your call, I’m pretty sure that we lost. I’m sorry.”

They lost. And half the universe was gone now. And that’s why Macy and Abby vanished.

Harley thought if he got the confirmation that they were gone, dead, there would be some sort of big emotional outbreak. With crying and screaming and maybe some pleading, because that’s how it was in books and movies. That’s how it was supposed to be, right? But despite the pressure behind his eyes, there were no tears, no nothing. He felt eerily calm at the same time, as if nothing even happened, and it was weird and wrong that he wasn’t feeling anything because who could not feel like their world was falling apart when the two people they were closest to just stopped existing from one moment to the other? And now he was worrying more about not worrying about their deaths than about their actual fucking deaths—

“Harley?”

And it wasn’t like he didn’t know that he had a lack of empathy and had trouble being compassionate, but that he remained unfeeling even in the face of the death of the two people who were closest to him? He was the absolute worst, he—

“Harley? Are you still there?”

Oh. Harley almost forgot that he was still on call with Mrs. Potts. He loosened his death grip on the phone and nodded. Silence answered him, and he realized that he’d nodded yet again and quickly answered. “Uh-huh.”

“Is there someone you can call?” Mrs. Potts asked. “Someone you can stay with?”

I don’t know, he thought, but instead he said, “uh-uh.” He wasn’t even sure why he said that, all he knew was that he was a despicable excuse of a human being and he needed to get out of here, and yet he was rooted to the spot.

“I can send someone to pick you up in two hours,” Mrs. Potts said, and that finally tore Harley out of his guilt.

“What?”

“If you don’t have anyone you can stay with, I can send someone to pick you up and you can stay with me for a while,” Mrs. Potts clarified.

“But … why?” Why would anyone want someone as heartless and broken as him?

“Because you saved Tony back in the Mandarin incident,” she explained. “And with that, you saved my life too. I owe you.”

Harley frowned. He still couldn’t understand why she wanted him around, but he didn’t have the energy to argue so he just said, “Thank you, Mrs. Potts.”

“Call me Pepper.”

Tony couldn’t stop thinking about Peter’s suggestion for the rest of the day, and even though he was exhausted from all the heavy physical work, it kept him up when he was trying to sleep that night. He wasn’t even sure whether he could call it a suggestion at all, considering Peter had never clearly verbalized what he meant, and he’d been so drunk on sleep still that Tony wasn’t sure Peter even fully understood what he said, let alone whether he’d even remember it. Tony hoped he wouldn’t; that meant that they wouldn’t have to even consider doing it, because there was no way that he’d let his kid—his protégé starve himself just for Nebula and Tony having more food as they worked, not even if Peter was right and he actually could survive for months without eating.

And then Peter, after having slept until after lunch because Tony and Nebula decided to let him sleep in, ambushed his mentor and practically beseeched him to let him starve himself. Tony decided to ignore him; if Peter wanted to follow him around all day and whine that was his decision, but then Peter pulled out his puppy eyes, and when he did that and wobbled his lower lip, he looked like he was about to cry.

While Tony wasn’t sure whether Peter did it on purpose, that didn’t matter much in the long run, because damn, it was effective. So Tony did his best not to look at Peter and ignore what he said, and it worked. Peter left him alone and returned to work which, though Tony would prefer if he rested some more, was miles better than him bugging Tony all the time. So he’d take it.

But of course that wouldn’t be the end of it, because mere hours later, Peter was back at his side, this time with that determined look on his face that Tony had learnt to fear. It was this exact expression that he put on whenever he was going to completely ignore what Tony said and do something stupidly dangerous.

“Whatever it is, no,” Tony declared after a quick look at Peter’s face.

“But I didn’t even say anything?” the boy protested.

“You don’t need to, I can hear you plotting,” Tony responded and tightened a screw.

“I’m not plotting!”

Tony turned around to Peter and looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Peter dropped his gaze. “I wasn’t plotting,” he repeated with a pout, as though that would convince his mentor.

“Right, if you’re not plotting, you can tell me why you’re here.”

Peter took a deep breath and looked at Tony, and there that determination was again. “Fine, maybe I was plotting. But you can’t force me to eat.”

“We talked about this,” Tony said and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I won’t let you starve yourself.”

“I’m the one who needs the most food,” Peter argued. “You and Nebula can keep on working, and sure, you might need to work for longer then, but the supplies will last a lot longer too, and you can wake me up once you’re done and I’ll eat as much as you want me to.”

Tony grimaced. “Peter …”

“Please let me do this,” Peter pleaded. “I just—I know we don’t have many supplies left and I just—if me doing this lets us all live long enough to go home, how could I not do this?”

Tony scanned his face, and found not just determination, but fear and worry too. He swallowed, then gently laid a hand on Peter’s shoulder to lead him a few feet away to sit down. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to figure out how to put the emotions bubble under his skin into words.

“Bambino,” he settled eventually and met his gaze. “I’m your mentor. In the lab and when you’re out as Spider-Man, I have a duty to protect you. I promised May I’d look out for you. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“But—” Peter protested, but Tony interrupted him.

“You think you might go into diapause when you don’t eat enough. Just because you go into diapause when it’s too cold doesn’t mean the same thing happens when you’re starving yourself. It’s just a theory, and that’s what scares me.”

Peter’s look fell into one of surprise. “You’re scared?” Then a tiny laugh escaped him. “Because of what May’s gonna do if she finds out?”

“Wha—no!” Tony exclaimed. “I—figlio, I’m not scared about her reaction, I’m scared about you. Not just because I’m supposed to take care of you, but because I care about you.”

And yeah, Peter definitely looked way too surprised at this, which was something Tony would have to take care of if they got home. No, not if, when. And for that Peter had to be alive, and Tony needed to think of a way to stop him from his hunger strike.

“You—what?” Peter asked.

“I care about you, figlio,” Tony repeated. “I don’t want to see you hurt, and not just because your aunt would behead me if I endangered you. I don’t want to see you hurt because I care about you, a lot, even though I’m shit at showing it. And I just—” Tony looked away because he could feel his expression slipping and he wasn’t sure if he wanted Peter to see just how emotional he was getting. He didn’t even know why he was getting so emotional. Sure, Peter almost died a few days ago and now threatened to go on a hunger strike—oh, well, that ought to do it.

“I just—why are emotions so hard?” Tony could practically feel Peter looking at him, and it just stressed him out even more because he didn’t know what to say.

“Dunno, but take your time.” There was a moment of silence, then Peter’s head dropped against Tony’s shoulder, and he looked at the boy in surprise.

“If you’re tired you can rest, you know?” he said and ruffled the kid’s hair. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and pulled back, but barely.

“‘m not tired,” he mumbled and, as if to refute his words, yawned. “That was not a tired yawn.”

Tony chuckled. “Sure thing, kid.”

Peter now pulled back fully and glared at him. “I’m serious. I just—” He dropped his head back on Tony’s shoulder and continued staring at him, and Tony didn’t quite understand the point he was trying to get across.

When it became clear that Peter wouldn’t elaborate on that, Tony looked down on his hands and sighed. “I guess what I was trying to say is … My parents were shit at showing me he cared so I never really learnt how to do it. Just ask Pep.” He glanced at Peter for a moment before he continued, “And I know I can get overbearing sometimes and you don’t like it but it’s just … I don’t know how to protect the people I care about. I mean, I build stuff, yeah, but that’s just not enough sometimes so I just try to keep them out of trouble as best I can.” Now Tony looked at Peter again, the boy watching him attentively. “And I get that I go overboard sometimes—no, scratch that, actually, most of the time—and I’m trying to get better at it, but that’s one of the biggest ways I that I care. That or throwing with money, I guess.” He chuckled mirthlessly, and Peter joined in.

“It’s not that I’m overbearing because I don’t think you’re capable, I know you’re capable but … You still have a lot to learn, hell, I still have a lot to learn. And you’re gonna make mistakes, mistakes with unpleasant or even downright dangerous consequences just like I did, and sometimes it’s not even down to skill but sheer luck, and I just don’t want you to suffer the consequences for your mistakes as I did.”

“You can’t protect me from everything,” Peter pointed out, and Tony sighed.

“I know, I’m just still trying to get that into my head. But, bambino, my point is that I’m scared of what’ll happen if you do it. You have super-healing but you’re not invincible. What if your metabolism slows down enough to do long-term damage? Even with Karen to monitor your vitals, we still don’t know how to induce food scarcity-induced diapause in you safely and what vitals are healthy.

“If we’d tried this in a lab setting before and knew the parameters to do it healthily, I might argue that your plan is a good idea,” Tony admitted. “I might even encourage it. But as it is, we don’t even know if you can go into diapause in this specific situation or if it’s not just plain ol’ human passing out from low blood sugar. And I guess you’re right if you say that I can’t force you to eat but I really, really do want you to just because I don’t want to see you suffer from any long-term effects because we miscalculated.”

“Even if something went wrong, I wouldn’t blame you,” Peter tried, and Tony sighed.

“But I would,” he insisted, and Peter was silent for a while.

When they sat down together with Nebula for dinner almost an hour later, the boy took a bigger ration than usual.

When Pepper hung up on him, it felt like Harley was waking up from a dream. He’d been rooted to the spot ever since he’d tried to reach Tony, unsure what to do. But now? It was like there was finally something he could do that wasn’t just to sit around and wait.

He left the landline on his workbench, then hurried up into his room, pointedly not looking at where his ma and his sister had vanished as he rushed past. He wasn’t thinking much at all when he dumped the contents of his ratty old schoolbag on his bed. It was the very same bag that Abby had fixed with subtle embroidery when it had started falling apart at the seams. Then he looked around for what he would need and swiped his phone and charger from the nightstand that found a place in a side pocket, then his laptop and its charger followed. He ended up throwing some fidget toys and his headphones back inside, then he decided to take care of clothes, but not many would fit in his backpack, so he tiptoed into Macy’s bedroom just to find the suitcase on her closet where he remembered it. 

Harley felt weird being in her room all alone, knowing that he wasn’t supposed to go in there without her permission, and yet … she wouldn’t be able to scold him for it, so he climbed on her bed where it was closest to the closet, trying not to fall in the gap between them as he tried to remove a box from on top of the suitcase without tipping it over, then put it on the bed next to him before pulling down the suitcase that slipped through his fingers and crashed to the floor. He stared at it for a long moment because of course it had to fall, and then climbed off the bed to pick it up with a sigh, making his way back to his room.

He dropped the suitcase onto his bed and dropped himself next to it, just … sitting for a moment. Or maybe a lot of moments. It wasn’t exactly that he needed to rest, at least not that he could tell, but … he just felt like needed to sit for a while. Not really thinking about anything but not exactly not thinking, either. It was more like he attempted to think but the thoughts slid past him before he could grasp them. Harley knew he should get up and get up, but it took him several tries until he could actually get his body to listen and got up quickly. He braced himself against the wall and waited until the dizziness subsided. 

He made his way over to his closet and packed the clothes he wanted to take with him, then took down the rainbow flag hanging on his wall and put it on top. And now … he was almost done, actually. He packed a few books and then went down to his garage to pack a few of his smaller projects, one of them Abby’s headphones, then he decided to throw away his breakfast because he wasn’t even sure he could get it down now. 

And then he sat and waited.

It had taken them almost a week to build something resembling an actual spaceship. It was smaller than those of Thanos or the Guardians had been, but it was big enough for three passengers for a day-long journey—maybe a bit less, but they could only determine that once they figured out just how much power the ship had. It was difficult to test that on Titan, even with the simulations F.R.I.D.A.Y. and Karen could run. But then again, they were both offline and had only access to the hardware in the suits, so there was a limit. They just had to hope that the calculations they had been able to do were enough, and that the ship would bring them home before their supplies would run out.

They were almost ready to leave—they had only a few more things to bring on board before they could leave, but now, it was time for dinner.

Especially after Peter’s conversation with Mr. Stark, they had made sure to eat together to make sure none of them overworked themselves and to make sure none of them skipped any meals because as few supplies as they had, they needed the energy for working, and Peter was kind of glad about it. He’s always been prone to skip meals, if it was just that he didn’t want to stop what he was doing at the time or he just plain forgot—or that he hid his enhanced metabolism from May so she wouldn’t suspect that anything was off—, and it would be easy now to justify not eating because they didn’t have much food, or because diapause might be a good idea after all, or because the work on the spaceship was more important. He knew if he had a way to justify not eating, he was more prone to skipping meals, even if he knew he should eat, and so it helped that Mr. Stark always called him to meals now.

They usually spent their meals talking, enough that Peter sometimes had to force himself to eat so he wouldn’t forget. It was mostly him and Mr. Stark talking; Nebula wasn’t really talkative and preferred to listen most of the time, and when ze did talk, it never was about anything personal. Tonight, they hadn’t talked much, though. Maybe it was the exhaustion of the efforts of the past few days, or maybe it was just that they wanted to get this over with as soon as possible so they could leave, or a combination of both. It was Nebula who broke the silence.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” sie said with a tentative look on hir face as sie watched Peter. “You mentioned that you’ve been fighting for a while now but I don’t understand why.”

“’Cause he’s a stubborn one,” Mr. Stark said with his mouth full, and Peter just raised his eyebrows at him. “Don’t give me that look, it’s true.”

Peter stared him down some more for good measure before turning back to Nebula.

“What about it don’t you understand?”

“You’re still young. You have family who loves you and provides whatever you need. Why would you fight if you don’t have to do it to survive?”

 “It’s a long story,” Peter said and looked down, thinking of what happened December 2015. “It started about two and a half years ago when I got my powers. My class had a field trip to a scientific facility that secretly experimented on a spider with a formula to create superhumans. I got lost and somehow found the labs where those experiments were done, and one of those spiders ended up biting me. Then I got really, really sick for a few, I thought I was gonna die, but I didn’t. And when I recovered, I was extremely strong and could stick to things. That’s how it all started.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you’re fighting,” Nebula noted, and Peter nodded.

“I was just getting to that. It’s not something I talk about often.” Peter looked at Mr. Stark who gave him a reassuring nod and took a deep breath. “It’s not even that long of a story, I don’t know—” He laughed awkwardly.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Mr. Stark said, and Nebula nodded, but there was something in zir expression, in zir body language, that demanded an answer. Peter wasn’t even sure if it was intentional, but it felt like something akin to worry; and not the overbearing kind that May and Mr. Stark showed around him. Nebula had never showed him in any way that sie found him incapable, sie had treated him like a warrior from the first moment. Ze treated him like an adult, like he could make his own decisions and live with the fallout instead of trying to keep him from bad decisions, so he was sure zir worry ran deeper than that, even though he couldn’t quite pinpoint where it came from.

“I mentioned that I lived with my aunt and uncle from six years old to fourteen, right?” Peter started. “And just with my aunt after that.”

Nebula nodded.

Peter frowned and swallowed around the lump in his throat. “So … the reason my uncle stopped living with us is …” He chewed on his lower lip and took a deep breath. “He died,” he added quickly so he wouldn’t lose his courage, his momentum. “Went to the corner store to grab stuff for dinner and got shot when the store was robbed. And I—I was supposed to go to the store after school, but I forgot, so he went and—I should have offered to go instead, or go with him, but—” He let out a shaky breath and fought the tears welling up in his eyes. “I didn‘t, and so he died. And that’s why I became Spider-Man.”

“Because your uncle died?” Nebula asked.

“To make sure other people’s Uncle Bens wouldn’t die.” He looked up at hir and continued, “When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen … they happen because of you.”

Nebula looked back at him, frowning, but with the beginnings of relief blooming on zir face. “So you fight because you don’t want others to lose their loved ones like you did,” sie said, and when Peter nodded, sie clapped a hand on his shoulder. “That’s a noble cause.”

Peter smiled despite the pain that talking about it caused because Nebula understood.

Peter, Nebula and Mr. Stark finished the last preparations after dinner, and then they boarded the spaceship. Nebula volunteered to navigate the ship because ze needed less rest than them, and so Peter and his mentor retired to the small cots they’d installed almost immediately.

The last week had been exhausting enough that Peter fell asleep almost instantly, and relief that he’d return home soon let him rest easier.

He couldn’t tell how long he slept before Nebula talking to Mr. Stark woke him up. Something at the back at his mind told him that Mr. Stark was to take the second shift navigating and that was probably why, so he turned around, determined to catch some more sleep.

“What?” he heard Mr. Stark snap before Nebula shushed him.

“You’re gonna wake Peter,” sie scolded, and that shut his mentor up. And then—“I need you to look at something.”

Mr. Stark groaned. “Can’t that wait ‘til I’ve slept some more? What time is it even?”

“You slept for approximately five hours but this can’t wait. I don’t know how to fix it.”

Peter could hear the rustling of blankets, and then, “How to fix what?”

Nebula said something too quiet for Peter to understand, and he glanced over his shoulder to see zir leave. Mr. Stark was about to follow when Peter murmured, “Wha’s wrong?”

His mentor knelt down next to him and carded a hand through his hair. “It’s nothing, bambino, go back to sleep.”

Peter nodded, confused, and then Mr. Stark left.

When Peter awoke the next morning, he thought he must have dreamt that conversation.

The first thing Harley noticed upon arriving at JFK airport was that New York was colder than Tennessee. Maybe it was the way the clouds were heavy as though they wanted to cry with him, locking out the sun like an unwelcome visitor, or maybe it was because Harley just felt kind of cold. Like someone had pressed pause on him, he felt somewhat like the world was moving on without him. As though he’d been frozen in time the moment he’d heard the news, or at least his heart was. And his thoughts.

In any other situation, Harley probably would have looked around the airport, and then out of the car windows in wonder once the man who picked him up from Rose Hill—Happy, he introduced himself as, despite looking decidedly unhappy—was driving him and his luggage to Avengers Tower. He would have tried to be as big a menace as possible because that was just what he did. But somehow, the thought of that didn’t bring him any joy. Some part of him knew he shouldn’t feel like that, and so he just … didn’t. Just stared out of the window instead, barely taking anything in despite the fact that this was his first time in New York, or out of state in general.

He didn’t even realize when Happy stopped in the parking garage until the man said something, and then Harley scrambled to get out of the car. He pulled his suitcase out of the trunk, then swung his backpack on his back, and Happy took the two bags he’d filled with stuff from his garage, and then they made their way to the elevator.

If Harley had the mental capacity to properly take it in, he would have been impressed by the voice that welcomed them both, and how the elevator didn’t even need any prompting to carry them up to the penthouse. But now he just stood there, holding onto the suitcase like someone was trying to take it away from him, and waited until the elevator spat them out in a spacious, richly decorated living room with floor-deep window that offered a breathtaking view of New York.

A strawberry blonde woman sat on the couch in a dark blue dress, a StarkPad in her lap, looking up when they entered the room. A warm smile spread on her face when she put the tablet away and got up. “You must be Harley,” she said, and Harley could recognize her voice from their phone call. “I’m Pepper, nice to meet you. I prepared one of the guest rooms for you.”

Harley nodded. “Thank you Ms. … uh, Pepper.”

She smiled. “Of course. You probably wanna rest and unpack first, and then I could order us dinner later?” Pepper suggested.

“That sounds good,” Harley said, even though he wasn’t hungry at all.

“Okay, I’ll show you to your room then.”

Harley and Happy followed her down a wide hallway with photos hanging from the walls, showing Pepper and Tony and Happy and Colonel Rhodes and a brunet boy Harley’s never seen before. They stopped in front of a simple door, and Pepper opened it with a flourish.

“This is the room you’ll be staying in,” she explained, and Harley stepped past her with hesitation. It was plain white walls and simple wooden furniture on a warm brown wood floor—real wood, probably, not the linoleum made to look like it that Harley was used to. He dropped his suitcase and backpack and then reached for the bags that Happy had carried for him.

“You can ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. if you need anything,” Pepper said, and then he was alone, standing like an idiot in the middle of a room that was supposed to belong to him but that couldn’t be any more foreign. It didn’t feel like him at all, and he wasn’t sure if he could ever make it his own, if he ever could truly relax in here.

He sat down with a sigh and pulled out his phone so he would have something to do, even if it was just mindlessly scrolling social media, but when he turned it on, the sheer number of notifications gave him pause.

He really should have expected that people would try to reach him after what happened.

Peter should have known that something was wrong when they didn’t arrive on Earth a few days after their prediction. Especially with what he then thought was just a dream and the way Nebula and Mr. Stark whispered with each other only when Peter was in bed and too tired to focus on what they were saying. He shouldn’t have been so surprised when Tony sat him down after breakfast maybe a week into their travels with a dark expression that Peter couldn’t quite read, not even looking at him.

“What’s wrong?” Peter asked, anxiety only rising higher the more time passed. He noticed his leg bouncing so he stopped it.

“Something went wrong,” Mr. Stark explained, staring at his folded hands rather than Peter. “Nebula noticed that we were losing fuel not long after we left, and we tried to fix it, we thought we fixed it, we even tried hooking the ship up to the arc reactor, but …”

Peter frowned. “What are you trying to tell me?” What his mentor said sounded like they were stranded in space, but they couldn’t be stranded in space. They had to get back home. He had to get back home, to make sure that May and Ned and MJ were okay. They couldn’t be stranded in space.

Mr. Stark took a deep breath and looked up at Peter, an apologetic look on his face. “We won’t be able to make it home.”

Peter stared at him for a long moment, then he shook his head. “No,” he breathed. “No. That can’t be—”

“Nebula and I tried everything that we could think of,”  Mr. Stark explained. “We didn’t want to worry you so we tried to figure it out on our own, but … nothing.”

“No,” Peter repeated. “That can’t be. There has to be a way. Maybe you overlooked something—”

“We tried everything,” Mr. Stark interrupted him, then pulled up a holoscreen with a scan of the ship. “We can take another look at it if you want, but I don’t think we’ll find anything we haven’t tried.”

Peter just gave him a Look before he got to work.

They scoured the schematics for hours; it wasn’t like they had anything better to do after all. They took a small break for lunch before they went right back to it, but the more they looked at them, developed ways to try and fix it just to find out that there was no way to do it while retaining enough fuel to bring them home, the more Peter lost hope that they would actually be able to make it home in the end.

“So … what are we gonna do now?” Peter asked, and Mr. Stark sighed.

“We set up a distress signal once we realized that it’s very well possible that we might not make it home, so it’s been sending for a few days now. Since there are no other planets in a distance we could reach, it’s best to stay where we are and wait for help to come to us.”

Peter nodded. “Okay and … how long is that gonna take?”

“We have oxygen for two more weeks so I hope help will arrive until then,” Mr. Stark explained. “Food and water for a week more so don’t even think of going into diapause. You should be able to spend the last few days of your life awake, if it really comes to that.”

“But I’ll probably need less oxygen—,” Peter protested, but Mr. Stark stared him down.

“Not enough to give us more than a few hours.”

“But maybe these few hours will save us—”

“Peter,” Mr. Stark said sharply, and Peter flinched. His mentor rarely ever used this tone with him; the last time had been when he demanded his suit back from Peter almost three years ago.

“Yeah?”

“This is not up for discussion.”

He knew that technically, if he really insisted, Mr. Stark wouldn’t be able to stop him, but there was something vulnerable in his expression, almost scared, and Peter didn’t want to scare him, so he gave in and nodded.

Then Mr. Stark deflated with a sigh. “I was too harsh just now, I’m sorry.”

Peter blinked in surprise, then shrugged. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not,” Mr. Stark insisted and worked his jaw. “I just—I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

“Huh?” Where was that coming from? “Why would I be afraid of you?”

“You flinched.”

Peter blinked. “Oh,” the boy said softly, watching his mentor for a moment, the anxiety and worry he didn’t even try to hide. “I’m not afraid of you, I promise.”

“But—” Mr. Stark begun, but Peter interrupted him.

“I’m not scared of you,” he explained and, because it seemed like Mr. Stark wasn’t going to let this rest, added, “It’s just … the last time you used that tone you took my suit so …”

“How is that better? How is that different?”

Peter opened his mouth to answer but he couldn’t find something to ease his mentor’s mind so he ended up repeating, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not okay,” Mr. Stark insisted. “I will make it up to you.”

Mr. Stark really seemed to mean what he said considering that the next few days, he spent a lot more time with Peter, that they talked a lot about things that weren’t Spider-Man or the Avengers or lab stuff, even played some improvised games to pass the time. Peter wasn’t sure how genuine it was but felt nice that his mentor, his idol for most of his childhood and now father figure, finally made an effort to spend time with him that wasn’t just lab time or the odd training session. He felt appreciated, in a way that he never felt with Mr. Stark before, and he hoped that it was real and that it wasn’t just because his mentor felt sorry for him.

He decided to embrace it though, because if he overthought about it, it would just make him more anxious. He could still think about it if, no, when they went home.

But the more time passed, the less likely it seemed that they would be rescued, the less likely it seemed that they would ever return home, and even though Peter kept wanting to believe that they would make it, he started making his peace with the fact that they wouldn’t. And he was sure that Mr. Stark did, too, even though he tried his best not to show it. Even the stoic Nebula got more quiet when their last day of oxygen rolled around. Death did that to people, Peter thought, at least when it came creeping this slowly, and now they did their best to spend their last bit of time together, even if it now was more sharing each other’s presence than talking. Or at least that’s what Peter thought until Mr. Stark asked if they could talk.

“Uh … sure,” Peter said and followed his mentor out into a different room where they sat down, a bit nervous because what would be left to talk about? “So, what’s up?“

“I‘ve been thinking a lot since—since the Dusting,” Mr. Stark said, not quite looking at Peter. “There’s this thing I’ve realized that I think you should know, but …”

“But?” Peter asked, and Mr. Stark glanced up at him before looking away.

“I may not have been completely honest when I told you what figlio means,” he admitted and frowned.

Peter blinked. It made sense with the way Mr. Stark had told him the meaning. “What does it mean then?” 

Mr. Stark was quiet for a long moment, fidgeting, and Peter wasn’t sure whether he should be relieved or even more nervous that his mentor seemed to be just as anxious as him.

“It means ‘son,’” Mr. Stark admitted eventually, and that just couldn’t be right. Peter couldn’t help but stare, not sure how to react because he had to have misheard that one. He often misunderstood things others were saying, so it would be nothing new, so he’d rather hold his breath and wait until Mr. Stark said something else than assume and embarrass himself.

His mentor, his father figure, looked up, and his expression was open, genuine, vulnerable as he said, “Bambino, you’re like a son to me.”

Peter stared at him some more until he could manage to force out an answer. “I am?”

Mr. Stark nodded. “Yeah, I …” He looked away and bit his lip. “I realized when I—when I thought you died but it’s been there much longer than that.”

Peter breathed a quiet “Oh,” because what else was he supposed to say to that? He wasn’t even sure he could say something if he tried. And then it was quiet for a long time, not quite comfortable because Peter just didn’t know what to think, how to react.

“I just thought you should know,” Mr. Stark said and got up. “But we can also pretend like that conversation never happened if you prefer—”

“No!” Peter exclaimed, and he didn’t really think about it but the next thing he knew, he jumped at Mr. Stark and wrapped his arms around him to keep him from leaving and they tumbled to the ground.

“Wha—”

“You’re like a dad to me,” Peter blurted out before Mr. Stark could leave him, and that seemed to shut him up. Then the boy sat up next to his mentor because the way they were lying on the floor was uncomfortable, and also because what he just did started sinking in and that was embarrassing. “I mean—”

“Do you mean it?” Mr. Stark asked and sat up, looking at him with wide eyes.

“Uh … yeah.”

A wide smile formed on Mr. Stark’s face as he opened his arms. “I’m glad I didn’t make a complete fool of myself then.”

Peter fell into his arms all too glady. “Maybe you shouldn’t have waited this long though,” he said with no heat behind it, and Mr. Stark gave an affirmative hum in his hair as he wrapped his arms around him.

Maybe they didn’t have much time left, but they were going to enjoy what little time they had.