Chapter Text
Prologue:
To say that his situation was weird, would probably be the understatement of the century- maybe apart from saying that he definitely, almost certainly, screwed. Now, Peter knew that he had been forced into odd situations before- it came with the task of being a superhero. But this was an out-of-body-experience. Literally. In the middle of a storage closet on the eighth floor of the Avengers’ Tower, was Peter Parker’s lifeless body. And Peter was staring right at it.
—-
The remaining embers of the scorching Sun were licked away by the glowing Moon as the dark blues and blacks engulfed the once bright sky. The winter breeze danced through the air, gently pressing against the web-slinger’s face as he moved from building to building in the safety of the shadows. He knew he’d have to hurry back from his patrol; tonight was finally the night when the Avengers would officially be reinstated. It would be starting in two hours- though he had told them that he would likely be late and that wouldn’t be able to eat with them. Over the past few months, they had already done a ton of missions together, pretty much moved past the awkward stages, and majority of them had already moved back into the tower. Throughout that time, all of them had come to enjoy the company of Queen’s local spider-vigilante, and- though not being an official teammate- they all agreed that he felt like a member of their little inner group. In fact, most of them had became rather fond of their spider pal. But now the team’s reinstating had became official on paper, and Mr. Stark had (of course) decided that it should be celebrated amongst the team.
It wasn’t going to be some type of grand gala or anything, just something quiet between the heroes and family. They had even offered to invite May, his aunt, but she had respectfully declined due to having shifts that night. But, despite the extreme excitement that bubbled through Peter, his spider-sense (or ‘Peter-Tingle’, as others, primarily May, had very annoyingly dubbed it) had been buzzing the entire day. At the same time, he lived in New York, there was always something dangerous going on- most days his senses were buzzing about stuff that he really didn’t need to worry about. Like someone accidentally selling out-of-date hotdogs or something. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this time was different. Something would happen.
There was just something about the atmosphere was…odd. It was winter, so the sky went dark a lot sooner than it did in other seasons, which meant that it wasn’t out of the ordinary for New York to be a bit quieter earlier than usual. But, this was probably his quietest patrol yet, literally nothing had been happening! And that scared him the most because something was always happening, it was the city that never slept after all. Regardless, he wrapped up his patrol and pushed all doubts to the very back of his mind as he prayed to be able to experience at least one day of interrupted peace for the first time in years. Buildings whizzed past in a blur of colours and shapes, the wind whistling in his ears as he sped back to the tower. Due to the patrol having been so quiet, he decided he may as well arrive at the time he had initially been offered to come. He hoped they wouldn’t mind him showing up before expected.
Whenever he entered the building in his suit, he wasn’t allowed to use the front door. It would probably raise some questions if Spider-Man walked in and whipped out the intern-security card that Peter had been given. With more energy than he normally had after a patrol, he swung around the back of the building and into a small window that he had made sure to leave open before leaving. He swung through it, tumbling into shelves of the small supply-closet with a thump! “So much for an elegant landing…” he sighed, standing up as he picked up a couple of the boxes of dusty folders that had dropped to the floor alongside him.
He dusted his suit off, before quickly turning around to shut the window- cold air already causing a chill in the room- before taking off the suit. Beneath his suit, was what he liked to call his “I’m cool and formal but don’t try too hard”look, at was pretty much just some brown chinos with a grey quarter-zip jumper, and some posh shoes that someone would likely wear to a wedding, and not out in public. Most of the items were too small as his Aunt May had purchased them for him a few years ago, pre-spider bite, when he was scrawny and they seemed baggy on him. Now they were rather tight, but he didn’t mind. The clothes were expensive, probably his most formal, so he couldn’t complain.
And then it happened. It had all gone down so fast that he’d barley had any time to react before someone burst through the door. Just moments beforehand, he had heard some strange sort of fizzing sound, before the person stormed into the room, almost knocking the door off it’s hinges, with a look of both panic and anger. It was quite a tall man, maybe late forties or early fifties, with a bald head. He had a long, but pale, scar that started beneath his left brown eye and ran down his tanned face, all the way to his dry lips. Peter stared at him, stuttering out some kind of excuse for being in a random storage-closet holding a Spider-Man suit. But, the man didn’t seem to really care for what he had to say or the weird circumstances in which he had stumbled upon. He looked Peter up and down, before silently smacking his palm into Peter’s chest.
”What the fuc-”
Time slowed as Peter felt an indescribable pain, like he was being ripped apart and reconstructed all within the seconds in between the man planting his palm into the centre of his chest, and releasing it. Golden sparks sizzled, popping around him as he fell backwards, The boy closed his eyes, opening his mouth to yell out in pain- but no noise made it past his lips. Only a couple of seconds had passed, but it had felt like hours by the time the excruciating pain had subsided into eventual numbness. By the time Peter had slowly reopened his eyes, there was no sign of the man. One of the shelves had fallen over, all of it's content surrounding him. He thought that he had fallen over after the man had pushed him, but he found that he was weirdly upright.
To make matter’s weirder, he couldn’t feel the floor beneath his feet. It had taken him a few seconds to realise it, and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t instantly felt the change. After all, he could always feel everything that he was touching due to heightened senses. Due to the ability, he could always make out the texture of the floor beneath his shoes. But, as it appeared, his feet were just hovering almost six inches off the ground. He was levitating. If it wasn’t for the fact that he seemed to be unable to speak, he would have gasped at the realisation. Another strange thing, he noticed, was that his hands were now empty. Just seconds before, he had been holding onto his suit. Despite the pain he had endured, Peter was confident that he would have felt it if the suit slipped from his grasp. As a matter of fact, the teenager was able to recall clenching his hands into tight fists as the pain rocked his body.
And then came the worse, he looked down.
He would have said that his heart stopped, but it apparently had been stopped- the blood would have drowned from his face if it hadn’t already done so. To say that his situation was weird, would probably be the understatement of the century- maybe apart from saying that he definitely, almost certainly, screwed. Now, Peter knew that he had been forced into odd situations before- it came with the task of being a superhero. But this was an out-of-body-experience. Literally. In the middle of a storage closet on the eighth floor of Stark Tower, was Petter Parker’s lifeless body. And he was staring right at it. Dead eyes, the ones that he had stared at every single day in the mirror stared right back at him as if peering into his soul. His body had already began to go pale, the warmth slowly starting to fade from his corpse.
There were no words to describe the millions thoughts that rushed through his mind, the pain that he had experienced feeling like he had been tickled compared to the cold sweat that he imagined breaking out on his forehead.
But, one main thought forced its way to the front of his mind, one that was definitely not appropriate for how serious his situation was: “This could be so funny”, he was almost angry at himself for thinking it. But, once it occurred to him, he decided that there wouldn’t be too much harm in perhaps trying to shine some light on his…circumstances? After all, if he did manage to alert others of the strange occurrence, it’s not like he would be much help in his form. Being dead and all didn’t really seem like something that would be super useful. So, would it really be all that bad if he decided to have a little bit of fun with his situation? Only until he actually found out a way to undo his problem, if there even was a way- but he wasn’t thinking about that. He’d simply cross that bridge when he came to it.
For starters, he needed to try and grasp a better understanding of what he was dealing with. First things first, levitating. It seemed that he didn’t need to try, similarly to breathing, he was just doing it- he didn’t really know how else to say so. He tried to take a step forwards, but instead fell straight down, falling straight through the floor. So, before he could do anything, he had to actually figure out what he was doing.
How hard could it be, right?
—
An hour later, he was proud to say that he had a pretty decent handle on his whole ghost-thing. He still had two hours until anybody would be expecting him, so he doubted that someone would notice his absence till at least that time. Whenever he wanted to grab something, if he focused on it super hard, he could actually pick it up. But, unlike him, it remained visible- so it sort of looked like it was floating midair instead of being in his hand. He realised that levitating was practically like walking, just unnecessarily difficult and tiring as he had to use the literal air to balance himself upward. Walking through walls and floors was easy, he just had to concentrate on whether or not he wanted to pass through it.
So, he was happy to declare that he could add ‘being a ghost’ onto his list of skills. He was not so happy to declare that, upon checking back on his body, it looked much worse than it had- not to mention that Peter just couldn’t find a way to actually solve the fact that he was a ghost that was trapped outside of his dead body. Overall, the usual kind of teenager issues.
—
“Shouldn’t you be gathering your things? Happy is waiting for you outside to bring you to the airport.” Tony mentioned, setting down some cutlery on the table. Pepper shook her head, smiling as she put some table matts down for the plates that’d soon be on top of them. “Well, I wanted to say goodbye first. And, I thought it would be smart to make sure you actually are ready to host a dinner- not throw a party.” Pepper sighed, smiling at him with as she set down the final mat and hugged him goodbye. “Well, I’m not sure how we’ll manage without you, Ms. Potts.” He joked and returned the hug, kissed her goodbye one last time as he watched her go down into Happy’s car to go to some conference in England.
Tony walked to the kitchen, grabbing all of the beef burgers that he had left sitting on the counter, and placed them on the table. Different toppings in bowls were lined down the table, with a variety of sauces and salads for the guests to put on their burgers. Initially, he had wanted to just make pasta or order in- but nobody could agree so they had been forced to just go with classic beef burgers. Just as he placed down the last platter of salads, Sam walked in with Thor.
“Hey, man.” He greeted, wandering over. The god strode over, his mighty hammer in his hand as he looked at the feast that buried the table. “Evening, gents.” Tony greeted, waving them open to the main living room area- where all of the sofas and seating were. “Stark, where is everyone?” Thor asked, glancing around the room. Tony shrugged, looking down at the shiny watch strapped around his wrist. “I don’t know, they should be arriving an-” his response was, as if rehearsed, cut off by the sound of the lift doors gliding open and a couple other members of the team filed into the room. Natasha walked in, holding a bottle of wine in her right hand, she wore a white shirt, paired with some black leather pants and a matching jacket. Clint, who entered alongside her, was wearing an overly large winter coat with a black beanie.
Not far behind them, Steve walked in with a pale blue shirt, brown trousers, and a smart belt. Though they had long moved past the mostly awkward spots, both Steve and Tony made an effort to try to not be alone with one another. So, in fear of them being the first to arrive, Wanda and Vision walked in by his side. Wanda wore a black dress, one in which she deemed a touch too far from her comfort zone, paired with her favourite red jacket- that she may or may not have taken from a certain ginger spy.
It wasn’t long before everybody had arrived at seated themselves at the table. All the chairs but one, the seat in between Wanda and Tony (who was sat at the head of the table), were filled. “Where’s Peter?” Bruce asked, one of the first to notice the absence. All of the others murmured in agreement, an echo of: “oh yeah”, “where is he at?” “Isn’t he coming?” echoed throughout the dining room. “Oh yeah, but he is out on patrol, he said he might no be able to eat with us and that he’ll catch up later.” Tony reassured them, almost amused at how all of them had so quickly brought him into their group to the point that they got suspicious whenever he wasn’t present at special moments.
The food had been delicious. It was true what people said, sometimes simple was the better option. Everyone had been able to enjoy a myriad of different types of toppings and their favourite sides. Each and every plate was left empty, most of the food having been devoured within minutes of tucking in. “I always forget that you can cook, you know?” Clint said, finishing off the last bits of his meal with a small burp- after which he apologised with a red face. “Well, I’m more than just a pretty face.” Tony quipped, a smirk on his face as he did.
Eventually, the team moved on into the living room, where all of the sofas were, and cracked open a couple of drinks. The sky was pitch black now, only illuminated by the dim glow of the lamp posts that littered the streets of New York. Polite conversation unfolded, the conversations mostly based on upcoming missions or previous victories that were yet to be shared.
A sense of peacefulness settled over the room, just waiting to be left poked at and broken by a certain hero.
—
Peter flung himself into the living room, his grasp on the whole ‘levitating mess’ still a bit uneasy. All of the heroes continued their conversations, unaware of his entrance. Peter looked over at the table, the sight of the leftovers making him realise just how hungry the day had made him, his quick metabolism not doing him many favours. But, he couldn’t think about food. No, that would have to be something he focused on later. All he had to do, for a least a little while, was get the attention of the only people that would be able to help. Would he do that via freaking them out and doing some childish pranks? Maybe. But one shouldn’t question the lengths heroes must go to in order to save a life.
That being said, Peter couldn’t control if the team just so happened to be under the impression that they were being haunted by a ghost for awhile. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but Peter wasn’t always the smartest guy. At the end of the day, he was a teenager; teenagers had to cause just a bit of trouble every so often. It was their main purpose. Besides, maturity? In their economy? The Avengers were the ones who always told him to try and look on the brighter side of things, so was this much different?
‘Let the fun begin’, Peter thought, cracking his knuckles (or trying to do so anyway).