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Peter
He was there. He was really there.
The battlefield, the fight against Thanos, the place where Tony died trying to save them all. He was really there. Weird as that dream had been, the mysterious figure hadn’t been lying. They really could bring him back. Peter had the chance to change all of it.
He looked around, trying to get a sense for where he was in the battle. He didn’t have the Infinity Gauntlet, which means they were either very early into it or very late. He got eyes on Thanos. Thanos had the gauntlet.
Okay. The end.
Peter remembered exactly what happened next. Before, he’d been too focused on the threat of Thanos, his failure at keeping the Infinity Gauntlet, and the impending doom that came over him when he saw Thanos’ fingers move to snap again. He hadn’t noticed Mr. Stark’s gauntlet, much less figured out what he was planning with it. That Peter was only able to watch with awe and horror as his one and only mentor and father figure sacrificed himself to channel the Infinity Stones and save the world.
But this Peter had a plan.
While all the other Avengers threw themselves impossibly at Thanos, he raced to where Mr. Stark stood.
“What are you doing kid, Thanos is about to snap again! Go! ” he shouted.
“ NO! ” Peter screamed, and it was the scream of a thousand pain-filled nights. It was every bad emotion he’d gone through over the past year without him. It ripped his voice raw.
He grabbed the arm that Tony was ever so slightly trying to hide from him, clawing at it until he got purchase beneath the nanotech.
“Kid, what the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Tony cried, attempting to fight him off, but Peter was and always had been stronger than him, even with the suit on. Especially now, with adrenaline and determination flowing through him, the two were no match.
“You can’t do it, it’ll kill you!” he yelled, despite the fact that this Tony knew that and was willing to do it anyway. Beneath him, the stones adorning Tony’s knuckles glowed. “And you can’t die, not when I’m right here !” He didn’t even know what he was saying or why he was saying it anymore, it was just terrified babbling. Because he couldn’t lose him again. Wouldn’t .
“Kid--!” there wasn’t anything Tony could say that would convince him to stop ripping the gauntlet off. Before he could get another word out, Peter gave one final tug, accompanied by an animal screech. The gauntlet separated from the rest of Tony’s armor.
“Hand it over Underoos--you have no idea what you’re doing with that!!”
Tony needed to get away, needed to stop grabbing for the gauntlet or Peter would never get a breath in to use it.
“Don’t make me do this Mr. Stark,” he said quietly.
It was a futile plea. Tony would never willingly let Peter use it, just as Peter would never let Tony use it. Every time he made a grab for it, Peter would pull it away faster. He had a sixth sense that Tony did not.
“Sorry Tony,” he whispered.
Then he grabbed the front of his chest plate. His fingers folded the nanotech like it was rubber, digging in. With all of his strength, he chucked Tony across the battlefield, away from all danger.
With no hindrance, the nanotech of the gauntlet successfully fused with his suits’, and the power of the stones was at his command. He sensed the pain before he felt it, giving him enough time to brace so he at least stayed standing when it came.
Thanos and the other Avengers were looking at him now. They’d caught on. Tony, blasters broken, was clawing his way through the rubble toward him. He was running out of time. So he got his fingers ready--
“PETER, NO-- ”
Snap.
He was instantly buckled by pain. It was as if the stones were pulling his veins out through his fingertips, tightening around his organs and pulling them taught at the same time. They were everywhere and nowhere, overwhelming his senses, taking control of his body and doing whatever they wanted with it.
Through his haze of pain, he made eye contact with Tony. He looked like the world had been pulled out from underneath him. He was crying.
Peter didn’t want him to cry.
He took a staggering step and used every ounce of strength the stones hadn’t taken yet to straighten. He clenched his jaw and pursed his lips. He would not let Tony know the amount of pain he was in, because he was doing this for him . He would not see Tony die again.
Out of the corner of his eye, something yellow flashed. An image of Tony dead in first person perspective. His perspective.
No ,
He’d done it. He’d used the power of the gauntlet. He’d taken the burden from Tony. Everything would change now because he wouldn’t have to suffer through that year without him
More memories appeared. The funeral. Seeing all the memorials for Tony. The betrayal of Mysterio. The living nightmare, and getting hit by a train. Getting asked over and over again if he was going to be the next Iron Man when he had no idea if he’d even be able to keep being Spider-Man.
“Peter!!” A voice broke through the din of his mind. “Think happy thoughts!”
With all the pain he was in, it was a near-impossible task. All he could think of was why he was doing it in the first place: to avoid Tony’s death. But he couldn’t just give up.
Come on Spider-Man. Come on Peter Parker.
There were the happy memories. Building Lego sets with Ned. Decathlon practice with MJ. May doing her best to make him pasta. Swinging through the city as Spider-Man. Working with Tony.
The pain eased from being impossible to handle down to trauma-causing. Then from there down to a world of hurt, then bearable, then a thorn in his side, then nothing. He wasn’t sure if that meant he would be okay or not. Normally pain going away that fast wasn’t a good thing.
He was left feeling like an overexposed picture or like a bleached t-shirt starched by the sun.
Tony was right in front of him, lips moving but no sound coming out. That couldn’t be good either. The battlefield that surrounded them was covered in ash. He couldn’t see Thanos or his troops anywhere.
He thinks he said,
“We did it, Mr. Stark,” but his lips felt too big for his face and he couldn’t hear it anyway.
Then everything went black.
Tony
To everyone else, it seemed as if Peter slipped into a trance.
“Peter. Peter!” Tony called, too scared to touch him. The stones’ power had ravaged his entire right arm and most of his right side, creeping up his neck to his ear and some of his cheek. It had torn through the nanotech of his suit, all but the gauntlet, so they could all see his charred skin. It looked like it would turn to ash with a touch.
“...What just…why did he do it?” Steve took a hesitant step forward.
“To stop me from doing it, the lovable idiot !” Tony cried. “Peter please, talk to me!”
Peter did the opposite. He collapsed.
Tony tried to catch him, but something else beat him to it. Before Peter hit the ground, he was enveloped in a white, silky…cocoon. But Tony couldn’t waste any time being surprised by this; he had to get Peter somewhere he could heal, and fast.
He wrapped his arms around Peter’s new (hopefully living ) situation, bringing him close to his chest. The last time he’d done this, Peter had been fourteen, hurting after the fight in Germany, and he hadn’t been able to walk steadily back to the plane. He hadn’t known why he’d done it then, but now he knew. He needed to keep him safe.
“Strange, open a portal to the Avengers tower,” he ordered.
Nothing happened.
“Strange?!” he barked. His heart was racing. He had no idea what kind of clock Peter was on, so every second without action was a second wasted.
“He used the stones Stark, he’s probably not going to make it. You saw what they did to Banner,” Strange said quietly. “He’s just a kid, I mean--”
“Do I look like I care, Strange, open the portal .”
“But the stones--”
Without warning, Tony fired up his palm blasters and shot the area right between Dr. Strange’s feet.
“ Open the portal !” he spat.
Seconds later, orange sparks flew in formation and Tony found himself staring at the med ward of the Avengers Tower.
He wasted no time bringing Peter through, not caring who followed him. The closest med bed to them was where he gently laid Peter’s cocoon down before slamming the lid shut and jamming the buttons. He wasn’t sure how helpful all his machines would be to Peter now. That truth hurt, but damn it if he wasn’t going to try.
“Banner snapped and he survived, why isn’t anybody mentioning that? Why not Peter?” he muttered to no one in particular. And why not Peter? If anyone deserved a normal life after the snap, it was Peter. “Friday, get Dr. Cho up here, please.”
He stepped away from the controls. There was nothing more he could do. The rest was up to the medical incubator and Peter.
“...What happened ?” he sighed, his suit receding as he massaged his forehead. He’d had a plan and it was going exactly as he wanted to up until Peter had latched onto his arm. The whole mess had been over in less than ten minutes.
He collapsed into a nearby chair and buried his head in his hands.
Everything was upside down.
“I made portals for everyone to go home,” that was Strange’s voice from behind him. “I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. All of them asked for a portal to the lounges on the lower floors. They’re planning on waiting for word of Peter.”
“Aren’t we all?” he said dryly, and when he felt his eyes get wet he tried to take a deep breath. “Oh God…”
“Tony.” That wasn’t Strange. That was Pepper.
He turned to her, accepting the hug that she offered. Burying his face into her shirt, he hid himself from the world. All he could think about was how he failed Peter. He should have defended the gauntlet better. He should’ve run away so there was no possibility someone could have interfered. He should’ve thought to activate the safety protocols in Peter’s suit, make him get all tangled up in his parachute, or have his heaters blow hot air in his face. Anything to stop him from risking his life and maybe even--
He couldn’t even think about that possibility. He couldn’t think about any of it.
“Pep…”
“Yeah, Tony?”
“The press are going to be here any minute, aren’t they?”
“Probably. Everyone who was Snapped five years ago is back now. They’re going to connect the dots. But Tony, we can find someone else to handle it if you want to stay here with Peter--”
“No Pep. I’ll handle it.”
He pulled away from the hug, looking up at her. She cupped his chin with a hand. Her eyes spelled worry for him.
“Pep,” he said imploringly. “I need to handle this. I can’t sit around and do nothing while Peter is just lying there.”
Her expression changed to one of understanding.
“You always need to be doing something with your hands, I know that Tony,” she said.
“Friday,” he said to the ceiling. “Let’s schedule a press conference.”
A few days later, Tony was right back to where he started. Unfortunately, straightening out the whole Snap situation took less time than he thought it would. A press conference debriefing the public on what went down (none of the nitty gritty details that would get them all put in psych wards of course), a few meetings with police departments, the government, and his shareholders, and most of it was set to order. Of course, the world was still in chaos. Tony wasn’t sure how long it would take for it to sort itself out, and frankly, he didn’t care, because he was right back to sitting by Peter’s bedside. Waiting.
Tonight his company happened to be Strange, Carol, and Steve. Quite a group of people. It sounded like the setup to a joke, the part of his mind still able to access humor thought. A wizard, a soldier, and Ms. Universe walk into a bar.
They talked for a little bit. Surface-level stuff: food, weather, housing, anything other than Peter. Eventually, though, they all fell into silence, which meant that Tony’s thoughts ran wild.
“When I was first starting this whole Iron Man thing, I was able to do so much more; there was so much less to risk,” he voiced, burying his head in his hands. “No one tells you that the longer you last in this game the more you stand to lose.”
There was a collective breath from everyone in the room.
“The universe comes for everything eventually. Your friends. Your family,” Carol said quietly. Some kind of realistic comfort.
“I just didn’t think they’d get Peter. He’s just so peppy all the time, I thought he was untouchable.”
A few moments of silence.
“But no one’s untouchable. I should’ve protected him better--I should’ve seen this coming --”
“That’s the thing about war, Tony. You never see it coming,” Steve said softly.
“You tried to keep him off the ship from the beginning Stark,” Strange said. “He wanted on. He wanted to help. And at the end of the day, the kid has superpowers. If he wants to do something, he’s gonna do it.”
“You don’t get it, Strange. He was-- is --my responsibility .”
“Tony, I’m not sure what we can say that’s going to get you to accept that it’s not your fault,” Steve said.
“Okay, let’s say it’s not my fault then. Sure. That won’t stop me from feeling guilty. He’s my kid , Steve. My…my kid .”
“He’s going to be okay, Tony,” Carol reassured.
“I’ll believe that when he’s up and making Star Wars references again.”
This next night, the two of them had no visitors. Just Tony, the fluorescent light emanating from the med bed, its mechanical whirring, and Peter. It was late, so no one was around.
It had been a long and draining day. He’d spent a good chunk of it on the phone with May, talking things through. He wasn’t the type to mince words, and she wasn’t the type to appreciate any sugarcoating, so he laid Peter’s situation out flat to her. She was upset, of course, but both of them knew it wasn’t over ‘til it was over. As much as Tony hated all the waiting by his bedside, it was a whole lot better than arranging his funeral.
He slouched in the chair. Staying awake was an impossible task, so the next time his chin dipped, he let it. He slipped off into sleep like he had the previous week of nights.
What must have been hours later, he flinched awake, blinking furiously. Something caused him to wake up, he knew that immediately. Of course, it wasn’t uncommon for him to be shoved into the waking world by a nightmare, but he typically remembered those and there was nothing on the hard drive. Something had been loud enough to rouse him. He just had to figure out what it was.
He sat up and quickly realized that it was a hissing noise, emanating from the med bed in front of him. The hissing meant the pneumatics of the lid were releasing, meaning that it would soon be opening.
Which meant…it had finished its job.
One way or another, Tony was about to see Peter again. Whether he was dead or alive was still up in the air.
He rested his hands on the lid and helped it to open, coming face to face with the cocoon Peter had encased himself in as he collapsed. Obviously, it was spider silk, something known for its durability. Evidently, it had done its job, however, because as Tony watched, it began to dissolve.
“...Peter?”
His heartbeat crescendoed in his ears. Either Peter was dead, or he was alive. The deciding moment was happening right in front of him.
“Please be alive, please be alive,” he begged to anyone who could hear him. Gods and aliens were real, and in that moment he really wanted to believe one or the other would hear his plea and help him somehow.
Peter’s face became visible first. It looked as though he was peacefully asleep, though Tony knew that didn’t necessarily mean he was okay.
“Come on Peter, show me you’re alive ,” he muttered.
Peter didn’t move. The silk kept dissolving. Tony held his breath.
Then he blinked.
Tony gasped for air.
“Peter!!” he cried, and scooped the boy into his arms. “Never do that again or I swear to God I’m gonna kill you!”
“M-M-M-Mr-- Tony ,” Peter breathed into his shoulder.
“Yes, I’m here, I’m here,” he assured.
“I t-th-th-think I’m missing something,” he muttered.
Tony took a step back to examine Peter. Now that all the silk had disappeared, he saw that Peter indeed was missing something. His right arm.
“Oh my god…” Tony very much felt like freaking out, but Peter just examined the area where his arm no longer was with mild curiosity. “Peter!”
“Gotta be honest, I kinda saw that coming.”
“Everything’s gonna be fine Pete, we’ve just got to…uhhh…”
“I’m fine Tony.”
“We have the technology to do something about it so don’t freak out on me--”
“I’m not freaking out Tony, I’m totally fine .”
“ How are you fine with this? ”
Peter looked at him like he was the weird one for freaking out about a sixteen-year-old losing their arm.
“I saw all of this coming Tony. I’d do it again if I had to--one arm is not that big a price!”
Tony deflated. Peter was right. The important thing was that he was still breathing.
“Okay. Okay. You and me are gonna make you a new arm in time, but…” He rested a hand on Peter’s shoulder and sighed. “You’re alive. I uh…for a second there I thought we were gonna lose you.”
Peter smiled up at him.
“Come on, I’m Spider-Man! Why did you ever doubt me?”
“You don’t exactly have an amazing track record for knowing when to stop, kid. You gave me a heart attack when you ripped my gauntlet off--scoot over I’m coming up.”
Peter moved per request and laughed as Tony climbed into the med bed with him and took up way too much of his space.
“Dude! Leave some room for me, I just lost an arm!”
He was making jokes about it, which Tony took to mean he would be okay.
“And I nearly lost my sidekick so who really suffered more through this whole ordeal, huh?” He elbowed Peter, not very hard because he didn’t really know how much (if any) pain he was in. It just seemed to tickle him, because he laughed again.
“We did it, Mr. Stark! We won!”
Those words coming out of Peter’s mouth sounded a thousand times more triumphant than when Tony himself had said them just a few days prior. Now they had meaning. They had a happy ending for all of them attached to it. Sure, things were going to get really crazy really fast. The public had been clamoring to know what had happened to Spider-Man, he’d have to call Peter’s aunt, and going back to high school after it all would be tough.
But Peter was alive, so the days going forward couldn’t be that bad.
“I only care that you’re alive kid,” he sighed and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Truth is…I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
Peter’s eyebrows met in the middle.
“You would’ve had Pepper and Morgan. You would’ve had your family,” he said.
“Not without you I wouldn’t,” Tony said with sincerity.
Peter smiled widely and made the shoulder hug a two-way thing by putting his remaining arm behind his back.
“I’m glad you survived that,” Tony said softly.
“Me too Mr. Stark. Me too.”