Chapter Text
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
“Mr. Stark I don’t feel so good…”
What’s happening? They all just turned to dust. Is he gonna turn to dust? Why does it hurt so much?
“I don’t-I don’t know what’s happening I don’t-“ he stumbles forward, his legs giving out and his body collapsing on top of Mr. Stark. He’s talking to him. What’s he saying?
‘I’m so scared.’
“I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go, please-sir, please I don’t wanna go.” It hurts so much. He’s so terrified-
Then he’s on the ground. If Peter thought he was scared, the look in Mr. Stark’s eyes make his own fear seem small. That’s not fair. He’s the one dying.
Then there’s a memory—
“And if you die, I feel like that’s on me.”
Peter can feel it. He’s gonna die. This is it. And now Mr. Stark will blame himself. He tried to kick him off the ship. He tried to keep him away from the fight. But Peter was too damn stubborn and snuck on. And now…
“I’m sorry…”
Then his body stops fighting back.
Peter wakes up with a jolt.
‘What the hell…? Was that all just a dream?’
Groaning, Peter slowly comes back to full awareness and takes in his surroundings. Looking at the ruins and red sky overhead, and one thing is for certain: that was not a dream.
‘Why am I not dead?’
“We’re back,” someone says out loud. Rather than being confused or awed like Peters’s feeling, the voice sounds critical, like he’s stating a fact and assessing it. Turning, Peter comes face to face with Dr. Strange.
Someone else who definitely turned to dust.
So that’s it? They’re back? Just like that? Why? How?
“Everyone,” Dr. Strange called out, his voice loud and commanding now, not like his muttering earlier. “It’s been five years. They need our help to defeat Thanos.”
“I’m sorry did you just say five years!?” Quill shouts, taking a step back from the Wizard. Peter feels just as shocked, before Dr. Strange’s words click.
They need us.
“Let’s go then!” He decides. Looking around, Peter sees Mr. Stark isn’t on Titan anymore. Well, after five years, Peter would hope he wasn’t still here. But that means he’s fighting Thanos right now. He has to go help him!
Dr. Strange moves his hands and begins to open one of his magic yellow portal thingy’s just as Peter’s spider sense goes off. Big time.
Whipping his head around, Peter only finds the ruins of Titan.
“You good kid?” Quill asks him, taking a step over to help out.
Peter opens his mouth to try and explain he can feel something coming, but then stops. Of course his senses are going off; Dr. Strange is opening a portal that will send them straight into a battlefield. That will be dangerous, duh.
“It’s fine—“ Peter begins, but gets very rudely cut off by a sickly green portal opening out from under his feet. Peters eyes widen, and he watches as Quill jumps towards him with a shout, but Peter can’t even grab onto him with a web before the hole swallows him whole.
Through the panic of falling, Peter gives himself a moment of self pity. Parker luck strikes again, it seems.
“Hey! What the hell just happened to the kid!?” Quill shouts at the wizard, who’s staring at the space Spider-Man used to occupy in apparent shock.
Well that’s not fucking good. Isn’t this guy supposed to know the future?
Like he jinxed it, the wizard starts doing the creepy head jerk thing that’s supposedly him seeing into the future.
“Do you think that hurts..?” Mantis mutters at his side, her and Drax getting closer to him in unease.
“I don’t give a shit if it hurts so long as he answers my questions!”
Strange’s head continues to move weirdly. He’s never getting that question answered.
Then, just as quickly as he started, Strange stops.
“Hey man, wanna explain?” He demands once more, taking a threatening step towards the wizard.
“Things have changed,” Dr. Strange claims, his face complicated.
‘Cuz that answers all his questions. “Is that good or bad?”
“That’s yet to be seen.” Strange purses his lips, visibly taking in all the new information he’s gained.
“I’m gonna need something more definitive than that!”
“De-fin-I-tive,” Drax sounds out next to him in confusion.
“I think it means defensive,” Mantis whispers back.
“Spider-Man’s disappearance has led to new possibilities for the outcome of his battle,” Strange explains.
“Good. Or. Bad?” Quill grinds out. He’s this close to punching the wizard.
“…Good, I believe,” Strange relents, finally. He doesn’t sound completely sure, but it’s good enough for Quill.
“Then let’s go kill Thanos.” They’ll get the kid later.
Happy is struggling to pretend everything is fine.
Everything is not fine, but he can’t exactly let Morgan know that. He can’t let her know that her parents might not come back from their ‘trip.’ He has to pretend Pepper and Tony aren’t a fighting a giant purple alien that killed half the universe five years ago in the hopes of bringing everyone back.
So instead he sits on the floor and has a tea party with Morgan and her collection of stuffed animals. Happy is trying very hard not to look at the Spider-Man plushie Morgan is serving a cracker to. Because then he’ll think of Peter. Then he’ll remember Tony’s face five years ago when he told him the kid was gone. Then he’ll remember going to May to tell her, and discovering that she was gone too.
Instead of thinking about the Parker’s, Happy eats a cracker and pretends to drink the invisible tea in his plastic cup.
“Do you think Petey will have tea parties with me, once he’s back?” Morgan asks, trying very hard to make Happy think of Peter Parker.
“Morgan, he might not come back,” he reminds her. Ever since Tony told her she might get to meet the Spider-Man from her father’s stories, she’s been asking questions like this every five minutes. “But if he does, Peter would love to play with you.” And dammit, he would, and now Happy’s picturing it: the two kids on the floor, fake feeding a teddy bear with an iron man mask while Tony pretends to not be offended at being replaced in the other room.
Happy stops thinking about it.
“Do you want some more tea—“ Morgan begins to ask one of her stuffed animals, before a jagged green hole opens in the floor below her.
“Morgan!” Happy shouts as he jumps up to grab the now screaming five year old.
But he’s not fast enough. Before he can even blink, Morgan’s been swallowed by the green, her screams cut off.
Happy stands in the living room, dolls and tea cups scattered in disarray.
Happy knows he shouldn’t, but he instantly grabs his phone and texts Pepper and Tony. ‘Morgan’s gone.’ He informs the couple that most definitely won’t see his text because they’re in the middle of a battle.
But the battle will end, and win or lose, the Stark’s be down one kid.
Or did this mean they already lost?
Happy stands in the middle of the room, helpless.
Then, he thinks about Peter and May Parker.
Peter expects to break something as he falls, but instead he only falls about four feet and lands solidly on his butt.
Ow.
Before he can get up and find whatever threat his spider-sense is trying very hard to warn him about, Peter’s being tased.
Double ow.
With a grunt, Peter collapses in on himself, vainly trying to fight off the hands restraining him. But there’s four of them holding him down and tying him up, and while his healing factor is good, it’s not a miracle worker. He just got tased, after all.
Dammit that shit hurts. Honestly, just stab him next time.
Peter’s shoved up against a wall, some green rock thing being shoved in his face. Peter squints at it. Is that thing glowing?
“No reactions to the Kryptonite,” a man says, taking the rock—Kryptonite?—away from his face.
“Well that’s one planet crossed off. You said he has powers, right?” Another man asks.
“Yes, I specifically designed this to grab someone with powers. And look at his suit, he’s obviously a hero too. That means we won’t have to train him much,” the first man explains, sounding relatively pleased.
“If we find out what planet he’s from, that’ll make figuring his weaknesses out easier,” a third man tells the others.
“Some animal planet?” The fourth man in the room throws out, staring at the spider emblem on Peter’s suit.
“Congrats, you know what an animal is. If you let me go I’ll find you a gold star sticker,” Peter grumbles out, not being able to help the snark.
The punch in the face he gets for his words isn’t exactly worth it, but Peter will be damned if he goes down quietly.
“Alright boss, you’ve got yourself a mouthy alien. Now how the hell are you gonna get him to do what we say?” Third guy points out, his words making Peter pause.
The effects of the taser beginning to taper off, Peter decides to actually take in his situation.
So he’s been kidnapped, that’s for sure. And based on what these guys are saying, he’s not on Earth anymore. Shit. Oh, and these guys want him to do their bidding. Double shit.
“Don’t worry, I already prepared how to get him to listen,” Leader-guy says ominously.
Uh-oh.
“Hey guys, think we can talk about this before you go all supervillain on me? Maybe give me a little heads up on what the plans are? Cuz that machine you’ve got looks just a tad bit unstable…” Peter tries, but a glare send his way by Leader-guy shuts him up. Yeah, he’s not getting an answer.
Honestly, right when he thought his luck couldn’t get any worse. Not only did he die for five years, he can’t even go home and fight! Instead he’s been kidnapped to another planet by some evil scientists. Those went out of style in the twenty first century, by the way, Peter thinks with a not-so-subtle roll of his eyes. Who knew dying, coming back to life, then immediately getting kidnapped would make him so testy?
Leader-Guy clicks some buttons, and the machine starts up again. Then, another portal opens up, this one much closer to the ground than his was.
And this time, the portal spits out a five year old girl.
Uh…what?
Peter stares at the terrified girl in muted horror and not so subtle confusion. What’s a little girl doing here?
Leader-Guy’s expectant grin falters at Peter’s confusion, his eyes clouding in anger.
Okay, that was wrong, new course of action, Peter!
“Hey, hey it’s okay sweetheart. You’re okay,” he says quickly, attempting to soothe the little girls crying. She turns her attention towards him, and her eyes widen in recognition. A look Peter doesn’t return until he sees Leader-Guy’s waiting gaze.
So he pretends. He has no clue who this girl is, but she knows him. Not really all that surprising, considering he’s dressed as Spider-Man.
Leader guy said he had a way to ‘handle him,’ and this girl was his solution. Clearly, he thinks she has some significance, and normally, he’d think it was just because she was a child. But there was more to the man’s eyes. He thought Peter should know her. And he didn’t like it when Peter didn’t.
So yeah, time to act.
“Petey!” The little girl exclaims, running to his side and turning to hide in his side.
Okay, she knows his name. Yeah he’s definitely supposed to know her. He still has his mask on. He’s wearing the iron spider suit, so it’s not like these guys can just rip it off like his other suit. Which means this girl knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man. And unless something’s happened during the five years he’s been dead, that’s not common knowledge. She’s related to him somehow. Unfortunately, he’s got no clue how.
‘Well, that’s what happens when you die for five years,’ he thinks bitterly.
Does he know anyone who was pregnant before he left? Not that he can think of, and right now isn’t exactly the perfect to try and figure out this girls exact identity.
“It’s okay bug, you’re okay,” he reassures again, trying to sell his point and also hoping to make the girl believe it. She was clearly dragged here because of him, so it’s his responsibility to make sure she doesn’t get hurt.
Sparing a glance back up at Leader-guy, the man looks much more pleased now, like his master plan is working.
Yup. Great. That’s perfect. Where’s the nearest exit?
“Petey where are we?” The girl asks, her voice hiccuping as she continues to cry.
He’s not really sure how to answer that.
Peter looks to any of his four kidnappers to explain.
Leader-guy takes over, of course.
“Welcome to Earth,” he greets.
Huh? Peter glances at the guy in total confusion. He thought they were supposed to be aliens?
Mistaking his confusion, Leader-Guy keeps going. “We’ve brought you here because we believe you could be of great use to us. Lex Luthor may not have seen the use of bringing in aliens to defeat other aliens, but you, Spider, will be the birth of a new age. You will be our symbol! I’ll devise an army powerful enough to destroy Superman—no, the entire Justice League!” Leader-guy gave his villain monologue, laughing manically.
Peter using this time to try and figure out just what the fuck is going on. Then, it seems to click.
‘Oh my god is this the multiverse? It has to be right? If I’m on Earth and this guys is talking about hero’s I’ve never heard on, I’m probably in another universe, right? Oh my god that’s so cool but this is so not the time and I’m really not trying to be a pawn in some random supervillain plan—‘
“If we’re on Earth, daddy will come save us!” The girl proclaims proudly, turning Peter’s blood cold.
Nonono, please don’t piss off the bad guys-
“Hey, I thought I was supposed to save you?” Peter pouts, hoping to bring leader guys attention back to him.
Instead of ignoring the girls outburst, Leader-guy begins to walk towards her in large strides. Peter begins to thrash against his restraints, but the metal but the three guys with tasers holding him down make breaking free difficult.
Leader-guy grabs the girls arm. Harshly.
“Daddy can’t save you here,” Leader-guy mocks cruelly, making the girl cry again.
“Don’t hurt her!” Peter shouts, panicking. He just said he was supposed to be protecting her!
Leader-guy looks at Peter’s pleading eyes, dropping Morgan with a smirk. “If you don’t want me to hurt her, the you’re going to do exactly what I say. You got that, Spider?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do your evil bidding as long as you don’t touch her,” Peter spits out, rolling his eyes.
Morgan squeezes her eyes shut as he gets punched again.
“It’s okay bug, I’m okay,” he reassures, knowing he probably doesn’t look too hot. Considering he just finished fighting Thanos, and is now partially beat up, he’s definitely seen better days.
Morgan curls up against him with a whimper, trying to keep quiet. Peters heart breaks as he watches her. She’s too young to be here, being taken advantage of by some evil organization.
Why does his luck strike everyone who cares about him? Why must everyone who loves him get hurt just because they’re affiliated with him? Isn’t being forced to put up with him punishment enough? Why does the world hate him so much?
Peter tries to tuck the girl into his side as much as he can.
Leader-guy goes on another rant about how Peter is going to defeat all these random superhero’s that Peter only listens to so he can get information on this world. While half paying attention, he tries to plan. He needs to get him and this girl out of here, fast. Before they make him do something he’ll regret.
That means he needs to get out of these restraints, but there’s four guys with various weapons and a hostage they’re not afraid to use against him. The second he breaks free, the guns they’re keeping trained in the girl will go off. At some point, they’ll probably let him out, but when they do that, he has no doubt they’ll have the girl where he can’t reach her.
The only good news is that these guys definitely don’t have superpowers, and based on their speech, they don’t have backup. He’s gotten himself kidnapped by the outcasts of the villain world, which is honestly kinda embarrassing. But considering they built a multidimensional portal, it’s not like he really let himself get caught.
Speaking of weird portals, he wasn’t kidding when he said that thing is ridiculously unstable. Like, it looks like it’ll explode with the lightest tap.
‘Wait…’
Finally, a plan starts forming in his head. It’s stupid and it’s dangerous, which means it’s perfectly on brand for him.
The only real issue is figuring out how to explode that machine without anyone in this room dying.
Peter looks at the entrance to whatever laboratory he’s found himself in carefully. The things made of solid steel and doesn’t look like it’ll collapse, but Peter also doesn’t know how strong the blast from this portal will be when it explodes.
“-and then he’ll regret ever doubting me!” Leader-Guy finished proudly. Ugh finally. His voice is so whiny.
“Hey so, what happens when that thing inevitably explodes? Cuz being in a room with a ticking time bomb isn’t really my idea of a fun night,” Peter questions. He knows he’s basically giving up his plan, but he needs to keep the little girl currently sniffing into his side safe first and foremost. Also, he needs to keep this idiots alive too. Hopefully there’s a good police station he can drop these guys off at with this is all over.
“The explosion won’t make it past the door as long as it’s closed properly,” Leader-Guy assures confidently.
“And that’s tested or…?”
“Tested,” he says coldly.
“K great! Just checking, y’know.” Yeah, real smooth Peter. He’d smack himself if he could move his hands.
Well actually…
Squirming a bit, Peter determines he can break out of the metal holding him down in an instant. Now that the taser effects have worn off, he’s at pretty much full strength. but these guys have no clue what his full strength is, so if he keeps them in the dark for some more time, this could work out perfectly. All he needs is to set off that machine, get everyone out the door, and break his restraints and grab the girl in the chaos.
10/10 planning if he says so himself.
Peter’s still in full costume, and even though Karen isn’t answering him about his status—or answering him at all—he knows his web shooters are still relatively full. Enough to have fought Thanos, like he originally planned. So he’s got no problems on that front. After grabbing the girl, he’ll web up the bad guys, call the police, and be on his merry way.
Watching the four guys walking around carefully, Peter waits until none of them are actively looking at him to strike. The guns are still trained on them, so he needs to be patient. It takes a full five, mind numbing minutes of more crying from his company and monologuing from each respective bad guy in the room. Seriously, his ears can only take so much. Even without super senses, this would be unbearable to most people.
But then finally, guard 3 glances at guard 4 and guard 2 and Leader-Guy are in a tense conversation.
As quickly as possible, Peter twists his arm in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if the spider bite didn’t make him insanely flexible, and shoots a web at the machine that brought him and the girl here.
All four bad guys instantly turn their attention to the machine that starts beeping madly. Peter’s Spider-sense begins to throw an absolute fit, telling him to get the fuck out of dodge as fast as he can.
“Go!” Leader-Guy barks out after a shocked second. “Grab them! get the door!”
One guy runs to the door while the other two go to grab him and the girl. Leader guy snatches some research off his desk and makes a run for it too.
Guard 4 grabs Peter while guard 2 grabs the girl, who begins screeching and squirming in his hold. Peter grimaces, trying to whisper reassurances to her, but they fall on deaf ears. She keeps screaming and crying for her parents and for guard 2 go let her go.
“Come on,” guard 4 huffs as he drags Peter towards the door guard 3 is holding open for everyone. Leader-Guy shoves Peter out of the way to get to safety first, which Peter promptly scoffs at. Maybe don’t build an unstable portal if you can’t handle the danger?
“Close the door!” Leader-Guy shouts angrily once everyone is through and into the hallway.
“Let me go! Daddy! Mommy!” The girl continues to wail throughout the entire process, which is clearly getting on everyone’s nerves. Peter’s itching to save her, fighting against his instincts begging him to fight. But he has to wait for the guard to close the door safely before he can act.
“Five seconds!” Guard 3 informs everyone.
5
“Get off me!” The girl sobs.
4
“Do we even have five seconds!?” Guard 4 panics.
3
“It doesn’t matter!” Leader-Guy argues.
2
“Hurry up!” Guard 2 yells harshly. Yeah, like that’ll make things go faster.
1
“Petey! Save me!”
The door finally locks shut with an audible click.
Things go fast after that.
Peter snaps out of the metal restraining him, throwing guard 4 off him and at guard 2, webbing the girl towards him when guard 2’s grip on her loosens in surprise as his friend comes flying towards him.
Leader-Guy and guard 3 both pull out guns, but between settling the door and holding research, the two are slow on the uptake, which allows Peter to web both of them to the wall before the safety can even be clicked off either of the guns.
“You-!” Leader-Guy screams in outrage, but he’s cut off when Peter webs his mouth.
“Dude, seriously, just shut up for a minute,” Peter complains, picking up the sobbing five year old stuck to his side and holding her on his hip.
“You won’t get away with this,” guard 3 threatened darkly.
Peter cocked his eyebrow. “Isn’t that my line? What do you want me to say? ‘I already did’?”
“You think it’s just us? You really think the four of us could’ve built something like that?” Guard 3 says ominously, his words making Peter freeze.
“Wasn’t being loners like your guys’s entire backstory?” Now Peter zoned out for quite a bit, but he’s 99.9% sure they all said that. Respectively.
“Lex Luther doubted us. He didn’t.”
Shit. Shit shit shit-
“Time for us to go, bug!” Peter yelps, his spider sense blaring at him to get going. He hadn’t thought this through. Not at all. He thought he knew what they were up against, but clearly he has no idea just how powerful this band of idiots are. Leader-Guy is apparently not the leader, which means he needs a new nickname, first of all. Second, it means there’s someone out there who’s now going to hunting down the aliens they spend so much time and money on getting.
Running as fast as he can, Peter rushes out of the building. He runs like he’s fourteen again, and there was a gunshot still ringing in his ears and uncle Ben—
“Petey, I’m scared,” the girl tucked into his side whines, pulling him from his spiraling thoughts.
Right, he’s not alone. He’s got a civilian that he needs to take care of. He can’t lose himself go fear. Not now.
So he keeps running, letting his senses guide him towards the exit. When he sees another metal door, he releases a web and pulls until the door creaks and falls down.
Outside, he’s greeted with clear skies and warm air. The girl at his side perks up at the sight of freedom.
Peter sighs, taking in the near perfect skies looking deceivingly beautiful and calm before him. Like he didn’t just get kidnapped with a little girl and brought to an alternate universe. Giving a little bounce to the girl finally beginning to settle on his hip, he walks out.
“Alright kiddo, let’s get out of here.”