Chapter Text
“Peter. You’ve got to listen to me, please. Do not, under any circumstances, get off the ship.” Tony pulled out of the hug, firmly gripping his shoulders instead. “You understand?”
Peter couldn’t bring himself to speak a lie in case this was their last conversation, so simply nodded instead. He knew how unlikely a good outcome would be on Titan, and also knew that their best chance at one didn’t include Peter sitting on his arse, hiding in the ship.
Despite Peter’s affirmation, devastation still held strong in Tony’s eyes.
“ I love you, Pete. I’m so so proud of you, bud.” He paused, as if to say more but before he could, a sound equivalent to a skyscraper collapsing radiated throughout the ship, shockwaves tearing them apart.
And only a couple seconds later, Tony was fully suited up and flying out into the battlefield. Following the suit with his eyes, Peter spotted Dr. Strange and the guardians already out there too, all converging on a single, all-consuming purple beast. Thanos.
The human spike fear in was immediate, coupled with the screaming roar of his spidey-sense, telling him to run and hide. To get as far away from Titan as possible.
And despite all this, overwhelming every nerve of his body, he sprinted as fast as he could straight for Thanos.
The others had immediately got swept up by his army, held away from the epicentre. This meant no help for his attack on the Titan but did clear a few obstacles in his path.
Sprinting forward, Peter ignored what he was seeing and put all of his energy, every reserve he had never dared to touch, directly into his senses. He let them overwhelm him entirely, take over every muscle and joint, and followed along willingly as a puppet to his power.
He could tell he was both dodging and striking with precision, but his momentum stayed almost entirely forward. Seconds of ducking and jumping, shooting webs in every direction, felt like minutes. Only when the small dangers had mostly faded, leaving the biggest danger almost right in front of him, did he open his eyes. Purple swamped his entire field of vision, giant eyes of hatred locked onto his own.
Spotting red in the corner of his eyes, Peter tore his eyes away to briefly, one last time, feel the love of his mentor course through his veins. His senses allowed him to hear the shouts from within Tony’s armour, he was screaming at him to get away.
The purple titan captured his attention once again when a warning allowed him to narrowly avoid being crushed on the spot.
Immediately a beam of fire and fury, enveloped the titan’s face in flames. Intended as a path for Peter’s escape, Tony had inadvertently given him the opening he had been looking for.
Fuck, fuck, Fuck it. Peter announced in his head. This is it, two leaps and one massive launch, Peter hooked himself onto Thanos’s gauntlet. Realising getting the whole gauntlet off was impossible, Peter used all of his remaining strength to Pry his fingers into a gap and took whichever stone he could get.
“Too late, Arachnid” And at that, peter was flicked off the titan like his namesake and swatted into the ground.
The pain was physical pain was immediate but nothing compared to the mental anguish he felt at the sound of the snap. The quick scraping grind of metal, and he knew the titan was right. He was too late.
Then, his body was suddenly on fire, his flesh burning in pain. Daring to look down, he was rewarded with the sight of his skin prying itself away from his skeleton, then disintegrating into ashes. He could feel his powers straining to do what they could and hold on, which just ended up prolonging his torture.
Not being able face his decay, he looked up and belatedly realised Tony had grabbed a hold of him.
“Mr Stark.” A breath, “I don’t feel so good”. His vision was now flickering, “I don’t know what’s happening”.
“You’re alright, ” was whispered in his ear.
“I don’t wanna go, please, I don’t want to go, Mr Stark.” He begged, crying into his shoulder, “Please”.
But he knew. The pain was too much, and a final look at his body only confirmed it. The last thing he saw was something blue, glowing and unearthly, clutched in his only remaining arm.