Chapter Text
It was an ordinary Tuesday. A Tuesday as any other, a little cloudy and cold, even though it was May. And yet, it wasn't that ordinary. Had it been ordinary, this whole mess wouldn't have happened.
But perhaps one should start at the beginning, not at the end.
Peter had school that day. That cloudy day. But, considering he was Spider-Man and never ran away from a fight if he could help it, he was held up on his way to school.
Happy hadn't been able to drive him and literally every Avenger who was currently home had offered to do it instead, but the teen had refused. He didn't want to get even more attention by being driven by Captain America. It was bad enough as it was.
Looking back, he should have accepted the offer.
However, now he was walking down a rather empty street. It wasn't exactly unusual that there weren't many people around, considering that it was mostly factories and warehouses on either side of the road.
The only thing that was out of the ordinary, were the five men standing at a corner, seemingly pushing around a smaller man. As Peter came closer, he noticed that they were offering him something. Or rather trying to force him to buy it.
The teen quickly slipped into a narrow alley and practically jumped out of his clothes to reveal his suit underneath. Since the whole Thanos-catastrophe, he had made it a habit to wear it at all times.
He crawled up a wall and then ran over the rooftop until he reached the little group. Yelling 'what's up, y'all', he jumped down on them. They jumped back in surprise, the victim stepping back until he hit the wall behind him. Peter gave him a small wave and then turned to the five others.
“Well, that's not very nice, is it.”, he said and tilted his head to the side. “He clearly doesn't want to buy your … stuff, whatever it is, but that doesn't seem to reach your brains.”
“Fuck off, Spidey.”, a man with a beard growled. “Or we'll make you.”
“You could at least say please.”
“This is none of your business, man.”, a different one with a cap snapped.
“It kinda is though.” Without further warning, Peter shot a few webs at them, one of which made a man with hoodie stumbled backwards and hit a lamppost. The teen attached him to it without a second glance, then he focussed back on the four that were left. Their victim had made a run for it as soon as the action had started.
Maybe, if he hadn't been up since 2am, he wouldn't have been so tired. Maybe, if he hadn't been this tired, he would have noticed the man coming at him from behind. Maybe, if he had noticed him earlier, he would have been able to jump out of the way and he could have avoided the fiasco that was to follow.
He did not jump. He did not notice the man. He was not awake enough, had been up for too long.
He hissed when suddenly there was a needle in his arm. He kicked the thug in the guts, sending him falling to the floor and pulled the evil thing out of his arm. At the moment he was running completely on adrenaline, which was probably the only reason he was able to defeat the three men that were left and web them to a wall.
“Uuh … Karen?”, he panted. “What was in that syringe?”
“It appears to be some kind of drug, however I cannot identify it.”
“Must be new then.” He slowly walked back to where he had left his backpack. He'd have to take a different route now.
“Peter, I would recommend returning to the Avengers Tower and letting your blood getting checked.”
“It's fine.” He pulled off his mask and put on his clothes. He then connected his earbuds to his phone and put them in his ears. “I have an enhanced metabolism. It'll hardly affect me.”
“Nevertheless, you should perhaps let an Avenger know about this incident.”
“Why?” He put his backpack on and started hurrying down the street. He was gonna be late for school again.
“In case something bad proceeds to happen.”
“I'm fine, Karen. They didn't even inject me with the whole thing, I pulled it out before they could.” He was jogging now, partly in the hopes of getting his weirdly heavy head to clear up. “Besides, I still have that bracelet Tony made me so he can hover over my pulse and stuff whenever I'm on patrol. You can alert him if anything is way too out of the ordinary and I can't keep you from doing that anymore. Deal?”
“Peter, you would refuse to call Mr. Stark even if you were laying bleeding out on the pavement.”, the AI dryly responded.
“Yeah, whatever, I gotta go now. Got school.” He put away his phone and burst into the building, racing to his classroom. He was five minutes late, but he figured that wouldn't be too bad. He shook out his twitching hand before knocking and entering the room. Everybody turned to look at him, but he just mumbled an excuse about having overslept and sat down next to Ned, who gave him a worried glance. He shortly leaned against the wall next to him with one hand, as a wave of dizziness washed over him.
“Dude, you look like shit.”, his friend announced in a whisper. “Are you sick or something?”
“I'm fine, Ned. Just um …” He hesitated shortly, trying to find the right words. “I just had to stop some thugs.”
Ned frowned. “Right.”
For the next ten minutes or something, everything was indeed fine. Apart from a growing headache and a profuse sweating attack. Then, from one moment to the other, everything went to hell and shit hit the fan, big-time.
The phone rang and the teacher, Mrs. Clave, had to answer it. Flash, not noticing, or happily ignoring the miserable state Peter was obviously in, had ripped apart a sheet of paper and now let the pieces rain down onto the other one's head.
Who was drugged up, sleep-deprived and traumatised.
What happened next was only to be expected. Peter's spidey-senses had slowly gone wild over the past fifteen minutes, but now they went through the roof and still kept accelerating. He spun around in his chair, only to be met with his own skin, grey and dead, peeling off his head and arms, falling to the floor and onto the desk.
Without even realizing it, he more or less slid off his chair and squeezed himself in the gap between the chair and the wall.
He didn't notice Mrs. Clave calling his name. He didn't notice Ned patting him on the shoulder. He didn't notice the stares he got.
He was horrified.
Once had been enough for a lifetime, but dying for a second time? That couldn't be right, couldn't be happening! It was so wrong, everything felt wrong, smelt wrong, tasted wrong! Instead of his hoodie over his suit, he felt naked and exposed, instead of Ned's shampoo next to him, he could only smell the distinct scent of sulphur, as if he was back on Titan, and instead of the mint he'd eaten earlier, he could now only taste ash.
'No no no no no no!' He didn't realize that he'd spoken out loud. For a second he could see somebody's face in his field of vision, pale and blurry, mouth moving. Peter shook his head, trying to stop this feeling, trying to control himself. “I don't wanna die!”, he finally choked out, barely more than a whisper.
And suddenly Ned was next to him, gripping his arm and speaking to him, slowly. Peter stared back at him, not understanding a word he said, too far gone in his own mind, until finally he put together the movements of his friend's lips and the muffled audio input he got.
“Stark. Calling Stark.”
Over and over and over, until Peter managed a nod, which immediately transformed into a jerking shaking of his head. If Tony was here, he'd have to see him die again! He couldn't do that to him, not again, couldn't put that weight on him!
He didn't know how much time passed. He'd retreated back into memories of that day, back on that planet, with Tony and Dr. Strange and the Guardians.
They were all dead, all gone, and he was going to follow them into the darkness and emptiness that was death.
And suddenly there was a hand on his neck, solid and strong and stroking his jaw. But he didn't have jaw any more, did he? It had turned to ash, just like the rest of him, gone. But if it was gone, then how could he possibly feel it?
Maybe he wasn't gone completely yet? He didn't know, he'd squeezed his eyes shut. Now he cracked them open slowly, blinking rapidly as he did so. There was somebody crouching in front of him, looking at him, talking to him.
“Misser S-Stark?”, he croaked out, surprised to find his vocal cords still in existence.
“Yeah Buddy, that's me.” Since when could he hear?? “You wanna tell me what's happening?”
“I don't know, I don't – I don't – I'm gone!” He didn't fight the tears streaming down his face. If it even was his face. Maybe it was only his imagination.
“Can you tell me where you are?”
“I-I … I'm on Titan.” It was surprisingly difficult to speak. Peter wasn't sure if it was because of his breaths that came out too fast, or because he was imagining this whole conversation. “Titan.”
There was a muttered “Fuck” and then Tony continued in a much softer voice: “Peter, I need you to listen to me very closely. Can you do that for me?” The teen only nodded shakily. “You are not on Titan. You are on earth, in New York. You are at school, Thanos is dead and you are alive.” Now Tony sounded sad. Why was he sad? “You hear me? You're alive. No turning into dust today, my friend.”
“But I'm – I'm not-” He drew in another shaky breath and shook his head. “I can feel myself disintegrating.” As if to show the lack of his body, he pulled up the sleeve of his hoodie with numb fingers, barely feeling the fabric of his suit underneath.
There was silence after that, for a moment it was completely quiet. Then somebody else spoke up. It sounded a lot like Steve, and when Peter looked up, the person even looked like Steve. But he hadn't been on Titan. That didn't make any sense!
“Hey Pete, it's me, Steve.” What … was he doing here? “Your good friend Ned here called us. You're having a flashback right now, but I assure you, you're safe.”
And suddenly his words were gone. He couldn't speak any more, couldn't breath, couldn't do anything but cry, cry so bitterly, his shoulders shaking in newfound agony as he hunched over to hug himself, but instead he was met with another warm body, firmly against his. One arm was around his waist, holding him close, while the other one reached to his head, softly running a hand through his hair.
“You're okay.” That was Tony again, voice sounding muffled as he held the teen as close as possible. “You're okay. We're both okay. Thanos is dead and we're all alive.”
Eventually Peter dared to lift his head. He stared at the other man with wide eyes – and realization struck him. He was okay. He was alive and okay and Tony was here, too, and – no, wait, there was something, something important he had to tell him, something - “I got drugged.”
The mechanic stiffened. “What?” He leaned back a little to take a closer look at his kid. “When?”
“This um – this morning.” He took a deep breath. Well, not deep, but deeper than the ones before. “There there were a few um thugs and I had to stop them from … from doing … something.”
“And they managed to drug you during the fight?”, Tony helpfully supplied. He sighed when the teen nodded, eyes nearly falling closed again. “Why didn't you call me? You can't go to school while on drugs!”
But before he could even answer, Steve gently squeezed Tony's shoulder. “Tones, not now.”
“Right. Sure, sorry.” He turned around to the soldier. “Are you gonna take care of his class? I gotta get him out of here.”
“Do I answer honestly?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think you should. You know, so this” He gestured at the pieces of paper on Peter's desk. “doesn't happen again. Drugs or not.” He left out the accidental identity reveal of Spider-Man, but surely Steve would be smart enough to make the whole class swear on the lives of their mothers not to tell anybdoy.
“Will do.”
With that, Tony turned his attention back to Peter, who was now not hyperventilating any more, but instead had leaned his head against the wall, watching the scene in front of him from tired eyes. The genius doubted that the kid actually took anything in, though. “Pete, do you think you can walk to the car?” He didn't even get more than a nod for that. Stubborn as ever. Again he sighed. “Okay, that's a no.” Apparently the talking bit had drained Peter from every ounce of energy he'd had left after this sever panic attack. “Let's go then.”
Tony lifted his kid up into the air, until he had him safely in his arms. Peter clawed to the mechanic's neck and jacket with both hands, hid his face in his chest and let out a shuddering breath. “'m tired, dad.”, he mumbled.
And even though the circumstances were horrible and the teen probably didn't even know what was happening, the warmest of all feelings spread in Tony's stomach at that little word.
Only seconds later and Peter was fast asleep.