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"Our son has been kidnapped. We need your help- please."
Peter wasn't egocentric enough to think his bad luck was the cause of all this, but goddamn did it not help.
"We're the Fantastic Four, and we're not from this universe."
Space travel and multiverse variants at the same time? And he's the one who happened to be nearby to welcome them to this Earth? He was at least 93% sure someone up there had to be doing it on purpose.
"He took him right from my arms and I couldn't do anything to stop him, I don't know what he wants him for or if our son is even okay, we just know he's in this universe."
But regardless of whatever divine entity that seemed to thrive on messing with him in increasingly stupid ways, Peter wasn't turning away from this. He didn't even consider it. A family needed help, a kid needed saving. Peter didn't even hesitate before agreeing to help. Neither did Kate.
Yelena, as usual, needed a bit more convincing, but Peter and Kate were probably the best two people on Earth for that task.
Thank fucking God they happened to be nearby when the Fantastic Four's ship landed, in one of their usual weekend hangouts that always resulted in some kind of chaos anyway, so really this whole thing shouldn't be shaking him as much as it is.
Guess he was still a sucker, even after all this time.
It could've ended a lot worse had literally anyone else been there to greet them, so Peter should really try to be thankful right now. And he is.
He's also terrified out of his fucking mind.
He's in some kind of locker room in the recently "reacquired" Avengers Tower alongside Kate, separate from the one Yelena and her New Avengers are currently in, always close since the spy and the archer tended to be a package deal- and boy doesn't he know it, he's part of the package now- and it's a surprisingly comfortable one, big enough to not be claustrophobic without being impractical, weapon lockers lining an entire wall and filled to burst with anything a budding superhero would need, the bench under his legs felt cushioned and sturdy, the temperature was regulated and perfect, the walls were even a tasteful dark blue instead of boring grey like he had been half expecting, but Peter doesn't think he'd be able to describe any of it if asked. Even his name and suit colors feel like distant concepts now.
They're all suiting up, getting ready for the trip, Kate stocking up on her increasingly cartoonish arrow arsenal before loading them into her quiver, and then loading more trick arrow heads wherever she can for good measure, Yelena probably has half the tower on her right now with how many guns and knives and bombs of every kind he'd seen her strap to her person earlier- including the web bomb kind, something that took a lot of convincing and a lot of annoyance to get him to cough out for her, but it basically solidified their bond forever so he's not complaining- and Peter is supposed to be loading up his web shooters and making sure he has spares on top of spares in his belt, but his hands aren't quite getting the memo. He digs them into the bench, almost to the point where he knows it'll break just to make sure he could still feel them.
Were they even still there, or were they dust on the spotless floor and he just hadn't noticed? Sometimes he still wakes up asking that exact same question. Sometimes he still wasn't sure if he ever woke up at all.
Sometimes, less so these days, he wishes he hadn't.
He can feel the archer's eyes on him from where she's standing by her weapons locker, with their signature brand of concern that never felt like pity, not even now, when he's pretty sure "pitiful" describes him perfectly.
He doesn't want her to worry about him. He doesn't want anyone to be distracted by his stupid angst. Hell, what does he even have to angst about? Out of everyone in this building, he was probably better off than most considering he was actually dumb enough to get himself dragged to space and die fighting a battle he never had any hope of winning prior to this. As far as he knew, most of the people here had never fought in anything even close to the battle for Earth back in the ruins of the Compound, where it had felt like the entire universe was trying to tear him apart, and Peter knew that wasn't a very far off notion.
Did he do those things? Did they happen to him? It didn't feel like it sometimes. Maybe it was somebody else. Someone who wouldn't lock up like a coward at the mere thought of doing it again.
He's the one who they should be leaning on right now. Aside from the Four themselves, he's the only one who has even a modicum of understanding of what they're about to face, and he needs to act like it, but Peter honestly doesn't feel like he can even rely on himself to get on that ship alongside everyone else without walking straight into a panic attack, and so he doesn't know what to do.
Suddenly, and not for the first time by a long shot, he wishes his brothers were here. They'd know what to do. They'd help him. They'd help everyone.
Peter. You know.
It's what we do.
Yeah... Yeah, it's what we do.
It really was that simple wasn't it? Even back when the multiverse was unraveling along with his entire life, it all came down to one simple fact. One he always knew, but sometimes forgot how it felt.
"We'll help you get your son back. I promise."
He's never looking the other way again.
And so he sucks it up, pops his left web cartridge out to replace it with a fresh one, and breathes.
In. Out.
Kate taught him that breathing was the key to archery, and that she later figured out it was the key for most things in life.
As usual, she's right.
So he reaches for her worried presence and finds it in him to make a joke. Somehow, it actually comes out.
"So just to set the record straight here, raise your hand if you haven't been to space please." He trills under his mask, staring directly at her blue eyes through his lenses and watching them narrow in real time.
Oh she knows what he's doing, and Peter doesn't think he'll actually escape this conversation for even a second, but she's playing along for now. For his sake. And because he knows she wouldn't take this kind of shit talk lying down even if the world was quite literally about to end.
God, he really loves her. Peter should really get around to telling her that more often. It was just a shame that everyone he loved tended to die because of him.
Clearly deeming this to be more important, Kate shuts the locker door with a dramatic snap of her arm and slowly raises her hand, one that's deceptively free of any weaponry and perfectly capable of drawing back a bowstring in a moment's notice, looking the very picture of unamused. She raises her eyebrows at him, giving him ample opportunity to shut the fuck up.
She knows him better than to think he would take it.
"Noob."
Her pretty eyes narrowed even further, and Peter could actually see her picturing his mask as a shooting target right now. It happened before, it's how they solve a lot of their arguments by now. It's kinda hot.
Most of their friends are at least mildly concerned about that, but Yelena just tends to encourage it.
Peter makes sure to keep her bow in his eyesight from where it's resting against the locker's door, just in case.
"One more word and you won't like what you'll get once we're back from space." His girlfriend's voice is as serious as it could possibly be, and anyone would think this is the time he calls it quits before he actually gets himself in trouble, but one year and some change of dating plus another year and some change of trying to keep her from getting too close to either sides of his life- and boy hadn't that been a failure from the very start- made reading her mood and expressions as effortless as web-swinging had become, and he could tell when her "threats" amounted to pretending to make him sleep with Lucky before dragging him back to bed when she got lonely.
Poor, poor Hawkeye. So predictable.
And so of course he doesn't hesitate to follow up with, "Don't worry, I promise I'll hold your hand the whole time." And of course he gets immediately rewarded with a punch to the arm that doesn't hurt half as much as it would've a normal person, but he makes a show of it as usual, clutching the "injured" area as if he had been stabbed and leaning back on the bench almost to the point of falling off it.
"Owwwwww, how could you do that?! I don't think I can go on the trip anymore, you pretty much just crippled me!" She keeps punching his arm, her composure cracking by the second and all he wants right now is to see her laughing and so he goes for the finisher, crossing his arms and turning his head away from her assault, making sure to narrow his lenses in annoyance, the mechanical sound reverberating across the room like a death sentence. "Just for that, I'm not holding your hand anymore."
Kate bursts out in laughter, her playful fists stopping so she could hold onto his arm and lean on him for support, not surprised at all that he could reduce her to a cackling mess even in the worst of circumstances because Peter was just like that, effortlessly bright and funny and good and she loved it. Every second of it. Every minute and every hour and every day with him and Yelena were a blessing she still wasn't sure she deserved but would do anything to keep, going to space to fight an evil dictator from another universe included.
Resting her head on his ridiculous shoulder as she sits next to him, Kate was so glad he could still make her laugh like no one else even when he was so very clearly not ok, and she would get to the bottom of that, mark her words, she just wanted a bit more time of levity in her favorite resting place.
Said resting place was deemed her favorite long before they even started dating. If you ever used a spider-powered shoulder as a pillow you wouldn't judge her.
"Noooooo, please, I'll die." Kate whined, burying her face further into his shoulder for more of his impossible warmth, only to feel every single inch of it stiffen as Peter seems to freeze in place. And it's in that exact moment Kate realizes what she just said.
Dear God, she's such a fucking idiot sometimes.
Before she can even try and fix it, Peter's voice comes out, and she shivers at just how completely devoid of feeling it is. "Cool. You can join that club too while you're at it."
She doesn't flinch away. She doesn't get angry. She doesn't stumble all over herself trying to somehow find the appropriate words to console someone who went to space and died when they were sixteen. Peter doesn't need any of that from her right now.
What he needs is to be reminded.
Because she wasn't stupid. She knew exactly how unprepared she and everyone else here were for the scope of what they were about to face. I mean, space, WHAT?! She had a bow and arrow and a lot of guts and confidence. She didn't know if she could truly make a difference in a situation where everything seemed so far out of her grasp.
And yet that didn't stop Clint when aliens invaded, and he somehow made a difference with sticks and a string. He proved to her that day that she didn't have to be afraid. And she still believed that, no matter how much more terrifying things were up close.
It didn't stop Yelena when she had been trained her whole life to be a tool for killing and chose to become a hero instead. When the entire world moved on without her for five years and then expected her to just slide right back as if her heart hadn't been ripped out of her along with her soul. Every possible odd stacked against her, and still, here she was. An Avenger. Her Avenger.
And Peter? After losing everything to this exact kind of chaos? After dying and coming back and losing so much it'd kill anyone else again? After losing every reason to keep going except the memories he carried with him? He still kept going. He still got up everyday and kept on being Spider-Man. Because people needed him. Because Peter needed him. Because one person can make a difference, super powers or not. He showed her that as long as she can find it in herself to hold on, just a second longer, she can get through anything.
Because with great power, comes great responsibility.
He had told her that a long time ago. Before she even knew who he truly was. And he had said it like it meant everything.
Later, after the mask had come off, Kate understood that it did.
But Peter wasn't perfect, and tended to forget that just because he had great power, not everything was his responsibility to shoulder alone.
She was always more than happy to remind him.
Climbing into his lap, taking his face in her hands, digging her knees in the bench supporting them both and thanking whoever designed it to be so damn comfy, Kate gives him no choice but to look straight at her and listen. She knew he wouldn't look anywhere else when she demanded his attention.
"You're not alone up there." She practically growled, feeling this protective fury rising up from deep in her that became more and more common the longer she was a hero, the longer she fought for people who couldn't fight for themselves, and the longer she knew this wonderful man who just wanted to do good and got nothing but bad for it.
Not anymore. Not anymore.
"This is not going to end like last time. We won't let it. You're not dying on me." Peter's breath hitched, and she knew he was crying under the mask. The sheer thought was enough to get her crying too, but she didn't stop or hesitate for even a second, just gently peeled off his mask so it still sat atop his head, just in case someone who wasn't Yelena decided to come in- and get themselves an arrow through their eye- and with fingers that had drawn a lifetime of bowstrings, gently wiped his tears away, as hands that could carry trucks did the same to her own.
It never failed to amaze her, just how strong he was. In more ways than one.
"We're gonna go up there. We're gonna save that kid, and we're gonna come home. I'll hold onto you until the end, and if anything happens, there is no child kidnapping robot dictator in the multiverse that's stopping me from getting you back. Do you understand that?"
How could he not, after something like that?
Peter really, really didn't deserve her.
He knows, in his heart, that he hadn't deserved MJ and Ned either, and so he had let them go. He thought he was doing the right thing, and maybe in some grand, multiversally fucked up way Doctor Strange would probably approve of, he was. That didn't change the fact that he had broken his promise. That he had been a coward. That he had been a worse friend than he could've ever been if he had just been brave enough to let them make their own choice instead of making it for them.
Peter knew that would always be his biggest mistake. Thankfully, Kate didn't judge people only for those.
And so he nodded, shakily, barely, but real, because she was real in his lap and he was real in this world and no matter what happened next, what they had would always be real. There was no letting Kate go. She made that abundantly clear every time he tried, and so he stopped trying.
He never regretted it.
"Whatever happens, I'm not letting go of your hand. Ever." Making sure to grab it, feeling its warmth even through their gloves, Peter didn't hesitate to meet her halfway when she kissed him, their promise solidified.
They should probably get back to the others.
Her tongue slipped into his mouth and Peter knew exactly where this was going as he moaned, reluctantly breaking off from her and immediately wishing he hadn't. "Kate..."
"What? It's not like I'm the only one thinking it." She grinded on his lap just to make her point, which she definitely wasn't wrong about. Stupid hormones and stupid skintight suits and stupid pretty girlfriends who he absolutely could not resist, ever. The amount of close calls on rooftops at this point was seriously making him consider deleting his socials.
Still, Peter could self deny with the absolute best of them and tried to at least put a semblance of a fight. "We don't have time, everyone else is probably ready by now..." He said even as he cupped her ass through her almost as skintight suit, and let it be known that the operative term there was tried.
"And they can wait just a bit longer then. Are you really telling me you don't wanna have a pre space heist fuck?"
And as usual, she had him beat.
"Good point."
Unfortunately, or fortunately if you weren't the two of them, the usual third voice of their lives decided to speak up before they could get started with their bullshit.
"How about a post space heist fuck, would that work?"
Peter yelped and accidentally sent Kate tumbling to the ground, Kate yelped and hit the ground, and Yelena cackled at what was a very common happening in her relationship with these two horny fucks. And it never got old.
"YELENA!" Kate shouted from her place as a sprawled corpse on the floor, being helped up by a very apologetic Peter who she decides to forgive immediately despite making a note to switch his web fluid with toothpaste later.
"Everyone's ready! I'd love nothing more than for you two to fuck to your heart's content after what was clearly a very emotional talk, but I'm not explaining the delay to the family of four currently in need of rescuing their child, so up and up!" Very blunt and thorough as usual, the blonde had her two best friends up and straightening themselves in a heartbeat. Usually she'd let them have at it and embarrass them after as that was much more fun, but she wasn't kidding about not explaining the delay, she had filled her quota of talking to strange people about two hours ago.
Still, that didn't mean she couldn't delay them just a little bit.
"Now I know it doesn't compare to what you idiots wanted to do, but would a hug make you maybe 50% more amicable?" The master spy assassin proposed already opening her arms, knowing she wasn't doing a great job of hiding her true motives, especially from these two, and the look they exchanged only confirmed her utter failure at pretending she didn't really want a hug from her favorite people right now.
Well whatever. With them failure never really felt like failure.
"Sure Yel. Just 50% though. Don't get your hopes up for more." Her spider quipped and embraced her with his stupidly strong body, followed by her hawk with her own soft strength and impossible precision.
"You don't really need to ask, but good on you for doing so anyway. I'm proud of you." As playful as her words were, that didn't make them any less true or hit any less hard as Yelena tightened her grip on them, hiding her face between their bodies when they kissed her cheeks in unison.
"You're gonna kill me with your fluff someday."
"You'd love it."
Snorting at the synchronized call-out, Yelena grinned to herself, not caring if they saw it or not.
Laughing, Kate laid her head on top of both of theirs and bragged about how good it felt to be tall, much to Yelena's indignation.
And Peter smiled as they rough-housed, just taking it all in.
Funny. Going back to space didn't seem that scary all of a sudden.