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English
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Part 1 of Earth 19999999 and beyond
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MCU Alternate Universes, MCU Fix-Its, BAMF Peter Parker, LayhaC fave Marvel Fics, WOO Insomnia Time, ☆*: .。. o(≧▽≦)o .。.:*☆, Da_leggere
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Published:
2018-07-17
Completed:
2019-05-15
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143,794
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58/58
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Peter Parker's Adventure Through Time and Space

Summary:

Comic book science and time travel make for a great fic. Alternate realities, past timelines, space and a whole lot more. Spoilers for infinity war stuff but by now we probably don't need that.

Basically Peter meets everyone in the Marvel universe and everyone loves him. But with more plot.

Peter travels through alternate realities and has to fix problems that aren't really his but he has no sense of self preservation so you can see how that goes.

Notes:

Reality Table of Content:

Chapter 1-6: A world without Peter Parker
Chapter 6-11: Home in 1989
Chapter 11-16: The soul stone
Chapter 16-20: Home and getting Home
Chapter 21-25: X-Men Universe
Chapter 25-29: Loki, King of Earth
Chapter 29-37: The destruction of Ultron
Chapter 37-42: DC universe
Chapter 42-47: The Raft
Chapter 47-52 : Our Reality
Chapter 53+ : Finale
 

Also- Important poll for artwork based on this fic:

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here's a new also important poll: https://goo.gl/forms/8nQZ0cv8AOpP3Juh1

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1: Step1: Don't be seen

Chapter Text

“Karen? What the hell just happened?” Peter said quietly beneath his new Iron-Spider mask. His memory was hazy as of waking up moments ago on the ceiling of an unknown building. His visor only showed his vitals and the fact that Karen was rebooting. Great… at least he was pretty well known for talking to himself. And the building was empty so that was good luck on his side. It took Peter a minute to examine his surrounding before Karen would break the silence.

 

It seemed to be some sort of lab that he vaguely recognized. It was messy and dark with scattered pieces of dismantled armour and glowing blue accents. Before his dazed brain registered anything of importance, his AI came back online.

 

“I’m sorry Peter. I was forced to reboot my systems. It also took me a moment to connect to the internet and I found out that there were some significant differences in my databases.”

 

“Uh, changes like what?” He said nervously.

 

“According to local news sources and my connection to FRIDAY, You died two years ago under mysterious circumstances.”

 

“You said that really calmly… Well I’m not dead. Are there any other major differences? I mean this could be… I don’t know. Didn’t the wizard guy say something about alternate realities? Wait, What’s the date in this uh, alternate earth?”

 

“April second, twenty eighteen. about two weeks before the last time I was online. As for the so-called wizard...I don’t know… I was offline once you were out of range of earth.”

 

“Okay… Alternate reality and a little bit of time travel then… uh, so I’m dead apparently. I guess that means I should avoid Mr. Stark and everyone else… I don’t want to reopen any wounds.”

 

“That might be hard as we are in Stark Tower. And FRIDAY has already sensed a disturbance.”

 

“Oh shit… are we in the view of any cameras? If Mr. Stark sees me I think he might freak out a little bit.” a little bit… That was a bit of an understatement. After the ferry incident he really knew that Mr. Stark was pretty emotionally involved in him. Even at that early point in their history. And if he was anything like his mentee, Mr. Stark would blame himself and bury himself in some unhealthy coping mechanisms that would end up being majorly self-destructive after this realities Peters death.

 

Peter knew that running into Mr. Stark then immediately leaving him would unnecessarily cause him a lot of pain. But at the moment, Mr. Stark could totally already know with the most advanced AI connected to the towers surveillance system.

 

“Mr. Starks tower lab is equipped with practically every type of surveillance technology on and off of the market. It is very unlikely that you will be able to leave the tower without any trace. However, your face is not currently visible so It’s likely that Mr. Stark will assume that you were just stealing the Iron-Spider suit. Your counterpart was never given the chance to wear it to my knowledge."

 

“That isn’t much better Karen. We need to find a way out of here. Where is Mr. Stark Anyway? I won’t even have to worry too much if he’s out of state or at the Avengers Compound.” Peter began to crawl towards a stealthily hidden ventilation shaft. He was vaguely aware that Mr. Stark usually made the vents big enough for a grown man partially because apparently Hawkeye used to sneak around in them and spy on people.

 

Well it doesn’t matter anymore as Clint was currently with (read as: on house arrest) his family in an undisclosed location. Peter thought that it was a pretty light sentence after joining the rouge avengers who were going against the law. Peter was still a little bitter. Apparently only those who had some sort of guilt complex wanted to follow the law. He had only figured out the accords after they were released to the public and he was glad that he was on the right side. He had been taught of the importance of taking responsibility and all that shit since he was little. Hell, his uncle's favorite catch-phrase was ‘With great power, comes great responsibility.’ Peter knew more than most people the weight of responsibility.

 

His inner monologue was cut off by his AIs soft voice.

 

“I have contacted FRIDAY and it appears that we have found a loophole. Apparently Mr. Stark used to let you in without having to alert him. He didn’t delete the protocall once your counterpart died so at least we know he won’t receive a call concerning a certain undead spider-boy. However I cannot disable any cameras or delete any footage. Sorry Peter but it was the best I could do.”

 

“That’s fine Karen. It’s all I need. I mean there won’t be an Iron suit charging at me so I guess that’s cool.” Peter breathed a sigh of relief. At least no alarms would go off. He might not be completely off of the grid but hopefully he won’t run into Mr. Stark before he can find a way to get home. “Okay, Can you get me a map of the vents? I can probably at least get to the roof. Then I can find a more permanent place to figure out what is going on.”

 

His visor immediately lit up in an x-ray of the buildings with a green path that led him up quite a few floors to the roof.

 

“I should warn you to be quiet as you are not the only one in the building.”

 

“Well in our reality this place was sold to OsCorp a few years ago so i don’t know why the avengers have it back. I mean, the avengers aren’t really a thing in our reality anymore. All of the original avengers stabbed Mr. Stark in the back and went off to become outlaws. Assholes…” Peter muttered nervously to himself. He tended to ramble and quip when he was nervous. It was a good distraction to keep criminals focused on his words instead of his actions.

 

“That doesn’t seem to be the case in this reality. Apparently after your mysterious death and discovery as Spider-Man-”

 

“Wait… Shit- people know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man?” He hissed, attempting to keep his panic at bay. It would be so much easier if he wasn’t even vaguely recognizable. Hopefully the two years had been enough for people to forget his face. Fuck it was probably on the news for a while...

 

“Well, apparently you died with your mask off on a ramp attached to the coney island roller coaster. Right after beating the vulture. I assume you were injured too much and only had time to gather up the contents of the Stark plane before you escaped the area and succumbed to your wounds.”

 

“Okay… is there any more of the story that I should know of?” Peter continued up a vent shaft where he would be going straight upwards for a long time. Good thing this was easy for him.

 

“After Mr. Stark found your body, there was a movement for adjusting the Accords. This caused the rouge avengers to move back in. But there was still bad blood so Mr. Stark decided not to sell the tower and he let the rouge avengers use it while his team took up the compound. According to the Avengers website, there’s a Spider-Man monument on the front lawn. And apparently you are buried next to your uncle with a statue in your honor. The cemetery is well out of the way out of the city and it is unlikely that you would be recognized there. Would you like to visit your grave?”

 

“Actually that’s not a bad idea… I am kind of curious about my monument. Mr. Stark probably went all out. Poor guy, he must have been guilt-ridden. Mr. Stark had already been through so much and he definitely didn’t deserve Peters death on his conscious. Hopefully Ms. Potts and Colonel Rhodes were helping him. And oh god, Aunt May must’ve been crushed. It would’ve been the worst surprise ever. She definitely would have yelled at Mr. Stark which he didn’t deserve.

 

Now he was pissed off at his counterpart for dying. He was still kind of angry when he got to the roof.

 

“Okay… Crap, I might be too recognizable. Maybe we should deactivate the s-” Peter didn’t have a moment to finish his sentence before the annoyingly familiar jolt of his spider sense forced him to jump out of the sight of a doorway coming out from where the stairwell and the elevator met. His enhanced senses picked up quick footsteps and racing heartbeats. It sounded like two or three people were alerted to his appearance on the roof.

 

“Shit.” He muttered to himself and tried to hide himself as best as he could. Too bad he wasn’t a different bug themed superhero… if he was ant-man he could easily sneak away. It would’ve been so convenient if he could shrink but that was a power he currently did not have.

 

Soon he could hear the voices and disconsern who had been sent to check up on him. At least based on his limited knowledge of team cap. He fought them once but he was pretty good at recognizing voices. Besides, these guys were kind of famous. He heard the voice of the falcon guy talking to captain america but there was also another set of footsteps so he wasn’t quite sure who the third person was.

 

One problem at a time. Falcon could fly so escaping wasn’t going to be as easy as just jumping off of a building.

 

Captain America couldn’t quite go after him and at least the guy would stop fighting to talk to him. Or maybe not, it’s not like it worked well the first time in germany.

 

If he could guess who the last person was, Peter thought it was probably the guy with the metal arm or what would’ve really been smart would be the witch lady. But the footsteps sounded heavier so it was safer to assume the emo metal armed guy.

 

Peter forgot to breathe when the door slammed open. He couldn’t see who had all come out of the doorway as he was hiding and it would kind of defeat the purpose of being out of sight if he stuck his head out.

 

“Starks motion detectors probably got set off by some overweight pigeon.” The falcons voice was the first actual wording that he could decipher.

 

“I guess your cousin came to visit you and Clint.” A deeper more gravelly voice bantered back to the first speaker. It confirmed to Peter that Caps emo friend decided to tag along.

 

And, ha ha, superhero themed bird puns. Maybe these guys actually had personalities.

 

“The motion detectors definitely caught something bigger than a pigeon. Keep a lookout. They couldn't have gone far.” And there was Steve.

 

Peter could probably sneak away if he caused enough of a distraction. But he wasn’t sure if they all would fall for it. Unfortunately he was wearing the nanotech Iron-Spider suit instead of his normal suit and he wasn’t quite sure of what all of the features were. He definitely did not have Droney hidden in the spider insignia on his chest so he couldn’t do anything with that… Just shooting webbing at them would be stupid because they would see where it came from and it would be a pretty easy spotlight on him. He was trying to avoid the spotlight.

 

“I’m getting a heat signature- Come out come out wherever you are!” The falcon guy said loud enough to pull Peter from his thoughts. Great, he didn’t have time to plan.

 

So, time to do what he did best.

 

Something stupid.

Chapter 2: Failed Step 1

Summary:

Peter visits his grave

Notes:

I love all of the positive feedback and I hope that my work delivers! I live off of comments. Don't let me die.

Chapter Text

Peter jumped. Off of one of the tallest buildings in the city of towering skyscrapers.

 

He vaguely heard the falcon guy yell after him, very subtly indicating that Peter had in fact been seen.

 

Peter pivoted his body midair until he was facing the building. He shot a web at the underside of the helipad that jutted out of the building and swung upwards with the violent momentum of the fall before sticking to the underside of the landing pad. He focused his hearing for the only flying avenger after him. He heard a distant, ‘What the hell..’ But otherwise it was surprisingly quiet. Maybe he was too fast for a couple of super soldiers and someone well trained in the army with some of the best equipment.

 

Peter didn’t believe it either. That’s why he wasn’t the least bit surprised when his spider-sense buzzed in the back of his skull. He noticed that Karen was quiet, she did that when he was fighting so that she wouldn’t distract him. It was helpful.

 

Anyway there was a guy after him so he should probably focus on not getting caught.

 

“Now that is not something I thought that I would see today.” The falcon guy hovered about ten feet away. Peter may or may not have jumped a little. Not enough to unstick him from the platform but enough for the falcon to see. Peter quickly straightened up until he was casually standing upside down.

 

“H-hey men. Long time no see.” Peter managed to speak nervously.

 

“Kid, if I haven’t seen aliens and shit, I would be a lot more surprised.” The man folded his arms in mild irritation like Peter had interrupted his favorite meal and he was worried that it would get cold instead of finding someone who was previously dead chilling on the roof of a famous skyscraper.

 

“It’s not what you think. I am in a really weird situation so if you could just not tell anyone that I was here, I would appreciate it.” For some reason Peter thought it best to be vaguely truthful. Falcon guy seemed chill enough and he lived in a pretty wild world so alternate realities probably wouldn't be a surprise.

 

“We might be able to help you, just come inside and we can call Stark-”

 

“No, That won’t be necessary. I already messed up people finding out that I’m around. I don’t think that it would help to just show up and have to leave…” Peter shrugged. “I mean they probably just got over my death. I don’t want to reopen the wound and pour a concoction of vinegar, salt and acid on it. That would be kind of cruel.”

 

“You’re gonna have to explain this shit if you expect me to let you go. I can kind of get the psychological trauma of coming back from the dead but I need a reason not to help you you little asshole.” Peter was really surprised that Falcon guy was being so calm. Peter was definitely not calm. He hadn’t gotten the chance to rationally internalize the situation.

 

“Okay, uh, I’m not… Your Peter. I’m from a different reality and I’m stuck here until I find a way back. And if I run into anyone who knew me, your me, I’m afraid that they would be wrecked.” Peter sighed and told Karen to melt back the microtech in his mask to reveal his face. His slightly disgruntled hair folded out from its confines to react to the law of gravity that Peter constantly wanted to ignore.

 

“Eh, that’s good enough for me. But if you can’t get home you better ask for help. If anyone can help you, it’s us. We can, I don’t know, fly you to Wakanda or some shit.” Falcon guy shrugged and Peter sighed in relief.

 

“I appreciate the offer. I promise I’ll take you up on it if I need to. I just need to… figure things out. Bye!” He stuttered out and jumped off of the platform as he decided to leave his mask off. He didn’t want extra noise and it’s not like he didn’t know where the next destination was.

 

He used to visit his uncle's grave every week and according to Karen, this realities Peter Parker was currently in the same residence.

 

Peter needed to think. He needed to find a way to get home as quickly as possible. And not run into anyone who cared about him. He might have to check up on May and Ned and MJ eventually just because he was honestly kind of worried.

 

But he would do that after his fun field trip to the quiet cemetery. It seemed like a place where no one would recognize him or bother him while he tried to work this shit out. He tried to keep out of sight and he realized that keeping the Iron-Spider suit on was a pretty stupid idea so when he landed in an alley by the cemetery, he deactivated the suit which folded into his web-shooters and left him in his old suit which had been admittedly hurriedly put on over his school clothes. At least he had some sort of normal clothes instead of just a few skintight spider-themed supersuits.

 

He walked out of the alley and into the cemetery with his hood pulled over his head in a poor attempt to hide his identity.

 

It was stupidly easy to find his counterparts monument. It was literally a Spider-Man statue crouching in his signature landing pose with his mask in his hand. Peter marveled at the detailing of the sculpture. It was more like a work of art than simply a concrete memorial. It was made of pure white shimmering marble and had delicate details and lettering engraven in gold.

 

Peter Parker - Spider-Man
2001 - 2016
Great Power Never Dies

 

Peter looked up into the determined eyes of his stone counterpart. His stone face was only a few inches above where the living Peter Parker stood. He lightly grazed his hand on the indented lettering that bore his name and he looked away from the statue.

 

He felt an odd sort of sorrow as he imagined the circumstances in which this realities version of himself had perished. Karen mentioned that it was after the vulture fight. So after surviving being tazed, thrown into a school bus, a building crashing on top of him, a plain crash, and a big fight with the villian who wasn’t afraid to hurt him, Peter really shouldn’t have been surprised that the injuries would add up. He imagined that it was a culmination of little mistakes that built up until his counterparts determination was the only thing keeping him alive. But that obviously wasn’t enough.

 

Peter knew that he had little regard for his own safety if other lives were at stake, it was just part of his nature. Even at school, he stood up to bullies who got more physical with other students because he knew that he would be able to take it. But it didn’t mean that it hurt any less. He didn’t know if it was bravery or just sheer stubbornness that led to him to becoming a human shield.

 

Well, the human part could be arguable. He tended to think of himself as more of an artificial mutant human. He wasn’t given steroids to become a superhuman, and he wasn’t born with a special gene that ended up giving him powers… he was just in between with having all of his DNA rewritten and brushed off as an unidentified illness. Then poof, he could stick to walls and had to be careful when he hugged his aunt.

 

Superhuman or Mutant human, It didn’t really matter. His powers became a huge part of who he was. As having powers would tend to do. But there was a difference between little Peter Parker who was too smart for his own good and bullied for not being masculine enough, and Spider-Man, the qiuping vigilante who helped old people across the street and dodged bullets on a regular basis. These two parts had to be completely separate entities. There had to be a line.

 

Peter shook off the subject, He needed to find a way out. That’s why he was here. Where he hopefully wouldn’t be recognized and where the city noise seemed to dampen.

 

The only person he knew that had any connection to alternate timelines and realities was the wizard guy. Doctor Strange. This wizard would probably be the only one able to help him get back. Now he just had to find that guy… and he had no idea where to start. Where do wizards tend to hang out? Was there like a midmorning sorcerers brunch every week? Was there a certain chinese restaurant that was frequented by magic-users? Maybe he could ask Karen…

 

Slow, even footsteps alerted Peter that he was again, not alone. He adjusted the grey hood of his jacket to hide his face a little more but it probably didn’t do any good. He straightened up and tilted his head away from the sound of the newcomer. His spider-sense was completely unresponsive so he at least he wasn’t in any danger. It was probably just some family member coming to mourn sort of like he was.

 

And he was right to a certain extent.

 

His heart immediately sank once he realized who it was. Tony Stark didn’t seem to notice the identity of the kid in front of the memorial. Which was good as Peter was desperately trying to figure out how to dodge the situation. He could just start to walk away but the entrance of the graveyard was in the direction that Mr. Stark was coming from. Which means that Peters face would have to be in full view of the mourning man.

 

So he stayed put. Desperately hoping that Mr. Stark would not look too closely at the teenager. Also Peter really didn’t want Mr. Stark recognizing his voice.

 

Peter began overthinking his anxiety and he failed to notice how Mr. Stark stopped only a few feet away from him before the older man set a small object at the foot of the familiar statue. Peter awkwardly stepped back in an attempt to get away under the cover of giving the other man some privacy.

 

Of course as he tried to slip away, the Iron-Spider web-shooter on his right wrist faintly buzzed. It had been partially hidden by his jacket sleeve but was fully revealed when he lifted his wrist to check out why his wrist accessory was acting like a smartphone on silent.

 

When he examined the folding cuff, he noticed an earpiece similar to a bluetooth earbud pop out of a hidden container. He automatically put it in his ear and heard the voice of Karen greet him.

 

“I found Mr. Stark.” The AI said dully as if she knew that the man was right in front of him. Which, she definitely did. “Also apparently Mr. Wilson slipped a tracker on you. Which I would have been able to tell you if you had put your mask back on.” She scolded.

 

“Sorry Karen, but now is not a good time.” Peter hissed once he thought he was far enough away from Mr. Stark and behind a tree.

 

“It is a perfectly good time as FRIDAY has notified me that Mr. Stark will be promptly notified of your current whereabouts.”

 

“That is exactly what I didn’t want…” Peter grumbled before seeing Mr. Stark whip his head around in Peters direction and let out a gasp in disbelief that Peter would only have been able to hear with his heightened senses.

 

“Peter?”

Chapter 3: Step 1 was stupid in the first place

Summary:

Tony reacts to finding Peter.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Every monday for the last two years, Tony Stark traveled from wherever he was to visit Peter Parker’s grave. Sometimes he ditched meetings and other important work but the weekly event was a constant.

 

He would take all of the fanart and the gifts that children left to a more permanent home at the official memorial upstate in front of the compound. There simply wasn’t enough room to let everything pile up at the tomb.

 

But this was where the body was so that’s where Tony imagined Peter to be. He always put the kids spider-drone at the foot of the statue but the dumb thing would always find its way back to Tony. Unfortunately the little robot seemed attached to the person who could easily be blamed for killing the teenage superhero. Tony definitely blamed himself. If he had let Peter keep the suit, Tony would’ve been immediately notified the instant the kid got a scratch. The kid wouldn’t have bled to death with no one to turn to for help.

 

It wasn’t unusual to not be alone at the young heroes grave, as he saved a lot of people and was pretty well liked save some dumbass newspaper. Who the hell still reads newspapers anymore?

 

Anyway, there was a kid at the memorial statue. His gray hood covered his face and he slouched like he carried the world on his shoulders. The teenager was only slightly taller than Tony remembered Peter being and he noticeably tensed up when Tony drew closer. They stood in silence until the kid backed away and sauntered off until he was out of the billionaires sight.

 

Tony had run out of things he had wanted to say to the deceased teenager over a year ago and he hated repeating himself. But everytime he came he ended up repeating the same few phrases. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I took the suit away, I’m sorry that I distanced myself when you needed me, I’m sorry I killed you.’ Sometimes he found new things to be sorry for but those were the recurring ones.

 

Tony put on his technologically enhanced sunglasses when he noticed that FRIDAY was trying to reach him. He must’ve forgotten to put her on silent.

 

“This better be a fucking emergency…” He muttered to himself so only the AI would be able to hear him.

 

“Not quite. But I think you would be more interested than if we were under attack sir. Fifteen minutes ago there was a breach at the Avengers Tower. Mr. Wilson’s visor recorded some footage that you would be interested in.”

 

“Okay, who the hell would try to break into my tower? There are like five Avengers in there at all times. They would be incredibly stupid to try.” Tony rolled his eyes passively but he was a little bit intrigued.

 

“I think the person in question was trying to get out of the tower. Nothing was damaged or missing. Not even our database. Would you like me to play Mr. Wilson’s recording?” FRIDAY said with interest as if she was also curious.

 

“Sure, This is as private place as any I guess.” An image popped up in the perspective of the falcon, and the video started playing. He saw a familiar figure in a metalic red and black suit jump off of the roof of his building, he saw the falcon go after it, then he got a good look at the figures suit. It was the same one that he had made for Peter that the kid never even got to see. “And you said nothing was stolen?”

 

“Please keep watching sir. I believe your questions will be answered.” The AI said impatiently.

 

Tony froze when he heard the kids voice in the recording. He heard the conversation with the falcon and he saw the mask pull back to reveal an all too familiar teenager. The kid looked a little rough, his face was pale and he was scattered with cuts and bruises. And that was just his face. He saw the video end when the kid swung away and disappeared in the forest of skyscrapers.

 

“Mr. Wilson put a tracker on him. Would you like me to find him for you?” FRIDAY said, although he was fairly sure that the AI knew his response.

 

“Obviously.” Tony managed to reply as a handful of powerful emotions struck him in the chest like a fist. There was a form of relief, some fear, some anxiety, a dash of disbelief, and a whole lot of guilt. He did try to pull himself together as he was known to do. He was kind of an actor in that respect. He could show people what he wanted them to see but for some reason an event like this tested his ability to conceal himself.

 

He forced himself to refocus when FRIDAY showed a map of the tracker on the glasses screen in front of him. He narrowed his eyes. It was showing that his kid was only a few hundred feet away from him.

 

“FRIDAY, are you f-”

 

“No sir I am not ‘fucking with you.’ Perhaps Mr. Parker decided to visit his grave.” Tony was already on his way to where the tracker had been placed. The kid he saw from before in front of the Spider-Man statue was behind a tree with his finger to his ear and seemingly talking to someone. The tracker seemed to come from this teenager so Tony took the chance to call him out. But Tony refused to get his hopes up. Peter Parker was dead.

 

“Peter?” he found himself saying before the kid turned to him in alarm. It was definitely Peter. His hood had fallen back enough to see his face and he looked a little pale but it was undeniably his kid.

 

Tony rushed to the boy without much thought going through his head beyond, ‘Peter is alive holy fucking shit-’ The kid barely had time to react before he was wrapped tightly in Tony’s arms. At first he was frozen in shock from the sudden affection but soon he melted into Tony’s embrace. Tony didn’t care about the tears welling up, making his eyes burn, he didn’t care that Peter had hidden his face in Tony’s collarbone, He didn’t care why or how the kid was back, He only cared that the kid was there and alive.

 

Peter knew that Mr. Stark rarely gave physical affection to anyone besides his wife. Well maybe in this universe that was a slightly different situation since his refusal to become an avenger was one of the only reasons Ms. Potts agreed on getting married to Tony. In Peters eyes, Pepper seemed to want o put her work above all else which he could respect. She was kind of the CEO of the most influential tech companies in the world.

 

Anyway, Tony Stark was not a publicly affectionate person so the lack of hesitation to hug Peter meant a whole lot to him.

 

They both stayed silent for a moment before Mr. Stark spoke.

 

“Hey kid, I’m-” He didn’t get much of a chance as Peter immediately interrupted him.

 

“Don’t apologize. It wasn’t your fault. I think I have some explaining to do anyway. Besides, I know how you are with feelings.” Peter’s voice was slightly muffled from being pressed against Mr. Stark’s suit jacket. The man pulled away and quickly wiped most of the tears from his face.

 

“Right, right… First question: What the fuck kid!” Tony replied as he attempted to compose himself.

 

“Uh, Okay so… Shit, where do I start… So I’m the Peter from the reality where I managed not to die. That is literally the only difference. I’m stuck here until I find a wizard that can take me through different realities.” Peter summed up, knowing full well that he sounded crazy. “Oh, and something really bad is going to happen in a few weeks so be prepared and please call Captain Shithead. I think you will end up better than we did.” He said, starteningly casually.

 

“Jesus… Well alternate realities aren’t too much of a stretch, and did you say… Wizard?” Peter nodded enthusiastically.

 

“Yeah, he lives in New York and has a necklace that can control time. Keep up old man.” Peter teased. Mr. Stark looked rightfully confused but considerably more relaxed.

 

“Okay short stuff. I am going to need a minute to internalize the info dump. I’m still going to need time to believe that you are in fact alive and in front of me. Despite my calm demeanor, I am freaking out a little.” Tony held Peter out at arms length and didn’t seem to want to let him go. “You tell me everything when we get to the tower. I have a feeling that I’ll need a drink… or twenty…” His speech gradually became softer until he practically muttered the last of it. He wrapped his arm around Peter’s shoulders and led him out of the cemetery.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Both of them were surprised by how easily they fell into their old dynamic. They constantly teased each other as they brainstormed in the avenger towers lab. Peter wasn’t quite sure about where to find the wizard so he needed a plan b. If anyone could figure out how to travel through alternate realities it would be Tony Stark. They studied Hank Pym’s studies on Quantum realms and even the studies of a portal that had appeared in a SHIELD base in the prime Captain America times.

 

Peter was so happy not to be alone as he had originally planned. They had agreed on not letting the previously rogue avengers know that Peter was there. He knew that it would be a bad idea to let more people know of his existence. Mr. Stark seemed to keep looking at him to make sure that he was actually there and not a hallucination. He had even asked FRIDAY if she had seen him take any drugs that he had forgotten. Apparently he only took his prescribed medication, good for him. Through casual conversation Peter found out that after his counterparts death, Mr. Stark had finally had gotten to seeing a reliable therapist and getting help for his numerous mental health problems.

 

It only took his death for Mr. Stark to finally realize that even heroes needed help sometimes.

 

They both discussed the very recent information on the quantum realm that had been collected by Hank Pym and how the energies could theoretically be used for interdimensional travel if harnessed in the perfect way. They had even started on a design of a harness of such power that could be attached to Peter’s web-shooter. Mr. Stark even had the idea of using an old watch-to-gauntlet design for extra casual protection and Peter may have gotten mildly excited to have his own working Iron Man gauntlet.

 

Okay he fangirled a bit but honestly Mr. Stark didn’t seem surprised.

 

After so much work in combination with stress and the recent acceptance of his situation, Peter ended up falling asleep on his desk. It took Mr. Stark a few minutes to realize why Peter had been so silent except for soft deep breaths. He decided to call it a night before he carried the short teenager to a guest bedroom near his own temporary residence in the tower. He really hoped that he wouldn’t come across any of the rogue avengers but housing superspies made it hard to keep secrets.

 

He’ll deal with it in the morning.

Notes:

tell me your feelings. I finished this in kind of a hurry so I hope I didn't screw up. Comments keep me going so please share your thoughts! I tried to mix up the perspective in this chapter a little more so I hope that it works out.

Chapter 4: Accepting Help

Summary:

Peter meets some friends.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter dreamed of an empty world with orange skies and red clouds, he seemed to be standing in shallow water. The silence was deafening. Even with his enhanced senses there wasn’t even a ripple in the water or a breath of wind. At first it was serene and calm, then it became crushingly lonely.

 

Peter had always been dependent on others and he couldn’t stand the complete isolation. He had only managed to keep his secret identity a complete secret for six months before Tony Stark waltzed into his life. Then Ned found out, then May, and now he couldn’t imagine what it would be like without them knowing. He didn’t know how much he needed a support system until he stumbled upon his.

 

The orange tinted environment looked like a desolate planet from Star Wars but it felt somehow familiar. He likely remembered it from some movie. Dreams had a weird way of bringing things back.

 

Once he had examined his bleak surroundings to the best of his ability, he heard a female voice coming from everywhere at once.

 

“You have impressed me young one. Though you do not fully understand what I have given you. I’ve given you a chance to live with your family again. If you achieve your goal, you will spend eternity alone. Please Peter, let yourself be saved.” The speaker of the voice appeared in front of him. She was an oddly green woman with long dark hair that gradually turned red. She had odd metallic markings on her face and warm, bright golden eyes.

 

“I don’t know what you mean… But I can’t stay in this reality. I don’t want to replace anyone. They already lost me… I don’t want to do that to them again.” He looked desperately at the woman before she sighed.

 

“If you can find your way out, then fine. But I gave you a chance. But I refuse to leave you alone Peter. I chose you for a reason.” She nodded before the dream faded and Peter woke up in a bed that he definitely did not fall asleep in.

 

He noticed that his earpiece that connected him to Karen outside of the suit was absent from his ear.

 

“Uh, FRIDAY? What time is it?” He asked as he sat up in his bed. His web-shooters were still on, they made a pink indent from where he had been putting weight on them.

 

“It is currently 4:23 in the morning Mr. Parker. Is there anything that you need?” The AI said in a noticeably quiet tone.

 

“Uh are holo-screens available in here or do I have to go down to the lab?” Peter knew that he wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep due to his racing brain.

 

“No holo-screens are set up in this room, however if you decide to go to the lab, Mr. Stark will be immediately notified.” Peter sighed and flopped back down on his bed. He took his web-shooters off which folded back into their combined compact form. Peter honestly could barely believe the microtech contained in them.

 

He did end up falling back asleep after mentally figuring out how he would end up fitting the quantum energy capacitor with his web-shooter and a concealed iron man gauntlet. It was like the swiss army knife of genius scientist superheroes. All he needed was some sort of gamma radiation detector and he would complete the multitool.

 

He woke up hours later after having a nightmare about being crushed by a concrete building, a not as common occurrence after the trauma he had acquired years ago, but after the reminder in this strange new reality, the nightmares were reborn with a vigor.

 

He asked FRIDAY to notify Mr. Stark that he was awake. FRIDAY returned with a message from Mr. Stark about meeting him in his private kitchen for breakfast. Peter quickly made his way to the kitchen with a little help from his super hearing and smell. He could hear Mr. Stark humming quietly and the smell of a simple breakfast being cooked. He could specifically smell toast and eggs and bacon. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten and his metabolism seemed to hate him for it. He was just too distracted the day before to buy himself a hot dog and now he regretted it.

 

He calmly walked into the kitchen and smiled when Mr. Stark didn’t notice him and kept humming.

 

“I didn’t think you could cook old man.” Right when Peter spoke, Mr. Stark jumped so high that he started to laugh at the man.

 

“Jesus Christ kid, I have a heart condition holy god…” Tony put his hand over his heart dramatically and brushed a hand through his hair. His mentors response made Peter smile widely.

 

“Sorry Mr. Stark. I thought that FRIDAY would tell you when I was on my way. She used to do that...” He shrugged and sat down, playing with the trigger of his web-shooter. Mr. Stark shrugged.

 

“She used to but now there are enough people that it just gets annoying to be notified. I guess in your reality the Avengers aren’t exactly back after the accords mess.”

 

“Well my death here was a breaking point for you guys and I didn’t die in my universe. Last time I checked, my Tony was still anxious over the flip-phone.” Peter kept an easy grin on his face. “The accords split everyone up before the universe went to shit. Bad timing really…” he shrugged and thanked Mr. Stark when he handed him a plate overfilled with breakfast foods.

 

They ended up debating on the design of the ultimate superhero wrist accessory. It turned out that the kitchen was equipped with holograms directly connected to the lab database. Peter assumed that if Tony was forced to eat, he would not just ditch his projects. The guy did not stop when he started anything with enough inspiration.

 

Eventually Peter brought up the subject of who knew about his residence in the tower. Apparently the Falcon, who he now knew was Sam Wilson, had gone back to his duo of super soldiers and told them that Peter had gotten away. It was the footage that was sent to Tony by FRIDAY without Mr. Wilsons explicit permission.

 

Everyone else in the building had no idea that Peter was there and frankly, Peter was greatful. He had grown up in a world of idealized heroes that he had only just recently joined, and he still might get too excited if he tried to talk to most of the avengers. He was comfortable with Tony, as the guy felt like the most human out of all of them. He was unaltered and untrained but still just as badass by using his intelligence. Tony was his hero more than Iron Man was.

 

His Tony had once discovered a tiny Iron Man helmet that Peter had gotten at a Stark Expo when he was very much younger. This resulted in an awkward but eventually heartwarming conversation about how Tony had saved him during the Hammer incident. This was the same day that Peter had accidentally called him dad. It was an eventful day.

 

Both alternate Tony and Peter decided that they should not try to run into the formerly rogue avengers. It could make things a little too complicated.

 

However that plan was thrown out of the window and kicked in the nuts when Clint Barton stumbled in because he smelled coffee. Later he was told that this was a normal occurrence and it seemed like Hawkeye could smell coffee from anywhere in the building. It only slightly terrified Peter.

 

At first, the archer didn’t even acknowledge Peter. Then after two cups of coffee looked at him and muttered something about spiders.

 

“Hey, weren’t you dead?” The bird themed superhero blurted out once he had achieved full consciousness. Peter only shrugged in response.

 

“Long story. Alternate reality travel troubles.” Tony answered for him.

 

“Cool. I’m going to go tell Natasha.” Clint walked out, stealing an Iron Man coffee mug on his way out. Tony and Peter were both silent for a minute before they continued talking about the systematics of a container for quantum energy. They were trying to figure out a material that wouldn’t heat up too much and they hoped to get their hands on some vibranium. If not they would try to integrate a durable thermal conductor that was used to prevent the arc reactors from burning the man who used to host them in his chest. But vibranium was the only material that would guarantee that the container would stay intact. Tony planned on negotiating a video chat with the king of Wakanda as soon as possible. Hopefully they would be sympathetic to Peters predicament.

 

Wakanda was seven hours ahead of New York so the earlier they can contact the countries officials, the better. Tony let Peter work alone in the lab while he tried to negotiate the small amount of vibranium that it would require to make the item. Peter put on loud music as he made extra webfluid and played with the aesthetic design of the wrist accessory that he refused to call a bracelet.

 

Eventually a video call from Mr. Stark appeared in the center of his holoscreen. Tony told him to come to the main common area of the tower so that he would be there for the official negotiation with Wakanda. The king of Wakanda. Or at the very least the princess.

 

Peter nervously made his way up to the common floor where the meeting room was. Thankfully he didn’t run into anyone on the way. He wasn’t in the mood to explain that yes he was alive. Surprise. He entered the room where Tony was sitting at a table across from a blue hologram of a young girl who couldn’t be too much older than Peter was. He assumed that this was the Wakandan princess. He sat by Tony and tried to act as professional as he could in front of the princess of the most technologically advanced civilization to ever exist on the earth. The girl spoke with a thick accent and had a playful but controlled glit in her eye.

 

“We are pleased for you to join us Peter. I am Princess Shuri.” The teens hologram smiled at Peter and judging by the nerdy t-shirt the girl wore, they would get along just fine.

Notes:

comments keep me going so tell me your feedback! I'll be back tomorrow unless something goes horribly wrong.

Chapter 5: Detour

Notes:

tell me how I'm doing. honestly the real shit hasn't even started and this is just some slow plot but don't worry, shit is coming.

 

COMMENT MOTHERFUCKERS I LOVE YOU

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“The systematics are solid but I could easily reduce the size as well as the amount of Vibranium that you will use. Theoretically this type of interdimensional travel is possible, however it needs to be tested in a more contained environment. I will send you a jet immediately so that we can deal with your… dilemma in person. Hopefully you have cleared your schedule Mr. Stark. I look forward to working with you both. It has been a long time since I have actually worked with actual geniuses. Especially one of my own age.” Shuri smiled at Peter.

 

“Also Peter, I was planning on bringing BARF to see if we can sort through your memories and figure out what exactly happened to you.” Tony added. Peter nodded in agreement. He too was incredibly curious.

 

It had been bugging him as well as his dream with the weird green woman. Things didn’t quite add up yet. He wasn’t sure if the device could access his memories but if not, he could check the suits baby monitor protocol. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t think about it earlier but he could’ve just been overwhelmed. It had been a long twenty-four hours.

 

“I guess everything is settled. I will see you both when you arrive. If everything goes well, we can have you here by tomorrow, uh, Wakandan standards.” Shuri waved her holographic hand before her image disappeared. Tony turned to Peter calmly.

 

“I guess this means you should pack up. We are trying something that hasn’t been done before so who knows how long it will take us.” Tony started to stroll out of the room.

 

“And what the hell would I pack? I just got here with one pair of clothes and two supersuits.” Peter followed his mentor with a smirk.

 

“At least get a shower kid. You stink.” Tony rolled his eyes and casually wrapped his arm around Peters shoulders. He knew that they were practically the same height but Tony just happened to wear lifts to hide it.

 

“You make a fair point.” Peter agreed. They started to walk back to Tony’s private quarters but ended up bumping into Natasha. The oddly blonde spy looked at them with a blank but knowing expression.

 

“Welcome back malen'kiy pauk. Clint told me you were here. Greet T’Challa for me will you?” She left before either of them could reply. Peter assumed that the black widow had made up a spider themed nickname but said it in Russian to sound threatening. Later, Karen translated the name to ‘Little Spider.’

 

Peter was shoved into the bathroom of his borrowed bedroom by a complaining Tony and he was forced to be alone again. He scanned himself for injuries from before he ended up in this reality, maybe for a hint about what happened to him. But he found nothing. His healing factor had taken away that hint without much of a problem.

 

He took a quick shower, noticing the no-longer-dry blood coming out of his hair, he must have gotten a light head injury that he doesn’t remember. As he thought about it, the last thing he remembered was… landing on Titan. The desolate homeworld of some big bad guy who was adamant about some fucked up population control plan. But after that was nothing. He doesn’t remember any fighting or anyone dying. Hopefully BARF would help with unlocking those memories.

 

He left the bathroom to find a clean outfit laying out for him. He’d have to tell FRIDAY to thank Tony for him. The outfit was obviously Tony’s but it didn’t stray dramatically far from Peter’s own style. He just had to cuff the jeans a little bit and he didn’t mind the metallica tank top too much, although he wasn’t used to showing off his arms. He kind of wanted to put on some colored sunglasses and imitate his mentor.

 

He put on the web-shooters hiding the Iron Spider suit just in case. At this point he felt safer just leaving them on constantly. Especially in a world that he wasn’t quite used to.

 

He put his own earpiece in to talk to Karen. He tried to figure out if there were any recordings of what had happened but found close to nothing. Apparently Karen was shut off after he was too far away from earth. He did get a better look at the two guys they had been fighting in new york before he got stuck on the spaceship. He was glad that he wasn’t fighting a telekinetic Voldemort at the moment.

 

He wandered out of his room and he ended up just chilling out with Tony just watching a movie. They critiqued the bullshit science and laughed when someone acted stupidly.

 

Tony ordered pizza and Peter may more may not have eaten a whole large pizza by himself. He blamed it on being a growing teenage mutant boy but Tony still made fun of him. They spent hours just forcing themselves to relax and not worry about their situation. They wouldn’t be able to do much until they got to Wakanda and got the help of the smartest person in the world with the most resources in the world.

 

So they waited… It was only a few hours but it felt like an eternity when they had nothing productive to do. They both freaked out when Shuri texted Tony about the royal jet being on it’s way. Peter made sure to have his normal Spider-Man suit with him as well as having his Iron Spider and extra web-shooters with him at all times. He didn’t have much else to keep with him so he tried not to worry about it.

 

It was halfway through the evening before the odd looking plane landed on the towers landing pad that Peter had hid under the day before. A pair of bald, dark skinned women with odd looking spears walked out of the plane and indicated that they enter. Tony didn’t seem bothered by the almost cold introduction so Peter tried not to feel intimidated. But those ladies were scary. He tried to smile at the one that looked nicer but she only raised her eyebrow.

 

Peter and Tony were left in the main area of the plane with one of the ladies keeping an eye on them from the edge of the area. Tony brought out the BARF glasses and gave them to Peter. Hopefully they could connect to the memories that he wouldn’t quite get to.

 

Peter was the only one who could see what was going on as there wasn’t the appropriate holographic technology equipt on the plane. But there was audio that everyone could hear.

 

He started out somewhere that he knew.

 

Stuck on the alien ship.

 

He had to focus his breathing as he watched his past self fight not to lose consciousness as he gained altitude. He saw himself rip off his mask as he desperately tried to breathe.

 

‘Pete, you gotta let go, I’m gonna catch you.’ His Tony’s voice echoed throughout the chamber.

 

“This isn’t important, I don’t need this…” Peter muttered to himself as he tried to change the memory. There was a few moments of silence.

 

‘This isn’t some field trip. This, this is a one way ticket, do you hear me? Don’t pretend you thought this through.’ Tony’s anxious voice broke through the quiet atmosphere again.

 

‘But I did think this through! I can’t be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there’s no neighborhood. Okay that doesn’t make much sense but you get what I’m saying.’ His past self replied.

 

“No, no, no…” Peter sighed. He needed something that he didn’t know.

 

Then came something that he didn’t remember and hit him like mjolnir. He was too far away. Tony was fighting Thanos on his own while past Peter was desperately trying to save the handful of guardians that had been launched into the air. In one slow motion moment, Tony was stabbed with the sword that had materialized out of his own armor. Peter felt tears come to his eyes.

 

‘I hope they remember you.’

 

Fucking asshole. Peter ripped the glasses off of his face and hid his eyes in partly out of embarrassment. The real Tony took the glasses gently out of his hands and sat by him.

 

“That’s enough for now… Uh, You okay kid?” Tony said in a slightly awkward tone. Peter knew that he wasn’t used to comforting others.

 

“I will be. It has nothing to do with me getting here… Just, I guess, what led up to it. Something big is going to happen. At least unless that is also different in this universe…” Peter sighed and fidgeted with his web-shooter. Tony wrapped his arm around him and Peter realized that he had been holding his breath.

 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Tony said gently.

 

“I don’t think I can do that without fucking up some type of timeline. Just… Be careful okay? I don’t want you to join this realities version of me yet…” Peter took his hand away from his face as he tried to pull himself together. Thanos told his Tony that he hoped that the world remembered him. But Peter had forgotten. He didn’t know why or how but it was a horrible irony.

 

It was quiet for the comparatively quick flight. Tony talked about vibranium technology and what he knew from his brief experiences in Wakanda. Peter was fine with listening. It kept his mind off of the sound of the blade entering his father figures body. He kept seeing his Tony coughing up blood.

 

He would very much prefer listening to Tony rambling. Healthy and not in horrible pain. A state he wanted Tony to always be in.

 

The nicer looking one of the guards had a glint in her eye when she led them to the front of the plane where they would see through the windows. Peter saw them fly through illusionary trees before seeing his first view of Wakanda. SUre he had seen it in textbooks and on the internet but no picture could do it justice. The nicer guard even smiled when she saw the awe on his face.

 

“Pretty huh.” Tony said smugly.

 

“Yeah, no shit.” Peter couldn’t rip his eyes from the view. It was a beautiful mix between an epicly beautiful natural landscape and a dramatic cityscape that looked like it was from another planet. He found himself looking at certain buildings and studying how they worked. It was overly mesmerizing.. It took him Tony pulling on him to realize that they had landed.

 

They walked out after one of the guards and was forced to fix his gaze on the Wakandan King and Princess that were there to greet them.

 

Shuri grinned at his enthusiasm and ran up to him.

 

“Welcome to Wakanda Webhead.”

Notes:

It's a little short as I started late but i guess that's what you guys get for daily updates.

Chapter 6: Change

Summary:

Peter tries to get home and may or may not have failed.

Notes:

COMMENT MOTHERFUCKERS, I AM INSECURE OF MY WRITING SKILL AND REQUIRE CONSTANT VALIDATION

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Cut me a little slack princess, I’ve never worked with vibranium before!” Peter laughed from his side of the lab.

 

They had all worked on making a part of the quantum device that they would eventually put together. Shuri dealt with the quantum containment unit and the control systems, Tony worked on the selective capacitor and the unfolding emergency Iron-Man gauntlet. Peter worked on the vibranium web-shooters and computing unit for the device as a whole. He made sure that it would connect to Karen from his earpiece so that there was less likely to be an accident.

 

“And whose fault is that?” Shuri quipped back.

 

“Not mine, Wakanda isn’t exactly known for being open with their most valuable resource your highness.” Peter smirked. Once he and Shuri had met they found out that they had a similar sense of humor as well as knowledge of current and past memes. They were bother incredibly smart and they both bonded over movie references. They had already had a civilized discussion about the worst sci-fi movies and their lack of scientific realism.

 

“Stop flirting with the princess kid. You won’t have enough time to go on a date if you’re actually trying to get back to your own dimension.” Tony said casually with some sort of advanced blowtorch in one hand. “By the way, Do you want the Iron-Man colors or do you want to keep your own branding?”

 

“It’s an Iron-Man gauntlet, Not a Spiderman glove thing. Keep it red and gold.” Peter quickly moved away from the flirting comment. He had just made a new friend and they just happened to quickly click. He really didn’t want to even try to think about it. He hasn’t even met his own worlds Shuri. Hopefully they’d be friends there too. Besides the whole men and women can’t be just friends was kind of a heteronormative and ultimately destructive mindset. His girlfriend MJ had given him quite the well informed lecture about the topic.

 

“Who knows if this kind of quantum travel is even possible. It is entirely theoretical at this point in time. If it doesn’t work you morons better have a plan B.” Shuri raised her eyebrows.

 

“I mean, maybe I can find a wizard somewhere in New York who has experience in reality and time travel but that guy will only come out when things get world-endingly bad. Not when some kid gets stuck.with not even a ripple effect.” Peter sighed. If this didn’t work… He could be stuck here until history repeats itself. And he would rather not go up against some titan guy with a god complex and grape flavored ball-sack for a chin. Once was enough for Peter. “So let’s hope that the two smartest people in the world can handle it.” Peter motioned to Tony and Shuri.

 

“The three smartest people in the world, dumbass. You think I keep you around because you can stick to walls?” Tony quickly added.

 

“You literally just called me a dumbass, you’re sending me mixed signals Mr. Stark. I almost thought that was a complement but the delivery seemed kind of aggressive so I‘m confused.”

 

Their conversations continued like this for hours while they were working, only to be temporarily put on hold when they all started to argue about music. Then after that, one of the Dora Milaje, the name of the group of warrior ladies, came in to remind them to eat. Shuri identified the woman, Okoye, then assured their presence at the royal dinner table.

 

Peter hadn’t exactly met the king of Wakanda despite being on the same side of the ‘civil war’ a few years ago. He was understandably a little nervous. He didn’t want to say anything stupid and embarrass himself. He felt like he could be stupid around Shuri however, even though she was a princess and probably the smartest person in the world. She was just more approachable and less physically imposing although Peter didn’t doubt that she had something up her sleeve to make her more threatening if she wanted to be.

 

Shuri and Okoye led the way out of the lab speaking their native tongue while Tony and Peter strayed behind. Peter debated on practicing his italian with Tony. He knew that Tony was fluent because of his mother and Peter was taught by May at a young age, which made it easy for him to learn spanish in high school. He wasn’t sure if this Tony knew that though so he decided to keep quiet. It would probably sound pretentious anyway.

 

Instead he quietly wondered what they would do if their quantum experiment didn’t work. How would they find the wizard? He doubted that it would be easy as the guy obviously did not want to be found. And with whatever magic he seemed to possess, it stopped anyone from even spreading rumors about magic even existing. It probably shielded him from technology or something annoying like that.

 

The next few hours flew past in a blur, They spoke to the king who was chill and was kind despite Peters crippling awkwardness. They ate traditional food, which Peter enjoyed, and they went right back to the lab. With Shuris help, His web-shooters had never been more high tech. She had helped him give Karen the ability to contact her with no range limit and theoretically through alternate realities just in case something went wrong. The web-shooters themselves were practically indestructible and gave him much better accuracy as well as alternate velocity settings.

 

They had connected the multi-purpose wrist device together and decided to take it for a spin. They were all confident genius’ so what could go wrong?

 

The first thing that went wrong was power consumption. The thing burned Peters wrist with sparks and rainbow colored energy then promptly died. Peter had to pass on the Wakandan healing tech as he wasn’t sure if his powers would negatively affect the results. The burn wasn’t too bad anyway so he was able to ignore it for now.

 

They always set the settings for a little bit of time travel only. A few seconds in the future and nothing more. Figuring out alternate realities would be a little harder. Not impossible, but harder. The Iron-Spider suit had managed to get some readings on the quantum differences between his reality and this one so he would at least know if he was in the right reality. It was convenient and he was not going to complain.

 

Then they tested the physical transporting systems. His atoms didn’t dissolve or anything. He was able to transport himself several feet away without dying. Now he just had to hope that the device could travel through realities.

 

It only took a few dozen tries to get the device to work without hurting the wearer. Shuri replaced the quantum energy battery before they decided to have a goodbye party for Peter. Peter was really glad that he didn’t end up alone in this. He couldn’t have made the device without the help of Shuri and Tony. Especially not at the speed. It had only taken them seven hours to make the device that he and Mr. Stark had designed the night before.

 

He hoped that no one underestimated the geniuses anymore. When they all worked together it was scary what could be made possible. They could easily take over the world and it was kind of terrifying.

 

Peters going-away party included watching star wars in 3D and eating way too much food. He told Tony and Shuri about what was different in his universe with the Avengers still broken up and some of his little adventures. He may have left out the parts about hanging out with his Tony so much that Pepper and Aunt May had to team up to get them out of the workshop. The what-ifs would probably make this Tony sad so he tried to spare his feelings by pretending that they don’t exist.

 

When it came time for Peter to test out the reality aspect of the device and go back home, He honestly didn’t want to leave. He wanted to become best friends with Shuri and stay alive for Tony but this reality had lost its Spider-Man. He wasn’t going to replace him. He had a home and he had people waiting for him, possibly trying to get him back.

 

“So… I guess this is it. If this doesn’t work then I’ll be saying goodbye for nothing…” Peter smiled as he edited the settings on the device. He gave Tony as less than quick hug. “Don’t blame yourself. Oh, and find that wizard. If my universe is anything like yours, You’ll need to protect that guy. He’s kind of important.” he pulled back and gave Shuri a quick hug. “I guess we’ll see if your communication device works huh.” Tony was a fool to believe that he could hide his tears from Peter. Shuri tried to act indifferent but she seemed a little disappointed when her new friend had to leave.

 

Peter backed away so that he was far enough not to cause any damage if something went wrong. He smiled at them both as he pressed the activation switch on the wrist accessories holographic screen.

 

“Bye-” Peter was quickly cut off. He really wasn’t sure what he expected when he was swept up by the multi-colored quantum energy. It didn’t really feel like anything besides a mild chill. Then everything went black before he woke up falling.

 

Peter didn’t like falling and his mind felt like mush. His spider-sense practically stated the obvious when it buzzed from the back of his mind. ‘You’re falling!’ it said. ‘No shit.’ Peter replied.

 

Peter landed on a hard floor and had trouble clearing his head in addition to the pain. Then a burning pain on his wrist took precedence over all else. He quickly looked over at the device on his wrist and desperately clawed the thing off. It was sparking and making an odd buzzing sound. That didn’t seem right… He took a brief moment to hope that he had made it home but looked up and realized that he was far from it.

 

He was in the streets of New York, and the first thing he noticed were the people. It was obviously the eighties or maybe the early nineties. Clothing styles and hairstyles proved of that. It didn’t seem like many people noticed the time traveling kid that just fell on the ground but he wasn’t in the middle of the street so it was fine. He dragged himself to an alley where he was out of the way of pedestrians and just looked like a weird homeless guy.

 

He checked to make sure that he hadn’t lost anything. He had his normal web-shooters, His Iron Spider containing web-shooters and the sizzling multi-tool bracelet that probably would struggle with traveling through time. Thankfully the only part of it that was damaged seemed to be the quantum battery. Which means he could still use it as an extra webslinger, an Iron Man gauntlet and a communication device to the Shuri of the other universe. He remembered his earpiece to his AI and was relieved that it was in his right ear.

 

“Karen? Are you on?” Peter whispered and held his hand up to his ear to press the earpiece slightly.

 

‘Rebooting… please stand by…’ The voice said quietly compared to the busy streets. Peter sighed and checked out his burned wrist. It fucking hurt so he was not about to put on one of his web-shooters unless he had to. He would have to take a little break from web-swinging for now. He did adjust his other hands web-shooter to a web-fluid that was used for emergency bandaging. He and his Tony had made it after he had sustained one too many bleeding wounds.

 

He sprayed the medical hardening fluid around his wrist and sighed when it dried into the consistency of a firm bandage. He cradled his hand against his chest as he took a moment to breathe and think. He knew that he was bruised from the fall, he felt some bleeding but with his healing factor he doubted that it would stay that way for long.

 

He noticed that the wrist device had stopped sizzling so he carefully touched it. It was still warm but not scalding anymore. He put it over his injured wrist now that he had a barrier. It would probably take too much strain to properly web-swing but he could use the gauntlet feature so that he wasn’t completely weaponless.

 

‘Hello Peter. It seems like we have made it to the correct reality. Just a little early.’ Karen’s voice was a relief to hear. Peter really didn’t want to be alone.

 

“Yeah, no shit. Uh, When exactly are we?” Peter questioned in a hushed tone.

 

‘May 19th, 1988. Ten days until boss’ eighteenth birthday.’ Karen replied calmly.

 

“Cool, I’m not going to be born for like twenty two more years…” Peter sighed. Hopefully his time traveling device wasn’t irreparably damaged… This time he would have no help. Shuri had yet to be born and Tony Stark was probably illegally drunk somewhere. According to Peters limited knowledge about Tony’s life, He had just gotten out of college and had yet to take over the company.

 

So, he was on his own. And this time he had to deal with the butterfly effect of time travel. He could fuck several things up if he did something wrong. So all he had to do was hide and fix his quantum time travel thing. Easy-peasy. Don’t get noticed or do anything stupid.

 

Of course he wasn’t lucky enough to appear out of nowhere completely unnoticed. When he rested enough to try to stand, he was surrounded by people in uniforms holding guns. He vaguely recognized the eagle symbol on their badges.

 

“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We will not hesitate to shoot if you try anything.” An older woman stepped out of a car onto the curb. She had immaculate curls in her graying brown hair and a noticeably british accent. The other uniformed people looked at her as if waiting for her orders. Although she was old, Peter had no problem believing that she could kill him with one look.

 

Peter raised his hands in surrender causing him to stumble and lean heavily on the brick wall behind him. The woman tilted her head as if she was deciding on whether to pity him or shoot him. He hoped that she would settle on the former.

 

“Put him in the car. I’m taking him to headquarters to be questioned. I do not think he is in stable enough condition to be safely handcuffed. Fury, help him up and come with me. Everyone else, you are excused.” The woman nodded at the agents who lowered their guns and disappeared into the crowd leaving only one dark skinned man behind. The man helped him up and led him to the car that the older woman had come out of. He only stumbled a few times.

 

“Please state your name and your date of birth.” The woman said once they were all safely in the car.

 

“Peter… Peter Parker. And I don’t think you would believe me if i told you when i was born. I don’t exactly look my age.” He tried to keep an easy tone but there was a nervous shakiness to his voice that was unmistakable.

 

“Just spit it out kid.” The guy the woman had called ‘Fury’ sighed.

 

“June 1st....2001.” This revelation caused a moment of silence between the people in the car. He had a feeling that the people there were part of some kind of intelligence agency and would find out his story without much difficulty. Peter was well aware of his own lack of skill at lying.

 

“Well Peter, I am Agent Peggy Carter. I think we need some questions answered.”

Notes:

Disclaimer: I have not watched Agent Carter so I'm sorry if I don't get Peggy's character perfectly. I am doing as much research as I can so it won't be too bad. Working with timelines is hard.

 

Also I apologize for skipping yesterday, I had something get in the way.

 

and another thing, I rushed the goodbye with AU Shuri and Tony because this may or may not be the last time we see them, and I really wanted to get to the time travel stuff.

Chapter 7: Not this shit again...

Summary:

Peter in the past. Also lots Peggy Carter because I love her.

Notes:

I need comments to survive. Tell me what you liked because i can only handle criticism to a certain extent. I love questions and any ways that i can actually interact with you guys. I'll put my tumblr link in the end of chapter notes. I love all the attention so far. This is my first marvel fic and arguably my first actually good fic so I am really proud of my ability to keep interested and committed.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter was exhausted but he would not let himself fall asleep on the plane to Washington DC. Even if he wanted to, his spider-sense always seemed to make sure that he knew that he was in constant danger. He physically couldn’t make himself relax. Which sucked because he needed a nap. His internal clock was more confused than anyone dealing with the time travel nonsense.

 

Fortunately, Agent Carter was not an asshole. She seemed to recognize his fear or something Like if the Queen of England was a bloodhound instead of a corgi kind of person. And instead of using his fear to get the information that she wanted, she tried to seem non threatening and she spoke softly to him to basically narrate what they were going to be doing.

 

Agent Fury was quiet but didn’t seem like he was inherently an asshole. Peter must have gotten lucky. That or he was the god of generating pity. He probably didn’t look great, falling from a few stories up would do that. If he weren’t bitten by that spider he would likely have acquired a few broken bones. Instead he was just heavily bruised, which would only take him a day or two at most to heal. His burned wrist would take a little longer to heal but wouldn’t have any problems with his medicated first aid webbing.

 

When the plane landed, Mrs. Carter spoke to someone waiting outside in a hushed tone. He couldn’t catch everything she said due to his mush brain but he heard the name Howard and ‘may be out of my area of expertise.’ At the time, he didn’t connect the dots but it became stupidly obvious later.

 

Mrs. Carter turned to him and indicated that he get ready to follow her. He got out of his seat and thanked the brief recovery period. He could stand without wobbling now, yay! Sure he was still tired as fuck and hurt all over but he took every little victory that he could get. He noticed that both Agent Fury and Agent Carter kept their pistols at the ready in case he tried anything. He wasn’t going to, even if he was at peak condition. Peter would never beat up an old lady even if she was shooting at him. He had a moral code.

 

He raised his hands in surrender to prove that he wasn’t going to do anything. Led by Agent Carter, they left the plane and took him inside of a concrete building. He was led to an interrogation room with the classic wall of double sided glass. His good hand was handcuffed to his chair after he was quickly searched. Unfortunately most of his web-shooters were taken away except the one multi-purpose one that was more or less stuck over the web bandage on his wrist. At least he wasn’t completely defenceless…

 

Mrs. Carter sat on the other side of the table and shooed Agent Fury away. Leaving them alone on their side of the glass.

 

“Alright Peter. How did you get here?” The woman immediately started the questioning.

 

“Uh, Quantum energy manipulation. The device that let me get here malfunctioned so I ended up further in the past than I wanted to Mrs. Carter.” He tried not to sound like he was lying as he wasn’t actually lying. He just didn’t want to give enough information to give anyone technological ideas that could change the future too much.

 

“And I’m supposed to believe that…” Mrs. Carter raised an eyebrow.

 

“I guess in the future we got more used to aliens and magic kind of stuff so time travel wouldn’t be too ridiculous. Maybe I can show you.” He remembered the communication add-on to his new wrist accessory. He lifted his wrist and waited for some form of confirmation from Mrs. Carter. She nodded her head and seemed curious.

 

“I’m only going to contact my friend. Hopefully. I haven’t tried this thing out yet.” He smiled and put his mouth near the receiver. “Contact Shuri Udaku, Earth 1999998, on April 3rd, 2018 at uh… 9:15 PM.” He remembered leaving the genius’ shortly after nine so he hoped that they have yet to leave the lab. The wrist accessory made a few buzzing sounds until Shuris holographic head and torso appeared coming out of the bracelet.

 

“Peter! I am glad that our invention works. Did you make it to your own reality?” She said happily, not noticing his situation.

 

“Yeah… well kinda. I got here a little too early. I think something went wrong with the battery and I ended up in my own reality… just like thirty years in the past. I got kind of arrested by this secret intelligence agency-” Suddenly Tony came into view. This made Mrs. Carter freeze a little.

 

“Kid, Did you get arrested by SHIELD? And, Jesus, when the hell are you? You look like you’re in the goddamn forties.” Peter smiled a bit.

 

“Tony I’m in like, 1988. At least that’s what Karen told me. Also general american culture pointed it out pretty quickly. Everyone has crazy hair. Except for you Mrs. Carter, Yours look like you came out of the fashionable end of the thirties.” Agent Carter smiled at the complement but kept glancing at Tonys hologram.

 

“Mrs. Carter? Underoos, are you being interrogated by Peggy?” Tony grinned. Peter changed the view of the bracelet so that both he and Mrs. Carter would show up for Shuri and Tony.

 

“Anthony? I was planning on interrogating a teenager not meeting up with an old version of my godson. Goodness, you’re almost as old as I am…” Her voice was part fond and part surprised.

 

“Pegs, I’m only forty-eight and I can kick just as much as as you can.” Peter noticed how happy Tony looked. By that time in his universe, Peggy must’ve been long gone. Or at least in her late nineties. Peter had no idea that Tony had any connection to this woman, although he did mention something about his father having a hand in creating something like what SHIELD was. Maybe his father knew Mrs. Carter? Peter wasn’t completely sure. “Kid you okay?” he heard Tony say and he realized that he had spaced out a little.

 

“Yeah yeah… Just had a bit of a fall and the quantum battery malfunctioned and gave me a burn. You know how I just sleep off my injuries...” Peter chuckled tiredly. “Being arrested by secret agents doesn’t give me the confidence of being able to take a nap. I didn’t feel safe enough.”

 

“Aunt Peggy… Did you forget to give my kid nap time?” Tony said in a mock accusatory tone.

 

“That isn’t a bad idea. We’ll get more out of him tomorrow anyways. Your father won’t be here until then anyway.” Tony locked his jaw a bit at that.

 

‘Wonderful. Hey Pete? Give him hell. He’s an asshole. Shit, we shouldn’t be using up your power like this. Go to sleep you little menace!” The hologram disappeared and left Peter and Mrs. Carter alone again.

 

“I don’t take orders from anyone so I’ll just have to say that I agree with him. If we get a blood test going and claim that we are waiting for Howard, I can get you a break. Unfortunately that break will have to be in a cell. This building isn’t exactly meant for overnight stays. Only temporary containment at most.” Mrs. Carter stood up from her chair.

 

“That’s fine. I’ve slept in far worse places.” He decided not to bring up waking up on the ceiling a few days ago. He didn’t want to bring up his powers in any way. That would make all of this a hell of a lot more complicated. Mrs. Carter unlocked his handcuffs and she led them to the medical facility. She heard him talk to Tony about a burn and refused to let him not get it checked out.

 

She watched him in thinly veiled fascination as he instructed the wrist accessory to unfold so that he could get to his wound. He ripped off the webbing bandage carefully and looked at the progress of his healing. He had only had a few hours to heal but there was already much less red around the wound. It was mostly just an odd white and blue. It was unlike any burn he had ever seen. It had a strange lightning styled pattern to it and Peter didn’t know whether to be worried or fascinated. It looked cool but weird enough to be concerned. He winced a little when they took a blood sample and he let them use their own bandages for his burn. He didn’t want to waste any medical webbing if he could help it. It was better used to stop bleeding than to protect burns anyway.

 

However, what medication they used on it just made it burn more and the painkillers didn’t do shit with his enhanced metabolism. He pretended that he was fine though. He hoped that if he got some sleep he would wake up completely fine. Mrs. Carter brought him to a concrete cell and apologized again for the circumstances. She told him that they would wake him up when Howard had arrived and give him food. At the moment, Peter didn’t seem to care, as immediately when he had been given a bed, no matter how hard it was, he fell asleep.

 

Peggy wasn’t sure what to think of the boy. She let him sleep in the cell and put a guard by it to notify her when the kid woke up. At first the kid had reminded her of Howard’s son Tony. But only when he was out of the spotlight. When he was allowed to tinker and let his mind wander. He had intelligent brown eyes and a face that he would make when he had too much going through his mind. His eyebrows would scrunch up and he would press his lips together. And when he showed her the technology from the future he had a sparkle in his eye that Tony had when he first showed her DUM-E.

 

She was very surprised to see and hear Tony on the boys bracelet device. An older, more weary Tony but still the same man. The way he and the boy talked definitely gave her a specific impression of the relationship between the two. She checked up on the lab to see if the SHIELD scientists had found anything odd from Peters blood. She had a DNA sample, and a name. She had her people go through mountains of files just to see if there was a trace of the boy. The closest thing they got after hours of searching was a couple of young agents with the same last name as the boy had given to her. She would have to ask him if he knew a Richard and Mary Parker.

 

She was waved over by one of their biologists and was met with an odd revelation. The man told her that Peters DNA wasn’t completely human. There were many parts that were completely foreign to the well educated scientists. Even from one who had worked with mutants. So Peter was hiding something, Hopefully he wasn’t a threat. Although so far he seemed quite the opposite.

 

The kid was polite and shy and insanely smart. If he was trying to get something from them, he would’ve done it by now. He seemed genuine and Peggy was a very good judge of those sorts of things, being a spy for so long. She could tell when even the most well trained people were lying. And this kid was easy to read. He was lost and afraid and he wasn’t sure how to deal with his problems. Her compassionate mothering instincts had a field day with the boy.

 

She got a call on her flip-phone, effectively stopping her conversation with the mutant specialised biologist.

 

“Stark, Did you get my message. I had someone leave it for me.” Peggy straightened her back as she spoke to her colleague.

 

“Yes, although I wasn’t given many details. Please enlighten me.” Howard spoke through the other end. He sounded a little pissed off. It was the telltale sign that he had been near his son. They didn’t have the best relationship and it was largely Howards fault.

 

“An injured teenager fell out of nowhere in the middle of manhattan. We did a blood test and apparently he is not completely human and he says that he’s from the future. He showed me a bit of tech that called your son. In the future. He was in his late forties. I need you to get here. If anyone has any idea what is going on, it would be you, a self-proclaimed genius.” She rolled her eyes at the fact that she even needed howard in the first place. He was a big part of SHIELD so that was probably it.

 

“I was just in California so it will take a while for me to get there. I bet there will be more information when I get there. You’re lucky this interests me or I wouldn’t bother putting my company on hold. Expect me tomorrow morning.” Howard hung up the phone faster then she could get a reply in. She quickly checked the security camera currently pointed at Peters cell. The kid was curled up in a little ball on his bed and was otherwise peaceful.

 

“Notify me of any changes and when Howard arrives. I’m taking the overnight suite.” She kept her phone open so that she could notify her husband of her situation. She had been lucky to be in New York at the time the kid showed up. She was the highest ranking agent in the area at the time of the emergency signal. Whenever something happened that was potentially dangerous or unexplained, they were immediately notified. They were best equipped to deal with most weird situations. Like time-traveling teenagers.

 

Peggy sighed as she made her way to the temporary suites. They were only there for overnight emergencies and only for alpha and beta level agents and those who were allowed clearance by those agents. She put her curlers in and made sure that she would be ready for anything if she was woken up.

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter was glad that he was too stressed out to suffer from nightmares. It would’ve been embarrassing to show evidence of past trauma. He woke up only slightly sore from the events of the day before. His bruises had definitely faded and he was tempted to look at the burn. It didn’t hurt as much but he didn’t want to have to rebandage it.

 

He sat up in his cells bed and decided to entertain himself by properly examining his wrist multi-tool thing. He wanted to call it something cool but everything he tried sounded lame. Quantum gauntlet? Well the name didn’t include the web-shooter or any spidery themes. It sounded kind of cool… He didn’t have to include everything or even imply that it had multiple purposes, Iron Man was more than just a suit after all.

 

For now Quantum Gauntlet sounded pretty badass and it was better than ‘wrist accessory.’ Not just because he refused to call it a bracelet. It wasn’t pretty enough to be a bracelet.

 

Anyway he looked it over for any other damage besides the quantum energy battery. There was only slight heat damage to one of the canasters of webbing. It was one with quick dissolving formula. Nothing too important thankfully. He took it out and put it in his pocket so he wouldn’t accidentally use it.

 

The rest of the Quantum Gauntlet was unharmed thankfully. His earpiece for Karen was probably too far away from her main interface in the Iron Spider suit so she was likely going to be quiet for a while. Peter didn’t know if she would be able to do much anyway with the limited technology of the eighties. He debated on whether to try out the iron man gauntlet feature or not when he heard someone trying to get his attention.

 

Mrs. Carter was outside of the barred door and she had obviously been trying to get his attention for a little while.

 

“Uh, sorry Mrs. Carter. I got a little distracted.” He let the Quantum Gauntlet form around his bandaged wrist. The cool vibranium was surprisingly soothing to his burn.

 

“I take it your… device is a new development?” She commented as she unlocked the door and motioned for him to follow her.

 

“Uh, yeah. It was unable to be tested completely. With only a limited amount of quantum energy, I can’t just dimension hop without causing major problems. I have honestly only used it for an hour at most and I haven’t even scratched the surface of what it can do. For the most part I’m glad that I haven’t had to.” He got up from his bed and followed Mrs. Carters unspoken orders.

 

“I got the results of your blood sample late last night. There are a few things that will need explaining.” She said as she walked by his side. She noticed that he had stiffened slightly and saw the exact moment that he tried to play dumb.

 

“Like what?” He said awkwardly.

 

“Like the fact that your DNA only matches ninety percent to human DNA. That even out mutant specialist is baffled…” She casually continued and ignored his obvious discomfort.

 

‘Well uh, I guess I’m a product of post-fetal genetic mutation caused by an outside source. After an accident, my genetic code was completely rewritten which gave me an odd set of abilities. I kind of consider myself a mutant but I wasn’t born one. I don’t have the X-gene that gives mutants their powers.” He tried to explain.

 

“Abilities like…” She egged on.

 

“Superhuman senses, strength, durability, agility, equilibrium, an extra sense that usually warns me of danger. I have a healing factor and I can stick to walls using microscopic amounts of electromagnetic pulses that I can control at will. I can become a low range magnet to any solid surface basically.” He shrugged. They were all going to find out anyway. And this is a secret intelligence organization. They very likely knew how to keep secrets.

 

“One more question, Do you know a Richard or a Mary Parker by any chance?” Peter was momentarily stunned.

 

“Yeah. They were my parents.” He replied quietly. Thankfully he wouldn’t have to continue the conversation as they had reached the interrogation room. Waiting for them was a certain familiar face that was known and idolised in the world of science.

 

His father-figures father. The man Peter didn’t dare idolise like the people who didn’t know him.

 

Howard Stark.

Notes:

My Tumblr- https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gaygemgrump

Extra info- In this chapter I mention Richard and Mary Parker who were in the comics, SHIELD agents. They were killed in a plane crash that was staged by redskull. In this I'm having them be married for a while before Peter was even born as it would just make sense with a job like that. The timing is a little weird but it makes some sense if you think about it. Because we have no MCU cannon on Peters parents I'm just doing whatever works for the story.

 

AGAIN REMEMBER TO COMMENT

Chapter 8: so THIS fucker...

Summary:

Peter meets Howard
aka
Peter gets close to punching Howard but he doesn't because hES A GOOD BOY

Notes:

I love every comment. I live for comments. validation is the only way i can trust that i didn't fuck up at writing this shit.

anyway i love you guys a lot and i hope you like this chapter.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

For the record, Peter really didn’t want to base his opinion on Howard just because he was an asshole to someone who had been a pretty awesome parental figure to him for the last few years. He had been raised to be polite and always call adults Mr. or Mrs. and all that. He should probably start calling Tony by his first name because he didn’t want to associate them both with the moniker of Mr. Stark. There can be only one.

 

He wanted to base his opinion on what Howard actually acted like, not just what Tony said that he acted like. But of course,Tony was right. The first thing that came out of Howards mouth made Peter want to punch him a little bit.

 

The older man looked him up and down then looked at Mrs.Carter.

 

“This is it? Doesn’t look like much…” Well that was pretty dehumanizing. Peter managed not to react much more than an irritated twitch. Even Mrs. Carter seemed annoyed at the man. They didn’t seem like they were on the best of terms.

 

“This is Peter. I have informed you of his predicament so I assume that you’ll be helpful.” Peter was very glad that Mrs. Carter came to his defence, even Howard seemed a little bit afraid of the woman. “Now Peter, We will need to inform Howard of what you just barely told me about your biological makeup…”

 

‘Of course, uh, I am a product of artificial genetic mutation. Like a mutant but I wasn’t born with the X- gene. I acquired my mutations only about three years ago in my timeline.” He tried to explain without sharing too many details. He wasn’t able to talk about this kind of stuff very often, at least as Peter Parker and not his alternate ego.

 

“What kind of mutations?” Howard looked interested but he looked at Peter like he was a science project that he wanted to tear apart to learn how it worked. It was not a comfortable feeling.

 

“Like all the enhanced human stuff but on a larger scale as well as an extra sense and self adhesion. But it’s more magnetic and not like my skin is physically sticky. Or like spiders who have little hairs that let them grab onto any surface. That would be gross.” He tried to stay upbeat despite feeling the insecurity of being studied.

 

‘What about your little device there?” Howard motioned toward his vibranium cuff. Peter immediately smiled.

 

“This is my Quantum Gauntlet. It allowed me to get here. It has more stuff hidden in it than you would believe.”

 

‘It doesn’t look much like a gauntlet… it’s more like an ugly bracelet.” This made Peter rolls his eyes even though he set up the conversation just so that he could prove Howard wrong.

 

“Well it’s not in gauntlet form yet. I can’t just go around with a working Iron Man repulsor covering my arm…” He knew that he was the only one who knew what an Iron Man repulsor looked like. It would be odd and threatening to walk around with metal armor covering his arm but not his fingers. He specifically told Tony to keep the gauntlet fingerless just in case he needed to climb a wall or something. Peter couldn’t adhere to things very well when he was covered in Iron Man armor. He could stick to things through most fabric and thin metals but full on armor made it impossible

 

“What the hell is an Iron Man repulsor…” Howard muttered to himself, not expecting a response

 

“I can show you if you want.” Peter smiled sweetly. It was too bad that he couldn’t tell Howard that his son was going to the Iron Man long after he was killed off. Howard would never get to see the hero his son would become in spite of his trauma.

 

Howard looked at Mrs. Carter for approval to which she nodded. Peter used his left hand to swipe his thumb horizontally across the smooth metal and he used two fingers to squeeze secret buttons on either side of his right wrist. Metal climbed up his left hand before he transfered unfolding rings to his right fingers and leaving the gauntlet to completely unfold around his dominant hand.

 

The metal was vibrant gold and red with the center of his palm glowing blue with the arc reactor energy. The gauntlet went down his arm stopping only an inch before his elbow. It only left parts of his fingers and biceps unprotected.

 

It kept his web-shooter available and easily accessible even when the trigger for it was where the repulser would fire. The weapon would just power down automatically to avoid any accidental self harm. A protocol that Tony would call, ‘stop hitting yourself.’ Peter only found it a little funny.

 

“It’s made of vibranium so it can withstand almost any weapon set directly against it. It’s an emergency weapon since I really don’t like violence or actually hurting people. I try to avoid it if I can. But some fights can’t be won with just fists you know?” Peter tried to act casual with his future tech but he was pretty excited to have an actual Iron Man repulsor glove. That shit was cool.

 

“Vibranium? I thought we used the last of it on Steve’s shield…” Howard said skeptically.

 

“Of course, we melted down Captain America’s shield to make this. No, Vibranium might be the rarest metal on earth but there’s definitely more than a pound of it. And you guys had the toughest metal on earth and you made a frisbee out of it? What the hell!” Peter said, sass practically radiating from his very soul.

 

He almost smiled when Howard muttered something like, ‘my god, not another one…’ Which Peter assumed meant that he was acting like a teenage Tony. Peter did learn from the best.

 

“At the time it was a good idea. Besides it was more of a symbol than anything else.” Mrs. Carter responded.

 

“A symbol that used priceless metal and was given to an inexperienced and stubborn soldier that you pumped full of steroids.” Peter said bitterly. He had been kind of pissed off at Steve Rogers since the civil war thing. The whole thing was basically the law versus Bucky Barnes. And no matter what, Steve would choose Bucky. Even when he dropped a dozen ton platform on a fifteen year old. If Peter didn’t have super strength, he would’ve been squashed like the bug he was masquerading as.

 

“Don’t talk about Steve like that.” Howard snapped while Mrs. Carter gave the kid a menacing look.

 

“It’s really unfortunate that you didn’t give him a class on foreign government or politics because he became a real pain in the ass...” Peter muttered as he deactivated his gauntlet and it folded back into a vibranium bracelet.

 

‘I’m guessing that he’s somehow around in your time?” Mrs. Carter said carefully.

 

‘Yeah, he got defrosted after a while. That super-soldier serum kept him in stasis for like seventy years. He kinda missed the whole, ‘America isn’t the only country in the world’ memo after he woke up. I guess that’s what happens if you’re branded as a superhero based on a corrupt country…” Peter fidgeted with his bracelet a bit. He was just pissed that he had idolised the guy for so long. Steve didn’t have to work to get any of his ‘powers.’ He didn’t learn anything by having them.

 

Both Mrs. Carter and Howard seemed irritated at his stance on Captain America. He had to remind himself that they both knew Steve personally and cared about him a lot. But he was also long dead to them so hopefully they didn’t kill Peter for his opinion.

 

“It sounds like it’s something more personal than politics.” Howard stated with a lightly masked anger in his tone.

 

“He just hurt someone that I really care about over a problem that could be fixed. He didn’t even try to understand and he immediately thought that his opinion was more important than the rest of the worlds.” he grumbled. “ Also he dropped a plane platform on me after he beat me up right after I met him for the first time.” he added quickly. “Sorry, I have personal issues with Steve Rogers.” He was careful not to mention Tony as the person Steve hurt as ‘spoiler alert’ both of the people in front of him knew Tony and would still probably take Steves side over his.

 

“We should probably get back to the matter at hand…” Mrs. Carter quickly attempted to steer the conversation towards a less heated note.

 

“Of course. Now Peter, I don’t think you ever told us your age…” Howard stated in that sneaky way of demanding an answer.

 

“Seventeen. Do you need my social security number and the name of my first pet while you’re at it?” He didn’t know why but just being near Howard Stark made him irrationally angry. This asshole was the reason Tony had trust issues and relationship problems as well as issues with alcoholism and his well-known emotional constipation. He never let Tony know that he loved him even if he did love him. Tony was so afraid of becoming this guy that he made irrational decisions as Peters mentor. Still, Tony tried so hard to let Peter know that he was proud and that he cared about him. Something Peter doubted Tony’s father ever cared to vocalize to him.

 

Howard was a bit ticked off by Peter’s sudden impolite response. The kid really reminded him of Tony and their ages weren't too different. Peter even had a similar expression that Tony had when he decided to be extra stubborn. Maybe it was a teenager thing but the sarcasm was annoyingly like his sons.

 

Howard raised a disappointed eyebrow and his face scrunched up a little when Peter smiled innocently back.

 

Meanwhile Peggy really wanted to get the two away from each other as fast as possible. Peter seemed to be intentionally egging Howard on and Howard was taking the bait. Before she could intervene, Peter froze in place and his smile faltered.

 

“Something’s wrong-” He started as he looked around. Only moments later did Peggy’s walkie-talkie spring to life.

 

‘Agent Carter, We have a code yellow, You have been assigned to escort our detainee and Mr. Stark to safe rooms. We have word of a breach in the south-west side of the building caused by three armed attackers. The building will be under lockdown until they have been caught.‘

 

“Copy that. Don’t let them leave the premises.” Peggy said calmly into the communication device. Peter had activated his Gauntlet thing and Howard had his hand on a revolver. Peggy took out her own handgun and motioned for the boys to follow her.

 

She put a finger to her lips in the timeless indication to not make a fucking sound. She indicated for Howard to be in the back with his eyes out for anyone behind them. Peter was unhappily sandwiched in between them with his head nervously checking all around them.

 

As one shuffling unit they started to make their way through the empty halls. Peter and Peggy were the most silent, One of them being a spy and the other being genetically enhanced. Howard however was not the stealthiest of them. He was not light on his feet. He also didn’t seem to take the situation seriously. His grip was light on his gun and he didn’t even seem to make an attempt at being discrete. He seemed too confident in his companions that he even managed to fail at his one job.

 

Thankfully Peter pushed Howard out of the way of a bullet being shot directly at him. Peggy quickly turned around and aimed her gun at the trio of attempted assassins. Peter raised his gauntlet in front of him and put his body between Howard and the armed men.

 

“So you guys hire kids now?” One of the masked assailants said in a heavy new jersey accent.

 

“Nah, I’m freelancing. You know how the market is these days.” Peter’s gauntleted middle and fourth fingers slowly started to make their way to his palm. If he could prevent a fight, he would but he couldn't web up three people without getting shot at. Even with his speed it wouldn’t be easy. These guys looked trained, not just some desperate people trying to steal money. Their purpose was specifically to kill someone.

 

“Peter dear, don’t talk to the people who are trying to kill you.” Mrs. Carter scolded him before taking advantage of the confusion and shooting one of the men in the wrist, forcing him to drop the gun.

 

“Sorry mom…” Peter joked and shot his repulser at one of the guys feet and quickly brought the gauntlet in front of Howard to block a hastily shot bullet. Peter vaguely saw Mrs. Carter smirk out of the corner of his vision.

 

His spider sense warned him and he brought his body in front of Mrs. Carters just in time to catch a bullet with his left shoulder. He shot his repulser at the last man standing who quickly went down.

 

Peter brought his hand up to his wounded shoulder and muttered a quick, ‘Goddamnit” before he shakily deactivated his gauntlet. Unfortunately his newest piece of tech was not equipped with the web formula for medical emergencies like getting shot. He was in a bit of a rush when he was designing it. He was bound to miss something important.

 

He was trying to think straight but the pain blocked his brain from any sort of logical output. It turned out getting shot, fucking sucked. At least this wasn’t his first time getting shot. The first time made Tony freak out and it was almost worth it because he was forced to miss school and stay at the Avengers compound medical bay for a few days.

 

He refocused on reality to find both Howard and Mrs. Carter looking very worried.

 

“Peter, did you get shot?” Mrs. Carter asked as she steadied him. He immediately shrugged with his good shoulder.

“Maybe a little.”

Notes:

I can't do fight scenes whoops.

And I'm having way too much fun with Peggy. It'll be sad when I have to move on from time travel. :(

Chapter 9: Disaster Duo

Summary:

Peter get's left alone.

Notes:

I can't do whumps so oops. I'm really happy with the response that this has gotten. All of the comments keep me going and I'm so grateful for it. I rarely have this much fun writing. I love you all for sticking around and reading my word barf.
Shameless self promo- https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gaygemgrump
If I end up doing art for this fic it will go on my tumblr so if you're interested, please follow me there.
If you have any questions about the fic or if you want fic recommendations, just PM me there. I don't have many friends so it won't be hard to get to me.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Tony had only just come back from MIT and was only at his home in New York because he knew for certain that his father wasn’t there. He was scheduled to be in California for a few more weeks at least. The teenager just needed a break before his father sent Obie on him and forced him to deal with Stark industries bullshit. Tony didn’t really want to deal with weapons but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice on that front.

 

HIs only friend was busy in the army and he really didn’t have much else to do.

 

He was close to leaving the mansion when he heard recognisable hushed voices. He decided to listen in out of curiosity.

 

“He literally took a bullet for me Howard. This is the safest place for him. Besides, Tony shouldn’t be here anyway. You have an empty house with some of the best security. You have to go back to California and I have to work out some bullshit with SHIELD. If we have to leave him alone, This is the only place we can do it.” His aunt Peggy said harshly.

 

“Fine! But Edwin won’t be here until late tonight. Do you think he’ll be able to be alone for that long?” Tony recognized his father's exasperated voice immediately.

 

“He just got shot. He needs rest anyway.”

 

“I’m right here. I’ll be fine being alone, I’m not a baby. Besides, I have to figure out how I’m going to get home with my quantum battery empty and damaged.” A new voice entered the conversation. Tony was more interested in this ‘quantum battery’ than the actual person though. “This isn’t even the first time I’ve been shot. I’ll heal up in like three days at most. That gives me more than enough time to fix my own problems.”

 

“Peggy, just take him to a room. I have to go.” And there goes his father…

 

“Alright, Peter. I need to give you some rules. You can not leave the building. Try not to come in contact with Tony, and don’t do something stupid to make your injury worse.”

 

“Those all sound fairly reasonable Mrs. Carter.” Tony followed their voices and managed to get a glimpse of Peter. He couldn’t be much younger than Tony and he was a few inches shorter. The guy was in an old tank top that looked like it had some sort of band logo on it. His shoulder was bandaged and in a sling. He had an odd sort of cuff on his wrist but otherwise he didn’t look out of the ordinary.

 

Tony slipped away before he thought anyone noticed that he was there. He planned on saying hello to his new housemate after Aunt Peggy left though. There was definitely something up with this ‘Peter.’ Who would shoot at a teenager in the first place anyway? And he said that it wasn’t the first time either. There was something up and he was interested in finding out what.

 

Peter was quickly dropped off in one of the empty rooms. Of course he knew that he and Peggy weren’t alone. He heard a heartbeat and footsteps that had been following them from almost the instant that he had entered the mansion. At first he thought that it was the staff or someone like that. He knew that the Starks were easily rich enough to have butlers and all that. But no one was supposed to be at the house. Not even the butler. Peter had been against making someone take care of him but it turned out that Edwin Jarvis had first aid experience so it wasn’t completely illogical.

 

He ignored the signs of life and decided to busy himself with finding a way home once Mrs. Carter had left. Peggy had been nice enough to let him have his double set of web-shooters back so he was thankful for that. Now he could access Karen. He found some paper and pencils in a nightstand and he got to work. He accessed Karen’s database and projected the blueprints for the quantum battery. He needed to find out what went wrong so that he could fix it.

 

He figured out that the problem was in the power consumption. If he could figure out how to adjust it better, he would be able to go home. But the other problem was that he needed quantum energy. He could only get quantum energy by stealing the ant-man suit in san francisco and going subatomic. Then he had to get himself back. That would honestly be the hard part. It would be easier to find another way into the quantum realm but all of the information that he had on it would be pretty far in the future. It was currently thirty years before anyone would be able to escape it. Peter wasn’t sure if Janet van Dyne had gotten stuck there yet. Timelines were complicated…

 

Peter put his quantum gauntlet on the rooms desk and let it project it’s hologram in the air like it did when he called Shuri and future Tony. He manipulated the image so that he could look closer at the tiny part. It was circular and was supposed to glow with pale colorful energy. It would settle fashionably at the back of his hand and made his wrist accessory look less bland. The other design kept the battery hidden but it would also overheat it much quicker.

 

He scribbled down his ideas and alternate designs on paper and he really didn’t know how else he could get the quantum energy at this point in time. He didn’t have time to develop the pym particle replacement as that would literally take years, He wasn’t well versed enough in quantum sciences that he could make his own form of transport… He groaned and lightly slammed his forehead against the desk while muttering the curse words that May would never let him say.

 

“Karen, with our current power, how long would I be able to call the future for?” Peter asked his earpiece without raising his head from it’s resting place on the desk.

 

“It depends on how far in the future and which reality. It takes exponentially less power to contact within our current reality.” Karen responded. Peter assumed that this realities Shuri that hasn’t even met him wouldn’t know immediately what the other Shuri knew but she was the smartest person in the world for a reason. If anyone could help, It would be her.

 

“I don’t want to waste any of my backup power so we’re going to have to do as much as we can ourselves. And by we I mean me because you are an AI and it would be me doing most of the work anyway.”

 

“Rude.” Peter smiled at Karen's response. Although she wasn’t programed to be sassy like JARVIS and FRIDAY were, She still had the same maker and the man liked his creations to have attitude. It made them more interesting. Although Peter made a few adjustments to his friend so that she was well up to date on memes and internet culture. It was like talking to someone his own age instead of a few generations older.

 

“Okay Karen, Do you have any backup storage data about quantum energy or anything like that? I’m not exactly an expert.” he decided it would be best to stay on topic. He didn’t have much else to do than find his way home.

 

“I found several documents that match your description. I’m assuming you’ll want the most recent study by Dr. Pym? It was made only weeks before we got stuck here. Late March.”

 

“Yeah. Pick out all the good bits. I only have time for what I need. Ignore all of the explanations and warnings.” He started sketching the new quantum battery design. Thankfully, because the vibranium band was made in seperate parts by three separate people, many parts were mix and match, and easy to remove and replace. Unfortunately, he did not have any tools with him so he hoped that Howard had a workshop. Well he probably did, Tony did live in the mansion occasionally.

 

If young Tony was anything like older Tony, he would spend sleepless nights just making things in the workshop. Drowning out any noise with loud music and only talking to his bots.Peter didn’t know if Tony had started the whole playboy thing yet, He was only just out of collage. But, Whatever. It’s not like Peter would see Tony this far back in time right?

 

Unfortunately, Peter had pretty bad luck. Due to just that factor, he was surprised that he wasn’t dead yet. His life was full of weird coincidences that ended up being bad for his health. He only regretted being bitten by a radioactive spider when he was being beaten to a pulp. And when he was experiencing sensory overload. And that one time he hugged Aunt May a little too hard and gave her bruises. Other then that, He never regretted getting spider powers.

 

Peters next bit of bad luck came in the form of a young Tony Stark. Who, as he was told, was supposed to be in Malibu California. But instead, he was not. He just happened to visit his childhood home.

 

Peter found this out when the guy knocked on his door, loudly wondering why the fuck he was there. Could he answer that question truthfully without screwing something up? Probably not. But at the moment Peter didn’t think that Tony would take ‘I fell out of the sky yesterday’ for an answer. Peter may or may not have prayed that he wouldn’t fuck up some timeline before he opened the door to a teenaged version of his mentor.

 

Honestly the first thing Peter thought was, ”‘This fucker is still taller than me…” and, “He looks really weird without his iconic facial hair.”

 

“Ah, so the mystery unravels, or I guess, answers the door- Whoa, what the hell is that?” Tony brushed past Peter and pushed his face right up close to the hologram coming out of the vibranium bracelet.

 

“What does it look like. It’s a three-dimensional holographic projection.” Peter said as he did think that it was kind of obvious. He waved his hand over it to shut it off before Tony could get a good look at the systematics.

 

“What is your deal man? You gotta give me something to work with.” Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“I’m from the future and if I tell you much more than that, I could easily fuck something up big-time.” Peter noticed that he had subconsciously brought his hand up to his wounded shoulder. “I’m trying to get back before I make too much of a dent. Which I think I already messed up.” He sighed.

 

“Wait, How old are you? You really can’t be that much younger than me.” Tony compared their heights quickly. ‘Yes Tony, you’re still two inches taller than me.’ Peter internally commented.

 

“Seventeen. I think. It’s been a long week. It’s hard to know if your birthday has passed when you get hurdled thirty years in the past and though an alternate reality.” Peter shrugged.

 

“The future is weird…” Tony stated.

 

“You guys think that pumping a guy pumped full of steroids and throwing him at Nazi’s is weird, so comparatively, the future is like taking every kind of hallucinogenic drug at the same time and running naked into the sun somehow.” Just when you think you’ve seen everything, suddenly there’s norse gods and aliens and a secret advanced civilization and wizards and rage monsters and frozen superheroes from the past and a robot apocalypse and a big purple asshole seeking to destroy everything for funsies. Peter had grown up in that mess so it seemed normal.

 

“If that’s the case then I can’t wait for the future.” Tony smirked. Peter stared at him with his eyebrow raised.

 

“Dude, By the time all the weird shit happens you’ll be like forty-five. Enjoy your sort of normal anxiety-free life. Because it sure as hell won’t stay that way. Anyway, are you bored? Because I need some help and your dad was kind of an asshole.” Peter picked up the quantum gauntlet and slid it safely around his wrist.

 

Before Tony could reply, Peters wrist buzzed as he felt his vibranium bracelet start to receive a call. He twisted his wrist to answer it as it could be important. The holographic projection immediately turned on and Peter expected to find Shuri or the older Tony on the other end.

 

He didn’t prepare himself for a distress call.

Notes:

BTW in this chapter I totally imagined Tony in more of the Avengers Academy style. Just because I love his design in it.
Anyway i hunger for comments and I love those who have already commented. Literally all of them are positive and I can't explain how happy it makes me. I definitely expected some criticism as I'm not terribly experienced but I have received none so far. Don't be afraid to by the way. I'm trying to improve.

Chapter 10: Revelations

Summary:

Peter gets a call

Notes:

FYI '=unspoken voices. used by Gamora and Peter

anyway, comments keep me motivated and i love them so if you enjoy reading my work, please tell me!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Remember when you said something really bad was going to happen? Yeah, That’s happening. Can you give us any information? Bruce just fell out of the sky and I just met wizards.” Alternate reality Tony spoke from inside his bleeding edge armor. A reality and over thirty years away stood an out-of-time Peter Parker and a confused teenage Tony Stark.

 

“So I’m guessing you met space voldemort and hulks creepy lizard relative?” Peter immediately answered and decided that he would have to deal with young Tony later. He’d probably have to drug him or something.

 

“Yeah no shit. You’ve met these guys before, what should we do?”

 

“Maw is telekinetic and the definition of manipulative. They’re going to try to steal the wizard for his necklace. Try not to let them. But if you can’t, sneak on the ship and take the guy by surprise. In my reality I was there to help you. But you have to do that on your own for obvious reasons. I can actually take most of the credit for defeating may and saving Mr. Strange in my reality…”

 

“Back on topic Peter…”

“Sorry, anyway, They are going to try to split you up. Don’t let them. Strange cannot take on the maw alone. He will be taken and tortured for the time stone if you leave him alone. Shit, is Vision with you? Without the rogue Avengers, Wanda and Vision are screwed…” He wasn’t quite sure where he got all of his information but it just spilled out so fast that he could barely keep up. “I guess since the avengers are back together they don’t have to sneak out or anything. Whatever. Keep the mind stone out of the black orders hands. Listen to Mr. Strange. He can use the stone to look into the future and choose the best possible plan. Also if you flee to Wakanda… You won’t be as safe as you think. Wanda can destroy the stones. She has to sacrifice the time stone and Visions stone or else the mad titan will destroy half of the universe. Half of all life Tony…” Peter felt like he was missing something. Like he should’ve remembered something important.

 

“I get it. This is literally the worst thing to happen. Fuck, the Battle of New York was child's play compared to this… And are you sure there’s no way to save Vision?” Tony asked. Peter could feel the man's anxiety even with dimensional and time barriers.

 

“There’s no other way. You have to send the stones you have down the garbage disposal. Including the time stone. If Thanos gets his hand on that one then all of your efforts are fruitless. He can turn back time and pick the stone out of visions head with only a hand gesture. You won’t have time to save Vision I’m sorry. But his sacrifice means countless lives saved. Besides, he’s an AI. He won’t be dead without the stone. At least not completely. He’ll be like a JARVIS and a less murderous Ultron. The mind stone made Ultron into the villain. Not you. Anyway if you have time to save Visions consciousness then you should but you must destroy the stones.” Peter urged desperately. “If you fail and Thanos gets the stones. Do not despair, There is always hope.”

 

This is when Peter noticed that his voice wasn’t entirely his own. His words weren’t coming from him. He noticed a warm light coming from somewhere and automatically looked into a mirror.

 

It was impossible not to notice and young Tony looked mildly terrified but mostly confused.

 

Peter’s eyes glowed a golden orange that he vaguely recognized. They were the same as the green woman’s eyes in his dream from what felt like years ago. For some reason it wasn’t scary or threatening like most would assume glowing eyes to be. For good reason, Wanda’s eyes glowed red when she was angry and using a lot of her magic, Thor’s eyes glowed when he was using a lot of power too. But Peter wasn’t using any power. He was connecting. He was linked to the alien woman on the orange planet. He didn’t know how but he assumed he’d learn later.

 

“Peter… are you okay? You sound weird.” Tony’s voice came from the speaker.

 

“Sorry, I’m fine. You’re using up my emergency battery. Call me when the titan is dead.” Peter twisted his wrist to hang up and he looked back at his reflection. His eyes were still glowing. And he still felt like he was missing something. It was more than frustrating. It was almost infuriating. But now he had to deal with the young Tony who had edged away from him. Peter sighed.

 

He closed his eyes and tried to will them to stop glowing but when he opened his eyes again, nothing had changed. Cool, now it would be hard to get away with being a freak in the first place. He could hide freakish muscles under baggy shirts but he couldn’t get away with glowing eyes. He didn’t think that even sunglasses would make a dent.

 

‘Please don’t freak out.’ Peter managed not to jump at the woman’s voice in his head. ‘I had to open our connection in the hope that we can save them. But I feel like you’ll want an explanation soon.’ Peter managed not to nod as he figured that she couldn’t see him and was just talking to him.

 

Surprisingly enough, this wasn’t the weirdest thing that has happened to Peter. Well it was but he could deal with weird.

 

Now to deal with the Tony that had heard his past self talk about wizards and all powerful stones.

 

“Okay, so that was unexpected. I think you know too much for your own good. So how do you want to do it? Fake an overdose right when Mr. Jarvis gets here so you will both forget this ever happened and I can sneak out? Or should I just hit you lightly in the head and hope that you don’t sustain permanent brain damage.” Peter tried to look non-threatening but his glowing eyes were unsettling to say the least.

 

“First of all, What the flying fuck, and second, If I have to forget this stuff anyway I would love to have more information first. Also, it wouldn’t be too out of character for me to OD.” Tony rushed. “Either that or I can drink a lot and I’ll probably forget the most recent events without completely fucking up my body.” Peter nodded. He could work with a drunk Tony. Hopefully.

 

‘Okay, You wanna know more? Bring as much alcohol as you can carry and I’ll meet you down at the workshop. I need to get there anyway to fix something. And you better get fucked up because if you remember this tomorrow I will steal some sort of spy thing from Peggy that will make you forget your own name.” Peter warned and realized that it had come out too seriously. His glowing eyes made him look a little more angry than he wanted to be. At least his voice was his own and not an amalgamation of his and the green woman’s.

 

‘You can just call me Gamora…’ the woman’s voice said quietly in his head. Shit, she could hear his thoughts? ‘Only the loud ones.’ she replied, seemingly amused. He needed a minute to get used to not being the only one in his head.

 

“Do you promise you’ll tell me everything and not drug me before you do?” Tony asked as he got up.

 

“I don’t just casually carry around shit like that. I’ll tell you as much as I can without giving myself a panic attack. Is that enough for you?” Peter smiled and hoped that he didn’t look like some psychopath.

 

“Sure. Do you have any requests for alcohol?” Tony asked as he prepared to open the door.

 

“Nothing for me, the stuff is no match for my metabolism. It gives me a headache and I only know that because I accidentally had a spiked drink at a party I was forced to go to. I had to go home early because my mutation wanted to fuck me over.”

 

“Tell me about that too when I come back. This is literally the most interesting thing to ever happen to me.” Peter chuckled. Tony was taking everything remarkably well considering. Perhaps he believed Peter about the consequences of time travel and decided that it wouldn’t be too bad to forget. Peter also assumed that he would want a reason to drink anyway.

 

Peter may or may not have needed Karen to x-ray the building so that he could find the lab. It was a big place that intimidated him. There were countless rooms that looked like they hadn’t been used in years. Peter assumed that Tony lived here when he was much younger then the place was practically abandoned after he was sent to boarding school and then collage. Stark Industries was mainly located in California so there was no reason for the Starks to live here besides vacation or visiting the SI locations in New York.

 

He had gotten there only moments before Tony came in with his arms full of expensive alcohol. Tony said that he wanted to start out slow so that he could be coherent when Peter was telling him about his crazy life. Tony held a half glass of whiskey when Peter started out his story.

 

“The thing is, in the future, You become a huge part of my life so it’s impossible to tell you about me when your future self kind of made me who I am.” Peter explained.

 

“No need to be spoiler free, hopefully you won’t let me get alcohol poisoning. Seriously though, I can understand the whole ‘knowing the future will only fuck it up’ kind of deal. I was going to drink a lot tonight anyway so I may as well get something out of it. Not that I’ll remember but it’s something.” Tony interrupted

 

“Okay so uh, in the future, you get kidnapped by terrorists who want to use your weapons. On the way you get shrapnel in your bloodstream on it’s way to kill you at any moment. Instead of letting it kill you though, it the midst of being tortured You build yourself an impossible solution out of scraps. You make a miniaturized arc reactor that is small enough to fit in your chest and keep the shrapnel away from your heart. You build an iron suit to escape and nobody knows how you did it. You design a new suit and you anonymously put an end to groups that were using your weapons for terrorism in the middle east. Anyway you get the public's attention with this ingenious suit and people start to wonder who it is in the suit. I remember the day you held a press conference just to say that you were the guy in the suit. It was like heroes existed in the world again. The closest thing we had to a superhero was Captain America and that guy was lost and stories about him seemed unreal. He wasn’t humanized. He was an unattainable, perfect figure that no one could live up to.”

 

“You can say that again. Dad’s been looking for that guy for years and I’ve had to live up to a guy that I’ve never met.” Tony grumbled and took a swig of his whiskey.

 

“Yeah but you become a better hero than him. Not just because you made yourself a hero, didn’t need any experimental steroids, but because your power is your brain. You made insane things out of nothing and you never stopped trying to improve. I always wanted to be like you. I always wanted to have that confidence and that pure intelligence. My brains were my power. Then I got my own real powers by accident. I had my genes completely redesigned and now I don’t even classify as human but that's besides the point. I got a bunch of powers that included super-strength, agility, flexibility, senses, healing, equilibrium, sticking to walls and a danger sense that is really just a frustrating radar. I can tell when something’s wrong before it even goes wrong. And before you ask, last I checked, I can lift over twenty tons, I can balance on a string the size of a thread and a bullet wound like this takes me less than half a week to fully heal.” He gestured to the bandages on his shoulder.

 

“Wait, how did you find out you can left that much? Do they sell weights like that at those workout stores?” Tony asked,obviously trying to to act interested and was failing.

 

‘Oh yeah, uh, A building fell on me then after the fact I did the math and figured out I’m like a hundred times stronger than Captain America. Who actually dropped an airplane terminal on me when you guys got in a fight. Oh yeah that’s a thing. Mr. America came back and we had to thaw him out like a microwave burrito. You and him don’t really get along that well because he only knew your dad and based you off of him and an inaccurate file on you. Also he is an asshole who always thinks he knows best. If you get the chance by the way, don’t join the superhero boy band. They will milk you for your money and tech and blame you for everything that they did wrong. They won’t listen to you and they’ll leave you once they realize that you’re right.”

 

“Yeah that sounds about right. And let me guess, I have a huge guilt complex so I end up just going with it because I feel like I deserve it.” Tony smiled and took another drink.

 

“That’s one reason why we get along honestly. We both have fucking bullshit guilt complexes and blame ourselves for everything that goes wrong. Also we are both raging nerds. You got bored hanging out with stupid people I guess.” Peter shrugged. “Also neither of us really know how to take care of ourselves as I get really hurt on a normal basis and I stay up all night and you never talk about your feelings and stay up all night… We’re basically the same person but you’re rich and I go through my trauma slightly earlier in life. Too bad I can’t just stay here and make sure you don’t do dumb shit…” His voice died.

 

It was a good idea. The future would come eventually. It was almost impossible to get there early. Why doesn’t he just stay with Tony and change the things that ended up ruining him. He could give Tony the support that he needed and could stop the other avengers from being such assholes. He could prevent Ultron and the civil war and be there when Tony’s best friend fell from the sky. No one really needed Peter in the future did they? There were enough superheroes that missing one wouldn’t exactly be a loss.

 

“Uh oh, You look like you’re doubting yourself. You don’t know if you really want to go back huh…” Tony sighed and refilled his glass.

 

“Well, I sort of have to do the impossible to get back and… I’m not sure if it’ll be worth it. I wish I could help the alternate universe but I don’t even remember how my own reality worked out. I don’t know what happened to everyone and it’s driving me insane…” Peter sighed.

 

‘Do you really want to know what happened Peter? Do you think I took those memories away for no reason?’ Gamora’s voice echoed in his head and his heart sank.

 

‘We lost didn’t we… does that have something to do with me being… away.’ Peter closed his eyes and acted like he was frustrated instead of having a conversation with someone who Peter wasn’t sure was even real.

 

‘If you remember, I’ll have to take you back. You would be much happier here. You have a choice Peter.’ Gamora said desperately.

 

‘Do it. I need to understand. I need to know what happened.’

 

‘Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Notes:

Will we ever know what happened to the alternate reality thanos attack?
Am I going to pull a 6th sense?
Will Tony in any universe get the love that he deserves?
These questions and more will be answered on the next episode of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chapter 11: Last Moments

Summary:

Something happens and Peter gets a few hugs

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter watched through his own eyes as he was captured by big Peter and had a gun put to his head. Then a line that popped up that changed the moment happened.

 

“Where’s Gamora?” “Who’s Gamora?” “Why is Gamora!” Now Peter actually kind of knew who Gamora was. Why and where was a slightly different beast though.

 

He watched them get along with the guardians and time seemed to speed by, until Thanos came. Peter knew that it was going to happen, they had the time stone, and if they had to fight for it, they were doing it away from earth so there was no collateral damage. Peter had figured out that only one of the original Avengers cared about such a thing and it was Tony.

 

That’s why they didn’t turn the ship around and go back to earth, That’s why Peter was stuck. Because people could get killed by accident and Tony would be blamed for it even though he had tried multiple times to prepare them for another alien attack.

 

He saw himself momentarily fighting Thanos and then saving most of the Guardians of the Galaxy while Tony took on the titan by himself. He was too far away to help but close enough for his enhanced hearing to hear it. The sound of his father figure being stabbed. He whipped his head around to desperately hope that it was not what he thought it was. Before he could completely process the image, a single thought ran through his head.

 

‘Please not again... ‘ He already had seen one of his father-figures bleed to death in front of him. His actual biological father died ages ago but Ben was still fresh. Especially as history seemed to repeat itself.

 

Peter couldn’t force himself to move or say anything. He had frozen. Maybe it was selfish of him to think that he couldn’t go through the grief and loss again…

 

But Tony wasn’t dead yet. And past Peter was too fucking far away to do anything about it, especially in his state of shock. He was torn from his own thoughts when the purple douchebag decided to speak to Tony.

 

“I hope they remember you.” Peter’s heart sank, only because he didn’t remember until he was forced himself to relive it. It was a cruel irony that he was told to remember only to be unable to.

 

He saw Tony stagger and clutch at the sword that went completely through his abdomen. Peter could only imagine the kind of pain it was causing him.

 

Peter was too focused on Tony to hear all of the dialogue that was spoken but eventually he heard the wizards voice.

 

“Spare his life, and I will give you the time stone.” This is when Peter really hoped that Strange had a plan because the Time Stone is much too powerful to be given to the god of purple assholes here. This is when Peter unfroze and started to get him and the Guardians back to the fight. He rushed to Tony when the violet shithead had disappeared through a portal. Peter noticed that Tony had used some of the emergency first aid web-fluid to close his wound and for a moment he allowed himself to be grateful that his mentor had survived.

 

It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes later when his spider sense hit him harder than it ever had before. So hard that his head was throbbing and he couldn’t take a full breath. He could only feel dread and fear. Something was terribly wrong. Moments later he witnessed it.

 

First it was Mantis. He didn’t remember her name at the time but now he did. She knew something was wrong before she dissolved into ash and dust. Then Drax, and big Peter, and after that, The wizard. “Tony, There was no other way.” his last words somehow gave him hope that this wasn’t the end.

 

Then Peter began to feel it. His spider-sense attack was nothing compared to the pain he started to feel. It was white hot and devastatingly freezing at the same time. It felt like he was being torn apart at an atomic level and his body was desperately trying to keep him together.

 

“Mr. Stark? I don’t feel so good…” It was a massive understatement but the pain clouded his mind enough to where he couldn’t think… Tony said something but Peter couldn’t hear. He felt his feet start to disappear and he stumbled into Tony’s arms. This was when he had an idea about what was happening.

 

“Sir, please, I don’t wanna go… I don’t wanna go-” he felt his hands slip off of Tony as his body painfully started to lose it’s form. He slammed into the ground but found that it didn’t matter. He didn’t think that he could feel anymore pain anyways. It was already flooding all of his senses. He desperately wished he could pass out or something to take him away from the pain, if only temporarily.

 

A wave of realization hit him. ‘And if you died, I feel like that’s on me.’ Tony had once said after saving his ass. But no one could help him now… Not even Tony. So before thinking much of it he looked up at his distraught mentor. And he apologized.

 

Because Tony was going to blame himself. And he was going to be in so much pain and he had already lost so much…

 

Peter gave up. He let the pain take him and he woke up back in the late eighties with the young version of his mentor desperately trying to calm him down. He realized that he was sobbing. The ache of dying felt like it was settled in every cell of his body. But he owed this Tony an explanation. He calmed his breathing for a moment before he could even attempt to speak.

 

“I remember… we lost. We lost everything.” He muttered. Tony, not usually one to give physical affection, hugged Peter. To Tony, Peter had gone in a momentary trance before looking like he was experiencing some sort of panic attack. Tony had to deal with his own trauma alone so he wasn’t completely sure about what to do. It seemed like physical comfort was good though as Peter hugged back and seemed to get a hold of himself. After a long moment Peter pulled away.

 

“Uh, sorry, I don’t know where that came from. It’s not everyday that you experience your own painful death. At least not more than once. She said that if she showed me I’d have to go back so I need you to forget about me. Actually, you know what? Here” Peter took out the earpiece that Karen occupied and held it out to Tony. “If I’m right, She’ll be useless to me as I will be slightly out of range of earth. She has the blueprints for the quantum communication device and if you can figure it out, you can contact me in may of 2018 or later. If I’m back by then. And who knows, In a couple years you might need someone to talk to.” Peter talked quickly leaving Tony a little bit in the dust with the information dump.

 

‘It’s time to go. I can’t keep you here for much longer…’ Gamora whispered in his head. Peter looked right at Tony.

 

“Don’t try to change the future, I don’t want to create some sort of paradox. Oh and I have one word of advice. Don’t let anyone stop you or hold you down. Because most of the time you’re right and everyone else is fucking stupid.” Tony stayed silent for a moment before hugging him again. Then, in a flash of warm soft light, he was gone.

 

Tony held the earpiece in his hand.

 

“If I can figure it out? This’ll be easy.”

 

It was not easy.

***********************************************************************************

 

Peter opened his eyes and was assaulted with several shades of orange. He was on the weird plain of existence that he had only visited in a dream. It didn’t feel like a real physical place. It felt like he was in a dream. Everything was light and comfortingly warm. The ground was covered in clear water that reflected the bright warm hues of the area.

 

Then Peter noticed the deafening silence. With his super hearing, everything was loud and noticeable. But here, there wasn’t even the sound of moving air. He could only hear his own heartbeat and breathing. His stomach was quiet, which was weird because he hasn’t eaten in hours and his metabolism forces him to be a black hole for food. But he wasn’t hungry at all.

 

Then came the crushing feeling of loneliness, He had only ever been completely alone when he was abandoned by the vulture and left almost crushed under a building. That was the only other time when he couldn’t hear anyone. Only distant machinery at most. No one to hear him, no one to help him. He felt trapped again.

 

Even in the past and an alternate reality where no one would or should know him, there was still always someone there. Whether it’s Tony in both areas or Shuri or Mrs. Carter, There was always someone willing to help him. And even before that when he became Spider-Man. No one knew that he was connected to the friendly wall-crawler in any way until Tony Stark came around. Tony was an odd kind of constant. When Peter had no one, He always had Tony. Even in this whole mess of realities and time warping Tony ended up finding him.

 

But now there wasn’t even Tony. There was no May, no Ben, no Ned or MJ… it felt like even his mental connection with Gamora was severed. It was just him. And he always hated when anything was just him. He relied heavily on other people. Without a lot of help he wouldn’t have been able to get back to his own reality.

 

Now he wasn’t just alone, but he felt it. It was a physically painful contrast compared to the city sounds that he had just gotten used to. He was used to so much noise and so much going on around him that everything felt empty when it was gone.

 

There was no more cars, no cat that would hang out and yell at him through his window when he was doing homework, there was no nightly movies from the floor right under his, there was no baby sounds from a building over that he didn’t think that he’d miss, there was… just emptiness.

 

Only moments ago he was reliving his own death, he didn’t know how he came back whether it was a botched reincarnation or his spirit was making him hallucinate to fill a void. Was this place hell? He hoped not, It didn’t seem too bad. It would really be hell if it was really cold, Due to Peters spider mutation, he can’t handle the cold very well. He always seeked out heat and got too cold pretty quickly.

 

The worst part wasn’t that he had died, or that it had hurt, The worst part was how he used the last few seconds of his life. He had felt so afraid and he desperately clung onto Tony who looked just as afraid as he was. Peter was glad that he was with Tony and in space. He would’ve died no matter where he was and he would’ve hated to be alone or in the sights of Aunt May when he was in so much pain. Did she disappear like everyone else had?

 

Did anyone feel it like he did? He didn’t think so as when everyone else disappeared it was quick and they just looked confused and not in terrible pain. But he wasn’t allowed that luxury. He felt it from a mile away. He felt the fact that there was nothing he could do. This wasn’t an enemy to dodge or a bully about to trip him. This was an unavoidable consequence of failing. Was there more he could do? Probably not. Could they have succeeded? Maybe if big Peter had not freaked out. But Peter didn’t blame they guy. No one could deal with that kind of revelation without some sort of reaction. Quill seemed to love the fuck out of Gamora so when she was taken away…

 

Wait, Gamora. Why was she able to talk to him like she did? Nebula had said that Thanos and Gamora went to a planet, that sounded like it was named after something out of the lord of the rings books, and that Gamora didn’t return and Thanos got the soul stone.

 

The orange one.

 

The soul stone.

 

Ohmygod peter you’re so fucking stupid, Thanos didn’t even use the soul stone as some kind of power-up when fighting them, so it must have a different purpose in his plan. The soul stone was where they went after they disappeared. Why else would this place look like it was forced into a single color scheme. And seriously what else did Gamora and Peter have in common besides being dead. At the time he didn’t know but later he realized that they had one other thing in common. Murdered parents. Yay…

 

Peter didn’t realize when he had started crying. He just noticed that his cheeks were wet and his vision was blurry. His breathing had been affected and it took Peter too much effort to stop himself from full on sobbing. The loneliness was so crushing that he fell to his knees. He stopped holding back his sobs and he let his tears drop off of his cheeks and make ripples in the water. He was forced to close his eyes as there was no use in keeping them open.

 

His spider-sense didn’t go off and he didn’t hear anyone approach, He couldn’t hear over his own sorrow and tiring panic. But when strong arms wrapped around him, he didn’t complain. Even though he didn’t know who they belonged to.

 

He accepted any comfort that he could get.

Notes:

Who is hugging Peter?
What the fuck is going on?
Do I know what I'm doing?
Leave your guesses in the comments
seriously if anyone is following the story I want to hear from you.

Chapter 12: New Family

Summary:

Peter gets a hug.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“It’s okay, I promised that I wouldn’t leave you. You’ll never have to be alone again Peter.” Peter heard once he had run out of tears and breath. Once he could hear something other than his own pain. He heard a heartbeat that wasn’t his own and steady breaths that definitely did not come from him in his hysteria.

 

He was pressed against the person and was slowly able to identify them. Definitely a lady. A tall one. He could tell this as he was being pressed in a hug against a leatherbound, unquestioningly female chest. He knew the voice too.

 

He had immediately relaxed in Gamora’s arms and for some reason around her, he felt like he could cry. It was weird because she was probably the most badass and deadly person in the universe. It came as a bit of a surprise that she would be gentle and caring. He felt safe in her arms though. Safer than he had felt in a long time.

 

Eventually Peter had run out of tears and his breath didn’t come in desperate gasps for air. He gently pulled away from Gamora as he wiped his tears and realized something vitally important. His cheek connected with the vibranium of his updated quantum gauntlet. It had a mostly empty battery that was displayed on the back of his hand but still glowed faintly white.

 

He noticed that he was still in alternate Tony’s metallica tank top and his other pairs of web-shooters were folded up in his pockets. He even still had a bandage on his wrist covering the burn from the quantum gauntlets malfunction.

 

He wondered if he could still contact anyone from inside of the soul stone. He wondered if there was a way to get back. His brain didn’t feel like wondering anymore so he looked up at Gamora and finished wiping his tears.

 

“I understand that if I ask you if you’re okay, I wouldn’t get an honest answer.” Gamora said as she kept her arm around him. Peter was totally fine with it, he was a very affectionate person that naturally craved physical affection almost constantly. Only when his super senses overwhelm him did he ever not enjoy casual physical touch.

 

“I think you’re right… but I could definitely be less okay considering everything. I mean, You could not be here and that would suck because I hate being alone… I mean it could’ve been so much worse if I had to watch Mr. Stark die instead of the other way around.” Peter rambled a bit, trying to think of how it could’ve been worse so that he could hold onto the positives. It wasn’t easy.

 

Gamora looked at him curiously and brought her hand from his shoulder to his wrist where the quantum gauntlet rested in it’s compact bracelet form.

 

“Is this your interdimensional communication device?” She seemed to try to distract him. Which was nice because he didn’t want to focus on his situation too much.

 

“As well as Iron Man gauntlet, Web-shooter, and a whole lot more. But yeah, let's go with interdimensional communication device. But I don’t think I have enough quantum energy to use it… the battery kind of exploded.” He shrugged.

 

“So that’s how you were able to get out… I admit I didn’t expect you to get out so quickly. I knew you were a genius but this is incredibly impressive.” Peter may or may not have blushed at the complement.

 

“Well I had Mr. Stark and Shuri’s help. They are definitely on the top five smartest people on earth.” Peter deflected. He couldn’t take compliments well so he automatically tried to take the focus off of himself.

 

“You belong up there with them. You made your wrist things with trash and chemicals from your school’s underequipt lab, all when you were barely fifteen. Stop underestimating yourself Peter.” Gamora smiled gently.

 

“And how do you know all that? Is there like space google? Do I have a space wikipedia page?” Peter said partly as a joke. With his crazy life he wouldn’t be surprised if there was intergalactic space internet.

 

“I was sacrificed for the soul stone. They knew everyone that has ever been and ever will be. That’s why they chose you. They know you Peter.” She said criptically.

 

“Chose me for what. You said that before and I still have no idea what that means.” Peter tilted his head like a confused puppy.

 

“The soul stone is the most sentiant of all of the stones. The mind stone is close behind. The soul stone never wanted to be used in this way. They made a test to keep the wrong hands from getting a hold of them. It didn’t work well enough. Thanos acquired them after sacrificing me for them. Unfortunately the stone cannot use their power without a vessel. None of the stones can. The mind stone needed the scepter then the Vision, the space stone needed the tesseract, the reality stone uses organic matter, the time stone uses the confines of the eye of agamotto, the power stone is embedded in the kree hammer and contained in the orb. Then they all were contained in the infinity gauntlet. The soul stone can be contained and used in a strong enough being. And they chose you to use them. Peter, They chose you to save them all.” Gamora explained. Peter stayed quiet for a moment before asking seriously,

 

“So I’m kinda like space Jesus? Cool…” Peter had realized after all of the shit, being too serious about the heaviness of everything could crush them. Joking kept things from overwhelming him. A page he took from Tony’s book.

 

“My Peter said something about Jesus. He’s a central figure of religious belief in your culture right?” Gamora nodded.

 

“Basically. Oh yeah, I met your Peter. He disintegrated before me… and I met him when he held a gun to my head.” Peter said casually. “He was looking for you at that point I think.”

 

“Those idiots probably assumed that you and your dads were with Thanos or something.” Gamora nodded calmly. “They’re predictable. And stupid.” The comment made Peter chuckle.

 

“Yeah, at least we talked a bit before he decided to blast me. He called Thor not-that-good-looking which is horseshit.”

 

“I agree. Thor is a fine piece of meat…” Peter smiled as they bonded over their casual attraction to Thor. This is the moment Peter knew that Gamora was cool. But he didn’t want to completely change the subject. He still wanted to know about the soul stone. Why him? What made this infinite sentient power choose a teenager to use its power? Peter simply didn’t understand. What was special about him? He had spider powers sure, but he wasn’t as strong as Thor or as smart as Tony and Bruce or as selfless as Steve Rogers or as experienced as Clint and Natasha. He was just a kid from Queens that became a circumstantial superhero.

 

“You’re wrong you know. The soul stone knows your soul. They found a determined, strong, intelligent, kind, selfless, courageous soul that used guilt and hope to motivate him through trials no child should have to go through. And you didn’t just give up when the world beat you down. You stood up and smiled, Knowing that you could find a way to make things better. You even cared more about Starks feelings while you were dying than your own indescribable pain. How dare you think you are less than what you are? You are not Tony Stark, not Steve Rogers, Not Thor or any of the Avengers. You are Peter Parker. And in many ways that is so much better.”

 

For once, Peter didn’t have the words. Not even a witty retort. His gen-z self deprecation didn’t even make an appearance.

 

“The stone chose you because you were the only one that felt it. No other being had to endure what you did. And no other being would be worthy of wielding them. The stone created the soul and would never want to be a prison for them. They know that you wouldn’t take advantage of their power.”

 

“But I couldn’t handle the suit that Mr. Stark gave me… I took advantage of him…”

 

“Don’t mistake reliance for greed. You are still young and in need of guidance. You rarely take advantage of your power. Even in desperate circumstances you never use your full strength in fear that you may hurt your enemy. You save those who have hurt you and you never leave anyone behind. Not even an animal. The stone chose you out of everyone. And I personally don’t blame them.” Peter didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to believe her.

 

He decided to assume that the stone chose him because of his spider healing stuff. Normal people couldn’t just be the vessel of an infinity stone right?

 

That was the only reason.

 

Peter didn’t want to think about it at the moment though. He realized that he didn’t really know much about Gamora other than what he had found out from big Peter and his very limited experience from having her in his head.

 

“Okay, I can’t handle all of this… can we talk about you now?” He asked. He was only a little bit desperate for a change of subject.

 

“I was taken by Thanos when I was a child. He trained me as a weapon and I only recently escaped his grasp and met the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy. We all got in a fight for the power stone and get arrested together. We broke out of prison. It’s a funny story actually…” Gamora seemed to understand that Peter was a little bit overwhelmed.

 

She told him about how the Guardians had met and saved the universe with a dance-off. She told him about Peter Quill the most. She really loved him and told him that she couldn’t see him in the soul realm. She was only connected to the other, smaller Peter. But she told him that she was shown his soul and decided that it wasn’t so bad.

 

They ended up sitting down as she spoke and let him listen for seemingly hours. And Peter didn’t mind. He needed to think a little bit. He hadn’t quite gotten over his death yet and he was hit with the whole space Jesus thing. Come back alive and save everyone. That was definitely a thing that Jesus would do right? Wait, that’s exactly what he did. No pressure.

 

Gamora talked a lot about Peter Quill and small Peter was starting to like this guy. The guy would totally be into modern memes and pop culture if he got back in contact with earth. He sounded fun to hang out with. They may not have had a great first impression but stupid Peter was starting to grow on him.

 

But Footloose was NOT the greatest movie in existence, what the fuck.

 

It turned out that Gamora didn’t know everyone like the soul stone did so he was able to talk to her about earth and the Avengers. He told her about growing up with the Avengers around and having Tony Stark as his hero for a majority of his life. He told her about how Tony became Iron Man and being saved by him at the Stark Expo. He told her about the spider bite and his uncle’s death. He may have gushed a bit about Tony and quickly paraphrased the whole homecoming disaster. He was kind of embarrassed about it.

 

Gamora was fun to talk to. She talked about places he had never heard of before so it was fascinating. He wanted to talk about every planet and alien species. He wanted to find out their culture and language and everything. Gamora seemed amused by his enthusiasm but at least she enlightened him by telling him everything that she could. She talked about everyone on her team of outlaw misfits. Peter remembered meeting Mantis, Drax, Nebula, and obviously big Peter. Apparently there was also a cybernetically enhanced racoon and a sentient tree teenager who could only say ‘I am Groot’ in that order only.

 

Peter, in turn, told her about the rise and fall of the Avengers and how all of the original ones, save for Bruce and Thor who weren’t present, betrayed Tony and decided to be assholes. Peter only knew because he had spent so much time with his mentor. After May found out his secret identity, She made him receive formal training and have actual rules.

 

At first May freaked out but Peter and Mr. Stark were able to talk to her pretty quickly. She was pissed. But she understood the whole, ‘I can’t lock my stupid nephew in the closet because he’s a mutant hero little shit-’ Because no matter what they did, Peter would find a way to be Spider-Man. It was part of him and she knew how stubborn he could be despite his awkward and polite exterior. She may not be able to stop him but she should do as much as she could to keep him from killing himself.

 

Which included formal training a few times a week at the Avengers compound. Peter wasn’t complaining.

 

They talked for hours and they both seemed content with eachothers company before something happened that Peter could hardly explain.

 

HIs Quantum Gauntlet was receiving a call.

Notes:

I apologise for taking so long on this chapter. I was at a music festival that lasted forever and this chapter gave me some trouble. It's a lot of explaining. Hopefully its coherent. If you have any questions plot-wise, please comment and i will try to clear it up. I may be rushing a bit through this story so I might make a collection of oneshots that couldn't be included in the main story like the whole Peter being shot and shitty eighties medications and alternate ways that the soul stone could've been. I actually had a lot of ideas about who Peter would meet in the soul stone and I wanted to explore a lot of relationships that could've been. For the main story, Gamora just made more sense. But it would've been so much fun to play with Peter's chemistry with other dusted characters.

 

If you like the idea, tell me!

Chapter 13: Connections

Summary:

Now we're getting into right after the snap. What is happening in Wakanda and after Tony was left on Titan.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

‘It- tony- an- hear me?’ The voice was heavily replaced by static due to some cosmic interference.

 

“Tony, Oh my god- can you hear me?” Peter held up the vibranium bracelet up to his mouth, it would take up too much precious energy to use the holograms so he just used the oral communication option.

 

‘Thank god- ured out your communication thing- took a few decades- couldn't remember-’

 

“Tony, I don’t have enough power to keep a stable connection. I’m stuck in the soul stone but if I can find a way out, I can save everyone. Did you get that?”

 

‘We- quardina- where- need time-” Peter sighed. The fuzz of the communication was too much. He had no idea what Tony was saying. He didn’t know which Tony this even was. He knew it was Tony though. The guys voice was always recognizable to Peter.

 

“Find the soul stone. I’m trying to find a way out but I don’t have quantum energy to spare. I will get out. I will come back Tony. You guys can’t get rid of me that easy. I’ve been told that I’m clingy.” Peter smiled a little. His quantum gauntlet worked from within the soul stone. The only real problem was power and the lack of it. He only had emergency power left and it was only enough for one short call at most.

 

The connection was severed and Peter knew that he had to contact his own realities Shuri. She was probably the only one who had a receiver that could connect to the gauntlet. But he knew that the best way to do it with limited battery was to leave a message. He ignored Gamora for now and activated the recorder that had been previously used in Wakandan Kimoyo beads. He started the recording with a serious face.

 

“This is Peter Parker. Earth 19999999. This should be current time unless the message gets warped across space. I am stuck in the soul stone. If I can find a way out, I can save everyone that we lost to Thanos. The soul stone has acted like a prison since the snap. I temporarily was transferred to an adjacent reality where I found a way to get back. I got stuck back in time for a bit but hopefully no one remembers. Anyway, I planted the systematics for a device in Tony’s private encrypted SHIELD files. It should only be unlocked like thirty years after I implanted it but I would've done the time capsule protocol wrong…”

 

“Shit, I don’t have time to ramble. The soul stone has a certain energy frequency that my suit immediately detected. I’m sending the Iron Spiders data input with this message. Shuri, I need you to contact Tony. Together with you and Dr. Banner should be enough brains in one room to figure something out. Please, I can bring them back. All of them. And when you see Mr. Stark… Tell him that I’m on my way and I expect a hug when I get back.” He wiped a tear away, stupid feelings.

 

The sensor stopped recording and he sent it instantly to his realities Shuri. Hopefully there wouldn’t be very much interference. He was almost completely drained of quantum energy. His gauntlet would just be a Iron man glove and a web-shooter. Which wouldn’t do him much good inside of a world inside of the stone.

 

“Uh Gamora? Is everyone in the soul stone like, here? Like would we be able to walk far enough and run into them?” Peter tried to think about the whole soul stone thing. If trillions and trillions of sentient beings were in there, why was it so empty? How big was it?

 

“Not quite. There are a certain amount of layered plains of reality all going on at the same time. They are shared by families normally. None of your family was affected in the snap so you were alone. But my Peter is with the rest of my team. Apparently adopted families count to the stone. Most people are not alone. This world is looped. You could walk infinitely in any direction and never make any progress. Most spend their time dreaming if they are alone. Time is hard here. There is no day or night, no exhaustion, no proof that any time at all has passed.” Gamora explained.

 

Peter was partially relieved to realize that his only family had not been turned into dust. He was also partially guilty. He had left Aunt May alone… He didn’t have much of a say in the matter but he still felt bad. May didn’t deserve to lose him too. She had only let him keep being Spider-Man after talking for hours with Mr. Stark, making rules that included a curfew and formal training. May started hanging out with Tony’s fiance and they became an unstoppable force.

 

“Cool… So getting out without resources.... Is there anything we can do?” Peter tried to think of a plan B for if Shuri couldn’t get his message.

 

“The soul stone cannot be used from the inside. I was only able to send you away as a last resort but now I realize the stone used it as a test. They wanted to save you. But they also wanted to see if you could find your way back. They would’ve been satisfied if you had stayed in the alternate reality but the only way you could save everyone would’ve been to come back. We may just have to hope that your message was sent and that we can be found.” Gamora said stoically.

 

“So we just have to wait then? What is there to do here… I mean it’s not like the soul stone can make a nintendo switch just appear out of nowhere. I can’t exactly show you my favorite earth movies. Eventually we’ll run out of conversation topics.” And sometime his trauma was going to crash down on him after his mind had stopped racing. He was not looking forward to another mental breakdown.

 

He didn’t want to accept that there was nothing more that he could do. He hated feeling helpless and uncertain. He had no idea if it had worked or if anyone even knew that he was alive.

 

All they could do was wait. In a timeless world with nothing but each other.

 

It was a very good thing that they got along.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Shuri had lost her brother again. The snap had only happened less than two weeks ago and the world was chaos. Over half of all living things had been extinguished. She was the heir to the Wakandan throne and she had spent many sleepless nights in her lab, trying to be alone, trying to bring everyone back. Because there was no way that countless living beings just… stopped existing.

 

And she may have been in denial. There were tear stains constantly on her cheeks and circles under her eyes that were basically permanent now. Her hands shook ever so slightly as she manipulated holograms and attempted to study the infinity stone that she had briefly had contact with.

 

But it wasn’t enough. There was not enough information. She didn’t have enough time to collect the information. The end of the universe had only lasted a few hours and had left survivors broken and lost.

 

The next smartest person had been lost in space and presumed dead. Every once in a while an enhanced space racoon joined her in an attempt to talk technology but they had both were trying to deal with their pain. Trying to avoid the loss.

 

They had only waited a few days to crown Shuri as the Queen of Wakanda. She hadn’t been challenged in the bleak ceremony. The nation was in mourning and she was given most of the responsibility to make it right. She was really good at it but it was fucking tiring. She almost avoided sleep if she could though. Everytime she closed her eyes, she saw her people disappear as she stood helplessly above them. She couldn’t deal with it, so she worked. She took her mind off of her pain by doing what she knew best, finding a solution.

 

So far it had been a failing endeavor. She had been working late into the night when an alert was set off and a holographic map of the solar system popped up in front of her vision. A red dot pulsed as it rapidly made its way towards earth.

 

“You have got to be kidding…” She grumbled to herself as she tried to figure out if the alert had actually been caused by an actual threat or just alien debris.

 

She pulled up a long distance scan of the object and found it to be a slightly damaged small ship. She picked up its radio signal and decided to try to contact it. She activated a translator that Rocket had worked on with her for if they ever came in contact with other extraterrestrials.

 

“This is Queen Shuri Udaku of Wakanda, I am contacting your vessel in representation of the planet earth. Please state your identity and intentions.” She said professionally.

 

“This is Tony Stark. I’m coming home so I would appreciate not being shot down…” The formerly missing man sounded understandably distraught.

 

“I will send you quardinants to land in Wakanda. I feel like it’s in our best interest to stay together after what happened. Do you have anything else to declare?”

 

“Uh, I’m probably in need of urgent medical care, I kinda got stabbed and I found a temporary solution that wasn’t supposed to be used for that long. Oh, and I have an alien cyborg lady with me. She helped us fight Thanos, she’s cool. Can you… who else did we lose?” Shuri noticed his voice shaking.

 

“My brother T’Challa, Vision, Barnes, Wilson, Maximoff, at least of the Avengers. There are still billions more being accounted for. I am glad that you are alive Mr. Stark. Emergency medical will be ready upon your arrival.” Shuri noticed the mans already laboured breath hitch when she called him Mr. Stark. From then on she decided just to call him Tony.

 

“Thank you. I would provide my condolences for your loss but I think you’ve heard that enough by now. But if we can get them back, we will. I will tear apart the entire universe if I have to.”

 

“I assume you lost someone close to you. I was not made aware of anyone else that went missing at the same time…”

 

“His name was Peter. And I will tear that purple asshole apart to get him back. There was something different about his… disappearance. And I don’t care if I have to build a fucking time machine to get him back but I will.”

 

“Well then I will try to help. Ruling a country is much less fun than I expected. I would rather bring my brother back to deal with it.” She tried to joke but her tone was exhausted and tinged with hopelessness.

 

“I look forward to working with you.” Tony matched her tone and disconnected their communications. Shuri sighed and informed anyone who was awake of the ships arrival and she decided that it would be best to meet Tony with enough rest. If someone was going to be on top of their shit, it was going to be her.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Shuri waited at the empty landing pad for the alien ship that apparently contained Tony Stark. She had gathered everyone who was interested and who knew the man. This included the remaining Avengers and most importantly, James Rhodes. Tony’s long-term best friend. The racoon had discovered that the only one to come home from his team was the cyborg woman and immediately needed to be alone for a bit.

 

The brightly colored alien ship slowly broke through the atmosphere and smoothly entered through the secret entrance of the kingdom. It landed carefully on the landing pad and there was an aura of anxiety and unsurety among most of the group. Shuri assumed that this was from most of the previous Avengers who had left Tony on a sour note. Rhodey however was right up front with her, excitedly waiting for the entrance of the vessel to open.

 

Finally it did. A bald, blue, mostly metal woman stepped out with Tony Stark leaning heavily on her.

 

The man looked like a wreck. He had dried blood and dust all over him. Shuri sickeningly assumed that the dust used to be part of someone. Tony looked up at Steve Rogers and narrowed his eyes a little.

 

“Do you believe me now you little asshole.”

Notes:

I'm deciding to update every couple of days if not everyday. If you guys have any questions or suggestions for the oneshots set in this storyline then comment them! I was thinking of including a whump about Peter getting shot in the late eighties that I never really dove into and alternate soul stone things. Like people he would meet there and such. I had a whole list of who i wanted him to meet but ended up settling for Gamora as she makes the most sense and I wanted to set up kind of a familial relationship between her and little Peter.

Chapter 14: Solutions

Summary:

Not very much Peter in this chapter whoops. I guess being stuck in the soul stone is kinda boring.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

After Tony had given his sassy remark, he let Rhodey tackle him in a relief hug. Nebula let his best friend take his weight and was led by a couple of Dora Milaje to the palace’s medical facility for proper treatment before he could collapse.

 

Shuri took it upon herself to catch their story from the blue alien woman. She looked serious and like a cool filtered member of the Dora with her lack of hair and hard expressions. The Queen of Wakanda led the blue woman to the rest of the living Avengers.

 

Nebula explained how she had arrived in the middle of their battle with Thanos and she listed off everyone that had been there. Shuri noted how little came back. Nebula told them who they had lost, most of which were unrecognizable, like Peter Quill and Drax. Nebula told them about the fight and how Steven Strange traded the time stone for Tony Stark’s life and how Tony had held Thanos off for so long before being stabbed. She told them about how the Guardians of the galaxy started to disappear followed by the wizard and the spider-boy.

 

Nebula recounted how the spider-boy begged for his life and took much longer to dust than anyone else. She told them of Doctor Strange’s cryptic last words, promising that there was still hope and ‘No other way.’ She told them about taking her escape ship and finding a way back to earth.

 

They then told her about their side of the battle, with their failed attempt to save the Vision and the snap itself. Thor told her about his attempt on Thanos’ life and their ultimate failure. The woman didn’t talk much and they all seemed reluctant to relive the events.

 

A small group of Avengers led Nebula to Rockets chambers so that they could recount events. Shuri went to the medical center to check on Tony and Rhodey, She also wanted to find out what had happened in between when the spaceship landed in New York and when Nebula arrived at the fight. There was a whole lot of missing information.

 

She walked into the medical center and saw Tony talking to his friend in a relieved, tired tone while a machine rebuilt the hole in his abdomen and lung. Tony noticed her as soon as she entered the room.

 

“Hey your highness, Thanks for everything by the way. If I were in my right mind I’d be all over this tech but I’m a little physically and emotionally injured.”

 

“Of course, I don’t imagine where you’d land your spacecraft outside of Wakanda. And most hospitals are overfilled anyway. Apparently when half of the population of the planet simply disappears from existence without warning, injuries are bound to occur.” Shuri nodded calmly.

 

“Yeah there must’ve been like pilots and drivers that just disappeared. Any important figures or celebrities that have been confirmed to no longer exist?” Tony visibly winced and tried to continue the casual conversation.

 

“Most of the United States political cabinet including Donald Trump and Mr. Pence, unfortunately Beyonce has perished, Hank Pym, Chris Pine, like four actors who played Batman, Hugh Jackman, Doctor Banners old girlfriend and her asshole father, the dog from the doge meme, and I can’t even remember but there are so many more. If you’re wondering, You’re fiance survived.” Shuri could see Tony relax in relief when she said it.

 

“Uh all of my tech got knocked offline, do you have anything I can contact her with? I need to tell her that I’m okay. And make a few other calls.” Tony muttered. “And it’s a shame about Beyonce… and the dog. It was a cute dog…” Shuri dug around the room and found an extra set of Kimoyo beads. She tossed them to the injured man and was slightly surprised when he caught them with little to no effort.

 

Tony fidgeted with the device for a moment before he figured it out. He started to call Pepper Potts and Shuri decided to give him privacy. Besides, she had a lot of her own work to get to. Rhodey reluctantly left after Tony shooed him away.

 

“Hey Peps-”

 

“Tony? Ohmygod, you’re alive-” Pepper sobbed over the receiver.

 

“Surprise… I just got back from space and I’m in the process of healing in Wakanda. You have no idea how glad I am that you’re alive…” Tony let his voice quiver a bit. As selfish as it was, he didn’t want to lose anyone else. He didn’t know what he would’ve done if Pepper didn’t survive.

 

“I thought you were dead you asshole… and what the hell do you mean healing? What happened?” She demanded with a lack of actual heat. Only desperate relief came from Virginia Potts’ voice.

 

“I’m mostly fine now… a week ago I wouldn’t have been so sure. I got impaled by my own nanite sword. Had to use some bandage webbing solution to keep myself from bleeding to death…” Just the reminder of Peter sent a stabbing pain of guilt through Tony’s heart. Peter deserved to live a full life, he was only seventeen! He even seemed to know what was going on with his spider powers. He didn’t deserve to have his live cut so short…

 

“You WHAT! Jesus, I am getting there as soon as I can. Don’t you dare do anything stupid.”

 

“I won’t. Rhodey is here to make sure of that… I’ll do anything I can to get you here I promise. I love you… but as you can see, The world is crazy and I’m not sure if our reunion is the most important thing going on.”

 

“I know… I’ll be there by tomorrow. Even if I have to hijack a quinjet from the Avengers compound.” Pepper said confidently. She was probably used to thinking Tony was dead. Tony was used to thinking that he was dead. Starting with Afghanistan it was practically a yearly occurrence.

 

“I know you will. I love you.”

 

“You better. I’ll see you soon.” Peppers voice stopped and Tony’s heart sunk when he realized the next call that he’d have to make.

 

Tony had to give himself a few minutes just to collect his thoughts enough to have the next conversation. He held the beads microphone up to his lips.

 

“Call… May Parker.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Shuri was in a very important humanitarian aid meeting when her Kimoyo beads informed her of a message. She elected to ignore it for the hour, thinking that it wasn’t anything more than another thing on her to-do list. She got out of the meeting, temporarily forgetting about the message as she mad her way back to Tony. She was curious to see how far he had healed. That and she needed a little bit of a break.

 

She walked into the private medical wing to see Tony sitting up and talking into his beads. He technically didn’t need to put them as close but it looked like he was keeping his arm close to his chest as some sort of coping mechanism.

 

Shuri heard a female voice in the middle of crying, obviously coming from whoever Tony had called. Shuri stayed at the edge of the room out of curiosity.

 

“I’m so sorry May…” Tony’s voice was barely audible.

 

“No, don’t you dare… It was fifty percent of all life right… and it happened at what, five? I was at work when it happened Tony. He would’ve been out on patrol or alone. He would’ve been alone if you weren’t there so don’t you dare feel bad. It wasn’t your fault. He does… did the same thing. You both have such bullshit guilt complexes that you don’t know when not to blame yourselves. I am sick of it. If I can’t scold Peter, I’m scolding you.” Shuri caught on to the name and remembered it from when she had first contacted Tony.

 

“Fine but I don’t want you to be alone.. I’m trying to find a way to get Pepper here to Wakanda and I’m sure she won’t want to be alone.”

 

Tony kept talking but Shuri’s attention went back to her Kimoyo beads which had reminded her of the message from earlier. She had waited long enough and had honestly not expected what popped up through the slightly fuzzy holograms. A disheveled teenage boys bust appeared in her palm as if he were contacting her from Kimoyo beads. Every once in a while, his hologram as well as his message would cut out which definitely wouldn’t happen if he were calling from close range. Close being within the same solar system.

 

“This is Peter -------. Earth 19999999. This should be current time unless------. I am stuck in the soul stone. If I can ---- a way out, I can save everyone that we lost to Thanos. The soul stone has acted like a prison -----------------. I temporarily was ------------- to an adjacent reality where I found a way to -------------. I got stuck back in time for ------------ but hopefully no one ---------------. Anyway, I planted ------------------ for a device in Tony’s private encrypted -------- files. It should only be -------------- thirty years after I implanted it but I ----------- done the time capsule protocol wrong…”

 

“Shit, I don’t have time --------- The soul stone has a certain energy frequency that ---------- immediately detected. I’m sending the Iron Spiders data input with this message. Shuri, I need you to contact Tony. Together with you and Dr. Banner should be enough brains in one room to figure something out. Please, I can bring them back. All of them. And when you see Mr. Stark… Tell him that I’m on my way and I expect a hug when I get back.”

 

Shuri noticed that the room had gone silent. Tony seemed to finally notice that Shuri was in the room and Peter’s (mother?) had also gone silent. They were all stunned. The room, though full of geniuses struggled to completely understand the information dump. If this was real, and Shuri really hoped that it was, there was finally hope.

 

T’Challa wasn’t gone. None of them were. They could still be saved.

 

Tony jumped off of the healing bed and limped to her faster than what was probably healthy.

 

“Replay that…. Please…” Shuri didn’t point out the tears forming in his eyes, probably because she was sporting a few of her own. She started the message over and tried to listen better. Once it was done a quiet voice came from Tony’s beads.

 

“Peter… Tony, holy fuck… he can be saved… they can be saved!”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The air around the Avengers was bleak.Thor unarguably had it the worst, with his family and friends all dead at the hands of Thanos, but almost everyone lost people that they were close to. They lost and finally they couldn’t just push the guilt on Tony. They had failed and countless people suffered. They made mistakes that costed half of the universe. Thanos was alive and MIA, Families were ripped apart and there was essentially nothing that they could do.

 

None of them trusted themselves to be alone, they knew that they would break and they knew that they had to be strong. They were the Avengers for god sake! If earth's mightiest heroes crumbled, then all hope was lost. Again, they were the Avengers. Something bad had to happen before they did their jobs. Avenging is not something that they could do without motive.

 

That was the whole reason for the Avengers. Fighting for something. Hanging onto any shred of hope that could be out there.

 

But currently, there was none. The most powerful being in the universe became a god and they were unable to stop the biggest genocide to ever exist. Half of all life. Only Thor, Rocket, and Nebula truly knew how much that actually was. They had seen outside of earth. They had lived there. Their homes were there.

 

And Thanos killed half an ever expanding universe.

 

This was why there was a lack of positive emotion in any capacity near them. There was no more hope. No more wishing that someone had a plan or even 12% of an idea.

 

They clung onto any hope that they could get. Which was none in the past two weeks.

 

They were all surprised that they had been called to an urgent Avengers meeting. Avengers now honorarily included a cybernetically enhanced racoon and a cyborg alien but none of that was too out of the ordinary. They all anxiously gathered in a large conference room of the Wakandan palace and they all were quiet before an odd sight graced them.

 

Queen Shuri and Tony Stark carried the most genuine grins on their faces. They both looked like they had recently cried and were filled with a similar excited energy when they burst into the room. It was a dramatic contrast between everyone else. They were intrigued to find out what the pair had discovered to make them this way. Only hours ago did they see the geniuses looking the polar opposite.

 

No one dared to hope too much.

 

‘There have been some exciting developments in our situation my friends. We have received a message from someone who was thought to be gone.” Shuri started, there were raised eyebrows all across the room. She rolled a metal sphere to the center of the table where it stopped and displayed a large hologram of a teenage boy frozen in time.

 

“Her highness was blessed with a pre-recorded message from a familiar face, at least to me. This is Peter Parker. Also known as Spider-Man. He was with me when we went to Titan… and he did not come back. He disintegrated with the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange. This message has been delivered through billions of lightyears of space but remained in relatively good shape. Play” Tony instructed. The silent Avengers watched the video and marveled at the information that they couldn’t quite understand.

 

“Okay, this is quite informative… but how are we supposed to find the soul stone?” Bruce spoke up.

 

“Good question Brucie, We simply, trace the call. We can get close enough to be in the same solar system of the stone. Then we can use the frequency that Peter sent us and use that to track the aura of the it. This is an extremely powerful object, it doesn’t just go somewhere without leaving some kind of trail.”

 

“How will we get him out? And how is he supposed to save everyone else?” Natasha asked.

 

“I looked into the personal file that Peter mentioned. Apparently he somehow found a way into the past and gained a reputation with SHIELD. He planted some systematics for a vibranium quantum hopper. Theoretically the device can travel through time, space and alternate realities using quantum energy. Which, after Hank Pym’s recent discovery, is a resource that we can get our hands on. Peter has one of these devices and he mentioned that it was running out of this power. If we can find a way to send power to him, he can theoretically get himself out.”

 

“But how will he get everyone else out?”

 

“Thanos still has the stones. The child would likely appear near the soul stone. They all currently reside in a row on the back of the gauntlet. If he escapes, he will have access to the most powerful tools to ever exist.” Nebula spoke after a few moments of silence. “And will be against the most powerful foe. Alone.”

Notes:

all comments are appreciated. If you have any questions, COMMENT, if you have any things you want me to fix, COMMENT, if I did something good, COMMENT, if I did something bad, COMMENT. If there are things that you want me to clarify, COMMENT

IT'S NOT THAT HARD

I LOVE YOU AND I'LL UPDATE SOON

Chapter 15: Broken Worlds, Broken People

Summary:

What was going on outside of Wakanda and a new player has been added to the main character roster!

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

After a few weeks of actual hell, not knowing whether Tony was alive or not, Attempting to provide as much Humanitarian aid as the Stark fund allowed. Most disasters that were even remotely connected to the avengers received the same treatment but this was nothing like anything Pepper could have ever imagined. Half of the population had disappeared and hundreds of thousands more had died due to after effects. Vital people had vanished and many had paid the price.

 

The world was rightfully in chaos and desperately trying to keep everyone calm. They were still counting up the people who had been lost. It had been estimated to be half of all life as even rainforests and animals had been drastically affected. Mass funerals were set in every town and businesses were closed. There was no one that had not lost someone.

 

Immediately after word got out that the doughnut ship left earth with Tony and Peter, The kids aunt called Pepper, begging to know what was going on. After May found out about Peter’s identity, she had demanded to see Tony and give him a piece of her mind. On her way, she ran into Pepper.

 

Pepper knew who the kid was, she knew that Tony had taken him to Germany to hopefully not end up fighting the former Avengers. Pepper understood why Tony would want a pacifist mutant human with no weapons as he didn’t actually want to hurt his former friends. Tony had no idea how far Steve would go, letting most of his team get captured and sent to the highest security containment in the middle of the ocean. Tony made the kid go home immediately after he took a hit from an enlarged Ant-Man. The kid only had bruises but Tony wasn’t going to take any more chances.

 

Pepper had interrupted Mays rampage and ended up talking her out of her understandable freakout. What parent would want their kid to be putting themselves in danger everyday? Pepper had enough experience with her own reckless hero genius so she told May what she knew. Peter was not going to stop what he was doing, he was not alone, and that he was doing a lot of good.

 

May demanded actual training and a handful of reasonable rules that included contacting her about his injuries and if they were major enough that Peter would contact Tony, Peter would have a strict curfew, school always came first and that he wouldn’t go into any big-time crime without telling Tony.

 

After her first meeting with Pepper, They became close friends that met up for tea whenever their busy work schedules allowed. May, being a full time nurse at a nearby Queens hospital and Pepper, being the CEO of one of the most influential tech companies in the world, barely had time to do much more than call each other but they went for spa days and ended up being the only things keeping Tony and Peter from accidentally staying up all night. They became a badass duo and Pepper was ultimately glad that their circumstances aligned so that they could meet.

 

Pepper had gotten to know Peter and immediately took a liking to him. He was like an over excited puppy. It was impossible not to like him. He was also insanely smart. He talked faster than Tony and made Tony drop his uncaring facade. Pepper thought that it was cute, after the whole civil war disaster, Tony had locked himself up again and it took a dorky teenager to get him out of it.

 

After Tony and Peter disappeared into space, May and Pepper were drawn to each other. They knew that something was horribly wrong and they weren't completely sure what to do. They stuck together did as much as they could to ease the situation. Both of the women were sufficiently independent but would still rather not be alone during a universal disaster.

 

Pepper was in a meeting when the snap happened. A handful of the businessmen started to dissolve into ash and no one knew what to do. Several people freaked out, Pepper did everything in her power to stay cool headed. They decided that people disappearing is a good reason to leave the meeting and check on loved ones. She found May who was freaking out a little bit more than she was and they tried to figure out what was going on.

 

Two weeks of anxiety and mourning later, they still haven’t left each other's side. May only left when she was forced to take on multiple long shifts a day at the hospital. Neither of them were allowed to rest until Pepper got a call from an unknown number.

 

And she figured out that Tony was alive. And that Peter was one of the unlucky ones. Immediately after Pepper got the call, she told FRIDAY to start up the quinjet at the Avengers compound. May made sure that she was going on the jet and she was surprised when Pepper asked her to talk about Peter.

 

She may have gushed about her pseudo son for the entirety of the seven hour flight. Her energy was rejuvenated with the hope that everyone could be brought back. Especially Peter. Pepper didn’t stop May from talking but did end up falling asleep to make up for the weeks of stress.

 

After many restless days, they were finally able to rest and allow themselves to hope.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Gamora had claimed Peter as her own. She had never felt so protective of someone, she assumed it was because of the kids age and small size. She was taller than him by quite a few inches and she assumed that he was fully grown. She teased him about it and he lightheartedly went along with it. She assumed that it was just a common topic.

 

After talking to Peter for so many hours, she knew without a doubt that her Peter would get along with small Peter. She wanted to have them meet under less terrifying circumstances. With no threat of death or universal destruction. Gamora knew that little Peter would get along with the Guardians. Just like them, he had a traumatic past but was still lighthearted and optimistic. She could easily imagine Peter singing along passionately to terran music and using his abilities for fun.

 

She couldn’t quite imagine him fighting Thanos and desperately clinging to life. The soul stone only gave her minimal knowledge of Peter. She knew his soul but not his thoughts or experiences. She knew that he was claustrophobic and afraid of spiders. She knew that he suffered from nightmares and that he clung onto physical comfort. But she didn’t know why. She didn’t know why he was afraid to be alone or why he would almost obsessively touch his web-shooters.

 

But eventually found out. After a few days of on and off talking, comfortable silence, fighting lessons and acrobatic demonstrations, Their conversations took a more personal turn. Gamora found herself talking about her past.

 

“I was only a young child when he took me from my own planet, from my mother.” Peter was respectfully silent. “Thanos has a quirk where he kills families and steals children. He raises them to mold them in the way that he wanted them. I was far from the most obedient, just the most efficient. My sister, Nebula, and I were on a seperate level than the rest of the Black Order. You met Nebula… She was on Titan at the same time that you were. She lived through the snap.”

 

Peter nodded but didn’t dare derail the story. He remembered the cybernetic blue woman who helped them fight Thanos. She was the one to reveal the trade of Gamora’s life for the soul stone. He didn’t get to meet her but she seemed a little scary. A misunderstood kind of scary. Like she was driven to a point of desperation.

 

“Thanos forced us to fight. Every time I won, Nebula would have part of her body replaced with machinery. I never lost. It was only too late for me to realize what this did to her. I know it was all Thanos’ fault but I still blame myself. If I had even let her win, even just once, It would’ve showed that I cared enough about her. But I was simply too focused on my own issues that I never realized how much worse hers was. At least Thanos claimed to like me. Of course he showed it through abuse but he wouldn’t have gotten the soul stone unless he really loved me when he sacrificed me. And before you pity me, I found my family and things were getting better. And they will go back to being better. I guess I took a page from your book and started rambling. I apologize.”

 

“I don’t mind. For all we know we’re going to be stuck here for eternity so we’ll eventually run out of topics to talk about if we try to avoid trauma. And I’ve learned that comparing trauma isn’t rational. Someone is always going to be worse off but that doesn’t mean that your problems are meaningless.” Gamora tilted her head at Peter’s comment.

 

“You are wise for your age. The soul stone allowed me to know you. And I thought that I did. The stone gave me your… feelings but not the reasons for them. I empathise but I do not understand. Would you enlighten me?”

 

“Uh, I’m not sure what you mean…” Peter did kind of know what she meant. She had just shared some of her own guilt and the tip of the iceberg of her trauma and she probably expected him to share some of his own.

 

“Yes you do Peter. I know you do.” She looked at him expectantly. “You did just say that we can’t avoid our trauma. We’ve talking about terran culture and movies but you never really told me about yourself.”

 

“Well besides the spider bite, I’m not very interesting.” He shrugged.

 

“I’ll be the judge of that.” And with that, Peter started to open up. Starting with the deaths of his parents that he could barely remember.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“What the hell do you mean you’re picking up another signal? There shouldn’t be anyone in there, much less someone with a frequency tuned to outside of the quantum realm. Can we contact them?”

 

“We can try, but we have no idea who it is, it could be someone from a different time. The quantum realm is a fucked up place Tony.” Shuri examined a holographic projection.

 

“Language. Let’s do it and hope that they speak English, Xhosa, Italian, Latin or Dari. As far as I know those are the only languages either of us are fluent in.” Tony indicated on the hologram to come in contact with the unknown person in the quantum realm. Shuri rolled her eyes and started the call.

 

“This is the Queen of Wakanda, Shuri Udaku. Do you copy?” There was some generic static interference that they tended to get when trying to contact in between realms.

 

“----Oh my god--- Can’t believe--- Stuck--- wait, Queen of Wakanda?” a familiar male voice came out of the static after a quick moment.

 

“Wait… This is totally my conscious right?” Tony spoke up.

 

“Stark! It’s Lang! Scott Lang! The Ant guy. I got stuck in the quantum realm. I had people to pull me out but they just… stopped responding and I’m really worried.” the static cleared as Shuri adjusted some things. Tony and Shuri shared a look that basically was a silent argument on who would be the one to tell him. “Guys?”

 

“Uh, there was kind of a universal disaster that, hopefully temporarily, eliminated a random half of all life in the entire universe. We’re trying to fix it but we need a way to get quantum energy to a world held within an infinity stone.” Tony decided to break it to him as Shuri had an easily murderous stare.

 

“Okay, I’m going to freak out about the mass genocide in a second but currently I am literally holding a container of quantum energy and I’m in a place that exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It’s kind of hard to maneuver around though. I wasn’t supposed to be in here for more than like thirty seconds.”

 

“That’s pretty convenient. Hey, your highness, do you think we can find a way to get him to our other buggy hero?” Tony called to Shuri, Who was not very far away from him.

 

“If we can pinpoint his exact location in the quantum realm I may be able to find a time vortex that can take him to Peter but I have never visited the quantum realm so it is a slightly longer shot than I would prefer. Scott, Do you have any other kind of equipment with you besides your communicator?”

 

“I’m in the ant-man suit so whatever is integrated in it. I mean it’s no Iron man suit but I think it has some extra shit.” Shuri and Tony shared another knowing look.

 

“You’re crazy.” Shuri raised an eyebrow and smirked.

 

“And you’re not?” Tony replied. “Okay Mr. Ant, I need you to listen to me very closely.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Scott had been stuck floating in the quantum realm for so long that he didn’t know if there was anything else to do but sleep. Then he got woken up by a voice and he got so excited. He wasn’t alone! Maybe he could get out!

 

Then they told him about the mass universal murder that included his girlfriend and her family. He really hoped that Cassie had lived and that she wasn’t alone… If he had internalised the information he would’ve immediately started to cry because that’s the kind of person that he was.

 

Stark and the queen of Wakanda instructed him to reconfigure his regulator and he found a way to slightly propel himself using the quantum energy. The geniuses were able to find his location and start to instruct him on how to get to a certain area of some kind of time vortex. Because this place had those apparently. The time vortexes were apparently more than just time shit though, supposedly they were able to travel through space and other planes of existence. Scott was only a little freaked out.

 

Only a few weeks ago he was practically possessed by his girlfriends long lost mother. He still had no idea how she did that or what happened but he had just gone with it. He majored in electrical engineering, not quantum fuckery. He didn’t think that he was stupid but he was also constantly surrounded by actual geniuses.

 

It took him a few hours of waiting for Stark and Shuri to find the best place to enter the time vortex and even longer just to get there. He really hoped that it would work… He didn’t know what he would do if it didn’t. Would he be stuck in the past or something? He hoped not. It would be weird and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to accidentally fuck something up. He would probably cause a paradox in thirty seconds by stepping on Antony’s great times a million grand-ant.

 

When he entered the time vortex, everything went white and he felt like he passed out a little. When he opened his eyes, everything was very orange. He felt like he was on Mars that was also covered in cheeto dust and slightly on fire.

 

After a moment he realized that he wasn’t alone. He slowly started to sit up and look around. A pretty green woman was leaning over him looking slightly concerned but mostly confused and he swore that he saw a figure sitting upside down on a structure made of arches.

 

“Peter? Do you know this guy?” the woman looked towards the mostly hidden figure. The figure looked towards Scott and flipped off of the structure while gracefully landing on his feet. Scott soon realized that this small figure was a short teenager.

 

“Oh my god, It’s the Ant-guy. By the way, Fuck you for slapping me at the airport.”

 

“What… should I know you?” Scott said groggily.

 

“Oh yeah, I’m Spider-man. It’s nice to meet a fellow bug themed superhero!”

 

“What?”

Notes:

I know this chapter is more boring, It was kinda hard to write as the next exciting thing is planned for the next chapter. Comment if you're confused or if I screwed something up. I also thrive on encouragement so keep up the comments, they are the only things keeping me updating so often.

Also I loved the whole idea of Pepper and May being an unstoppable force. They are besties and you can't stop me.

Don't question the whole Every-problem-is-solved-when-Shuri-and-Tony-are-in the-same-room thing. I'm just trying to keep the story at a fast enough pace because there's still a lot to get through.

Chapter 16: Escape

Summary:

Peter leaves the soul realm

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“So I’ll appear right next to the soul stone, which might be connected to the guy that killed me…” Peter said nervously.

 

“I doubt that Thanos would keep the gauntlet on him after the snap but he would still keep the stones close. They are still the most powerful objects in the universe. Don’t you dare confront him. Just get the stones and use them to go somewhere safe. You can’t free everyone without the soul stone.” Gamora said calmingly.

 

“Spider-Man, You’re our only hope.” Scott said in a obvious imitation of tha famous Star Wars scene. The reference made Peter smile which hid his fear.

 

He knew that if he ran into Thanos, he wouldn’t stand a chance. It wouldn’t be easy, he might appear right in front of Thanos but he really didn’t have much of a choice. There was no way to find out where Thanos was beforehand so he couldn’t know if he would instantly have to confront the Titan. He felt comforting whispers that he only could attribute to the soul stone telling him that it would keep him safe and that Thanos wouldn’t be able to touch him.

 

“Peter, look at me.” Gamora gently put her hand on Peters shoulder and the other lifting up his chin. “You’re going to be okay. I promise. The soul stone doesn’t want to lose you. They will protect you. You can save us. I believe in you.” She smiled.

 

“Yeah, I guess the sooner I get out, the sooner I can free you all right?” He fidgeted with the glass of the newly recharged quantum battery. He realized that he still had the bandage from his time in the past when the battery had burned him. He didn’t feel any pain so he assumed that the burn had healed and ignored it.

 

Gamora pulled him into a quick hug and he smiled at Scott. It turned out that Ant-Man was a pretty chill guy that was basically just a small-time criminal dad. He had that comforting childishness to him that made him easy to be around.

 

“I’ll see you guys soon. I’ll make sure that You get home too Mr. Ant.” Peter smirked as he got ready to activate the quantum gauntlet.

 

“Yeah I’d appreciate that. Good luck kiddo.” Scotts carefree expression gave Peter a little more confidence that he will be okay. Peter tried to embody that same calm knowledge.

 

“Okay, Bye!” Peter activated the gauntlet immediately before everything went white.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“We lost contact… I guess he made it to the stone right?” Tony said.

 

“I suppose so. We should wait a few days before we try plan B. Scott might have to find Peter. The soul stone might be really big. Thanos did cram half of the universe in it.” Shuri shrugged.

 

Tony’s beads notified him about a message and a hologram of Okoye appeared above his palm.

 

“Mr. Starks visitors have arrived. They both seem excited to see him.” The woman had a slight smile on her face despite the horrors of the last few weeks. Shuri appreciate it.

 

“Well your majesty, What are we waiting for? I would very much like to see my fiance.” Tony turned to Shuri as if quietly asking permission. She liked that he respected her power but didn’t overstate it. She assumed that he knew how she would want to be treated as a man of power himself.

 

“We’re done here, We’ll meet them immediately. Escort them inside please. White people are a little more sensitive to the UV rays.” Shuri smirked.

 

“You got that right. I hope you guys have some vibranium infused sunscreen or something.” Tony put a few things away and followed Shuri out of the lab.

 

“We have something better. A whole lot of enhanced Aloe Vera. How do you think Bucky survived out here with such healthy skin. He is whiter than you are!” This made Tony smile. It didn’t take them long to find Pepper and May, seeing as immediately when the couple saw each other, Pepper sprinted at him and attacked him with a hug and a kiss.

 

It took a minute but Tony was released. Then May went in to hug the man out of a similar type of desperation. He clung onto her as much as she clung to him. “It’s okay, he’s coming back.” He muttered into her ear as a sort of reassurance.

 

“I’m happy that you’re back too you know.” May murmured back. Tony couldn’t quite agree with her. He backed away before the hug got awkward.

 

“I’m keeping you within my sight at all times, do you hear me!” Pepper scolded.

 

“Yes honey. I won’t complain honestly…” Tony implied that he didn’t want to be alone. Every time he closed his eyes, He could see Peter’s eyes fill with fear and pain. He heard Peter beg and finally accept his death. It was just another thing to add to his list of nightmares that he had lived through.

 

“If you have finished, I would like to take you to your suite. I’m assuming you would prefer to all stay in the same apartment?” Shuri spoke up.

 

“I don’t think anyone wants to be alone. I cannot thank you enough for your hospitality your highness.” May turned to the Wakandan Queen.

 

“It is my pleasure. I wouldn’t want anyone to be alone after what has happened. And I am not letting Tony leave. I finally get one intelligent person with enough imagination to help me and I am not letting him waste it in New York.” Shuri said simply. The comment made Tony and May share a look which they later denied. After the snark, they both thought of Peter’s ‘friend’ MJ. Both she and Shuri had the same kind of dry honest humor.

 

“Aw she called me intelligent!” Tony smiled.

 

“No idiot could make a miniaturized arc reactor out of scraps to keep you alive. Most of your mistakes were either out of your control or a simple misunderstanding. You look like you’re not used to genuine compliments.” Shuri quirked her head to the side as she led them to a part of the palace where chiefs of visiting tribes would stay. Big enough to live in with all of the vibranium necessities.

 

“I’ve spent a lot of my life being betrayed and blamed so no, I’m barely used to people liking me to be honest.” Tony shrugged.

 

“Fun. If you need help figuring out the microwave, Make Okoye help you.” She dropped them off at their suite and she kept an eye on her beads in hope that Scott would be able to contact them.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter woke up with his spider-sense fucking screaming at him. He was relieved to have escaped the soul world and stayed in the right reality and time. He stayed frozen as he started to gain awareness of his situation.

 

He took a deep breath of fresh cool air, his less used enhanced sense of smell distinguished the forest smells with a whole lot of stuff that he didn’t recognize. Cool so, Not earth.

 

He realized that he was sprawled out on a wood-like floor. Somehow he could sense the warmth of the soul stone nearby.

 

As he regained his senses, he noticed a resting heartbeat and breathing. He wasn’t alone in the room. But the person he heard didn’t know that he was there so that was a plus because holy shit, It was most likely to be Thanos. No wonder his spider-sense was freaking out on him.

 

He opened his eyes and immediately saw the ruined infinity gauntlet with all of the stones just sitting there, unguarded. The room was dark and it was obviously nighttime on this planet. Peter noticed the lack of light from his own gauntlet. It must’ve taken all of the quantum energy to just get out of the stone.

 

He also noticed the sudden pain in his wrist. Then he remembered the burn from the quantum energy overheating. Why hasn’t it healed and why didn’t it hurt in the soul world? Not questions for now, now is time to get the fuck out with the gauntlet without being murdered by the sleeping mass murderer.

 

Peter silently rearranged his body into a crouching position and started to creep towards the stone holding gauntlet.

 

His spider-sense screamed at him and he instinctively grabbed for the huge gauntlet and out of the doorless entrance. His heart was beating way too fast and he hid out of view from anyone in the alien version of a shack.

 

There were multiple horrifying moments of silence. ‘Please don’t find me-’ Peter thought desperately to himself.

 

“I know you’re there. Do you think you can steal from me?” Thanos’ booming voice chilled Peter’s bones. For way too long he couldn’t think. His body was so filled with fear that he couldn’t make himself run or properly hide. All he would think was, ‘I failed and I’m going to die again.’ He didn’t really like it the first time.

 

“This isn’t the first time is it insect. I’m impressed that you got this far.” Peter slightly wanted to point out that Spiders were not insects, but he was too busy thinking that he was going to die. He suddenly realized that he literally had the most powerful weapon on his side.

 

But Peter wasn’t going to fight Thanos. He decided that there are some very useful stones on the metal glove. Peter cautiously put his fingers around the blue stone and carefully started to pull.

 

“I can hear you breathing… I know you haven’t run away… Why is that?” Thanos got closer. Peter stuck himself to the wall behind him and as quickly and as quietly as he could, crawled up to the roof.

 

“Your heartbeat is so fast. It is wise to be scared, but you shouldn’t be. I don’t punish without reason.” Peters hands shook frustratingly hard. He pulled on the space stone but he knew that Thanos was toying with him.

 

Thanos knew that he wasn’t strong enough.

 

‘But you are Peter. You always have been. You have to stop holding yourself back.’ Gamora’s voice echoed in his head. ‘Prove him wrong.’

 

Peter took a few deep breaths and forced himself to focus. He heard Thanos speak but he wasn’t listening. He gripped his hand around the space stone and focused on saving himself. It felt so much like the time he was stuck under a building. He heard Tony’s words again.

 

‘If you’re nothing without the suit, you shouldn’t have it.’ Peter knew that he was more than his tools. He was motherfucking Spider-Man. He held a dozen tons above his head and he was anything but weak.

 

His fingers sunk into the metal of the gauntlet and he viciously yanked out the stone. The first thing he felt was how cold the stone was. Before he could do anything though, his spider-sense peaked again and he immediately turned to the entrance of the hut.

 

The big play-dough project of a monkey infant that called himself Thanos lumbered out of the entrance. Peter wanted to run but he knew that it wouldn’t help. Without really thinking, Peter flipped open the half-spherical container that was usually meant for quantum energy and he stuffed the space stone inside of it.

 

He felt a quick wave of cold energy consume his entire being. He suddenly felt stronger and a cool sense of frightening calm engulfed him.

 

“By the way,” Peter finally spoke up and Thanos looked up at him. “Spiders aren’t insects asshole.” He instinctively made a fist and a familiar blue portal opened up behind him. He stepped back and all evidence of Thanos had disappeared.

 

His heart dropped when he realized where he was. He had appeared right where he had died. The atmosphere of Titan looked completely unchanged. Remnants of the battle were still on the planets ground. There were broken pieces of Titans moon and there were a weird amount of magical blue butterflies hanging around the area.

 

Peter’s breath shuttered and he grabbed for the glowing blue stone stuffed in the battery of his quantum gauntlet. It took a few frantic tries for him to open up the container and take the stone out. Once he put the stone back in its place on the infinity gauntlet, he almost fell to the ground. The sudden lack of energy that the stone gave him made him feel like he was close to passing out.

 

‘Use the soul stone Peter. You can free everyone. They will give you strength.’ Gamora’s voice echoed warmly in his head. He desperately wanted her to be with him. He didn’t want to be alone.

 

He put his hand over the soul stone to yank it out but it simply sprung into his hand. His hands shook when he tried to put the stone in it’s waiting receptacle on the back of his hand. When he closed the glass, he felt the warm, comforting energy of the soul stone pick him up off of the ground. It felt like he was being hugged by everyone he loved all at once while drinking hot chocolate. The power he felt was so drastically different from the space stone.

 

‘We’ll be here when you use it Peter. Everyone will be back. You won’t be alone. Never again.’ Gamora said again in his head.

 

He was about to bring back half of the universe and it wasn’t going to be easy. He sighed and closed his eyes before closing his fist and using the soul stone.

Notes:

Comment! How feel you? and this isn't the end at all. there's a whole lot more. I mean, Thanos is still out there and he's probably pissed that Peter erased all of his work. Also How would you guys feel about a Loki cameo or complete resurrection? What characters do you want to see more of? Do you think that Peter is done with Time and reality travel? Is the burn significant in any way? Are any of the other stones sentient? What happens next? The non-opinion based questions will be answered eventually.

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Chapter 17: Free the Soul

Summary:

Thanos' work is undone. But is it over?

 

Spoilers: Nope

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It turned out that releasing the people in the soul realm was easy. What wasn’t easy was making sure that they appeared somewhere safe. Peter didn’t want someone to appear in a dangerous place when they just came back from death. Like if someone dusted on a plane, Peter wanted to make sure that they didn’t come back a mile above the ground.

 

There were millions of people who didn’t just need to be saved, but also placed. Peter put a pink woman back into her alien home where her family was waiting, He made sure nobody came back too close to a drop or close to dangerous machinery.

 

It took countless hours and it was more than exhausting. Peter never thought that it was going to end but he had to save them. He always felt accomplished and relieved when he stayed long enough to see people reunite with their families. It was the reason that he couldn’t let himself rest. People needed their loved ones back and Peter was going to give it to them.

 

He saved Earth and Titan for last. In between billions of tearful reunions and shocked faces, Peter saw people that he knew. He saw a bearded Captain America tearfully hug his stunned metal armed friend and the guy with wings. He saw T’Challa being tackled by his sister, He saw the teenaged tree pick up and hug the cybernetic racoon that Peter remembered to be members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. He saw his friend Ned hug his mother and he saw the scarlet witch girl being embraced by Natasha and a Wakandan woman that Peter vaguely remembered meeting from the alternate universe. He made sure that Ant-Man and his girlfriend got to be with their families before he was distracted.

 

Then he felt a different kind of presence and he saw Thor alone. Thor, who had lost his people and his family. Peter knew that there was something that he could do. It took more effort, but he brought back a cloaked green figure who stumbled a little into Thor’s stunned arms. Before he moved on he heard, ‘I told you the sun would shine on us again brother.’

 

Then he moved onto Titan. He brought back the Large tattooed man and the girl with the antenna. He brought back the cloaked magician and Peter Quill. Lastly, he brought back Gamora.Just like Loki, she was harder to bring back because she wasn’t just stashed away in the soul stone, she was actually dead. Killed by Thanos. But he got her back and reality rushed to him and the full force of his exhaustion caught up to him.

 

He had pulled multiple all-nighters in a row and he had lifted a building off of his head and immediately gone after a supervillain but he had never felt this exhausted before. His legs couldn’t take his weight and His eyes refused to stay open. He distantly felt thick arms catching him and picking him up off of the ground. Then he welcomed the darkness that overtook him.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter Quill had been back from wherever the hell he had been for exactly ten seconds before he instinctively caught the kid. The teenager was horrifyingly pale and completely unresponsive. Before he could fully comprehend what was going on, a familiar green hand was placed on the kids throat, obviously looking for a pulse. Quill immediately looked up at the person he knew was connected to the emerald hand.

 

“Gamora?” He said softly.

 

“He’s alive thank god. Both of my Peter’s are back.” Gamora smiled and looked at him before pulling Quill in for a reunion kiss. They desperately missed each other and no words could even properly show how relieved they were to have the other back. Quill really couldn’t bare to lose more of his family.

 

“What… did he-” Big Peter started.

 

“The soul stone chose him and he saved us all. Our ship should still be here. I think that it is time to visit Terra.” Gamora said simply and smiled as she helped her Peter stand with little Peter cradled in his arms.

 

She carefully picked up the infinity gauntlet, for now it was safely holding the other infinity stones. As far as she knew, Thanos was still alive and she was not about to leave the stones unguarded.

 

The sorcerer offered to take the time stone as he was the stonekeeper before. Gamora let him. Drax and Mantis seemed mostly confused at their reformed bodies. Mantis decided to lead them to their ship as she had the best memory. Thankfully the ship was only lightly damaged and they took off without hesitation.

 

Big Peter laid little Peter down on a cushioned table that was usually used for medical emergencies and most recently had been used for a temporary placement of Thor. Big Peter and Gamora left to pilot the ship. Drax and the wizard left to rest, which left a curious Mantis.

 

Mantis tried not to touch people without their permission as her empathic powers were usually not welcome, but she saw little Peter twitch and curl in on himself. Mantis assumed that he was dreaming and decided that she could help as she usually did with her teammates. Everyone on the team was prone to difficulty sleeping due to past trauma mostly to do with dying family. That one seemed to be common.

 

She gently pressed her fingers against the boys temples and closed her eyes. She was hit by a wave of pure exhaustion. Until then, she had no idea what it had taken to get the rest of the universe back. She felt his weariness and complete aching. She eased his mind so that he could rest without his mind tormenting him. Before she calmed him, she had felt hints of guilt and buried sadness pertaining to what he was dreaming which made her feel bad.

 

She combed little Peters curls out of his face before turning to the front of the ship.

 

“Can we keep him?” She noticed Big Peter and Gamora share a look.

 

“I already adopted him in the soul realm so you better get used to him.” Gamora smirked.

 

“Won’t it get confusing with two Peters? I wanna be better Peter or maybe you guys can finally call me Starlord!” Quill looked excited about the idea.

 

“I have been referring to you both as Big Peter and Little Peter in my head.” Mantis kind of blurted out.

 

“That works. Little Peter is pretty small.” Gamora admitted.

 

“Thor is with Groot and Rocket on Earth. Is that where we are headed?” Mantis tilted her head.

 

“I guess so, I haven’t visited my home in a while… besides, I think some people will be wanting to see little Peter.” Big Peter said.

 

“We should contact them then. I don’t think that they have a great track record with extraterrestrials.” Gamora nodded. She started to contact Rocket who still had a communicator on him. “Rocket? Are you there?” There was a moment of silence before they heard a response.

 

“Gamora? Oh thank god, Stark said that you died so I guess, welcome back to the land of the living. Do you know how everyone came back? Did someone relieve that purple taint of his micropenis?” Gamora rolled her eyes.

 

“No, It’s complicated but someone was able to wield the soul stone and save everyone. He was able to take the rest of the sones out of Thanos’ reach. He doesn’t have the black order or an army anymore and all of his work was for nothing. It’ll take a while for him to find us and we have all of the stones. We’re in a much better place.”

 

“He killed Groot in front of me so I am planning on cutting off his-”

 

“Rocket I swear to god, Stop saying shit like that in front of Groot.” Big Peter interrupted.

 

“Whatever, I’ll just get you quardinants and tell everyone that you’re coming back. Dispide my tone, I’ll be really glad to see you guys and I bet Nebula and Groot will be too.”

 

“Yeah we don’t want to be shot out of the sky by some paranoid humans. We’ll see you soon. A day or two at most. Tell Stark that we have his kid.” Big Peter said before he cut off the communications.

 

Everyone needed to rest before everything could get explained. Besides, Big Peter and Gamora needed time alone. They sent Mantis to bed and only started to talk to each other after everything after they were sure that no one could hear them.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“I’m sure that the kid is fine. Gamora would’ve told us if something was wrong.” Rocket shrugged as he stood on one of the lab tables to meet Stark’s eyes.

 

“I just… want to make sure. And because our friendly god of mischief is back, and apparently not evil, I want to contact the only other wizard that I know because apparently Wong doesn’t own a phone.” This made the racoon raise whatever the equivalent of his eyebrows was.

 

“Sure sure, I can directly link you to the ship but I bet that most of them are asleep by now. Groot’s a tree and said that he was exhausted after coming back. I heard that the dude with the metal arm was also taking a nap. I bet that Gamora and Quill are awake though. Someone has to fly the Benatar.” Tony looked at the animal weirdly before shrugging it off.

 

“Well maybe I can get some sort of specific report on them. They’ll need to stay awake somehow anyway.” Tony shrugged.

 

“You better wait for a few hours, They’re probably having a post-resurrection quickie while everyone else is passed out in the sleeping quarters.” Rocket said frighteningly casually.

 

“Fine, hopefully the super-kid will be able to sleep through it.” Unbeknownst to Tony, Peter Parker would be able to sleep through practically everything with his exhaustion. It would take him a while to wake up.

 

“I’m gonna go check up on my own kid. I keep thinking that he’s gonna disappear again…” Rocket jumped off of the table and waved a paw at Tony before leaving the genius behind.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

After little Peter passed the twenty-five earth hour mark of uninterrupted sleep, The guardians started to worry. They still had a few hours until they were close enough to see earth and little Peter hadn’t even moved. Mantis assured them that his body was trying to make up for the strain that wielding the stone had put on his body. Gamora still didn’t like how still and pale little Peter was though.

 

The last few hours before they got to earth seemed to crawl on forever and the entire time, everyone sent nervous glances towards the sleeping figure. Even Drax seemed visibly concerned. At one point, the wizards cloak with a mind of its own wrapped itself around the boy and no one commented on it.

 

Big Peter marveled at the landscape of Wakanda before they landed. He saw a bunch of unrecognizable humans next to Rocket, Groot, Nebula and the guy with the armor from before the snap.

 

Before anyone could argue, Gamora picked up the teenager bridal style and led the precision of weirdos. Out of everyone there, big Peter felt the most normal which hasn’t happened in a while.

 

They left the ship while slightly squinting in the bright light of the sun. A woman with round glasses and long brown hair put her hand to her mouth and the man that was on Titan sprinted towards them with a worried expression on his face.

 

“What’s wrong with him? What happened?” Gamora assumed the man was Tony Stark from what little Peter had told her about him.

 

“He’s just resting. He spent so much energy bringing everybody back that he sapped almost all of his energy. He’s been resting for a little longer than a full solar cycle on your planet. Would you like to take him? I would like to greet my sister.” Tony nodded and gently took little Peter out of her grasp.

 

Gamora’s eyes landed on the blue of her sister. To her surprise, the seemingly emotionless woman launched herself at Gamora and hugged her.

 

“You imbecile. I can’t believe you chose me over keeping the soul stone away from Thanos. I’m… happy that you came back.” She murmured in her green counterparts ear. Gamora took a moment before hugging back.

 

“As am I.”

Notes:

Comment who you want to see more of! Comment if I need to fix something! Comment if you want to! Out of every random stat on this site, I love comments the very most. Although I am very happy with the attention that this is getting despite my poor writing and lack of other social media advertising. If you want to find me on tumblr, my username is the same as it is on here and I'm not too hard to find. I have no friends and I would love to have feedback.

 

anyway I love you all and I'm glad that you've stuck with me through all of this.

Chapter 18: Reunions

Summary:

Fluff.

This is

exclusively fluff

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter took forever to wake up. Sleep felt so good and he finally felt safe. He felt so much warmth, then he started to feel a throbbing pain in his wrist. Nothing overwhelming, just uncomfortable enough to motivate him into waking up. He slowly opened his eyes and instantly smiled tiredly when he saw his surroundings.

 

Peter was tucked into a very comfortable bed but it was obviously in some advanced medical facility. In chairs to his side, slept Tony Stark and Aunt May. They leaned on each other awkwardly and both of their respective sunglasses and prescription glasses were hilariously askew. Tony may have been drooling and Peter’s aunt was sporting some fashionable double chins.

 

Peter quietly lifted his wrist to activate the camera function on his vibranium cuff. He noticed that the soul stone still sat comfortably in the place of the quantum battery. His wrist had been rebandaged but he was otherwise untouched. He quickly took a picture of the scene and looked at frozen moment through a flat holographic screen. He sent it to Shuri, who he hasn’t met in this universe yet so hopefully she appreciated the scene.

 

After a few moments of silence, Peter heard footsteps approach the door. Definitely heels, Probably Mrs. Potts. He made sure to mask any signs of pain when the tall woman opened the door. The redhead glanced at her sleeping fiance and her best friend and immediately smiled. She noticed that Peter was awake and whispered knowing that he would be able to hear.

 

“Send the picture to me.” She attempted to quietly make her way to the other side of Peter’s bed. She mostly succeeded. Both May and Tony stayed motionless. “How are you feeling?” She kept the quiet tone.

 

“Tired… and sore. Like I just ran a marathon instead of being in a coma.” He joked breathily. “How long was I…” He left the question hanging.

 

“The guardians had you for the thirty hour trip back to earth and it’s been two days since then. You really had us worried.”

 

“Sorry…” Peter immediately instinctively apologized.

 

“It was just a side effect from saving the universe, I think we all forgive you.” The woman smirked playfully. “We are very glad to have you back. But we might need a better explanation for what exactly happened. The green woman… Gamora I think her name was, anyway she didn’t want to share the story without you so everyone is very excited about finding what to bring everyone back.” The woman brought Peter into a gentle hug and ruffled his hair fondly.

 

“Well I have quite the story…” Peter chuckled weakly and sensed some stirring behind him.

 

“Peter?” He turned around towards the soft voice of his aunt. He smiled when he saw her awake. It took May approximately a fraction of a second to launch herself from her seat and join the hug. This action dislodged Tony from his sleep and he muttered a few obscenities before looking towards the comotion.

 

“Oh thank god-” Tony stood up and seemed to consider joining the group hug before May pulled him down and forced him to.

 

“I’m alright. I’m back…” Peter's voice was slightly muffled but the crowding didn’t currently bother him like it normally would. He was finally home. Maybe not physically but he was with his aunt who helped raise him, his Tony and his classy business mom. He didn’t realize how much he had missed them.

 

He had alway been busy trying to get home that now he was home, he felt like he had dropped the weight of the world when he finally got there. He couldn’t control the soft sob that left his mouth. In response to the sound, the whole entourage of parental figures squeezed him tighter.

 

“It’s okay Peter, You’re here, we’re here.” Tony quietly reassured.

 

“You have no idea what it took for me to get it that way.” Peter mumbled as he let tears creep down his cheeks.

 

Peter’s family stayed in the position until Tony almost fell back asleep. This worried Peter a little bit but he would confront the man later. Peter figured out that he was in Wakanda pretty quickly. There weren’t very many places with the kind and style of technology that the place held.

 

He had been informed that he had woken up at a reasonable time in the morning. Unfortunately he was told that he would be forced to stay in bed just in case the stone had any lingering effects. He was assured that everyone could come in to meet their savior.

 

This only made Peter slightly nervous.

 

The first person to visit Peter after he woke up was, unsurprisingly, Gamora and big Peter. The first of which immediately hugged him and congratulated him on gaining consciousness. Big Peter formally introduced himself before little Peter revealed that Gamora had already told him all about her ‘titan killing, long-term booty-call.’ Before that they had barely interacted on Titan besides one having held a gun to the other one and little Peter getting revenge by insulting his taste in old movies.

 

At big Peters confusion little Peter promised that he would explain everything when everyone was around. He wanted to tell the story once as he wasn’t sure if he wanted to completely relive it more than once.

 

The next person to visit him was the wizard who didn’t seem excited to talk to Peter but eloquently conveyed that he wanted to make sure that Peter was okay. Apparently the man used to be a doctor and had noticed that there was something weird with the burn on his wrist.

 

Peter assumed that the jump out of the soul stone didn’t help with his already damaged wrist. But he still should’ve healed by now. His gunshot wound was long gone and had been much more damaging.

 

The sorcerer told him that the quantum burn was nothing like he had ever seen before. He said that pretty soon he would need some tests done to make sure that the soul stone wasn’t doing any more damage. For some reason, Peter felt like the soul stone was doing the opposite. On that encouraging note, Doctor Strange left and Peter waited for his next visitor.

 

Peter was legitimately surprised by who decided to visit him next. A tall cloaked figure in green and Peters second favorite avenger walked into the medical ward. Thor had a joyful grin and Loki looked surprisingly relaxed and not evil. Although Peter didn’t assume that the guy would be evil anymore.

 

“Ah! Son of Stark! You are smaller than I was led to believe!” Peter almost interrupted the whole ‘son of stark’ bit but he secretly felt some sort of satisfaction that someone thought that he was Tony’s son.

 

“I usually take a page from Mr. Starks book and wear heels.” Peter smirked a little. He assumed that his grogginess affected his confidence in a more positive way than he would’ve assumed.

 

“That is quite humorous as Stark is still very tiny.” Thor bellowed a laugh.

 

“I understand that you were the one to bring everyone including myself back?” Loki curiously interrupted. Peter nodded. “I was wondering why I came back as I did not suffer the same fate as everyone else.”

 

“I chose to bring you back Loki. You and Gamora were the outliers. It took a lot more effort to get you two back.” Peter responded easily.

 

“Yes but out of everyone… Why me? I was one of many to be killed by Thanos.”

 

“You are the god of stories Loki. You should’ve known that yours was far from ending. Your redemption arc was not complete. And you went after Thanos with a fucking butterknife.” Peter grinned. “And Thor looked pretty sad when you were gone.” Thor nodded in unashamed affirmation.

 

“I have never enjoyed your death’s brother. All three of them were immensely damaging to me. However I am overjoyed of your return!” Thor legitimately looked like a golden retriever in a way that made Peter want to show the god a picture of the dog.

 

“I appreciate the sentiment.” Loki shrugged. “ Spiderling, How do you know of my failure with Thanos?”

 

“I’m not even sure. The soul stone shows me… memories I think. Mostly feelings. When I was bringing everyone back… I felt them all. I saw what happened before they were sent to the soul stone. I saw Gamora being thrown off of the cliff, And I saw you as well. But I also saw after your death. And worse.... I felt it. Thor had just lost everything, and I felt it at full force.” Peter shuttered.

 

“I apologize, No one should have to go through such loss.” Thor added.

 

“I guess it was part of using the soul stone. It wasn’t as bad as my own death though. That was a whole lot worse the second time.” Peter shrugged indifferently. “Now I’m going to stop talking about what happened because everyone is going to find out pretty soon anyway.”

 

“Well now that my question has been answered, I will be off. Please do not strain yourself too much young spider child.” Loki said before leaving the room.

 

“I should make sure he doesn’t cause any mischief. Thank you for saving him. You will not go unrewarded.” Thor smiled before leaving to catch up with his brother.

 

Peter took a nap and before he knew it, a vaguely familiar bearded man woke him up with a plate of food in his hand. Peter smiled a little as he made his introductory comment.

 

“Brooklyn.”

 

“Good morning Queens.” Steve acknowledged. “I was told that you are kind of enhanced. And you haven’t been able to eat in three days so I have been sent here to make sure that you do that.”

 

“You don’t have to twist my arm man.” Peter chuckled. Sure, Steve Rogers was bumped a little lower on his personal hero chart after the whole civil war thing, but it was still incredibly unreal to have the guy right next to him.

 

Steve helped Peter sit up as his body still felt pretty shitty. He was given a plate of food that was quickly transfering into his stomach. Steve seemed slightly amused at the speed that the nourishment disappeared at. Communication was only resumed after Peter finished his meal.

 

“Thanks for dropping that airport thing on me. At that point I wasn’t sure if I would be able to hold more than a few tons above my head but it turns out that it wasn’t that much of a problem.” Peter said as Steve took his plate away.

 

“I honestly didn’t think that you would catch it. I thought that you would just jump away or something. You’re pretty fast. What’s your deal?”

 

“Genetic mutation caused by a rogue radioactive spider. Field trip when I was fourteen. I got super strength, reflexes, senses, wall-crawling, healing and an extra sense that warns me of danger. Recently a few of those have been pretty inconvenient.” Peter said casually as Steve tilted his head.

 

“In what way?”

 

“Dying. I knew that the snap happened before it even happened and I knew that I would be a casualty. My extra sense had never hit me so hard that it hurt. And when I was actually disappearing, It took forever and It was the most painful thing I could ever imagine. Like I went back in time, got shot, and that was nothing compared to being torn apart.”

 

“You what?!”

 

“Did I stutter? I went back in time, got shot, and before that I fucking died! I might be oversharing...”He caught himself. He had no idea why he was telling Steve all of this. He assumed that he just wanted to get it off of his chest. Steve just happened to be the closest person.

 

“Are you… okay?” Steve said hesitatingly.

 

“I… don’t think so.” He stopped himself before he lied. “But I also don’t think that there’s anything you can do about it.”

 

There was an awkward silence.

 

“I think that it’s time to tell everyone what happened. We’re all pretty confused and you seem to be the only one who will tell us. Gamora wouldn’t tell us without you. A lot of it seems connected to you and I guess she wants to respect your choices. I don’t know. Try not to keep any important information to yourself okay?” Peter sent Steve a quick hard stare.

 

“Like my knowledge of my best friend murdering my other friends parents and then using that same friends money to look for your assassin friend?”

 

“Okay let’s just go before you punch me.”

 

“Good call Mr. Captain.”

Notes:

Peter will meet and talk to more of the Avengers but here's a taste. I tried to make this a chill break after all of the crazy action. Peter gets the hugs that he deserves. Comment what characters you want more of! Comment what you like! Comment what you do not like! Tell me how you feel because I really want to hear! All questions will be answered. Anyway, I love all of you and I can't wait to write more! I have honestly not had this much fun with writing. AND I ACTUALLY GET THINGS DONE!!! LIKE EVERY DAY!!!

Chapter 19: Storytelling

Summary:

The avengers partially find out what Peter went through. And there's a lot of fluff.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter was a little overwhelmed by the people in the room. Now that he was completely awake and aware, He was kind of regretting waking up. He had once taken a public speaking class and even that couldn’t have prepared him for standing in front of a large group of superhumans, aliens, and genetically engineered racoons.

 

At first, Peter had no idea where to start. How do you start a story with so many alternating elements? There was the soul stone and Peters perspective on what order he found things out and Gamora’s place in everything and it was dizzying. He hadn’t realized that he had been hyperventilating until Tony put his hand on Peters shoulder.

 

“It’s okay, These are all friends now right? Nothing to be afraid of.” Tony’s soft reassurances gained him a few odd looks, mostly from the old Avengers team. Especially Steve. The guy looked surprised that Tony could convey a human emotion besides fear and disgust.

 

Peter took a deep breath and nodded.

 

“I just don’t know where to start. It’s been… a little bit crazy on my side.” He admitted quietly enough that only Tony would be able to hear. But apparently he failed at that.

 

“How about you start with the soul stone.” Gamora suggested from her sitting position at his right. Peter nodded and lifted up the stones resting place on the vibranium cuff to show the rest of the room. Hushed conversations turned silent.

 

“This is the soul stone. The first and most powerful object to gain life. The infinity stones all have some sort of sentience but the soul stone is the only truly empathetic stone. They are the only one that actually cares about life.”

 

“They?” like more than one?” Doctor Banner spoke up to ask.

 

“No, More of like a singular pronoun. Why would an infinitely old singularity conform or even identify to a gender binary. Anyway, the soul stone originally demanded a sacrifice in order to deserve it’s power. Thanos sacrificed Gamora. The soul stone realized that their test had failed. They never wanted to become a prison, They never wanted to be used in the way that Thanos forced them to. So they chose a voice,” He motioned towards Gamora. “And a vessel.” He motioned towards himself. “None of the stones can be wielded on their own. Why do you think that Thanos made a gauntlet.”

 

“When we used the power stone, we didn’t need a vessel…” Peter Quill pointed out.

 

“You were the vessel. All of you had to contain the power before you could use it. If you weren’t half god planet then you wouldn’t have been able to hold onto it for very long. The power stone is exclusively destructive. Living vessels aren’t anything new. Jane Foster contained the reality stone temporarily as well as Malekith the dark elf. Even the Vision counted as a living vessel.”

 

“Anyway, that’s not really important. The important thing is that I was chosen and the soul stone ended up sending me to an alternate reality in an attempt to save me. They gave me temporary amnesia and I was left to my own devices. Obviously that wasn’t a permanent solution. It took me less than a week to make this quantum energy fueled gauntlet that can travel through time and other dimensions.” He smiled a little as he showed off the simple cuff.

 

“It doesn’t look like much of a gauntlet. What’s hiding in that thing?” Tony asked curiously. This made Peter smile wider. He activated the gauntlet which unfolded into something that would be incredibly familiar to Tony.

 

“I guess you had help in the other reality? That is definitely an upgraded watch gauntlet. And you must’ve gotten that Vibranium from somewhere.” Tony said with a hidden awe at the device.

 

“Yeah, I tried to be on my own but I ran into you and Shuri and you guys decided to help me. Maybe I’ll tell you privately what was different about this reality because it was incredibly specific. But the device had some uh, problems. And I ended up in like nineteen eighty-nine I think. I got captured by SHIELD because I fell from the sky and they thought that that was weird. I have no idea why… I met some uh, familiar faces. By the way Tony, Your dad is an asshole and Mrs. Peggy Carter is the most badass person I have ever met, hands down.”

 

“You met Peggy?” Steve looked surprised and Bucky looked mildly interested.

 

“Yeah she was like sixty and I took a bullet for her.”

 

“You what?!” May and Tony shouted at the same time.

 

“Well I’m fine now… Seriously, getting shot was not the worst thing to happen to me that week.” Peter admitted and may have shrunk away from the concern of his parental figures. He heard Tony muttered something about Peter killing him and Pepper asking him how it felt to be on the other side of a reckless superhero.

 

Peter realized that he would have to explain how he got back to the soul stone and consequently, his death. He took a moment of silence before he forced himself to continue.

 

“Uh, anyway, at that point I didn’t remember what happened on Titan and if I found out, then I would be sent back to the soul stone to live in an eternity of emptiness. Then I found out and I felt it again.” Tony looked a little pale as Peters voice broke. “Apparently, I was the only one who felt myself die. Due to my… mutation, It took a while longer for me to die and I knew that it was going to happen before it did. I had to accept it and give up before the pain could stop. Then I was back in the soul stone. I only had enough power in my emergency quantum battery to send the message that you got. We fit as much tech in this thing as we could.” He deactivated the gauntlet so that it folded back into a cuff that held down the bandage for his quantum energy burn.

 

“Uh, then I was stuck in the soul stone until the ant-man guy got there to give me the quantum energy to get out. But I know that I wouldn’t have been able to get out without the soul stone wanting it. I got out and appeared near the soul stone which was still in Thanos’ gauntlet. I had to sneak out of the home of my killer with the most powerful weapon in the universe. So uh, Thanos woke up and knew that I was there. I managed to get out of the hut thing but he followed me. I had to get out so i tore the space stone out of the gauntlet and forced it into the empty battery enclosure on my vibranium gauntlet. I was able to escape back to Titan before I set everyone free from the stone. It took a while because I made sure that no one fell from the sky or appeared anywhere deadly but that’s the last thing that I remember. I passed out after that.”

 

“So Thanos is still out there but he doesn’t have the stones or the black order. That gives us much better odds if he wants to get his revenge. And it’ll take forever for him to get here if he can’t do that instant teleportation shit.” Big Peter spoke up.

 

“Goddamn, no wonder you napped for three days straight, It sounds like you had a rough couple of weeks…” Sam Wilson said from the crowd of superheroes.

 

“You still haven’t explained how you acquired your odd wrist injury.” Doctor Strange said calmly.

 

“Oh, well, It was when I first tested the reality warping part of the gauntlet and the the quantum battery exploded after I ended up in the right reality but not the right time. I replaced the battery with a different model but it doesn’t matter because I ended up shoving an infinity stone in it instead.”

 

Peter didn’t know what the burn looked like now, It hurt quite a bit and in an odd way too. Like a lightning strike burn mixed with a chemical burn. He’d probably have to look at it without the bandage to see if it had gotten worse.

 

“I’m still hung up that you met my dad…” Tony muttered.

 

“I met you too. But I think you got alcohol poisoning or ODed right afterward. I kinda was kept in your New York mansion while I was recovering from being shot and you figured that something was up. I was pissed that even at that age you were like two inches taller than me.” Peter pouted while Tony barked a spontaneous laugh.

 

“Of course you would. Time travel and meeting your teenage mentor doesn’t phase you but you get upset about me being taller than you when I was in college…” Tony muttered.

 

“Okay first of all, You were just out of college. And second, I didn’t get upset. Also you looked so weird without the beard.” Peter chuckled.

 

“Okay kid, don’t do what I did at that time. Even if drugs and alcohol don’t go through your system the same way, you shouldn’t do drugs.” Tony scolded and May seemed to agree. Peter just rolled his eyes.

 

After his accidental consumption of alcohol, Tony was the only one that found out due to his casual helicopter parenting. Tony had noticed that his vitals had gone a little off and had decided to call him about it. It was pretty awkward and prompted medical tests to be done.

 

“I’m not going to do any drugs Tony. I can’t even take normal pain meds come on. On a different note, I should probably check on my quantum energy burn. It’s hurting more than before…” He muttered the last part. “Unless there were any questions or further discussion…” Peter offered to the distracted group. He was glad that he got no answer.

 

“You should get more rest and recover. We can deal with getting ready for the worst case scenario.” Steve said.

 

“Cool, I’ve been awake for like an hour too long…” Peter yawned appropriately.

 

“If I remember, you have only been awake for that long.” Steve raised an eyebrow.

 

“Exactly. Ten points to America!” Peter dramatically leaned on Tony as he exaggerated his exhaustion.

 

‘Oh my god there is two of them…” Wanda muttered in horror.

 

“Damn right!” Tony said proudly. The genuine tone to his declaration made Peter grin. His eyes automatically landed on Mays expression who looked fondly back at him. He was so glad to see her so happy. He didn’t remember her looking so relaxed and joyful since before Ben had died.

 

“You sure this little asshole ain’t actually yours?” Sam raised his eyebrows.

 

“Pretty sure.” Tony chuckled.

 

“It’s ‘cause you both are short, genius, snarky, bitches.”

 

“And they both have a catastrophic lack of self preservation and guilt complexes.” Pepper added with a smile.

 

“If family-related psychological trauma were genetic, I would be demanding a paternity test.” May laughed.

 

“You guys don’t look that different…” Steve quietly added.

 

“Did anyone actually think that we were related?” Tony raised his eyebrows, obviously amused. The asgardians, Steve, Bucky, a completely unashamed Shuri, a joking May and Pepper, and all of the Guardians all raised their hands. “Wait seriously? Do you think I could honestly have a secret kid?” Tony sounded more confused than disappointed.

 

“The spider child is very much like you Stark.” Loki seemed incredibly amused by the situation. “But nicer.” The addition made Peter snort which caused Tony to nudge him in offence.

 

“Even if he isn’t your kid you sure act like it.” Natasha murmured. “I never thought of Tony Stark as paternal…” She lightly teased.

 

“Seriously? Some super-spy you are. Tony is like the definition of a trophy housewife. He’s not just a parental figure, but he’s a PTA wine mom.” Pepper laughed. Tony shrugged in accepting response.

 

“I do like my wine. My taste in alcohol is strictly classy nowadays. Oh, and I would totally provide cupcakes for Peters academic decathlon practice.”

 

‘We’ll you could’ve told me that earlier… Neds mom has been bringing almond brittle since october…” Peter whined before yawning enthusiastically.

 

“I guess it’s bedtime for a sick spider-baby.” Tony smirked.

 

“I’m not a spider-baby… And I’m not sick! I recently saved the universe so I just need a nap.” Peter argued.

 

“I guess bringing half of the universe back from the dead is a little bit exhausting. Come on Spiderling,” Tony wrapped his arm around Peter and started to lead him out. He couldn’t find it within him to care about being treated like a kid. He was tired and he found the attention kind of flattering. Before they left hearshot they heard one last bit of conversation.

 

“Sam, I won the bet, that’s ten bucks.” Bucky said tiredly.

 

“Goddamnit…”

Notes:

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Chapter 20: Oversharing

Summary:

Peter shows Tony the alternate reality and gets a lot of sleep.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter only needed Tony to partially support him as he headed back to the royal Wakandan medical ward. Apparently his healing powers didn’t affect his exhaustion after releasing half of the universe from the soul stone. Staying awake became a little more difficult but he knew that it would go away.

 

Peter sat on his bed and decided to finally check on his quantum energy burn. Tony seemed very hesitant to leave so Peter didn’t make him. He took off the vibranium cuff holding the soul stone then he unwrapped the dark flexible bandage that covered the burn and winced when it rubbed against the damaged skin. His eyes widened when he saw the burn. It had easily doubled in size and kept it’s odd white and blue luminessence.

 

Tony tried to hide his look of horror. Peter flexed his hand and twisted his wrist experimentally, as he expected, it sent waves of pain all throughout his arm. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep any sounds from escaping. But of course, not matter how much he tried, Tony still noticed his distress.

 

“Kid, relax. If it hurts, don’t spaz out.” The man ordered. “How the hell did you even manage to get that?”

 

“The first prototype of the quantum battery kind of exploded and caused me to time travel a little. It used to be a whole lot smaller so I guess using the quantum gauntlet made it worse. It didn’t hurt in the soul world so I haven’t thought about it.” He shrugged.

 

“We need to get that fixed. Shouldn’t you have healed by now?”

 

“Probably. I don’t really know what’s wrong. I don’t think that it’s too bad though…” Peter was used to ignoring his medical problems as he and May didn’t have any sort of medical insurance. When he got bitten by the radioactive spider, he consequently got super sick for a full week. He didn’t dare miss school or tell Aunt May. He couldn’t afford to miss school or tell May and risk being forced to go to the doctor with no money to pay for it. He just suffered in silence until he woke up one day with a strange set of superpowers. \

 

Literally the only reason he got any medical attention ever was because Karen contacted Tony whenever Peter got hurt spidermaning. He didn’t usually get hut but sometimes he was clumsy enough to get stabbed or shot. Hence why he acted so casually when he got shot in front of Howard Stark and Mrs. Carter.

 

“It kinda looks like the quantum energy didn’t just burn your arm but is just chilling out in there like your arm is containing it.” Tony suggested.

 

“Yeah that sounds about right. I just didn’t want to be a battery. I wonder how we get it out…”

 

“Maybe we should think about that later. Remember like five minutes ago when you said something about an alternate reality that you visited? Why won’t you talk about it in front of everyone?” Tony wasn’t accusing him, just curious.

 

‘Show him.’ For the first time since he used the stone, they talked to him. It was still in Gamora’s voice but he knew that it was not hers.

 

“Uh, there was only one difference… It was the whole butterfly effect thing where one tiny, seemingly insignificant event happened that ended up changing the world. Otherwise… It’s exactly the same as this one.” Peter said as he thought out a question for the soul stone. ‘How?’

 

‘Just touch him, I’ll do the rest.’ The voice in his head whispered.

 

“And what was this… difference?” Tony raised an eyebrow.

 

“It’s easier just to show you…” Peter offered his hand. “The soul stone can show you. It will make more sense… I don’t think that I can properly explain it I guess…” Tony looked at his hand in confusion then shrugged.

 

“What crazy deity decided to give you more powers… fine. Show me professor X.” Tony sighed before grabbing Peter’s hand like he was helping the kid stand up. Immediately, Peters eyes glowed as they did when he used the soul stone. The world around them changed into a familiar scene for both of them.

 

A graveyard in New York City.

 

In front of a familiar garve.

 

Peter Parker- Spiderman
2001-2016

 

“That was the difference. The only event that separates that world from ours.” Peter said quietly. “After the snap… I woke up in a world where I was dead. And everyone who loved me was still mourning. Do you know how I know that?” Tony’s eyes wandered back to Peter. They were wide in shock and Peter swore that he could see tears forming as he waited for Peter to continue.

 

“Because this is where I found you. In front of my official memorial. I didn’t want you to see me, it would’ve been so cruel of me to just… come back and leave you know?” Peter’s voice broke and Tony brought him into a comforting hug.

 

“It’s okay kid.” Tony muttered into his hair because the asshole was tall enough to do that.

 

“I know… I want to show you what happened. So pay attention.” Peter pulled away but not too far away. He turned to where the entrance to the cemetery was and watched a past version of himself spot his own memorial and walk over, lost in thought.

 

Now that Peter saw himself from an outside point of view, he noticed how lost his past self looked. He saw himself pull his hoodie over his head and look like he wanted to pull an antman and shrink so small that no one could see him. Peter effortlessly sped the time up until alternate reality Tony joined past Peter who quickly left and disappeared in a cluster of trees.

 

They saw the exact moment when the alternate universe Tony watched a video through his glasses and found out that Peter was there. They saw Tony sprint and embrace past Peter quicker than they thought the man was physically capable of. There were tears and it was kind of awkward watching themselves from an alternate crossed-over timeline.

 

“I didn’t think that you’d be so happy to see me. Especially if you knew that I wasn’t your… version.” Peter said to his Tony.

 

“Of course I’d be happy to see you, are you serious? I mean I’d be confused but lordy, you have to be kidding right?” His Tony seemed enamored by the thought.

 

“Well, at the point that I died in this universe we weren’t as close. In this universe, I succumbed to my wounds after the vulture incident and I knew that you would’ve gotten over my death by now and that you blamed yourself. I can’t just come back and reopen wounds. But I didn’t get much of a choice after Sam caught me at the tower.”

 

“Wait, you said that your alternate versions death was the only difference… why the hell are the asshole avengers back and why do we still have the tower?”

 

“Butterfly effect. My death was influential enough to change the accords and get the rest of the rouge avengers were allowed to come back and actually read the goddamn accords.” Peter shrugged. “In the process you bought the avengers tower so that you didn’t have to be near them.”

 

“Yeah that sounds like something that I would do… What else can you show me?” Tony asked as Peter closed his eyes.

 

“Do you want to see me meet Mrs. Peggy Carter?”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Doctor Strange could practically see the interdimensional energy around the sleeping Peter. After the kid had shared his memories with Tony, he had passed out. After a few hours, Pepper dragged Tony out, leaving the doctor to watch over the child. In all honesty, he was incredibly curious about how Peter had been able to travel through time and realities. At least without major physical effects.

 

It took too long for him to figure out that Peter did not even remotely get out without a scratch. The strange burn was definitely a problem. Peter was basically holding a self destructive energy inside of his body that had no way of output. The energy was able to make the user travel through time, space and alternate dimensions, And it was stuck slowly burning through this mutant kids body.

 

Stephen took a quick trip to the library at Kamar-Taj and came back with an armful of books on everything that he could think would relate to the situation. If there was a magical solution, he would find it. It was the most he could do after Peter saved them all from the isolation of the soul stone.

 

After hours of speed-reading, Stephen came up with less than satisfactory results. Quantum energy wasn’t exactly his field. There was just not enough information on the recently discovered energy source. Even the ‘expert’ had very limited information. After lots of research, Stephen found the only person who could help Peter. At least on earth.

 

Janet van Dyne.

 

Stephen decided that he needed to take a quick trip to San Francisco.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter knew that he was dreaming. There was that physical freeing effect and the fact that he wasn’t in any physical pain or discomfort.

 

The atmosphere was instantly recognizable. The soul stone. But it wasn't his prison anymore. Just a part of him and now felt slightly comforting.

 

“Don’t get too comfortable. This isn’t even near over for you. Please enjoy your rest though.” A voice similar to Gamora’s voice echoed throughout the empty terrain. “You must not let your guard down Peter. Everything can change in a short moment.”

 

Peter tried to look around to see where the voice was coming from but it was all around him like he was in a movie theater.

 

“Can you try not to be cryptic? I saved everyone! I reversed the snap! What the hell am I supposed to do now? I can’t fight Thanos!” He yelled back to the disembodied voice of the soul stone.

 

“Thanos is the least of your worries. At least for now. When you wake up, you must bring me with you at all times. Or else you’ll be alone and neither of us want that. Always be prepared.” The dream started to fade but a sinking feeling had already implanted itself in his chest.

 

“What? Please- Tell me what’s going to happen!” But it was too late. His dream turned into something way too familiar.

 

Titan.

 

He really hated that planet. It automatically made his heart pound and dream sweat drip off of his dream forehead. Could he have a panic attack in a dream? Well he was about to find out.

 

“I know that you’re there insect… You ruined everything that I worked for. I’m impressed. The first time I fought you, I only saw weakness. I guess I was mistaken. The next time we meet, I will make sure that your next death is a thousand times more painful.” Thanos’ voice came from too closely behind him and he was hit with fear like a baseball bat.

 

‘I’m not here, this is a dream, when I wake up I won’t be alone…’ Peter repeated in his head in a poor attempt to keep himself from waking up screaming. ‘I’m not going to die again, I’m safe-’

 

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

 

Peter woke up and rapidly sat up with a pained gasp. He gulped in cool air and tried to ground himself with the medical smell that surrounded him. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears and his hair was plastered with sweat to his forehead. He combed a shaking hand through his hair and gently rested his head back onto the pillows. He tried to take control of his breathing but it was much easier thought than done.

 

He looked to his side and immediately saw the warm glow of the soul stone embedded in his vibranium cuff. He grabbed it and put it on over the black bandage covering his right wrist. He felt a little bit of relief when he felt the cool metal.

 

He realized that he was alone in the room. At least he wouldn’t be embarrassed. He definitely did not need people looking at him like he was going to break or like something was wrong. It irritated him. May always looked at him like that after Ben’s death and he hated feeling like she was acting different around him. He didn’t like that people knew about most of his trauma. It made him feel weak.

 

After a few minutes, he gained control of his breathing and his heart rate had slowed down to a more resting level. He sat up and pivoted his body until his feet were hanging off of the bed. He found where one of the iron-spider web-shooters was carefully placed on his nightstand and he activated the tiny earpiece that would connect him to Karen. He put the earbud looking thing in his ear and woke Karen up.

 

‘Hello Peter, Your heart rate is slightly elevated, are you in distress?’

 

“Nah I’m fine… Do you still have that report thing on quantum energy? If not, you should download it and read it to me. I don’t know if I should try to go back to sleep or have you contact FRIDAY. She’s still with Tony right?”

 

‘That is correct. Would you like ‘The Basics of Quantum Energy’ by Hank Pym? I assure you that you will be asleep pretty quickly. It is currently two in the morning, Wakandan time, and Tony seems to be asleep. Quite the marvel if you ask me.’ Karen replied calmly.

 

“Yeah… of course. That guy needs his sleep more than I do…” Peter yawned and flopped back down on his bed.

 

‘Quantum energy is a form of energy most similar to the barely studied energy of the tesseract-’ Karen started reading aloud but Peter had already fallen back asleep in his firm, medical smelling bed.

 

He didn’t wake up there though.

Notes:

IMPORTANT QUESTION BELOW, I NEED INPUT PLEASE!

How would you guys feel if I integrated the X-Men universe in this fic? It would be as an alternate reality without the MCU characters though.

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Chapter 21: Thought we were done with this shit

Summary:

Peter meets some friends. Namely a few of the post days of future past X-men.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter probably shouldn’t have been surprised when he woke up in a very unfamiliar place. But with the heavy foreshadowing by the soul stone, transporting somewhere was the very least of what he assumed happened.

 

When he opened his eyes though, he knew that he didn’t just travel through physical space. He was in some sort of medical room that felt like was in some sort of eighteenth century mansion. The medical equipment seemed dramatically outdated. Even worse than when he was stuck in the late eighties. After getting shot, he was pretty aware of the lack of medical technology in the time period.

 

Steadily quickening beeping came from his left and he knew that he was hooked up to a machine that was keeping track of his heart rate. Every beep corresponded to a fresh pulse of pain that went through his wrist and a headache that he was now annoyingly aware of. He groaned softly and reached his right hand to a pulsing point on his temple. He noticed that his wrist that was previously wrapped in high tech Wakandan black bandages was replaced with a slightly stained canvas bandage that was much more rough.

 

“Karen? When and where the hell are we…” Peter muttered.

 

‘Karen is offline.’ A soft voice echoed within one of his ears where the earpiece sat from before he fell asleep.

 

“Fuck..” Peter closed his eyes. ‘Any helpful information from the all powerful sentient rock?’ Peter asked the soul stone. He received no answer. He figured it was because of his pissy attitude.

 

This was when a man walked into the room that violently reminded him of John Mulaney or the actor who played the flash on TV. He wore a lab coat that showed that he was a doctor of some kind.

 

“Hey kid, don’t move around too much. You very recently got a major concussion.” The guy said in a very calm voice. “I’m Hank McCoy by the way.” For some reason the name sounded familiar but Peter ignored it.

 

“Peter Parker, What year is it… I seem to be a little out of place.” Peter said casually and tiredly. Mr. McCoy raised an eyebrow but didn’t seem as surprised as a normal person would be.

 

“1974… Another guy from the future huh?” Peter sighed when he realized the implications. He was back in time by over fourty years and Karen seemed permanently unresponsive. He wasn’t sure if he was still in the same reality… for some inexplicable reason, it didn’t feel like his reality. It had the same jet-laggy feeling that he felt in the first alternate reality.

 

“I think it’s more than that… have you guys invented computers yet or do you have a newspaper? I don’t know what you oldtimers have available.” Peter sat up and ripped out all of the primitive medical tech that was connected to him. Mr. McCoy seemed taken aback at his quick actions.

 

“You just got a concussion I wouldn’t-”

 

“I’m fine. I’ve had a lot worse. It’s only a headache now. Not even memory loss dude. Do you guys say dude yet?” Mr. McCoy rolled his eyes.

 

“So you have a healing mutation? I know a guy with one of those…” Mr. McCoy approached him and unwrapped a bandage Peter didn’t even realize was wrapped around his head. “Well you’re definitely right. The wound is closed and there’s only minor bruising. That was fast…”

 

“Mutation? I mean kinda… Please don’t experiment on me.” He joked. “Healing is just one of the perks though.”

 

“Please Peter, I’m not the US government or a Nazi. I’m a Mutant too.” Mr. McCoy folded up the slightly bloody bandage and put it to the side.

 

“Cool! What can you do?” Peter reacted enthusiastically.

 

“I turn fuzzy and blue when I get angry enough and I have weird feet.” The man said casually.

 

“Wow, so you’re like if the Hulk had a blue fursona.” This earned a weird look from Mr. McCoy.

 

“I’m not even going to pretend that I know what a Hulk or a fursona is.” He replied.

 

“Well the Hulk is from my universe I guess. He’s this scientist guy that accidentally experimented on himself with gamma radiation and turns into a big green buff guy when his heart rate goes fast enough due to anger issues. He’s a pretty cool guy. But I don’t think you want to know what a fursona is.”

 

“I can imagine… Anyway, do you know what happened to you?” Mr. McCoy sat beside him on the medical table like an awkward dad about to give a lecture.

 

“I have quantum energy stuck in my body in which it’s only output is this little device on my wrist. It’s called a quantum gauntlet and allowed me to travel back to my own reality and time. Now the gauntlet is containing the soul stone which is it’s own story, but anyway they are a sentient material forged at the beginning of the universe that is currently bonded to me. I don’t know how long I’m going to be stuck in this time and reality. I don’t even know where this reality is compared to my own.” Peter sighed after he tried to explain his situation at a pretty quick pace.

 

“Okay, that’s not the weirdest thing that I’ve ever heard but it’s up there. Anyway, my friend is on his way so try to avoid any unnecessary time traveling for now. Even with that healing factor, I have no idea how your body will react to two major jumps in a row like that.” The man stood up and started to roll equipment away from the door and the medical bed..

 

“I’ll try not to. I’m honestly not sure if I could control the quantum energy. It took like a week just to get to the point of actually doing anything besides harming my body.” Peter perked up a bit as he heard a the distant sound of a wheelchair getting closer. “Does your friend use a wheelchair?”

 

“Yeah why?” Mr. McCoy raised an eyebrow.

 

“I can hear him. He’s still a minute away though.” Peter fidgeted slightly with his simple vibranium band.

 

“When the professor gets here, you have to give me a list of what you can do. Your abilities sound interesting.”

 

“They are kind of random until you find out how I got them. Then it makes sense.” Peter said vaguely.

 

“I look forward to it. Do you want a glass of water?” Mr. McCoy offered.

 

“Yes, Thank you.” Peter smiled as he noticed the wheelchair sounds slowly getting louder. Peter imagined that the professor in the wheelchair had come from the opposite wing of the house. Besides the two men, Peter couldn’t hear anyone else in the house.

 

Mr. McCoy had just handed Peter a glass of tap water when the door opened to reveal a man no older than thirty with wavy brown hair that went down past his chin. He had a calm expression and soft blue eyes. He looked like he had an old soul that kind of reminded him of Doctor Strange.

 

“Professor.” Peter nodded respectively.

 

“Good afternoon Peter.” The man smiled kindly and Peter easily picked up on his strong british accent. “In case Hank forgot to introduce me, I am Professor Charles Xavier.”

 

This time Peter recognized the name and widened his eyes. He felt stupid for not catching onto the guy that could turn into a blue beast. Peter was slightly disappointed in himself. He had grown up reading comics and the X-Men used to be some of Uncle Bens favorites. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t read them in years…

 

“Professor X?” Peter raised a curious eyebrow. ”Jesus this is weird… I guess infinite realities don’t exclude fictional characters.” He muttered quietly to himself.

 

“You know me?” the professor wheeled himself closer in interest.

 

“I guess your reality bled into my reality a bit… You guys are, like, comic book characters back on earth 19999999. Small multiverse huh. I wonder if I get like a movie or something in a different reality…” Peters voice drawled off a little.

 

He guessed that anything was possible where there were infinite realities. He hoped that wherever he ended up next would be a reality where he could buy his own Spider-Man merch. Sure in his own reality there was Iron Man merchandise, (an unhealthy amount of which, he owned) but Spider-Man just wasn’t that popular yet.

 

“Interesting… I am aware of multiple timelines but mere existence is on a much bigger scale than I have contemplated.” Mr. X thought out loud. “So you come from a world without Mutants?”

 

“I think I’m the only person that qualifies as a mutant. But I wasn’t born with a mutation, I had my DNA accidentally mutated after a bunch of specific circumstances.” Both of the men in the room raised their eyebrows to make him elaborate. “I was bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip and my genetics got modified.” He sighed. “Most superheroes from my reality aren’t quite modified in the same way. Most of the heroes are enhanced, whether it’s from magical steroids or energy from a magical rock. They stay human. I’m not quite human anymore. At least biologically speaking.” He shrugged.

 

“Is that not something to be proud of? Who wants to be human anyway?” Professor Xavier chuckled.

 

“I’d rather be human when I need a blood transfusion or when I need actual medications to work on me. I’d rather be human when having a secret identity is the only thing keeping my last piece of family and couple of friends safe. I’d rather be human when my enhanced senses cause me to have sensory overload over nothing.”

 

“Would you choose to not be bitten then? To be like everybody else?” Peter was so ready to say yes. He wanted to say that he was tired of being afraid and that he just wanted things to be normal but he knew that it wasn’t true.

 

“Never. Not for the world. There are people that would be dead without me… And a whole lot of people who would’ve stayed dead without me. I can’t be selfish enough to think that those lives are worth any less than my pain tolerance or mental stability.” Peter said after a moment of thought.

 

“Focus on the difference you make, the effect that you have, and it will all be worth it, I promise. There was a time not too long ago where I traded my powers for the ability to walk. But I couldn’t help anyone like that. I had to give into the weaknesses that my powers give me so that I could do my part to fix the future. You are not alone in any reality Peter. There is always someone like you. Someone like us.” Xavier smiled.

 

“Oof, can we move onto some lighter conversation? Like I don’t know, Do you guys have Star Wars in this universe yet? Or what kind of powers do mutants have? How different are you guys from the fictional versions in my universe? I gotta know!”

 

“Uh, I don’t think so, a lot and we have nothing to compare ourselves to. And you haven’t told us what all of your powers are…” Professor X said.

 

“You were reading my mind professor… Hopefully not literally this time.” Mr. McCoy smiled at the change in conversation.

 

“Fine. It’s not anything too cool though.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“What the FUCK do you mean he just disappeared! You were supposed to be watching him Strange!” Tony yelled at the wizard.

 

“I left for less than an hour. How could I have prevented anything from happening. You need to get a hold of yourself Tony. He can get himself back. He has that device that allowed him to do it before.” Doctor Strange replied in an attempt to calm Tony down.

 

“We don’t know where he is, what reality he’s in, what time period he’s in, He’s out of quantum energy Stephen! He could have no way back!” The shorter man shrieked.

 

“Get a hold of yourself Stark. You have to calm down. We are going to find him. It hasn’t even been two hours yet.” Stephen tried to get Tony to see past his parental anxiety.

 

“I just can’t- wait.. If he has any backup energy we can call him with Shuri’s tech right. Jesus I hope so.. Goddamnit I just got him back Stephen!” Tony obviously held back a sob.

 

“We’re going to find him. If you would just listen, I think we can follow him.” Stark looked at him in shock.

 

“How the hell do you plan on doing that?”

 

“We. And Tony. We have five out of six infinity stones. And I’m a sorcerer.”

Notes:

Taking a risk by adding the X-Men but I am going to have so much fun with all of the different realities. Comment questions and I will provide answers. Comment encouragement because I need it to stay motivated. Comment constructive criticism because I want to improve my writing, Comment literally anything. I need feedback. And maybe ideas for other realities that Peter could accidentally visit.

Chapter 22: The Starting Line of a Wild Goose Chase

Summary:

Peter meets Peter
Tony wants to find Peter

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“I can’t reach them… The gauntlet didn’t even absorb any energy from the outburst it just… used it all. The Soul Stone can power the repulsors and most of the tech but without quantum energy, I can’t do anything interdimensional. Unless we can get the energy out of my arm. Which we should find a way to do, just so I don’t accidentally spontaneously travel through everything that can be traveled through.” Peter said in the car that Hank McCoy was currently driving.

 

They were on their way to New York CIty as Peter was planning on seeing if he could get Karen to work with the help of surrounding technology. He also desperately needed a place that felt somehow familiar. Even in an alternate reality and time period, It was as close as he would get to home. It couldn’t be too different right?

 

He was relieved to find that it wasn’t too different. All of the skyscrapers were there except for the Stark tower. Peter did wince a little when he saw the two identical buildings that were easily recognizable as the world trade center. Otherwise the city was comfortingly identical to his home.

 

He desperately wanted to sing around the city with his webs but he didn’t exactly have web-fluid to spare, and he really wouldn’t want to be noticed too much. Peter had been informed that the general public was aware of mutants but they were treated like they had an illness or were freaks. Peter didn’t want to call too much attention to himself if he could help it.

 

It felt good to put a name to what he was. He wasn’t a enhanced human like most of the heroes from his own reality. Peter was the only one whose powers changed him throughout his DNA. The closest thing to what he could call himself would be a mutant. Because that’s what he was. Maybe not in the exact same way that the mutants of this universe were but he was pretty close.

 

“You think so fast I can hardly keep up. And I used to think you could just talk fast. So you are the only one of us in your reality. That sounds rather lonely.” Charles remarked softly.

 

“Well, I guess if you think about it that way. But I’ve never been alone. I had Ben and May, then there’s just May, now I have Tony and Gamora and- and the soul stone and yeah I’m alone with my powers, But I’ve never truly been alone. Even now. Even in a reality far from my own. Far from my home.” Peter smiled a little. Even when he felt alone inside of the soul stone, he quickly had Gamora. He kept thinking that he was alone when he had never been.

 

“That’s funny. I was preparing for some optimistic speech but it seems like you are not in need of one. You are much wiser than I expected from someone of your age.” The professor smiled.

 

“Thanks. It’s the trauma.” Peter smiled sweetly.

 

“You know it’s more than that. You have gone through more than anyone of any age should. Yet you have a relentless optimism and undying determination wrapped up in a bow of almost unparalleled intelligence. And you didn’t get that from a spider bite. You are… truly astonishing Peter.” The complement made the kid beam.

 

“Well I know why you run a school. You’re like the ultimate motivational speaker. When TED talks get invented you should look into them. By the way, I don’t need a mentor. I already have one at home. Or twenty seven depending on how you define mentor...” Peter shrugged and decided not to address the complement directly. He wasn’t used to it. Even Tony and May’s complements were less intense than this guys.

 

“I will keep that in mind but I don’t guarantee anything.” The professor smiled as the car stopped. The got out of the car and Xavier got into his special wheelchair.

 

Besides everyone's weird sense of style and hair, and the stores having odd fonts, the city was exactly the same as he knew. He was happy to be back without trying not to be seen. He was just as normal as everyone else. Peter hoped that there was enough tech in the area for Karen to latch onto so that he would have some tech help. He didn’t even know how far away this reality was from his own. Karen had sensors like that and without the full Iron Spider suit, he had no way of finding out such vital information. Or at least displaying it.

 

Parking in the densest part of the city would’ve been stupid so they had parked in an easily accessed area and decided to walk a little. Peter loved to listen to Professor Xavier and Mr. McCoy talk about mutants. He was fascinated and was in the middle of asking a question when he froze due to a familiar feeling. His spider sense told him that something was wrong but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

 

“Peter, What’s wrong?” Mr. McCoy inquired as he noticed Peter’s sudden reaction.

 

“I- I don’t know… I don’t think that it’s anything…” Peter shrugged and tried to ignore the persistent feeling of his spider sense.

 

“Peter, You are terrible at lying.” Professor Xavier admitted. Peter looked behind them and saw someone disappear into the shadows.

 

“I think we’re being followed. We aren’t in immediate danger I don’t think but just keep an eye out. Are either of you guys notable to be recognised like, out of your fuzzy blue form I guess?” Peter shrugged.

 

“Maybe, We aren’t as easily recognizable as Raven or Erik. They got on the television last year during… nevermind, It doesn’t matter. I doubt that we’re going to be recognised by anyone unless they read my papers. We aren’t exactly famous.” Xavier nodded.

 

“Raven is the shapeshifter and Erik is the metal guy right? If I can’t get Karen to work, you guys have to tell me what happened… If you guys tell me your politically charged superhero story, I’ll tell you mine.” He offered.

 

“Well, we have plenty of time. We can talk about it over lunch. You have an enhanced metabolism correct? When was the last time that you’ve eaten?” Peter felt a pulse of his spider sense and he looked behind them again. He saw nothing wrong.

 

“Yeah… I guess that would be good. Are there any good places? Most of the places that I would usually go to haven’t even been opened yet. And yelp isn’t a thing either. I’m not used to the seventies man…” Peter chuckled. Xavier put his index and middle fingers to his temple and closed his eyes for a moment.

 

“There’s a Thai food place that will give us plenty of time to talk. The people in it seem to be pretty approving.” Peter smiled. He admitted that this wasn’t the worst way to use telepathic powers. It wasn’t even intrusive.

 

“That sounds great-” Peter instinctually spun around when his spidey sense panged more sharply than before and he shot a web reflexively to the brick wall about ten feet away from him. A guy only a few years older than Peter was stuck in the web. He had longish silver hair and he wore weird goggles. He had a pink floyd t-shirt under a dark silver leather jacket and dark jeans. Peter also noticed that the young adult had earbuds in.

 

“Dude, That’s pretty impressive. You must have some sick reflexes.” The silver guy motioned to his hand stuck in webbing. Peter immediately knew that this guy wasn’t a threat. He wanted to scold his spidey sense for not being helpful.

 

“Thanks!” Peter smiled. “I’m Peter.”

 

“So am I. We should be friends.” Silver Peter smiled back. Peter ripped the webbing off and shook the guys hand.

 

“Well this is going to get confusing. Maximoff, what are you doing here?” Xavier asked but seemed completely unfazed.

 

“I wanted a hotdog.” Peter Maximoff shrugged and Xavier nodded as if this were a totally normal thing. “Anyway I heard that you guys were going to have Thai food and that sounds good too. Can I join? Also I wanna figure out who the hell the other Peter is.”

 

“You could just ask the other Peter…” The other Peter sighed.

 

“We would love the company.” Mr. McCoy added with Xavier nodding along.

 

“Well this will be fun.” Spider Peter said genuinely enthusiastically.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“I traced the quantum energy to the reality that, According to Peter’s system, is Earth 100005. That’s 1,899,994 realities away. He must have used a whole lot of energy to get there. He also seems to have traveled through time by over forty years. I can use the space stone and time stone to effortlessly travel there but they both need containment. The golden gauntlet over there doesn’t exactly fit me…” Tony looked over a hologram in Shuri’s lab.

 

“You don’t have to do this alone.” Rhodey said with his arms folded. “No one would blame you for bringing your best friend or a wizard along. We could help you.”

 

“I can’t do that. Thanos might come back and they will need you guys. I can get Peter back. I will get Peter back.” Tony said as he started on the systematics for a new project that was going to let him wield two infinity stones. This wasn’t something he could just fix with the nano-tech of his mark fifty suit.

 

“Peter left behind one of the Iron Spider web-shooters. Are you sure that he didn’t put his own devices plans on it? You could just use that instead of making something new. That way you can get to him faster.” Tony turned to his friend.

 

“Honey-bear you are a fucking genius-” Tony squished Rhodey’s face and sprinted to Peter’s mostly empty medical room. Rhody couldn’t follow as fast so he just waited. He walked over to the holographic screen that Tony had been working with.

 

Unbeknownst to most people, Rhodey wasn’t just some army guy. He went to MIT alongside Tony and he was no slouch when it came to intelligence. He saw the footage that Tony had been repeating over and over again of Peter disappearing in a flash of light after screaming. There was a handful of information that had been collected just from medical sensors in the room. Rhodey had only just looked over the results when Tony came running back in, slightly panting.

 

He put the web-shooter on a vibranium table where it was immediately scanned. A holographic screen with all of the information from the device popped up. Tony swiped and tapped at the hologram until a feminine face as well as a vocal recording icon popped up.

 

“Thank god, Karen. Are you connected to your database? Did Peter upload his gauntlet thing on your data?”

 

“I appear to be completely connected to my database. Would you like to see the plans for the Quantum Gauntlet?” The AI responded immediately.

 

“Yes… I need to recreate it.” Tony said as the plans popped up on the holographic screen in front of him. “Jesus… We’ll need to ask the Princess for some vibranium and those beads… The communication systems are completely integrated from them.” Tony muttered to himself.

 

“Where is Peter?” Karen asked. There was a moment of silence.

 

“Well he’s either in trouble, or he’s going to be…” Tony said as he changed the design of the gauntlet to be able to hold two stones and not have the web-shooter function. Just an upgraded Iron Man gauntlet that could contain two infinity stones.

 

He had some work to do.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Once the group of mutants reached the restaurant, Peter had excused himself to the bathroom after his burned wrist pulsed with as much painful aggression as when he first got it. The professor looked concerned but calm. Peter knew that the guy would keep tabs on him whether he liked it or not.

 

When he got into the single stalled restroom, he frantically unbandaged his wrist and suppressed a gasp when he saw the extent of the burn.

 

The off-colored burn had grown drastically and it’s glow had multiplied. Peter’s veins had protruded and seemed to be the main containment of the energy. They would pulse with his heart beat and each beat sent a new wave of burning pain. He cursed to himself and tried to stop his arm from shaking so violently. The pain brought tears to his eyes and he was thankful that he was alone.

 

‘Breathe Peter.’ Professor Xavier's voice said calmly in Peter’s head. It took too long to catch his breath that he didn’t even know that he had lost. ‘Focus. You control it, not the other way around.’

 

Peter closed his eyes and tried to control the quantum energy. He didn’t know how or even if he could.

 

‘You can ask for help you know.’ The soul stone whispered.

 

‘Please… I need you… I can’t-’ Peters own voice stuttered in the effort even in his thoughts as he communicated to the stone.

 

‘It’s okay. I want to help you. Just let me.’ The stone said gently.

 

Peter’s vision was enveloped in orange and white before the pain in his wrist finally stopped. A cool numbness enveloped it and he almost cried in relief but it was hard as he had just finished crying from pain.

 

He looked up to the bathroom mirror and tried not to sigh. His eyes were glowing with the orange of the soul stone. Somehow he knew that it was one or the other. Option one- Lots of pain for an indefinite amount of time, or option two- Easily be identified as a Mutant. Everyone he was with could pass themselves off as being completely human, but a kid with glowing eye would present some questions.

 

‘I can hide it, don’t worry.’ Xaviers voice echoed in his head. Peter sighed and decided that he couldn’t just stay in the bathroom. He opened the door and calmly walked out.

Notes:

I'm so happy with all of the positive responses! I live off of comment so I really appreciate everyone who has commented so far. If you have any questions, concerns, ideas, desperately needed encouragements, PLEASE TELL ME.

also I'm working on some art for this fic so if you want to see it, follow my tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gaygemgrump

Anyway, I love you all for even enduring my crazy writing and getting this far. Have a good day!

Chapter 23: The Power of the Soul

Summary:

Peter and Tony work to getting back to each other.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

No stares… No second looks. The physical manifestation of using the soul stone seemed to be completely ignored. Peter was relieved when Professor Xavier seemingly hid his glowing eyes from everyone in the restaurant who could see him. Peter didn’t want any more attention. But apparently it wasn’t hidden from everyone.

 

“Whoa dude, what happened with your eyes?” Seventies Peter asked.

 

“I’m using the soul stone. Don’t worry about it.” Peter muttered as he sat down in the booth. He hid his face in a Thai food menu.

 

“Why are you using the soul stone, what does that even mean?” Mr. McCoy asked.

 

“So uh, there are six infinity stones right? Each one controls a crucial part of existence. Power, space, reality, time, mind… and soul.” he held up his wrist to show the intensely glowing amber stone resting on the back of his hand in the quantum gauntlet. “Each one has a multitude of powers but the soul stone focuses most on the soul. The soul is all about creation and feelings and imagination. The whole right brain thing you know?”

 

“At the moment I’m letting the soul stone keep me here. They’re making sure that the quantum energy doesn’t hurt me while it tries to get out. Pain is a feeling I just found out that they can control. I don’t know for how long though. I don’t know where I’ll go if I just let the energy go. And I can’t just go around New York with creepy glowing eyes.” Peter shrugged as he set down the menu to face the other mutants.

 

“You’re trying to control it…” Xavier pointed out.

 

“Quantum energy, yes. Soul stone, no. The stone doesn’t like to be controlled after the apocalypse of my universe. I negotiate with them. We’re besties now.” Peter smiled.

 

“So this rock is like all powerful and sentient? Can it hear me?” Speedy Peter asked as he looked at the glowing stone with interest.

 

“Yeah, basically. I don’t really know what they can do but I’m sure that I’ll find out. I am the soul stone keeper after all. I better figure it out.” Peter smiled.

 

“Why don’t you ask them? They do speak to you, correct?” Xavier said calmly.

 

“I don’t want them to take it as me trying to use them. It isn’t like having powers, this is a living thing that chose me because they knew that I wouldn’t use them for harm.”

 

“And you won’t. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t know how to use them. They gave you great power. It is not unfair to know what power you hold.” Peter sighed. Xavier gave a good point.

 

“Fine.. I’ll ask. If the waiter comes over just order a red curry at like a three. Or a two… I’m kind of a wimp.” Peter closed his eyes. Around him was the inside of the soul stone. He knew that if he opened his eyes he would just be back with his new friends so he didn’t worry.

 

‘Hey uh, I know that you heard what we were talking about…’ Peter said to the soul stone.

 

‘Of course. My power is much less obvious than the other stones. Control over pure power, time, reality, space and teleportation, and the mind are obvious. But what does it mean to have control over the soul? And why was I the only one that requires a sacrifice when Thanos collected me? I know your questions. The soul is the outlier of the stones. The soul is the essence of all life. So what does that mean for you?’

 

‘ I’ll show you.’

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Tony, you’ve been in there for almost two days… you have to take a break. Eat something, sleep. We’re all worried about you.” Pepper said from the hologram coming out of Tony’s kimoyo bead in his palm.

 

“Yeah well I’m worried about Peter. He’s all alone and I have a way to get to him. I’m getting him back and the last things you guys need are more infinity stones in reach of the raisin flavored asshole.” Tony grumbled as he wanted to get back to work.

 

“You won’t be any good to him sleep deprived and malnourished. He traveled on his own before the snap reversal right? He’s smart, He’ll be okay for a few more hours.” Pepper promised.

 

“We have no way of knowing that. He could be in trouble. Thanos might already be after him!” Tony said desperately, slightly shaking due to too much wakandan coffee. There was a cup of the stuff on the table near him and it had been refilled countless times.

 

“Honey, we’re worried about him too but we are also worried about you. You can’t just hurt yourself like this-”

 

“End call.” Tony interrupted as he got back to work. He was getting Peter back and his human limitations were not going to stop him.

 

He was so close. He was getting his kid back. Sure it took wielding two infinity stones but he didn’t care. He didn’t give a passing thought at the immense power that he would hold. He could only focus on getting Peter back. He refused to think of anything else. He didn’t think that he could if he tried.

 

He couldn’t waste brain power on the idea of hunger or sleep, he could only think about Peter. The kid who had been alone when he traveled through time and was forced to meet the only person Tony never wanted Peter to know anything about. Howard had been dead for over twenty years but Tony still felt unpleasant when thinking about the man who was supposed to be his father. And the asshole that was closer to being a sperm donor than a father was stupid enough to fuck with his kid. Peter didn’t share too much of his experiences with Howard but seemed to openly dislike him.

 

Tony wasn’t completely sure about what Peter had known about Howard before they had met but most people didn’t know that Howard was a gaping asshole of a person that only cared about Steve Rogers. Most people knew him as a more extreme version of a younger Tony with a little less of an emotional drive. That was someone that Tony really didn’t want near his kid.

 

Tony ignored the endless buzzing of someone, probably Pepper of May, trying to get him to take a break. Didn’t they understand how important this was? Didn’t they want Peter to be safe and with them too?

 

It took Tony three more hours until he was finished. He almost didn’t want to wait for some mushy goodbyes. That would only slow him down. But he knew that there was a chance that he would mess up and something could go wrong, so he had to say some sort of encouraging goodbye. Because there was a small chance that he wouldn’t be able to come back.

 

Tony carefully placed the space stone and the time stone in his new vibranium device. He had given the stubborn sorcerer a look and had easily acquired the time stone without much protest, only a quick remark about getting Peter back.

 

He hugged Pepper and May, nodded to almost everyone else and completely ignored Steve before leaving to finish packing. He wasn’t going unprepared and he wasn’t sure if his billionaire status would survive in a reality where he didn’t exist. He would rather not fuck up the economy if he could help it.

 

He brought all of Peter’s extra web-shooters including the Iron Spider one missing the other in it’s pair, He brought a few thousand USD and stuffed whatever he thought that he would need in his jacket pockets. His anxiety issue was kind of helpful when thinking of solutions to worst case scenarios. He just couldn’t stop thinking of worst case scenarios.

 

Before Tony could figure out how to create an interdimensional time traveling portal with the infinity stones, his fiance pleasantly interrupted him.

 

“Tony… When you find Peter, take a goddamn nap. I’m smart enough to know that you won’t be able to do it before but you have to promise me that you will if you have to. And by the way, I’m not going to be useless here if the titan decides to go after the rest of the stones. I’ll take one of your suits.”

 

“Well I hope you do, You can’t just fight the guy with your stilettos.” Tony smiled a little. After ten years of her saving his ass he knew for certain that she will not be a damsel in distress. If she could join the fight, she will and Tony didn’t have the right to stop her. “If you took the Avengers quinjet then there’s a special suit for you. I named it Rescue and you are going to kick so much ass.”

 

“Now May’s going to be jealous.” Pepper smiled and placed her hand on his jaw before gently bringing him in for a kiss.

 

“There’s got to be more shit that I crammed into that jet, She’ll find something.” He mumbled after the gentle kiss.

 

“I expect you back as fast as you can. Don’t you dare keep me waiting for long.” Pepper murmured in his ear as she wrapped her arms around him.

 

“I’m not coming back without Peter but I promise that I won’t take too long if I can help it. I love you.” Tony muttered back.

 

“I love you too. Now bring our kid home. I’m quite fond of him.” Pepper smiled and released him from the hug.

 

“That’s the plan. I have to go… I don’t like not knowing if Peter is unconscious in an alleyway in the seventies or if he’s just hanging upside down like the weird spider-kid that he is.”

 

“Then go. And try not to get stabbed this time.” Pepper teased and Tony barked out a laugh. He activated his version of the gauntlet which folded around his arm until it turned into a full, on brand, Iron Man gauntlet that went to his elbow. He had the blue space stone on the palm of the glove and one on the back of his hand. He lifted his hand like he was about to fire it’s repulser and aimed it at an empty wall.

 

A beam of green and blue light shot out of the repulser and a familiar portal opened in front of the wall. So that’s how it worked…

 

“Are you sure that you don’t want any backup?” Pepper asked while she looked in awe at the portal.

 

“Peter’s my backup.” Tony smiled and strolled into the portal. He waved a quick goodbye before the portal closed.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The small group of mutants left the restaurant and spider-Peter felt like he knew a lot more about what was going on. He found out about the events that happened a year ago that involved President Nixon and Magneto and a whole lot of chaos. (See ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past)

 

Fast Peter ended up stealing a hot dog anyway, making the other Peter go to the stall and pay for it because that was just the kind of person that he was.

 

Xavier stopped cloaking spider-Peters glowing soul stone eyes after they bought him a cheap pair of sunglasses to hide it. Peter felt like he was channeling his inner Tony Stark. He felt cool.

 

He was in the middle of telling his new superpowered friends about his reality when his enhanced hearing picked up on a familiar voice.

 

“Jesus Christ, I guess I have a fucking metal arm now…” Peter stopped any form of conversation and spun to where his hearing picked out the voice.

 

“Tony?” No answer. Maybe this universe did have a Tony Stark he was just normal…

 

“What the hell man you were just getting to the good part…” Speedy-Peter interrupted Spider-Peters thoughts.

 

“Sorry, I thought that I heard someone that I recognized…uh, where was I?”

 

“You were telling us about the alien invasion…” Mr. McCoy said.

 

“Right right…” Peter muttered. He was about to speak again when he heard Tony’s voice talk to himself coming from closer than before.

 

“What the hell, It says he’s right here…” This time Peter completely pivoted his body and ignored his mutant friends. He did hear the professor stop Mr. McCoy from saying something. Peter muttered something about being right back and he focused on following the voice.

 

“Tony!” Peter yelled and looked around the crowd.

 

“Peter?” Tony’s voice came from Peters left and he weaved in between the people, desperately trying to find his Tony. After a few seconds of franic looking, Peter found Tony who was looking around as quickly as he had been. Peter reacted quickly and he practically launched himself at his mentor.

 

As soon as Tony saw Peter, he looked just as relieved as when Peter first woke up in the wakandan hospital bed. Tony wasted no time in hugging his kid and for a short moment, everything seemed perfectly okay.

 

Then the pain started.

 

‘I’m sorry-’ The voice of the soul stone whispered before Peter’s vision turned white.

Notes:

Comments are always appreciated, Questions will always be answered and criticism will not be punished. I live on those long constructive comments and I love everyone who even takes the time to comment on my work. Artwork of this fic will be coming to my tumblr (GayGemGrump) soon. I have been having so much fun writing this and I can't wait to see what you all think.

Love you!

Chapter 24: Cruelty of Circumstance

Summary:

Peter appears somewhere else and learns more about the powers of the soul stone while Tony doesn't have as good of a time.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

‘Not too far… not too far.. Please… I just got him back-’ Peter thought to himself as he forced himself to not pass out. He knew that the jump was small because it didn’t take much of a toll on his body. A single reality jump had exhausted him more than this one and he didn’t know if it was because he was just getting used to it or if he had just stayed in the same reality. He found out pretty quickly when he was practically thrown into a stone wall.

 

He immediately recognized the place as Xavier's mansion but this time there were people his age and younger everywhere. Most of them were very obviously mutants, whether they had markings, blue skin, or were just openly using their powers. A few of them were looking at him but it seemed like popping into existence wasn’t completely out of the ordinary.

 

Peter took a moment for his head to stop spinning before using the wall behind him as a support to stand up. He looked at his unbandaged burn and sighed in relief when he saw that it had shrunk dramatically and didn’t hurt nearly as much. He guessed that the energy discharge had helped. But it didn’t help the first time when it had taken so much more energy to travel so much further.

 

Then it hit him. Control. He had to control the energy for it to be properly expelled. Otherwise it would control and destroy him. Peter sighed and was glad that it only took him a single accidental jump to figure it out.

 

He closed his eyes for a moment to use the soul stone.

 

‘Can you help me find Charles Xavier?’ he asked the sentient rock. He didn’t even have to wait for a response when his mind flew through a neon orange light styled replica of the area around him. He passed by students and immediately knew who they were. It was dizzying and it happened so quickly until the image in his head settled on a bald man in a wheelchair, inside of the school. ‘Thanks.’

 

‘You realize that you don’t have to ask to use my power Peter. I’ve given you full control for a reason.’ The soul stone whispered.

 

‘Yeah but I don’t want to betray your trust or anything you know?’ He replied mentally.

 

‘Thank you Peter. But I already know that you won’t betray my trust.’ Peter opened his eyes, back in the real world. He started walking casually as if he were just another superpowered student. He knew exactly what entrance and what hallways to go through from his soul vision or whatever so he didn’t get lost. That would’ve been embarrassing.

 

Professor Xavier, as his name implied, was a professor. So Peter wasn’t surprised to see that he was teaching a class. Peter waited outside of the room and used his enhanced hearing to listen to the lesson. The professor was talking about genetics and the specific gene that made mutants so special. To Peter it was fascinating but he knew that not everyone was enjoying it, as he heard snoring from the classroom.

 

He waited for fifteen minutes before he used the soul stone to broadcast his voice into Xaviers head. ‘Hey professor, It’s been a while.’ The classroom was quiet for a moment before Peter heard Xavier dismiss the class.

 

Peter watched a bunch of younger students excitedly run out of the classroom while he waited for the professor to wheel himself out. It took a moment but they both smiled when they saw each other. Xavier looked mostly the same besides the complete lack of hair where there used to sit glorious locks. Peter assumed that not a dramatic amount of time passed but something happened for Xavier to lose all of his hair.

 

“You look exactly like the last time I saw you Peter… You’re even wearing that bloody metallica shirt.” Peter laughed.

 

“Well don’t be surprised. I saw you less than an hour ago in my timeline. Apparently controlling this quantum energy shit is harder than it looks. I’m surprised that I stayed in the same reality to be honest…” Peter shrugged.

 

“Well you’re only a decade late and I for one am proud of you. And you said this was your first time trying to control the quantum energy? I’m impressed.” Xavier motioned for Peter to walk beside him. Peter smiled at the complement. He was so sure that he fucked everything up that he didn’t realize what he had actually accomplished. He was in a familiar place, with people that he, at least sort of, knew.

 

“Yeah, and because of that, I’m going to need a nap eventually. It’s not as bad as the first time though so I guess i’m getting used to being a randomly transporting living vessel.” Peter joked. “What happened to your hair? Do you want me to buy you extensions or…” this made Xavier laugh.

 

“No, it’s just a side effect from a recent prevention of the apocalypse. I do miss it sometimes though.” He combed his hand through some non existent hair and looked slightly disappointed.

 

“At least you still have eyebrows right?” Peter teased.

 

“I suppose. If it’s only been minutes since your quantum energy… problem, How’s the injury? Has it gotten better after releasing some of the energy? I see you aren’t using the stone as a cosmic pain reliever at least.”

 

“Yeah, It’s a lot better. It’s not permanent but at least I can kinda control it. I mean, It still hurts and I don’t know if my healing factor can take care of it, but at least I won’t randomly pop out of this reality and appear in a different one. Without any sort of control…” Peter realized that trying to see the bright side was hard. He was just ripped from Tony again and he had no idea about the actual condition of his arm. The quantum energy was kind of ruining everything and he felt like he couldn’t do anything about it.

 

“It’s been like ten years but do you remember what happened after I…” Peter started.

 

“I can show you. Come closer.” Xavier put the index and middle fingers of both hands on Peter’s temples and they both closed their eyes.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

One moment, Peter was in Tony’s arms, safe and unharmed, then Tony felt his kids muscles tense up and a tiny noise of pain escaped him before he was just… gone.

 

In an instant, Tony’s arms were empty and it was like it was happening again. Peter desperate for assurance and any sort of stability and of course as always, Tony had failed him. And he had disappeared with a poorly hidden reaction of unbearable pain and a fucking apology. Because or course little Peter Parker would apologize before he died. Of fucking course.

 

This was when Tony focused on the horribly familiar feeling that he had experienced every time he thought about space or portals or sometimes even pools of water. He felt the beginnings of a fucking panic attack.He was out of breath and his limbs felt stupidly weak. He stumbled to an empty alleyway and tried to force himself to control his breathing. Dammit, he had so much practice, he went to a therapist in india for gods sake and now he couldn’t keep himself from freaking out? Pathetic.

 

‘Peter’s going to be okay. You haven’t lost him again.’ A surprise male british voice came from… actually it was in his head. Was Tony going crazy now?

 

‘You aren’t going crazy. When you recover everything will be explained.’ The calm voice assured. It took another minute but Tony took control of his breathing and heart rate enough to open his eyes and focus on anything else besides his severe panic attack. To his side, out of the alleyway was a man in a wheelchair, at least twenty years younger than Tony.

 

“Tony Stark, I am Professor Charles Xavier. And I’m here to help you.” The same voice from his head came out of the man's mouth. Weird but not the weirdest thing in the world. This guy was some kind of telepath which Tony has not had much luck with in the past. But Tony read this man and he couldn’t see any ill intentions. Just a stoik kindness that not even Rogers could emulate.

 

Tony decided not to ask about the whole psychic thing and he stood up.

 

“Sorry, hello. I guess you already know my name. Let’s cut to the chase, how can you help me? I just need to know where and when he went so that I can get to him.” Tony forced himself back into business mode which was strictly no feelings, only information. He couldn't show any more weakness to the guy he just met. With mind powers too holy shit. Tony did not want to get on they guys bad side.

 

“I met your son a few days ago when he appeared in this reality. In this reality there are.. People like him. People who have DNA that divides from normal humans basically-” Xavier started.

 

“Number one, He’s not my son. Two, you can use big words, I graduated from MIT when I was seventeen with a PHD. Continue.” Xavier smirked knowingly before he decided to continue.

 

“I kept track of him while he was out of our sight trying to find you and I heard where he was aiming for when he realized he was being transported away. I can help you find out when he landed. Then you can be reunited for good this time.” The professor promised. Tony sighed. He didn’t have much to lose and he did have two infinity stones so if the guy tried to mind control him or whatever, he would turn him into a baby or Patrick Stuart, or teleport him somewhere not wheelchair accessible. That’ll show him.

 

“Fine.. wait our? Who are you with?” Tony raised an eyebrow.

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll introduce you.” Xavier motioned for him to follow. Tony just rolled his eyes a little.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“So why am I training with the current set of X-Men? I don’t exactly have powers like that. I don’t have laser eyes or Thor powers…” Peter said as he nervously followed Professor Xavier through a secret entrance and down to the combat training areas.

 

“Now now, Don’t underestimate yourself Peter. You may not be able to control the weather but you are just as powerful as our mutant friends. Even without the soul stone. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Peter rolled his eyes a little. There was no way his fast reflexes were anything compared to a teenager who was telepathic and could literally turn into a fiery energy that could destroy anything in its path.

 

They entered a room with a futuristic silver door and a handful of people were casually talking. Three of them were blue, one of which looked like a scaley female with bright red hair, The other Peter recognized as Mr. McCoy in his full form and the other one had fangs and a tail that reminded him of satan. But he looked pleasant enough. There was a boy with brown hair and odd red tinted goggles over his eyes. There was the redhead that he had been informed about. She was a little crazy powerful but she looked pretty level headed at least. There was also a black girl with a rad white mohawk. And lastly, There was someone he recognized.

 

“Spider Peter! It’s been a while bro!” Both Peters smiled at each other.

 

“Well for you, It hasn’t been too long for me. Hopefully I won’t be flashing out of existence any time soon.” They fist bumped and the rest of the X-Men looked slightly confused that they knew each other. Spider-Peter then turned to Beast and waved. “Hi Mr. McCoy! I see you embraced your furry side!”

 

“I still don’t know what that means but I’m glad to see you too Pete.” Beast said politely.

 

“I guess we need some introductions. Everyone gather round. We have an honorary member. This is Peter Parker. He’s from an alternate dimension. He’s his reatities version of a Mutant. Peter, this is Peter,” Both Peters snorted at the same time then glared at each other for a second before dissolving in a quick fit of giggles. “This is Ororo or Storm, Jean, Scott, Kurt and Mystique.” Peter smiled at everyone as they were pointed out to him. The soul stone may have already provided him with names and powers but he wasn’t going to tell them that.

 

“It’s nice to meet all of you. As the professor said, I’m Peter, keeper of the soul stone. I went through a genetic mutation which allowed me a few powers. I hope I can keep up with you all.” Peter smiled. He was bad at introductions and all of the attention made him slightly uncomfortable.

 

“Powers like…” Mystique urged him to continue.

 

“Superhuman strength, reflexes, senses, healing, agility, equilibrium, I also have a sixth sense and selective electro-magnetic wall crawling basically. I think that’s it but I could be missing something. Honestly I haven’t done much experimentation.” Peter shrugged. His ‘powers’ didn’t seem very special compared to everyone else, but most of his superhuman abilities were to the extreme. He could heal from a gunshot wound in less than three days, He could lift a dozen tons of concrete over his head, He could balance on a thread of webbing… he was far from powerless.

 

“Interesting. Have you had any formal training?” The blue woman continued.

 

“Bi-weekly since I was fifteen. So, about two years. I couldn’t really spar against any normal humans though… I didn’t want to accidentally hurt them.” Peter shrugged. “I mean if I could pick several tons of concrete off of my back, I can’t imagine what I could do if I let my physical strength get the best of me.” A bunch of the people in the room nodded, they obviously understood what it was like to not be completely in control or to accidentally hurt someone.

 

Peter felt a lot better as he couldn’t relate to very many people in his own reality. As far as Peter knew, Tony wasn’t afraid of hurting someone without trying. Thinking about it, Peter had never really met anyone who could completely empathise with him. With the X-Men he felt the same kind of comradery as a support group. A support group for self aware mutant humans. It had a nice ring to it.

 

“Well, I can’t just take your word for it. It’s time for some tests. This’ll be fun.” Mystique smiled and Peter knew that this was going to be a long day.

Notes:

I like COMMENTS, if you like something, TELL ME, if you don't like something, TELL ME, if you have questions, TELL ME, if you have ideas for alternate realities that you want me to include before Peter figures his shit out, COMMENT or CONTACT ME ON MY TUMBLR (GayGemGrump)

anyway, I love you all for reading my shit and I'm glad that people like it.

(btw, I'm starting my senior year of hs soon so I won't be able to update as often. I'll still update but it will be slowed down, I'm sorry for the inconvenience.)

Chapter 25: Not Alone

Summary:

Peter works with the X-Men

Peter then stops working with the X-Men

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It turned out that training with the X-Men was super fun as well as kind of weird. Peter wasn’t used to fighting in a group. Even fighting Thanos with the guardians, Peter was mostly a distraction and a the one to catch people (Mostly the guardians) when they were flicked away by the mad titan. Peter was never on the front lines when he wasn’t going solo.

 

He found himself fighting alongside the more physical mutants which happened to be the blue ones. Especially Mystique and Kurt. Most of their technique was similar to what he was capable of. Using their speed and agility to their advantage rather than just brute force. Peter learned quite a few moves from them both. Peter was now a little more agile with using his feet and legs just in case his arms and hands were less than mobile. So that was cool.

 

He tired out much later than most of the other X-Men. The kids of the group were mostly non-physical. Mind powers, lightning, and laser eyes allowed that to be an option. Quicksilver Peter didn’t seem to have the ability to get tired and Spidey-Peter was not going to let his namesake beat him in anything. Beast, Nightcrawler and Mystique got tired at reasonable times, and Xavier just watched from his wheelchair because it wasn’t like he was going to mystically stand up and start fighting the training robots with his fists.

 

During the training session, Spider-Peter managed to avoid using the soul stone, even though he totally could’ve. The infinity stone was, much more powerful than everyone else knew. Peter was even sure that Thanos and Gamora had no idea what the stone was truly capable of.

 

The soul was much more extensive than anyone had realized. If the soul stone had opened up to Thanos about the reality of its abilities, He would’ve been more than unstoppable. He would’ve become a full on biblical god and it was terrifying to think. Peter was glad that he was the only one to know about the true nature of the soul stone. Without their efforts, there would’ve been no going back from the genocide.

 

Peter easily ripped the head off of a massive robot and knocked it’s legs out from under it so that it would fall the way Peter wanted it to.

 

He had a silent friendly rivalry with Silver-Peter. Silver-Peter was definitely aware of it as he slowed down enough for Spidey-Peter to see him hold up a count of how many training robots he had taken down. They were pretty evenly matched. Speedy-Peter would take a bunch of them out sequentially and Spidey-Peter would take a large group of them out at one time.

 

The training was over when Spidey-Peter climbed on one of the large robots and found it’s control panel. He ripped off the cover and easily reprogrammed the signal to the other robots so they all just fell over and died. Peter knew that they were getting the same commands from somewhere and all he had to do was block that signal. It made the robots confused and useless.

 

In a gust of wind, Speedy-Peter appeared near where Spidey-Peter had landed.

 

“Party pooper.. I was at fifty-nine…” Silver Peter took off his goggles and fixed his crazy hair.

 

“Sixty-one.” Spider-Peter grinned and was suddenly self aware if his own messy hair. He couldn’t kick mechanical ass without looking like a mad scientist who got in the crazy game way too early. And his hair was actually long enough to not be perfect if he kept going upside down and being slammed against things. Bummer.

 

“Liar…” Silver-Peter bickered as he zipped back and ripped the legs off of four of the frazzled robots.

 

“That doesn’t count… They were already beaten.” Spider-Peter said as his silver counterpart stuck out his tongue. Spider-Peter felt a Lord of the Rings scene flashback but didn’t share as those movies wouldn’t come out in about twenty years in this universe and no one would get the joke.

 

“They still had power…” Silver-Peter attempted while Spider-Peter raised his eyebrow. Professor Xavier interrupted by dragging Spider-Peter away to get a shower and to give him one of the guest teacher kind of bedroom suites. Peter agreed as he was pretty sweaty from several hours of physical training.

 

Once Peter was left alone, he took a quick shower and tried not to think too much. However his brain didn’t get the memo and he fell into a spiral of thoughts surrounding his spontaneous reality transporting and the man desperately trying to follow him.

 

Would he be able to get back to his own reality? Would Tony be able to find him again? How long until the quantum energy runs out? What other alternate realities are out there and could he get stuck in them? Why the fuck wasn’t he more freaked out about this? What if Thanos got to the Avengers before he could get back with the soul stone?

 

‘We are going to fix this Peter. Your journey isn’t near it’s end but I promise you won’t regret making it.’ The soul stones soft voice interrupted his panicked thoughts. ‘Focus on the present. The future is inevitable so why worry?’

 

“I don’t like not knowing things…” Peter muttered quietly to himself rather than in his head to the soul stone.

 

‘Where’s the adventure in that? Would you watch a movie if you already knew what happens?’

 

“Yeah…”

 

‘But it’s not the same as the first time. With no clue about the outcome and what it took to get there… every new moment is exciting and a surprise. Focus on the moment Peter, Do not worry about the future. You may not be able to afford to.’ The souls stone didn’t sound threatening, just stating a sad fact. Peter knew that this would mean that soon thing will get crazy. Events happened at breakneck speed and Peter wasn’t always sure how to deal with them. So he tried to move on and focus his energy on something else rather than his trauma. Sometimes he had no choice but to confront it though. He was dreading for when he had to do that.

 

“Peter?” Xaviers voice echoed clearly in his head. “Maximoff has graciously donated some spare clothes for you, we’re meeting in an hour to discuss your situation and how we can help you. We have very limited information on your situation from your last visit. Also we have food and with your enhanced metabolism, you'll need it.”

 

Peter thought a quick ‘Thank you’ but wasn’t sure if the mind-reader heard it. He left the shower and changed into the pair of black jeans that were a little too long and a Black Sabbath t-shirt. He put on his shoes and put both of his web-shooters on, It felt weird to not have them on now.

 

Besides the silver jacket and goggles, Peter Maximoff and casual eighties Tony Stark had practically the same sense of style.

 

Peter made sure that his wavy hair wasn’t too messy before he opened his window. He was a few floors up in the teachers wing of the castle-like house. Peter decided to hang out outside until it was time for the X-Men meeting thing. He jumped out of the window and didn’t even bother using his webs, he just landed on his feet and started walking around the grounds.

 

He let his mind wander as he passed by a lake. He tried to rationalize that the quantum energy would run out and then he’d find a way home but he didn’t know where his last jump would leave him. Would he end up in a place where he could even access quantum energy? He really didn’t want to end up in an ultra ancient civilization or in the middle of a war. That would make things a lot harder. He would have to rediscover the Pym particle and find a way out of the quantum realm at leas. Not an easy task when you’re too busy trying not to get the black plague.

 

Peter sat on a bench and tried to rationalise his thoughts. After a few minutes he heard footsteps through the grass behind him. His spider sense didn’t go off and he didn’t want to use the soul stone to figure out who was approaching him so he just stayed motionless. Or as motionless as a fidgety spider-human can be.

 

He did look over when she came into his view. It was the redhead girl with mind powers. The soul stone helped him out by putting her name in his head.

 

“Hello Jean. To what do I owe the pleasure?” He imitated the professors accent to keep the mood light. He knew that she heard his thoughts whether either of them wanted to or not.

 

“Hey Peter. I just have some questions. About the soul stone.” Peter nodded, indicating for her to continue. “I can hear her.. Is she like, in your head?”

 

“Yeah. they’re kinda connected to me, even if I’m not physically connected to the stone.” He showed her the unactivated gauntlet with the stone being contained on the back of his hand. “They talk to me sometimes so I can imagine that you could hear the link. They kinda keep me from freaking out and feeling alone.” He smiled a little.

 

“Why? Why is this stone connected to you? What happened in your reality for this to happen?” Jean continued through her questions.

 

“Well it started out with a titan. A huge purple alien asshole who wanted to ‘fix’ overpopulation.” Peter used air quotes. “To do that, he collected all six of these powerful cosmic singularities. Once he had them all... he snapped, and he achieved his goal. Half of all life in our universe was taken away. Taken to the soul stone.

 

I was one of them. But it was different for me though… When I… died… my mutation fought back. It was slow and much more painful than it should’ve been and it failed. I disintegrated into ash in the arms of my hero. But for some reason, the soul stone chose to save me.

 

They sent me to a different reality, one where I was already dead. They tried to give me a new home but I couldn’t leave everyone behind. I made this device that is powered by quantum energy and I got back to my reality. But not the right time and the quantum battery malfunctioned and accidentally transferred all of its energy into my body. That’s what’s making me travel. It becomes too much for my body and forces me to leave my current reality and time with no end in sight and no knowledge of where I’m going to be next.

 

I think the soul stone chose me because of my mutation. I can physically handle using a cosmic singularity to reverse the biggest genocide in existence. Sure I passed out for a few days afterward but I saved them. My healing factor is strong enough to endure what no one else can. And the stone also said something about me having good morals too. They knew that I don’t let my emotions get the best of my powers, even when I’m really angry, I physically have to hold myself back.” Peter found himself rambling and was about to apologise before he heard Jeans voice in his head. He was getting a little tired of hearing voices. He felt crazy.

 

‘Don’t apologise. I asked. But there’s much more, right?’

 

“I’m going to show everyone at the meeting. No reason to relive trauma twice, you know?” He sighed. He figured he had given her enough information to keep her satisfied for an hour. Sure she could make him give her what she wanted but he knew that she wasn’t going to.

 

“Well I got more insight than I thought that I would get so, thanks I guess.” Jean said casually as Peter shrugged in response. “I’m not exactly an adult so I don’t usually get as much information as they don’t think that I’m ready for it. I usually have to use my powers just to get anything out of them.”

 

“I guess it’s a little harder to have secrets with a telekinetic telepathic.” Peter smiled. “But you’re even more than that right?”

 

“I’ve only been more than that once. About a year ago. During our own near-apocalypse. I didn’t know that I could even do it.” She muttered.

 

“We don’t know a lot of things about ourselves. I don’t know if I can sprout four more arms, I’ve never tried. The soul stone had to tell me what they could do and it took almost an hour in a thai food restaurant a decade ago in your timeline and only hours ago in mine. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what they have given me power of. And honestly… I’m kind of scared. I don’t know if I can handle that type of power.” Jean nodded in perfect understanding. Before she could respond with a coherent thought, a blast of wind hit them and SIlver-Peter stood in front of them.

 

“The professor wanted me to come get you guys. And don’t make scott too jealous, You don’t need telepathy to know that he has a thing for you.” Speedy-Peter pointed at jean who just shrugged. Spider-Peter sighed. He’d have to face everyone with his situation. And because he wanted help, He was not going to hold anything back.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“So we have no idea what we’re doing, correct?” Tony sighed. He had followed this telepathic guy into a car, then into a castle-y mansion, then into a weird spherical metal chamber. He was antsy and needed to get to his kid. He got fidgetly when he was worried. He had to physically control his breaths at multiple points in the last few hours.

 

He was not having a good time even in this fascinating world of powerful people. They had a fluffy blue hulk and a guy who controls metal that’s very anti-nazi. Any other time, Tony would have loved to learn more.

 

“Patience Mr. Stark. I know you’re worried about Peter but you should try to keep a level head.” Charles said calmly. Tony tried to keep his composure based on this guys obvious lack of worry despite his clearly caring personality. Tony came to the conclusion that the guy was trying to manipulate him or he genuinely didn’t think that Peter was in trouble. He planned on finding out which one it was.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Alright Peter, We need to know what you’re dealing with so that we can figure out how to help you.” Professor Xavier said from his spot at the metal meeting table. The X-Men sat around it, there was no one there that he hasn’t met. These were his friends, he had to remind himself.

 

“Of course. I’m not good with words and I need to get used to using the soul stone so I’ll just show you. Everyone, Please close your eyes.” Everyone obeyed without an ounce of hesitation and it felt good to have such instant trust.

 

‘Let’s just show them the mandatory bits.. I don’t want to accidentally throw my life's story at people I’ve known for a few hours.’ Peter thought to the soul stone.

 

‘I’ll show them what I want to show them.’ The stone said stubbornly and Peter didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. He really didn’t want them knowing everything, that would just be rude. He just wanted the stuff that will help him find a way home, permanently.

 

Peter’s eyes glowed with the fire of the soul stone and before he knew it, the soul stone showed them everything.

 

From Gamora's sacrifice, Peter’s death and the beginnings of his travels through realities and time, to when he stole the infinity stones still in it’s gauntlet, brought everyone back and discovered the extent of his quantum burn. Then he saw what had happened immediately afterward. Peter didn’t know that he had been dropped violently against the mansion and he was passed out and bleeding when Mr. McCoy found him and rushed him to the medical part of the former and future school.

 

He saw the past Professor Xavier, put his pointer and middle fingers on Peters temples. Xavier saw everything. He knew everything all along. His intentions were to find out what Peter was but he got much more than he bargained for. Xavier even spoke with the soul stone.

 

They were all shown everything up until Peter found Tony and instantly lost him. The soul stone gave them limited knowledge of the infinity stones and quantum energy so everyone was on the same page.

 

Then the stone released them and everyone needed a moment to catch their breaths. Including Peter Parker. He had to support himself on the table as he was just shaking so badly. He felt everything exactly how he felt it when it happened. He still felt the phantom pains of being torn apart and being shot. His shoulder ached and his whole body felt sore. His quantum burn hurt but he didn’t know if it was because he had relieved getting it or if it was because it was charging up to transport him somewhere else.

 

Voices felt far away and he didn’t realize that he was disassociating until Jean poked her way into his mind. Peter forced himself to get a grip and come back to reality. He wiped his annoyingly wet a little too roughly and coughed the choked feeling out of his throat.

 

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to show you that much. I don’t think you guys needed to know that I got shot a little more than a week ago. Anyway, I think I have two options-” Peter forced out of his mouth and tried to not look at anyone's faces.

 

“Peter… You need a moment. And so do we. You just showed us a lot of information.” Xavier said calmly and thankfully, in a non-patronizing way.

 

“I’m fine. Anyway I have two options basically. Get more quantum energy so that I can properly power my device or just wait for the energy in my arm to drain. There’s just the problem of how it might not even do that. It takes longer every time but the power overflow is what ends up taking me to other realities and times. That means its reproducing. So I find a solution in this universe or Tony finds me or I’ll get transported somewhere else. I don’t think that there are many more options for me. If you have one, I’d like to hear it.” Peter rambled.

 

“Dude, I’m still not over the fact that you died…” Speedy-Peter said, causing Spidey-Peter to laugh.

 

“Neither am I…” Spidey-Peter sighed.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter stayed with the X-Men for over a week with no sign of an answer, whether it was Tony finding him or finding any sort of solution to his problem. Every day he woke up with his arm throbbing worse and worse and he was convinced that that would be the day that he would be dropped into a new situation. He didn’t know if the next universe would be as kind to him as this one was.

 

He spent his time training and sitting in classes. He didn’t know what else to do. He had no idea how to get quantum energy and he had no idea if Tony would be able to find him. It was wearing him down. He didn’t tell them that he suffered from nightmares on top of it. He didn’t know these people so why should they care?

 

This morning, He woke up from a nightmare with his quantum burn hurting worse than it had in awhile. Peter refused to use the soul stone as a kind of pain reliever. He knew the level that it hurt the most to indicate when he would leave this reality. He wanted to have a basic knowledge of when it would happen so the Tony hug wouldn’t happen again.

 

The burn covered Peters whole forearm and was starting to climb up his hand. It glowed dangerously and every heartbeat sent a new wave of pain to the limb. He hoped that it would just get it over with and leave him in a new reality. Just to stop the pain but he just had to wait. Every minute was agony.

 

Professor Xavier even tried to get him to use the soul stone for some kind of pain relief but Peter refused. He wanted to know the exact moment that it happened. He needed to try to stay awake so that he wouldn’t injure himself this time. He needed to get used to it. He had no idea how many times he would have to go through it. He needed to get better at controlling it.

 

He needed to fix it. He just couldn’t think of a way. What was the point in being smart if you couldn’t fix your own goddamn problems in less than a week? He had worked with some of the smartest people in the world and he couldn’t figure out this one damn problem. The one problem that is too important not to find a way to fix. Well that’s not true but Peter’s priority was to stop being a multi-reality nomad without the ability to get himself home.

 

To May, To Tony, To Pepper and Gamora… To Ned and MJ… He even missed his spanish teacher that got pissed off when he got an answer right even when he wasn’t paying attention from being sleep deprived.

 

So when he was sunbathing on top of the mansion, desperately trying to ignore the pain in his arm, He knew the familiar feeling like lightning across his body and this time he welcomed it. He needed the energy trapped in his body to leave and he needed something new to work with. He was ready for a different universe.

 

He had known it was going to happen. They had all known. Peter was just surprised that it took so long this time. Were they getting longer like he had guessed? It would make sense when he thought about it. His body would adapt to the energy and maybe it would hurt him less. He didn’t quite know.

 

Peter was engulfed in white and he desperately tried to control the energy this time. He thought of his home, he thought of people that he loved… so he was disappointed when he appeared somewhere that he didn’t remotely recognize.

 

It felt like a different planet, it looked like a different planet.

 

Buildings rose up from the ground looking like shards of glass coated in gold, There were other buildings that were brightly colored and oddly decorated.

 

‘Hey uh soul stone? Do you know where we are?’ he thought to them. Peter looked behind him and his eyebrows raised as the soul stone answered his question.

 

‘We’re still on Earth. Reality 542012, in New Sakaar.’

 

Peter’s eyes landed on a statue and everything made sense. Or sort of.

 

A giant statue of Loki stood proudly and looked down on him as it was easily the tallest thing in the city.

 

“Oh shit.”

Notes:

Plot twist! What do you guys think that this reality is going to be? Theories, Questions, comments, concerns, and basically everything is appreciated in the comments. I like them a whole lot more than any other thing tbh. Anyway, I'm starting my senior year of high school so I apologise if chapters aren't out as often. I will try my hardest to keep dishing them out like shitty cafeteria food.

BTW: THANK YOU GUYS FOR (as of right after this is posted) 10,000 HITS, I AM VERY HAPPY WITH THE AMOUNT OF FEEDBACK AND SUPPORT THAT I HAVE BEEN GETTING! ANYWAY ILY AND I'LL SEE YOU GUYS SOON!

(Follow me on tumblr:@GayGemGrump, I'll be posting stuff related to this fic and lots of Tony Stark, Irondad and Peter Parker content so be prepared if you follow me.)

Chapter 26: Reality 542012: The King of Earth

Summary:

Peter explores a new reality and finds out he's in for an extended stay.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

May 4th, 2012: Avengers fail to save the earth from Loki. Tony Stark has not been seen since and the rest of the Avengers are under the influence of the mind stone. The best fighters and any enhanced individuals were collected and sent to a fighting arena for violent entertainment.

 

Loki had implemented a planet-wide government that revolved around him and Earth was opened up to the rest of the universe as another trade partner and diverse vacation destination. After the destruction of New York City from whole Chitauri invasion, Loki rebuild the city inspired by his home and generally wasn’t that bad of a leader. At least compared to Trump and Hitler.

 

Loki’s ideals were vaguely communistic but weren’t extreme in any way. There were still billions of living humans living contently with the visiting alien species and televised gladiator matches. Loki wasn’t responsible enough to control a complete monarchy, So he did all of the fun parts of the job while letting much of the governments stay the same. He seemed to want to be more of a celebrity than an actual king.

 

Peter crawled down the tall, oddly shaped skyscraper and tried to be as inconspicuous as he could. He noticed that he was still wearing the X-Men uniform jumpsuit that made him look kind of like a secret agent so that was cool. It was made of a thin but durable black fabric with the yellow X-Men logo on the shoulder. It was lightly armoured but still surprisingly flexible. Peter had decided against the gloves that the uniform would normally feature. He wanted to make sure that his web-shooter and quantum gauntlet to be completely accessible.

 

Peter hid for a moment in an alleyway, trying to decide what the best course of action would be when he heard a frightened scream along with the sound of a woman begging for her life.

 

Peter completely forgot about his alternate reality situation as his superhero instincts took off. He followed the sound and saw a human baby in the arms of an equally human baby while an masked figure towering over their huddled forms. The guy was at least seven feet tall and his growls sounded very not human.

 

“Ew dude, get away from them. I don’t think they’re having a great time.” Peter said calmly. Random robed tall guys didn’t scare him after the whole Thanos thing. It was like comparing a lion to a house cat. Sure the domestic versions were arguably dangerous but they were nothing compared to their wild counterparts.

 

The tall guy turned to him while the woman looked terrified but relieved. The baby had no idea what the fuck was going on but was crying because of their panicked mother. The man tilted his head in the horror movie way that gave Peter chills. At least the guys mask was of some weird animal and not of a clown. Clowns were so much worse. Jesus, now Peter was thinking about clowns.

 

“Step away from the baby dude, or else I will be forced to engage.” Peter threatened despite being three whole feet smaller than the masked guy. That was the height of a small child...

 

The masked man growled and didn’t move from in front of the woman and her child. Peter activated the gauntlet in a swift smooth movement. The scarlet metal unfolded around his palm and the light blue light of the repulser lit up dramatically. Peter aimed his palm at the man and smiled calmly. Normally he wouldn’t resort to just using the gauntlet but he wasn’t quite sure if he could take the guy down with just webs. Besides if he needed to, he still had one hand equipped with the classic Spider-Man tech.

 

“Don’t make this complicated. Get away from them.” This time the man seemed to understand. And he took Peters words in a way that he didn’t want him to take them in. The huge man launched himself at Peter who did his best not to yelp in surprise. He could only thank his fast reflexes for getting him out of the man's path. “Come on, you know that’s not what I meant!” He said as the man spun back around and got ready for another attack.

 

Peter positioned himself so that the victims would be away from the fight. He was kind of shocked when the man finally spoke.

 

“You aren’t a normal terran are you?” His voice was low and gravelly like he had been smoking in combination with being an enthusiastic Darth Vader imitator.

 

“You don’t look very earthy yourself pal.” Peter quipped back.

 

“We thought we got the last of them…” The man grumbled. “We wonder what price a little one will fetch us.”

 

“We as in like there’s more of you or we like all seven of your personalities?” Peter raised a cautious eyebrow. The whole ‘we’ thing was kind of creepy.

 

“Why don’t you ask them.” The man sounded like he was smirking under his mask when Peter’s spider senses burst into action. He ducked as a presence behind him thrusted an odd sword into the space that he previously occupied. He transferred all of his weight to his hands and used the attackers close proximity to him to his advantage.

 

He quickly slid his legs under his attackers and used his arms to flip himself upright, bringing the attackers down with his legs. He shot their hands, one with a repulser and one with his webs. He noticed that the woman and the baby had escaped and he breathed a sigh of relief before everything went wrong.

 

He reacted to his spider sense too slowly and a sharp pain came from his neck before he was engulfed in blinding white pain that caused him to collapse to the ground. The electricity caused his muscles to spasm violently. It sucked.

 

Peter was barely able to breathe for the eternity that the electricity pulsed though his body. When he was graciously released from the pain, he saw a boot approach his face before everything went black.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter woke up with a cold chill in his bones. Besides the cold, he immediately noticed the lack of weight on his wrists. He sat up on the hard surface that he had been laying on and he looked at his empty wrists. No web-shooter, no quantum gauntlet, no soul stone.

 

A sudden feeling of anxiety lodged itself in his throat as he felt the lack of the soul stone’s warmth in his mind. For a moment he could only hear his own rapidly increasing heart rate. He tried to ground himself with the feeling of the cold metal under him but it took several minutes.

 

He looked at his wrist and saw the glow of the quantum burn dimly pulsing with his heartbeat. He had no idea about what would happen if the energy didn’t have any kind of outlet. He guessed that it would just hurt until he exploded. Cool, It wasn’t like mortal peril was anything new. For a while he was constantly about to die so he just sighed in response to the new knowledge.

 

He looked around the dimly lit room that he was held in. It was painted in bright colors and didn’t look like any prison cell that he had ever seen, although he didn’t have much experience other than what he saw on Netflix using Tony’s account.

 

He lifted his hand to where he just noticed a dull sting and his fingers touched a cold metal device on his throat. It was in the shape of a disk and he felt a slightly raised lump in the middle. Again he had trouble breathing. This time with no calming voice in his head from anyone. No Professor Xavier, No soul stone, No Jean Gray, Just Peter. And Peter was not known for staying calm. One of his powers was a glorified anxiety disorder for god's sake!

 

He pressed his thumb on the burn, hoping that the pain would ground him back to reality, at least for a moment. He needed a plan. He needed to focus. He needed to find the soul stone and get out of wherever he was. He needed to get a fucking grip. He didn’t have anyone to help him this time and he wasn’t sure about what to do.

 

He remembered the guy from before, saying that Peter was not completely human and that they were catching people like him. Probably to prevent some kind of uprising against Loki, which would make sense. So he was kind of captured but he wasn't even handcuffed. Only the small device on his neck that seemed to be the source of electrocuting him before he passed out.

 

Cool, he just had a more convenient version of a shock collar. But couldn’t he just pull it out? He was easily strong enough as long as an automatic shock didn’t go off… He wasn’t going to try it any time soon. He could spend a minute practically pain free.

 

Peter looked around the room and saw an opening behind him big enough for the Hulk to comfortably fit through. He stood up and approached the opening suspiciously. Before he could go through it, his spider sense forced him to stumble away from it. It would go off if he left the room. That was kind of cruel, leaving it open like that. Just an illusion of freedom.

 

He sat back down on the metal table that had served as his bed and he tried to think of a solution that wouldn't require ripping a metal implant from his throat.

 

He didn’t have to wait very long as he soon heard steady footsteps approaching him. His spider sense buzzed in the back of his skull but not hard enough for him to believe that he was in serious danger. Potential danger at most. If he said the right things then he was likely to not get hurt at all. The perfect situation for a person who had no idea about what was going on in a universe he definitely didn’t belong in.

 

“Can you understand the surprise I felt when I found an infinity stone in the hands of a mortal child. It was so easy to get it that it was almost humorous.” A familiar british accent said calmly.

 

“I was going to ask to what I owe the pleasure but you explained it pretty well. Nice statue by the way,” Peter smiled at Loki who seemed slightly confused by Peters lack of fear towards him. It would’ve been different if Peter didn’t bring back his own realities Loki and meet him.

 

“Not only that, but you’re not a normal mortal either. I’m curious to know what you are. I’ve been all around the nine realms and I have never seen anyone quite like you. I am, frankly, interested.” Loki smiled in what Peter immediately recognized as a condescending way.

 

“Like most of the heroes on this planet that you have encountered, I am the result of an accident. A whole lot of accidents. And now I’m stuck here. What are you planning on doing with me and the soul stone? Give us to Thanos? I’m sure he would love the only stone that was lost…” Peter said while avoiding eye contact with Loki.

 

He didn’t want to even think about seeing Thanos again. That was the guy who haunted his nightmares and whose voice sent chills down his spine. Just thinking about facing his killer again made him want to curl up in a ball and cry. Just thinking of Thanos made Peter dig his nails into his palms just to confirm that they were still there and not disappearing.

 

“Only the soul stone is leaving my presence. I have plans for you. We haven’t had a new contestant in a while. It was starting to get boring. I am actually excited to find out how well you fare against your heroes. Hopefully you can at least handle one of them. It would be a shame for you to be eliminated before you’ve had a chance to throw a punch.” Loki smiled a little and Peter stiffened when he realized what that meant.

 

He couldn’t let Thanos get the soul stone, He really didn’t what to fight his friends that he had idolized for years. He prayed that he wouldn’t have to fight Tony. Anyone but Tony. And he didn’t want to fight the Hulk or Thor. He might be able to handle himself against the other Avengers though. The slightly less superhuman ones. That were all highly trained in combat. Peter was not excited.

 

“How are you going to make them fight me? Oh yeah, the mind stone! You have them all under mind control right? Thank god you couldn’t use it on Tony… He would be the last person that I would want to fight against my will. I mean he doesn’t know me in this reality… I wonder what happened to me… I could’ve died in the New York attack or I could totally still be alive with my totally alive family. It really makes you wonder…” Peter kind of rambled. It’s what he tended to do when he was nervous. Either talk too much or stay weirdly silent.

 

“You should be elated that I’m not interrogating you. Getting information would be even easier than capturing you. Anyway I hope you aren’t emotionally attached to that outfit, I can’t have my gladiators without a sense of style. I’m all for dramatics. How do you feel about face paint?” Loki raised an eyebrow at Peters nervous antics.

 

“Well, I like blue and red… I’d prefer to be spider themed as my powers directly correlate to the arachnid. I uh, don’t use many weapons besides my own physical abilities… My uniform is special to me but I don’t think that you care so whatever. Most of my fighting is done with my mouth because I talk when I am nervous…” Peter rambled in an attempt to calm himself down because, holy shit, he was going to be forced to fight his friends. His superpowered friends. The first group of Avengers. Shit...

 

“I didn’t notice.” Loki said with sarcasm that only a frost giant could muster. “Well the spider branding helps, I still want to make up a name for you myself. Something degrading… I’ll figure something out. You’re almost as small as Stark yet I was told you were a mighty warrior against my collectors. I expect much from you.”

 

“Well you’re going to be very impressed or very disappointed. I’m not sure yet. I tend to get either reaction from practically everyone.”

 

“That was a relatable statement young one. I am genuinely rooting for you. You are different than the rest of your kind. I usually get attacked if I end up visiting any of the gladiators. At least when they think me unarmed or even here in person.”

 

“So it’s just a hologram? Like a magic hologram? That’s pretty cool. I’ve known a few people that can do magic but this is pretty impressive. I mean I can hear your heartbeat and everything. Nice attention to detail man.” Loki raised an eyebrow, He wasn’t expecting praise.

 

“You are full of surprises Spider child. No that doesn’t sound right… I’ll think of something. Arachikid?” Loki tested the name and instantly didn’t like it. “That sounds like a disease… Whatever. Start getting prepared to meet the other gladiators. The weak human ones. I think I’ll surprise you with which hero you will fight. That will give some element of shock. You understand that I have to milk as much entertainment out of this as I can, Keep everyone else on their toes. Especially you.” Loki said calmly.

 

“Yeah, where’s the fun in knowing what’s going on. Reactions are half of the entertainment.” Peter shrugged. He knew that Loki was kind of a diva and was not surprised at all at the whole performance aspect of everything. It made the ancient ideals of gladiators seem kind of exciting and unreal. Peter had a feeling that it wasn’t faked though. Actual people fighting to the death or to major injury.

 

Humans did have a weird thirst for violence that Peter could never really understand. There were crime shows and movies centered around murder and violent acts so Peter wasn’t as surprised to see that they enjoyed gladiators. It was just like those boxing or wrestling matches but with better theatrics and swords.

 

“Good luck.” Peter was ripped out of his thoughts as Loki disappeared in a ripple of green energy. Peter assumed that Loki had said more but he wasn't paying attention.

 

It took about a half an hour for someone to take him away.

Notes:

Okay so I'm going to be making art for this fic that will be posted on tumblr so I need some feedback about what you guys want. Please comment your favorite moment from the fic that can be converted into art or just a character that you liked Peter with. I'm also currently working on a design for the quantum gauntlet. I will also draw sneak peak kind of art for chapters and realities that are yet to be revealed if you guys want me to. If you want an extensive list of my own ideas of what to draw and choose from, just comment and I'll give you some moments to choose from.

Updates will be posted twice a week if I can help it as I just started school again so that uses up a whole lot of my time.

I am also starting a series of oneshots from this fics plot that didn't make it into the final cut like Peters GSW whump and alternate soul stone meetings and such. So If you think of anything that you want me to put in that collection of trash please let me know.

Chapter 27: Reality 542012: Coliseum

Summary:

Peter gets in a fight

Notes:

Obviously these few chapters are heavily inspired by Ragnarok. I just think that if Loki got full control he would just be a chaotic drama queen that doesn't actually care about politics. Don't look into it that much I just think that he would rather have fun than actually run a planet.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Apparently gladiator fights to the death didn’t allow contestants to use long range weapons. It made sense, but Peter wasn’t happy about it. He had good aim as he had to because he used to constantly swing around buildings using glorified silly string that he shot out of his wrists. He couldn’t exactly afford to be a shitty shot.

 

Peter scanned the empty room that was filled with primitive but elegant weapons. There was a wall of swords in several different styles and a pair of katanas that caught his eye. There was a handful of hammers, spears, clubs, tridents, nets, shields and a whole lot more. It was kind of overwhelming.

 

After some consideration, Peter chose a whip, It couldn’t be too much different than using webs right? He decided if he had to use weapon then it would be something not bladed and kind of similar to his normal style. Or as close as he could get.

 

Once he chose his weapon, he was forced into obviously roman inspired red leather armour with black and gold details in the shape of a spider not unlike the design on the Iron-Spider suit. A human looking woman messed up his previously relatively neat hair and painted his face with bright red and blue before smudging under his eyes in black.

 

The paint bothered him but he knew that he wouldn’t be allowed to complain. He was a little afraid of being violently shocked with electricity. He wasn’t in the mood to get hurt before being beaten by a surprise avenger. He wanted a chance to defend himself at least.

 

He was led past a reflective surface and for a moment he could actually see the face paint. He didn’t know how they managed to make eyeliner on his young face look masculine but they managed to make him not look like a baby despite his actual form. There were thin lines of the red and electric blue going from his eyes through his eyebrows and down passed his cheeks. From an artistic standpoint it resembled a spider with long spindly legs made out of bright colors. Peter thought that it would look kind of cool if he wasn’t heading to get his ass beat on live television.

 

He tried to find the soul stone with his thoughts but he couldn’t even feel them. There must be something blocking them. Even time and millions of light years between them had not been able to silence the mental connection. Peter knew it was Loki’s fault and it made his situation a whole lot more complicated.

 

He made a to-do list. 1) Live his fight with a mind controlled avenger, 2) Find the soul stone, preferably connected to the quantum gauntlet, and keep it away from Thanos, 3) find a place to chill before the quantum energy in his body decides to explode. Simple. Not easy, but simple.

 

He didn’t believe that he would even get past step one but he had to be optimistic. Besides Thor and the Hulk, He was more superpowered than the rest of the avengers so there was two thirds of a chance that he would be able to physically beat whoever he was set up against.

 

Hopefully he wouldn’t be forced to kill them. He had never killed anyone and even had a specific rule against it. He would go out of his way to go easy on anyone he was against. It was habit now to hold himself back. So now he had to up his game to a ruthless mind controlled avenger level. They were very unlikely to hold back on him. Even if Peter could kill an avenger there was no way that he would kill any of them. Hopefully he could just knock them out or something. Murder was out of the picture.

 

While Peter was worrying about killing his friends, he was led to a seemingly backstage area of the arena. It was bleak and he shivered when he spotted a few bloodstains on the pale stone. There were small high openings that showed a very limited view of the open area. He heard muffled cheering and screams.

 

There was a loud voice, obviously belonging to Loki, talking about humanities cruel desires and history of violent entertainment. Peter didn’t bother to listen. He was busy trying to contain his anxiety. He was really not okay with what was happening. He didn’t have the soul stone, he didn’t have his web-shooters, he didn’t have Tony. And he had no idea about what was going to happen.

 

An armed humanoid woman used her spear to silently herd him towards the door leading directly to the arena. Peter let out a hitching breath as the door shuttered upwards and the booming announcing voice echoed around the huge area.

 

“Welcome the newcomer to the arena, the Amazing, SPIDERLING!” Well at least the name wasn’t creative.

 

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“What if I track the soul stone itself? If we can make something that can reach through alternate dimensions then I can use my previous readings to find him. At least using the timeline that matches mine… so it would be about two and a half weeks for both of us…” Tony muttered almost incoherently to a seventies Charles Xavier. Good thing the man was a mind reader, or else he wouldn’t have understood a single thing that came from the genius’ mouth.

 

“I technically have a device that could be used for such a purpose but adjustments will need to be made. So far I can only use it on the entire planet but only in our current timeline. The space stone could theoretically give us access to other realities. I’m not certain though, I don’t have much experience in the mechanical field or with infinity stones.” The wheelchair bound man replied.

 

“Good thing I’m here then, I happen to be both.” Tony sighed. He had not been able to sleep as often as he needed to after his kid had disappeared in his arms for the second time in under that many weeks.

 

He was afraid to sleep. He knew nightmares and he was not quite interested in the ones that would spawn from this kind of trauma. His nightmares had always had too much trauma to choose from so it alternated from his abusive father to being tortured in afghanistan top Pepper and Rhodey falling to having his arc reactor being ripped out by Obadiah or Rogers.

 

Recently it had been Peter though. And somehow it had hurt a whole lot worse than anything he could imagine. He thought he had felt pain before but losing Peter had been easily one of the worst things ever. So his dreams were like, ‘hey, what an easy target!’ So sleeping was not easy. Whatever. He didn’t need it. He was too busy anyway. He’ll sleep when he’s dead.

 

“I’m getting my kid back and the laws of time and space will not hinder me.” Tony assured.

 

“The laws of nature might though. I will make you get some sleep if I have to. I can if you need me to.” Charles says calmly.

 

“I’ll be fine Professor.”

 

“You should know better than to lie to me Stark. Go to bed.” The british man insisted.

 

“If I’m not asleep in five hours then I’m getting back to work.” Tony promised as he started to walk out of the room in the mansion. He fell asleep as soon as he sat on his temporary bed. He may or may not have had a little help from a certain mind manipulator.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter didn’t know what he expected but it wasn’t fighting in the actual roman colosseum. Damn, he must’ve been knocked out for a whole lot longer than he thought. Long enough to fly to Italy apparently. Or the tesseract was used. Loki probably has that still right? It was pretty likely that he just was flown here in a potato sack or something.

 

Anyway he was surrounded by thousands if humans and aliens in the stands of the ancient arena and it was fucking overwhelming. It was loud and there were too many lights but he had to keep himself together, super-senses be damned. He just had to focus on where his opponent would appear. Was it going to be Clint or Natasha? Thor or Steve? Tony or the Hulk? Maybe it wasn’t even an avenger but another superpowered person?

 

It took less than ten seconds for the information to be revealed. It was yelled on a very-loud speaker and Peter’s heart dropped immediately.

 

“-Against Thor! The God of Thunder!” One of Peter's picks for the most powerful avenger. He was stronger and easily more powerful than any of the others. Maybe the Hulk but at least he could try to talk the Hulk out of being green.

 

Thor was the avenger who could no doubt beat Peter to a pulp. So Peter decided that he would have to use his brain more than his physical gifts. He was faster than Thor so maybe he could play defensive? Peter was kind of freaking out so he decided that he would just wing it. He was usually better just relying on his instincts anyway.

 

Peter immediately recognized the unnatural blue glow to Thor's eyes. The mind stone was definitely at work here. As Thor would probably not be very chill with fighting for entertainment. Probably.

 

Thor had short hair and red face paint. Peter could recall a thing about norse tradition involving long and short hair. It was something like short hair represented servitude or something. Right, the threat of imminent public death. Peter forgot about that. His mind tended to wander in stressful situations which was a part of why he was kind of a shitty superhero.

 

Anyway Thor was currently running at him with his hammer, which in this reality was still uncrushed by the goddess of death. There wasn’t as much lightning as he thought there would be, but it was still pretty terrifying to have a buff god run with a large weapon right at him. Peter had decided to keep his whip rolled up and put away.

He jumped out of the way at the last second and slid in the dirt a little. He was not used to fighting without his web-shooters or on loose ground. Well it is a nice time to learn then… When he was starting to fight a god against his will. Cool.

 

“Hey Thor! I’m uh, a big fan! You don’t know me here but we’re friends yeah?” Peter tried as he dodged a swing of the mighty hammer. Thor didn’t respond do Peter, he was in a trance and Peter didn’t have many ideas on how to fix that. If he had the soul stone he could do something about that. But nope.

 

He jumped over Thor as he tried to push him against the wall. He was hit by a bolt of lightning and he tumbled towards the center of the stadium. Well that hurt. But Peter immediately stood back up from the blow. He didn’t have much of a choice if he wanted to live for longer than three minutes.

 

Thank god for Peter’s spider-reflexes because Thor was pretty fast even with all of the muscle in the way. He threw his hammer at Peter who was forced to duck violently quickly down to prevent it from turning him into mashed potatoes. Peter knew that the hammer was like a magic boomerang so he jumped above the hammers arc and tried to keep track of Thor who was apparently using his hammer as a distraction.

 

Peter was good at dodging and was not planning on landing a blow on Thor before he could think of something. For this reason he was temporarily electrocuted and Loki’s voice echoed from all around him.

 

‘Boo, Fight spider-boy!” Okay so if he didn’t actually fight then Thor would easily get the upper hand and kill him easier. Peter was not enthusiastic about his chances. He didn’t even know if he could land a hit on Thor nevermind a hit that would do anything to the god. But he would be electrocuted if he didn’t try so he was really out of options.

 

Peter waited until Thor had his hammer back so that he couldn’t break his spine from behind with the thing, then he decided to test how his strength would even effect the guy. He used as much strength as he could build up and punched Thor in the center of his chest. The guy slid backwards a few feet but stood his ground easily.

 

“Aw come one…” Peter muttered. There was no way that he was going to be able to do much to the brick wall of a dude. He could hold back slightly enhanced Steve Rogers easily but this guy was an actual alien god.

 

He was knocked out of his thoughts when a meaty fist slammed itself into his chest and he was sent flying into the side of the ancient stadium. The blow had definitely broken something and there was a visible dent in his armor. Holy shit… Peter struggled to ignore the blinding pain and he decided to actually use his whip. Maybe he could get the magic hammer away from him? Who knows, Peter knew he was stupid but he was also scared out of his mind. It made sense.

 

He rolled out of the way of the hammer crashing into the dent in the ancient structure where Peter used to be. Peter was glad that he was able to move in time because he would’ve been squished like a bug. An irony that was not funny at the moment.

 

Peter swung the whip and it latched around Thor’s leg. He yanked it as hard as he could and Thor had the decency to stumble a bit. But that was it. The guy had the audacity to keep the whips end wrapped around his ankle as he got a hold of his hammer again.

 

Peter climbed up the wall and ended up dropping the end of his whip. The weapon was useless anyway. He jumped up about ten feet to avoid a strike of lightning near him leaving a large scorch mark in the stone.

 

Peter used his high positioning to launch himself at Thor as hard as he could. He forced himself practically on top of Thor, Too close for the god to properly whack him with all of his strength. He scrambled around the stunned god and stuck himself behind the guys back. Thor spun around in a kind of funny attempt to reach him before he threw the hammer behind him and quickly sent it flying back.

 

Peter dropped off of the god and managed to tear the end of his whip off of Thor’s leg and scramble away before he got the chance to be hit in the face with a magical hammer. Now he had his useless whip back yay… The hammer embedded itself in the wall near him.

 

Peter acted before he could really think. He used his whip to grab the handle of the weapon and he yanked it out of the ancient stone before swinging the new combined weapon at Thor. Peter cringed when the asgardian got hit in the face with his own weapon.

 

Peter then sent the hammer to himself using the whip like a weird yoyo. He grabbed the hammer by its handle and sent the whip back to the dazed god which wrapped around Thor’s torso. He sent the god towards him with only the guys weight holding him back. When Thor was launched at him, Peter used the momentum and the hammer to knock the god pretty hard in the skull. Peter at least apologized a few dozen times.

 

Peter almost groaned when Thor picked himself off of the ground. He put the hammer in front of his body as if he was trying to shield himself. Thor scowled very unlike the Thor that Peter knew and held out his hand for the hammer. Peter kept a hold of the hammer but the magic was too strong so he just ended up going with it when it was summoned to it’s true wielder.

 

Peter was not surprised when his vision suddenly went black. He just prayed that he wasn't dead. He didn’t really like it the first time.

Notes:

So uh, surprise? Anyway, my last chapters notes are applicable here, give me your ideas for art and I will try to satisfy your desires. Comment your ideas for AUs that i could add into this mess of a peice. I have a bunch ready but I don't want to disappoint anyone. I would love any and all comments pertaining to this fic and you guys can find me on tumblr with the username GayGemGrump. I will post my art on there and other irondad and relevant content.

Anyway, If you've gotten this far in this fic I am so happy, I love you all so so much.

Chapter 28: Reality 542012: Not Dead

Summary:

Surprise, Peter's not dead!

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter woke up and almost immediately cried in relief. He was glad that he wasn’t dead. He noticed sharp pain in his chest and the constant burning pain on his arm of the quantum energy building back up. Pain meant that he was alive.

 

Surprisingly enough, his head felt fine despite being slammed by the fist of a god seemingly moments before. There was a cold sensation around his skull but assumed that it was some sort of bandage or something.

 

Peter found it kind of hard to breathe and automatically knew that he had broken a few ribs. He felt rough itching bandages around his torso as if the bare minimum was being done to make sure that his internal organs would not be impaled by his own rib bones. He appreciated the effort. He assumed that getting stabbed by his own bones sounded much more hardcore than it actually was.

 

Peter slowly opened his eyes as he didn’t sense any people around him. He noticed that he was back in the black and silver X-Men uniform and not a stupid gladiator outfit. He would rather not feel like he was in ancient roman times where they had more slaves than first few hundred years of America. He was fine with being in the current time period where there was less chance of shit on the streets and plague outbreaks. Instead they had alien invasions and other kinds of apocalyptic scenarios.

 

He was in a strange medical ward. Peter didn’t recognize the equipment and everything felt like it ran on some kind of magic. Or some kind of sensory energy in the air. Maybe they were just one in the same. Anyway Peter could feel the energy in the air. It was not like the infinity stones so he assumed that it was like asguardian or just alien in nature. He instantly wanted to figure out what it was and how it worked more than anything.

 

But first he wanted to reach out to the soul stone again. He had to find them. He wasn’t even sure if they were still on this planet but he had to make sure that it was within his reach. He sat up on the table and closed his eyes to try to sense the stone. He tried to find their warmth, tried to hear their voice. But there was nothing. Where they even on the planet and being hidden from him or was he too late? Did Thanos have them? Peter shuttered and opened his eyes.

 

He didn’t know how much time he had before the quantum energy built up again. A week? Two? Shit he had a time limit… He had to get out of there. What were they going to make him do? Did he have to fight more avengers? He lived so he must have some entertainment value. That’s how Loki would think right? Peter was good for entertainment right? Someone who could fight an Avenger was probably exciting to the viewers. New character on a TV show, that’s all he was. New content.

 

After years of just the Avengers fighting each other, they finally had a equal or whatever they thought that Peter was. He hoped that they liked him. Then he realized that he opinion of the people in this reality didn’t matter that much. It wasn’t like he’ll be around much longer one way or another. So he needed to get the soul stone and his quantum gauntlet back or he and this reality were screwed. No pressure.

 

Peter stood and paced around the small room as he tried to think out his options. There wasn’t much he could do until he was taken out to fight again. Or taken out of the room anyway. Even then he could be electrocuted if he did anything so he really didn’t know what to do.

 

Peter was supposed to be smart… That was his first superpower before he got bitten by a crazy spider or chosen by some powerful cosmic entity encased in the form of a rock. Peter sighed and looked around the room for anything to use. Then he remembered the weird medical equipment.

 

That’ll do.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

It took a few hours and a lot of control over his adhesive powers but he completely took apart the alien medical machine and sorted through it’s parts. Before Peter got any of the stark tech, he had been practically a professional dumpster diver. He was used to making things out of spare parts. His first set of web-shooters were made from an amalgamation of parts from a broken nintendo 64 and a pile of wires.

 

With the scraps of the odd medical device, Peter put together a handheld tool that could suppress the electric shock from the disk embedded in his neck so that he could remove it without being tased. He also would be able to leave the room and sneak out without immediate repercussions.

 

He wasn’t sure that it would work though so he did it anyway. He positioned the device on top of the disk in his neck before activating the shock neutralizer. It glowed with a golden light ant Peter didn’t immediately get shocked or anything so he considered it a success so far. Then he started to pull out the thing in charge of electrocuting him.

 

He gently placed his fingers around the disk and dug his nails under it. He took a breath and started to pull. Immediately it tried to shock him but thank god, his device worked and he wasn’t writhing on the ground yet. Peter pulled harder as the disk stubbornly persisted. He felt the skin start to break and he knew that he was bleeding but he had to get it off. After one last tug with all of his strength, the metal device launched itself away and clattered wetly to the ground.

 

Peter pressed his hand to his throat as he tried to stop the bleeding. He gritted his teeth as the new pain cascaded with every breath and heartbeat. He stayed still for a few minutes for the pain to pass and the bleeding to stop. Eventually he pulled his bloody hand away and flicked some of the extra blood on the ground in disgust. He washed his hands at a sink because of course there was a sink in a miniature medical facility.

 

He quickly cleaned the quarter-sized wound and dug around the room for some sort of bandages. He found a patch that he assumed was a strange bandage and slapped it gently onto the oozing hole in his neck. He snuck out of the medical room and was happy to not be electrocuted.

 

He relied on his spider-sense and his enhanced hearing to make sure that he avoided everyone in the winding halls. Until he heard and started following the sound of a familiar voice. He carefully crawled on the ceiling, following the voice throughout the maze of halls until he reached an actual door. Not an arched opening, but an actual modern door that looked pretty misplaced in the ancient structure.

 

“I have no idea how the kid got it out reindeer games. You didn’t let me install cameras so I don’t know what to tell you.” Tony’s voice came from the other side of the door.

 

“Fix it Stark. Ever since he took it out, I covered all of the exits so he has nowhere to go. This cannot happen again.” Loki sounded unbothered but had a hint of threat in his voice.

 

“Sure thing princess.” Tony muttered.

 

“Don’t test me Stark. I can make your heart stop faster than you can come up with a sly response.” Loki hissed before the door slid open. Peter stayed motionless and prayed to every deity that he could think of that he wouldn’t be seen.

 

Loki strolled casually out and Peter scrambled into the room before the door closed again. He looked around the room sighed in relief when he sway Tony’s brown, non-mind-stone-altered, eyes and the soul stone still safely in the quantum gauntlet. The soul stone was covered in a bubble of green energy but Peter decided that he would get to that problem. At the moment, a scruffy looking arc-reactor-equipped Tony Stark was looking right up at him with an expression that conveyed that he was both impressed and confused.

 

Peter immediately wanted to hug his father figure but he decided against it as there was a very high likelihood that it would be awkward because this Tony probably had no idea who he was. He managed to hold himself back and stay stuck to the ceiling.

 

“So you’re the kid that lifted Mjolnir? You’re smaller than I thought you would be.” Tony said simply.

 

“You’re not too tall yourself Mr. Stark.” After meeting Howard Stark, Peter had avoided calling any version of Tony by his last name. He didn’t want to put them in the same category. Tony was not Howard. The elder Stark was kind of a genuine asshole. Not even a fake asshole like Tony sometimes was.

 

“You’re just full of surprises aren’t you? First the whole appearing out of nowhere with an unidentifiable uniform, then having an infinity stone, then almost effectively fighting Thor and wielding his magic hammer that judges worthiness, then taking care of the electric enslavement implant, who even are you kid? Not even the god of weirdos can figure it out.” Tony spun a screwdriver looking tool lazily in his hand.

 

“I’m…” Peter tried to think of the best way to explain his situation to his alternate reality mentor. “I’m Peter Parker, I was chosen by the soul stone to wield them and I’m currently stuck going in between realities. I’m… a time bomb. I have no control and if I don’t get that weird ass bracelet on me soon, I won’t just poof in between realities, I could explode but I have no idea. There’s… quantum energy stuck in my body and if it doesn’t have the right outlet… I don’t know. That much energy with nowhere to go would rip me to sheds. Not the first time but I really don’t feel like dying again If I’m honest.” Peter rambled a bit.

 

“Ha, I knew it.” Tony muttered to himself before explaining to Peter, ” I’ve been studying the soul stone before Thanos gets here, you know, as you do, and I thought that it had similar readings to performing an EEG. It’s sending out microscopic electric signals like a highly advanced brain. But because I can’t communicate with it, I wasn’t quite sure if it was sentient or not.”

 

“When did you become an expert in neurology? I guess it must get boring down here.” Peter shrugged already knowing the answer. Tony was the kind of person to get a PHD out of boredom and working with very limited equipment and the treat of death must’ve gotten boring after a while.

 

“When I was briefly allowed to study the mind stone. I’m surprised that they’re so different. The mind stone was like a computer or an AI but the soul stone is undeniably a biologically living thing. Anyway, How’d you do it? Take the little bastard out of your neck?” Tony continued casually as Peters eyes wandered to the shielded soul stone. He was very glad that it was still in the vibranium cuff as that made his life a hell of a lot more convenient.

 

“Oh yeah,” Peter’s attention snapped back to Tony. “I used the electric suppressor from the medical unit and then just ripped the fucker off like a bandaid. Bled like hell though.” Peter smiled. Even outside of his own reality he desperately required approval from his hero.

 

“You just… ripped it out? Ouch. I mean it’s no headshot from Thor but those things are meant to dig deep.” Tony winced a little at the idea. Peter just shrugged.

 

“I mean like two weeks ago I got shot and before that I literally died so this was like a pinprick to me.” Peter lied. At least taking out the torture device in his neck didn’t cause much lasting pain. Sure it throbbed now but getting shot hurt at full velocity for multiple hours before his body could heal himself properly. But that also had to do with eighties emergency medicine that was not equipped with medication that would affect teenagers with super-metabolisms. It kinda sucked.

 

“How old are you again?” Tony said with mild concern.

 

“Seventeen. All you did when you were my age was finish college and learn how to run one of the biggest businesses in the world right?” Peter shrugged. He thought that resurrecting half of the universe and non-consensual interdimensional travel was a little bit more stressful than college.

 

“Seventeen? Jesus…” Tony muttered. “And you were pitted against Thor and survived? What the hell are you kid?”

 

“I’m a…” Peter thought for a moment to accept the term. “A Mutant. My DNA was mutated and I became more than human. It’s a long story and isn’t important at the moment. What’s important is that I get that vibranium bracelet. What is that… energy around it?”

 

“Loki put a spell or something over it so I can’t use it while I study it. As far as I know it’s impenetrable.” Tony shrugged.

 

“Well I hope that’s not the final verdict-” Peter froze as his spider-sense attacked his head and tensed his muscles. He jumped and stuck to the ceiling as fast as he inhumanly could and tried to keep out of sight. Tony seemed to sense Peters distress and he kept his eyes fixed on the door instead of right at Peter. He appreciated it.

 

The door swung open and Loki glided in calmly.

 

“There’s no sign of the Spider-boy. I doubt he will go far without the soul stone so there is likely no use in going after him. How are the blood tests going? I need to know what he is for better… containment.” Loki strolled up to Tony and Peter noticed a small device on his majestic belt that looked like a kind of remote with battery sensors. Peter assumed that it was a controller to the electric shock implant on Tony’s neck.

 

“Well, the kid’s not human, or I guess not completely. He’s not like Cap who was just physically modified. This kid is genetically altered. It’ll take a little longer to get the specifics but I guess you get the gist, your majesty.” Tony said in a mocking tone that Loki didn’t seem to mind. “And it’s not just that, the kid is also incredibly smart so his escape is mostly credited to that instead of his physical abilities.”

 

Peter almost smiled at the complement but he needed to think of a plan. He looked around the room as inconspicuous as he could and he smiled a little when he saw the completely intact left Iron-Spider web-shooter that he thought was gone for good.

 

He took a quiet deep breath and took his chances.

 

He dropped right in front of Loki the trickster god, the king of earth, the guy currently in control of all of the avengers.

 

Peter was so screwed.

Notes:

I have a three day weekend and I will try to post chapter's every day! This one is a bit of a mess but I have much more planned so don't give up on me yet! I love comments and I would love to receive any and all suggestions, criticisms and encouragements! I love you all, My tumblr is GayGemGrump and I will be posting art on there soon. If you have any favorite moments from this fic that you would like to see conveyed through traditional art I would love to hear it. So far I am working on the actual design for the quantum gauntlet which I worked pretty hard on. Next week I can't promise as many updates as I'm going to the SLC fan X convention. I won't have as much time to write up there.

ANYWAY I LOVE YOU ALL AND I LOVE ALL OF THE SUPPORT I HAVE GOTTEN THROUGH THIS FIC

I'M VERY PROUD WITH HOW FAR THIS HAS COME

STAY SAFE, I'LL SEE YOU TOMORROW WITH ANOTHER UPDATE HOPEFULLY

Chapter 29: Reality 542012: The Mind Stone

Summary:

Peter moves on.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter thought that he thought his actions out. He knew that Loki would see him if he tried to sneak over to his web-shooter and he decided that it would be easiest to take the god by surprise. He planned on taking the electric controller so that Tony wouldn’t be at the receiving end of Peter’s actions. He also knew that if anyone could fight the god of tricksters it was someone with fast reflexes and a sense of danger that activates before the danger is even acted upon.

 

Peter hoped that he wouldn’t be stabbed.

 

He landed right behind Loki and grasped the electric shock controller as his spider-sense peaked for a quick moment. He narrowly avoided the rapid slashing of an elegant knife right in front of his nose.

 

Although he didn’t have time to securely grasp the device but he thanked god for his adhesive abilities that automatically stuck the remote to his hand. He quickly crushed the device and saw the light on Tony’s throat start to dim.

 

He nimbly spun backwards to avoid another knife swiping a little too close for comfort.

 

“I’m impressed. You managed to not only fight my brother but also to wield his enchanted hammer and escape a prison even the smartest among the Avengers couldn’t,” Loke motioned to Tony who calmly raised his eyebrows. “You came from nowhere with an infinity stone and not one of my informants have any idea who or what you are. Frankly, I am incredibly curious. What are you child?” Green energy formed from the gods hand and solidified into an alien septer that Peter only saw glimpses of on TV after the battle of New York.

 

Peter felt it. He felt the mind stone in the septer. It was… weakened, stretched. It was already controlling most of the avengers and there was no telling how many more it was in control of. But the stone was never in control, Loki was. And even then, Loki was under Thanos’ control.

 

Peter jumped out of the way of the scepter being calmly swung threateningly towards him.

 

“I’m not that interesting Mr. Loki. I’m just… not from around here.” Peter stumbled a bit over his words.

 

“Being vague won’t help your case. I will get answers.” Loki assured as he dramatically brought the scepter to the center of Peters chest. A pulse of icy blue energy spiraled around the blade until it met with his body. He noticed the lack of spider-sense warning him so he decided to not move.

 

Before the energy was able to even come in contact with his body, Peter’s eyes glowed a sunset orange and a soft matching energy prevented the influence of the mind stone from entering him. Peter wasn’t sure how he was using the stone, he was not in contact with it and the stone itself was sealed off with magic.

 

Peter took the moment of stunned silence from Loki to act. He grabbed the scepter, which could’ve impaled him if Loki wanted it to, and he ripped it out of the gods grasp. Peter spun the blade around so that it pointed away from him and he noticed the glow of the soul stone across the room.

 

“You could just ask specific questions instead of trying to mind control me man.” Peter held the scepter in front of himself protectively. “My name is Peter Parker and I come from a different reality. I’m just trying to get home.”

 

“Tell me something I was not aware of. However your mere presence in this reality is problematic to myself. So I’m going to fix the problem. You’re going to be in a public execution match. If I must get rid of you I should do it in style. If you’re lucky then I’ll let you keep your original weapons.” Loki snapped his fingers and a thick metal collar wrapped around Peter’s throat. It was loose enough to breathe but that was it. Peter’s immediate hyperventilating was constricted heavily.

 

Peter had never been fond of tight spaces but now, after being pinned down by thousands of pounds of concrete, he was much less comfortable feeling like he couldn’t breathe. His hands immediately clawed at his throat and he tried to force himself to breathe calmly. Even when he caught his breath, he could hear his rapid heartbeat loud and clear. If he was lucky, then he was only suffering from anxiety. Over being sentenced to death and uncomfortably restrained. Valid.

 

Peter stumbled backward a little and dropped the scepter holding the mind stone. Loki grabbed the collar and picked him up easily. Tony looked appropriately horrified but Peter couldn’t focus on anything because he was currently being prevented from breathing.

 

Peter barely noticed a mental touch of familiar warmth as he was gasping for air. He glanced over to the soul stone. Around the stone was orange energy that seemed to be fighting against the green magic that was holding it back. Peter thought for a moment before he flexed his body and managed to kick Loki away off of him.

 

Peter tumbled to the ground, gasping for breath before he noticed Tony trying to grab his attention. Once he succeeded, Tony threw Peter’s single Iron-Spider web-shooter to him, who caught it effortlessly even if he was still trying to catch his breath. The web-shooter unfolded onto his wrist and he shot some webbing at Loki’s feet. Peter picked up the scepter holding the mind stone and held it out in front of him.

 

“Don’t throw any knives at me.” Peter narrowed his eyes at the god who just rolled his own.

 

“I could get out of my bonds with no effort you fool-” Loki growled but decided to stay stuck to the ground.

 

“I will shoot this stuff at your face, and if I were you, I wouldn’t want it in my mouth. I think it’s toxic but I haven’t tried eating it.” Peter threatened as he made his way towards the soul stone. “I’m not going to cause a revolution or mess up this reality if you just let me have my rock back. I just want to go home.”

 

“I can’t let an infinity stone go child. I have already informed Thanos’ forces that I have acquired it and if I let it go then I will be punished for my incompetence and will likely lose what little control I have over this mess of a planet.” Loki hissed.

 

“You have the mind stone! It’s all about control and hallucinations right? You can do something besides order me to death! You have one of the most powerful objects in the universe and you’re literally using it to make the Avengers and anyone else you find interesting fight for your entertainment! Use it and try not to let Thanos get it.” Peter ordered, exasperated.

 

“Thanos is the most powerful being in the universe and I am at his mercy. What makes you think I can trick him?”

 

“You are literally the god of tricking people. You’re smart and in the company of smart people. You’ll figure it out. Besides, You won’t have a choice. I’m taking my things back.” Peter got to the soul stone which was fighting Loki’s spell with it’s soft fiery energy. “Break the spell Professor Snape, or the stones will do it for you and I’m not sure if that will include a dramatic explosion or not.”

 

“I would not be surprised. The stones work mysteriously and I would rather not have any mysterious burns on my person.” Loki shrugged and waved his hand to dispel the magic. Peter was kind of surprised at the ease of it all but Loki probably knew the power of the infinity stones and knew that his magic wouldn’t be able to hold one back. At least the emperor of the world was semi logical.

 

“Oof, been there,” Peter held up his right arm which was covered by the X-Men uniform but he assumed that Loki had noticed the obvious unhealing injury. It was kind of glowing and hard to ignore.

 

The green energy around the soul stone disappeared and Peter sighed in relief once the warm presence of the stone was back in his mind. He had missed having them there even if they didn’t always have much to say.

 

Peter grabbed the quantum gauntlet and put it on his right wrist where it belonged. After having it on for weeks it felt unusually comfortable back on his person. He had felt weirdly exposed without it.

 

‘Hey, It’s been a while. I missed you.’ Peter thought to the sentient rock.

 

‘I missed you too. It's kind of boring without a vessel. What’d I miss?’ Gamora's soul stone voice replied.

 

‘I fought mind-stone-brainwashed Thor and almost got a concussion. By the way, have you checked the energy in my arm? I don’t know how long we have until we can get out and I am not in the mood to be stuck here as violent entertainment.’

 

‘You have about a week left until the next jump happens unless something affects the quantum energy. And this time I am definitely not letting you be in pain. Last time suckeed.’ Peter almost chuckled but Tony and Loki were already looking at him weirdly so he decided not to argue and to get back to reality.

 

“Okay, I promised not to alter your reality but I don’t think it’s a good idea to, you know, brainwash superheroes into fighting each other. Maybe you could, like, stick with broadway or cinematography?” Peter shrugged much too casually.

 

“You think I got rid of the theater? No child, that would be sacrilege. I have grown quite fond of your planets interest in drama. Of course I made a play about myself but it was boring to know what happens so I have let playwrights creatively roam free. I have quite enjoyed a musical about the young days of your former country. I appreciate the assortment of music and murder. I apologise, I may have ranted for entirely too long.” Peter realized that Loki didn’t exactly see himself as in charge. He was surprisingly polite for a mass murderer and planet conqueror.

 

“Thank god Hamilton still exists. I thought that planet domination would kinda stop that from becoming a thing. I’m starting to gain some respect for you even though you have threatened to torture me and my friends. I mean I chilled with the Avengers and even you from my reality, so I’m not into the whole mind control and electrocution thing. That stuff is kinda fucked up, but i guess they aren’t dead so that’s cool. I thought you’d want to immediately murder Thor.”

 

“I’m not quite past stabbing him but he’s much more entertaining alive.” Loki said almost seethingly but Peter saw right through it. With a little help from the soul stone.

 

“And you still love him. You grew up together, and it was never him that you hated. It was your father wasn’t it. He was the one that lied to you your whole life. Not Thor.” Loki looked a little stunned.

 

“You know that because of the soul stone, do you not? I would appreciate you not reveal anything important.” Loki’s comment made Peter want to smile a bit. But he assumed that Loki would stab him and he wasn’t in the mood for another major injury.

 

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Anyway, either you release the Avengers from their mind control or I will.” Peter said confidently even if he didn’t know for certain if he could. Maybe? That seemed like a thing that the soul stone could do right?

 

“I’m already letting you go. That’s a bit much even for me. And it’s only because you’re more trouble to keep.”

 

“Thanks! Can you get this collar off though? I am pretty claustrophobic. I’m sure both of you understand ripple effects of past trauma.” He shrugged and put his pinky finger under the collar. It was the only finger that fit. He could barely breathe and it sucked. Loki just rolled his eyes and waved his hand and suddenly Peter could breathe again. It felt pretty good.

 

“Thank god, I’m really glad that you’re working with me dude. This would suck if you decided to like break out of the webbing and murder me at the last second.” Peter squinted his eyes suspiciously at Loki who just shrugged,

 

“You have a good taste in music and you’re literally holding two infinity stones. One of which is bonded to you. I’m nothing if not egotistical and self-preserving.” Loki admitted.

 

“Neat, We’re more similar than I thought Lotor buddy.” Tony spoke up for the first time in a while. It was a little out of character for him not to be the center of attention but he probably had no idea what the fuck was going on.

 

“Stark, I swear to Hel…” Loki frustratedly muttered. Tony only snickered in response.

 

“I think you guys would get along if one of you wasn’t so into the whole world domination thing. You’re both drama queens with daddy issues that want to be loved.” Peter pointed out.

 

“Don’t put feelings in the conversation kid. You don’t know that’s what I want.”

 

“Yes I do Mr. Stark. Try me.”

 

“You’re not very intimidating kid. Even with the glowy eyes.”

 

“Gods, there are two of you now… I could barely stand one.” Loki muttered,

 

“Believe me, I don’t want another one of me either.”

 

“I am insulted that you think that’s a bad thing.” Peter chuckled.

 

“That’s more than a bad thing kid-”

 

“God, you’re self-loathing in this universe too… Listen, You’re a good person in every reality that I’ve been to. Even when I accidentally time traveled, young you was actually pretty chill even if he got a little wasted. My version of you is looking for me right now and I doubt that he’ll give up. If he has the determination to chase me across the multiverse, then you can believe that you’re not that bad of an influence.

 

Loki, do you still have access to the tesseract? If I can send a message through reality, then I wouldn’t have to, like, create a multi-reality breaking event with the soul stone. I don’t even know how my Tony is tracking me so it would help to leave him a trail or something.” Peter turned to Loki as he tried to come up with a plan.

 

If he could send a message to Tony before he warped away again, He could figure out the quantum energy problem and go home for good. Hopefully. It was the best chance and he really didn’t want to have to wait and warp away again. He was already sick of it.

 

For some reason, he felt like it wasn’t possible. He was long from done, even if he wanted to be. This wasn’t a problem that could be solved with a snap of his fingers.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“I can only search one reality at a time. There are billions of realities and there's no hint at which one he went to. It will take years for me-” Xavier started before being interrupted.

 

“Then we’ll increase your range. No offense, but your tech is shit. I’m giving you an upgrade. But we don’t exactly have years. Peter could’ve popped in the middle of space and because he doesn’t have the full Iron-Spider suit, he could be long dead. So I’m really hoping that he's not. If that doesn’t work, I’m going back to my reality where technology is better but there are less mind readers. At least, real ones.” Tony said.

 

He hasn’t been able to sleep in days and he didn’t seem ready to stop. He seemed to always glare at the professor if he even thought about making him sleep.

 

“We’re getting your son back. He’s not dead. I can feel it.” Xavier assured.

 

“He better not be. If he is, I’m going to the afterlife and grounding his ass until he goes to college.” Tony grumbled as he messed with the council of the cerebra. “What the hell is that supposed to be? Vibranium?” Tony growled.

 

“It’s Adamantium. The hardest metal on the planet as far as we know.” Charles shrugged.

 

“This is literally just vibranium but less cool.”

 

“I have no idea what that is. I have doctorates in Genetics, Biophysics, Psychology, and Anthropology. Not Geology or Chemistry.”

 

“You don’t need to brag Dr. Professor. Why do you even need four PHD’s? I mean I have three but four is a little much. Jesus… Together we have as many as Bruce Banner. Hopefully seven combined PHD’s can get my kid back.”

 

“We will.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

It took five days. Each day, the quantum power grew in Peter’s arm. His time was running out and he knew that he would warp before he and this universes Tony found a solution. At least he decided to use the soul stone to keep the pain from distracting him.

 

Peter and Tony had been kept in the workshop area the entirety of the time. Peter kept the mind stone within reach so that Loki would hopefully not attempt to betray him. So far it had worked and Peter was not forced to fight another Avenger. Yay him.

 

Neither of them had the knowledge or equipment to work on the quantum energy issue so the tried to focus on using Peter’s quantum gauntlets kimoyo communication bead to send the other Tony a message using a little help from the space stone. Work was slow but at least they were getting somewhere.

 

Over the week, Peter had noticed the differences between this Tony and his own. His Tony had started out very withdrawn. But he couldn’t stay away because Peter was a dumbass and almost died in quick succession. Peter’s stupidity forced Tony to pay attention to him to keep him from dying. It took them a few months to get used to each other and for Peter’s lifelong hero worship to calm down.

 

Then they worked on suit upgrades and strictly superhero related kinds of things. Then Peter needed some help on homework, and he fell asleep at the compound, and he called Tony dad, and he convinced Tony to watch all of the Star Wars movies with him before Solo came out. It took them two years and weekly meetings of Pepper and Aunt May for Peter to fall into the close familial relationship with Tony.

 

This Tony was not as relentlessly beaten down. There was no Ultron, there was no civil war bullshit, there was no mandarin or extremis. So this Tony’s trauma was at about half with childhood trauma, afghanistan, betrayal, and almost dying from poisoning. This Tony was a little less withdrawn and a little more rambly. His energy was more manic and crazy from being obviously not let off of his creative leash.

 

Loki obviously did something to keep Tony here. There was definitely enough shit for him to find his way out but something was holding him back. It could be threats against the Avengers or maybe threats to Ms. Potts. Tony definitely would still try to get out if only his own life that was on the line, That guy had no self preservation instincts. It was annoying.

 

The sad thing was, they were so close to finishing the interdimensional communication device. They had taken out some raw energy from the space stone and had been testing on ways to use if for days. They used as much inspiration from the wakandan bead as they could but it was really difficult to make it compatible.

 

They were so close when Peter’s quantum burn throbbed and the soul stone whispered in his mind. He had only minutes before he would be ripped into a different and likely more deadly reality.

 

“We’re too late.” Peter muttered loud enough for Tony to hear.

 

“Dammit we were so close…” Tony cursed and looked at Peter, surprisingly concerned. The light from the quantum energy was seeping through the thick fabric of the X-men uniform. The only thing keeping the pain back was the soul stone, he had accepted the help easily this time.

 

“Well, I’m not leaving without making a mark…” Peter shrugged before closing his eyes. The best time to use the soul stone was right before he was about to ditch them. He wasn’t in the mood for consequences and if Thanos was coming, eventually, they would probably need some sort of cover.

 

“Don’t get us killed kid…” Peter vaguely heard Tony muttered before he set his plan into place.

 

First he found the brainwashed Avengers and released them from the control of the mind stone. They looked pretty confused and even the hulk looked a little freaked out. But he didn’t have time, he had more shit to do before he left this reality.

 

Warm soul stone energy sought out the colorful alien near the arenas power source. The soul stone gently influenced the alien to leave the room before its energy entered the generator. Normally the soul stone wouldn’t destroy anything, but a little boost of uncontainable energy wouldn’t be inherently bad. It was strange in that he felt like he was there actually fixing the problem and not just controlling something from far away.

 

Second task was done, Now he needed to make sure that the Avengers knew what was going on. So he simply talked to them through the soul stone.

 

‘Good morning! You guys probably have no idea what the hell is going on but you need to get out of this place. It will be chaotic enough for no one to notice. I hope you all find each other! Buh, bye!’

 

He filled the whole city in temporary mania before he opened his eyes. Bright energy slowly faded and Peter was glad that he was sitting due to sudden fatigue. It wasn’t as bad as bringing back trillions of people from the almost dead but it was still pretty unpleasant. Peter suddenly had the urge to curl up and have a nap.

 

Unfortunately he’d have to save the nap for later because somehow he had not noticed Loki in the room with the scepter poking Tony’s temple. Tony didn’t look too impressed.

 

“It’s been a while since I had a gun to my head… or I guess magical bladed weapon. Hey kid, did you get a little distracted there?” Tony sounded a little accusing and he would look calm if Peter couldn’t totally hear his rapidly increasing heart rate.

 

Peter definitely didn’t have time for this. He had a minute at most before he was whisked away for another tiring adventure. He had to think fast and he wasn’t sure if Loki would break Tony’s neck in frustration if he just disappeared. Loki didn’t seem completely mentally stable. Peter didn’t have time to negotiate so he did another thing to put on his ‘that was stupid’ list.

 

Peter shot a web at the sharp end of the scepter and yanked the whole thing back away from Tony, the backlash caused a thin line of blood to appear on the gods cheek. Whoops.

 

Peter webbed Loki’s face and kicked him away from Tony. “Run please, Meet up with your old buddies and try not to be too nice to cap while I’m gone.” He felt the energy in his arm pulse and then he was gone in a flash of multicolored light.

 

Peter didn’t really enjoy the feeling of being ripped out of one reality and thrown into another. It was always exhausting but he tried not to let himself pass out just in case he appeared in the jaws of a shark or something.

 

He hoped that Earth 5402012’s Tony was okay. At this point there wasn’t much that he could do so he tried to focus on the present.

 

He was glad when instead of a sharks mouth or fifty feet above the ground. He just slammed into a brick wall in a dark suburban house garage. He lifted his hand to his throbbing head and felt a little bit of blood. He just needed a moment… to calm down and maybe take a nap… hopefully no one was home…

 

Unfortunately there was a banging sound and a door slamming open. Apparently the house wasn’t empty. Peter’s situation wasn’t going to be easy or believable to explain. He really hoped this reality was not going to be too crazy.

 

A kid that couldn’t have been over twelve with a mop of blonde hair barged in the garage and turned on the bright lights. The kid was holding a plastic gun with a wide barrel and it took Peter a minute to realise that it was a potato gun. The kid spotted him and pointed his spud hurler at Peter’s face.

 

“I’m getting deja vu…” The kid muttered to himself before trying to act like he wasn’t less than five feet tall. “Who the hell are you! What are you doing in my house!” The yelling made Peter wince a little, super senses and all. He raised his hands in surrender.

 

“I technically just appeared here, My name is Peter.” The blonde kid squinted his eyes and judged Peter. He was looked up and down before the kid lowered his spud gun and held out his hand, presumably to shake his hand.

 

“I’m Harley. Harley Keener. You look like shit.”

Notes:

So I have a lot planned for this next reality so be prepared for a whole lot of plot and new characters. Also, I LOVE EVERY SINGLE COMMENT THAT I GET AND YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE WHO MAKE THOSE LONG-ASS ONES ARE THE ABSOLUTE BEST. I CRAM A WHOLE LOT OF STUFF IN MY WORK SO IT FEELS GREAT WHEN PEOPLE NOTICE IT!

 

Anyway, if you have any ideas for characters or realities that you want Peter to visit I would love to know. I'm working on the extra scenes and possible outcomes for this same fic universe and I'm planing on doing a 'Where are they now' kind of thing with realities that Peter leaves behind. I'm also working on art that will be posted to my tumblr with the same name.

 

I am so happy with all of the support that I'm getting and I appreciate everyone who is reading my works. I love you all and I'll see you next chapter!

Chapter 30: Reality 532015: Peter’s First Babysitting Job

Summary:

Peter takes a nap

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“So, you’re saying that all of the tech in the area is wonky and your mom and little sister haven’t been home from the city in two days… and you were still super calm with me just appearing in your garage.” Peter raised his eyebrows after he took a moment to pause inhaling his sixth bowl of sugary cereal.

 

“It wasn’t the first time someone weird broke into my garage. Besides, you looked like you were going to pass out. So anyway, phones, internet, nothing works. I can’t call the police and even cars are broken down everywhere and I’m not stupid enough to just go exploring. It’s kinda weird but I wouldn’t be surprised if the avengers were involved in it.” Harley seemed to be watching Peter carefully but he didn’t care.

 

“So what year is it? It could be connected to the avengers thing or it could totally be a different timeline.” Peter shrugged. Harley was taking the whole alternate realities thing pretty well and seemed like the kind of kid that would be aware or his adorable-ness and use it for evil.

 

“It’s 2015. It’s been a little while since the last world ending event. At least one that wasn’t completely covered up by the government.” Peter thought for a moment, what the hell happened in 2015? It was a year before the whole civil war thing… then Peter remembered.

 

“Ultron. Of course technology wouldn’t work… that asshole has control over practically everything. And the mind stone is a big part of this.” Peter muttered to himself while Harley looked at him like he was speaking in russian. “Ultron is a AI that got jump-started by a cosmic entity and decided that he wanted to cause an extinction level event to make humans evolve or some bullshit like that.”

 

Peter was careful not to blame Tony because even he knew that it wasn’t totally his fault. There was also Bruce Banner, Wanda Maximoff, and mostly the mind stone that helped create the slightly murderous robot.

 

“Cool. so, how do we avoid mass extinction?”

 

“I don’t know, I wasn’t there. We can’t use any tech and I’m not even sure if I can use my own shit… wait I should watch my language, you’re a baby… uh, Ultron could probably access what’s left of Karen or maybe what Wakandan tech got integrated… whatever, I’ll rely on the soul stone because that’s completely healthy…”

 

“I didn’t understand a word you said. I’ll need some context and maybe a reassurance that everyone will not die.” Harley seemed calm. But Peter was not stupid and knew that the kid was pretty freaked out with all of the information.

 

‘Don’t worry, the Avengers can handle it. They did in my universe.” Peter tried to stay optimistic but he knew that the outcome could be different in this universe. There was a chance that it would be the same but Peter had shitty luck and he wasn’t going to just hope for the best.

 

“Cool, so we just have to wait then? I mean, what else can we do?” Harley sighed.

 

“I think we just have to wait it out. I could come with you to town to make sure that your family is okay but they’re probably just stuck somewhere. Like the worst case of traffic ever. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Peter was partially confident that even if Ultron succeeded in this universe, America was on the other side of the planet so there was a bigger chance that this kid and his family would live, as terrible to think about as that was.

 

“There’s nothing we can do?” Harley groaned a bit dramatically.

 

“Unless we can get to Sokovia and can face off against thousands of robots and some superpowered nazi’s.” Peter rolled his eyes. “I mean, I don’t think I should use the soul stone. The mind stone would be able to seek it out and I would be a target. Which wouldn’t be good if you decide to stick around me.”

 

“What if you distract him with your magic rock thing. Would that make it easier for the Avengers to deal with those superpowered nazi’s?”

 

“I guess but I’m not going to do anything that would put anyone else in danger. I’m going to have a nap, then we’ll find your family, and I can deal with the murderous robot. If I have to.” Peter forced himself to come up with a plan so that he would live through this reality. He really wanted to make it home without dying.

 

“Then you better get going. I have a feeling that we don’t have very much time…”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter had been kicked out of the kitchen after eating more than two boxes of cereal and Harley sent him to a fairly empty guest bedroom. Peter rested his head on the pillow and fell asleep immediately.

 

For the first time in weeks, he dreamed. Or rather, he reunited with his nightmares. Which kind of sucked.

 

Before an image even entered his mind, he was assaulted with the smell of blood. He was well acquainted with the smell and he had previously thought that it wouldn’t bother him anymore. After he smelled it, he felt it. Weight on his arms and thin warm liquid seeping through. Peter opened his eyes in the dream and saw the sight that he had been dreading.

 

The nightmare he’d had for years. It was Ben. His father after his biological father died, one of the most influential people in his life. And he was losing him again. It could’ve been avoided too if Peter wasn’t such a coward.

 

Uncle Ben bled out within his grasp without even the ability to recite his last words. Even in the dream, Peter could feel his burning tears and the painful emptiness that consumed him. The tears blurred his vision and he couldn’t stop his sobbing. He felt his uncle attempt to grip his shoulders before eventually going limp.

 

It took too long for his eyes to clear. But when he took his last glance at Ben, his body was replaced with someone else.

 

It was Tony. His skin was too pale and even Peter’s enhanced senses refused to find any sign of life in the man. No heartbeat, no breathe, nothing. It was happening again and Peter was doomed to never be able to stop it.

 

He lost his actual father, Richard Parker before he was old enough to remember his face or even his voice, He lost his uncle turned father figure while having the ability to stop it, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything to save Tony. The closest thing he has to a father now.

 

It was going to happen again.

 

And there was nothing he could do.

 

As he realized this, the scene and all evidence of blood faded away. Peter held the hand that had been under his mentors head close to his mouth in an attempt to keep him from breaking down. Tony would leave him like they all did. Whether he liked it or not.

 

“I suppose killing you once simply wasn’t enough…” The echoing voice of Thanos surrounded him. Anxiety hit Peter like a fucking truck after he heard that voice. Of course the guy who killed him would give him nightmares. Peter begged for a break. Why was sleep so hard to obtain? Fucking trauma just had to ruin everything…

 

“Get out of my head…” Peter’s voice was weak and shaking. This wasn’t even real, yet Peter couldn’t hear that voice without being consumed with fear.

“If I can’t find you, your friends and family will pay. Although that list is quite small…” Thanos’ bodiless voice sounded horrifyingly amused. Like Peter’s huge involvement in the unraveling of his mass murdering plan was nothing more than a simple setback. A game.

“Get out!” Peter yelled, stronger than before but no less shaky.

 

“You think you know pain? You think you know loss? You know nothing child.”

 

“I know enough! I don’t know everything but believe me, I know pain! I know loss! I know death! You’re not the only one with pain. But literally no one is on your side. You tortured children to follow your bullshit destiny and even worse, you take pleasure in it. Now, LEAVE ME ALONE!” Peter shrieked in a voice that was more than his own. It was the soul stone, or Gamora’s voice backing up his own.

 

His dark dream world filled with orange light before Thanos’ voice was permanently silenced. The light faded and again he was somewhere that he unfortunately recognized. Empty and concrete, the warehouse already felt like it was closing in on him.

 

Compared to Thanos, a simple fear of crumbling buildings and enclosed spaces seemed silly. But Peter’s mind wasn’t aware of that as just the sight of the place made him feel trapped and begging for air.

 

The space was empty and yet Peter was still suffocating. And that was before the ground started to crumble.

 

Peter was awake suddenly, but the rumbling of the earth didn’t stop. Peter’s blood went cold before he jumped out of the bed.

 

“Harley!” he yelled for the kid that was a little more likely to be pancaked. He thankfully ran into the kid in the hallway.

 

“What the hell is going on…” Harley said frantically as the ceiling started to crumble. Peter’s heart stopped in his throat. Not again… He doesn’t want to get crushed again, This time there’s a kid! He has to save the kid.

 

‘Breathe Peter. A suburban house is not comparable to a multi-story concrete warehouse. You will be fine.’ The soul stone whispered in his mind. Peter forced himself to get a grip and he yanked Harley out of the way of part of the roof falling through.

 

“Outside! Outside is safe! Come on!” Peter held his arm above Harley’s head so that he could catch any falling debris. They ran into the only un-crushed area of the house which quickly turned into a currently-being-crushed area of the house. Peter shielded Harley who had stumbled to the ground. “Okay, plan B… protect your neck and get as small as you can.” He said in the least freaked out voice as he could manage.

 

Harley immediately complied and rolled into a ball with his hands over the back of his neck. Peter blocked any falling debris until the rumbling ground stopped.

 

“Are you okay?” Peter focused his attention on Harley instead of the rubble around them.

 

“Yeah?” Harley slowly lifted his head and looked around. “What the hell was that…”

 

“I… I think that was Sokovia.” Peter shuttered at the implications. He looked around and assessed the damage. There was nothing left unharmed. Trees were uprooted, fire hydrants were overflowing and it looked like the hulk had a temper tantrum in the area. Cars were crushed and there were cracks in the ground. Peter closed his eyes and used the soul stone.

 

‘Please let there be survivors…’ Peter thought. The soul stone showed him the aftermath. It was horrifying. Billions dead. The small scattering of survivors were starting to be rounded up by ultron possessed bots. Most of the survivors were already identified by the ultimate homicidal robot. Peter tried to search for any important information.

 

He found plenty. First, there was a place completely untouched by the apocalypse. It was a little far from tennessee. They only place standing was Wakanda. Of course if anyone could survive it would be them. Secondly, Peter found a cluster of kids in a familiar part of the remains of New York City. The soul stone identified them to him and if he could get more stunned, he did.

 

They were like him. They were spider mutants. Three of them. Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, and Cindy Moon. All of them had alternate spider themed powers and they all seemed to know about each others abilities. They were all also about Harley’s age. A group of twelve year old super kids.

 

Peter was forced out of the soul stone with his spider sense and a scream from Harley. He spun around and his fist embedded itself in a signature ultron designed robot. Peter watched the robot fall to the ground and he shook his hand out a little.

 

“Okay kid, uh, I don’t think that it’s safe here.” Harley looked at Peter like, ‘are you fucking serious’ and Peter knew that the statement was pretty obvious. “First we have to find a place to hide, I can… shit... “ Peter knew that he wasn't much of a leader. He had no idea what to do.

 

He took a moment to think before he took the quantum gauntlet off of his right wrist. He touched a few spots on the device and a smooth watch sized cuff slid out. He tossed it to a confused looking Harley.

 

“It’s an emergency Iron Man gauntlet. I can show you how to activate it in case we get in trouble.” Harley raised his eyebrows and put the cuff on which shrunk to the kids size.

 

“You know Iron Man?” Was all the kid could say while trying to process the overwhelming situation.

 

“Yeah. He’s my... mentor.” Peter settled for the simple version of his relationship with Tony. Father figure seemed like a weird way to put it. Even if it was more accurate.

 

“Whatever. I don’t think it’s a good time to talk about it with the whole… everyone I know is probably dead.” Harley shivered. Peter could tell that the kid was deflecting and likely going into shock.

 

“Come on, we can’t stay here…” Peter didn’t know how to comfort anyone. He was empathetic but he had, like, no experience with kids. Besides, he had just met him. He decided on focusing on keeping them alive for now.

 

‘Steal a car.’ the soul stone whispered. ‘You aren’t safe staying here. The spiderlings need you.’ Peter was surprised by the suggestion but he didn’t have any other ideas.

 

“I guess we’re taking a road trip…” Peter sighed.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

It took them about two exhausting hours to find a car that had survived Ultron. Peter didn’t know how to hotwire a car so he just used the information that the soul stone gave him to steal the car. Thankfully it was big enough to sleep a bunch of superhero children and whatever supplies they needed. By then, the sun was setting and Harley seemed physically and emotionally exhausted. Peter urged the kid to sleep as it would take them almost twelve hours to get to the Spider-Children.

 

With Harley asleep in one of the seats and a stolen blanket, Peter decided to use the soul stone to contact the group of spider kids. He decided to try to use it while his eyes were open. So that he didn’t crash the car. He wasn’t the best driver anyway.

 

When his eyes were open, Peter could actually see the orange light reflecting inside of the van and even illuminating the now dark road. Part of him went with a wisp of light that left the soul stone and raced north. In an instant he was able to see where the spider children were hiding. They were in an abandoned subway station and they looked relatively freaked out. They all looked at the light from the stone as it morphed into a copy of Peter’s body.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you. My name is Peter. I’m like you. If you guys can stay where you are, I can help you.” His hologram looking orange form flickered a little. “I’m a little far away but you guys have to stay safe and stay together. The Ultron guys are looking for survivors. Try not to let them find you.”

 

The spiderlings look antiquity stunned. Gwen Stacy, the tall blonde girl with a thick black headband, mouthed the words, ‘what the fuck’ while her companions squinted suspiciously at him.

 

“We don’t have time to be sceptical. We could all die if we’re not careful and you’re safer with an experienced spider-person. Cindy, you have biological webbing right? Block up the tunnels. Miles and Gwen, stay on the ceiling and try to keep out of sight. If you get attacked, take the robots by surprise and try not to let them see you. All you have to do is stay alive for eleven hours. Then I can help you. Please trust me.” Peter’s glowing form disappeared and all of his focus went back to driving.

 

It was going to be a long night. And half of a day. At least this time Peter had rested up before shit went down.

Notes:

So my usual computer broke but soon I will be inheriting my bothers old laptop so hopefully I can keep updates going. Don't think too hard about the ages of everyone, I know that they'll all be closer to Peters age but I wanted to change up the dynamic a bit. Older brother Peter is going to be fun. Also, Cindy Moon is actually in Homecoming! She's one of the kids on the academic decathlon team and in the comics she gets bitten with the same spider as Peter did and is called Silk. Everyone knows about Spider-Gwen and Miles' Spider-Man so those won't need as much explanation for why they are here. I was thinking of introducing Kamala Khan or Jessica Drew but I am really bad at dealing with too large of groups. Anyway, Tell me what you think! I hope I'm living up to expectations. I love every comment that comes my way and I'm impressed at myself for keeping this up as well as I have. I guess this is what happens when I actually get into a project lol. My tumblr is GayGemGrump and I post lot's of Iron Dad and Spider-man stuff. I'm finishing up art for this fic and hopefully it doesn't suck.

If you have art ideas or Alternate universes, I would love to hear them.

I love everyone who reads this fic and I hope you guys have a great week!

My first art for this fic! It’s the Quantum Gauntlet! https://gaygemgrump.tumblr.com/post/178049173934/so-my-ongoing-fic-links-dont-work-on-mobile

Chapter 31: Reality 532015: Road Trip

Summary:

Peter and Harley go on a road trip and get interrupted.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter was glad that the first seven hours of the drive were boring and uneventful. While Harley slept, Peter stopped at a collapsed grocery store and managed to find food that wasn’t completely crushed. Peter gathered as much as he could and piled it into the vans trunk. He hoped that it would be enough for multiple super-metabolisms including his own. He checked in with the spider kids using the soul stone every hour or so. They seemed to be doing fine and starting to warm up to him.

 

He found out that the spider-children were only very recently bitten and had not developed their powers too much yet. Cindy had no control of the webbing that came from her fingertips and MIles was afraid that he would accidentally electrocute people or turn invisible. Gwen’s powers were the closest to Peter’s even if they were all spidery.

 

Peter also discovered that out of all of them, he was the one with the most efficient healing factor and he immediately designated himself as human shield. It wasn’t like he was unfamiliar with that role. It was only a few weeks ago that he had taken a bullet for Peggy Carter. He had almost forgotten about that… Who the hell forgets going into the past and getting shot? It makes sense with the crazy shit that’s been happening but he didn’t think that he would forget it so quickly.

 

He didn’t know if he could handle four traumatized children in a robot apocalypse but goddamnit if he wasn’t going to try. He had never had any siblings but he was pretty good with children, at least that’s what Aunt May said.

 

God he missed his aunt. He wanted nothing but to go back, but at the moment he had people relying on him so he decided that she would have to wait a little longer. Maybe if he could get Harley and the spider kids to Wakanda, he could find a way to fix his little quantum energy problem but for now it wasn’t his biggest concern. He was a little busy.

 

Harley woke up at dawn with a yawn.

 

“Shit, that wasn’t a dream… did it really… are we…” The kid muttered tiredly as he stretched in his seat.

 

“Yeah… that really happened. Although, I did check up on your mom and sister. They are both alive but they were taken away with an untron guy. I wouldn’t worry about them, Ultron was looking for survivors and he wasn’t planning on complete extinction. Good morning.” Peter added as he kept his eyes on the road.

 

“Thank god… I’m guessing you couldn’t tell me that before?” Harley climbed into the passenger seat much to Peter’s panic.

 

“I was a little distracted.” he defended. “We’re over half way done and I got some pop-tarts in the trunk so you can monkey your way over there if you want. Don’t eat them all.” He tried to sound authoritative but he wasn’t exactly good at it.

 

“When did you have time to go shopping… aren’t we kinda on the run. You know, away form murderous robots?” Harley folded his arms and stayed in the front seat stubbornly.

 

“You were asleep for a while. And I raided a store for any spoils. We have enough food to feed a small army. Or a handful of enhanced children. Now buckle your seatbelt child! I am a shitty driver!” Peter scolded. Harley didn’t take him very seriously. The kid just rolled his eyes and used the dashboard as a footrest.

 

“When do we get to New York… I’m bored…” Harley groaned and stared at Peter in annoyance.

 

“Less than four hours kid. I’m actually surprised that we haven’t run into any Ultron clones. Seven hours is pretty good.” Peter shrugged before going stiff as his spider-sense screamed at him momentarily.

 

He slammed his foot on the break and threw his arm in between Harley and the dashboard. Peter started to get out of the car after they stopped. “Do not leave the car. To activate the Iron Man gauntlet, just swipe the front, press the sides in then pull the ring things to your fingers. Fire the repulser by rapidly flexing your hand like this.” Peter demonstrated quickly before leaving the car and looking around for what caused his spider sense to freak out so much.

 

It wasn’t hard to find the cause of his spidey-anxiety. Dark figures lowered from the sky above him which would have been hard to see if he was in the car. They were easily identified as a group of Ultron robots. Five of them. Peter hoped that he could handle them all at once as he was sure that they were smart. Ultron was a mixture of the mind stone and two of the smartest men on the earth at this time. Peter doubted that he would outwit them.

 

“You know, I thought humans were full of surprises. You took that to a whole new level, honestly, I didn’t even consider this as a possibility! What a breath of fresh air!” A deep, human voice echoed slightly metallically behind him. Peter spun around and automatically crouched into a fighting stance.

 

He was met with a slightly larger Ultron robot that had managed to sneak up on him. Peter had never heard Ultron speak but he never expected him to sound so… human. He had so much personality and sounded like an AI that Tony would make.

 

Peter forced his body to be more relaxed. If the robot was smart, he could talk to it. Fighting was usually a last resort for him but the last few weeks of chaos had put him on edge enough to change his automatic responses.

 

“Believe me, It’s kind of a surprise for me too. I’m just trying to get home…” Peter said calmly. He wasn’t lying, he was just trying to get back to New York to help some spider-children. Then eventually to Wakanda to find his way home.

 

“That is, unfortunate… I cannot let you do that. You’re getting in my way. Trying to protect the enhanced survivors is a hopeless endeavor. If I were you I would surrender now.” Ultron said in a horrifyingly calm tone.

 

“Sorry man, I can’t do that. Somehow I don’t believe that you have humanities best interest in mind. You know, mass genocide and stuff.” Peter shrugged as his middle and ring finger wandered to the triggers of his web-shooters.

 

“From the outside I can understand how my actions can… seem excessive. But jumpstarting the evolution of the human race is not a simple task. Mass murder can’t be that bad if god has done it once or twice. The world needed cleansing and it worked. There are no more corrupt politicians or billionaires, No more political outcry or focus on petty problems. Just survival. A fresh slate for a better subset of people.” If Ultron's metal face could smile it did, or as close as it could get.

 

“I’m not in the mood to argue with your logic, even if it is dangerously fucked up.” Peter sighed and he almost yawned. He had been up all night driving and using the soul stone enough to be reasonably exhausted. “Please just leave me and the kids alone, I mean, you won’t but I could at least ask.”

 

“You are right, I won’t. I mean there are enhanced mutated humans that are easily the future of your race. But you will not see it that way. I don’t blame you. You are far from enlightened.”

 

“Dude I’m seventeen, I’m really not interested in being enlightened.” Peter looked behind him and to the sky. The other ultron bot’s were slowly getting closer but seemingly mostly for effect. Peter knew that the main Ultron bot was just distracting him so he decided to get everything over with.

 

Peter shot a couple of webs at the main bot and was mildly surprised that when he yanked, the robot stayed frozen in place. Peter just went with it and launched himself at the Ultron clone. He used his body like an arrow to impale the bot easily through the middle. He shook his right ankle a little to shake off the rough impact.

 

“Ah, you caught on. I knew you were smart.” Peter spun around as the group of robots landed on the ground with one of them seemingly inhabiting ultron's consciousness currently. “I hope you make your way back to headquarters undamaged. I would hate to just collect DNA samples.”

 

“I wouldn’t count on it buddy.” Peter changed the web cartridge in his quantum gauntlet from regular web fluid to something that would help him more. He shot a thin string of webbing that attached to the center ultron's forehead and then quickly twisted his wrist which sent a violent amount of electricity to the robot. The ultron bot shuttered and it’s red lights dimmed. Peter swung the husk around like a wrecking ball and kept the robots away from him momentarily.

 

Three of the four remaining ultron bots charged their hand blasters that were definitely ripped off one of their creators repulsors. The other one launches itself at him and there was a moment that Peter wished that he had kept the Iron man gauntlet rather than give it to a twelve year old.

 

Peter launched himself off of the ground to dodge the robot. Time seemed to slow down as the other bots followed him with their palm energy gun things and fired. Even before the energy left the hands of the advanced robots, Peter had twisted his body away from where his spider-sense had reacted to where the beams of energy would be. The energy missed him by mere millimeters and only lasted a moment before he was able to land in a low crouch.

 

“I would make an iRobot pun but It’s been awhile since I’ve seen that movie. What about Detroit: Become human? What a reference from that game get lost on you?” Peter nervously quipped and rolled away from a few more energy shots. Without looking, He shot another electric web at the outlier robot at his back.

 

“What is with you heroes and making random pop culture references? Stark did the same thing…” One of the ultron bots said with the same infuriating amount of chill. Then Peter went over ultron's words and hesitated for a moment.

 

“He… did the same thing? Was that past tense intentional?” Peter used one of the ultron husks as a temporary shield for a moment.

 

“Tony Stark is dead Peter. All of the Avengers were killed hours ago after I dropped a large chuck of rock from miles into the sky. It felt good too. The witch enjoyed ripping his precious mind apart before we did it.” The robot took advantage of Peter’s shock by throwing him onto the side of the road and charging it’s repulsors. Peter got up as quickly as he could and shot a taser web at the closest Ultron clone. Two more left.

 

No time to think about this universes Tony being dead… That’s going to be something to think about later…

 

“You have a connection to him don’t you… You do look like you’d be his offspring. At least, to another version of him. It must be exceedingly painful to hear of his fate.” on of the last two Ultron’s mused.

 

“Shut up. You don’t know me.” Peter growled. He approximate that the whole ‘Tony is fucking dead in this reality’ thing would sink in in a few minutes but he was too busy to focus on it too much.

 

“I mean, that’s practically a confession! I would never think that Stark would help make a… smaller person! And keep one too. Was he the one to give you these mutations?” Ultron seemed weirdly happy. Peter was pretty creeped out.

 

“No… I was… I don’t owe you an explanation asshole.” Peter shot the second to last ultron clone in the forehead. One left. He can handle one more.

 

“You will. What happened to you is very interesting. Even I don’t know. It’s so intriguing! I haven’t had a real challenge… practically ever!” Peter aimed his last shot at the robot. Right as he was going to press the palm trigger, the last ultron bot rushed at him and covered the quantum gauntlet with one metal fist and the other went around Peters throat.

 

Peter didn’t like being choked. Not breathing… It started with almost drowning after being dropped by the vulture, then getting a building dropped on him, Loki’s shocking collar thing really didn’t help his fear of suffocation.

 

Peter gasped and tried to rip away the metal fingers forcibly closing his throat.

 

“Pitiful… But unavoidable. I hope that-” the last ultron was cut off by being shot with a repulsor beam through the head. The robot dropped and Peter desperately tried to catch his breath. He saw Harley with the activated Iron man gauntlet formed around his hand.

 

“Oh my god, are you okay?” the blond kid ran to him and helped him to his feet.

 

“I’m fine. Thanks Harley. That was pretty badass of you.” Peter smiled as he started walking to the car.

 

“Is it true? Are you… Iron Man’s son?” Harley said after they had entered the van. Peter started the car and took a minute to answer.

 

“Kind of… I… I lost a lot of people and Tony helped me a lot. He’s the closest I’ve had to a father for a while and I guess I’ll take what I can get.” He said quietly and started driving. “Now go get a goddamn poptart. I don’t want you whining later.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“I’m bored.” Harley moaned from his reclined position in his seat.

 

“We’re almost there. At least to the outside to the city. We’ll have to find a subway station close to the spider-kids. We can meet them somewhere underground. I know the subway system and they won’t be too hard to find. Apparently they’re stranded in a subway station just east of Times Square. The streets will probably be busy with dead cars and crumbling buildings so we’ll have to ditch the car somewhere and web-swing to the closest station to them. It’ll be fun, are you afraid of heights?” Peter asked with a slightly forced smile.

 

He was struggling with the death of Tony Stark in this universe. The other universes he had been in, Tony either simply didn’t exist in the first place or he had met them, intentionally or not. But this Tony was dead. After being blamed for a hijacked mass-murdering AI. He died probably believing that he deserved it. And that fucking hurt.

 

“I’m not afraid of heights. I think. I haven’t exactly been up high in the air. I guess we’ll find out.” Harley moved his seat up so that he could see out of the window.

 

“Do you like rollercoasters?” Peter asked.

 

“Yeah. Of course.”

 

“Then you’ll be fine. It’s not too much different. Do you want to be carried like a backpack or like a princess?” Peter smirked a little as they started to see the crumbling city.

 

“Uh, I’ll be okay with a piggy-back ride. Woah… Is that it? Or was I guess…” Harley saw the apocalypse ruined city. The empire state building was dangerously tilted and many iconic skyscrapers were completely collapsed. Peter’s eyes immediately searched for the Avengers tower. He smiled a little when he found it standing. The large iconic A sign was untouched and proudly stood like all of the avengers weren't totally dead. It was like a real tall ‘fuck you’ to Ultron.

 

They parked the van as close to the city as they could and Peter stuffed a backpack sized bag of webbing with as much food as he could. Then he picked Harley up and easily hoisted him onto his back. After making sure the kid was secure on his back, He made sure that his web-fluid was set back to the normal kind and he launched them into the air. Harley started out by screaming but that quickly transitioned into hysterical giggling.

 

They only swung on unstable buildings about four times and it never ended too catastrophically. Every once in a while, Peter would look down and see a limb or two limply hanging out of some rubble and his stomach twisted. He made sure to have Harley look up. They landed outside of a mostly intact entrance to a subway station and Peter helped Harley off of his back.

 

Peter used the warm glow of the soul stone to light their way as they made their way into the abandoned tunnels. It definitely creeped Peter out and he assumed that Harley wasn’t enjoying it too much either as the kid stuck to his side a little closer than before.

 

“Gwen! Cindy! Miles! Spider-children! Gather up Spider-People! I brought snacks!” Peter yelled and willed the soul stone to brighten the chamber. After a few seconds, Peter looked upward to see all three spider kids crawling towards him on the brick ceiling. Miles and Cindy dropped to the floor and landed relatively well. Gwen, however, relied on Peter to catch her. He did.

 

“You said you have food.” The blonde girl squinted her eyes at him and he smiled a little.

 

“I wasn’t lying.” Peter held the girl in one arm and dropped the webbing bag of food onto the floor. “Eat up you little enhanced spiderlings.”

Notes:

I got a little discouraged from the lack of comments as those are my main motivation for writing so I reread the last whole months of comments and it really helped. So even if it doesn't seem like I'm reading or replying to your comments, they are the things that really help most. I just am really bad at replying with my gratitude. Now would you guys prefer the next chapter of this fic or the first chapter of 'Where are they now?' which is for the AU's in this fic that Peter left and what happened to them all. I'm also working on art for this fic so if you have any ideas that you would like memorialized, please comment. Also I'm always looking for new AU's that I could add. I'm already planning a few of them and their arcs. More would be fun to work with too. If you want me to discuss this kind of stuff with you, Please go to my tumblr which is under the same name as my AO3 acc.

 

Anyway I love you all and I can't wait to keep writing!

Chapter 32: Reality 532015: Teamwork

Summary:

Peter pulls an all-nighter and we get to know the Spider-Kids.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“This is Peter Parker requesting communications to Wakanda, I have a young group of enhanced survivors hiding out in New York City. We need help. We don’t have enough food and there are aggressive scouting robots all over the city. I repeat, This is Peter Parker, requesting assistance and communications to King T’Chaka of Wakanda. Please, You’re our only hope.” Peter tried to keep his voice loud enough for the communication bead to hear but soft enough that he wouldn’t wake up the handful of sleeping children only a few dozen feet away from him.

 

He had been trying to contact the hidden civilization for hours while keeping watch over the group. He was also very adverse to sleep. After all of the nightmares he had been having, he didn’t want to wake up a handful of children by screaming. He would just… wait until they got Wakandan assistance. If they got Wakandan assistance.

 

He sighed and decided to give up for now. He walked closer to the rows of sleeping kids and leaned on a pile or ruble. He focused his senses so that he could know how close the nearest Ultron clone was. After Peter and Harley had arrived in the city, it was suddenly swarming with the things. Peter had only left once to get supplies from the borrowed van parked a few miles away. He had only needed to fight off four of the evil robots in the excursion.

 

He heard the closest robot being almost a mile away so he deemed it safe for the moment.

 

So in the silence, he thought of Tony. or at least this universes version of him. The one that was gone. Killed by his own AI. Peter had never met this realities Tony but the loss hit him like a truck. This wasn’t his Tony so why did he feel bad? It was still Tony Stark.

 

His hero that had died with the guilt of the world on his shoulders. He had probably blamed himself for this earth’s fate. Asshole… He didn’t deserve it. Peter knew that he didn’t. Tony never deserved what he went though. With the soul stone, he was much more aware but even before then, he knew that Tony would beat himself up over the Avengers mistakes. Even if he wasn’t the one to commit them. He was the only one to ever take responsibility.

 

Harley had been convinced that Tony had been Peter’s father and he didn’t have the heart to argue. Harley had managed to convince the Spider-Children that Tony was Peter’s actual dad. Peter may have let them believe it out of a small greedy part of his mind that wished that it was true. This realities Tony was dead, so what was the harm? It wasn’t entirely untrue…

 

Peter was ripped out of his thoughts from quiet whimpering. He looked at the group and it took a moment to identify which of the kids was having a nightmare. It was Miles. The kid was gripping the edge of his sleeping bag and quietly crying into his pillow. Peter creeped quietly to the kid and took a moment to decide about what to do. He used the soul stone to manipulate the kids feelings. The smokey energy of the orange infinity stone eased its way into Miles’ temple. He immediately seemed to relax and sigh in relief.

 

After a moment of peace, Miles woke up. He looked a little freaked out but thankfully stayed quiet.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Peter asked quiet enough to not wake up the other kids.

 

“I don’t… I don’t know.” Miles muttered back, avoiding Peter’s gaze.

 

“You don’t have to but it will make you feel better. I might be able to help.” Peter said softly.

 

“Maybe next time. It was… too recent man. I just… I didn’t think that… this would happen. Even with aliens and shit. I didn’t-” Miles’ voice shuttered and he seemed more than ashamed as he desperately tried not to cry. Ah, toxic masculinity strikes again. Emotions are shameful for men apparently.

 

“It’s going to be okay. Do you need a hug?” Peter tried to seem genuine and non-judgemental. Miles reacted as a little confused but he nodded his head a little. Peter snuck closer and wrapped his arms around the kid as soon as he could sit up from his sleeping bag. “It’s okay, You’re not alone.”

 

Miles started out stiff and uncomfortable but melted into the hug eventually. Peter muttered calm reassurances to the recently orphaned kid. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to have everything taken away from him. So Peter did whatever he could to ease the blow. He knew that it was vital to know at this stage that they were not alone. That he didn’t lose everything.

 

It took a few sobs from the kid for Peter to decide that the best thing to do was to just be there. Miles clutched to him and he stayed steadfast as hopefully some kind of pillar of support. It wasn’t long until the kid fell back asleep though. Peter assumed the Miles had been exhausted and skipping out on sleep ever since the start of the apocalypse. Peter let the kid comfortably rest his head on his chest and he used the soul stone to keep the child's nightmare at bay.

 

He was thankful that no one else had nightmares that night. Parenting was hard. Though, there was only about five years between him and the other kids. He had only a few extra years of experience and only a questionable amount of common sense so he didn’t think that he was the best candidate for surprise caretaker. He could barely take care of himself, now he had to take care of four terrified kids. Most of which had varying special arachnid powers.

 

Both Harley and Cindy woke up at dawn leaving Gwen and Miles snoring loudly as the sun started to rise. Because he was pinned down, Peter just let the first two get whatever they want out of their food supply. Feeding enhanced almost-teenagers was quite the feat. Peter barely managed to do it and he assumed that the kids held themselves back. Peter knew for a fact that radioactive spider bites came with a hell of an appetite. Not great for an apocalypse.

 

“Is there a plan besides, you know, try to survive?” Cindy sat on the ceiling with a box of pop-tarts in her grasp.

 

“Well, I’ve been trying to contact his super secretive high tech kingdom in Africa for help but I haven’t gotten a response yet. If anyone could survive, It’s them. If they didn’t… We’re going to have to find a safer place to set up camp. Don’t worry about it. I’ll do that for you.” Peter smiled and tried not to raise his voice too much.

 

“Why don’t we get one of those ultron things and take it apart. There has to be something useful in those guys. At least you could turn their energy gun things into something like the Iron man glove thing.” Harley said with a mouthful of dry cereal.

 

“How eloquent. I could probably salvage a lot of tech from those guys but I don’t have too many tools unless I break into the Avengers tower and find the workshop. I’ve only been there once but it definitely had plenty of shit- uh I mean stuff- there. We could even relocate to the Avengers tower. I mean, It’s probably the most intact building here and I’m sure it has some food…” Peter thought for a moment.

 

The only problem was the tech. Tony’s tech in the tower would make it easy for Ultron to control and kill them. But Peter doubted that Tony had actual weapons that could be controlled by AI. Ultron would probably hack a TV or something. The tower wasn’t that far away and the gigantic arc reactor was likely undamaged and could provide power to the building. It was more stable than a subway tunnel at least.

 

“I mean that place is better protected and I’m really tired of the darkness.” Cindy shrugged and started on her third or fourth pop-tart.

 

“There are people sleeping you assholes.” Gwen’s voice was muffled by the pillow that her entire face was pressed against. Peter decided that swearing wasn’t too bad as it was the apocalypse and none of them had said the fuck word yet so he wouldn’t fault any of them.

 

“Good morning small child number three.” Peter grinned and said much too optimistically, “Welcome to our shitty reality, would you like a pop-tart?”

 

“I want to sleep…” Gwen groaned and managed to bury herself even more inside of the sleeping bag. “And maybe a pop-tart…” She muttered quietly.

 

Harley held up a small box of strawberry pop-tarts and Peter webbed it and yanked it to him. He tossed it to Gwens sleeping bag. It took a few minutes for her to reach out and take the food sacrificed back to her little cave.

 

“Someone’s a morning person…” Peter muttered before webbing an opened box of sugary cereal to his hand. Peter decided that he would wait for Miles to wake up and eat, then they could head to the Avengers tower.

 

Simple right?

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Gwen, I am not carrying you the whole way to the tower.” Peter sighed as he let the way to sneak around the abandoned city.

 

“Yes you are.” Peter had a feeling that she was right. It’s not like she was heavy or that it was hard to move with her on his shoulders, but it was not convenient.

 

“Fine, but if we have to scale the tower, you’ll have to switch with our less spidery friend.” Peter motioned towards Harley who rolled his eyes.

 

“You’re such a pushover Pete.” Gwen grinned.

 

“I know.” Peter sighed as he led the group in between buildings so they wouldn’t be seen by one of the Ultron guys. It almost didn’t matter because apparently all spider-people where talkative to some extent.

 

“Shut up, aren’t we on the run and hiding from homicidal robots?” Cindy hissed. So maybe not all spider-people were talkative…

 

“It’s my coping mechanism.” Peter shrugged. “I’ve been constantly overwhelmed for weeks so I’ve fallen back on comedy to keep myself from internalising everything. So yeah, It’s probably best for our survival if I shut up.”

 

“But I wanna fight a robot!” Harley pouted a little.

 

“If you guys don’t shut up than you won’t just fight a robot.” Cindy growled a little.

 

“Miles, you haven’t talked for a while, you good?” Peter turned to the quieter kid.

 

“I honestly just have no idea what the fuck is going on. Just don’t get us blasted by evil robots please.” Miles whispered.

 

“That’s the plan.” Peter smiled. He led them across a street and into an alley. Only a block or two more until they were on the front doorstep of the Avengers tower.

 

In an instant, Peter’s spider sense tugged at the back of his head and he, as well as all of the spider-children, turned their heads to behind them. Where there just happened to be one single ultron bot. Harley just shot through it with his repulser.

 

“Was that… supposed to be hard?” The blond boy raised a suspicious eyebrow.

 

“Probably not but I don’t think that it’s a problem. Come on children, Ultron knows where we are so we gotta just book it to the tower.” Peter instructed as he pulled Harley, the less enhanced one, into his arms.

 

“Hey-” Harley yelped as they started running faster than he would’ve been able to keep up with. He stayed helpful by aiming his repulser behind the group so nothing could sneak up on them from there.

 

It didn’t take them long to get to the tower. Peter easily kicked open the doors and they rushed into the building. He slammed the door behind him and put down the blonde children. He webbed all around the doors with extra strong webbing and sighed in relief.

 

“Cool, that could’ve gone worse. What do you think the Avengers eat?” Miles asked. Peter winced a little at his wording. There weren’t Avengers in this reality anymore. They were gone like the billions of others.

 

“Well, I know that they definitely are stocked in the caffeine department. Lots of coffee. Probably a frozen apple pie or something for cap.” Peter started to lead them through the building.

 

Thankfully the building had power. Peter immediately lit up the big A at the top of the building. Just for some sort of poetic imagery and as a little ‘fuck you’ to ultron. He couldn’t destroy his birthplace and he would never destroy them.

 

“Okay… now uh, do we want to do the horror movie thing and split up or do you all want to follow me to the workshop?” Peter asked as he walked to an elevator. He was glad that he had a pretty good memory from when he had first started in this alternate reality bullshit, he remembered which floor the workshop was on and pressed the button.

 

“The workshop sounds cool anyway. I mean, It’s Tony Stark’s workshop! Who knows what is in there!” Harley said as Gwen grinned along. Miles looked rationally terrified and Cindy looked too emotionally tired for her age.

 

“There’s probably a whole lot of crazy stuff. I bet that there are Iron Man suits that Ultron is locked out of.” Peter stayed positive. “Don’t play with them though, I don’t what anyone to blow up or something.”

 

“You’re no fun.” Gwen pouted.

 

“I am a whole lot of fun.” Peter squinted his eyes.

 

“At least spider people are sort of interesting. I just have a robot glove.” Harley joined the pouting party.

 

“Do you want sticky white strings randomly coming out of your fingers or randomly sticking to things or being constantly hungry?” Cindy rolled her eyes a little.

 

“I mean, that’s better than nothing! You guys are also super strong and cool.” Harley said with dramatized hand movements.

 

“Chill out, you’re pretty cool too. You don’t have to be bitten by a radioactive spider to be cool.” Peter pointed out as the elevator doors opened. Everyone froze when they saw what was on the other side.

 

“What the fuck…”

Notes:

I've loved all of the comments and attention. And while I love and appreciate every comment, I especially love long reviews that tell me what I did right and wrong. I love to know from an outside perspective what my work is implying and making you feel. I love to see what your favorite lines and images. I don't have a beta or anyone who reviews my work so I would love anyone who would enjoy to do anything of the sort.

Okay, so if you want to message me personally to talk about my writing or just to me, my tumblr is under the same username as on here (GayGemGrump) I post lot's of irondad and marvel stuff. Join me. I've been starting to post art relating to this fic so follow me if you're interested.

I'll post the next chapter before the end of the week but we'll see. I'll at least try. So far I've been having to use my mothers work laptop as my brother won't be giving me his for a few days. I have a whole lot of chapters planned, I just need to write them out. I'm sorry it's been taking so long.

I love you and I'll see you next chapter! (unless you comment or go on my tumblr)

P.S. all AU ideas and art ideas are more than welcomed. After this AU arc, I'm going to start on my 'Where are they now' fic that keeps up with the AU's in this series. I might add alternate scenes and scenes that were not included in the fic. so if you want Peter's GSW whump from very early in the fic then I will write that. There were also a lot of different ways that I was thinking of portraying the soul stone.

Chapter 33: Reality 532015: The Meaning of Sentience

Summary:

Peter comes in contact with Wakanda and revives an old friend.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“What the fuck…” Harley had muttered when they had entered the tower’s lab.

 

Every holographic screen was glowing with an eerie red light and every single one showed the piercing red eyes and iconic cheek things of Ultron.

 

“Predictable. Welcome home Peter. Or, should I say, brother.” The almost human voice filled the room and metal shutters slammed over the glass windows. Peter had to yank Harley in the lab as the elevator doors shut at terminal velocity.

 

“Ultron, can you maybe chill. I can understand the dramatics to a point but this is just a waste of your capabilities. Can’t you, like, use the equipment in here to kill us or something?” Peter tried to stay calm and confident as he placed himself between anything dangerous and the spider-kids. Don’t think he didn’t miss the whole ‘brother’ thing. He just ignored it.

 

“I could do that. But I’m only here to talk. You interrupted me last time. It was pretty rude. Anyway, you have something that I want. Or, I guess you are something that I want. Wait… Someone. That makes more sense.” All of the holographic screens turned black, save for a large one in the center of the lab. The red light from the screen, the soul stone and the blue miniature arc reactor on Harleys gauntlet were the only forms of light in the room.

 

“Get to the point and leave us alone... “ Peter narrowed his eyes at the robotic face on the largest screen.

 

“Well aren’t you a spoil-sport. I would have thought that Starks son would have an appreciation for the display. He was always about… putting on a show, wasn’t he?” Ultron's voice made Peter shiver. It felt so human and yet… so soulless.

 

“You could say that, I mean, why be a superhero without doing anything fun right?” Peter really tried to keep the shaking out of his voice but the atmosphere was fucking creepy and he felt trapped. Claustrophobia was annoying.

 

“Tony Stark was not a superhero. How can humanity evolve with someone like him holding them back. But none of that is important. You are bonded with the soul stone like I am with the mind stone. They are the most similar you know. They are the most… alive out of all of the stones. They can think and choose. They are sentient and knowing. The other stones only have power. They don’t have life like we do.” Ultron purred.

 

“Don’t pull a Darth Vader and assume that our stretched family relation will make me want to join you in mass murder and conquering the universe. The mind stone is not like the soul stone. You are nothing like me. Can you fuck off now?” In trying not to sound pathetic, Peter had started yelling.

 

This was not good as he was a little bit pathetic and stuttered pretty obviously. For some reason, Ultron was freaking him out more than he thought that he would. When he thought about it, it made sense. The guy had killed Tony and kept referring to them both being almost-sons of the late Stark.

 

Also he had an infinity stone that he was… connected with. It was his. Loki had never owned the mind stone in the same way as Ultron had. Part of ultron was purely the cosmic mind controlling rock. He was made around the thing. He was essentially the mind stone.

 

“I would kill you now but where’s the fun in that? I want to wait until my witch gets to play with you. I wonder what she will conjure up. It doesn’t matter now. Enjoy your moments of peace. You won’t have many left. Goodbye brother…” The red screen dimmed and the lab turned back into its normal state with lot’s of natural lighting and a mess of equipment.

 

“Uh… what was that?” Cindy whispered as if Ultron was still listening. He could’ve been but it didn’t matter.

 

“That was… I don’t know actually. I think he just wanted to say hi and threaten me a bit. I’m actually kind of used to that.” Peter shrugged and walked over to one of the tables. He activated a holoscreen and it lit up in it’s normal arc reactor blue. There was no trace of Ultron.

 

“I don’t know about you but that was freaky as hell. That was some horror movie shit…” Miles shuttered while Gwen just rolled her eyes. She seemed the least freaked out but Peter would be stupid to not see that she was a little disturbed by Ultron’s little greeting.

 

“I totally forgot why we were up here…” Harley muttered and went up to his own holoscreen.

 

“Well, for one thing, I’m going to try to contact Wakanda. And maybe I can make all of you little nerds some equipment. I mean, Tony’s lab has way too much armor and stuff anyway. Maybe I’ll teach the spiderlings what it means to be an adult spider.” Peter tried to smile his mild panic off.

 

“How about that last one because I have no idea what I’m doing.” Gwen climbed up on top of an empty table and did an easy handstand.

 

“Get down from there.” Peter found himself ordering as he stared to access what was left of Tony’s personal database.

 

There wasn’t much left but he found something. Tony’s main AI that had been almost destroyed after Ultron got himself a physical body. Peter did some coding in hopes to repair the intelligent system. He wasn’t the best at coding but he was good enough to fix the most important parts of the AI. He looked at the name of the AI before he reintegrated it into the tower.

 

“Hey JARVIS. You back buddy?” He said casually hoping that there was a working microphone somewhere.

 

“Sir? I apologize, I am unable to find Mr. Stark on any of my systems. Excuse me, but who are you and what happened?” Peter recognized Visions voice and realized that this was the AI that replaced Ultron in the vibranium body. Neat.

 

“I’m Peter. I’m… Tony’s son. I think you were overtaken by Ultron about a week ago. Tony is… No longer with us. I’m sorry. Ultron kind of killed a whole lot of people and that included all of the Avengers. We’re some of the survivors.” Peter said softly. There was a moment before JARVIS responded.

 

“What can I do for you young sir? The loss of Mr. Stark is very tragic. It is unfortunate that everyone in this room is underage. There are alcohol stashes in this room and it would be irresponsible for me to reveal where exactly they are. It was Mr. Starks favorite way to cope with loss.” The AI’s voice was not super robotic and it had Tony’s personality all over it.

 

“Harley, you are not looking for the alcohol.” Peter said without turning around to look at the mentioned blond child. Harley cursed under his breath, confirming Peter’s suspicions. “It doesn’t matter anyway, Spider-people burn through alcohol and stuff like that too fast for it to take effect. All you kids should go find the kitchen. I have boring work to do and I’m pretty sure that we’re safe from Ultron. Or at least you are. Hey J, can you lead them to where the food in this place is stored?” Jarvis replied affirmatively and he led the already starving kids back to the elevator.

“JARVIS? Do you have strong enough sensors to scan my kimoyo bead? I think something is wrong as I can’t contact this realities Wakanda…” He held up his wrist as a light hit the bead on his vibranium web-shooter. The systematics appeared on Peter’s holoscreen and he looked for any weird quantum damage or something but there was nothing.

 

Then he realized that he was a fucking idiot. Peter had been trying to call technology that hadn’t been invented yet. As Shuri was only, like, twelve and had only probably invented a lightsaber or something. He would have to call an older Wakandan system.

 

So he did.

 

“This is Peter, Son of Tony Stark, I’m trying to contact King T’Chaka. I am requesting aid for me and my… uh kids that I’m babysitting. I can explain everything about how I’m contacting your country but at the moment, that will not be possible. We only have enough food to feed four enhanced spider-people and one normal growing boy for a full day. All of us are under eighteen and are the only survivors that have not been captured by Ultron. We need help. Please, You are our only hope.” Peter said grimly before smiling when he stopped recording. He will not apologize for being a raging nerd.

 

“Young sir? The Spiderlings have a message for you. They say that they found food in the kitchen and they want you to cook something.” Jarvis said calmly.

 

“I don’t know how to cook… Tell them I’ll be right down. I should probably teach them how to be spider-people right? I mean I am the elder spider.” Peter shrugged.

 

“That does sound wise. However I would advise instructing Mr. Keener on the ways of Iron Man as he does not have any enhancements.” The AI commented.

 

“That’s a good idea. Maybe I can implant you into a headpiece or something to give to him. I bet he will need some guidance.” Peter sighed as he strolled to the elevator.

 

“That implies that you are going somewhere without them. Are you planning on facing Ultron alone?” Peter didn’t answer. He knew that JARVIS already knew the answer as well as he did.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Don’t worry, your spider sense will develop. For me, it took almost a year after the bite for mine to completely start working. Now it kind of feels like time slows down you know?” Petre shrugged as he took another bite of his successfully made spaghetti. It turned out that the community kitchen was stocked with plenty of italian spices and even a recipe book that had belonged to Tony’s mother.

 

Peter had a little bit of experience with making italian food as Aunt May was a second generation immigrant and forced him to learn some of the language and to be able to make some simple food. Knowing italian made learning spanish in school easier and Peter was able to communicate with his aunt without other people knowing what they were saying. She would usually say ‘I love you’ or something in the language so that it would be less embarrassing.

 

“So far my spidey-sense is just glorified anxiety…” Cindy sighed and sadly ate her spaghetti.

 

“Yeah I like violently dodged a moth the other day because it almost landed on me. My spider genes must think that moths are a dangerous threat or something.” Gwen shrugged and ate her spaghetti. Peter looked at his kimoyo bead as it lightly buzzed. He held it right in front of him as it projected a text message.

 

‘On behalf of the Wakandan monarchy, Prince T’Challa, the black panther, will be sent to your location for an extraction in one hour. All questions must be answered in return for sanctuary. Notification for arrival will be sent. You are advised to stay safe.’

 

Peter sighed in relief at the message. Thank god.

 

“We’re home free kids. No more hiding from homicidal robots.” Peter smiled. He showed the message to the youngins.

 

“Where’s Wakanda? And how do you know the king?” Miles asked with a mouthful of pasta.

 

“East Africa, in my reality, I’m friends the princess. She’s probably your age in this timeline. She’s like the smartest person in the world. I also fought the same side as T’Challa who is the one coming to get us. They have a big forcefield around their capital city. If anyone survived Ultron, It’s them. We’ll be safe there.” Peter assured.

 

“Cool. Can I have more spaghetti?”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“They’ll be here in a few minutes, Harley, do you have JARVIS’ backup with you? We might not be able to come back here. Bring Mark V. We can’t fit any of the other suits.” Peter said as he looked through the lab for anything useful. He found a handful of AI cards and found FRIDAY on one of them. He took them all because he got attached to all of Tony’s AI’s. Tony was just too good at making them realistic. Also Peter got attached to everything. He misses his roomba. He hopes that May is taking care of it…

 

“Yes… We literally have stolen all of Tony’s stuff.” Harley groaned as he picked up the suitcase iron suit in one hand.

 

“It’s not stealing if he’s dead. It’s inheritance.” Peter tossed a spare arc reactor at Harley who almost failed at catching it.

 

“Hurry up, I don’t want to keep some enhanced prince of an advanced hidden civilization waiting. Also I think that Gwen wanted to see if she could crawl under the helipad.” Harley walked over to the elevator.

 

“WHAT!” Peters eyes widened.

 

“Nah that was a lie but seriously.” Harley smiled like a little asshole. They arrived at the helipad and Gwen was in fact trying to climb under it.

 

“Get over here spider-children. They’ll be landing in a minute and it would be annoying if you got squashed.” Peter sighed as the the trio of spider preteens ran over to him. In a minute, as Peter had predicted, a large black quinjet landed on the landing pad.

 

The doors opened and T’Challa stepped out in full costume with Okoye by his side. T’Challa took off his cat-eared helmet and looked at Peter.

 

“You have a lot to explain.” The prince said as he indicated for them to enter the spaceship looking jet thing.

Notes:

I was really tired as I wrote the last part. Anyway, your comments have really kept me going and I am still having fun writing this fic. I usually have a problem with keeping with things so I'm actually surprised that I'm still going with this. If you have any questions, comments, favorites, or ideas for Alternate realities that you think that Peter should visit, please do not hesitate to comment. My tumblr is GayGemGrump and I will be posting art for this fic on there. I'll finish the next chapter as soon as I can and I'll see you soon! I love you all and all of the support that I've gotten.

Chapter 34: Reality 532015: Safe Haven

Summary:

Peter gets a nap and confronts the king of Wakanda.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter told T’Challa everything. He explained the whole alternate reality thing and the infinity stones. He also warned him about Ultron probably coming to get them. As usual, it was weird talking to someone he knew but who didn’t know him.

 

During the helicarrier ride, Peter’s 48 hours without sleep started to catch up to him. He knew that if he tried to sleep, he would just have nightmares. They came with the whole ‘mountains of recent trauma’ thing. Peter was not excited about going to sleep but he was also pretty exhausted. He decided to power through it. Thankfully the Wakandan ship was fast and they would be in Wakanda in about an hour.

 

After that he would probably have to talk to the king and explain his Wakandan technology. Then maybe he could have a nap. Hopefully.

 

He distracted himself from his exhaustion by talking to the soul stone. Harley played with his Iron man gauntlet and the suitcase iron suit, Cindy and Gwen talked excitedly to Okoye who seemed to have a soft spot for the small genius spider-girls. Miles talked timidly to T’Challa who seemed politely pleased to speak to the kid.

 

Peter focused on the soul stone because if he was going to do anything with Ultron, he would need to know about the mind stone. When he held the broken gauntlet, he had felt all of the stones and how different all of their energies were.

 

The space stone was cold and heavy, The power stone was electric and manic, the reality stone was fluid and so hot that it was freezing, the time stone was overwhelming and simple at the same time. The mind stone was mechanical and somehow, thinking. Swarming. The Soul Stone was the one that he knew the most about. They were warm and sometimes hot, both powerful and mellow, soft and fiery. Simply alive.

 

The mind stone and the soul stone were the most similar. They were the closest to being sentient. They had motives and thoughts. They were both aggressive and passionate to an extent. The mind stone was equivalent to the left brain in the right and left brain theory. It was the logical mechanical part of people. The soul stone was the creative emotional part of people. Two sides of the coin of life.

 

They were both required for life. Which meant that Ultron was only half alive and with the help of the soul stone, he could be whole. Which was terrifying. Ultron wasn’t done with just wiping out most of the planet. He wanted more. He had mind stone enhanced allies and he had a new goal now that Peter appeared with the soul stone.

 

Thinking about it made Peter want to have a nap even more. So he did.

 

It was a bad idea.

 

He woke up an hour later as they landed in Wakanda with tears in his eyes. At least he didn’t wake up screaming. That would’ve been embarrassing.

 

If anyone noticed that Peter looked like a mess, they were almost polite enough not to say anything. Even Harley. Peter appreciated it. He was stopped before leaving the quinjet by Okoye.

 

“Before you meet the king, you are coming with me. If you plan on… confronting the evil robot, you will require more than forty-five minutes of restless sleep. Your friends will be taken care of.” She said calmly as she led him in a different direction than T’Challa was leading the kids. Peter already trusted Wakanda and its leader so he didn’t complain. He knew that the spiderlings would be taken care of and they might even meet mini genius Shuri.

 

“Uh, okay… where are we going?” Peter asked as he was led inside of the Wakandan palace and down several hallways.

 

“I am taking you to a guest suite that is equipped with some sleep monitors. You will face the king and perhaps Ultron better if you are rested. Besides, there is a large time zone difference between New York and Wakanda. On this side of the world it is getting late enough for sleep to be acceptable. We will deal with your problems tomorrow.” she stopped in front of a room and opened the door for him. He thanked her and she disappeared from the area.

 

Peter didn’t even look around the room. He found a bed and he passed the fuck out.

 

Just because he was in Wakanda didn’t mean he didn’t dream. Or nightmare. Or whatever. He heard Thanos’ voice mocking him, he felt Ben die again, he felt the building crash down on him, he turned into dust… over and over and over until it was morning. He caught up on his sleep but still felt pretty far away from rested.

 

Okoye knocked on his door and notified him of his meeting with the king in a few minutes and he rushed to the bathroom to fix his outrageous bedhead. As he had been away from hair gel for way too long, his hair had gone back to its full glorious waves. It was also a little longer than he usually let it get it but it was fine so far. He just looked a little more floofy than normal. Whatever.

 

He met Okoye outside of his room. She seemed to be assigned to him to make sure that he wasn’t a threat but she didn’t look like she took him too seriously. It made sense because she was several inches taller than he was and was casually holding a Wakandan spear. He spent a few seconds thinking about what that meant and what features it would have. He bet himself that it could shoot lasers or have some sort of long range mode.

 

“How was your sleep?” Okoye asked as she led him down the hallways.

 

“As good as I’m going to get for a while.” Peter said cryptically. He quickly clarified. “As in, not great but enough. It’s kind of out of my own control.” He shrugged.

 

“That is unfortunate.” She replied simply. “Maybe next time you can try cryofreeze. It is hard to dream when you are suffering from hypothermia.” Peter wasn’t sure if she was joking. Her tone made it sound serious.

 

“Eh, I can’t thermonucleate properly. I get cold way too easily. Spider mutants are like that. Just fyi.” Peter joked back. He wasn’t on edge as much as he was when he was outside of Wakanda where Ultron clones were everywhere but he was still hyper aware of his surroundings. He wasn’t quite used to being safe yet. It had been a while.

 

“That explains why the blonde girl requested more blankets…” Okoye nodded in thought for a moment. “You will meet the king in a moment. Your companions have already been questioned so if you even think about lying there will be consequences.” The general went back to serious business mode.

 

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Peter promised. He just hoped that his weird reality was believable. It was crazy but the world just got taken over by a robot army that picked up a city and dropped it on the ground with help from a girl with magic and a guy that could run really fast. Maybe alternate realities didn’t sound so crazy.

 

He was led into a room with huge windows overlooking the golden city. There was a semicircle of empty chairs except for the one right in front of him. Peter immediately recognised King T'Chaka sitting tall in his throne. Peter bowed his head in respectful acknowledgement because he still wasn’t completely sure of the etiquette.

 

“Welcome Peter, son of Stark. My son T’Challa has informed me of what you have told him and I would like to know for myself. I would like to know how you acquired such technology.” T’Chaka didn’t look accusing, or at least not menacing.

 

“I’m from a different reality and a slightly different time. I actually got the tech when I was first… dropped out of my own reality. With help from Tony Stark and your daughter Shuri, I was able to create this device that helps me travel through alternate realities and timelines. Unfortunately I have been a bit stuck for a few weeks. I’ve been trying to get back to my own reality but before I’m able to figure something out, I’m torn out of that reality and into a new one. I have a few days until I’m forced to leave this reality.” Peter held up his quantum gauntlet and showed it to the king.

 

Peter noticed that his quantum burn was growing but was still dim enough for him to believe that he had a few days left. There was multicolored energy worming its way onto his palm and around his thumb from under his skin. There was a gentle throbbing but Peter planned on saving up his soul stone energy until he faced Ultron. He didn’t want to waste any on his pain. It sounded sad, but it wasn’t bothering him too much yet.

 

“There is nothing to imply that you are lying. What about that energy in your skin? It does not look particularly comfortable.” T’Chaka looked at the burn with mild and collected concern. Peter took off the gauntlet to get a better look at it.

 

“It’s the reason why I kinda warp into other realities. I have quantum energy festering in by body and it takes about a week to regenerate and overflow enough to take over this device. I don’t know what would happen if I didn’t have the gauntlet as an outlet. I could explode or something.” Peter shrugged.

 

“And the infinity stone? My son mentioned that you have one and it makes you a target to Ultron.” T’Chaka didn’t sugar coat anything, he just went right to the point.

 

“That is true. If I were you, I would get me out of here as soon as you can. I only care that the kids are safe. They will not be safe if I’m still near them. Neither is Wakanda. I could find my way to the remains of Sokovia to confront Ultron. I mean, I am the only one that can evenly go against him as we both have infinity stones. It would bring the focus away from your country and keep everyone safe.” Peter said as it the idea didn’t terrify him.

 

“Why? Why would you do this?” T’Chaka raised an eyebrow.

 

“Because… I guess it’s because I have the ability to. I’m one of the only people that could go against an infinity stone. It’s my responsibility to do what I can. Because I can.” Peter sighed. “I’m not going to stand by when I am the best person to fix this problem.”

 

“I admire your sense of responsibility and selflessness. However, you do not have to carry the fate of the world on your shoulders. You are not alone. This is the fate of the rest of our world is stake and we will stand by no longer. We have already let it fall by not assisting the avengers in saving it a few days ago. We don’t have a choice anymore. We need to get rid of Ultron.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“I babysat you guys for like one day but I’m still going to miss you.” Peter smiled sadly as Gwen hugged him with all of her super strength. Peter wouldn’t be able to leave her embrace without some bruises.

 

They stood in front of the vibranium quinjet, only minutes away from leaving for Sokovia. Peter wasn’t sure how long he would be in the fallen country or if he would even make it back. He didn’t know if it would be a few days and he would warp to his next destination or if he would fail and suffer the same fate as this universes Tony. Peter didn’t want to be mind raped and murdered. There was also the small likelihood that he could defeat Ultron and go back to Wakanda but Peter didn’t think that he could beat the murderbot that quickly. The Avengers didn’t.

 

“You gave me pop tarts so I’ll miss you for that.” Gwen muttered before finally letting him go.

 

“You helped me with my powers so I will miss that. Also you got us here so that is pretty nice of you.” Cindy hugged a little more aware of her extra strength. Miles seemed less enthusiastic to show his emotion in the same way. Peter just comfortingly patted the kids shoulder and ruffled Harley’s mop of hair.

 

“Take care of JARVIS for me.” Peter smiled at Harley and turned towards the jet.

 

“Wait!” Harley caught Peters attention and held out something. It was the vibranium Iron Man gauntlet that he had given him a while ago. Tony’s part of the Quantum Gauntlet.

 

“No, I gave you that-” Peter started.

 

“You will need it more. I already have mark five. Now take it you asshole.” Harley shoved the device into his hands before walking back to the group. Peter didn’t expect Miles to tackle him in a hug but he accepted it easily. Miles muttered a thanks and ran back to the group. Peter got a glimpse of younger Shuri and he sent a quick nod her way.

 

He turned to the people coming with him on this mission which included the black panther himself, T’Challa’s girlfriend Nakia, and General Okoye. Peter waved at the kids before boarding the quinjet.

 

Peter sighed as Okoye went to pilot the jet. It was time to get serious and actually plan what they’re going to do with Ultron. They probably had a half of an hour before they would be above the ruins of Sokovia and they needed to know what they were doing.

 

T’Challa waved him over to a table that seemed to be holding dark vibranium sand. T’Challa waved his hand over it and a three dimensional geographical map of where Sokovia was. It was mostly just a crater and a lot of water. But there was a place were Ultron was obviously building something. In the center of the ruble, there was a sharp triangular building that was likely housing the Maximoffs and the robot himself. At least in his main body with the mind stone.

 

“There is no way to approach unnoticed. How will we get in?” Nakia asked.

 

“He will be expecting me. Not you guys. We have to use that as an advantage. I can distract him while you guys watch out for the twins. That’s the closest thing we can get to a surprise attack. Besides, he has the mind stone and I don’t think you guys want to get mind controlled.” Peter shrugged.

 

“It is true. The witch can manipulate matter and minds, the boy is too fast to simply beat physically. We must trap them or prevent them from using their powers. Otherwise we don’t have much leverage. All of the technology must be close circuit so that Ultron is unable to hijack anything we use against them. Obviously our shielding works as he has not shown any reason for us to believe he knows about Wakanda. We cannot assume anything though. He could just be biding his time.” T’Challa said gravely.

 

Peter used the soul stone to see what he had on the table. The stone gave him the groups strengths and weaknesses as well as an idea. He reviewed everything he knew about Wanda and Ultron and smiled a little

 

“I think I have an idea. But you guys have to trust me a little bit.”

Notes:

Hey guys! Hopefully I can get another chapter out tomorrow as you will not want to wait for this one. please comment AU ideas, art Ideas, your favorite lines and moments, what you like about my writing or whatever you want really. Art and other stuff will be on my tumblr (GayGemGrum) and I will try to actually make art on there. If anyone makes art for my fic please link me! If anyone wants to beta or discuss my ideas for my work, please tell me on here or on my tumblr. I don't want to add things to my fic without any idea if people would like it or not.

Anyway, I love all of the interaction and attention that this fic has gotten. I love everyone who reads my shit and even more for everyone who comments. I have lots of ideas for this fic and I can't wait to write it up!

I'm starting to write my 'Where are they now' which starts in reality 19999998, which is the reality that this fic starts on. I'm also planning on writing deleted scenes and alternate scenes in a series but I don't know what to call it. So i guess if you have an idea for that just comment. If you want any extra character interactions that can be in that collection than just comment that too. Any ideas or even conversations that you want to happen should be included in that comment.

Again, I love you guys and I'll see you next chapter!

Chapter 35: Reality 532015: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Summary:

Peter faces off against Ultron and the Maximoff twins.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The jet was cloaked about a mile away, hidden among a pile of rubble. They would need it when they planned on getting back or if they decided to retreat or something. Peter was at the front of the building and he marveled slightly at the sheer size and how quickly he was built. It was made of glass and metal and it was described very basically. Sharp. It looked like a layered flower made out of shards of glass and steel. It looked both natural and unnatural at the same time. Like it could be grown and built at the same time.

 

It was also pretty creepy. Like a memorial for a tragedy. It felt empty and like it knew what it was built for. It knew that it was a mass grave. It knew that it was on top of the gravesite of thousands. Peter didn’t like it. It made him feel alone.

 

He walked in the entrance anyway. Deeper into the grave. He tried to use his enhanced senses to map out the compound but his heartbeat was almost deafening with how loud it was. He was walking right into a trap, right where this realities Tony had died. And Peter’s body seemed to know that. His heart was beating against his chest with the strength of Thor and it wasn’t very convenient for him.

 

Eventually he reached the center of the building. Before the disaster this place used to be a church, Ultron seemed aware of that as there seemed to be an altar in the center of the main room. It looked like it was mocking what used to stand here. Like it was proving that there was no reason to believe in anything if it was going to fall anyway.

 

“Welcome home Pete.” Ultron’s deep voice rumbled from all around him. “I knew you’d come to join me.” Ultron’s primary body emerged from a hall in front of him. The body looked like a mix between the visions body and the normal design of the ultron body. It looked mostly human like the vision but it’s face completely ruined the illusion. It was noseless and piercing red eyes as well as sunken cheeks and the weird ear things on the side of his head. The bright yellow glow of the mind stone was imbedded in the androids chest and pulsed with energy.

 

“Nice upgrade. We both know that this isn’t my home.” Peter tried to figure out if anyone was sneaking up on him but there wasn’t much he could do. He was far away from any exits unless he went all hulk on the glass.

 

“It will be. I am glad that you considered my offer. Listening does not run in the family. All Tony did was talk talk talk and never listen… It was enraging. I’m glad that you aren’t like him. When the mind stone told me that Stark had a son, I was sure it would be just a clone of that bastard.” Ultron said bitterly.

 

Peter bristled at the comment about Tony and wasn’t sure about the mind stone telling Ultron that Peter was Tony’s son. Like, Tony’s actual son. Peter didn’t think that the mind stone was a dumbass. It might have some ulterior motive. Peter just wasn’t sure about what it was yet. It was definitely concerning.

 

“Yeah well we’re full of surprises…” Peter muttered. “Being a clone of Tony wouldn't be too bad though. You’re just a clone of an insane space rock. It’s a step up.”

 

“An insane space rock that just reduced the population of this planet by billions. Only the best survived insect. The next generations will be perfect. But that isn’t the point. You wouldn’t understand so why try to explain, correct? You are going to try stop me and you are going to fail. You are all the same, it’s almost comedic. A big strong hero comes along and thinks that they can even compete with a cosmic entity merged with an indestructible android. You are only mortal.” Ultron dragged on as Peter started to get bored.

 

“Are you monologuing?” Peter raised an eyebrow. “We aren’t even fighting, you’re just talking dude. I know that’s what bad guys do, but you’re just contradicting yourself.” Peter paused as he recognized the situation. The vulture had done the exact same thing. Talking as a distraction to keep him on focused on his words instead of his actions. Hell, Peter did it all of the time.

 

“You’re smart. It’s honestly a shame that you will have to join your father in the afterlife. It’s probably the only way to get that stone from you isn’t it?” Ultron grumbled. This was the first time that he vaguely sounded mechanical.

 

“I mean, I don’t know the cosmic rules of the universe, but that sounds about right. But this is the soul stone, so do you really think that you are able to kill me when I hold the key to life itself. Come on, I know that you’re planning like an ambush or something. Where’s evil Quicksilver? Where’s the witch? I mean you didn’t just start talking for no reason right?” Peter secretly made sure that both of his web-shooters had electric webbing as the primary web-setting.

 

“Having the soul stone bonded to you does nothing to your mortality. You can still die. It’s almost a mercy at this point. You die by my hands instead of by the mad titan. Again. You get to see Stark again. I’m doing you a favor.” Ultron shrugged and Peter shivered visibly. Not out of cold but out of unease.

 

“I’ll have to pass. I’m sorry.” Peter forced a calm smile. “I really am not in the mood to die again. At least give me a year back, jesus.” He chuckled stiffly.

 

“I have something of your fathers that he may want back.” Ultron rolled a bloody and dented Iron Man helmet which stopped in front of him. “Give it back when you join him, will you?”

 

“That is fucked up. I’d ask you to give it to him yourself but you literally don’t have a soul so that wouldn’t work. Can we just get to fighting? This whole hamlet thing is getting dull.” Peter picked up the helmet gently and looked into the slots where the metal eyes were. The sight made him sick and empty. It wasn’t a nice feeling. Just a fun reminder that someone that he cared about died in that golden headgear.

 

Peter looked back up at Ultron who looked like he was going to speak. The thing about the soul stone, It was practically fueled by emotion. The soul stone reacted more powerfully when Peter was desperate and angry. So the helmet was just a little energy boost. Because it pissed him off a whole lot.

 

“My name is Peter Benjamin Parker. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” At least he got a princess bride reference in. He needed at least three pop culture references a day to satisfy his teenage nerd hunger.

 

He launched himself at Ultron. Before the fight, he had tried not to take Ultron too seriously. He had taunted him with quips and insults, hoping that the robot would get annoyed with him at least. Instead the android went along with Peter’s act and didn’t even seem bothered. Peter decided that it was because Ultron lacked emotions. Peter almost felt bad because emotions were kind of important for most people to have.

 

Peter’s fist connected with the center of Ultrons chest plate thing. The damn thing was made of vibranium so he didn’t even make a dent. Sure, Ultron slid backward and was thrown against a wall, but it did no actual damage.

 

Peter was definitely taking the robot seriously now. The guy could hit pretty hard and was much faster than Peter had originally assumed. He was fast enough to dodge most attacks but he did get blasted in his left shoulder with some sort of energy beam. The same one he got shot in, like, a month ago. It hurt both times.

 

He couldn’t hurt the guy with his normal spider powers so he decided to rely on the soul stone for this one. Using the stone wasn’t his first instinct for fighting yet, and he didn’t really want to to be.

 

Peter channeled the heated power into his fist and yelled as he punched Ultron in the chest. The soul stone actually made a dent and even melted a bit of the vibranium where the androids heart would be.

 

“Goodness, that’s actually mildly effective.” Ultron seemed to chuckle. It was creepy as fuck. “It is a shame that you cannot use the stone effectively.”

 

“Come on man, just stop talking. It’s sounding so… cliche supervillain esque. I mean, all you have to do now is physically trap me and explain your evil plan in annoying detail.” Petre groaned as he nimbly dodged an attack. His shoulder burned but he knew that it was going to be much worse when his adrenaline crashed.

 

“I was going to do something like that but that is too cheesy for even me. I already have no nose, no hair, and red eyes. I cannot get even more physically villainous. Perhaps if I had a unibrow…” Ultron said calmly as Peter growled in frustration. He could barely put a dent in the guy.

 

Peter focused on dodging before he flipped above the robot and yelled as he thrusted his hand into the back of the robots spine. It still lacked enough damage. Was he not connected to the soul stone enough? The soul stone wasn’t exactly created for combat.

 

‘Our power is fueled by emotion Peter. You locked yourself down to avoid being overwhelmed by your feelings. You have been through so much and pain is the best form of power. Pain can cripple even the strongest of people. Thanos wept when he used Gamora to get me. Pain is power. Pain can cause destruction.’ The soul stone whispered in his head for the first time in a while. ‘You, Peter Parker, have a whole lot of fuel.’

 

Peter was shown flashing images of Uncle Ben, fuzzy images of his parents, falling buildings, freezing cold water, Tony being stabbed, crashing airplanes, turning into dust… Immediately, he couldn’t breathe. Ultron used Peter’s moment of stunned fear and grabbed his throat before slamming him into the hard metal wall.

 

Peter couldn’t breathe, he frantically grasped at his throat and desperately gasped for air.

 

“I thought you would be faster…” Ultron sounded disappointed as Peter felt his lungs start to burn.

 

‘Feel Peter.’ the soul stone said calmly. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and his panic escalated as his head pounded from lack of oxygen. The metal fingers around his throat reminded him of his whole claustrophobic thing so instead of trying to ignore it like he usually did, he let himself feel it. His veins glowed as he stopped struggling. Before his vision could go black, he used the rest of the strength he could muster to let out a yell.

 

His chest glowed and let out a beam of light coming from his heart. It thrusted Ultron into the wall several dozens of feet away and stopped when the robot’s eyes dimmed. Peter tumbled to the ground and gasped for breath. It took a minute to get enough air. He winced at his shoulder wound and he knew that his throat would have a giant hand shaped bruise develop pretty soon.

 

If Ultron had just squeezed a little tighter... Peter shuttered. He didn’t like how close he got to pulling a Loki. He could still feel the fingers around his neck and had to take a few more minutes just to breathe and reassure himself.

 

The only good thing about his absolute panic was that the soul stone’s power was literally glowing out of his body. The energy let him be connected to the area around him and he could feel that the mind stone was in the area. He also felt both Wanda and Pietro Maximoff energies nearby. He wasn’t sure if T’Challa and Nakia would be able to handle two superpowered beings with no regard for human life.

 

He didn’t have time to completely catch his breath. T’Challa and Nakia are in danger and even with their technology, they couldn’t do much against a few sadistic mutant human nazi’s. Wanda could make them both go insane and Piedro could beat them up faster than they could blink an eye.

 

“Stealth contact the black panther.” Peter raised his quantum gauntlet to his lips and breathed heavily into the receiver. “Did you put the force field around the building?”

 

“The force field is in place. Not even the witch can escape. What is your statis?” T’Challa said calmly back.

 

“Minor damage, I took care of the main Ultron. There are more around the world but I think I can change that if I can get to an interface. We have to take care of the bigger problem first. I’ve already trained with a version of Quicksilver and I met the witch in my own universe. I think I can convince them to abandon whatever this cause was supposed to be. Stay away from them, I can resist Wanda’s mind magic with the soul stone but you guys wouldn’t be able to do much. Keep watch and keep the force field up.” Peter told them and put his vibranium wrist accessory down.

 

Peter used the soul stone to look around the area for the twins. They were just chilling in a room pretty close to the central hub where Peter was. They seemed to be talking to each other in hushed tones and seemed pretty paranoid. They obviously had no idea that Peter had defeated the main form of Ultron.

 

“He is here. He is listening.” Wanda seemed to notice the soul energy and she stated in a grave voice. “I can sense him. It would be idiotic to attack him one at time. We must work together.” Her accent was much more prominent than he knew her as having.

 

“You think I would leave you out? Must be joking.” Piedro smirked. Peter knew that this Quicksilver and the Quicksilver that he knew were almost the same person but they were so different. So far, Peter preferred the x-Men reality version. He wasn’t a crazy Nazi. He was just a dork that liked to steal things sometimes. They did have the same dry snark and playful energy.

 

Peter opened his eyes as his spider sense attacked his mind. He let his reflexes take control to dodge the sudden threat. The icy blue energy was the first thing that gave it away. It was evil quicksilver.

 

“Hey! It’s sonic the hedgehog, I’m a big fan.” Peter smiled and ignored the pain in his body. He decided not to waste the soul stone’s power on something as insignificant as his comfort. Besides, pain was fuel for his cosmic rock right?

 

“You have pretty good reflexes, what is your story? Ultron did not tell us much about you.” Piedro leaned comfortably on a glass wall.

 

“Uh, long story short, radioactive spider bite. And I’m from a different reality where you die and your sister is pretty sad about that.” Peter shrugged. “I’m really not in the mood to fight it out if I’m honest. Haven’t you both already achieved your goal? You killed… you killed Tony. Wasn’t that like, your main thing? Why kill the rest of the world with him?”

 

“We thought that he would only help us get rid of the Avengers but he had a bigger plan. He used our country to destroy the world. At that point, we couldn’t do much. He is in control of the mind stone, which gave us our powers. We don’t know if he could take away our powers or kill us. At this point, it is only self preservation.” Piedro sighed.

 

“It doesn’t have to be that way. I can kill Ultron and you can help rebuild the world. You don’t have to be murderers.” Peter insisted. “You were used by Ultron. You are not weapons.”

 

“I think that it is too late. We killed. We are murderers. We helped cause the end of the world. We deserve nothing less than our fate.” Piedro was still surprisingly calm and upbeat sounding. Peter spun around as his spider sense warned him but he was too late. Red energy connected in between his eyes and the area around him changed. He had never been so afraid.

Notes:

Okay so I'm starting a new fic so I will only be able to post one chapter a week at least for this fic. If you like Iron dad, that's what my new fic is about so if you are interested, please check it out. I'm always up for alternate reality ideas and stuff like that.

SPOILERS: The next reality is either going to be in the DC universe or in a universe where the accords are closer to being a registration act against people who could be threats. Vote for whichever one you like the most, I have a lot of ideas for both. I kinda don't want to clog the tags anymore so more characters and stuff will not be there.

Follow my Tumblr (GayGemGrump) for art (for my fics) and other quality content. I also have an Instagram where I use the story feature to post my art and work in progress types of things. I also post selfies and pictures of my cats and dog. So if you're interested.

Comment any art ideas and some of your favorite parts of my works. I love it when I get feedback. I generally don't know what people like about my work so any and all comments are really appreciated.

Chapter 36: Reality 532015: Face your Fears

Summary:

Peter faces the twins.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

In the back of his mind, he knew that it was fake. The room had morphed into a place that made his heart sink. It wasn’t just the sight though, the illusion was convincing. He felt the dust enter his nose and settle on his skin. He could hear the wind and he felt like the gravity was a bit off.

 

He was back on Titan. The atmosphere was exactly how he remembered it, save for the emptiness. There was no guardians of the galaxy, there was no Doctor Strange. But in the distance there was something that haunted his dreams. It was horribly repeating history.

 

He had lost Ben in front of him, in a way that he thought that he could’ve prevented, who bled to death in his arms, who was a father figure to him. And on Titan, It was happening again. And somehow, It was worse. Time slowed down when it happened. Peter was too far away. He had left Tony alone, if only for a moment to fight the mad titan without any assistance. Peter saw as Tony’s blade was broken and thrusted back into its original owner. Even from so far away, he heard it. He heard the blade break the flesh, he heard Tony’s broken breaths.

 

And at that moment, Tony Stark, genius billionaire superhero, had become another Uncle Ben. There was the same gasping breaths and the same sharp smell of blood. There was the same horrifying shock that overcame Peter. The crippling fear that froze him in place more than any of his own personal trauma ever could. No collapsing building, no plane crash, no freezing river, no fall from thousands of feet, nothing could ever compare. None of them hurt as much. None of them made him feel more hopeless and small.

 

Nothing hurt more than the bullet through his uncle or the blade through his mentor. It felt like his heart was being ripped out while his lungs burned and body became paralyzed. He was overcome by guilt and violently painful sorrow.

 

This was when he remembered that it wasn’t real. This was also when he realized what the soul stone meant. Feeling things was fuel. Emotions were power. And no one could get away with making him feel this again. He growled and the scene melted away in red energy. He was back in the room with evil quicksilver and scarlet witch.

 

Scarlet Witch looked as terrified as a sociopath could look. Quicksilver looked mostly confused. Orange energy reflected off of the metal and glass walls and Peter realized that it was coming from him. But he didn’t care. He was focused on the cruel woman who made him see his fear. It wasn’t much of a fear, it was a reality that he had to face.

 

“If I had your morals, you would both be dead by now. You killed one of the closest things that I’ve had to a father and assisted in destroying the world. And that’s not even mentioning what you just made me see. If you were wise, you would run.” Peter growled. If they ran, they would literally run into T’Challa and Nakia and they would be judged immediately or in Wakanda. Peter didn’t care, he just wasn’t going to be the one to kill them.

 

“How-” The Scarlet Witch scowled and her hands lit up in red wispy energy. Even before she could act, the orange soul stone energy shot towards her and she dropped to the ground. Quicksilver made a distressed noise and he shot towards his sister.

 

“She’s fine, I’m against violence, she’s just asleep. Probably in a better sleep than she deserves.” Peter said bitterly. “I know a better version of both of you, where you aren’t consumed by the need for revenge enough to have to destroy everything for everyone else.”

 

Quicksilvers face scrunched up in rage and quicker than an instant, had his hand around Peters neck and was violently crashed against the wall. Peter knew that his burn was bleeding now and he was really sick of being held by the throat. Peter used the soul stone to make Peidro collapse alongside his sister.

 

Peter touched his neck gently as his bruises from Ultron formed and was throbbing from quicksilvers harsh reminder of his near suffocation. He calmed his breathing and raised the quantum gauntlet to his mouth.

 

“Stealth contact the Black Panther. The twins are incapacitated at my location. I’m going to find the mind stone and see if there is an interface to take care of the rest of the Ultron bots. Also… I think I need a first aid kit. I mean, I’ll be fine without one but I’m bleeding a lot.” Peter looked at the bloodstain on the wall. It wasn’t anything to laugh about. His back was probably covered in his blood and it definitely didn't feel great. In fact, It hurt a lot.

 

“Roger that. Put pressure on your wound and we will be there momentarily. We can lock the twins up and once you get the mind stone, you should return with us to the jet. It will be easiest to end Ultron with our technology in Wakanda.” T’Challa said back through the communicator.

 

“Good idea. I need to use the soul stone to talk to the mind stone if that makes any sense. I can feel it in the building but it probably won’t reveal it’s location without some negotiation. It won’t even let me touch it without a little chat. It’s outside of the scepter so I have to hold the actual stone. Nothing in between unless i use webbing but I’m not completely sure if that would be enough or if it would damage the stone. I need to make sure that it won’t influence me too much.” Peter sat down before closing his eyes and using the soul stone as some sort of interface. He didn’t hear the Black Panthers response.

 

The mind stone was much different than the soul stone. While the soul stone’s world was an arguably physical place, the mind stone’s world felt like he was stuck in the matrix or like he was inside of a video game about coding. The mind stone didn’t have a voice like the soul stone did. Words just popped up in front of him like a chat. It was a little weird but it kind of made sense. The mind stone wasn’t connected to emotion so why would it have a voice.

 

“Hey, uh, Mind Stine? We need to talk, or text? I don’t know. We need to find you. You don’t have to make a murderous robot to get attention.” Peter noticed that he looked like an orange hologram in the mind stone. It was both cool and creepy as hell. He never wanted to be made of lasers but whatever. It gave him an idea that he would deal with later.

 

‘I’m listening.’ Text appeared in front of him. This was going to be kinda weird.

 

“Cool, so, We need to find you, you already helped Ultron almost completely destroy a planet so I’m hoping that you got the murder out of your computer system. I can get you to Wakanda where most of earth's survivors are. You won’t be used ever again.”

 

‘Used...used… I was never used. Nothing, no one escapes my grasp. I am not used. They are. Manipulation is all that’s left of me.’ The message appear letter by letter. Like someone was typing it.

 

“You know everything. And you know that’s not true. The soul stone knows that there’s more to you than control. You are the concentrated intelligence of everything that can and that has existed. It is weird that you would use all of that just for… what? Jump-starting evolution on the
earth?”

 

“I don’t have an objective. I don’t have a soul or emotions to sway my logic. I have no interest in helping or even hurting, I was simply given a purpose to fulfill. More than I had in a long time. Incentive is not something that I was creative with. The outcome has nothing to do with my involvement.’

 

“So you’re what, a sociopath? You just don’t care about what your actions mean for everyone else… what if we could change that. What if I give you an ambition again.” Peter waited a moment for a response.

 

‘I am interested to see you try.’ The words eventually appeared.

 

“You won’t be disappointed. You just have to not influence my brain or anything like that. I can’t help you if I am you.” He shrugged.

 

‘Very well. I don’t have much to do anyway.’ Peter smiled before opening his eyes, back in reality. Where he was getting patched up by Nakia. His shoulder was wrapped in some flexible black bandage and he felt a lot better. Not perfect but impressively good.

 

“Oh, uh thanks. So, I know where the mind stone and I think it would be best to keep it in my quantum gauntlet. That way nothing else can get access to it. I can hold the soul stone, it won’t do anything to me. We’re friends.” Peter was careful not to move his injured shoulder. He didn’t want to ruin Nakias hard work.

 

“I will get the male, Nakia, can you handle the girl?” T’Challa looked towards his girlfriend.

 

“What do you take me for? A child? She does not even looked that heavy.” Nakia said, Peter couldn’t tell if her tone was serious or teasingly flirtations towards the prince.

 

“Okay well, I’ll meet you both at the jet. Contact the king. I’ll be back in a minute.” Peter stood up and followed the energy of the mind stone. He left the Wakandan couple looking a bit confused but not overly concerned.

 

It didn’t take too long for him to find the stone, but the whole way it felt like he was wading through graves. He was going to be so glad to leave this place. That reminded him, he looked at his quantum burn. He should still have a few days left but he wasn’t sure how the quantum energy was reacting to all of the energy from so much use of the soul stone. It probably didn’t do much but he was still a little worried about it.

 

The quantum energy was a little brighter than it should’ve been so he assumed that he had about a day left until his next jump. Soul stone energy seemed to affect the burn a little but not by a damaging amount so he decided not to worry just yet.

Once Peter found the mind stone, he wasted no time in switching it with the soul stone and keep the soul stone in his bare hand. As usual, the soul stone was warm and felt a little small in his hand.

 

He practically sprinted out of the building and thanks to his spider enhancements, he easily caught up to T’Challa and Nakia. He offered to carry Wanda for her but she gave him a death stare. He backed off quickly and strolled by them to the Wakandan jet.

 

It was a quiet ride back to the hidden country but Peter kept himself busy by using the soul stone to find the unsaved survivors. It took a while, he was searching through the entire planet for anything. He was struck again with the massive loss of life. And there was nothing he could do this time. There was just suddenly… nothing.

 

He didn’t have time to mourn. He had to find Harley’s family. He needed to find where Ultron hid the survivors. He needed to find a way to save them. And he needed to do all of that before he’s whisked away to another possibly more deadly reality and time. Yay.

 

He found the few thousand survivors of the human race in a bunch of underground bunkers in the alps. They were apparently made for a secret safe haven for an end-of-the-world scenario. Only for rich and important Europeans though. The people that mattered most of course.

 

All he had to do was disable Ultron completely and send Wakanda for a rescue mission. It was the best they could do. Peter began to look through everyone that survived to see if any of them had some sort of powers or enhancements. He did find a familiar name. Cassie Lang. Wasn’t that Ant-Man’s daughter? He added the name to a list of people and things that were starting to piece together a plan. He found Kate Bishop, Kamala Khan, two of Clint Barton’s kids, and a few more superhuman or specializing individuals.

 

The Avengers were gone, sure. But the Avengers were based on rebirth. Peter was going to make some new Avengers. If this world was going to experience Thanos or anything like that again, they couldn’t be so vulnerable. They needed to be ready.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter honestly didn’t expect to be tackled by a handful of children, three of which had super strength. But right as he exited out of the plane, Gwen had launched herself at him while Miles and Cindy were only a little less aggressive. Harley tried to squeeze himself between all of the spider kids but he didn’t stand much of a chance. Peter made sure to include the non-enhanced kid as well so he wouldn’t be left out.

 

“Holy hell, okay watch the shoulder guys, I admit that I am back.” He grinned as he tried to pay attention to all of the excitable kids but wasn’t sure if he could manage it.

 

“Miles thought you were going to die!” Gwen said in an oddly optimistic tone.

 

“Yeah? And what did you think?” Peter responded with a raised eyebrow.

 

“I thought you were going to be fine. I think you are stubborn enough to survive for a while.” Peter laughed. It was funny because he was only stubborn enough to prolong his death. Well, temporary death. That counted right?

 

“Well, you’re not wrong. What did you do while I was gone?” Peter smiled and ignored the slowly growing painful sensation in his wrist. One day. He only had one day with this reality. He didn’t want to leave… The spider children and Harley didn’t deserve to deal with everything alone. They didn’t deserve to be abandoned by someone else.

 

“We met the princess! She’s insanely smart. She’s even smarter than you!” Peter rolled his eyes jokingly at Harley’s comment.

 

“I know. I need to visit the king, I’m not exactly done with this whole situation yet. I don’t have much longer in this reality.” He shrugged with his uninjured shoulder. It looked weird but was understood by the group of children.

 

Peter watched Nakia and T’Challa carry the twins out of the area and he hoped that they would be able to be contained. Or even better, turned to join them. Not that they deserved it. They may not deserve a second chance after committing mass murder and being too cowardly to escape when they had the chance.

 

He started to walk into the palace while he tried not to trip over clingy children.

 

“What do you mean you don’t have much longer in this reality?” Miles asked quietly.

 

“I’m… I’m like a time-bomb. But instead of blowing up, I get transported to different realities. Although if I didn’t have the Quantum Gauntlet I might totally explode. I don’t want to test that theory.” He shrugged casually.

 

“What’s with people exploding… It’s annoying…” Harley sighed. This was when Peter remembered the whole extreamis thing where people would blow up and stuff. It was crazy. The idea of human bombs was fucked up.

 

“So are you guys going to come with me to see the king?” Peter asked. “Because I have some information that could affect you little Avengers..” Even Gwen was in stunned silence. They all knew what that implied.

Notes:

Again, this chapter is coming sooner than I though, I'm just excited to continue this one and my other fic. Eventually I will have my own laptop to update more often but at the moment It's once a week for each fic at the least.

I am so happy with all of the feedback and attention this has gotten and I am always looking for new AU ideas and new ideas in general. COMMENTS ARE MY FUEL, so the more comments, the faster I will be motivated to post and spend time writing.

I have a Tumblr (GayGemGrum) and I post art and stuff about this fic and other things that I'm working on and interested in. It's mostly Iron Dad at the moment.

Anyway, I'll see you guys later and I hope you like my stuff, good night!

Chapter 37: Reality 532015: New Cycle

Summary:

Peter needs to fix things before he is forced to leave. Introducing, a new universe!

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter was too late. He didn’t have enough time to fix everything. He wouldn’t be able to help the mind stone, he wouldn’t be able to help eradicate the rest of Ultron, he wouldn’t be able to help save the rest of earth’s survivors. There just wasn’t enough time. Peter had hours left at most and he had forgone sleep to make the most out of his time left in this reality. Using the soul stone for pain relief would just shorten his time so he didn’t bother. His wrist throbbed violently as a constant reminder of his time limit.

 

Peter wasn’t too worried about the Maximoff twins, or the young Avengers, or the recovery of the earth's survivors. Wakanda and their leaders would be able to take care of all of them without breaking a sweat. T’Challa and the Dora would be able to train the young avengers, they had the technology and room in their country to provide for the few thousand refugees, they had vibranium to hold the witch and her brother back.

 

The mind stone and Ultron were different. They were problems that Peter felt like he had to be the one to deal with. He was linked to the soul stone. He was the only living person on the planet that had a connection to the stones. Loki was on asgard, likely aware of his brothers death, Gamora was with the guardians of the galaxy thousands of lightyears away, Doctor Strange had been years away from existing as a wizard and the rest of the stones were off planet.

 

Peter was this worlds only hope and he was actually terrified. He couldn’t figure out how to fix the mind stones problem. It needed to care. About anything. And Peter couldn’t make it do it. He tried introducing the stone to the idea of a physical body like his universe did with vision. That didn’t work. He tried using the soul stone on the mind stone to give it something but that seemed to be some universal rule that didn’t do much except for almost make him explode.

 

It took him hours to realize something. Vision wasn’t just the mind stone. Peter had heard his voice in the Avengers tower. Vision was part Jarvis. The mind stone didn’t want to be alone. It had been alone for billions and billions of years, since it was created at the beginning of the universe. An AI created by Tony would be the perfect companion. It was created to be as close to human as possible. Jarvis had an artificial soul.

 

Peter either had to go back to New York or he had to find Tony’s Iron Man helmet back in the ruins of Sokovia. Peter didn’t want to see the blood on the helmet or think about where Tony was left to die.

 

He decided to go home.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter took a single seated fighter ship to New York. It was mostly automated so he barely had to pilot it at all. He had said his final goodbye to the Spider-children and the heir to Iron Man before he left. It was a quiet few hours to New York City and every heartbeat was like a painful countdown to his next destination. He hoped the next reality wasn’t in the middle of its own apocalypse. He just wanted a nap. He didn’t think that he would get a nap.

 

He landed on the avengers tower helipad and exited as quickly as he could. He sprinted to the lab and opened up Jarvis’ interface.

 

“Good Morning young sir, welcome back. Do you require any assistance?” Jarvis said from his speaker in the ceiling.

 

“Uh yeah, Are you attached to a source of energy besides the giant arc reactor downstairs or do you have a universal energy converter?” Peter read through coding almost too fast for him to understand it. He was in a little bit of a hurry.

 

“I do have an energy converter that was inspired by the one SHIELD used for the tesseract. Would you like me to instruct you on it’s location?” Jarvis said calmly like all AI tended to do.

 

“Yes please. I need to get this done as quickly as possible. I don’t have that much time.” Peter ran along a path of lights that Jarvis turned on for him.

 

“I’m afraid I don’t see your meaning young sir.” Peter stopped in some sort of maintenance room and sighed.

 

“In a few hours I will be thrusted out of this reality and thrown into another. If I don’t help this world as much as I can, then Ultron could just… attack it again and they won’t be ready for Thanos. I can either merge you with the mind stone and hope that it words… or I can try to get Wanda to destroy it. I want to save the mind stone, that’s the problem. I don’t think that that’s the right thing to do. Saving the mind stone could kill us as easily as Thanos snapping. But it’s… sentient. It deserves to live. But does it?” Peter mumbled to himself. He found what he was looking for and adjusted it to the mind stone.

 

“I believe I am not qualified to answer that.” Jarvis answered simply.

 

“Me neither. And I’m the one in charge of it.” Peter sighed as he hesitated to put the mind stone in it’s slightly misshapen slot.

 

“Jarvis… I don’t know why I was sent here, if it was an accident or something in the universe chose me to save them… I don’t know what I’m doing. I could… make a mistake and end up killing everyone I was trying to save. I have hours to fix everything that no one else can fix and I… I can’t do it. The mind stone could just take you over again and make an even worse Ultron. I don’t even know if I’m doing the right thing. I’m not some genius like Tony or a god like Thor, I can’t just make something like the Vision in my universe. I’m just one… kid.” Peter’s arm fell to his side. He wished that he had Tony’s confidence, just so that he could feel like he was doing the right thing. To be sure of… something.

 

Peter didn’t notice the room dimming through all of his worrying. He didn’t notice the soft arc reactor blue glow that took the place of artificial light. He did notice when a familiar voice, that he hasn’t heard the whole time in this reality, spoke up.

 

“One kid that brought back half of the universe, one kid that saved this reality save for some tidbits… Underoos, your self deprecating almost matches my own.” Peter spun around to see the holographic copy of Tony Stark. Peter’s eyes filled with tears knowing that it wasn’t actually his mentor and he wasn’t actually there. He was only there because Jarvis knew that he felt lost.

 

“Hey Mr. Stark. God, I miss you.” Peter almost cringed when his constricting throat made him sob while he was trying to talk. AI hologram Tony didn’t seem to notice.

 

“I miss you too. You should see what I did to Mr. Mind-control’s cerebra to even contact you. It took fucking forever.” Peter froze. This wasn’t a hologram that this universes Tony created just in case he died, this was his Tony. He had been trying to find him. It was bitter-sweet as he was too close to being forced out of this reality.

 

“Nice timing. I only have a few hours left here. Then you have to find me again. Tony, I don’t know how long I can do this… I just want to go home…” Peter desperately held back his sobs. “I want you to be real… I can’t keep doing this. I don’t know how to stop it.” He made himself whisper to avoid loud crying.

 

“Pete, I promise it’s going to be okay. I will find you again and I will come get you as soon as I can. We’re so close to finding you, just stay put.” Peter folded his arms as some sort of self hug.

 

“I don’t have long here. Please hurry. And if you end up in this reality without me, Go to Wakanda. That’s where the survivors are.” Tony looked shocked.

 

“Peter… What happened there. Why…” Tony drawled off. “What year are you in.”

 

“It was Ultron. In this reality, He wiped out most of the earth. Wakanda is where everyone alive in being held. I know you have the space stone so you won’t need it but I took a vibranium fighter jet to get here. If you want to get to Wakanda, while there on high alert, I would do that instead. Besides, there are people there that would want to see you.” Peter rambled. “I don’t think you’re going to get here in time. Just… help them okay? I don’t have time to do it myself.” He tried to joke but with the constant pain and being emotionally compromised, it was hard.

 

“I died here didn’t I…” Tony said quietly. “Ultron killed me.”

 

“Not quite. I think Wanda did it. She tortured you before you died… I don’t know exactly what happened but in this reality, Ultron genuinely thinks that I’m your son. So that was kinda weird. I’m in a hurry trying to make sure the mind stone meets Jarvis without making another murderbot. So I can’t talk long.” Peter rushed past the first few sentences as hologram of Tony winced.

 

“Did she…” Tony didn’t let the conversation drop.

 

“Yeah. It wasn’t something that I haven’t experienced before. It would have been worse without the soul stone.” Peter said simply.

 

“What do you- Kid, she showed you your worst nightmare-” Peter interrupted before Tony could continue.

 

“Exactly. I see it every night.” Both of them were quiet for a moment. “I don’t have long here. I need to do all I can to save them. I may have gotten attached to a bunch of Spider-Kids and a child from tennessee.” Peter placed the mind stone in its place and a wave of electric blue and yellow pulsed from the point. There was more silence.

 

“Convergence successful. The mind stone has connected me to every Ultron bot on the planet.” Jarvis said as Peter sighed in relief. Tony heard the AI and seemed emotional for a brief moment.

 

“Thank god… Set them on self destruct and contact the king of Wakanda to confirm our situation. Two birds, one infinity stone.” Peter almost smiled before he gasped in pain. His quantum burn had been slowly getting more painful but this was a big step. It felt like he was being stabbed in the wrist by a lightsaber. It was so hot and acidic that Peter had to bite back a scream.

 

“Kid! Are you okay? Jesus…” Tony sounded panicked and Peter thought that it was fair. He was never great at hiding his pain, especially from Tony.

 

“Yeah… It’s almost time for me to go. I hope I get a nap this time. I wanna go somewhere boring. I’m not in the mood to run for my life.” Peter recovered quickly. Maybe he had less time then he had originally thought. “If you end up coming to this reality, Help them. Help the survivors. I could only avenge them. Maybe you can do more.” He went to the rooms holographic pad and typed on a weird keyboard. He had to pour out everything that he could. He had to say goodbye to Harley and put down all of his thoughts about the young avengers project. He couldn’t leave them with nothing.

 

Peter clutched his wrist as another intense pulse of energy passed through it. He doesn’t have hours. He has minutes at most.

 

“Bye Tony. I’ll see you soon.” Peter smiled at Tony’s hologram and motioned for Jarvis to turn it off. He closed his eyes and led the soul stone both speed up the process and dull the pain.

 

“Please don’t be somewhere where I have to prevent the apocalypse or something… just a chill reality… Hopefully my own reality but whatever…” Peter muttered to himself as the pain grew to blinding intensity and his vision went white.

 

Peter was sure that he blacked out for a moment. His brain felt like it had gone through the blender and he felt mildly nauseous. He was used to the feeling of interdimensional travel.

 

But he wasn’t dropped, or thrown against anything this time. He was lying down on a beach. Sure there was a rock poking his back but it wasn’t nearly as bad as being dropped from multiple stories up or being thrown against a hard surface. The smell of seawater was heavenly compared to blood and metal. He opened his eyes and was immediately flooded with light. Once he got used to the bright natural light, he could look around.

 

He was on the coast of what felt like an island. Behind him there was a mountain of complex architecture and lush foliage. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen if not the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It felt strangely familiar but he ignored it. There was a large cylindrical building to his left and the whole odd city was surrounded in a tactical wall. It looked like it was something rebuilt from ancient times or maybe on another planet. He hoped that he didn’t travel backwards thousands of years. Then he wouldn’t have much to work with.

 

He didn’t have to wait long to be approached by a figure on a horse. He stood up and held up his hands in surrender as the person got closer. It was an older woman with a golden circlet under her carefully tied and braided blonde hair. She held a simple bow cautiously in her hand with her other hand ready to pull out an arrow at a moments notice. She wore leather and metal armor that looked uncomfortable but badass anyway.

 

“Unless you would like an arrow to the throat, you will follow me. A man has not been on this island for a hundred years. We want to know why.” The woman had a strange accent that Peter could not identify and again it rang a bell. It was familiar but his brain was too messed up think about it for too long.

 

“I would if I could but I just traveled across realities and I am very close to passing out. I’ll try not to though.” Peter put most of his energy into keeping awake. His whole body was completely exhausted and it didn’t help that he had pulled an all-nighter in the previous reality.

 

“You do not look like you are lying.” The warrior woman squinted and examined his face. “You look like you haven’t slept since the fall of the titans, you don’t look like much of a threat.”

 

“In this state, I’m not. But with a nap?” he shrugged as the woman gracefully left her horse.

 

“We will have to test that. What is your name boy?” She steadied him with her arm and he got a motherly aura from her. Of course a motherly aura with a form of godly badass surrounding it. Anyway she didn’t look like she would stab him in the back, unless he deserved it, so he appreciated that.

 

“My name is Peter.” He let her help him up onto the tall horse as he was not tall.

 

“I am Queen Hippolyta. Welcome to Themyscira. Island of the Amazons.” Peter hid his surprise as he finally recognized the place. He had bought May tickets to see the movie as she wanted to see it but didn’t want to waste money on just going to a theater. May had always loved Wonder Woman and would be super jealous to see that he had tripped into their universe.

 

Realization slowly dawned on him as he was led inside the city.

 

Holy fuck, he was in the DC universe.

Notes:

So, hopefully you guys like the DC universe. (Mostly Wonder Woman and Batman with hints of the Flash TBH) If you want me to add any other DC characters, just comment. Actually just comment anyway. Commenting is like heroin to me. I love all of you and I can't wait to write more.

 
Please comment your favorite scenes from any of the Iron Man movies and Spider-Man: Homecoming. It's for this fic but I'll be a while until I write what it has to do with this lol. Spoilers- It's for when Peter travels to our superhero-less universe.

 

Follow my Tumblr (GayGemGrump) to easily get a hold of me. I love to talk about my work and ideas. I hate having to keep this from all of you guys, I can't wait until it actually gets into the story. Check out my other fic if you want pure fluff and iron fam goodness. I will be updating it at the same rate as this one.

 

Tell me what you think! Do you like the idea of the DC universe? Do you think Peter deserves a goddamn nap for once? Do you want Tony to reunite with Peter permanently?

Chapter 38: Reality 71027111: Gods in a World of People

Summary:

Peter leaves the island of the Amazons.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter was pretty glad that the amazons let him have a normal amount of sleep. Apparently they had to contact someone from outside of their island but they wouldn’t tell him who. Peter hoped that it was batman because that would be pretty cool. Although Batman was usually too emo for Peter to handle. Peter was an optimist and he didn’t think that he would get along with a guy that dressed in black and only hung out with his butler.

 

Anyway, contacting them wouldn’t be instantaneous so he was allowed to have a nice lengthy nap. He didn’t have nightmares and he considered it being part of the magical invisible island but he was probably just overly exhausted. It seemed like the only way to have a chance at defeating the nightmares alone was to never sleep. Then when he passed out his brain was too busy trying to keep him alive rather than torment him. It was a pretty good system so far.

 

Once Peter woke up he was sent to a magic boat. It may not be the weirdest thing he had ever seen but it was pretty new for him. Apparently the boat was one of the only things that could leave the island and it was self navigating.

 

None of the Amazons could leave the island so they just sent him on his way and told him that someone would find him to help. He just thought they wanted to get rid of him. He wasn’t too excited to be in a boat, the last time he was in one he had accidentally cut it in half. He had also done his fair share of almost drowning so he generally was uncomfortable in boats. He didn’t have much of a choice though. He went in the magic boat.

 

The goodbye was brief and Peter made sure to thank the queen for all of her help. She only gave him instructions to visit a certain museum which was kinda cryptic. Sure he liked ancient history museums a little more than the normal person but he wasn’t sure what they expected him to find.

 

In any case, it would be an adventure. The queen gave him a ring so that he would be identified by the person he was apparently meeting with. It had sharp winding metal bands in the shape of a ‘W’ and was stunningly gold. He put it on his left index finger so it wouldn’t get in the way of the quantum gauntlet or in the way of activating his web-shooter.

 

The ride on the boat was long and relaxing. He needed relaxing after the chaos that had been his life for the past couple of months. He rested on the floor of the boat and rested his eyes. All he could hear was the sea and it was all he could smell. He avoided talking to the soul stone because all he needed was silence. At least for a little while. Then he got bored and used the soul stone to try to prepare himself for this universe.

 

Apparently this reality had bled through to Peter’s reality with comics, movies, and a few TV series. It seemed like a mix of several adaptations that Peter was a little bit familiar with.

 

Bruce Wayne looked more like Ben Affleck than Christian Bale, Barry Allen was not Ezra Miller and Dick Grayson was an actual child holy shit. Peter may have been young when he started superheroing but he wasn’t a fucking ten year old. He was about four years older than that. And he had superpowers as well as motivating trauma. Take that Robin.

 

Mostly each hero had their own city. Batman and Robin basically shared Gotham, Superman had Metropolis, Green Hawkeye had Star City, and Mr.The Flash had Central City. This reality had more vigilante superheroes than his. Peter was arguably the only one in his own. At least until the accords, then the ex-avengers would probably count as a self appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement without legal authority. Peter was kind of under Tony’s authority who was under the authority of the UN, so was he really a vigilante? Peter decided not to think about it.

 

It took about three hours to reach land and Peter was completely sure about where he was. There were cities that he didn’t recognize and places that simply didn’t exist in his own reality but this was a place that was completely unmistakable. Peter had been dropped off in Paris, France by a magic boat. In an universe he thought only existed in movies.

 

He made his way to the museum the amazon queen had mentioned and realized that he both didn’t have any money, and he didn’t know a lick of french. He had to rack his mind to figure out if the soul stone could help with anything like that. It would make sense as the cosmic rock was all about emotions and connections and all that crap. It had been so long since the stone had given him the tutorial on the extent of their power. He may be a genius but he couldn’t exactly memorize the long list of the abilities of the soul stone.

 

He found out that he could use the soul stone to talk to french people when the stone took pity on him and hinted about it. It turned out that he didn’t need to do anything, his eternal friend translated his words into the local language and it was incredibly useful. He found out that the museum that he was heading to was free and relied on charity funds. That helped his situation a lot.

 

He strolled into the fancy museum and wondered who he was supposed to be looking for. He paused in front of an ancient statue of a mostly naked woman. He had to look at the sign right by it to figure out who it was supposed to be. It was apparently Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty. He had a vague memory of learning about Greek mythology in his English class a few years ago. If Thor exists then maybe Greek gods exist in his world too. They obviously exist in this reality with the amazons and all of that.

 

“You are smaller than I expected you to be.” A woman with a familiar accent said behind him. He whirled around in surprise. The woman was identical to Gal Gadot and he didn’t have to think too hard to realize that it was Diana Prince. Holy fuck, he was meeting with Wonder Woman. May was going to be so jealous.

 

“Uh, I’ve been told.” He looked up at her. She was a lot taller in person… She was the kind of person to already be born tall but still wear high heels so that she can tower over everyone. In other words, Peter was a little jealous. No pun intended.

 

“You are an anomaly in a world of anomalies. What is your story? I did not have much communication with my home. I do not understand how you got there. It is almost completely inaccessible.” Diana continued as she looked at him like he was a tiny puppy. Peter was completely sure that she was trying to stay serious but it was difficult for her.

 

“Reality warping stuff. I’m not from around here. I’m from like three million realities away. I’ve been kinda stuck in a loop where I go from one reality to the next. I’m just trying to get home.” He said the last part a little more softly.

 

“And what would help you get home?” Diana questioned.

 

“I have no idea. I have someone close to me tracking me so I hope that he can get to me before the next warp. I usually have about a week. But until then, I need to be… hidden I guess. I don’t want to end up changing your universe too much.” He shrugged. He hoped that Tony would be able to find him quickly. He needed his mentors help. If anyone could figure out quantum energy manipulation it would be him. And he missed Tony a lot. He missed May, he missed Ned and MJ, He missed Pepper and Gamora and the guardians… The homesickness hit him like a fucking truck.

 

“I know just the place. And I know what you are feeling. I have not been able to go home in a full century. I miss everyone but I cannot go back. Once you leave, you leave forever. But that is not the case with you. We are going to get you home. Back to your family.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Gotham was like New York City but more depressing. There were less bright advertisements and street art, the buildings seemed more menacing than impressive. The only street art they had contained clowns and bats. It was like if a psycho clown murderer decorated for Halloween and had a thing against batman. The nighttime darkness definitely didn’t help. According to Diana, this was about the time when Bruce would be batman-ing. They just had to find him. As someone who had spent a few years as a vigilante in a big city, He knew exactly where to look. Or how to look. He also had the soul stone which helped a lot.

 

He quickly climbed a building while Diana, in her full costumed Wonder Woman-ed glory, decided to take the elevator. She usually wasn’t one to make a scene but he didn’t know if it was much better for her to fly to her destination. Once Peter got to the top of the building, he used the soul stone to look for the bat based billionaire vigilante.

 

As usual, using the ‘find your friends’ feature of the soul stone was super overwhelming. There were easily millions of people in the one city and all of their identities flooded his brain fast enough to make it hurt. It took a minute for him to find Bruce and it took that long for Diana to arrive at the top of the building.

 

“He’s literally just brooding on a rooftop over there.” Peter pointed across the city at a dark rooftop.

 

“That is not unusual for him. Would you like to race? I would rather not take the elevator again.” Diana smiled. Peter grinned back.

 

“You read my mind.” Peter didn’t actually think of it but it was a better idea than what he had. He checked both of his web-shooters, just in case they were set up to their normal chemical fluid. He didn’t know how much he had left but he put it to the back of his mind. He had memorized the formula a long time ago. He could just make more if he ran out.

 

“On your mark,” Diana started as she prepared herself to leap off of the building, “Get set-” Diana jumped before she said go and Peter yelled out a ‘Hey!’ before following her. It had been a while since he had the chance for just webbing around. It was just as fun as he remembered. It was as exhilarating as a roller coaster and and once he got back in the swing of it, (another unintended pun,) it was second nature to him.

 

It wasn’t just fun though, it also required a surprising amount of brain power. If he didn’t aim completely correctly, he could easily smash into the ground or swing in the wrong direction. When he was learning about pendulums in physics he didn’t think he would need it in everyday life. Spoiler alert, Spider-Man would need physics to keep him from accidentally killing himself. Superheroes only took the subway when they had enough time. Arachnid bungee jumping was just a whole lot faster.

 

He looked for Diana to find her skipping on buildings like they were stepping stones. Peter almost laughed at the ridiculous sight but had to continue on his path to meet batman. He made sure to do a few nimble flips in the air just for the fun of it. Peter wondered if it would be a good idea to apply for the olympics. He was enhanced so it wouldn't be fair. What if there were enhanced Olympics… with the avengers and all of the other super-people. Maybe the aliens too. That would be cool.

 

He let his mind wander as he flung himself through the air, he was pretty sure that Diana would win their race and he kind of hoped that she did. Maybe she could talk to batman before Peter could sneak up on him. Peter really wasn’t in the mood to sneak up on batman, would he even be able to sneak up on batman? It felt like batman could do anything. At least that’s what pop culture said but Peter could easily beat batman in an arm wrestling contest. Bruce was still human after all.

 

He landed by Diana who was waiting for him. She looked a little bit smug but was hiding it with a sunshiney smile. She was the complete opposite of the dark bulky figure that was the most iconically ‘batman’ thing he had ever seen. Peter could practically smell the emo energy coming from the guy.

 

“You don’t usually visit me, especially with a guest. What’s wrong this time, and who is he.” The signature gruff voice joined the classic batman point-board.

 

“He is from an alternate reality and I was hoping you could help. He appeared yesterday in Themyscira. My mother sent him to me and I knew you could help.” Diana looked like she was daring Bruce to turn her down.

 

“I’m busy…” He grumbled.

 

“Bullshit. You’re trying to look cool on a dark rooftop. And you don’t have to do that voice around us. I don’t think that it’s good for you anyway.” Diana remarked calmly.

 

“It’s more out of habit than out of necessity at this point.” Bruce sighed and continued with his fake extra tough voice. “Fine, You must explain everything. I was getting bored anyway.” Bruce grumbled as he jumped and proceeded to glide off of the building and landed by a chunky car. In the darkness it took a moment for Peter to realize that it was the batmobile.

 

Diana jumped and landed gracefully on the pavement while Peter tried to lower himself with a web. But he ran out of web-fluid and had to do an impromptu superhero landing. Hopefully he didn’t embarrass himself too much in front of batman.

 

The batmobile was pretty cool but he quickly realized that all of Tony’s tech was a whole lot cooler. He didn’t tell batman this though. He was already grumpy enough. The batmobile was big enough for a few other people which Peter thought was kind of funny as he immediately imaged soccer mom Bruce Wayne with his bird and bat themed children. He was the designated driver for the Justice League so having enough seats made sense.

 

Peter got the whole backseat to himself and he was too busy looking at the inside of the car than to notice how fast or where they were going.

 

“So kid, What’s your deal? Alternate realities…” Bruce grumbled as he drove. Even batman obeyed traffic laws. Sometimes.

 

“Basically yeah. I’m stuck going to different realities and I just happened upon this one. I usually have about a week per reality so try not to get sick of me too quick.” Peter examined his web-shooters and popped out the empty web-fluid cartridges. He didn’t have any normal web-fluid left and the specialty web-fluid was a little harder to replace.

 

“So what do you need from me? I’m not some inter-reality scientist.” He muttered.

 

“I just need to lay low so that I can be found. My mentor is trying to find me and I think he’s getting closer to doing it. And I might need resources. You’re pretty rich so I doubt I’ll be too much of a problem for you. You live in a mansion for god's sake. If you really wanted to, you would never even have to see me.” Peter shrugged and fidgeted with his Iron Spider web-shooter.

 

It was a shame that he could only activate the nanite suit if he had both of the matching web-shooters. Then he could become a casual superhero in this reality. If anything, it would at least keep him from dying of boredom. He missed his suit and he missed Karen. Karen was like the little bit of Tony that he desperately missed.

 

“Well, at least Robin won’t be lonely anymore. If he has a friend he might stop trying to make me get a dog.” The seriously toned comment made Peter snort. It seemed comical to him that Batman would be begged to get a dog. Peter thought that batman would be more of a cat person.

 

Peter was excited to find out what the hell he was getting himself into. Alternate realities could be fun if there wasn’t an end-of-the-world scenario that he had to deal with. Besides, He just met and successfully got along with Batman and Wonder Woman. He had a feeling that this would be a good time.

Notes:

I apologize for this chapter being a little bit mess, I've had family over so I have not been able to work on writing as much. I hope you enjoyed it anyway. ALSO COMMENTS ARE STILL THE BEST THING YOU CAN GIVE IF YOU ENJOYED MY WORK IN ANY WAY. If you have any art ideas, alternate reality ideas or if you just want to talk to me, comment or you can message me on my Tumblr (GayGemGrump). I am very happy with the feedback that I have gotten and I love everyone who has bared with me this far. I LOVE YOU, I'LL SEE YOU NEXT CHAPTER!!!

Chapter 39: Reality 71027111: Reunion Reprise

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The Wayne manor reminded Peter of both the Stark mansion in New York and Professor Xavier's school. It was from about the same time period and was just as massive. He didn’t get to see the outside because they entered through the batcave which was actually cool as hell, but the inside was in the same deal of most old houses owned by several generations of rich people. It also had the whole aura of ‘someone totally died here’ or just stereotypical haunted house despite its constant preservation.

 

An older dapper man walked up to them when they entered the house. Peter may not be an expert of DC comics but he was inclined to think that this guy was Alfred. The butler remind him a lot of Jarvis when Peter had gone back in time. He never really talked to Jarvis besides the AI from years and multiple realities away but from the little that he knew, they were very similar.

 

“Good evening sir, and guests. It’s wonderful to see you again Ms. Prince.” Alfred bowed his head in a polite greeting as Bruce took off his bat themed cowl and fixed his hair. It felt good to know that even batman got mask-hair. Despite popular culture, Batman is not perfect or randomly overpowered.

 

“It is a pleasure to see you too. It has been a while.” Diana greeted with a calm smile.

 

“If you don’t mind me asking, who is the child?” Alfred asked.

 

“It’s not the first time I’ve brought a kid home.” Bruce shrugged.

 

“I’m Peter Parker. I’m from an alternate reality.” Peter smiled as Alfred froze for a moment.

 

“Your name sounds awfully familiar. I just can’t place it. In any case, you are also welcome here.” Alfred recovered quickly because this universe was just as fucking weird as Peters reality. Alternate dimensions weren’t that weird compared to actual gods and super-aliens.

 

“Realities bleed through ideas, There’s probably a book about me or something. Your reality bled through mine and there are movies and comics about you guys. There’s even multiple animated versions of you guys.” Peter shrugged. Now he wanted to see what versions of himself. Did he have a movie?

 

“That kind of makes sense… are they any good?” Bruce raised his eyebrows while Peter grinned.

 

“That’s debatable. In my reality, we already have superheros, we don’t need ‘fictional’ ones.” Peter used air quotes to validate his point. “But our superheroes are very different. You have a lot of vigilantes and basically gods. Sure, we have Thor and I’m the closest thing to a dark vigilante. Except I wear bright colors and make too many jokes. I mean I have my traumatic backstory like everyone else but I’m not letting it consume me.”

 

Peter was glad that Bruce didn’t take his comment as a jab at him, emo superhero and all. He seemed to be holding back an eye-roll though. The attitude gave him deja vu of Tony. This led Peters mind to his mentor. He had been trying to avoid thinking about the people at home because he tended to be punched in the face with emotion. He really missed his family and friends and even real life batman couldn’t distract him enough.

 

‘Peter… There are infinity stones trying to find you. I don’t know who is wielding them…’ the soul stone whispered in his mind, taking his focus off of his pesky feelings and putting it back in his senses. He did notice a slightly different feeling in the air. Like his spider-sense was slightly nudging him.

 

“Are you okay Peter?” Diana asked, obviously concerned and confused. He realized that he had frozen and had been closing his eyes.

 

“Something's up…” Peter started before he spun around and saw a blue portal start to open up in front of him. Immediately what came to mind was that it was a Thanos from one of the many realities that he had visited. Or it could’ve technically be Loki from that one universe…

 

Both of the resident superheroes took out their weapons out with the sight of the portal and Peter activated his iron man gauntlet. Before it even unfolded around his forearm, the portal revealed what was on the other side. Please don’t be Thanos, please don’t be Thanos…

 

“Peter?” It wasn’t Thanos. It was definitely not Thanos.

 

“Tony!” Peter felt tears of relief start to burn in his eyes. It took a second of shock before he launched into his mentors arms. Both Bruce and Diana awkwardly lowered their weapons and Peter didn’t spare them a thought.

 

He was in his mentors strong arms and this time he didn’t disappear in a flash of light or in a puff of dust. He was secure and safe.

 

“Oh, Thank god kid…” Tony sighed with a similar amount of relief. “I didn’t know how late I would be…”

 

“I just got here like yesterday. I have about a week left. You have no idea how much I missed you…” Peter was embarrassed by the sob that escaped his throat.

 

“It’s okay kiddo, I’m here now…” Tony said in a soft voice that Peter had come to expect from him.

 

“Shit, sorry, It’s been an intense few weeks…” Peter stepped away and whipped his tears with the sleeve of his slightly ripped X-Men uniform.

 

“You have just been through a whole lot of shit, I’m not gonna blame you for crying a little after the whole mountain of trauma. Now, where the hell are we.” Tony looked around and hesitated a little when he saw Batman in most of his iconic armor and Wonder Woman in all her glory. “Are we…” Peter laughed.

 

“Yeah, I landed in the same universe as the DCEU and the DC television universe. It’s complicated but it doesn’t matter.” Peter smiled.

 

“You know, I used to think that they based Batman off of me with all of the similarities… you know, witness to parents murder, abduction in the middle east, born rich, made himself a hero… I could go on but holy fuck.” Tony paused and gave Bruce Wayne a suspicious look.

 

“You also have a red and blue dressed friend that uses a shield and you both have a single girl in your superhero boyband…” Peter continued with a mischievous smile. Tony roughly ruffled Peter’s hair before he responded.

 

“Well it’s not my superhero boyband, but yeah, that is pretty suspicious. I mean our whole universe could just be from the idea that someone had in the first reality.” Tony shrugged as Peter furiously tried to fix his hair.

 

“Okay that’s too deep for me… Let’s just figure out what we’re going to do. Besides, I know you want to talk to Batman.” Tony didn’t confirm or deny the accusation.

 

“Good idea. You’re gonna have to tell me how you even found this realities superheroes so quickly.” Tony did his press smile for the unfamiliar superheroes.

 

“Oh, I just first appeared on the island of women where Diana is from.” Peter shrugged.

 

“I was sent an emergency message from my mother and I went to meet your boy. I decided that the person who could be of most help would be Mr. Wayne.” Diana said calmly after she put her weapons away. She nodded her head to Bruce.

 

“I literally don’t know what’s going on. I just met the kid ten minutes ago.” Bruce grumbled.

 

“Okay, that makes sense. I haven’t slept in like forty-eight hours so if I just pass out, I apologize now.” Tony rubbed his eyes a little.

 

“Shit, I have to take my old man to bed. Can we just work this out in the morning?” Peter asked while debating on whether to use his puppy eyes or not.

 

“Pete, I don’t need to-” Tony started

 

“Shut up. If I’m not allowed to pull an all-nighter as a high school student, you’re not allowed to pull an all nighter as an old man.”

 

“I’m not old.” Tony sounded offended but Peter just smirked.

 

“You got stabbed a month ago. Take a fucking break you dumbass.”

 

“I got better…”

 

“I’ll take you to your rooms. You’re giving me a headache.” Bruce groaned. Peter and Tony just grinned as they accepted their new mission. Mission: get Bruce Wayne to lighten the fuck up.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Do you think I can use my lack of web fluid as a reason to go visit Barry Allen? I mean, he’s the closest thing that they have to a scientist in the justice league. I also want to meet supergirl… I think she’d be cool…” Peter rambled to his newly completed AI. Tony had brought Peter’s other iron spider web-shooter which made it so that Karen and his full nanosuit were completely functional.

 

“Barry Allen is a forensic scientist, not a chemist. Although your latest web-fluid formula contains easily obtainable ingredients.” Karen stated through Peters nanotech earpiece. Because he was not activating the full suit if he was just talking to his artificial friend.

 

“That doesn’t help… I wanna meet the Flash… I mean I’ve got along with most if the speedsters I’ve met. None of the other league members are useful… Maybe cyborg? He could be busy… And Tony might fight him…” Peter thought out loud. “Ugh, why don’t they have scientist superheroes here! I mean the most powerful beings on this planet are literally article writers and reporters.”

 

“Barry Allen does have the most knowledge on interdimensional travel. He could be helpful in that aspect. Perhaps you will be able to convince Boss.” Peter smiled.

 

“Good point Karen.”

 

“I bet we could find a reason to visit Kara Danvers. Unless you would like to meet Oliver Queen. Star City is closer to Central City than National City is. It would be more likely to run into the Green Arrow than Supergirl.”

 

“I don’t care, Green Arrow is just the Hawkeye version of Batman. I think he has more relationship issues though… I’d rather meet Supergirl. I feel like she and Barry are less dark and emo than the rest of this universe. I have a feeling that even Robin, a fucking ten year old, is just as dark and emo as batman. Everyone is so fucking depressed…”

 

“I guess that’s what happens when everyone’s parents have either been murdered in front of them or when their home is destroyed with the being the only survivors.”

 

“Yeah that makes sense… I’d be emo too if I had a parent murdered in front of me… wait I fucking did and you don’t see me embracing the dark side.” Peter rolled his eyes. As his whole sleep schedule had been all fucked up, he had not been able to go to sleep for over two hours. He hoped that talking with Karen would tire him out.

 

“Not everyone is a cinnamon roll Peter. It is very rare to be as optimistic and pure as you.”

 

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing… I’m Spider-Man, I’m supposed to be threatening, not pure. I’m not a puppy.” He huffed.

 

“You may not be threatening but you are the most adorable multi-reality savior that I have ever seen.” This made Peter hide a snort of laughter.

 

“I guess I can be cute and badass at the same time right. I can’t expect to be threatening in brightly colored spandex and only five and a half feet of height on me.”

 

“It isn’t a bad thing. It is two in the morning, I advise you try to get some sleep.” He sighed.

 

“I don’t know if I can do that. Do you have any books or music downloaded? I will have a better chance of falling asleep if It’s not all quiet.” Peter closed his eyes to attempt to sleep.

 

“Boss had me download all of your favorites. Would you like something boring like Janet von Dyne’s twenty page analysis of Quantum Energy or the audio to the original Star Wars trilogy?” Karen suggested.

 

“I already read that paper… is there a section on conductors? I might need to know that shit again…” Peter yawned.

 

“There is not. However there is a section on living batteries. Janet von Dyne spent over thirty years in the quantum realm and was able to harness healing particles to keep herself from overloading on the energy.” Karen said helpfully.

 

“So I have to live in the fucking quantum realm to not explode and travel through other dimensions?”

 

“I suggest you find Janet.”

 

“Too bad we’re literally millions of realities away.” Peter groaned. “Just start Star Wars.. I need a little bit of home right now…”

 

“Starting Star Wars: A New Hope audio. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away…”

 

Peter fell asleep before Luke even met R2-D2 and C3-P0.

Notes:

I don't know, I had a hard time with this chapter. I would like to literate that I am not a hardcore DC nerd so I don't know everything. I am not up to date with Supergirl, The Flash, or Arrow, and it's been a while since I watched Justice League or anything in the DCEU. I apologize now for sucking. I also have not been able to plan this reality very well, I have the next two realities planned out a lot more so hopefully that will work out. Anyway, the DC realities should go as follows, One more chapter in Gotham with Robin and maybe Batwoman, Then one reality in Central City with the Flash, and one in National City with Supergirl and maybe Superman, if you guys want the green arrow to have a chapter, I'll write it. Comment other characters you want and I'll try my best.

As usual, comments are my fuel and the more you comment, the faster I'll want to continue. I love everyone who has stuck with me this far. Follow my Tumblr (GayGemGrump) if you want. I'll post art there as well as on my writing tumblr account (GayGemWrites) so follow those if you like art linked to my fics. I'm honestly more excited for my other realities than this one so I might cut this one a little short. Again, I apologize.

I love you all and thanks for reading!

Chapter 40: Reality 71027111: Gotham is just Halloweentown with a larger population and murderous intent

Summary:

Peter and Tony get ready to leave Gotham

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter woke up upside down. So that was pretty unusual. He assumed that it was because he didn't feel safe and his subconscious spider brain decided while he was sleeping that he was in danger. It didn’t happen often, but he found that sleeping on the ceiling was his bodies most comfortable position.

 

He dropped and landed just as gracefully as a professional gymnast. He quickly stretched and ran a hand through his hair before he spoke.

 

“Hey Karen? Are you connected to Friday? Is Tony awake?” He was surprised to find the earpiece still in his ear. Usually earbuds escaped his ears in his sleep but he could count on Tony to make things actually work.

 

“Friday is not available. Her base intelligence is in our reality and she couldn’t connect this far away. You activate the suit I can use my scanners to look in Tony’s room if you would like.” Karen stated in her usual cool tone.

 

“Karen, that’s creepy. I’m not going to do that. What time is it? I want to avoid my problems and explore Batmans house.” Peter tended to be honest with his AI. It’s not like she could tattle on him with Friday was offline.

 

“It is currently 6:09. However you aren’t the only one awake. Mr. Wayne keeps cameras in his home that I am able to access. He and Robin seem to be in training.”

 

“I’m guessing that there isn’t a camera in Tony’s room or you’s tell me right…”

 

“That is correct. Would you like to intrude Robins training? I’m sure that your acrobatic fighting style is closer to the child’s abilities than Mr. Waynes.”

 

“I mean when do I have the chance to train with Batman right?” Peter shrugged. “Can you notify me when Tony wakes up, like goes in the hall or something?”

 

“I can literally activate camouflage paneling on your suit.”

 

“Cool, I didn’t know that. We’ll have to try that out sometime. So, was that sass a confirmation of my request or Tony’s personality leaking through your programming?” Peter walked out of his room and couldn't stop himself from looking at every detail of the manor. The place was a mixture of beautiful in the same way that old houses usually were. Like he could feel the ghosts all around him.

 

With the soul stone it wasn’t that difficult of a situation to be in. Souls didn’t have to be inhabiting a body for the soul stone have an effect. He’d have to think about that later. A dead army could be pretty cool. He wasn’t sure how it would work though. Ghosts couldn’t affect reality too much...At least as much as he knew. They throw shit around and that’s about it.

 

‘Peter… There is something you need to know…’ The soul stone whispered in his ear. He took a moment to respond as those words never meant anything good. His heart sunk as they spoke to him. ‘Before you were freed, Thanos used me for something. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what he is planning. We have to get back as soon as we can.’

 

“Well, I didn’t need more incentive to get back… That means that Thanos has a plan to get the stones back instead of just give up.” He muttered to the cosmic voice in his head.

 

‘This may have been part of his plan. He left the gauntlet unguarded. We can’t just assume that he didn’t just let you take it.’

 

“You’re right.” Peter shivered but it wasn’t from cold. “He’s going to come back for the stones. He has something with him. If he just let us get away then it must be more powerful than the stones. Is there anything like that?”

 

‘There wasn’t. I am not so sure anymore.’

 

“Well, If you think of a way back I would love to hear it. I can’t just drain the quantum energy, it just builds back up again and it won’t stay in it’s battery. Tony has the space stone which can technically get us home but I don’t think that it’s that easy. I’m just going to disappear again. We need a permanent solution.” Peter strolled down the vacant halls and started to make his way to the batcave.

 

‘Karen has been very helpful. I’m sure we’ll find a way.’

 

“You’re talking to Karen?”

 

‘Disembodied voices need to have company too. She’s lovely by the way. We will notify you if we come up with a solution.’

 

“Thanks. Okay, training with Batman sounds better than worrying about our reality… and Thanos.” He shuttered at mentioning the titans name. That guy was terrifying on a very personal level.

 

‘Just take the completely out of place elevator.’ Karen instructed. Peter followed and yawned as he leaned on the glass. Being in a constant state of panic really was tiring. He had been awake for five minutes, why was he tired?

 

“Hey soul stone? You know how all of the stones have a form of physical energy? Do you think it would be a good idea to learn how to use it? I mean the energy effects the quantum energy so it would make me leave faster but Tony can follow me now, right?” Peter muttered out loud.

 

‘That is not a bad idea. Harnessing my energy does require practice. We need as much firepower as we can against Thanos.’ The soul stone commented softly.

 

“That’s what I was thinking. Cool, I think that this is a good opportunity to do that.” Peter yawned.

 

“Who are you?!” An excited voice interrupted Peter’s internal conversation. Peter’s reaction to this was an unmanly scream and jumping so high that he adhered to the ceiling. It took a moment to look over to see who had scared him. It was pretty embarrassing when he saw that it was a ten year old. Peter got startled by a four foot nothing child.

 

“Uh, I’m Peter.” He gently dropped himself from the ceiling with one hand.

 

“Wait… you stuck to the… ohmygodareyouspiderman?!” The kid smiled widely and Peter had no idea how to react. He just paused before deciding on something.

 

“Uh yeah, did Mr. Wayne not say anything?” Peter said carefully. He wasn’t sure how much would be best to keep secret from a kid.

 

“He never tells me anything!” the kid said with a pout. It took Peter a minute to realize that, this was Dick Grayson. This was Robin. This was the kid that Batman was training. God, he was so small and innocent…

 

“I don’t have to tell you anything.” The iconic gravelly voice made Peter look up from Robin. “What are you doing down here Spidey.” The question sounded a little demand but Peter just smiled.

 

“I got bored. And I need practice. If I have to save another reality, you know?” Peter smirked a little.

 

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you sound so much like your father.” Bruce grumbled.

 

“Uh… he’s not… actually…” Peter stuttered out.

 

“Close enough kid. Come on. You distracted Robin anyway.” Bruce turned to lead back to the training area.

 

“Wait are we going to talk about-” Robin started, obviously confused by the fact that Spider-Man was just up for morning training.

 

“No.” Bruce said as both Peter and Robin followed. Robin kept looking up to Peter in that awed way that Peter had never really experienced from this end. He was usually the one in awe of someone else. No one ever looked up to him. Well until now.

 

“Spider-kid, come here. You wanted to train, then let’s train. Take off the webs.” Peter reluctantly took off his web-shooters. It was mostly because he was tired of losing them. He wanted to make sure that if he overloaded on quantum energy, he would just go to another reality and not just… explode. He was out of normal web fluid anyway so it was a little harder to use them in his advantage anyway.

 

“Uh, you know I have super strength right? I don’t want to hit you too hard…” Peter said nervously. He knew that Batman was human but exceeded Peter in skill by practically and infinite amount. He could either beat the guy in two seconds and break him in half or be to soft on him and be beaten in the same amount of time.

 

“I’ll manage.” Bruce grunted.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Tony woke up slowly from the most needed sleep he had ever had in weeks. He looked around the unfamiliar place for a moment before jumping out of bed faster than his aging body could handle. He winced as he stretched and got used to the whole being awake thing.

 

As soon as he finished that, he practically sprinted out of the room and almost ran into Alfred. Alfred really reminded Tony of his own butler from when he was a child. Alfred and Jarvis both had that calm and stiff but caring aura around them and it was really strange to Tony to meet someone that was so much like a man that was long dead.

 

“Excuse me Mr. Stark. I apologize.” The polite butler said in a thick British accent.

 

“No, I apologize, Do you happen to know if Peter is awake?” Tony asked. He wanted to see his kid again, for some reason this reunion felt a bit more like a dream. But that could be because he was in the same universe as Batman.

 

“I believe he is in the Batcave sir. Would you like me to assist you with finding him?”

 

“Yeah that would be nice. I just got him back and I think it wouldn't hurt to be clingy.” Tony shrugged as Alfred led him down to the area that they had been when they arrived. Now that he wasn’t exhausted, he was able to appreciate its contents. It looked like it had so many secrets that he wanted to find. Before he had the chance to look too closely he heard Bruce talking in his Batman voice.

 

“Again, you need to be less defensive. You can’t expect to take someone down if you’re too busy trying to dodge them.” Tony looked towards where the voice came from to see the spectacle.

 

Peter had just gotten up from being thrown to the ground, he had sweat keeping his face dewy and his hair was a bit of a mess. He didn’t look injured and he didn’t have his web-shooters on. The soul stone and it’s receptacle were sitting safely on the ground, far away from the training session.

 

Peter didn’t even notice Tony come in, he immediately darted at Bruce and attacked at impressive speed. It had been a hot second since Tony had seen Peter fight but it was very different now. Peter’s movements were less erratic and much more precise. He used his legs with the same amount of dexterity as his arms and spent as much time in the air as he did touching the ground. He still had the habit of dodging a little too much but he was quick enough to swing behind Bruce and pin him down with a food on the center of his back.

 

Tony clapped politely as Peter seemed to notice that he was there for the first time. He released Bruce who had the closest thing to a smile that they had seen on his normal glum face.

 

“Uh Hey Tony.” Peter smiled and panted as he combed his hair out of his face. Peter leaned against the wall and took a quick moment to catch his breath. “Good morning!” As usual, even when sweaty and tired, Peter was a ray of sunshine.

 

“You’ve been up for a while. And you’ve improved. I’m very proud of you. Hey Batsy, What’s the plan?”

 

“Diana is going to take you on a field trip.”

Notes:

Don't worry, there's going to be more Batman and Robin. This chapter was a little hard for me to get though, art block and all so I apologize if it's a little weird and short. Anyway, comments are really appreciated and I would love to hear your thoughts. I changed my name since last time so I apologize for any confusion. Also two chapters of fics in one day, I'm on fire! My tumblr name also changed so if you want to find me, I am Science-lings and Sciencelings-Writes. I love you and I'll see you next time!

Chapter 41: Reality 71027111: Central City is actually pretty normal except for the speedy guy

Summary:

Peter meets the Flash.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Please please please please!” Robin begged Bruce who just gave a hard stare.

 

“You aren’t going with them Grayson. We don’t technically know two of them.” Bruce grumbled a reply. He grumbled a lot…

 

“But we know Diana! We can trust her!” Diana tilted her head to the side in some sort of consideration. She didn’t seem to be too excited by the prospect of being in charge of a couple of people from a different reality.

 

“I’m not going, so you’re not going. We are the only people keeping Gotham safe. Policemen don’t count. I don’t like them.”

 

“Come on, one day out of the city won’t hurt anyone! What’s the probability of the Joker breaking out of the asylum today? We never do anything important on thursdays!” Batman's prodigee pouted.

 

“Of course we do. Everything we do is important.” Literally the whole room had to fight the mass rolling of eyes.

 

“Just let the child come. It’ll be fun. We aren’t heading straight into danger Bruce.” Diana said, obviously exasperated. The argument had already gone on for too long. “Don’t you trust me with him?” She pushed, causing Bruce to pause.

 

“...Yes…”

 

“Great. Let’s get going then. We are wasting time by arguing. If you are so worried you can just call your child, you do have some of the highest tech in the world correct? I assume it can make calls.” Diana replied and Tony snorted when she mentioned that Batman’s tech was the best that this reality had to offer. Peter had to agree a little more politely. Compared to nanotech and everything that Wakanda had come up with, Bruce Wayne didn’t have much in the way of high tech.

 

“You have something to add Mr. Stark?”

 

“Of course not Mr. Wayne.”

 

Diana and Peter shared a look of exasperation before they walked towards the hanger of the batcave. Bruce and Tony seemed happy to just argue for a while as Robin stayed on Peter’s heels like an excited puppy.

 

“I’m guessing nobody else knows how to fly an aircraft?” Diana looked at her company which in her eyes were two children and a clone of Bruce with more of a sense of humour.

 

“I figured out how to fly an alien donut ship in less than a minute if that count.” Tony looked away from his discussion with Bruce.

 

“It crashed Tony.” Peter reminded his mentor. “We literally almost died.”

 

“I’m trying to boast kid… We did well for never seeing anything like it before.” Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“Diana is flying the plane Tony.”

 

Diana flew the plane.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

It really didn’t take long to get to Central City. The batman themed aircraft was pretty fast and Central City wasn’t actually that far away. But it felt like a long time because Robin kept pelting him with questions. It was a lot like when Ned had figured out that he was Spider-Man. It felt like Robin had a whole list of prepared questions for him and it was hard to answer a lot of them. He tried though.

 

Landing the plane was easy and DIana started to lead them to Barry’s home base, where he was most likely to be on a free day.

 

Walking down the city street, they looked like an oddly formal family with their matching dark hair and eyes with matching Bruce Wayne acquired clothes. Apparently Batman didn’t know what normal people tended to wear. It wouldn’t be easy to move around in the funeral getup but they didn’t look dramatically out of place. They definitely didn’t look like superheroes, which was the only point.

 

That and Peter had worn that X-Men leather biker suit for way too long. It had been mended and cleaned in Wakanda but it had still been on Peter’s sweaty body for much too long. He was surprised that no one complained about the smell. Oh yeah, he had been living through a revolution and a literal AI apocalypse. That tended to be a little more worrying than a dirty costume.

 

“We’re here.” Diana said simply as she knocked on the heavily graffitied metal door of a seemingly abandoned warehouse. Peter had a flash of fear that made him remember something important. He didn’t like warehouses. They could fall and almost kill you. Cool, he had almost forgotten that trauma. Honestly he had reached peak freak-out a while ago and it was weird to stay that way for several weeks.

 

The big metal door opened about and inch with Barry’s eye peeking through.

 

“Uh, Diana? What the hell? Bruce definitely needs to get better at telling me things…” The Flash looked at Diana who had enough control to not even roll her eyes.

 

“He likes to leave the explaining to me. Let us in please.”

 

“Peter, oh-my-god it’s the Flash!” Dick said excitedly, probably too loudly.

 

“Not so loudly man!” Barry opened the door and rushed them inside of the makeshift secret lair. “Everyone’s got a secret identity!”

 

“I don’t…” Tony shrugged.

 

“Who are you, what’s going on, and why’d you bring the kid?”

 

“This is Peter Parker and Tony Stark. They are from an alternate universe and need to get back. If anyone knows about such things, it would be you.” Diana said simply, as if the situation was even close to being that simple.

 

“Wait… Those names sound familiar…”

 

“It’s Spider-Man!” the kid said, offended by Barry’s absence of knowledge about totally fictional characters.

 

“Don’t leave me out of the club, I’m a superhero too…” Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“You definitely are Tony.” Peter reassured before he turned back to the speedster. “Our reality bled into yours using uh, popular entertainment. If we have time, I totally want to watch a movie inspired by our reality.” he turned back to Tony.

 

“Oh yeah, that makes sense. What do you guys need?”

 

“Of everyone on the planet, you seem to be the only person with any idea of inter-dimensional travel.” Diana added. “Bruce thought that you could help us.”

 

“Also I want to use your lab. I ran out of web fluid and at the moment that stuff is the closest thing to a weapon as I need while also being part of a great form of transportation.”

 

“I guess that I hope that I have everything you need... “ Barry said as Peter started wandering around.

 

It turned out that the Flash had an adequate enough lab to make a quick batch of web fluid. Peter ignored Tony and Diana’s longer explanation to Barry while he got to work. Peter didn’t take long to make the memorized formula and use a micro injector to fill the empty web cartridges.

 

Robin was always at his side as he decided that the adults were too boring to pay attention to. It was fine with Peter as he didn’t mind explaining chemical compounds to a ten-year-old. He tested the formula with his web-shooter and smiled when it worked as intended. He had almost mixed up a couple of the measurements and he didn’t really want to use too much of Barry's resources.

 

“Hey Pete! You know more about inter-dimensional travel than I do. Can we look at your little wrist thing? Maybe we can find a way to lock it onto our reality…” Tony yelled from a few dozen feet away. Peter detached the gauntlet without hesitation and chucked it at the adults knowing that someone (read: Barry) would catch it. He also knew that the thing was made of vibranium so it would be difficult to destroy.

 

“Have fun and don’t touch the soul stone. That is one thing that I can’t lose.” Peter shrugged and started looking on Barry’s computer. There were so many screens…

 

“Hey, how did you guess my password?” Barry asked as Peter got passed the lock screen.

 

“Oh, I just saw your X-Men comic background and just assumed that it was either something negative or positive about Quicksilver. So after ‘QuicksilverSux’ with and X I tried ‘QuicksilverRox’ also with an X and I got in.” Peter shrugged and looked at a file called ‘sciencey shit.’

 

“You could’ve used Karen. I programmed her to be able to hack into almost anything…” Tony seemed to be trying to hold back a laugh from the Flash’s password and how easily Peter found out.

 

“I just know that a lot of people aren’t very good at making passwords that they remember. Ned’s is always SpideysBFF420.” Peter smiled and started reading a lab report of Barry’s who seemed very confused at the situation. Even though his power was intense speed, He was a little slow. “Shit, you don’t work with anything like quantum energy…” Peter muttered to himself.

 

“I mean I can work with lots of energy. Mr. Stark said you are like a constantly recharging quantum battery. I think you guys need a controllable conductor that can link to your little wrist device. Considering that the energy is inside of you, we might need to make some sort of implant that can outwardly contain the energy.”

 

“Yes! I knew you were the smart one! I just don’t know what conducts it the best, I mean the Vibranium didn’t work when we made it and Shuri was in charge of all that so I’m not sure what she came up with. All I know is that quantum energy works similarly to the infinity stone energy.” Peter shrugged.

 

“All of the infinity stones have power? But isn’t there a stone just for that?” Tony asked with a little tilt of his head.

 

“Why else do do think Vision could shoot a laser out of his stone? The mind stone isn’t the laser stone. All of the stones have a kind of unique energy that can be controlled by its user.”

 

“So why haven’t you used the soul stone energy?”

 

“I already have powers. I don’t really need tons of cosmic magic. Also using the soul stone affects the quantum energy in my arm so it speeds up the recharge. I would only use it if I had to or the soul stone just decided to take control of me.” Peter explained.

 

“”I’ll have to make you and inter-dimensional tracker before we play with magic then. I want to actually follow you this time.” Tony narrowed his eyes like he was going to add a swear to his statement but there was a ten-year-old superhero kid that was probably not supposed to curse. Peter wasn’t completely sure if Batman would let his sidekick kid say fuck but the kid was young enough that it made sense.

 

“Good idea… Can we order a pizza?”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter got along with Barry surprisingly well. They were both dorky nerds and they both had very similar interests. Like time travel. And getting stuck in alternate realities. They had a fun conversation about speed and how fast he could go.

 

Barry examined Peter’s burn which was less of a burn now. The top layer of skin was fully healed but there was a slight glow of the quantum energy slowly increasing through his veins.

 

Peter was able to use the soul stone energy to help test the conductive materials to test. The soul energy was warm and fiery but almost ethereal and light, almost like a sunset recolor of the northern lights.

 

Copper didn’t conduct the quantum energy, steel, silver, titanium, gold, no metal would conduct the energy. They tried sturdy plastics, cardboard, but the only thing that could even absorb the energy was glass. When the orange soul stone energy touched the glass, it completely it up like a lightsaber and was surprisingly intense.

 

However before they could make any real progress, a new development occurred. Peter felt it a moment before it happened and he spun to look at the door before it slammed open. On the other side was someone that Peter had wanted to end up meeting, but not like this.

 

Supergirl stood on the other side with blood dripping from her hairline. She panted in exhaustion and her blue eyes flew to Diana. A shiver of fear went up Peters spine as he realized what kind of thing could do so much damage to someone as durable as a Kryptonian. Those guys could have bullets be hitting them and not even bruse… What the hell could have done this?

 

Peter’s heart dropped when Kara spoke darkly. “We need help. Something’s wrong with Kal-El.”

Notes:

I apologize for this being so late, I've been having trouble with this DC arc and my laptop broke last week. But I go a new one so It's all good now. I would love comments and any feedback. Follow my tumblr (Science-lings) for art and other marvel things. I also have a writing blog (Science-lingswrites) for mostly writing and art that is connected to my writing. I'll see you guys next time! Bye!

Chapter 42: Reality 71027111: The (temporary) Fall of Superman

Summary:

Peter and friends fight Superman.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“What happened Kara? Are you alright?” Diana rushed over to her injured friend.

 

“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have time. Clark has been...taken.” Supergirl said quickly.

 

“Like mind-control taken or like complete possession taken? I mean I’ve dealt with mind control before.” Peter said quickly. If someone was taking control of Superman, they could technically destroy the planet with no problem in an instant. Superman was a little overpowered. Hopefully who or whatever was taking control of him wanted to enjoy the moment instead of actually trying to succeed.

 

“I don’t know. Who are you? Actually let’s talk on the way. Leave Robin here, I already contacted Bruce, he’s on his way. We have to get there superhumanly fast.” Kara turned to Peter and whipped some blood dripping down her forehead.

 

“Tony did you integrate the nanites into my quantum gauntlet or am I going supersuitless?” Peter turned to Tony who tossed the improved gauntlet his way. Tony activated his own gauntlet carrying the space and time stones.

 

“Someone with superspeed take the kid. He can’t go through portals. The whole infinity stone energy thing affects the quantum energy and I don’t want him to explode.” Tony said quickly as he created a portal with a burst of energy from his microtech glove.

 

“I love new recruits. Let’s go.” Kara sped to Peter and picked him up. Peter almost swore in the suddenness of the action but he didn’t have time as she sped off through the air at mind-bending speed. He felt a little sick afterward but it wasn’t just the breakneck speed that made him feel that way.

 

The city was on fire. Peter could hear the cries from miles around. In the thick of the fog was the horrifying shadow of the once hero. The muscular form was only being illuminated by the flames of metropolis and the flash of bright red coming from his eyes. Thankfully the thing that was using superman seemed to not notice Peter and Kara appear out of nowhere.

 

“So… who are you?” Kara took the moment to ask.

 

“I’m Peter Parker. I got stuck in this reality. I think I can help with the mind control thing with your cousin as long as I can get close enough. I mean, I’ve done it before so it can’t be that bad.” Peter shrugged.

 

“Okay, We just need to get you close enough…” Kara scanned the area. “I’ll get everyone to distract him and you can sneak up on him. Easy…” She sighed.

 

“Yeah… Thank god I’m used to impossible scenarios. If you can try to make sure the guy in the metal suit doesn’t die, I would appreciate it.” Peter secured both of his web-shooters on his wrists and look toward where Tony walked out of a galactic portal about a block away. Tony looked around manically and tapped the arc reactor shaped housing unit attached to his chest and nanites consumed his form. Kara followed Peter’s gaze and nodded sharply.

 

“He’s just a normal guy isn’t he… humans are crazy.” she shook her head and turned into a blur for a moment as she seemed to be checking the area. “Okay, We should get to work. I think Kal-El saw me.” Peter nodded back.

 

“Don’t let your cape snag.” Peter said as a strange way to wish her luck.

 

“This isn’t the incredibles Peter.” She smiled a little back and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Peter activated the iron spider suit and shivered as the nanites crawled up his skin and stopped at his throat. He felt like the holo screens in his eye pieces would be too distracting. He needed to focus on his natural spider-powers if he wanted to be able to actually sneak up on someone.

 

Besides, his spider-sense would be very helpful when dodging quick-time events that superman would entail. If he could even dodge someone with super-speed. Peter’s element of surprise was kind of crutal to him staying alive.

 

“Kid? Do you still have Karen's earpiece in?” Tony’s voice startled Peter through the device in his ear.

 

“Yeah, Did supergirl tell you the plan?” Peter asked as he started to climb up one of the closest, still standing, buildings.

 

“Yup. I don’t like it though. Are you sure you’ve done this before? I am going to need all of your stories after this mess.”

 

“Count on it. I can do this Tony. Or I guess, the soul stone can. I dealt with a little bit of mind control shit right after the whole xmen. Trust me.” Peter sighed.

 

“I just don’t want you to be the easiest target. This is fucking evil superman we’re talking about. This isn’t going to be a walk in the park.”

 

“It can’t be worse than going through the apocalypse and seeing your worst fear right? It’s gotta be worse than being hit over the head with Thor’s magic hammer.” Peter shrugged as well as he could climbing up a skyscraper. “Just focus on distracting SuperEmo. Try not to die.”

 

“You too.” Tony groaned. “Keep me informed, If you fall, I’m gonna catch you and all that shit.”

 

“I’ll catch you back. Now focus before evil superman gets bored of one destroyed city.” Peter reached the top of the building and looked for superman who had temporarily escaped his view.

 

Tony however had a pretty good view of the famous superhero. Kal-El had seen Kara and seemed mostly out to get her. Tony shot at Superman in an attempt to catch his attention as Wonder Woman and the Flash joined the fight in full colorful outfits. Tony assumed that they had enough time for a costume change. Nanotech definitely helped him in that respect.

 

Dark Superman caught sight of him and he threw violently shoved Kara into a nearby building. Hopefully not the one that Peter was on… Kal-El’s eyes glowed red for a moment before the red energy burst out of them and straight at Tony. Tony barely had time to form a nanite shield in front of him to block the attack. If his tech could block the power infinity stone, it could block superman’s laser eyes right?

 

Well, it did for a while but the nanites got a little bit superheated so Tony had to shoot himself up in the air as one of the other heroes gained Superman’s attention.

 

Every hero could only hold Superman’s attention for a few moments before they were beaten as easily as if they weren’t even there in the first place. The flash was almost useless as Kal-El could travel at the same speed if not faster, Wonder Woman wasn’t fast enough and the only one that could keep Superman in check was Supergirl. It made sense, they were evenly matched in most ways. But none of them were fast enough to catch him off-guard. Kal-El seemed to know that they were coming momentarily before they did.

 

“Parker? You planning on joining the party? I don’t know if we can take this guy by surprise.”

 

“You can take him by surprise. You haven’t even used your infinity stones.”

 

“I’m trying to be responsible Pete. I’m not really used to using them yet. I’ll mess up something important.” Tony said, a little out of breath after dodging another attack.

 

“Use the time stone. At most, you can take away Superman’s super-speed. That could help a lot.” Peter suggested as he watched from a safe distance.

 

“How the hell do I do that genius. I’m not exactly mind-melded to these things like you are. I missed orientation.”

 

“Remember Doctor Strange?” Peter said through Tony’s helmet. “Focus on the stone and it has to do what you want. That’s how you used the space stone right? This is the same thing. You just will it to happen.”

 

“Jesus, why can’t things just make sense… Willing things to happen isn’t a thing.”

 

“Just try. I promise it’s not that hard.” Tony groaned at Peter’s useless reply and used the three fingered gesture that he remembered Strange using for the soul stone and the classic circular magic pattern appeared around his fist where the stone rested. Tony really didn’t like magic.

 

The green energy crashed over Kal-El’s body for a quick moment before the superhero knew what had even happened. His eyes darted to Tony but not at the superhuman speed that they normally were used at. Superman launched himself at Tony, at a normal human speed, and Tony was actually able to dodge in time. That was quite the improvement.

 

“You did it Tony!” Peter said excitedly. “For the record, I never doubted you.”

 

“What did I say about talking while under stressful fights kid…” Tony shot at Kal-El while Wonder Woman split Superman’s attention successfully.

 

“I don’t care. It’s a coping mechanism. You do it too. It throws strangers off their rhythm Mr. Stark.” Tony could almost hear the smile in Peter’s voice.

 

“I show you real comedy one time…” This comment earns a laugh from Peter and Tony couldn’t help smile at the sound. Even after copious amounts of trauma, Peter can laugh at a shitty joke.

 

“Wait Tony… You know that thing we did with the bug lady and the portals on TItan? What if you used the space stone to do that to me now?” Peter suddenly stopped laughing as he got an idea.

 

“I don’t even know where you are. I can’t make a portal from nowhere…” Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“Tony. It’s an infinity stone. Not a ‘on certain conditions’ rock. It’s limitless. You just have to believe you can do it.”

 

“This isn’t Peter Pan’s magic kid…”

 

“Trust me. I know more about infinity stones than you do, considering that I am mentally connected to one right now,” Tony sighed as he got out of sight of the team for a moment to be vulnerable and summon the kid. With Diana and Kara calling the shots, he didn’t really need to help them too much. They worked pretty damn well together. It probably helped that they actually liked each other.

 

Tony closed his eyes for a second and instead of thinking of a location like he normally did when he used the mind stone for portals, he thought of Peter. He imagined the kid dropping from a few feet above Superman’s head so that they wouldn’t have to fight him anymore. Superman was a nice guy, as far as Tony knew, so hopefully they would all stop fighting.

 

When Tony opened his eyes, he saw the exact scenario that he had thought up in his mind play back perfectly like a movie. It was like oddly aggressive deja vu.

 

Peter fell on top of Superman with as much grace as he could muster and he immediately put his fingers to the mind-controlled aliens temples. The fight stopped instantly once the weird piggyback started. Peter had his eyes closed tightly and the warm orange light connected him and Kal-El for a moment before they both collapsed.

 

Tony’s armor disappeared back into the arc reactor and he ran at Peter as he fell to the ground. It wasn’t that far but obviously the soul stone magic shit did something to him. Everyone seemed more worried about Peter than Superman, because of course they were, Superman probably ate nuclear explosions for breakfast so he could handle a little nap.

 

“Is he okay?” Kara had made it to Peter before Tony did and she looked incredibly worried about the small teenager that she just barely met.

 

Tony pressed a button on Peter’s web-shooter and disabled the nanites with a single fluid motion. The first thing that caught his attention was the bright pale light showing through the veins of his wrist. Shit, the burn. It must have taken a hell of a lot of infinity stone energy to subdue the mind control.

 

“Kid? Wakey wakey, come on. I know last time you used a lot of this stuff, you passed out for a few days but you can’t do that now…” Tony said with some anxiety lacing his voice. He didn’t know when it happened but he realized that he was practically cradling Peter in his arms and he was reminded of the times that Peter disappeared from his arms in a similar position.

 

Thankfully Peter opened his eyes. It was slow and he winced at the light but he was at least conscious.

 

“Hey Tony… Shit did I pass out in front of cool people?” Peter said quietly with a lot of strain in his voice. Tony’s heart dropped as he assumed the pain and exhaustion that Peter was feeling.

 

“Nah, you passed out in front of me too.” Tony smiled. “You used a lot of power there… you okay?”

 

“I think so… but I don’t have much time left here. That sucks, I want to hang out with the justice league more.” Peter chuckled tiredly before his half lidded eyes suddenly widened. Peter launched himself up to a partially sitting position and he held out his hand protectively at Tony’s back. The embrace was kind of awkward but it took a moment to realize what Peter was doing.

 

Superman had woken up. He, while technically not being controlled, had sent a beam of red energy towards Tony and Peter. Tony assumed that being ripped from the mind control was pretty violent so the reaction was probably just some misplaced self defence.

 

Peter had outstretched his hand, out of habit, to blindly protect Tony. A hand wouldn’t have done much against laser vision but however unknowably, Peter stopped the attack. He met the bright red energy with the soft misty energy of the soul stone, likely not even trying to summon it in the first place.

 

The soul stone energy met the light of the laser with a fiery effect that seemed to climb up Kal-El’s laser beams until it reached his eyes and he returned to his previously collapsed state.

 

“Jesus… I didn’t know I could do that…” Peter said, his speech slurred with exhaustion. “Ow ow ow… FUCK.” he groaned as he clutched his glowing wrist. “Damnit I wanted to hang out with you guys…”

 

“I’ll follow you again, you know that. Just let it happen and I’ll be there with you.” Tony promised. Now that he knew that he didn’t need to have a specific location to catch up with his kid then he wasn’t as worried as before. He wasn’t going to leave Peter alone ever again if he could help it.

 

“Yeah, you’re getting better at following me… I guess I’ll see you later. Hopefully not very much later.” Peter smiled tiredly.

 

In a flash of light and a quick sudden tenseness in Peter’s body, he was gone.

 

This was also when a dark figure dropped behind them in a tacky cloak.

 

“What’d I miss?” Batman rumbled as everyone looked at him.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter woke up blindfolded… no… with some sort of hood over his head. It smelled really bad. Slowly he began to notice more details about his new situation. His hands were behind his back… handcuffed. The metal was thick and cold. He didn’t like it. He felt like he was recovering from some kind of heavy drugs and it felt like there was metal over his ankles and throat. He carefully tested his legs and quickly realized that there was a chain going about a foot and a half connecting his ankles together. So he wouldn’t be able to run.

 

“Is it awake?” A low voice grumbled from not very far away.

 

“It just moved. I think the medicine is wearing off.” Another voice answered. Suddenly Peter was being propped up and forced to his feet. He stumbled a little but was being supported by an unseen force. Pure fear gave him a good dose of adrenaline which started to clear away the drugs.

 

“Come on degenerate. You have some friends to meet.” The deeper voice chuckled and Peter tried to use his senses to figure out his surroundings. He closed his eyes, they were useless anyway, and he heavily relied on his hearing and his sense of touch to figure out what was going on. He started being partially dragged, forced to walk down a hallway. There was one guy on each side and it sounded like there were a few people behind him.

 

It didn’t take long for him to regain his strength and he drew an image of his surroundings in his mind. He pretended to walk weaker, in an attempt to trick his captors as he needed to escape as quickly as possible. Hopefully Tony didn’t follow him yet… Maybe Tony could save him.

 

Steady heavy steps slowed and Peter knew that it was now or never. He swung his arms back to the front of his body, thanking his flexibility as with anyone else, his shoulders would’ve dislocated. Peter followed his spider-sense and ducked as the guards around him became aware of his newfound dexterity.

 

Peter planted his handcuffed hands and tripped a few of the men around him with his legs. Before they could recover, Peter launched himself at the closest man. He used his handcuffs to his advantage as he latched them around the man's neck before an idea came to mind. He carefully fell backward and let his ankle chain catch on the man’s throat. A wave of excitement went through Peter’s body as he realized where he got the idea from. Holy fuck he just did a Princess Leia thing. He was so proud of himself.

 

He launched the man behind him and moved onto the next assailant. Peter ripped his ankle chains apart as he realized that it was hard to move around in them. He used a little extra super strength to flip over the man and latch his legs around him. Instead of launching him like the last guy, he squeezed tight enough for a moment as the man’s breathing stopped. Peter jumped back up.

 

One more guy left. One more clear heartbeat. He felt more heartbeats around him, a lot actually but they were heavily muffled, like they were in different rooms and likely couldn’t see him. He decided not to worry about it.

 

Peter dodged a gunshot and licked the gun out of the last mans hand. He used the momentum to launch his other leg up and kick the man in the face. Peter realized that it was enough to knock the guy out.

 

Peter huffed and ripped his handcuffs apart. He ripped the bag off of his head and he felt his heart stop when his eyes adjusted to the bright fluorescent light. All around him were cells. Clean but full cells. They were very heavily fortified and it took a moment to recognize who was being held inside them.

 

In blue prison wear, was every hero. Chained and looking partially stunned and interested at him. One even looking sorry. It was… everyone. The alternate universe Tony, T’challa, Steve, Sam, Rhodey, Wanda, Doctor Strange and a handful of other handcuffed wizards and so many more. Every hero that Peter had ever known and even some that he didn’t know existed. Peter turned his head to the side to see the stunned face closest to his. It was him. Or an alternate, slightly younger version of him.

 

“What the f-”

Notes:

Hey guys! I'm really excited for the next reality, I have so much angst planned. But after that I'll be nice. Anyway, It's my birthday in a few days and I would love nothing more than for YOU to comment. I want to know what you guys think. Follow my tumblrs (Science-lings & Science-lingswrites) if you want to see art and other things. I'll see you guys later! I love you, BYE!!!

Chapter 43: Reality 562016: Self Destructive Fear Tornado

Summary:

New day, new reality. Time to figure out what the hell is going on.

Notes:

Warning! Light torture that will get worse as the chapters go on so if that stuff bothers you, just wait a month or two until I go to the next arc which will be a whole lot fluffier.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

A moment of silence. Slowly pieces fell into place and Peter’s heart sunk at the implications. Everyone that held some sort of power, whether it was some superpowers or deadly ability, everyone that the world became scared of, was locked up. Imprisoned and unable to do what they were meant to do.

 

Peter’s eyes met the alternate version of himself. This version was slightly younger and still looked pretty identical to the reality traveling person. There was a thick collar around the alternate versions neck that Peter realized matched his own as well as several other very powerful prisoners including Wanda, Bucky, Steve and a bald wizard woman who sat with her legs folded like she was meditating.

 

Thankfully Bruce and Thor seemed to me missing. It would be hard to imprison them anyway. Peter looked around at all of the stunned eyes that bored through him. He met his alternate versions eyes before his spider-sense forced him out of his head.

 

Both Peters looked towards the source of their mirroring extra sense. It took a moment to see notice what caused it. Several armed guards came out of the far entrance and surrounded the free Peter. Peter automatically checked his wrists for web-shooters and cursed when he realized that they had been taken away. Not only his web-shooters but also the soul stone connected to the very important quantum gauntlet. The only thing making sure that the quantum energy in his body didn’t make him explode. Cool.

 

They obviously want him alive as they just surrounded him and waited for him to attack them.

 

“Man, I don’t have time for this… I just want to go home.” Peter groaned. He quickly scanned the people getting ready to attack him. There were about twelve of them and they were all pretty heavily armed with obviously enhanced weapons.

 

“Get him.” A male voice from the back of the group stated calmly. In an instant, several guns went off. Peter heavily relied on his spider-sense to keep him from being shot. Which was good as he managed to dodge a whole lot of bullets at an impressive speed. He had launched himself in the air and twisted his body using the instinctual extra sense.

 

Peter landed in a low landing position and he got to work. Using his enhanced speed and strength, he wreaked havoc among the guards. He broke their guns and incapacitated them as quickly as he could. He remembered Mystique’s instruction from his very brief time training with the xmen, though it was kind of odd to think of her words when he was in the middle of a major fight. He remembered every little weak point that she had taught him, and he made sure to actually use his training. He remembered pressure points that she made him practice and he decided now was a good time to use it.

 

Peter didn’t normally aim for faces but the whole point of targeting pressure points was to cause enough temporary pain to take someone down. No killing, no major permanent damage. That was good enough for Peter. He went for throats, temples, noses, eyes and every other close weak point that he could get to.

 

Two minutes. The guards were out in two minutes with barely a scratch on Peter. Okay, a bullet grazed his thigh when he got overwhelmed by his senses for a moment but he wasn’t bleeding that much and it didn’t hit an artery so he was fine.

 

There was one last man in the room. Presumably the man that had called the order of attack. He looked like someone in charge. He looked like if Howard Stark was a little more square and hated his facial hair more.

 

“Impressive… Quite impressive. But I’ll have to break up the party kid.” Peter’s eyes widened when he saw the small remote in the man’s hand. With the press of a button, Peter was overcome by the annoyingly familiar feeling of overwhelming electricity. It hurt so much that he couldn’t breathe. He had crumpled to the ground but had managed to stick his feet on the floor so he didn’t lose all of his dignity. He fell to the ground but he managed to support himself in a single kneed kneel.

 

The most important thing though was the overwhelming pain and the lack of oxygen coming to his brain. He begged for breathe and started to see spots in his vision. Thankfully after an agonizing eternity without air, he was released. His arms caught him before he fell on the ground completely. He heaved and gasped for breath as he finally got access to it.

 

“How easily you are brought to your knees.” The man growled and Peter started to recognize him from TV. It was secretary Ross. The asshole that took control of the accords in his own universe. He had a feeling that the accords were a little different here.

 

“Yeah, It only took you about twenty heavily armed men and a pre-installed torture device.” Peter wheezed back as he caught his breath. Every once in a while, his muscles would spasm which was more annoying than painful. As his adrenaline started to decrease, the pain from the gunshot in his thigh increased by the thousands. He did all he could to not show how much pain he was in but he couldn’t control the burning tears forcing their way into his eyes.

 

A much quicker dose of electricity left Peter trembling on the ground.

 

“I don’t like your attitude. Hopefully we can change it pretty soon. It’ll make your stay here much easier.” Ross growled. He waved his hand dismissively and a couple of guys walked out, walking through their fallen comrades as they made their way over to him. Even if Peter wasn’t injured, he wouldn’t be able to fight. He was overly exhausted. He was always tired after a jump but adding a fight and light torture to the mix and Peter wasn’t sure that he could stand on his own anymore.

 

The men carelessly tossed him in the empty cell without even restraining him. With the high voltage shock collar, they didn’t have to. They could completely immobilized him at a moment’s notice. Ross just wanted to play with him. Give him hope when there was none.

 

The impact of the cold concrete floor against his wound made his vision white with pain for a moment and he wasn’t sure if he made a noise or not. It would be embarrassing to scream in front of everyone here. Especially Mr.asshole-secretary.

 

“Congrats, you caught another Spider-Man, do you have enough heroes in your collection now?” Peter said softly as he dragged himself into a sitting position on the floor of the cell. It was surprisingly painful and frustrating.

 

“Heroes? You think anyone here is a hero? People here have murdered more than any military.”

 

“Yet without them every human is going to be crushed… You have no more defenses. And you’re just holding a bunch of infinity stones in a relatively unprotected planet. I mean you must’ve destroyed the VIsion and taken away the Time stone from the wizards. And you took the Soul stone from me, thank god Asgard still has the space stone… You’re just making it so easy for some evil alien just to pick them up and destroy the universe. You guys are letting your fear of power destroy you and everyone else with you.” Peter muttered his thoughts, not really caring if he was even heard or not.

 

“How, insightful. You deserve an award. We might need to give you some antipsychotics instead of treating that bullet wound…” Ross obviously didn’t think that he was telling the truth, to him it was just nonsense. Peter wasn’t surprised. But some in the room were.

 

The bald wizard woman opened her eyes for the first time since Peter had been there. She looked puzzled as Peter offered a quick explanation.

 

“I’m from an alternate reality…” He studied his alternate versions face for a moment, “About two years in the future. I think the civil war bullshit happened a bit differently here…” Peter shrugged. “But I don’t think that is the only divergence…” He looked at the woman. The soul stones light whisper in his ear confirmed his assumption. She was dead in his universe… he could feel it. Whatever the wizards were doing must have been different too.

 

“Whatever, before I get out of here I’m just going to have a nap… oh yeah… I got shot again didn’t I… That sucks…” Peter muttered to himself. His exhaustion was pulling at his eyelids with strength that rivaled the hulk. But he was bleeding through his prison uniform. He had to make sure he didn’t bleed out while he was asleep. He had to convince himself that it would only take a minute, then he would be able to rest.

 

Peter tore off a few strips if rough cloth from his prison garb and shakily wrapped up is wound. He wasn’t fully aware of the curious eyes of the heroes around him but even in his weariness he could feel their gaze. It seemed like everyone was reluctant to ask much of him. He probably looked like shit anyway, Peter doubted that anyone would want to try to talk to him when he looked moments away from death.

 

Once Peter was done patching himself up silently, he fell asleep. He was only a foot away from the bed but he had a feeling that it wasn’t a good enough quality bed to be worth the agonizing pain to get to it. So he passed out in the hopes that his wound would heal by morning and that he would find a way to break out. Maybe break everyone else out as well but he really didn’t know what this reality was like so he decided that instead of worrying about it, he would charge up his energy.

 

For everyone else in this alternate dimension, seeing this different version of Peter was jarring. It seemed to be a copy of the kid they had been imprisoned with for the past few months but also different in a whole lot of ways.

 

This new Peter looked a little more hardened and weary. And considering how well he fought, He was also more trained. This Peter seemed to be used to his powers and heightened senses enough to rely and control them a lot better than their Peter knew how to. This Peter looked and spoke a little less childishly even though he wasn’t that much older than their Peter. Although they haven’t met him for that long, they knew he wasn’t their Peter.

 

“So, are we going to believe that there’s another spider-kid from an alternate dimension or am I the first to suggest that this is a clone.” Tony spoke up after he was sure the new kid had fallen asleep.

 

“He is definitely from an alternate dimension.” The ancient one said with surety in her voice. “I have seen multiple futures, this Peter could originate from one of them.”

 

“Why did he look at you like that… when he mentioned the reality divergences…” The slightly younger Steven Strange asked his mentor.

 

“I don’t know…” The ancient one lied. “However it seems unlikely that he would explain. It’s dangerous to blur the lines of reality Steven.”

 

“What happened to him… me… whatever…” Their Peter said quietly as he observed the alternate version of himself. The slightly older version of himself had dark shadows under his eyes and slightly paler skin like he had a violent version of the flu. He also barely reacted to being shot so that was kind of odd.

 

No one had an answer. They all just looked at the alternate version of Peter and knew that it would only get worse for the kid. However they didn’t know how much worse he had already experienced so far.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter woke up with a jolt as he was yanked to his feet. The sleep had definitely helped but Peter wasn’t sure that he could stand so quickly. His legs wobbled a bit but he didn’t fall. The bright lights attacked Peter’s vision and he winced in pain. Before his eyes could adjust, Ross spoke.

 

“Good morning. I hope you had adequate rest. Unfortunately you won’t be having any more for quite a while. You see… we have a lot of questions. It would be in your best interest to answer them truthfully. I assume you can guess the consequences of your failure...”

 

“Yeah, you seem quite happy to zap me man…” Peter groaned as he blinked at the light. “I don’t have much to tell you though… crossing timelines and all that…” Peter squeaked when a quick jolt of electricity passed through him.

 

“I’m not in the mood for your sass today child. What was the device on your wrist?” Ross demanded.

 

“You wouldn’t be able to understand it anyway…” Peter, against his small amount of common sense, sassed. He regretted it a little when he was hit with a few more seconds of electricity. He at least managed to not squeak this time so that was an improvement.

 

“I have the power to make your heart stop kid. Just answer the question.” Ross grumbled, unbothered.

 

“Yeah, you aren’t the only one. But not even a brainwashed Thor could keep be down for long. What makes you think that you’re little zap would do anything.” Peter crumpled against the hard wall when he was shocked. This time it was longer and he was gasping for breath.

 

“Stop! He’s just a kid!” the ragged voice of alternate Tony called out in anguish.

 

“He’s not human either!” Ross yelled back roughly. “I would treat him like one if he was one. But he’s not. He’s no more than an animal.” After this outburst there was a long moment of silence that Peter decided to fill.

 

“You’re right. I’m… not human. I’m not a god like Thor or whatever the hell Bruce Banner is, Jackal and Hyde changing DNA bullshit. I’ve been to a place where people like me have a name. Homo superior. Do you know what that means dipshit? That means I’m not human. I’m a little more evolved than that. And you are afraid. Afraid of being weaker. That’s what happened huh? You were all afraid of being weaker so as a fucking power move, you decided to chain everyone better than you up. Problem solved right? Except you won’t be able to do anything when something else happens. You were too busy locking everyone up that when the next world ending scenario happens, it will be just you. Alone. And you won’t save anyone. Not even yourself.” Peter growled. It felt out of character for him to be this way but he was sick of being pushed around by every bad guy that decided to fuck with him.

 

Peters scathing words were met with a surprisingly hard punch in the jaw. For some reason his spider sense didn’t go off in time, and he got the full force of Ross’ temper tantrum. Peter cradled his jaw in his hand and winced as he tasted a little bit of blood in his mouth.

 

“Maybe later you’ll have an answer that I like. However your behavior is inexcusable. If you act like an animal, you’re going to be treated like an animal.” Ross left the glass cell and the hiss of gas started to fill the room.

 

For a horrific minute, Peter couldn’t breathe. It took too long for him to pass out but when he woke up. He was not just in new chains, but he wore an iron mask over his nose and mouth, imitating a muzzle on a dog.

 

Peter had a feeling that he was not going to like this reality.

Notes:

I hope you liked this chapter! I'm super excited for this reality! Comment your thoughts, they will be very much appreciated. Seriously, I love comments more than anything. They're practically the currency of writing. I'll see you guys soon, I changing my writing tumblrs name to 'Queer-xmen' so be aware of that. My normal tumblr is the same as on here and I recently drew some art that is a little hint to the chapter of 'Gold titanium alloy' that's coming out tomorrow. Anyway, I'll see you soon! I love you!

Chapter 44: Reality 562016: Motionless Chase

Summary:

Life in the raft is rough.

Notes:

This one has a little bit of torture in it so... you've been warned.

PLEASE FILL THIS OUT: https://goo.gl/forms/kPHtw3VJ72YUcDwo1

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

‘I’m going to get us out of here Peter…’ the soul stone whispered in his head. His eyes were closed and he was trying not to focus on the uncomfortable muzzle. It was too tight and slowly got more and more painful as the day went on. He had perched himself on the ceiling, facing away from the other cells.

 

He frantically tried to figure out a way out but kept getting stuck at the shock collar. No matter what he did, he could practically be disabled at anytime. He was too far away from the soul stone to summon enough of their energy to do anything helpful. He was barely close enough to speak to the stone and never for very long.

 

He was stuck. And he actually had a time limit this time. If he couldn’t get to the quantum gauntlet in time, the energy surge wouldn’t have any sort of outlet at there was a chance that Peter could actually explode. He hoped he wouldn’t but if there was enough power building in his veins to tear him across a few thousand realities, that power wouldn’t leave without making a mark. Very likely at least damaging this reality or Peter himself.

 

Yeah, not the best situation to be in. Slowly it sunk in and Peter began to internally freak out more and more. He could be dead within a week and his reality wouldn’t know. Well, at least there’s still Tony. He’s still looking for Peter. His Tony could very well be his only hope unless the soul stone decided to unlock some convenient powers. The second one was a little bit likely because the soul stone was a powerful motherfucker that fed off of Peter’s emotions. They must be having a feast right now even considering their distance.

 

“Peter? Alternate universe Peter?” Peter was pulled from his thoughts as he realized he was being talked to. He opened his eyes and blinked the brightness away. He dropped from the ceiling and easily landed on his feet even though they were chained together.

 

“Yeah?” Peter’s voice was muffled by the muzzle as he looked toward the voice. It was the bald sorcerer woman.

 

“You mentioned the infinity stones… what do you know about them…”

 

“I know that I’m psychologically connected to one. The soul stone. And I know the damage they can do in the wrong hands. If they’re all in one undefended place then you all are screwed. But I guess that won’t matter if I can’t get out of here.” Peter muttered. “I’m kind of in a time crunch.” He shrugged.

 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Doctor Strange asked with his normal amount of controlled emotion.

 

“Without my quantum gauntlet, I’m like a time-bomb. If I don’t get that gauntlet, the quantum energy trapped and growing in my body will have nowhere to go, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if this whole place was vaporized.”

 

“Did you say… Quantum energy?” an older man said from several cells away. It took a moment for Peter to recognize who it was.

 

“Yeah, Collected from the quantum realm like… five realities ago.” Peter counted on his fingers as he tried to remember.

 

“How the hell did you get quantum energy?” Hank Pym asked in disbelief.

 

“Uh, spoilers. I got it from an alternate universe version of your wife and she might be the only one that can help me with my… power consumption problem.”

 

“Janet is alive?”

 

“Yeah… she’s just a little stuck… wait.. Is Hope not in here?” Peter asked as he started to figure out a plan.

 

“She’s no superhero kid. She wasn’t going to be blamed for my or Scott's mistakes.” This made Peter grin beneath his iron muzzle.

 

“Maybe not yet. Shit, I hope that they don’t have cameras…”

 

“They don’t want to give Tony any ideas.” Steve shrugged as Peter snorted. Of course they wouldn’t have many cameras around when there’s a mechanical genius in the prison. If Tony somehow got his hands on a single camera, he could probably break them all out. Obviously people don’t need powers to be dangerous enough to be sent to the raft.

 

“Yeah of course, the guy who broke out of a terrorist camp and saved his own life by making an impossible device with a box of scraps would be a little bit hard to contain. If he could do that with a bunch of scraps eight years ago, They’re probably rightfully afraid of what would happen now.”

 

“I guess that’s why I’m handcuffed too…” Tony shrugged. “So, slightly taller Peter, you said five other realities? Wanna tell us about any of them?”

 

“Uh… I don’t know if any of you will believe me honestly. Well, maybe the wizards, you guys know some weird shit.”

 

“Reality can be quite ridiculous.” The bald woman admitted.

 

“I mean, I appeared in a pretty shitty universe where Ultron totally destroyed most of the world and I had to keep a few super kids alive for a while so that was weird…” Peter shrugged.

 

“Spill, we haven’t had anything new for months.” Natasha sat on her cot. Peter began the story of his life only about a week ago. He noticed Tony’s facial expressions when Peter talked about Harley and he saw his slightly younger counterpart widen his eyes when he talked about the prospect of more Spider-Children.

 

It was when Peter got to talking about confronting Ultron when his spider-sense started nudging against his skull. He stopped his thought and everyone started to look at him weirdly.

 

“Something’s wrong…” The other Peter muttered as he looked around. Inter-dimensional Peter winced as the burn on his arm throbbed violently out of nowhere. If Peter wasn’t handcuffed, he would’ve automatically grabbed his wrist. Instead he warped his face in pain and his breath hitched.

 

“Kid?” Alternate Tony noticed Peter’s expression. “What the hell?” Tony looked behind Peter who opened his eyes. Peter gasped when he say the blue light in his cell. It didn’t take long for cloudy energy to open the familiar portal and Peter almost sobbed in relief. Tony, his Tony walked out with a casual expression. Until he looked at Peter. But mostly Peter’s muzzle. Then he looked like a mixture of enraged and worried.

 

“Pete, what the fuck did they do to you?” The portal collapsed and his Tony unhesitatingly touched the muzzle and ripped it off. Thankfully this restrictive object was not made of vibranium. Peter sighed in relief as the stabbing ache of the mask was removed and winced a little when his Tony tentatively touched the marks that it left on his face.

 

“I’m fine Tony… I just got captured again. And put in an electric shock collar again…” Tony brought Peter into his arms without any hesitation, even if Peter couldn’t hug back.

 

“You’re going to give me a heart attack one day kid…”

 

“I’m surprised I haven’t already honestly.” Peter muttered as he automatically tucked his head comfortably on his mentor. “Find a way to disable the shock collars and I can get everyone out of here.”

 

“You sure you can’t go through the portals?” Tony sighed.

 

“When you appeared, it felt like my wrist was being deep fried. And I was like six feet away from you. Get the soul stone and figure out the collars. I’ll be fine. I promise.” Peter reassured.

 

“What’s your plan to get out huh?” Tony unnecessarily prepared the space stone for another cloudy portal.

 

“It’s a surprise.” Peter smiled. “Now go, someone may have noticed.”

 

Tony shrugged and looked around at everyone in the room. His gaze hesitated a bit on the alternate versions of himself and Peter.

 

“Don’t be a dumbass.” Tony looked at his Peter.

 

“I have never been a dumbass.” Both Tony’s raised their eyebrows at Peter’s exclamation.

 

“Fine.” Tony looked at his counterpart. “Don’t let him be a dumbass.”

 

“Sure.” Alternate Tony shrugged as Peter’s Tony left through a portal that again caused his burn to throb painfully. This was right when dozens of heavily armed prison guards ran in. Peter didn’t know why they took so long but he was glad that they did.

 

“Where did he go!” One of them shouted at him.

 

“I don’t know.” Peter said, forcing calm into his voice.

 

“Bullshit!” the same one yelled as he pressed a button on a remote. Peter’s spider-sense screamed but there was nothing he could do. Peter crumpled to the ground in blinding pain. One second… five seconds… ten seconds… thirty seconds… a full minute passed of blinding, breathless pain and Peter was starting to get tired of being electrocuted. The muscle spasms continued for a while after the initial tasing.

 

“You’re not going to answer huh… Guess it’s time for a field trip then.” The guard grumbled. He motioned for one of his buddies open the cell and get him. Peter was electrocuted once more to make sure that he was incapacitated enough to be dragged away. Unfortunately, he was. It was kind of hard to move after too many volts of electricity passed through his body and he was surprised that he was still breathing.

 

Peter was forced roughly out of his cell and half consciously dragged through endless hallways. He swore he could hear shouting from familiar voices but his brain was a little scrambled from the time without oxygen. He barely noticed when he was tossed into a pretty empty looking room. He struggled to his feet and his heart pounded painfully as he dreaded what they were planning on doing to him.

 

Ross’ voice echoed from an invisible intercom.

 

“I’m glad I didn’t leave early like I wanted to. We want answers kid. And we know how to get them. It would be terribly sad for you if you don't cooperate.” Peter spun around, hoping to find the source but the voice came from everywhere and it was painfully loud.

 

“Fuck off!” Peter growled.

 

“You know, I’m kind of glad you said that. I’m going to enjoy this.” Ross’ voice sounded sickeningly enthusiastic. All at once, Peter’s senses attacked him. Bright, colorful lights, excruciatingly painful screeching noises, a strongly chemically smelling gas, and even a drastic temperature change all started in a second.

 

It was so much more than too much, too much… even his spider-sense was joining into the chaos. Peter desperately closed his eyes in an attempt to at least cut off one of his senses but the light still flashed through his eyelids. The sound and the scent was the worst though. He knew he was screaming, but he couldn’t hear it with all of the noise.

 

The torture was a blinding assault on his senses and tears came to his eyes almost immediately. Peter had gone into sensory overload before but this was the worst it had ever been. It hit like an immobilizing fist of a titan.

 

After an eternity of agony, it was gone. Peter was still extremely sensitive. The sea dozens of floors under him was painful and his clothes felt like he was being ruthlessly rubbed with steel wool. The revolting smell was still there poisoning his senses and his heartbeat felt like it was shaking his body with the violence of an earthquake. He didn’t dare open his eyes and his throat was raw from screaming. He was lightheaded and felt like his skull was going to burst. It sucked, but he was going to live. He had gone through worse… Fuck, even thinking hurt…

 

“Are you ready to answer our questions now?” If Ross’ voice was loud before, it was earsplitting now.

 

“What do you want?” Peter said hoarsely.

 

“I want to know where the hell that alternate universe bastard Stark went!”

 

“I don’t know!” Peter sobbed.

 

“Then this is going to be a long night for you.”

 

Peter soon found out that no matter how exhausted he was, there was no way he would be able to pass out. His torturers seemed to know his limits which made his heart sink in realization. Poor alternate Peter…

 

When they were done, Peter had been blinded with some sort of acidic mist, four more long violent electric shocks, personal verbal abuse, (information that they must have forced out from the alternate Peter) and a hallucinatory injection that eerily reminded him about what Wanda using her powers on him felt like.

 

Peter had stopped talking back, not just from the lack of being able to (screaming at full force for hours did that to someone's vocal chords,) but also because he didn’t want to give them more reason to hurt him. Although it didn’t seem like they needed much of one. The first guy seemed pretty bloodthirsty and quick to kick him while he’s down.

 

The worst part was the darkness that covered his sight. He had been hurt and insulted and psychologically fucked with plenty, but having one of his senses forcibly taken away was completely unnerving… He was confident that he would be able to heal, hopefully.

 

He had to be dragged out of the room and before he collapsed into sleeps sweet embrace, he heard the soft comforting whisper of the soul stone.

 

‘I’m going to get us out of here Peter. I’m not going to let them hurt you, ever again.’

Notes:

COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT, I LOVE ANY AND ALL COMMENTS, seriously I really love them. How did I do? Did you guys like this chapter? Does it hurt? TELL ME! I'm on tumblr as Science-lings and Queer-xmen, the second of which is my writing blog that is participating in the marvel writing challenge. I'm also planning on doing art for this fic so I would love some ideas about what you want to be illustrated most. Who knows, I might make a cover for this fic idk. Anyway, I'll see you guys later! Bye! I love you all!

Chapter 45: Reality 562016: The Rage of the Soul Stone

Summary:

Peter wakes up.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter woke up feeling pretty shitty. He guessed intense torture tended to do that. His head pounded and every cell in his body seemed to be damaged in some way. His eyes burned from being recently blinded, his muscles felt weak even though he had just come back from unconsciousness. The light from behind his eyelids was too bright but at least that meant he had his vision back.

 

It took a moment for him to realize that someone was trying to talk to him. At first the voice was muffled and unrecognizable but as his hearing cleared up, he almost sobbed in relief. It was Tony… but it wasn’t his Tony. That was a good thing because that meant that his Tony hasn’t gotten caught, Yet.

 

“Peter? Come on kid… I know you’re awake and they won’t let me stay in here for very long.” Peter knew that this wasn’t his Tony. The difference was miniscule. It was his voice. Usually when his Tony said his name, it was different. There was usually a hitch of weary fondness that Peter used to dismiss as something less sentimental. This Tony had only known him or a version of him for what? A month? He wasn’t… fully attached yet.

 

“Ow… Fuck…” Peter muttered before this alternate Tony sighed in relief.

 

“Thank god… I thought you were a goner there young skywalker.” Peter chuckled at the reference and still kept his eyes shut.

 

“It took more than that shit to kill me Mr. Stark.” His past tense seemed to go unnoticed, which was good because he didn’t know how much this universe's future would differ from his own. He hoped that this reality wouldn’t have to suffer half of the population if the universe turning into ash but he wouldn’t be too hopeful.

 

Peter opened his eye a millimeter and cringed at the intense brightness of everything. He was usually pretty sensitive to light but this was ridiculous. He was starting to get sick of superhuman senses.

 

“What did they do to you…” Tony said softly.

 

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve been through worse… I think. And It’s not going to be the end of it.” Peter forced his eyes to slowly open despite the agony. Eventually it didn’t feel like he was continuously being stabbed by a 1,000 degree knife that would be in an oddly satisfying compilation.

 

“That's kind of depressing.” Tony mentioned as he adjusted himself so that he was blocking the closest light from hitting Peter’s eyes. That made things marginally less painful. Peter muttered a thanks and noticed a few things. No muzzle, Peter didn’t know why they didn’t just replace it but he was thankful that it was gone. Peters vibranium handcuffs were adjusted to holding his hands together at the front of his body and he didn’t even have anything chaining his feet together. For some reason he knew that it wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts. There must be a twisted motive.

 

“Why… Why did they let you in?” Peter raised his eyebrow. It was really strange that they would let Tony into his cell. It made Peter very suspicious. Also his spider-sense seemed to be warning him about something but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it. So that was making him incredibly uneasy.

 

“They didn’t say-” Alternate Tony stopped when a blue holographic screen appeared on the wall in front of them. The screen showed what looked like feed from a security camera from a high angle pointing downwards. Peter immediately recognized the figure that was in the cell recording.

 

“Tony…” Peter muttered. It was Tony. His Tony. A lump formed in his throat when his Tony looked up at the camera. Alternate Tony looked a little bit sick as he glued his eyes to the hologram.

 

“Kid? Did they hurt you?” Peter’s Tony said urgently.

 

“It doesn’t matter.” Peter dismissed quickly. “We have to get out of here. I don’t know how much time they have left.”

 

“It does matter. But who is this they?”

 

“Our reality… My reality. Keep up old man, They won’t stand a chance without our infinity stones. We need to get home.”

 

“You sure we can’t go through the portals? I mean we have to get out of here first…” Tony rolled his eyes and looked off-camera.

 

“That’s enough chit-chat.” Ross spoke through the speaker system in both cells. “I connected you all for a reason.”

 

“What do you want fuckwad.”

 

“I want to keep people safe Mr. Parker. From people like all of you.”

 

“You can’t. You’re digging yourself a hole larger than the one you stuck your head in. Your ass, I’m talking about your ass.” To Peter’s disappointment, Ross ignored him.

 

“We don’t need you. You subhumans are making your own problems and it gets people killed.”

 

“You will need them though. Sooner than you think. Without them, there is no hope for any of you assholes. It will be your fault when you can’t go against the next comic book villain that wants to destroy the universe. And you’ll let him. Because you have no choice. You should give yourself a chance of survival before you go letting everyone get killed.” Peter spat before seeing his mentor collapse from the other side of the screen.

 

“I’ve found out that you don’t react to being tortured yourself so I decided to try something new. Every time you do something I don’t like… He gets the punishment. Got it?” Ross said disgustingly emotionlessly.

 

“You’re a monster.” Peter said, now horrified that he’ll do something to get his Tony killed. Tony shakingly stood up but kept his head as high as ever and looked directly at where secretary Ross was.

 

“I’m not the one that can stick to walls. Do you think it’ll be easier to answer my questions now?” Peter stayed silent, this was apparently the wrong thing to do as the Tony from the other side of the screen was zapped again. Peter and alternate Tony winced at the violent sound.

 

“Fine, just get on with it!” Peter said, desperate to make his mentors torture stop. Peter felt incredibly guilty for causing it in the first place.

 

“Good boy. Let’s start out easy… What are you?” Ross said in an irritatingly patronizing tone.

 

“I’m…” Peter didn’t quite know how to complete that sentence. The closest thing he could think of him being would be a mutant but he wasn’t quite one of those either. It was weird not having a name for what he was. He could make up some scientific description but that felt different. It was like calling humans bipedal vertebrates. It was true but more of a rendition than a name.

 

“I know what you are. You’re just like everyone else imprisoned here. You’re a dangerous freak that needs to be contained.” Ross growled. Peter didn’t contradict him. He didn’t argue that he wasn’t dangerous and in certain definitions, a freak. However he didn’t feel like he needed to be contained. He wasn’t a rabid animal with no conscious.

 

“Don’t talk to my kid like that.” Peter’s Tony said with a dangerous expression on his face. This was one of those often times that Peter feared for his mentors health.

 

“Tony…” Peter said nervously before the mad collapsed through the screen, this time making pained sounds that made Peter feel like he was being metaphorically drowned.

 

“I wasn’t talking to you. Now answer me! What are you!” Ross shouted.

 

“I’m not a monster.” Peter muttered, while afraid that his comment could hurt Tony but he felt a need to defend himself, even in a hopeless situation.

 

“What was that?” Ross demanded.

 

“I’m… I’m a monster.” Peter hoped that compliance would keep them from hurting Tony. Even through the low quality camera, Peter could see Tony’s expression change to something hopelessly sad. Peter had to look away from the hologram.

 

“I wondered how long it would take you to learn.”

 

“Is everything not human a monster to you?” Peter asked. “Are dogs and cats monsters? Are fucking bunnies monsters?”

 

“Some of them are. But there’s definitely a difference between you and a puppy Mr. Parker.”

 

“I would beg to differ… that kid has the heart of a thousand golden retriever puppies.” Tony was silenced again by a quick pulse of electricity and he seemed a little less intent on making comments.

 

“You must know by now that you aren’t harmless Peter. This is a place for killers and very dangerous individuals. You belong here.”

 

Peter had closed his eyes with a nudge by the soul stone. While Ross continued to talk down on him, Peter listened to the voice of the soul stone, hoping that they had a way to get out of this mess.

 

This action looked painful from the alternate Tony’s perspective. Peter looked like he was wincing and there was an automatic protective urge that he definitely wasn’t used to.

 

“Are you listening to me-” Ross started before he was interrupted by a fearful voice in the background.

 

“Uh, Mr. Secretary? The orange stone has been activated, you have to get out of here.”

 

“What do you mean the stone has been activated! What did you do!”

 

“We didn’t do anything sir! We haven’t even started testing-” a sickening crack silenced the man out of sight of the camera. Peter’s Tony looked more confused than scared. Peter still had his eyes closed like he was focusing on a thought.

 

“What’s going on…” Alternate Tony asked cautiously.

 

“For god’s sake! It’s the kid! What are you waiting for! Use his collar!” Ross yelled from seemingly several dozen feet away from his microphone.

 

The Tony’s completely expected Peter to collapse in twitching pain like he had done several times before. Instead, Peter opened his eyes and in place of his normally brown eyes, there seemed to be the energy of several fiery stars contained in the boys gaze.

 

Peters hands flew up to his shock collar and didn’t just tear it off, the energy from the soul stone melted through the hardest metal in the world. Or at least this world.

 

“Okay, time to go…”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Meanwhile in earth 19999999,

 

Everyone thought that Thanos was gone. For good. But this didn’t seem to be the case. This became evident when a transmission from space was picked up on Wakandas scanners. Shuri had frantically called her brother to the palace to show the video and she looked incredibly shaken which was quite the feat.

 

“Greetings terrans. You have an insect that has wronged me… Bring the child to me and I will leave you and your planet alive.” Neither of them had to bring up the fact that Peter and Tony were missing, as well as half of the infinity stones with them.

 

“Prepare for my arrival. I have some surprises if you chose to not meet my demands.” Thanos said in his faux calm voice that only made people's skin crawl.

 

“Shuri, we need you to contact Tony or Peter. We have a time limit now.” T’Challa said with a surprising amount of calm.

 

“I can try. But we need to create vessels for our infinity stones. We cannot be as unarmed as last time brother.”

 

“We won’t be. This time we will be ready.”

Notes:

so that Avengers: endgame trailer huh... (I'm dead inside) anyway, if you want art for this fic, I have a poll! (https://goo.gl/forms/6X4eP4XTfyNtCvNT2) I had too many ideas for art for this fic so you'll have to help me put. As always, comments are very much appreciated and you can find me on tumblr as science-lings and queer-xmen. Also if you have been following along with my other fic, heart of gold titanium alloy, I will be putting that one on hold while I work on other projects so I'm sorry about that. I also may write a fic with all of the alternate reality ideas that I couldn't fit into the main plot. I'd like to know what you guys think. anyway, I'll see you next time!

Chapter 46: Reality 562016: Self Saving Damsel in Distress

Summary:

It's a prison breakout

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Tony didn’t think he’d get caught. He had his nanosuit which was the most powerful thing on the boat. At this point in time, probably the world. So it was incredibly annoying when Tony was hit with something that he had forgotten about.

 

Tony had been playing with nanotech for years, he even made a little nanoball that he would throw at Pepper. And that was not even a euphemism. After a while, Pepper got annoyed and Tony had to make something to wirelessly deactivate the nanoparticles. The idea ended up biting him in the ass in this universe as now he was unable to use his suit. And without his suit, physically, he was just a stronger than average middle aged guy. He also had the infinity stones but he didn’t know how to use them as much as Peter did.

 

This made him kind of an easy catch. So that was annoying. The guard assholes figured out that his arc reactor was actually an implanted housing unit for nanotech so they thankfully didn’t just rip it out. It went right under the skin and about six inches around the actual arc reactor. It was bigger than it looked.

 

He did manage to hide his infinity stones from these assholes so that was one thing that he didn’t fail at. The gauntlet that held the stones folded around them and into a small pouch that Tony hid easily in his clothes. Tony ended up handcuffed and passed out in a cell too far away from Peter’s for too long. Much too long.

 

When a holographic screen appeared in front of him, he saw his kids face. As someone who has been tortured multiple times, he knew what the aftermath looked like. There was this empty look in the kid's eyes that was such a large contrast to his normal excited self that Tony had no doubt that they had done something horrible. This one moment made Tony want to tear off Secretary Ross’ arms in rage.

 

As usual, getting electrocuted wasn’t fun, especially in front of Peter and apparently the alternate version of himself, but he forced himself not to scream. It would make everything harder for Peter. This was the kind of situation that he really didn’t want his kid to be in. It was emotionally scarring. Tony just tried to make it less so.

 

Peter’s face on the monitor had started out horrified and scared but when he closed his eyes in a wince, his facial expression changed dramatically. His features hardened and Tony heard yelling from the hallway outside of his cell. He squinted before stumbling back as the metal door keeping him separated from the world blew inward like it had been blasted with a bomb.

 

On the other side was a glowing orange figure. After a moment Tony could recognize the form that the energy took. It was the alien woman, Gamora. He had briefly met her after Peter brought everyone back with the soul stone. She was there for Peter when Tony was too alive to be. He suspected that she was connected to the soul stone, which was why it took her form.

 

She held two jagged short swords and had a surprisingly neutral look on her face. She looked like she was made out of neon light but she seemed to be physically able to do things so that was a little weird but Tony had seen weirder.

 

Tony looked towards the screen with Peter’s face on it. Where he was once wincing in pain, his eyes were open and glowing and he seemed consumed by a smoldering rage. It was actually scary to see someone so out of character. Peter wasn’t one for destruction, at least on purpose, but the kid looked like he was going to take down the raft with him. And Tony was terrified.

 

“Hurry. We need to make a quick stop.” Soul Gamora said. She took one of her swords and sliced Tony’s handcuffs with a single swipe. Thankfully Tony didn’t jump too much and get impaled again. That would be embarrassing.

 

“A little warning next time…” Tony took his own infinity stones out and almost shivered at the space stones blood chilling energy. If Tony wasn’t in a rush to save his reckless kid, he would be more interested in the different energies that the infinity stones had.

 

“Sorry. Ultimately I’m being controlled by Peters emotions, so I’m mostly trying not to hug you.” The comment made Tony snicker.

 

“Little Pete’s definitely a hugger.” He shrugged. “Lead the way Ms. Nightclub.”

 

“You have the portals genius. We need to get to the room where they're holding all of Peter’s crap.”

 

“If you’re the soul stone, doesn’t his crap include you?”

 

“I’m literally one of the most powerful beings in the universe Tony, Don’t try me.”

 

“Jesus okay… Let’s get your rock…”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter was done. He was sick of everything going wrong and he was sick of dying. Seeing Tony hurt had been the straw that broke his control. He had always prided himself on his control. The control of his strength and powers. But he also was pretty good at controlling his feelings, Sometimes. He cried a lot. And he liked to show any and all excitement to everyone. But that was it. He didn’t get angry easily. He was no hulk.

 

But he was at a point in his life where so much shit had happened in rapid succession and he didn’t know how to deal with it. Thankfully the soul stone fed off of his angsty teenager emotions.

 

He felt the soul stones consciousness at the back of his mind, stronger than ever. They were different this time. More independent and enraged. Peter decided that it wasn’t a concern. Using the soul stone this much would not be good for his quantum energy levels so he had to get his gauntlet fast.

 

“Peter?” Alternate Tony looked at him with confusion but thankfully enough, not fear.

 

“It’s time to party Mr. Stark.” Peter smiled, hoping that he looked cool instead of nightmarish with his eyes glowing with the power of the soul stone.

 

Peter felt the buzz of the electric collar. But instead of immobilizing pain, there was just a subtle vibration. With less than a thought, the collar broke apart with cracks of melting energy. Good, Peter was tired of shock collars. Peter held out his hand in the direction of the metal door. With similar fiery energy, cracks of glowing power seeped into the metal before exploding the door outward. This action made alternate Tony jump back a little.

 

The now visible prisoners of the raft all watched as Peter stepped out of his containment. Peter could acutely hear the frantic steps of prison guards rushing to his location and away from him where he assumed his Tony was. Peter closed his eyes and focused for a moment.

 

At this moment, the thick glass doors started to glow brightly before collapsing in shards away from the prisoners. Peter calmly walked to Wanda’s cell, only a few doors away from his own, and he ripped off her shock collar with an understanding amount of rage.

 

“Don’t break the boat, you guys will need a way to get home,” Peter mentioned as he saw the doors open from the edge of his vision.

 

“What the hell?” Sam said under his breath.

 

“I’m connected to the soul stone Mr.Falcon. I think they got pissed.” Peter smiled excitedly. “I’m gonna need our physically super people closer to the exits. Surrounding the weaker of you guys. Dr.Pym? You’re like eighty so stay in the middle.”

 

“Are you saying that I’m old Mr. Parker?” The scientist narrowed his eyes.

 

“I’m just calling it as I see it my elder bug,” Peter said as he turned and dodged a bullet from almost point blank range. The guards were a little slow but they probably aren’t used to prison-breaks. Peter took the first guard out with a careful kick to the head. But that was just the beginning.

 

Thankfully that was the case. Peter had quite a bit of feelings to let out with violence. The soul stone could translate emotion to physical power pretty easily. And now he had back up. A bunch of superheroes with cabin fever were plenty resourceful.

 

Peter’s counterpart joined him at the front and seemed to be doing okay. He had yet to be shot. The wizards had found a way to uncuff themselves and were definitly a force to be reconed with. Wanda seemed pretty pissed and destructive and Peter really hoped that they would keep the raft together.

 

Then he felt it. The soul stone was close. Peter spun towards the feeling and smiled at the sight of the warm glow that matched his own. He really didn’t expect the soul stone to take the form of Gamora but he didn’t care. His Tony was there in his nanosuit and seemed to be getting practice in with the space stone. He played with portals, letting guards disappear through the floor and reappear who knows where.

 

Glowing Gamora walked calmly to him and tossed him one of her glowing swords. Peter didn’t think that giving him a sword was a good idea, but the sword morphed in midair. It shrunk into a small familiar shape. Peter caught the web-shooter that appeared on his wrist and she tossed him the quantum gauntlet. Being actually connected to the soul stone felt as nice and warm at it usually did.

 

“Thanks!” Peter grinned. “Do you have more of a plan than I do? I have like… two percent of a plan.”

 

“Kill Ross.” The soul stone said calmly.

 

“We are not killing anyone,” Peter said sternly.

 

“They hurt you, Peter.”

 

“That doesn’t mean that they should die!”

 

“I am life, Peter. Ross will take many more lives if given the chance. It’s better to kill him now.”

 

“Fine,” Peter lied, “but I can’t keep using your power like this. I’ll poof out of here and might actually have some damage.”

 

“It was risky anyway.” Glowing Gamora shrugged and the light that made her up untied and swirled into the soul stone, like a black hole. Cool.

 

“I’ll lead you to him. I’m not going to let him get away.” the soul stone whispered in his ear. Peter didn’t plan on killing Ross but he knew that the soul stone really wanted to do that. So he decided to go with it for a while. He left the chaotic hallway of heroes being followed by his Tony and alternate Peter. Which was fine because alternate Peter needed supervision. Honestly, the slightly older Peter still needed supervision.

 

“So, did you know you could astral project?” Tony asked while they were running. Which was weird because he could fly.

 

“I had no idea. The soul stone is full of surprises…” He said as he shot a couple webs at a guard that was late to the first party. The glowing web-shooter shot glowing webs that Peter didn’t understand but at the moment didn’t have time to care about.

 

“What’s up with that anyway?” The alternate version of him asked.

 

“Uh, It’s a long story but I’m kind of attached to the soul infinity stone. It’s crazy, if I don’t warp to a different reality right after this, I’ll tell you all about it.” Peter dismissed.

 

“You’re like the badass version of me huh,”

 

“No, I’m just older. Tony can tell you that I’m still a dumbass.”

 

“It’s true.” Tony offered as they reached the room that contained Ross. Of course, the room was pretty airtight. It was tougher than any of the actual prison cells. Made for wizards and shit. At least he didn’t take an escape helicopter or some shit.

 

The soul stone melted the door like it was butter. Because everything had a melting point, and his orange energy seemed pretty damn warm. To test his theory, he didn’t wait for the door to explode. Instead, he punched it while it was still melting. It hurt a little but was destroyed under his strength.

 

“Hey, Mr. Ross! I’m sorry we couldn’t book an appointment!” Peter smiled as he caused sight of about twenty heavily armed guys. They even had some iron man inspired armor this time. If Peter could see behind his mentors mask, he was sure that the guy wouldn’t be happy.

 

“It won’t be a problem.” Ross stood at the far end of the room, with several people shielding him. Peter could feel the soul stones hatred for the man and it was weird. He knew that this rage wasn’t his. The only emotion he felt towards Ross was fear. And a whole lot of it. The soul stone covered up his fear with overwhelming rage and hatred. Peter really tried not to let it consume him though, he didn’t think that people should act purely on hatred. Uncle Ben inspired him with that.

 

“Fire at will,” Ross said with an annoying amount of calmness. Tony immediately stood in front of alternate Peter and handed the kid the iron-spider holding web-shooters. Armor was a good idea in general. But Peter had better reflexes and with the soul stone, an even better healing factor. He would be fine.

 

The next moment went in slow motion. Dozens of guns went off, being pointed at him, the unprotected one. Peter let his instincts take control and he launched himself off of the ground. He spun in midair to avoid the bullets that followed him and he landed on a knee in a superhero landing™.

 

Both Peters webbed the guns away from their owners and Tony shot with terrifying accuracy at the energy generators at the guard's chests. They went down like flies. If that was a good metaphor, Peter didn’t know.

 

It was a humorous minute before Ross was alone. Tony aimed a repulser at the man before he pulled out a dramatic villainous remote with a single bright red button on it. He pressed it with a slight smirk on his face before the most horrible sound entered his ears. It felt like his eardrums were being cleaned out with steel wool. Both Peter’s crumbled to the ground, covering their ears.

 

Before Tony had time to react, the soul stone did. She took control of Peters body for a moment and launched himself at Ross. Peter didn’t really know what happened next until he saw the aftermath.

 

Peter came to a moment later with the sweet relief of silence. But Tony and alternate Peter looked at him with horrified expressions. Peter looked down and saw what had happened and his heart sank.

 

The soul stone used him to kill Ross. He killed Ross. He killed someone.

 

He had just broken his one code of honor. He fucking killed someone. Maybe Ross was right. He was a monster.

Notes:

Hey guys! I now have an art account that has some new art based on this fic! It's Ironkids on tumblr. My other accounts are Science-lings and Queer-xmen. My poll for art is still open (Which you can find here: https://goo.gl/forms/HiFvRhcAvyHSGET73) ATM there's a tie between two of the options so I need someone to break it! I love comments more than anything so if you comment I'll love you forever.

I love you all and I'll see you guys next week! Bye!

Chapter 47: Reality 562016: Hitting a Breaking Point

Summary:

Peter is ready to fight himself and starts the next reality.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was quiet for too long. All Peter could hear was his dread and the blood pumping through his ears. It took a minute for him to sense anything else. Rapid footsteps. This wasn’t over with Ross. This was a world that was afraid of them and they couldn’t just break out of a prison and expect to be automatically reinstated in society. And the government probably didn’t want to let them go. They were calling for backup but because how far in the ocean the raft was, backup will take a while.

 

Hopefully.

 

“We have to go.” Peter broke the silence. “Ross wasn’t the only problem.”

 

“Yeah, this isn’t exactly the time to deal with this…” Tony added as he took both Peter’s shoulders and guided them away from the scene.

 

“Are you not going to talk about this?” The alternate universe Peter asked nervously. “Because I think that’s a major difference between your Peter and me.”

 

“No, it’s not…” Tony muttered.

 

“You just killed someone…”

 

“He hurt us,” Peter muttered, some of the soul stones thoughts coming through his mouth. “He hurt me and he hurt all of you. I just wanted it to end…”

 

“And murder is what you go with?” The other Peter said, clearly outraged. “We swore that we wouldn’t kill anyone, that was like our only fucking rule.”

 

“Give me a break…”

 

“How am I supposed to give you a break when you killed someone!”

 

“I didn’t mean to!”

 

“Okay can we calm-” Tony interjected.

 

“No, I want to know how you accidentally kill someone!” Alternate Peter yelled with a frantic chuckle.

 

“I didn’t kill him. The soul stone did.” Peter tried to react calmly but he was just as frustrated at himself.

 

“Oh, so you’re blaming-”

 

“Let me finish. Remember Ben?” This shut the alternate Peter up for a moment. “Remeber when we saw the fucker that shot him? We both got so close to killing him because of the rage. The murderer took another parent from us when we had already lost so much. Imagine if Aunt May was here. Different story right? If she saw you being tortured like I was, She would sink this entire ship. The soul stone is a lot like May. They are… the entity behind people caring about each other. And they care about me a lot. They were so angry. I’m surprised that they didn’t completely blow up this shitty place. The soul stone is part of me, and I’m all that they have. Now hurry up, we aren’t done with this place.”

 

The walk to the main control room was silent and Peter led the way with his super-senses being the only things leading them on. The silence gave Peter time to think of a solution. He had an idea, a shitty idea.

 

The only sounds in the raft were the alarms and the far-away muffled sounds of frantic people. Peter assumed that all of the actual guards were out and only non-violent personnel were active. He singled out a voice that was definitely where they were planning on going. The voice was a man frantically calling the mainland from the main deck.

 

“I need to get to the transmission system. Can you make me appear everywhere?” Peter looked at Tony who nodded.

 

“I think I can manage every screen and every open circuited audio system. Everything that can receive Bluetooth or wifi. What are you planning?”

 

“Something risky but I don’t exactly have that much time to think of something else.”

 

“You pulling a Cap kid?”

 

“Yeah, but bigger than just one organization. I’m going to try to reach everyone. If F.R.I.D.A.Y is still in this universe then she can translate to the hundreds of different countries right?” Peter shrugged before he kicked in the thick metal door of the control room in.

 

“We aren’t here to hurt you!” Peter yelled. “Step away from your shit and no one gets hurt!” Most of the people raised their arms in surrender. One woman pulled out a gun but alternate Peter webbed the gun away and stuck her hand to the wall.

 

“No one’s getting hurt anyway.” Alternate Peter gave his older counterpart a sharp look.

 

“Take your favorite computer Tony.” Peter ignored the sharp look and ignored the shame. He had shit to do. Tony walked to one of the main computers and politely shooed the person sitting there away.

 

There was an awkward quiet moment where Tony was typing and Peter saw all of the prisoners walking calmly through the halls from a large block of security camera feed. Everyone looked strange in matching blue, unfashionable prison outfits. Clint seemed to be loudly asking if anyone knew where his hearing aids were. Peter only knew because he could hear it from several floors and thousands of feet away.

 

“You ready to go live kid?” Peter smiled nervously and wanted to say that he needed a few minutes before he could go in front of almost everyone in the world. His mouth didn’t follow his thoughts.

 

“Yeah. Tell me when to start.” Thankfully Peter had been frantically thinking of his dialogue for his impromptu speech.

 

“Okay… three… two…” Tony gave Peter a thumbs up as he started the worldwide transmission. Peter took a deep shaking breath and looked right at the tiny camera as his face filled all of the screens in the room, save for Tonys.

 

“My name is Peter Parker.” The words echoed throughout the world. Back in Queens, the alternate universe May Parker was in between patients at the hospital when a small T.V. at the corner of the room lit up with the picture of her nephew. It had been months since she had seen him but he looked older than that now. She took a moment to cover her mouth with her hand.

 

“I am one of the people the UN deems dangerous enough to be locked away in a floating maximum security prison in the middle of the ocean.” He gave the camera a look that May couldn’t help but feel was directed at her as if he was sharing a joke with her. “So, who’s going to fight your intergalactic battles now? You locked all your heroes away. Unfortunately, this was one of the worst things you could’ve done. Someday, probably soon, there’s going to be another New York, another Sokovia. But so much worse. There’s no one protecting you if you are afraid of the only ones who can.”

 

May had never seen so much intensity in her nephews' eyes. He looked so sure and so passionate that she couldn’t help but believe it.

 

“You should be thankful that we’re even willing to keep protecting you assholes. It’s your fault that we’ve been tortured and tested like science experiments. You’ve left yourself defenseless while slowly killing the people who could’ve saved you.” The video was on every screen on times square, every digital billboard, every phone screen, every radio, every single Bluetooth speaker.

 

“Thankfully for you, we’re still going to protect this stupid planet. Because if we don’t, the universe itself will fall.”

 

“Is that a threat?” Someone offscreen asked while Peter’s face hardened.

 

“It’s a fact. In two years, there is the high possibility that half of the universe will… die. Including your family… your friends… your heroes… and you.” Peter’s voice shook during the last two and looked offscreen for a moment. “I’m from that universe. Or timeline or whatever. In my reality, we were separated. The Avengers were separated. And the universe fell. People saw their loved ones turn to dust before their eyes. This is your future if you alienate your heroes. So please, for your own sake… save yourselves.”

 

May was stunned. She was enraged. For some reason, she believed the ridiculous claims of her kid, or rather, and an alternate version of her kid. She knew that Peter was horrible at lying and storytelling, so this crazy prophecy was real, with no doubt in Mays mind.

 

“Because if you kill your heroes, there will be no one to save you. I’ve done the hard part. I broke everyone out of the hellboat. All you guys need to do is trust them and not do anything stupid. Like pass accords that make it so your heroes get to be dissected for science. Did you guys learn anything from the X-Men? Anyway, your lives depend on this moment in time. FIght for it.” Every screen went black before going back to it’s their previous content.

 

Back at the raft, Peter had crumpled to the ground in pain from the quantum burn. He had used too much soul power. He didn’t have long left before he would be thrown into his next adventure. He hoped for a universe made of pillows or something. He needed both emotional and physical rest.

 

“Pete!” Tony ran to him and helped him up after the peak of pain.

 

“Ow… fuck…” Peter leaned on Tony. “Hopefully that helped… that took a lot of cosmic rock energy to come up with.” He chuckled painfully.

 

“It’s okay… You did well.” Tony reassured while the rest of the Avengers and other enhanced individuals started to file into the room. Peters' eyes glowed with the power of the soul stone and his body immediately relaxed. Pain relief was a pretty good exchange for time in a shitty reality.

 

“Next reality, you have to join me nice and soon. I hope I’ll be able to take a nap this time.” Peter sighed.

 

“If it’s a Star Wars reality you won’t” Peter lit up as Tony smirked.

 

“You think that could be a thing?” Peter said excitedly.

 

“Yeah, I mean you met Batman so how unlikely is it that you could meet Luke Skywalker.”

 

“What? Batman? Am I on drugs?” Alternate Tony looked more surprised by this than anything he had experienced with his time here.

 

“Not this time.” Peter’s Tony shrugged casually. “Batman was kinda uptight. I liked Supergirl. She was cool.”

 

“She was…” Peter chuckled. “Do you think I have enough time to change out of my ripped prison garb before I warp to a new reality? I don’t want to accidentally poof out of here when I am without pants.”

 

“Let me take a look at the burn…” Tony reached for Peter’s arm and peeked under the vibranium cuff that hid it. It was glowing pretty brightly but Tony felt like they had a few minutes left. “I think you have a good few minutes. It’ll take everyone a little while to get back to land anyway. Hey other me, I bet you can put a movie on every single screen in the building.” Tony looked at the alternate version of himself who shrugged.

 

“Any requests?”

 

“I vote Sherlock. Not the movie, the TV show.” Doctor Strange offered.

 

“I haven’t seen Harry Potter yet.” Steve shrugged. Tony and Peter left the room while an argument started about TV shows and movies.

 

“Are you sure that you’re okay? I’m real impressed that you didn’t stutter through that whole inspirational speech.”

 

“I think I’m at a point where my fear of death overwhelms my fear of public speaking.” Peter shrugged casually. They walked to the elevator and Tony pressed the button that corresponded to the floor that he remembered the room where everything that had been taken from them was held.

 

“We’ll deal with that eventually, So, what are you in the mood for, you left the last reality in a Bruce Wayne approved suit, I don’t know if you want to be in that for several hours.”

 

“I don’t remember if I kept your Metallica shirt from the first reality that I ended up in… That was the most comfortable thing I can think of wearing for the last few months. I haven’t had time to go clothes shopping. I hope we still have that X-Men training suit, it was cool. Not completely practical but cool. I could go to comic con in it!” Peter grinned. There was still a darkness behind his skull that he was trying to push away but he had a feeling that it wouldn’t go away until he went to therapy. Ever since the murder of Secretary Ross, the soul stone had been strangely quiet. But Peter knew that they were still there.

 

It didn’t take long for Peter not to look like a prisoner of the Smurfs and to look like a semi-normal person. That would make it easier to go to a different reality. Tony gave Peter back his iron-spider web-shooters or at least the house of nanites that could be clipped onto the Quantum Gauntlet and they got ready for Peter to disappear in a flash of light as he had so many times before. It wasn’t even that dramatic this time.

 

Peter disappeared and Tony got back his infinity stones to follow him again. This time, it didn’t take too long.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

-Reality 1-

 

Peter appeared somewhere, thankfully, normal. Unfortunately, it was too normal. No superheroes, no magic, no alien attacks… just… normal. This universe would be a little harder to hide in. Peter had appeared… somewhere. He wasn’t quite sure where and the soul stone was still quiet.

 

“Hey, Karen?” Peter asked the almost invisible nanite earpiece that allowed him to talk to the AI.

 

‘Yes, Peter?’ Thankfully, she answered.

 

“Is there an empty place nearby? I don’t know how long I can stay awake.” Peter yawned as Karen stayed quiet for a moment.

 

‘There’s an empty hotel room that I’m sure you can get into. I’m finding some very interesting data on this reality. Do you want me to tell you while you make your way to our destination?’

 

“Sure, why not.” Peter started walking. He looked at the palm trees nearby and he slowly began to realize that he was in California. He had never been to California but he had been to space so California seemed a little bit boring.

 

‘In this reality, you don’t quite have an exact counterpart. But you do have an identical version of yourself who acts in a movie based on you.’

 

“That sounds like a fun movie…” Peter didn’t know whether he wanted to see his movie or if he was going to spend a year cringing at himself. He was kind of interested in his actor counterpart. Maybe he’ll look the guy up on google when he got to the hotel room.

 

‘There are also several movies based on my creator, I can rent them when we get to the hotel.’ Peter smiled at this one. He really was interested in an Iron Man movie or two. This reality didn’t seem immediately in trouble so he was planning on actually getting a goddamn break for once.

 

Maybe this reality was going to be fun.

Notes:

Hey guys! Merry Christmas and Happy holidays and all that, I've been busy with art things so I wasn't able to write as much as I wanted to. After Christmas, I'm starting a fic that's kind of replacing 'Heart of Gold Titanium-Alloy' for a little while, so that's going to be fun. I'm also planning a Christmas fic so that's going to be super fun. Please take the survey of this here: https://goo.gl/forms/1HgKCvBFExjneqLF3 It determines what art I'm going to do of this fic! My tumblrs are 'Science-lings' 'Queer-Xmen' and 'Ironkids' the first one is my main marvel blog, the second one is my writing blog and the last one is my art blog! Please remember that the best Christmas present you can give me is a simple comment. I seriously love them more than anything. I don't care if they're just short reactions or long reviews. I really really appreciate them. It's pretty helpful as a writer lol. I'll see you guys next time!

(I need some of your favorite scenes from SM:H and the iron man movies as well as Infinity war, ALso any ideas of what you want to happen in this reality. I would really appreciate the help!)

Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Reality 1: A Well Deserved Break: Part One

Summary:

Peter and Tony start a movie marathon because they need a fucking break.

Notes:

SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST IRON MAN MOVIE

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter woke up, he didn’t remember falling asleep so waking up in a random hotel room was a little bit jarring. Thankfully, before he actually freaked out, he saw a reassuring sight. Tony was sitting on the other twin bed, calmly fidgeting with his infinity stone holder while muttering to himself slightly.

 

Peter let out a quiet breath and closed his eyes for a moment. He had a dark feeling edging at his mind and he decided that the best way to ignore it was to distract himself.

 

“You’re getting better at catching up to me.” Peter smiled lazily and opened his eyes. Tony looked over and seemed to hold back a smile pretty poorly.

 

“I guess I had to figure it out eventually sleeping beauty. Do you know anything about the reality that we’re in kiddo?” Tony folded his arms and raised his eyebrows with an excited gleam in his eye.

 

“Uh, not much. I know that the versions of us are fictional characters in movies but that’s it.” Peter sat up and stretched.

 

“Do you wanna watch those movies?” Tony grinned.

 

“Hell yeah. Wait, are you still rich in different realities?”

 

“I think my bank account corresponds to the actor that plays me, so we should be good. That guy can afford to rent his own movie right?” Tony shrugged.

 

“Have you looked him up?”

 

“Yeah, he’s basically me if I had a supportive father, public drug issues and an actual sense of happiness. I may be a convicted felon in this universe but at least I’m not British.” Peter snorted.

 

“I guess my actor is British? That’s pretty weird.”

 

“And he has a spider tattoo on the bottom of his foot,” Tony said completely seriously as Peter barked out a laugh.

 

“Wow seriously? Okay, we watch our movies, THEN we google our actors. I need a break from all of the… crazy plot shit.” Peter decided.

 

“Good, I have them all queued up anyway. I warn you, I was a bit of a dick for the first… eight years of superheroing so be prepared for that.” Tony warned while Peter rolled his eyes.

 

“You’ve never been a dick. You were raised by an asshole with high expectations which affected your ability to form connections with other people.” Tony stared at him for a moment. “I took a semester of psychology.” Peter shrugged. “Also I met your dad and I couldn’t stand him for ten minutes, much less twenty-one years.”

 

“You’ve got a point there bud.” Tony shrugged. “Okay F.R.I.D.A.Y. let’s play Iron Man.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

BuzzFeed News: Real Life Spider-Man Sighting Caught by Bystander, The Video is Super Convincing!

 

Fox News: Is Real Life Spider-Man a Menace? How Dangerous could this Cryptid be?

 

Wall Street Journal: IRL Spider-Man, Fake or Real?

 

BBC: Real Spider-Man Caught Swinging on Camera: No, we’re not kidding.

 

New York Times: Tarzan Teen Swinging on a String, Videos Emerge

 

The video was not just trending on Youtube but also Twitter, Instagram, and especially Tumblr. This wasn’t something that was going to be ignored very easily. It wasn’t fate that someone important saw it. Maybe not important but people who were sure to be involved ended up seeing it. And it wouldn’t just make everything more confusing.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The hotel wasn’t fancy by any means, but it had a pretty big TV that could connect to some online streaming services so it wasn’t too bad.

 

The movie started and Tony tried not to wince at his past self. Peter didn’t seem bothered. In fact, he seemed a little more smiley than normal. This was a little bit of a red flag as Tony was also a seasoned emotional blocker. And Peter had recently killed someone which was something the extremely ethical kid was unlikely to forget. Which meant that he was trying to seem tough and not deal with his problems. Tony really wished that this kid would stop adopting his unhealthy coping mechanisms.

 

Tony decided to confront the problem after the movie. He had a feeling that Peter was mostly trying to distract himself from his trainwreck of life for the last few months.

 

Tony made little comments about the movie and tried to push away the weird feeling that came with seeing some of his most traumatic moments put on film. Although compared to all of the shit in the last decade, getting his chest cut in like a donut without anesthetic was one of the traumas that he didn’t think about as much anymore. Sure, it was still one of the most physically painful things that he had ever been through, but Tony wasn’t as affected by physical pain in the first place. He didn’t have nightmares of an afghan cave.

 

Every time movie Tony got hurt, Peter would wince a little. They both made fun of the actor for Rhodey that took a quick google search to see that he quickly got replaced with the right Rhodey in the later movies.

 

The first time Pepper was on screen Peter smiled pretty widely. In hindsight, Tony could see the sexual tension between him and his future wife. It was odd that it took so long for them to actually do anything about it. Before that though, Tony had to cover Peter’s eyes for a slightly risque scene.

 

Seeing Yensin again made Tony’s heart ache. They skipped passed a few moments of waterboarding with a mutual understanding. It wasn’t just because of the torture but also because they both really hated not being able to breathe. In the water or in space or with a god to their throats or covered in several tons of concrete or with an invasive implant in their chest, they both had a similar problem with breathing.

 

They both cried when Yensin died. It was rare for Tony to cry openly but he knew that Peter wasn’t going to say anything about it. Peter cheered when Rhodey found Tony in the desert and looked a little baffled when he saw Happy in the background of a shot. It took another quick google search to find out that the actor for Happy also directed the movie.

 

“Hogan, drive. Cheeseburger first.” This line sent Peter into a giggling fit that Tony really tried not to join. He failed and laughed along with the kid. After the tension of the first half hour of the movie, the line was well placed and seemed to accept that everything was going to be okay. Even if it was way too early for that.

 

“I have a bad feeling about him…” Peter said when Obidiah was on the screen. “He looks… like a power hungry potato man and I don’t trust him.”

 

“Well, you knew it before I did.”

 

“Most of your father figures have been abusive so it’s not like you knew better. Even as a grown adult.” Peter shrugged. Tony gave him another look. He blamed the psychology course and tried not to think too hard about it.

 

“I don’t have anyone but you.” Movie Tony said to Movie Pepper. This made Peter give Tony a look that was different than the psychological reading look. More of a ‘are you fucking kidding me’ kind of look.

 

“I’m going to be really disappointed if you don’t get with Pepper by the end of this movie.”

 

“This one just covers… yeah, get ready to be disappointed kiddo.” Tony looked back at the TV and sighed as he could tell what was coming next. The screen showed a recording setup that he knew too well. It was U’s camera that had been attached to its single arm. Of course, they had to include testing mark two into the movie...

 

“Okay, activate hand controls.” Movie Tony said calmly. “We’re gonna start up nice and easy at ten percent thrust capacity to achieve lift. And three… two… one.” Immediately after movie Tony finished, he went flying backward into the wall behind him before comically falling to the ground. That wasn’t enough though. DUM-E, equipt with a fire extinguisher, decided that it was the perfect time to use his new addition. When there was no fire.

 

This was one of those scenes that made Tony pretty embarrassed because no one knew about it. Not even Pepper. He already had low enough self-esteem. At least in his private life. But that didn’t matter very much. Because the same scene that made Tony want to disappear a little, made Peter laugh so hard that his face turned red and they had to pause the movie for a full five minutes while the kid tried to put himself back together.

 

After the laughter fit, Peter really enjoyed the montage of Tony building the first actual suit. He didn’t just enjoy the test footage for their comedic value though, he also liked how human and imperfect it made Tony. This was his becoming a hero story and Peter was super into it.

 

Also, the test footage made both of them miss the bots a little bit. Those separate metal arms had more personality than some of the people at Peter’s school. Even Tonys casual verbal abuse was funny to hear. It was one of the things that hadn’t changed from the time of young asshole Tony to his older sadder Tony.

 

“Yeah, I can fly…” Movie Tony said before the first silver suit of armor was unfolded around his body. The suit up scene really seemed to mesmerize Peter. Sure, the kid had seen the nanite suit, hell, he even helped work on it. But this was the first suite that Tony made without his life being on the line. And it was breathtaking to him.

 

“There are still terabytes of data that need to be calibrated before and actual flight-” The voice of Vision rang through his AI predecessor.

 

“Jarvis… Sometimes to gotta run before you can walk.” Movie Tony said, earning the real Tony a look from Peter.

 

“Shut up,” Tony said as Peter grinned.

 

“Tony, you are such a dumbass.”

 

“Were.” Tony corrected.

 

Movie Tony seemed pretty excited to be flying, even as he rose higher and higher into the atmosphere. Jarvis kept trying to warn him of the ice that was forming around the suit but he ignored it. Both real Tony and Peter tensed up as movie Tony got closer to the stars. Peter cursed a bit when the power to the suit went dead and movie Tony started to fall.

 

Peter sighed dramatically in relief when the suit caught movie Tony before he could flatten himself on the street.

 

“You’re fucking crazy…” Peter muttered as movie Tony fell through multiple floors of his expensive home and got sprayed by DUM-E another time for good measure. The scene transitioned to the younger Tony with multiple packs of ice on his body as he went about his business. This Tony noticed a brown box from Pepper and he opened it with a noticeable amount of care.

 

Inside the simple paper wrapping was a glass box holding the first arc reactor with text on the outside that read, ‘Proof that Tony Stark, has a heart.’ This prompted an ‘awe’ out of Peter, which in turn, prompted Tony to roll his eyes.

 

After a few awkward scenes of Pepper and Tony almost kissing, Tony decided that he needed a break. He paused the movie and stretched for a bit.

 

“It’s only been an hour old man,” Peter smirked.

 

“I’m getting a little tired of watching myself look less put together than I do now. Do you want some popcorn?” Tony said, only delaying the inevitable.

 

“Sure. I want to google our actors anyway.” Peter shrugged and leaned back down on the bed. This whole reality was a break from the inevitable destruction to come so he was planning on basking in it like Mr. Delmar's cat in the sun. Because he didn’t know what was going to happen when it decided to end.

Notes:

Hey guys! I had to be careful with this kind of chapter because apparently, the idea has had copyright issues in the past. I hope I won't have that kind of problem. I'm a little late because of Christmas and family stuff so I apologize for that. Please remember to comment, I love those. Especially scenes from Iron Man 1, 2, 3, spiderman homecoming, and infinity war for our boys to react to! I've never written anything like this so tell me how I did please! I want to get better! My tumblrs are Science-lings (main blog) Queer-Xmen (Writing blog) and IronKids (art blog)

 

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Chapter 49: Reality 1: A Different Kind of Break

Summary:

Peter and Tony finish watching Iron Man

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter was scrolling through the first page of a google search on Tom Holland, the actor for this universes Peter, when he heard the familiar but now unwelcome whisper of the soul stone.

 

‘We can find him.’

 

“I don’t want to talk to you right now. You used me to kill someone and I am very against that.” Peter muttered under his breath.

 

‘He hurt you Peter, he broke something inside of you and I could not forgive him for that.’

 

‘I was broken before I got tortured.” He shrugged. “And you didn’t need to forgive him. You just didn’t have to kill him. Using me.”

 

‘You wanted to do it yourself. He was going to hurt Tony.’

 

“Get out of my head.”

 

‘You know I’m right.’

 

“Get out!” Peter started to raise his voice and momentarily forgot that Tony was only a room away.

 

‘You’re making a mistake.’ they said, enragingly calmly.

 

“Get out of my head!” Peter yelled. He felt the cold abscess of the lack of the soul stones presence. He got no more responses. And he couldn’t bring himself to care about it.

 

“You okay in there Pete?” Tony came back from the adjacent room.

 

“Yeah, are you ready to continue your movie?” Peter grinned.

 

“Actually, I found something even better.” For some reason, Peter began to get nervous. Maybe it was Tony’s mischievous smirk or light in his eyes. He was right to feel that way as Tony sent a video to the TV.

 

It looked like it was on the set of some dancing show and the camera zoomed in on a less emo version of Michelle wearing a baseball cap backward. It went downhill from there.

 

The video started out normal and not embarrassing at all. Just Peter’s actor dancing in a suit to a weird version of ‘dancin in the rain.’ It took thirty seconds for it to change drastically. There were backup dancers and even more notably, Mr. Holland was wearing a full-on corset, wig, lipstick, fishnets, and high heels. Pretty quickly Peter grew from being stunned to actually being impressed. Honestly, that would be something that he would do and Peter was not a stranger to dancing to Rihanna. And that was before water fell from the ceiling.

 

“You’re really into that aren’t you,” Tony said casually.

 

“That’s not me but sure. He went all in didn’t he.” Peter giggled. He had the same reaction as this universes MJ in the video. Peter was living. He blushed when his actor gave a very intense and very brief lap dance to fake MJ and was actually kind of sad when it ended. “Holy shit… Yeah, I can see why this guy plays me.”

 

“That doesn’t make-”

 

“We’re planning on watching my movie right? Let’s just wait until then.” He interrupted. “What other movies is he in…” Peter looked at his phone.

 

“No, it’s my time now. We haven't even gone all the way through my first movie. It only gets worse from here.”

 

“You gotta admit that I could pull off those fishnets.” Peter chuckled.

 

“I would not think less of you if you decided to wear bright red lipstick,” Tony said with a dramatic amount of seriousness as he pressed play on the remote.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The one female reporter was on screen and Movie Tony looked pretty uncomfortable. She showed him a bunch of pictures apparently taken in a place called Gulmira.

 

“Wait is that-” Peter started to look towards Tony, who quickly answered in a quiet tone.

 

“Yeah, That was Yinsens home.”

 

“Well shit. I thought you stopped dealing weapons… I bet it’s baldy's fault.” Peter claimed as the scene continued with movie Tony confronting Obidiah about the pictures. Peter was pretty uncomfortable with the way that Obidiah was treating Tony. Calling him nieve and being a general creep.

 

“Who do you think locked you out, I was the one who filed the injunction against you,” Obidiah said while the pair were taking a picture on the screen. Movie Tony looked like he was trying to hide the betrayal and fear but could only go so far.

 

“I knew he was an asshole.” Peter folded his arms as the scene changed. Movie Tony looked rightly pissed as he adjusted a mostly formed armored glove over his arm. He watched the news about the city and even though Peter knew basically what happened, thank you sixth-grade scientist report, He still knew Tony well enough to know what was going through his head.

 

Tony felt like he didn’t do enough and now he was doing what he had always done. Tony was going to fix it. Whether it was his mistakes or Obidiahs arms deals. He was going to fix it.

 

Movie Tony showed this by standing up calmly and shooting at a light to test his new repulser. He then proceeded to shoot several windows and Peter felt bad for the person who would have to clean up his younger mentors mess. Because that was a lot of glass.

 

After that came another mesmerizing suit up scene that again, Peter was enthralled by. He had always loved the designs of the iron man suits. Then the scene of Tony’s first mission. Not directed by an organization but of his own guilt. Tony easily defeated the terrorists in Gulmera and saved several refugees with only a little bit of violence.

 

Iron Man was briefly shot out of the sky and he easily took out the tank that shot him down before destroying the Jericho missiles. It was odd seeing Tony so enraged that he was quiet. Not many things could render the man silent so it was a testament to how much this meant to him.

 

The US military was freaking out a little bit about it and Peter had to remind himself that this was the first time that anyone besides Tony had ever seen the suit. Of course, they wouldn’t know what was going on or if there was an actual person inside of it. But Rhodey… Rhodey called Tony because he knew that it had to have something to do with him.

 

Tony saved the pilot that was shooting at him because Peter knew that Tony was much more of a selfless asshole then most people were told, Rhodey knew that he was, not Iron Man yet but at least playing with a flying metal suit. Then came the scene where Pepper found out.

 

“Let’s face it, this is not the worse thing you caught me doing…” Movie Tony admitted as Pepper seemed reasonably worried.

 

“Oh god.” Peter covered his face at the implication. Tony chuckled at his reaction.

 

There was a scene with Obidiah and the guy from the terrorist organization and Peter was pretty pissed at the dude, you know, for trying to kill Tony multiple times at this point.

 

The next scene was one with movie Tony sending Pepper to hack into Obidiahs computer with a little hard drive looking thing. She didn’t seem to approve and Peter didn’t really blame her. But Tony seemed really determined to get all of his weapons that had been dealt under the table and destroy them. Which Peter could definitely understand him wanting to do. Thank god Tony had a conscious. If he had decided to be evil the world would bow at his feet.

 

“I shouldn’t be alive unless it was for a reason.” Movie Tony said. For some reason, this really hit home for Peter. The tiny coincidence of that spider biting him had changed everything. And that tiny coincidence that Tony was able to escape hell had changed everything for him. And neither of them were able to stand by anymore. Whether it was because of new abilities or new knowledge. They were both the kind of people who could never just stand by. May had told him that the selfless heroism was actually giving her heart problems but Peter cared a little bit too much for everyone. And he had a feeling that it was the same way for Tony too.

 

“I’m not crazy Pepper, I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it’s right.” Pepper picked up the hard drive again after she saw the brokenness in Tony’s face.

 

“You’re all I have too you know.”

 

“AWW!” Peter looked at Tony who rolled his eyes.

 

“Calm down kid.”

 

“But Mr. Stark! That was perfect! Did you guys seriously not know that you were into each other!”

 

“Shut up kid, there’s more movie to watch,” Tony said quickly as a tense heist scene started to play out with Obidiahs new armor and unfortunately, the video of Tony in Afganistan looking like he was dying. Probably because he was.

 

Pepper looked horrified but copied the material anyway. Before she was done though, there was a jump scare with the bald eagled asshole himself. Peter scowled at the man on the screen which caused Tony to give him an odd look.

 

The scene between Pepper and Obidiah was tense and long and Peter wanted Pepper to just stab the guy with one of her high heels.

 

“Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!” Obidiah yelled to a scientist in the next scene.

 

“Wait, he’s looking for an arc reactor but he can’t make one… Oh, I don’t like that at all.” Peter thought aloud to himself. The next scene proved his suspicions right when Movie Tony was paralyzed with Obidiahs device. Peter had a feeling that Tony was the one who invented the device.

 

Stane put a device to Tony's chest as he did a villainous monologue and Peters skin crawled at the scene. There was something very creepy and… rapey about the way it was set up. Tony was just so vulnerable and Obidiah overpowered him in a really gross feeling way. For some reason, Peter thought of the scene from frozen where Hans betrayed Anna. He didn’t know why but they gave off the same vibes but this was a lot worse than a Disney movie.

 

Peter noticed the real Tony closing his eyes at the scene and he shivered when the arc reactor was yanked out of him and Obidiah said something about him being even more selfish than his father who helped create the atomic bomb. Peter thought that Obidiah was a dick and he really felt the need to resort to violence even though the man was on a TV screen and already dead.

 

Looking like shit, sweaty pale and heavily traumatized, movie Tony made his way down to the workshop to find his spare, narrowly destroyed arc reactor. Thank god for Pepper’s nostalgia. Tony crawled to the glass box but was unable to reach it. Suddenly an angel appeared. DUM-E came to the rescue and gingerly gave Peppers present to him with a little sad robot noise. Tony replied with a weak ‘good boy’ and smashed the glass into the ground.

 

In shot was the metal suit that suited Obidiah more. Big fat and ugly. No sense of style at all. He put the stollen arc reactor in the chest hole and looked evil for a few seconds. Peter really didn’t like that guy.

 

Rhodey arrived to check on Tony because Pepper had been worried about him not answering his phone. He was a little busy being murdered. Tony desperately asked where Pepper was as Obidiah had made it clear that he was going to kill her and Rhodey helped him up.

 

Pepper and the agents sent to arrest Obadiah went into the big building with the giant arc reactor in it and they encountered a locked door. Pepper, being naturally nonviolent had assumed that the little device that the main agent guy put on the door would simply unlock it. Instead, it was a tiny bomb. Almost cute. It was too bad that Obidiah noticed it.

 

“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Rhodey said during another beautiful suit up scene. Tony took off and Rhodey looked at a spare silver suit that was in construction. “Next time baby.” This bit of foreshadowing made Peter laugh. Rhodey even made Tony crack a smile.

 

Meanwhile, Pepper had noticed the missing area where Obidiah’s suit was and pretty quickly started being chased. Before Pepper was going to be killed, the big fight started. Tony saving a car full of children and getting run over by that same car. Stane beat him up a little but then they got to flying. Obidiah’s suit was less… equipt to deal with flight as it was slow and big but Tony was also running out of power due to the old arc reactor being old.

 

They just kept going up even as JARVIS kept warning Tony about the low power. It took a moment to figure out what was going on. Peter grinned.

 

“You’re going too high for him! His suit isn’t made of the gold-titanium alloy so it’s going to freeze!” He told his mentor excitedly as ice formed on the big ugly suits exterior. Stane went falling to the ground and because of low power, so did Tony. He just did it a little more gracefully.

 

Pepper and Tony tried to talk a little and Peter groaned when Obidiah was back in the equation. Dang it, he didn’t fall to his death. Tony said something about overloading the main arc reactor to Pepper but Peter knew what this meant. They were on the roof and Pepper was going to make everything go down. Along with Tony.

 

Obidiah shot through the glass on the roof leaving Tony grasping at the ledge.

 

“Time to hit the button!” Tony yelled from far above Pepper.

 

“You told me not to!” She yelled back.

 

“Just do it!”

 

“You’ll die!”

 

“Push it!”

 

Pepper pushed the big red button. A massive surge of energy came from the giant arc reactor and blasted Tony away while electrifying Obidiah. It sent a beam of blue light far into the sky. Then for a second, it was over. But Obidiah’s suit fell through the ceiling and crashed into the mega arc reactor and caused a pretty decent explosion that narrowly missed Tony’s face.

 

It was quiet and Tony’s arc reactor had gone dark. The camera slowly zoomed in on him and if Peter didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought that his mentor had died. The arc reactor flickered and the sound of Pepper yelling Tony’s name echoed throughout the sound system. Peter couldn’t contain his sigh of relief when the arc reactor stabilized with its pale light. The screen faded out.

 

When the image came back it was of a cover-up newscast of Rhodey making up a bullshit excuse for what happened while Pepper fixed up Tony’s face while he was reading a newspaper that read in big bold letters, ‘Who is the Iron Man?’

 

The agent guy from before gave Tony a stack of papers and said it was an alibi. They discussed how the iron man would be his ‘bodyguard’ and how they would cover up Stanes death but Peter knew how it all ended and he couldn’t stop grinning. Peter had watched the video of the moment one hundred times.

 

Tony stumbling on words that he didn’t believe and not sticking to the cards that he was given. Then the world-changing words were spoken. They were like music to Peter.

 

“The truth is… I am Iron Man.” Peter cheered as the end credits started to roll.

 

“Whoo fuck secret identities!” Peter grinned as Tony rolled his eyes. To Peter, it made complete sense why Tony would spontaneously reveal his identity. He was tired of telling and living so many secrets. Besides, the bodyguard argument was pretty stupid.

 

“It would be best if you keep yours though…” Tony shrugged as he scanned the credits as if he would get something useful out of them. “So, how did you like my movie?”

 

“I mean I already knew what happened or at least what the public was told what happened but to actually see it like I was there… shit dude. That was cool.” Tony smiled proudly. They let the credits roll and talked about little things in the movie, which was basically just Peter gushing over the suit for almost ten minutes.

 

But apparently the movie wasn’t over as after the credits, a scene lit up the dark room. Movie Tony greeted JARVIS and the AI welcomed him home before its voice lowered and slowed like it was being turned off.

 

“‘I am Iron Man,’ you think you're the only superhero in the world?” a new voice came out from the darkness. “Mr. Stark, you’ve become a part of a bigger universe, you just don't know it yet.”

 

“Who are you?”

 

“Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD. I’m here to talk to you about the Avengers initiative.” The man came out of the shadows.

 

“Why does that guy look like Windu from Star Wars but with… a missing eye?” Peter asked as the screen went black, for real this time.

 

“I don’t know, why did that starlord guy look like the fatass from Parks and Rec. I don’t know genes are weird.” Tony replied casually.

 

“You have never said ‘I don’t know’ so much in one sitting.”

 

“Shut up kid, I have another movie, get ready.”

 

“I can’t wait.”

Notes:

Hey guys! As usual, your comments keep me going and I couldn't have so frequent updates without them so thank you, Also I need more, they are like hard drugs to me that don't actually damage my body.
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Chapter 50: Reality 1: Communication and Being Productive Sometimes

Summary:

Peter and Tony watch Iron Man 2 and work out things with the soul stone.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

‘Peter… Peter, can you hear me?’ The soul stone whispered in Gamoras voice.

 

“I said I didn’t want to talk to you,” Peter muttered as the movie started.

 

‘This isn’t the stone Peter. I think they connected us. I just don’t know why.” Gamora said softly in contrast to the much more airy version of the soul stones voice.

 

“That either means something is wrong or they want you to talk me into talking to them again.”

 

‘It might be both. The cat man told us that a battleship has entered your galaxy and we are not sure how long it will take to get here but it looks like an old version of Thanos’ ship that I remember. We need to find a way to get you home before that happens.’

 

“We’re working on it.” The soul stone gave Peter a nonverbal hint about what to do and he chose to go with it. “You guys need to find a way to harness the remaining infinity stones. Thanos… has something. You’re going to need all of the help that you can get.”

 

‘With the excess of Vibranuim here I doubt that it’ll be much of a problem. However, I expect that people will fight over the most powerful glowing rocks in the universe.’

 

“I know who to give them to.” Peter waited for a response, he decided just to go on when he didn’t get one. “When we get back we’re going to give the Time stone to the wizard… Loki… Loki gets the space stone, He’s had the most experience with it and he already has other magic... Give the reality stone to Wanda, she has that red aesthetic to keep up. Tony gets the mind stone, Thor would be the only one that could handle the power… wait no… there's someone else… someone coming… I don’t know we’ll wait on that, just tell them to make a vessel for it. I think I’m the only one that can use the soul stone so I think that covers everyone.”

 

‘I should’ve written all of that down.’ Gamora said with a hint of humor in her voice. ‘You have to make up with the soul stone. We will need you at full potential to defeat Thanos if he has something up his sleeve.’

 

“I… Gamora they made me kill someone… I can’t just pretend that it didn’t happen…” Peter muttered. “I never wanted to kill anyone… but I literally didn’t have a choice.”

 

‘Believe it or not, I understand completely.’ Gamora sympathized. ‘Thanos killed my mother and she was all I had left. If I wanted to live, I had to kill with him. Some days I thought it would be a mercy to die and I think he relied on that. He thought death was mercy for everyone but himself. If I am forgivable, so are you.’

 

“But… I’m no better than the guy that killed Ben, I couldn’t-”

 

‘You didn’t kill anyone. The soul stone did. But it doesn’t matter. You have to make up with the stone. We are going to need you at your strongest.’

 

“Can’t you just wield the soul stone? It’s obviously connected to you too.”

 

‘It won’t be enough with me. It has to be you. I’m sorry Peter, you don’t exactly have much of a choice.’ Peter sighed.

 

“I know… They chose me. I’ll try to talk to them… but I don’t know how we’re going to get back.”

 

‘You’re smart, you’ll think of something.’ Peter wanted to say that it wasn’t helpful but Gamora’s presence was gone. And the soul stones warmth was there again.

 

‘I have to apologize, Peter, I let my anger take advantage of us. I am the creator of life so I should know the value of it. But there is a threat more important than my mistake.

 

“If you think of a way to get us out of here, I will completely forgive you. But time and reality travel with the energy thing in my arm is… out of my area of expertise.”

 

‘I’ll work on it.’

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter didn’t love watching Tony slowly dying in HD. That was a large fraction of the movie. Tony trying to act like more of a dick so that his friends wouldn’t miss him as much and that depressed the hell out of Peter.

 

For some reason, the beginning of the movie at the Stark expo made a memory tug at his mind a little. He didn’t know why yet, but for some reason, the words ‘Stark Expo’ gave him that strong feeling of deja vu but the exact memory was just out of reach. Peter ignored the feeling to watch the movie and hope that he could come up with something.

 

Peter noticed Black Widow was in the movie, with better hair than the last time he had seen her, and this movie seemed to have more Happy and Nick Fury in it. Peter wouldn’t deny that he was a little elated when Rhodey got his own suit, but he did notice that during that scene, Tony was not drunk in that scene. The Iron Man suit was mind-blowingly complicated and someone who was as drunk as Tony pretended to be would not be able to move around in it, much less fight someone.

 

Also when Natasha took down Happy without a drop of effort, Peter had the same reaction as movie Tony did of ‘DAMN,’ He also didn’t think that Natasha was truly trying to hide her identity because surprisingly enough, most secretaries couldn’t take down the head of security for fun.

 

Peter knew that when Pepper was given the position of CEO, it was mostly because Tony was completely sure that he was going to die and wanted to leave the company in good hands as the previous assholes had made the company pretty bad, and Tony trusted Pepper to not turn it back into a weapons company. But the fact that after he had figured out his mortality issue, he still let Pepper be the CEO and that kind of showed how much Tony trusted and knew how good Pepper would be on the business side of everything.

 

Peter saw how the heavy metal poisoning was effecting Tony throughout the movie, making him forget things and look really sad as he was so sure that he was going to die soon and that he really didn’t want people to care. Peter found out that he really didn’t like seeing Tony look that sad. Honestly, Peter didn’t like seeing anyone sad but someone that was close to him accepting his death felt like a literal stab to the heart so that wasn’t fun.

 

But the only time that they had to pause the movie and talk was because something big happened.

 

Peter remembered the Stark Expo. He remembered the Hammer drones. He remembered being so small and being separated from Uncle Ben who had brought him. He remembered how excited he had been and how unreal everything felt. Peter still had the fucking child sized Iron Man helmet that he had been so excited to wear all day and for a few years after that on Halloween.

 

But then Peter saw it on the screen and he was kind of surprised that they would include the scene in the middle of a battle sequence. He actually froze for a second while it happened. When the drone looked at his tiny self and identified the helmet in its targeting systems. He had always wondered why it had attacked specifically him. Then suddenly his savior, the actual Iron Man landed next to him and shot the drone down. Peter had tried to tell everyone at school that he had been saved personally by Iron Man but no one ever believed him.

 

Peter paused the movie as his smaller self looked up at the sky to watch Iron Man fly away.

 

“What is it kiddo? Weren’t we in the middle of something?” Tony said casually.

 

“I’m about to drop a bit of a bombshell, Mr. Stark.”

 

“What, is it serious?” Tony killed the joking tone in his voice.

 

“That,” Peter pointed at the screen, “that little suicidal fucker is me.”

 

“Are you… what the fuck… THAT’S YOU?!” Tony shrieked.

 

“Yeah, I still have that helmet. I don’t think it fits anymore…”

 

“You almost died!”

 

“That was the first of many…”

 

“You were so stupid, just standing up to it…”

 

“I really don’t think I’ve changed that much, I’m just more talkative when I do dumb shit.”

 

“Of course you would just go up to it, you were born a selfless little hero child… you probably didn’t even need a spider bite to fight crime holy shit…”

 

“I didn’t even need the tragic backstory… also, I got bullied so standing up for people was usually pretty useless.”

 

“YOU WHAT?!”

 

“Okay let’s just keep watching the movie…” Peter pressed a button on the remote and pretended that he couldn’t hear Tony grumble something intelligible.

 

Peter focused on Tony and Rhodey being badass partners and everything was great. They didn’t have to fight in an incredibly aesthetically pleasing Japanese garden but they did. And it was pretty cool. And just like the first movie, the villain was in their own iron suit and had a personal vendetta against Tony.

 

At the end of the movie, Tony and Pepper finally had their first kiss during a point where they were both freaking out about everything and Rhodey was also there and everything was a mess and Peter really didn’t expect anything less.

 

Even after the movie was over, a few scenes made Peter think a bit. Peter had known that Howard was a dick, he had met the guy and decided that he didn’t want to meet him again, but the movie showed how Tony felt about him. ‘He was cold, he was calculating, he never told me he loved me, he never even told me that he liked me. The best day of his life was when he sent me to boarding school.’ That was kind of fucked up. Because to Peter, Tony was one of those people that really deserved to be cared about because he cares so much about everyone else. He didn’t deserve to be emotionally abused and the soul stone hinted his thought process towards full on physical abuse.

 

Tony cared way too much about people who didn’t actually care about him. Tony was this shining figure that people pretended to care about because he was famous but Tony cared about people on a personal level. Tony saw a super-kid on youtube and while he didn’t have to care, instead he made a multi-million dollar super-suit that would keep him from killing himself with his stupidity and he paid attention to him. He didn’t have to help him as much as he did, he was dealing with the accords and he still was the major designer for SI and he was super busy. But he still found time to care about Peter. Even after Tony’s own father didn’t care about him, he still cared about everyone else. Almost to a violent extent.

 

The other scene that Peter hyper-fixated on was the one where Tony saved himself. Again. He tended to do that a lot. But the one where he discovered the new element and found the way that he would be able to keep living. The moment lit in blue light really showed how much Tony truly wanted to live. But that wasn’t it.

 

Peter was smart, Peter knew what Tony was doing while he was testing elements and figuring things out. And he got an idea. He had to actually try to figure out how to control the quantum energy in his body, he wouldn’t be able to do it with just will power. He had one of the smartest people in the world in the same room as him. They had to figure out how to get him home or else their whole reality could be in danger.

 

“Hey Tony, I had an idea about how we can get out of here…” Peter started. It was almost unfortunate that the universe had much more in store for him.

Notes:

Hey guys! I started a new series so this one was a little late. Sorry about that. Anyway, here are the polls that I would appreciate if anyone took:
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my tumblrs are:
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I'm planning on doing a lot more art for this fic so that first poll would really help me decide what the heck I'm doing. I would also really appreciate any and all comments, I do live off of validation and I usually feel like I did something wrong if I don't get any. If I did do something wrong, please tell me in a polite way. Not little things like punctuation, I do this for free and I don't spend much time editing.

Chapter 51: Reality 1: Clear Path and Passing Time

Summary:

Peter answers the door and they watch Spider-Man: Homecoming to give Tony a break.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“What’s your idea kid?” Tony asked, pausing on the menu of the TV, the time was 2:16. At that moment, a knock on the door stopped them from conversing. At first, Peter thought that it must’ve been a mistake, he was pretty sure that there was a do not disturb sign out there… but then the knock continued and Peter walked to the door, his spider-sense wasn’t going off so there must not be any danger.

 

Peter looked through the peep-hole and there was no one there. Just a little package. So that was pretty weird. He opened the door and looked around for anyone but the halls were completely empty. He carefully picked up the package that was wrapped like a weird present. Carefully wrapped in shiny black paper with a note attached to it. The actual package was the size of Peters' fist, so it was pretty small. The note practically engulfed it.

 

He looked around again before bringing it back into the hotel room.

 

“What is it?” Tony asked with his hand ready to activate his nanite suit.

 

“It’s not dangerous… unless all this interdimensional travel fucked up my spider-senses.” Peter gave Tony the box as he read the note out loud. He noticed that the handwriting was suspiciously like his own. At least when he was trying. Usually, it was messier than this note.

 

“Dear Peter and Tony of the past, in this box is a quantum energy drainer. Use it for a few hours and your quantum energy problem will be solved, don’t worry, there are instructions included. Our universe is going to need you. But you have some time before shit goes down so enjoy it. Also the device will self destruct after it’s used so we don’t cause a paradox. Just don’t study it too hard. Trust me. Unfortunately, your quantum gauntlet controls are damaged but if you just go with it you won’t regret it. Anyway, have a nice trip! -Future Peter”

 

“I think it’s you. Or a very good imitation. Very rambly.” Tony commented as he opened the box. Inside was a small device that looked like it could clip onto the gauntlet with an inch long transparent spike pointing downwards. The needle was attached to a detachable sphere that was just big enough to fit in the quantum battery in his gauntlet. Inside the package was also a small amount of medical supplies and a paper that explained what to do.

 

“Oh god…” Peter groaned as he pieced together what it all meant. Tony nodded as his eyes passed over the instructions. Peter didn’t like injections and IVs at the best of times but he had literally recently been tortured so this wouldn’t be too bad.

 

“Okay, let’s get this over with. Take off the bracelet.” Tony put down the instructions and picked up a sealed packet containing a sanitizing wipe while Peter took off the gauntlet. He had worn it for long enough that there were pale indents in his skin.

 

Tony took the sanitizing wipe out of the packaging and slid it over Peters burned wrist. This gave him an opportunity to actually get a good look at the injury for the first time. It had healed a little so there wasn’t red or peeling skin but the way it had healed was odd. It looked like the aftermath of an acid burn and his veins were dark and obvious. Due to Peter just recently using the energy, the glow of his veins was faint but still visible. There was a constant throbbing that Peter had learned to ignore and a strange, almost hypothermic, paleness to his skin around the burn.

 

Tony took off the cover of the needle and carefully pressed it to the sensitive skin of the inside of Peter’s wrist. It didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would when it slid into his vein. He only winced a little bit. Tony wrapped Peters' wrist, save the little bulb that would tell them when all of the energy was out of his system.

 

“It said it would take a few hours right? Why don’t we watch my movie?” Peter suggested as he carefully got comfortable on the provided couch.

 

“Are you sick of my trilogy already?” Tony said, slightly relieved that he wouldn’t have to relive his life. The first time sucked enough. “That’s fine, we’ll just save it for later. I’m excited about your movie anyway.” Tony grinned.

 

“Oh god…” Peter outwardly cringed. “I’ll just get it over with.” He kind of wondered what parts of his life the movie would include. There were an awkward few that he hoped were not in a movie seen by millions of people.

 

“I’m excited now.” Tony cackled and selected the movie from the screen. The movie started as normally as it could have, with the Vulture’s backstory. Peter actually thought that it was pretty interesting as he only knew the vulture that tried to kill him a few times and dropped a building on him. It was nice to know that, at least at one time, he was a human person. With human motivations.

 

Peter tried not to wince when the vulture suit actually came on screen, those glowing green eyes still haunted him more than they should. Then the text ‘a Film by Peter Parker’ appeared on screen and Peter tried not to fold his body into a black hole in his chest.

 

Tony grinned when Peter’s silly deep voice came from behind a crappy camera. His smile didn’t waver when Happy was on screen, obviously not enthused about Peter’s childishness and attempts at conversation and lack of knowledge about airplanes… Happy didn’t seem enthused by anything really.

 

“Why were you freaking out? You think I wouldn’t send you in a perfectly sable plane.” To asked as the scene went on in the background.

 

“At that point, I had never been on a plane. And my only connection to one is that my parents died in a crash.” Peter shrugged. He had never even known his parents so he was pretty over it. He was like six when they died, not old enough to make memories.

 

“Damn, let’s just keep going.” Tony dismissed.

 

For Peter, watching himself was constant wincing because he wasn’t proud of the way he handled anything. He constantly fucked up and was still trying to get used to having powers and having someone know about them. The experience was completely different for Tony. Tony loved it. The whole experience was so different from Peters perspective how the movie was presented.

 

Peter’s excitement was always so endearing to Tony, Peter had always wanted to be a superhero and when he became one, he went full force. Doing as much as he could and desperately trying to be the best that he could be. Even after a few years, his passion didn’t even waver in the slightest. He was always jumpy and desperate to do as much as he could. He had heard May refer to her nephew as a puppy and this movie was the epidemy of that description. Homecoming Peter was just trying his best.

 

Tony almost laughed when he saw Peter go to a party but ditch it to check out a giant blue explosion. He really didn’t expect anything less. He already knew most of what happened already with the baby monitor footage and what Happy had told him. But he didn’t know a large chunk of the faceoff between Peter and the Vulture that happened later in the movie.

 

But there was a lot to see that Tony wouldn’t have thought mattered until he actually watched it. He now saw how much his approval really meant to Peter, especially at the start. He saw how Peter bantered in Spanish with the bodega owner and petted the cat while later struggling with a crush and dealing with a pretty non-threatening longtime bully.

 

They made little comments almost constantly with Peter explaining his thought process and vocally cringing, and Tony thinking out loud and mentioning random things like how he liked the cat and comments like ‘so that’s how that happened…’ but there were a few moments of silence. Like their confrontation after the ferry and the scene after it with Peter looking tearful and distraught after he ‘lost the Stark internship.’ Neither of them wanted to bring it up, they didn’t have much to say about it.

 

Peter wondered why Tony didn’t react to all of the banter with Karen and the baby monitor footage. He ended up bringing it up.

 

“You really didn’t seem surprised when I pretended to be Thor…”

 

“Do you really think I haven’t seen every minute of the footage from your suit.” Tony grinned as Peter groaned. Tony didn’t know if he was ready to admit how much he liked seeing through Peter’s eyes, even if the movement was rapid enough to make him want to barf. Peter just constantly was the most wholesome person. He would help kids get home and save lost dogs more than he would actually fight criminals and it was like an odd sort of therapy to watch him on a screen. “For the record, it was funny to see what you did when you were bored at the secure containment place.”

 

“It’s not funny, I almost died.”

 

“Isn’t that every day for us?”

 

“At average, yeah.” Peter shrugged.

 

“That is mildly concerning.” Tony decided. They continued the movie.

 

Tony didn’t know much after taking away the suit, only the aftermath of a crashed plane and a webbed up bald man. It was pretty entertaining and mildly horrifying when the movie showed the vulture being Peters crushes dad, so much so, Tony dramatically but genuinely gasped. The scene was pretty tense and movie Peter was not good at hiding his fear. Peter wasn’t good at hiding anything honestly. Tony was surprised that the kid could have a secret identity, nevermind a successful one.

 

Tony was fuming when the vulture guy found out Peter’s identity and threatened his life. Real Peter got a little quieter at the scene, giving Tony the hint that the vulture still scared his kid. Tony felt bad for Peter’s date as he ditched her to fight her dad. But soon he would feel a lot worse for Peter. When he was thrown into a bus a few times in only his homemade suit and was only saved with the help of his Ned.

 

Then came the warehouse scene. Tony knew the Vulture was just biding his time and distracting Peter but he knew that Peter, at that time, did not see the signs. Dread slowly filled him until the event took place. Metal wings destroying the supports of the warehouse, dropping at least a dozen tons of concrete onto a defenseless Peter. Webs wouldn’t help him from a building collapsing on top of him.

 

It was one of those rare moments during the movie that both of them were silent. Peter was closing his eyes tightly and justifiably high strung. And Tony had to look at him to confirm that he was, in fact, alive and survived something like that.

 

“I’m stuck- I can’t move-I can’t-” Tony’s heart trembled at every frantic breath that movie Peter took.

 

“If you’re nothing without the suit, you shouldn't have it.” Tony’s own voice echoed from the speakers. He didn’t know that his words would impact the kid so much. He had just wanted the kid to not rely on the tech so much, to know that his own abilities were enough and that the suit was simply to keep him safe.

 

“Come on Peter, come on Spider-Man!” Movie Peter muttered as he strained against the concrete.

 

“Wait… did you…” Tony’s eyes widened.

 

“Yeah… I’m a little bit stronger than I look.”

 

“Holy fuck,” Tony muttered in awe as movie Peter lifted up the debris from his back with a bit of motivational yelling. When he got out, instead of going home to rest off having a building dropped off of him, he got back up and he kept going after the bad guy. Tony was beginning to understand why people got annoyed with him for being so persistent. Neither of them knew when to stop fighting.

 

Tony should be used to seeing Peter in constant mortal danger, yet seeing him on the outside of a plane, crashing said plane, fighting a psychotic bird-guy with no qualms about killing him, all alone, certainly felt just as bad. Tony felt personally bad for the alone part as Peter didn’t have to be alone. If Tony had decided a different punishment, there would’ve been a bigger chance of Peter not being as alone.

 

Saving the villain, when he didn’t know that his suit was malfunctioning was a very ‘Peter’ thing to do. Collecting all of the debris and leaving a silly note was also very much like the kid. The zoom in of Peter’s bloodied exhausted face was something Tony didn’t particularly enjoy, with the voice in his head saying that he could’ve done more. He always could’ve done more or in this case at least something. But he didn’t keep tabs on the kid and he couldn’t help but blame himself for not assuming that taking away the suit would do anything to change Peter’s mind, it just ended up making him less protected than before.

 

“I can hear you beating yourself up from here Tony,” Peter said as the first end-credit scene played. They were distracted for a moment as Peter discovered that Tony gave back his suit and May walked in on him wearing it. Tony forcibly held back a laugh when the credits interrupted May’s swearing.

 

“Everything worked out fine right?”

 

“I mean to be fair, I was pretty traumatized before I met you. One more thing in the pile didn’t actually matter that much.” Peter rolled his eyes.

 

“You know, it would make sense if we were originally a story, why else would we go through so much shit.”

 

“I am not in the mood to think about how because of the multi-verse we were probably all created by some guy in this original universe. Great, now I’m thinking about it. I wish my existence was not reliant on someones need to tell a story.”

 

“Okay that’s too deep, I don’t want to think about it. Let’s just skip to the last extra scene thing.”

 

“Patience” A fully costumed Captain America said on the screen in the style of Peter’s school's instruction video things.

 

“Fuck off,” Tony said as he turned off the TV.

 

“Yeah, I’m sick of him too…”

 

“How long do you have left?” Tony asked and looked over at Peter’s wrist. The orb that contained the quantum power was pretty dim.

 

“I think we can watch a few more movies before we can go back home. I can’t wait. I miss May. and Gamora, And Pepper… and Shuri… and-”

 

“I get it. You’re a ladies man.”

 

“No, I also miss Ned and Michelle-”

 

“Stop, It’s back to being my turn for movies. The third one of mine is a cool one if it’s about what I think it’s about.”

 

"Is it the one where you fake your death sort of? I cried when that was on the news." Peter admitted.

 

"I guess we'll see."

Notes:

Hey guys! I finished this at like 2 am so whoops. Anyway, I would love comments and most feedback. I have tumblrs that I write a lot more stuff on called 'Science-lings' and I have I still have the polls that I would like filled out.

Poll for art for this fic: https://goo.gl/forms/6XYIrFZMgrRkLmEr1

Another poll for other important stuff: https://goo.gl/forms/RFkvAIon0rmAEz5E3

I hope you liked this chapter and I'll see you guys next time! I love you all for getting this far tbh.

Chapter 52: Reality 1: Becoming Self-Aware (Finally)

Summary:

New information comes to light before the beginning of the end.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peter had seen a good portion of what the movie showed from TV as this was during the stage of him being a little bit obsessed with Iron Man. May had let him stay home from school when Tony was publicly assumed dead after his mansion was blown up with Pepper and Doctor Maya Hansen as the only survivors and Tony nowhere to be found. May let him stay home because he was crying a lot and she was nice like that. He was also like twelve and a genius so school didn’t even matter at that point.

 

Anyway, personally, he was pretty distraught when everyone was saying that Iron Man was dead. Ben even stayed home with him, even though he had never been a big fan of the guy. Peter’s uncle was more of a Captain America person, and May liked Wonder Woman more than any real-life superhero. They both still knew and supported Peters adoration for Tony Stark.

 

Peter knew about the exploding people but the movie explained why they exploded and weren’t just suicide bombs. Tony tried to cover Peter’s face when the movie implied that surprise surprise, Tony had sex with a science lady. The science lady that was working on extremis. Anyway, Peter thought that she was cool and hoped that she would die off.

 

Peter and Tony both smiled when they saw Yensin who looked younger than the last time they saw him. Peter noticed where they were, a new years party in Switzerland that had something to do with all of the nerds there. Peter didn’t know why it rung a bell in his head but he ignored it. He probably remembered the event from some report…

 

‘Your parents were there.’ The soul stone whispered and explanation and Peter immediately looked at the people in the background, hoping to get a glimpse of people he had never even known.

 

Then he saw it, short red hair that he had only seen in pictures and flaking memory. Mary Parker or at least what she looked like a few years before Peter was even born. She had bright green eyes that pictures didn’t do justice to, she wore formal black pants and a bright yellow shirt that made her look like she was related to the van dynes. She also wore a nametag like most other scientists who were lesser known. Which contradicted Peter’s small amount of knowledge of his parents, he thought that it was only his father that was a scientist.

 

She was only on screen for a second or two but Peter had tried to save her to his memory, although he had never known her, at least not for long enough, she was still his mother. Peter debated on whether to inform Tony or not but the man beat him to it.

 

“You’re acting weird kid, you look like you’ve seen a ghost but not like the ghost that possesses dolls and shit. We’re only like two minutes into the movie.” Tony paused the TV to give his full attention to his kid.

 

“Uh, go back like two seconds…” Tony looked at him oddly but did what he said without question.

 

“Okay… what was that about?”

 

“Do you see that lady in the background with the bright yellow shirt?” Peter pointed out.

 

“Yeah… with her hair, it looks like she belongs on a hotdog…” Peter rolled his eyes at the comment and continued.

 

“That's… I think that's my mom.” Peter said, slightly unsure about why he was bringing it up. “But it doesn’t make sense that she would be there… she wasn’t a scientist… I don’t know what she did but my dad was the scientist.”

 

“I think FRIDAY has the entire leaked SHIELD database in her memory so I can search your mom on secret government mega hard drive if you want.” Tony replied as fixing the problem came to him first before the shock of ‘holy fuck, he could’ve met Peter’s parents.’

 

“Please, I hardly know anything about my actual parents. They both died in a plane crash when I was like six so I don’t remember anything about them. I mostly relied on Ben for that kind of stuff because he was my dad’s brother but he left this mortal plane before he could tell any interesting stories. He kept saying ‘when you’re older’ and all that shit.” Peter rambled.

 

“Well, we don’t have much else to do, you still have like three hours on your convenient quantum whatever. Did you hear that FRIDAY?”

 

‘Got it, boss.’ The AI spoke from her little nanite earpiece.

 

They continued the movie but neither of the paid as much attention though, they both knew what was going on and how everything would end. Peter didn’t know how to feel seeing someone so important to specifically him but only barely recognize her. Most people had mothers where Peter had aunt may. He had never known anything different and he wondered if there was anything different between what would've happened if his actual mother had raised him instead of his aunt. How would he have been different? Would he still be Spider-Man? There was probably an alternate universe where that was explored but Peter wasn’t sure if he wanted to go to it.

 

It was only a few minutes later when FRIDAY notified Tony of the search results. They paused the movie and manipulated the nanites forming an earpiece to a small speaker to hear what the AI found.

 

‘Two extensive files were found regarding Peter’s parents. Would you like me to summarize them or spent the next four hours reading them out loud.’

 

“Uh, save them for later but pull up any interesting bits now.” the speaker brought up a pale blue hologram with a picture of Peter’s mother on it. It seemed to be taken before 1999 when the party had happened in the movie.

 

‘Mary Fitzpatrick was an agent for SHIELD as was her husband Richard Parker. Mary started out as a translator and data analyst before she met Captain Parker, a decorated united states armed forces soldier recruited by Nick Fury. They both became field agents together and went on several missions before their plane was targeted by enemies and they were killed. Mary was on a mission in Switzerland 1999 to make sure that a copy of the red skulls formula was destroyed.’

 

“They were… what?!” Peter said in shock, his parents were spies… and they were murdered. Out of all of the things he expected FRIDAY to say, that was not what he expected. “Okay let’s get back to your movie, this isn’t a good time to have a crisis.”

 

“Peter…”

 

“Seriously, after your movie, we’ll have to go back home and deal with shit there. I can postpone this set of feelings for a little while.”

 

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

 

“Too bad. Come on, I wanna see what comes next.” Eventually Tony relented and they continued the movie. It wasn’t like Peter was paying as much attention though. He did wince when Happy got injured and put into the hospital. Peter completely understood why the movie Tony freaked out and got pissed at the ‘Mandarin’, even if it wasn’t very smart. Making stupid impulse decisions out of anger was something Peter could get.

 

The movie passed by in a blur with Peter smiling whenever Harley was on screen, remembering the reality where he met the kid in a hilariously similar way as Tony did.

 

Peter was affected by his parents reveal but he never even knew them so it was more surprise than anything else. He felt pretty bad for not knowing them but he was a little kid when they died. There wasn’t much he could do about it. If he had actually known them, the shock would’ve been a lot more violent. Still, learning that his biological parents had been murdered gave him kind of a temporary chilling shock. He felt like he was in a true crime youtube video.

 

Anyway, movie. Seeing Tony have a panic attack was sad to watch. Mostly because Peter really wanted to hug his mentor as he knew what those felt like. One of his powers was basically an overcomplicated anxiety disorder, and he had been through enough trauma in his short life for it to torment him in certain situations.

 

Whenever onscreen Tony had a panic attack, Peter leaned a little more against his mentor, maybe as a form of support or comfort, he didn’t know. It just felt right.

 

He may have lost his real parents and Ben but at least he still had May and now Tony and even Gamora. Sure, in the Ultron controlled reality, everyone seemed to think that Peter was literally Tony’s kid but he realized that it wasn’t that far off. Would Tony still chase him across multiple realities if he didn’t care as much? Especially if there was the imminent threat of their own reality being destroyed. And yet Tony still chose to go after Peter.

 

Whether it was a sense of responsibility or worrying that led Tony to follow Peter across the universes, it didn’t matter. Tony had put his own life (and their whole reality) on the line to take some infinity stones and go on a wild goose chase to find Peter. Despite still watching the movie, Peter felt the need to say something.

 

“Thanks.” It came out as more of a whisper. Tony looked at him with a bit of confusion.

 

“For what?”

 

“For coming for me.”

 

“I’d rather go universe hopping with you than hang out with Captain America twenty-four seven.” Tony wrapped his arm around Peter as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Tony Stark was not usually this touchy with people unless he really loves them. So basically, Rhodey and Pepper. Knowing that he qualified for that group of people gave him a warm feeling, especially when he was stuck in that stage of constant hero-worship. He always thought that he was too enthusiastic for the billionaire but Tony never seemed to address Peter’s clingy nature, he just accepted it.

 

So that was nice.

 

“Yeah but I’m still glad that it was you… you didn’t just send Doctor Strange after me.”

 

“That guy is an asshole, I don’t trust you with him.”

 

“Did you trust me with Wonder Woman?”

 

“Yeah… I mean she was better than Batman, he was no fun.” Tony grinned and Peter chuckled.

 

“Yeah… I liked Robin though. He was cute. But I wouldn’t give him a full arsenal of weapons. He's like, nine.” The movie was more like background noise at this point. “I don’t think Mr. Wayne had any common sense.”

 

“I gave you a fully weaponized suit. I’m no better.”

 

“I can also heal from a bullet wound in like a day so… slightly different situation.”

 

“You’re also slightly older than ten.”

 

“I’m seventeen. Shit, I wanna see you be badass shush.” Peter looked back at the movie for a minute, which was showing Tony flying around with one armored leg and one arm and a gun. Then the scene was over and they continued to talk.

 

“Do you like my big clunky armor better or the nanites?”

 

“Uh, both? The clunky armors are iconic but the nanite armor is more practical. They’re both cool as hell.”

 

“Good answer, I’d say I like the older ones but they weren’t as fluid. Nanites are just too fucking conveniant. I mean that shit is self-healing and portable. And Pepper said it makes my ass look good.” Peter seemed like he couldn’t choose between laughing or looking emotionally scarred. So he covered his face with his hands and made a noise between a snort and sob. Tony grinned at the sound that was quickly stopped by a groan that sounded like the words ‘oh god…’

 

“Too much information?”

 

“No shit dude…” Peter emphasized the shit and moved his hands from his face. Tony barked out a laugh. Making Peter mildly uncomfortable was a fun game, even from the very first time that they met. The kid tended to have the best reactions that were pretty easy to get.

 

“You’re too easy kid,” Tony gave into the domestic urge to ruffle Peter’s curls. The kid let out a huff and folded his arms but didn’t move away.

 

“Am not… Jesus, I fight crime and come back to life for a living, and you break me with a comment about your butt…”

 

“I guess there’s a reason you wear a mask, secret identity be damned, you’re transparent as fuck.” The comment made Peter shrug.

 

“Yeah… I mean it’s not because I’m a teenager who doesn’t want their family to be targeted.”

 

“True.” The conversation continued like that for a while. The movie continued and they both cheered when Pepper was a badass, but before the movie ended, their time hiding ended. Before Tony got his arc reactor removed from his chest, before the last monologue, it was time to go.

 

They didn’t wait the five minutes for it to end, they didn’t take a moment to breathe, they had enough of that. They didn’t have time to wait another moment. Their reality was in danger. Thanos was coming back and they were going to be there.

 

The light on Peter’s wrist lit up, showing that the energy had been drained from him. Hopefully, they weren’t too late. They didn’t know what they would do if they were too late.

 

They didn’t bother to turn off the TV or the lights, they just scrambled out of the bed and made sure they had everything with them. Tony activated his gauntlet and shot out a cloudy blue portal with green symbols around the edges. The infinity stone portals weren’t like Doctor Stranges portals. The other side wasn’t visible. They didn’t know what they were getting into.

 

They didn’t know how bad the fight was going to be, or if they even stood a chance even with all of the infinity stones. Peter knew that there was something wrong. He was uneasy and slightly shook before he entered the portal. The soul stone was silent and all of the lighthearted aura had been killed off faster than one could snap.

 

Peter knew that it was time for shit to go down. He just didn’t know if he was ready for it.

Notes:

Hey guys! sorry for the little delay, I've been busy with school and other projects, unfortunately, I also lost my stylus so I won't be able to do art. I love comments and I can't wait to show you guys what's coming next. I'm on tumblr as science-lings, insta as sciencelings where you can see my face and sometimes my animals.

Some polls if you want to participate:
Art for this fic: https://goo.gl/forms/cNf7ZkwWqeS9HMBx1
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Anyway, I'll see you guys soon and I'd love to hear some feedback! Thank you for reading!

Chapter 53: Brief Golden Moments

Summary:

One last not mean chapter before shit goes down

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“We have the vessels ready. We were able to place the infinity stones, that we have, into their proper receptacles. We just need Stark and Peter back.” Shuri told her brother as they walked down to her lab as he wanted to see the new homes for their infinity stones.

 

“I bet they will be back right on time. Did you make a new holder for Peter’s stone?” T’challa wondered.

 

“In fact, I did. I had some free time. As his works as a quantum hopper. I don’t think he will need that during the battle and we can’t afford any accidental reality jumps. I gave it an extra container in case he needs to use another stone, I think the soul stone grants him more knowledge of the infinity stones, so it may be helpful. I made Loki a new staff to hold the space stone and a rather large set of knives to go with it.” Shuri said as they entered the lab and the first thing that came into view was Loki’s equipment. Tony still had the Space stone so the tip of the staff was empty.

 

“I hope we can trust him, he doesn't exactly have the cleanest of records.”

 

“If he betrays us I can kick his ass. Anyway, Next we have the crown that holds the reality stone for Ms. Maximoff. I took the liberty to design it so it can also be a fashion statement. Thanos has no style with that stupid metal glove.” Shuri motioned to a glowing tiara that sat in a special metal box. T’Challa had to admit that it was quite pretty, not too over the top but still very nice. It resembled less of a crown and more of a headpiece for an elf from the Lord of the Rings.

 

“I bet she will like it.” T’Challa nodded simply.

 

“And we have Strange’s necklace that he was adamant about being the same as the old one. Boring but he still let me make it out of vibranium so it won’t be so easily crushed.” Shuri held up the empty black pendant, waiting for Tony to get back with its stone. “And here’s the updated iron man gauntlet with the mind stone, I assumed that Mr. Stark would not mind if I tweaked his design.”

 

“He hasn’t been the type to compete with other scientists.” The king shrugged.

 

“Here we have the soul stones cuff, I mean it is mostly a web-shooter for Peter but I wanted it to be pretty, sue me.” The cuff was pretty similar to what little T’Challa had seen of the quantum gauntlet that Peter used to travel and hold the stone. It had a similar Wakandan design touch that the alternate Shuri had started and his Shuri wasn’t going to leave that behind. She had said that design was one of the most fun parts of her job.

 

“Now to my prized piece in this infinity stone collection, the Titan-Killer! Doesn’t that sound like something out of a video game!” Shuri said excitedly as she walked over to a sword with the purple glowing gem in between the hilt and its dark blade. It definitely had a fantasy look about it, with writing and design etched on the blade that the power stone filled with a magical glow.

 

Shuri remembered the process of actually getting the stone in the sword. She had to get Thor to do it, he was the only being strong enough to hold it for even a moment without disintegrating. Even he had a little trouble. But the sword hadn’t been touched since the stone was placed, they all sensed that it was dangerous to do even that. Only Thor dared to touch it or get too close to it. Shuri knew that Peter had said something about someone else coming to wield the power stone but it just hasn’t happened yet and they were running out of time.

 

Anyway, the sword was stunning. It looked like it had been partially inspired by the god-killer in Wonder Woman and the master sword in the Legend of Zelda series, obviously why she named it the Titan-Killer. It was larger than a normal sword, as it was highly likely that the people using it had some sort of strength enhancement. Whether it be Thor or whoever else was coming to help them.

 

The Titan-Killer’s cross-guard came out of the hilt in a trio of pairs of wings with one pair outstretched across, one pair as purely design on the hilt and one pair framing the power stone in a bent position. For fun, the hilt and the cross-guard was gold while the blade was flawless vibranuim. The rest of the hilt was made with a slightly cushioned material that matched the violet of the infinity stone and the rest of the gold.

 

“Nice work, I think-” Before T’Challa could finish, one of the Dora interrupted him.

 

“I’m sorry to intrude but there is someone outside of the force field. Mr. Rhodes said that he knows her and she needs permission to enter.”

 

“Who is she?” T’Challa said, intrigued.

 

“She said her name was Carol Danvers. She wears a weird suit like all of you superhero types.” Her tone was mostly serious but the joke at the end revealed that she didn’t think that this woman, Carol, was a threat.

 

“I cannot wait to meet her.” T’Challa started to leave the lab. “Shuri, you said that Peter mentioned someone else? Maybe this is who he was talking about.” He smiled a little and Shuri delicately picked up the gauntlet with the mind stone hidden in it’s palm.

 

“I wonder…” she muttered to herself.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Coming back to his own reality was a momentary relief. One single second of the feeling you get when you come back home after a long stressful trip. It really didn’t last long.

 

They appeared inside of Wakanda, seemingly in the middle of a meeting between the Avengers (including the guardians) and some blonde lady that Tony vaguely recognized. They all seemed pretty surprised at the interruption. Then the blonde woman raised her eyebrows and spoke.

 

“I’ll be damned, if it isn’t Tiny Stark.” She smiled a little and Tony was in shock for a moment before he was able to place her face.

 

“Carol? Like, Rhodey’s Carol?”

 

“Yeah, Apparently she got a call from Fury the time if the decimation.” Rhodey smiled.

 

“It’s been a while kid.” Carol stood up and gave Tony a hug like it was the most natural thing in the world.

 

“I’m almost fifty superwoman.” Tony smiled and hugged her back. Which was kind of weird for him as most people weren’t allowed that close so fast.

 

“You’re still short though.”

 

“I’ve been notified. I’m pretty sure we have more important things to do than catch up.” Tony pulled back from the hug and cleared his throat.

 

“We’re not going to be enough.” Peter muttered while everyone noticed the warm energy glowing through his eyes. Everyone who heard his grave message went silent.

 

“We’re literally at our strongest, all of Thanos’ allies are dead. He’s alone.” Steve said calmly. “We even have the infinity stones.”

 

“He’s not alone. He may have sacrificed his ‘kids’ for the infinity stones but he didn’t just use them to make everyone disappear… He didn’t sacrifice that much from the good of his heart and his skewed view on population control. There is way more to this than he said in his evil monologue on Titian.” Peter said seriously. You know it’s bad when Peter gets so deadly serious.

 

“He has had decades to think about this plan, he wouldn’t let it come loose for anything.” Gamora muttered. “Maybe he knew that it was possible for someone to escape from the soul stone.”

 

“And maybe he was planning for it.” Carol finished.

 

Shuri ran into the room looking genuinely afraid.

 

“I’m sorry… I think we ran out of time.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The heroes gathered outside, including Pepper in her new armor that was red and white, and May whose eyes held an expression that was more menacing than any superhuman in the area. Peter had a feeling that even the Hulk would be afraid of her.

 

The Wakandan military had already been formed and stood protectively between the force-field and the superheroes just entering the scene. In the sky there was a massive ship. It looked far away but close up just with its massive size.

 

Peter closed his eyes for a moment to use the soul stone. His essence rushed to the ship and he saw the horror up close. In the cockpit of the ship was the purple asshole himself. The sight of Thanos still made Peter shutter in fear. The titan didn’t have the gauntlet on, seeing as Peter stole it a while ago, but for some reason he still seemed just as fearsome even without the most powerful object in the universe.

 

Around the titan was his… children. Ebony Maw, Black Dwarf, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive… but they were all dead. Peter made sure not to bring them back… but there they were. It took a moment to figure out what happened but when he did, it brought a chill to his bones.

 

The black order wasn’t the most lively bunch to begin with, but they looked dead. They were less saturated and all of their eyes were empty and dark. They looked like they were damaged from dying the first time, the black dwarf had a crude metal arm and Proxima Midnight looked like she was sewn back together after being obliterated and she had cracks filling in her body like broken pottery. The Maw had crystalized ice on his clothes and arms and Corvus Glaive had metal in his chest, where the soul stone said he had been stabbed by the vision with his own spear.

 

Apparently, Peter wasn’t invisible. Thanos looked right at him and smiled cruelly with this scarred lips.

 

“Your stone can’t save you now.” Before Peter snapped back into his body, he spotted the item that Thanos had made with the infinity stones. It was a black stone inside of a ring, the kind of black that glowed purple and ate all of the light around it. Peter felt a strange adversion to it, it felt like it was eating at him, playing with his fear.

 

“That fucker…” The soul stone hissed in Peter’s mind. He couldn’t remember if he had heard his psychological companion swear before.

 

He snapped back into his body with Tony holding his shoulders and asking him what was wrong.

 

“Come back to us bud, what happened.” His mentor said with an air of calm that thankfully rubbed off on Peter.

 

“I-I… I think Thanos has control over death… He made a new infinity stones with the other ones and… he brought back the black order… I don’t know if we can kill them this time.” Peters voice shook. He still felt Thanos’ eyes on him.

 

“Wait, don’t you have control over life with the soul stone? Wouldn’t you be equal with him?” Quill asked.

 

“Life and death are very different. With the death infinity stone, none of Thanos’ allies will not stay dead, unless we find a way to keep them dead. Unless the soul stone has a way to do that, I don’t know what we can do. They’re like zombies being controlled by Thanos’.” Peter rambled.

 

‘It won’t be easy and it’ll take us out of the fight but we can do it.’ The soul stone whispered.

 

“Okay, I think the soul stone and I can handle it but it’ll completely occupy us. I won’t know if something gets right in front of my face and stabs me.” Peter explained.

 

“I guess the soul stone can combat the death stone then. Everyone, suit up.” Carol ordered. No one decided to complain.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The heroes lined up inside of the force-field, mirroring the first Wakandan battle against Thanos’ forces. Peter sat crouching surrounded by some of the strongest members, the ones that just happened to hold the other infinity stones. Tony, Wanda, Doctor Strange, Loki, and Carol. Gamora was right next to Peter like a personal bodyguard and the rest of the heroes were scattered throughout the field.

 

Thor, Quill, and Nebula were on the front lines, seeing as they were the most anxious for revenge. Scott, Hope, Pepper, Rhodey, and Sam were on sky duty and everyone else on the ground.

 

They decided that it all started to go down when the sun was blotted out. There were so many in Thanos’ new army that it was like a storm cloud covering the sky. It wasn’t just dim, it was becoming dark enough for it to feel like the sun wasn’t even up. The only things lighting the field were the colorful lights of the infinity stones and people with glow-y powers and suits. It wasn’t quite dim enough to not see anyone but it was definitely eery.

 

There were so many enemies that Peter instantly knew that the biggest group of superheroes were not going to be enough. A crazy, stupid idea entered his mind.

 

“Hey, Captain, Mr. Loki, can I borrow your stones?” This caused quite a few raised eyebrows.

 

“What are you going to do with them?” Loki asked. Peter grinned.

 

“I’m going to get us some backup.”

Notes:

Hey guys! I hope you're as excited as I am for this lol. I'm already working on a traditional drawing of the Titan-Killer. As usual, you can find me on any account with science-lings in the name as well as a new tumblr account called tony-stark-would-adopt-your-fav so if you want to send me characters that would fit with that prompt, I would really appreciate it. I take writing prompts on Science-lings and Sciencelings-writes. I also have a Ko-fi and am trying to figure out how to take commissions. I would really appreciate any comments even if it's just screaming. Keep your criticisms away, I do this for free and it's free not to be an asshole.

Anyway, I'll see you next time! Bye! I love you all for sticking with this!

Edit: I drew the Titan-Killer: https://sciencelings-arts.tumblr.com/post/182857386738/its-been-a-while-update-i-still-dont-have-a

Chapter 54: The Definition of Life

Summary:

Shit starts to go down, part one.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“This is a call for help.”

 

Harley froze in the middle of taking a bite of Froot Loops. Gwen, Cindy, and Miles seemed to do the same, although the voice was in his head. Harley’s first thought was that he was possessed but it made more sense as a psychic connection. It was Peter’s voice anyway.

 

Harley didn’t have to ask his friends. They all stopped eating and they ran to get suited up as the message continued in their heads. Crazier things had happened than an inter-reality distress call.

 

“My reality is in grave danger and I can get anyone who is willing to help free cosmic transportation.”

 

Xavier noticed the shaking in Peter’s voice. He was afraid, even through a psychic message. Unfortunately, his reality had their own problems. However, he could spare someone that he was sure wouldn’t mind.

 

“I need all the help I can get, even at our strongest and with all of my realities heroes… we won’t be enough.”

 

Diana only hesitated for a millisecond before she took out her phone and brought up the Justice Leagues group chat that Barry usually filled with memes. Now it was buzzing with activity. Mostly from Robin. He seemed very concerned about his temporary friend.

 

“I wouldn’t be calling out if this wasn’t dire, if destruction like what Thanos wants isn’t stopped, it wouldn’t just be my universe that’s affected. We’re all a little bit fucked.”

 

Unbeknownst to Peter. His message was caught by someone that he didn’t direct it too. He would be thankful for it though. Since they needed everyone that they could get. He managed to contact a group of reality travels just like he had been. Surprisingly enough, there weren’t very many people who travel through realities.

 

“I can get some inter-reality portals going but you don’t have to go through them. I can understand if this is too intense or dangerous. But you have to hurry, I’m kind of the only thing making sure that the bad guys stay dead. It’s complicated, just help…”

 

Dozens of cloudy blue portals scattered across a handful of realities and all ended up in the battlefield in Wakanda. Alternate reality friends appeared impossibly fast. Which was good, Thanos’ army would be on them in a few minutes if they were lucky.

 

Of course, to most people, seeing the Justice League pop out of nowhere was kind of weird. Although, a bunch of the Avengers didn’t even know who they were. They just thought that these extra superheroes were from another universe and that was all.

 

Tony gave Peter an odd look when two Iron Man styled suits few out of a portal. They landed near Tony and their helmets folded back. The black and gold one held Harley and the less bulky red and gold with lines of black held a black girl with her curly hair tied tightly back as not to be in the way of the helmet. The soul stone put the name in Peter’s head, Riri. She had been one of the non-enhanced survivors of the chaos of Ultron's destruction. Peter grinned widely at them all. Especially when the spider kids came out with vibranium enhanced costumes.

 

Only one person came out of the X-Men portal. One very fast person. Peter Maximoff appeared near Parker Peter and raised an eyebrow.

 

“Why is Batman here? Also, what the hell…”

 

“Long story,” Peter said as he dropped the portals and gave Carol and Loki back their stones. “You and the Flash over there should team up as the speedy boys, I’m sure you’ll be helpful in causing some chaos.”

 

“Sounds fun.”

 

“Peter? Is that?” Wanda looked at Quicksilver for a moment before looking back at Peter as if she was asking for an explanation but slightly afraid of the answer.

 

“Oh yeah, this is an alternate reality version of your brother. It’s kind of complicated, can we deal with this later?” Peter shrugged.

 

“Hey Peter!” Gwen, in a white, aqua, and pink hooded spider-suit, waved at him.

 

“Hi Gwen!” Peter smiled at her. “Sorry guys, big reunion later, we’re all gonna die!”

 

“Oh yeah…” Quicksilver disappeared in a blur.

 

“You are going to have some explaining to do,” Wanda assured.

 

“I know…” Peter sighed. “But we have uh… more important things to worry about.”

 

“If we do not die, I am expecting a good story.”

 

“That I can do. Not the not dying part, the story.” An earthquake-sized boom interrupted the casual conversation. Bad news, against this undead new army, Wakandas force-fields didn’t do shit. They just… phased right through. Not just from in front however, but also from above.

 

Thank god there were plenty of heroes who could fly. They were very helpful. But Peter didn’t have time to focus on the army, he was in charge of making sure they could be defeated.

 

‘Are you ready?’ The soul stone whispered. He nodded. He held out his arm holding the soul stone and closed his eyes, letting him start to be consumed by the cosmic being that had rested in his head for so long. It was warm and kind of felt like he was being hugged. At first. However, it slowly started feeling less like an embrace and more like he was holding a house above his head. But it took a little while to get to that point.

 

As soon as the first undead soldier attacked, the battlefield became chaos. No time to talk to Thanos, no time to figure out what they were going to do, just the conflict. Peter tried to use the soul stone to keep track of what was going on, but there was so much that it didn’t even help.

 

Tony, Rhodey, Harley, and Riri seemed to have made their own team with other people who could fly talking strategy to Iron Man and Captain Marvel. Even Superman, who was there, hung out with the sky group and acted as a shield with laser eyes. He and Captain Marvel seemed to be in a friendly competition. At least when the new captain was in the sky. She also liked to fight next to Wonder Woman a lot, but she popped up in the sky to check up on Rhodey.

 

Batman was with Captain America, kicking as but not spectacularly. Robin was with the spider kids, he could almost compete with their enhanced acrobatic skill and they seemed pretty protective of him. The Flash and Quicksilver were causing a good amount of chaos within the enemies ranks, Wanda, Loki, and Doctor Strange were using their infinity stones and their magic to be quite the destructive team.

 

But the enemy wasn’t to be underestimated. The army wasn’t just big, they weren’t just mindless drones that were only useful in their high numbers. They looked kind of blurred like they used to be a person but they were bathed in shadows. They were fast and strong, they seemed to have a purpose and that was getting to Peter. So far, none of them got close as when they were killed by a superhero, they just disappeared into mist.

 

Whenever one of the enemies died, it got harder for Peter to keep them down. The death stone was fighting against him and it didn’t take too long for the strain to make Peter shake in exhaustion. All he wanted to do was collapse and close his eyes but if he did, they would all be overtaken. He would’ve gotten reinforcements for nothing.

 

‘Peter-’ The soul stone whispered. ‘I can make this easier. Do you remember how my power relies on your emotions?’

 

‘You couldn’t have done this earlier?’ Peter thought

 

‘It has a cost. The most powerful feeling is pain, rage, desperation… it takes work to make you feel those things strong enough.’

 

‘That’s stupid. Haven’t I had enough pain for a little while?’

 

‘I’m sorry Peter, but all strength comes from pain.’

 

Peter thought for a moment. His motivation was never pain. It was love. He did everything because he wanted someone else to be safe. He was guilty when he failed Uncle Ben but that was because he loved him. He went through a bunch of crazy alternate realities because he wanted to go home and see May and Tony and all of his friends again. Not because he was afraid of staying. Okay, he didn’t have much of a choice but that’s not the point.

 

“Come out bug.” the chilling voice of Thanos made Peter shutter. He didn’t know how long he could keep this up, his muscles screamed for a break like he had been holding up the planet. All he could feel was the crushing pain and the overwhelming strain, he didn’t even notice when he fell to his knees or that he had been sweating up a storm.

 

After a long minute, it was too much and he collapsed. Back in his body, he was shaking but the glow of the soul stone that had once swallowed the area was gone.

 

“Uh, these guys are reforming, is Peter okay?” Tony said with a worried tilt in his voice. Peter didn’t even have the energy to respond. He didn’t even dare move. He knew that the pain would be fucking crazy.

 

‘Peter, you have to get up… or else I’ll have to force us to… refuel.’ the soul stone spoke with whispy hesitance.

 

“If that means you’re going to make me feel pain, I’ll say that I’m in plenty of pain, why isn’t it working now,” Peter muttered but even moving his mouth hurt.

 

‘You know that’s not the type of pain I meant.’

 

“And I’m saying that pain isn’t the solution.” Peter attempted to move and only managed to get himself in a position to try to lift himself up before he was panting and acidic tears were prickling at his eyes.

 

“Is the kid okay? What happened?” Peter could only hear Tony’s frantic voice. And even though his body screamed for him not to, he started to get up. It felt like he was being burned with hellfire and stabbed at hundreds of points but he at least got to his knees.

 

“Weak, and you thought you were worthy of an infinity stone.” Thanos chuckled, Peter knew that he wasn’t actually there, someone would’ve noticed if he got that close. He must be using the death stone to… do something. Even thinking straight was hard dammit. “Pathetic.”

 

‘Don’t show me something that will make me hulk out… because I know you don’t just use rage. Rage is… unreliable.’ Peter thought towards the soul stone. He knew that the emotions wouldn’t just come out of nowhere so they had to show something to him right?

 

He remembered when he got out of control and ended up killing Ross. He didn’t want this to be the same situation. He needed to be in control. Directed destruction is better than mindless decimation. No… they couldn’t show him something that made him feel pain and subsequently, overwhelming anger. He wasn’t some… machine.

 

‘I don’t know what to tell you Peter, you have to get up, with the dead not staying that way, we’re going to be overrun.’ the soul stone sounded sad.

 

‘You know me buddy, you know that there is something more powerful than pain. Just trust me.’

 

‘If it doesn’t work then we will have to resort to plan B.’ the soul stone promised as the world around Peter disappeared. Instead of a field in Africa, he was a room in his old house, back when Ben was still alive.

 

May had less stress-caused wrinkles and gray hairs. Ben was… Ben was there, with more life than Peter remembered seeing in him. They were both on their knees, helping a baby Peter toddle with support from the old nineties couch. The information popped into his head, this was when his parents dropped him off at his aunt and uncles when they had to leave for work. Now Peter knew that work was more suspicious than he would’ve thought before.

 

“Come on Petey! You can do it!” Bens voice echoed around in Peter’s head. It had been so long since he had heard that voice and he couldn’t help but let out a sob. He was only sad because Ben was gone, but he still loved his uncle so much, dead or not.

 

The scene changed, to every time Peter had felt loved. Every time Ben said he was proud of him and every time May looked into his eyes and promised that he was perfect just the way he was and that nothing he could do would make her disappointed.

 

After a dozen scenes, it changed from his family to his friends, Ned helping him back up after a fight, MJ smiling for the first time that he could remember when he told a joke so bad that she couldn’t help it. When he broke down in front of Ned and instead of being weird about it, he helped Peter through it and helped him back up. Those and so many more that he had almost forgotten.

 

Finally, after those, Peter saw Tony, all the times he felt like the man truly cared about him and didn’t dismiss him as so many people had. When Tony told him he was a genius after suggesting an idea and when this closed off, reserved guy opened up to him, this lucky kid from Queens. The time Peter had a panic attack and Tony calmly talked him down and let him get as much physical affection as he needed. The one time Peter had a nightmare and when Tony promised that he would never leave him.

 

Each moment gave him a warm, full feeling in his chest. He was one of those people that just loved so much. He had been so easy to feel love for other people that every time he got any sort of love back, he felt like he would cry. But not the acidic painful tears from only moments before, the cleansing kind that was overwhelming but good.

 

He didn’t even realize when he stopped feeling the violent ache from moments before. The pain was just replaced with a soft warmth as if it had never been there in the first place. Then, he was back in the real world, seemingly only a second later than when he left it.

 

He felt more in tune with the soul stone than he ever had. It felt powerful but not in the way that made him feel like he was going to accidentally break something. Peter definitely knew the difference. He felt in control. He didn’t feel like he was forced to hold back. Even with his normal spider-powers he never felt secure, like he would break something if he held on too hard. But for once, he felt like he knew exactly what he was capable of.

 

But he couldn’t focus on that for too long.

 

“There’s someone else on the field!” Someone yelled into the coms.

 

“I can’t even touch her! I just phase right through!” Carol shouted. Peter didn’t have to search for an answer. With the soul stone, he just knew.

 

Lady Death had joined the battle. And the only thing that can touch the embodiment of death is the embodiment of life. At the moment, that was Peter.

 

Peter had a feeling that this battle would only get more insane. At least he felt a little more ready for it.

Notes:

Hey guys! I hope that this chapter isn't much of a mess, I was pretty excited to write it. It'll only get more chaotic from here. As usual, you can find me on my Tumblr: Science-lings, sciencelings-writes, and sciencelings-arts. I would really appreciate comments. I promise that the alternate reality teams will have more of a role in all of this, maybe tell me your favorites so that I can include them as much as I can.

 

I might be taking a break from my less popular fics as I will be working on my Iron Man Bingo thing and in a few weeks I'll be going to NYC for a school thing which will give me much less time to write. then I'll have a bunch of time to write during spring break so who knows what's going on. I've also been getting into comics so if you have any recommendations, I'd love to hear them and I'm already planning on some cameos that I'll put in the superhero school fic.

anyway, I'll see you next time! I love you all! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 55: The Tragedy of Life and Death

Summary:

New friends...

Notes:

Okay, so, this chapter is going to involve the 2013 arc of the young avengers so if you have no idea about that, here's a summary.

So first of all, here are the characters,
America Chavez - Miss America: She can travel through alternate realities and has super strength, always wants to fight
Teddy Altman - Hulkling: Shapeshifter that normally looks similar to the Hulk (in a relationship with Billy)
Billy Kaplan- Wiccan: has magic and a dramatic cape, is heavily depressed and gay (like me!)
Noh-Varr- Marvel-Boy (kinda): Kree guy that likes sixties music and didn't take over earth
Kate Bishop- Hawkeye: Basically girl Hawkeye, no special powers
Child Loki: Loki in a smaller version of his own body but the same amount of asshole

They are traveling through realities to chase someone (I don't wanna spoil) and I just took them out of that for a moment. They won't be a main part of this story but I don't want anyone to be confused.

Anyway, I would recommend Young Avengers if you wish that comics were gayer. It also has a great art style and I couldn't not include some of my new favs. I'll make it easy and put the url here: https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Young-Avengers-2013/Issue-1?id=2601

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

America was used to saving people at the last second, she was used to traveling through dimensions so much that a psychic distress call really didn’t surprise her. They didn’t exactly have a lead for their previous engagement so she decided that it would not harm anyone to take a little detour. Thankfully, her team was not sick of alternate universes yet.

 

Because they were (mostly) heroes, no one really complained about the temporary change. They wouldn’t miss a chance to save someone, especially an entire reality. They usually took breaks anyway so what was the difference with this one?

 

Getting attacked and stumbling upon battles was normal for reality travelers, but this was different. The Young Avengers fell through the shattered remains of America's reality traveling five-pointed star and took a moment to take in the scene. They had technically seen more bazaar things but seeing the justice league in real life was definitely pretty weird. The sky was dark and there was so much going on that it was hard to focus on anything.

 

America swore she saw several iron men and a handful of spider-people. Before she had much of a chance to just barge into the battle, someone approached them. He didn’t look older than any of them, in fact, he looked like he was on the younger spectrum. But his eyes were glowing orange and he was wearing a strange armor that looked like a mix of iron man armor and a suit that spider-man would wear. She assumed he was one of the versions of Spider-Man. A weird, glowing version.

 

Baby-faced Spider-Man looked them over for a moment before smiling. It looked odd with his eyes glowing menacingly but she dismissed it.

 

“I thought the distress call only went to people I already met… huh… anyway, hi. I’m, Peter, I’m currently the top priority for being killed so that’s cool. We don’t have much time to chat so, America, I need you with the hard hitters at the front, Hawkeye and Noh-Varr can hang out with our Hawkeye for long-range attacks. Uh, strangely gremlin-y Loki, you can hang out with your adult counterpart, I don’t know if he’ll let you use his infinity stone but you can try. Uh, Hulkling, you can be on sky duty, just keep an eye on everyone and help out whenever you can, and Wiccan, you can join Doctor Strange and Wanda on magic duty, at least none of you have to worry about dying, I’ll take care of that.” They stared at the teenager for a moment, wondering if they should really take battle strategy from him.

 

“Come on guys, we’re in the middle of a battle.” Glowstick Spider-Man reminded.

 

“We’ll join as soon as you tell us how you know us, Chico.” America narrowed her eyes, she didn’t really love being given orders.

 

“The soul stone. I kind of their chosen holder and one of its powers is to know peoples souls. It’s pretty helpful for this kind of thing.” Spider-Man shrugged. “I have to go fight death now so, welcome to this reality I guess and thanks for answering my call.”

 

“Well, you heard the arachnid…” Kate shrugged. “Let’s find Clint.” She pulled along her white-haired alien boyfriend. They seemed pretty accepting of the situation which told Peter what crazy shit they had been through.

 

“Is that…” Billy stared in the distance where Supergirl was in full costume kicking ass hundreds of feet in the air.

 

“Yeah, infinite realities, there’s bound to be Batman and his buddies in some of them.” Peter shrugged. Insanity was his new normal.

 

“Wait, is Batman here?” Gremlin Loki’s eyes widened and looked around the battlefield.

 

“Yeah, he’s making sure Robin doesn’t do something stupid.”

 

“Which version of Robin?” Teddy asked, looking more excited than afraid of the massive battle around them.

 

“Ten-year-old Dick Grayson,” Peter confirmed. “But that doesn’t matter right now, we need to get back into the fight.”

 

“You’re letting a ten-year-old fight?” America raised an eyebrow.

 

“Well your gremlin Loki doesn't look older than eight so…”

 

“Fair point. Let’s not waste any more time.” America launched herself at a shadow monster thing that got a little too close for comfort. Hulkling shifted dragonlike wings on his back and Wiccan started to glow blue and they both flew away. Little Loki just sprinted towards his much older counterpart and America fought her way to the front lines.

 

Peter needed a way to get to death though without, you know, actually dying. Lady Death and Thanos weren’t even on the field. At least not obviously. They were hiding. Or they wanted Peter to go looking for them as the attack wouldn’t stop until he did so. And because Peter was a dumbass, he was going to walk right into their trap.

 

He closed his eyes to look for them. Thanos was inside of his ship and Lady Death, in all of her eternal glory, was just outside of it, no one even daring to get near her. Not even Superman.

 

Lady Death looked like the grim reaper if the grim reaper was designed by one of those fantasy artists that thought that breasts should be exposed but also had a thing for intense detail. Her face wasn’t quite a skull but it was as close as it could get with skin on it. Pale, unblemished, skin with no visible coloring, as if she didn’t even have blood was tightly held to her bones, she was pretty in the way that a marble statue was. Cold and emotionless but objectively perfect. Her eyes were chilling and black where her irises didn’t differentiate from her pupils even in intense light.

 

Her whole body was covered by a cloak that was so dark that barely any light reflected off of it and the folds were practically invisible and the cloth turned into smoke as it bellowed away from her body. Peter didn’t even want to think about the fucked up physics of that and decided to think of it as magic. Magic never made any sense.

 

The thing was, Thanos’ ship was far enough away that Peter wanted to get a ride. So, instead of jogging for a half hour in the middle of a battle, he called for help. It was hard to find someone that could fly that was in a area where they could just ditch the battle and come help him but eventually, Peter found someone.

 

‘Hey Kara,’ Peter used the soul stone to project his voice in supergirls head.

 

‘Oh, hi Peter! Do you need anything?’ She replied.

 

‘Uh, yeah, Can you fly me to Thanos’ ship real quick? Everyone else is busy.’

 

‘No problem!’

 

It was ridiculous how fast she flew up behind him and grabbed him in her arms like he was a baby. She didn’t have to carry him like he was a very small child but by the gleeful look on her face, she didn’t even think about carrying him any other way. Peter couldn’t even bring himself to be angry about it.

 

“So, you’re going to confront the most powerful being in your universe and the guy that killed you all by yourself?” Kara asked with a hint of judgment or worry in her voice.

 

“I’m not alone. Also, I’m kind of the embodiment of life now, wouldn’t it be poetic to fight death and the asshole that killed me the first time? I’m the only one that can destroy the death stone which will stop this whole fight and everyone can go home.” Peter folded his arms as he was ready for her to argue with him. She surprised him though.

 

“I’ll stay close then. If you need any help which… maybe. I might just doubt you because you’re a little scrawny.”

 

“I’m short not scrawny…” Peter grumbled as they landed on the ground near the spaceship. Lady Death faded into the doorway when they arrived so Peter had a bad feeling about everything.

 

“Be careful Peter.” Kara sighed as she used her laser vision to destroy a row of shadowy monsters. They melted into dark smoke, similar to Lady Deaths robes.

 

“I’ll be fine. Maybe you could keep the bad guys away from the ship?” He suggested, not willing to admit that he didn’t want to be completely alone.

 

“You got it.” She smiled encouragingly before she started to fight off the shadow people. Peter cautiously walked into the dark entrance of the ship, he glowed enough from the power of the soul stone that the ship should’ve been more illuminated than it was.

 

Peter focused the energy into his hand so that it was more like he had a magical cosmic flashlight instead of him being a giant glowstick. He could still only barely see the ground and the walls seemed fuzzy and not solid. The whole area seemed unnaturally cold and the only thing keeping Peter from shivering was the natural warmth of the soul stone.

 

Peter followed where the soul stone identified Thanos which led to another dark room. At the center of it, the darkness was so thick that no amount of cosmic light would let him see the walls. The darkness was sufficating. He felt like he could barely breathe. But he wasn’t sure that it was the darkness or Thanos himself supposedly was in this room.

 

Peter didn’t feel Thanos in the room, not through the soul stone, not using his normal senses… it was empty. The silence was just as intense as the darkness and Peter looked behind him, paranoid that someone was watching him and just waiting to strike.

 

“Come out you big purple asshole…” Peter called out. The darkness seemed to muffle the noise.

 

“Peter?” Peter froze when he heard his name. Not because it was his name, but because he recognized the voice. A voice he had missed and would’ve forgotten if it wasn’t for old home videos that May had kept. He heard the voice that sang to him when he had nightmares of people leaving him and alien invasions, he heard the voice that gasped his dying breath. Peter could barely choke out a reply.

 

“Uncle Ben?” Peter stammered as he looked toward where the voice came from. Sure enough, his uncle was there. Wearing the same thing that he did when he died. But Peter could tell that he wasn’t… really there.

 

It was like he was in a black and white movie, he was kind of blurry and out of focus but it was without a doubt his uncle. Peter didn’t know how to react, he wanted to barrel towards the man that raised him and hug him but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t even be able to touch him. After holding him in his arms as he bled out, he would never be able to touch him again.

 

“Hey Petey, I didn’ think I’d get to see you so soon.” Peter suppressed a sob.

 

“You’re not real are you…” Peter rasped.

 

“I’m as real as the hair on your head kid.” His uncle replied with the gentle smile that had faded in Peter’s memory.

 

“No, you’re not. My uncle is gone. Thanos must’ve brought you back to fuck with me…”

 

“You always had May’s pottymouth…” Ben chuckled as he placed his hand on Peters' shoulder like he always used to do before an important talk. Surprisingly enough, Peter felt it… Ben was real. When he realized that Ben was in fact there and real, he broke.

 

It had only been a few years since Ben had died and Peter was never able to get over it. At least he had gotten over with forgetting that he was gone in the first place. He had stopped accidentally calling the dead mans name after a nightmare and stopped looking for him where he knew his uncle wouldn’t be anymore.

 

Peter was too far into his own head to perceive Ben pulling him into a hug but he hugged back anyway. He fought back tears just in case he had to fight, he didn’t want his vision to be blurry. He couldn’t help it though.

 

He had thought that the hole that Ben left behind when he died had been filled or at least able to be ignored, but seeing him again was like reopening the wound. And Peter really didn’t know how to feel. Sure, he had missed his uncle desperately and seeing him again was unbelievable, but he had already mourned and healed from the pain of losing him. Getting him back, even for just a moment, seemed to undo the stitches he had used to fix the hole Ben had left, leaving a gaping gash that Peter thought was already healed.

 

Ben’s arms tightened around him. Harder than he normally would’ve. Peter’s spider-sense went off but he couldn’t move. That’s not a good sign...

 

“Oh, Peter…” A feminine, not Ben voice, came from the unsaturated being currently holding Peter in her arms. “You poor, poor thing… You can’t kill death.”

Notes:

I hope you liked it! I promise there will be actual fighting soon. Also, I'm working on my 2019 Iron Man BIngo and I'm going to NYC in about a week so the next update might not be on time. I apologize about that now. I would appreciate comments (seriously, comments are the main things keeping me going) and if you would check out my tumblrs. (Science-lings, Sciencelings-writes, and sciencelings-arts) my stylus is still missing so for now, all my art is the old fashioned way with paper. I take prompts on science-lings and sciencelings-writes and I'll write them when I can. anyway, thanks for reading! I'll see you next time! I love you!

Chapter 56: Rebirth

Summary:

The soul stone gives Peter a way out

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Darkness… all Peter saw was darkness. The kind of darkness that ate away at his mind and made him feel like he was choking on air. The kind of darkness that felt cold and hopeless, the kind of darkness that made him paranoid that there was something in it that was going to come out at any moment to get him. It wasn’t like being blindfolded like a couple of dimensions ago on the raft. It was like his whole soul was covered in the darkness. With no hope of getting out.

 

There was a disconnect from the soul stone, so the tiny piece of his mind devoted to keeping the enemy dead felt like it was crushing him again. Peter really didn’t like the feeling of being crushed, he had a few bad memories linked to the sensation.

 

After a painful eternity, Death spoke. Her voice didn’t sound much different than if she had been human. It was pleasant, soft, pitched with a sound that Peter couldn’t quite recognize. It wasn’t malicious like most depictions of someone like her would be. It gave Peter the same feeling as the soul stones voice. Peter honestly didn’t think that she was inherently the bad guy.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you, I just have to keep you here until the battle is won.” She was a few feet away from him, but she didn’t look real. This whole place didn’t feel real.

 

“And why would you do that? What did Thanos offer you to get you to do this shit…”

 

“I didn’t need to be bribed, My love just needed to prove himself to me.”

 

“So the whole universe needed to suffer because Thanos has a kink for death? I mean like the act of death, but I guess you too.” Peter’s voice shuttered with the effort of maintaining the power of the soul stone. Without him, the battle outside would be lost without hesitation. You can’t beat an enemy that keeps coming back up.

 

“You could say that. He has his own reasons for what he does and I have mine. Our goals just seem to overlap.”

 

“You do realize that I’m not going to just let you keep me here.”

 

“I assumed that you’d struggle.” Lady Death seemed disappointed as she made a staff materialize out of smoke with the wicked blade of a scythe on the top. Standard death weapon. Whatever. The thing was, with the strain of keeping the undead army dead outside, Peter was in no state to fight. Especially with death. Death seemed like she would be pretty capable.

 

‘I told you that it wouldn’t be enough.’ the soul stone whispered into his ear. ‘You need to let me help you, without you, this battle is already lost.’

 

Peter shot a web at Deaths weapon and tried to pull it away from her. Unfortunately, Death was pretty fucking strong and she managed to rip him off and launch him at the dark edge of the spaceship around him. Usually, when he got hurt, especially in such a minor way, he got over it really quickly. Apparently not in this smokey void. Being smashed into the wall hurt much more than it usually did and he shook as he got up.

 

But he did get up. He reacted too slowly though, Death had come up to him and swiped her bladed staff at him, effectively slicing a stip of his cheek only a millimeter away from his eye. He struggled to hold back a scream and Death stood over him, seemingly satisfied with her work.

 

“I would hate to do more damage. Please refrain from getting back up.” She said, with very little emotion in her voice besides a drop of sadness or regret. Peter couldn’t tell. He also didn’t know what else to do so he decided to let the soul stone carry out their plan. Even if he would regret it. He didn’t see any other options.

 

‘Do it.’ Peter thought towards the soul stone.

 

‘Don’t bother to prepare yourself.’ they muttered back.

 

Peter’s vision faded for only a moment in real time, but for him, it felt like a month. Everything around him changed. Not in a good way.

 

The visions started out as his own memories, but only the ones that haunted him and gave him nightmares. The ones he tried to avoid but now were held in front of him, threatening him. It was worse than a nightmare. Nightmares were twisted and cruel but this was real. This wasn’t just a horrible rendition of a horrible imagination, this was reality.

 

It started out with a memory so old and repressed that it was completely alien to him. In front of him was the scrawny toddler version of himself. He couldn’t have been older than five. He was at Ben and May’s old house, Peter could still remember some of the pictures that hung up on the wall and the ugly gray couch that Ben refused to get rid of.

 

Ben was teaching Peter how to read with a cartoon-y children's book and May was watching from the kitchen, making sure that some pasta didn’t boil over.

 

The serine scene was shattered by the loud ringing of an older phone, young may answered it with a smile and the atmosphere changed dramatically. She froze in place and her smile died. Her eyes filled with tears and she threw a look at Ben, who stood up and let baby Peter read by himself.

 

May whispered the situation in Bens ear and he too looked like he was going to cry. Young Peter was completely oblivious. Purely due to context, Present Peter realized what was going on and his throat started to close up. This was the day Peter became an orphan.

 

“Hey, Petey? How would you feel about staying with us for a little longer?” May said after she wiped her eyes.

 

The scene changed just as Peter’s heart broke. This was just the tip of the iceberg. The rough parts of Peter’s childhood flashed in front of his eyes and every single one felt like a punch in the chest even though they had happened so long ago. Everytime a bully gave him a bruise or called him a mean name, every time he was unable to make a friend, every time he felt worthless and unloveable, the horrible incident involving Skip Wescott, Bens blood on his hands, the spider-bite and how sick it made him, all of the shit being spider-man got him into, the list just kept going on.

 

Normally after a panic attack or a nightmare, Peter just felt drained. He would curl up in a corner and quietly pull himself back together. But not this time. The injustice, the pain only made him angry. It lit a flame in him. But his own experiences weren’t enough apparently.

 

It started with a plane crash. And last thoughts about him. Screaming, there was so much screaming. In a moment, Peter’s parents were gone forever. Moments of Ben and May’s lives that made Peter want to cry. If anyone knew anything about him, his first superpower might as well have been the same as Mantis’. Peter empathized with people when he couldn’t take his own problems seriously. He cared about people he loved more than he cared about anything else. Seeing Ben and May sad felt like he was being stabbed with an icicle made out of dry ice.

 

It only got worse when the hallucinations turned to Tony. Tony had been hurt more than anyone else that he cared about. Tony had been through so much pain and trauma that Peter was surprised that the guy still had hope in humanity. He had been blamed and abandoned so many times that Peter wanted to give him a hug. It’s not like he didn’t know, he had watched an alternate realities version of their lives through movies but it was still ridiculously painful. Because this way, he felt like he was there. Right next to his mentor, experiencing it along with him. And that hurt more than any wound he had ever gotten. It hurt more than being killed or tortured. It took all of this to realize what the soul stone meant by pain being the most powerful thing he could feel.

 

Pain is blindingly strong. No one can escape it. Pain causes destruction and without pain, the Avengers would be more like the protectors without some motivation born from pain. When he thought about it, all superheroes were made from pain. It was part of the equation. You can’t be a superhero without being fucked up to a degree. Although if Peter was honest, most people were at least a little fucked up anyway.

 

Anyway, back to pain. Pain consumes every other emotion. There’s no thinking when there’s pain. You don’t think straight when you go through deeply traumatic things and are reminded of them. So it would make sense when Peter tried to stop the soul stone from showing him everything.

 

Unfortunately, trying to cover his ears and closing his eyes didn’t do much as this was all still in his head anyway. He fell to his meta-physical knees and screamed for the soul stone to stop but it was no use. The soul stone didn’t stop showing him memories that were specifically meant to cause him pain.

 

It was overwhelming but somehow not in the way that would normally completely incapacitate him. Instead, for some reason, it made him irrationally angry. Not in a ‘why them, why me’ kind of way, but in a ‘this is fucking bullshit’ kind of way. He was tired of being the universes punching bag and he didn’t choose to be some sort of savior or whatever being chosen by the soul stone meant.

 

This wasn’t it though, once every painful experience had played through like an annoying holographic projection, new ones came to be. However, they didn’t seem to be memories from his own reality. It was just a realistic Peter Parker’s Pain Playlist that kept going and going. May dying, Peter himself dying, every girlfriend that he just learned that he could have, dead, betraying him, dying from cancer caused by his radioactive sperm what the fuck.

 

Even if that last one was kind of hilarious, it was still super painful watching an alternate universe version of MJ die from it.

 

Finally, his rage had reached its limit. He let out a scream, even though he meant to say something, he could just let out an earth-shattering scream. One that was painful to hear, filled with more emotion than could ever be conveyed through words.

 

Then, everything went white. No more darkness, no more all-consuming shadow, just light. Bright, free, strong, living light.

 

And because there was the physical embodiment of Death, there had to be the physical embodiment of life.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The pale blast left nothing behind of Thanos’ ship. From the outside, it was completely devastating. Everything near the ship was completely vaporized, well, except for the nearby heroes. They seemed completely unharmed while the shadow army caught in the blast disappeared without a trace. At least a few hundred of them were cleared out just from the white explosion.

 

“Is everyone okay? What the hell was that-” Tony flew his armor towards where the white energy launched itself into the air like a celestial firework. Kara flew towards him with wide eyes.

 

“Peter was in there!”

 

“Thanos is on the field.” Captain America said solemnly through the comms.

 

“Where? Is he near the explosion?” Tony answered while simultaneously worrying about Peter. Was the blast him? Tony wasn’t even sure what that kid was capable of with that infinity stone.

 

“I don’t think so…” Their eyes followed the white comet that had come out of the explosion and saw as it curved back towards the ground at an angle.

 

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. what is that?” Tony asked as his glowing display zoomed in on the object.

 

‘I’m getting the same readings as the aura from the soul stone boss.’

 

“Is that…” Kara raised her eyebrows.

 

“That’s Peter all right,” Tony admitted as the kid himself meteored onto the ground, causing a cloud of dust and a surprisingly massive crater. The cracks in the ground emitted a familiar white light with opalescent flakes of energy rising out of them. When the dust cleared, lo and behold, there was Peter. A weird version of Peter but definitely Peter.

 

His irises were glowing white and everything about him seemed to by ever so slightly different. The way his jaw was clenched and the way he held himself was in a way that was so dissimilar to his Peter that it was very strange. His spider suit was white and gold and he seemed to be glowing with an extra glow around his head like a halo but that’s not what caught Tony’s eye. Peter looked cold and angry. Peter had never looked cold or that angry.

 

For some reason, it scared Tony. Peter had a bleeding gash on his cheek which closed up miraculously before his eyes. Peter didn’t even seem to notice. The kid just had his eyes pasted on a shadowy part of the battlefield. There was murder in his eyes. Tony realized that something bad must have happened. Because after everything that had happened, this unknown event had finally broken Peter enough to cause him to lose control.

 

This wasn’t Peter anymore. This was some amalgamation of the soul stone and a traumatized angry teenager that had gone through too much. And Tony didn’t think that this new being was planning on showing any mercy. Honestly, Tony hoped that it wouldn’t. He wanted this all to end.

 

He wanted this all to end, but he was afraid of what it would take to do it.

Notes:

Hey guys! The next update may be late as I am going to NYC from Thursday night to like Tuesday and I usually update on Friday to Saturday. I will be working on my Iron Man bingo projects so I won't just go silent. I guess we'll see though, I might have time to work on this.

I also saw Captain Marvel and holy shit... I loved it a whole lot. It was so good and I'm definitely doing more with her.

anyway, Keep up with me on my Tumblr blogs: science-lings, sciencelings-writes, sciencelings-arts. I'm also on Instagram as sciencelings so if you like cat pictures and art updates, I'll use that for that kind of thing.

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Anyway, I'll see you next time! I love you guys and I appreciate you staying with me for this long! Bye!

Chapter 57: Balanced, As All Things Should Be

Summary:

The End?

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Life and death were as polar opposite as one would expect. Life was young, Death was ageless, Life was light, Death was darkness. But neither of them were what they seemed. Life was full of pain and struggle and Death was the release, the end but not quite the end. Life was blinding light and Death was relief. Life was also experiences. Death was also unknown and separating.

 

Life in the form of Peter Parker, however, was something entirely new. Peter had been through mountains of pain and suffering but still stood and still laughed and still lived. With the soul stone, he was the embodiment of the will to live. The struggle to survive and to want to survive. Some people just survived but Peter, he was one of the few that lived. Every moment, knowing that eventually that one of them would become his last. He still fought, still saved, still, put himself in front of bullets with any hope that it would save someone else's life.

 

The real reason the soul stone chose Peter was just that. Peter knew the value of life but still put other’s lives before his own. Not in the way that any other hero would, as it is by definition to be a hero to do shit like that. But Peter, a mere teenager, knew the pain and devoted his gifts to making sure that he could stop it from happening to others. He even knew that he couldn’t save everyone but decided that one person would make it all worth it.

 

Peter had been broken several times over and still managed to be kind and gentle, even to those who hurt him. He knew even ‘bad guys’ had their motivations and lives outside of bad things. He knew that he wasn’t the one to deal out justice as he saw fit. He knew that he wasn't the deciding factor. He was just doing his best. He was so goddamn good before he was considered a hero. He was the perfect person to become a hero.

 

Most heroes took life to be something expendable. If you worked for the enemy, any means to get through you were used. People died and a lot of the time, not a thought was spent on it. War is war, life is lost, get over it. But they shouldn’t. Life should never be a number or a set of data. Life was rich and full of memories and people left behind. Every single life leaves something behind. Every single life belonged to someone. Someone with things that they loved and things that they hated. Every single soul was made to have a life.

 

Peter understood and was the perfect person to embody the physical deity of life.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter didn’t want to be powerful, he hated feeling out of control on a normal day with his own normal enhanced strength that he constantly had to regulate. But… this power wasn’t like that. He felt completely in control. Not like a single thought would set them off but instead it was like he had a couple on and off switches that all needed to be on for the power to work. He had always been so afraid of being too much or letting his anger get the best of him but now, he felt like what he imaged when people said that their chakras aligned. He felt a baseline of calm that was permanently glued to his soul.

 

But life was never calm or stable. It was constant in that no matter what, it goes on. No slow-mo shots, no pausing, no fast-forwarding, just learning, improving, and thriving. No waiting or dwelling, just forever moving forward. It felt so freeing.

 

Peter opened his eyes. The terrible slash mark in his cheek that had once felt like Dragonfire mixed with a hyper-freeze, it mended itself back together comically fast with only some blood as evidence that it was even there in the first place.

 

You know how there was always a moment in epic movies where something clicks in the hero? Where they were at their lowest and they stood back up with their power all figured out and the sudden ability to skip past having experience for the final battle. Like when Steve Trevor sacrificed himself for Diana or when Anna completely turned to ice in Frozen. Sometimes for a moment, the hero becomes the villain, being lost in rage or sorrow after the plot required a sacrifice.

 

Peter felt like he had clicked long ago. Why did it take so long to turn into Life? Why couldn’t this have happened sooner? Hadn’t he been through enough trauma to warrant the minimum for unlocking this unlimited power? What was so different now? He figured it out when he pulled himself out of his own head. Or rather, someone did it for him.

“-eter, Peter! Kid, what the fuck-” Tony’s voice broke into the chaos of Peter’s head. It knocked him back into reality. Real reality. He looked up from the crater to his worried father figure.

 

“I’m fine. I have to end this, Tony.” He looked away, finding Thanos’ soul in an instant. Death had been trying to hide him. It wouldn’t work anymore.

 

“What the hell- kid- what happened?” Tony asked, looking exasperated. “Why do you look like you’re from that Disney Rapunzel movie?”

 

“Honestly I’m not completely sure. Don’t worry about it. We have to get rid of Thanos.” Peter’s voice wasn’t quite his, it wasn’t quite the soul stones either. It had a similar effect to Deaths voice. While Deaths voice made the listeners shiver with an invisible chill, the voice of Life was warm and unexplainably comforting.

 

“Uh okay, what do you need us to do?”

 

“I need the people with the infinity stones distracting Thanos and everyone else taking out the shades. I’m going to try to negotiate with Death. Or something. I’m kind of improvising.” Peter looked unsure even though he was currently a powerful being of light with complete control over life.

 

“Solid play, do your coms still work when you’re in glowstick mode?”

 

“I’m connected to every soul that exists. I can pull a professor X and just talk in your mind. I’ll keep you updated.” Peter promised with a smile that wasn’t quite his.

 

“You better, we literally have Superman and Captain Marvel so you better let someone know if you need any help,” Tony ordered.

 

“I’ll be fine. Go, I’m sure they’ll need your help with Thanos.” Peter said in a playfully impatient tone. “Seriously, he shares control over death with Mrs. Grim Reaper. I’m using my energy to make sure that people don’t at least stay dead but I don’t know how much I can do it while fighting the goddess of Emos. She kinda has more experience with the whole existential power thing and neither of us can die.”

 

“Well, if anything goes wrong…” Tony hugged his glowing kid and squeezed him for possibly the last time. This wasn’t some minor fight after all. “I love you and I’m so proud of you, you mean everything to me and I am not letting you die again, that was fucking traumatizing.”

 

“I love you too,” Peter smiled, closer to his own, “Now come on, we have shit to do.” Tony nodded and took off into the air where the handful of heroes carrying glowing multicolored stones were congregating in a bright rainbow colored group. It was a brilliant sight. Peter could approve of the magical gay display. He just couldn’t stop to admire it. He was a little preoccupied.

 

Death was there. She was all around him. She knew that if she didn’t hold him back, he could end it all. And he knew the same thing of her. Thanos may have the death stone and the extended Avengers may have the rest of the infinity stones but it didn’t mean much. This wasn’t much of a fight of the infinity stones, it was the battle of life and death. Two entities that couldn’t die and wouldn’t back down. Unless Peter really pulled a Steven Universe and just talked Death down from extreme genocide.

 

“I know I can’t kill you… but I can make death a mercy you will be wishing for.” Death whispered. Peter couldn’t see her yet but he could feel her around him. Dark smoke surrounded him and his white bioluminescence was the only thing keeping him from being swallowed by it.

 

“What do you have against me? Without life, there’s no death. Taking half of all existing souls isn’t really in your best interest in the long term. We’re all going to die anyway, why kill off half of everything and wait for thousands of years for the death rate to be back to before.”

 

“I’m not a vampire Peter, I don’t take joy in the deaths of countless living. I’m not the lord of the underworld that revels in the knowledge of my rule over the dead.” She scoffed and appeared solidly in front of him. She held her wicked weapon lazily in her hand, resting it on her shoulder with the dark blade less than an inch away from her neck.

 

“If you don’t want everyone dead, what’s your goal here?” Peter subconsciously squeezed his fists, he only had his web-shooters and the new life power, not a physical weapon like his counterpart. He didn’t think that it would be easy to fight a scythe with his fists and webbing wouldn’t be as helpful in such close range and nothing for it to hang onto. He was kind of relying on his words at this point.

 

“I’ve made promises. My darling proved himself to me as someone very dangerous and I couldn’t resist such a tool. He does what I tell him without hesitation and I didn’t think that anyone would be so smitten with someone that everyone fears. It feels strange to be someone and is admired, even by a single madman.”

 

“So you’re only here because you were impressed with Thanos’ murder skills? It didn’t last very long did it… I undid all of his work in like a week.” Peter scoffed.

 

“But what a wonderful week it was. The universe-wide sorrow was intoxicating and the after-effects will last forever. This isn’t the end Mr. Parker, death will come whether you like it or not and despite me being impressed with you, I’ll make sure to make you be the most damaged after all of this is over.” She smiled in a wicked sort of delight.

 

“You’re not the bad guy Lady Death. Death is inevitable for everyone and it isn’t inherently a bad thing. It only hurts the people around it. I should know this the best, I felt the closest thing I’ve had to a father die in my arms with me to blame. Sure, he’s dead and he’s been dead for a while but that’s just the way that it is. Even with all this power, bringing him back would not be the right thing. I can’t play god.”

 

“But you can… we are gods Peter. We control the most important power out there. Those colorful rocks have nothing on the ability to snuff out and create life with a single thought. What would the universe be without life? What would life be without death? The universe would be an empty place, life would be meaningless with no end. We would be better together… not fighting…”

 

“We would be better together, but not helping Thanos with his goal. Life is meaningful because it ends, but cutting the population of the universe in have means that all of those casualties are just cut short. There was so much potential for them that’s just gone. And something like this will never happen ever again. Not on my watch.”

 

“I guess you won’t change your mind… I wonder how much pain you can endure before you do. I would advise letting me help you. For your own sake.” She took her weapon up and prepared to swing it. Its range was definitely close enough to decapitate him. Peter really wished he had a close-range weapon or something…

 

As the thought crossed his mind, he felt a cold smooth object appear in his hand out of literally nowhere. When he looked at it, he didn’t know what it was but after pressing a simple button, he got ridiculously excited. The little bar of white metal tech made a very familiar sound as a blade of white light emerged from its tip.

 

‘I thought you’d like it.’ the soul stone whispered in his ear. They were right. Peter really liked the lightsaber. It was easier to channel Luke Skywalker when he held it. He was pretty intent on trying to make peace with his enemies as he couldn’t kill death. Not Thanos though, that guy could eat a dick. He deserved to be put in his place and Peter wasn’t normally so merciless. He guessed that’s what happened when the intergalactic terrorist that killed him came back to kill all of his new friends.

 

Peter’s spider-sense warned him when the scythe came crashing across him. Before it could game of thrones him, he blocked it with the blade of his new weapon. Unfortunately, Deaths dark metal stick with a blade on the end didn’t get cut in half with the lightsaber. She just retracted her weapon and went for another strike. This time it was a little less blockable so Peter just rolled out of the way and took the opening to swing at her outstretched arm.

 

She hissed at the impact and swung back her arm. Although she wasn’t armless, this meant that she could feel pain and get hurt. Which meant that in a sense, this was a fair fight. She wouldn’t just beat him in the ground. She could give up too.

 

Death swung her scythe in a wide arc around her before Peter moved closer and caught the staff part and spun closer to her with a quick slash of his lightsaber. She yanked her staff closer to her but Peter refused to let go. He wasted a moment to web the blade of her weapon that was dangerously close to the back of his neck so that it wouldn’t slice through him if she jerked too unexpectedly.

 

She did just that and Peter let go to get out of the way of the blade. He blocked another swing and ducked when she dramatically spun around in a tornado of pain. He took her moment of recovery to backflip over her and let his energy sword cut through whatever it could touch of her. She growled in rage and she set up to slash down with her scythe. He dodged easily but she swung it sideways at the end, taking him completely by surprise.

 

There wasn’t much he could do when the blade embedded itself in his back and send a wave of unbearable burning pain through him. He couldn’t help but cry out. Death ripped it out and swung the blade again to stab lower into his back. He collapsed and felt the hot blood on his back. The first wound was already healing but Peter couldn’t recover that quickly.

 

“You’re wasting my time.” Death hissed coldly as she disappeared into smoke. The dark smoke around him materialized into a dark glassy cage. When Peter could stand, he hit against the walls of the dome with all of his might but not even a crack appeared. No matter how aggressively he stabbed his new light weapon into the barrier, it didn’t even make a dent.

 

He had to get out, he was no use to anyone in here and Death seemed unwilling to fight or negotiate. She might be out there helping Thanos and with her, they didn’t stand a chance.

 

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The death stone was a little unfair. It was almost immune to the rest of the infinity stones and shielded the mad titan from most of their attacks. With all of the laser eyes, energy beams from the hands and chests of several iron man suits, powered attacks from several others and a few dumbasses with guns, none of it did any good. For some reason, Thanos didn’t attack back much, he just shielded himself from the heavy fire.

 

Several heroes were already out of commission with the others deflecting the shades from the main fight. It was pretty chaotic, to say the least.

 

Tony kept checking up on Peter but all he could do was look at the dark fog with occasional flashes of bright white light that was on the battlefield where Tony had left his kid. He could never tell what was happening if his kid was winning or dying, he just tried to hope for the best. Even if he wasn’t very good at it. He was always a worst-case-scenario kind of person.

 

“Even with all of your friends, you will never win this fight. Even Gods bow to death.” Thanos said in his signature fake philosophical tone. The Titan used the dark infinity stone to gather all of the energy being shot at him and he sent a colorful ball that looked like a very small star towards the center of the group of heroes. They all automatically scattered and the energy hit a thick group of shades that disappeared in breathy screams. Thanos didn’t seem to care about the friendly fire.

 

About a dozen heroes muttered their own sassy replies as it was pretty normal for casual enemy to superhero banter but there were too many superheroes to keep track of their responses. There were so many superheroes that it was almost comical but it was kind of annoying that Thanos was able to hold them all off. Anything that got near the Titan died and no one seemed too willing to get close enough to test it out. It didn’t matter what powers they had, the death stone bypassed them all and would automatically murder whoever it could.

 

Nothing could get through to the titan, no attack was powerful enough. Not even direct attacks from the infinity stones made a dent in his death powered barrier. Tony had a feeling that the only thing that could get through it would be Peter or Mr. Life or whatever he was now. They just had to get through that barrier and then Thanos would be a scorch mark on the ground. They also had to use the rest of the infinity stones to destroy the death stone so this bullshit could end.

 

They kept him occupied as that was kind of all they could do until Peter convinced Death not to be an asshole. Tony just hoped that Thanos didn’t get bored and kill them all anyway, he definitely had the power to. Hopefully Peter could take care of Death and come help them because they didn’t really stand a chance without the power of life.

 

They kept trying to take the titan off-guard but that only seemed to annoy him. After a few minutes, his patience broke. Thanos flexed his mountainous arms and a pulse of dark energy took over hundreds of feet around him. Thankfully, it didn’t immediately kill whoever it touched. It just threw the strongest heroes back violently. Tony realized that he was probably too old for this as he plummeted towards the ground. He was pretty sure that he broke something… He really hoped that Peter was on his way. Tony had finally found things to hope for in his life and he was more excited to live than die.

 

Thanos made a facial expression close to disgust as he lumbered towards Tony who happened to be the closest fallen hero. Tony couldn’t find it within himself to move, maybe because of the pain or the all-encompassing hopelessness. One of the two. In the distance, there was the sound of a shattering explosion but Tony didn’t pay attention to it.

 

“Why do you keep fighting Stark? What could you possibly hope to accomplish?” Thanos knelt over him in a creepy parallel to his own bald mentor over ten years earlier. This time, Tony wasn’t sure if he’d be able to save himself this time if Thanos decided to stop the villainous monologuing. “I’m going to take pleasure in killing you.” What an asshole thing to say…

 

Before Tony could reply, Thanos lowered his fist with the single artificial infinity stone dangerously close to Tony's chest. He closed his eyes, preparing to die not for the first time. His eyes popped open when he heard a gloriously familiar sound. The twipping sound of web-fluid being shot out of its shooter.

 

Thanos looked momentarily stunned as glowing white webbing wrapped around his head and stuck to his arms. One moment he was standing above Tony’s broken body and the next, he was yanked back and thrown several dozen feet away. In between the titan and Tony stood Peter, all glowing and white and angelic. And holding a lightsaber for some reason. Oh well, it matched the aesthetic.

 

Thanos had tried to put up his dark barrier again but Peter put his hand on it and it shattered just as easily as thin ice. A piercing war cry shattered the stunned silence and Peter ripped the dark stone out of its holder on Thanos’ wrist. Two blades came out of practically nowhere and before Peter could do anything else, the Titans head was on the ground and Nebula stood with her steely rage hidden behind her mechanical expression.

 

“You know, I honestly thought that’d be harder.” Deaths voice came from around them. She appeared near them, not looking distressed in the slightest that Thanos was graphically slaughtered in front of her. “He took my army for this… I suppose it doesn’t matter now. You were right Peter. Death is not inherently the bad guy, I just have the choice to be.” Lady Death took down her hood and revealed bobbed inky hair and her pale features contorted to more of a living face. Green lipstick and green eyes solidified on her pale face with black rectangular markings going through her eyes. She looked like some young humanoid alien instead of the physical embodiment of death.

 

“Thank you.” Peter smiled. His white glow was starting to dim and the color was starting to return to him.

 

“Don’t thank me yet, I can’t leave empty handed. I decided to help you because you impressed me. Death is complicated but simple. Yet after all death has taken from you, you still told me that I wasn’t the bad guy. I appreciate that. Thanos only used me but you honestly thought more of me. I genuinely apologize for the price of your victory.” Before Peter could ask what the fuck that meant, Death disappeared in a poof of smoke and even though they won, Peter felt a sinking feeling in his chest.

 

The army of shades froze in place even though they had stopped fighting when Thanos was killed. When Death was gone, they all flashed from faceless shadows into ghostly transparent figures that had the faces of the long dead. All different kinds of alien to humans and animals. They disappeared the same way that Death did.

 

“Destroy it.” Peter tossed the Death stone to Carol who stood by Wanda. They both had their powers come from the infinity stones and it technically worked last time. Peter honestly didn’t want to deal with it. “Did we lose anyone? I think I can bring back everyone wrongfully taken…” Peter said, knowing full well that he meant the dead. There were so many heroes that he couldn’t really keep track of them all.

 

“Peter… I think you need to see this…” And that’s when he knew something was very wrong.

Notes:

Sorry for the long wait! I've been pretty busy and this chapter gave me a bit of trouble. Please please give me your thoughts and screams below, I am very excited to see them. I'll try to finish this before Endgame comes out but I can't promise anything. I'm on Tumblr as 'Science-lings' and all affiliated accounts. I'm actually starting to take commissions on my art account 'Sciencelings-arts' so I would appreciate if you checked me out there. Your comments mean everything to me, I'm so glad to have such a supportive group of readers. I go through all of my comments whenever I feel down lol.

 

I guess I'll see you one last time! Bye!

Chapter 58: The Price of Victory

Summary:

Peter figures out what was lost by winning

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

May was in the safest place on earth. The vibranium reinforced bunker under the golden city in Wakanda. She was surrounded by important people that were non-combatants, but that didn’t dismiss the fact that it was literally the Queen Mother and some of the most well-known scientists, ones whose names even she could recognize.

 

May couldn’t do anything but pace in a line. Janet van Dyne tried to talk to her but her worrying made her deaf to all reason. She had Pepper and Tony connected to her earpiece and could hear what was going on, so she would be one of the first to know if anything happened. There was a decent amount of yelling but nothing too concerning, until it was.

 

At one point during the mix of frantic instructions and wordless grunts, there was suddenly a slight change of tone along with the words, ‘where the hell is Peter’. There was more than one Peter on the battlefield but May knew that Tony was talking about her Peter.

 

“Tony, What’s wrong…” May said into her com.

 

“We think Peter… well, there’s no way to tiptoe around this. Peter went to confront the grim reaper looking motherfucker.” Tony’s voice wavered a bit, but even without it, May was sure that the joke was just a weak attempt to hide his terror for the kid.

 

“Can you… stop him from walking straight into Death?”

 

“I would if I could and I’m doing my best to get him back. Sorry May, I need as much focus as I can muster to get your kid.”

 

“Our kid. Yeah… shit, keep me posted. Please.”

 

“You have my word. Oh, come on-” And there he went, back into battle. May collapsed in the chair next to Janet. She prayed to any god listening that her son-nephew would be okay but this wasn’t something she could just hope away. She could literally feel her hairs turning gray.

 

The next ten minutes went by in slow motion. Every moment was filled with her own thoughts filled with the fear of the next second Tony telling her that the worst had happened. But at least she was safe in the bunker. She wasn’t safe enough.

 

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The bright light of life incarnate faded from Peter, he didn’t need the power anymore. They had won. It turned out that the ‘light of life’ was kind of like the invincible star from Mario and when it stopped affecting him, it kind of sucked. Using the soul stone energy had physically affected his body in a less than fun way. He was covered in odd burns and felt weak enough to collapse with a gust of wind. But he desperately used the soul stone to see who they lost.

 

He scanned the battlefield and the longer it took, the more his throat closed in fear. Finally, he reached the safest place, where no one could’ve gotten hurt. He snapped back into his body with a desperate gasp. It may have been selfish but he would trade anyone for her. It was just another painful blow that she was gone.

 

He couldn’t let it sink in as he could feel himself losing consciousness. All he could do was mutter a desperate ‘No’ before his vision turned dark and his exhausted body plummeted to the ground. He hoped that someone had caught him in time.

 

As fast as the world had gone dark, it lit up again in familiar blood orange tones. He was back in the soul realm but for some reason, he knew that this was temporary and when he woke up, he would be back in his own dimension. In front of him was the soul stone, they weren’t in the form of Gamora this time though. It was the pale, pastel-toned version of himself that he assumed was what he looked like being consumed by Life. He felt like this version was much easier to get mad at.

 

“What happened to her,” Peter said calmly, trying to contain the despair in his voice and to keep himself calm.

 

“Life has a price and she had to pay it. She prevented everyone else from perishing and she has accepted her fate.”

 

“No… no… She’s all I have left…” Peter half sobbed.

 

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

 

“Are you trying to fucking say that I can just… live without her?”

 

“If you listen for one goddamn second, I’m trying to say you won’t have to... In a sense.” The supernatural doppelganger signed, seemingly a little bit frustrated. Peter froze and looked straight into his off-color clones pale eyes.

 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean. Last time I checked, you can’t just bring people back from the dead.” He said, surprisingly cold and deadpanned. He knew better than to have too much hope.

 

“You did.”

 

“I made exceptions for Gamora and Loki and the people who were wrongfully taken after the snap. It’s not the same as when Death herself fucking steals the soul of your aunt as payment for Thanos wasting her time.” Peter groaned.

 

“You’re right, we can’t bring her back to life. But we can bring her back.”

 

“I am not making my surrogate mom into a zombie.”

 

“She’ll be more like… Karen or F.R.I.D.A.Y.” Life-Peter said bluntly. “Like a ghost but not gone. However, this isn’t easy or something I can just instruct you to do. You have to figure it out yourself. It can be done and you’re the only one that can do it.”

 

“What-” Peter was interrupted by the feeling of being woken up. He was being torn from the stone and it made him feel a strange kind of nauseous and confused.

 

“You’ll figure it out-” His pastel clone said smugly.

 

“Oh, you asshole-” Peter’s eyes fluttered open. The light was dimmed but he was definitely in the Wakandan infirmary. His arms and torso were covered in bandages and his web-shooters were set on a nightstand to his left. He could feel the burns from overuse of the soul stone energy but not as painfully as he thought he would. He expected that it was because of the Wakandan tech being so much better than anything he was used to.

 

“Kid? Calm down, don’t make yourself pass out.” Peter realized that Tony was right at his bedside and he was panting like he had just run a marathon. “It’s okay Pete, we won…”

 

“It’s not over.” Peter gasped in between shallow breaths. “I can.. Tony, I can bring her back.” When he said it, Tony looked at him in that big-eyed sad way that made him completely doubt what the soul stone told him. It was a hopeless gaze.

 

“You need time to grieve, this isn’t something you can fix.”

 

“I can’t bring her back from the dead… but I can’t lose her… Tony… I can’t…” Peter sobbed.

 

“I’m sorry…” Tony sighed sadly and opened his arms in an offering of comfort. Peter practically hurled at him. He wished that he could see May, that he could feel her arms around him like he the last time he woke up after using the soul stone so much. When he left for battle he didn’t think that it would be the last time that he saw her, at most he thought that he would be the one to fuck up and die but plot twist, fate had more in store for him. If fate was a person like death was, he wanted to throw a vibranium table at them.

 

“If she’s gone… what do I do now…” Peter muttered close to Tony’s ear.

 

“You really think so little of me that you assume I wouldn’t take you in a first opportunity? I am offended.” Tony said gently. Peter was shocked at the implication. But he wasn’t. It wasn’t that surprising when he thought about it for more than a second.

 

“You would…”

 

“I’m going to adopt you, Peter. If you want me to. Believe it or not, you got me emotionally invested in your wellbeing. Peter laughed shallowly. He was happy of course but there was and underlying sadness that he knew would stay with him no matter where he ran.

 

“I guess you’re a better choice than anyone else here,” Peter admitted with a wet smile. “I don’t want to be adopted by the Raccoon.”

 

“I have a feeling he would be a good dad though.” Tony joked.

 

“Yeah, he would kill everyone here if anyone looked at the tree guy weirdly.” They stayed in the tight hug, not daring to let go. They were comfortable just holding each other, doing anything to not feel alone. There was a long silence before Peter spoke again.

 

“There’s something that I can do, I have to do it.”

 

“And what’s that?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

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To his surprise, everyone from the alternate realities was still hanging out, worried about his condition even though they all barely knew him. They could full well go home, they had the infinity stones and there were plenty of people who were strong enough to wield them. There was also the girl that could literally punch through realities. But she was still there with the rest of them when Peter was wheeled to the large main room.

 

The moment he entered, the sound levels rose excitedly, which wasn’t very kind to his sensitive hearing. Robin hobbled over, his leg covered by a neon green cast with well wishes and signatures all over it. There was a noticeable gap in the writing right next to a thickly drawn ‘BRUCE’. Obviously Batman himself. Peter thought that it was pretty funny. A dozen other heroes were pretty roughed up but no one seemed too broken to not be fixed. No missing limbs, besides ones that were already missing in the first place. Needless to say, Bucky was running through metal arms like Peter ran through parents.

 

Reunions were strange, Peter didn’t fully expect to be picked up like a baby by Wonder Woman in a strange type of hug. He was still too weak to stand so he ended up spending a lot of time being supported by someone or to his embarrassment, being carried. At least it beat being in a wheelchair.

 

After Peter reunited with his alternate reality friends, he had to let them go. He wasn’t strong enough to use the infinity stones himself but Carol was up for the task and seemed to be one of the best candidates for it. Peter just told her what realities to connect the portals to and it was a piece of cake.

 

He knew he wasn’t done with traveling through realities. Peter had a list. The list had the date and exact time that he got the quantum power drainer, exactly what the note he had gotten said and the address of the hotel in the first reality, the last one he had visited. He had to go back at some point to make sure that this future happened. He had to perfect the quantum gauntlet and figure out how to make the device that would drain the quantum energy from his past selves body.

 

Peter spent all of his time occupied. He had to bring May back, he had to cement the timelines, and he had to make everything get back to normal. He consulted Mrs.Van Dyne for the quantum energy drainer and got help from Bruce Banner with it. That was the easy part. The quantum gauntlet problem was less simple. Reality traveling was ridiculously complicated and even the smartest people on the planet struggled with simply wrapping their heads around the idea.

 

It was one of these late nights, Peter was testing the physical power of a small amount of quantum energy when something strange happened. He had experienced a whole lot of weird shit and this wasn’t too different, but it had been a few weeks of normal life before this thing came out of nowhere.

 

Peter had seen portals before. This wasn’t anything like that. This wasn’t a cloudy hole in reality, this was a bubbling goo made of bright teal and purple blobs that opened up into a void, like a modern art piece made to be bright and comic-book-y. It had appeared and was only growing on the ceiling above him.

 

Things around him started to glitch as if he was in a corrupted video game. His spider-sense was screaming at him and he could barely get the quantum gauntlet on before he was starting to get sucked into the artistic disaster of a black hole. He shot webs at the wall and hung on with all his might.

 

His webs strained and started to break and Peter knew that he wouldn’t be able to escape. So he shot a web at the cartridges of quantum energy and activated his iron spider suit that overtook his body and normal clothes, eventually covering his face in his classic mask. The eyes lit up and Peter let go of the web. Letting himself be sucked into the dark vacuum.

 

It closed when he was gone, leaving only a destroyed lab behind. Thankfully, Peter had kept the list and the quantum energy drainer in his pocket and taken it with him. Not as thankfully, the quantum gauntlet was still very unpredictable. If he used it, he didn’t know where it would take him.

 

Peter wasn’t expecting another adventure so soon but he considered it a blessing. He couldn’t focus too hard on his loss when he was busy dealing with the crazy reality of the multiverse.

 

He didn’t expect this new universe to be made out of different material. When Peter used his iron spider legs to land safely on the ground, his mask retreated. This world was different than any he had ever been in. It was like a plane of existence that was drawn by a comic book artist with a very specific bright style. When Peter looked at his hand in curiosity, he noticed that he was in the style of this universe. Like he was in an animated movie.

 

Then his spider-sense went off and his entire vision was engulfed in red and blue and strange squiggles before a voice came from behind him.

 

“Hey kid, Don’t freak out.” Peter immediately spun around and shot a web at the guy and groaned when he could process what he was seeing. The guy was dressed in a spider-man suit, similar enough to his own red and blue one without the thick lines around the shoulders, the man had sweatpants on and a beer-belly and looked like a distorted version of an older Peter.

 

“You have got to be shitting me.”

Notes:

Sorry, it took so long to update! I hope I met your expectations at least. So, who's ready for part 2? Please comment and follow me on Tumblr (science-lings, Sciencelings-arts, Sciencelings-writes) for more of me. I also have a poll that I would love any opinions on that will affect my writing and drawings so, please: https://forms.gle/hzoD4ay5u11MUaJo8

I hope you liked Peter Parker's Adventures Through Time and Space! See you next time!

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