Chapter 1
Titan was silent.
Not quiet—silent. A hollow kind of stillness that swallowed sound before it could breathe. The kind that came after something had broken.
Peter stood with blood on his suit and ash on his fingers. His chest heaved. His mask was long gone, his curls damp with sweat and dust. All around him, the battlefield was beginning to still, and it was wrong.
Something felt wrong.
First it was Mantis. Her face went pale, eyes wide, a word half-formed on her lips as she dissolved into golden fragments, scattered like petals into the wind.
Then Drax, frozen mid-step, blinking as if time betrayed him. Quill next—desperate confusion in his eyes before he too was taken, flickering into nothing like the embers of a dying star.
Peter’s stomach dropped. Cold sweat slicked his back. Something was happening—something bad.
Then Strange. Doctor Strange, who had seen it all, who had held fate in his palm and measured every possibility. He met Tony’s eyes with quiet resignation and said, “There was no other way.”
And disappeared.
Peter’s breath hitched.
Then he felt it.
It started in his fingers. Not numbness. Not cold. A heat—searing, electric, alive and angry. Like a thousand ants crawling under his skin with razors for feet.
His hand twitched uncontrollably.
“Mister Stark?” he called out, his voice too small.
Tony was there. Just a few feet away, shell-shocked, ash in his beard, eyes lost. But he looked up.
“I don’t… I don’t feel so good…”
Peter doubled over.
He didn't even mean to say it. It just came out, like his body was speaking for him. Like some ancient part of him understood before his brain caught up.
And then the pain hit.
White-hot, wild, impossible.
His nerves screamed. Bones flexed and cracked under invisible pressure. It felt like his insides were being ripped apart, one atom at a time.
He stumbled, breath ragged, every inhale a war.
His healing factor flared up in full force. He could feel it—his body trying to knit things back together, trying to fight off the tearing, the disintegration. Skin re-forming only to be stripped again. Blood cells replicating, dying, rebuilding, failing.
His DNA was unspooling like thread, and his body—his amazing, stupid, heroic body—kept trying to put the puzzle back together, faster and faster, desperate to live.
He screamed.
“I don’t—I don’t know what’s happening—”
Tony was at his side in a heartbeat, catching him as his knees gave out. But even in Tony’s arms, Peter felt everything. His back arched, spasming as another wave of pain carved through him. He clawed at the Iron Man suit, fingers curling like talons, mouth open in a soundless cry.
His brain was breaking under the agony. Every cell flaring and dying in sequence.
His healing factor didn’t know how to lose.
But this wasn’t a wound.
This was a command from the universe: You are no longer here.
“Save me,” Peter sobbed. “Save me…”
He didn’t mean to say that either. But it was true. He was seventeen. He had homework. He had friends. He had a life. He didn’t want to die on an alien rock light-years from home.
“I don’t wanna go,” he gasped. “I don’t wanna go, Sir, please. Please—”
Tony’s arms tightened around him like they could stop it. Like they could anchor him to this world.
Peter’s voice broke into a sob.
“—I don’t wanna go…”
His hands turned to dust first.
He felt it. Like pins and needles at first, then the horrible lightness of nothing. He looked down and saw them fading—bone, tendon, skin—himself, disappearing piece by piece.
He couldn’t cry anymore.
The pain was still there, but distant now. Like his brain had finally stopped trying to record it.
His healing factor was still trying. Still rebuilding. But it was fighting the tide with a spoon.
“I’m sorry…” he whispered. His last breath.
And then, finally, he let go.
Peter opened his eyes.
But it wasn’t Titan.
It wasn’t the harsh glare of a dying sun or the choking dust of a ruined landscape. There were no craters, no scattered debris, no aching emptiness that came after an impossible loss. It wasn’t Mr. Stark’s arms pulling him close, the sound of his voice barely making it through the fog of terror in Peter’s mind. It wasn’t the unbearable silence of death itself.
It was quiet. But not the eerie silence of the aftermath.
The first thing he saw was the gleam of polished mahogany. The grain of the wood was rich, deep, like it had been carved from the heart of an ancient tree, its curves and lines a testament to care and wealth. He blinked again—his lashes flaked with dirt, his eyes burning from the grit that had settled there. Blood caked the side of his cheek, still sticky and raw. His breath came in shallow, confused gasps, as though he was trying to remember how to breathe again after the void had nearly swallowed him whole.
His chest ached—aching in ways he didn’t understand, as if it had been torn open and sewn back together wrong. His ribs burned with every breath, his muscles trembling, his limbs heavy and unresponsive.
And the suit.
His nanotech suit—if it could even still be called that—clung to him in fractured pieces. The once sleek, form-fitting armor was now a chaotic mess of disjointed patches: patches of exposed skin stained with dirt, streaks of blood, and streaks of something darker, ash from the battle that felt so far away now. His shoulder pads flickered in and out of existence, weak and broken, like a glitch in the fabric of reality. Some pieces were missing entirely, leaving only the faint outline of where they once were, as though the very fabric of time and space had been warped around him.
Everything felt wrong. Too still. Too different.
Peter’s pulse hammered in his throat, each beat like a question he didn’t know the answer to. He looked around, confusion clouding his thoughts, trying to piece together the disjointed reality.
A long, gleaming table stretched out before him. Marble? No, polished wood. The deep, rich brown of mahogany, with veins of gold weaving through it like hidden rivers. The table was set with fine china and crystal glasses that caught the light in impossibly perfect ways. Each surface reflected light so carefully placed that it almost seemed unnatural—diffused, warm, as though someone had designed the whole room to make you feel like you were being bathed in sunlight no matter where you looked.
Above, the ceiling was a masterpiece—high and vaulted with intricate moldings, painted in soft, muted tones of gold and white. Ornate chandeliers hung from the ceiling like the wings of some celestial being, catching the light and sending it scattering across the room in soft, fluttering patterns. The walls were lined with tapestries, rich in detail, woven with threads of deep burgundy and emerald. The air smelled faintly of something expensive—a mixture of rich wood, leather, and the faintest hint of jasmine.
Peter’s head swam as his eyes struggled to take it all in, trying to connect the dots in a world that felt entirely alien.
And then he saw him.
Across the table, a man sat frozen in motion, staring at him. His presence was imposing—broad shoulders squared, posture impeccable. His crisp white shirt gleamed against the warmth of the room, the cuffs neatly pressed, and his cufflinks gleamed under the ambient light, catching Peter’s attention. Peter could almost feel the weight of them—the kind of cufflinks that probably cost more than his entire apartment. They reflected the light as if mocking him, showing off something Peter could never have, not even if he sold everything he owned.
The man looked like he belonged in a magazine—he was sculpted, perfect in a way that felt almost unnatural. Every angle of his face, every line of his jaw, seemed too deliberate, too sharp. He had the kind of presence that made everything else feel smaller in comparison. It was like staring at a marble statue of power and precision, too perfect to be real.
And yet, here he was—staring at Peter.
Peter’s breath caught in his throat, his mind still reeling, still unable to comprehend what had happened. The man blinked, still frozen in the moment, his expression hard to read. But the longer Peter looked at him, the more it felt like this room—and everything in it—was somehow made to swallow him whole.
Peter's throat was dry. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
He could still feel the ghost of Mr. Stark’s arms around him. The phantom pain of his atoms tearing apart. The scream caught in his lungs that never made it out.
A door opened somewhere behind him.
Footsteps.
A warm, casual voice called out, “Dami! So I heard you had an art exhibit today. You gonna pretend it didn’t happen, or—?”
The voice stopped short.
Peter didn’t dare turn around. He didn’t move at all.
Because the man in front of him—who had been reaching for a cup of coffee—was now staring at him. Not like a father looking at a son. Not like someone who saw something strange.
But like someone who just saw a ghost wearing his child’s skin.
Peter blinked again. Slowly.
“…Where am I?” he rasped. His voice was small, hoarse, barely more than a breath. “What’s… What’s going on?”
The older man didn’t answer.
His chair creaked as he slowly stood up, one hand instinctively brushing the back of his waistband where a weapon might sit.
Peter flinched. The air was suddenly too sharp, the lights too bright. His head swam.
His hands were trembling.
“Damian?” the voice behind him said, much softer now. Closer. Uneasy.
Peter turned.
Another man stood in the doorway—tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, probably in his twenties, his mouth half-open in shock. His expression flickered between concern and alarm.
“I…” Peter started, and it hit him, all at once, like a punch to the chest. “I’m not—I don’t know who Damian is.”
The tension snapped.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
But the room shifted.
The older man’s eyes sharpened. The younger one stepped back, hand darting to a phone or something else unseen. Somewhere, far off, Peter heard a security system chime to life.
The chair legs scraped against the floor as Peter shoved back from the table, breath catching. His knees gave out underneath him. He caught himself awkwardly, hands slipping on the polished floor, leaving smudges of dried blood and dust.
“I don’t—” his voice cracked. “I was just—I was with Mister Stark—he was—I was dying, I think—I don’t—this isn’t—”
He looked around, and nothing made sense.
Paintings lined the walls. The light smelled like expensive candles and fresh wood polish. There were too many forks on the table. His heart was beating so hard it might break something inside him.
The silence was crushing.
“I think you should tell us exactly who you are,” the older man said, finally. His voice was low. Dangerous in a way that didn’t need to shout.
Peter looked up at him—tired, aching, still covered in dirt from another planet, eyes still shining with leftover tears from a death that had happened only minutes ago.
“I’m Peter,” he whispered. “Peter Parker. From Queens.”
He didn’t say it to convince them. He said it to convince himself.
Because somewhere in his bones, he knew—this wasn’t Earth. Not his Earth.
And Mister Stark wasn’t coming through that door.