death and rebirth
A foreboding feeling struck Peter Parker as all around him the Guardians began to disappear: first Mantis, then Drax and finally Quill. Peter felt like his insides were being torn apart and sewn back together constantly as Dr Strange also disappeared. He looked around, his panicked gaze trying to locate Tony. “Mister Stark? I don't feel so good…”
Whipping around quickly, the fear in Tony’s eyes mirrored Peter’s own, tenfold. It almost made Peter feel better as he stumbled into his mentor’s arms. Because surely, since Tony Stark is the bravest man that he’s ever met, and he too was afraid, maybe Peter could also be afraid? Tony caught Peter before he could hit the ground, gripping him gently, terrified that the slightest harsh movement might cause the teenager to be lost to him forever.
“You're all right,” Tony assured him but the soothing quality of his mellow tone was nullified by the tremor of his hands as he held onto Peter’s forearms. Please not him, he’s too young, he’s too young, he’s too young-
Peter struggled to stay upright in Tony’s grasp now. “I don't know what's – I don't know what's happening. I don't –” the boy couldn’t hold back his desperate cries, clutching onto his hero as he slipped to the ground. “I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, Sir, please. Please, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go…”
Peter had so much he still wanted to achieve: he wanted to graduate high school, graduate college, maybe fall in love someday, yet now he was going to die on an alien planet, millions of miles away from home, from his friends, from his Aunt May. As he lay on his back on the ground, he looked up towards the sky, knowing and hoping that somewhere out there was his home.
His eyes fell back onto Tony and his sobs were stuck in his throat at the sheer devastation in the man’s eyes. “If you died, I feel like that’s on me.” Peter inhaled deeply, the guilt overpowering his own regrets. “I’m sorry.”
Peter had never prayed before but in that final moment, he prayed that Tony would get to go back home, for the both of them.
One second he had closed his eyes, and in the next second he was reopening them. Peter’s head pounded as he sat up on the sandy terrains of Titan, flabbergasted to be alive. He inspected his surroundings and his bewilderment only increased when he saw the formerly deceased Doctor Strange standing before him. “Get up Parker. It’s been five years. Your Avengers need us.”
Gobsmacked, Peter stumbled to his feet and vaguely registered the distant chatter of the fallen Guardians. Mantis waved at him and he returned the gesture numbly. “Five years?! It’s been five years?!” Peter was beginning to freak out, whilst Doctor Strange ignored him. “Dude, that was one hell of a bomb you just dropped on me!” Waving his fingers, Dr Strange begins to open a portal and Peter gapes. “No way! Are you doing that yellow sparkly thing again? That’s awesome!”
“Kind of freaky if you ask me,” Quill piped up, approaching Peter and Doctor Strange along with Drax and Mantis. Doctor Strange shot him an unimpressed look as he stepped through the portal to Earth, the others following after him. Peter’s eyes were impossibly wide as he saw the thousands of warriors gathered before Thanos, his super hearings barely catching Quill’s words. “Hey, I’m not judging! I’ve done my share of freaky stuff.”
“Yes,” Drax nodded along. “Like when he laid with an A'askavariian.”
“IT WAS ONE TIME, MAN!”
“Avengers,” a voice called at the head of the fighters, and Peter gasped when he saw that Captain America summoned Thor’s magical hammer. Wasn’t Captain America a criminal now or something? Peter figured that a lot had changed in five years. “Assemble.”
Then, the battle commenced and Peter swung above the fighters on his webs, sticking to the ships flying above the battlefield. Landing kicks and punches on Thanos’ aliens, adrenaline soared through Peter’s veins. Eyes narrowing, he observed Iron Man being slapped to the ground by an enemy and he took the enemy out, before jumping to the ground and retracting his helmet.
Rushing to Tony, Peter helped him up and the fear and confusion of the past ten minutes finally caught up to him as he began to rant. “Hey! Holy cow! You will not believe what's been going on. Do you remember when we were in space? And I got all dusty? I must've passed out, Because I woke up, and you were gone. But Doctor Strange was there, right? He was like, "It's been five years. Come on, they need us." And then he started doing the yellow sparkly thing that he does all the time–”
Peter’s swept into a hug, the grip almost suffocating him. For a moment, he stands stock-still. “What are you doing?” Tony didn’t respond, simply clinging to him like he would disappear any second. A few tears fell onto the shoulder of Peter’s suit. Oh God. He saw me disappear, he saw me die.Last time he held me, I died. Peter finally allowed himself to relax into Tony’s embrace, as the older man was practically shaking from relief in his arms. “Oh, this is nice.”
For a few moments, they stood still together on the battlefield: a superhero-in-the-making and his older superhero mentor, two friends, a sixteen year-old boy and his father figure. Tony and his kid.
Tony couldn’t wait to see Peter meet Morgan.
Pressing a gentle kiss to Peter’s cheek, Tony finally steeled himself enough to pull away. His eyes lingered on the teenager, committing every last detail of his face to memory, like he had been doing every day for the past five years. Peter smiled bashfully, “Did I miss anything cool?”
“You’re back. That’s the cool part,” Tony said, his voice nearly cracking from the effort to remain composed. With a heavy heart, he patted his kid on the shoulder, getting ready to return to the battle. “Don’t die on me again, kid.”
“No promises,” Peter laughed, swinging away to return into the battle. Tony watched him go, a smile tugging at his lips. A remarkable sense of peace drifted over him. His kid was alive.
Tony’s fight was done.
Somehow, Peter acquired the Gauntlet and was simultaneously trying to fend off the Chitauri when Pepper Potts swept in to save him. “Hang on. I got you, kid.”
“Hi, Miss Potts,” Peter sighed in relief, before he was being dropped onto Valkyrie’s Pegasus, and then flung off by some cannons. “OH GOD!” He fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, thanking his Spider-Man reflexes for being able to survive the fall with only a few scrapes. For a moment, he simply laid there in horror, cradling the gauntlet to his chest protectively, when a glowing figure appeared above him. “Hi. I'm– Peter Parker.”
“Hey, Peter Parker,” Captain Marvel smiled at him. “You got something for me?”
Scrambling to his feet, he hurriedly tossed the gauntlet to her and he winced due to the aftermath of the fall. His words came out breathlessly. “I don't know how you're gonna get it through all that.”
Wanda Maximoff floated in, flanked by Pepper and some other people that Peter couldn’t recognise. “Don’t worry. She’s got help.”
The next moments passed in a frantic blur, filled with Peter fighting more aliens, and helping other Avengers in need, when suddenly the battleground went silent. The aliens had all disappeared. Raucous cheers filled the grounds, yet Peter could not partake as his senses went haywire. Something was terribly wrong, and he stumbled aimlessly in a seemingly random direction, allowing his sixth sense to take charge.
War Machine and Captain America surrounded someone that was sitting down and Peter hurried towards them - with his sense of foreboding at an all-time high since Uncle Ben had died - although his footsteps slowed when he noticed the broken figure sitting down.
It was Mr Stark.
Tony stared past him in a daze and his head leaned against some rubble behind him. In all the years that Peter had known of Tony Stark, he had never witnessed the man so emotionless, so defeated, so weak. Peter could hear the slowing thumps of his heart beating, his ears struggling to catch them as they became quieter and fewer. Peter crouched down before him, a hard lump forming in his throat, as he struggled to speak. “Mr. Stark?”
“Hey– Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? It's Peter. Hey. We won, Mr. Stark– We won, Mr. Stark. We won. You did it, sir. You did it,” Peter broke down into shuddering sobs, and he clung to his father figure, who continued to glance ahead unseeingly. “I'm sorry– Tony–”
Soft hands gently pulled him away from his fallen mentor and he fell back next to Colonel Rhodes, tears blurring his vision. The Colonel squeezed Peter’s shoulder in an attempt to be comforting but the action fell flat amidst both of their sadness. Pepper knelt next to her husband, taking his hand with one of her own and caressing his bruised and burnt cheek with her other hand. “We’re gonna be OK, Tony. Me, Rhodey, May, Happy, our Maguna and Peter. We’re all gonna be OK, I promise.” She pressed a loving kiss to his broken face. “You can rest now.”
Peter released a sob when Tony’s heart stopped and it didn’t start again. His arc reactor switched off a second afterwards, under Pepper and his intertwined hands. Pepper began to cry, resting her head against Tony’s shoulder, too exhausted and devastated to be strong.
Colonel Rhodes stepped forward, closing Tony’s eyes gently and then softly prying Pepper away from his best friend’s corpse and helping her up as she shook from grief. Steve delicately lifted Tony from the ground and Dr Strange opened a portal to New York-Presbyterian Medical Centre, considering the Avengers’ medical wing had been destroyed with the Compound.
“Wait.” Pepper stopped Rhodes from guiding her through the portal. She looked around frantically, her grief momentarily giving way to anxiety. “The kid. Where’s the kid? Where’s Peter?”
Peter was still standing and staring blankly at the spot where Tony had taken his last breath and Pepper headed towards him. “Hey Peter,” she whispered softly, placing a kind hand on his shoulder. They had never shared as close of a relationship as Tony and Peter did but Pepper had grown fond of the teenager during the time in which he had interned under Tony, and had often laughed and rolled at the predicaments the boy found himself in during his time as Spider-Man. She, too, had been crushed like Tony when the boy and his aunt disappeared in the Snap.
“He’s gone,” said Peter, his eyes unmoving on the same pile of rubble where Tony had sat for the last time. “He’s gone, Ms Potts. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Peter’s face crumpled as he finally met her eyes. “Everything is going wrong. It’s not supposed to turn out this way. He’s supposed to be here-”
A strangled sob gets stuck in his throat as Pepper pulls him into a hug and he lets himself cry on her shoulder, feeling exceedingly selfish that he was acting this way when she had just lost the love of her life. Despite this, he could not bring himself to pull away.
“I know,” Pepper murmured, running her hand through his curls whilst he clinged to her despairingly, and tears flooded her eyes.
After a long moment, he finally pulled away and wiped at his tears in embarrassment and he mumbled, “I’m sorry. You lost him and I-”
“Don’t apologise,” Pepper told him fiercely, gripping his shoulders. “We both lost him. It’s OK to be upset.” Wrapping an arm around his shoulders, Pepper led him towards the portal and into the hospital where a wing had been cleared out for the Avengers and their comrades who needed treatment. She sat the teenager down on a chair, considering he didn’t have any serious injuries due to his healing factor. “I need to…” Pepper trembled from the effort to remain her composure, as she thought of all the arrangements that needed to be handled upon Tony’s death.
“You need to sit down,” Rhodey said from behind her, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly, after having finished consulting the doctors since he arrived earlier whilst the two of them were having a moment. “Cap and I will get all the urgent medical stuff cleared: his death certificate-” All three of them shuddered at the reminder that he was dead. Tony was dead. Pepper collapsed into the chair next to Peter. “And I’ll handle the press. You and Peter need to get home and rest. I’ve called Happy and May to come and collect you both.”
“May?” Peter croaked out hoarsely, causing both adults to turn to him. His head hurt from all the crying he had done recently. “Is she alright?”
“She’s fine,” Rhodey told him. “She didn’t disappear in the Blip.” Peter appeared confused. “That’s what the media have dubbed the disappearance of half of all life in the universe.”
Pepper and Peter sat in companionable silence as they waited for May and Happy to collect them. “Peter!” May called, rushing into the waiting room of the hospital after ten minutes. Her erratic behaviour faded when she located her nephew and she ran towards him. Peter also stood, melting into the warmth of her embrace.
After a tearful reunion on May’s part - from Peter’s memory it hadn’t been long since he last saw her - the three of them headed towards the car, with May having to support Pepper and Peter who were drained beyond comprehension. “Happy’s at our place with Morgan,” May told Pepper, rubbing her friend’s back sympathetically. They had grown close in the past five years. May unlocked the car and sat in the driver’s seat, whilst Pepper and Peter got into the backseat.
Peter was too exhausted to ask any questions yet May explained to him anyway. “Happy and I started seeing each other four years ago. We got married last year.”
“That’s great, May,” Peter tried to smile to convey his happiness for her but he spoke slowly and without inflection so his smile fell flat.
“Morgan is mine and Tony’s daughter,” Pepper told him tiredly, though her smile at him was more genuine than his was towards May. “She’s four. He… He told her a lot about you. She’s very excited to meet Spider-Man.”
Peter felt like he was going to vomit. Tony had a daughter, a daughter that he would never watch grow up, a daughter who was only four years-old and would slowly forget details about him as she grew older.
Peter was six years-old when his parents died. He couldn’t even remember their voices. Morgan Stark was four years-old.
Morgan Stark-
Peter began to cry again.