)
When Tony Stark burst awake, Pepper was the first to react.
“Tony, oh my God!” She began bawling very quickly, much more quickly than Tony would’ve guessed.
Carol, who had apparently also been by his bedside, was staring at him as if he had two heads. “You were dead!”
Tony couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think of a response; he just had to get back to Peter. He told Peter he would never leave him again, and now… He wouldn’t let the kid go through that crippling loneliness again. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. “No, no, no no no no. You need to put me back under,” Tony muttered, his eyes wide. Neither woman seemed to hear him, as Pepper kept rambling and Carol’s attention remained on her. “You need to put me back under!”
Pepper’s eyes flew up to Tony’s, her eyebrows creasing slightly. “Are you out of your mind?!”
“Stark, what are you talking about?” Carol asked at the same time.
Tony took a strangled breath. “I need to… Put me under. Please. Please.”
“Why?”
“I need to see him again. I talked to him. He told me he was lonely, and I can’t let him be lonely anymore. Please. Please. Please.”
“See who?” Carol looked absolutely bewildered.
Pepper’s face, however, melted into something akin to understanding. “Peter,” she whispered. “You talked to Peter?”
“Yes, yes, and he needs me, and I promised him. Put me under, Pep. Please.”
“Oh, Tony,” she said softly, her eyes full of pity. There was suddenly a sinking feeling in the man’s stomach. “It wasn’t real. You have to know that.”
“No, no, no,” Tony was sinking into desperation much too quickly; maybe it was all the physical trauma. His shook his head rapidly. “It was real. I know my kid. I know my kid-”
Suddenly, the door slammed open, revealing Bruce, looking quite shell shocked. “He’s alive?!”
“He just woke up,” Carol informed. “He’s saying that he talked to Peter.”
“Honey, I know. I know. You’ve been through a lot. You’re confused-”
“I’m not confused-”
“He just… sat up like nothing was wrong.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Tony, Peter is dead. It was all in your head.”
“No, no, no, I swear, it was Peter. I think they’re in the soul stone. We can save them. You just have to put me back under so I can talk to him and tell him everything is under control.”
“Oh, yeah, he wants us to put him back under.”
“What?!”
“Can everybody shut up?” Tony half-shouted, his voice dangerous. “Put me back under. Put me under. I need to talk to the kid.”
Bruce raised his arms in frustration. “Tony, you were gone. You weren’t thinking. There was… nothing. You shouldn’t be alive right now. This is a miracle. We’re not going to risk putting you back under. What if you never wake up?”
“It didn’t look like I was thinking because my consciousness was somewhere else, Bruce. Put me under right now, or I swear to God I will do it myself.”
“Tony-” Pepper started, her voice pleading.
“It was him, Pep. It was him. Come on. Believe me.”
“I don’t think you’re in the right mental state to make these kinds of decisions,” Bruce said, carefully.
“I meant it, Bruce. Put me under or I will make you.”
“Tony, you’re in your own head. You need to calm down or-”
“Or what?” Tony’s face was full of an animosity Bruce had never seen from him before. “What are you gonna do? Huh? Sedate me?”
“This is the oxygen deprivation to your brain talking,” the doctor responded. “You didn’t talk to Peter. You’re just… Lack of oxygen… It makes you go a bit crazy for a little while.”
“Are you telling me I’m crazy?”
Pepper grabbed Tony’s hand in an almost condescending manner. He pulled it away, which only caused his fiance to get more upset.
“Tony-”
“I know crazy.” His breathing was quick, panicked. His eyes glistened with tears, but he bit his tongue to keep them unshed. “I’ve lived crazy. Do you need a list of all the shit I’ve been through? I saw ghosts, yeah, heard voices. That was all in my head. But this? This is Peter. I know me, I know my head. I’ve spent years in it. This isn’t that. It’s Peter.”
“I know you know the truth. Think about it. You watched him-”
“Stop. Stop.”
“They’re dead, Tony. I know it hurts to say, I know it hurts to admit, but-”
“No. No. No no no no-”
“Denying it isn’t going to change anything.”
“You don’t understand. I saw him-” Tony cut himself off abruptly, his eyes glistening as if he had just had the greatest idea of his entire career. “Even if it wasn’t real, why are you… Why are you trying to take that away? I saw him, and… I got to tell him everything I didn’t tell him before.”
Tony’s plan seemed to be working, as Bruce had quieted down. Carol looked suspicious, but even Pepper seemed to have bought what Tony was saying.
“Better yet,” Tony continued. “What if it was real? What if we can actually talk to Peter? Wouldn’t that help us bring them back?”
Bruce sighed deeply, shaking his head. “Tony…”
As if on cue, an announcement blasted through the speakers. It was Thor’s voice. “We have some visitors we need everyone to meet! Security is telling me about a… a ghost…” Thor’s voice trailed off. Vaguely audible was the sound of someone whispering something to him. “Oh, yes, and our good friend Clint Barton! And the Asgardians! If everyone could come to the lounge, that would be great!” There was some more whispering. Thor sighed in exasperation before talking again. “I guess if you would rather stay with Tony, that is also fine.” The announcement fizzled out, and everyone in the room sat in the quiet for a moment, all staring at each other.
“You guys go,” Pepper stated. “I’ll stay here.”
“I kinda want to be alone right now,” Tony said, putting on his best sad puppy expression. He had learned that trick from Peter.
“You know we can’t leave you here by yourself,” Bruce insisted. “Not after everything that just happened.”
“Fine. Which one of you will talk to me the least?”
Pepper exhaled deeply. “Tony-”
“I’ll stay with him,” Carol spoke up, crossing her arms. “We barely know each other. What do we have to talk about?”
Tony threw up his arms. “Looks like it’s settled, folks. Me and the Captain will stay here while you guys check out our uninvited guests.”
“Maybe it would be better if I stayed here. I’m the doctor-”
“And miss Thor’s spectacle? That’s not the Bruce I know.”
Bruce seemed very taken aback by this, slightly frustrated as if Tony had revealed some great big secret. He bit his tongue, his eyes drifting towards the floor. “Fine. Pepper and I will go. Carol, don’t let him do anything stupid.”
“Nothing I do is stupid!” Tony shouted, doing his best to sound like he was drugged up as Bruce and Pep made their way out of the room, Pepper looking back at him sadly and Bruce having a staring contest with the floor. As soon as the door slid shut, Tony turned his attention to Carol, who was glaring at him suspiciously.
“Okay,” She said. “What was that?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Carol scoffed. “You think I can’t tell that you were manipulating them. Instead of thinking you’re crazy, they feel bad for you. You can get away with a lot when people feel bad for you. It was a good strategy.”
“Guess you’re immune to my acting chops, huh?”
“Let’s just say that… I don’t appreciate liars, so I’ve learned to tell ‘em apart from the rest.”
“That’s fair.”
“So, you want me to put you back under, right? You thought I would be easiest to trick?”
“No. I thought you would empathize, or sympathize, or whatever.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I talked to Peter. I could tell something was happening right before I woke up. He was freaking out. Crying, begging me not to leave him again. He basically told me he was trying to find some way to kill himself in there because being on his own was driving him crazy. I wanted to… Tell him I would make it better, but I didn’t. The only thing I could think to say was that I would come back for him.”
Carol exhaled sharply. “I’m sorry, Stark, but-”
“What would you do? If you were in my shoes?” He cocked his head at her, studying her expression as if it would give her answer away.
“Monica isn’t technically-”
“Peter isn’t technically mine, either. I only met him, what, three years ago? Feels like I’ve known him my whole life, though. Who knows? Maybe things would be better if I had. Besides, you told me about her. You’ve been by her side since the beginning. You love her. You take care of her. That’s what makes you a parent.”
“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do here.”
Tony sighed. “If I try to switch out the IV, it’ll set off every alarm. Bruce’ll come running. Fix it before it even knocks me out. Same would probably happen if you tried to switch ‘em.”
“So…?”
“I don’t know if you know this about me, Danvers, but I like to prepare myself for the worst. Even more important, I like to prepare Pete for the worst. In his room, in the basket in front of the bed, after you dig through all the Star Wars-themed Build-A-Bears he’s got in there, you’ll find a little Spider-Man lunch box. In there, there’s a set of keys. Twist the Iron Man key in the space on that desk,” Tony motioned over to a desk behind him in the corner of the room that housed a giant holographic screen. “It will manually override the alarms, and I’ll be able to drift off in peace.”
“What if Bruce’s right? What if you don’t wake up again?”
Tony took a breath. “You know that’s a risk that I have to take.”
His voice was so soft, his tone so serious, that Carol found herself nodding. “Fine. I’ll do it, but… You owe me a favor.”
Tony grinned. “Got it.”
---
Sneaking into the more restricted parts of the Avengers Compound was much easier than Ava had thought it was going to be. Granted, her “powers” helped immensely, probably the only time she had ever considered them truly useful. Soon enough, she was in what seemed to be the Compound’s living area (with a little help from the building’s AI, who seemed quick to recruit anybody who could possibly help with the current situation).
When she got there, everyone in the room was staring at her. The man she recognized as Thor, God of Thunder, was holding a microphone, going on about something or other. “And… a ghost.”
Someone, a dark haired woman donning a beautiful suit of armor, whispered something to him. He smiled widely at the words, grasping the microphone even more tightly before continuing on. “Oh, yes, and our good friend Clint Barton! And the Asgardians! If everyone could come to the lounge, that would be great!”
The armor-wearing woman whispered to him again, looking a bit annoyed. Thor sighed deeply before speaking again. “I guess if you would rather stay with Tony, that is also fine.”
He plopped the device on the table, walking over to Ava, his face twisting into something more intimidating. She couldn’t find it in herself to back down, even as he stood tall over her. He reached out his arm, presumably to call out his hammer. Rooted to the spot, Ava allowed herself to glitch away for a moment as the hammer flew its way into his hand.
“Who are you?” He asked, backing down slightly at the display.
“Ava,” she answered quickly, rushing to get to the part that would mean anything to them. “Ava Starr. I’m a… an acquaintance of Scott Lang? You know him, don’t you? He always bragged about meeting you in person.”
Steve put a hand on Thor’s shoulder, motioning for him to back up. The tension in the room diffused a little as Captain America himself cocked his head at her. “You know Scott? How did you meet him?”
A spike of pain coursed through Ava, her muscles jerking in response. “I needed something from him. He gives me quantum particles because they’re the only things that keep me alive. Now, he’s missing, and… I think I know where he is, but I don’t know how to get him out.”
“Quantum particles?” Bruce Banner, the Hulk, said, entering the room with a distraught looking blonde woman Ava recognized as Pepper Potts following close behind him. “How was Scott getting quantum particles? I thought travel to the quantum realm was theoretical. Besides, in all the tests we ran, even if we were able to get there, we wouldn’t be able to get back.”
“Scott can. And… It’s been weeks. I’m running on fumes now. I didn’t know who to go to. Dr. Foster, my… confidant, vanished along with everyone else. I went to meet Scott to get my supply, but he didn’t show. I went to his house, he wasn’t there. I went to where they keep the machine, in the van, and… It looked like it was still running. I think his friends vanished and left him there. In the quantum realm.”
“I can help you,” A voice said. Ava didn’t recognize it at all. She turned to look at its owner and saw a blue robot-looking figure who was perched in what seemed to be a somewhat uncomfortable position previously hidden by the presence of all the others in the room.
“Sorry, who are you?”
“My name is Nebula. Daughter of-” She cut herself off abruptly. The introduction had sounded practiced, as if saying it was a reflex instead of a genuine answer. “Nevermind. I know a lot about your kind of tech.” She raised up her hand, revealing a collection of wires and other materials in her wrist. “I’m made of it.”
Ava ignored the strokes of pain across her body, just like she had done for years on end. “So you can help?”
“Yes.” She stood jerkily, hesitating a moment before picking up a sleek phone from the table. She turned to Bruce. “Call me when I’m able to talk to him.”
Ava figured it was best not to ask as Nebula walked back towards the elevator, expecting her fellow traveler to simply follow behind her.
---
Carol knew that you could learn a lot about a person by the look of their room. As soon as she pushed opened the door to Peter Parker’s, she felt as if she was traipsing around the boy’s own mind. She ran her fingers over a Star Wars poster on the wall, looking down at the half-complete worksheet folded into a Calculus textbook.
The room was kind of a mess, to be frank. What she assumed was Peter’s laundry sat in a tower in the corner, overrunning whatever poor hamper was originally there to hold it. The walls and basically every possible surface were littered with post-it notes and polaroid pictures. To the right of the doorway stood a desk, and it was completely covered in textbooks, notes scribbled onto looseleaf paper, and an assortment of different mugs.
There was also two picture frames on the desk. One was a picture of a boy who she assumed was Peter giving peace signs to the camera, a woman in round glasses doing the same. They were both covered in flour. She assumed there had been some baking mishap. The other picture was a selfie of the boy. He was once again throwing up a peace sign, apparently his signature move. Behind him, though, was Tony, lying fast asleep at his desk in the lab, a bit of drool puddling on the surface beneath him. Carol chuckled a bit to herself at the sight of that one.
She let her eyes drift to one of the post-it’s on the wall. The black marker stood bold against the neon pink paper. “ask mr. Stark about Father’s day plans?!??!?!?!?!” It said with an exorbitant amount of punctuation marks and incorrect capitalization. Another one said in red pen, nearly illegible: “Tell Ned no go on raw eggs. Mr. Stark said even spiders get salmonella.” Then, an addendum: “Look up if spiders can get salmonella.” One post-it note was green instead of the normal pink and had little aliens doodled all over it. “Ask Mr. Stark to buy Area 51.”
She moved around the room, reading all the little post-it’s.
“Get stuff to make dinner for May tn!!!”
“Tickets for that reading go on sale SATURDAY AT NINE! That’s SATURDAY. AT. NINE. and don’t tell MJ!!!.”
“buy flowers for the anniversary so may doesn’t have to”
“FIX!!!!! SUIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Carol was smiling to herself before she realized how terrible this situation truly was. Judging by the way Tony talked about Peter and the way all the pictures in this room were so perfectly strewn yet completely dust-free (as if someone had been in the room every day to clean them off, but didn’t dare move anything else), it had actually slipped her mind for a moment that this boy was dead, or at least gone somewhere else. Somewhere nearly unreachable. Nearly.
She turned away from the walls at that thought and headed over to the chest at the end of the bed. She pulled it open, and, sure enough, it was filled to the brim with Build-A-Bear’s. There was a Darth Vader one (with a name-tag around its neck reading Darth Bear-der), a generic Storm Trooper, a bear with space buns just like Princess Leia, and more.
(Carol didn’t know this, but for Peter’s sixteenth birthday, Tony had bought out one of the Build-A-Bear’s in New York for the afternoon and allowed Peter to do whatever he wanted without any concern for the price. He had been a bit shy at first, but when he noticed there was only one worker who was only managing the cash register and making sure he didn’t destroy the whole place, he allowed himself to have more fun with it.)
She reached through all the stuffed animals, cheering under her breath when her hand found a metal handle. She yanked it out, smiling down at the Spider-Man lunchbox. There was a post-it on this thing, to, as if it was a note for Peter to find during an emergency. It wasn’t written in the kid’s normal loopy print, though; instead, it was in a neat cursive.
“You got this, Spider-Man:)”
She recognized Tony’s signature at the bottom of the paper. Her chest ached, suddenly. She did her best to make sure that the letter didn’t bend at all when she pushed open the lunchbox. Inside, just like Tony had said, there was a set of keys. Each key was themed to a different superhero. She flipped past Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and more until she reached the Iron Man one.
She shoved the keys into her pocket before heading out of the room as nonchalantly as she could manage.