The Amazing Spiderson

Heaven was always a bit of a stretch for Peter Parker. I mean sure, he was no murderous villain but if that was the sole criteria for denial into the pearly white gates then heaven must be a pretty crowded affair. Peter talked back, he did things he shouldn’t, and how long has he been lying to his family and friends about where he goes on Friday nights? The point here is that he was no saint. But even he had to really evaluate his past if he was already in hell.

His eyes opened slower than normal, and his joints felt odd and stiff. When enough sand had moved from his direct eyesight he saw a barren wasteland of tan, and for all the nothingness in front of him, he felt the same inside. He would have called it an out of body experience if he wasn’t so strangely aware of all of his limbs, and for some reason he had never experienced, he was having trouble controlling them. He coughed, and the sound got stuck in his throat as nothing but a swirling mess of more dust came out. Hell was a whole lot different than its representation on Earth.

Slowly he began to regain motion. First his hands planted themselves on either side into the rough terrain beneath him and then at a speed that rivaled that of a turtle, his legs followed suit until eventually he was actually standing. This proved more of an inconvenience than anything as he brought a shaky hand to his head and tried to figure out what exactly was making his brain pound like this. Weren’t you supposed to leave your physical form when you die?

Behind him he heard a groan, and the sound of a large body hitting the hard dust at his feet. “Jesus.” He heard someone mutter--- along with a few other choice words Peter choose not to repeat. Peter almost got whiplash with how hard he turned to stare and was both surprised and confused at the revelation of not being alone. Was hell personalized? Because now that he found his bearings this place looked a whole lot like Titan, just without the impending sense of doom. The one who spoke, the large one with the mask, and the name that sounded like the rejected idea for a Star Wars character pushed himself to a sitting position, half supported by the shell of what once must have been a ship but could more accurately be described as rubble. “Usually when I’m hungover I know what I did to deserve it.” Mr. Lord voiced, rubbing his eyes just as Peter had done moments ago.

So he wasn’t dead. He fiddled with his fingers as a way to secure that idea, and was surprised to find that they reacted to his internal command. He wasn’t dead! This was Titan, and although it wasn’t on Peter’s Top Ten Places to Vacation list, he still had to revel in the fact that he was here! He didn’t die, and Tony didn’t------

Tony. He realized in the same thought. There were four bodies surrounding Peter now; and neither Tony nor the blue lady who had crashed her ship into Thanos was in sight.

“How long has it been?” Doctor Strange questioned, fiddling with his own fingers ever so slightly. That’s right. They had literally disintegrated into ash. His memory was still fuzzy on the logistics of it but now that time was in question he could definitely remember that Tony and Blue were the only ones to remain intact when the rapture came. They probably left moments after.

“Oh let me just check my magic watch that counts all the days we didn’t exist for.” Mr. Lord responded, moving to lean his head back against the wrecked ship, and holding his side as if they had gotten out of battle mere minutes ago. He coughed, and a tornado of beige sand came out that unsettled Peter to no odds. What the hell happened to them?

Doctor Strange merely gave that look that until recently Peter had thought was reserved for Tony. A mix of ‘one day your own stupidity will kill you’ and ‘or I will’. But instead of retaliating, Strange just checked his powers with a wave of his mystical hands. They glowed orange, and Strange just nodded as if to say ‘just as I expected.’

“They did it.” He mused, so quietly that even Peter’s spidey senses had a hard time picking it up. He didn’t really blame his sixth sense for lying dormant right now, though… he had just died. Even now his body didn’t feel like his own, and he was still getting used to the constant thudding in his chest that signified life. Was he really alive? Did he disappear here days, months, maybe even years ago? He pinched himself----- as cliché as it sounded just to be sure he could feel pain, and when he felt the small prick on the palm of his hand he breathed a sigh of relief. They really did it. He was alive.

“I did it.” The burly blue one said, “I have defeated Thanos!”

Everyone took a second to stare, unsure of what could possibly be said now. They all just kind of tacitly agreed to pretend that didn’t happen.

“Was it the Avengers?” Peter asked---- knowing the answer full well.

“What was left of them.” Strange responded. He took one look around at the people surrounding him now and with one piqued eyebrow asked if everyone was okay. Groans ensured, but he continued on regardless. “The time stone is unprotected. I assume you Guardians have a ship that can get you back to Earth?”

“I--- you’re leaving?” Peter asked, visibly shaken by the idea of staying on this pseudo Tattoine alone.

“Unless you’d like to traverse several dimensions?”

Peter thought back to the fact that he had literally just reemerged in this one. Reality, as much of a bore as it could be, was just fine with him for now. He shook his head.

“That’s what I thought.” Doctor Strange said, waving his hands as a shimmering yellow portal appeared. He already had one leg in when he thought of something he’d forgotten. “----Give Tony a call. When you get the chance.” And with that he was gone.

His disappearance acted as some sort of cue for the other’s to take charge of the situation. The one that looked like a blue WWE superstar let out a laugh that reminded Peter distinctly of a macho evil scientist as he proclaimed over and over again that Thanos met his maker. Whereas the female continued to revel in the loss of gravity much as she had done when they first arrived on Titan. Quill just closed his eyes and sat inhumanly still for a few minutes.

Peter himself was still testing out his motor functions, and wondering how in the hell he was supposed to get from here to Earth. He doubted Uber would pick him up.

After the novelty of life began to wear off, a slight chill entered the atmosphere.

“Peter!” The one with the antennae’s called, much to Parker’s surprise. Despite it being the least of his problems right now, he was still vaguely uneasy with the fact that these people knew his secret identity. Had he accidentally let slip? Had they been watching him? Had Tony called him by his first name instead of kid for the first time in recorded history?

Before Peter could voice his concerns, Mr. Lord responded, with a “yeah?” that sounded like something between a grunt and a sigh. His side was definitely messing with him.

“The temperature is dropping, I don’t think Titan is inhabitable at night.” She continued, unfazed by the fact that Mr. Lord responded to “peter”. That was either because a) they had somehow planned an elaborate prank to mess with Peter Parker while, or possibly after they were disintegrating, or b) even millions of light years from Earth ‘Peter’ was still a very common name. His clever inductive reasoning skills choose option B.

“Makes sense. Come back from the dead only to die again…” He took a second to breath, “Any chance either of you still have the keys to the Milano?”

“No.”

“Your spaceship has keys?” Peter found himself asking. It seemed silly that technology so advanced could be so archaic.

“Not functional ones, but it’s got a really cool bottle opener key chain I’d like to keep.” Older Peter responded, pushing himself up from the ground in a heavy feat of unsettling motion. “I take it you’re hitching a ride with the guardians, kid?”

“If that’s not too much. I mean I could---” He was going to say find another way home. He really didn’t want to be a burden to these people but at the same time he’d seen about as much of Titan as he’d ever like to see.
“Nah, I think----“ Quill gave a look at his friends behind him, that were desperately trying to figure out how standing worked. “I think we’re headed there anyway.”

It took probably about an hour to first, find the ‘Milano’, second get it to start after having gathered dust for X amount of time (Peter could, if he wanted to, deduce how long it had been but frankly he’d really rather not.) and lastly figure out which way exactly Terra was. But in due time, they were departing the planet of ash and Peter thought it not a minute too soon. Relatively close to when they had first departed the planet a blue flickering holographic message appeared on the screen in front of the Captain’s chair and a small, sentient Raccoon was cursing loudly, vividly, and explicitly about how he wanted to get off this (censored) planet called Earth. There was a tree next to him that desperately wanted everyone to know that “he is Groot.” And after the Guardians had their very confusing arguing match that had the vague under-tones of missing one another a familiar name was brought up: Thor. Thor was an Avenger, and the Avengers (probably) were the ones who saved the Universe, and Tony Stark was most definitely at the front of that charge.

“Do you know Tony Stark?” Peter asked desperately, flashing back to Doctor Strange’s parting words to notify Tony of his return.

The raccoon gave a huff and an eye-roll. Oh yeah, he knew Tony. “The douche bag in the suit?”

Peter hated himself for answering “yes” but he just wanted to get to the part about knowing where Tony was and how he could talk to him.

“Our parties split up--- divide and conquer and all that. I think he was on the team that found Thanos. Didn’t leave a number though, sorry kid.” And peter’s heart dropped. Was Tony not as desperate to see Peter as he was? Perhaps Peter’s groveling on Titan had been too much, and the international billionaire had officially felt like his duty was done. Maybe he didn’t even have a reason, just decided that after all of this he needed a break from the kid who only seemed to bring problems.

No. He had to believe that Tony had a plan. Iron Man always had a plan, and now, when hope was just starting to break the horizon, was not the time to question Tony Stark. He would find Peter, it wasn’t a question of if, but rather when.

The transmission call ended, and Drax, Mantis, and Quill (he knew their names now!) wandered off to different quadrants of the ship. The ship itself was huge; much nicer, and more personalized than the donut Peter, Tony, and Strange crashed and Peter, while offered the room that belonged to the raccoon currently on Earth, found himself spending most of his time in the kitchen.

Apparently dying worked up an appetite. Peter was offered everything that was still edible (even if only partly) and he took that offer graciously. Maybe it was the way his hands still shook that concerned him, or perhaps the way that no matter what he ate his stomach still felt empty but he could not shake the memory of de-materializing for more than a few minutes. He’d try to focus on May, or Ned, or MJ, or anybody back home and every time he did he could only wonder if they suffered the same fate as he.

He had just died. And not only that; because he hadn’t been able to get that damned gauntlet off in time countless others had died too. Families, friends, the guardians and millions of others all because Peter Parker wasn’t strong enough. He keeps on replaying that moment in his mind and just thinking if he had tried harder-----

“Hey, kid.” Quill walked in then. The nickname twisted his heart in a weird way, but apparently his forehead read ‘kid’ as that was now his official term used by almost everybody voting age and above. They’d been at warp for probably about three Earth hours now (although time was hard to tell with no sun) and this was the first Peter had seen from Quill since boarding. He didn’t look as he did on Titan. And that was neither a diss nor a compliment.

On Titan he looked like a mad man---- one who did not fear death and carried a vengeance as his primary fuel. Now however he just looked sunken. Like his entire body was contracting in on itself, or he had caught whatever the term for the flu was in space. A part of it had to be the fact that they lost the initial fight, but nobody else seemed to pale as much as he had. It had to be about that girl he was fighting for, or perhaps his lost friends on Earth and either way Peter knew that the best way to deal with that right now was head on.

“Mr. Quill…” He started, and Peter’s face soured.

“Call me Peter, Peter. I literally disintegrated in front of you, I think we’re there now.”

“Mr. Peter…” Parker started again, and despite Quill’s laugh continued on anyway. “Who was Gamora?” He only remembers the name because “Where is Gamora?” was the question directed at him while at gun point. It’s the kind of thing that sticks with you even after the adrenaline wears off. “You don’t have to tell me I just----- I know it helps when I talk about it and…. I guess that’s more of a preference thing, but I just… I’m sorry I shouldn’t have even ask----“

“No it’s fine.” His rambling was cut off promptly.

“Gamora was family.” Quill answered finally. He had turned and positioned himself so that his face was only half visible, and even still Peter Parker could still see the pain etched on it. “We met a couple years back when… she tried to kill me when I tried to sell an infinity stone for a couple thousand credits and we ended up breaking out of the universe’s most protected prison.” He said it all like he was describing a typical Tuesday night, and Peter genuinely could not tell whether or not he was joking.

“I realized it too late but… I love her.” He said simply, and Peter thought it better than to correct his use of tenses. He still uses present tense when talking about Uncle Ben, or his parents.

Peter had never really played this role before. The comforter instead of the one who needs comforting. It was weird, and as his hand touched down upon Quill’s shoulder he had to look into his wide array of traumas for guidance. “Love doesn’t end at death.” Peter said, mimicking the words a heartbroken Aunt May had told him after Ben’s funeral a few years back. It felt weird coming out of his mouth now, and he remembers the sinking feeling when he first heard it, but months down the line he’d think back to that and find peace. Maybe Quill would too. “And who knows, maybe the Universe will right itself again. Now that Thanos is gone…. Maybe there’s hope.”

Quill smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re pretty wise for being twelve.” He replied, using the back side of his hand to swipe at something on his cheek.

“I’m not twelve.”

Quill ignored that. “So, how do you plan on getting in touch with your dad?”

“My dad?” How the hell did Peter Quill know Richard Parker? He hadn’t even----- oh. “Mr. Stark is not my dad.”

Quill gave him a look. “Family isn’t blood.”

Rather than protesting he let the thought simmer. How was he going to contact Mr. Stark? It would still take hours, maybe even days to get back to Earth without the high tech of Thanos’ ship, and Peter highly doubted he could wait that long to check in on Mr. Stark without going crazy. What if he was hurt? What if he was on his way to Titan and Peter would reach Earth only to realize he was just as far away from Tony as when he started? Or worse, what if Tony was…..

He didn’t even want to think of that.

“I don’t know… I mean it’s not like you have…” He let his sentence trail off as his brain worked on decoding its own messages. Wait. Karen had a StarkPhone programmed in, and if Quill could communicate with Rocket on Earth, then maybe Peter could use that signal. Maybe he could phone home!

“The suit…” Was all he murmured, much to the confusion of Peter Quill. Parker pushed up from his seat hastily and all but ran towards where he last left his suit.

“Thank you Mr. Peter!” He called, barely registering the “Alright, let’s go back to Mr. Lord” he responded with. His mind was on other things.

If his mask was still on Titan then Peter knew the fates were playing a cruel trick on him, but with only minimal searching for the dust-caked wear, he found the mask and slipped it on giddily.
“Karen!” He all but screamed as soon as the screen flickered on.

“Mr. Parker, happy to see you back again.” She replied.

“Connect me to Tony Stark!”

“You are not connected to a proper network, so you will not be received as your user. Your message will more than likely appear in Mr. Stark’s ‘junk’ file.”

“Whatever, Karen, just connect me!”

“As you wish.”

And the ringing started. Beyond hope, or miracles, or fuck it even dumb luck Peter was praying that Tony Stark would pick up. Regardless of the fact he had no way of knowing it was Peter Parker calling, he had to pick up. He had to speak to him, hear his voice, explain where he was!

But with the final brrrrrring Peter knew his fate was sealed.

“You know who this is.” A familiar voice said, followed by a beep. Honestly, Peter Parker didn’t even know Tony Stark had a voicemail, and now was the worst possible time to figure that out.

“Mr. Stark!” peter started, feeling weirdly out of breath. “It’s your friendly neighborhood spider-man.”