Chapter Text
He thought he was never going to come back. Dissipated from the universe, turned into dust. He didn’t want to admit it, couldn’t admit it, but he could feel it when it happened. When his body gave out from beneath him, turning from matter into dust. He could feel when his legs gave out, and he had no choice but to lean on his mentor, begging and pleading for his life. A life he knew was never going to return to him.
From the stories his friends and family told, he knew that none of them had felt it. They turned to dust and then blinked and then- bam! They were back, having had no idea that five years had just passed them by. It hadn’t felt like that for him, however. He could feel it, the emptiness. The chasm. It felt like too much yet nothing all at once, inside of him and outside as well. It whirled around him. Those five years dragged by, tearing Peter’s body along with it.
When he returned, it was to the sacrifice of his mentor. It was to the death of the one person who had believed in him, aside from Aunt May. But sometimes, even including her. Sure, she had supported him but sometimes he felt like all she thought of him was some neighbourhood spiderman, swinging from building to building to help old ladies cross the street and rescue puppies from trees. And, yes, he did do that. He enjoyed doing that. It gave him a sense of purpose, to help out the average Joe or Mary, a faceless figure who was there purely for the average man. That was why he had rejected Mister Stark's request for him to become an avenger. But when he was sworn in, through panic and chaos and the shock on his mentor's face that Peter hadn’t returned back to him, he was finally worth something bigger. He belonged to something bigger than himself.
Mister Stark hadn’t died that day. When he snapped, those stones that wielded power beyond any mortal being’s worth, somehow Mister Stark hadn’t died. But Peter admitted, only in the quietness of the day as he lay down on a hard plastic chair that dug into his spine outside of Mister Stark’s room, that Mister Stark should have died that day. Instead, as soon as Thanos dissipated into the air, Mister Stark was whisked away and fell into a coma. Indefinitely. He could wake up from it just as much as he could die from it. But as each day dwindles by, the chances of him waking up become slimmer and slimmer. If Mister Stark did die, it would be as a hero. His legacy would never fade. Faceless names in the streets would mourn for him as if they knew him. His daughter would have a father that set a bar so far high she could never, and would never want to, reach it. His daughter would be able to visit his grave every once in a while, through each milestone in her life, to find her father resting peacefully.
Instead, the five year old has to see her father lie, unconscious to his surroundings, and whisper to her mother in a childish voice ‘Is daddy dead?’. Instead, Peter has to hear Miss Pott- Miss Stark cry at the question, shushing her child.
It’s been four days, two hours and thirty minutes since the snap. Since Mister Stark was last alive. Conscious, Peter corrects because technically he is alive. He’s just not aware. Peter hasn’t been in the room once however, he finds that he can’t bring himself to step foot in that room. He questions if he’s even allowed to. He’s only heard Miss Stark and their daughter through the walls of the hospital. Sitting on the floor beneath them to ensure they don’t see him. He’s not sure what will happen if they do.
He can hear their daughter giggling with Happy through the walls when he asks her how many cheeseburgers she'd like to eat. That reminds him of the first interview he saw of Mister Stark, after he got back from Afghanistan, eating a cheeseburger whilst he announced news that would shake the cores of the American journalists for years to come. When he announced that a weapons company would no longer be manufacturing weapons. Peter wonders what made him have a change of heart, although he knows that something must have happened to Mister Stark whilst he was away that would make him change his mind. Maybe he lost someone, or just finally realised what a shitty thing it was to be selling weapons.
The sound of shoes shuffling on the floor is what caught Peter’s attention, and he snapped his head up to find a nurse looking down at him. This was a different nurse than the past three days, and she did not look as lenient as the other nurse.
‘You need to leave’ She said, and before Peter could come up with a million excuses as to why he actually couldn’t, she walked away. He couldn’t blame her. He'd also be annoyed if he was just trying to do his job and some random kid was sitting there. Still didn’t make it any less annoying when he had to gather up his stuff and shove it in his backpack.
It wasn’t actually his backpack. He’d found it on the floor on the way to the hospital, and stole some clothes from a local shop. Well… Peter didn’t really want to say stole as he’d promised to pay them back but legally it was what it was. Stealing. The thought of his backpack had him thinking of Aunt May. He wondered where she was, and what she was doing. He returned to their apartment the second Mister Stark was placed in the hospital, but found it inhabited with another family. A family that looked shocked at the random boy who had burst through their door wearing a spiderman costume.
He decided, whilst Mister Stark was surrounded by his family and friends, that he’d look for his Aunt. At least try to find her. So, with his costume back on, Peter swung from building to building in search of his Aunt