#also a weird thing I’m running into is that I can’t really fantasise about alternate timelines where this didn’t kill him

[melrosing]

I'm just a lurker in the fandom who occasionally comes to your blog to read your Jaime posts, but as someone whose mom died eleven years ago, I can tell you it does get better eventually. It just takes forever.

aw thank you so much and I’m so sorry about your mum. I’m still kind of in disbelief?? like what the fuck he fully died?? sounds fake. but once the funeral is done maybe I’ll start moving along idk. either way thank you so much for your message, I really don’t want it to hurt this bad forever so that is genuinely reassuring 🥲

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

Fic: everywhere but here (1/?)

first MCU fic! i’ve been wrestling with this over a month so that i can post the whole thing in one go, but honestly the story’s getting too long, i’m really unsure if i’ve nailed the character voices, and my life is so full right now. so i’ve split this into parts.

this is dedicated to the wonderful @franklyineedcoffee with whom i’ve done much nerding out over the last couple of months; and also to fellow spiderman enthusiasts, @queen-of-carven-stone, @hacash and @sunflowerchester <3

Summary: SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War. After the final battle on Titan, a combination of Soul Stone shenanigans and his own spider powers means that Peter is pinballing between realities, forming and reforming until he’s sure it’s going to drive him nuts. He’s desperate to get back home, but he needs to figure out what ‘home’ is first.

One

"Hey, Mr. Stark."

"Yeah."

"Remember when, um, when you and the other A-Avengers faced down the first Chitauri invasion? Like, way back when? In New York?"

"Kid, you're talking about it like you read it in a history textbook."

"It is in my history textbook, actually. Except I was also kind of there to see it all happen--well, a bit of it, anyway--and that's never stopped being awesome, but, okay. That's not my point. Do you remember what happened after?"

"Shawarma. Parties. Lots and lots of governmental red tape. Parties. The worst year of my life. Did I mention parties?"

"I--uh, we always figured that you guys, you know, lived in the Tower together for a while. I mean, you know. Training together, eating together, just--being a team."

"Like a regular domestic, you mean? Rogers manning the grill, Bruce landscaping the garden, Nat telling us we're all idiots while doing backflips?"

"Um... maybe?"

"Nah, kid. We went our separate ways until the next big world-threatening thing came around. Adult friendships, see, don't quite work the way you think they do--"

"Adult frien--Mr. Stark, I'm sixteen, not five."

"Could've fooled me."

"I guess I'd kinda hoped--anyway. Never mind, Mr. Stark. It's stupid."

"At any rate, I screwed the pooch on the whole Sokovia Accords thing, so don't hold out too much hope for a big Avengers family reunion any time soon. Or for whatever else you were fantasising. Or reading from the tabloids--"

"Yeah, okay, Mr. Stark."

"--all of which, by the way, think Rogers and I have some sort of secret super-powered lovechild, and that's how the whole issue blew up--"

"We can stop talking about it."

"--which is absolutely ridiculous; Rogers is kind of my godfather which would make the whole thing vaguely incestuous, which, hey, I'm all for whatever floats your boat usually, but that's taking things just a smidge too far--"

"FRIDAY, stop!"

"... apologies, Mr. Parker. Shall I cease the Tony Stark simulacrum altogether?"

"N--yeah, FRIDAY. Yeah, thanks. I guess I thought if I heard a familiar voice I could--um. Yeah. You can shut it down."

"May I help you in any other way, Mr. Parker?"

"No. I was just leaving."

"Catastrophic damage has rendered much of the roadways outside of this building unusable. May I suggest seeking an alternative mode of transport?"

"I'll figure something out."

-

It starts off as a weird thrumming sensation at the back of his neck which blows up abruptly into the worst anxiety that Peter's ever felt--his hands shaking, gut cramping, sweating almost right through his suit. His first instinct is to run--usually when he feels like this, there's something to run away from. Now, though, the shrieking sense of wrongwrongWRONG is coming from everywhere; he's being crushed by it, buried under a mountain of sensation that drowns out thought.

Peter takes a deep breath of Titan's hyper-oxygenated air. He sways, tries to catch Mr. Stark's attention, but he can barely get the words out. Besides: Mr. Stark's a bit pre-occupied at the moment, arguing with Doctor Strange--their words weave in and out of Peter's hearing, stones and destruction and this is the end of us all, over and over again--and every now and then he stops to catch his breath, hand pinned over that horrific wound in his stomach, knuckles whitening, and Peter--

and Peter--

wrongwrongWRONGWRONG

He can't breathe, he can't, he can't. Everything around him is an orange haze when he says Mr Stark? I don't feel so good and stumbles forward; the weak sun filtering through the dust is now blinding and he can barely make out Tony turning to him. I don't know what's happening, he says, and it's starting to hurt, a bone-deep ache like that time he got really bad food poisoning from spoiled shrimp when he was ten or, or, the time of the spider-bite--

Numbness is starting to chase the pain, spreading up from his feet and fingertips. He begins to fall, and Mr. Stark catches him--but not before he sees the tips of his fingers just... flaking away, floating  into the haze. Realisation hits him then: they’ve lost. He’s disappearing, and Mr. Stark isn’t, and Peter’s used to losing, but never quite like this, not this much. Absurdly, all he can think of right now is his promise to Aunt May that he’d help her with her new brownie recipe later that evening, finish making the last of the flash cards for decathlon practice for MJ, drop by Ned’s--ostensibly to study but really to start hammering out ideas for cosplay in time for the premiere of Solo--then maybe sneak in a neighbourhood patrol before bed, cutting through the chill air and feeling on top of the world because this is something, finally he’s doing something--

I don’t want to go, please, sir, I don’t want to go, he says, and he can’t feel his hands anymore but he tries to hold on anyway, scrabbling at Mr. Stark’s back even as he’s terrified that it’s going to fall apart in his arms too. He can’t hear what Mr. Stark’s saying over the roaring in his ears; he hopes it’s ssh, kid, I’m about to fix this like he’s heard a million times before but the words that rumble in his chest instead are if you die--

if you die, i feel like that’s on me.

The numbness is in his chest now, swamping his lungs with cold (like lake water, except Iron Man’s not here to save him this time--) Peter’s utterly out of breath (out of life) and falls, and Mr. Stark falls with him--through the haze Peter catches tears in Mr. Stark’s eyes and it is such a bizarre sight that he almost laughs. He wonders fleetingly about Uncle Ben, lying on the pavement gurgling blood and the weeks and weeks of black devastation that followed, and a part of him still untouched by the cold and fear and panic aches for the people who will live in the wreckage of… all of this (of his death).

I’m sorry, he tells Mr. Stark.

And then there’s nothing.

-

So. This is embarrassing.

Don’t get Peter wrong: waking up in his own bed, whole and well and alive, right after fading away into nothingness in Mr. Stark’s arms? Is not the worst thing. He’s even willing to go along with the it-was-all-a-dream cliche if it means that Mr. Stark didn’t get stabbed on a dead planet in outer space and some big purple alien didn’t kill half the universe. He seems… fairly intact (Peter checked) and his bedsheets smell pleasantly of the cheap fabric conditioner that May is attached to and Peter is so so relieved that he feels like his heart is going to burst with the force of it.

Then--

“Kiddo, I hope you’re awake, because I don’t think they’re going to excuse you showing up half an hour late anymore.”

Peter freezes. Now wait a damn second--

Uncle Ben peeks into his room. “Oh, good! Spider-Man’s still alive and kicking! Breakfast’s on the counter when you’re ready.” He winks and leaves.

“Um,” Peter says intelligently, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.

He should be freaking out. He should be--is this a dream? Is Uncle Ben an alien? A shapeshifter? Was Mr. Thor suddenly going to walk in to see Peter gaping at the door like a landed fish? Why was he even using that expression when he’s never gone fishing in his life?

“UM,” Peter says again, louder.

Like Peter said: So. Frickin’. Embarrassing.