#marvel endgame

He refuses to let anyone—Pepper, Happy, Dr. Strange (Peter still thinks that’s a made-up name)—to take him. No, Spider-Man swings into the rubble of what is left of Queens, New York close to midnight.

He comes back to find no crime at all. No, instead people are setting up stalls with what they have and sharing resources, making food and handing it out to the homeless or disabled, volunteer groups made of stronger regular-citizens and the first responders teams of Queens have banded together to save citizens from collapsing buildings, mothers and fathers holding onto lost children until someone the child recognizes finds them, other parents are looking so desperately for their children, calling out their names ceaselessly in the chaos.

The city of Queens, New York has come alive in the total abandonment of all heroes: citizens, petty criminals, vigilantes, and minor villains all banding together to make sure the common public survives.

So when Spider-Man comes to town, assisting with the volunteer groups, helping now open-source stores and their employees hand out food and water and first aid supplies, helping parents find their children, the city thinks it’s a miracle. Not only is their favorite Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man back, but he’s alive after five years of radio silence following the blip, and he’s helping the citizens, just like he used to before Iron Man found him.

Citizens all over town rejoice. Fueled by their own hope for the future and determined to make it to the future, volunteering and resource efforts skyrocket, all “sponsored by” and assisted by Spider-Man himself.

Peter takes the time to look for the people he knows in the crowd. He makes sure Ned finds his Lola and his other family. He makes sure his lesser-known classmate, MJ, has enough supplies to last her for a while, when she insists she doesn’t have any parents to look for, or that she seems to want to look for.

Eventually, Peter stops by a stall hosted by F.E.A.S.T., and sees a very-exhausted May Parker handing out food. May doesn’t say anything when she sees him, but she gives him a knowing, relieved smile and hands him a loaf of bread for him to eat while he swings.

Peter Parker had lost everything once again.

At this point one would think he would be used to it. At least, he definitely thought he should be by now. At what point does someone just become numb to it all? It has to be close by now, right? Peter’s lost everything and everyone he ever dated to love whether the loss is attributed to death or something else entirely. (Like a memory spell, for instance).

It was typically through dying, though; Peter had lost a lot of people to death.

His parents, his uncle, his aunt, many of the Avengers, the mentor he saw as a father, and even himself during the Snap.

Even after the Snap he continued to lose people, this time through Strange’s spell. A spell made to fix the cracks within the multiverse by erasing the name of Peter Benjamin Parker from everyone's memories. Ned, MJ, even the remaining Avengers would forget who he was.

Peter was nobody; dead to the world permanently, a corpse with a beating heart, if one was feeling somewhat poetic about it all.

Not that he was feeling poetic, or feeling anything at all really, everyone he loved was either dead or had no memory of who he was, and it was taking a toll on him. As it would anybody, no?

He was getting tired faster, not that he ever got the amount of sleep he needed, but the fact was there. Though, he couldn’t really say if his lethargicness was from being tired with life or because his super-metabalism was going through food faster than he could acquire it.

Because he was homeless now, and Aunt May was dead, god she was dead and it was all his fault, why was he still here?

He was getting careless in his fights as Spider-Man; becoming even more reckless and dangerous than he had ever been before. He just didn’t care what happened to him anymore. Death was only terrifying if it came after people he loved, but now he had no one, and Death wasn’t so scary anymore.

More often than not he found himself on top of a rooftop in New York, watching silently as the city below him hummed with life, just trying not to think of everything. Or anything, honestly. He just wanted to breathe in fresh air and not think about how much he lost, how he was nothing more than a ghost with a physical body.

Forgotten and alone; just how many times had Peter danced this dance before? Too many, truthfully. Far too many to even dare to count. Counting would just make his thoughts darker, his body more tired, and maybe, just maybe, he’d lose this balance of living he was tightrope-walking with.

It was in his lonelier moments, these moments for example, that he missed Tony the most. The man was confident, a bit arrogant, sure, but he knew who he was, what he was doing, and why he was doing it.

Tony Stark was a genius who saved their world more times than Peter could count, who’d been a hero since before he became Spider-Man, since Peter was just a child. But he was more than that, Tony was a constant in his life. He was always there in the lab when Peter visited the tower, he always drank the same brand of coffee because it gave him ‘the good kind of buzz’ and had the same face that he made when he either finished a big project or started one.

Tony was somebody Peter could rely on to always be there, to never question himself and do what had to be done at the end of the day.

But now he was gone, and he took that constant with him; what Peter wouldn’t give to hear the man speak one more time. Even if it meant being called ‘underoos’ again.

Peter sighed silently, watching as people drove by in cars and the lights illuminated the night slightly as the city continued to stay awake long into darkness.

New York never rested, not really. He’d learned that a long time ago.

“What am I going to do, Mr. Stark?” Peter whispered to himself, his mask hiding the tears that were pooling in his eyes, “I don’t belong here anymore…I don’t belong anywhere.”

Silence was his answer. It seemed to be the only answer he received recently.

Spider-Man stood up slowly, stretching his limbs one by one as he flexed his hands twice before preparing to shoot a web and call it a night. He may live in a cruddy one-person apartment, but it still had a bed for him to sleep in.

However, his potential future sleeping plans changed as his spider sense screeched at him.

Peter clasped his hands over his head, grunting in pain as he fell to his knees.

His Spider Sense was too loud, too much, it hurt more than it had when he was with Thanos on Titan.

Black spots danced in his vision, his head spinned like he was in the world’s worst carousel.

Peter shut his eyes tightly, gritting his teeth as he tried to ‘shut down’ his Spider Sense.

But the pain only got stronger and the newly discovered ringing in his ears got louder, his sight blurring until darkness began to consume him.

He collapsed on the ground, his body unmoving and his mind shutting down for what felt like for good.

Peter closed his eyes, letting the darkness pull him into unconsciousness.

“Everything’s going to be okay, kid. You’ll be okay. I’ve always been with you, Underoos.”

Peter woke up to a mixture of smells consisting of rotten garbage, blood, gun powder, and…fear? Could someone smell fear? Apparently he could.

He sat up, groaning immediately as he hands flew up to clutch his head—he was having the worst migraine ever. Well, not really. When he first got bit by the spider and his senses enhanced by two hundred percent, he had the absolute worst headache ever. Like someone was stabbing him over and over again in the brain.

Spider powers? Awesome. Getting those powers? Not so much.

Peter didn’t recognize the alleyway he was in, which was a bad sign in itself. He’d spent plenty of time in them as Spider-Man that he should definitely recognize a Queens alley.

But it didn't look like he wasn’t even in Queens anymore.

The sky was dark and cloudy, the city was gloomy, people passing by the alley made his Spider Sense jump no matter who it was, not to mention the dramatic amount of gargoyles this city seems to hold.

Yeah, definitely not New York.

Which created the million dollar question—if not New York, then where?

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” Peter couldn’t help but mutter, glancing down at himself.

His suit was gone, replaced with the frayed MIT hoodie and gray sweatpants he had been wearing before he’d gone out for patrol that night.

“Does that make me Toto?” A voice replied.

Peter froze in place, not having the courage to turn around and face the voice’s owner.

That voice was familiar. Too familiar, it held the same snark that haunted both Peter’s dreams and nightmares, the same undertone of worry and comfort that he’d mourned. It was a voice he thought he’d never hear again.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter slowly turned around, his voice cracking.

Standing just a foot away from Peter, Tony Stark stood in all his glory, a grin on his face and a shine of excitement in his eyes.

The tech genius was ghost-like in appearance. It reminded Peter of a holograph, almost with the way his form had a blue tint to it and was slightly translucent.

“Heya, Underoos,” Tony chuckled, “Miss me?”