Family Tree ~ An El Hopper and Peter Parker Story

Chapter 18

The party and the Avengers waited outside of the jet for Peter and El to come back out. They had been waiting for a while after discussing what to do about the supervillains and the Upside Down. They just needed to fill Peter and El in on what they were thinking on doing.

Inside the jet, Peter was finishing up on his new suit. El and Happy were talking to each other while waiting for the teen to finish. Happy told El several stories about Iron Man, which fascinated her and made her smile. She wish she could've known Iron Man as a person instead of just a hero that her friends told her about.

"He was my best friend, and he was a great person," Happy said. "A complete mess most of the time, but he always had the best intentions with what he did."

"Do you know what happened when he died?" El asked. 

Happy shrugged at her. "I wasn't there, so I'm not sure," he said. "All I know is that there was a huge battle at the Avengers Compound. All of the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, whoever those guys are, that weren't affected by the snap were fighting Thanos and his army. A lot were killed, but everyone out there survived."

"Including Tony Stark..." El whispered under her breath. "How did he die? No one ever said how he died."

"From what I learned from the Avengers, Tony was holding Thanos back from snapping again to wipe everyone out," Happy explained. "Thanos stabbed him through his armor. Tony would normally prevent that kind of thing from happening with his suits, but he didn't design the suit to survive. I think he knew he wouldn't be getting out of it alive. He grabbed the gauntlet off of Thanos and threw it to Nebula, one of Thanos's daughters, who killed him with a punch."

"Oh my god," El said.

"Captain Marvel then used the gauntlet to bring everyone back so Nebula wouldn't be wounded more than she already was," Happy continued. "For Tony, it was too late. For all of the dead ones, it was too late."

El felt like she was going to cry from the story. She never knew that being a hero like that would have so much consequences to it. She looked over at Peter, who wasn't even paying attention to what they were talking about. Remembering how he told her about how he held Tony in his arms, she was glad he didn't overhear the conversation. Having to endure that must've been too much for him and she felt terrible.

"Do you think that... that Tony would've lived?" El asked Happy. "If he did design his suit to survive?"

Happy sighed and looked down at the floor. "I'm... I'm not sure," he said. "I think he just knew he wouldn't make it out alive. But he didn't back away. He fought Thanos for the world. If it weren't for Peter, he wouldn't have fought."

El raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean?" She asked.

"When the snap happened, Peter died in Tony's arms, becoming nothing but dust," Happy explained. "I remember when he came back to Earth, he was distraught over it. He wouldn't leave his room for weeks and he punched his walls a lot. Cap went to go talk to him, asking for him to fight Thanos because they still had a chance to save everyone. Tony refused, thinking there was no hope."

"And Peter convinced him to fight?" El asked for clarification.

"That's right," Happy said. "I was there in the room when he looked at a picture of him and Peter at the internship. After that, I helped him suit up in his armor."

That was when Peter stepped out of the room he was in. He was wearing his new Spider-Man suit, which was mostly red with a bit of black around the sides. A black spider emblem was on the front and there was a white spider in the back. His lenses on the mask were able to move again and his webshooters were updated a bit.