Harrison Germain has lived on Earth for only a short period of his life. He made the life-saving decision to move to New York when his home planet was destroyed. Harrison believes he's the farthest thing from ordinary, until he meets someone similar...
"Something is happening." Mantis declared as she walked over to Quill, looking out into the distance as her body disintegrated into an ash that got carried away with the wind.
The Avengers and the two remaining Guardians were in shock as the same thing happened to Drax, muttering his last word as his arms started to disintegrate. "Quill." Then he was gone.
"Steady, Quill." Tony said as he got to his feet. Before he could walk over to the Guardian, he disappeared in a cloud of dust.
"Tony. There was no other way." Doctor Strange spoke as he breathed heavily and turned into ash.
"Harry. Mister Stark." Peter's nervous voice rang in Harrison's ears as the boy jumped to his feet. He helped Peter up, his body weak and shaking. "I don't feel so good."
"You're okay, Pete." Harrison's heartbeat was in his ears as he gripped onto a wobbling Peter as tightly as he could. "Peter." The hazel eyes of Peter Parker turned to meet Harrison's dark brown ones, a glassy layer forming over them.
"You're alright." Tony walked over to the boys, holding onto Peter as he helped Harrison support him. The Spider Boy stumbled and fell into Tony's chest with one suited arm wrapped around his back.
"I don't...I don't know what's happening..." Particles of ash slowly started forming around Peter as he clung to Tony, his other hand gripping Harrison's forearm. "I don't wanna go, please I don't want to go."
Harrison's eyes burned as he and Tony laid Peter down in a clumsy fall, the boy gasping as he hit the ground. He looked up at Harrison with red rims under his eyes, a tear rolling down the side of his temple. Harrison pulled Peter's hand off of his forearm and gripped onto it, their suits forming a barrier between the boys' hands.
"Peter." Harrison's voice cracked as he spoke, tears clouding his vision as he watched his best friend slowly turn into ash. His red clad shoulder had disappeared, followed by the spider emblem on his chest and his frowning chin.
"I'm sorry." Peter mumbled before disintegrating into nothing but dust. Harrison opened his weightless hand as the last fragments of Peter blew away into the atmosphere of the planet.
Tony shifted his weight to sit down, his hand in front of his face. Harrison looked up at him as tears rolled down his flushed cheeks, a weight falling into his ribcage and crushing his heart.
"How do you feel?" Tony asked in the softest voice Harrison had ever heard him speak in, his own aged eyes red and shiny.
"Like half of me just died."
Cold metal dug into Harrison's back as he sat against the wall of a spaceship with his knees pulled to his chest. Every inch of his body throbbed, internally and externally. His eyes were puffy and his nose was stuffed. His head felt like someone was banging on his brain with a hammer. His ribs felt broken, and he knew all the skin on the right side of his torso was purple and blue. The boy had been dragged through hell with rust coloured dirt under his nails to prove it.
Harrison watched with hooded eyes as Tony and Nebula sat at a table together playing some sort of game with folded pieces of paper. Nebula kept losing and was growing frustrated with Tony, until he took a bad shot and Nebula scored.
"And...you've won. Congratulations." Tony said. Harrison smirked softly to himself, having a feeling he let Nebula win just so she wouldn't try to kill him.
"How are you doing, kid?" Tony asked as he turned in his seat to look at the boy on the floor.
"Oh, I feel fine." Harrison replied sarcastically as he stretched his long legs out in front of him, every muscle in them stiff and sore.
"You should go see if Quill stashed any spare clothes on this ship. Take a look at those injuries." Tony suggested before getting up and walking over to the boy. He extended his calloused and scarred hand out, helping Harrison to his feet. The males were almost the same height, with Harrison standing just an inch or so shorter.
"Thanks." Harrison mumbled. He ducked past Tony and took his advice, walking to different small rooms of the ship and checking all the compartments for any sort of clothing. Eventually, he found a drawstring bag that held a plain grey t-shirt and black sweatpants. He never expected anything that Quill owned to be so simple.
After finding a tiny bathroom with a tiny mirror hanging on the wall, Harrison dumped the fresh (or at least clean) clothing on the floor and stripped off his suit. He shoved the blue and grey material into the drawstring bag and tossed it into the corner. Harrison pulled on the sweatpants before walking over to the mirror, inhaling heavily as he prepared himself for what his reflection would look like.
Harrison's freckled face was now dirty and scratched. His eyes and cheeks were swollen in a pink flush. The boy lifted up his right arm, revealing a scatter of dark bruises mixed with healing scrapes. He had a gash running across two of his ribs that was covered in dried blood and stood out even farther on the already swollen skin. Harrison reached over to touch the bruises that decorated his torso, wincing as his soft and shaky fingertips brushed his skin. He dropped his arm and released a breath he didn't realize he was holding before grabbing the grey t-shirt, pulling it over his messy curls, and leaving the bathroom without a second glance at the stranger in the mirror.
"How are things?" Tony asked as the boy walked back into the main area of the ship, where he and Nebula had just been sitting.
"I'm alive." Harrison replied without meeting the man's eyes. He kept walking, Tony turning as he did so to follow him.
"Where's the suit?"
"I left it in the bathroom. Thank you, Mister Stark, for making it, but I really don't want to look at it ever again." Harrison replied. He sat down in the passenger seat of the cockpit, staring out into the black abyss that surrounded the spaceship. This wasn't the first time Harrison had been stranded in space and he felt surprisingly calm. However, after watching his best friend crumble into ash in front of his own eyes, he had become utterly numb to the situation he was currently in. Stranded in space while running low on essential resources.
"I can make you a new one when we get home. You might need it." Tony offered as he sat in the seat beside Harrison. Neither of them looked at each other, focusing their eyes on the stars that twinkled against the glass windshield.
A moment of silence had passed before Harrison allowed his body to relax and he glanced over at Tony. "Thank you." He replied. Tony glanced back with a small smile.
The two males sat in silence with each other for what felt like an eternity but it had really only been a few minutes. The scenery outside hadn't changed at all, and the only noise was Nebula playing with the leftover paper from their game earlier.
"I know how much Peter meant to you. I'm sorry we couldn't save him." Tony mumbled into the silence.
"He meant everything to me. He was all I had." Harrison replied as his eyes started prickling. The boy quickly brushed away a tear that had escaped, looking up at the ceiling as he inhaled and exhaled slowly.
"I know."
Peter was the first person Harrison met when he arrived on Earth. He was the only one who could see him when he was invisible and the only person he had felt a true bond with. It was no accident that on the day Harrison lost everything, he found exactly what he needed. Harrison didn't just lose his best friend, he lost his soulmate, a part of himself. He lost his guiding light in this world full of darkness.
Deze afbeelding leeft onze inhoudsrichtlijnen niet na. Verwijder de afbeelding of upload een andere om verder te gaan met publiceren.
