• • • Peter's POV • • •
I inhaled a sharp breath as my eyes widened. I jumped up to my feet and took off in a sprint towards Thanos. I jumped up on his back, sporadically crawling all over him in order to buy the others some valuable time. During this time, the man, who was specifically bitter and angry with Thanos for killing his girlfriend, was attempting to help up Tony. Tony pushed himself up to his feet, his armor terribly damaged and he just genuinely looked like hell. Then again, we all did.
Finally, Thanos had enough and threw me off of him, where my back slammed into the rocky surface of the planet, knocking the air out of my lungs. I took deeper breaths in order to fill them again. Then I began pushing myself to my feet. My vision was a blurry mess of colors and vague fuzzy shapes. Along with that, I momentarily lost hearing and could only hear an ear-splitting ringing noise. I winced and felt hot blood drip from my nose along with a gash that just appeared on the back of my head.
As my vision settled, my eyes locked on the only thing I was worried about at the moment. Thanos. He laughed and was ridiculing us before vanishing into thin air. With the stones.
"Kid?!" Tony's voice was the first thing I heard. I gritted my teeth to cope with the pain. I blinked again and Tony was in front of me with an extremely worried expression across his face.
"Mr. Stark...?" I mumbled, my mouth dripping blood as I spoke. Like, a lot of blood.
"Shit... Strange!" Tony yelled as the wizard appeared next to him in the blink of an eye. His eyes remained so calm, giving me the inference that he did something that dealt with emergencies. His ability to remain calm, especially in a time like this, was truly admirable. And it wasn't something that many people possessed.
My eyes blinked slowly as they tried to sit me down. I shook my head and (somehow) managed to shove them off of me. Strange blinked before sighing, examining me before nodding.
"He's okay. Just a little beat up on," Strange assured Tony, who slowly nodded as I looked down to the stone-like ground and spit, my blood and saliva mixing on the ground.
Tony and Strange left to go check up on everyone else. I carefully allowed my back to rest against the side of a rock formation as I gasped in order to breathe. My knees were shaking as I held onto a ridge of the formation in order to keep myself standing.
My eyes drifted over everything before me. It was hell. Truly. The crew of misfits seemed to be alive, but barely holding themselves together. I exhaled a shaky sigh. I rested my head back against the formation and looked at the purple and green sky. Then my mind began to wander.
(Y/N). Oh God, what did I leave her with? I just up and decided to go to space and she's probably worried. No, wait, she's definitely worried. And she probably also doesn't know anything. That's something Natasha would do. Ned and MJ. Shit. How was I supposed to explain this to the two of them once I went back?
My mind got stuck on the deal I had made with Tony and Natasha. Their month was almost up. They had to explain to (Y/N) what she was capable of. And soon. But who knows if they were even going to keep their promise.
I didn't have much time to think until I let out a sharp gasp, my knees buckling as I crashed onto them. It felt as if someone had filled my body with rocks. Then, a second later, I felt light as air. It went back and forth between the two feelings. My heart began racing in my chest as I began losing vision. What the hell is going on?
"Mr. Stark!" I screamed, my organs burning up, as if they were beginning to sweat. Then they'd become cold as ice. And it just swapped back and forth between the two temperatures at a rapid pace.
Tony looked over his shoulder and in my direction. I stumbled onto my feet and attempted to run towards him. But he was faster than me, catching me in a hug.
"Kid? What's going on?" Tony asked as I looked up. He was staring at me with extreme concern. From off to the side, we both looked as Doctor Strange completely disappeared into the wind in the form of ash and dust. My eyes popped wide open as I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach. A small screech escaped my lips. I jolted back as Tony gently laid me down.
I felt myself frantically speaking and calling out his name, but I couldn't even hear myself speaking. But he could hear me. I just rambled on and on before wincing and breathing so heavily. My feet were fading into the same ash-like dust. I looked up at Tony and just barely recognizing the words on my lips.
"I'm sorry..." I whispered in such a small voice.
And I felt myself fade.
The feeling of it was very strange. It just simply felt wrong. It was that pins-and-needles feeling you get when your foot falls asleep, but all over. To the point that it burned at my flesh. I knew it started at the bone, because it felt like being burned from the inside but out. It hurt so badly to the point that I was unable to even control my facial muscles. I just remember grabbing for Tony and actually watching my hand fade off my arm. By that time, thought, it had consumed its way up my chest and then I was gone.
And that was all I remember from being on Titan. Then I woke up somewhere else and all in one piece.
"Peter?!" A voice shouted frantically before I had been tackled. My eyes widened as I looked down, attempting to identify what had happened to me, where I was, and who was gripping onto me.
"Oh my God, are you okay? What the hell is happening? It was the craziest thing. One minute, I was sitting with Ned and (Y/N), and now I'm here and with you. Where are we, exactly?" The individual rambled as I felt horror strike deep inside me.
"MJ?" I muttered, feeling far more confused than I previously had been.
"Yeah. Yeah, it's me. What's going on, Peter?" She asked me quickly. I could only blink at her in complete disbelief. How was this even possible?
"I, um, I don't know. Wait, did you say you were with (Y/N) and Ned?" I asked, arching an eyebrow at her. She nodded.
"Yeah. We were at school. And (Y/N) had snuck in, which is something she's been doing since you vanished into thin air about a week ago. Then we watched Liz turn to... Ash? I think it was?" MJ recounted as I felt that horror climb deeper within me.
No. It couldn't be true. That meant... That meant we lost. The Avengers lost. Thanos won. He did exactly what he said he was going to do. He killed off half of the population of Earth and every other planet. All with the snap of his fingers. MJ and I were a part of that half.
"Peter?" A different voice asked as MJ and I both whipped our heads around to see who was speaking. Looking over, we found Sam Wilson and, at his side, was the notorious Bucky Barnes.
The meeting with the two of them caused so much confusion to infest my mind. MJ let out a small gasp when she recognized the two Avengers, then she looked back at me. And her eyes just about popped out of her head. She took in what I was wearing, which was a sooty and ripped Spider-Man suit.
She just blinked a couple of times at first. Then she looked up at me with so many questions glittering in her eyes. But I knew I didn't have time to answer all of them. To my surprise, she had restrained herself and only asked one question.
"Do Ned and (Y/N) know?" Was all she wanted to know. I just slowly nodded.
"Okay good. Because this would've shaken their worlds. However, I've always been suspicious of you," She explained with a smile. I returned her kind gesture. Sam and Bucky had gone silent, wanting to see how MJ reacted to discovering my identity. They seemed disappointed by how calm she had remained. Finally, I began glancing around and attempting to identify where we were located.
Where we were was a little odd. To me, it appeared like the living room in May's apartment. But that was impossible. And I knew it was.
"Where are we...?" I mumbled, because none of them were with me on Titan.
"The Quantum Realm. To all of us, the current location looks quite a bit different," Doctor Strange's cool and collected voice spoke, making me jump and look over at him quickly.
"S-So..." I mumbled, then realized the heartbreaking truth. I'm not home.
"Are we dead...?" MJ mumbled so softly as Strange shook his head slowly.
"Nope. Not exactly. Everyone else thinks we're dead. We should be dead. But the snap directly correlated with the Quantum Realm. Meaning, we're still alive," Strange explained as I looked over at Sam and Bucky, who were both looking at Strange with just as much confusion as I was.
"Right..." Bucky mumbled slowly as I exhaled a small sigh.
"Can I, at least, go see (Y/N) and Ned?" I asked as Strange shook his head slowly once more.
"No. We can't leave. Not on our own. They have to let us out from the other side..." Strange explained as Bucky exhaled a small sigh.
"Great..." Sam muttered as I looked down at my hands, seeing them trembling. I had to get back. I had no other choice.
I turned my attention to MJ, the two of us walking away from the group and beginning to wander around. This was all a lot to take in. And I knew she had a lot more than one thing to process at the moment.
"We'll get out of here... I promise," I explained to her. She hesitantly nodded.
"I know," She answered confidently.
I began thinking of how the hell we were going to get out of here. Because I wasn't about to sit here and wait. (Y/N) and Ned needed me now. And I had to get MJ back home.
Failure wasn't an option.