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plasticparker · 5 years

Text

even in the dark I see your lights somehow

WHAT UP BITCHES this is some really pointless angst. will my plot (term used very loosely for this drabble) be deemed incorrect when a4 comes out? ya forsure. do i care? no.

AU in which the reader survives Thanos ~snap~ and Peter doesnt (aka 2 years later, Peter comes back, angsty reunions)

word count: 3.7k

Two years ago, Thanos snapped his fingers and ended the world.

Or, technically, killed half of it.

10 months ago, the remaining Avengers dragged themselves back together at the arrival of Tony Stark and Captain Marvel.

6 months ago the world found a new normal. With half the world gone, most businesses, government offices, and schools closed. The few that were left were sparsely populated, but functioning. Everything was consolidated. The orphanages were stocked full of homeless children in the beginning, but luckily, parents who lost their own children by Thanos’ hand had taken to them, and families grew by double every day. People stepped up because they had no choice, and it had worked. Things weren’t the same, and they never would be. But you were alive, you were going to college in the fall, you had a place to stay.

It was bad for a long time. No one really knew what had happened at first, even after Steve Rogers face was broadcast on every TV and he explained that half the world-half the universe-was dead.

When Tony Stark made it back to Earth, though he was only here for a few days at most before joining the rest of his team in search of Thanos, he came right to May’s door. He found you and May in the wreckage of her apartment building and had Happy set you up in a small house outside of the city. Close to Avengers headquarters. To keep an eye on you, he’d said. To alleviate some of his guilt, you knew.

You tucked the phone between your shoulder and ear, shouldering the door open and carefully setting the box down on the table. It was labeled Stark Industries, as were most of the packages you found on you and May’s doorstep were these days.

“Pretty sure Tony sent us something else,” you said into the phone, inspecting the box.

You could practically hear May rolling her eyes.

“Seriously? What is it this time?”

“Not sure. Let you know when I find out.”

“Hopefully it's a new microwave,” She said. You laughed; the microwave had ended up on fire a few nights before in one of May’s attempts to make mug cookies. She had an oven, and you’d been wondering aloud why she wouldn't just make real cookies when you heard the sparks and the microwave started to smoke.

All of Tony’s gifts, sent through Happy, inevitably, were thinly veiled excuses to try and make up for what happened on Titan. Tony Stark blamed himself for the whole thing, but mostly Peter’s death/disintegration/whatever people were calling it those days. You still don’t know exactly what went down on that planet, but you know enough. You know enough to know it wasn’t Tony’s fault. And though you didn’t share the sentiment, you know it made him feel just a little bit better to take care of Peter’s aunt and his…you.

Hence, the tech and appliances and other things that are supposed to make your lives easier. But really, the only thing that would make your lives easier would be Peter, and that wasn’t something Tony could buy.

“Cross your fingers,” you said. You pulled a knife out of the block on the counter and popped the box open. Prying it open, your gaze landed on a swatch of red and blue fabric. Your hand stilled and the knife clattered onto the table.

“I’ll call you back, May. Am I cooking tonight?” You said, hoping your voice came out even.

May laughed on the other end, luckily not picking up on your tone.

“Funny. I’ll get takeout on my way.” She hung up, and you let out a shaky breath.

You stepped back from the box so you couldn’t see the contents.

Peter’s suit. Not the Iron Spider Tony had created for him: that suit died with him. But the first real suit he had. When he moved away from bright blue sweatpants and a hoodie to the smooth patterned material that solidified his status as a hero. The suit he’d been wearing when you found him, bloody and near death on your balcony.

“No-no-hospital,” the boy pleaded. His words were slurred through the mask, and though you tried to pull it over his face, he refused to let go.

“Whoever you are, I swear, I won't tell. If you bleed out on this fire escape, I’ll figure it out anyways. Now let go,” you said, not an inch of room for him to argue. The boy let out a sigh and leaned back against the brick, peeling the mask off.

Peter Parker.

You took a breath. Went back to the table. Carefully pulled the material out of the box.

Beneath it was a note.

It belongs to the people who loved him the most. - T

You closed your eyes and brought the fabric up to your nose, inhaling. It smelled a little bit like smoke, a little bit like sweat, a lot like Peter. So much like Peter you nearly doubled over at the pang of longing that shot through you. The scent brought on an array of memories, all painful and all full of Peter.

You were starting to understand that you would never get over Peter Parker. You’d never get closure, you’d never get to say goodbye. The same could be said for every single person that had disintegrated, for every single person you’d lost when Thanos snapped his fingers, but something about Peter kept the wound of losing him open and raw. It was like having a cold; you could breathe well enough, but you felt it with every inhale.

We’ve got him.

That was all the text said when it woke you at midnight. It was the one you’d been waiting for since Tony made it back to earth and promised that Peter would, they all would, too. You didn’t believe him then, and you still didn’t, not as you ran out to your car, not as you drove the short distance to headquarters, not even as you sprinted up the stairs leading to the top floor of the building.

You’d only been three times since Thanos, after Tony came back and reached out to May and you. But then, it was only to get some things of Peter’s Tony had that May wouldn’t come to get, as she hadn’t spoken a word to Tony since the minute he told her what happened.

“We have an elevator, you know,” Tony said as you pushed through the doors and into the room. You knew then that it had worked; avengers who’d been missing for two years, sitting around the room. All exhausted, some in varying states of injury, being tended to. But no Peter.

“Too slow. Where is he?”

As if on cue, a door across the room swung open and Peter stepped out, digging his hands into the pockets of a black hoodie that was a few sizes too big. You were struck with how young he looked; somehow, you’d forgotten that while time had passed for you, it hadn’t for him, or any of them. They’d ceased to exist, and when Thanos had been sacrificed, it was like a trading of souls, Thanos and all the lives he’d taken for the ones lost on earth. At least, that was how Tony had explained it. The SparkNotes version.

Your breath caught. He met your gaze, and for a moment, just a moment, he didn’t recognize you. You had gotten older, after all. Changed your hair. Lost everyone you’d ever loved. Little things like that.

And even though you’d spent two years imaging this moment, dreaming of it, practically tasting it, now that he was here, in front of you, it was wrong. You were wrong.

You backed up, scrabbling for the door handle behind you. You just had to get out.

“I-I have to go,” you said, before turning and slipping out and into the hall. Then you were running, heading for the staircase you’d come up. The door slammed behind you and Peter called your name. Something snapped around your wrist, tugging you back. Two years ago, it might have made you laugh. Now, the minute Peter caught you by the shoulders you yanked the web off your wrist and jerked away, stumbling. You caught your balance on the wall, meeting Peter’s gaze.

The hurt on his face was impossible to miss. Shame coiled in your stomach, hot and sharp.

“What’s going on? Are you alright? Your hair-“

“I’ll explain later. We should get home, Peter. May’s waiting,” you interrupted. You’d called her frantically on the drive, telling her to come home the second her night shift ended. If you were lucky, she’d be waiting, and you could put off this conversation for a little while longer. Even better, May could give him the bad news: he’d missed two years, and he wouldn’t get them back.

The words caught his attention and pulled it away from the very subject you wanted to avoid.

“May? God, she’s going to kill me. I didn’t even tell her I was leaving. I don’t even know how long I was gone.”

“You didn’t tell anyone,” you said darkly, turning and walking away to avoid seeing your words hit him.

“I didn’t have a choice. I had to go after Thanos-“ he caught up to you as you reached the bottom of the staircase and pushed out the doors into the darkness.

“You didn’t have to do anything.”

He touched your arm and you looked at him instinctively, before you could stop yourself. God, he looked young.

“What are saying? Of course, I did.”

Nights spent curled in May’s arms, tears staining your cheeks, flickered behind your eyes. You wondered if they’d have happened if Peter hadn’t climbed out the window of that bus, all that time ago.

You kept walking. Peter jogged to catch up. When you got to the car, Peter almost walked right past it. It wasn’t the one you’d had back then. So many things were different; maybe too many.

“When did you get a new car?”

“It’s from Happy. Shittiest model we could convince them to give us,” you said. He tried to ask questions all the way back to the city. But each time you told him later, or I don’t know, or could you please be quiet my head hurts, which all really meant, please stop talking or ill cry. And he saw through it, because he was Peter, but he didn’t push it, also because he was Peter. He’d been through a lot in the last day. No one had had the time to sit down and explain all this to him. To any of the returned Avengers. The world was too busy scrambling around the reappearance of 3.5 billion people.

And when you got back to the apartment, you were able to slip off as he and May reunited. You went out under the guise of running errands and stayed out well past dark, well past the time May texted to tell you goodnight, your cue to come back. By the time you reached the apartment, both their doors were shut, and you dropped onto the couch, drifting off to the sounds of the city out the window.

The nightmare ripped you from sleep and you jerked to a sitting position, gasping for air. The apartment was dark around you, thick and heavy with the night. A glance at your phone told you it was nearly 4 AM.

Your gaze strayed to Peter’s closed door. You’d overtaken the room a long time ago when you’d unofficially moved in, but had quickly cleared your things away while May and Peter reunited before escaping the apartment.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you pulled the blanket off your legs and climbed to your feet. You made your way to Peter’s door, stopping in front of it. You took a breath before turning the knob. You stepped into the moonlit room-Peter’s window was wide open-and your gaze landed on the sleeping boy in the bed. His eyes snapped open when you pushed the door shut. He sat up and you stopped, like a deer in headlights.

He looked the same as the day you’d lost him. He’d just turned 18 when Thanos came to Earth; he hadn’t even gotten to graduate. Not that you technically had, either. School didn’t come back into session in New York City until 5 months ago, when you’d gone back to a school with a quarter of the people and walked the halls of a ghost town for three months. There had been no ceremony; there were too few names and too few parents. You’d been given a diploma.

The few colleges that remained open had open enrollment so you’d signed up for classes beginning in November.

You just turned 20. The few months you had on Peter turned into years. Years. Two of them. Spent mourning with May; mourning your family, most of your friends, and of course, Peter. Always Peter.

It was almost worse, the disappearing. With your family, dying in the initial attack on the city, there was nothing to hope for. But the people that disappeared left ashes behind, and with them, hope that no one could manage to sweep off the streets.

Somehow, he was still your Peter. Hair mussed up and a bit too long, lips pulled into an ever-present line, heart pulsing on his sleeve. The one you saw in your dreams, the one that hadn’t been broken or lost. It didn’t seem possible that he was standing there, whole.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just wanted-I was checking.” Checking to see if you’re still there. He scanned your face, still a little drowsy with sleep.

“You’re older.” He said, something incredibly sad bleeding into his voice.

Your brows pulled together, heart twinging.

“Two years will do that,” you said. The reality was, it took time for the surviving Avengers to scrabble some semblance of a team together. It took time to figure out how to bring everyone back and maintain the timeline and kill Thanos all at once.

You wished you could say it had been minutes or hours or days. You wished you could say it had been quick and painless.

But it hadn’t been. Peter’s disappearance had ripped you to pieces. Your family’s deaths had ripped you to pieces. You’d mourned them and missed them and moved on, and your family would never be coming back, but Peter was here, and you didn’t know what to do with that or how to feel about it. You wanted to close the distance between you and climb into bed and wrap him in your arms and hold him to make up for two years of hurting.

But you didn’t know if you still had the right to. Though no time had passed for Peter, time had passed for you. You were different. Would Peter want the You you were now?

“I’m not the same. It was bad for a while. I had to be a bad person. I might still be a bad person,” you said.

Peter shook his head.

“That’s not true.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.”

“Peter.”

“You found a bleeding vigilante on your balcony, stitched me up, and didn’t ask any questions. You saved my life. A good person wouldn’t do that. Nothing that happened in the last two years changes that.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand.”

You let out a breath, pinching the bridge of your nose. Pressure was building behind your skull, pounding its fists and making your headache. You couldn’t explain the time he’d missed.

You reached back for the doorknob, a beat away from turning to leave when Peter said, “Wait.” It came out a little frantic, a little panicked. You clenched your teeth.

“This was a bad idea. I’m sorry.” You said.

“Wait,” he said again. You blinked and he was off the bed, another blink and he was in front of you.

“Did I do something? Because I’m sorry if-“

“What?”

“I said, I’m sorry if-”

“You didn’t do anything. This-none of this is your fault.”

Peter looked miserable, shaking his head.

“Just talk to me. Please,” he said quietly.

Your lips parted. A flood was swelling behind your teeth, and you knew you should just let it out, tell him why you’d been pushing him away, why you were the way you were now.

“Do you remember when I used to sneak up the fire escape? And sneak out before May woke up?” You asked softly. Peter’s lips pulled thin, something sad in his eyes.

He didn’t deserve all this. He didn’t deserve the wall you’d put up against him. For him, the time had passed in a blink. But there were so many skeletons in your closet, pushing their fingers through the cracks. Peter had been through enough. And maybe you were too broken now.

“Of course. You had to hide under the bed one time,” he said. You resisted the urge to smile. Memory lane was not the road you should be taking.

“She always knew. But she let me keep doing it because she knew we weren’t doing anything. She didn’t know that I was usually tending your wounds.”

“We were spooning at most.”

You laughed, and it unlocked something in your chest.

“I used to spend hours watching videos and looking at pictures. It was all I had left of anyone. It was all I had left of you,” you said.

“I didn’t even know May was alive. I came-I came to your apartment because I was alone and hungry and I knew May had that disposable camera with the pictures from Prom and I just-“ you slammed to a stop, shutting your mouth.

“You were gone a long time. Everyone-everyone was gone. My parents were dead. I was on my own for months. The things I did to survive-“

You clamped your mouth shut. Peter frowned, waiting for you to finish.

“I’m not the person I was. The person you knew. The person you lo-“ you stopped before the word loved slipped out. You hadn’t used it in a long time.

“I know who you are. Okay? I’ve always known,” Peter said. You bit your lip. You wanted to argue with him, to tell him about the people you’d let starve so you could eat, the things you stole from people who surely died after. But you didn’t want him to look at you the way he would inevitably look at you. You wanted more time.

He was standing there, exactly the same as the day you lost him. But you’d watched your bridges burn and then you burned what was left, because you had to, because that was what became of the world.

It wasn’t fair to him. It wasn’t fair to you. None of this was fair to anyone.

“You look different. So does May. There’s this gap of time that I can’t see or fill or fix,“ his brows furrow, confusion dotting his features.

“I’m so sorry for leaving you. I’m sorry for everything that happened and everything you had to do because I was gone.”

Your heart broke in half.

“You wouldn’t be you if you hadn’t gone,” you said, softening.

You stepped closer, reaching up to cup his face with a hand. He leaned into your touch with a sad, boyish smile that made your chest ache.

You let your hand drop to the place where the fabric of his shirt fell down over his collarbone, fingers brushing against his skin. He stilled beneath your touch.

You let out the breath you’d been holding since the day Thanos snapped his finger.

Peter placed his hand on top of yours, gripping your fingers with fierce intensity. It was like he could feel the last two years on your skin. He could feel the nights you’d woken screaming his name, May running to console you, holding your shaking body still, telling you over and over that Peter isn’t here, she’s so sorry, Peter isn’t here.

“I don’t care about anything you did. I don’t care about any of it. You’re here, you’re alive, and that's all that matters. May said-she told me what it was like. How many people died. So, whatever you had to do to stay alive, I don’t care. It’s better than the alternative,” he said.

You closed your eyes.

“I think maybe we were the lucky ones.”

Opened them.

“We got to escape all that. For a while.”

“Nice little vacation.”

He snorted. The familiar pieces fell back into place, just a few of them. He bent his head down to your shoulder, breath warming your skin through the fabric of your shirt. His nose skimmed up your throat, along your jaw, stopping at your ear.

He whispered, “Stay.”

You said yes, even though you probably shouldn’t have, even though it was probably stupid, even though there were so many things to deal with and talk about. But right then, you just wanted to go back. Back to a world where every bridge was still intact and every stone was rightly turned. Just for a little while.

And so you both curled beneath the covers, tucked together under a swath of darkness, limbs tangled together. Just like it was. Just like it could be, again.

#its finals week arent u glad i spent time on this and not my journalism story :)#go me :)#brooke writes fic #ALSO I LOVE ANGST ITS MY DRUG #peter parker #peter parker au #peter parker fic #peter parker x reader #reader x peter parker #spiderman #far from home #avengers #a4 #how many more tags can i possibly put #spider man: homecoming #spider man: far from home #spider man: hoco #avengers: infinity war #infinity war

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plasticparker · 7 years

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chaos pt. 1

no one asked for this but me being me did it anyway. because motivation happens and the Writing Voice must be listened to. ill probably do multiple parts, if anybody reads it at all. so hey. let me know. dont be shy.

is a fic taking place after a movie that hasnt yet been released weird? yes. will it be completely discounted by the actual movie when it comes out? probably. do i care? no.

peter parker au in which the reader makes a deal for his life during Infinity War

part 1/?

word count: 1.4k

NOW

6 months ago Thanos came to earth and brought destruction with him. 6 months ago, someone else came down with him. 6 months ago, you made a deal to save the life of Peter Parker.

6 months ago, he went missing.

You’ve kept what you did a secret. You cried with May, gave the police tons of statements that included almost the whole truth, mourned with Ned and Michelle.

Because while you’re the reason Peter isn’t dead, you’re the reason he’s gone. Somehow, someway, you missed the fine-print on the contract you never saw, and it gave the woman who took him the power to take him away.

He’s alive. You know he is. But you can’t tell anyone how you know.

It’s been six months. And the guilt is eating at you. Maybe, if you told someone, they could find him. Maybe there’s something they could do. Maybe is a lot better than the nothing that’s happening right now.

It is that which brings you to the Avengers building tonight, tapping your feet anxiously as you wait for the elevator to let you out.

One night a week, everyone gathers to watch some movie that takes them ages to agree on. You used to come with Peter, but after the battle, and after he disappeared, you stopped coming to the complex at all.

You haven’t been back here since.

Once you’re past all the guards and safety precautions, you make your way to the living room, where Tony, Bucky, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Vision, and Wanda are sitting on various couches, chairs, and pillows on the floor. Even Thor has a spot made up on the carpet, taking up the most space out of everyone.

You hesitate near the door, half a mind to turn back the way you came. Before you can, you’re spotted, and Natasha pauses the movie.

“Y/N? Is everything alright?” She asks, going still, already preparing for bad news. Your arrival is definitely unexpected, hence the negative reaction.

Someone flips the lights on, and all eyes are on you.

Your cheeks flush, and you let your gaze slide over everyone, before settling on the safest face: Wanda.

“I-I have something to tell you. About Peter.”

“Did they find him?” Tony asks, unmasked hope thick in his voice.

You shake your head, brows furrowing.

“No. But I know why he’s gone.”

Steve looks around the room, standing up.

“I think we should move this to the conference room.” He says.

Minutes later, everyone but you is settled down in seats around the long table. Your heart thrums in your chest, and you swallow the frog in your throat.

“What do you know about Peter, Y/N?” Natasha asks.

You take a breath.

“I made a deal the day Thanos came to New York.”

THEN

You were the only person in your apartment, probably one of the only people in the building. The mandatory evacuation had gone into place last night, but Thanos came early, and you don’t know if everyone made it out.

Your family was gone, visiting friends on the west coast, all orchestrated by Tony Stark who snapped a finger and made the flights cheaper for them.

Ned and Michelle were gone, as far as you knew. Peter warned them a few days before, sending them up north.

May refused to leave the city. As did you.

Now, as the battle smashed through the city, you found yourself regretting that decision. But only slightly.

You heard a scream bellow from the street below, and you ran for your window, pushing it open.

Waltzing down the street, as if making her way down a run way, was a woman. Everything about her was light, including the wings on her back, and if it weren’t for the blood splattered across her body, you’d think she was an angel.

But as she flicked a finger and broke spines, you knew she was something very different.

Everything inside of you screamed. You promised Peter that you would stay inside and stay safe, you swore on it.

Then you saw that flash of red hit the brick and everything fell away.

Spiderman-Peter-scrambled to his feet down on the street, obviously hurt. Peter.

The boy you loved was hurt, and though you had absolutely no training or superpowers or even weapons, you ran for the door, flying down the stairs and out into the street.

Your feet slammed against the concrete as you pushed into the street, jumping over and skirting around rubble and bodies and fire.

The woman came to a stop a few steps away.

And you panicked. You had no way to stop her, no way to fight her, but you couldn’t let her kill him. You couldn’t let her kill Peter.

So you screamed. The stop burst through your lips and filled the streets; panicked and desperate and broken.

The woman listened, the sword she carried digging into Peter’s chest where he lay sprawled on the asphalt, bleeding and in a daze.

She turned to face you slowly, something curious coming over her face. She flicked a finger your way, and you walked toward her, though you knew doing so would get you killed.

“You know this Spider-man.” She said, tilting her head slightly. You were struck by the viciousness of her beauty; she was ice and sleet and you feared you’d cut yourself open if you touched her.

“I know the boy beneath the suit.” You said, voice shaking. You swallowed the fear that had taken over your whole body, resisting the urge to run.

You reminded yourself that Peter was on the ground. If you could just keep her busy long enough for him to get away, you’d have been successful. Even if you died.

The woman, full attention on you, stepped closer until you were a few feet apart. She studied you up and down, and you took the pause as an opportunity to look at Peter. You couldn’t see his face through the mask, but he was looking at you, trying to get to his feet.

When the woman’s eyes were on your bare feet you mouthed the word run.

But he didn’t.

He stumbled towards the woman, and your stomach sank.

The woman noticed, watching him amble towards her, amused. Her grip on her sword tightened, and she was about to turn when you spoke.

“Please. Please, don’t kill him. I’ll do anything. Kill me instead.”

Her lips pulled into a thin smile, and she reached back as Peter reached her, shoving. He flew back into the rubble; alive, but unable to do anything but struggle amongst the rock.

“You would give yourself up for this boy. Why?” She asked, attention solidly on you.

You hesitated, unsure why her line of questioning was happening, knowing it couldn’t be good.

“I love him.” You said finally.

“And what of him? Does he share this devotion?”

You looked over at Peter, then back at the woman.

“Yes. He does.”

The woman smiled, lifting her sword until the tip rested against your throat. Peter let out a strangled yell behind you, but you didn’t break your gaze from the woman’s. Her smile widened at the noise.

The skin broke beneath the blade; you held your breath.

“I believe we can work something out.”

She dropped the sword, taking a step back.

“S-something?” You asked.

“I’m offering you a deal. For the boy’s life.”

“Wh-what? A deal?“

“Listen, little one.” She snapped. You shut your mouth, nodding. She tossed her already-perfect hair back and tucked her sword into its sheath.

“I will spare the boys life. But I will take something away. Something important.” She said.

You shook your head. “No. You can’t kill anyone. I’m not-“

“No one will die. Not by my hand, nor by my orchestration.”

“What will you take?”

“It ruins the surprise if I tell you, now, doesn’t it?” She asked, tilting her head.

Your gaze flicked toward Peter, about to die in the rubble.

If you didn’t do this, he would die. You would die.

But if you gave something up, you'd live. You could still have the future you wanted, the life you had. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

“Okay.”

The woman pulled a small knife from her waistband and grabbed your hand in her cold fingers. She flipped your palm, and pulled the knife along your skin. Blood bubbled up, and fire lit along your hand, but you didn’t so much as whimper.

“Make the vow.” She ordered.

You’d never heard the word before, but suddenly it was in your head, on your lips.

“Sacramentum.” You said.

Then the world went black.

#brooke writes fic #first fic on this sideblog ay!!!#peter parker #spiderman #spider-man: homecoming #peter parker x reader #peter parker x oc #mcu #marvel #infinity war #tony stark #steve rogers #peter parker fic #peter parker au #peter parker imagine #literally every tag i can think of #im out

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