Chapter Text
Peter died on Titan. He felt the horror, the pain, the fatality, the excruciating, stubborn ache of his healing factor trying to cure him from the impossible, the guilt of not holding onto the gauntlet tight enough, the throb of his Spider sense’s warnings becoming weaker as life was drained out of him. He felt the feeling of his limbs being dismembered by a seemingly invisible chainsaw that turned them into dust. The dust. Peter felt the dust becoming one with him, and the weak, slow mutter of Mr. Stark before he heard his own heart beat for the last time.
“I’m sorry.”
Peter also felt Dr. Strange’s gaze on him, a pitying look on his face: Peter knew that kind of look, it was the one adults gave him when he told them his parents died in a plane crash when he was six years old. It was the kind of look that silently screamed “you’re too young for all that suffering.”
Too young.
Apparently, Dr. Strange knew it, because the last thing Peter heard while looking at the yellow sky on Titan after hearing the snap wasn’t Mr. Stark's mutter only. It was Dr. Strange’s voice as well.
“You… you’re too young" the man was out of breath, the empty eye of Agamotto on his neck going up and down with his chest. Even while Peter fought through the pain of his limbs disintegrating, he managed to see him stumble; and yet, still move his hands in that wizard-y way of his, as Peter called it, summoning some kind of circular gold structure. “It’s the only way. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way for you to… to live again. I’m sorry, you’re too young…. just too young” and there it was, the look. Peter hated that look.
The strange gold structure was thrust onto the half of Peter’s body that remained unscathed. All he saw was light. Light, light, light. He heard Mr. Stark mutter a last I’m sorry. He couldn’t see him, blinded by the light. He wished he could. He knew he had tears in his eyes.
Peter felt like he was dying. He was sure he was. But Dr Strange said he would live again, and he trusted Dr. Strange, didn’t he? Peter sobbed; his body disappearing in dust tinted with gold as he felt reality itself shift.
That look. It was what Peter saw for the last time. He really hated that look.
But for once, he was grateful for it.
-
Peter opened his eyes: there wasn’t any light. Green was all he could see.
Green, green, green. He choked, accidentally swallowing some of the substance and noticing he was dipped into it. Green, green, green. It didn’t blind him like the light did, but it burned.
He felt his Spider sense scream: he felt it pounding behind his head, trying to make the hair on his nape stand up and failing miserably due to the green substance around him. He felt it on his chest, with that familiar, dull ache that indicated a bad thing was going to happen. And in his mind, with the usual whispered warning now becoming a harsh, loud howl of DANGERDANGERDANGER.
Green, green, green. He felt his whole body convulse around it, choking as he tried to breathe. Green, green, green.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.
He felt like he was dying. Again. And Peter definitely didn’t want to die again. So he swam, letting out a sob, a desperate attempt of a cry that was drowned by the toxic substance. He kept moving his limbs, thankful he hadn’t lost them permanently, swimming in what felt like a giant, deep and poisonous green sea, choking on its acidic water, feeling like he was swallowing fire and hearing the roaring plea of his Spider sense begging him to live, the DANGERDANGERDANGER becoming louder and louder.
Peter knew he could hold his breath longer than a normal human, but he still choked, he still felt his lungs burn, he still hurt. He still couldn’t breathe. Green, green, green. He still couldn't breathe.
He choked again, his limbs trashing with desperation and his eyes filling with despair and green, so much green. Green, green, green. He was sick of it. He swam and swam, reaching up, trying to find his way out of the green sea.
No. Not a sea. This couldn’t be a sea. Even the chaotic, natural blue sea had felt gentler on Peter’s skin when he had swum in it. This had to be hell. This unpitying, ruthless, barbarous green had to be hell. People had made Peter believe hell was red. But now Peter knew better, Peter felt it.
Hell wasn’t red. Hell was green; a heartless, acidic liquid green.
Hell was this. And he was drowning in it.
But Peter was Spider-Man. Spider-Man had been able to snatch Captain America’s shield when he was just fourteen years old. Spider-Man had lifted a whole building by himself. Spider-Man had fought the Vulture in the air, on top of a plane, with a pair of stupid, cheap goggles and a crappy home-made suit that looked more like pyjamas than a supersuit after his own was taken away.
Spider-Man wouldn’t give up. Spider-Man wouldn’t let himself drown. Not even in hell.
So Peter kept swimming. He swam time and time again, until he finally saw it.
Light.
He pushed his limbs to move one last time, to give a final swim and find a way out. Before he knew it, Peter was gasping for air, his head emerging from the liquid: he walked towards the edge of what he realized now looked like a large, green pool, bubbling with toxicity. Well, even if it wasn’t actually hell, Peter knew it had become his own, personal hell. He also knew he would surely revisit this place in one of his nightmares.
When he was able to step out, he watched the rays of light; of the sun, slipping from the cracks of the… cave?
He had died on Titan. He had turned to dust on Titan. Then he was apparently resurrected by a green, toxic substance after a wizard thrust a golden something on him. But it had also almost drowned him. He had almost died again. In a cave. Immersed in acidic, green goop.
Right.
Peter really wanted to tell himself this was a normal Tuesday. He had fought a purple alien in space, for God’s sake! But this… this was definitely not a normal Tuesday.
It wasn’t. It actually wasn’t.
Peter laid in the rough, dark rocks of the cave. He was drenched in the green goop, his suit half destroyed and his back aching and itching from the surface he laid on. But right now, he didn’t care.
Peter was Spider-Man, and Spider-Man didn’t drown, but he definitely cried from time to time. So Peter sobbed. Hard. Because he remembered Dr. Strange's words: “I’m sorry, you’re too young, this is the only way for you to… to live.”
He gripped the cave floor with inhuman force, leaving deep marks on the pavement with a new, unknown kind of rage he had never felt. His hands appeared smaller than normal, and he couldn’t explain why. He also couldn’t explain how he’d ended up in the cave, or in the green goop. Or where it was. Or where he was.
However, he did know what Dr. Strange meant: they had lost. Peter knew it. He may be a sixteen year old, but while young can mean innocent, it doesn’t necessarily mean clueless. He knew they had lost. He’d seen it. He’d felt it. Thanos’ snap, the stars of Titan’s yellow sky now tinted with dust, tinted with death. It all spoke for itself.
“This is the only way for you to live.”
Peter sobbed harder, feeling tears slide down his cheeks. He knew that didn’t only mean they had lost: it meant he didn’t have a way back. Wherever he was, he knew it was a place far, far away from Queens, even from Titan. His Spider sense buzzed with a lack of recognition, of familiarity. He wouldn’t see Aunt May again. He probably wouldn’t be able to graduate. Not normally, at least. He wouldn’t be able to see Ned, or MJ, or Mr. Stark, or any of the Avengers, or even Murph, Mr. Delmar’s cat. He definitely, definitely wouldn’t be able to eat his sandwiches again.
He felt his head throb from crying. Peter was used to feeling lonely, but he wasn’t used to being completely, utterly alone, in a place he knew was foreign, somewhere he didn’t have a name for yet.
He felt miserable, and so, so angry, he wanted to punch through one of the walls of the stupid toxic, hellish cave. But he only had the energy to sob. He knew he had to find a way out of the cave eventually.
He would after he had some rest.
He didn’t care that his back’s ache and itch had worsened. He drifted to a restless, tormented sleep.
-
When Peter woke up, the light was gone. No rays of sunlight were slipping from the cracks of the cave, which meant it was most likely night time. He could feel the anxious, uneasy pang of his Spider sense present even after he escaped the green pool, now whispering to him with a mutter of dangerdangerdanger. Lower, calmer, but still alive, still there. Peter could hear the green bubbling, almost like a heartbeat. He could smell the chemicals emanating from it, and weirdly, his own fear.
He could smell the fear, the grief, the rage emanating from himself, just like the chemicals in the cave.
“What the hell?” he muttered, taking off his –unfortunately half destroyed— suit’s mask and standing up. Were his senses always that good? He had never been able to smell emotions before. He added that to his recently made mental list of “Things that don’t make any sense.”
Yeah, this was definitely not a normal Tuesday.
He could see the cave clearly with his night vision. Almost too clear. He could hear the walls and the floor vibrating. He could hear the world vibrating, even the one above, as alive as the cave itself appeared. People’s voices and heartbeats, cars’ engines, animals’ chirps, as well as a worrying amount of gunshots and screaming. Was there a war going on or something? He could hear it all. A city, he guessed. He must be under a city. Hopefully one that wasn’t in war. Also, what the fuck? What kind of city had an acidic, toxic green pool that could resurrect people, AND almost kill them at the same time under it?
Everything was so loud. Too loud. Too smelly. Just… too much. And Peter was so, so confused.
He needed to get out of here.
Peter explored the cave with his night vision, fighting the urge to cover his ears with his hands and to breathe with his mouth. A few meters from the green pool, he found a weirdly door-shaped hole on the wall: it looked almost like a human-carved corridor, made specifically to enter or exit the cave. He approached it by jumping up, sticking to the walls and walking on them. He refused to walk close to that liquid hell, especially close to the edge.
Once he reached the entrance, he started walking, noticing it indeed looked like a corridor. He had no idea how much he walked, too busy trying to tone down all the sounds and the smells around him, especially as the city got closer and closer. Thus, smellier and louder. However, he did notice the path becoming smaller as he approached the end, fitting in nonetheless. Again, what the fuck? Peter knew he wasn’t exactly the tallest teenager, but he wasn’t the shortest either. He folded himself in the smallest crouch he’d ever been in so he could finally get out of the dark, crusty cave corridor —which normally he wouldn’t have been able to fit in. He was completely sure he should’ve bumped his head or something.
Whatever. Another thing to add to the “Things that don’t make any sense” list. He would look at that later.
With his night vision clearer than ever, Peter noticed the new environment and sighed. Dying on another planet and being resurrected in toxic green goop God knows where really wasn’t enough, wasn’t it? He was in the sewers.
The sewers.
Being in the sewers wouldn’t suck as much if he was a normal human: naturally, it would stink. It stunk for Peter as well, but he wasn’t your average human, so it stunk even worse. He gave in to his instincts and started breathing with his mouth: finding a way out of the sewers wouldn’t be that hard, Peter knew that with his super hearing, as long as he followed the path the city’s sounds became louder with, he’d eventually find a sewer manhole he could get out from.
He resumed his walk, doing it normally this time. That is until Peter heard a grunt.
An animalistic type of grunt accompanied with the dull, sharp thud of a punch. No, not of one punch. Of multiple punches.
He jumped, his Spider sense spiking with dangerdangerDANGERDANGER as the sounds got closer, finding himself attached to the nearest, highest corner of the walls that surrounded the sewers and folding himself even smaller than he did to exit the cave.
Who the fuck was fighting in the sewers?
Peter smelled latex, kevlar and some kind of carbon fiber. He heard the sound of them rubbing against a strangely rough skin as the punches were delivered, growls, roars and guttural noises echoing in the sewers each time. One of the people was definitely human; he could smell it on them, along with the scent of the materials of the person’s clothes. The other was surely mutant, although their animalistic smell had some human layers as well. A beast with humanity, he guessed.
“Ok, apparently someone dressed in kevlar is fighting some kind of part animal part human mutant in the sewers,” Peter let another sigh out, his voice too low to be heard by the people who were in another area.
At least, they weren’t that close to Peter. He could avoid them and get out of the manhole when he found it, couldn’t he? It was unlikely they’d notice him anyway, if he found his way out crawling on the ceiling. He did just that, approaching the area where the manhole was located as he noticed the sounds of the city reaching their highest volume. There was only a problem.
So did the grunts and the punches.
“Shit.” Aunt May and Mr. Rogers would be disappointed in him if they knew how much he was swearing, but how couldn't he, really? The two mysterious people were fighting by the freaking manhole he had to get out from! They were, quite literally, beating each other up under said manhole.
This had to be his Parker Luck striking once again.
In the corner of the ceiling he was sticking to, Peter was finally able to notice how they looked: one of them, the human he’d smelled kevlar and other materials on, was a man dressed in a black and grey supersuit. It had a black bat on its chest and a black cowl with pointy ears that covered all of the man’s face, except the mouth. His Spider sense was telling him the man was Dangerous, with a capital D and all. Peter wasn’t focused on that exactly though, he’d almost died too many times —and now actually died once—, to care about someone being able to fulfill that possibility again.
He was actually focused on the man’s long, black cape.
“Ew” Peter thought. The only capes he tolerated were Thor’s and Loki’s, not Dr. Strange’s, because his was a cloak. Peter had been really clear about it when Mr. Stark called the wizard’s cloak a cape and when…
More guttural sounds echoed in the sewers, making Peter’s head throb as his Spider sense kept buzzing with DANGERDANGER and OUTOUTOUT.
Yeah, this was certainly not the right moment to think about capes. Peter focused on the other man, the mutant. The guy dressed as a bat was already gigantic, pretty much built like a tank, but this guy… Peter was sure this guy had to be at least seven foot tall. He looked like some kind of reptile, with green scales, sharp claws and pointy teeth.
A man dressed as a bat and a man who looked like the secret lovechild between the Hulk and a crocodile were fighting in the sewers, could this city get any weirder?
Peter clung to the corner of the ceiling he was sticking to like a startled Spider. Which he was, in a way. The manhole was just a few meters away, in the middle of the ceiling, and Peter knew how to be sneaky: crawling towards the manhole would take about ten steps, well, four-legged steps since he was crawling, but whatever. He put his mask on —it would only cover half of his face, but it was better than going maskless— and started crawling at a steady speed while the men kept fist fighting.
One, two, three… he evened his breath, counting his steps. Four, five, six… he stopped for a second as he heard the sound of the punches ceasing, noticing the reptile man was subdued by the one in the bat suit. Peter hoped the one subdued was the bad guy, the metal scent of blood hitting his nose: the place reeked of violence, and it made every hair in Peter’s body stand. God, he really wanted to get out of here.
He kept approaching the manhole. Just a bit, just a few steps… Seven, eight, nine, ten. Great, now all Peter had to do was open the lid, his super strength would help and he could-
“Don’t” a deep, raspy voice echoed in the sewers. Peter’s Spider sense flared with THREATHTHREATHTHREATH, and honestly, he should have probably shivered or something, but he laughed. It sometimes happened when he panicked, okay? And this was extremely absurd as well.
The man glared at him. Peter giggled, now stuck, upside-down, on top of the manhole’s lid.
“Ok, I’m so sorry, but is that your real voice? Or is that a voice modulator you got going on under that cowl? Like, not trying to be offensive or anything, but if it is, it must be hella cheap, because you sound like one of those painfully heterosexual guys who try to fake their voice to sound sexy but end up sounding like a seventy year old with pneunomo…”
“Who are you?” the man grunted, interrupting him. Yeah, Peter also tended to ramble when he panicked.
“Noup” Peter popped the P at the end, feeling way too confused to take the situation seriously. “None of that. Don’t change the topic, because seriously, what kind of voice is that? And that cape? Really, Edna would be pissed at you, Pointy-ears”
If looks could kill, Peter was pretty sure he’d die again. Repeatedly.
“I asked,” the man’s voice deepened, “Who are you?”
That was definitely Peter’s cue to leave.
“And I said, none of that! Bye, Pointy-ears!” Peter opened the manhole’s lid, and with inhuman speed, got out of it after muttering a snarky: “Also, you should really get rid of that cape, makes the costume way too edgy” he was sure the man could hear, the ghosts of his hands trying to snatch him from the ceiling making his scalp itch.