Infinity War: BREAKING DOWN.
Note: I might get some things wrong as I haven't watched the film, but I have watched the trailer and a couple of sneaky clips (and then obviously, because I'm me, I cried my heart out, but that doesn't matter).
Also, you may need to - correction, definitely need to - find a packet of tissues before you start reading.
Peter Parker - not Spider-Man, just plain Peter Parker - was dying. Leaning against a cliff face, his blood running down the stone. Thanos had slammed him against the ground by his throat and stabbed him. Deep. It hurt, it hurt so much. There was blood pulsing from his side.
His own body was killing him, blood pouring from the wound, driven by the beating of his heart.
It hurt, pain lancing through him. His hands were gripping the stone hard, cutting his fingers on the sharp edges, blood gathering under his nails.
He knew that at least.
Somehow the pain was an anchor to reality, something that stopped him from fading, keeping him from falling.
For now.
For a few more minutes.
He was dying on the surface of a planet that wasn't Earth, one that he didn't know, one that was now stained with his blood.
He knew that the planet was Titan. That didn't make it any better.
His throat hurt from where Thanos had nearly crushed it, his spine and back were aching horribly from where he'd been slammed against the hard ground, but his side was exploding with agony, filling his world with a constant throbbing pain, making everything else blurred and indistinct, slowly beating him down in submission, into nothingness.
There was white mist obscuring his vision now. He slid a little further down the
stone.
Then the emotionless face of a red-and-gold helmet, scratched, dented and covered with a fine coating of ash, came into focus in front of him, which then slid up and folded away to reveal the cut, bleeding and absolutely terrified face of Tony Stark. There was fresh blood running down Tony's chin from his split lip and down his forehead from a cut just above his left eyebrow.
"Mr Stark," Peter mumbled softly, "I don't feel so good." The pain was spreading through him like an infection. He looked up at Tony, trying to speak through the pain, but nothing came out of his mouth. Peter could feel hot blood climbing up the back of his throat.
"Kid?" Tony said, reaching out to him. "Peter, can you hear me? Peter?"
Peter fell against him, feeling the cold metal of Tony's suit immediately become slick with blood. His blood.
"I don't want to go, Mr Stark. I don't want to leave. Please - please don't let me go, Mr Stark - "
"Don't talk, kid. Just breathe, and don't stop breathing."
Tony ran across the ash plain, to where Peter was slumped against a cliff face, his suit shining red with his own blood.
As he got closer to the boy, he saw Peter's mouth move, but he couldn't hear the words over the cacophony of the battle that was still raging around him. He caught a few glimpses of his friends and the other Avengers, but the clouds of ash and blood stopped him from seeing any more. But right now, the priority was Peter.
He ran even faster, blasting anything that was in his way out of his path, terrified that it would be too late.
"Kid?" he said urgently, skidding to a halt next to the boy, reaching out to him and folding his helmet away so that he could see Peter properly. "Peter, can you hear me? Peter?"
He caught the boy as Peter fell against him, feeling the metal of his suit instantly become wet with Peter's blood.
"I don't want to go, Mr Stark. I don't want to leave. Please - please don't let me go, Mr Stark - "
Tony could hear the fear in the boy's voice. He remembered with a little jolt that Peter hadn't even had his seventeenth birthday yet.
"Don't talk, kid. Just breathe, and don't stop breathing."
Peter nodded, his eyes staring up into Tony's, and Tony willed him not to close them, not yet. A trickle of blood ran from the side of his mouth, and he winced and shuddered on the ashy ground.
Tony picked him up as gently as he could and laid the boy down on a patch of relatively smooth ash that wasn't too far away from the cliff. Peter's suit - the one that Tony had made for him - was ripped and scratched, even though it was made of metal, and there was a wide, deep, bloody hole in his side that was encircled by ripped and compressed metal, and some of the shards were stuck inside the wound point-first, digging deep into Peter's flesh every time he moved. The boy shifted feebly on the ground. His face twisted in pain, and then relaxed.
Oh God, Tony thought.
Please, God, please not him.
Tony only looked at it for a second, then spoke to the AI - for some strange reason, he'd named it Karen - that was part of Peter's suit.
"Karen, how long have we got?"
The AI's speech, it was obviously damaged, was slow, broken and crackly, like it was talking through a haze of static: "Approximately... three... min...utes and... fifty... sec...onds, Mr Stark. Less... than... that now."
Tony folded away his gauntlets, then pressed his hands hard against the deep wound, applying as much pressure as possible, trying desperately to stop the bleeding, feeling hot blood - Peter's blood - welling up under his fingers.
Peter tried to scream, the pressure that Tony was putting on the wound was agony; he could feel the blood welling up around Tony's fingers.
The jagged shards of metal caught inside the hole were digging deeper and deeper into him, like the shrapnel that had once been embedded in Tony's chest, but all that came out of his mouth was a faint whimper, like a very young child's.
Then pain wracked his body, and suddenly he was coughing up scarlet blood onto the ground, as red as Tony's suit, trying not to choke, his body convulsing, his hands clenching at his sides.
Tony immediately removed his hands from the hole in Peter's side, and tried to prop the boy up as more blood ran down his chin; Peter could taste it as it flooded out of his mouth.
It tasted like metal, or maybe that was just his imagination.
"Mr Stark - I - "
"Just breathe, Peter."
Peter's breath seemed to be sticking in his throat.
"Mr Stark - I'm scared - "
Tony instantly took his hand off the wound as Peter's body convulsed and he began to cough up blood, so much blood that it seemed almost impossible for it all to have come from one person. Tony tried to prop the boy up against the cliff again.
There was blood still pouring from the wound in his side, it hadn't begun to clot yet, and Peter's face was white as snow, standing out sharply in a world of grey, black, and red.
"Mr Stark - I'm scared - I-I don't want to leave - n-not like this - "
"Just breathe, Peter." Tony tried to reassure him.
Peter tried to smile, and his teeth were stained red with his blood. "My aunt's going to k-kill me when I get back h-home in th-this state."
Tony smiled. The words were so... so Peter that it nearly made him start to cry. The boy's breathing was starting to falter now, shudders running up his body. He was still bleeding onto the ground and his mouth, chin and the front of his suit were stained and wet with blood.
"D-Doesn't hurt much n-now," he whispered, his blood-covered hand groping weakly for Tony's. He was breathing in little half-gasps between the words. "Is that good, sir?"
"Yeah, kid. That's - that's real good."
"I-I'm tired," Peter mumbled, and Tony saw that the boy's eyelids were fluttering and that he was struggling to keep them open. "C-Can I sleep, Mr Stark?"
"Yes, Peter. You go to sleep, kid."
Tony was crying for real now. He hugged the boy, feeling Peter's blood on his hands and on his own suit. He whispered in Peter's ear:
"This doesn't count as a hug, okay? Just - involuntary muscular spasms."
Peter tried to smile, tasting metallic blood in his mouth. "My aunt's going to k-kill me when I get back h-home in th-this state."
He could feel his breathing starting to weaken now, but his heartbeat quickened like it was trying to complete a lifetime's beats, but there was no time. The terrible pain was lessening now, fading away. He felt tired, and his body felt so heavy, as though it was trying to bury itself in the ash.
There was a scream from somewhere in the battle, but Peter heard it only distantly, everything was focused on his own little sliver of existence now.
"D-Doesn't hurt much n-now," he whispered, his blood-covered hand groping weakly for Tony's. Tony took it, and Peter could feel the metal of Tony's suit beneath his fingers. "Is that good, sir?"
"Yeah, kid. That's - that's real good."
"I-I'm tired." Peter mumbled, and he seemed to be sinking, sinking into the surface of the planet. "C-Can I sleep, Mr Stark?"
"Yes, Peter. You go to sleep, kid." Tony's eyes were full of tears.
Peter smiled faintly.
Tony surprised him, then, by hugging him. He heard Tony whisper in his ear:
"This doesn't count as a hug, okay? Just - involuntary muscular spasms." Then he let go, carefully lowering Peter back to the ground.
Peter smiled and struggled to sit up, but couldn't.
"M-Mr Stark?"
"Yes, Peter?"
"W-Will you be h-here when I wake up?"
Peter felt so tired, all he wanted to do was sleep.
Looking down at him, completely unable to help, Tony was crying.
Tony let go of the boy. Peter tried to sit up, but didn't manage it. His hand was holding Tony's, brushing against the cold metal that still enclosed the rest of Tony's arm, but his grip was slack and getting weaker.
"M-Mr Stark?"
"Yes, Peter?"
"W-Will you be h-here when I wake up?"
Tony could see that Peter's limbs were slowly being covered by a thin coating of ash, blown by the wind in swirling patterns in a mockery of a dance.
The boy coughed weakly, trying to get some of the ash out of his mouth; blood pulsed from his side again, and he fell back against the ground, exhausted, his face very white.
"Peter - Peter, don't stop breathing, do you hear me? Please."
"M-Mr Stark - "
Tony checked Peter's vitals using a faint holographic display from Karen, projected shakily from Peter's suit onto the ground in front of him, and saw that the boy's heart was beating about once every five seconds, slowing, slowing. He had less than a minute now.
"Go to sleep, kid. You'll be fine, trust me." Tony said, warm, salty tears pouring down his face.
Peter was looking up at him, blood bubbling between his pale lips, his brown eyes slowly, ever so slowly beginning to mist over.
"B-Be there, Mr Stark, will you?"
"'Course, kid."
Peter tried to say something, and Tony leant closer to hear it, feeling the boy's faint breath on his ear.
"I-I'm s-sorry."
Peter felt blood bubbling between his lips, every beat of his weakening heart sending more and more blood gushing from his body; the ash beneath him was black mud now, laced through with red, saturated with blood.
"B-Be there, Mr Stark, will you?"
He felt Tony's tears falling onto his face. The world was dissolving.
"'Course, kid." Tony said, and Peter remembered all the times he'd been in Tony's lab, watching him make the suit that, even now it was battered and broken, was still helping him limp along the last few seconds.
Peter tried to say "I'm sorry," but all that came out of his mouth was another trickle of quickly congealing blood. Tony leant closer to him. Peter tried to find enough air in his lungs to speak, then managed to force the words through the thick white mist that was filling his vision again.
"I-I'm s-sorry."
Tony saw Peter's breathing falter one last time, then stop.
"Peter - Peter, no - "
Not Peter, please not Peter.
Tony wanted to deny everything that Peter's lifeless body was showing him. Because smart, funny, innocent Peter Parker... couldn't be dead.
He shook the boy's shoulder, trying to get him to wake up, to be fine, but the boy's brown eyes seemed to be staring over Tony's shoulder, looking at nothing.
Peter's blood-encrusted lips were slightly parted from his last sentence, and his limp hand slipped out of Tony's and fell to the ashy ground, alabaster white against the grey-black ash. The torn suit's holographic display, now still and lifeless, the line that represented Peter's heartbeat flat and motionless, flickered once and vanished, eclipsed by a swirling cloud of ash.
Tony, wiping the ashy residue from his face, saw that Peter's unseeing brown eyes were full of pain, a pain so intense that he couldn't begin to comprehend it. Thanos had been forcing the boy to die in even more pain than he'd already been in.
Then he saw the thin, hairline cracks begin to spread across Peter's face.
"No!" he shouted, his voice raw with grief. "No, Peter! Peter!"
The boy's body dissolved from the feet up, flaking away into a million individual motes of hair, skin, bone and DNA. Not even the suit that Tony had made for him, the suit that was supposed to have kept him safe, was left behind.
In the last few precious seconds before his face disintegrated, Tony saw a single tear glistening on the boy's cheek, just below his frozen pain-filled eyes. Then Peter disintegrated entirely and blew away in the wind, leaving nothing except his blood, soaking into the ground.
Tony stood up, his helmet sliding down to cover his tear-streaked face, knowing that he had to hold on to this memory, because it would be the last time he would see Peter Parker's face ever again.
"I-I'm s-sorry."
Tony set off into the battle again, with one thought in his head:
He was going to kill Thanos, whatever it took.