AN: SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR
It was so slow, the way it happened, as Tony stood there silently and watched that rag-tag bunch calling themselves guardians dissolve. None of them seemed to be in any pain when they died, but rather, faintly puzzled, as if confused by the sensation of their bodies disintegrating under no discernible cause. One by one, it took them, and somehow that made it even worse, like it just waited for Tony's eyes to swing to the next person before starting in on them too.
"Tony, it's the only way," Strange sticks around long enough to say, and then he crumbles apart.
Maybe he's next. Tony looks down at his hands, waiting to see them fall apart in clouds of ash. But he's still whole. It's just a matter of seconds, Tony thinks to himself. What do you do with the last few seconds of your life?
"Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good."
Tony turns slowly. Peter's face is pale. He's not the most tanned child in the first place, but, still; his skin has an unhealthy sheen to it. Maybe the fucked-upness of this whole situation is catching up to him. Tony wouldn't blame him for freaking out. He's only holding it together himself because Peter is standing right there. Somebody needs to be an adult.
Ash blows against his face and something in his stomach spasms painfully as he watches Peter's gaze turn inward, his expression frozen in a grimace of horror.
He looks—almost puzzled, really.
This can't be happening.
Peter takes a wobbly step forward. Tony's going to start calling him Bambi instead of Underoos, after all this is said and done. Great big doe-eyes and wobbly legs. Fits too well. This planet is hot and stuffy, Tony can't think, his throat is painfully tight, can't even speak. His side screams at him—one hot, blazing strip of agony, throbbing in time with his pattering heartbeat.
If it hasn't started by now, then Peter's okay. He has to be. Whatever angel of death passing over has spared the two of them. "You're alright," he mutters, and Peter collapses heavily against him. Tony takes his weight easily. Peter barely weighs anything.
Not Peter, he thinks to himself distantly. Thanos can kill anyone he wants, turn Tony into the puff of ash on the end of a cigarette if he chooses, but not Peter. Peter's too good, painfully whole and shining and perfect, the only goddamn innocent in this entire shit-storm of a universe. Tony's the fucked up one, Tony's the one who should be, should be—oh God, not Peter. Why? Not Peter. Half the population, Thanos said, and of course that shitty Parker Luck won't give the kid a break, even now.
"I don't—I don't know what's happening, I don't know what's—"
Peter's so strong, even if you wouldn't think it at all to look at him. But his hands clasped around Tony's neck are nerveless. Doctor, they need a fucking doctor, but of course, Strange is dead, gone, fluttered away in a million little pieces of DNA on the breeze, so calm and steady, like his life was the only consequence. Goddamn the man. Goddamn him. How could he have looked at this wide-eyed child, seen his enthusiasm and courage, and sacrificed the Time Stone for Tony's worthless, shitty life instead?
"I don't want to go, I'm not ready, Mr. Stark, please, I don't want to go—" Peter chokes out. He sounds so young, because he is young.
What can he say? There's nothing to say. It's his fault. It's his fault. He clutches him tighter in a deathgrip, gets dragged down to the ground when Peter's lower body gives out. He won't let go. If he holds on tight enough, shelters him against the ground with his own body, then Peter can't die. Blood rushes in his ears, mixing poorly with the nausea from what is likely a severe concussion. There's a gentle, fluttering feeling against his ears, as soft as a moth's wing, and Tony feels the weight of Peter's arms around him diminishing. Bits of him are flaking off here and there, no matter how hard Tony holds onto him, like sand draining between his clenched fingers.
It happens quickly after that.
Tony's still struggling to breathe when Peter looks him in the eyes, and Tony sees a thousand regrets, a thousand fears, and one strand of steel. The kid's mouth is wobbling, but it smooths out a moment later while Tony pets his hair back with shaking fingers and rocks him slightly.
"I'm sorry," Peter says meekly, swallowing, and Tony opens his mouth, thinks—
—You're gonna be ok—
—Don't give up on me now, kid—
—If you die, that's on me—
—You've got nothing to be sorry for—
—and Peter stiffens, eyes sliding away, expression blanking as some inner light, some indefinable soul, snuffs out as easily as you'd pinch the flame of a candle between your fingers. And he's gone. And Tony said nothing. His last words to the teen were "You're alright" as he died.
Peter's gone, all he left behind an empty shell, a corpse, knock-knock, nobody's home, and his glassy eyes are still open when his body gets the memo a moment later as it collapses gently into flurries of dust. Tony's hands shake so hard they fling the grit, remains, off his palms, his arms still curved around the shape of a body that's no longer there.
Collect the ash, he thinks stupidly, panicked as all the bits and pieces of Peter go sailing away between his fingers in a thousand directions on this fucking, dirt-shit Godforsaken planet, light-years from home and Aunt May and his uncle's grave and Queens and his friendly little neighborhood. How's the Time Stone going to fix this when Peter's a million motes of dead seventeen-year old human skin and DNA and bone floating around, indistinguishable from the soil kicked around by the planet's arid breeze?
He gasps for air, and microscopic bits of Peter coat his lungs with each shuddering breath, sticking in his throat like a mouthful of mud. His mouth tastes like blood.
Peter's dead. And the stupid fucking thing of it is, Tony should have taken those precious few seconds he had left and told him that he was so, so sorry for dragging him into this. That he was proud of him. That he should of hugged him back in that car, two years ago, when Peter was healthy and whole and alive. But he said nothing. Peter died, guilt in his eyes, apologizing about his own death as it happened, always tripping over himself to make amends.
Tony rocks himself, eyes closed and hand still warm from where it had braced Peter's back, and lets himself shut down.
AN: Infinity War has me sobbing over here. 1 Review=1 box of tissues.