Life, of course, goes on.
Peter is used to that. Even when really big things happen, there's still the smaller things going on. Yeah, he went to Germany and fought with half the Avengers against the other half. When he got home, there was still schoolwork. And, sure, his girlfriend's father turned out to be a weapon-smuggling supervillain with some stolen alien tech. When he was done with that, there was finals.
He went into outer space trying to save a wizard with a maybe-sentient cape and a necklace, fought a monster hellbent on wiping out half the universe like a maniac, died in the arms of his mentor, came back five years later, and fought in a literal war for the fate of the entire everything. When they won, he had to find out how to exist when five years have passed in one second.
The beginning of life going on is pretty rocky, actually. He goes home with Miss Potts, who's now a Mrs. with a little girl and a dead husband. He stays for the funeral, like everyone else, and tries to pretend he isn't hurting as much as he is. He figures he probably doesn't have the right to be too broken-hearted over this-after all, out of everyone here he knew Tony the least. Except maybe the aliens that tried to kill him, but they don't look too broken up anyway.
Besides, Peter didn't know this Tony at all. This Tony, who made a bright-eyed little Morgan who shares his love of machinery. This Tony, who married the girl-who-almost-got-away-like-fifty-different-times. This Tony, who invented time travel. This Tony…who made the sacrifice play.
Five years is a long time. He doesn't even recognize the new Tony, doesn't recognize the hug and that sickening relief just from seeing Peter's face. So, Mrs. Potts and her little Morgan and Captain Rogers and Mr. Hogan and Dr. Banner and…well, everyone has more of a right to mourn this Tony than Peter ever will. Peter was the secret project, future Avenger that Tony had five years ago before the universe went to shit.
Besides, Spider-Man has to be stronger than some fifteen year old kid crying at a funeral.
Mrs. Potts doesn't get rid of him right away, which is nice. It takes a couple days to locate and contact his Aunt May, who made it through the Decimation five years ago. He can't decide if that's a good thing or not, because as someone on the wrong end of the dusting he's pretty sure it's easier from over here. Everyone else seems pretty sure that Peter and the other 'Vanished' are the victims in all this, and they're damn set on making this five year transition easy.
Mrs. Potts spares no expense in finding his Aunt, and Sam (he said he could call him that the first time he tried 'Mr. Falcon' to his face) goes to get her. Peter spends a total of three days in the Stark-Potts family home, with Mrs. Potts trying to feed him almost more than even he can take and with Morgan trying to attack him with a fake repulsor. He starts playing along with it-she's so small he feels like a dick otherwise.
Peter lands solidly on being the lucky one when Aunt May comes in, gasping out tears and aged about a hundred years. Her hair even has a streak of gray in it. She clutches his face and smooths back his perfectly combed hair and just stares at him for an uncomfortably long time. She makes quiet whimpering sounds and hugs him too tight and says "I missed you, oh God, I can't believe you're here, Peter" and he has to hold her, rubbing her back and trying to be comforting.
Sam also gives them a ride back into the city. No one else seems to find it weird-Peter was on the wrong side back in Germany, or at least the wrong side for Sam. He stood by Tony, and he hasn't regretted it yet. But the last time he saw most of these people, Scott and Sam and Bucky Barnes, they were fighting. Now, Sam is driving him and his distraught Aunt back home and refusing any payment or reciprocation.
"We all lost something five years ago," he says, is the only thing he'll say, when Peter pushes. "We're all gonna need some help getting back to where we were."
And Peter doesn't know how to say "Except me", doesn't know how Sam would take it. How May would take it. Because, yeah, technically Peter lost his life and all. And he can remember how it felt, the odd numbness washing over him as he melted away in the wind. But it doesn't feel like he lost anything. He has no memory of the five years between his two existences, between the Then and the Now. He Vanished, and the next second he was back. The next second, that Strange dude was telling him that it was five years later and where the fight was.
The next second, he was alive again.
So, really, what did Peter lose?
School survived the Decimation, unfortunately.
Midtown School of Science and Technology stands proud as ever, defiant in the face of universe-wide mass murder. Peter isn't sure what he's expecting, but jumping right back into existing isn't it. He has a new apartment, because Aunt May couldn't handle a home with so much loss hanging around it, but everything else is largely the same. His class isn't, not really, because some kids survived. Some kids have been alive the last five years and moved out of high school.
A lot didn't. Ned didn't. MJ didn't.
A lot of kids died five years ago, and they have to start over now. MSST even starts a new program, an Integration Assistance program to help ease the Vanished back into school. Mostly, it feels like school has always felt except with mandatory counselor meetings every week. And Peter doesn't need therapy, he's fine. Yes. He died. But, like, only for a second-from his perspective-and then he was back and perfectly fine. He can't even tell the whole truth-can't say "Yeah, I'm Spider-Man and I was there when Mr. Stark died but I was also there when Thanos died so I feel like I've had some closure" or whatever the fuck he's supposed to say. Because no one sees Spider-Man when they look at him.
They just see regular old Peter Parker, and Peter Parker doesn't need therapy. Peter Parker is fine. Peter Parker is a well-adjusted teenager who really hasn't lost all that much and is definitely ready to jump back into existing because life, of course, goes on. He's ready.
Except for the nightmares. Those slow him down a bit, they mess up his kick-off and the rest of the jump is pretty sloppy because of it. He's pretty sure he's landing on his face right now, but he won't know until it's over. But he's landed on his face plenty in the past. The first time he fought with Tony and got his ass kicked. The first time he fought the Vulture and almost drowned. The ferry fiasco. The night of homecoming. He's fucked up a lot, and nightmares aren't even the worst of it.
Mostly, he dreams about the Decimation. He remembers that feeling, seconds before he actually started Vanishing, that feeling that comes with heightened senses. The hair-raising, spine-tingling, something's wrong feeling. And then the numb. It started in his right side, and he just knew he was falling apart. He didn't look, he couldn't feel, but he knew he wasn't there anymore. And Mr. Stark's face, tortured and apologetic and absolutely helpless. They were all helpless.
Sometimes he dreams about what came next. He dreams about the solid ground that was suddenly under him, of Strange's intense orders about a fight, the confusion when he says "five years" like it doesn't mean anything. And then the war. Explosions and blood and people dying all around him, but he couldn't stop and he couldn't help because he had the one thing that could make all this worth it. But there was too much, Thanos had come too prepared and Peter couldn't make it through. He was knocked to the ground again, like he always is, and he had enough sense to pass it on to someone who might be able to make it.
And, somehow, whatever he starts dreaming, he always ends up back at one place. Crouched in front of Mr. Stark as he gasps out his last breaths, skin graying and burned to pieces and eyes wide and glassy. Telling him he did it, begging him to be okay. Pulled back because he had no right to Tony's last moments, not with his wife/mother of his child right there. "You can rest now" she said. Just like that, like Tony had been killing himself for the last five years (or longer, since the first alien army came to New York and everyone realized what was out there).
Some nights Peter wakes up screaming and May comes in to hold him until he stops. If he winds himself up to a panic attack she'll start singing, the same soft lullaby she would sing when Ben died and Peter couldn't get to sleep on his own. She'll pull him against her chest so he can feel her breathing, can remember he's not disappearing and no one else is dying.
Usually, he wakes up in tears and just lays in the dark until the sun starts coming through his window and his alarm goes off. And he gets up and goes back to existing because there's no other choice, he has to go to school and he has to do his work and it all amounts to something because he's still alive, even though other people aren't. And, of course, life keeps fucking going.
And, really, how is he going to explain any of that to a high school counselor?
He doesn't explain it to anyone.
May gets antsy, but she's always believed that if you push too far when someone is weak then it'll break them. So she buys a lot of food to spare him her cooking and goes into Mother Bear mode, including curfew and bed checks and overall too-close-for-comfort…ness. She's too close, but she'll never ask. She'll remind him about the counselor meetings, though, like she hopes he'll come back from one of them and be cured. Or better, at least.
Ned doesn't have anything to say. None of them do, really. The English teacher tries to have a discussion about it, the effects of the Decimation. No one wants to speak, and she ends up calling on people to give monosyllabic answers until the lesson is over. No one else tries to tackle them all as a group, after that, and they definitely don't talk about it on their own. Ned tries, once, but the only thing he asks is how it felt with Peter's heightened senses (which Peter didn't answer), and all Ned offers on his own is "I didn't feel anything" and…well, that pretty much sums it up.
It feels like an in-between. Like Peter is stuck back on that destroyed planet, halfway dusted and halfway moving. He's stuck on the battlefield, watching the world collapse around him as Tony take his last breath. Period. He's missing pieces. He came back, and life goes on, but there's something…something missing.
He doesn't text Happy anymore. He doesn't have a Mr. Stark to report to. He doesn't have Spider-Man activities to report on. May tried to confiscate his Iron Spider suit, but she let it go when Peter started yelling. He didn't mean to, but the pleading wasn't working and she reached out to touch it and-
Peter broke. May let him keep it, but she never stopped watching it for any sign of use. Not that it would stop Peter if he really wanted to get back into vigilante work. But he can't do it, for the same reason he just couldn't let May touch it. It's the last thing Tony will ever give to him. If he ruins it, if it gets destroyed or thrown out or…
The last time he was Spider-Man, he was watching a man he loved die.
Peter doesn't know if he can go back to Spider-Man after everything that's happened. He doesn't really know what to do after. Life might go on, but Peter can't see the roadmap. Hell, he can't even see the road-he can feel it under his feet and he can shuffle along, but he doesn't know where the next turn is and he's hesitant. He's afraid of walking off another cliff.
So maybe it's not what he's missing, but what he's gained. He's gained nightmares of death and hopelessness and endings. He's gained fear. He's gained indecision. Peter isn't half-formed, his fully regenerated and then some. He brought back everything he saw in the universe, all the deaths he witnessed and couldn't prevent, all the sorrow and pain he isn't entitled to.
Peter brought back an entire universe to carry around on his shoulders and he's feeling around the ground he can't see waiting for the drop that may never come. He isn't stuck on that destroyed planet, he just dragged it all across the galaxies back to his own little planet. He brought back the sensation of dying, the knowledge that he's going to die. He brought back the afterlife-nothing. There was no heaven or hell, no passage of time, no afterlife to speak of.
So, he has that to look forward next time he (hopefully permanently) dies.
Peter hopes there's no more false deaths and resurrections. The end of life is something that should matter. It should mean something, like it did for Agent Romanoff. Like it did for Mr. Stark. And Captain Rogers. The next time Peter stops existing, he doesn't want to wake up and find another five years have passed. Or twenty. Or-
Peter can drive himself crazy just by thinking. He used to do it all the time when he was a kid. He'd read a physics textbook and start thinking about nuclear fission and black holes and a million other things that he couldn't really use but he had to know. He'd lose everything inside his own mind and if it weren't for Aunt May he would never come out.
He got better as he got older. He learned to focus his attention, and instead of driving himself crazy he started entertaining himself. It's how he created the first web fluid, and every incarnation that came after. Challenging science is what entertains him. Now, he can't change gears like he used to. He's stuck in dying-fighting-losing and he can't get out. Peter is just stuck.
He remembers Strange. The wizard had said something, after they lost and Thanos got away but before everything turned to dust in the wind. Something about the Endgame. Remembering it pisses Peter off, because he was wrong. What happened in space wasn't the Endgame, and what happened right after wasn't the Endgame. Well, except for Tony. And Steve.
Okay, so it was the Endgame for a lot of people. Heroes died. But Peter's still here. Peter's Endgame is still out there, and the wizard never said anything about what comes after. He said "we're in the Endgame now" like everything else would be easy. Like there was an end and after they won they'd be okay again.
Which is a load of shit, because there's no end for Peter and nothing's okay.
"I felt it."
Honestly, not the best opening Peter's ever come up with. They're in his room, Peter on the bed with a textbook and Ned on the floor with a new Lego set. He's starting the assembly process while Peter finishes up some AP History work he should have already finished. It's been half a semester since Peter came back, and he hasn't had a full night of sleep since before he died. It's starting to catch up with him, finally, and the work that used to be so damn easy is suddenly insurmountable.
"Felt what?" Ned asks, only partly listening. Lego sets shouldn't be rocket science, but it's important to Ned to get it exactly right.
"The Decimation." Ned drops the piece he's assembling and the Legos scatter across the floor. "Spider-Sense, I guess."
"Really?" That's Ned torn between the awed curiosity he's always held for Peter's powers and the caution he's treated Peter with since it became clear that he came back wrong. In the first weeks Ned was trying to go personal, but Peter shut him down so hard he backed off as far as he could. They get together to build Lego models and talk homework, but they have a list of topics they can't do.
No Spider-Man talk. No Decimation talk. No Avengers talk. Basically, everything that was interesting about Peter five years ago is scarring now, and Ned's done a good job of pretending it doesn't exist. Peter should be a lot more grateful than he is. He should probably tell Ned that.
"Really," is what he says instead.
"What did it feel like? Like, I know what it felt like for me, but I'm just human so what do I know. Did you feel it before it happened?"
"Ned," Peter interrupts, before he can ask any more questions that Peter won't want to really answer. Ned probably has a lot of question, Peter just doesn't have many answers. "I…I don't know, I guess. I just felt something coming, and then I didn't feel anything. I guess I had a few extra seconds. Not long."
"Huh," Ned offers eloquently. Peter laughs in surprise, though maybe it shouldn't be shocking. What else is Ned going to say? "Weird."
"Yeah, it was," Peter agrees. He's staring at the textbook, but he's not seeing it. He's thinking back to the sparking portal he had stepped through-into a war. "And I…I was there when they defeated him. Thanos. I held the gauntlet."
"So you saw the Stones? What did they look like?"
"Like glowing stones." For magical, universe ending artifacts, the Infinity Stones aren't that much to look at. They're beautiful, but they really do look like enchanted gemstones. A Kay's commercial looks just as magical.
"So you fought him, then? If you were there?"
"Kind of. I'll tell you about it sometime." And that's it. Ned starts reassembling his shattered pieces, and Peter takes a few minutes for his heartbeat to calm down and his eyes to focus on the page in front of him. He wanted to talk about it, and he still does. But talking about it requires thinking about it, and when he's thinking about it he's thinking about people that he couldn't save-Tony-and it's too much.
But it's enough. He has to get over it. He has a life to live, and he can't spend all of it stuck in that one terrible moment. So this is good. It's not better, not yet, but it's a start. And Peter thinks maybe he can get through it if the rest is anything like this. With Ned sitting on his floor, not pushing and not judging and moving on easily when Peter presses stop. It works.
Somehow, it works.