"Oof," Tony huffs. Because that's the natural response when you've just been barrelled into by a teenager with super-strength and a seemingly single-minded determination to give you a hug. Tony glances down at Peter, pats him on the back, and says, "Hey, kid, not that I don't appreciate the hug—because I do, it's nice, we should do this more often—but what's going on here?"

"I like you so much, Mr. Stark; I'd be really sad if you were turned into dust by a psychopathic purple giant from outer space," Peter mumbles.

Tony takes a moment to unpack that. "Alright. Oddly specific, but alright." He levels a concerned look at Peter. "Did something happen to make you think that's a possibility?"

A dark look flits across Peter's face, but it's gone when he says, not very comfortingly, "No. No way, haha. That would be crazy. I just wanted you to know that I would be...sad. If that did happen. Hypothetically."

Tony watches, bewildered, as the kid buries his face in Tony's shoulder and refuses to say more.

Let's go back a few hours. Or forward a few years. The distinction isn't clear.

Peter goes to bed in a guest room the night of Tony's funeral but can't find any rest. If the numbers flashing on the alarm clock beside him are true, it's technically tomorrow already. But he hasn't slept at all since the day—uh, two days—before, and even then it had only been for a few uneasy hours, his sleep troubled by images of Mr. Stark's lifeless eyes staring back into Peter's in the aftermath of heartrending battle and the memory of himself saying, "We won, Mr. Stark."

(Did they win? Did they really?)

He doesn't know how he can rest, now that his mentor—the last of the three (almost-)father figures Peter has had in his life—has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors and is buried six feet underground.

Peter wonders, half-sincerely, if he's cursed.

Then he wonders with full sincerity what the hell is happening, because he starts to hear whispers. Disembodied ones. (Which are objectively more frightening, Peter thinks, than embodied ones, if only for the fact that if the situation gets weird—or, uh, weirder—he won't even have anything to punch.)

This wouldn't be the first time that Peter's enhanced post-radioactive-spider-bite senses have caused him to pick up on sounds that he would not have been able to hear as a regular person, but there's a definite difference between this and eavesdropping on a conversation going on a couple of rooms away. These whispers seem close. Like they are in the room with him.

And if they are in the room with him, he should be able to sense someone else's presence. But Peter can't see or sense anything other than the expected night-darkness that has settled over the room like a heavy blanket.

As he sits up and looks around him, trying to distinguish any odd shapes in the shadows, he hears his name repeated over and over by what sounds like half a dozen hushed voices whispering over each other, creating an effect that resembles white noise: Peter...Peter...Peter….

At some point in the night it had begun raining, and the patter of water droplets on the roof nearly drowns out the insistent mantra: Peter...Peter….

"What's happening?" The question is quiet, but Peter's voice still sounds loud against the murmurs.

Peter...remember us…you held us…you fought for us….

A crack of lightning outside. White light illuminates a line on the floor immediately below the window. Peter sees the grains of the guest room's wooden floorboards in startling detail. Peter…, the whispers repeat, we need you.

And then, like an echo: need you...need you...need you…need you…need you….

Peter shivers. There are goosebumps prickling up on his arms. He throws the comforter on the bed back and puts a foot on the floor, ready to bolt. "I don't understand."

Another crack of lightning. This time the white light spreads rapidly, filling the room and the periphery of Peter's vision until all he can see is white, and as he loses consciousness he hears, you will...you will...you will...you—

Peter wakes up, and he's simultaneously five years too early and right on time.

He doesn't understand what's going on. To be fair, he hasn't understood what's going on for a significant portion of the time since Dr. Strange rescued him from the Unplace Thanos' snap had cast him into, but whatever this is—despite Peter's previously-held belief that the universe couldn't get more confusing—manages to catch him by surprise

First of all, he's no longer in a guest room, but back in his bedroom in the apartment that he and May share in Queens. He knows this in an instant; he recognizes the warm vanilla scent of May's favorite candle filtering in from the living room and the texture of the pillowcase against his cheek.

Peter reaches a hand out blindly in the direction where he thinks his phone should be. Finds it. After cracking a bleary eye open, he turns it on and then blinks, disbelieving, as the screen displays a date that is months earlier than the date of the—what had Aunt May said people called it? The Decimation.

The day Peter—and half of the world's population—disintegrated. Thinking about it makes him sick.

He needs to gather more information. Peter opens up a tab for a search engine and types in a series of queries: Thanos, Tony Stark dead, infinity stones.

There is nothing in the results more noteworthy than some years-old articles about Tony Stark's disappearance in Afghanistan and a website advertising expensive jewelry. A search for any mentions of "decimation" yields only a dictionary entry defining the word as the killing of every tenth person in a group.

Every tenth person, Peter thinks. Would that have been any less horrifying?

All of this (lack of) evidence points him toward one conclusion: he really has traveled back in time. Before the snap. Before the funeral. Before all of the irreversible tragedies happen, so that there is still a window of opportunity for them to be avoided.

There are weeks—several of them—until Thanos is scheduled to arrive. If Peter does everything right, he may be able to stop it.

Emphasis on may.

And, on the topic of 'may's…

Aunt May seems years younger than she had at Mr. Stark's funeral, her face less lined for not having grieved for a nephew as well as a husband. She smiles at Peter when he pads into the kitchen (lured from his bedroom by the smell of pancakes) and says, "Someone looks like they didn't get much sleep last night."

Peter laughs. He hopes it doesn't sound nervous. "You could say that."

There are so many other things he could also say to her. He feels the weight of them in the lump in his throat while he listens to the way she hums along with the music playing from her phone as she turns back to the breakfast she's making. Peter could tell her I'm sorry I left you or I promise I won't do it again or I'm so glad that you haven't had to go through what the alternate-future you had to go through.

Peter could tell her what happened. Tell her about Thanos—about the five missed years of his life—about...Tony. But he can't find it in himself to put those things into words—at least not to her. Not to Mr. Stark, either, probably. He has this urge to protect her from the awful knowledge that another version of her has already—or will have?—spent years dealing with.

He would rather not divulge all of the painful details until he can assure her that it won't happen again. So he'll wait.

But there is one person he does feel comfortable speaking with about the possible upcoming apocalypse.

"Ned, I have to tell you something." Peter is uncharacteristically serious when he says this, from his tone to the stiff way he's holding his body. He looks like he's about to share news that will shake Ned to the core.

Ned experiences a flash of horror. "You didn't break the LEGO Death Star I lent you, did you?"

"No, absolutely not, I would never!" Peter says, making a face at the idea of that.

Ned lets out a relieved breath. "Okay. Good. Man, you had me worried for a second there. What's up, Peter?"

The boys are sitting cross-legged on Ned's bed facing each other. Peter fidgets with the soft material under his hand, decides that the direct approach will probably work best, and says, "I think I just time-traveled."

Ned blinks. "What do you mean? Is this a Groundhog Day situation or something along the lines of Back to the Future? " His expression grows more concerned. "Should you even be talking to me right now? You could be disrupting the timeline."

Peter feels a rush of affection toward Ned, who he should have known would believe him right away—of course he does. He's Peter's best friend for a reason. Peter says, "It's a long story."

Then he proceeds to share that long story with Ned, piece by horrible piece. Every now and then Ned interrupts with a question about something and Peter has to apologize for being vague, since he doesn't know all of the details himself—his understanding of what went on in the five years (five minutes) when he was stranded in a not-place outside of time and reality is fuzzy, so he only has the information that he had gleaned from frantic post-battle Google searches and hearsay to go off of. And there's no way Peter can go back—no way Peter would want to go back, even if he could—to ask.

So he shares what he knows, and when he's finished the two of them sit in silence for a length of time that is longer than would normally be comfortable. Thinking.

Ned is the one to break it. "Wow," he says. "That's...that's rough. I'm so sorry, Peter. You've been through a lot since yesterday."

Peter shrugs, kind of self-conscious. The experience that he's just recounted to Ned was objectively terrible, but it's one thing to acknowledge that to himself and another thing entirely to hear someone else say that aloud to him.

He's not sure why, but something about the idea of being consoled over it makes Peter feel uncomfortable—like he's pretending to have gone through more than he actually had, like he's not supposed to be as messed up over the whole thing as he is—even though reasonably he knows that neither of those things is right.

"I'm fine," Peter lies. Then he balances it out with a more believable-sounding truth: "I'm going to do whatever I can to stop it from happening this time around."

"You should go see Mr. Stark," Ned says, kind-voiced. "He would want to know about this."

Ned's right. Peter knows he is. But another conflicted part of Peter also knows that the moment Mr. Stark finds out about the future (which Peter hopes will not be the future), he will not react in any way that Peter wants to see. Peter has thought about this—Tony will either feel guilty for not preventing the Decimation, grimly fatalistic about the prospect of having to repeat it, or some other unpleasant combination of emotions. Maybe it's better to wait to say anything.

Peter uncrosses his legs and lets his feet dangle off the edge of the bed. "I don't think I want him to know yet." He looks sideways at Ned. "But you're right. I need to see him."

In the afternoon Peter visits the Avengers compound to soothe his frayed nerves with actual physical proof that Mr. Stark is alive and well.

Getting there is a longer process than he had expected—a web here, a lengthy bus ride there, an hour or so of walking on foot after a brief deliberation over whether he should call an Uber—but Peter does it, and he doesn't even have to wait for someone to let him in, because FRIDAY recognizes his genetic makeup after a brief scan and lets him in with a cheerful, "Welcome back, Peter."

"Thanks, FRIDAY," Peter says, directing these words up at some point on the ceiling. "It's good to be back."

And it is. It really is. Once he's inside, he takes in the familiar—undestroyed—surroundings: the expanse of clean tile, the sleek lines of the windows, the tasteful modern furniture like something out of a magazine. For a facility that Peter has only visited a handful of times, it feels remarkably like a second home. Or something that has the potential to become one.

Someone's walking Peter's way from the other end of the compound. Peter doesn't pay much attention to this; he's too distracted by the still-intact building around him to be all that concerned with its inhabitants.

When he looks up, he notes—oddly disinterested, his thoughts lagging a few moments behind his eyes—that he recognizes the person approaching.

"Queens." Steve Rogers gives Peter a little nod of acknowledgment when they pass in the hallway.

"Brooklyn," Peter says back, instinctive. Because two can play at that game.

Steve grins.

The moment passes. So do they, literally, Peter going one way and Steve going the other—probably in the direction of the state-of-the-art gym.

And then….

Wait. Peter mentally rewinds what just happened. Steve is here. Why is Steve here? How? And since when? Shouldn't he be in Wakanda or some other non-extradition country? As Peter cycles through a list of very valid questions, he spares a second to congratulate himself on not freaking out more about having just exchanged something bordering on banter with Captain America. Holy shit.

When Peter sees Mr. Stark for the first time after his return from the future, all thoughts of Captain America are banished from his mind. He registers only the heartwarming Tonyness of the scene before him—the half-drunk mug of black coffee on the workbench beside a pile of messy blueprints, the freshly-shaved goatee, the subtle hints of salt-and-pepper in the hair near Mr. Stark's temples (though that will be dyed out as soon as Tony notices it).

Hearing Peter's footsteps, Tony looks up, smiles, says, "Hey, Peter—"

And is cut off mid-greeting after Peter practically tackles him into an embrace that knocks the breath out of him. "Oof," Tony huffs. Because—well, you know the drill.

After a long moment, Peter pulls back from the hug. He asks, "Mr. Stark, I don't mean to hassle you, but—what's Captain America doing here?"

Tony laughs. It's not a real laugh, but something kind of forced—as if it's covering up for a more complicated emotion. "That's a great question. I'd like to know the answer to that myself."

Peter frowns. "He just...came back? Out of nowhere?"

"It was pretty fucking surprising, if you'll pardon my French," Tony says. "But he seems honestly apologetic, and I'm man enough to admit that I'm not exactly a model for perfect decision-making myself, so I think I'm going to try to give him the benefit of the doubt. Though—just for the record—I still have a lot of doubt."

That's good to hear. Peter had expected Mr. Stark to be more resentful. Last time Peter checked, he had still seemed furious at Steve over the whole Civil War thing—and maybe that name sounds dramatic, but it's what the press had dubbed the global-headline-making brawl that had led to Spider-Man's recruitment.

For that reason alone, Peter doesn't fully regret that it happened. He could never regret something that led to him meeting Mr. Stark. But the wedge it drove between the heroes he'd looked up to since he was a kid definitely made the universe less safe (as well as being a huge bummer).

And that's when Peter has the idea.

He hasn't decided for himself yet if Steve is worthy of Mr. Stark, but he'd been worthy enough to wield Thor's hammer (which Peter is totally not finished geeking out over, by the way, just so we're clear), so he must be alright. Plus, he's Captain America, the comic book hero Peter grew up idolizing. He probably eats decency for breakfast. With a side of truth, justice, and The American Way.

(Or is that Superman?)

Anyway, Peter thinks that maybe he should...push Steve and Mr. Stark together.

They do, after all, have a lot of common: saving people, holding onto things. (Mostly grudges, but also guilt, loyalty to teammates, a stubborn sense of right and wrong, et cetera.) And they were close friends, too, for years. Longer than they were enemies.

Plus, Steve is right there. The fact that he's at the compound and not in hiding somewhere like Peter's convinced he was during the original timeline (unless that Mr. Stark had been hiding something major) seems like a sign.

Maybe if Peter can get Steve to stay around long enough to help more from the start the first time they have to deal with Thanos, everything that went wrong can be prevented. Peter won't miss five years of what was supposed to be his life. The universe won't lose half its population on a whim. Tony Stark won't die.

It may say something about Peter's priorities that that last one is the sticking point for him.

So Peter files the idea away. It will be plan C, for 'Cap', falling right behind plan B, 'better hope for the best'. But for now Peter intends to do what he can to implement plan A. 'Assemble.'

Peter remembers the awesome sparkly lady who had saved him in the heat of that battle—her name was Danvers, he thinks. He had seen her again at the funeral (he shivers at that word and the memory of it—the funeral), but he'd had other things (namely: a drowning-heavy-grief-guilt) on his mind that day, so he hadn't paid much attention to the details of the guests in attendance.

She had clearly been powerful. Probably is powerful right now, even though her name never came up in the news in the time before Thanos. (That thought seems strangely fitting to Peter—using the metric of before Thanos and after Thanos to divide two radically different eras of his life into neat categories. It works.)

Whoever Danvers is at this point in time, Peter needs to find her and persuade her to make her debut on Earth a few years earlier. He thinks he can make a compelling argument.

Peter considers going to Nick Fury to ask for her contact information, because he had noticed at Mr. Stark's funeral (and, again, the reminder that in another timeline Mr. Stark died makes Peter so sad he reaches for his phone to send Tony another 'hi, how are you?' text—a habit that is probably starting to get at least a little suspicious) that Director Fury and Danvers seemed to be acquainted with each other.

Here is his logical next step. It shouldn't be too hard to accomplish, right?

Wrong.

Speaking to Fury is more difficult that Peter had anticipated. The man is impossible to get in touch with—at least without consulting Mr. Stark, which Peter refuses to do on the grounds that it will inevitably lead to questions about why he needs to speak with Fury in the first place.

Peter finds himself dialing the number of the SHIELD office in D.C. and asking to be connected to Director Fury. (He knows his odds of success with this strategy aren't high, but he's desperate.)

"It's urgent!" Peter tries to explain to the person who finally answers, after he's already struggled to justify his call for upwards of a minute. "The stakes are literally life-or-death. Trillions of lives could be in your hands as we speak."

There's a pause on the other end of the line, and then a nonplussed voice says, "Please hold."

Peter growls. Hangs up the phone. Falls back against his bed and, staring up at the ceiling, thinks, I'll just have to go find Fury myself.

Peter maybe cheats a little. He sneaks into Tony's lab while the older man is at a meeting with the leaders of Stark Industries' R&D department and asks FRIDAY to give him access to the information for how to get in touch with Nick Fury.

"Also please don't tell Mr. Stark," Peter says, fast, casting a furtive glance around the room as if Tony could jump out at any minute and catch him with his hand in the metaphorical cookie jar.

"Tell Mr. Stark?" FRIDAY repeats. "I can do that for you."

Peter's life flashes before his eyes. "No—!"

FRIDAY laughs. "I'm kidding, Peter."

Peter has never felt so betrayed by an AI before.

A couple of days later Peter finds himself sitting at the kitchen counter of the house at the address listed in Nick Fury's file, not fully believing that his plan paid off—or that he's in Nick Fury's house.

"So you're the Spider-kid, huh?" Fury looks at Peter, evaluating, with the eye that's not covered by a patch. He's leaning back against a row of cabinets.

(And this is definitely the wrong moment, but Peter shelves the thought to ask him whether he's ever gone to a Halloween party as a pirate. That would be amazing. Peter imagines a curved black hat and a parrot on his shoulder that's trained to just caw swear words at people until they fall in line.)

Peter clears his throat. Back to business, Parker. "Yep. That's me. Though I actually prefer Spider-Man."

"I'll keep that in mind," says Fury, in the tone of voice of a man who probably will not keep that in mind. "What did you want to see me for?"

"I need to find someone named Danvers."

That catches Fury by surprise. If Peter hadn't been closely observing him he wouldn't be able to tell, but as it is he sees Fury blink several times in quick succession. "Where did you hear that name?"

"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you," Peter says, honest. "But I know that you know her, and we need her. Something really dangerous is about to happen, and she's our only real hope of stopping it."

Fury's gaze is skeptical, but after a long pause, he seems to cave. "Alright. You want to get in touch with Carol Danvers—I'll show you what she left me."

He reaches into an inner pocket of the jacket he's wearing and pulls out an old pager. At least Peter thinks it's a pager—he hasn't actually seen one in person before. It's a kind of historical curiosity to him, like record players and the concept of VCR.

Fury places the pager on the countertop between them. "Carol gave me this transmitter to use in case of an emergency before flying off into space. I keep it on me at all times, but I haven't used it yet. Are you trying to tell me that the danger you're thinking about—which I still haven't seen any evidence of—is more of an emergency than any of the other batshit insane things that the Avengers have dealt with in the past decade?"

Peter doesn't hesitate. "Yes."

"It sounds to me like you weren't listening." Fury raises an eyebrow. "That pager is for emergencies only."

"This is an emergency." Peter's kind of tired of having to explain this to people. "The fate of the entire universe is at stake."

"The fate of the entire universe, huh?" Fury eyes him, shakes his head, and says, finally, "If you say so."

Peter does say so. "I know this sounds unbelievable, Director Fury, but I'm not making it up. This is bigger than anything the world has ever seen."

Fury still doesn't seem entirely on board, but he says, "I guess it has been a while since I've spoken to Carol. I must be getting sentimental in my old age." He picks the pager up and tells Peter, "I'll humor you."

Fury turns the machine on. Sends out the signal. Puts the transmitter back on the countertop.

They both watch as it sits there. Signaling.

Peter's not going to lie—it's more than a bit anticlimactic. "So that's it?"

It makes him feel better that Fury seems put-out, too. (In a very subtle way, of course—on Fury, 'put-out' looks the same as 'business as usual', except his posture is a little less straight.) Nevertheless, Fury turns to him and says, "I don't know what you were expecting."

Peter shrugs. "I don't know, either. Sparks? A loud noise? For all of the lights in the room to go out? Something more than…" He waves a hand in the direction of the pager, which is still quietly beeping on Fury's desk. "That."

"We're not in a movie, kid."

Peter wishes they were. If this was a movie, everything would end well.

"What happens now?"

Fury near-smiles. (This expression is 'business as usual' but with the corner of his mouth raised a few millimeters.) "We wait."

Alright. Fair enough. Peter reluctantly excuses himself after having Fury promise to get in touch immediately after the pager's message gets through.

But….

"Uh, I have one last favor to ask," Peter says, hesitating at the door.

Fury raises an eyebrow. Every feature on his face implies Another one?

Peter stays silent for a moment. He weighs the pros of what he's about to ask against the potential con that it will lead to the opposite of what he intends. Then he says, earnest, "Please don't tell Mr. Stark that I was here."

"You don't want your dad to catch you sneaking out of the house?" Fury ventures.

Peter sputters. "No—that's—Mr. Stark is not my father, I don't know where you got that idea, that's ridiculous." He looks shyly up at Fury. "I just don't want him to be worried."

Goddamnit, Fury thinks. It's too early in the morning to be going all soft over some weirdass kid. (It's half-past noon, in reality, but any time of day is still too early.)

Fury sighs. "Alright. I won't clue Tony in on what you've been up to." He gives Peter a stern look. "But I hope you know that I'm not going to make excuses for you if he finds out on his own."

Peter lights up. "Thank you so much, Director Fury! Seriously—I appreciate this."

"Don't mention it," Fury says. He feels like he's stepped into the role of magnanimous benefactor, and he would be lying if he said it doesn't do something for his mood. When the teenager is halfway out the door, he adds, "And, Parker?"

"Yes?"

A full-centimeter smile. "You can call me Fury."