Peter and Ned have sleepovers almost every night now.
They're usually at Peter's house, because Peter has a bunk bed, and also because May gets it. Well, she doesn't completely get it, because he's deliberately left some things out — the Thing They Never Talk About, for one. But she gets some of it. She hears the nightmares, the ones that leave him yelling and shaking and unable to go back to sleep for the rest of the night, and sees the resulting circles under his eyes the next day. She watches him stumble around the house when he should be leaving for school, puking in the kitchen sink when he doesn't make it to the bathroom and repeatedly checking for aliens behind the curtains and under the bed like a stupid toddler. One time he caught sight of some ash drifting in through an open window — probably someone smoking on a fire escape nearby — and he shattered a cup in his literal hand. She barely even flinched, just picked up the glass and made sure his hand stopped bleeding. So everything else aside, she gets this: space is scary, and he's struggling to cope
(Death is scary too, but he'll never, emever/em burden her with that knowledge.)
Here's how the sleepovers typically go: Ned throws his pillow on the top bunk — he sometimes even starts out laying up there — and then at some point crawls down next to where Peter is curled up in a nest of blankets down below, zoning out or hyperventilating and just generally trying to hold himself together. He'll put on a movie. He'll build some Lego stuff while Peter watches. He talks constantly — about school, about comics, about nothing in particular. Honestly, Peter's not sure he ever feels safer than he does in those moments of feigned normalcy.
Then, as it gets later and later, Ned will start to plan a casual retreat. "I should let you get to sleep," he'll say. "I'll move up to the top bunk after we finish this set of instructions." But he'll eventually fall silent and drift off without moving, feet just brushing Peter's, maybe an arm thrown over his side. Every once in a while, Peter actually sleeps a little too.
Ned really likes to cuddle and Peter is obviously too big of a mess to function on his own, so this is working out pretty well for both of them so far.
Most of the time, the whole arrangement is fine. It's better than fine, actually — it's perfect. Ned leaves him well enough alone while simultaneously filling the room with comforting mindless chatter, a skill Peter should really start appreciate more, and if Peter starts to get lost somewhere that's not Earth, Ned pokes him on the shoulder and shoves a bag of chips at him and that's that. But there are times when Ned takes Peter's silence as a sign that something is really wrong, and decides it's his job to somehow, impossibly, fix it.
Today is apparently one of those days.
"Peter," Ned says, very deliberately avoiding eye contact in a way that makes Peter decidedly nervous, "I think you're crying."
Weird. Peter sniffs and rubs at his cheek with his sleeve. He hadn't even been thinking about anything in particular.
"You good, man?" Ned asks. "Like, really? Because sometimes I just … I don't know."
Peter picks up the final Lego piece to add to their current project — the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean — just to prove he's a-okay.
"I'm fine," he says, shrugging. And he is, all things considered. He's breathing. He's not locked in a padded room. So let that be the end of it.
Ned doesn't believe him, though, because as much as they joke about Star Wars constantly, Ned actually does have weird Jedi mind powers sometimes. He raises an eyebrow and rubs his nose. Peter eats a chip, which tastes weird and chalky in his mouth. Ned turns the Black Pearl around, then around again, as if looking for somewhere to add something even though it's already finished.
"Are you thinking about it right now?" Ned asks finally.
"About what?" Peter asks, even though he knows. Even though he's Not thinking about it as hard as he possibly can.
"The Thing We Never Talk About."
Yeah. That.
Because they never talk about it, Peter has no earthly idea how Ned figured out he was one of the people who … one of the unlucky half of the population. He never actually told him, obviously. But Ned took one look at Peter the first time they saw each other after and said, "I'm so glad you're back," in a broken, terrified voice, and Peter knew he wasn't just talking about a jaunty trip to space.
Part of Peter is honestly so relieved that someone else knows, that there's someone he doesn't have to explain everything to, because if he wanted to talk about it — not that he does, but if he wanted to — it would be easy now. He could literally say anything to Ned, and it would be fine, and Ned would get it, and then he might feel better.
Except he doesn't actually want to say anything about it at all.
Also, he's really worried that Ned might kind of blame himself. Not that anything was in any way Ned's fault, of course. The thing affected the entire universe, and Earth certainly wasn't spared either. But Ned was the one who created the distraction that got Peter off the bus, and Peter can tell he remembers that moment with some kind of heavy responsibility. He doesn't want him to feel worse if he describes something that … well, something bad.
"I try not to think about it at all," Peter replies.
"That's good, I guess" Ned says musingly. "Because it's over now, it's in the past, and there's no use worrying about something that won't ever happen again."
"Right." This is basically what Peter tells himself, every time he starts to freak out for no reason.
"But if you're worrying anyway …" Ned trails off, a little nervous because they just don't push on this, but then he keeps going, "if you're worrying anyway, you can always tell me. You know that. Right?
"I know there's nothing to be worried about," Peter says. "It's over. I think the best thing would be for me to just forget."
Ned looks at Peter. Peter looks back at him and nods. That was good, right? He can leave it at that. He pushes the emBlack Pearl/em onto the floor and turns the light off, rolling under the covers and curling up with his back to Ned — that's how done he is with this conversation.
But incredible genius that he is, something makes him decide to keep going.
"Except sometimes I'm sitting here and I can't help thinking, what if they put me back together wrong?"
The second the words are out of Peter's mouth — words he hadn't thought about, words he hadn't planned — he takes a mental step back to consider them. Is that really something he's afraid of now? Is that really something that's going to keep him up at night?
It is, he realizes just as quickly, it truly is. And what's worse is, he didn't just pull an entirely new fear out of thin air. No, he named the shapeless, hulking anxiety that's been lurking at the back of his mind, almost powerless in its vagueness, since the moment he came back.
It feels much stronger now. Suddenly, helplessly, he wants to scream.
"They?"
Peter flinches at the unexpected sound of Ned's voice in the darkness, but he manages to cover it pretty well. "I don't know. The universe. Gods. Magic. Whatever … whatever's out there that put me back together. After the thing."
Ned shifts around for a minute, and his breathing sounds deeply uncomfortable. Like he has a lot of words he'd like to say, but he doesn't know which ones are okay to use. Honestly, Peter wishes he would just say something. It's hearing him talk that really helps. And while Peter can't personally bring himself to even whisper Thanos or gauntlet or death out loud, he doesn't really think it would bother him if someone else said it.
Probably.
"What do you mean by wrong?" Ned whispers finally, and Peter hears a note of fear in his voice. Is he scared to ask and force Peter deeper into the Thing They Never Talk About? Or does he think Peter is right, that something is terribly, horribly damaged inside him?
"Like, that they did it wrong. Like something inside here—" Peter paws at his chest helplessly "—isn't right or something."
Ned pulls Peter's hand away from his chest and squeezes it tight. "Does it feel wrong, do you think?" And there it is, the thing Peter loves about Ned — he never fails to take him seriously, no matter how ridiculous he sounds.
Peter shrugs. A host of symptoms are coming back to him now, things he remembers feeling before he drifts off at night, when he wakes in the morning, when he finds himself alone and a cloud covers the sun and he wonders if he's the last person left on earth. "It feels … fluttery. Sometimes. I don't know — it's hard to describe."
"It was magic though, right? That fixed everything?"
"Yeah." Actually, Peter has no freaking clue, but it was probably magic. "Or some kind of super science."
Ned nods decisively. "Then there's no reason it would be wrong."
Peter wishes he had even an ounce of that confidence. Needless to say, he doesn't.
Here's the thing — he felt it. He felt it in the tingling of his arms and the curdling in his stomach, he knew it was coming — unlike everyone else, going by the looks on Starlord and Drax's faces — and he got to feel it, prolonged and in excruciating detail, as his fancy healing powers battled imminent disintegration and lost.
He remembers that feeling with disturbing clarity, remembers the sharpness and the emptiness and and the pinching and the fading. What he doesn't remember — what he can't even begin to picture — is being put back together again.
So how is he supposed to trust that it was done right?
Ned rolls closer, still holding Peter's hand. "Were there any good parts?"
"About dying?" Peter asks incredulously, and then he's wheezing, and it takes him a solid minute to get everything under of control. He knows Ned is worried, because he holds on tighter, but he can also pretty much feel him rolling his eyes.
"About space, idiot," Ned says literally the second Peter quiets. "Because, you know, you were in space and we haven't even, like, talked about it. It might help to focus on that and not all the scary things."
Peter thinks about it. Then he thinks some more. Ned's practically breathing down his neck with excitement — he recognizes that it must've taken a lot of restraint to hold that question in for so long, until it came up naturally in a conversation Peter didn't physically run away from — but he doesn't want to say the wrong thing, doesn't want to misrepresent the adventure. Because Ned's right — especially for them, this is a big deal. This is Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate. This is space.
If he's being honest, though, there's a lot he doesn't actually remember. He was focused on the plans and on the fight, because he had to be, because if he stopped to think about how they were floating in a deadly soul-crushing vacuum, how the millions of miles that separated him from May were ones he couldn't cross on his own no matter how hard he wished or tried, he would never have been able to stay on his feet and help Mr. Stark. And even the things he does remember, about the ship and the planet it took them to — well, he's not exactly sure how trustworthy those things are. He thinks the wind was harsh on Titan, for example, searing his lungs and burning his eyes. He thinks the sun was brutal, making his skin itch. He even remembers a little bounce in his step, like his weight had changed, like gravity was different. But maybe it's easier to remember things that seem absurd, things that were nothing like Earth, things that couldn't possibly intersect with real life and match up with an experience he might have here.
What happens in space stays in space, and he needs it to be very, very far away from anything that might happen to him again.
"We sucked somebody out the side of a ship like in emAlien/em," is what he finally says, and that seems to satisfy Ned, so he doesn't offer anything more.
For a long time, they stare up at the bottom of the bed above them in silence. There are a few of those little glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up there, from when Peter was really little — Ben brought them home during his space phase, he thinks, although he's not completely sure anymore. Ned breaths steadily, in and out, in and out. Peter fidgets and nibbles on the fingernails of one hand, since the other is still trapped firmly in Ned's grip.
"Peter?" Ned whispers, long after Peter had assumed he went to sleep. "You still with me?"
"Yeah."
He's quiet for a minute, then speaks with an intensity Peter can feel even without looking at him. "I can't make you trust me. I can't change what you feel. But I just want you to know, you seem completely normal to me."
Peter forces a smile and says, "Thanks, man," because he can't really manage anything else.
"He's not sure he believes him. Not really. But it's apparently enough to calm him down a little, because the next time he opens his eyes, the sun is shining through the window.